Let me explain:
About two decades ago I found myself frequently bending over and picking up wobbly and rapidly growing 20 to 50 pound objects. Twisting, turning, carrying the parcel for hours at a time on my hip or in some kind of rucksack; or in a bike pannier type conveyance or trailer for many miles. It seemed my strong young back was inure to any amount of cavalier hoisting such bundles - bending at the hip solely with the back, twisting while reaching to the side, lifting off of high shelves one-handed, you name it - and even on occasion I might accidentally bend 'properly' at the knees. All was going quite well.
Until - you prolly saw this coming - one day an excruciating lower back cried out, UNCLE! Or more precisely, DAD! (Actually, it was more like @#$%&!!!) Days of careful walking followed, and much more careful picking up of big baby(ies) and/or toddler(s). Learning about back exercises, proper movement, heating pads, cold packs, ointments, chiropractor offices, special pillows and chairs, etc. The whole nine yards. (Yard number ten being back surgery, but I didn't even consider that, thankfully.)
Then one night while having a stressful dream the torturous pain hit me harder than ever and I was forced awake to find the pain follow me into consciousness. I immediately limped my way downstairs to recline on the living room futon couch with alternating ice and heat, and visions of a crippled life which would surely be mine if this continued. But the vaguest seed of doubt had been planted - how could my back be taken to such a throbbing agony by just lying in a comfy bed? Particularly as I was lying 'properly' on my side? Might something other than muscles and tendons, that is, other than just the physical, be involved in this conspiracy?
Soon after this pain infected nightmare, my mom sent me a book. Having heard about my vertebral issues, and having read the small paperback she received in some kind of monthly book subscription, she'd read it (having a history of back issues herself), and thought I might appreciate a look. Its rather ill-advised title was Mind Over Back Pain, by Dr. John Sarno. (Right, I thought, as if a person could simply think his way out of such a horrible affliction - or worse, that it might somehow by my fault. . . .)
Ready for just about anything, though, I quickly got over the judgmental title, and would read it while lying in a hot bath, or later in bed on ice packs. A professor of rehabilitative medicine at New York University and an MD who also headed a back clinic, this fellow seemed to have plenty of bona fides and experience. Perhaps not likely to be some quack anyway. As I read the book, it seemed my experience was described spot on, even the transitory nature of the excruciating pain which would rise independent of - but often correlated with - movement, or physical position, or other physical stresses. However, the anticipation of the pain - the fear of it - was highly correlated with the pain to follow, arising even as the fear arose. Which was a key to understanding.
He noted that in his clinic he would encounter patients with crippling back pain whose CT scans or MRI's looked very healthy. On the other hand, there were some patients whose discs and other tissues clearly appeared quite damaged and mangled in their scans but who experienced no pain whatsoever, perhaps only difficulty with range of motion, say, or something unrelated entirely to the back. These experiences and more led him to the theory that something other than just the physical was at work with respect to pain, and that very something was emotional tension and stress.
A typical patient was 30 to 50 years old, generally in very good physical condition - even sometimes bordering on obsessively so, running five times a week for instance. The condition needed a scientific sounding name, so he called it tension myositis syndrome, or TMS. What he fortunately did not call it, at least not at the clinic, was psychosomatic. However the book did tease apart this Greek derived word (coming from psyche, 'mind', 'breath,' or 'spirit,' and soma, 'body'). We have somehow developed an aversion to this word, erroneously thinking it basically means that some malady or other is just imaginary, or 'all in our head.' Actually what the word is meant to describe is the simple fact that the mind and body are interwoven and influence each other enormously. Such a concept of the 'mind-body continuum' now has a much wider acceptance. In any event, he came out some years later with a much better title for a similar book: Healing Back Pain. If you or a loved one suffer from such pain, I highly recommend it.
In terms of back pain, what the tension we suffer from 'learns' to do, is create a tightening of the muscles and tendons at a very focused level that ends up cutting off oxygen supply to the area - similar to a cramp, just much more focused - which results in intense physical pain. Yes, it is real pain, no doubt about it. You couldn't make this stuff up if you tried. But at its source is the mind, not improper movement or poor conditioning (these might be there, and probably need some attention, but they are rarely the cause of the pain). And with practiced attention the pain can come to be viewed as a reminder to slow down, open up, breathe, be mindful, and eventually, as I point out in the lead paragraph of this post, after having resolved and dissipated for years or more, it will occasionally come back for a brief visit. Sometimes it will return 'masquerading' as pains in other areas of the body, and once it is revealed to be the psyche at work, it again will gradually lose its hold.
Why the desire to have it stick around? The thing is, it is a very powerful and immediate reminder of what fruits can be savored by opening up to the truth of a moment. It's just more straightforward - once its bluff has been called - than the usual and frequent mental stresses and tensions we often carry moment by moment. Can we eventually see these also as helpful reminders to open up, slow down, and if not 'let them go,' at least let them be? And other challenges we may face, like MS?
Or, as a great poet once put it:
THE GUEST HOUSE
This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.
A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.
Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they are a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,
still, treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out
for some new delight.
The dark thought, the shame, the malice.
meet them at the door laughing and invite them in.
Be grateful for whatever comes.
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.
-- Jelaluddin Rumi,
