I’d like to say that the moment I discovered how to transcend pain through dance, I promptly ran off and danced myself back into the athletic shape I was in prior to the car crash. But the truth is, for a few years I continued outsourcing my healthcare to doctors and bodyworkers – even as I repeatedly experienced dramatic and immediate results with dance, and even after I successfully taught other people to dance away their pain.

The deference cost me. One of my most debilitating injuries, in fact, came at the hands of a chiropractor, just a few months after I’d taken my first healing dance steps. Even then, following that traumatic incident, I persisted in turning to doctors, physical therapists, personal trainers, and yoga teachers, in search of the person who could heal me.

“Loolwa,” my mother said repeatedly, “Dance!” But, you know, that was Mom telling me I could heal myself. As far as I was concerned, my healing would come through the hands of a formally-trained healthcare professional. Dance, though effective every single time in reducing or eliminating my pain, was too out there to be real. I chalked up the transformations to coincidence or, at best, I saw dance as a way to get myself well enough to find the real practitioner and start the real healing.

I have asked a number of holistic health practitioners why they think it took me years to trust the reality of my experience, instead of seeing it as a freak occurrence each and every single time it happened. Integrative medicine leader Andrew Weil, MD, replied that American health care “has us all dependent on high-tech solutions” and that as a result, Americans have little confidence in their body’s ability to restore health. Dr. Simon and pain specialist James Dillard, MD, DC, CAc, both responded that we are conditioned to defer to doctors as the ultimate authority figure, and that our deference is exacerbated when we are sick, frightened, and in need of help.

Fortunately my mom persisted in getting me to recognize my self-healing abilities. One day, I was sharing the frustration, the outright desperation, that I was experiencing in looking for a practitioner who could understand and hold the space for all my different needs and philosophies about healing. “Loolwa,” my mom said evenly. “You are the healer you have been seeking. Dance.” Somehow, that time, my mom’s words sank in. And so I began to dance regularly.

Over the next couple of years, a whole-body transformation snuck up on me: Suddenly I would realize I was lifting heavy bags. Or holding several things in my hands, while turning the keys in the door. Or scrubbing the tub. Basic things I had not been able to do for years.

When I first started dancing every day, I regularly woke up with pain levels somewhere between a 7-9, danced the pain down to a 2-3, went to sleep after a pretty good day, then woke up right back where I’d started – in horrific levels of pain. While I was frustrated that the dance effect didn’t seem to stick overnight, I felt grateful to have a tool to get through each day with minimal discomfort. Over the months , however, the intensity of morning pain lessened. And lessened. Until there was hardly any pain. And then no pain.

Drawing from this intuitive and transformational experience, I developed a dance method that organically blends movement, breath work, meditation, cognitive behavioral therapy, and energy work. Most of what I teach in my dance classes came to me during inspired moments of my own healing journey – particularly in my living room dance sessions. (I always dance with a notebook and pen at hand!)

Since teaching others this approach to dance, I have come to learn that it does not discriminate between causes of pain. Students with arthritis, fibromyalgia, complex regional pain syndrome (CRPS), migraines, lupus, degenerative disc disease, poorly-healed injuries, and myofascial pain have reported dramatically increased mobility, significantly lowered pain, or altogether eliminated pain at the end of a one-hour dance session. It is not uncommon to see expressions of shock at the end of a dance class – the same kind of disbelief I myself felt in the early years.

I want to share the unbelievable experience of stepping through a dance portal to spontaneous healing. Not only have informal trials demonstrated that this method has a 96% rate of efficacy, but it also can be done in the comfort of one’s living room or bed. Wearing ratty-tatty PJs. On a really bad hair day. For free. That last part is especially good news for those of us who have burned a big fat hole in our pockets — front-line casualties of our  crazy  healthcare system.

For all these reasons, I launched Dancing with Pain®. Through this company, I am developing a line of natural pain relief products and services – including live and multimedia dance classes, lifestyle management workshops, practitioner training seminars, and inspirational merchandise. My ultimate goal is to create the Dancing with Pain® Institute, providing certification programs for dance method teachers and healthcare practitioners, as well as annual conferences for the chronic pain community – patients and practitioners together, exchanging ideas and knowledge.

I know this dream will take years to achieve. But as I say in my classes: Start where you are, do what you can, and keep on keeping on.

Want to learn how to dance with your pain? Be sure to check out the Dancing with Pain store, for the “Breakfast Mix,” the first in our series of downloadable audio classes.

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I know, I know, this is totally late in the game, because the Dancing with Pain video contest was like, eons ago, but you can say I’ve had a lot on my plate recently. So I’m finally getting around to the runner up for the winner of the Dancing with Pain video contest. Click here to check out the dance video called, “Gravity,” dedicated to Endometriosis, performed by Arielle Denise Dance. Also check out this awesome article Arielle wrote about liturgical dance. I love the powerful, spiritually-connected way that Arielle moves, and I love how she talks about that connection in the article. You can follow Arielle on Twitter, at @A_healthyDANCEr.

