By Daniel J. Benor, MD

You’re probably curious to know how I could possibly make the claim declared in the title of this article. You may be even more curious to ask how I also could suggest that pains might be released within minutes. Let me state my views and share my experiences with TWR (Whole Health – Easily and Effectively) succinctly: Physical pain is a choice our body makes when it needs or wants to get our attention. When we start listening to our pains, their intensity decreases.

With injuries or surgery it is obviously helpful to have reminders to be gentle with parts of our body that need to mend. With other problems, pain is usually a message from our body that we are under stress which we are not addressing.

Psychological pains are experienced with serious emotional disappointments or traumas. We may feel stressed, disappointed, distressed, hurt, angry, anxious, fearful, panicky, overwhelmed and/or depressed.

All of the above are perfectly natural reactions. When we pass through these feelings and release them, we can move on with our lives. However, if we hold onto them, any or all of these feelings may lead to even greater suffering. They sit in our inner ‘file drawers,’ closets and caves where they fester, draining our energies and leading us to behave in defensive ways – in order to avoid becoming aware of these buried pains, and in order to avoid anything in our current life that would stir these skeletons in our inner closets.

Physical pains have been treated in Western society primarily with medications. The goal of doctors is to fight and eliminate pains with pain killers. Drugs are rapidly effective but carry prices that may include side effects that are annoying, debilitating or even fatal, not to mention stretching our finances. Research shows that conventional medicine is now the third leading cause of death in the US, largely due to problems caused by medications, and almost certainly a leading cause of death in the rest of the world as well.

In the past several decades, people have turned increasingly to complementary/ alternative therapies because these are gentler and safer. These approaches are also more broad and deep in their effects. In addition, complementary therapists spend more time with people, listening to what they are experiencing in order to figure out together with them what their body, emotions, mind, relationships and spirit are needing.

Psychological pains have had two main treatments:
1. Psychotherapy and counseling in numerous forms and variations were developed over the past century and a half.  Until recently, therapies in this category such as psychoanalysis, psychodynamic and cognitive behavioral therapy have been the most widely used methods. These require many sessions to achieve pain reductions.
2. Medications have been developed to deal with anxiety, depression, schizophrenia and other psychological symptoms. Again, they may be effective in many cases but they also carry the dangers mentioned above.

In the past few decades, varieties of complementary/alternative therapies have been developed which may relieve physical and emotional pains. Many of these, such as hypnotherapy, acupuncture and massage, require the intervention of a therapist.

Varieties of self-healing therapies have also been developed. Of these, TWR is one of the quickest. Along with its rapid release of pains, TWR works very deeply and enables thorough clearing of physical and psychological issues surrounding pains.

Pain as a choice

Illness is the doctor to whom we pay most heed; to kindness, to knowledge, we make promise only; pain we obey.
                    – Marcel Proust

When strong emotions arise within us, the best thing for our wellbeing is for us to express them. However, there are many circumstances in which it may be inadvisable to let loose with intense feelings. There may be very negative social consequences if we cry or shout in public, or if we vent our angers by hitting someone – much as we may very much feel a need to let out some of our emotions in these ways. The better course of action may be to button our lips, unclench our fists, and bury the feelings somewhere inside us. Holding back our emotions is our first in a series of choices – setting the stage for pain to develop.

If we can release these pent-up feelings with physical actions such as jogging or other exercise, yelling a few choice words with our car windows rolled up on the way home, beating up a tennis ball, journaling, or moaning to our spouse or friends about our unhappiness, then these feelings may be released. If we develop no such outlets or if we fail to empty our emotional trashcans thoroughly, we may end up with bunches of feelings stashed inside. This is a second choice that moves us further towards more painful experiences.

When our stresses are not relieved, we get emotionally up tight. This often leads our body to become tense and up tight too. If muscles remain tight over long periods of time they may go into spasm, causing pain. This is how tension headaches, irritable bowels, asthma, hypertension and hosts of other problems may be precipitated and worsened.

In addition, stress hormones are released when we are up tight. These are helpful when they prepare us to deal with stressful situations by fighting or fleeing. They are unhelpful when we hold in our tensions because they lead to tiredness or even to exhaustion of our energies and put strains on our heart, kidneys, bowels and other organs.

Releasing pain is a choice

Using TWR, it is possible to release pains just by listening to the messages our aches and pains want us to hear. In many cases, their requests are very straightforward and can be addressed with practical changes in our habits and lifestyles.

Arlene suffered from knee pains for years. Her x-rays showed degenerated cartilage but she was reluctant to accept her doctor’s recommendation for surgery because her mother had died following complications of surgery. Listening to her knee, she heard that it was complaining about carrying too much weight – both literally and in the burdens Arlene was carrying in her life.

As a conscientious single mother, Arlene worked by day as assistant manager at a bank; was with her young children as much as possible till they were in bed; and managed an eBay business on line till late hours in the night.

She negotiated with her knee and promised she would allow herself some relaxing down time and attend to her being overweight by stopping her comfort eating. Her pain went down immediately from a 7-8 (our of a maximum of 10) to a 3-4.

Using the tapping and affirmations of TWR, she was able to bring the pain down to a 0-1. This also taught Arlene how to deal with her feelings of frustration that led to cravings that led to comfort eating.

Within a few weeks, Arlene was free of knee pains most of the time. If they returned, she was able to deal with them by using the TWR dialoguing and tapping with affirmations.

My book, Seven Minutes to Natural Pain Release (with the same subtitle as the title of this article) explains in greater detail how to identify what it is we need to know in order to understand whatever our physical pains want us to know, and then how to release the pains – rapidly and deeply.

You may reproduce all or parts of this article in your journal, magazine, ezine, blog or other web or paper publication on condition that you credit the source as follows: Copyright © 2008 Daniel J. Benor, MD, ABHM   All rights reserved. Original publication at WholisticHealingResearch.com where you will find many more related articles on this and similar subjects of wholistic healing.