Pain Points with Max Shen
Pain Points with Max Shen
Podcast Description
Are you a brain in a body, or a body with a brain? What does the nervous system have to do with chronic pain? How do we 'debug' pain?
Join Max as he explores the relationship between pain and insight. Featuring scientists, pioneers in somatic therapy, and those who have recovered from chronic pain.
Max Shen is a pain researcher affiliated with MIT. He is also the creator of Debug Your Pain, a platform to teach skills in pain resolution.
A production of Debug Your Pain. Read our latest at essays.debugyourpain.com
essays.debugyourpain.com
Podcast Insights
Content Themes
The podcast explores a variety of topics surrounding pain science, somatic therapy, and personal recovery stories. Notable episodes cover themes such as the relationship between pain and cognition, the constraints-led approach in movement coaching, and discussions on biological computation as it relates to health. Specific episode examples include interviews discussing the fallacies of traditional training models in sports and the role of intention in movement.
Are you a brain in a body, or a body with a brain? What does the nervous system have to do with chronic pain? How do we ‘debug’ pain?
Join Max as he explores the relationship between pain and insight. Featuring scientists, pioneers in somatic therapy, and those who have recovered from chronic pain.
Max Shen is a pain researcher affiliated with MIT. He is also the creator of Debug Your Pain, a platform to teach skills in pain resolution.
A production of Debug Your Pain. Read our latest at essays.debugyourpain.com
If there is a sharp knife pressing into my hand, and let’s call it pain, if I resist, resist it, and hate it and want it gone, I stick the knife deeper in my hand.
Try to push it away, okay. Deeper. Now if I relax my hand, okay, it’s a totally different experience. Now, this is like the ABC of dealing with pain. Not focusing on the pain, but focusing what you do against the pain.
Because the general attitude of people is pain is the enemy. Pain is bad. Pain is the devil. When people are experiencing pain, they immediately contract and stop breathing. Those two actions push the knife more into the body because you take away the respiration, the person doesn’t breathe, or his body doesn’t have enough energy to deal with the pain.
He contracts muscles, he blocks the energy flow in the body. Now the pain can only accumulate.”
My guest today, Avi Grinberg, is a deep practitioner. He started out as a paramedic and traveled around the world to learn from different indigenous heals. I was particularly excited to talk to Avi because, in my own journey of exploring pain, I’ve come to a set of intuitions that’s hard to articulate about the role of awareness and how we generate the pain in our own way.
When I saw Avi speak, I felt there was a deep connection that we were coming from the same place and seeing things, and so naturally I reached out to have a conversation. While I might not agree with all of Avi’s conclusions. I found a lot to learn from him in this conversation and I hope you will too.
00:00:00 Introduction and Early Encounters with Healing
00:04:00 “Most People Don’t Know How to Experience Pain”
00:08:00 Pain Is Energy Seeking Completion
00:12:00 Indigenous Healers in the Middle East and South America
00:36:00 Demonstration of the Exercise: Relaxing Into Pain
00:44:00 Trying Hard Breeds Chronic Tension
01:04:00 The Danger of “Easy Healing”
01:17:00 Closing Reflections
Grinberg method website
http://www.grinbergmethod.com/
YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@GrinbergMethod
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