The Way Out: A Revolutionary, Scientifically Proven Approach to Healing Chronic Pain

Me: You’re just watching your back to see what happens. You’re just an observer. These are completely safe sensations. Your brain may misinterpret them as pain sometimes, but they are safe. What do you notice happening in your back? Janet: It’s not pulsing anymore. It’s steadier. And still more spread out. It hurts less than before. Me: That’s grea

Remember the climactic scene from The Wizard of Oz: Dorothy, the Scarecrow, the Tin Man, and the Cowardly Lion are all tracking the wizard with intensity. Sometimes they’re scared of him, and sometimes they’re angry, but they’re always intense. Meanwhile, Toto has zero intensity. He’s just a curious pup, sniffing around. “Sniff, sniff, sniff. Ooh,

The next time my back hurt, I tried somatic tracking. But this time something was different. I had a clear goal: I wanted the pain to go away. I was no longer exploring the sensation with authentic curiosity. I was no longer enjoying the experience. I was frustrated and impatient and definitely not feeling like a Jedi. And the pain persisted. In th

When I first began leading patients in somatic tracking exercises, I noticed a common theme. While paying attention to their pain, many of them looked at it with intensity and a laser focus. They watched it like a hawk. And nothing about a hawk’s burning gaze says safety. But there’s another way to pay attention. A less intense way. Like when you’r

As you explore this tight, pulsing feeling in your back, remember that there’s nothing to fear here. Neuroplastic pain is actually a safe sensation. It’s just your brain overreacting to neutral, safe signals from your body.

Paying attention with lightness is an important component of somatic tracking. Scientists study positive affect by having subjects look at happy images, watch funny videos, or listen to joyful music. Experiments like this show that when people’s moods are lightened, they are better at overcoming pain-related fear.

Okay, that’s actually a good thing, because we want to explore your pain. So I’d like you to get comfortable . . . close your eyes . . . and bring your attention to your back. All we’re doing is exploring the sensation of pain in your back. You don’t need to get rid of the pain, you don’t need to change it—you just need to observe it.

One thing that helped with somatic tracking was changing the language that I used. When I thought of it as “pain,” that felt like something I needed to get rid of. I started thinking of it as just “a sensation,” and that helped me feel like I didn’t have to fix it.

That’s outcome independence—when we’re able to feel successful regardless of the outcome. The doing is more important than the result. And we want to approach somatic tracking the same way.