Pain is a complex phenomena, it can be a lot of things. Usually people distinguish between physical pain and emotional pain. From the perspective of the body and how we experience it, there isn’t really such a great difference. But lets start from describing where we usually know it from and how we get to know pain in our lives.

We know pain e.g. as a signal that we get when we squeeze our thumb in the door or when we fell down and we bleed. Usually, if we give the body the right conditions, it will deal with these pains more or less well and we are not really busy with it any longer.

Other pain, many of them chonicle, accumulates over time, due to certain repeating efforts in the body. We know them at some point in our lives: neck-pain, backpain, headaches. For example, we work at the computer and after some time, we develope some pain symptoms.
We live our lives and sooner or later we end up noticing that our bodies hurt, we hurt. And then some of these pains stay chronicle – because we stay in the routines that keep them alive.

Dealing with pain
The training that I offer aims on regaining enough attention about these specific routines so we can stop these pains. To some degree you could also say, to transform the pain and to increase your well-being by doing so.

How-to
In order to do this, we bring a lot of attention to the area. My clients are laying on my working table and I let them breath a lot towards the given area and they can take time to get an impression of the area itself and also all the conntected areas around the pain. With verbal instructions and with my hands, I am guiding their attention to the given areas. My teaching is adressing several topics regarding the pain and how we usually relate towards it.
Usually we do many different things to „Not-feel“ the pain, e.g. we breath less, we like to ignore it by going somewehre else with our attention, or we „cut-off“ or squeeze the whole area in an attempt to not feel it. So this is my job: to teach them how they individually deal with pain. The more my clients get a „first hand“ idea and sensation of their body and how they deal with it, we can apply different techniques in order to address the pain itself. All this always involves a lot of breathing and usually the healing process already starts just by bringing attention to the area. Painful muscles can release step-by-step and release the involved energy, which can sometimes come with the experience of heat or cold or tickling and so on. Usually all the energy – on a mental level- involved to „not-feel“ the pain is released simultaneously – you might know the relaxation after letting go of some pain already. Only then we notice, how much the pain kept us busy.

The routines behind the pain
Some pains tend to appear again and again because there are certain individual routines behind the pain. E.g. when we sit at the computer on a wrong chair, this might create pains. Maybe the intensity, fear or excitement of our work is so big that we contract in certain areas in an attempt „not-to-feel“ and this will create some pain. (Same might be right for not wanting to feel that we are bored or even disgusted by our work.) It might be interesting for your to know, that one of our most used techniques in order to “not-feel” is to make the whole area completely “disappear”. The client will suddenly notice in the sessions and with my hands as guides, that he hasn’t got a sensation at all in a certain area. Or that it feels as if the area belongs to some one else. (!?)

In the sessions I will look at the whole life situation and will address these issues individually to make the learning sustainable for my clients. In some cases I will have to teach them how to deal will fear, excitement and other emotions in order to get rid off the pain on the long run. It might also involve to make some more or less big changes in their lifes in order for pains to really disappear.

History and personal trauma as a source of pain
For the body, emotional pain or pain from traumatic events are just the same. These complex phenomena need to be addressed at times, as the underlying pain still keeps us busy – and the attempt „not-to-feel“ this “old” pains might create other, more physical, “new” pain. Often clients come to me with some more physical pain and then later on, we discover, that these pains actually appeared as they experiences some traumatic situations, where they e.g. weren’t able to deal with a great amount of pain or fear. In this case it is necessary to address these events in the sessions, so the the „old“ pain can be fully experienced. Only then they can also can learn to let-go of the “new pain”.

What I wanted to show in this post, is that pain is part of the human experience on many levels and it makes sense to stop our attempts to ignore or „not-to-fell“ it in order for our body and souls to heal.
If we learn to do this, instead of rejecting or ideologizing it (be tough!), it can become something that can help us to integrate experiences and to develope a much deeper understanding about ourself and others – and also about life itself.

