It’s been a few years since I’ve been writing about and working with pain. And it’s been a few years since I’ve been living without my own chronic pain.
I experienced chronic pain from the age of 14 until my late 20s.

Pain has an interesting effect on us. For some, the body contracts. Others may alter their breathing. And somehow, even if the pain is "just" in the shoulder, the whole body reacts and compensates.
While my focus here is on physical pain, I believe—and have experienced—that physical and emotional pain are often deeply connected. We can all agree that emotions like grief, deep sadness, or fear can hurt so intensely that they feel physical.
In the last few years, I’ve learned that how we relate to our bodies mirrors how we move through life.
Most of us have been taught concepts like “pain management.” This is our cultural approach to pain. We learn to avoid, numb, or push it away. What we are rarely taught is how to move *with* pain—how to work through it.
I grew up in a family where painkillers were not the norm. I developed a high pain threshold, something I was oddly proud of. I was active—gymnastics and horseback riding from a young age—and I would cartwheel or stand on my hands whenever I could. Ignoring pain was my go-to approach, for as long as possible.
"Almost all of us have the wrong attitude about pain. Because it's so uncomfortable, we just want to make it go away with a quick fix. But really, it's a sign, a well-intended signal from the body that something is wrong. Pain is hard-wired into our nervous system for a very basic and important purpose: to keep us healthy." —Satyarthi Peloquin
My personal turning point with chronic pain happened in 2013, triggered by a series of events. It began when my pain became impossible to ignore—it disrupted my practice and work. I searched endlessly for solutions, something or someone to “fix” me. I was stubborn, determined to keep practicing, to keep standing on my hands. Then, a teacher came into my life who saw my struggle. In one moment, something shifted within me:
"My body doesn’t need to be fixed. It needs to relearn something."
With the help of two body-oriented therapy teachers, I began to relearn. I learned to listen, to slow down, to notice my whole body—not just my shoulder. I learned to sense when I contracted and how my breath responded. I remember standing in my kitchen, cutting salad, and noticing how tightly I gripped the knife, tension running through my entire arm.
In acrobatics, when you perform challenging exercises, it's common to hold your breath and tense your body without even realizing it.
For many of us, pain doesn't result from a single accident or fall. Most chronic pain starts from seemingly "nothing." Many people can’t recall a specific event that triggered their pain. Instead, it's often caused by the hundreds of small, repetitive movements and positions we engage in daily. Over time, these "little" movements can accumulate into chronic pain, often rooted in our body’s structure.
I used to think that if I could stand on my hands, I couldn't be the cause of my own pain. But I came to realize that the way I moved—or didn’t move—the way I held myself, sat at my computer, or even drove, all contributed to it.
The most profound lesson I learned was how to move differently and create more space for the emotions that arose as I slowed down and became more attuned to my body.
"Our tendency is to contract and resist emotions." —Raja Selvam, PhD
In the Bodynamic system, our body structures are shaped by patterns of hyper- and hypo-tension, often formed in childhood. We all grow up in families that promote certain emotions and reject others. It’s a universal experience—we all have emotions we favor and others we keep at arm's length. In my family, anger was an emotion we were sent to our rooms to "calm down" from. This was an integral part of my healing process.
When I learned to move with my pain, everything shifted.
I began to embrace and explore new movements. I learned to pause and listen when my shoulder was screaming with pain. I learned to move with my breath, to let it guide and support my movements. There are so many ways we can work with our bodies, but we first need to learn to sense and respond to them. My pain became a messenger, a friend from my body, knocking on my door to call me back.
We all face pain at some point in our lives. Even if it’s not chronic, learning to work with it—learning to move with it—helps us become our own medicine. It teaches us not to let things settle into chronic patterns, but instead, to listen, move, and heal.
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