What to do with Chronic Pain?

I had chronic pain for a number of years, and like many sufferers went to different massage therapists, a chiropractor, a regular doctor, physical therapist, and other holistic practitioners.  There was often a sinking feeling and disappointment when I couldn't quite resolve all of my pain issues.  Then, during a workshop on advanced massage therapy in San Francisco, I encountered a massage instructor who praised the benefits of a strengthening and stretching program for people in pain who aren't responding to different therapies.  While I'm not sure how the strengthening and stretching program I embarked on was any different from the physical therapy I had had in the past, I can say that it worked when I tried it.  My pain issues resolved.  I simply purchased a book with a physical routine in it that I could follow to stretch out and strengthen my muscles.  While I might not recommend this kind of cavalier self-help approach, it did work for me.
Pain is sometimes associated with certain favorite activities, in my case playing the piano, which induced repetitive motion injuries.  I liked to speed around the keyboard at a million miles an hour for a couple hours a day learning complex music at one point in my life.  This was not an activity my body was saying yes to, but rather my body responded by breaking down.    I do believe there may have been a psychological or spiritual component to this phenomenon.  In my case, I came to think that I was probably not, in my heart of hearts, although I loved music, engaging in quite the right activity for me.  I later discovered a different musical outlet of writing children's music and more non-competitive outlets for my artistic interests that were even more fulfilling, and didn't strain my poor forearm tendons and muscles.  In some way, I believe the life or the universe of my inner self was communicating to me through the body, basically saying no to this over ambitious piano regimen.  My spirit was telling me in other words that I had better and other things to do!  I do think it's worth spending some time asking myself: "What is my spirit trying to tell me through my body.  Am I headed in the wrong direction here?"
In addition to benefitting from the stretching and strengthening program, I also benefitted from activity and lifestyle changes.  I didn't work for me to go in for acupuncture for my arms for example and then go right back and return to the piano.  The body does need time to heal, and as they say, the body doesn't lie.  So stopping and/or reducing or modifying any piano playing was a key in overcoming the pain issues.   In addition, I had had a prior repetitive motion injury in my arms from a job doing simple repetitive labor so the arms were a weak spot in my body prone to re-injury.
Pain is a big market, and many health practitioners seek to serve or go after that market, including me, because I have had good success and sincerely feel I have something to offer as a massage therapist in Denver treating pain, tension and stress issues.  However, it's probably not true that our answers are always outside of us, with someone out there who can fix us.  For example, during one bout of pain, I decided to try to use a self-help Healing Touch energy work technique on the issue.  Interestingly, it worked!  It was a fairly simple fix too.  Healing Touch energy work requires the practitioner  to access a very centered state, and from this stillness, modulate the human energy field, and thus possibly influence symptoms of body, mind and/or spirit.  The ache in my arms left after starting to do 20 minute treatments on myself each day.
Sometimes the power is within me to heal, through using something like Healing Touch.   Sometimes the power is there through taking myself  through something mundane like a stretching and strengthening program.   Sometimes the power is in listening to my spirit for course correction because  something in my lifestyle is amiss: my body doesn't want to do something I am asking it to do.  I was quite unhappy going from one practitioner to another in search of relief of chronic pain to the point that I stopped going and gave up and decided I couldn't fix the problem.  I am delighted I did find some answers to chronic pain eventually and resumed a pain-free life. 

