heal: how a change in perception can lead to pain free living with denis liam murphy
Sat in A&E at a ridiculous hour in the morning with a cold flannel on my face, I was distraught with a never ending tooth ache that had led me to tears throughout the night. I had got up not knowing what to do with myself and driven to the nearest hospital. After hours of waiting to be seen, I was armed with antibiotics and painkillers and sent home. Nothing touched it and it had been going on for days. I then remembered that this was what Denis specialised in. I messaged him and asked if he could help in any way. Hours later I had a session with him on the phone, working though what emotionally may have been going on in my life and what my body was trying to tell me. I slept. When I woke up, the pain was gone. No tablets, no dentist appointment, just working through what I was feeling and being totally honest with myself.
From that day, there have been many more sessions like this one. Whether it be something physically, emotionally or a challenge that I have come across during my career. Denis has helped many of my friends, guided my colleagues and now travels across the world speaking and writing about the people that he has helped along the way. If you’re open to being truly honest with yourself and where you are at in your life, then this feature offers you a unique chance for transformation. Over to you Den…
So much of your work has been based around the connection between our mind and our body. How do you believe the two are interlinked?
Let’s get metaphysical for a moment. The idea that our mind and body are not interlinked comes from the idea our ‘mind’ is in our brain and somehow this makes it separate from the rest of the body. However, there is plenty of evidence to suggest that the mind is held within every cell of the body. Meaning, our mind and body are actually one of the same — there is no separation.
I witnessed this first hand when I became a sports masseuse many moons ago. Clients would laugh uncontrollably or become emotional when certain muscles where massaged and released. Sometimes no obvious reason existed, while other times a long forgotten memory would surface. Many physical therapists have had similar experiences illustrating what Traditional Chinese Medicine and Ayurveda have been telling us for over five thousand years — our body holds memories and the emotions that come with them.
We are getting to understand this more nowadays because of the growing awareness around excessive stress and its impact on our physical and mental health. And of course, there is the placebo and nocebo effect, where a sugar pill can initiate healing or illness depending on what we are told. All avenues demonstrate how the mind is meshed within the body and once our beliefs and perception honestly change so does the structure and integrity of our mind-body.
We need to look no further than our posture to see how our beliefs and emotions directly impact us. Many people’s necks are fast disappearing as their shoulders are creeping ever closer to their ears.
Our go to solution to rub them and find the painful trigger points offer short-term relief at best. It is because we are treating our body as purely physical. Not fully appreciating our muscles don’t move of their own volition, a belief, thought and emotion is what signalled them to activate.
It was a game changer for me when I understood what Nicola Tesla, one of the greatest minds of the last century meant when he said, ‘If you want to know the secrets of the universe see it in terms of energy, frequency and vibration.’
When I realised we are bioenergetic and magnetic beings my whole reality transformed. Suddenly, I didn’t get caught up in the physical condition of my clients or the labels they had collected. Rather, my focus centred on their beliefs and the emotions that came with them. Fascinatingly, my clients lives dramatically changed the more they practiced doing the same. Their chronic and acute pain disappeared when I took them through a self-learning process that saw feelings of anger, disappointment, fear (anxiety, worry) and sadness dissipate or disappear.
We all hold our mind in different parts of our body. This is why we all respond differently when confronted by our fears and phobias or when we think or see someone we are angry with. Some people feel like they have been hit in the stomach, others go weak kneed or tension is felt in various parts of their body.
What isn’t fully appreciated is that these mental and physical reactions are playing out all the time, 24/7 on a lesser scale. We only notice when triggered emotionally or the discomfort becomes too much to block out. This is where the real issue is. We have become so good at coping and being ‘positive’ we don’t notice the underlying chronic visceral tension and pain we are under.
““We have become so good at coping and being ‘positive’ we don’t notice the underlying chronic visceral tension and pain we are under.””
Deep down we all know playing the waiting game isn’t the most effective strategy for health and performance. However, we have been brought up with a lot of adrenaline fuelled advice centred around controlling and conquering our mind-body. We have been told to have a “stiff upper lip”, “be the master of your mind”, “let it go!”, all of which encourages us to wait until the pain and discomfort is intolerable before we take notice.
