Unstoppable Body and Mind

By Betsy Jensen

Science based strategies and life coach tools to help you feel better in your body at any age!... more

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November 18, 2024 Episode #135- Treating Neuroplastic Symptoms with Dr David Clarke
Today I have a special guest, a leader in the field of Mindbody medicine and President of the ATNS (Association for Treatment of Neuroplastic Symptoms, formerly PPDA), Dr David Clarke.

Dr Clarke practiced Gastroenterology in Portland from 1984 to 2009, treating over 7000 patients whose symptoms were not explained by diagnostic testing.

In this episode, Dr Clarke summarizes Pain relief Psychology. With research based methods teaching patients to take their focus off the symptom, shift attention to brain, and feel the emotions or deal with life stressors.

Responding to chronic pain or symptoms this way rewires the brain, so that symptoms can be eliminated instead of just managed.

Listen to hear more!

Find Dr Clarke and the 12 question quiz on the ATNS website- https://www.symptomatic.me/

Dr Clarke's challenging patients course https://ppdassociation.org/online-course

For fresh content on healing chronic pain or disease, follow Betsy
on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/bodyandmindlifecoach/

Youtube https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCvXZSYYGL2cfJl-oEOzqspA

Website https://bodyandmindlifecoach.com

Transcript- Automatically Generated:
This is Betsy Jensen, and you are listening to Unstoppable Body and Mind, Episode 135, Treating Neuroplastic Symptoms with Dr. David Clarke.
In this podcast, we learn to upgrade our brain and understand the power of our thoughts, to heal and to create the results we want in our life. Become the person in control of your healing and make peace with your life. Become Unstoppable Body and Mind.
All right. Hi, everyone.
Welcome.
We have a special, special guest today. This is Dr. David Clarke. Welcome.
Great to be with you, Betsy.
Well, we are so glad to have you here. So Dr. Clarke is one of the pioneers and leaders in this field. The head of the PPDA, which is now the ATNS, we can talk about what all of these initials mean and acronyms.
But why don't we start with a little bit about your story, coming from being a Western physician to what you do now?
Yeah, I didn't know anything about this. The first seven years of my formal training and education, you know, it's kind of embarrassing to admit as a physician that nobody ever mentioned the idea that your brain could cause serious pain or illness in your body, in the complete absence of anything wrong structurally or with your organs. But then I encountered a patient, I didn't know the first thing about diagnosing or treating.
In year eight of my formal training, she was referred to us at UCLA where I was in training by another university because they couldn't find anything wrong to explain her symptoms. She was actually averaging one bowel movement per month, despite taking four different laxatives at double the usual doses. We did some specialized testing on her that also was normal.
I was doing her exit interview and basically telling her she was just going to have to live with this because there wasn't anything more we could do. But just so the conversation wouldn't be over in two minutes, I started asking her about stress. She didn't really have any.
You know, her current day life was really going just fine. But when I asked her about stress earlier, she started talking about having been molested as a girl by her father. Unfortunately, not just once or twice, which would have been bad enough, but hundreds of times.
And I had never heard anybody say that before. I didn't know what to do with that information. I had no formal training in how to respond to that.
But I fell back on basic instincts as a doctor, which is to try to get the story. When did it start? How often did it happen?
When did it stop? Those kinds of things. And she was telling me the story in a perfectly calm tone of voice.
It didn't look like she was distressed by this at all. If you didn't know better, you would think that, and I didn't know better at the time, you would think that she had completely processed this information and had moved on. And yet she has this terrible physical symptom with no explanation for it.
So I didn't think the two things could possibly be connected, but they were both very striking. So I had vaguely heard of a psychiatrist at UCLA that was interested in conditions like this. And I thought maybe it'll help her to live with this a little better.
So I connected her up with Harriet Kaplan, who was a psychiatrist and forgot all about her. Until I ran into Harriet in an elevator three months later, and I've told this story many times before, but this was the elevator ride that changed my career. Because in making conversation with Harriet, it turned out she had cured this patient with less than three months of counseling.
And the idea that you could alleviate a serious, real physical symptom just by talking to somebody, that was nowhere in my medical education or training. And I thought, you know, if I'm going to be a complete doctor, I should know a little bit about this. So I got Harriet to teach me how she thought about these things.
And I thought, you know, maybe I'll see a couple of patients a year that have this concern or this issue, and I'll be able to use this information, and get the patient over to whoever the Harriet is in my medical community. And I was, you know, started practice in Portland, Oregon a few years later. And I was wrong on multiple counts.
First of all, there weren't any Harriots in Portland. I would send patients to mental health, they would get cognitive behavioral therapy, it wouldn't help them, and they would come back and they say, you know, now what do we do? And so I did, you know, I tried to help them by trial and error.
And I'm confident I wasn't very good at it in the beginning, but even as a bumbling beginner, I was helping people. They were having improvement that they weren't getting from the rest of the healthcare system. So, you know, that was back in the 1980s.
Today, it's been 7,000 patients I've treated like this. It was 250 or 300 every year, which was another shock for me, one out of three of my patients. And I just got better and better at it as time went on.
My first book, which is called They Can't Find Anything Wrong, came out in 2007. And then I started getting invitations to speak. And then I met other people who were doing this work, which I'd never met before.
And we founded a nonprofit in 2011, which is now the Association for Treatment of Neuroplastic Symptoms. And you came to our conference in Boulder just six weeks ago.
Yeah. That's where we met officially. And I realized how tall you are in real life.
I look a lot shorter on Zoom.
Yeah. You said it's your superpower to look short on Zoom. And yeah, that I have to say was such a cool conference.
It was really, really amazing just being around all of these people who we've read their books, we've followed podcasts and done research and read a lot of works and studies that people have put out. And a lot of those big name people were there. It was kind of the everyone who's anyone of this world, the mind body world.
It's really true. Yeah. The speakers we had were tremendous.
I mean, I've been doing this all these years and I learned a lot from them. And the research is something we haven't had before. Just in the last mainly three years, there has been gold standard randomized controlled trials of the treatment methods that we recommend at the ATNS.
And they've been getting stunningly good results at universities across North America, everywhere from Halifax to Los Angeles is showing the power of first of all, focusing on relieving people's symptoms like that first patient, not just helping them live with it, but actually relieving it and focusing on stress in people's lives, trauma, the long-term impact of adversity in childhood, other life challenges. When you do that, people actually get better.
Yeah, yeah. And it's not just digestive issues, as we know. Like that can be a main one.
That's what brought me to the work was ulcerative colitis and irritable bowel.
Yeah, absolutely. That's how I started. But when people found out that I was doing this kind of work, they started sending me mysterious cases with symptoms from head to toe.
You know, I didn't, I have to say, I didn't see that many with migraines, but all kinds of things, dizziness, itching of the skin was one, back pain was a big one, fibromyalgia, pelvic pain, pelvic pain was very common in my practice. I had a whole slew of gynecologists that would send me patients that they couldn't find anything wrong with the pelvis, and yet it was very painful for people. Some of them had genital or bladder pain as well.
So, you know, joints, skin issues.
Genital urinary problems, like incontinence could have a mind-body component, right?
It should be checked for, that's the thing. What we emphasize is, you know, we're not going to have this mind-to-body connection in every single case, obviously, but there are a lot of people it should be checked for to get a complete evaluation.
Yeah, I personally know that because I had incontinence issues during a super stressful time, and I also just had four kids. So I thought, well, this is just my life. I'm just going to have this now.
But turns out I don't have that anymore. So, but I read Dr. Sarno's book when I first, because I found out about this stuff kind of like 2019, I think, 2018-19, a little before, I think, Cureable came out. I didn't really know about the PPDA.
I kind of found Sarno first, and he did say genitourinary issues. So I just got curious, and I started noticing some patterns with incontinence that I was like, oh, it's only certain times. It's right at the end of a conversation, right when I get home in the driveway.
Not the whole ride home, just right when I get home.
No, it's good that you had the insight to figure that out. That's what a lot of practitioners call gathering evidence, that it's not an organ-based or structure-based condition. For example, if the symptom moves from place to place, or if it's not always triggered by the same thing, if you can sit at home for a long period of time and your back is okay, but you sit at the office for the same period of time and your back is not okay, you know, your back doesn't know the difference, but your brain definitely does.
One of my early patients, he had daily low back pain except two weeks out of the year. And you know, no prize for guessing what he was doing in the two weeks out of the year, he was on vacation and he was not resting carefully on a warm beach, you know, taking good care of his back. He was fly fishing in British Columbia, which involves a lot of motion of the spine.
And at the end of the day, he would help the lodge owner clear brush from behind the lodge. Did any of this cause problems for his back? Not a bit.
As long as he was on vacation, he was fine. But when he was back from vacation, he was a workaholic and it manifested in back pain.
The thing is too, I've seen where people on vacation they don't have the pain, they do all these things, maybe on the plane ride back or once they get back, they do have pain, but they don't attribute it to coming back to work or the stressors they're putting on themselves. They think, oh, I must have overdone it three days ago when I did that ATV riding. And they attribute it to something they did several days before, or even I've heard of people up to two weeks before.
Oh, my, my chiropractor said it was probably what I did on vacation two weeks before. And that's why I had the pain two weeks later.
Yeah, no, I hear that too. When you believe that all pain and illness is connected only to organ disease or injury, as a clinician, you will bend over backwards trying to make it fit into that box. If you don't have the training or the capability to assess somebody for a brain-to-body condition or what we today call a neuroplastic condition, you're not going to be thinking of it.
And so you have to try to make the patient's condition fit into something else. And what we see a lot is people trying to make it fit into things like long COVID or Ehlers-Danlos syndrome, which is stretchy connective tissue, or mast cell activation syndrome, or chronic Lyme disease. I mean, there's a whole long list.
Chronic fatigue is another one, a whole long list of conditions that are being blamed for this. Systemic candidiasis, another one, being blamed for this without any real reason to blame it. And what we encourage people to do at the ATNS is to become aware of how you assess somebody.
Look at the stress in their life right now. One of my patients only got his pain when he was driving to work. When he was driving home from work, he was fine.
But none of the doctors who had seen him before me thought to ask him about that, to get that detailed story of when and where his symptoms were happening. But a really big one is, if you went through experiences as a child, that you would never want for a child of your own. And that can be just about anything.
You know, anything from, you know, the sexual abuse that I mentioned in the first patient. But it can also be just lack of support, lack of being made to feel good about yourself, being made to feel like a second rate or a worthless person. That can have profound long-term impacts on people.
And we can't change the past, but those long-term impacts can make you physically ill. And we can change those long-term impacts. We can successfully treat those.
And when we do, the symptoms start to alleviate.
Yes, yes. That's one thing I'll always remember about you is that question to ask yourself is, if I had my own child and was going through the exact same things that I went through as a child, are there any things that I wouldn't want them to have to go through? And maybe it's even a bully in third grade or something, right?
Even those kinds of things can have an impact on that fear base, your nervous system, and then later in life, something similar comes up and you develop that. So it could be not a direct correlation of the symptoms don't just start at the time necessarily.
That's right.
Right? And then the other thing I find is that a lot of times people may not acknowledge the stressors that they are under currently, a lot of times people tell me they don't have a lot of stressors. That's not always the case.
But sometimes pain has become its own stressor or illness, or the lack of a diagnosis has become its own stressor, but they minimize or don't realize how stressful that is. Could you speak to that?
Yeah. My patients are very strong people, and they are capable of carrying levels of stress that most people cannot. And so when they look at their life, they're going like, no, it's really not that huge an amount of stress.
Or they'll say the same thing about when they were kids, that it wasn't that bad. Other people have been through worse. You know, I think I'm over it now.
But they are like Olympic weightlifters who are carrying 50 pounds more than the world record for their weight class. And they just don't know it. So their bodies are breaking down.
And you know, they're feeling that physical impact of this weight of stress that they're carrying without recognizing just how much is going on. Until, you know, as you point out, asking them to think about what it would be like to watch their own kid and try to cope with the same childhood issues that puts a completely different spin on it, helps people to recognize much more accurately. Or to, you know, imagine if a friend was carrying all the stress that they are.
One of my patients was, let's see, she was working full time. Her husband was working full time. She had been an athlete as a girl, and she was coaching her two daughters in her sport.
She was coaching other people's kids in the sport. She was on the Athletic Club Board of Directors. She was driving kids to out-of-state competitions on a regular basis.
And you ask her, when do you put yourself on the list of people you are taking care of? And she was like, not really sure. She had to think about it, and maybe she got to go to the movies with her husband every other month.
But the rest of the time, she was on a treadmill. She never stepped off and hadn't really recognized it until I made her go through the list of everything that was going on in her life, and began to see that it was adding up. But even in her case, it connected back to her childhood.
She didn't suffer any abuse. But as an athlete, she was doing her sport before school, after school, and on weekends, starting at age four. She never really got to be a kid.
She never really got to just play. I'm sure your kid's growing up, they got plenty of time to play. And when kids play, they are learning self-care skills.
They are learning that they need to take a break. If you don't learn that, then you fall into this always on the treadmill kind of lifestyle, and the body is going to protest after a while. And that's what it did with her.
She wound up in the emergency room with a sudden abdominal pain just out of the blue.
And don't you recommend something like purposeful play? Is that something?
Yes.
Yeah. Let's talk about that.
It's an essential human skill. And if you don't do it, it's sooner or later going to catch up with you. But the good news is that you can learn it as an adult, even if you never learned it as a kid.
And I ask people to set aside a block of time every week if they possibly can. And some people, it's a challenge that you have to admit. If you're a single mom, for example, and trying to hold down a job or two at the same time, it can be hard to find space for yourself.
