What is pain?
I once attended a lecture that was all about pain in the body and the teacher began by posing that question, and then he had all of us bodyworkers try to define what pain actually was.
In Massage School we were given this definition: Pain is the body’s way of letting you know there is damage being done.
And that’s often true. If you burn or cut yourself, you usually know right away because it hurts! There was damage done to the tissue and your sensory nerves made sure you knew it so you could move away from the source of the damage.
But that definition isn’t always true. There are many cases of patients experiencing sometimes extreme pain but the doctors can find zero sign of damage.
And then there’s the differences in how we experience pain. One person can break an arm and barely feel it, while someone else gets the tiniest cut and it’s excruciating. There isn’t a constant.
So what is pain?
It is not an indication that there is damage being done'; it is the perception that damage is being done.
The teacher went on to share this story that has stuck with me all these years later:
A man in Australia decided to go on a walkabout. He wanted to spend time in nature and reflect on his life. He set off into the bush, and he did so barefoot.
But while he was walking, he suddenly stepped on something that felt sharp.
Before we get into what it was, for this story to make sense it’s important to understand how our sensory nerves work:
Faster than we can consciously think about it, our sensory nerves are taking in data. They send that information to our brain to decide if we know what that data is and whether or not it’s safe or unsafe. Depending on our familiarity with that data, our brain then sends signals back to that area that we then perceive as sensation. All of that information being sent back and forth happens within milliseconds and without our conscious awareness.
So this man steps on something. His nerve sends a signal to his brain with the data. The brain asks “Do we know what this is? Yes we do, it feels like a stick. Sticks aren’t dangerous. We’re okay, we’re safe.” And then the sensory nerves send that sensation back down to his foot. Consciously, the sensation makes him think, “Oh, I just stepped on a stick that was a little sharp. No harm done.”
But in this case, it wasn’t a stick. It was a rattlesnake, and it had bitten him.
It was something incredibly dangerous, but because his brain had decided that it wasn’t dangerous, he had very little pain or sensation.
He barely made his way back to civilization and was very close to death because of the venom. He almost lost his foot and had to be hospitalized for weeks. It was a very traumatic experience.
He had a lot of damage that was done to him by this rattlesnake, but he barely felt any immediate pain. His reaction was all based on his perception, which was based on his past experiences.
Time goes by. He decides that he never got to finish his walkabout and so after he was fully healed, he decided to do it again. And once again, he decided to go barefoot.
As he’s walking along, he steps on something.
Once again, before he can consciously think about it, that data go up to his brain so his brain can decide whether or not it’s dangerous. And this time, alarms start going off in his nervous system. The last time he felt this kind of sensation, he almost died. This sensation was a major threat to his survival, so the brain turned on all of his pain receptors to warn him of this danger.
He said it was the most excruciating pain he had ever felt. He immediately fell to the ground and was doubled over in pain. But this time, it was a stick, and it didn’t even break the skin.
The pain he experienced in both scenarios were not based on reality; it was entirely based on the perception of his physical safety.
This experience has always stuck with me because it applies to us not only physically, but mentally and emotionally too.
Our nervous system does the exact same thing with all data that we experience.
Anytime we’re in a situation that feels similar to a time when we were in danger, alarm bells start going off and we’re thrown into our Sympathetic Nervous System as a protection.
But it doesn’t have to be an actual threat to have this response. It can be the same as stepping on a stick but thinking it’s a rattlesnake.
Our boss calls us into his office. We start panicking because when we were young our parent called us into their room and we were yelled at or hit or treated poorly. Our nervous system immediately sends us into our Fight/Flight/Freeze to protect us from this threat. Even though we logically know that our boss values us and has only even been gentle and kind.
Or maybe we were in a bad car accident years ago and the impact happened after we had to slam on our brakes. Now anytime traffic starts to slow down ahead of us, we feel our heart beat faster and our muscles tighten and we can’t help but brace for impact. Even though we have plenty of time to stop and no one is behind us.
Or our spouse comes home irritated because of something that happened at work, and we immediately start thinking that we must have done something wrong, that they don’t love us anymore, that they’re probably going to leave us: All because we had an angry parent who left when we were young. Even though our spouse isn’t irritated with us and they have proven over and over that they love us and are never leaving, we still go back to that potential threat.
Our reality is not based in reality, but is almost entirely based on our perception, and our perception is determined by our past experiences.
And this is why we must have patience with ourselves. Our reactions don’t always match the current situation and that can feel incredibly frustrating. When we experience anxiety or panic for a situation that we “know” is safe, it makes us feel out of control.
But when we take a step back and realize that it does make sense, that it’s data that our nervous system has flagged as a threat because of our past experiences, then we can have some understanding for ourselves and our reactions.
We are not broken. Our reactions make sense. They may not always be “appropriate”, but they make sense.
Understanding that is one of the first steps to being able to change those reactions and reset your baseline.
This is one of the things I walk you through in my course Regulate + Thrive. You learn why your nervous system reacts the way it does and how you can learn to reset it by developing safety within yourself.
It will be fully launched in a few weeks, so make sure you go HERE to get on the waitlist for once it’s ready!
