And this is truly a wonderful affect of the bodywork. There is a term we use in Hanna Somatics called Sensory Motor Amnesia(a forgetfullness of how to move and feel a muscle). What this means is that due to increased tension or repetitive movement, an area of your body has become stiff. When that area of the body becomes stiff the muscles no longer contract and release to their full ability and become fixed in that position. As you no longer move that area as much your brain stops actively connecting with it, and like the much loved instrument that used to take up so much of your time and energy that now sits in the corner, your muscles start to be forgotten.
Supporting this you have tension around arteries, veins, and nerves that blocks circulation and inhibits communication with the nervous system. The tissue starts to dry out, the nerves dull and overtime the body part becomes more rigid. At some point, if the tension impacts a major nerve you'll feel numbness or pain and will either get pain killers to mask what's happening or seek treatment to fix the problem.
With Hanna Somatics, we view this not as a problem, but a natural conclusion to months, years of sensory motor amnesia. Further, because this is a function of a healthy nervous system, it is reversible. One goal of Hanna Somatics is to turn that area of Sensory Motor Amnesia(a forgetfullness of how to move and feel a muscle) into Sensory Motor Awareness meaning increased ability to move and feel the muscle/area. So when you wake up the next day feeling sore and achey, this is a sign that the sensory nerves in that muscle have been reactivated, woken up. And if the sensory nerves have been woken up and you are able to feel what's happening in there, then you are in a great position to move and release the tension that caused the pain in the first place.
Pain killers will have an opposite affect. Yes, they may bring you temporary relief but they do so buy further dulling somatic awareness and sensation which will further disconnect you from your muscles. In an earlier post I talked about how conscious controlled movement as the ideal way to lengthen a muscle and inhibit stretch reflex. If you are actively dulling yourself, then not as able to actively heal the pained area, and are potentially creating a situation for more tightness and pain.
The point is not really to feel the pain, but feeling the pain means that you are feeling more and are fostering more internal consciousness and more internal control. You can use that increased sensation to dwell in discomfort or seize the opportunity to change and recover.
I feel this is applicable in the economic scene we're in right now. With the economy struggling, we are feeling the pain of lost jobs and decreased production. The credit surge of the last twenty years served the purpose of masking these problems and now that credit has dried up we are actually having to deal with the economy that we have. Increased injections of capital into credit markets will only serve to further dull and block us from progressing out of this painful moment. Instead this could be a great opportunity to redirect growth and production, fixing the problem.
As JFK noted
"When written in Chinese, the word 'crisis' is
composed of two characters--one represents danger,
and the other represents opportunity."
Similarly I would say with awareness there is possibility
for increased discomfort,but there is also an opening for
increased joy and graceful movement.
Thoughts? Criticisms? Questions?
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