But find as much as you can, and use that time for trial and error. Refuse to feel guilty about this because all you're doing is putting yourself on the list of people you take care of, and try to find something that has no purpose, but your own joy. And the moral equivalent of finger paints for a four-year-old, as I put it, just something that's so much fun, you can't wait to do it again next week.
And it can take months of trial and error to figure out what that's going to be. My champion athlete patient with the very busy lifestyle, all she could think of to do at first was go for walks in a park. But that was better than what she had been doing.
And while she was walking, she was thinking. And eventually she hit on the idea of taking piano lessons. And she had never done anything musical before, but she absolutely loved it.
And that was when her pain finally went away.
Oh, that's so cool. And I love that you said it because my experience when I first learned about like self-care and putting myself first, and I still had that mindset of like getting things done and achieving. So if I did a craft, it was like scrapbooking because then I had a scrapbook.
Or when I thought of just relaxing, I thought I should learn an instrument. And it wasn't out of like pure joy and relaxation. It was kind of like then that could be ticking off the box of relaxation while also doing something productive.
So for me, I'm actually proud of the fact that I can watch TV now without judging myself. Like I can watch a reality show and just get into it and waste some time that way. And I've noticed I like to go to thrift stores and just like meander around.
Or there's some things that I might like doing that other people might not like. But like you said, I love that idea of trial and error. Don't think you have to be perfect at it.
Do not think you have to be perfect. Do not think you have to be even productive.
You don't have to be productive.
That's a trap.
Exactly. That's what I used to think though, is like how could I like sneak some kind of like productivity into it and have a nice talent to show off later or like a package I could give something. You know, I did a craft and I made that for someone, you know.
Yeah, the four-year-old with the finger paints, they're not sitting there thinking, gosh, you know, I need to do more pictures per hour here.
Exactly.
They're not worried about being productive.
Right. Yeah. I mean, that's the biggest thing for me is that I really just was so hard on myself.
I was never letting myself relax. And I really noticed because I started learning about all this stuff and COVID hit. And at that time, I was a physical therapist working with babies and my job went remote because we weren't working with babies in the clinic or in the homes anymore.
And so I thought, oh great, I can just relax, right? I'll have so much free time. But then I started noticing all the baseboards that needed cleaning on all the closets that needed cleaning out.
And so I noticed it didn't really have anything to do with time. I just had that urgency inside of me that was like, I need to be doing something all the time to feel good about myself.
Yeah, it happens with so many of my patients. Many of them, not necessarily like the athlete who had to practice her sport, but the kids who become focused on solving problems in their home when they're children, they observe that things are not ideal in some way. And as kids, they have an exaggerated sense of their ability to fix things.
And so, they get focused on what they can do to make whatever is happening in their home better. But that's distracting them from focusing on their own needs, which is really what kids need to be. Kids are selfish for a reason.
They just take a lot of time for themselves and their own enjoyment. And that's when they learn those self-care skills. If there's something in the home that pulls the attention away from themselves and on to solving problems in that household, then they are taking the first steps on that treadmill of quote unquote productivity.
And if the problems continue in the household for a long enough period of time, that's how they learn to be in the world, is productive people who solve problems.
Yeah. And then if they're not taking care of themselves, it does take its toll. It does.
The body eventually breaks down. The body says no, or you just start developing pains.
Yeah. It's part of that Olympic weight that you're carrying around and that you never get a chance to put it down. That's a big part of the treatment process is people learning, first of all, that the weight is there.
And second of all, how to put it down. And when they do, they realize how strong they've been all along and the symptoms finally start to lift.
Yes. Okay. So if someone thinks that they might have some kind of stressors in their life, but they're not sure, and they're not really sure if their pain might be neuroplastic or not, where do you suggest they start?
Yeah. Well, the website Symptomatic.me has just been launched in the last couple of weeks, and we have worked very hard on a 12-question quiz, which is for self-assessment. It takes less than three minutes, and it covers the major issues that people with neuroplastic symptoms have.
It's set up in a way that the more questions to which you answer yes, the more likely it is that there's a brain-to-body connection going on as the source of your symptoms. And each question comes with a line or two of information to explain what a yes answer means and where you might explore it further. And it can start you with a big step in the right direction toward figuring out where the symptoms are coming from and what to do to alleviate them, because there's tremendous hope for this.
You know, once you get an understanding of what the stresses and challenges are that have produced the symptoms, we can almost always find a good treatment plan.
Yes. Okay. So we'll definitely have a link to that.
And when people come to you, I'm curious when, in my experience, I'll start it this way. I've started to notice that a lot of people tend to hear this information and think that they're probably the exception that has something structural and something neuroplastic. And I'm just curious how often you tend to see that versus how often we know that that really occurs.
Well, it can be a challenge, but definitely people can have both. You can have, for example, rheumatoid arthritis and neuroplastic pain exacerbating the pain of the rheumatoid arthritis. You can have ulcerative colitis, as you did with irritable bowel syndrome, making the symptoms of that worse.
And it's only when you treat both conditions that you have success in alleviating the symptoms. So it's possible, but there's no contradiction in my mind for people working with their medical doctors on whatever physical symptom might be going on, or whatever organ disease or structural damage might be happening. And see if you have some success with taking a medical approach to those.
But at the same time, get an assessment, whether it's from the 12 question quiz, or from one of our practitioners in the directory on our website, get an assessment for whether there could be some stresses, some challenges, some adversity in childhood, some emotions going on that can be producing a neuroplastic symptom at the same time. And if you find those issues, get started on using the now well-validated scientific treatment measures that are out there. Pain relief psychology is the sort of umbrella term for it.
And use that right in parallel with what the doctors are doing. And it's going to become fairly clear fairly quickly which approach is working the best for you.
I'm curious what you advise people who, there is this symptom imperative is what Sarno called it, or Alan Gordon calls it the extinction burst time. So there is this real time that most people go through as they start to learn about this work, and heal, and decrease their stresses, and buy into this mind body approach, and test things out, and start maybe moving more, that they do have some other symptoms.
Yeah, I don't like those terms a lot. I have to be honest, especially the imperative one, it makes it sound like you're screwed for life, that you're always gonna be getting these things coming back. I like a more positive take on it, which is that honestly, your body is your friend, even when it is flattening you on your bed with fatigue or with a migraine or is doubling you over in pain, it's still your friend.
It is trying to tell you something. Your brain is using your body to communicate with you, that there is a stress, an emotion, a challenge, an adversity from childhood that is going on in your life that hasn't been addressed, that hasn't potentially even been discovered yet. And that signal you can use to try to figure out, okay, what is my brain trying to tell me?
That signal from your body, when it's having a severe symptom or collection of symptoms, what is it trying to tell me? My body is actually my friend. It's trying to help me out here.
When I discover the underlying stress that's responsible for this, not only are my symptoms gonna get better, but my life is gonna get better. My ability to set boundaries with toxic people is gonna be better. The relationships that I have in my life are gonna be better.
My ability to assert myself is going to be better. So not only do you get symptom relief from this, you also get a better life from this. But you have to go through the process of shifting your attention from your body where your attention naturally gravitates to when there's a big symptom going on, shifting it to the brain and trying to figure out, my brain wants to tell me something.
And if you have a flare up after you've gotten better, naturally you're gonna be a little disappointed. But I would say it just means that I'm ready to take the next step in my healing, that there's another thing that I need to discover about myself that's gonna take me to the next level. And so that even when you're having one of these disappointing flare ups after a period of improvement, you can take that as a positive.
Yeah. Yeah, you can take it as a positive. Okay, here's a question that I am just really curious what your thoughts are about this.
A lot of people ask me about, don't you just get stiff and sore when you get older, right? Like, I know Dr. Schubiner is 72 and he says he's not sore every day and he does Zumba classes. So what's your take on?
Is there just going to be just pain with aging that people should expect?
Usually not, but it can certainly happen. I mean, all of us do age and that can make us more vulnerable to injuries, for example. So it's certainly possible that you're going to be more prone to developing soreness from time to time.
But for the most part, those are going to be acute, meaning short-term, meaning that if I go over to the gym and I haven't been there for a while and I try to do exactly my previous workout, I may be sore the next day or two. But it's not going to be months. Chronic pain is defined as being at least three months.
And that is not going to happen just from aging. There's going to be something else going on. And it absolutely could be a neuroplastic process, which deserves to be evaluated as carefully as anything else.
I don't know what it is, if it's the programming that we get from the commercials or the drug companies or what, but so many people have told me, well, isn't it just normal that we're just going to feel really stiff every morning and just really sore as we get older? And I don't know.
Well, yeah, there are billions of dollars being spent to market products to all of us that are trying to persuade us that if there's anything going on in our bodies, that it must be our bodies that are at fault. And hey, we're selling you a product that is gonna fix your body. But it turns out that when it comes to chronic pain, a majority of the time, it's not your body.
And so when people rush out to buy spine decompression belts or, you know, infrared laser joint pain reducers, or there's a Procter & Gamble product that I won't even say the name of, that's supposed to alleviate nerve pain. You know, there are 30 billion dollars worth of marketing for dozens and dozens of these products, all focused on making you believe that if something is uncomfortable in your body, that it's your body that's responsible. But there was a study this year or late last year that looked at pain in the spine and did a very careful assessment to see, okay, how much of the, you know, they had 200 and plus patients coming to a clinic for spine pain.
How many of them was it actually the spine? And how many of them was it a brain-generated neuroplastic condition? And the answer was 88% it was brain-generated.
Wow.
And of the remaining 12%, half of them, it was a mixture of brain-generated and spine pain. So only 6% was the pain actually coming from the spine. Now, that's probably a little higher than pain in other locations in the body, but it just shows you how much of chronic pain is neuroplastic.
And is not going to benefit from these, you know, billions of dollars of marketing for these products.
Yeah. And I heard you mention some numbers about treatment, because if you think of only 6% are truly structural, but we're treating everyone as if they're structural. We're treating about 100% of them in this system, that they're structural.
What were those numbers you were saying about as far as the amount of people getting treatment for a neuroplastic condition?
Yeah. Well, it's about 20% of the adult population that have a neuroplastic condition. So 50 million people in the United States alone.
It's about 40% of people that come to a primary care doctor's office, so it's almost double the number of people that have diabetes, for example. Then almost all of them are getting treated with the assumption that their body is responsible. The value of those treatments is typically a little better than placebo.
Those treatments have been used for people with this condition for 4,000 years, and we're not doing any better for those patients today than we were in ancient Egypt when it was first written about. There's almost no other disease where that is the case, that we haven't made any beneficial progress in 4,000 years. And it's completely a social justice issue now, because we've got half a dozen gold standard research studies now that show that pain relief psychology is dramatically effective for this condition.
But maybe 1 in 5,000 people are getting the care that they deserve. So if you've got pain in your spine, for example, that's from a pinched nerve, that's from an actual damage of your spine, you're going to get good care in this country. If you've got exactly the same pain coming from a neuroplastic brain generated process, you are going to get effectively a placebo.
You've got this huge gap in the quality of care. You've got millions of people not getting the care they deserve. It is truly a social injustice.
Yeah, it's amazing to think of it that way. 1 in 5,000, that was the reference. Yeah, yeah, and about 20% of Americans of...
Yeah, 50 million people. And there at the moment is nowhere near the number of practitioners that can meet that need. But the Association for Treatment of Neuroplastic Symptoms is growing every year.
The number of people that we're teaching about this is growing every year. The resources on our website that are scientifically based growing every year. So we are on the threshold of a change in medical history and that people are finally going to get the same quality of care as everybody else.
Yes. And like you said, it's not even just saying there's some kind of mind-body connection or CBT therapy, which is cognitive behavior therapy. It's not just, oh, you have this and there's a mind component to it.
So let's tell you how to cope with it. Do you call it pain reprocessing? I know there's so many different names.
Yeah, I lump them all together under pain relief psychology. There are three major types of pain relief psychology, and they've all got their individual research evidence behind them. But they share so many principles that it makes sense to me to just call them all by that one term.
You know, they're all about taking your focus off of the part of your body that has the symptom, shifting your attention to the brain, and then figuring out what is going on in the brain. What is the stress? What is the long-term impact of childhood adversity?
What is the life challenge? What are some of the buried emotions? Anger, fear, shame, grief, guilt, that people can have in volcanic levels without knowing it.
One of my patients was hospitalized at a prestigious university 60 times in 15 years. She was the first person I wrote about in my first book, They Can't Find Anything Wrong. 60 admissions, a dozen specialists, including a psychiatrist, very prestigious hospital, no diagnosis at all.
She was so discouraged. She ended up getting hospitalized at my hospital because she happened to have an attack here in Portland, Oregon. And she tried to kick me out of the room.
She said, Doctor, don't waste your time with me. I've already had all the tests. Nobody can figure out what's wrong.
You'd be better off seeing your other patients. Well, you know, I couldn't resist a challenge like that. So I said, you know, give me 30, 40 minutes.
Tell me your story one more time and we'll see if we can figure out what's happening. And, you know, to make a long story short, it turned out that all of her attacks of dizziness and vomiting were connected to encounters either direct or indirect with her abusive mother. And she had tremendous emotions with respect to this woman who was still mistreating her.