Healing My Cat with Massage and Homeopathy

In 2011 I returned home from a two month trip to India and Thailand to a cat named Chloe who was distraught, skinny, and had both developed and passed kidney stones during my absence.  A few months passed with her continuing to look distraught and unhealthy and then I decided, after multiple visits to the Veterinarians, to try massage to help her.  In one month or so of daily massages, she regained the weight she had lost and she looked healthy and glowing.  The veterinarian was very happy remarking on how great she looked.  She had regained about a pound of weight and her coat was shiny and healthy.  She looked like she felt better emotionally as well.
Doing massage for my cat involved using deeper pressure than normal petting, where you feel the muscles being compressed under the fur and skin, and covering the whole body in a systematic way.  I'll post a video soon of the massage method I created and used to help Chloe!
In spite of Chloe's weight gain and appearance of regained health, she still had a problem of chronic UTI's or urinary tract infections, which prompted multiple visits to the Vet and the suggestion that I place her on pulse antibiotics for two weeks out of every month, to treat the recurring infection.  I asked about supplements and none were suggested save glucosamine which she was already on.
A friend listened to this scenario and made the observation that it was time to try something different. Could I take her to a Naturopath?  After all, traditional care had gotten Chloe nowhere for several years.  Chloe had been suffering from chronic UTI's for years.  My friend also thought that giving an animal antibiotics two weeks out of the month would have deleterious effects in the same way that it has on human beings who take too many antibiotics.
It turned out that a place called Holistic Care for Animals was in my neighborhood in Colorado.  I took Chloe in. It was the longest and most unusual appointment I'd ever had for my cat.  The doctor asked me questions about Chloe's personality.  Was she always so clingy?  Was she always so grumpy? Chloe did appear grumpy and clingy that day.  From these holistic questions, the doctor formulated a homeopathic remedy for Chloe to be taken every day.  I was also given some supplements in the form of cat treats that were made for urinary problems.
The end result is Chloe has not had a UTI infection since she started taking the homeopathic remedy and the supplements.  There is less strain on me because I am not trying to take care of a constantly sick cat.  Since I work in a holistic center in Denver as a massage therapist (http://denvermassage.abmp.com),  this move to give my cat holistic care also seemed to fit who I was.  This experience with Chloe can't help but bring to mind those old adages about if you want different results, you have to try something else.  

Turning the spotlight of compassion toward oneself

In our roles with each other and in the world we often find it easier to extend kindness, understanding and compassion to another more easily than we can give those qualities to ourselves.  Whatever our roles might be--parent, teacher, healing practitioner, friend, etc.--I think many people have had this experience.  In fact, we may be particularly hard on ourselves, feeling critical toward ourselves even more so than we are toward another.  For example, if we lose a job, we might wonder what we did wrong.  If we become seriously ill, we might be prone to some sort of belief that we brought it on ourselves.  Whereas if someone else we know encounters an obstacle, we may feel non-judgemental and loving toward them and their situation.
How can we feel more empathetic toward ourselves and send ourselves the kind, compassionate energy that we so often feel more easily for another's pain?  Try this brief exercise that follows.  Sit comfortably in a chair or on a meditation cushion and connect with your breathing, watching the breath flow in and out, feeling the sensation of the breath coming and going, rising and falling in the body.  Relax each section of your body in turn--face, eyes, jaw, head, neck, shoulders, especially the shoulders.  Send love out to the world--the plants, the animals, the earth, all people. Pick someone you clearly love-- a person or a pet--and feel the warmth in your chest area which you have for this being.  Think a thought of unconditional love toward them, something like, "I love you no matter what you say, what you do, I still love you."  Lift up your hands, palms extended outward, and imagine sending love like streams of electrical energy out of the center of your palms.  Imagine this being whom you love is receiving helpful telepathic waves of light and love from you.  Continue this exercise for a few minutes.
Release this being from your consciousness, after having sent them waves of prayerful energy and encouragement.  Let your palms rest comfortably back on your lap or on the sides of your chair.  Take a few breaths in a neutral frame of mind, no longer thinking of anyone or visualizing anyone.  Now comes the hard part. Send yourself love and encouragement.  Think kindly toward yourself.  Bring to mind a difficult situation for you and send yourself love.  Lift up your hands, and palms facing inward toward yourself, imagine waves of love and light emanating from you to you through your own palms.  Find a sense of understanding toward your situation. I believe gentleness is an important feeling tone to work with in this realm of self-acceptance.  Often we are harder on ourselves than other people are, listing our various faults, failings, and mistakes like a litany in our minds.  Find gentleness for your perceived faults, for all the decisions you made that you think were bad ones.  Gently think of your positive qualities.     Cut yourself some slack.  Forgive yourself for everything. Imagine a forcefield of unconditional love around you, supporting you, understanding your journey.  Feel this Gentle touch of Spirit upon you, seemingly coming from within you, like a healing balm of sacred and soothing waters.
Be there for yourself in the way that you know you have been there for others. All that positivity, gentleness, and understanding you have let flow to others can now rest around you like a cocoon for a few minutes--or longer--enveloping you with a peace that passes understanding.  

