29/09/2025
The most common kind of pain I deal with as a massage therapist, is back pain. A lot of the times clients will have obvious physical reasons for the back pain, like having a desk job or repetitive heavy lifting.
But as a person who is deeply curious about the connection between mind body and spirit, I cant help but wonder what else could be contributing to a persons pain.
I recently found out that the spine is the first structure that forms inside the womb and that then all our limbs and the rest of our body takes root. The spine is what supports us from behind.
Today we live in a culture where we are obsessed with moving forward with material goals and achievements. We live inside our heads. We have our heads buried in our phones or other devices, which causes what we call "tech neck". Our heads thrust forward and our spine is thrown out of alignment. We have little body awareness and so are disconnected to our spine.
In the Yoga tradition, we place a lot of focus on the spinal column. It's seen as a conduit for spiritual energy and we consciously direct this energy up our spine, for the purposes of spiritual growth and evolution.
Could we heal our back pain by bringing more awareness to our backs? So that it doesn't have to grab our attention through pain instead? Or maybe it's not as simple as that. Maybe, it's time to properly connect to the parts of ourselves that are hidden or are in the subconscious? In psychology the back is what is considered to be part of the unconscious.
I feel that we ought to spend more time in our bodies, than our heads and learn to be properly"embodied", so that we are rooted and grounded in our bodies, where we can be supported and feel safe to reach our goals and make progress in our lives.
