5 Questions to Ask When in Pain
By Theresa Shay
Last week I shared about my journey with pain over the past 10 months. Here are five questions I work with that may help you as you navigate your way through pain.
1. At what point did this pain emerge, and was there an incident that caused the pain?
When the body experiences an accident, injury, or illness, the physical results might appear in surprising ways. This includes pain rising in an area or at a time you didn’t expect. If the pain could be the result of the accident, injury, or illness, identifying this might help you and your care givers piece together a more informed treatment plan.
In my case, there was no moment of accident or injury and no illness to pinpoint, just life. This suggested that my situation was a new layer of the physical journey making its way to the surface.
2. How am I using (or misusing) my body that might be contributing to this pain?
The weeks leading up to my trip to Germany last summer included many days of long hours at the computer preparing for the time away. Because TriYoga of Central Pennsylvania was going through a huge transition at that time, I was sitting more than I was moving and staying up late each night working. I suspect this contributed to the pain that emerged in Germany.
When I got back from my trip, I moved my workstation from “wherever I happen to be” to a desk that supported better ergonomics. I bought an actual keyboard and set up an external monitor to keep my neck in natural alignment. I minimized doing work on my phone and chose the computer whenever I could. I started using a stylus instead of typing on my phone with my thumbs, which weren’t designed for that use, we have to remember. I stood up and moved around more often when I did need to work at the computer.
3. What role is my mind playing in this situation?
I felt my body going through its fascinating reorganization just at the time when I was leading this organization through its massive reorganization. As I consciously dissolved structures I had been building for twenty years, I kept being called to let go. That work is challenging, and my physical body agreed.
At the time the pain appeared, I had also just returned to the presence of my teacher after years of not being near her during the pandemic. The purification aspect of TriYoga, which moves us through every obstacle, is heightened in certain situations, and being in physical proximity to my teacher has always encouraged my transformations. I felt all these factors were significant.
While awareness does not make pain go away, it can help you bring compassion to what you are moving through on every level. It can also reveal where you are resisting, fighting, or fearing what is. Keeping a wide perspective is important if you want to engage honestly with the reality of your situation.
4. Where can I sense an opening in all this pain?
I live in a body that is naturally off balance due to scoliosis, and I tend to this all the time in my practice and in daily life. For decades, I had been aware that my left hip was tight. In the months before my big pain emerged, I became aware of exactly where I was constantly holding tension in my adductor muscles. I could not relax them ever. One day early in July, I was giving this my usual focus, and to my surprise the muscles let go! I began taking every opportunity to check in on that area. The muscles were always engaged when I put my attention there, but I could always relax them, even if the release lasted no longer than a second. I considered this progress.
As my inner thigh muscles released, a new area opened up in my back (the concavity side of my scoliosis curve, for those who work with these imbalances like me). For three decades, my entire experience with yoga, I had been unable to get breath into that area of my left side, though I had consciously tried. When the hip released, the breath arrived, and I was elated. My newfound capacity to breathe left me excited that my I could now welcome more life force. These noticings helped me trust I was going through a tough place in the journey, but still on the path.
5. How stuck am I?
At the height of the crisis, I was living one bath to the next, one ibuprofen dose to the next. This sent me to the doctor, and I welcomed the prescriptions. Then I didn’t take the muscle relaxing medication, which the doctor prescribed to help me sleep.
I was afraid I would become addicted to the pills if I took any. Saying this aloud, I heard how far-fetched I sounded. I have solid internal strength and awareness. I am healthy and strong physically and mentally. I have no history of addiction. I have stocked an incredible toolbox of ageless yoga practices and wisdom that I am eager to use. I realized that to use the support available to me was like taking a prop in yoga. I needed very few of the doses I was prescribed, but I am thankful I had the medication. Being able to sleep made each day feel more manageable when I woke again to the pain.
As the crisis subsided and the weeks went along, I kept remembering how the pain had been preceded by the two major physical openings in my hip and in my back. This helped me trust the process. The pain, I believe, was my body sorting out a new reality that my mind was also navigating. We are composed of layers and layers of habits and patterns, and each one needs to be moved through until there is no tension left. I felt tiny changes each time I went to the mat or had a treatment from someone who was helping me manage my pain. Every sign suggested I just needed to keep going in the direction I was heading and trust the process.
As I wrote last week, everything helped a little, and nothing worked a miracle.
But there is a miracle.
The miracle is that we live in incredibly wise and intricately formed bodies that are sustained by a powerful energy that works for us, with us, and through us. To support the work of this energy, we are responsible to know ourselves and pay attention so we can track the journey. We must be able to see what’s here, what’s approaching, what’s departing, what’s connected, and what’s present now. We must be willing to surrender, trust, and follow what the Flow delivers, even when it is painful. We must be willing to reach out for help and let go of who we have been to be who we are now.
Bodies will go through pain, minds too. Give the spirit every bit of support to shine through and remind you that you are free. You can’t sit back and hope for the best with your physical or your mental health. You must be an active partner with the Universe to bring your body, mind and energy along. That is how you catch the ride to freedom from right here on Earth.
Theresa Shay is the founding director of TriYoga of Central Pennsylvania, where she teaches weekly yoga and meditation online and trains others to teach TriYoga®. Each week, she shares wisdom cultivated from decades of TriYoga study and practice.
Learn more about her here. Theresa can be reached at Theresa@PennsylvaniaYoga.com. Find her on Instagram @theresa_of_triyoga for more inspiration and light.