Tag Archives: wellness

brain, Chronic pain, Mindfulness, Stress Management, Wellness topic

Pain vs. Suffering: How to Reduce Chronic Pain by Working With Your Nervous System

If you’ve been following along, we’ve been exploring three core questions about chronic pain:

  • What is pain, really?
  • Why does my body perceive pain the way it does?
  • How can I experience less pain, move better, and function more fully in daily life?

In the last two posts, we explored what pain is and how the nervous system processes it. Today, we begin answering the third question:

How do we experience less pain?

The first step is understanding the difference between pain and suffering.

Pain vs. Suffering: What’s the Difference?

Pain and suffering are often used interchangeably, but they are not the same.

Psychology Today offers this helpful distinction:

  • Pain: A physical sensation that occurs in response to injury or illness. It serves as a biological signal that something may need attention. Pain can be acute (short-term) or chronic (long-term).
  • Suffering: The emotional and psychological distress that arises from pain. It is influenced by how we interpret, react to, and relate to the pain — including anxiety, frustration, fear, or hopelessness.

Pain is a biological message.

Suffering is the story we build around that message.

When we reduce tension, fear, and resistance — as discussed in previous posts — we reduce the nervous system’s perception of threat. This alone can dial pain down.

But we can go further.

We can begin to separate sensation from interpretation.

Why This Matters for Chronic Pain

Pain is not optional.

Suffering often is.

We may not control the initial sensation, but we do have influence over:

  • Resistance
  • Catastrophic thinking
  • Identity-based beliefs (“I am broken”)
  • Fear-based projections about the future

Suffering is often the additional layer we heap on top of the biological pain.

It’s similar to the difference between guilt and shame:

  • Guilt says: “I did something wrong.”
  • Shame says: “I am wrong.”

Pain says: “There is sensation in my back.”
Suffering says: “My body is broken and my life is over.”

One is data.
The other is interpretation.

How to Distinguish Between Pain and Suffering

Use the following self-inquiry to separate sensation from story.

Step 1: Is This Sensation or Story?

Pain-focused questions (sensation):

  • What am I physically noticing right now (location, temperature, pressure, movement)?
  • Can I describe this using only sensory words?
  • Is the sensation shifting, even slightly?

Suffering-focused questions (story):

  • What am I telling myself about this sensation?
  • Am I predicting the future?
  • Am I making this mean something about who I am?
  • What am I afraid this pain will lead to?

Pain: “Sharp, pulsing in lower back.”
Suffering: “This will never get better.”

Step 2: Is There Resistance?

Suffering often equals:

Pain × Resistance

Ask yourself:

  • Am I fighting this sensation?
  • Am I bracing or tensing against it?
  • What happens if I soften by just 5%?
  • If this sensation were allowed to exist for 30 seconds, what would change?

The nervous system amplifies pain when it senses threat.
Resistance sends a threat signal.

Softening reduces it.

Step 3: Is Identity Involved?

Pain is an experience.
Suffering becomes identity.

  • Am I saying “I have pain” or “I am broken”?
  • Has this sensation become part of who I think I am?
  • Who would I be without this story?
  •  

Step 4: Am I Time Traveling?

Pain happens in the present moment.
Suffering lives in the past and future.

  • Am I replaying how this started?
  • Am I imagining worst-case outcomes?
  • If I focus only on right now, what is actually happening?

Often, this moment is tolerable.
It’s the imagined trajectory that overwhelms us.

Step 5: What Is This Pain Trying to Protect?

This is where we shift into compassion.

  • If this pain had a protective job, what would it be?
  • What might my nervous system believe is dangerous?
  • Is there an unmet need underneath this sensation?

Pain is not your enemy.
It is often your body trying to protect you.

Step 6: Separate Sensation from Meaning

Try this:

  • What is the raw data?
  • What is the interpretation?
  • Which part is optional?

Example:

  • Raw data: throbbing knee
  • Interpretation: “I’ll never hike again.”
  • Optional layer: catastrophic projection

A Simple Formula for Reducing Suffering

Pain = Sensation
Suffering = Sensation + Resistance + Story + Fear

To reduce suffering:

  1. Ease resistance.
  2. Rewrite the narrative.
  3. Challenge fear-based thinking.
  4. Respond with self-compassion instead of self-judgment.

