Stay on Course and Avoid The Trap

#5 Avoid This Trap On The Way To Beating Chronic Pain

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Transcript

Welcome to episode #5 of beating chronic pain. The podcast that helps you get unstuck from chronic pain and back to living your life again with ease and comfort.

I’m your host Tom Wilson and I am really happy you’re joining me today. Because today I’m going to share something which came to me intuitively as the next important thing to be aware of on this path out of chronic pain.

The image that comes to mind for me has to do with skiing. You know… I have been skiing and snowboarding only a handful of times in my life. Probably only 7 or 8 times. I’m not that experienced. And usually when I go it will have been a year or several since the last time I went. So every time I’m up the mountain it feels like I’m a beginner again. The mountain can feel threatening and dangerous because I don’t trust my own skills with the snowboard to be able to deal with the terrain. It can be pretty scary sometimes.

Last time I was there I was sitting on the ski-lift heading to the top of the mountain. Something that I noticed as I was watching the skiers come down was that most people would stick to a similar route down the mountain. There are signs designating dangerous areas and dropoffs. There are paths which are well-worn and which if you follow you’ll end up safely down the bottom again.

There are also other people who whether by choice, or lack of experience, would go down alternative routes to get to the bottom. These are places where there is no signage. There’s no well-worn tracks to follow. These are the places where you’re more likely to encounter danger. You can get stuck in really steep places, amongst trees or really icy areas if you don’t know where you’re going.

While I’m sure the adventure of that has amazing potential, my goal as a beginner is to get to the bottom without killing myself. I want to feel the success of getting to the bottom of the mountain whilst having some fun along the way. I want to gradually build experience every time I go down the mountain.

If I was a guide for you going down the mountain I would definitely take you down the routes which I know are safe. Likewise, if I’m your guide for getting out of chronic pain, I want to help you stick to the pathway that is going to get you to your desired goal too. I want to help you avoid the dangerous obstacles that can get you stuck, or hurt. I want to help you doing the stupid things like I did… putting down your snowboard and it sliding away down some other unknown part of the mountain for it never to return.

I want to help you look out for potential traps on this pathway.

The pathway I’ve laid out so far in these episodes is pretty simple. It’s movement exploration and it has 3 steps. Become aware of your current habits. Learn something new to upgrade your habits. Integrate the learnings so that you get to keep the new way of moving. These 3 steps are the way safely down the mountain. Once you’ve done this once, you just rinse and repeat. Do it over and over again. Build deep awareness of your self, settle down your overprotective parent brain, learn to move efficiently.

What I want to talk about now is one of the big ways that people can find themselves off track. If you become aware of this, its going to help you a lot when it comes to sticking to the path of known success. Falling into this trap is sure to lead you into dangerous territory.

There are definitely other things that take us off track, but I wanted to cover this specific thing in this episode. So what is it?

One big thing that takes us off track when it comes to getting out of pain is JUDGEMENT. Yes, judgement is something that prevents us from being able to stay on the pathway out of chronic pain. It is a huge danger when it comes to this work because it not only shuts us down in multiple ways, it also happens to take us off track without us even knowing. The truth is as humans we live in a sea of judgement. Our world is full of it and that is why it’s not always easy to see when it’s getting in your way. It’s so normal that we don’t even notice it.

Now I’m gonna break it down for you exactly what I mean by judgement, because I’m sure you’ve got your own ideas about what it means and I want to make sure we’re working with the same idea. I have heard lots of different ways that the word judgement is used so lets just get on the same page and we can use my particular definition for what judgement is now.

Put simply, the word judgement to me is something we do as humans to categorize or label people or experiences. It’s the way we sort and organize and put things into boxes. That boy did his homework therefore he is a GOOD boy. He goes in the box of GOOD.

That person cut me off at the intersection, they are an ASSHOLE. It’s raining… it’s BAD weather. My friend didn’t smile at me… they are UNFRIENDLY.

You see, these are all labels for the experiences we’re having. They are convenient, time-saving ways for us to understand and make sense of the world around us. We look around and see things that match a certain pattern, then we make a judgement about it… “oh yes that man over there is yelling at someone else… he must be a DANGEROUS man”

Now, maybe you’re someone who has done internal work and you’ve dug up and looked at your judgements you have about yourself and the world. Perhaps you’ve come to a place where you’re not walking around judging people in this way. That’s great. But what I’m gonna suggest is that based on my definition of judgements, it’s actually very broad and widespread. I’ll say it again, it is the way that we categorize or label things or people. So I’m willing to be that there are judgements that you have that you don’t even know you have. You might want to stick around and see if what I’m sharing resonates with you.

