Pain Points with Max Shen

If there is a sharp knife pressing into my hand, and let’s call it pain, if I resist, resist it, and hate it and want it gone, I stick the knife deeper in my hand.Try to push it away, okay. Deeper. Now if I relax my hand, okay, it’s a totally different experience. Now, this is like the ABC of dealing with pain. Not focusing on the pain, but focusing what you do against the pain. Because the general attitude of people is pain is the enemy. Pain is bad. Pain is the devil. When people are experiencing pain, they immediately contract and stop breathing. Those two actions push the knife more into the body because you take away the respiration, the person doesn’t breathe, or his body doesn’t have enough energy to deal with the pain.He contracts muscles, he blocks the energy flow in the body. Now the pain can only accumulate.” My guest today, Avi Grinberg, is a deep practitioner. He started out as a paramedic and traveled around the world to learn from different indigenous heals. I was particularly excited to talk to Avi because, in my own journey of exploring pain, I’ve come to a set of intuitions that’s hard to articulate about the role of awareness and how we generate the pain in our own way.When I saw Avi speak, I felt there was a deep connection that we were coming from the same place and seeing things, and so naturally I reached out to have a conversation. While I might not agree with all of Avi’s conclusions. I found a lot to learn from him in this conversation and I hope you will too.00:00:00 Introduction and Early Encounters with Healing00:04:00 “Most People Don’t Know How to Experience Pain”00:08:00 Pain Is Energy Seeking Completion00:12:00 Indigenous Healers in the Middle East and South America00:36:00 Demonstration of the Exercise: Relaxing Into Pain00:44:00 Trying Hard Breeds Chronic Tension01:04:00 The Danger of “Easy Healing”01:17:00 Closing ReflectionsGrinberg method websitehttp://www.grinbergmethod.com/YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@GrinbergMethod This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit essays.debugyourpain.com

David Chapman, a former AI researcher turned writer, dives deep into the complexities of chronic illness and the healthcare system. He shares his personal journey with debilitating fatigue and food intolerances, including an unexpected six-mile run that cured his long COVID fatigue. Discussions touch on the failures of American healthcare, the importance of community support, and the concept of meta-rationality in debugging personal health. Chapman also highlights how bright light therapy can alleviate seasonal depression, challenging mainstream treatment norms.

In this episode of Pain Points, I’m speaking with Jozef Frucek, a dear mentor of mine and a pioneer in the world of movement.He uses embodied cognition to combine ideas from Tai Chi, wrestling, and physical theater to create a wholly unique approach to movement that he calls the Fighting Monkey Practice. We recently finished a paper called Beyond Biomechanics, Fighting Monkey and the Enactive Inference Approach to Health and Movement.I'm really excited about this interview today because Jozef is, as you'll hear, an incredible storyteller. But more importantly, through his work he is articulating one of the most inspiring visions of health, which of course relates to my own work on pain. We begin by discussing his background, learning Tai Chi for 20 years in an experimental slovakian movement community before explicitly discussing our paper. (You can read the transcript online)“ Health is not absence of illness. Health may be described as your capacity to be connected to people . That's also being healthy, right? That's very important. I think we are too obsessed by staying healthy, trying to do everything right. We force our bodies and we stress our bodies enormously. We constantly follow some sort of protocol. We are constantly hearing what we should be, what exercise we should be doing, but we really forget how to listen to ourselves.We rarely find our authentic voice. We only follow ideas of others, but we do not sense what actually is happening in our physiology.”[00:00:00 - 08:00] Origins and Early Movement Journey* Transition from basketball to acting* Discovery of movement community in Slovakia* Meeting Tai Chi masters and the 20-year journey with Ming Wong[08:00 - 14:00] Philosophy of Teaching and Permission* The importance of teacher permission vs. open learning* "Stray dogs" approach to students* Evolution doesn't create solutions, it creates problem-solving[14:00 - 22:00] Theater, Sports, and Asian Philosophy* How Tai Chi informed theatrical practice* Table tennis and father-son relationship* Journey through Taoism, Zen Buddhism, and Korean traditions[22:00 - 33:00] Existential Pain and Storytelling* Childhood encounters with mortality and darkness* Theater as simulation and agency creation* "I have something and I'm afraid of losing it" - the core of suffering[33:00 - 45:00] The Question Dance* Interactive dialogue experiment* Exploring meaning, perception, and embodied understanding* The power of questions over answers[45:00 - 58:00] Scientific Philosophy and Embodied Practice* Active inference and nested agency* Extended mind and embedded cognition* Breathing as autonomous intelligence[58:00 - End] Health, Agency, and Creative Healing* Health as agency rather than absence of disease* Joy and pleasure as guides to healing* The vision for more accessible creative movement practiceLinksShen, Max, and Jozef Frucek. "Beyond Biomechanics: Fighting Monkey and the Enactive Inference Approach to Health and Movement." (2025). LinkFighting Monkey website, IGAbout the HostMax Shen is a former machine learning researcher turned pain and cognition researcher. After facing chronic pain in grad school, he now uses computational tools at MIT to explore pain from a systems and somatic lens.🎧 Listen to all episodes:* Substack: essays.debugyourpain.com📬 Get in touch:* Email: maxkshen@gmail.com* Twitter: @maxkshen This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit essays.debugyourpain.com

Michael Levin, director of the Allen Discovery Institute at Tufts, is a pioneer in regeneration and bioelectricity. He delves into the concept of agency in living organisms, revealing how chronic pain can act as an agent impacting physiology and psychology. The power of social contagion in health behaviors highlights how collective influences shape healing. Levin challenges conventional notions of pain, suggesting it may exist at molecular levels, while discussing innovative approaches to regenerative medicine and the fusion of AI with health intelligence.

