The Case for Healthy Fighting As The Antidote to Pain

Recurring pain of all kinds - physical, emotional, social and political - is an invitation for us to develop our conflict resolution skills.

Dear friends,

The content of today’s newsletter comes with an update.

You didn’t get an email from me last week, and I apologize for the unexplained silence. This transition to Substack has come with some unexpected technical obstacles that we haven’t yet found solutions for. (‘We’ refers to myself of course, and Stefan, who is my co-pilot here). There have also been some personal “growing pains” as I make this big career transition.

Over 4,000 of you have joined my email community in the past 40 days (due to the “fascia pain” video on YouTube going semi viral recently, even though it’s 5 years old).

I can’t help thinking there is some invisible “karma” or destiny at play here, for those of us connecting at this exact moment in time. You flooded into my email ecosystem right before I took my old website offline and changed all of the email subscriber options under my YouTube videos.

The fascia pain video showcases Kinetix, my method of fascia mapping and pain resolution. Emails began flooding my inbox requesting info about where to find practitioners, how to work with me, or asking when The Kinetix Academy will open. In addition to transitioning away from self fascia release in order to focus on teaching Kinetix, I’m now committed to The Human Freedom Project - which is both distinct from, and inseparably connected to, Kinetix.

How do I describe all of these changes happening at once to so many new people while including everyone who has been with me for years? This email is my best attempt at an answer (for now).

If you’re new here - welcome!

Whether or not you’re new, maybe you’re wondering what “The Human Freedom Project” has to do with fascia, Kinetix, or pain? The answer is: a lot, actually, which will become obvious over time.

Let’s start with this new platform:

Choosing to publish my newsletters to Substack offers us all an opportunity to participate in creating a thriving online “organism” composed of many diverse people from all over the world all contributing to the health of the whole via open feedback channels.

When I send emails that land in your private inbox (that are not published to the web), I create a closed feedback loop. Even though I send emails to thousands of people, they cannot foster the health of the whole ecosystem. You can hit reply, and respond only to me; but you cannot talk to and get to know the other people in this community. It’s also “safer” for me to write emails to you instead of public posts that anyone can discover and comment on. Substack offers us the chance to expose ourselves to one another; to foster freedom of thought and creative self expression within an open communication system.

In the old paradigm of email communication, I am the centralized “authority” and I no longer want to play that role.

Unfortunately, email has primarily become a way for people collecting email addresses to sell something. I want email to be a conduit for communication. Of course, I do need to make a living, but I’m inspired to make consistent, friendly and open ended invitations that don’t require intensive email campaigns with artificial deadlines designed to entice you into buying now because you’re afraid of missing out. When the new membership opens, you will be able to join any time.

And.

This “new way” comes with a whole bunch of obstacles (like: how do I invite you to a free Zoom class? If I publish the Zoom link here on Substack, that could invite a thousand troll bots to join us). This is just one of the issues we’ve run into. So I’m turning to an old mantra: the obstacle is the way!

By choosing Substack, my goal is to create a living ecosystem of open feedback channels that will act just like fascia does in the body: fascia is the communication highway of the living human organism, allowing every distinct and separate part to talk to each other. Communication requires boundaries; when distinct elements are too close, they can’t communicate (in relationships, this is called enmeshment). Fascia is both the boundary, and the instant messenger network.

For example, your liver talks to your kidneys (and every other body part) via fascia; your heart talks to your brain (nervous system) and your muscles talk to your bones, all via fascia; the UV and infrared light waves traveling all the way from the sun are able to talk to your mitochondria via your water rich fascia, while electromagnetism and sound vibrations also travel through fascia; meanwhile, your fascia broadcasts the data inside your body back out to the world, conveying both personal (subjective) messages about who you are as a unique soul and spirit, and the impersonal (objective) messages about the state of your inner ecology.

This is all happening whether we are conscious of it or not.

One of my goals with The Human Freedom Project is to help you become conscious of these phenomena, so you can become an active participant in the communication network of the cosmos, because your body (the human organism) is an astonishingly intelligent semiconductor (sensing technology).

