A few days ago I woke up with a sore upper back. I have been doing a lot of plastering recently to finish off my strawbale house and my back was starting to complain about it.

In fact, it was becoming really hard to continue functioning. I was walking around with a grimace on my face and my kids somehow were getting under my skin a lot easier than usual. Funny how pain makes EVERYTHING more intense!

The feeling in my back was a combination of burning, throbbing and stabbing. It was sitting at about a 6/10 on the pain scale with occasional bursts up to 8/10.

I wanted to share my process around moving through this pain, firstly because it's probably quite different to what you've heard before... and secondly because it works really well. I figured it would be useful to let people know there are alternatives.

My past self would have tried neck stretches, possibly a trip to a physiotherapist and probably some kind of exercises that I learned from Youtube.

Now, because I have a much deeper understanding of the mechanisms of pain and movement, my approach is completely different.

What Caused The Pain?

The plastering I'm doing involves many hours of lifting a heavy mixture of sand, lime and straw on a trowel and smearing it onto the wall. Day after day, I had been doing this and my upper back was starting to get aggravated.

On top of that...

• my right elbow was beginning to hurt
• I was getting tingling sensations down my left arm to my fingertips.
• my left ankle and toes were beginning to hurt.

When I did my fitness training in the morning, I adapted my movements because of the pain, and it just tipped everything over the edge.

I knew there was a risk of this... and generally I am someone who practices gentleness with myself with my training because I know that consistency is better than quick wins... but I was feeling bold and I knew that if it was too much, I could bring myself back.

Nevertheless, 2 hours after my training, this intense burning / stabbing feeling began between my shoulder blade and my spine.

It felt as though one of my vertebrae was "out" to one side.

The old me would have felt panicky about this because it was such an intense feeling. I would have felt scared that I might have this pain for a long time and it's going to be a huge recovery.

A common story about this scenario that people tell might be...

“You’ve stuffed something. You pushed too hard. Now you’ve put a vertebra out, trapped a nerve, inflamed something serious — and if you don’t fix it quickly, you’re going to be dealing with this for months… maybe years.”

However, I now know that these signals are my brain giving me warnings. It's not a sign that anything is irreversibly damaged. It just means I need to pay attention.

The thing is, this response from my body makes total sense.

I've overloaded it. It was repetitive and it was asymmetrical movements that I'm not well conditioned for.

There is also an atmosphere of "productivity" which is never good for staying in tune with my body.

My habitual movement pattern had me contracting a particular part of my back over and over. The muscle got exhausted and remained contracted likely as a way of protecting that part of my spine from damage.

Step 1: Lie Down on The Floor

The first thing I did was lie down on the floor. This is a first aid attempt at bringing safety.

If my brain knows that i'm not doing any more work and that my body is more fully supported by the floor, it recognises that the context is safer than if I was still plastering or carrying kids around.

When my brain recognises it's safer, it can start to lower the amount of pain...which is what it did.

But that's no solution, it's just a temporary way to bring down the level of intensity.

Step 2: Start Paying Attention to My Experience Beyond the Pain

Pain is a protective mechanism. It has switched my body into self-preservation mode. If my brain generates enough pain, then I won't continue to overwork it. Mission accomplished.

In this state, it doesn't care about my posture, my alignment, my movement efficiency. Those goals aren't of high priority.

However, for me to feel safe again on a deeper level, my brain needs to know that the forces travelling through my skeleton are at a safe enough level that they're not going to cause me any damage.

When my movement is blocked by a constantly contracted muscle, the movement through my spine becomes rigid and blocked. The forces don't move through efficiently. Which means they come out in ways that can potentially cause harm to other parts of my body.

So in order to bring nervous system safety back at a deeper level, we need to bring back healthy coordination of the muscles of my back. We need to get back into alignment and connection.

How do I do that?

With sensory information - the snacks your brain loves to eat.

The problem is that pain is a double edged sword. It not only makes you stuck, it also obscures useful sensory information.

So this step of feeding your brain good info, requires that you try your hardest to feel the other things that are happening inside you that aren't pain.

I know, pain is loud, but you have to do your best to feel the more subtle things going on.

Step 3: Find the Connection

As I said previously, the part of my spine that is locked up prevents my back from moving efficiently. This means communication between my feet and my head is effectively dampened.

But this is the very thing that needs to be working properly for this pain to disappear.

The thing is, we're not trying to get rid of the pain, we're trying to change the conditions that require the pain to be there in the first place.

We're removing the smoke from the building instead of removing the smoke alarm.

So I bend my knees, I place my arms above my head and I gently start pushing through my foot - in the most exquisitiely small movement - and I keep searching for a response in my arms, shoulders, head.

These micro moments of connection from my feet to my hands, are reminding my brain that it can organise itself in a different way. A safer way. A way that preserves movement efficiency.

These reminders to your brain allow it to start taking in more information and building a picture of how your back is constructed so to speak.

The pain itself has dulled your image of what's there. But when you start to pay attention in this way, the picture of your back begins to fill itself out again. From here, your brain automatically re-organises your skeleton to move better.

After 10 minutes of this I feel my breathing deepening. I notice my face soften...

I find I'm able to roll onto my side, so I practice rolling like a baby... but with the same idea. I'm still looking for connection from the bottom of me to the top and back again.

Step 4: Let the Change Land

This part is subtle, and it’s where many people accidentally undo the good work they’ve just done.

When things start to feel better, there’s a temptation to test the body. To stretch harder. To see if the pain is gone. To prove something.

Instead, I rested.

I stood up slowly. I walked. I noticed how weight moved through my feet. I let the improved coordination settle into my nervous system rather than challenging it straight away.

Pain is often loud when the system is uncertain. As certainty returns, it doesn’t announce itself — it simply stops needing to shout.

What I Didn’t Do

I didn’t stretch the painful area. I didn’t force anything to release. I didn’t try to correct my posture. I didn’t chase the pain away.

All of those approaches assume the body is broken and needs fixing.

What I assumed instead was that my system was intelligent, protective, and temporarily overwhelmed.

That assumption changes everything.

The Result

Over the next 24-48 hours the intensity continued to drop. The sharpness softened. The sense that something was “out” disappeared.

More importantly, my movement felt coordinated again. I wasn’t guarding. I wasn’t bracing. I wasn’t fighting my own body.

This is the part people often miss:

Pain reducing is nice — but regaining trust in your body is what actually prevents it from coming back.

A Bigger Frame

If this way of working with pain feels unfamiliar, that makes sense. Most of us were taught to override signals, push through discomfort, or hand our bodies over to someone else to “fix.”

But pain isn’t a mechanical failure.

It’s a relationship issue.

When you learn how to listen, supply safety, and restore coordination, the system reorganises itself — often faster than you’d expect.

An Invitation

If you’re dealing with pain, tension, or recurring injuries — and you’re tired of cycling through fixes that don’t last — this is exactly the work I help people with.

Not by forcing change. Not by correcting you. But by helping your nervous system rediscover options it’s forgotten.

If that speaks to you, you’re welcome to get in touch and explore what working together might look like.

Your body isn’t fragile. It’s asking for a different kind of conversation.