For example:

Instead of:
“I won’t be able to provide for my family because I can’t work.”

Try:
“I care deeply about providing for my family. I will explore options and get professional guidance.”

One is fear.
The other is values-based action.

Want to Go Deeper?

If this resonates with you, I’ve created:

✔ A guided journaling worksheet to help you separate pain from suffering
✔ A nervous system reset practice
✔ Additional members-only resources for managing chronic pain through ACT, mindfulness, and yoga therapy

You can:

👉 Join my newsletter for free resources, guided practices, and early access to upcoming groups.


👉 Or explore the Members Content Library, where I share deeper teachings, downloadable worksheets, audio practices, and structured pain-management tools.

Reducing suffering doesn’t require eliminating pain.

It requires changing your relationship to it.

And that is absolutely possible.

Anatomy, Chronic pain, Mindfulness, Wellness topic, Yoga

Why Does My Body Perceive Pain the Way It Does?

Last week, we explored the question “What is pain?”
This week, we’re addressing an equally important question:

Why does my body perceive pain the way it does?

Understanding how pain works can be incredibly empowering — especially for people living with chronic pain. Pain is not just a message from injured tissue. It is a protective signal created and regulated by the nervous system.

Pain Is a Nervous System Response

Pain can be understood as a decision made by the nervous system to alert us that something may need attention or protection. When the nervous system senses danger, it turns up the volume on sensation.

This is helpful when you’re injured and need to rest or protect your body.
It becomes problematic when the alarm system stays on long after healing should have occurred.

When that happens, pain:

feels more intense

lasts longer

spreads more easily

This can occur even when tissue damage has not increased.

Why Tension, Fear, and Resistance Amplify Pain

Three key factors are known to amplify pain signaling:

  • Tension
  • Fear
  • Resistance or avoidance

All three increase nervous system threat detection and reduce the brain’s ability to dampen pain signals (often called pain inhibition).

How Muscle Tension Maintains Pain

When the body perceives threat, muscles tighten reflexively to protect vulnerable areas. While this is adaptive in the short term, chronic muscle tension can increase pain.

Sustained tension:

  • reduces blood flow
  • limits oxygen delivery
  • increases metabolic waste

These changes activate nociceptors (pain receptors), sending more pain signals back to the brain.

This creates a self-reinforcing loop:

More pain → more guarding → more tension → more pain

Importantly, tension does not just result from pain — it also maintains pain.

When muscles soften, even slightly, the nervous system receives a message of safety, which can help reduce pain intensity.

How Fear Increases Pain Sensitivity

Fear activates the body’s threat system, including the sympathetic nervous system and limbic brain. When the brain perceives danger:

  • pain sensitivity increases
  • the pain threshold decreases
  • survival becomes the priority over comfort

When this state persists, it can lead to central sensitization, where the nervous system becomes overly reactive to pain signals.

A helpful way to think about this is:

If the brain thinks you’re in danger, it wants you to feel it.

Research shows that pain intensity often correlates more strongly with fear and catastrophic thinking than with findings on imaging studies.

Catastrophizing Thoughts and Chronic Pain

In cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), we often address catastrophizing thoughts such as:

  • “This pain means I’m permanently damaged.”
  • “It’s only going to get worse.”
  • “I’ll never live a normal life.”
  • “This flare means I’ve lost all my progress.”
  • “If I move, I’ll injure myself further.”
  • “My body is failing me.”

These thoughts are understandable — but they increase fear and nervous system activation, which can worsen pain.

CBT helps by identifying and challenging these thoughts, replacing them with more balanced and accurate ones.

In acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT), the focus shifts slightly. Instead of debating whether a thought is true, we ask whether it is helpful. If a thought pulls us away from what matters, we practice letting it be and choosing actions aligned with our values.