Want to learn how to dance with your pain? Be sure to check out the Dancing with Pain store, for the “Breakfast Mix,” the first in our series of downloadable audio classes.

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If you’re interested in dance for natural pain relief, keep in mind that you can do it from anywhere, at any time. So go ahead and create your own personal dance studio for natural pain relief grooves! This dance “studio” can be in your bed, on your living room couch, on the floor near your baby’s crib, hell, even under the dining room table, where you are writhing around in pain after dinner. Turn that wiggle & jiggle into a dance!

The idea of dance for natural pain relief is, in a nutshell, radically different than that of dance for performance – which is how our culture generally relates to dance. You don’t need a hard body, wicked cute clothes, sex appeal, or moves to write home about. You just need to respond to the music – whether in your pain-free zones in your body (never ever go into your pain zones!) or in your mind (if, you know, your entire body is a pain zone).

Slowly and gently explore your comfort zones. Get curious: How can your shoulder move without pain? Up and down? Side to side? Back and forth? In circular motions? The basic idea is replacing the “pain-pain-pain” soundtrack with a pleasure soundtrack. In essence, we’re reintroducing the idea that movement can be comfortable and a source of joy.

So go ahead: Dance under-cover in your fashion forward BedQuarters, in your ratty-tatty pajamas or buck-naked. Dance in your chair near the computer, while tweeting with your pain buddies. Dance with your kids, your partner (or partners, for you naughty polyamorous types), or your dog. Just dance.

Want to learn how to dance with your pain? Be sure to check out the Dancing with Pain store, for the “Breakfast Mix,” the first in our series of downloadable audio classes.

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As I have shared my story about healing pain through dance, I have met other pain patients who self-healed through dance — including a couple who had been paralyzed! How is it possible that we all self-healed from a condition stumping our doctors? A few years ago, I decided to put my journalistic skills to use, on a mission to uncover the science behind the dance.

Martin Rossman, M.D., a pioneer in the field of mind-body medicine, explained the mystery in terms of cutting-edge neurological research: According to the latest studies, acute pain (the immediate “ow!” sensation we feel after banging a knee into a coffee table) registers in the part of the brain that deals with tissue damage. But chronic pain  (the “ow!” that just keeps on giving) registers in a different part of the brain – the prefrontal cortex and limbic system, which the brain uses for memories.

Once pain has been hanging around for months or years on end, it gets lodged into a neural circuitry. It’s kind of like a pain train: Movement habitually triggers a “pain-pain-pain” response over time, leading to a deeper and deeper groove in the pain train track. In other words, the more we feel pain, the more we feel pain.

When done mindfully and safely, however, dance introduces – get this – a pleasure train track. The more we dance with comfort, ease, and joy, the more all the neurons hop onto the party train and deepen its funky-bass groove, until one day, the pain train files neurological bankruptcy from lack of use.

At least, that’s how I like to think of it. Dance effectively reframes and refocuses the relationship to pain, rebooting the nervous system. The more we dance with pleasure, the more we activate new, healthy neurological pathways. If we sustain a regular, happy dance practice over the long haul, the pain pathways may become slower and less likely to activate, then eventually disappear altogether.

In case that’s not a “brainiac” enough explanation for you, David Simon, MD, a neuroanatomist and medical director of the Chopra Center for Wellbeing, discussed my transformation in terms of physics: According to modern theory, the entire universe is comprised of different vibrational frequencies, or wave forms. If there is distress in one of these wave forms, there is a dissonance in the vibration, which in the body can lead to dis-ease like chronic pain.

As it turns out, Ayurvedic medicine — an ancient holistic system originating in India – was hip to this theory centuries ago. The system teaches that if we introduce a healing vibration, it will set up a resonant effect on whatever is dissonant — thereby providing the memory of harmony, helping the imbalanced state recall its previously balanced state, and restoring health.

Dance packs a vibrational punch, because it embodies both sound and movement wave frequencies. As such, it impacts our entire system – nerves, bones, muscles, fluids, and tissues. Dr. Simon put it this way: “Dancing creates a kind of heartbeat. If it is a resonant heartbeat, it harmonizes every cell in the body.”

If it is a resonant heartbeat. Maybe this resonance factor is why only particular music gets me going full-throttle: My body has to relate to it vibrationally. Repeatedly, I have found that I will be dancing low-key for a while, to various musical styles, when one song comes on that transports me to an altered state – where the music is in the driver’s seat of my body, and I cannot help but fly around my apartment like a woman possessed, pain zones vanished.

Perhaps for that moment, with that particular vibrational frequency flowing through me, my body is restored to harmony and therefore perfect health. Regardless of why dance works, I know for a fact that it does. Over the years, using dance as my primary vehicle for healing, I have gone from living with pain levels generally around an 8 (on the infamous pain scale of 1-10, with 10 being excruciating) and spending a lot of time in bed, to being more or less pain-free and leading a healthy, active life.

And that is something to dance about.

Want to learn how to dance with your pain? Be sure to check out the Dancing with Pain store, for the “Breakfast Mix,” the first in our series of downloadable audio classes.

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