Bowen Therapy for Chronic Pain

To me – Bowen Therapy was like a magic bullet with qualities of a true, unadulterated magical cure-all. (yes – you may call me a snake-oil seller if you wish)

It’s been more than 20yrs since Bowen Therapy first came into my life and practice and I’m still a true believer in it’s amazing powers of healing the body and the mind – including lower back pain, chronic illness and headaches to name a few.

BUT

There’s far more to healing our bodies than simply getting someone to poke your body into curing….to be honest it needs you.

It needs YOU to come to the party and mold the body into the best possible shape….physically, mentally and emotionally.

Bowen Therapy can be a one man band and often quite successfully – but there are times when more is needed whether it be a vast improvement in diet, more movement or removing (or changing) a highly stressful situation from you life.

When someone has a treatment, then goes and runs 16kms straight after – they will more than likely give themselves muscle micro-tears.

If they sit around watching TV or at a desk at work – simply not moving – their body won’t be given the chance to reposition itself correctly and will fall back into an old pattern.

And if they come home and eat food that’s full of sugar (and what food in a packet isn’t), drink 2 glasses of skim milk, eat some Tim Tams and then for dinner a take-away or microwave meal – they aren’t doing their body justice.

We need to step-up. Respect what our body is capable of and be aware of what is being fed to it.

I could compare your body to a car – but that would be disrespectful as they don’t usually last that long, they are often used until they are of no use any longer or traded-in for a newer model.

And if you DO look after your car – but eat rubbish food – you REALLY need to step-up and treat your body the same.

I have often seen men and women leaning on their beautiful, shined-up, fully-restored vintage cars which have been supplied with the best of the best inside and out. Pimped to the max. Their proud owners are munching on their MacDonalds Hamburgers, chips and a good old Coke to wash (or keep) it down.

These beautiful car owners understand the importance of nurturing and primping the body of their car to gain it’s maximum potential – but have allowed the importance of their own bodies to completely pass them by.

This is where I discuss people with chronic pain. 

Long-term pain will usually start after something simple. It starts as an acute, sudden onset of pain – often in the back or neck. It can also creep up as well. So many times we all feel our bodies start to twitch or feel tweaky but we keep on going (often trying to get through the pain by exercising more thinking we can simply get through it by mind-power) until it becomes unbearable and we “have’ to do something about it.

In both these situations Bowen Therapy can and will help considerably – but – if you are one of those people who really want to take control of your body, your life and your health the next step to add to having me “fix” your body is for you to start to experiment with new foods, different combinations of foods and look outside the box of what you have been eating often your whole life and ask

“WHY? am I eating this food”

“Does it really make me feel good or is it simply a habit I’ve done my entire life?”

“What’s stopping me from leaving the safety of the foods I’m used to and experimenting with new ones?”

“Do I feel more tired, get a headache or body aches after eating a certain food?”

Any sort of pain we go through is a great opportunity to not only change a few things about how we sit, stand, walk or exercise but also it’s a great time to change a few other things in our life as well.

Diet is a great example of this – and it’s not the only unfavourable thing we can do to our bodies.

This is the first a several articles I’ll be writing on chronic pain – it’s a huge subject and worth looking into to discover why it turns up in our lives and how to manage it. 

Chronic pain is a multidimensional situation and often fixable using:

• Bowen Therapy,
• A whole-food diet and
• Lifestyle change (this incorporates a bit of soul-searching) which is the fun part and also the most challenging and advantageous.