Bren’s documentary is out! Watch here More on health, movement, and becoming the whole collective intelligence you are at essays.debugyourpain.com00:00:00 Introduction — Movement Without Reductionism 00:01:00 From Stanford Biochemistry to Movement Coaching 00:03:00 Traditional Training: Isolate, Integrate, Improvise 00:06:00 Why Transfer Fails in Traditional Models 00:09:00 Ecological Dynamics in Combat Sports 00:18:00 Constraints-Led Approach and Skill Transfer 00:21:00 Enactivism vs. Ecological Dynamics 00:26:00 The Role of Intention and Meaning in Movement00:31:00 What is Beautiful Movement? 00:35:00 Movement and Evolutionary Mismatch 00:41:00 Nested Agency and Biological Intelligence 00:47:00 Rehabilitating Without Rest: A Proactive View on Pain 00:56:00 Changing Paradigms in BJJ and Movement Instruction 01:01:00 Teaching With Tasks, Not Moves 01:07:00 From Theory to Practice: Bringing CLA to New Disciplines 01:12:00 Workshops, Collaborations, and What’s NextBeyond Biomechanics: The Enactive Inference Approach to Health and Movement – Shen & FrucekRamstead, M., et al. “A tale of two densities: Active inference is enactive inference.” Adaptive Behavior, 2019.Varela, F., Thompson, E., & Rosch, E. The Embodied Mind. MIT Press, 2016.Lehman, G. “Recovery Strategies.” Greg Lehman’s WebsiteFighting Monkey Practice: fightingmonkey.netBren Veziroglu studied biochemistry at Stanford and worked in molecular imaging before pivoting to the world of movement and rehabilitation. He now teaches and practices using the constraints-led approach, integrating ecological dynamics, somatics, and martial arts to train human beings — not just athletes.Max Shen is a former machine learning researcher turned pain and cognition scientist. After facing chronic pain in grad school, he now uses computational tools at MIT to explore pain from a systems and somatic lens.🎧 Listen to all episodes:Substack: debugyourpain.com Get in touch:Email: maxkshen@gmail.comTwitter: @mxslk This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit essays.debugyourpain.com

essays.debugyourpain.com## Timestamps00:00:00 Introduction - The Coming Paradigm Change in Biology  00:02:00 The Biomedical Paradigm: Materialism, Reductionism, and Dualism  00:05:00 How Pain Is Usually Explained (And Why It's Wrong)  00:07:00 Problems with Materialism, Reductionism, Dualism00:12:00 Pain Without Damage, Damage Without Pain  00:15:00 The Alternative: Biological Computation and Collective Intelligence. 00:26:00 Health as Problem-Solving Ability, Not Statistical Norms  00:30:00 Pain as a Control Signal and Skill  00:32:00 The Somatic Scientists - Ida Rolf, Moshe Feldenkrais, FM Alexander  00:37:00 Why RCTs Don't Work for Complex Therapies  00:42:00 Bridging Science and Practice ## Key Figures Mentioned- **Michael Levin** (Tufts) - Biological computation and collective intelligence- **Karl Friston** (University College London) - Active inference and free energy principle- **Dennis Noble** (Oxford) - Biological relativity and heart pacemaker cells- **Ida Rolf** - Developed Rolfing, emphasized fascia connections- **Moshe Feldenkrais** - Physicist turned movement therapist- **FM Alexander** - Alexander Technique founderResources- Ashar, Yoni K., et al. "Effect of pain reprocessing therapy vs placebo and usual care for patients with chronic back pain: a randomized clinical trial." JAMA psychiatry 79.1 (2022): 13-23.- Noble, Denis. "A theory of biological relativity: no privileged level of causation." Interface focus 2.1 (2012): 55-64.- Wampold, Bruce E., and Zac E. Imel. The great psychotherapy debate: The evidence for what makes psychotherapy work. Routledge, 2015.- Beyond Biomechanics: The Enactive Inference Approach to Health and Movement: https://osf.io/preprints/psyarxiv/uqcs4_v1About the HostMax is a former machine learning researcher who pivoted to studying pain and cognition after experiencing chronic pain during graduate school. He now uses computational tools to study chronic pain at MIT.---- Substack: debugyourpain.substack.com**Get in touch:**- Email: maxkshen@gmail.com- Twitter: @mxslk- Substack: debugyourpain.substack.com This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit essays.debugyourpain.com

The conversation dives into how people often carry learned behaviors that lead to self-loathing and conflict avoidance. It explores the contrast between aiming for what we want versus running from negativity, particularly seen in pessimistic views about AI. The importance of unlearning toxic patterns for happier lives is emphasized, along with how positivity can foster healthier relationships. Additionally, there's a focus on harnessing intentions for personal growth and the beauty of navigating life's tensions to achieve greater emotional well-being.