Êşa Temkirinê: Çend Xebatên Ji bo Xwe Baştir Bibînin

We create a healing resource

Vladimir Snigur, psychotherapist, specialist in clinical hypnosis

Hypnosis and self-hypnosis often work with the imagination. It allows you to focus not only on the symptom itself, but also on the resource needed to cure it. Therefore, the main wish in the hypnotic approach is to be open to creativity. After all, if pain is something familiar to us and we somehow imagine it, then the “elixir” for healing is unknown to us. A completely unexpected image can be born, and you need to be ready to accept it, and for this you need to carefully listen to yourself.

This technique works well with toothaches, headaches, bruises, or cyclic feminine pain. A sitting or semi-recumbent position will do. The main thing is to be comfortable, lying there is a risk of falling asleep. We choose a stable and relaxed position with the body: the feet are completely on the floor, there is no tension in the legs and in the hands on the knees. You should be comfortable and relaxed.

We find pain in the body and create its image. Everyone will have his own – for someone it is a ball with needles, for someone it is red-hot metal or viscous swamp mud. We move this image to one of the hands. The second hand is for the resource image that the unconscious must find for you. To do this, you can give yourself such an internal request – to find a spontaneous unconscious image of a healing resource.

We take the first thing that appears in our imagination. It could be a stone or a fire, or a feeling of warmth or cold, or some kind of smell. And then we direct it to the hand where we have the image of pain. You can neutralize it by creating a third image in your imagination. Perhaps it is more convenient for someone to act in stages: first “throw out” the pain, and then replace it with a resource that alleviates or completely removes the pain.

For convenience, you can record the instruction on audio, turn it on for yourself and perform all the actions without hesitation.

Talking with illness

Marina Petraš, psychodrama therapist:

In psychodrama, the body, feelings and thoughts work together. And sometimes in one of these areas or on their border there is an internal conflict. Suppose I am very angry, but I cannot deal with this experience (for example, I believe that it is forbidden to be angry with a child) or I cannot show anger. Withdrawal of feelings usually affects the body, and it starts to hurt. It happens that we get sick before an important event, when we don’t want or are afraid to do something.

We are looking for: what kind of internal conflict, to which the body reacts with aches, migraines or pains? To help yourself, autodrama is suitable: psychodrama for one. One option is to face the pain itself, the other is to talk to the suffering part of the body. We can act out a meeting with them in our imagination or put objects on the table that will “play roles”: here is “pain”, and here is “me”. Here I have a toothache. I put “toothache” and myself (any objects associated with pain and with myself) on the table-scene, put my hand on “pain” and try to be it, thinking aloud: “What am I? What color, size, what does it feel like? Why do I need my mistress and what do I want to tell her? I say this to the second subject (myself) in the name of pain.

Then I shift my hand to the second object (myself) and mentally listen to what pain answers me. She says, “Saving the world is good. But you need to go to the dentist on time. You need to take care of yourself first. And not only when the teeth are already falling apart. You, Marina, take on too much.” “Okay,” I answer, while placing my hand on an object depicting me (for example, a cup), “I’m really tired, I need to rest. So I’ll take a vacation. I need to take care of myself and learn to rest not only with the help of the disease.

There is a technique that allows us to postpone the pain for a time when we understand that it needs to be seriously dealt with by the doctor, but now we have an urgent matter – a performance or work. Then we take any subject that we associate with, for example, migraine. And we say: “I know that you exist, I know that I can’t take you off completely yet, but I need 15 minutes to finish an important task. Stay in this item, I’ll take you back later.

We clench our jaws and growl

Alexey Ezhkov, Body-Oriented Therapist, Lowen Bioenergetic Analysis Specialist

Sometimes pain is born from thoughts and feelings. Body practices should be applied if we are ready to realize what feelings we have now, which of them are not expressed. For example, under whom or under what we “cambered” so that we crumpled the lower back. Often pain appears as a signal that our boundaries have been violated. We may not even be aware of the invasion: someone is constantly kind to us, but gently, “partisanly” penetrates our territory. The result is a headache.

The basic principle of getting rid of an emotion “stuck” in the body is to realize and express it, to translate it into action. By the way, speaking is also an action. Have we been seized by anger, which in society is not customary to express openly? We take a towel, turn it into a tube and strongly clamp it with our jaws. At this moment, you can growl and shout, the voice has a healing effect, because this is our first action in life.

Muscle tension paradoxically disappears if we overstrain the muscles. Or you can squeeze the towel with your hands and let out an angry growl. If not released, repeat. But you may have to deal with the root cause – violation of boundaries.

Deep and slow breathing allows you to become aware of what is happening and raise your energy level. It can be performed while sitting, but it is better to stand or lie down, if the situation allows. You can “breathe” the pain: imagine a sore spot, inhale and exhale through it. Unpleasant tension has accumulated in the body? It will subside if grounding is performed. Take off your shoes and feel the ground under your feet – stand firmly, firmly, feel the tension and ask yourself what it is connected with. If you have not let go completely, the next stage is to move.

Tension is most likely some kind of stopped action. Pain in your arm or leg? Check yourself: what do you want to do with them? Kick the air? Stomp? Rush with all your might? Bang your fists? Allow yourself this!

We monitor the state

Anastasia Preobrazhenskaya, clinical psychologist

We have three main options for dealing with painful experiences. First: merge. Suffering covers everything, it is our only reality. Second: avoidance, when we divert attention and distract ourselves with activities. Here we run the risk of getting the effect of a compressed spring: when it opens, we will encounter an uncontrollable powerful experience that will capture us and carry us to no one knows where. The third option: our uninvolved mind observes the internal processes without breaking away from the present.

To separate oneself from thoughts, sensations, emotions and isolate the state of a neutral observer, using the practice of full awareness (mindfulness), is taught by acceptance and responsibility therapy (abbreviated as ACT from the English name: Acceptance and Commitment Therapy). Our task is to explore all the modalities of perception (visual: “see”; auditory: “hear”; kinesthetic: “feel”) that are involved in the experience of pain, and calmly notice what is happening to us.

Suppose now I am experiencing tension in the eye area. I feel pain, which compresses my temples like a hoop (kinesthetic). There is a red color in the eyes (visual image), and I remember: two years ago I also had a headache when I could not pass the exam. And now I hear my mother’s voice: “Hold on, be strong, don’t show anyone that you feel bad” (auditory image). It’s as if I’m watching the switch from modality to modality from a distance, not merging and avoiding the state, but moving away, while being “here and now”.

The whole process takes 10-15 minutes. It can be compared to a wave: it comes towards us, and we touch it, but we do not dive. And she rolls back.