From agony to ecstasy in minutes!

7 years after coming across Dr John Sarno’s work, I continue to find the whole idea that pain is so often caused by our emotions, fascinating. Just when I think I’ve seen it all, something else comes along to cause me another surge of excitement, which is great, because it reinforces the importance of this work I am so involved in and of continuing to raise awareness of it.

One of those occasions came to my attention just this week when someone I know emailed me to tell me about a recent experience she had when she woke up with severe back pain. Over the past few months she has really begun to gain a good understanding of the concept and of SIRPA’s approach, which she was able to utilise with wonderful results.

This is what she said, in her words… “I have had a recent amazing recovery from waking with severe back pain, unable to move in bed. It was not in its usual Lumbar area, and I knew I hadn’t injured it. I was stressed by my house being on the market and my daughter’s wedding (at our house) at the end of the month, but I decided to really focus on discovering the emotional cause. The huge release that followed was unrelated to my current stresses and was due to the fact that it was my son’s 21st birthday.

I had an overwhelming need to see him and discovered it was all linked to my breast cancer (8 years ago). I had been determined to survive to see my son reach adulthood (all my other kids were over 18 when I was diagnosed, while he was 13). Him reaching this milestone was huge for me and it allowed other fears to surface. I was able to express my need to see him and as soon as my husband agreed, to travel to meet him (and siblings) for that evening, my pain disappeared. I then jumped out of bed and I was able to drive 6 hours on the same day!”

She later told me that she had lain in bed and thought about the principles on which the SIRPA approach is based and, knowing she hadn’t damaged her back, she then began to consider what the emotional cause might be. She was able to allow herself to reflect on things (without analysing) and, “It just came to me as I had an emotional outpouring – literally! Just stopping and focussing on the emotion behind the pain was enough.” This acknowledgement of her emotional pain, and then taking practical steps to do something about it, enabled the pain to completely resolve.

There’s no doubt about it, without the knowledge that emotions can trigger very real pain, someone in this situation could easily have ended up going down the medical route, possibly ending up with chronic pain down the line. You can see this happening when well-meaning, but un-enlightened Doctors and therapists, begin to label the problem, especially if they blame it on any physical ‘abnormalities’ found, such as a scoliosis or a slipped disc. From the numerous studies with asymptomatic people, we know that spinal degeneration is a normal sign of aging and has no correlation with pain, but for the uninitiated who are told they need surgery or it could get worse, this can cause huge fear, which creates an even bigger problem for the individual to overcome.

Clearly in this case this lady was able to resolve her pain very quickly because she knew it could not possibly be due to a physical problem, especially as she had no pain when she had gone to bed. I know some people might say that it’s all very well when you can do something about the problem (as this lady did by being able to actually visit her son), but they are stuck in a situation they can’t do anything about.

That might be less easy, but it is still possible to overcome this, for example by; putting things into perspective, taking responsibility for what you can control and taking action to improve the situation where you can, learning to be allowing of the situation and anyone else involved etc etc. This will have to be left for another time, but as it is a big topic in itself, it is also covered in detail in the online SIRPA Recovery programme.

Have you gained any specific insights from your pain?