Lets start with the basic problem of judgements. They are too simplistic. The world is more nuanced than a simple label of good or bad. Right or wrong. There is grey in between the polarity of black and white.

But when we use judgements, we really do see things in a more limited way. Judgements cut out so much of the available information about something and turn it into a concept.

It’s like this…Imagine an enormous waterfall with millions of tonnes of water pouring off the edge every second. There’s just torrents and torrents of water. Endless gushing, splashing and crashing of water off the edge.

Now imagine you funnel that water through a straw… only a tiny amount of the total water from that waterfall is going to fit through the straw. It becomes simplified, tamed and limited.

That’s what we’re doing when we make a judgement. We are cutting off all of the information that’s pouring in about the world and we’re simplifying it in order to be able to deal with it.

I remember being at that same vipassana meditation retreat which I mentioned in another other episode. During one of the breaks I ate a banana. I was so deeply in the world of sensing after days of being in silent meditation that the banana took on a whole new reality. I never realised before, but even the labels we give to things like banana are also a kind of judgement in a way. At least they’re a way of categorising things. My experience of this banana was like nothing I’ve ever felt before. I was able to pick up so many subtle textures, tastes, smells, feelings and just ohhhh. It was incredible. I took about 15 minutes to slowly, slowly bite by bite consume the banana in all it’s uniqueness. I could feel all the fibers. I could taste subtle nuances of flavour and distinguish between them in each bite. I would get wafts of smell coming to me from the banana and feel different densities in its flesh. I could feel how the pieces would tear off into my mouth differently. I could feel the weight of each bite pressing down into my tongue.

I realised from that experience the truth is that every single banana on this planet is unique. Most people think of bananas as fairly standard fruit. When you buy a banana you know what you’re gonna get. It’s this repeatable fruit that always tastes pretty much the same.

But in reality, when you truly open up your senses to the world, there is information just gushing in from everywhere we look. Every single banana is different. It carries with it, its entire history. The soil it was grown in. The air it breathed. The water it received. The people who picked it. The animals who fertilized it. I realised that banana had torrents of information raining down upon me. Most of the time in life, I am not feeling that stuff. Most of the time I pick up a “banana”... it fits the pattern of what I expect a banana to be like. I sense that it’s yellow. It might have some darker spots. I has a certain firmness. It’s curved. That’s pretty much enough information for me to make the judgement that it’s a banana. From that point onwards I’m not interested in taking on any more information about this object. So what happens? I cut it out. I filter it out. I put on my blinders. In reality I’m just eating a pre-determined concept of what I think a banana is and then I ignore the enormous amount of available information about this particular fruit.

So you see, these judgements limit our view of the world. When we make judgements we are stuck seeing the things that we expect to be there. As long as it fits the basic criteria of the pattern, we filter out everything else and then all we’re left with is what we already know to be there.

Can you see how this particular approach prevents us from learning? Can you see how it stops us from being able to take on information that might break the pattern of what we already know? This is what stops our growth. This is what stops us changing and updating our models of the world around us.

But that’s not the only problem with judgements.

Another problem with judgements is that they are a conclusion. A full-stop. When there is a judgement, it means there is no curiosity. The judgement has been made and that is the end of the story.

If I want to get my curiosity back about a situation I need to (at least temporarily) remove my judgement about it. If I temporarily remove that judgement of ASSHOLE from the person who cut me off at the intersection, it opens me to other possibilities for what might be happening.

What if you discovered that they had a child in their car who was having a seizure and they were rushing to the hospital?

What if they simply didn’t see you?

What if they were being chased by someone?

What if they had a fight with their partner and they were not seeing clearly because they were so wrapped up in emotion?

Each of these ways of looking at the situation contains different information. It probably makes you feel a little different looking at it through these different lenses. It may be enough to take away the emotional charge that is associated with the judgement of ASSHOLE.

We don’t know if any of the possibilities are true or not without talking to the person, but nevertheless it shows how having some curiosity can change the way you view a situation.

I would also invite you into a deeper level of curiosity that is available without the judgement. Without any label at all what is the experience like for YOU? When you saw this car out in front of you what happened in your body? Did your vision change? Perhaps it became more narrow? What happened to your heart rate? I bet it spiked. How long did it take you to put your foot on the brakes? What does it feel like to have a potential threat happen so suddenly?

