Thinking through the body pains..

 

Pain..   

"Don't tek no' mo tablet" the man told me.. older man who did not believe in tablets but had bush cures for everything. 

Man I interact with almost every day , sometimes the only interaction in these Covid times. He asked how I was doing and I told him about the body pains.. and not being able to explain except to say that the two paracetmol I took the night before in anticipation of the pains did not help.

I move and the joints seem to crack. Left shoulder blade and around there paining in waves.. worse in the night.. no sense really as I am right handed so it is not carpel tunnel. Body always feeling like it need a good stretch and even as I do the yoga and so.. do the postures, some temporary relief  and feel good in my mind in a way even as the body seems to resume a natural state of well 'tenseness'..

Stress..

The man and I talk about stress. "What you got to stress about.." he asked and laughed in the way men do when they ask 'what you got to get depressed about.. go get some sex or go pray".  

But in reading and learning.. trauma, stress .. body's memory and reactions.. that is not the body pain now is not about something now but could be about something from long ago. or in the past.. that as the body clenches in response to stressful situations, and that there might be some releasing after the situation is passed.. I am learning that the body probably never never ever releases completely from that clenched state.

Clench the fist. Then open it.. but imagine that the fingers are still curled in anticipation of the next time the fist has to clench. And stress building up from things which might not matter.. long waits at doctor and the bank, trying to fix issues with utilities, feeling overwhelmed by things which need to be done but which can't be done.. and list goes on and on..  anxieties about memory loss, impotence, not being able to do things in multiple ways.. 

Anxiety about the pain itself..

And so the pain comes..unexpected. not the day of the stress or two days after.. sometimes a week later.. can't move as you please.. 

Dealing with it..

I am in a conversation about an idea and the woman and I are laughing and as we laugh, I realise that my body is not paining as much but then it seems as I think about it the pain comes back.. but we laugh more and talk and the pain goes.. this experience of pain coming after some conversations, and pain going after.. I can't avoid some conversations which cause pain and there is probably work to think on the cognitive restructuring .. but the body has instincts.

I wish I could move my left shoulders and rotate all the time.. and I am doing all the stretches, the mind exercises to focus on the centre of the pain, pressing points around the body etc. 

I have no idea if that is the centre though of the Covid stress issues connected to where the vaccine came in. 

If anything I learn about this pain, it is that it is not while the pain is felt in the muscles and the joints.. that the source might be deeper "inside" and as I do the mind work and think through.. perhaps deep in parts where I might have forgotten or not realised.. as I push things back to deal with things in the now...

and I know that some nights when I could sleep through, that I could wake up without pain, other nights, most nights.. I wake up.. and pain is all over and i go through the tossing turning.. reading..dreaming..dozing.jumping up.. whatever until sun rises

I wish I could bend easily for the surya namaskar but that does not happen.. the hips and pelvis area seem to be alternately flexible and not flexible.. 

And so in dealing with this pain.. this is what  I will be trying to do:-

  • accept the pain and not fight it
  • not take painkillers for this pain in the body.. (headache would be a different story)
  • continue the movement and exercise and not worry that the movement and exercise would not be curing the pain
  • be more deliberate in going through my mind.. in working on the releasing of the body (there is other pandiculation technique which I had started to try in the morning..  )
  • to celebrate the people I can laugh and talk with who help in the releasing of the pain.. 
and to keep talking about it.. 

 


 



 

 

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