Back Pain

For everyone involved with sports, especially Martial Arts, back pain can be a deal breaker. But it does not have to be. How many times have you heard people complain of pain who look in amazing shape? The first thing to explore when looking for the source of the pain is of course over-training and not enough stretching. This is common. What is not so common is another source of the pain, emotions. That's right, emotions. I speak from experience. It is a well known fact that depressed people don't feel well. Also how many people have you heard of that constantly complain about ailments, you just know they don't have only to wind up really getting something? The mind and the body are one. Just as visualization can help achieve greatness in your sport, pent up emotions can have the opposite effect. 

One emotion that is easy to get pain from is anger. In today's world we are told it is not cool to be angry and you need to "talk" everything out. Well.....your mind did not get the memo!! In my case, I was laid off while on vacation and never got the chance to get pissed off at the owners in person. No chance to plead my case or at least say "Fuck You". I stewed about it for a couple of weeks and after teaching a class at my martial arts school one day I became crippled. Overnight, my entire back felt like it was broken. I could barely get on the mat and then could not get up without help. When just 1 day earlier I was do rolls and falls that I do all the time. It lasted for about a week and my fiance suggested I go to a friend of her's that does energy healing. I have always known that this stuff works and agreed to go. 

She took about an hour with me and put through an amazing process. Not only did I visualize myself yelling at the people that layed me off but also others from my past. She had me meditate while she did her thing on me, never touching me but it felt like she was pulling things off of me. I was exhausted at the end of the session and my back did not hurt at all. She instructed me to go home and get real selfish. Not do anything for anyone and to just be quite for 3 days. I did as I was told. Each day that passed made me realize just how much anger can hurt the body. But not the act of being angry, it was the unresolved anger that hurt me. By not being able to express my anger it turned inward and attacked my body. I later learned that the back is the first place anger strikes. 

So the next time you get angry, release it. Go somewhere and scream and punch stuff. Get it out. Because if you don't, you may be the next person with unxplained back pain.