Stopping Automatic Reactions – Becoming More of Yourself

Real change or something truely new can only happen, when we learn to notice, what we are doing up until now. To acknowledge what is. With all senses. Usually we do have a lack of attention to really do so though. The way we work in the sessions means: first I learn to be completely attentive to what I do in my body, and then I learn to stop it.

The attention training or learning processes that I offer always is based on the following questions:

1. Is there any repeating pattern in my life, that I want to change and what is it?
2. How do I describe this pattern physically?
3. How do I stopp it?

Let’s take „WORRYING“ as an example of a pattern.

Concerning 1.: Is there any repeating pattern in my life, that I want to change?

Worrying can be a lot of things and it doesn’t mean that it should never happen, as it may be something very healthy, if it leads us to some actual change, but what I am talking about is something that repeats or to some level maybe never stops. A real pattern or routine.
Some one who wants to work with this pattern might be classically busy with worries of all kinds or different sensations of criticism, attempts to find „the one solution“, Weltschmerz (world weariness), self hatred, guilt, low self-esteem or other „chronic“ sensations.
It needs to become clear in the first sessions, that it is a repeating habit of dealing with a certain life situation or life in general. In the sessions, we are aiming on describing this „fixed way of being“ on a mental, emotional and physical level as exact as possible.

Concerning 2. How do I describe this pattern physically?

Just to make this clear: at the beginning of the learning process it is very likely, that a person will not be able to sense all of the following physical description at once. It is a process to slowly build this attention session by session. It can involve many different steps to get there and we give it the time that it needs.

„Always when I am worrying, my head feels tense and numb in a way, I am breathing very shallow, holding my jaw and belly, contract my arms a bit and all my body feels nervous. I can’t feel my legs at all. They feel like from another person or just indifferent.“

It becomes clear with this description, that the person – while worrying – is doing is a very specific, individual effort. Over a certain period of time, this physical effort may lead to pains in the areas involved, e.g. my jaw and head.
In my experience is already brings a lot of clarity to just make this physical description as accurate as possible. It is often the „missing link“ in our attention while we are „in our heads“ busy with repeating the same topics over and over again. It helps us to gain the missing clarity about what we actually do in this moment and it makes it much easier for us to decide whether we actually want to continue to be in this state or not.
I hope it becomes clear at this point, that this „fixed way of being worried“ keeps us from sensing our bodies. Just because we are only in our minds. And to some extend, our body doesn’t like “to follow”. Depending on how look at it, you could also say, that our body is busy with something else and because we are in our minds, we do not notice it. Both are not connected. You are not connected. You are in you mind.
Sounds like a trap? That’s what it is.
This leads us to…

Finally 3. How do I stopp it?

The answer is: I stop it on a physical level. I let go of it. I don’t do the effort any longer. My head, my jaw, my belly, my legs, I breath. And I learn to have all kinds of physical sensations to happen at once,  all that happens in this moment and „let them wash through my system.“ Honestly, this part is hard to explain. It is also difficult to tell something general about it. You could just say, that all the emotions, fear, pains and all are „allowed to be“ – for once. And again and again and again. In each session more and more. I a good session the client may learn many things at once.
For example, that my worrying is connected to some physical effort in my head, that I learned to control and thereby also stop to worry. You may also learn in another session, that you just react this way because you are alone for a moment and there is literally nothing happening – which you are not used to. Or that you have literally no idea what comes next? Which can be a reality.
Or maybe you realize that after all these years of worrying there is something really meaningful, that actually needs your attention ( something liek a good, productive worry?). Maybe you notice that you (and maybe not even some one from all of your family) never allowed to have real pleasure. Real fear. Real pain. To feel really alive. As I said, this is just a loose mix of experiences of what my clients experience and you cannot really give a „scientific“ forecast. It is and will be: new.
Maybe you can see, that this fixed way of „worrying“ is something that we hold on to – and that we can let it go. Its old, it’s dead, it is a cramp – and usually it doesn’t lead anywhere.