How Resistance Keeps the Pain Alarm On

Resistance to pain often looks like:

  • bracing or guarding
  • holding the breath
  • tightening against sensation
  • mentally trying to push pain away

Neurologically, resistance:

  • increases sympathetic arousal
  • keeps cortisol and adrenaline elevated
  • reduces parasympathetic (vagal) tone

This suppresses the brain’s natural pain-inhibiting pathways and keeps the nervous system in an alert, defensive state.

In short, resistance tells the nervous system:

This is not safe.

This helps explain why pain can persist after healing, flare during stress, or spread to new areas.

Turning the Pain Volume Down

Pain is not a personal failure. It is adaptive biology — a protective system designed to keep us safe.

With chronic pain, however, the alarm is often louder than necessary. The goal of therapy is not to eliminate pain entirely, but to help the nervous system feel safe enough to turn the volume down.

Through mindfulness, gentle movement, cognitive strategies, and values-based action, we reduce tension, fear, and resistance — creating the conditions for pain to soften.

Key Takeaway

Pain is not just about damage.
It is also about protection, perception, and nervous system safety.

Please sign up for our newsletter to receive or freebie of the week, “3 Ways to Turn Down Pain Volume” (a pdf with specific practices you can do in the moment.)

Bonus Content

Subscribe to our members only page to access our content library including this week’s 10 minute audio of a guided meditation – Turning the Volume Down: A Nervous System Reset for Pain.

Anatomy, brain, Chronic pain, Mindfulness, Yoga

What Is Pain? Understanding the Mind–Body Experience of Chronic Pain

Our next group offering, Managing Chronic Pain through ACT, Mindfulness, and Yoga, is designed to help answer some of the most common—and often frustrating—questions people living with chronic pain ask:

  • What is pain, really?
  • Why does my body perceive pain the way it does?
  • How can I experience less pain, move better, and function more fully in daily life?

Today’s post focuses on the first question: What is pain?

Defining Pain: More Than a Physical Sensation

Merriam-Webster defines pain as:

“A localized or generalized unpleasant bodily sensation or complex of sensations that causes mild to severe physical discomfort and emotional distress and typically results from bodily disorder (such as injury or disease).”

While helpful, this definition still frames pain primarily as a physical symptom.

In July 2020, the International Association for the Study of Pain (IASP) revised its definition to better reflect what research and lived experience have long shown:

“An unpleasant sensory and emotional experience associated with, or resembling that associated with, actual or potential tissue damage.”

IASP also added several key clarifications that are especially important for anyone living with chronic pain:

  • Pain is always personal and influenced by biological, psychological, and social factors.
  • Pain and nociception (nerve signaling) are not the same thing.
  • Pain cannot be understood by sensory input alone.
  • A person’s report of pain should always be respected.
  • Pain may serve an adaptive role, but it can also negatively affect function, mood, and relationships.
  • Inability to communicate pain does not mean pain is not present.

Pain as a Protective Experience, Not Just a Warning Signal

One of my favorite explanations of pain comes from Neil Pearson, published in Yoga Therapy Today. He writes:

“Pain is both a complex experience and a complex biological process. Pain exists when neural circuits conclude that danger exists and that action is required. As such, it is so much more than a symptom or a message telling us that there is something damaged or diseased in the body. Pain is an experience. It motivates us to stop or change our behavior.”

This perspective helps explain something many people with chronic pain already know intuitively: pain is not a single signal, and it’s not always a reliable indicator of damage.

Why Pain Comes and Goes

We often think of pain as straightforward—like touching a hot stove and instantly pulling our hand away. But chronic pain behaves differently.

For example, imagine sitting quietly on the couch. Your low back starts to ache. You shift positions, maybe take some ibuprofen, and mentally review everything you should be doing to prevent this pain from returning—better posture, better lifting mechanics, more core strength.

Now imagine that a loved one suddenly cuts themselves badly and needs stitches. You’re grabbing your keys, driving to the ER, focused entirely on helping them.

What happened to your back pain?

Did it disappear?
Yes—and no.

Your body didn’t suddenly heal your back. Instead, your nervous system reprioritized. Pain is perceived when the brain decides something requires attention right now. Sitting still gives your system space to say, “Hey, we should address this posture issue.” An emergency tells your brain, “This can wait.”

Pain, in this way, is a decision made by the nervous system, not just a direct response to tissue damage.

