Hello;

two ideas on pain seem too have distillled themselves into my awareness:

1. Pain is resistance.  

and

 2. Pain is fear trying to leave the body

I'd love to hear others thoughts on these concepts....

Phil

Hello,

In my experience, pain comes up to call for help, something needs to be addressed.  So it could be seen as a reflection of our resistance to listen to our body or acknowledge our feelings in the way they deserve.

Maybe we resist because we are scared to see the unresolved emotion.

The unresolved emotion (pain) can be anything from sadness, guilt, anger, resentment, etc...

So I would agree with both your points. Thank you.

and i know right now my lower back is screaming at me.

my husband had to be out of town this past weekend which left me with an unbelievable heavy work load to tackle by myself..nothing out of the ordinary, all part of the daily grind. i know he had to be gone, (altho he did have a choice and could have stayed home) but i think my inner selfish being was maybe a bit peeved about his absence, my body felt burdened with the work while he'll got to take a break from it all...and now 3 days later my back is wracked with pain....

even tho i can justify his absence for the greater good of our own future lives, the selfish side of my being is now in pain because my mind played these games with my body...and my back lost!

 so tap tap tap, i try and make my head know that altho he left for 2 days he was not intentionally burdening me and everything is ok...

Hello,

On this subject, I would like to add a few points which mostly address chronic illness/pain.  This is not from me, however it reflects my thoughts.  Any symptom wants to be addressed for the following reasons:

1- A need to set boundaries, a need to say no to someone or something.

2- A cry for a need to be met

3- A cry to go back and heal an old trauma

4- A demand to resolve a conscious conflict

5- A symbolic representation of internal parts of a belief that is blocking healing (Ie: pain:I must be punished for being a bad person, blindness:I must turn  blind eye to my mothers's reprimands...)

In my own history, I can say that 1 and 2 were the big driving force to the onset of illness, with a little bit of numbers 3-4-5 thrown in...tht's where EFT comes in...

I have changed a lot of my life, getting more of my needs met, however, I think that the reasons why someone gets ill might be totally different to the reasons why they can't get well again, maybe that's another discussion...

So glad I found EFT though...

"I think that the reasons why someone gets ill might be totally different to the reasons why they can't get well again"

Fabienne, if you wouldnt mind elaborating. 

not to speak out of turn - but my thoughts on this great thread - (oh yeah I started it! lol ;-)  )

would be - pain is what you get when you don't listen to the other signals your system is sending you - eventually your system has no other option but to use pain to tell you something is wrong -  only pain will make you pay attention to the unaddressed issues....

And - once your comfort zone includes the pain that you adapt to/put up with - you are in your comfort zone - and as uncomfortable as it may be - it IS your comfort zone - easier to stay in that zone - pain and all - then to step outside your comfort zone and address the underlying issue(s)....

 Much Love

 Phil

Hi Phil,

I agree that lots of times people don't listen to the signals of the body and that pain can be a messenger. If they get the emotional cry underneath the pain, and really get it--accept it--the pain goes away.

EFT really speeds up the process of feeling unfelt feelings. I think that many times people are terrified of feeling their feelings, and physical pain is preferred on a subconscious level. Then people create the habit of stuffing their feelings, and they aren't aware of their feelings.

Gratefully yours,

SkyWatcher

Hello Liz7543,

On the surface, you may have addressed the cause of illness and responded by a number of practical changes in your life which should make a big difference to your health as you get your needs met. 

However, you may have parts of yourself tht still hold healing back (beliefs, protection mechanisms) that are still in place.  Also, as you are in the process of changing, you may encounter new difficulties as a result of your illness, adding further conflicts which take you further from the initial causes.

Hope this helps, you could see it as being part of the initial conflict, but it is much deeper.  In some cases, secondary benefits can hold you.

Fabienne

Good thread.  And let me preface my comments by stating that Phil is definitely one of the top thinkers here in this forum.

But a couple of things here.  First, the original ideas:

"1. Pain is resistance 2. Pain is fear trying to leave the body".   Sure this may be true. But pain is complex, way more than this.  And how does fear leave the body?  Or do we overcome it, or not let it bother us (I'm thinking that is what was meant)?

"would be - pain is what you get when you don't listen to the other signals your system is sending you - eventually your system has no other option but to use pain to tell you something is wrong -  only pain will make you pay attention to the unaddressed issues...."

 Are you speaking metaphorically here?  I'm not sure which system you're referring to.  Are you referring to chronic pain?

 Lets take a simple example.   I spill boiling water on my hand.  Within seconds, I experience pain.   Where's the resistance and where is the fear trying to leave the body?  Does the pain sensation dominate my attention?  Yes.  It becomes my direct focus.   But there are no issues mediating the initial pain.   And hours later, I still may experience the pain.   Is this due to resistance, fear, issues?   Or is it due to  histamine, prostaglandin release at the receptor where the tissue damage occurred?  

Now, can fear, anxiety, or other issues exacerbate the experience of pain?  No doubt.  This happens all the time.  But lets be clear.  When this does occur, we need to say emotions modulate pain. - i.e., acting on an already existing condition.  And certainly as stated above, emotions play a HUGE role in the healing process.

But with that said, the question is can negative emotions create physical illness/pain?  Most of us here believe this.  And in these cases, emotions are the trigger.

Lastly, lets keep in mind - many times, pain is just our perception to a real painful stimulus. 

Cool thread Phil.

Ed

Thanks for your kind words Ed -

" And how does fear leave the body?  Or do we overcome it, or not let it bother us (I'm thinking that is what was meant)?"

 I think if we can address the underlying cause of the pain it should no longer be a factor - I'm not sure that overcoming it or not letting it bother us is not what we are ideally intending. I believe once the fear/pain has served it purpose it can leave the body entirely, provided it is no longer required to cause us to focus on the underlying cause.."

"would be - pain is what you get when you don't listen to the other signals your system is sending you - eventually your system has no other option but to use pain to tell you something is wrong -  only pain will make you pay attention to the unaddressed issues...."

 Are you speaking metaphorically here?  I'm not sure which system you're referring to.  Are you referring to chronic pain? " - Same concept -chronic just means you still aren't addressing the cause - short term or long term, it's still telling you you haven't adressed the cause.

Perhaps we're talking physically caused pain - ie the scalding water, etc, vs emotionally caused pain which is a specific signal from our body that there are unaddressed emotional issues needing to be expressed....

Pain caused by negative emotions or negative emotions caused by unaddressed underlying pain - i think it's sort of a chicken or egg thing - does it matter? except to the degree that one knows where to begin to address the symptoms -  the physical pain causing the neg emotions or the neg emotions causing the phys pain - that's a part of the deliciousness of working with a client and doing the detective work - the client will expose the causes, usually w/out too much prompting. A trained ear is the most important tool in this diagnostic stage of treatment......

 Stacey Vornbrock of www.breakthroughperformance.net is on the cutting edge of the concept of 'issues in the tissues' as I call it - the physical body learns and recalls and self limits itself as it holds on to it's learned experience - and the tissues and issues can be addressed and released - remember the body wants to protect itself from further trauma or potentially traumatric situations, as much as it wants to return to a state of balance - hrealthy happy and pain free.

With EFT and experience this is a worthy and attainable goal.......

Phil.