Introduction 00:00:01 You’re listening to from pain to Possibility with Susi Hately. You will hear Susi’s best ideas on how to reduce or even eradicate your pain, and learn how to listen to your body when it whispers so you don’t have to hear it scream. And now here’s your host, Susi Hately.
Susi 00:00:22 Welcome and welcome back. I’m so glad that you’re here, because today is one of those episodes that is a deeper dive, not just into how pain shows up, but into why it might be showing up and what it might be trying to say, and how your response to it could change everything. You might be someone who’s been managing a persistent symptom for some time; maybe a pain in your back, a tightness in your shoulder, jaw tension that comes and goes, or that grippy feeling in your gut. If that’s the case, this is for you. Because sometimes the thing that grabs your attention isn’t the problem. As my favourite, or one of my favourite lines is: where the pain is, is not the problem but rather it’s a signal.
Susi 00:01:08 It’s an invitation. The spark of your own power asking for a new job. So with this episode, I’m going to break this into five parts. And this first part is naming the symptom. So let’s begin by identifying the symptom that keeps knocking. You know the one. The one that’s been around long enough that it feels almost a part of the background noise. So if you’re willing and if it’s safe, take a moment, maybe close your eyes and ask: what part of my body always lets me know when something’s off? Where do you feel it first? When you’re pushing too hard? When you’re pretending to be okay? When your boundaries have been breached? Is it in your throat? Your chest? Your lower back? Your gut? Where is it for you? This signal, I like to call it your “attention anchor.” It’s the place your body speaks from when your system needs support or redirection. And often it’s been something that has been speaking for years. But maybe, maybe no one has ever taught you how to listen.
Susi 00:02:29 Which leads to this next part called symptom as a strategy. Here’s something radical and tender to consider: Your body’s most persistent symptom may not be a malfunction at all, it may be a strategy. The shoulder pain that flares after a stressful call. The gut tension that rolls in when you pause. The jaw that tightens before you try and rest. Your body isn’t failing you. It’s trying to help you and your symptom or symptoms is a survival map. And now, with more awareness and support, you get to redraw the route. So let’s pause before reassignment. This is the part that so many people miss. It’s the space between noticing the pattern and then doing something with it, and that doing something with it is often people trying to fix it or get rid of it. But right now, I want you to just be in the space between the pattern and that desire to fix it, or change it, or do something with it. Can you be in the middle? This is that space that is quiet and sometimes uncomfortable and often unfamiliar.
Susi 00:03:58 You recognize the tension, but instead of cracking it, stretching it, overriding it, you stay. You stay and you say, I see you. I know you’ve worked hard and you’ve kept me going. And I’m listening now. Not because you’re trying to manipulate a release or a change, but because you’re giving your system something it hasn’t had in a very long time. Witnessing. This is the part where you’re still carrying the symptom, but you’re no longer carrying it alone. And your system begins to soften, not out of collapse, but because it finally knows “I’m not in the past anymore.” This becomes really interesting in terms of a space and experience, because once you’ve paused, something opens. Now we’re not doing anything yet. We’re simply noticing this “something” that has opened. And that “something,” that energy, it doesn’t just disappear. It wants a new job. And this is the part where old tension and old beliefs come, perhaps, roaring back. If you don’t give the energy a new direction.
Susi 00:06:00 So ask: alright body, symptom, energy. What was this energy built for, really? And be serious but light with that question. So perhaps it’s gut tension or the shoulder pain. The jaw tightness. It could even be the psoriasis flare. The key here is none of these symptoms are flaws. They’re signals, invitations. They’re states of energy that you now can work with and play with in an entirely new way. You can say something like: you’ve served me. You’ve protected me. Now I am ready to let you guide me, not guard me. I’m ready. You see, this is a reassignment, not a rejection. And it’s where your power returns. It’s shifting protection energy into something different. So let’s take this into the next step and consider this idea of precision that really lands. And when I talk about precision, I don’t mean more cues or more force or more alignment talk or other things that might get rid of a symptom. I’m talking about clarity, the kind that really lands because there’s space to receive it, because it’s not pushing or proving.
Susi 00:08:02 It’s just a truth. When you see compensation and adjust with a slight nuance, pain decreases. Not because you did more, but because you did what mattered.
