Without even realizing it, Nate gave himself the worst neck ache of his life.
Recently, a client told me a story about a mysterious pain in his neck. This story demonstrates how we can hurt ourselves in the way we use our minds. It also illustrates how a simple realization can solve a difficult problem.
Want to realize more understanding, clarity, and peace in your life? If you want to experience less turmoil and pain, read the following story.
This isn’t his real name, but let’s call my client Nate. Nate has long hair, and that detail will be important. Recently, he went on a cross country road trip with his wife.
The Neck Ache
As Nate began the several day journey back home, his neck began to tense up. The pain wasn’t too bad at first. More bothersome than anything, it settled into a minor, dull ache.
Nate continued on his trip, but the pain in his only neck worsened. The hours in the car grew more uncomfortable. The freedom of the open road, radio, and snacks weren’t quite as enjoyable anymore. Not usually one to complain, Nate suffered in silence. He thought that if he ignored the tension, it would go away on its own. His wife noticed that something was off, but he told her it was nothing.
It didn’t go away. The tension in Nate’s neck continued to worsen until he could ignore it no longer.
The Search for the Fix
The discomfort consumed his energy and attention. Nate wanted it fixed. His wife massaged his neck. He stretched out his shoulders and upper back at gas stations and hotel rooms. He took painkillers that numbed the pain temporarily. He played “I spy” and talked with his wife to distract away the pain.
Nothing seemed to help. At this point, he could hardly move his head without wincing. His wife offered to drive, but he insisted on being the driver. Nate soldiered on. He put his hair in a ponytail, got in the car, and drove with gritted teeth.
As he drove, he racked his brains over what the heck was causing his neck to throb. Nate had hours to figure it out. Was it the poor quality pillows at the motels? He didn’t injure his neck because he hadn’t exercised for a while. He wasn’t stressing out about work. Nate felt relaxed on their trip so far. So, did he sleep on it weird?
They had enjoyed such a lovely vacation. What a shame it seemed destined to end poorly.
After agonizing over every conceivable cause, Nate came up with nothing. Eventually, his brain felt like mush. He resigned himself to live through it until he got home. Maybe, he could make an appointment with a chiropractor.
Once he gave up trying to figure it out, his neck didn’t bother him as much anymore. It still hurt like hell, but it wasn’t on the top of his mind. He started to relax and enjoy the trip home even with the aching neck.
The Cause
Suddenly, as he passed into his home state, he realized the cause. It was so obvious. Nate could’t believe he hadn’t seen it sooner.
Nate has long brown hair. Without knowing it, he had changed a simple routine on the drive home. Each time he got into the car, he put his hair into a ponytail. The ponytail bumped on the back of the headrest. When he felt his hair against the headrest, he learned his head forward.
The entire time he was in the car, his neck was in an awkward position. No wonder he got a horrible ache! Despite all the effort to figure it out, he didn’t realize the cause was this simple change in behavior. It was the ponytail the whole time. Nate accidentally gave himself the worst neck ache of his life without even realizing it.
How Your Mind Operates
I share Nate’s experience because the mind operates in the same way as Nate’s body in this story. Nate’s body, and your body, will signal you with pain. Our bodies tell us when we use them in the wrong way.
The pain of a rolled ankle tells you when you walk in the wrong way. A parched throat will signal to drink more water. The pain of a cut lets you know when you slice a finger instead of carrots. Your pain is helpful. It makes sure you don’t keep chopping. Pain keeps your body safe.
Mental Pain, a Friend?
The mind gives us similar signals. It doesn’t give us physical pain like the body. Instead, the mind uses emotional pain. Like Nate’s neck, the mind will ache if you hold it in the wrong way. When you use your thoughts in a way that hurts, your emotions will tell you.
Fear, judgment, insecurity, and hate don’t feel good. Each of our thoughts create an emotion. When we have harsh and painful thoughts, we will feel them. The quality of the emotion lets us know about the quality of the thought.
Much like physical pain, psychological pain can be our guide and friend. The pain tells us when we use our minds in the wrong way. It helps to keep our minds from wandering off into distorted thoughts. It hurts when we use our power to think against ourselves. When we don’t confuse these signals, they bring us back to clarity and peace.
Emotions help us sort through our thinking. They show us which thoughts are worth giving energy to and which ones we should drop. When we are on a train of thought, the pain tells us if the train is taking us in the wrong direction. Get off the train when you feel mental pain. Don’t ride trains of thought to where you don’t want to go.
You can use your mind in the wrong way unconsciously. Much like Nate, he felt the pain in his neck even when couldn’t figure out its cause. Sometimes, we experience the hurt of emotion without being able to identify the thought.
The Search to Fix Mental Pain
Nate first tried to ignore the discomfort in his neck. Many people attempt to take this route with their psychological pain too. They distract themselves away from their own mental suffering. Ignoring through distraction might work temporarily, but it is like ignoring the hot sensation when your hand gets too close to a fire. Eventually, you will be burned.
