Hi Reader!

I'm so glad I can resume my regular writing which, as you all know, is something I deeply enjoy, especially your feedback! ❤️

This week, I've had a chance to reflect on something that often comes up with many of my clients (and me!): the imperative desire to "fix" ourselves. To fix our pain, repair our personality, undo our past, correct our reactions, smooth out all the inconvenient parts of being human. And I’ve been thinking about why this approach is actually counter-productive.

Musings

Of course, I understand this desire. When something hurts, when anxiety takes up too much space, when the same old pattern repeats itself in our body, our relationships, our thoughts, or our choices, we don’t usually feel very generous toward it. We want it gone. We want relief. We want to become the version of ourselves who is no longer carrying this thing. But I keep wondering : what if the first movement toward healing is not to get rid of the problem, but to change the way we are relating to it?

That's not just a philosophical distinction. A nervous system in threat does not become more flexible because we insult it into behaving better. It becomes more flexible when it receives new, clear, safe-enough information.

Pain, anxiety, bracing, avoidance, shutdown, numbing, overthinking, and many of the patterns we turn into identity are often organized protective responses. This does not mean they are pleasant, useful, or still necessary. It means the brain and body are trying to make sense of what is happening, predict what might happen next, and prepare us to respond.

This is especially important with pain. Pain is not simply a message from the tissues saying “damage here,” although it can include that. Pain is an experience created by the nervous system, shaped by sensation, emotion, memory, context, attention, prediction, and meaning.

So when we approach pain, anxiety, emotional distress or old protective patterns with panic, disgust, shame, self-criticism, or force, we add threat to threat. If the brain percieves something is dangerous, or "bad", attacking it isn't going to create safety.

This is why, in my neurosomatic practice, we don't begin by forcing the painful part to stretch, pushing through it, or trying to convince the body to behave better through sheer willpower. We begin by listening, by finding what still moves, by noticing what else is present, and by giving the brain information that is slow enough, clear enough, and safe enough to be useful.

You are not arguing with your nervous system. You are updating it.

Join me this saturday at 11am EST for a free, live online class where we will do just that. All you need is a zoom connection, and a place to lie down comfortably.

🎁 Free Class this weekend!

🧠 NeuroMinute...

Here is what the science helps us understand: pain and anxiety are not simple messages from one part of the body saying “something is wrong here.” They are whole brain-body events.

Pain begins with signals from the body, of course, including nociception, which is the nervous system’s detection of actual or potential tissue threat. But nociception and pain are not the same thing. The brain still has to interpret those signals, compare them with memory, context, expectation, emotional state, and previous experience, and then decide what the sensation means and what kind of protection is required.

The International Association for the Study of Pain defines pain as a sensory and emotional experience associated with actual or potential tissue damage, or resembling that experience. That is important, because it means pain is real even when it is not a direct measure of tissue damage, and it also means that changing the context, meaning, threat level, and sensory information around pain can change the pain experience itself.

The same logic applies to interoception, which is the brain’s ongoing interpretation of signals from inside the body: breath, heartbeat, gut sensations, muscle tension, pressure, temperature, fatigue, and pain. Some researchers describe the brain as constantly predicting the body’s internal state, rather than simply waiting for sensations to arrive. In that model, what we feel is shaped by incoming body signals, but also by what the brain expects to feel.

This is where the “fixing” impulse can become a problem. If I approach my pain, anxiety, or tension as evidence that something is broken, dangerous, or unacceptable, my brain may give those sensations more threat value. Attention narrows. The insula and anterior cingulate cortex, which are involved in interoception, salience, pain, and emotional regulation, become part of the process of deciding: how important is this signal, and what should we do about it?

Then the body prepares. Muscles brace. Breath changes. Movement becomes more guarded. We start avoiding certain actions, positions, sensations, conversations, or emotions. This can make sense in the short term, but pain research has shown that fear and avoidance can become part of the mechanism that maintains chronic pain and disability, especially when the brain keeps predicting danger even after tissues have healed.

So when we talk about “connecting” instead of “fixing,” we are not talking about a vague emotional attitude. We are talking about giving the nervous system better data. Pain neuroscience education can be useful, but only when it becomes embodied. Understanding pain intellectually may reduce threat, but the brain still needs experience. It needs to feel that movement can happen without danger, that a sensation can change, that the painful part is still connected to the rest of the body, and that protection does not have to be the only available response.

Slow movement, sensory attention, and curiosity help the brain distinguish more precisely: this is pressure, this is stretch, this is warmth, this is effort, this is fear, this is memory, this is the present moment. That distinction matters because the nervous system cannot update a vague alarm very well. It needs information with enough clarity, enough safety, and enough difference to revise its prediction.