Trigger points & Acupressure points: East meets West

In Eastern forms of bodywork, there can be a type of right-brained wholeness that pervades the whole view of health and disease.  Meridian pathways or channels of energy flow through the body like rivers carrying nutrients to organ body systems just like rivers carry food and water.  In the Western European world, it goes without saying that we are good at dissecting the whole into various parts.  Both Trigger points from the West and Acupressure points from the East are manually stimulated in massage in a similar fashion, but the Western systems tends to lack a truly holistic view of body, mind and spirit. I for one like to combine the wisdom of East and West.
Nothing beats the precision of Western anatomy and physiology.  Yet it's difficult for me to deny the feeling of chi in my hands or the feeling of pulsating chi in other people.  Take the example of treating a local area of the body, such as the low back, treating the problem where the pain is, pressing trigger points and releasing them, or releasing specific muscles such as the quadratus lumborum, the hamstrings, the "glutes" and the erector spinae. All of this is great but if you study the Thai Sen lines, which are acupressure meridian lines, that pass through the low back but also travel up into the head and neck, then from this point of view relieving the low back pain may involve treating the head and neck, which might seem illogical or unrelated from a left-brain view of bodywork.
The proof is always in the pudding.  I believe that many bodyworkers have probably had the experience, like I have, that working the Whole, as in doing a whole body massage, while also addressing the local specific point of dysfunction, such as frozen shoulder for example, is more effective than only working the local area.  Just working where the problem is locally doesn't necessarily solve the problem.  In my case, I might work on the associated muscles relevant to frozen shoulder, then address the Thai meridian lines, giving Acupressure to the whole body rather than to just to one isolated part.
Bodyworkers differ in their approach.  Some are simply better at or more comfortable with a Western European mindset approach to their work.  This particular therapist excels at working with the forms of bodywork that acknowledge the existence of chi and the presence of the Whole, while utilizing the specificity of Western anatomy and physiology, and even Western techniques like Trigger point therapy and Orthopedic massage,  to guide his work.

Learning Thai Massage in Thailand

When I think of Bangkok Thailand, where I was about this time last year, I remember beautiful Buddhist temples with ancient statues, like the immense gold-leafed image of the reclining Buddha, or the statues of sages doing yoga postures. I recall monks in light orange robes buying coffee and taking boat rides on the Chao Phraya River that runs through the city.