The patient was age 50, mom was in her 70s. Mom was still mistreating her in a terrible way after, you know, 47 years of this. So the emotions were all there, but she was completely unaware of what they were doing to her body.
That's amazing that you could put it together with the dizziness and vomiting.
All of her episodes we found were linked to encounters with her mom. And I should, you know, close the story by saying that in her case, just bringing that into conscious awareness cured her on the spot. She never had another attack.
I wish I could cure everybody with a one hour conversation, but she called me a year later, said, I've gone the entire year. She used to get between six and 10 of these terrible episodes every year. Half of them, she would be hospitalized for.
Didn't have a single one. Once she could understand where they were coming from, set some boundaries so that her mom wasn't going to have the same impact anymore. You know, that was a big part of what I did in our conversation was to empower her to, that she really needed to set those boundaries to the point where she wouldn't get symptoms ever again.
Amazing. I bet you have so many amazing stories. Are there any others that jump to mind that are just your favorites to share?
Well, actually, I put a bunch of them in a new course that we released early this year called Challenging Cases. I wanted to give people the feeling of actually encountering these patients in real life, and so we hired five actors to play roles of the key people in the stories of these patients. In one case, it was the patient's mother that was playing the role, but in the others, it was the actual patient that we were trying to recreate.
And those are some of my favorite stories, some of my most challenging cases. The first one, actually, it was early in my career, and as I tried to treat him, he got up and walked out of the room. He was not having any of my treatment.
But I learned from that case, and it taught me a lot about the depth of feeling that some people can have. And so I try to convey that in this challenging cases course. But yeah, there have been so many over the years that have had these incredible levels of symptoms.
One of them, she was a record for me in terms of the duration of her condition, 79 years of abdominal pain. And she was a nurse, so she had plenty of access to health care. She got all the diagnostic tests.
She had plenty of doctors look at her over the years. But not one of them, she was 87 years old, so she had the symptoms for 79 years. You do the math, and she's eight years old when it started.
And so, immediately I jumped to the question, did anything happen to you when you were eight?
Yeah.
And sure enough, she went through a terrible trauma when she was eight, and she was carrying a huge burden of guilt around that for all these decades. And nobody had ever made the connection to the beginning of her illness. And her treatment, which was very successful, was simply to write kind of an essay about what had happened when she was eight, and with the goal of alleviating the guilt she felt around that episode.
And that was enough, just putting, you know, putting emotions into words. First, feeling the emotions, recognizing the emotions, then putting them into words. The more they go into words, the less they need to be expressed into your body in the form of symptoms.
And worked very well for her, even after so many decades.
So it's like those repressed emotions were like that Olympic weight that she was just carrying and carrying around. And then once she could express that, her body didn't need to suffer the hit. And suffer that, yeah.
I know it gets so weird sometimes explaining the repressed emotions and how the body... But really, I think we can all see examples of that. When we kind of tell someone something and we don't really mean it, and it catches in our throat or our stomach kind of turns.
Or our bodies are sensitive. It happens more than we realize that our bodies are these barometers for us.
Yeah, I mean, we've all had the experience of feeling a knot in our abdomen when we're in a tense situation. You know, that's a brain to body reaction. Usually, you know that the situation is tense and you know why it's tense.
And you get this, you know, the body has always been part of our emotional reactions. You know, we can get, you know, blushing with embarrassment is another one. Pounding heart when you're afraid or excited is another one.
The body is always involved in emotions. Where the problem comes is if you've got an emotion and you're not aware of it. And then you get the body reaction without the brain knowing why.
And when the brain doesn't know why, it can't do anything about it. It's just going like, why is my body doing this? And it's a mystery.
So, but sometimes people can figure this out for themselves. Sometimes they need an app like Cureable to help them, or a book to help them get insights, or a therapist. Something to help them see the connection to where that emotion might be coming from.
But once they do, solution is on its way.
Yes, yes. And like you said, sometimes it's just even that realization. You don't have to cut off ties with that person, or you don't have to completely cut them out of your life necessarily, but just the realization.
I'm curious. Yeah, if you have any-
I just wanted to say that that was that, you bring up the hardest situation, which is when you are really angry at somebody that you also care about. And what do you do with that? That's very challenging.
And it takes people a long time to work it out. A big part of the issue too, is that people don't like to be angry at somebody they care about. And that's why they repress it.
But it's very, very common to be just volcanically angry at people that you still care about. And we have to find a way to balance those and give, you know, each of them their due. They both have a reason to be there.
And we have to acknowledge that. And sometimes it means setting boundaries. Sometimes it means limiting contact.
One of my patients had to have, you know, just for a period of six months, zero contact with the toxic parent in her life. And that's what she needed to get well. After that, she could begin to gradually reintroduce contact with this person.
But she had a lot of processing to do, and she needed six months to do it.
Yeah. Yeah. Well, do you have, would you say that you have, I mean, everyone is different.
In your experience, do you have a technique that you really like and recommend? I mean, there's so many different things from journaling to breathing to, you know, all the different things. But if you were to give some advice of your favorite or maybe top three things.
You know, most of my patients who have the most severe levels of illness, it's from the long-term impact of adverse childhood experiences or ACEs. And the long-term impact tends to fall into three major categories. And so I focus on helping people with all three.
The most difficult are the emotions, and we just talked about those. The second one is personality traits, that children develop when they're in a dysfunctional or toxic or adverse environment. They try to cope with it by being very good little kids, by being perfectionist, by being very self-critical, by not asserting themselves, by not learning how to play, we talked about earlier, by their self-esteem suffers.
So I try to help them with all those things by seeing, what did they learn about themselves as kids that isn't true? Did they learn that it's their job to help everybody else in the world and neglect their own needs? Did they learn that they're a second-rate person?
I try to help them see that when you're born into an environment like that, it's like parachuting into a dangerous jungle when you're a toddler. And through no fault of your own, you find yourself in this difficult environment. But you need to give yourself tremendous credit for having somehow found your way out of there.
And by giving yourself that credit, you are starting to flip yourself image from the negative one that you learned as a kid that's false into a positive one that you deserve for having made it through those difficult experiences. And then the third, and a lot of the toxic or stressful personality traits will begin to move and to shift into a more positive frame once you've made that shift about your own self-image. And then the third major area are the triggers, which are people, situations or events in your present day life, that are especially stressful for you because they are linked to the past in some way.
And often the most common is, like my patient who was hospitalized 60 times at the prestigious university, it was a person who mistreated her as a kid who was still in her life in the present day. That's probably the single most common kind of trigger. But there can be others, even some ironic ones.
Many of my patients who have just met the love of their life, somebody who is totally for them, that's when they get sick. And they get sick for two reasons. One is they've never had a person like this in their life before, so they're not sure they can trust it.
And they're worried that this wonderful person they have in their life is going to wake up one day and say, no, you're not who I really wanted. Even though there's no evidence for that whatsoever, it doesn't stop people worrying when they've never had this in their life before. And then the second reason is that if you decide that this person who thinks you're wonderful is actually right about you, then it means that you were actually quite a bit mistreated as a kid, that all those negative beliefs about yourself that you absorbed as basic assumptions when you were growing up, they're not true and you didn't deserve to have them inflicted on you.
And that's going to stir up a certain amount of justifiable anger that you had to go through that. And so that's, you know, obviously on balance extremely positive that you have this wonderful person in your life. But in the short run, it can stir some things up and can serve as a trigger.
Yeah. Yeah, it makes so much sense. And yeah, with that anger, you know, it's like we don't have to express anger to that person.
Sometimes that person isn't in our life anymore. They're not even in this world. And in this world, that's true, you know.
So, you know, there are ways, if people are looking for ways to express anger, it doesn't have to be, you know, that you go and get mad and yell at that person.
Yeah, that's right. You can, what I have a lot of my patients do is write them a letter that they don't mail. So you can do that even with somebody who's deceased.
Yes.
One of my patients took the letter to his father's grave and read it to him. And he told me that it took him four or five hours to read the whole thing and that by the end he was shouting, you know, he's there in the cemetery shouting at this gravestone. But when he was done, his symptoms were 90 percent better.
Wow.
Yeah. So very powerful technique. And when you write the letter, it doesn't have to be all bad.
You can put the good stuff in it too. Just try to put everything in it that you're feeling.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I love that. Yeah. And even if the symptoms are better with this work, you look at all that other stuff that you develop, you know, the sense of self and compassion for yourself, and learning to stand up for yourself and take care of yourself.
And those are things that people might even do some therapy or coaching for, even if they didn't have pain, right? So it's like, these are good things to learn just as a general human, as an adult, as a parent. And then also, it takes away your chronic pain.
Yeah. It's a great thing about this work is that in parallel with alleviating the physical symptoms, it makes for changes in people's characters that lead to a better life for them. Many of my patients, you know, I'm always remember one who, we don't have to go into a lot of detail about who she was, but she was known to the public.
And the, she had had one rotten boyfriend after another, her entire adult life, as you know, part of the outgrowth of growing up in a dysfunctional home. But when she went through this work, she suddenly had a much higher level of respect for herself and how much, you know, even though she'd been quite successful in her career, she kind of felt like an imposter, that she was, you know, just fooling people, because she'd had it, you know, drilled into her that she was a failure as a kid. And when she finally realized that she wasn't a failure, she had just been one of these people who's parachuted into the Amazon and found her way out, and that she could take a huge amount of pride in having done that, and that she was no longer going to tolerate being in a relationship with anybody who didn't recognize the quality person that she was.
And as soon as she recognized this about herself and accepted, you know, how strong a person she was, dumped her boyfriend the next day, went without a boyfriend for a year and a half, which was about 12 or 15 times longer than she'd ever gone without a boyfriend before. And then the guy comes along because she wasn't going to put up with anybody who didn't fully respect her. And a guy came along who fully respected her and they've been together for a decade or more now.
So it was not just a relief of physical symptoms for her, it was a major life change.
Yes. And I've seen that with parents where, you know, when they start showing up differently and they're not in pain and they're thinking differently, like their kids even show up differently or their partner does. Not that that's why we want to do it either, but sometimes there are those side benefits of like, you know, we're not as ornery and irritated with our kids.
And then the kids kind of show up a little happier too sometimes.
And so, all in all. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, it makes the families definitely improve from that.
And what you're doing there is you're breaking the cycle. If you came from a family that was toxic or dysfunctional, you don't have to do the same thing to your own family.
Yeah, even just realizing you can have different emotions, kids can express their emotions. So many times I see parents saying, don't cry, don't cry, you know, and just, I think this is shifting a lot of people's ways of being and so it is, it's breaking those generational cycles and there's anything, I guess, good from all of this physical pain, it's that this awareness is coming out of it and all this change.
Yeah, I think it's going to, once it's spread throughout the healthcare profession, once the general public becomes aware that your brain can create any level of pain or illness in the body and that there's a solution for it, the impact on healthcare is going to be tremendous and the impact on the next generation is going to be tremendous too.
Yeah, they'll look back at this podcast episode and might be like, man, they knew what they were talking about.
That's right, that's right. We should have listened to Betsy right from the start. Yeah.
Man, she was right after all. She knew Dr. Clarke was awesome. Well, so good.
I think you're right. I feel like even just in the last five years that I've been studying this work, it's just skyrocketed and maybe that's just my reticular activating system seeing more of what I want to see. But it really does seem like people are becoming more aware.
Yeah. 15 years ago, most of us who do this work had no idea there was anybody else out there that was doing it. Now, six weeks ago, we had 270 people in a scientific lovefest in Boulder, Colorado and we're just going to have to do it again next year.
I can't wait. I made a few reels and social media posts about it and people were like, I've got to come next year. That looks so fun.
I was like, it was so fun. I mean, we learned stuff too, but you guys really made it such a great warm, welcoming atmosphere and it was just electrifying. It was so exciting.
There was just energetic there.
Yeah. I would just finish reading the comments in our post-conference survey. It's not like I attended some nice presentations, kind of thing.
It's like this was life-changing. This was the best conference I ever went to in my life. You know, those kinds of things that you just don't normally see from a scientific conference.
Yeah, absolutely. You're on to something good and I'm glad to be a part of it.
So very much appreciated, Betsy. Really, anybody who's helping us get the word out about this is one of our people and we love talking to you.
Well, I am so glad and I'm sure many people will enjoy hearing this. So thank you so much for your time. I know you really spend a lot of time promoting and talking to people and getting the word out.
I really just can't thank you enough because even if it just helps one more person, that's a whole life that was changed.
So yeah, incredibly rewarding work to do this for the clinicians out there that are listening. If you learn how to do this, there's nothing that's more rewarding as a professional.
Yes. So I will be sure to put your contact info and the website there. Thanks again for all the work you do and for being here today.
Thank you very much. It's been a pleasure.
Thank you so much for listening. I hope you learned a little bit about your brain today that helps you in your life like it helped me. Please be sure and subscribe and leave a review.
And of course, be sure and share this podcast with someone you know that wants an unstoppable body and mind.

