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 00:00:23 Welcome and welcome back. I’m really glad that you’re here today, because we’re talking about what happens when the body speaks. Because sometimes it can speak loudly, sometimes it can be subtly, and always with some form of truth. Sometimes the speaking can come through very, very, very much as a scream, like a flare or a spike in symptoms. A big deep wave of fatigue, an increase of pain. It can also show up more quietly. These signals of “no” like tightness, hesitation, holding a whisper of resistance or overwhelm. And from this whispery, subtler space, the “no” can get bigger. It can build. It can become a stronger refusal. A moment when it says, I can’t go further like this. And in those moments, there can be a tendency for us to turn against the body.
Susi 00:01:21 I see this all the time. Not only do they turn against their body, they might even turn against themselves. To assume that something went wrong. To ask: what did I do? Where did I go off track? And while those questions can lead to shame or frustration, they also carry insight. Because that analysis, that desire to understand, isn’t the problem. It’s actually part of the healing. It’s how we learn to listen more closely, to respond with more clarity, to adjust course with more care. So with this episode, I want to explore this space. This “before” realm, those quiet cues, the early sensations, the subtle thresholds, and also the “after;” how you respond when the body has said enough. And maybe most importantly, how we begin to build the ability to listen and respond before our systems need to get loud. This is such a fundamental piece of how I work with my clientele. It is such a fundamental piece to why it is that I have the results that I do with my clients. By helping them navigate the aftermath, because that is when most people come to see me: when the body is said enough and they are out of answers for what to do, how to navigate through that, explore that, to get back to the quieter, subtler, earlier sensations.
Susi 00:02:47 And then what to do with those, how to work with those to truly gain restoration, recovery and healing. So let’s dig in. The first part of this episode, I want to call this cycle of endurance. So let’s begin with the pattern itself. It’s a cycle I see again and again in people living with pain, fatigue, tension, or other unresolved symptoms. And oftentimes these have started quietly: a bit of discomfort, a nagging ache, a sense that something feels a little off. But it’s manageable. You tell yourself it’s fine. You keep going. You stretch, you push through, you modify. You can do the movement after all, right? You become really good at adapting, at adjusting how you move. You become even better at ignoring what’s inconvenient, overriding the whisper from your body. Not because you don’t care, because it doesn’t feel like a big enough deal. This becomes the default. Micro adaptations layered on top of each other, compensations on top of compensations. Until one day, something changes.
Susi 00:04:06 The discomfort spikes. The fatigue deepens. The flare emerges. And what was once tolerable becomes demanding. Now it’s easy to think, then, that there’s something going on, like your body turning against you. But it’s actually not. It’s not punishment. It’s not sabotage. It’s your system saying, hey, that creativity that you have, that compensation pattern that you’ve been using, all of what you’ve been ignoring, adjusting and adapting. As great as those creative characteristics are, you have gone past capacity and I need to protect you. Now, I hope that the way that I’ve just shared that provides you already another view. Because so often it’s this moment, when what was once tolerable that becomes demanding, it’s in that place where so many think that their body is turning against them. It’s the moment that so many are taught to fear. But what if it’s not failure? What if this is wisdom? So let’s look at this moment. So what is this moment really? Oftentimes we define it as a worsening of symptoms; an uptick of pain, fatigue, fog, immobility.
Susi 00:05:32 But what if we look at it from a different lens. Perhaps one of protective reorganization. A pulling back, a retraction, a pause. The body stepping in with sensation because the cues we’ve been giving it of just keeping going, of dealing with it later, of adaptability while they have worked in the moment, they’re not working now. It’s kind of like you’re running out of creative fuel. And while it’s easy to think there’s punishment here, it’s not. It’s not punishing. It’s protecting from further override. And what’s tricky here is that this moment can often feel like a collapse of the system, of falling apart. But it’s not, perhaps. It’s more of a statement of boundary, not the one or the kind that you set with words, but rather the kind the body creates when the mind hasn’t caught up. When our ambition has been overriding patience. And the reactions to this uptick of symptomology that frustration, the confusion, the fear are really, really real. We want to go back to how it felt before, but this uptick of symptoms is actually telling you something very, very important.
