(Principles are basic truths that, when applied, cause success to come to you easier and quicker.)


Pain is a story. Pain has physical components as well as mental and emotional ones, but at its core pain is a story intended to get our attention.

This first came to me in yoga class during a pose called Pigeon/King Pigeon. As my hamstring and glute muscles stretched way beyond their norm I felt significant discomfort. Oh, all right, it hurt like the dickens.

But as I stayed in the pose something happened. The pain revealed itself to be merely an indicator that I was going beyond my normal range of motion. I saw that it meant no more, no less. It was a story, separate from the muscles and their condition at that moment.

As soon as that revelation occurred the muscles relaxed. Having been focused on the pain I had tensed the muscles. By letting go of the pain story – and understand, the pain continued, it just lost its significance, lost its place at the front of my consciousness – I saw the pain independent of the tension of the muscles.

The point of the pose was to improve the muscles not to cause or be in pain. By choosing to see and experience the pain as merely a story it lost its grip on my awareness. Once able to step outside the pain and simply observe it, it no longer controlled me.

This S3MC is about a lot more than a bit of pain in a yoga class.


Coaching Point: Where do you see a pain as a story?



Copyright 2023 Steve Straus. All rights reserved.