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1h 3min
October 18, 2024 Episode #134- Stress, the Subconscious and Pain- Interview with Jim Prussack, the Pain PT
Fellow Physical Therapist, Jim Prussack, joins me today for an interesting interview about his experience moving from PT to pain reprocessing Coach.

We discuss the principles of PRT (pain reprocessing therapy), and how we treat differently using a mind vs body based approach.

Check out Jim at https://www.thepainpt.com/

>>> If you have not yet given my podcast a rating or review, PLEASE do that here:
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-unstoppable-body-and-minds-podcast/id1493360543
...more
44min
August 16, 2024 Episode #133- Embracing Your Emotions Meditation
This Meditation will help you find and process your emotions.

Many of us have learned to subconsciously repress our emotions, to talk ourselves out of them or judge ourselves for having them.

But we also know that what you resist persists.

So sometimes the best way to “get rid of the emotion” is actually to lean into and embrace it.

Emotions are just sensations, and can not hurt you as long as you don’t resist them.

Allowing your emotions and learning to feel them safely will prevent them from being expressed through your body.

Today’s meditation is based on Dr Howard Schubiner’s “Embracing Emotions Meditation” from “Unlearn Your Pain.”

For fresh content on healing chronic pain or disease, follow Betsy
on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/bodyandmindlifecoach/

Youtube https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCvXZSYYGL2cfJl-oEOzqspA

Website https://bodyandmindlifecoach.com

...more
15min
August 06, 2024 Episode # 132- Hypnosis for Pain Relief with Melissa Tiers
Join me today to hear Hypnotist, Melissa Tiers, as we discuss integrative hypnosis and how it helps with chronic pain.

Melissa has been training clinicians in the use of hypnosis for pain relief for over 25 years and her own chronic pain history was pivotal in the creation of her pain protocols.

Melissa struggled with years of migraines and is now migraine-free through this approach (as long as she stays congruent! Listen for more details as to what that all means...)

We discuss the unconscious lens, how to be more mindful, and how to change your memories through memory reconsolidation
Addressing the subconscious directy is the fastest way to see change.
Melissa Tiers is a multi-award winning author, lecturer, key note speaker and hypnosis trainer. She is the founder of The Center for Integrative Hypnosis, co founder of The Ethical Coaching Collective and creator of Coaching the Unconscious Mind. Melissa has earned three IMDHA Pen and Quill awards for her books, Integrative Hypnosis, Keeping the brain in mind, and Integrative Hypnosis for kids and teens:Playing for change.

Check out "Integrative Hypnosis for Pain Relief" by Melissa Tiers
Thursday, August 8, 6:00-8:00 pm EST
Sign up here:
https://www.centerforintegrativehypnosis.com/offers/FNGSVfrz/checkout

Find Melissa at https://www.melissatiers.com/

For fresh content on healing chronic pain or disease, follow Betsy
on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/bodyandmindlifecoach/

Youtube https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCvXZSYYGL2cfJl-oEOzqspA

Website https://bodyandmindlifecoach.com

...more
1h 1min
May 30, 2024 Episode # 131- Life After 30 Years of Chronic Pain- with Renee
Today I interviewed Renee Kammer, who has an amazing healing story. From 30 years of chronic pain and 5 years being bed bound, to now hiking, biking, and gardening.

Renee had several diagnoses, including:
Stiff person’s syndrome, Ulcerative colitis, Rheumatoid arthritis, Ankylosing spondylitis, Fibromyalgia, Headaches, Migraines, Back pain, Hip pain, Anxiety, Depression, Pelvic pain/ IC, Chronic fatigue, Chest pain and High blood pressure.

Renee joined Alignment Academy and went through all of the exercises in Dr Schubiner's workbook to unlearn her pain.

She got off 14 medications in the last year, and has been feeling better and better!

She now has more joy and hope in her life, and is even starting a baking business with her new found time and energy.

Listen here for Renee's story.

And if you want to apply the work Renee did to your life this summer, be sure and check out my Book Club Integration Group!