Fascia is, more than anything else, a conduit for communication. If you want to intercept infrared or thermal data from the world, for example, you’ll need to learn how to consciously tap into the sensing technology of your fascia. If you want to know what your body is thinking and why it does what it does, tap into your fascia and you will be able “to think with” your body.

This is what I aspire to create online - a conduit of communication that extends far and wide, connecting all individual parts which, together, create a healthy whole.

My mission is to decentralize as many communication pathways as possible, holding us all responsible as equal contributors to the health (or ill health) of the whole: planet, social life, world economy…

Consider this: a healthy whole is a reflection of its healthy parts.

But don’t think for a moment that disease or pain are signs of dysfunction, because nothing could be further from the truth. Health is found in the mediating balance between regeneration and degeneration processes, and both are necessary. Pain and disease are as natural as health, and our modern obsession with health as a constant to strive for is just as unhealthy as brooding in pain.

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Pain resolution requires turning towards the pain.

After 15+ years of stepping on people to help them resolve pain, of this I am certain: chronic pain is rooted in a fear of pain that, at some point, led to one or more feedback channels shutting down.

For nearly 20 years in my own life, closing myself off to painful emotions led to chronic physical pain. I “traded” unbearable emotional pain for physical pain (because, even though I was miserable, I could actually bear it).

Then, after opening the emotional feedback loop in my twenties, I (unconsciously) chose the pain of enduring never-ending relationship conflict (because I’m so damn good at enduring all pain) over the [potential] pain of a relationship ending; I did this by refusing to take a stand for my non-negotiable need for mutuality in conflict resolution. By refusing to risk these relationships ending, I enabled unhealthy patterns of chronic (relationship) pain.

I began breaking this pattern in 2018, and feel that I am only just beginning to “own” this new way of doing relationship. You’re invited to join me in exploring the healing power of taking a stand for connection, collaboration and reciprocal growth by taking a stand for healthy fighting (the art of conflict resolution).

It starts by assessing the feedback channels of the whole in order to discover any blocks.

In the case of relationships, the relationship itself is one whole made of two separate and connected individuals (who are each wholes unto themselves, also made of separate and connected parts). This will be a common theme at The Human Freedom Project: microcosm and macrocosm, or “as above, so below”.

The human being, as the most complex living organism that is both microcosm and macrocosm, is the best example we have for how to assess the health or disease of practically all other systems: planetary, economic, political, relational, social.

▶ A healthy human organism requires open feedback channels that allow every distinct part to communicate with every other part, thereby allowing each to contribute their unique genius to the health of the whole without any one part becoming dominant.

▶ A healthy relationship between two human beings requires open feedback channels that allow both people to contribute to the health of the whole (each equally “dominant”).

▶ A healthy economy requires open feedback channels that allow all participants in the monetary system the chance to contribute to the health of the whole, without any one part dominating the others.

ETC.

Open feedback loops are the only means an organism has to self-correct when imbalances inevitably show up. Closed feedback loops create an environment where disease is the norm as the organism tries desperately to course correct, and constantly finds its attempts blocked; this will repeat ad nauseum resulting in progressive sickness (or violent revolution), until the feedback channels are opened again.

An authoritarian communication system that centralizes decision making (power) and demands compliance from its members does not create a healthy ecosystem; it creates disease, and fosters revolt. The only remedy is to open those feedback channels and welcome the voices of every member.

This is equally true for a single human being as it is for relationships, economies and nations.

If you’ve ever attempted to exert control over your body and centralize decision making from the top down, then you know how this goes. Your body (or soul) has probably succumbed to dis-ease, or made its revolt obvious with pain, resistance, overwhelm, fatigue etc.

If you’ve ever been in a relationship with someone who wanted to make all the decisions while you submitted to their control, well…I hope you loved yourself enough to leave that relationship in order to establish one in which each of you could contribute to the health of the whole in equal measure.

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Recurring pain is a symptom of conflict avoidance; recurring conflict is a symptom of fear of freedom.

Acute physical pain is merely a message about the body (which is good data).

When feedback channels are open and the message (pain) is received without resistance or reaction; when pain is allowed its rightful place in the ecosystem as an integral and necessary contributor to the health of the whole; when messages of pain are honored and acted upon; pain goes away fast because it gets resolved.

