I’ve been fascinated by pain for a very long time.
So much so, I built a career around it.
When I became a chiropractor, I thought my job was relatively simple: find where it hurts, figure out what’s wrong, fix it, and make the pain go away.
And of course, there are still times when identifying an injury, treating irritated tissues, restoring movement, building strength or getting someone the appropriate medical care is exactly what needs to happen.
But after years of working with people in pain — and plenty of my own personal experience with it — my relationship with pain has changed.
I’m much less interested in fighting pain.
And much more interested in listening to it.
Pain is real. But it isn’t always a direct measurement of damage.
This is one of the most important things I wish more people understood.
Pain is an experience created by the nervous system. It takes in information from our tissues and combines it with many other pieces of information — including our environment, previous experiences, stress, movement, expectations and perceived safety.
And then sometimes it says:
Hey. Pay attention here.
That doesn’t mean pain is imaginary.
It doesn’t mean you should ignore it.
And it certainly doesn’t mean every pain has some hidden emotional meaning that you need to uncover.
Sometimes something hurts because something is injured.
Sometimes pain needs investigation.
Sometimes it requires imaging, medical assessment, treatment, rehabilitation or simply time.
But sometimes the intensity or persistence of pain tells a more complicated story.
And that’s where curiosity can become incredibly powerful.
What if we got curious?
What if our first response to pain wasn’t always:
What’s wrong with me?
What if, once we’ve ruled out the things that require medical attention, we also started asking:
What is my body asking for?
Does it need movement?
Rest?
Strength?
Support?
A change in load?
Breath?
Recovery?
Safety?
Attention?
Because when pain scares us, something very human can happen.
We brace.
We guard.
We stop moving.
We become hyperaware of every sensation.
Sometimes we begin to distrust the very body we’re living in.
And our nervous system can become very good at protecting us.
Sometimes too good.
I don’t want you at war with your body.
That may be the biggest evolution in the way I practise.
I don’t want my patients leaving my office believing their bodies are fragile.
I don’t want every uncomfortable sensation to become evidence that something is broken.
And I don’t want people feeling as though they need someone else to continually “fix” their body in order for it to function.
I want people to understand themselves better.
I want them to move.
To build capacity.
To breathe.
To recover.
To notice.
To trust themselves again.
And yes — sometimes treatment is about changing what hurts.
But sometimes healing also involves changing our relationship with what hurts.
And fear is allowed here, too.
None of this means you need to become fearless about pain.
Pain can be scary.
Especially when it’s intense, unfamiliar, persistent or you’ve lived with it for a long time.
It’s okay to feel the fear.
We’re just not going to let fear lead.
We can let fear sit beside curiosity.
We can investigate what needs investigating.
We can take pain seriously without automatically assuming the worst.
We can listen without immediately going to war.
And perhaps that’s the invitation.
Not to celebrate pain.
Not to romanticize it.
Not to pretend it doesn’t hurt.
But to begin listening differently.
Because your pain is real.
Your experience deserves to be taken seriously.
And your body is not something you need to spend your life fighting.
Your body is worth listening to.
You are worth listening to.
Ready to explore a different relationship with your body?
If this perspective resonates with you, there are a couple of ways we can work together.