https://www.bodyandmindlifecoach.com/book-club-integration-group
Transcript- Automatically Generated:
This is Betsy Jensen, and you are listening to Unstoppable Body and Mind, episode 131, Life After 30 Years of Chronic Pain with Renee. In this podcast, we learned to upgrade our brain and understand the power of our thoughts, to heal and to create the results we want in our life. Become the person in control of your healing and make peace with your life.
Become Unstoppable Body and Mind. Hello, my loves. Today we have an amazing episode, an amazing testimonial from Renee.
I want you to listen to her story and apply anything that you can to your life, to what you're going through. Hi, everyone. Welcome.
Today we have a special guest, Renee. She has such an amazing story. So welcome, Renee.
Hi, it's good to be here.
Great, great. It's so good having you. Renee has been in my coaching group, Alignment Academy.
Oh, I was going to look up how long. Less than a year, I think, right?
I think it's been since November, December.
Yeah. So about like six months, seven months. And you've made such amazing progress.
You were already on your way of this journey of like, getting rid of some medicines and some things. We'll go into your story, but watching your progress has been amazing. And I think it will be really inspirational for people.
So let's just go ahead with maybe just a little bit about yourself and how you got to having chronic pain and the symptoms that you had.
So my name is Renee. I live in Ohio and I grew up just across the river in Kentucky. I have two kids, a son who's 14 and a daughter who is going to be 17 next month.
I've been married to my husband Justin for 23 years, and I love life.
When I go to tell my story, it always starts when I was younger because as far back as I can remember, I remember carrying around Pepto-Bismol, because my stomach was always upset as a kid.
As a kid, yeah.
Yes, and it was kind of a family joke, you know, that she always has that Pepto with her. But my stomach was always upset, and I can see now that was just a lot of anxiety and worry. But there were just, there were several things that had happened with friends and in my life.
When I was about 16, that I started getting chronic pain then. And so my story goes back over 30 years of chronic pain. It's honestly, when I think about it, it can be a bit overwhelming to see that the majority of my life, I've not known anything but pain.
Right. Yeah. Yeah.
We're getting deep fast here. But there's a happy ending though, you guys.
Just very happy.
But yeah, that's a lot, right?
It's a long time. It's a long time. And so although I've had much easier years here and there coming and going, my body always managed to drag me down.
And so I guess the relief that I feel now at being free from pain and not living in fear is just, it's so incredible. I have not felt like this the majority of my adult life.
That is an amazing transformation.
It's crazy. Yeah.
Okay. So as far as your diagnoses that you've had or that you've been diagnosed with, do you have kind of a summary or a list so we can have an idea of what you were diagnosed with and how severe it was?
So my latest diagnosis was actually stiff person syndrome. That was the last two years, which is a muscle disease, which they thought it might be autoimmune. But I think I proved that one wrong.
I've been diagnosed with that when I have ulcerative colitis. I've been diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis for years. I was treated for enclosing spondylitis, which is just another form of arthritis.
I've been treated for years for fibromyalgia, for headaches and migraines, back pain, hip pain, anxiety and depression.
There were years that I went through therapy for pelvic pain and intercistal cystitis, chronic fatigue, chest pain, high blood pressure. All of those were diagnoses that I've had.
And years actually include a lot of autoimmune ones too, which is kind of on the rare side. That's an area where that can cause physical damage and physical disease, and also can be regulated by the nervous system, can be controlled by the brain's interpretation of safety or danger. So you really defied some odds here.
You're kind of the unicorn.
You know, when reading the book, I read what Dr. Schubiner had to say about those diseases, but I decided that maybe it wasn't true for everyone who had that. And I was going to give it an honest shot and see if it really, you know, if it helped me.
Yeah, yeah. Okay, so this is fascinating. Like, how bad was it as far as like, what did your daily life look like at kind of at its worst?
And then how did you come to this work where you were just like, I'm going to give it an honest shot and just see what happens.
I have had a life that was very active. My kids were active. I had had jobs.
I had had a life years ago that I loved, that I managed to do well in despite some chronic pain. And then about five years ago, when chronic pain took over my life, I went from being an active wife and mom and sister and friend and church member and all of volunteer to living at home in my bed. I was in my bed all of the time.
The things that I needed, my extra water or snacks, were just a few steps out of bed, so I didn't have to travel far. People came to my house to see me, to visit. I didn't go visiting.
I didn't attend very many of my kids' games, get-togethers. I stopped all my volunteer work, which was really heartbreaking for me. I used to teach.
I wasn't able to do that anymore. I didn't get to do a lot of my work at the church, which really, it all just really made me sad. And there was just so much that I couldn't participate in because unless it happened from my bed or my couch, then it didn't happen at all.
And I wasn't going to live that way the rest of my life. My kids had things going on, and I wanted to be a part of my husband's life, my family's lives. And so I started looking for a way out of that.
Yeah. And then how did you come to this work, and how did that go for you?
I had downloaded the Cureable app, and I think I probably got it when it had a couple months free. And then the subscription snuck up on me, and I thought come out of my bank account, and I was like, oh, you know, I've not even used that. I had better go try it out since I just paid for it.
I better go see what's on there. And so I read some of it and thought, I don't know about this. This is different.
Oh, really? Yes.
In all of my years of being sick, I just had not come across any of this mind-body work, which really blows my mind. And so I was researching, I came across your Instagram. I was researching some ideas that I had found out from the Cureable app, and I listened to the success stories.
And oh my goodness, if these people can do it, why can't I? I mean, I had tried everything, and I was just so done with being in pain. It absorbed my days.
Yeah. And you were taking a lot of medications too, right?
Yes.
And have you already started getting off some of those medications? Because you came off quite a lot of medications. Was that all just since Cureable or was some of that before?
Some of that was before. I went to the ER last spring with high blood pressure. It was extremely high.
And they automatically put me on three blood pressure medications.
Oh, wow.
And I came home and had quite a few side effects to those. And I was like, you know what? This is not what I want.
I had a friend because I have been in a wheelchair the last couple of years. I had a friend take me to my regular, my family physician, and we were going through the medications about a year ago, and she gets, oh, my goodness, you take all of that medicine? And I said, yeah.
I mean, I know that they had listed off about 16 things. And I thought, you know what? This is getting kind of crazy.
And I knew that I had a lot of side effects from the medications. And so I guess after getting other people's reactions to those and realizing how crazy it was to actually be on all of that medication, that I decided I was going to start getting off of them.
Okay. So yeah. So you'd already started that, and then you found curable.
And checked into it, and it didn't resonate really at first.
Yes. And so then once I followed your Instagram and did a lot more research, I thought, okay, you know, maybe this is something for me. And in the course of the last, I would say, 14 months, I have got off of almost 14 medications.
Yeah, that is amazing. It blows my mind. Like you guys, Renee's story, it's so incredible, and it just keeps getting more and more incredible.
So yeah.
Do you want me to tell you some of them?
Yeah.
Because these are hard hitters, I feel like.
Oh my gosh.
Oxycodone. Neurontin, I was on 2,400 milligrams of Neurontin a day.
Effexor. 100 milligrams of Baclofen a day. Clonopin.
Carvetilol. Welbutrin. And then I did Botox for my migraines every three months, as well as a monthly emgality syringe for my migraines.
Yeah. And then, you know, a handful of other medications, but some heavy medicines.
Those are some heavy medicines. Yeah, absolutely. This is so inspirational.
So just including kind of a whole variety of different medicines that you've been able to get off of. And I'm sure there were some difficult times, I would imagine. And then also, at least from my perspective, it's looked like in a way it's gone easier than you might expect.
How would you say that has been for you as far as getting off the medications?
After trying one and feeling better, it kind of gave me a boost of just a little bit of like self-empowerment. Like, hey, this is good. You can do this.
Then it was almost like I had so many, I couldn't wait to get off of them quick enough, you know. It takes a month to go off of this. And I'm thinking, oh my goodness, I want to be off of two in the next month, you know.
Okay, amazing.
My doctor didn't know what to think about me continually saying, and these are the next three that I want to get off of, and these are the next two.
Yeah, that's probably opposite of the trend that they see. And, you know, might even cause some concern. Like, wait, you can't just get off of these kinds of medicines.
You need them for this reason. But tell us more about what was helping you when you learned about this information. That was helping you get off of these medicines.
So one thing that I learned, and before I started your Alignment Academy, I also went through and listened to all of your podcasts. I listened to all of the podcasts from Alan Gordon. I read a lot of information, and I felt like being educated with this information empowered me so that I could make, not only, I thought it was a good decision.
I felt like it was a better decision since I researched it. It wasn't something I woke up and decided to do one day. Like, I put a lot of energy and time.
The more I read and researched, listened to podcasts, I figured out that there was another way to exist, rather than the way that I had been existing. And the way I had been existing was not fun or easy.
It was full of joy. It just wasn't.
Yeah, exactly. Even with all of the interventions and medications, it wasn't like you were feeling better. You were probably feeling worse and worse and worse every year.
Usually what happens is that it spreads, gets more progressive.
Yes. And I lived in fear. I always lived in fear.
For the past, I can look back for the past 20 years, anytime I would get to feeling better, enjoy it for the fear of worrying about what would happen when it came back.
Yes.
And it was almost as if it was something I didn't have control over.
Yeah, right. Because your nervous system is subconscious and you're in this high alert, you're in this fear-based state, which we also know from neuroscience increases your pain, increases your symptoms. So it's just this vicious cycle.
And that's why chronic pain and chronic symptoms are more like that habit of the brain and that feedback loop. So yeah, starting to realize you don't have to live that way. There's hope.
It sounds like you had some hope that something could change for you.
I realized I said to myself exactly what Dr. Schubiner said. I have my body syndrome and I can cure it.
Yeah. And you would say that to yourself?
I said that to myself all of the time.
All of the time, yeah.
I didn't order Dr. Schubiner's book until the beginning of 2024, and I threw it fairly quickly. I got off of my medications mostly in 2023, started the Alignment Academy, and then the more I heard you talk about research-based practices and the book, I thought, okay, I'm going to have to try that. And so once I went through Dr. Schubiner's book, that was kind of like the light switch.
Yeah. And what do you mean by going through, like doing the exercises, doing the meditations, right? Not just reading, but like...
I not only read it, but I worked through every page in that book. I found that the exercises are so relevant to people who have chronic pain, even anxiety and depression.
Things that they had held on to. You know, some of the things that surprised me most about my bodywork was that like physical pain and emotional pain are processed in the same area.
Yeah.
That is really strange. You know, I had never heard that. I'm a highly emotional person.
I have a lot of personality traits that go along with many people who have, you know, mind body syndrome issues. And when I started reading this, I was surprised that our brain is so powerful and that we have so much control over our bodies. I had thought that I was at the mercy of my body.
Yeah.
And I said things like, my body hates me and I hate it, you know. My body is just difficult. It likes to be in pain.
It likes very negatively. And then I realized that I could switch the way I was thinking. And it's not my body that likes that.
It's my brain.
Yeah.
That has made those neural pathways just almost in concrete, you know. Yeah.
And then it's like, oh, it's not just a belief, because I have all this evidence. I have years and years of proof, but also you can learn from this work. That's predictive coding and your brain.
Yeah, those are learned neural pathways that can be unlearned.
And another thing that surprised me was that, I think it was in Alan Gordon's book, that he said when the pain becomes chronic, it shifted to parts of the brain associated with learning and memory.
Yes.
And I was like, that's really strange. Like, it's almost like I have memorized how this pain feels. You know, my body has learned it.
Yeah.
And it was very interesting. The more I looked at my internalized beliefs, and things I would say to myself, the things I had believed about myself for years, I realized they didn't have to be true.
Amazing.
And a lot of that was your voice in my head going, well, what if it's not? What if it's not true?
Yes, that's the best question. Just opening the door, just a crack. That's what I say.
It's like, you don't even have to know. Just posing the question to your brain. What if this is a programmed behavior?
What if this could be just the same as if they gave someone a placebo, they would have that same effect, right? Like, who knows? So, oh, I'm glad.
I'm glad you had my voice in your head saying, what if it's not?
I remember you saying something like every, now that you've looked back, every major medical or health issue, there was some kind of emotional trauma or issue at the same time, right?
In Dr. Schubiner's book, he has, near the beginning, he has you list the ages you are and the symptoms that you felt, the diagnosis maybe that came on. And so once I did that, going back to when I was younger, I could look and see that every physical manifestation of one of my diagnosis started with an emotional threat feeling, something happening along that time. And I thought, how powerful is that?
That these emotional traumas or these emotional times have like guided my way to this physical spot that I'm in now.
Yeah.
I had never looked at things like that. And so it was like 180 degrees, like it was like flipping a mirror on itself.
Yeah. And yeah, maybe that's why you have had such a powerful belief in it, is because you took the time to do that work and to really connect the dots. And it's kind of like not fun maybe to go through your history and to take the time to think about it.
But it's so powerful. It's like your own personal road map of exactly emotionally and physically what got you here. And so you know what to unravel, what the cause is, the real cause, the real root cause for you, versus someone else who might have a little different history.
So I think the powerful stuff about this work is that you can even tie it to, you know, he has a section about like, how did your father treat you? And how did you, your family view money? And how did, right?
So all of these things play a factor in our nervous system and our feeling of safety or fear. And if we got programmed to be in that fear response a lot, then it can show up in our bodies for a lot of people, right?
So I didn't have early childhood trauma. I didn't have hardly any childhood trauma. And that's when I started, I thought, you know, I don't know that this will work for me because I didn't necessarily.
However, I have a lot of early adult medical trauma. And also coupled with just who I am as a person, my personality traits. And I'm learning, thanks to you again, to look at those through a positive lens, rather than a negative lens.
I have always looked at being an empathetic person as something that is a detriment. The energy that it can take from me. And the emotion that is always follows every action, word, you know, glance.
And I'm learning that I can use those positively.
Yes.
Rather than it just being negative in my life. Yeah.
Oh, I just saw an Instagram post I'm going to share that was saying there's actually research that highly empathetic people are actually better at doing this work and being successful with it. So although we are quicker to learn those negative patterns in our nervous system, we're also quicker to remodel them and change them, right? So that can even be a new positive that I hadn't heard about before.
Yes. I like that. Yeah.
Yeah.
So exactly seeing like, okay, I have some special gifts. If I learn how to kind of see what my body's telling me and some basic kind of ways to manage my nervous system, then it becomes more like a barometer. And this stuff in my body becomes kind of my extra sensory perception, right?
Like I have this information that other people don't. But seen as like, you know, oh, something must be wrong physically with me. It's very easy to see how like you would get to that place of thinking something's just wrong with me.
My body's always going to be in pain. But like, what kinds of things are you doing now? Just to give people an idea of like coming from bed bound, wheelchair bound.
What are your activities like now?
So in Dr. Schubiner's book, he has you list goals that you have. Two weeks from now, two months from now, six months from now. And it was really hard.
Just like I said, I started back in January. It was really hard for me to come up with much because part of my nervous system was saying, don't reach too far. Don't try too much.
You don't want to fail at that. Don't do your.
Oh yeah. And you don't want to fail, right? Oh, don't, you don't look stupid or don't.
Don't write a bunch of things down that you're not going to be able to accomplish.
So it took a little while for me to start writing things down. And then what I did. And I just come to this realization.
A week or two ago, I can do anything that I want to now because I'm healthy.
It's a whole new world for me. It's a whole new world. And so I have taken every opportunity that I could to get out and to hype because I love it.
And I love the feeling of my muscles being just a tad bit sore from walking uphill. Because I can remember when laying in bed and my muscles hurt, I laid there with heating pads on me and my muscles hurt. And so now I can be out.
And it's kind of what they call the good hurt, you know, walking on the hills, hiking. We have been biking, which I love to bike. I have been gardening.
I love my flower garden and our vegetable garden. And I got so excited that I could finally plant flowers by myself without having to just buy them and let my husband do them for me. That planted over 50 bulbs.
Oh my gosh.
I bet it's coming up and they're beautiful.
Yeah. So are there any things in the garden that you're like, okay, I just can't do that? Because I think you said you were even shoveling.
I was. I woke up one morning on a Sunday morning. I showed up at church and I said, I'm just so sore.
And my mom said, well, what have you been doing? And I said, I had the shovel and the mattock out yesterday. And she said, oh, my goodness, honey, that would make anybody sore.
And I thought, yes. And I was able to do it. It was almost like I saw them sitting there.
I saw the shovel and the ground was a bit rocky, the mattock and the rake and thought, well, why not try that? Why not buy that?
Amazing.
And it worked. And I found that that's been a huge key to my recovery, is kind of going at things playfully. Like, why not just try it?
Yeah.
What if it's okay? What if it works?
Yeah, it's possible. It might feel good to my body to do that movement.
And it does. It feels wonderful and it's very fulfilling.
Yeah. Could you even talk a little bit about how going to the store has changed for you? Because that is just, it's just so sweet.
I love hearing about it.
I was at the store a couple weeks ago and I saw a friend and she said, hi, and we conversed back and forth. I think was in there just getting a few things. The next week I saw her at another store and she said, how is it we're always seeing each other at the grocery store?
And I said, well, I'm just so tickled to go to the grocery store now because for years I couldn't go unless someone went with me and pushed me in my wheelchair. And I said, I'm just so excited now. If we need one thing, I'm like, I'll go to the store and I get up and if we need just some fruit, I get up and go to the store for some fruit.