With this type of curiosity, it changes the whole experience from something negative where someone else did something wrong by you, into an experience where you learn something about yourself. You learn about how you react in stressful situations. THAT, is useful information. That is how deep self awareness is built. Curiosity!

So perhaps you can see where I’m going with this? It has got something to do with chronic pain, but what? Well if you’ve been following along with the podcast so far, you’ll know the concept of brain maps. To quickly re-cap, our brains create maps of ourselves to help us know how our bodies function. When the maps are distorted or outdated it results in pain, poor coordination and inefficient movement.

The way out of pain is to update and revise those maps regularly. The way we do that is through our senses.

If we are using judgements about ourselves, it means that we are cutting off enormous amounts of information in exchange for a concept. To get out of pain we NEED that information. We absolutely need it to update those maps. We need to sense and feel more in order to make improvements.

The moment we go into judgement about something, the less we can truly sense or feel what is there. It is the exact opposite of true exploration. True exploration is about staying open and aware and keeping your senses wide open to the world. Categories and labels are ways that we shut down our openness. We close off our senses to the world. The moment we KNOW the answers to something, we lose our curiosity. We are no longer available to take in information that might help us on our journey.

Lets think about a body judgement that I hear all the time. That is the judgement of “bad posture”. Usually when I hear this, people are telling me that they think they have bad posture and they need to fix it. The information they have used to create that judgement is probably because their back has a forwards curve in it. Maybe they are looking towards the ground a lot. Maybe they see their shoulders are rolled forward when they look in the mirror.

Okay, so what happens if we choose to remove this judgement of BAD POSTURE for a moment?

Firstly we are now open to receiving more information. We can now see that one shoulder is further forward and higher than the other shoulder. We can see our pelvis is rotated a bit to one side and the whole thing is rolled back. One of our feet feels like it’s rolled inwards and the other one feels like it’s rolled outwards… The idea of posture begins to take on more nuance. It has shades of grey between the polarity of good or bad.

So we have this extra information now. Is it useful? Possibly. Do we know how it could be useful necessarily? Not yet, but the point is that without removing the judgement, we cannot even begin to notice other pieces of information that could prove to be useful to us.

The truth is that the skeletal alignment we have with so-called BAD POSTURE might not be that efficient. It might be useful to move in a different way. But when we judge it, we cut off information that could be useful for helping us to change it.

We can invite deeper curiosity and exploration with questions… How does that turned pelvis relate to the feet being rotated in different ways. What happens when I turn my pelvis the other way? Does that change the feet? Does it change the curves in my back?

You see there are VAST WATERFALLS of information available. There are enormous possibilities to learn about ourselves and our habits. This type of learning is not only the way out of chronic pain, it’s also the way to build deep self awareness.

Okay, so I think it’s clear how a judgement like BAD POSTURE can affect us. But what about something like GOOD POSTURE?

This is a different angle which reveals something else interesting. What do you think of when you hear GOOD POSTURE? I think of all of the messages I’ve heard throughout my whole life about the ways I should stand. The way I should sit. I hear things like, “straighten your back”, “pull your shoulders back”, “tighten your core”, “eyes up”.

This reveals to me that judgements can also invite set patterns or ways of dealing with a situation. When I think my posture is bad, then my way to correct it is by attempting to put my body into so-called GOOD positions. I see it when people talk about their posture, they immediately pull their shoulders back and sit up taller and more rigidly.

Is this really “good posture”? Is it really useful? Does it help anything change in any kind of meaningful way? I don’t think so.

I’m more interested in what it would be like to throw away all ideas about what you think you know about your posture. What if you were an innocent child who had never been indoctrinated with these concepts about the way things should be?

I think it could open up our curiosity and our senses - which is the pathway to truly changing.

You see there are endless things to play with in your movement. All of which can give your nervous system different information.

What does it feel like to walk around like a gorilla? What does it feel like to move in a way where your only constraint is that it has to feel pleasurable.

Of course, some explorations are going to bring in better quality information than others. A question like “can you move your shoulderblade in a circle? Is surprisingly rich… if you pay attention to whether your circle is truly a circle you will learn something new about yourself. Usually people have kinks in their circle. Some areas are jerky and unknown. Some areas are sticky. Some places they will try to skip across because it’s unknown. Some people probably haven’t felt their shoulderblades move separate from their ribs in a long time. So it might surprise them to know it’s a possibility.

This type of information is powerful. If you really dig into it, it reveals our inner relationships.

