I had a breakthrough last week in a chronic pain pattern. Woohoo! I discovered tension in an adjacent area that was torquing my pelvis and causing discomfort in my lower back, hip, and leg. This awareness is huge as it points my efforts towards the cause of the imbalance rather than chasing the symptoms.

Chasing symptoms never provides lasting results because the source of the problem remains unresolved. A particular symptom might diminish, only to have another appear in its place.

Nearly all of the problems that people bring to my office are symptoms. Despite near- heroic efforts, clients have not been able to resolve issues because they were looking at the superficial problem and not what was underneath.

I don’t say this with any judgment or blame. We don’t know what we don’t know, and we can only do the best with the information that we have at the time. I’m offering some new information that will hopefully be helpful moving forward.

I have long hair. It often gets caught in my coat zipper in the winter. It’s obvious that the problem is coming from the zipper, but I feel it in my scalp. There’s no amount of intervention at the level of my scalp that is going to yield relief.

The same is often true for that crick in the neck, the burning in the shoulder blade, the ache in the elbow.

My massage teacher used an analogy of a schoolyard. He said that the complaining muscle was like the nerd, but if you looked closely, you could find the bully lurking nearby. The bully is the source of the pain, the nerd is the one that suffers. (I pretty nerdy myself, so please don’t let this word cause offense. It’s just an illustration.)

OK, so now what?

It’s possible to work with a pain pattern on your own if you have the capacity to bring compassionate awareness to what you’re feeling and remain present through the discomfort.

Sadly, few of us have any training in how to do that. These are skills that can be learned and I’d fully encourage you to begin today. Can you be with yourself for two full minutes, or 15 deep breaths, with 100% of your attention turned inward? Start there and build up your tolerance over time.

See if you can separate out the emotions that may be stored in this area clamoring for your care. Or the stories about previous experiences and concerns about the future. If you have been raised in the western world, you mostly likely have been conditioned by society, Saturday morning cartoons, magazine ads, pop culture, and Instagram to have certain beliefs about your body and how it is “supposed” to look and function.

Then there’s the way you use your body, such as repetitive movement patterns, your posture, and the way your body has adapted to your environment. Perhaps the most disruptive, hidden influence is how the nervous system responds to anything unfamiliar as if it were a threat and causes muscles to tense. When this happens over and over again, the muscles sometimes get locked in their contracted positions, perpetually ready for a threat that never comes.

We could also look at causes for systemic inflammation such as allergens in our foods, toxins we’re exposed to daily, latent viruses, chronic stress, inadequate sleep, and mold spores in the walls.

Let’s not forget about the energy body. When life-force is depleted, our systems don’t have the juice they need to function optimally. When energy flow is blocked, chakras are underutilized. When the flow is clogged, often the backlog feels painful and we unknowingly look for ways to discharge this pent up energy that can have detrimental effects.

To be thorough, I’ll add that the soul also plays a role. Not that it needs healing, as it’s eternal and whole by nature, but because we can become separate from it through trauma and programming. When we’re aligned with our essence and purpose, the other elements of healing are more easily accessible.

In short, our body, mind, emotions, instincts, and soul are all intricately woven together and need to be addressed fully to heal. If you’ve been working with an issue to no avail, try switching your focus to one of the other realms.

Or try Reiki. It works wonders as it addresses all the parts, striving to bring them all into harmony. You can learn to give yourself daily doses of healing energy or book yourself a session. You don’t even need to leave home.