And if we need some meat or something, I get up and go to the store for that. Because I'm just so excited to be able to do simple things like running to the grocery store for something to eat for dinner that night. It really is a privilege now to be able to get up and move.
Yeah, really, it just gives you that just gratitude for those little things. And probably the prognosis was like, it's probably not going to get any better, right?
Like, before you go, many, many doctors. And I had a couple of foot surgeries in 2020 and 2021 right around COVID. And they didn't go well.
The surgeries didn't go well. And the doctor had told me, I'm sorry, this is probably how it's going to be the rest of your life. He had, you know, doomed me to a life of pain and walking awkwardly the way I was walking.
And so I internalized that for years. Just the things that I did differently with impact were impacted because of just the things that he had said to me as far as how my life was destined to look in the future.
Yeah.
Because of his pronouncement. That, and he didn't even, he didn't know me well at all.
Yeah, just kind of like a medical, you know, if it doesn't go well statistically in this amount of time, you're probably going to have chronic pain. You know, like that's just like, okay, that's what we see happen.
And I realize I let that identify, be part of my identity for years.
Yeah, it'd be easy. Even when you learn about this work, it'd be easy to say, well, I have some post-surgical pain because I really have some structural changes there and my structure is just different. But also we know that people can have their back shape like an S with scoliosis and get out of pain without straightening out their back.
So maybe there is this structural difference even with the surgery, but is there chronic pain with walking anymore? Do you feel like that's one of the things that you're not fearing anymore?
Right, I used to limit myself to so many steps a day under like 500 steps.
Oh, yeah.
And the beginning of April, I took my first big hike. And I can't even tell you how many steps we had done. I don't know, seven to ten thousand that day or some crazy number.
I remember looking at my step counter and thinking, I just showed every doubt in my mind. I just showed them who was boss. Because there is nothing holding me back.
And what is funny was we started out that hike. And of course, a couple of the hot spots on my body, my foot, my hip, you know, started having sensation. And I thought, no, no way.
We are not doing this. Thank you for saying hello. But I've got a goal to reach today.
And you're not going to get in my way. I've just learned that I can decide my future and decide, regardless of what a doctor has pronounced as my diagnosis or what maybe it's labeled as in my chart. I don't have to live like that.
I can be labeled as anxiety, have anxiety and depression. But I don't have to live like that. I have the power to get better.
Yeah. Yeah. So empowering.
Were there any times, well, and I already know from coaching you, but let's talk about the times. How about that? It wasn't like just smooth sailing.
In case anyone is getting the idea that it's like, okay, I just did these exercises. I read the book, every day was better and better. And now I'm just like, ta-da, better.
You know, like, let's talk about some of the maybe unexpected times or difficult times.
So I was getting my hair done a couple months ago, maybe even a month ago. And I was sitting there and I had pain, which I usually call sensations, and going down my leg. And for some reason that day, I didn't get on top of it immediately.
And I started into C6Fs. I was fearing it, and I was frustrated. And immediately thought, like, how can I fix it?
I was focused on it. And all of this stuff. And about 15 minutes into rubbing my leg, and trying to make a plan, an alternate plan and stuff, I thought, oh, Renee, you handled that incorrectly.
Here's what you should have done. And so I came home that afternoon, and got out and took a walk, because I knew that physical activity usually brought those sensations back. And took a walk, and it came back.
And I did that intentionally, so that I could take an opportunity, do better the next time. So that when they came back, I could say, hi, thank you for saying hello. I'm glad to see that my hip is still in the game.
Today, we are not paying attention to that. We're not going to look at that. I think it's Alan Gordon.
Every time I have a pain, it's an opportunity, the fire.
Yeah, yep, Alan Gordon.
And so that's what I started to look at. I came home to replicate that pain, so that I use it as an opportunity to rewire my brain, rather than letting that one incidence take precedence in my brain. So that was one I did on purpose.
I also remember calling in to you in the past, for the most part. I lived in fight or flight mode all the time, and it was one or the other. There was no neutral ground, and my body didn't really know what that felt like.
It didn't know what neutral felt like. It didn't know what calm felt like. And so as I started to regulate my nervous system, there were many times that it was uncomfortable.
And so I remember I couldn't wait to happen on the weekend. I thought, I have got to talk to Betsy because I'm done. I am done because this is miserable.
This feeling of my nervous system being out of sorts, wasn't comfortable to me. And I actually said something that is in Dr. Schubiner's book. I said, give me my pain back rather than my anxiety, because at least I know how to deal with that.
Yeah.
Isn't that fascinating? Yeah, that was an interesting call and just classic of like, sometimes called the river of misery when you're changing, or cognitive dissonance, or like you said, the nervous system isn't used to feeling more regulated. And so that can feel unsafe.
And there's just this, you know, like there's anxiety sometimes or depression. And I think there's even kind of both going on with you. And then you're like, I just wish I had the pain back, because like you said, I knew how to handle that.
I could have heating pads or whatever. But this, but it was temporary, right?
Just like growing pains.
Yeah, exactly. Just like growing pains. It actually can be seen as a sign of this is your expansion.
This is your growth edge. This is why this is uncomfortable right now, because it's a stretch.
And I learned to not necessarily like that growth feeling, but to know that something better is coming, because I wouldn't trade this for anything.
Yes.
I wouldn't trade feeling better for anything. And so, you know, if you have to go through a few growing pains, it's definitely worth it. It has not been smooth sailing, but it has overwhelmingly been positive.
Yeah, yeah.
I continue to show up, I think.
Yes, exactly.
To put in the work.
That is something about you, exactly. Like in Alignment Academy, it's the group coaching, and you don't necessarily come to every call. You don't have to, but the calls are recorded and people who can't come can listen back.
And so there are some people that are in Alignment Academy that really just listen to the calls, and you show up consistently, and you're kind of like a character there, because one of my clients was like, oh, you know those group calls, I love listening to those. I love Renee. She's inspired by you.
Because you don't come every week, and every week we share a win, if you come for coaching, and you're always able to find a win. But also sometimes, it hasn't just been rosy and happy, and things are just getting better and better. It's like, hey, is this even working for me?
What's going on? I want to quit, right? So yeah, but you did keep showing up, and that is how we grow.
That is how we change, is not just giving up when it gets hard, even though it would be easier to just be like, well, this work is just too hard. I don't know, it's not for me. I do have all the structural things.
It's probably that.
Right.
Yeah. I was going to change the subject. Do you have any insight for us on how the, if there were any personality type changes or emotional changes that you've felt, that you've like, maybe an example of how you've seen that change in your life, right?
If you were more of a people pleaser and now, you know, something else has changed or perfectionist or like, how has that shown up in your life in a positive way?
In my Unlearn Your Pain book, one of the letters that I had written was actually to myself, and it was about being a chronic people pleaser, making sure that others were okay before I was okay. Yeah. And that has been so hard because as a Christian, mainly I am always wanting to put others ahead of myself.
I'm wanting to remain, you know, have humility, be humble. But I learned there's a difference between that and putting yourself first. If I'm right.
Yeah.
Like putting yourself first is actually the best thing to help other people.
Yeah.
Rather than as you should put everyone else first and you're last.
Yes.
Is not a way to live your life.
Right. I realized that I wasn't helping anyone out by remaining like that.
And as much as I thought that making sure everyone else was happy, okay, satisfied, all it did was hurt me more in the process. And so, my chronic people pleasing has gotten a lot better. And you know, I've learned to make myself okay with the fact that you don't have to.
You don't have to be completely happy with me. You don't have to be happy with my choices. Yeah, because I'm okay with that.
Because that has more to do with them anyway than you, right? It has more to do with their beliefs and how they're feeling that day and how much sleep they got, right? Like whatever it is.
And I can only control me.
I was wondering if you could talk a little bit about what's going on for you now that you have really had more bandwidth so that you're not having to think about preventing your pain and chronic pain and all of these things all day. What have you been able to do with your time and what do you see for yourself in the future?
So I actually am excited about my future. And that is something that's so different even from six months ago, because six months ago, my future was figuring out ways to spend my time when I was in bed.
All of my hobbies included things I could do while sitting down, not spending much energy. And so once I started feeling better, I realized that my future would look a lot different. And so it continues to evolve almost week by week, which is really cool.
But I am super excited.
I'm going to be starting a home bakery for people who have gluten and dairy allergies. And so, you know, just even two years ago, I was not able to cook dinner for my family.
Yeah.
All of the, everything, the cooking, the housework, the working a full-time job went on my husband. And although he did it like a champ, I'm thrilled to be able to be back to being in the kitchen and baking and cooking. And so I'm going to be doing that.
We are planning bike trails to do this summer.
Nice. And any future vacation plans can also include things that are active.
Yes.
I'll share with you three, two or three years ago, we went to the beach with some of my family. And we were in an upstairs unit, or well, it was a two story house. And I could go to the beach one time a day.
That's when my husband would pack me down the stairs on his back and carry me out to the beach. And then I got in a beach wheelchair, special wheelchair, and rolled me out into the water. And I remember maybe one day, two days, I stood up and enjoyed the water, but I didn't do anything, any walking.
And I would sit back in my beach wheelchair, and we would do the whole thing again, he would pack me back in the house. And can I even tell you how exciting, you know, now I can run down the stairs, run out there, play in the water, and play in the water and enjoy the sun and the heat. It is just a completely different life.
Yeah.
I'm so thankful.
Amazing. It's one of the most amazing stories that I've heard, because the length and the amount of, you know, reasons that you would have to say it's not going to work for me, but just kind of a combination of the right information for you at the right time and pieces falling together and getting the support that you needed and just being willing to dive in and do the work and uncover those emotions and start to see how those emotions are really what's, you know, triggering this pain and these habits. Amazing.
Amazing.
It is great.
Yeah. Well, are there any other things that you can think of that we haven't touched on that you wanted to share?
I love life. I've always loved life. I've enjoyed.
Shoot, I about started crying again.
That's all right.
I love being a mom and a wife, a sister and a friend. I am a Christian, love Jesus. I love going to church and my church family.
There's a lot to enjoy about my life. Once I started working with you, Betsy, and learning more about mind-body syndrome, I found even more to love about my life and realized it was so much fuller than what it ever was before.
Thank you. You've changed my life.
Thank you for sharing that. I feel so good hearing that, and I just am accepting that, that thanks, and I'm just helping you with this information, just passing it along, and you've done so well with just applying it in your life, having that attitude of excitement and curiosity rather than fear. I mean, of course, some fear, but really turning towards those, like, what are the possibilities for me?
What might I be able to do if I kind of stumble? How can I do it a little differently next time?
And I asked you a couple months ago, what would you do differently as a parent now after doing this? And you basically said, you know, once you know better, you do better. And as you change, you know, it'll change, and it'll change the way you do things.
And I've seen that so clearly, just even over the past couple months.
Yeah.
And I just really enjoy that because I parented out of a lot of fear and pain.
Yes.
Obviously, I didn't really have a choice.
Yeah. Yeah.
I'm so forgiving myself for a lot of that.
My daughter has several issues that coincidentally got much, much better when I did.
Whoa, Renee. Oh my gosh. Okay.
So that is so cool. That concept of what I was telling you in that answer is like, it's okay to focus on yourself. It is good to, you know, get yourself regulated first and then it becomes clear how to parent.
But when we're rushing around, trying to figure out this person says this and this is this and it's confusing. It's overwhelming. We can't really show up.
So the focus just goes back to what we're learning with resolving your pain, resolving your anxiety, depression, regulate your nervous system, get into more of that calm state. And then, you know, sometimes people around you all of a sudden start getting calmer too. Right.
You don't have to change them.
My nervous system. Yes. The way that I parent.
Yes.
Change the way that my kids behave. It truly has, it truly starts with me. And I guess that's probably something I should have said when we were talking about, you know, people pleasing.
Is it does start with a regulated nervous system. Yeah. But always walking around in flight or fight or freeze.
Yeah.
I know what it's like to feel regulated. And to feel calm and content.
Yeah.
And so now I can aim for that with my kids.
Yes.
That's a great gift that I can give them.
Right. That is such a good point. It's like investing that time, that money, that devotion to yourself without feeling, you know, selfish or like, this is a bad thing to do.
It's putting yourself first.
Yes.
That's where it all starts. Like you just really have to, because otherwise you're just, you know, you're reacting to however your kids are feeling. And kids are not great at regulating their emotions.
It's going to feel however the lowest person in the room feels, but knowing, and especially being empathic, right. But then knowing like, oh, okay, this is what's going on. It's just a fawn response.
I was taught very young to be in this fawn response, and I'm a people pleaser, because that's what my nervous system learned was safe. And so now I can recognize that, and I know it feels this way in my body, and I can do something different that doesn't feel so itchy in my body. And then I show up with resentment, or I, right, if I'm people pleasing, it's not really that nice to them.
It's not really in the long run good for any.
That's right. Our most our attitude, our words, when they come out of that spot, resentment, anger. Yeah, they're not a help.
They're not a help to anyone.
Yeah, or we just like push it down and feel it in our bodies.
And it comes out in other ways. And that's what I learned about people pleasing, is that when stuff down that bitterness or anger, or just irritation that come out through painful hip, I actually don't have a problem that ibuprofen can take care of. Medicine can take care of.
I've got a problem that only I can fix once I work with my emotions.
Yeah. And it's so great because then it's like, I sometimes like an internal massage, right? It's like an internal, like you can feel those emotions.
You can let them go. And then you don't have to carry around that, you know, that sensation, that burden or that habit.
Yeah. You can lighten that load off your shoulders. Yeah.
Right. Cause most of the times our stresses are what we're creating ourselves.
And they get easier to bear when we do the work to like, stop criticizing ourselves and causing ourselves all the stress that we're causing ourselves and fearing and all of these things. When that's more regulated, then you do have more capacity for the things in life that do come up here and there.
I tried to start telling myself like this is a five minute decision.
Oh, I love that.
You know, take, take less than five minutes to make the decision because it's only going to affect me for about five minutes or so. If it's a longer, maybe it's a 10 minute decision, but there are some things which I've also turned to my kids. This is just a five minute decision.
You know, it's not life or death because for so often, a lot of us turn everything into life or death situation. Yep. When reality is a five minute decision, we don't need to think about it for more than five minutes because it's not going to affect us for more than five minutes.
Yeah.
Oh, I love that. Yeah. That's such a good, just reframe.
And again, it's just kind of getting out of those set nervous system responses to like, Oh, this is how I handle these situations now. So much easier, less drama. Don't have to go into flight and freeze.
And it's just like, Oh, five minute decision and done.
Yeah.
Oh, one less question. If there's anything that you would think of to advise someone who's just starting out with this process, what would you say?
I would say to. Educate yourself. Because I feel like the more information.
That you can read, that you can learn. It's going to convince your mind. That.
Again, it's nothing that it's nothing that you've made up. That is not a. Fly by night operation that.
Just happened to work for a few people. This is not something that works. Quickly, it does take time.
It takes showing up consistently, working on it consistently, and getting uncomfortable. In order to.
Get better. We don't get the million dollar view until you climb up the mountain, right? You have to go through some uncomfortable things in order to get better.
But it is far and away worth it. I think educating yourself by reading, by listening to success stories. Curable has a lot of success stories.
Your podcast has a lot of success stories. And you could hear how people who are similar to you, either through personality, life situations, diagnoses, how they have overcome things, and become successful. And that's one thing that really kept me going.
I could listen to success stories.
And hear things I had in common with this person and that person. And be like, if they can do that, well, then why can't I?
What a full circle moment now to be a success story on a podcast.
That's so good. Well, thank you so, so much for sharing your story, for sharing your time, for being an inspiration to people, and for just being willing to be open about it and share the whole process, the good, the bad, the ugly, the beautiful, right? Like the amazing.
I think one thing you said at the beginning before we recorded was like, I just want people to feel the joy, the joy that I have now that is like so much more after doing this work and being on the other side of this.
Absolutely. There is life after chronic pain, and that's the best, you know, the best thing that I got from this work.
All right. Well, thanks again, Renee, and take care. Hey, you've made it all the way through.
Thanks for listening. And if you are curious about unlearning your own symptoms, like Renee did, I do have an amazing book club integration group offer. It's going to run over the summer for 12 weeks and we'll be spreading that 28-day program from his books over the 12 weeks, so that you're not working on assignments every day.
You're spreading it out. You'll have accountability week to week, opportunities for Q&A with me, and even some one-on-one visits with me every other week so that you can really dive deep into the somatics, changing that body at the subconscious level, deactivating triggers, processing pain or emotions. Just meeting every other week with me for three months will really help you with this process of unlearning your own pain, anxiety or depression or symptoms.
So check out the link in my show notes about the Book Club Integration Group if you're interested in doing this work that Renee has done and applying it to your life yourself with support. Okay guys, have a great week, bye. Thank you so much for listening.
I hope you learned a little bit about your brain today that helps you in your life like it helped me. Please be sure and subscribe and leave a review. And of course, be sure and share this podcast with someone you know that wants an unstoppable body and mind.
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1h 6min
May 07, 2024 Episode #130- Deactivate Your Triggers
This episode includes a 6 minute technique you can do to deactivate your triggers.

