Dial Down Your Pain – Intro Workshop
Understand why your pain keeps coming back and find out what you can do about it.
Are you frustrated that despite your best efforts, you’re still stuck in a persistent pain cycle, even after trying so many different therapies that promises to cure your pain.
Ironically searching for the cure is one of the things that might be keeping you stuck in a persistent pain cycle.
This half day workshop is aimed to be an introduction to what might be possible. If you can change the impact pain has on your daily life, you’ll gradually be able to get back to living a more active and fulfilling life.
I’ll explain my beliefs about how we get stuck in a persistent pain cycle. You’ll be able to discuss these ideas with myself and others. There’s be the several opportunities to try out a few simple tips and tools that can help you change your experience of pain.
Living in pan can sometimes feel a very lonely place, when we meet other who we can share our experiences with, it can feel like we’re not alone.
Why I’m offering this workshop
I’ve had back issue for more than twenty years.
At times my back was so bad that my legs gave way from under me. The pain and knock on affects worn me down, I was unable to do things I loved.
My world began to shrink, I became less active and found myself withdrawing from social situations. It felt like my pain was all consuming.
My back was on my mind all the time, if I wasn’t in a flare-up, I was wary about what I did, in case it caused a flare-up. It ruled my life.
I was in a constant battle with my body. I was massively frustrated as my body was always letting me down and stopping me from fully enjoying life.
I was in a dark place with pain, so I was prepared to I try anything and everything, but nothing fixed me. Lots of things helped a bit but I was looking for the magic solution.
That was until I learnt about somatic coaching working alongside ACT (acceptance and commitment Therapy). Combining these techniques helped me to stop battling against the pain. They gave me ways to begin befriending my body so I could listen to what my body was trying to tell me. This was the turning point where I stop trying to fix my body and instead learnt ways to live unburdened by the pain.
I found that a combined approach of both movements and changing my thoughts and feelings around pain worked best for me. I started to trust my body again, I had more energy and motivation to investigate what else could help.
I totally geeked out on the latest pain science research, so I could understand what was happening physically in my body. I also got heavily into exploring how our nervous system works and how stress levels have a massive impact on how we managed my pain.
My life started to open up again, after years of paying the price of doing too much ‘fun stuff’ I was able to get back to doing things I love.
In 2018 I completed a marathon walk (26.2 miles, 42 kilometres) for charity.
I can go kayaking around the coast and enjoy a night out dancing without worrying about how I’d feel the next day. This year I’ve even started cycling to work.
I’m sharing some of what I’ve learnt in this workshop.
After over 10 years of working as a yoga therapist, I have supported many people to release tension and improve their movement. I’ve suggested books to read and videos to watch to find out more about pain science, but I’ve realised not everyone can take in some of these big ideas. I’ve learnt that when people get to experience these ideas viscerally, by feeling changes in their body, the information is easier to digest, it becomes absorbed deeply in their body as well as their mind.
I’ve designed this workshop as an introduction of these ideas, where I present them in a way that’s easy to understand. For me understanding the concepts mentally was only half of the story. So I’m offering you a chance to try out some of the techniques, so you get a sense in your body how they may help you.
Four of my Core Beliefs:
I believe:-
- what you resist persists. When you resist pain, it gets a lot worse. But don’t worry I’m not going to ask you to fall in love with your pain but we will explore how it might be to spot being in battle with it.
- that we don’t live in a body with separate broken parts, but that our body (which includes our mind) needs to be cared for as a whole, complex system.
- that it’s not your fault that your pain hasn’t gone away, and your pain definitely isn’t all in your head. Your physical pain is real, but we can learn ways to control how it affects us, which can alter how strong the pain sensations feel.
- that we need to learn ways to befriend both our body and mind, until we do, we will be trapped on a battlefield of a persistent pain cycle.
In this intro workshop I make the case for these four core-believes and provide scientific evidence as to why I believe they are key to managing pain. I also explain and give you a taste of the 4 aspects of the approach I offer to help people to dial down their pain.
Four core aspects to this approach
- Discover more about the current understanding of pain signals in your body.
- Investigate what types of movement will help you release tension and create more ease in your body.
- Accept that you have a condition that causes pain but you have control over how much worry, anguish, and avoidance the pain causes.