Summary:
It is the goal of these learning processes that the attention grows with every session to a point, where the person starts to notice that their patterns or routines are „ways of being“ that manifest in the mind and in the body at once. And that by learning about this to gain „positive control“ over the phenomena and to stopp it. To stay with our example of worrying: from a certain point on the person worrying will gain much greater attention in daily life when the worrying starts, which situations provoque it and how they can stop it again and again.

Personal Note: Please understand that here in the computer and within language itself, there is „one head talking to another“. And as much our minds are trained to wish for everlasting proove or something like it: life is an experience and not an idea. This is why I like to invite you over for a session. For any questions you may contact me any time.

Welcome to the Mojo-Dojo at beingabody.com 🙂
Very often clients are coming into my center with some physical symptoms and while we start working on them, it becomes clear that they avoid sensing something relevant within themselves and their life situation.
The client makes an effort „not-to-feel“ and instead holds himself in a certain way, maybe in the chest, in the neck or the legs. Or creates an effort „not-to-breath“. The client often knows to some extend, that the emotions related are to some extend TOO strong or not really adaquately related to the situation they are experiencing and thereby they drop into a dilemma: on the one hand I feel it, on the other hand what I feel is related to another situation. Or the situation is already over and I didn’t act according to my feelings and now feel I am stuck with it or still busy with it. With this „in our system“, we enter the next situation, still busy, still somehow holding ourself and thus – the next situation appears that I feel „not acting adaquately“. Instead of acting in the moment and according to my feelings there starts (or even started many years before) a vicious cycle of inner dialogue, confusing feelings. We can sense the inauthenticity that arises and for many of us it is difficult at this stage to get to stop that „cramp“ again. What I am talking about here, some people might just know temporarily, for some it is an atmosphere in their life that covers almost everything and sometimes even for a long time. Maybe they never knew anything else. It is quite easy to see, that this situation alone can lead to great suffering and that it can exhaust greatly and that you can loose your vitality. At the darkest point we give it a common diagnose: depression. Even to the point to have the sensation of loosing oneself. Feeling more and more helpless to manage these situations many people start to withdraw and to avoid similar situations. The withdrawal creates more pain, that we don’t want to feel and so on and so on.
The good news is, we can learn to stop this vicious cycles. I don’t want to go too deep at this point into how I actually work, but one is for sure, it is physical. Out of the mind.
To some extend we all know these feelings in crisis. Every day life, the job, the society around us with its adamant rhythms and „laws“ around us, leave no time to sense what is really going on. To some extend we might still be influenced by things that happened ages ago. Which leads to clients coming to me, who don’t have a clue anymore what is going on, trapped in a jungle of feelings, pains, fear and the adamant hammering of their thoughts, that shout instructions, thoughts that often lead to nothing, but to raise the inner pressure. It is easy to see how this can destroy any kind of Mojo – I use Mojo here aquivalent with „Lust of Life“, „Drive“, „Balcance“ or however you want to call it.
We don’t find the time and the space, where we can focus on ourself, our perception, our sensing and the body in general. We „think“ that this is maybe not so important. Other things are important. Sensing, in our eyes is somehow weird, embarrassing, bizarre or just „giving into our own weakness.“ Especially with men this is very widespread. Me myself I had to go to the point where I literally collapsed until I was ready to drop my pride and to listen. Or to actually sense. Pride is important, but sometimes also a great trap. 🙂
So, what am I talking about here?
Of course. About my work and my center which I want to call the Mojo-Dojo today. It is a training room for the modern „Big-City-Ape.“ That’s what we are. Creatures with the ability to imagine like gods, born and often trapped in this wonderful, vulnerable, sensibel and finally mortal hull of our bodies (watch out – poetry).
The rooms that I offer is yours: to learn about pain and fear and about the many ways that we hold ourself and our existence rather than TO BE IT. To have a great life.
www.beingabody.com – practical, profound and with touch.
Looking forward to see you.

