The Practice of Letting Go: Why Holding On Keeps You Stuck PART 2

The harder we try to fix something, the more we actually hold on to it.

Take impatience (not speaking from experience, of course!):

You can’t really practice being patient by forcing yourself to be patient. You can, however, become aware of your impatience.

What triggers it? What are you expecting? What happens when things don’t happen as quickly as you want? What pattern have you developed around needing things to happen now?

Letting go isn’t about forcing yourself to stop being impatient. It’s about understanding what is underneath the impatience. The same can be true physically. “No pain, no gain” has no place in chronic pain. Forcing a nervous system that already feels threatened isn’t necessarily going to make it feel safer.

We don’t learn safety by forcing ourselves into the deepest end, hoping we’ll adapt. We learn through experiences that our nervous system can actually process.

Small steps, manageable movement, attention, breathing, repetition and evidence.

Letting go doesn’t mean giving up. It doesn’t mean surrendering nor accepting that you’ll always be in pain. It means accepting where you are today. It means letting go of what you used to be able to do, of the fear of what might happen. Letting go of the need to control every sensation, of some of the tension you’ve been holding.

Sometimes it means allowing yourself to feel the pain without immediately fighting it, taking a breath. Relaxing around it. Observing it and noticing what happens.

Does it change? Does it move? Does it soften? Does it dissipate? You are not giving the pain permission to stay. You’re giving yourself permission to stop fighting it for a moment. And that can be a surprisingly different experience.

I worked with someone experiencing very acute shoulder pain.

The pain was affecting their ability to make a living. They were frightened for the future and were full of tension. They had spent a lot of time and money looking for answers and had been told that there was nothing structurally wrong with their shoulder and to keep stretching and resting. They came to me desperate.

We started by looking at the evidence. Together, we looked at the scans and the facts. We looked at the information from their medical team.

Their body was structurally sound, that didn’t mean nothing was happening. The stress, tension and worry were very real, and this was acknowledged and understood. The pain was also real!

So we started gently, we explored movement, paid attention to the pain rather than immediately fighting it. We used breathing, worked with small movements and gave their body opportunities to experience something different. We observed without fearing the pain by gently providing signals of safety.

Slowly, they began to realize something. Their body could move, the pain could change. They could move without the pain they had been expecting.

Something else happened. They started to believe there was hope and with that hope came results. The tension began to release. They could breathe more easily, move better and sleep better. Their confidence began to return slowly.

This is what letting go can look like. Sometimes you can actually see it. There’s a smile… a deeper breath. More freedom in the movement. A little less fear.

And it’s simply the moment when someone realizes: “Maybe I don’t have to hold on so tightly anymore.”

Sometimes, letting go is emotional.

It can be powerful to tell yourself: “I’m safe. I’m okay. I don’t have to hold everything so tightly.”

You can fully fill up your lungs, relax a little. You can take a slightly bigger step. You can test something you’ve been afraid to test. Not because you’re forcing yourself to get better. But because you’re giving yourself the opportunity to discover what happens when you stop protecting yourself in quite the same way.

Letting go isn’t about doing less. It’s about fighting less, understanding what you’re holding, why you’re holding it, and whether you still need to hold it in the same way.

Because the things that once protected you may not be the things you need to protect you now.

Letting go is one great first step to take!

And for me it’s beautiful to witness.

The Practice of Letting Go: Why Holding On Keeps You Stuck …Part 1

Sometimes we try so hard to fix ourselves that we don’t realize how much effort we’re putting into holding on.

We hold our breath. We brace. We clench our jaw. We hesitate before moving. Cross our arms or legs. We fidget. We change our posture. Our body is constantly making small adjustments to protect us, and often, we don’t even notice we’re doing it.

Holding on can look different for everyone, it could be physical tension, the way you move carefully around pain. It can be the hesitation before taking a bigger step because the smaller step feels safer. And sometimes it’s emotional.

We can hold on to fear, grief, stress, trauma, the memory of what happened, or the fear that it could happen again. Holding on isn’t necessarily a conscious decision. It’s often something we learned because, at some point, it helped us feel safer.

