Continuing Recovery Past Pain
After any serious injury and resulting pain, the habit of checking for pain becomes yet another challenge. Extreme pain due to injury and/or surgery requires, initially, some degree of self-monitoring. Then, over-checking for pain becomes an interference for further recovery. The nerve sequences for pain physically strengthen and thicken if we use them with frequency to check pain. Even a note of pain plays the entire orchestra of original pain even though this full pain sequence may not be actual at the moment. Teasing out what is “real”pain and what is a re-play of previous pain is what my PT, Heidi, is assisting me with assessing and with responding to appropriately.
In the Alexander Technique, we take as a given that our sensory feedback is faulty as it is based upon habitual use of the senses. What is familiar, as in neural pathways most habitually stimulated, is judged as “right”. The unfamiliar neural connections are assessed as “wrong”. But often, the “wrong” is actually “right”, if not always familiar.
I am learning, with expert guidance, to know when pain is dangerous, or is just a “ghost” sequence from past pain. This is difficult to describe, as it is very experiential in nature, and also individual in interpretation.
Meanwhile, I am deeply grateful to be able to walk, to dance in my weird one-legged fashion, to teach well, and to explore new means of response from the condition of Self that I am currently experiencing.