Pleasure and Pain

Kathleen Kenneally, LAc, LMP, LMHC
206-551-5558
August 10, 2006

Pleasure and Pain: Acupuncture and the Mind-Body Connection
Pain and pleasure form the fabric of our internal lives. Our experience Being Humans deepens as we become increasingly self-aware and mindful of our bodies. Acupuncture is a great tool for helping release pain and increase pleasure. The acupuncture needles stimulate the release of endorphins and people may experience a feeling of well being during acupuncture sessions coined "acu-bliss." Acupuncture needles help unblock stagnant Qi or vital energy thus putting fixity into flow and reducing pain. In my acupuncture practice at the WAC Wellness Center, acupuncture is combined with techniques to strengthen the mind-body connection. Chronic pain like back or neck pain, insomnia, psychosomatic symptoms, and syndromal patterns like Migraines, IBS and PMS can often be rectified using the approach described below. Most of the techniques described in this article are based on Peter Levine's approach to healing called Somatic Experiencing®.

Pleasure: Building a Library
Pleasure is absolutely essential to our existence. Savoring the easy, enjoyable moments in life definitely adds to one's sense of pleasure. Remember that vacation on the beach...or hiking in the mountains...enjoying your favorite cello sonata...feeling the warmth of sitting by the fire...or the sunshine on your back during a morning jog.

Gene Gendlin, author of "Focusing" coined a term "felt sense:" "A felt sense is not a mental experience but a physical one. Physical. A bodily awareness of a situation or person or event. An internal aura that encompasses everything you feel and know about the given subject at a given time." As you work with pleasure notice the complex, nuanced bodily sensations evoked.

This is really important for several reasons. Firstly, it sets up an ability to recognize "good" things as they happen---to feel intrinsically grounded, centered, and settled. Secondly, each time you feel pleasure, it allows your body to produce more of the endorphins that are responsible for a sense of well-being. Literally, the ability to give your body a bath in pleasurable neurotransmitters is a great stress-buster. Practicing savoring pleasurable moments builds a library that you can draw upon when you need to deliberately put yourself at the top of the "good vibrations" sine wave.

A Secret to Enhance Relaxation
Anytime you bring two or more of your senses to bear on an experience you will deepen into a more relaxed state. Next time you stop and smell the roses, add in a few more senses---feel the softness of the petals or the breeze on your skin, see the sunlight or moonlight reflecting off the rose, hear the stillness around you, maybe even think of someone you love. Use your felt-sense and notice where you locate these sensations in your physical body.

Spend a few minutes each day reviewing what you really enjoyed about the day. Thinking of loved ones, being in nature, small gestures of kindness, there are many to choose from. Call them to mind. Fill in the sensory details.

Pain
We prefer pleasure over pain. Yet we cannot avoid pain. We have choices about how to handle pain. Do we ignore it? Stiffen our upper lip? Do we complain? Do we isolate? Do we surrender to it? Do we bargain? Try to understand it? Manage it? These are all very personal ways of dealing with painful experiences. Ignoring pain, our own and others', is common in our culture. Notice if you have space for being with someone who is in pain or whether you tend to deny, dismiss, or flee from the experience because it is too difficult to bear knowing about the pain.

Pain seems undesirable yet it offers us a doorway into awakening. Many traditions value pain because it prompts us to deepen into spiritual growth. In Western Traditions the Bible offers us the story of Job. Medieval mysticism describes the dark night of the soul. Buddha taught that suffering is part of the human condition and suggested the four-fold path.

As we cycle into painful experiences, we can remind ourselves that pain is part of life. In a manner similar to our experience of pleasure, the more we can be curious about the nuances of pain, to tease apart the threads that bind us, the more deeply we understand a part of our human condition.

While some pain in life is inevitable, some can be resolved with effective medical care. Our tendency is to avoid pain by ignoring it. However, the symptom of pain provides us information; it is a seed that leads to healing. By naming the qualities of our pain---hot, cold, dense, heavy, blocked, achy, tight, numb, disconnected, wobbly, buzzy--we know ourselves more deeply. We may even put a color or texture to the pain. For a certain kind of pain, being present changes it. We reconnect with ourselves in an animal-like way that restores the functioning of our nervous system. Often, when working with awareness of pain, staying on the outside edges of the pain gives the body more opportunity to release blocked energy that may be causing pain.

Even if we do not change the pain, over time, we may discover more information we may bring to allopathic or complementary healthcare providers. The "black box" of pain provides information about its aura, its connectedness with our physical and emotional bodies.

One Approach to Treating Pain
Pain gives us tunnel vision: when we are in pain we often feel that nothing else exists. Ironically, one helpful way to deal with pain is to first come into contact with pleasure. Let's say you have left knee pain. Scan your body with your mind's eye and locate a physical sensation that is pleasurable. Maybe the tip of your nose doesn't hurt or your arms feel really strong. If you need help go to your library of positive experiences and remember, say, walking on the beach. Feel your feet on the sand, see the waves, hear the surf and then check in with your physical body to locate where this relaxed feeling resides in your body, say your chest is warm. Once you have located a positive physical sensation, pendulate back and forth between the pleasant physical sensation (i.e. the tip of your nose, your strong arms or warm chest) and the pain (stay around the outside edges of the pain in your left knee). For many people, this going back and forth between the pleasure and the pain is enough to begin to loosen the grip of pain. If you experience tingling, trembling, twitching or a heat rush your nervous system is renegotiating and your pain will likely be diminished.

Using these techniques gives us more information about our internal worlds and lets us "steer the boat" of ourselves in ways that give us more pleasure and a more meaningful existence. Acupuncture is very effective at generating pleasure through relaxation and in promoting pain relief because the needles open up acupuncture meridians or channels to move stagnant Qi or vital energy. Once the needles are in place, the client is free to track bodily sensations and further release blocked energy that is causing pain.

Kathleen Kenneally, MS, MTCM, RC, LAc is a Licensed Acupuncturist and is a Diplomate in Chinese Herbs. She is a Registered Somatic Experiencing® Practitioner and a Certified Quantum Touch® Practitioner. Kathleen practices at the WAC Wellness Center. She has a private practice at Greenlake (Acudragon.com or 206-551-5558).