Susi 00:06:50 Before was not sustainable. And now this is your moment of potential. Not because you’ll fix it because the fix is actually not what we’re about to do but rather now there’s this opportunity to listen. Now, after this uptick of symptoms, it’s really, really, really tempting to then analyze: what triggered this? What did I do wrong? How do I get rid of this fast? And while those questions can often lead to self-criticism, they can also offer valuable insight. The goal isn’t to silence this analysis, but to pay attention to it, to notice what we’re saying and allow it to be present. Because, of course, we would love to acknowledge what triggered this. We’d love to acknowledge: what did I do wrong? We’d love to have the solution to get rid of this fast. So let’s hold that as real and then perhaps ask the question, why is it not surprising that this is present And just pause. Why is it not surprising that these symptoms are present? And notice what starts to bubble up.
Susi 00:08:21 Maybe some extra questions are: What was I overriding? What did I push past? What have I been enduring, that I have stopped acknowledging, that I can acknowledge now? You see how those questions are about becoming a better listener with yourself? Noticing, if you’re willing, how many times you minimize the previous signals. How many times you stretched your system past its threshold. This uptick of symptoms I’m referring to is rarely the first cue, but rather it’s a culmination of many quieter ones, those quieter ones that we just blew by for all sorts of very, very, very good reasons. But now that the proverbial engine light has been on, our next step is not to smash it with a hammer or to unplug whatever the plugin is to that yellow light, but rather to pay attention. And when we can begin to notice those earlier signals before the protective threshold is reached, we can change the relationship. And when we change the relationship, we change that communication mechanism. Now we can understand what those signals are.
Susi 00:09:53 The flares come, the symptom uptick comes a whole less often. I remember a story from a client that I worked with for a long period of time. When I was telling him about the process of listening, he looked at me and nodded his head but didn’t agree. His words were, to me, that why would I pay attention to when I’m perceiving the weaknesses, when my whole M.O. through my career has been to go past those weaknesses? Would I have ever had the success that I have had if I listened to the body? If I listen to my body, I won’t ever get what I want. Such a common refrain. What ended up happening is the flares continued, the sickness continued. To one point he said, hm maybe Susi’s got something here. And he started to listen. And boy oh boy, it was difficult at first for him. But what he started to realize is those signals were not trying to stop him. They were trying to inform him. Again, it’s not so binary. As we begin to listen more clearly as he did, he was able to then start to recognize, oh, this one’s telling me to rest.
Susi 00:11:22 This one’s telling me that I can go a little bit longer, but to take care of myself later. This one’s saying: you got full steam ahead, go pedal to the metal. Right? It’s not binary. This is a spectrum of colour that we can really, really, really explore. It’s important to remember that your body doesn’t judge your choices. Nowhere in your system is judging your choices. It is tracking input all the time and when the load gets too high, even if it’s subtle, even if it’s slow, it creates output designed to slow you down if needed. And that output might be pain, it might be sickness, it might be fatigue. It might be breath holding, mental fog, a disinterest in movement, or just a flatness that says ugh no more. Again, this isn’t weakness; it’s intelligence. It’s our body saying, let’s pause. Let’s not keep layering override on top of override. And believe it or not, our job isn’t to argue with it. Although arguing might be one of the first things that arise.
Susi 00:12:31 I totally get it. I want to offer that maybe there is another job and that is to meet it, not with panic, although that might arise; not with pressure, although that too might arise; but with presence. So before I get into shifting this pattern, I want to just cover something I just said where I said our job isn’t to argue with that, although that might happen. Our job isn’t to meet it with panic or with pressure, although that might happen. The reality here is, is that any number of responses, whether it’s in our actions or our emotions, might arise. And none of those are wrong, they are our responses. And for us to meet those with as much love and compassion as I’m offering to you here on this episode. Our presence to meet the symptoms is also our presence to meet the panic or the pressure or the argument or whatever other emotions are arising. All of it is intelligence. All of it. All of it. So with that in mind, how do we actually shift the pattern now?