I also think of the sixty or so mostly Thai people in my Traditional Thai Massage class and the chanting before class in the Thai language to honor and invoke a healing state of mind. All of my minor health ailments disappeared during that week in which I was learning Thai Massage eight hours a day. I was sore from being palpated over and over in the same places by students. We learned to massage acupressure points along Sen Lines all over the body. Sen Lines are similar to acupuncture meridians and are said to be pathways along which the "lom" or life-force travels. When there is pain, the Sen line is said to be obstructed or even "broken." There were two lines on the inner leg and three on the outer. The back had two major lines with additional lines around the scapula. Similarly the arms, the neck, the head, the feet, and the abdomen were all mapped with points and lines to be worked with palm and finger acupressure. The bottoms of the feet were also used to administer the massage, in places such as along the hamstrings on the back of the thighs. My entire body was being used as an instrument to relax and open people up to the life-force of "lom" as I learned to use my elbows, my forearms, and even my knees at one point to relax and release tense muscles and obstructed energy flow. We learned also to stretch people into various postures, providing a kind of assisted yoga, a hallmark feature of Thai Massage.
At the end of a week of being pressed and prodded, stretched and stretched some more, both my body and mind were freed up. As I walked the streets of Bangkok surrounded by a population which almost entirely Buddhist, I had a satori moment. In the midst of all the street vendors, honking rickshaws and taxis, I asked myself about the root causes of my life issues and flashed on the cause of my sufferings: the sense of "I," "Me," and "self." The knots and tensions that I have within myself all hinge on some worry, some memory, or some anxiety all related to my individual story line. "I" haven't achieved this or that, or "I" don't have enough work, or "I" was laughed at by those people.
At a Buddhist monastery named Wat Arun, I visited one of the head monks and described my "aha" moment. He thought I had glimpsed or seen through the dilemma of the self which is the source of our problems in life. He said if I would keep "enquiring" and "questioning" in my meditation that the satori moment could be extended, becoming more and more a stable way of life. He stated that merely breathing, watching the breath, and relaxing in meditation would not be enough. To make progress spiritually, he instructed, I would need to ask "why?" Why am I suffering in this way? What is the real cause?
The force of my health conditions had evaporated while engaged in an intense format of Thai Massage practice and training. This and that ache and pain, this and that symptom evaporated. The force of my personality, with its habitual mental habits, emotions and worries, also lightened up a bit, revealing a bit of that blue sky, or glimpse of the true Self, that is said to exist when the clouds of the ego dissipate. In an ancient Buddhist Kingdom was called Siam, I had learned an ancient form of bodywork, Traditional Thai Massage, and had experienced its effects on the body, mind and spirit.

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Musical Midwifery in Hospice Care

This is an account of one the strongest experiences of my life while serving as a Therapeutic Musician in Hospice Care. Music has probably been used to ease the dyingprocess since time immemorial. I have had the privilege of being present when people die while playing prescriptive music to ease the transition process.
In one instance I entered a room full of people to visit the dying individual. Nurses andfamily members were hovering about the room. I sat the closest to the patient of everyone present so that I could begin my musical ministry. The breath of the client was raspy, fast and labored. Taking out my flute I played a few tones in perfect rhythm with the rhythm of the person's breathing. Then I began to relax and slow my rhythm, hoping the principle of entrainment would come into play. My hopes were realized as the person's breath slowed down with me in tandem. In other words, she appeared to entrain or to follow my rhythm. I intentionally introduced a gradually slower and slower rhythm to calm her. After a time, this person, whom I will name Betsy (not her real name) for the purposes of this writing, became calm. This was evidenced by a complete change in her facial expression and her breathing pattern.
Several more minutes passed as I played what's known in the therapeutic music trade as "non-metered" music. This type of music is thought to be a specific for eleventh hour hospice patients. It is characterized by the lack of a steady beat. As I was playing the familiar tune "Greensleeves" in a non-metered fashion, Betsy took her last breath and departed this world. I have always wanted to paint my impression of those final moments with Betsy, and perhaps someday I will take up a paintbrush and convey what I felt. It seemed to be in an almost palpable way that Betsy's soul or life-force left her body and was greeted by an angelic light or presence. Also it seemed the music was a doorway for Betsy, a way for her to relax and let go and be carried on her way to her next form of life, as energy is never lost but it only changes form in my view, and we are "birthed" into a new life at death in my belief. I marveled at my sense of my role as a kind of musical midwife for the dying, helping them to be reborn in their new form. I was stunned when the process with Betsy repeated itself with another person within a short period of time.
Some of the most extensive use of music in hospice occured in medieval France among the Benedictine monks, who used the non-metered Gregorian Chant to assist the dying in letting go and finding peace in the transition process. This musical form of Energy Medicine is tops on my own list of palliative care when my own time comes. I don't imagine that any of my life experiences will ever surpass this musical midwifery role of mine in terms of the awe, mystery, and meaning.