This “let it go”, “forgive and forget", positive mental attitude approach has unknowingly created a pseudo-empowering mindset that has resulted in us being in a constant state of denial, dishonesty and survival. It is not that this advice is ‘bad’ as we all need ways to cope at times in our life but it is unsustainable due to the energy it takes to maintain the willpower driven coping mechanisms.
It is one of the reasons coffee and energy drinks are being consumed in such large quantities. All our internal energy goes towards helping us cope, control and conquer our way through life. External sources of energy are needed to maintain our willpower that is keeping our grievances, pain and fears at bay.
A new approach and complete mindset shift is needed if we want to witness long-term and profound healing, transformation and freedom.
How much of the things we experience in our lives day to day are we in control of?
The short answer is none.
“Take back control of your life.” “Have self-control.” “Control your anger.” “Stop worrying about things you can’t control and start focusing on the things you can.” “You cannot control the world around us, but you can control the world in us…”
All these popular sayings around ‘control’ make us feel empowered because they all make sense but they only make sense due to the dualistic world we have been brought up in.
The fact is, it is an illusion that we control anything when in fact we co-create it all. It is an important distinction to make.
We are innately creative beings and our main canvas on which to produce our greatest work is life. Just try and control a child, partner or a group of society and it soon becomes apparent any headway was a temporary agreement. Everyone and everything has its threshold before the illusion breaks down like a dam holding back a river.
““We are innately creative beings and our main canvas on which to produce our greatest work is life.””
When we apply the same control mentality to our thoughts or physical and mental pain, we soon realise the idea of controlling them offers short-term reprieve. For sure these moments create much needed relief and results but I am still suggesting it is not a sustainable strategy for life. ‘Control’ is a victim and fear-based strategy, steeped in coping mechanisms that need ever more complex and intense ways to keep the illusion going.
Ultimately it leads to mental and physical illness which is why both are so prevalent in today’s world.
Keeping it simple, the main reason we want to control something is because we think the alternative is going to be bad, negative, wrong, a mistake or failure. As rational as this initially seems, more is at play than we realise. As the fear levels in the world raise, our perception is narrowing. Ironically in a world where information is abundant, we are requiring ever decreasing amounts of information before we make our judgements. Meaning, we are often making assumptions and accusations while in a state of incomplete information, awareness and wisdom.
How many times, with the benefit of hindsight do we realise something was a blessing in disguise?
Even if we can’t see the benefits right now, they will start to appear as we transition from the victim-based mindset we inherited to a place of self-learning. Here we learn about ourselves from each situation and experience, not as a victim but as a co-creator of our reality.
All the while we accept and pass on the idea we are the ones ‘controlling’ our life, we are unwittingly keeping ourselves in a sate of fear (anxiety). It enforces a dualistic paradigm where we think things will go ‘wrong’ if we don’t control the outcome. This is the biggest illusion we have ever accepted and creates separation in all aspects of our life.
To control or have self-control is a very conscious driven idea, it doesn’t take into account the influential subconscious component of our being. I let my clients know often, that just because their conscious plan didn’t work out, they can be assured their subconscious one did. This is the part of us that houses approximately 95% of all that unknowingly influences us. Interestingly, even though we are becoming more aware of this, we often place our focus on the 5% that simply helps us navigate our world so we don’t bump into stuff.
Metaphysically speaking, there is no separation between the conscious and subconscious, they are one and the same working together to help us become self-aware, but that is a discussion for another day.
This mainstream control-based approach fuels our need to be positive and optimistic, which again unknowingly creates dishonesty with ourselves and others. It ultimately leads to mental, physical and spiritual illness.
It creates restriction rather than freedom. It over complicates a process that is designed to be simple. It creates a myth that life is a choice to be happy or sad, when in fact happiness and sadness are byproducts of our mindset.
We are currently living a self-fulfilling prophecy we were told thousands of years ago that life was about struggle, suffering and hardship, and control is part of the solution. Because we accepted this without question, we regurgitated it for each successive generation to absorb and believe.
The reality is, life is co-created and designed to be effortless.
How does our body reflect not only our thoughts but our past experiences?
To answer this I will use a client example. During a webinar where I was explaining the role of the mind-body connection, one of the participants let our a cry, “My toes just bent!”
We all looked over as she repeated, “My toes are bending, my toes are bending.” To anyone else this is a strange thing to be excited about, but for her it was a life changing moment. For six years, ever since she was diagnosed with ‘juvenile arthritis’ at the age of thirteen, she hadn’t been able to move her toes.
