My Story and Core Principles

Principle 1 – Listen to your body – pain is a warning sign that your body is not happy with what you are doing and/or how you are doing it, to ignore it and just keep doing what you’ve been doing is to invite problems

Rewind to 2012 and I was a super fit police officer on the beat. I had some pain and niggles from the heavy utility belt that at times crept into the category of “put my back out” but I mostly brushed it off with regular quick fixes at the chiropractor before powering on. 

Principle 2 – Modern technology in particular computers and phones are responsible for many people’s pain patterns due to overuse of fingers and wrists and twisting the neck to read and send messages. The pain is often blamed on something else.

Promoted to Sergeant in 2012 I found myself  in a stressful desk job hunched over the computer for hours a day . This repetitive and postural stress on the computer were heightened by a series of crises in my personal life and within a year I was in pain from repetitive strain syndrome (RSI). Starting in my shoulder and quickly radiating down into my hand, the pain became so severe I couldn’t work

Principle 3 – Chronic pain thrives on lack of movement. For injuries that are not acute don’t be afraid to move even if it causes some discomfort. Restoring mobility is the key to overcoming chronic pain, fear about the pain drives the anxiety/pain cycle

I tried to keep fit despite the pain but I was just too scared that my real passion, boxing, would aggravate the shoulder pain too badly. But when I stopped boxing, instead of helping me I found the pain became even worse. The joint froze up and the muscle wasted away making it even more difficult to even hold the shoulder in a decent posture or undertake rehabilitation exercises.

Principle 4 - Compensation (when the body adapts to injury/ overuse by altering our natural chain of movement) places pressure and causes misalignment throughout the body. Patterns of compensation can then become a greater problem than the original injury and more difficult to undo

I underwent 3 shoulder surgeries including going as far as having my first rib removed but the pain stubbornly remained and worse, I began experiencing pain in my back, hips and knees due to the postural changes that occurred from using one arm. The myofascial system can keep adapting, bending, stretching and distorting under the strain of misalignment to keep us upright and "soldiering on" but ultimately the trauma to the body is unsustainable
 

Principle 5 – The body and mind cannot be separated and both the subconscious and conscious mind have a profound effect on our physical health

Just like the body is trained to keep us upright our subconscious mind is trained to keep us going automatically at the most basic level,  The subconscious mind controls all our automatic functions including our fight or flight response. 

When stress hits we rely on this old, subconscious, automatic response to react instantly to danger such as stepping back off the road when a bus is coming or retracting your hand from a hot pan. 

Also known as the sympathetic nervous system, it works by releasing adrenaline and cortisol into your bloodstream to provide energy to take life saving action.

Back in the days where our survival depended on your ability to run from the sabre tooth tiger we wouldn’t have made it without these subconscious survival instincts and the chemical release that occurs when it kicks in. 

However the brain isn't designed to be held in a constant state of stress and following a stressful event the brain is designed to return to normal levels of hormones allowing you to rest , sleep, eat and recharge. This is known also as being in the parasympathetic nervous system. 

Unfortunately many people these days find themselves in a constant state of stress, overwhelm and feeling stretched beyond capacity. This leads to being in a constant state of fight or flight creating a toxic environment within the body where cortisol levels are always high creating health risks such as fatigue, weight gain, anxiety and depression.

When we are stuck in this state we are also unable to connect properly with the neocortex (front brain), responsible for higher order brain functions such as sensory perception, learning and cognition. 

When stressed, the subconscious mind will keep us going in a state of survival rather than a state of creation. This explains why we sometimes feel like we are frustratingly repeating the same behaviour that exacerbates our stress or self-sabotaging. 

It also means that all too often we are not focused on the now, the modern world and the wretched mobile phones, emails etc constantly pushing us to multitasking, thinking about to do lists, phone calls, emails etc 

This leaves us little energy or focus on just being, observing, or noticing how we are a sitting, standing or doing a task 

I believe this is how I ended up injuring myself so badly just from typing as I was constantly very stressed and totally unaware of my poor posture. 

Even when I became aware of the source of the pain, my stress and anxiety were obstacles to me changing the behaviour that was causing my pain.

End game and (bizarre!) healing journey

Eventually I was medically discharged from the police force. Broken, depressed and still in agonising pain I was eventually diagnosed with chronic pain syndrome. 

People with chronic pain have a problem with the area that controls pain signals, being constantly flooded with messages of pain.

As a last ditch treatment I spent two weeks in hospital on IV ketamine, a treatment which can help chronic pain patients by resetting the pain signals to a normal level. 

During my time in hospital, with the pain numbed by the ketamine, I spent a great deal of time stretching and moving to unlock all the muscles and joints that had become frozen and immobilised by the surgeries and lack of movement. 

As I was moving around in hospital I began experiencing a strange phenomenon called spontaneous unwinding in which the body spontaneously of its own accord, feeling almost as like a puppet with an invisible “someone” pulling on the strings.

I have since learned that this phenomenon has been experienced by others and has been documented in scientific literature. (check it out if you’re interested!) https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3091471/#:~:text=Background:,be%20interpreted%20as%20%E2%80%9Cmystical.%E2%80%9D

Also known as pandiculation or spontaneous fascia unwinding, the body moves in order to undo the trauma inflicted to the myofascial system whilst in this state of consciousness.

Although my initial experience of this phenomenon was during a ketamine infusion, it never went away and after returning home my instinctual, healing movement developed further into the ability to apply myofascial massage first to myself then others. 

Realising my gift, I set out to obtain qualifications in kinesiology, and myofascial massage adding to my qualifications as a personal trainer and boxing coach.

Having been told that I would just have to accept living with pain for the rest of my life  I was beyond thrilled that that my ability left me pain free and I have even since competed in boxing matches.

Now as a qualified kinesiologist, myofascial massage therapist and personal trainer/ boxing coach my true passion in life is helping other people overcome pain and adversity achieving holistic fitness, body and mind.