Why does "it's in your head" feel like an insult?
When someone says your pain might be connected to stress or emotions, it can sound like they're saying you made it up, or that you're weak. Many of the people I work with have already been dismissed by doctors, especially women, people of color and queer and trans folks, whose pain has been doubted for generations.
That is not what I'm saying. Your pain is real. I know that.
Real pain without damage
Think about blushing when you're embarrassed, or your stomach dropping before a hard conversation. These are physical events in the body, and they start with an emotion. Nobody calls them imaginary.
Chronic pain can work in a similar way. The nervous system senses danger and sounds an alarm in the body. The alarm is real. You feel it in your back or your gut, and no amount of telling yourself to relax makes it stop.
In a way, all pain is "in your head," because all pain is created by the brain, even the pain of a broken bone. That doesn't make any of it less real.
Can the nervous system unlearn pain?
Yes, and this is why I find this work so hopeful. If your pain came only from damage that couldn't be repaired, there wouldn't be much you could do. But a nervous system that has learned to stay on alert can learn something else. Through breath, through somatic awareness and through slowly coming to feel safe in your body again, the alarm can quiet down.
Your body isn't broken. It's paying attention.
With love,
Leyla
