Regaining Balance In the Body: How Listening to One Part of the Body Helps Another When Treating Young Patients With Chronic Pain
One of the most common things teens and young adults tell me when they walk into a session is: “I feel off-balance.”
It might feel like one side is heavier, your posture is uneven, or your body just isn’t lining up the way it should. Even standing or walking can feel tiring or awkward.
This “off-balance” feeling isn’t in your head.
When the body has been compensating for a long time, it can lose its natural sense of center.
What surprises many people is that, by the end of a session, they often say:
“I feel grounded again.”
“I feel straighter.”
“My weight feels more even.”
This change often starts from working on an area that quietly influences another one.
Whenever I return from continuing education courses—CranioSacral Therapy (CST), Visceral Manipulation (VM), or Neural Manipulation (NM)—I come back with a deeper understanding of how connected the body really is. And the biggest lesson I keep learning is this: When you listen closely to one tissue, another tissue somewhere else often responds. Very often, the area that needs care is not the one where you feel pain.
For the most part, a very light touch is just enough to feel the subtle motion and tension in the tissues. At first, it seems too gentle to matter. But then we notice something remarkable. When we listen to one spot—for example, the diaphragm—another area often begins to soften. Maybe the lower back, maybe the hip, maybe a nerve pathway.
This is why we can say that “the body leads the treatment.”
What teens and young adults often experience.
When I work with teens and young adults, I see this pattern unfold constantly. I gently place my hands on one area, and a completely different part of the body responds.
This happens because fascia, nerves, and movement patterns connect everything.
When one part begins to let go, another part finally feels permission to relax, and that’s often when your balance begins to return.
Why does this matter for chronic pain?
Chronic pain can feel confusing, especially when you’re young. You might wonder why everything feels connected or why pain moves around.
Here’s the truth: Your body has been compensating for a long time. Maybe from an old injury, a stressful period, an illness, or simply years of moving in protective ways.
Listening-based techniques help unwind those patterns gently and gradually, in the order your body chooses. Not by force. Not by pushing through pain. But by following the tissue cues.
This approach works especially well for sensitive or overloaded nervous systems, which many teens and young adults with chronic pain experience.
Your Body Isn’t Working Against You.
When we listen to the tissues, we are not just working on muscles or joints. We are listening to how your body has been trying to protect you.
And when the body feels heard, it often responds quickly—not always instantly, but often in noticeable ways. The body knows what to do when we listen. Listening to one tissue can help another find relief—sometimes the one that has been hurting the most.
Teens and young adults living with chronic pain deserve an approach that doesn’t overwhelm their system or require them to push through discomfort. Light-touch therapies like CST, VM and NM may feel subtle, but they create meaningful changes because they follow the body’s natural connections.
