I’m in pain, how can Feldenkrais lessons help me?
When we are experiencing pain, especially chronic pain, our nervous system is over-stimulated. The thing to do is to first soothe the nervous system by reducing the stain in the affected area. The best way to do this is to make minuscule movements making sure not to get anywhere near the place where the movement would usually start hurting. Under normal circumstances, we instinctively tend to move in such a way that we get to the edge of where the pain is, perhaps hoping that this time it won’t be there anymore. A better option is to make sure the movement is so small that you are nowhere near the pain. As you move so gently, you will feel yourself relaxing immediately as your nervous system is soothed. From this place you can start experimenting with movements you can make, even including in the painful area,without reaching your threshold of pain.
Let´s use the following example: it hurts you to fully straighten your right arm. Youcould start by consciously making very small movements of the forearm only, moving it slightly to the right and left say, while keeping the right elbow bent. Then you start to experiment with movements you can make that don’t require straightening the arm; say circling the hand around the wrist. Then you might move the forearm right and left while circling the hand, and so forth, experimenting with different pain-free variations. Over time, as your nervous system relaxes, knowing you will not move toward the edge of where your pain is, you can find pleasure in the moves you can make. Eventually the movements get bigger, easier and freer and you find ways of moving that hurt no longer. This a clever way of “tricking” your brain and your nervous system into healing painful areas.