Have you ever heard me say “Pain is your friend?” You might have felt tempted to tune out the moment that you heard that, because pain tends to be given a bit of a bad name, let’s be honest. But what if instead of trying to outrun discomfort or mute or numb it, you could understand that your pain can act as a guiding force, directing you towards any areas that need care, attention and healing.
I’m Savannah Alalia and welcome to the latest episode of High Functioning Human Podcast where you connect to yourself as a high-functioning human.
I’ve spoken about pain a lot. In fact, it’s a recurring topic in many of my podcasts, my socials and my programs. I love to talk about pain because I think the more comfortable you are when you’re talking about your pain, the more able you are to understand it. All sensations are signals and messages from your body. When you look up pain on Google, it comes up as a ‘distressing feeling’ and while this is obviously true as an umbrella term, you need to be able to understand the different types of pain that you might be having to be able to understand what they’re showing you or teaching you.
Let’s remember what pain is. At the end of the day, you probably know the difference between acute pain, that’s short term, and chronic pain, which is lingering, that’s long term pain, I’m sure many of you know about that. Did you know that your fascia has up to 10 times more nerve endings than your skin and muscles, making it your largest sensory organ? And because your fascia wraps around all the tissues in your body, this means it gets involved in all types of pain too.
Think about the types of pain that you might feel. I’m going to use a couple of big words here, but there’s no need to be scared. Your pain can be broken down into neuropathic pain – that’s pain that involves your nerves, something like shingles or sciatica – that can feel like burning, tingling, shooting or electric shock sensations. I’m sure you know what I’m talking about with that. We’ve all had those different experiences.
Or it can be nociceptive pain – which is a fancy way of saying tissue damage pain – sharp, aching or throbbing. All these different words will resonate with you as a different type of pain, right? Recognising that type of sensation tells your brain a bit about what’s causing it, and that tells you what could potentially help you remove yourself from that situation unless you ignore it.
When pain is caused by something external, like touching a hot pan or stubbing your toe, you know exactly what is happening and why it hurts. But when the pain is a movement pain, or a sitting pain or standing pain, the cause can feel less obvious. And you have to think about it. You have to look into it in a different way. Instead of avoiding the pain completely or just plowing through it, it can be helpful to consider the deeper reason behind it.
You might be scared of a pain because you think it’s a sign that things are getting worse. But sometimes, especially when you’re moving out of numbness, pain is a sign that things are moving in the right direction. And therefore it can be something to celebrate.
This is one of the reasons I love to speak about pain. Think about pins and needles. So when you’re sitting in a strange way and things go numb, you’re numb and you’re thinking, “Oh, I’m okay, everything’s fine, you’re like, happy go larry.” It’s only when you start to move that you notice like, oh, this is feeling uncomfortable. But would you put yourself back into that squashed position to avoid the feeling? No, because you know that that’s going to make the problem even worse. You go through the pain, you maybe shake yourself out a little bit, or simply wait for it to pass, or maybe you’re hitting your leg or your arm or whichever area’s got pins and needles through it instead of going back.
So with bigger shifts in your body, it’s exactly the same idea or principle. You need to keep moving forward rather than reversing. Slow down to figure out what type of pain you’re dealing with. This is where you need to look at Your Body’s History. Just like the stubbed toe can cause you instant pain, the old injuries or stresses in your body may be showing up now in twists and adhesions that need to be dealt with.
Let’s think of a scenario here. A real body. Perhaps you fall really badly on some ice, say. During the healing process, your body does its best to stabilise your spine. This stabilisation happens by your fascia, creating adhesions, this then changes the train of movement throughout your body. And whilst initially it’s fine, as other parts of your body start to compensate for the adhesions and then perhaps slip out of alignment, you can no longer ignore the issue. Listen to the Your Body’s History podcast for more information on this.
Once you get stuck, movements that unlock your hip or spine can hurt initially, but it leads you towards alignment. So restacking your body back to where it’s meant to be. Pain that shows up during this process indicates that something is shifting and realigning rather than causing further damage. And that’s what makes this type of pain different.
You have to understand that progressive pain is taking your body somewhere else, somewhere better. When people are new to fascia release, it’s one of the key things I want them to start to think about. Especially when you’re dealing with things that have been stuck for years and years.
Certain people will monopolise on this and tell you that “No pain, no gain.” And I have a different opinion to this. The reason being is that I believe your body is way more intelligent than you realise and has the ability, if you learn the language of pain, to tell you what the right kind of pain is for you, as you open and release the things that you need to. The initial process is likely to involve some pain.
This is why following a program can be really, really helpful. The progression is paced in a way that supports your fascia to release and consistency, and gentle remobilising the nerves will support the rest of your fascia to open. The second and third levels of my Your Face Symmetry programs are about taking this process to the next level. The first level, which is only seven days, is a very easy way to start the conversation with yourself and your body through your face.
Remember, nothing in your body is supposed to hurt, and if there’s pain, there’s information there for you. And then you have to ask yourself, do you need to kill this pain? I’m going to talk more about this in Good Pain vs Bad Pain soon, so make sure you’re on the mailing list if you’re interested in learning more about this.
Remember, trust your instincts and follow your intuition because the world needs your voice and the magic it brings to us all.
I look forward to chatting with you next time on the High Functioning Human Podcast. Take care and talk soon.
As always, I remain a cheerleader for your inner self-worth,
