The cure for the pain, is in the pain. Rumi wrote. It’s a simple and elegant phrase.

In my practice as a Grinberg practitioner I’ve discovered it’s not merely simple and elegant but also true and paradoxical. It’s true because without being with the pain, the pain cannot dissolve. And it’s paradoxical because you wouldn’t expect that staying with something you feel you have to get away from can actually transform by staying into something new. 

To clarify: this is not about life treathening pain, pain that comes trough disease or because of breaking a bone. It’s about the pain that we are normally unaware of. Pain that comes into being trough neglect or patterns in our behavior. 

We all have places in our body that hurt when you touch them. It can be the most surprising spots that we would never think of as painful. We got used to them to such an extent that we started suppressing the sensations that come from there. They have become part of who we are. 

But if we submit to this state of things we forget something important: we are the only ones that can influence these sensations. We create them and so we can undo them. 

Undoing them usually starts with realizing exactly how we create our pains. This can be much more specific than pulling up your shoulders when you are behind your computer. Maybe you subtely tense your belly when expecting bad news, or maybe you tense your throat when you want to say something important but then don’t. These little things have more meaning than apparent. They become part of who we are and influence the way we feel. 

In a Bodylearning session becoming aware of these patterns is key. Only when we become aware of them, we can start working with them. Our goal is not only to get rid of physical pain, but also to become free of the patterns in ourselves. To become free of ourselves, in a way. 

Part of a session can be that we look for pain in the body, because if we can release pain, energy starts flowing. Which, I think, is not unlike what Rumi meant when he wrote about the cure for pain.