Pain and Emotions Speak the Same Language

This is where psychotherapy—and ACT in particular—becomes so relevant.

I often tell clients that emotions are messengers from the subconscious:

  • Fear asks us to protect
  • Anxiety asks us to prepare
  • Anger asks us to set a boundary
  • Joy tells us to keep going

Pain behaves similarly. It delivers information. It motivates action. But—like emotions—we don’t have to obey it blindly.

For example, if you’ve been in a car accident, your fear may insist that driving is dangerous. Therapy helps you gently remind your nervous system that while accidents can happen, the evidence shows you’ve driven safely many times. You acknowledge the message without letting it run your life.

Pain can be approached the same way.

Choice, Language, and Relationship with Pain

What stands out most to me—and what this group is built around—is the idea that there is choice. Sometimes conscious, sometimes not, our bodies decide every day how much pain we perceive and how loudly it speaks.

We already know our thoughts influence emotions. Research now shows that pain is influenced in similar ways. When we develop a new relationship with pain—and the language to communicate with it—we often find that suffering decreases, even when sensations remain.

That is exactly what we’ll explore in Managing Chronic Pain through ACT, Mindfulness, and Yoga:
learning how to listen to pain, respond skillfully, and move toward a life that is fuller and more functional—with or without pain present.

For More:

You’re invited to join our Members-only Bonus Content Library, where you’ll find a variety of PDFs, recordings, and other resources to support your wellness.

A recent addition is an audio version of a guided meditation for cultivating body awareness and breathing through physical sensations with openness and compassion.

If you’d like to explore this meditation, a free PDF is also available through our newsletter. Sign up by Friday to receive a copy. This PDF will be uploaded to our Bonus Content Library next week if you missed it. For $5 a month you can have access to all we send out. (Sign up for newsletter is below or on our home page. Sign up for Bonus Content in the subscribe button on our homepage or in the link above.)

Articles Referenced and further resources on Chronic pain:

Neil Pearson. “Neurobiology of Pain.” Spring 2016.

Adhana McCarthy, et al. “Mediational Analysis of Yoga’s Effect on Chronic Low-Back Pain in Veterans: What Factors Really Matter?” 2022(32).

Peter S. Myers, et al. “Yoga Improves Balance and Low-Back Pain, but Not Anxiety, in People with Parkinson’s Disease.” 2020(30).

Neil Pearson, et al. “Pain and Yoga Therapy: Part 3. When Pain Persists.” Spring 2020.

Neil Pearson, et al. “Pain and Yoga Therapy: Part 2. The Lived Experience of Persisting Pain.” Winter 2020.

Neil Pearson, et al. “Pain and Yoga Therapy: Part 1.” Summer 2019.

Uncategorized

Finding Our Voice: Balancing the Throat Chakra

This past week in our Chakra Balancing Group, we focused on the throat chakra — the center of communication, self-expression, and truth.

One meaningful shift in this session was the intentional use of voice as a core part of the practice. I’ll admit, chanting in front of others doesn’t come naturally to me. Still, I knew that working with the throat chakra called for sound. Instead of traditional chanting, we explored audible exhales, filling the room with long, open “haaa” sounds.

This simple practice brought awareness directly to the throat and helped anchor our intention throughout the session. There was something powerful about letting the breath be heard — no words required — just presence, vibration, and release.

Our journaling prompt continued this theme of expression. We reflected on:

  • What we want to say
  • What holds us back from saying it
  • And what we hope might happen if we allow ourselves to speak our truth

Balancing the throat chakra isn’t about saying everything perfectly. It’s about building confidence, courage, and trust in our own voice — qualities many of us are quietly longing to strengthen.

I’ve truly enjoyed these sessions, and this week’s focus was a reminder that sometimes the most healing practice is simply giving ourselves permission to be heard.

For the specific throat chakra balancing sequence, sign up for our bonus content here:

To receive announcements, free tips, and practices, enroll in our newsletter here.

Mindfulness, Relationships, Stress Management, Wellness topic, Yoga

Heart Chakra Yoga: How We Protect Our Heart Through Posture and Emotional Defenses

The Protected Heart: How We Guard Ourselves Physically and Emotionally

Many of us protect our heart without even realizing it.