My coach who studies hypnotherapy taught me this somatic hack to decrease the intense feelings of a trigger.

It is not to ignore the trigger or brush it under a rug, but to make it more emotionally manageable so it can be processed and let go.

Think of something that triggers you, and try the process along with me in this episode. Best if you can sit or lay down with your eyes closed.

If you are a woman over age 35, and you're interested in a supportive coaching community to help accelerate your progress, check out Alignment Academy here:
https://www.bodyandmindlifecoach.com/somatic-coaching

...more
12min
April 30, 2024 Episode # 129- Coaching Call on Anxiety
This episode is a clip from an Alignment Academy group coaching call.

Listen in to see how I apply somatic tools in a real life situation to help Carrie feel calmer and even excited about a situation that caused anxiety.

If you are interested in a supportive coaching community to help accelerate your progress, check out Alignment Academy here:
https://www.bodyandmindlifecoach.com/somatic-coaching
Transcript- Automatically Generated:
This is Betsy Jensen, and you are listening to Unstoppable Body and Mind, Episode 129, Coaching Call. In this podcast, we learn to upgrade our brain and understand the power of our thoughts, to heal and to create the results we want in our life. Become the person in control of your healing and make peace with your life.
Become unstoppable body and mind. Hello, my loves. Today's podcast is actually taken from a coaching call I did in my group coaching program, Alignment Academy.
We have a couple of these group calls per week, and Carrie came on for some coaching about anxiety. I wanted you to have a chance to hear this so you can hear how I use these somatic tools in coaching to help create a different result. And with some of these techniques I use, think for yourself about something that may be causing symptoms or anxiety, and you can apply these same things to yourself.
Maybe even if you can listen in a place where you can relax, you can do some of the meditations along with Carrie.
My question is, tomorrow, I'm going to be away for a good chunk of the day. And so I'm trying to not drink out and keep myself calm. And I just need a little bit of help with that.
Yeah. I'm curious, yeah, if you close your eyes and think of the anxiety that comes up, thinking about tomorrow, anything that gives you anxiety, how strong is that? Like how much intensity is there from 0 to 10?
Like an 8. Oh, wow.
Yeah. Okay. So a lot of intensity.
Where do you feel that mainly? In your body?
A little bit in like my throat and then between my eyes behind the bridge of my nose.
Oh, interesting. Okay. And is this like the anxiety?
Is that what you called it? Or is there another emotion? Yeah, okay.
Yeah, it's anxiety, and now that I've been doing this long enough, it's fear. I mean, it's fear.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Okay. Well, do you want to try that peripheral vision technique? I have just really liked it, because it just seems to take the intensity out of it, and then we can still process other things, but it's hard to when there's, you know, 8 out of 10, when you're thinking about it.
Yeah.
We can't really talk ourselves out of anxiety. So, all right. So go ahead and find a spot that you can look at, not on the screen, but maybe on the wall behind you or out the window, and just focus on that one spot, and then start opening up your peripheral vision.
So you kind of soften your eyes, let those, all those little eye muscles relax. Start to see kind of those blurs on the side, opening up more and more to the side of you. Keep focusing forward and even imagine that space behind you that you can somehow sense.
If you can sense that room around you. How does that go?
Yeah, that's, I'd give it a four.
Okay, nice, so definitely a shift. Okay, so now I want you to just go back to those same thoughts, close your eyes, think of being gone tomorrow. How long you'll be gone.
I just got the pain down my leg.
I know that's like stress-related. There's a neural circuit there that, just thinking of that. Okay, that's cool.
More evidence.
More evidence, yeah, yeah, totally evidence, right? That's one of the fit criteria, pain that gets worse when somebody talks about it, or talks about, he doesn't say this, but something emotionally charged, or yeah, and then that happens. He does say under stress, but yeah.
Okay, sorry, I'm gonna hijack for just a second, because there's another one I've been wanting to share with you, and I just remembered it.
Oh, great.
I finally hit the place in my pain journey where I have gratitude when, like just now, I have gratitude when I feel it, because I'm like, this is like, it's humorous. I laugh about it. And I'm like, thank you for telling me that clearly I'm unsettled right now.
So, yes, I never would have thought, yeah, that I'd ever have gratitude for this pain. But right.
Yeah, it almost sounds like, you know, especially when you're right in it, and you hear those people and you're like, okay, that just, you know, that's annoying. Or they think, oh my gosh, so you're telling me the whole rest of my life, I'm still gonna have pain. But when you have pain like this, it's like, oh, just a message from the body.
You know, I didn't realize there's this like trigger and response there, but let's go ahead and detach that because I'm safe. It's okay. You can turn that off.
Wow.
I love that so much. That was really good. Okay.
That's cool. So now when you close your eyes and think about tomorrow, what comes up?
So my initial thought was like, yeah, that's a little bit scary. And then immediately my thought was, it's another chance to practice.
That feels different. Okay. Very cool.
From zero to 10, how much intensity is there? As you think about tomorrow being gone all day. Don't forget about all those things you need to stress out about.
Yeah, okay. If I start to let other things creep in, then it's like six. But it's also, there's excitement too.
So I start to, you know, cross a line between fear and anxiety, and also like more into the yellow of pleasant, high energy and excitement and, you know.
Yeah, yeah. And how does that excitement feel in the body?
How does it feel?
How does it feel different than the fear anxiety maybe?
Yeah, okay, so the fear anxiety was like inward pressure, and this is like an outward pressure. So it was like an inward vibration, and this excitement is like an outward vibration or energy.
Oh, that's cool to know.
Yeah.
So maybe there's even some metaphor thing you could, you know, a switch you could flip or a knob you could, you know, it's like, oh, I'm in the inward pressure. It's the fear anxiety. How can I turn that into like excitement?
Oh, yeah, I am excited about this tomorrow. I am excited about, right, the adventure I'm going to have.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Okay. You did something with me once where you had me think about, I don't actually remember what you asked me to do, but what I did was I imagined like a tree, and it was like the roots were in my chest going down, and then the leaves and the branches were in my head reaching out. What was that?
Yeah. It was like a tree metaphor of that excitement, anticipation, or fear that's like the leaves shaking in the upper part of the chest, and then going down to the root, or like the trunk, I should say, of the tree, more stability, feeling more grounded, maybe even feeling grounded in support by the chair, and your feet in the chair, that kind of thing.
Yeah. But it was like a communication between the two things, like my head and my heart, or my solar plexus, and I forget, I kept notes probably somewhere, but that would take me a while.
Yeah. I mean, I know I even have a meditation on my podcast, that's this tree meditation. So I bet the way I remember it is the way I always explain it, and probably with you, we had a special version of it, and that part I don't remember.
Yeah, I just found it. Yeah, I liked that, and that really seemed to... And what I'm feeling now was like brain and chest and gut, and it just seems like it would, I don't know, be helpful.
Yeah, yeah, maybe even that brain part could be part of the metaphor. It's something in the tree or it's part of the tree, but the sensation in the chest might feel more like that. I think we talked about the...
Well, I'm like, how much should I explain it first or should we just do it? But the wind basically in the storms, that actually makes the tree stronger, right? Like then the roots are able to grasp down and grow down, so that it's really strong because of that turbulence, that kind of thing.
Okay, I like this even more because that plays into the thought that I had of like, this is a chance to practice. Practicing will make me get better at this.
Yeah, exactly. You're just, you're at your growth edge. Yeah, and that's why this is scary.
Your brain is like, okay, there could be physical danger or emotional danger. Either way, we're going to send these symptoms, and we want to just be like, brain, you know, this is safe. We got this.
This is our growth edge. That's why it feels like this. This means this is our chance to practice.
This is our chance to evolve. Yeah.
Yeah.
Okay. Okay. So let's have you close your eyes and first feel that anxiety and the fear.
And thinking about tomorrow might be even harder to, it's not an eight out of 10 probably anymore, right?
No.
But you probably remember that anxiety feeling. And now that you've done this work a while, you know that. And let's do have you think of all of these things that might cause anxiety in the future tomorrow.
And maybe some of the things we haven't thought about that might be closer to an eight out of 10, just anything that's a fear or anxiety producing topic. And imagine that tree that's blowing in the wind. It's in a storm, and you're watching it, right, and you're watching those leaves shake, and you're watching the branches even sway.
And it may even seem a little scary to watch it like you're worried about the tree. But then as you turn down to see the trunk, you see that the trunk isn't even moving. And then when you look down and you know that those roots are down beneath the ground, like the ground's not moving.
It's totally stable. So imagine feeling that in your body as you take your attention down towards your belly and pelvis, and I guess that solar plexus.
And how does that area feel to you?
Warm and confident.
Okay, warm, confident. Does it have a different movement, or is it just kind of different than the movement above?
It's yeah, it's not, it's really not moving. It's just, like, I feel like it's just saying, I've got you, got you.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, good, and then do you imagine the roots being your legs? Like, and then you could imagine even roots growing, you know. I do this meditation yoga that's like, imagine everywhere that's contacting the surface, you have roots growing out of that, little roots going down.
And as you check in with your body now, how's it feeling?
Ease? At ease?
Yeah. What's the best feeling part right now about feeling at ease? Like, what part of your body feels really good?
Ironically, my gut, my, like, my abdomen.
Really?
That's good to know, yeah. And how does it feel different than when it's not at ease?
There's no, like, cramping or feeling bloated or full, or it just, just is.
Okay. Just is.
Could you describe it any other way than what it's not like? Just like what it is, besides is, but, you know, you said it's not cramping, not bloating. So like, what, what is it?
Is it like, again, maybe like a metaphor? And maybe it's the trunk, but maybe there's something else. I'm just curious.
It feels supportive.
Ooh, supported. Okay.
Yeah.
Okay. Okay, so that supported feeling, that confident feeling, can you imagine yourself tomorrow? Going wherever you're going, you know, the driving over, the whatever it is, right?
Going throughout what you think is going to happen tomorrow with that feeling, like you're making a little movie of yourself, even if you don't know what it's going to look like, you, you know, go to some place, your brain has some idea of what might happen. But like, how would you walk around if you're feeling supported? How would you meet new people if you're feeling supported?
Wow, I just feel like my chest went up, and I'm just not worried about what other people are thinking, or, you know, just enjoying the day.
Another thing I love to do is imagine someone that I feel like represents that. Like, it may just be my idea of, you know, what this person is, but to me, they exemplify a confident, supported person. And so how would she walk into their room?
Maybe it's even a character from a movie or a book. And then, you know, kind of how would she be thinking? How would she be meeting people?
I did this once when I first started coaching, and I was like, I actually, I had just gotten divorced, went on this first trip by myself, and I was like, I'm this million-dollar coach. How would she, you know, like go, it was this Flat Springs place. So I was like, how would she, you know, meet these new people?
And how, you know, how would she walk? How would she even dress or, you know, things like that? It's just like a method actor.
Yeah, I like that.
It's kind of a fun way to just give your brain like another version of what could happen. And then it's more likely, of course, too, because, you know, we just reacting out of fear and what we don't want. That's just a perpetual cycle.
But if we can turn to like what we do want to feel and how would that feel, what would I be thinking?
That's amazing. I feel good now, and I want to repeat this tomorrow morning before I leave.
And then that tree meditation. Gosh, it's been a while since I did it. I don't remember exactly how it was.
But, you know, it's always nice when you do it with someone and have your own version of it.
Another thing sometimes I'll do. Well, we have a little more time. If you want to do this.
This is the one I do in yoga, this visualization. So if you close your eyes and you imagine, and this is good if you're like laying on the floor. We do it during Shavasana.
You just feel you could do it in a chair, though. Feel all the points that your body is contacting a surface. And maybe you could even imagine it with the hands, too.
Roots growing down through the floor, through the basement into the center of the earth. So it's going all the way down. And you're able to, with that root system, you're able to draw up whatever energy you need, whatever creativity or other emotion you need.
You're able to take this through the roots, like a plant would, through every cell of your body. All of those billions of cells, you're just able to, like, suck up whatever they need, exactly what they need from this energy from the earth. And you're able to bring this healing from the earth, this power, this recharge, like your iPhone that's being plugged in, and you're just recharging as these roots are drying up exactly what you need.
And imagine that you're also, those roots are also able to release. So all of the roots can draw anything out that needs to be let go of, release down to the earth where it can be like fertilizer for the earth. All of our crap is actually reused by the earth for other things and growth in other areas.
So we're just able to let it go into the ground, into the earth, letting it go as you're drawing up. So it's this beautiful exchange of drawing up, letting go, this perfect knowledge of exactly how to do it, just like we don't need to think about how to heal a cut. We just let it happen as we relax.
But we can't do it as well when we're rushing all around, when we're in survival mode. But that's why laying here, sitting here, doing nothing is so important. It's like your body's doing nothing.
Maybe to the visible eye. But internally, that's when the digestion happens. That's when your digestive system actually does work and turns back on.
Because in survival mode, you don't need it when you're running from a tiger. That's extra stuff you can't deal with. So it may not look like anything's going on, but your cells are replicating, and you're basically recharging, regenerating.
So just that tree metaphor could even be extended down into the roots, and those roots. Oh, this is cool, too. When I do it in a class, I have them imagine the roots connecting.
We know that actually in forests, the trees communicate with each other through their root systems. And if one tree is struggling, the stronger trees can send it the nutrients it needs. Like, it's crazy to think, but yeah, this whole network of roots are actually interconnected and can communicate with each other.
And so then I have people imagine, you know, all the support that's there that they don't even realize that sometimes we even block because it's harder to receive. And we're just taught to give and give and give, but actually allowing that there are times in our lives when we're more receiving and there are times that we're giving, but we can't give from an empty cup, so we have to allow both. It would just be like only inhaling and never exhaling or vice versa.
You have to have both. So learning to notice that there is that support if you're willing to accept it, and being willing to receive allows other people to give. So fun stuff.
A lot of stuff you can do with that tree analogy.
Yeah, that was super good. I'm going to have to save this one for sure and re-listen over and over.
Yeah, I think that is good stuff.
What are you thinking now? What are you feeling?
I just feel great. I'm ready to go. Yeah, this is amazing.
And I love visualization. I think I've told you that before. That's my jam.
So anything that involves that is just so... I feel like it works really quickly for me, too. Versus like mindfulness or...
I like tapping, too, actually. I think that's really helpful. And affirmations.
But visualization, man, that's so good.
Yeah. And if anyone hasn't heard or forgot about, there are literally research studies showing that people visualizing doing an exercise, even though they were casted, their muscles didn't atrophy, and they even gained strength. But there's no way they moved their muscle because they were casted.
So visualization is so, so powerful. They've known it for decades. People in the 80s in the Olympics were visualizing things, I think.
Sports people know about this. Athletes, I think they're called. I'm not sports people.
Athletes know about this. You know, but it's like we're so focused on the physical, and we're like even life coaching with like, your thoughts are so impactful, like that's like revolutionary. And then to think your thoughts actually affect your body to such a degree, like that's super powerful, right?
That's amazingly powerful to just think, okay, if I stop focusing so much on what I don't want and actually give time and mental energy to what I do want, like it's worth your time for sure.
Thank you so, so much. This is fabulous. Take care.
If you've been liking this podcast and this information, but you'd like a little extra help on your healing journey, consider coaching with me. I do have group coaching through Alignment Academy and you can check the show notes for more details there. And I do have some one on one spots available as well.
If you want to dive into this work and create your fastest results. Not sure if coaching is for you. You can schedule a consult with me to discuss your specific situation.
Check the show notes for more details. Thank you so much for listening. I hope you learned a little bit about your brain today.
That helps you in your life like it helped me. Please be sure and subscribe and leave a review. And of course, be sure and share this podcast with someone you know that wants an Unstoppable Body and Mind.
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28min
April 17, 2024 Episode #128- Chronic Knee Pain Success Story with Tai- Letting Go of Intensity
In this episode, I interview Tai Kuncio.
She is a fellow moderator in the "Tell Me About Your Pain" Facebook Group. (https://www.facebook.com/groups/695823314550483)