This is true whether the pain is physical, relational, environmental or political. The better we can get at welcoming pain in all its manifestations, the healthier we will be as individuals, families, societies and a planetary whole.

We’re making headway; and, we still have a long way to go.

We’re not (yet) very good at expressing ourselves honestly and openly; because we’re not (yet) very good at listening to each other with open minds and hearts; at creating feedback channels that allow EVERY MEMBER OF A FAMILY [OR SOCIETY] TO CONTRIBUTE TO THE HEALTH OF THE WHOLE.

Right now we are rushing headlong into online and offline closed feedback loops: ever narrowing silos of group think are forming that lack diversity of thought, belief and creative ideas as we manifest our preference to surround ourselves with “like minded” people. This pains me deeply, because I know where it leads.

We’re training ourselves to shut down unless we’re surrounded by “safe” people; we’re all engaged in judging and shutting other people down; we impulsively insist that we are right and “those people” are wrong, or “evil”; we are tempted (constantly, because it is so rewarded socially) to make victims of ourselves and others; and because of this, we’re becoming experts at finding perpetrators to blame for every pain we experience that we can feel good about persecuting, often violently.

I do not believe the world needs peace; I believe we need to learn how to fight (healthy).

What we have right now is a world full of people who are terrified of conflict.

Why are we terrified of conflict?

Because we’re terrified of pain.

We’re afraid of bearing physical pain.

We’re afraid of bearing emotional pain.

When we’re afraid of our own pain, we try to “fix” or take away the pain of others; or, we unleash our own suppressed pain (which has turned into hatred) upon the world (or ourselves) when what’s actually needed is for EVERYONE’S PAIN TO BE HONORED.

“Courage is forged in pain, but not in all pain. Pain that is denied or ignored becomes fear or hate.”
~ Brené Brown

Healthy fighting is our best opportunity for pain resolution.

It’s also our best opportunity for healing the relationship wounds that are the birthplace of nearly all trauma, chronic pain and social violence.

This is only possible when we are willing to open all feedback channels and allow every part to express itself fully.

Most people today do not have highly tuned, fully open and consciously intercepted communication channels within - and with - their sensing technology (body) that allows them to distinguish between purely physical sensations and the sensations of emotions; between real physical dangers and perceived social harms; between blocked lymph channels and a personality that has difficulty in letting go; and because of all this, our emotions and sensations have become enmeshed, along with the stories we tell about them.

When we are not able to identify exactly what we feel inside and why we feel it, how can we expect to resolve the many pains we experience?

I can’t think of anything more essential for healing ourselves and our world than learning and practicing the art of conflict resolution.

It has to start with ourselves, and it starts by turning towards all the pain we haven’t wanted to feel until now.

When I’m no longer afraid of my own pain, then yours won’t scare me; and perhaps what you need more than anything is for your pain to be witnessed, met and honored by someone who isn’t afraid of it.

This will be a solitary, and at the same time a highly social, adventure.

Since we can’t even know who we are without bumping up against other people, one of the fastest paths to self knowledge is the path of learning the art of conflict resolution with at least one other human being willing to contribute their uncensored voice and open heart to the whole, while inviting the same from you.

Turning towards pain and learning to fight (healthy) advances human freedom in both the individual and in society.

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A word about the future of The Human Freedom Project:

We have a vision for what The Human Freedom Project will look like in a few month’s time, after we launch the podcast and open our new membership (including the Kinetix Academy).

This vision includes sending you a weekly newsletter from me with a condensed 1-2 paragraphs of insight into one of the 5 primary constraints, followed by one principle to live by, and one practice that can help to expand (y)our freedom. This is in addition to the podcast, YouTube content, HFP membership and The Kinetix Academy.

A newsletter of this type is a big departure from my loooong emails (hooray!), which will allow me to write my first book. And, because of the technical difficulties we’re facing with Substack vs other email platforms, I’m not 100% sure what my emails will look like over the next few months.

Thanks for your patience during this time of transition.

Now, I’d love to hear your thoughts on open vs closed feedback channels, turning towards pain and conflict resolution as a healing force in the world.

Please add your voice (especially when you disagree with me) - this is how we create a thriving ecosystem 🌏 🥰

With love,
Elisha