You probably live in fear of pain.

You think it’s destructive.

You run from pain, instead of understanding what it’s trying to teach you.

I’ve lived in fear of pain for most of my life. And most of my clients have too.

It’s not a nice experience.

The pain consumes you and sucks your enjoyment out of life.

In this newsletter my aim is to bring you from a prisoner of pain, to a student of pain.

This is a crucial component on the road back to Physical Freedom.

Prisoners of Pain

Most people are prisoners of pain.

They live in fear of movement. They live in fear of their own bodies.

You hurt your back before so now you think you have a ‘bad back’:

• You stop bending down in certain ways
• You hyperfocus on simple movements you did easily before
• You slowly reduce movement more & more over time

Now over months, years & decades…..you have become the tin man.

You have joined the chronic pain crew. Your quality of life takes a nosedive, and you can’t do things you love anymore.

Sophie is the latest client to finish up the Physical Freedom Program.

She was one of these prisoners. Suffering with chronic pain in multiple joints: back, shoulders, and knees.

She had previously been very active doing weightlifting and sailing, but had to stop these due to chronic pains.

When you are a prisoner of pain, you have a much worse quality of life. You also can’t do things you love anymore.

What’s the common advice we get?

• Rest it and protect it (only makes it weaker and more stiffness/pain)
• Judged for not wanting to settle (projection of self-limiting beliefs)
• Settle and retire (leads to regret. You have to live with it, they don’t)

These approaches keep us in prison. And that’s where most people stay for life.

Chronic pain is one of the most prevalent issues in the world, affecting millions of people everyday.

The difference between you and actual prisoners, is that you have the choice to leave.

You don’t have to live that way, even though it feels like you are trapped.

The way out is through understanding.

The pain you thought was tormenting you, was actually trying to teach you.

The Misunderstood Teacher

Have you ever had a teacher that you thought was a nutjob?

Only to find out years/decades later that they were very wise in their own way?

That they were actually teaching you many important lessons? I have many. One springs to mind, but that’s a story for another day.

Pain is the same: it’s misunderstood.

Pain is protective, not destructive.

It’s an evolutionary adaptation that has kept the human species alive until now:

• If you burn your arm in a fire, pain teaches you to stay away
• If you break a limb, pain teaches you to take your weight off it
• If you get betrayed, pain teaches you to make a wiser choice next time

Pain is a teacher that helps us navigate through life more safely from every experience we have.

The goal of survival is built into us and all species. And pain is a crucial part of being able to learn how to survive.

I did a deep dive YouTube video on “What Pain Is & How to Manage It” already. But I will touch on one main point from that here: the bio-psycho-social model of pain.

This is one of the most up-to-date models on pain. It takes the very complex topic of pain, and puts it into a model we can work with.

The first thing to understand in terms of chronic pain is that there is no one cause for pain.

So straight away, you see how 99% of the stuff you are told in the mainstream/healthcare route is bullshit.

How the ‘expert’ has found out how ‘X diagnosis’ is the cause of your pain after their magical assessment. It’s not.

They either:

• don’t know enough about how the human body works to realise this is incorrect (incompetence)
• do know but are deceiving you for money (lack of integrity).

Either way, it’s a massive red flag.

It’s been proven that pain is multifactoral, but of course we aren’t told that.

We believe reductionist opinions like “tight hamstring = lower back pain“, which is part of the problem. You stretch your hamstrings, but the pain may not go away, then you chase the next ’cause’.

Over time when nothing works, you think you are f***ed & settle. Another prisoner of pain behind bars now.

The biopsychosocial model gets us closer to the truth of pain.

The model shows how pain comes from 3 areas:

• Biology (your body)
• Psychology (your beliefs/thoughts/emotions)
• Social (the people you are around/the environment you are in)

As you can see in the picture, pain is at the intersection.

Pain is a combination of all these factors.

So what can we do? We can tick as many boxes as we can in each area. Just like you would with a nutrition plan to manage your hunger signal.

That’s what I did with Sophie. As a result:

• Her back pain hugely improved
• Her knee knee pain and shoulder pain significantly improved
• Her mobility and strength have noticeably improved
• She got back to sailing and can strength train in the gym with minimal pain.

Pain doesn’t mean you are f**ked. That there is something wrong with you or your body. That you have to settle.

Pain means that you have areas of the bio-psycho-social model that you have to address.

You need to work on your mobility and how your body moves.

You need to work on your education and learn how your body functions.

You need to work on your social stressors and manage them.

This is the way to escape the prison of pain that most people are kept in for a lifetime.

Life’s Greatest Tormentor or Teacher?

Like most things in life, there are two paths to walk down.

You can let pain become your greatest tormentor in life, or it can become your greatest teacher.

Pain has taught me more in my life than anything else. For my body, mindset & life.

Pain is the most potent catalyst.
The driver of transformation.
The excavator of unearthed potential.

Pain is a request for change. But not everyone answers.

Listen and learn, or ignore it and stay behind bars.

One path leads to a life of understanding and increased potential.

The other leads to settling and a life of regret.

Physical Freedom Program

Sophie came from chronic pain and forced to settle. (giving up sailing & the gym).

To not settling, regaining her physical freedom, and winning a world championship masters race in sailing!

What an inspiration Sophie is. Read her story below.

If you don’t want to settle for anything less than your Physical Freedom like Sophie, now is the time.

Physical Freedom Program
Application form 

Don’t Settle,
Mark