Undoing Pain’s Grip: The 3-Step Plan for Highly Sensitive Movers

When pain flares up — especially a familiar one — it can feel overwhelming. Your body braces, fear rises, and suddenly you’re at war with yourself.

In this video, I’ll guide you through a simple 3-step plan to reset that moment: Pause, Notice, and Redirect.

You’ll learn how to:

• Interrupt the automatic reaction of fear and tension

• Use your curious, artistic mind to notice what’s really happening

• Reconnect with your body as a whole — not as a problem to fix

This gentle practice draws from the Alexander Technique and is designed especially for highly sensitive dancers and movers who want to meet their body with understanding.

If you’d like to go deeper, I offer free consultations in which we can discuss what you need and how to apply this work to your body and your movement.

A transcript of the video is below if you’d prefer to read rather than watch and listen.

Hello, friend.

I want to talk about pain, when it comes on unexpectedly, what happens in your body, and what you can actually do. Because when pain comes up, especially if it's an old pain, one you're familiar with, it can come in and you mind goes, "Oh my god, oh no, this is happening again.”

It can be pretty overwhelming sometimes. Even if it's a small pain, if it's related to something old, that can still be quite overwhelming because of all the thoughts it brings up, all that history.

I want to give you a little something you can play with, a practice to help shift that pain.

There are three steps. It's like a little choreography you can do.

When pain comes up, here are the three steps: Pause, Notice, and Redirect.

Let's start with Pause.

When pain comes up we're often in the middle of doing something.

“Here I am going along. There's that pain. Oh!”

What we often do is try to keep going. The pain comes up and our response is to push against it.

Instead, I'd like you to pause, to stop. Just stop.

Then begin to notice. We want to get curious.

Get curious about that reactive mind to pain. There's usually fear involved as well.

I don't know why I said usually. “Usually,” as in almost always fear is involved. Or frustration. I would even still put that under the umbrella of fear. That can be another video.

But when fear, frustration, or the like come up, your body will tighten up against that. Those responses cause tightenings in your body.

So you get curious, to notice how your body is tightening up against the pain.

Don't try to fix it. Don't try to get rid of it. Don't fight it.

Start by noticing it.

Begin to scan through your body, starting in your head. You’ll be amazed how your body braces against the pain in areas that are nowhere near the pain.

Pause. Give yourself a moment to not do anything.

Then start to scan and notice how your body is tighten up to brace against the pain.

Next, redirect.

I'd like you to kinesthetically come back to what your body is already doing. What position are you in? Are you standing? Let yourself stand. Is your breath moving? Let your breath move.

Come back to having a body.

When that pain shows up, it can be a very disembodying experience.

It can kick you right out of your body and into all the fears and beliefs and frustrations you have about your body. Being in that space of fear and frustration about your body is not being embodied.

You're caught in all these thoughts about your body.

So you pause. Don't do anything.

That can be so powerful, just to not react, to not do anything.

Notice, if that reaction is already there, how is it showing up in your body? Where is it starting to brace? Where is it pulling on you? Where is it shortening you? Grabbing you?

Then redirect. Kinesthetically come back to your body by simply reminding yourself that you have a body. By reminding yourself that you have these parts.

You have a head.

The breath is moving.

You're sitting. Or standing. Or lying down.

You have shoulders.

By doing this, you’re starting to come back to your body as a whole rather than your body as a place of pain, as a singular place of pain.

You interrupt and transform that gripping reaction. Because why gripping be beneficial?

If it's not obvious, let's make it so.

If there's this pain and you brace against it and then try to move, it's like you're putting the brakes on and trying to go at the same time. And that creates more tension, conflict. And that's just going to make life harder.

So the next time pain flares up, try this out.

Pause. Don't do anything. Let your curious mind come out. That curious artistic mind. That curious artistic sensitive mind.

Begin to scan through your body to notice where the bracing is happening. Then redirect to where your body already is.

Remind yourself you have this full body and let that take the time that it needs. Don't rush it.

Especially as highly sensitives, we often need more time than we think.

Our thinking has been influenced by our upbringing, by our culture, by a lot of people around us who seem to like operate at a faster pace.

We take things on deeply. So give yourself the time to let that in. Don't be in a rush to keep going. Give yourself that gift of space and time.

You can practice this not just when large pain shows up, but subtle pains too, something small or niggly, even that.

When you practice in those subtle moments it starts to add up. You are building a skill.

Just like in a dance class, we didn't necessarily start going across the floor with some huge choreography. I don’t know how you started, but I always loved modern dance because we always started on the floor. Here we are, just on the floor.

And then you build.

So with this, also start small and let it build.

Pause. Let the curious mind notice. And redirect.

If you enjoyed this, please let the algorithm know by liking, commenting, and subscribing. If there's anything that worked for you, that didn't work, if you have any questions, something you loved, please leave a comment and let me know. I'll read those. They’ll help me create further videos that can really speak to you and what you need. Because that's why I'm making these.

Until we meet again, take care.