A long time friend of mine, Danielle Jordan ventured into my Feldenkrais series and we both learned a lot about how to utilize the class environment of Feldenkrais Awareness Through Movement® as a person with chronic pain.

I think others with chronic pain will benefit a lot from hearing about Danielle’s experience:

Introduction to Danielle & Beginning Feldenkrais with Chronic Pain:

MH: Can you tell us about you?

DJ: I’m Danielle, a lot of my life is oriented towards healing and growth, both healing myself and then serving others and their healing as well.

MH: What drew you to Feldenkrais?

DJ: Having a friend who facilitates it :) and having chronic pain. I've done chiropractic, network chiropractic, regular acupuncture, physical therapy, so many things, and therapy.

But the healer I work with Deb said, “I have a feeling your pain is coming from you not being dropped into your body.” So that’s what started this process of really wanting to get more in my body.

DJ: The initial draw was the pain and then also wanting to get grounded.

I think the interesting thing with pain is that impulse when the pain comes up to pull away. It's such a fast unconscious thing. So, learning to feel it and respond differently, that's been the key for me.

MH: Right. It's a habit you've developed over a long time.

DJ: 10 years now.

MH: Of course, pulling out of your body makes so much sense when it’s painful.

I wanted to interview you because I got to witness you go on a journey in your process of coming to Feldenkrais classes.

I learned a lot about how to work with someone who has chronic pain. And to me that's super valuable because Feldenkrais as a method says, “we work with people with chronic pain,” but there's so much more to know about people's experience with chronic pain (than I learned in my training.)

I want to celebrate the learning that I experienced. And also, it wasn't mine. I want to highlight you, you actually had a lot of these discoveries during the class, on your own.

MH: I'm curious if you would share how it was for you at first as you were trying to sense and drop in to your body and how it evolved?

The Challenge of Being in the Body with Pain:

DJ: I’m gonna go back to the beginning. My first few classes with you were really freaking hard. I learned that there's a very good reason why I checked out of my body.

When I slowed down the pain revealed so much to me. There was so much fear. The main thing was a feeling of being unsafe. I’m not okay. I just had to sit beside it. And it was hard. And I remember at the end of class people would share like, “I feel so peaceful and so relaxed” and and I was like, “I'm in fear” or “I'm in anxiety” or “I'm in anger. Or grief” So many feelings came up that were locked into the pain.

The Response to Pain Matters, Cultivating Softness:

DJ: the big thing for me is how do I respond to the feelings? What's my attitude towards the pain towards the anxiety towards the fear? And (throughout the class) it was just like this developing of softness.

Even this morning, I felt the same pattern that came up in your class. I'd sit and I'd feel pain or I'd feel the anxiety and instantly I hear “no, no, no, no, no, no, no.”

(So I learned to say,) “oh, okay, look at that. And then, get curious, what else is there? What other response?”

I'd sit with that “No, no, no” and then and then there was something softer. “Oh, I can hold you” a loving presence. I could say, “you're scared, you seem scared and I'm with you. I'm here. I'm here. I'm with you.”

I was able to develop a different response over time.

I'm still developing, I'd say it's still very much a process. But I think that's the key.

Even in PT, a lot of it's pulling you into certain body postures and I think contribute to my pain. They tell me to pull your shoulders back and belly in and all these things, but it creates almost like a hyper vigilance in me. It feels tight.

To me, it's not about making a physical change. It's more about my internal response.

How can I soften instead of pull and push back?

MH: What happens when you change your response? Do you feel something different?

DJ: I wouldn't say the pain goes away. Like if I'm at a 7 (on a pain scale from 1-10). I remember sometimes in your class, like I'd start at a 7 and go down to maybe a 3 or 4. So it's not gone, but it's different.

MH: Do you want to say more about what's different about it?

DJ: It makes me think of, “what we resist persists.” It's almost like the more I fight it (the pain), the stronger it gets. And that's hard. It is so hard to stay soft. Because everything inside says, “back out, get out. Don't feel this”

It's like I have to re-program myself. It requires a lot of attention.

Being in and out of the body:

DJ: My pain is in my lower body. When I sense into myself in your class, my attention is belly button up. That's what I'm inhabiting. And it feels so much better when I feel my whole self, it helps me to feel grounded.

As someone who has both anxiety and pain, there's a way that sometimes I'm not here. Like I'm just somewhere else. And for me, getting grounded. It's like a statement to myself, like “I'm here. Danielle, you're here right now”

Safety, Comfort & Letting go of Doing the Movements:

DJ: One of my patterns that I've discovered, is a feeling of not feeling safe. And that's part of why I leave my body or I don't know if I leave my body but my attention is kind of elsewhere. And I’m reprogramming myself with comfort.

All those messages from PT, are being hard with myself, like “Tighten your belly or pull your shoulders back”. The hardness isn't going to help for me, because my pain is coming from a feeling of being unsafe.

For me what creates safety is comfort. Nurturing, softness, like sweetness, talking to myself like a friend.

“Hey, I'm here. I'm with you. I know. Sorry. I'm here.”

MH: I remember you saying at the end of the series, something like, you were letting go of the movements of the class and just using the time as a practice of being kind to yourself.

DJ: yes!

Letting go of “Doing,” & Using Imagination

MH: I often say in Feldenkrais class, “you really don't have to do these movements. You can do them in your imagination. You can just use this time to be connecting with yourself.” I think people don't always believe me.

It was really gratifying to watch you be like, “Okay, I'm really going to let go of needing to do these movements or needing to do them in a certain way I'm really going to focus on my inner attitude.”

DJ: Another aspect that was useful was when you would invite us to do movements in the imagination, I discovered I was limited based on my pain. That was a huge “aha” like, “wow, my mind can't even conceive of moving my knee without my back pinching.”

I understood that my brain keeps perpetuating the pain. So I played with that, let me lie here and not do the movement. But can I imagine it without pain?

Chronic Pain, Anxiety & the Doorway of Fear:

DJ: It seems that chronic pain and anxiety or fear go together

Whether it's meditation or Feldenkrais, or just something that drops me down into the present, it can be so helpful. But in the process of it, I have to walk through the doorway of fear. I feel tight, I feel angry or I feel grief, all of that I have to walk through in order to be present. I've done enough healing in my life to know, the way is through. But it's definitely uncomfortable at times. But I see the healing benefit for me.

MH: I have a lot of respect for how you walk yourself through that process. And trust that process even though such intensity and such fear comes up.

I thought it was so helpful to have your experience in class and I think it even gave permission to other people to reveal their challenging experiences.

I remember someone else coming in and being like, “today I have a headache and I had to really learn to do less and I usually can do everything but not today.”

I just imagine that you're role modeling this way of taking care of yourself and being here even when it's difficult.

DJ: My first time doing your class, I thought, I don't know if I can do this. I don't know if this is for me. But it's only because I had to face all these layers in myself. But then I made the choice. I'm gonna do it. I'm gonna face it and be brave.

MH: Thank you so much for honest sharing and wisdom Danielle!

Experiencing Feldenkrais with chronic pain: an interview with Danielle Jordan