For me, this is my ‘normal’ as I am used to clients having spontaneous changes in all aspects of their life but for the others it was their first time. They all looked bemused. Not sure if she was lying or I was playing a trick, they didn’t quite know what to do.
I was explaining how our body is much more important than getting us from A to B and being a canvas to help us discover physiological issues like nutritional deficiencies. Her healing arrived after I explained that our mind and body work together to help us in weird and wonderful ways to achieve our known and unknown goals. In addition to providing guilt-free reasons to get out of situations.
Understandably frowns appeared at this time. To aid my case I asked the group if they could remember making themselves ill as a child to avoid going to school? They all nodded and smiled as they recollected their amateur acting days and the symptoms they managed to create.
I then asked if they had ever made plans with a friend and as the day got closer they started to feel tired and ‘under the weather’ because now a night in watching Netflix or their favourite TV show was a lot more appealing. After a few confirmations, I asked if they remember feeling a sense of relief and their energy return after they sent a message to cancel. They all laughed in recognition of this common scenario.
The more I talked about how our perceived ‘random’ physical symptoms arrive during periods of stress or special occasions like birthdays or anniversaries they started to share realisations. They could all remember how arguments, pain and illness arrived leading up to auditions, performances and interviews.
The participant with the now bendy toes shared the realisation she had just before her toes bent. At the age of thirteen she wanted to stop ballet but was too fearful to say anything as it would disappoint her parents who had put a lot of time, energy and resources into getting her to a high level. In that moment she realised the symptom of immovable toes which is essential to this particular style of dance, prevented her from continuing. As consciously disappointing as this was at the time, she now realised it gave her a guilt-free reason to stop. One that her parents couldn’t argue with.
A new perspective leads to a new level of honesty which is essential to sustainable healing and transformation. She finally realised how her body had been helping her achieve what she was to fearful to admit to. Once she acknowledged that her mind-body were helping her, the pain and symptom was no longer needed.
It isn't always this quick but it really can be this effortless.
When we have pain, what do you believe it to be?
Pain is a language and no different to learning Catalan or Mandarin. Like a baby cries or a dog barks to let us know something needs addressing, pain is one of our bodies ways of communicating. The issue is, we have mostly forgotten how to speak ‘pain’. As a result, we ignore it or try to shut it down. As an experiment, ignore your baby, child or partner for long periods and see what happens. They will play up until they are listened to - pain is no different.
In today’s world with so many coping mechanisms and distractions available it is easy to ignore or shut out many things, including the things that are doing all they can to help us, like pain.
““In today’s world with so many coping mechanisms and distractions available it is easy to ignore or shut out many things, including the things that are doing all they can to help us, like pain.””
Contrary to popular belief, pain is our friend not a foe.
As I pointed out in the example above, most people accept their ‘labels’ and the pain that accompanies them. So they learn to live with it rather than learn it is helping them.
The same is true of mental pain, which comes with all the emotions we refer to as bad, negative and wrong. Each of which come with visceral pain and discomfort. In order to start the healing process, it is important to realise life is subjective. The diversity and infinite interpretations of each experience means it can’t be reduced to such stress inducing judgments as rigidly good or bad, negative or positive, right or wrong.
If we want to keep healing simple, we are only stressed and in pain because we think something did, is or will go wrong.
Again, we only think in such black and white terms because we have been taught to. When in fact, life is very colourful and within the colour are self-learning lessons that help us as individuals and a species to become self-aware and evolve. These lessons, once learnt, project us to new levels of freedom and potential where pain is welcomed and listened to rather than avoided or fought.
Counterintuitively, viewing pain as bad or holding us back is the very approach that ensures extreme experiences keep happening. In time, the more we practice the self-learning mindset, we learn about ourselves when the lessons are a whisper rather than when they are screaming at us.
Mental and physical pain are at such extreme levels around the world because we continue to ignore and avoid the limitless opportunities to learn about ourselves. Trying to shut down our ‘monkey mind’ and self-deprecating thoughts seems rational but based on what is being offered here, the longer they are ignored, controlled or conquered, the louder and more intense they become.
All pain and discomfort can be viewed differently when we play around in all the colours of the spectrum because this is where infinite possibility and potential lives.