Susi 00:13:41 You might want to begin initially, like you might have that inner desire to like: oh, I just want to stop the symptom uptick. Like, I just… can we just get it gone? And in one level of reality, that’s actually not the initial step, really. Although when I’m working with clients, that will be my initial step. Okay. So both realities again are valid because I do want someone to feel better. Right? It’s very difficult to start to sort things out when we’re in pain, when there’s lots of symptomology. Our reality, though is, is we want to get to the whispers. So in the action of winding down this heightened symptomology or the flare or the uptick of fatigue, in the act of helping to quiet that, I’m also helping my client tune into whispers. I’m helping them tune into compensation patterns. I’m helping them to relax. I’m helping them to feel trust again in their systems. And as they do, those whispers, those subtle cues will start to arise. And we’ll see them more clearly, like the breath that won’t fill out fully, or a subtle dread in your belly before a movement or a task.
Susi 00:14:54 The flash of “I should rest” that you immediately override. Maybe a jaw clench, or a glute grip, or a frozen lower belly. These are often the quieter cues, the ones that don’t demand. And I want you to see them perhaps as invitations. Invitations to explore. There might be a tendency to then say, well, what do I do with those? And that’s actually a question that’s not mine to answer. They’re yours to answer. And this is when the healing and recovery process becomes very, very personal. But when we do respond to them even a little with the intent of a deep caring, then our system takes that in and it updates. Much like when I say to someone, could you move in a range that doesn’t increase pain? Can you feel that place when you move and only moving as far as the pain doesn’t increase? Well, if you’ve been so used to moving with heightened pain or pain increasing, now there’s a new stimulus, a new input coming into the system. And guess what? That system then responds in kind.
Susi 00:16:17 It starts to move in a range and starts to give you back less pain. Then you can move in a range that’s even less. And what often arises in those moments of moving with less pain is another state. And I’ve talked about this on other episodes, where someone when I’ve asked them to move and with less pain and they feel better I’ll often ask them: all right, so what do you now feel, now that you’ve moved with less pain? And they say, I feel stronger, I feel more at ease or I feel peace or I feel quiet. And then I’ll say, okay, now move in that quiet range or that peace range or that strong range. And then they do that and guess what? Now they’re moving in that whatever-named range, the nervous system, the whole system takes that in again, it updates, it gives it back in kind. So now we continue to have this relationship of what it is to move in a state of being that’s not painful. Safety grows because trust has grown because listening happened.
Susi 00:17:23 We and our bodies created, co-created, through this moment-to-moment awareness. So here’s what I’d like to leave you with: if you’re in that cycle of endurance-heightened symptomologyrecovery and then it circles back again and again and again, it doesn’t mean that you’re failing or that your body is doing something against you. It means that your system is doing its very best to protect you with the only tools it has available. And now you’re beginning to offer it something new: awareness, responsiveness, choice. You don’t have to be perfect. You don’t have to catch every signal, but every time you respond to a small sensation before it becomes a protective withdrawal, you’re creating a new pattern; not of control, but of care, of connecting with your body as a friend. Thanks for being here with me. Until next time, stay close to the quieter messages that your body sends and trust the presence that is the seed of possibility. See you next time.
Susi 00:18:50 If this episode has really resonated with you, I have a couple of options for you: The first is that you can work closely with me in private 1-to-1 sessions, and learn all about those over at susihately.com. If you’re a professional and you want to dig into these ideas and help your own clients reduce and eradicate physical pain, then come check out functionalsynergy.com/intensive. I’d love to work with you.
