Excerpt form Brave Healer Productions

“Chapter 8.  The Healing Crisis

I just left my acupuncturist’s office and my shoulder hurts worse.  It is so fired up that I am thinking of calling him on my way home to cancel all our future appointments.  I am angry and sad, and worried.  He didn’t tell me it might get worse, but I have heard that sometimes things get worse before they get better.

I am on the table at my craniosacral therapy practitioner’s office.  She finds an issue in my right knee (not what I am there to address that day) that is causing a lot of pressure and pain.  An old injury there nags, keeps me from peak performance in Tae Kwon Do class and leaves me in a grumpy mood.  But I am there for my hip, and I want her to touch my hip!  She stays with my knee and talks of an even older injury, something I had forgotten.  “If you hadn’t come to get treated, we would have never uncovered this layer.  This was important.”  I believe her, but still want her to touch my hip.  I get off the table and my hip, and my knee feel better.

I am on the table in a John F. Barnes Myofascial Release class, for a three-person treatment.  The nausea starts, just a small amount, and I can handle it.  I can’t scream, I can’t cry, I can only close my eyes, huddle in the corner and hold on for dear life.  I will not throw up.  I will not throw up.  I will not throw up.  They don’t need to know I am sick.  Someone whispers in my ear, “It is okay to be sick.  It is okay to be seen, sick.”  The tears flow, and flow, and flow.  I feel sicker.  I still can’t scream, but a layer peels off.

A healing crisis is when a person feels pain, physical and emotional, and that pain and emotion begin to express themselves in the body, bubbling up to the surface in hopes for release and healing.  I have offered you a few examples of what I felt in those moments I now label as healing crises for me.  Since the healing crisis is so individual, occurring from the unique combination of mind body spirit of the client, nobody’s are alike.  I think though, that you can begin to recognize one, in yourself, or in a client, by their general characteristics, and that it is very helpful to know if that is what is happening in the moment.

I was first introduced to the idea of a healing crisis by my current acupuncturist, and then again in my first John F. Barnes Myofascial Release class.  They explained it to me like this… In the heat of the moment, it may feel like things are painful, very chaotic, like emotions are rampant, and like things really, really suck.  The pain will be worse, but there will be a feeling that it is slightly different.  They taught me that if I could go for that ride, aware inside of it, that it would pass, and I may come out on the other side a bit better.  They asked me to hunker down and feel.  They asked me to face my fear.

The one thing that I can tell you from my experience is that while you are in the middle of a healing crisis you might feel something like panic, something like you might even die, something like the feeling of wanting to get the hell out of there and never go back.  And that is the exact time to stay and feel.  Yeah.  Right.

This terrifies people, myself included.  I don’t want to go to that painful place, again.  Even if it heals me.  I don’t want to feel the feelings or relive the pain.  When I have pain, I want it gone.  Screw “Pain is my teacher.”  I want to feel good.  So I pop an Advil or a Percocet or pour a glass of wine, or exercise so hard I can’t feel my body anymore, or ask my doctor for an injection, or work another 12 hour day.  I will do anything not to feel that pain.  It works for a while, a week or some months, until something bubbles up from the deep, and sits beneath the surface of my chest, suffocating me.  It cries in there, barely audible.  “Feel me!”  I can’t escape it.

And then you go to your massage therapist to get the kink worked out, but it hurts worse, and you are mad.  You wanted the massage to take away the pain, but it amplifies it.  You are forced to feel, and you want your money back.  Healing crisis.

All I want you to do with this information is be curious.  The next time you hurt, be curious, and open, and willing to feel.  The next time you get a session with a healer, and you feel worse, be open, curious and willing to feel.  Let them guide you.  Ask questions, feel more.  Be brave.  They call it a healing crisis for a reason.  Because moving through the moments of crisis and fear, in all their painful glory, and arriving on the other side of it, is healing.

Being aware of the healing crisis requires you to check in with your intuition.  If you are not used to hearing your own intuitive voice, you will feel confused and challenged with which voice to listen to.  Pain will be a trigger for panic.  We are taught to avoid pain at all costs.  So if we have more pain after a session with a conscious, caring, skilled healer, we immediately quit, even if we know that person did not hurt us.  What if being guided in the process of feeling and healing your pain was a gift?  If you knew that, would you quit?  If you knew about the gifts waiting on the other side, would you attempt to face your fears?

Now let’s look at this in another important way.  The new therapist your doctor sent you to forces a painful stretch while saying, “No pain, no gain,” doesn’t listen to your feedback, and is typing while you are performing your exercises.  Do you show up next week for more, knowing that the therapy is not therapeutic, because your doctor told you to?  I hope not.  Forcing your way through pain will cause more pain.  Listen to your intuition.

The pain of a healing crisis is therapeutic pain. This kind of pain is an old, familiar type that has a different quality, that you can release and let go into, that allows your body to unwind and heal, just by touching it.  It never has to be forced.  Ever.  Sometimes it just has to be woken up and encouraged to surrender.  It never has to be forced.

John F. Barnes describes therapeutic pain resulting from a myofascial release session as follows.  “The fascial (connective tissue) in the body is a piezoelectric tissue, so when the therapist applies gentle sustained pressure into the system through compression, traction or stretch of the fascial system, or by moving a particular body part to take gravity out of the system, it creates a flow of the body’s bioenergy.  This flow triggers the mind/body complex into spontaneous motion.  This therapeutic motion allows the body to assume positions that represent past trauma or injury, which can represent subconscious fear, negative memories and/or pain that has created holding patterns in the body.  These positions in space and re-experiencing the pain and/or memories, which are never injurious, takes the threat out of the system and allows the mind-body complex to let go of these holding or bracing patterns so that healing can commence.  Myofascial release creates a whole body awareness, allowing the health professional to facilitate change, growth and the possibility for total resolution of restrictions, emotions and belief systems that impede progress.”

So you have options when it comes to addressing your pain.  You can avoid, or mask the symptoms and learn to cope with the problem and accept limited results.  You can force your way through the pain with a “No pain, no gain,” attitude and risk injuring yourself further.  Or you can search for a practitioner who will facilitate your healing process and explore the world of therapeutic pain and the healing crisis.  I won’t promise the last option will be easy, but I am telling you it will be worth it.”