It is this exploration of possibility that opens our minds enough to create an environment where we no longer need excessive pain or abuse of any kind to help us learn. Here is where healing and transformation can take place in ways and a timeframe that seem impossible.
How can we use those signals to heal?
Our mind-body is constantly giving us signs of what emotional issues are playing out. We only have to look at the stages of dehydration to see what happens if we continue to ignore symptoms (messages). From dry lips, foggy thinking, and fatigue to kidney and heart failure to death. Basically our mind-body shuts down all the while we brush of the signs or lessons that are being offered.
The reality is, most of our symptoms can be attributed to dehydration but it can seem too simple that this is the solution so we look to overcomplicate. The same is true for many aspects of our life.
The primary modus operandi of our mind-body is to keep us alive so we can find our passion and purpose and go beyond what we think is possible. This way we will not only ensure our growth but that of everyone around us. Evolution is reliant on this self-learning process. This is why our mind-body is never doing anything to hold us back. It is worth contemplating the idea of why would this whole thing we call life be designed in a way to hold us back? What would be the point?
Surely, it is designed in a way that everyone and everything is here to help us and never to hold us back, to give us every opportunity to grow and become more self-aware.
It is our perception that has been moulded by years of propaganda suggesting that we have a devil on one shoulder and an angel on the other. Each competing for our attention to convince us that certain situations are bad or good. Years of this conditioning has meant we are born victims and then go on to co-create experiences that justify this victimhood.
““Years of this conditioning has meant we are born victims, and then go on to co-create experiences that justify this victimhood.””
It seems too simple but this is the ‘secret’ to healing and transformation. All the time we think something is bad, negative or wrong, a mistake or a failure, we are in a state of victimhood because we are attached to something else happening. This keeps us in a constant state of stress. Again, life works in weird and wonderful ways and is too subjective and colourful for this to be the way life plays out.
Our world is so diverse, multicultural and vivid to help us realise how subjective life is - what is considered right to one person is considered wrong to another and neither of them are right or wrong. Every situation deserves a fresh perspective. Every encounter with another being deserves a fresh interaction. Meet people for the first time every time you meet them. This creates a space for you and them to learn and change.
We all have ideals as to what we would like to happen, but where did these ideals come from? Hollywood, Bollywood, our favourite TV show, myths and stories…
As I said earlier, we are at the extreme end of not learning about ourselves and like the later stages of dehydration the messages are extremely painful and extraordinary. That is because we need a sledgehammer of a lesson to wake us up from our victim induced slumber.
Healing, transformation and freedom come about when we engage with physical and mental pain as our friend. Friends will keep pushing in any way they can to help us, sometimes we don’t like it because they are pulling us out of our slumber or dragging us out of our comfort zone. As painful as this can be, it doesn’t negate the fact they are helping us. Physical and mental pain and symptoms are no different.
Why do you think some of us create blocks from success? What are the best ways to overcome that?
Because I now see everyone and everything is here to help me and never to hold me back I don’t believe in ‘blocks’ anymore. Instead, I see everything as movement, it is just our perception that makes us think a block exists. It is the same as thinking we can go backwards in life when in fact we are always going forward. It is our perception that is attached to an ideal that makes us think this. Seeing the world like this postpones our ability to find what we are honestly passionate about and achieving it.
Simply because the idea of ‘blocks’ initiates our stress response so we think we have to release and get rid of them - this creates fear.
As soon as we hear ‘block’ we think of self-sabotage and holding ourselves back. When in fact this is another illusion promoted by people who are unknowingly in a self-perpetuating cycle of blame, victim and fear.
True empowerment comes from realising everyone has been helping us learn about ourselves, even if those lessons feel like we have been repeatedly hit by a sledgehammer. To ease our transition emphasising honesty is paramount to success and happiness.
““True empowerment comes from realising everyone has been helping us learn about ourselves””
When we are honest with ourselves, we are able to escape the positive mental attitude programme that instills dishonesty. Being honest with ourselves first will either negate the need to express ourselves to others due to various self-realisations, or when we do communicate with others there will be no blame in the air to create drama.
From here we are able to honesty define our version of success and not our parents or anyone else. With each step we take down Honest Road we move away from the dominant advice to overcome, beat, control and conquer our perceived blocks and fears.
Instead, a deep desire is created to learn from them so we get to honestly know ourselves.
For anyone that is struggling, physically, emotionally or mentally, what advice can you offer?
