---

The Conflictive Situation

In early 2004, my then girlfriend suddenly ended our relationship, which I experienced as a dramatic biological conflict with the theme: “can’t hold/embrace someone important to me”, in other words, a drop in self-esteem, in this case involving the tendons and ligaments around my elbow. Since I’m right-handed and the conflict related to my partner, my right elbow was affected.

Conflict Resolution

This was followed by a downgraded CA phase, in which the new mesodermal tissue was asymptomatically reduced, until a year and a half later I met my now wife, which resulted in my conflict becoming irrelevant and thereby resolving.

Thus started the conflict-resolved phase in which the previously degraded tissue was rebuilt, marked by inflammation and swelling, resulting in severe elbow pain. Since I lacked precise knowledge of the new medicine at that time, I could not find any cause for the pain and felt “broken”. This was the beginning of a dramatic vicious cycle:

Local Consequential Conflicts and Vicious Cycle

Due to the pain, I drastically curtailed my participation in various sporting hobbies (karate, badminton, volleyball, acrobatics, climbing). Because I suddenly could no longer meet the various physical challenges, I experienced another biological conflict: a local self-devaluation on the left wrist. I remember exactly the situation of doing push-ups in karate and because of the pain in my right elbow I could not hold the additional load with my left side.

Further local self-devaluation conflicts in both wrist and arm areas followed.

Every time a special program resolved, the pain that followed triggered a recurrence because until then I had been very athletic my whole life and proud of my performance. Every time this happened I thought, here we go again, something something else broke! I was unaware that the symptoms were just a necessary part of a meaningful biological special program; for me the pain was the signal that I was “broken”, “getting old”, “rusting”, etc.

Each recurrence was stronger than the last, and by now was also affecting and involving my studies using a computer and playing the guitar. I experienced another conflict as a consequence of my studies, a “don’t fall behind”, affecting my knee, because losing the full use of my arms and hands naturally impacted my studies.

The burning, pulling pain in my wrists and arms increased in frequency and intensity – changed places and were soon experienced on both sides. I lost weight (8 kilograms), had ice cold hands because of the strong sympatheticotonia of the conflict-active phases, I was psychologically a wreck as the pain dominated my thoughts. Strong sleep disorders followed.

A months-long doctor’s odyssey brought, in addition to high costs, no improvements or results except the assessment that the suffering was probably already chronic and from now on I would probably be permanently dependent on painkillers.

The diagnoses were carpal tunnel syndrome, tendonitis, tennis elbow as well as a later self-diagnosis of RSI syndrome (repetitive strain injury syndrome).

Two central self-devaluation conflicts followed this low point that affected my lumbar spine, which resulted in many years of back pain, and lumbago (see other experience report).

The turning point

The turning point for the pain in my arms and knees came not by relying on my doctors for recovery or by leaving everything to chance, but by personally creating a detailed plan out of the suffering itself.

In fact, the plan was similar to the way you would approach such a typical self-devaluation vicious circle with knowledge of the 5BN: a gradual, slow increase in joint stress – but only in such a way that balances functional progress without triggering new conflicts because of pain. The whole process is supported by targeted painkillers and above all, of course, by the understanding that the pain does not indicate “broken”, but is rather a sign that “the next necessary step has been completed”.

My rehabilitation program started with a lot of stretching and a swimming laps twice a week, gradually increasing to one kilometer each over several months. I then moved to the gym and gradually increased the stress. After a year of fitness, I was finally able to switch back to a sport that was “right” for me – I started climbing again, which for me confirmed that I would now be completely healthy again. It was not a linear process, but one with constant ups and downs including many relapses, but over the months I progressed steadily upward.

Due to the hundreds of recurrences, a ganglion cyst has formed in my left wrist, which has remained with residual tenderness to this day.

For me, this terrible phase was the most instructive thing that could have happened, as it has led me to self-responsibility for my health and ultimately to the study of the new medicine. Today I know that a therapist should have asked me only one question, clearly defined by the symptoms, so that the cause of the pain in the elbow would have been immediately clear and a quick resolution would have been possible. The question would have been roughly:

“Shortly before the onset of this pain, were you finally able to hug/hold someone again after not being able to do so, under what for you were dramatic circumstances?”