For example, if your lower back hurts, maybe taking a smaller step feels safer than taking a bigger one. So you take the smaller step. Then another. And eventually, the smaller step becomes how you walk.

This new habit can feel safe, even when it isn’t necessarily helping you anymore. And when one part of your body is continually protecting itself, the whole way you move will change. You could start limping. You might shift your weight. You avoid using one side of your body. And over time, those changes can affect how other parts of your body move and feel.

Your hip could be affected’ your knee of your upper back, and in turn your posture. Now you have another layer to manage.

The pain creates protection. The protection changes how you move. The changed in movement creates more tension and pain. And the cycle continues.

Holding tension takes energy. It takes energy to brace. It takes energy to constantly monitor your body, your thoughts.

In short, it’s exhausting. When the pain doesn’t seem to improve, these thought appear: Why am I not getting better? What if this never goes away? What if something is still wrong?

There is fear around the pain and fear can create even more protection.

This is something that is important to acknowledge.

Looked at closely, tension isn’t only physical. There may be grief that hasn’t been processed, a period of prolonged stress, trauma, fear, or a difficult life event that someone has been carrying alongside their physical pain.

This doesn’t mean the pain is “all in your head.” It doesn’t mean that everyone living with chronic pain has unresolved trauma. It means that sometimes the body is carrying more than the physical problem we started with. And letting go could require us to look at what else we’re holding.

That may be part of the work that needs attention. And that work is beyond what I do. When I recognize that a client needs support with something outside my scope, I encourage them to work with an appropriate mental-health professional.

Because sometimes the physical work and the emotional work need to happen at a deeper level alongside each other.

So why do we hold on?…

(To be continued)

How Your Brain Learns Safety Again

How does your brain learn safety when it has spent months or years learning danger?

For many people living with chronic pain or anxiety, the threat has passed. The injury has healed. The tests come back normal. But the nervous system is still on high alert.

Your brain is not trying to keep you stuck. It is trying to keep you safe using the information it learned when the world felt uncertain and risky.

The brain’s job is not  only to tell us what’s happening. It’s also constantly predicting what might happen next. This is why protection can stay long after the actual danger has passed.

I explain it this way:

Imagine a puppy whose paw keeps getting stepped on.

The puppy doesn’t just learn:

“That steps hurts.”

It also learns:

“Feet are dangerous.”

So now you stop stepping on its paw. You become careful. You approach slowly. But the puppy doesn’t realize that. From its perspective, the safest response is still to stay away. The puppy isn’t being stubborn. Its nervous system is doing exactly what it learned to do to protect it.

The same system applies to your brain and body. It seems like the brain is working against you, but actually the brain is working very hard for you.

How does change happen?

First, you take the evidence.

Often, tests show no structural damage that explains the level of pain someone is experiencing.

Yet the pain is real.

The work is to slowly prove to yourself that you are no longer in the danger your brain believes you are in. You start with doing small, manageable movements. You move. You notice what happens. Nothing bad happens. You do it again. And slowly, you begin giving your brain new information.

“I can move and I am okay.”

I notice the shift in my clients before they do. There’s a sparkle in their eyes. They are lighter. They have more energy. They start talking about the future instead of managing the present.

They even laugh at my jokes!

That is what safety can look like. It’s not simply feeling better. It’s that you’re not on guard anymore. You’re not second-guessing your every move. Fear is no longer dictating your life.

Your body can learn safety. It can learn rest. It can learn that movement is safe again. But this learning happens with repeated, gentle experiences that gradually tell the brain what to believe.

The brain needs evidence. And that evidence comes from you, slowly, moving toward the life you want.

Your Body Is Your Instrument… Treat It Like One

Across very different professions; musicians, construction workers, surgeons, hair stylists, nurses, I keep noticing the same underlying pattern:

A body that is relied on, but is rarely treated as something that needs care. You start your work day doing what you do best. Your skills are what you are there for but these skills are performed by your instrument: your body. The demands look different on the surface, but the relationship to the body is often similar: constant use, repetition, precision, endurance, and performance under pressure. Before a musician plays they tune their instrument, it’s the necessary preparation; but what about your body? It will be performing for hours…

And over time, something becomes normalized. Discomfort gets managed. Fatigue gets pushed through. Tension becomes constant background noise.