The first piece of advice would be to realise the main reason anyone is struggling physically, emotionally or mentally is because they think something in their past shouldn’t have happened. Whether that is thirty years or thirty seconds ago. All the while we are in this space, we are stressed. This can create chronic and acute discomfort because this mindset is going against the one of the primary reasons we are here on earth, to learn about ourselves.
Regardless of anyones overriding beliefs in regards to how the Universe was created or what happens after death, all can agree we are here to learn. I am just making that more specific by stressing we are here to learn about ourselves, rather than learning how to be a better victim.
Life is very generous in that we are given endless opportunities to learn, and like any skill when we get better, it becomes more effortless. For example, if we think we missed out because our Dad left when we were young we will consciously and subconsciously think that all men or father figures will leave or hurt us. Of course this isn’t true, but it has the potential to become a self-fulfilling prophecy.
The fact is, there would have been many benefits from a Dad or Father figure not being around, but we have the choice as to whether we look for them or not. Once they are found, it comes ever more clear that our past isn’t evidence of the truth, it is evidence that our beliefs are self-fulfilling. There is a big difference.
One creates feelings of victimhood, the other gives us incentive to learn about ourselves. One leads to conflict, drama, pain and struggle, the other leads to freedom, endless creativity and energy.
When we feel like we are suffering it is usually because we are in a state of guilt, shame or regret which leads to anger. Our go-to is to bottle it up, repress it with any control and conquer techniques we can. As affective as this is in the short-term it isn’t a sustainable strategy due to the energy it needs to keep the willpower going.
When we take a step back, we can see something we might not have noticed before. Interestingly, when we in a state of guilt, shame and regret we are actually at our most optimistic. It sounds strange but we really do think our present would be better if our past was different! But how do we know?
We don’t.
There are many people that have had their Father around for their whole life and wish they didn’t. Others have lost a Father early and been very successful and happy. Two plus two doesn’t equal four when it comes to the human experience.
When I started to embody this mindset I looked back over my life and saw how all my experiences benefited me in obvious and subtle ways. This wasn’t about being ‘positive’ and looking for the silver lining, it was about realising life is subjective and works in weird and wonderful ways to help us.
““Anyones life can change dramatically when they are open enough to explore the murky water of their past to find the nuggets of potential that are hiding in plain sight in every situation and experience they have ever had.””
Finding the benefits in the pain can be painful in itself. I know this firsthand. The work is well worth the effort, as untold benefits are waiting to be discovered in our past and present. The primary idea behind this exploration into our past or present is to open our mind to other possibilities, it isn’t to find ‘the’ answer, because one answer doesn’t exist.
It is worth repeating, our life is subjective and there are many moving parts. The idea is simply to open our mind up to the possibility of benefits. For our whole lives we have been feeding a story where the main plot line is bad, negative or wrong which always leads to feelings of victimhood and revenge.
Only victims want revenge, because they feel hard done by. Life is abundant and it has enough for everyone. It is our mindset and approach to life that sees it distributed in the way it is. Anyones life can change dramatically when they are open enough to explore the murky water of their past to find the nuggets of potential that are hiding in plain sight in every situation and experience they have ever had.
We have been taught to fight this process. We have been conditioned to control and conquer that which we don’t understand. I feel our blame and victim global culture is more predominant than ever before in our history. It is why fear and conflict levels are so rampant.
For true self-awareness, healing and transformation to take place we have to realise mental and physical pain, as well as fear and anger are not holding us back. They are feelings that come at the end of a long process of not learning about ourselves. The mirror of life has to keep reflecting back our past in order to give us another opportunities to see and heal.
It is helpful to remember, the antidote to fear and all other emotions and situations we think are holding us back is self-learning. It is a lack of learning, not something to be overridden, controlled or conquered.
Ironically, exiting the dualistic mindset or rigidly dividing the world into two, is the mindset that will create a world where abuse of all types will be replaced with connection, collaboration and harmony. Where we are not only honestly healing ourselves but effortlessly helping others to do the same.
It will help us reconnect with our ability to ‘feel’. Which is arguably our primary form of communication. Once we can feel again, we will realise how we are all one and the same.
connect with denis & find out more…
visit his website or book a session: www.denisliammurphy.com
find out about his business: www.roundtable.global
follow him on instagram: https://www.instagram.com/denisliammurphy/