If you think about the people in your life you’ll notice that you have different relationships with each of them. Some of the relationships will feel easy and flowing. Others are a little more stilted and difficult. Some people will behave a little strangely towards you. Some people you might not want to spend much time with.

These are the relationships we have in our external world. We also have these within our bodies. Your shoulderblade has got a relationship with your pelvis, your spine, your ribs, your feet, your skull etc. Some of these relationships will be harmonious… others will be constricted or difficult.

If your shoulders are rounded forwards, there is a reason why. There are relationships within you which mean that it makes total sense for your shoulders to be like that. Maybe your shoulder blade has gotten really close with a certain part of your ribcage, but it has difficulty with a certain part of your spine. So it wants to stay away from there.

When you have a concept of “good posture” and you force it over the top of what’s there, you’re missing out what’s going on with the underlying relationships. You’re basically saying that your own intelligence is doing it wrong. You WILL lose that battle. It’s like your weird uncle coming to sleep on your couch for a month. It’s not going to end well.

The moment you stop forcing the situation, you know what’s going to happen… your shoulders will roll forward to where they’re comfortable… away from that nasty 3rd thoracic vertebrae.

There is a way to change how your shoulders rest. It’s not through force. It’s not through concepts of good and bad.

The way to change it is by feeling. Feeling yourself. Feeling your inner relationships. Feeling your own ocean of intelligence. You can change your relationships. You can improve the way your shoulders relate to your spine. Heck, if you put down the judgement, you might even find out that your weird uncle is a pretty cool guy.

The point I really want to make here is that life is intelligent. Our bodies are intelligent far beyond what we can comprehend. There are reasons for us being the way we are. Those reasons lie in our inner relationships. The way to change these inner relationships is never about judgement. It’s never about pointing the finger at the sore hip and saying “you’re the problem, you need fixing”. It’s never about saying I’ve got a “bad back” It’s never about imposing some kind of conceptual pattern over the way that you do things.

The way to change the relationships is through curiosity and learning. It’s about putting down the judgements for a while to give some space for those waterfalls on information about your body to come through. That information is healing. That information is exciting, it’s fun, it’s mind-blowing and it’s incredibly powerful for creating change in the way you show up in the world.

When I have a difficulty in a relationship in my life I know that creating more openness is the way to help it. I can create openness with curiosity and by removing judgement. Being open to the fact that what I’m seeing is never the full picture. It’s exactly the same for your neck, your back, you hip, your knee, etc. You can always open it up by removing judgement and inviting curiosity.

So now that I’ve spent the last 20 minutes rubbishing judgements I wanted to backtrack a little and clarify something about them. I wanted to bring up that I’m not suggesting you need to remove all judgements about life in order to get out of chronic pain. I think judging is a common thing we do as humans. It’s a part of our ego structure that allows us to operate in the world. Judgements, believe it or not, do have a useful function. They simplify and tame the world around us which makes it more manageable. If we were to expose ourselves to the full force of a torrential waterfall constantly it would probably drown us.

My main point with this episode has been to expose the true nature of judgements and show the way that they can limit our perception. My wish is not that you make it wrong to have judgements. That would just be another judgement. I think a healthier and more sustainable approach is to gently notice them. Notice the way that they constrict your attention and notice what happens when you put them gently down. Judgements can be a part of exploration too. When I am engaging in movement exploration I can notice the types of concepts that I have about my body and the way I think things SHOULD be. Then I can play with what it might be like to let go of some of those things and invite imagination into the space to join the party.

So hopefully you can see now the effects that judgements can have on us in our journey out of chronic pain. I hope you can see how potentially dangerous they are when it comes to navigating our way out of this complex world of pain. Judgements can seriously take us off the path to recovery and we can not even notice it’s happening because it feels so familiar.

My wish is that now having exposed judgements for what they are, it can help you to notice them so that they don’t stop you from making progress towards recovery. My goal in all this is to help you make that transition from being stuck in chronic pain, back into ease and comfort. I want to help you get there smoothly and effectively. You don’t have to take all the detours and deadends when it comes to this journey. There is a way out of pain that is well established. You just need an experienced guide to help you take those steps over and over again, without getting stuck, until your pain fades away into nothingness.

So that’s it for today and I thankyou so much for joining me. I look forward to connecting with you again soon. If you got value out of today’s episode then please share this podcast with someone you know who is in pain. Rating, commenting and subscribing is a big help too. See you again soon!