This mindset is simple and understandable: “It’s part of the job.” But the cost of that mindset is substantial but rarely immediate. The body adapts. It compensates. It tightens. It reorganizes itself around demand.

Until what once felt like strain begins to feel normal.

What’s interesting is the contrast.

A musician will spend years maintaining their instrument, adjusting, tuning, repairing, preserving its sensitivity and responsiveness. But their own body, the very system producing the sound, is often treated with far less attention.

The same is true across many fields. We maintain the external tool. We push the body.

If a construction worker or hair stylist were to begin treating their body with the same level of care, maintenance, and precision as their professional tools, something fundamental would shift.

Not because the work would change. But because the relationship to themselves would.

Your body is not separate from the performance. It is the instrument through which everything is done. And when that becomes clear, not just intellectually, but practically, the question is no longer “how much can I push through?”

It becomes: “What does my body need in order to keep performing well over time?”

Who I Work With Beyond the Stage

I’m a very lucky practitioner. I get to work with people across every walk of life: musicians and performers, yes, but also the 74-year-old woman who can’t walk without pain, the person rebuilding after cancer, the person recovering from surgery who thought they’d never move the same way again.

These are the clients who taught me something profound: the nervous system doesn’t care about your age or your diagnosis. It cares about whether it feels safe.

Take Julie. She came to me three months after an accident with severe hip pain. She couldn’t walk without support. Her doctors were already talking about hip replacement. And she was the one considering selling her house, installing an elevator, reshaping her entire life around the limitations.

When she looked at me, I could see the resignation. The acceptance of a new, smaller life.

But here’s what I knew: even if she eventually needed surgery, her body still needed to be strengthened. Her nervous system still needed to learn that movement was safe. That she was capable.

What I also knew was this: her mind was part of the problem. Fear was telling her story. Anxiety was writing her future. Her thoughts about what her body could no longer do were as much a barrier as the pain itself.

After two weeks of working together,  not pushing, not forcing, but gently reinstalling trust in her own body, her own mind and making lifestyle adjustments, she started walking again. The pain began to shift. But more importantly, her relationship with her body changed.

Months later, Julie wrote to me: “When I started with Hélène, I was considering selling my house. Now my legs work. I accept that my body requires maintenance. And Hélène makes that process inspiring, effective, and sustainable.”

This is the pattern I see across my practice.

The elderly client afraid of falling. The cancer survivor rebuilding identity and trust in a changed body and a changed mind. The post-surgery person waiting for pain that should have healed but hasn’t. The person with chronic pain that no scan can explain.

They all arrive with the same underlying question: Is my body still mine? Can I trust it again?

Sometimes, there are issues that I see need referral. But the answer, 90% of the time, is yes, But not because we fix them. Because I help them understand what their nervous system has been trying to protect them from, and how their mind is participating in that protection.

That’s where the real work begins.

What Working With Performing Artists Has Taught Me

My work has involves supporting classical and jazz musicians and performing artists across Canada and Europe. Depending on the individual and their needs, I also often work in coordination with physicians and other healthcare professionals as part of a broader care team.

Performing artists develop remarkable levels of discipline, focus, repetition, and commitment to their craft. They learn to perform under pressure, manage demanding schedules, and maintain a high level of consistency even when conditions are not ideal.

For many, travel schedules are exhausting. Time zone changes add further strain, sleep becomes fragmented. Some weeks, simply figuring out what day it is or which country you’re in, can feel like part of the job description. Routines that normally anchor the body become harder to maintain. Balancing performance, rehearsals, recovery, and personal life requires constant adaptation.

In many ways, this ability to adapt is one of their greatest strengths.

At the same time, I have noticed that the same capacity for adaptation can sometimes make it difficult to recognize when the body or nervous system has been carrying more than it can comfortably sustain.