With my line of work, I want to help to implement personal change in a sustainable manner – by becoming more of our body.

You could say: Yeah, right, I understand, good idea, but what do you mean by that? Where are we when we are not our bodies.?

The answer is pretty simple to summarize – in our head. And you could ask: Why is this? And why is this so damaging or unhealthy – I kind of feel good there! 😉
In the following blog entry I want to share my experience with the topic.
Most people learn very early in their lives to avoid certain physical sensations (fear, pain, tickeling, heat, cold, sweat, unknown movements, passivity, anger, love, strength, violence, silence). They learn to feel ashamed, or to judge themselves as weak or inappropriate. In early ages, we start to develop strong automatic reactions towards these body sensations, mostly because our enviornment can’t cope with them in one way or another. Yes, we are wild creatures :). Sometimes concious or also unconcious we learn to suppress, ignore, comment or complain about certain sensations and perceptions.
Instead we go in our head. And most of the time, we never really come back from there. (Especially as we live in times that support this kind of behavior. Academics these days, are valued to highest, pleople who’s work is mainly phsical is valued the least.)
As we are „up there“ in our heads and minds, too scared and overwhelmed to actually „face“ our bodies own reality, we look at the world and ourself, commenting, having opinions, giving us commands and somehow constantly blabber with ourself in some sort of „inner world“. This inner blabbering inside our heads becomes a quite distorted fiction of „ourselves“. We start to misinterpret our Talking with our Being. Many people are there quite long, whole generations transfer this kind of misfortunate behavior from one to another. Whole cultures seem to be built to a certain degree on the „ability“ of the individuals to limit and chatise the body’s specific intelligence and sensitivity and rather to implement a certain mistrust into the body. Instead of nurturing the potential of this beautiful living entity, we are trained to be „heads“. We are taking ideas and goals often without actually sensing and checking if they are really ours. These ideas are giant „glasses“ of perception that contradict very often with integral perceptions and the most inner truth that we cary within our bodies, our hearts, our guts, balls and vaginas.
Being in our minds we are talking to ourself, entangling ourselves and others more and more in a world of ideas – and while we are talking our world becomes smaller and smaller. Our ideas and inner pictures dominate us and we are scared more and more to leave this inner world. We re not only limiting our own freedom to move and act in life, by doing this. We also tend to take over the goals and wishes of others instead of trusting to sense what is good for ourself and to fully go for this. We are easier to manipulate in this stage, because we hardly dare to sense, what is true to ourselve.
To be a body means to me gain a certain resilience and freedom and by this to ask different questions. Instead of „what do I have to do or what am I able to achieve?“, I ask questions like „how does it feel?“ and „do I want this?“.
If the media talks these days about resilience, it is exactly this kind of strength to be our bodies, our hearts, balls and so on – to be our most inner values, our strength, our sensitivity and so on.

– (I hope it becomes clear that all this doesn’t mean all is going to fine! I talk about daring to be here and now, nothing else. I talk about freedom of choice and a much deeper understanding of your own and other’s existence. To become more rich from inside. But its not going to be just fine. Maybe often and even more often every day, but life is life and….) –

With all that contains life, the body is recommended to llok at the body as the basis of the human experience in order to live a life to the fullest. It is includes pain, defeat, mistakes, fear, insecurity same as pleasure, love, beauty, power, emptyness, Silence and so on.

I am teaching people with my hands and words to be much more attentive to their own bodies and through this, to make relevant and sustainable changes. The focus lies on breaking negative routines and automatic reactions in the persons life and by this to „open doors“ for new experiences.

In my opinion it is one of the healthies things to break routines – just because life stays in motion, because you start yourself and the body as more vivid and alive. And because you can meet challenges with more flexibility, relaxation and adaptibility.
These challenges, that everyone has, are looked at the one-on-one session individually.