Nate also expended energy trying to soothe his away pain. Many people try to numb and soothe away their mental pain as well. They might form addictions in order to feel better in the moment. Numbing is a bandaid because it doesn’t solve the root cause. Addictive action only covers uncomfortable emotions temporarily.
If we see mental pain as helpful, numbing is not a good idea. When we numb, we don’t get the signal that our thoughts are distorted. We then fall deeper into warped thinking and become lost.
In addition, Nate tried to use his intellectual mind to figure out the cause of his neck ache. Despite all his effort, he didn’t come up with a solution. Using the intellect to find a solution to emotional pain doesn’t help either. Racing around in your mind only creates more mental noise.
The solutions the intellect comes up with can only come from what we already know. What if the answers to your problems aren’t in our memory database? The answers to big questions rarely are. All that intellectual effort disconnects us from our own wisdom. Constant thinking drowns out the voice of inspiration.
Our tendency is to pressure our minds toward solutions. We can get better results by going in the opposite direction. It was only when my client gave up and relaxed that he was able to see the simple fix. A relaxed mind can see through clutter to the simplicity underneath.
Once his mind relaxed, my client had a single thought that changed his behavior. You might call this thought insight, wisdom, or inspiration. I call it a realization. A realization changed Nate’s behavior. When he stopped tying his hair into a ponytail, he stopped holding his head forward. Then, his neck started to feel better. When you stop using your mind in the wrong way, you will feel better too.
A Realization
A realization helped Nate get rid of an ache in his neck, but the power of realizations can help with more than neck pain.
Many people want to change their behavior, but they don’t know how to create lasting change. They think that willpower, discipline, and habit will cultivate the transformation they desire. These work only until they run out. Willpower, discipline, and habit can not create lasting change because they are limited. Pressuring ourselves to have more willpower doesn’t help our minds to work better. When it ends up not working, we judge ourselves, creating even more mental noise.
Does this sound like you?
My client didn’t realize he was holding his head in an uncomfortable way. Similarly, you might be unknowingly using your mind in an unhelpful way.
A Healthier Mind
You can remember how to use your mind in a different way. As a child, you had a healthier mind.
A child can throw a tantrum in one moment and then be happily playing the next. They get over setbacks quickly and easily. Children take the actions of others less personally. They don’t hold on to resentments and judgments.
Unknowingly, you have learned how to use your mind against yourself. It is a habit of thinking you picked up over the years.
Remember how to relax back into presence. Take your foot off the gas pedal in your head. Use your emotions to tell you when your thoughts are going sideways.
When you aren’t holding your mind in an uncomfortable way, you experience peace, contentment, and happiness. This is our default state. Nate’s neck didn’t hurt on the drive there, at his destination, or after he had had the realization. It only hurt when he was holding it in an uncomfortable position. Similarly, your mind is clear when you don’t use it in a way that hurts.
What if an insight from your own wisdom, a realization, could help you solve intractable problems? You are always on the edge of potential for true and lasting change. The solutions to your challenges lie on the other side of your current thinking.
A Relaxed Mind
It wasn’t until my client gave up that he saw the simple solution. This happens more often than you think. When my client dropped the process of trying to figure it all out, his mind relaxed. This relaxed state of his mind helped him realize what was really happening. Peak mental performance is not found in stress, pressure, or continuous overthinking.
A mind that is a whirlwind of constant thought will miss what is right in front of it. Only a mind that flows with the speed of life can be open to new perspectives.
When you relax back into the moment, you will find authentic presence. This space of presence contains wisdom. Realizations come from your wisdom.
Sydney Banks, an enlightened Scottish Mystic, said, “The solutions to outwardly complex problems created by misguided thoughts will not arise from complicated analytical theory, but will emerge as an insight, wrapped in a blanket of simplicity.”
This isn’t hippie dippie fluff. Realizations are practical. Experience more confidence, more connection, and less mental turmoil. A simple realization helped my client’s neck feel better. A realization saved my marriage. Realizations have given me a richer experience of life.
Realizations can do more than solve problems. When they are about the nature of life, they help us jump to a new level of understanding and clarity. Contentment, forgiveness, and joy become more accessible when we see with more clarity.
How might a realization change your experience of life?
My name is Rich Life, and I help clients understand when they are using their minds to hurt themselves. I help them have realizations. I do this by sharing an understanding of how their mind, consciousness, and thought combine together to create their experience of life. I offer one on one and group coaching. If you are interested, let’s start a conversation. Let me give you a call.
Please Share
I want you and the people around you to experience a more rich and vibrant life. Please help me. If this story impacted you, please share it with someone you care about.
Not only is true transformation possible, it is a single thought away.
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