Tension becomes normal. Fatigue becomes expected.

A constant background effort develops , often so familiar it no longer registers as unusual. Discomfort is managed, worked around, or pushed through in order to meet the demands of performance, rehearsal, travel, teaching, or daily practice.

Over time, these adjustments can become so familiar that they no longer stand out as separate concerns. They simply become part of how life and performance are experienced.

What I find particularly interesting is that many of these patterns are not unique to musicians.

I see similar adaptations in people living with chronic pain, ongoing stress, anxiety, caregiving responsibilities, and other forms of long-term demand.

The environment may be different, but the underlying process is often similar: the body and nervous system adapt in order to keep functioning, often without the person fully noticing how much has been normalized along the way.

For musicians, however, these patterns are often easier to observe because performance creates such a direct relationship between their body, attention, emotion, and nervous system.

For many performers, the body is not simply something they use. It is the instrument through which they express their craft.

Over time, this has become an important part of how I understand both performance and recovery.

What Chronic Pain Does to Identity and Daily Life

Over time, chronic pain does not only affect the body. It begins to influence how you move through daily life and how decisions are made moment to moment.

At first, these changes can feel subtle. How you plan your day, how you pace your energy, and how you interpret sensations in your body all begin to shift in response to your pain.

Gradually, life can become more cautious, more calculated, and more centred around managing what might happen next. Confidence can begin to change as trust in your body, and in yourself, slowly erodes over time through this constant adaptation.

For many of the people I work with, this process is already well established by the time they seek support. There is often a background experience of ongoing tension, fluctuating fatigue, heightened awareness of symptoms, and a reduced sense of ease or spontaneity in movement and in daily life. Frustration and fear often become part of the experience as well.

Because these changes happen gradually, they are not always recognized as symptoms in themselves, but rather as a general change in how life feels to live.

It becomes the new baseline.

From a nervous system perspective, this process makes sense. Your system learns from experience. When your body has been exposed to prolonged pain, stress, or overload, it begins to organize itself around protection and predictability.

As time passes, even the anticipation of movement or symptoms can begin to trigger protective responses, reinforcing cycles of tension, vigilance, and avoidance.

This is where chronic pain becomes more than a physical experience. It becomes a lived pattern of perception, behaviour, and internal expectation.

These adaptations, with time, can begin to feel less like responses to a situation, and more like part of an identity.

This is where my work begins to support change. We begin to redirect the process. Not by forcing change in your system -recovery is not about intensity- but by gently rebuilding capacity for movement, resetting your baseline of calm and trust.  Through small, consistent shifts which your system can gradually integrate.

This is where change often becomes sustainable.

Small shifts in regulation.

Small returns of ease.

Small experiences of expansion that begin to accumulate.

Trust, confidence, and a calmer relationship with your body can begin to return.

Many of my clients arrive feeling worn down by pain, nervous system overload, fatigue, anxiety, or a long-standing sense of disconnection from their body.

This work meets you exactly where you are.

Often, all that is needed is an openness to take the first small step.

When Pain Persists Beyond Healing

For many years, my work focused primarily on movement, strength, and physical conditioning.

But my understanding of pain began to change through both professional observation and personal experience.

After a significant lower back injury and a prolonged period of nerve pain and sciatica, I experienced firsthand how symptoms can persist long after the initial acute phase has passed. Time and again, I have seen scans and tests indicate the structural injury had eventually improved or healed, yet many symptoms continued for years.

What surprised me most was how deeply stress, fear, sleep disruption, emotional strain, and nervous system overload can. influence both the intensity of symptoms and the body’s ability to recover.

That experience has fundamentally changed how I understand chronic pain. It became clear to me that movement and physical treatment alone are often not enough to address the full picture.

Through exploring the role of the nervous system, protective patterns, stress physiology, and chronic pain processes more deeply, I now integrate these alongside movement, body awareness, strength and recovery work  to support more complete and sustainable outcomes.

Today, this continues to shape the work I develop through KromaSphere.