Please note: The Guild found a distribution complication of the March 4, 2022 SenseAbility that we are correcting, this is a resend of the same issue.
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Photo by Adrian Swancar on Unsplash
March 4, 2022
Relief from Chronic Pain
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From the Editors
According to statistics from the NHIS, 50.2 million (20.5%) of U.S. adults experience chronic pain. They estimated the total value of lost productivity due to chronic pain to be nearly $300 billion annually. The Feldenkrais Method® of somatic education offers a unique approach to addressing chronic pain, one that’s informed by an understanding of how our nervous system works. Of course, it’s not a panacea, and not the only way, but many get relief they didn’t expect to get after working with experienced Feldenkrais® practitioners.
There are plenty of insights in this issue of SenseAbility. Seasoned practitioners Margot Schaal and Anita Schnee offer their stories of working with clients and helping them recover from chronic pain. In this issue, we also feature a valuable interview with Cynthia Allen of Future Life Now. Don’t miss the resources at the end!
Lavinia and Yulia
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The Feldenkrais Method and Chronic Pain: Interview with Cynthia Allen, GCFPCM
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Cynthia Allen shares her understanding of the mechanism of chronic pain and how it could be relieved using the Feldenkrais Method. Interviewed by Yulia Kriskovets.
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About Cynthia:
Cynthia Allen is a Guild Certified Feldenkrais PractitionerCM, Senior Trainer in Movement Intelligence and Bones for LIfe and co-creator of Integral Human Gait theory. Her unique background in health care program development has allowed her to produce the Feldenkrais® Awareness Summits reaching tens of thousands of people around the world in over 60 countries. She looks forward to seeing you online through Future Life Now or on their Youtube Channel.
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Regenerating the Salted Soil: Recovering From Chronic Pain
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Photo by Abhishek Pawar on Unsplash
By Anita Schnee, GCFPCM
Imagine body, mind, and soul in a healthy, vibrant biome, each element at home in its fitting habitat. Then imagine a biome desiccated by salts of old anguish, every green thing devoured by battalions of locusts. This is the chronic-pain biome at its worst. An injury is no longer acute but the pain grinds on. Its triggers are unknown or only vaguely identifiable. Sufferers feel desperate or in despair. Bystanders are baffled or hostile or both. Pain is misdiagnosed, mistreated, or merely masked by medication.
Since the last two decades, though, thanks to technological advances in brain imaging, a new narrative is emerging. That narrative reveals the role of the glial nervous system. Glial “white matter” underpins the more-familiar “gray-matter” neuronal systems. Neurons transmit sensation. Glia, on the other hand, drives learning, habit, memory, motor coordination, visual acuity, skills- and language-acquisition – and even how we interpret our dreams.
In chronic physical pain, recent research posits that the glial system gets “stuck” in over-stimulating the neurons. The Feldenkrais Method is, for me, the most effective means by which to re-wire these physical-pain patterns. (...)
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About Anita:
Anita loves cats. This must be because she, too, has nine lives. She’s been dancing since she could walk, she was an advertising producer, she earned a third-degree black belt in Aikido, she is a drummer with the Afrique Aya Dance Company, she is a practicing attorney, and she offers Awareness Through Movement® lessons to the public and to students of horse-and-handler teacher Alexandra Kurland. Anita graduated from the Delman-Questel Bronxville (NY) Feldenkrais® training in 1998. Contact her at niterfay@yahoo.com
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A Gentler Way to Relieve Chronic Pain
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Photo by Ivan Aleksic on Unsplash
By Margot Schaal, GCFPCM
Do you ever wonder why the same Awareness Through Movement® lesson helps people with myriad difficulties? We individually process the movements and discover the easiest or most optimal route for our own system to proceed. People come to this work with chronic pain in so many different places and ways! Myalgia, accident, post-surgery, incest, neuralgia, arthritis, etc, etc.
Maybe one of these is familiar to you. Many people with these kinds of pain have turned to me for help. I’d like to share a few examples from my students. Many had already tried medicine, physical therapy, massage, and other approaches and decided to try Functional Integration® - one-on-one individual sessions.
My own experience with bodily injury was that I was not listening to what I knew I needed to change. Ignore things long enough and it hurts A LOT, maybe for a long time; that’s chronic pain. As one’s nervous system becomes accustomed to what began as an incident/accident the nerve pathways for pain develop into a regular expectation. Traveling along the same nerve pathways over and over, makes an easy groove that signals pain. What got me to finally listen was the physical discomfort of pain over time. I had exacerbated it by continuing to do the same things, mostly the same way. (...)
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About Margot:
Margo Schaal, Guild Certified Feldenkrais PractitionerCM, graduated from the Marin II Feldenkrais® Professional Training Program in 2003 and is a Certified Assistant Trainer of the Feldenkrais Method. She holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts, and is a Reiki Master and Qigong teacher. Margot now offers classes and private sessions online. She teaches Feldenkrais and Qigong together to bring forth the deeper levels of the Feldenkrais Method that engage each person’s inner teacher and capacity to heal. Her extensive movement background includes martial arts, dance, playing violin, horse-back riding and sports for pleasure. Her website is www.margotschaal.com
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- Sometimes, just taking the time to sense your spaciousness can interrupt the pain loop. This lesson from Lavinia Plonka is easy enough for anyone to try. Click to listen.
- The New York Times article by Jane Brody “Trying the Feldenkrais Method for Chronic Pain”. Read about it here.
- “Learning to minimize chronic pain” by James McAndre. Read now!
- "Feldenkrais Helps Patients with Chronic Pain Rethink the Way They Move" by Rachel Zaimont. Click to read.
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