Ouch!

Pleasure and Pain.

On a scale of 1-10 rate your pain.
What if I'm not in pain? What if I'm just being tickled and am laughing so hard I can't talk? What if my body is doing amazing things that don't really translate into words very well, but take a lot of energy? What if I'm not so much in pain as just sore because I finished a new workout and my muscles are cleaning themselves up? What if I'm so full of grief that my body starts reacting physically?

Pain doesn't tell the full story.

We have many different receptors in our skin designed to tell us different things about the world around us.

• Thermoreceptors tell us when something is hot or cold. 
• Mechanoreceptors tell us about pressure or movement. These feel the wind, a hug, or the pitter-patter of raindrops on our skin. 
• Nociceptors tell us to be careful. They send two messages: Threat detected! or Sensory overload! 

We also have similar receptors throughout our entire body. The challenge and task for all of us, is to learn to correctly interpret these signals so that we can work WITH our body. To help us with this, in our brains, we have a section completely devoted to the processing of all of the input we get from the rest of our body- the hypothalamus.
It takes the messages streaming in from the rest of the body and works very hard to keep your body functioning as best as it can under the circumstances. It triggers the release of hormones to stabilize the internal systems and neurological signals to trigger various reflex movements. Working in conjunction with the pineal gland, it sets your metabolic clock. It coordinates the work and maintenance/cleaning schedules for your body. When you have one of those 20% days, when you just don't have the energy to think or do like you want- maybe it's because the other 80% of your energy is being spent inside your body cleaning and repairing your various systems.
"Sometimes the signs we associate with sickness are actually the signs that we are healing." -Crash Course Anatomy and Physiology https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I7orwMgTQ5I I like to refer to these "pains" as relief sensations. Like a clogged drain, the release of junk that has been harming your system will often be quite disgusting and unpleasant.

Back to the point: The messages are being sent by your body to your brain. How these messages are interpreted is the question of our day. In order to tame something, you must first name it. All sensations are not pain- pain is a signal that continuing a current course of action or inaction will result in damage.

Here is an example:
I went to the dentist yesterday for a cleaning and to check on some of my teeth. I have a very ticklish mouth and will often spend the entire cleaning squirming and giggling. When I was very little, my squirming was interpreted by others as pain, but in reality, it was just an overwhelming sensation. My parents soon learned that it wasn't pain I was feeling, because I would be excited to return to the dentist. I liked the tickle- even if at times it was overwhelming. Today, hygenists teach children that the polisher tickles and fear of the dentist has almost become extinct among children.

Another example:
During childbirth, a mother's body goes through some incredibly intense sensations. Pressure, temperature, rippling muscle movements... all done to an extent that it often overwhelms our perception. I did find it very interesting though- that in all three of my experiences, I could easily distinguish between the overwhelming sensations of birth and the pain that came when something was not right. My hips refused to unlock during my first birth- and so my child shut down labor after 12 hours. There was a sense that something was not right, that he was stuck. All during the induction a week later, the sense of wrongness lingered. Needless to say, his birth was an extremely traumatic emergency c-section. With his sister, only one hip disengaged- and then I felt PAIN as my poor daughter spent a grueling two hours stuck in the birth canal. Even the epidural couldn't numb that pain. With my third, after finally having managed to unlock both SI joints (the chiropractors were shocked at the amount of force it took), I only felt pain when they broke my waters and the weight of the baby pinched my uterus on my spinal vertebrae. In each case- PAIN was the sensation that something was not right and needed correction.

The best advice I ever received was this: "If it hurts, you're doing something wrong." This adage applies to everything about our bodies. If it hurts, change what you are doing. If it hurts and you spend all day in bed, try getting up and exercising. If it hurts when you eat a certain food, try cutting it out of your diet or try eating it at a different time of day. Listen to your hypothalamus, and help it do it's job of keeping you healthy, happy, and full of life.

Actions:
Are you teaching your children the difference between pain (something is wrong) and sensation (something is happening inside my body)?
Start a conversation with your hypothalamus - ask it what you can do to support your body's healing today. Pay attention to the sensations you feel when you act- are you feeling pain or relief as you move?