- Learn tools to help you to relax, so that stressful situations don’t always lead to pain flare-ups.
This might be a good place to check-in
with how my beliefs and approach resonate with you.
I want to know more
If these beliefs and my approach spark curiosity in you, and you want to know more, sign up for the next intro workshop.
I'm interested but not sure
If you are thinking some of these ideas sound good, but nothing works for you. You might like to learn more about pain science and other research that support these ideas
I don't agree
If you strongly disagree with these statements and don’t want to hear more about these ideas, this approach won’t be the right direction for you.
WORKSHOP DATES
The next intro workshop will be on
Sun 10th Sept 9:30-13:00
at Swansea Wellbeing Centre
Special introductory price of £15.
Future workshops will be £20 per person.
(includes drinks and snacks)
This workshop is accessible to all but please see the notes below on who it might suit best.
We’ll be sitting in chairs, there will be frequent breaks to move throughout the morning.
Workshop Pre-requisites
Before you sign up remember this workshop is for people who have:
- experienced pain in their body for over 6 months
- seen a medical professional who has assessed their condition
In addition to those two essential pre-requisites…
This workshop is for people:-
- who like to know how things work.
- who want to move their body more but are scared about making their pain worse.
- who might struggle to switch off from stressful situations.
- are interested in experimenting with alternative ways to dial down their pain.
- who can prioritise time to make simple changes in their life.
This workshop is NOT for people:-
- believe in the saying “no pain no gain”.
- believe their body can be fixed if only they could find the right person.
- are currently under a lot of pressure, and don’t have time or capacity to make changes.
- have no interest in science and how the body works.
- don’t want to change how they move, think and feel.
What to expect at the workshop
I’ll introduce myself and explain a little about my story and how I found ways to manage my pain.
I’ll introduce the four key believes that I hold about why people get stuck in a persistent pain cycle along with evidence backing up these ideas.
You’ll be offered a few quiz questions to assess if you have any unhelpful patterns that are keeping you stuck.
There will be a chance to chat with others about your situation where you can share things that have and haven’t worked well for you.
I will then introduce the four key concepts of my approach to helping people to dial down their pain.
After I’ve explained a concept you’ll be offered simple exercises to help you to digest the idea before we move on to the next. The exercises may involve so very simple movements of your hands and body but can be done sitting or standing.
There’ll be time for interactive discussion, Q & A and feedback from the exercises.
In the workshop you will have the chance to experience some of the tools and techniques I work with and have a few ideas to try at home.
We have movement breaks and a tea break during the morning. Drinks and snacks will be provided.
Are you still a bit unsure?
You might be worried about making things worse.
This isn’t a physical workshop so I won’t be asking you to do anything different to what you do in day-to-day life.
You might be worried about spending a morning focusing on your pain.
But if you’re anything like how used to be, not many mornings would go by where I hadn’t thought about my pain at least 20 or 30 times and wished things were different.
You might be anxious about sharing with others.
You can decide how much you want to share about your own situation. When you meet other people going through a similar thing it can be very reassuring and you might not feel so alone.
The biggest reason why you might not want to even try this is that you can’t face another potential solution failing.
But as the purpose of this workshop isn’t to change your pain but it is to change how you relate to your pain. It’s likely to be different to what you’ve tried before. But I understand it might feel like a big risk so here’s what I’m going to do to reduce that risk.
If by the end of the workshop, you can honestly say you’ve not learnt anything new or haven’t gained tools to apply to your situation that might help you in the long term, then I will happily refund you the full workshop fee.
All I ask in exchange is that we have a short chat so I can fully understand your situation. This will help me to improve how I advertise the workshop in the future, in terms of who it’d be suitable for.
BOOK YOUR PLACE
If you want to understand why your pain keeps coming back and find out what you can do about it.
This workshop is a great place to start.
You’ll learn about why my four core beliefs in understanding persistent pain and four key concepts that help people to dial down their pain.
The workshop isn’t only about taking in the information, you will be able to experience the tips and techniques in your body. This can give us instant feedback as to what will help you and what might be keeping you stuck in a persistent pain cycle.
If these ideas resonate with you, I hope you’ll be able to join me at a future intro workshop.
Next Workshop Dates
Click below to check future dates
or to book your place.