Relieving Pain Without Pills
by Anne Mari Ramsdal
Relieving Pain Without Pills…Is It Possible?
We all experience aches and are concerned about relieving pain from time to time, some more often than others. In today’s health society, there are pills and different types of medicine for almost anything. At the same time, alternative health practitioners strive to offer more natural ways to positively affect our health. All of these various offers are affecting us to sometimes spend more time considering which method to use rather than dealing with the pain and illness itself. Even if we prefer more natural ways to enhance our health, the variety of offers are continuously increasing. It can all make us wonder; does it really have to be that complicated to get rid of a bad headache?
The way we respond to pains and aches can be put somewhere in between two ends of a scale, ranging from acting like the pain isn’t there to talking and complaining about it all the time. There are downsides to both of these responses. By constantly complaining, we keep the pain alive and thriving with our words and our focus. But the downside to the opposite side of the scale, pretending that the pain doesn’t exist, is possibly less obvious to us.
It can seem quite logical to assume that ignoring the pain will make it go away because of the lack of focus upon it. This was also my personal belief for most of my life. I paid less attention to the fact that the pain always seemed to come back after a while of ignoring it… But it all made sense to me just recently.
One night I went to bed quite exhausted. I felt as though I had been living in a bubble for a while—I didn’t really know what I was either feeling or thinking. I just existed. Shortly after getting comfortable, I noticed a sudden pressure to my head. Soon it was pulsating and spreading down to my eyes, cheekbones and my jaw. It seemed to happen out of the blue, and the pain was stronger than any headache I had ever felt before.
I was both shocked and fascinated; I remember lying there wondering what in the world was going on with me. It started to feel like my jawbones was swelling up and exploding out of my skin. The combination of the shock, fascination and tiredness left me wanting to dive deeper into this pain, to really figure out what it was all about. So I did. I started focusing on my head and face, really trying to map out exactly where I felt pain and what that pain felt like.
After fully focusing on this for a couple of minutes, I was quite shocked to realize that I couldn’t feel the pain any more, even though I knew it was still there! It was like I had completely both focused and dissociated from the pain at once. This duality led to a new level of consciousness, almost like I was observing myself feeling the pain. And since I was only observing, I couldn’t really feel it as pain at all. I could sense that it was there, but I didn’t experience it as painful anymore. It simply just was.
When I came out of this level of consciousness, I just smiled and shook my head in disbelief. Then I turned my focus back to my head and face, only to find that the pain was completely gone! This whole process took less than ten minutes, which means that I went from a growing pain I had never experienced before to nothing at all in shorter time than most painkiller could achieve.
When looking at it in retrospect, I understand that the whole experience was linked to the connection between mind and body. As mentioned earlier, I had been out of balance and disassociated from myself for some time. The pain that seemed to come out of nowhere was quite possibly there to tell me to get back in touch with my self—mind, body and soul all included. And by focusing on the pain as opposed to ignoring it, I actually listened to the message my system was trying to give me. And so the pain disappeared!
Oftentimes, we find ourselves incorporating only parts of our system. Sometimes, for example, we tend to stay so much in our minds that we almost forget we have a body. This alone can cause a lot of aches, because our bodies have to find ways to let us know they’re still there! When we try to ignore signals and symptoms in our body, we also ignore parts of ourselves. This can in many cases just make the symptoms worse, because our system needs to work harder to deliver the message to us.
We can avoid lots of pain by incorporating our whole system in our everyday lives. Pains and aches can often be messages that parts of our system don’t agree with each other. By listening to all parts of us, we become whole and consistent. When we are whole and consistent, all parts of us are in balance which means we can be fully happy with nothing holding us back! The next time a headache, back pain or anything like it comes up; don’t pretend it’s not there. Take a few minutes to focus on the pain. This is a direct method to tell our systems that we are listening. In this way, getting rid of and relieving pain is really just a bonus!
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About the author
Anne Mari Ramsdal is working to spread light and knowledge as far as she can reach. Her goal is to help both individuals and organizations to thrive better and become more successful. She is inspired by her educational background in Sociology, Change Management and NLP-coaching, as well as her personal life experiences.
Connect with her at: www.enlightenmentor.wordpress.com
