Transformational Healing

In order to understand how we get out of injury, it helps to understand how we get into it. Yet there are so many different approaches to injury, it can be overwhelming to make sense of them all. So I’ve come up with five categories, and we’ll explore each of them by comparing getting injured to getting a flat tire in our car.  

The Materialist Approach

The most basic way to deal with a flat tire is to repair or replace it. I call this the materialist approach. Our tire gets punctured because something is wrong with its material - too weak or inflexible - so we need to fix it or get a new one. 

The materialist approach to our body says we get injured because our muscles are too weak, tight or cold. Therefore, we need to strengthen, stretch, massage or warm them up. 

The Mechanical Approach

The next level considers our whole car. Maybe our car has a crooked steering wheel or a broken mirror, and THAT’S why we keep hitting potholes and puncturing our tires. This mechanical approach sees patterns beyond our tire, but still blames our car.

The mechanical approach to our body points to our structural asymmetries as the cause of injury. One leg is too long; one arm is too short; one eye is bad; our spine is crooked. The solution is often found in equipment such as inserts, braces or glasses; or in chiropractic adjustments.

The Technical Approach

The third level says, “Enough about the car, what about the driver?!” Perhaps our car is fine, but WE need instruction on how to drive it around those pesky potholes. This technical approach puts the responsibility on us, the driver, yet still treats our car as an external, inanimate object. 

The technical approach to our body blames our injuries on poor posture. We have pain because we slouch, overarch, or somehow misalign ourselves, so we need to learn the correct way to use our body, usually shown to us by an outside expert who knows how we should be.

The Relationship Approach

The fourth level is where our car metaphor breaks down (no pun intended!) so we’ll need to use some fantasy to keep it going. 

Imagine our car is actually a self-driving car, and a genius one at that. Our car understands how to drive itself far better than we or anyone expert ever could analytically. But more than that, our car has feelings too! If we correct them, they will rebel. If we judge them, they will withdraw. In other words, we are now in a relationship with our car - an intelligent, sensitive, living being - who is just as much a person as we are. 

Sure, we need to fill them with fuel and give them rest (both of which they’ll ask for) and we can certainly suggest to them ideas about where we’d like to go or how we’d like to get there. But our car will only cooperate if we treat them as an equal and listen to what THEY want too. I call this the relationship approach. 

When it comes to our body, this sci-fi fantasy is actually reality.

Our body really is a genius - far smarter at organizing our movements than our analytical mind could ever be.

And our body really does have feelings. If we force our body to do something they don’t want to, they will rebel and we will both pay the price. But if we trust and respect our body, they will heal and support us in ways we could have never imagined. 

The Human Approach

The final level is to realize that we and our car are actually one being. There is no separation. Everything that happens to one part of us, happens to all of us. There is no “elbow”. There even is no “body”. There is just us. I call this the human approach. Musically, the human approach frees us to express ourselves without any artificial self-division or self-consciousness. We flow out of our body and our body flows out of us.  

Which approach is best?

The beauty is that all of these approaches can be useful. Sometimes all we need is a tire pump, a driving tip or even a new steering wheel, but more often than not, the injuries we face as musicians stem from a breakdown in our relationship with our body. We treat our body like a literal car - a dumb machine - when in fact they are a genius person who deserves our care and respect. 

Healing this relationship can be much more intellectually and emotionally challenging than a quick materialist, mechanical or technical fix. It requires questioning our dogmas about correct technique, developing a part of ourselves we have little faith in, unpacking our deepest wounds, facing uncomfortable truths about ourselves and investing enough quality time for a new trust to emerge. 

Yet if we dedicate ourselves to this process, not only will our tire get fixed, and not only will we learn to prevent further damage in the future, we will also gain a whole new amazing life-partner along the way, who is our body, who is us. This will transform not only how we feel, but how we sound.

Book a Session

If you are in pain or injured, the Feel Good Sound Good Program can help you not only relieve your symptoms, but get at the root of what has broken down in your relationship with your body. I recommend first coming for an individual session so we can determine the best path forward for you on your healing journey.