We protect the heart physically through posture.
We protect emotionally through distance or defensiveness.
We protect psychologically through busyness, humor, or emotional armor.

These protective patterns develop for good reasons — survival, loss, disappointment — but over time they can begin to restrict not just emotional connection, but physical wellbeing as well.

In heart chakra yoga, the heart center (Anahata) becomes a helpful lens for understanding this pattern. Whether you view chakras as scientific, symbolic, psychological, or spiritual, the heart chakra represents our capacity for connection, compassion, vulnerability, and breath.

When the heart becomes overly protected, we may stay safe —
but we stop fully living.

How Posture Physically Protects the Heart

Take a moment to check your posture.

Are your shoulders rounding forward?
Is your upper back slightly hunched?
Is your chest collapsed inward?

This posture is extremely common in modern life — phones, driving, stress, emotional fatigue — all gradually pull the body into a protective shape.

The physical effects of closed posture:

  • Limits lung expansion
  • Restricts deep breathing
  • Shortens chest muscles
  • Weakens upper-back muscles
  • Increases neck and shoulder tension

The emotional impact:

The body is always sending messages to the nervous system.

A collapsed chest communicates defense.
A shallow breath communicates threat.
A braced body communicates unsafety.

Over time, the nervous system begins to associate safety with contraction rather than openness.

Emotional Defenses Are Learned Body Patterns

Just as the body adopts protective posture, the heart develops protective behavior.

Common emotional heart protection looks like:

  • Emotional distancing
  • Hyper-independence
  • Avoiding closeness
  • Expecting disappointment
  • Staying busy to avoid feeling

These patterns are not flaws — they are adaptations.

But what once kept us safe can eventually limit our relationships, emotional wellbeing, and even our physical health.

The Cost of Emotional and Physical Guarding

When the heart chakra remains chronically defended, many people experience:

  • Emotional numbness or detachment
  • Chronic shoulder and neck pain
  • Shallow breathing
  • Loneliness even in relationships
  • Fatigue that doesn’t resolve with rest

The body and emotional system operate together.

When one closes, the other follows.

Opening the Heart Chakra Does NOT Mean Losing Boundaries

Heart chakra healing does not mean being naive, passive, or exposed.

A balanced heart chakra knows when to open and when to protect appropriately.

Opening the heart means:

  • Allowing connection where it is safe
  • Softening when guardedness is no longer helpful
  • Choosing vulnerability intentionally

Health is not about staying open all the time.
It is about knowing when to soften and when to strengthen.

How Heart Chakra Yoga Supports Emotional Healing

Heart-opening yoga poses gently stretch the chest, shoulders, and upper spine. But more importantly, they communicate safety to the nervous system.

Practicing heart chakra yoga can help:

  • Improve breathing
  • Reduce emotional tightness
  • Increase body awareness
  • Support emotional resilience
  • Encourage vulnerability in safe ways

When the posture opens, the nervous system learns a new experience:

It is safe to breathe.
It is safe to soften.
It is safe to feel.

Emotional Balance Requires Both Protection and Openness

True heart healing does not come from extremes.

We live best not from:

  • a closed heart
  • or a recklessly open heart

But from a heart that is regulated, aware, and responsive.

A balanced heart chakra allows:

  • connection without collapse
  • vulnerability without overwhelm
  • compassion without depletion

Heart Chakra Yoga Sequence (Free Download)

This week’s Heart Chakra Yoga Sequence focuses on gentle backbends, chest expansion, and breath awareness — designed not to force openness, but to invite it slowly.

If your chest feels tight…
If your breath feels shallow…
If your heart feels tired…

This practice is for you.

👉 Sign up for our newsletter this week to receive a free Heart Chakra Yoga Sequence. (This will be uploaded to Members Bonus Content library area as well this week.)

Grounded for Peace Newsletter


Continue Your Heart Healing Journey

If you’d like guided practices, audio meditations, journaling exercises, and nervous-system-informed tools, you’re invited into The Grounded Path — a growing library for healing, reflection, and emotional balance.

The Grounded Path membership