Tai had various pains starting in childhood, which they attributed to being athletic. But she struggled the most with chronic knee pain.

At one point after knee surgery, she was doing physical therapy 4 to 5 hours per day and still not getting better.

It wasn’t her weakness or muscle dysfunction, but her fear that was driving her pain.

Finally when she moved across the world to Africa and gave up the intensity with what she was trying to heal, she embraced the mind-body approach.

She no longer struggles with chronic daily pain, and when symptoms come up she knows how to handle them so they don’t stick around long.

Listen for her inspirational story and what she learned about letting go of the intensity to heal.

You can find Tai at https://www.retrainyourchronicpain.com/
email : [email protected]

For fresh content on healing chronic pain or disease, follow Betsy
Instagram https://www.instagram.com/bodyandmindlifecoach/

Youtube https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCvXZSYYGL2cfJl-oEOzqspA

Website https://bodyandmindlifecoach.com

Here's a free 6 week link to Curable:
http://www.curable.com/betsyjensen

...more
50min
April 01, 2024 Episode # 127- Unlearning Anxiety with Lucas
This week I share an interview with my client, Lucas. He struggled with several years of anxiety that was getting worse and more debilitating with time. At times it was even difficult for him to go to the store or to lunch with a friend without worrying, "what if I get an anxiety attack?"

After 3 months of somatic coaching with me, Lucas felt like he had found the missing piece. He had already tried meditation, breathing, yoga, acupuncture- all the "right" things to decrease the anxiety in his life.

But this approach taught him the tools he needed to actually unlearn the anxiety- so his brain produced it less and less.

Listen for more, and be sure and get on my "Unlearn Your Anxiety and Depression" Book Club list if you want more help in this area for free!
https://body-and-mind-lifecoach.myflodesk.com/bookclub

You can check out Lucas' music here:
Hannah/Lucas Pop Music - Idylmind https://linktr.ee/idylmind

Meditation Album- https://lucasfackler.bandcamp.com/album/meditations-vol-1

General info: lucasfackler.com

For fresh content on healing chronic pain or disease, follow Betsy
on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/bodyandmindlifecoach/

Youtube https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCvXZSYYGL2cfJl-oEOzqspA

Website https://bodyandmindlifecoach.com

Here's a free 6 week link to Curable:
http://www.curable.com/betsyjensen
Transcript- Automatically Generated:
This is Betsy Jensen, and you are listening to Unstoppable Body and Mind, Episode 127, Unlearning Anxiety with Lucas. In this podcast, we learn to upgrade our brain and understand the power of our thoughts, to heal and to create the results we want in our life. Become the person in control of your healing and make peace with your life.
Become Unstoppable Body and Mind. All right, today I have a special guest, and we're going to be talking more about anxiety. As you know, I've been doing that Unlearn Your Anxiety and Depression Book Club by Dr. Howard Schubiner, talking a lot about anxiety, really realizing how much it's actually so prevalent with my clients.
But I asked Lucas to come here today because his story is mainly with more the anxiety, not complicated with a lot of other symptoms, although of course, some things come and go. But it's really been cool to see his progress over the last three months, addressing his anxiety somatically, and how that has just changed things so quickly for him. So welcome, Lucas.
Thank you for coming.
Yeah. You hit the nail on the head there. It's my anxiety drives my anxiety.
It's kind of the thing. There's not a lot of tangible things I worry about other than having an anxiety attack. And it took a while to kind of realize that's what's going on.
And so here we are.
Here we are. Well, let's start at the beginning. And if you could just tell us kind of what brought you to this work.
Like, how did anxiety develop for you? And like, where were you when you found this?
I think I actually noticed anxiety when I was a kid, but it didn't really dominate my life, you know, but I just remember a couple of times when I was really young. And then in my early 20s, some periods of time that were tough, but it didn't really start to become like a problem affecting my day to day life until like about five years ago after some business stuff went south for me, where, you know, I had a video business and a music business, and I found where they both meet. And it was like making videos for audio brands.
And it got like pretty quickly. It was doing really well. But then after a few years, some relationships changed and stuff changed and it fell out on me, which was like financially devastating.
And that's really screwed with my confidence and everything, just all the things I was doing and everything I had planned. Didn't really pan out how I thought. And it left me kind of doubting myself often and ruminating on what I could have done.
And doubt and ruminating and thinking about those situations turned me into an anxious mess because I was in my head more than I was out in the world. And I thought I was putting time into like fixing my business or being a better business person. But like, oh, if I just like think about it.
But I was doing a ton of damage and I did not realize. Until, you know, a couple of times I had some pretty like mental break moments, you know, complete with high heart rate and all that stuff. That I realized I need to take a look at why is this happening?
And what are some steps that I can take to kind of undo this or work with this?
Yeah. So over the last five years, did anything get better? Did it get worse?
Did it stay the same?
A little bit. I mean, it used to be chronic pain in my neck and shoulders. So I sought out treatment there.
I sought out physical therapy. And one was like a therapist literally just pushing a knot out of my shoulder. Right.
And another other physical therapy was doing the work myself, different stretches. Another one was finding a massage therapist doing this method called Hendrickson Method, which is incredible. He helped me get over some kind of lingering pain.
And it was also mindset stuff. So that led me down the path of like, okay, like it's not just about stretching and getting massage, but it's about mindset things. And then so I did acupuncture.
Yeah.
With a really great acupuncturist who also was like more than just stick me with the needles, mindset things and always had good advice.
Yeah.
And then yoga. So all the right stuff, taking the right path, and then even daily walks. I haven't missed a walk for four or five years, every day, even when I had COVID.
So I thought I have this under control. Look at all the things I'm doing over five, six years. That's a lot of work.
But what I didn't realize I wasn't doing was confronting the anxiety itself. I thought if I did the work, the anxiety would go away. But it wasn't until my first sessions with you after I had kind of a really tough December, the beginning or end of the year, we got together and did some sessions.
And you taught me how to confront it and breathe through those feelings. And in talking to you, it was pretty easy to bring back that adrenaline and cortisol rush and that tension that I get. And then we get into the comfortable state and do the somatic work to acknowledge it's there.
And kind of diminish how much it can dominate your body.
Yeah.
That's the biggest one.
So, yeah, I remember one of our first sessions, you saying something like, I just want to not feel that at all, right? Like, I just want to be able to go out because you were at the point where even going out to the store was stressful and getting at times, yeah, it would get me secluded. And so, that idea of like, hey, if I do the work right, then I won't have a symptom.
And that trips people up in their healing if they're thinking that when they have a symptom, it means they're doing it wrong because like, you could still have a symptom. I could still have symptoms. I still do have symptoms.
Yes.
Because our body is giving us feedback. So when we interpret it as we're doing it wrong and I need to never have anxiety, that actually perpetuates more anxiety.
Yeah. So the other day I was taking a walk thinking about doing this podcast and thinking like, everything I just said, how I identified it and I had all these things I was doing right to like work on my anxiety, but what was I not doing? And what did that keep me from?
And so I wrote down five things. I wrote down one was identify, which I did to just elaborate just a little bit. Oh, sorry.
So one was identify there's an issue and identify that you have anxiety.
Yeah.
So I did that.
Did you identify that pretty early on, by the way, like when you first like five years ago, or was that more when it started impacting your life in different ways?
I think it was after I got through the pain management. Yeah. It's when I identified that the anxiety may have been responsible for the pain management.
And then rewind years earlier, I would have like stomach issues from time to time. I started to go, oh, there's always some lingering thing with me that is never diagnosed as some medical issue. Then I was like, damn, that's anxiety.
So once I identified it, my step two was to be proactive, which was seek treatments physically and then mentally yoga and walking and all that stuff. The third step is the one that I kept skipping and that was confront it. Instead of run from anxiety, it wasn't until with you, I confronted it that I could then my fourth step was accept it.
I'm going to have anxiety. It will never go away. And once I accepted it, now I can start to keep working on it.
But then healing comes with after I accept it. Those are my five steps that I realized I was doing one and two, one and two, one and two, one and two, skipping three, I could not get to four or five. So, yeah, in doing three with you, I have now accepted it.
I now have regular scheduled therapy as well. I'm ready to, you know, it's going to be my life, but I'm ready to move forward from having it dominate my life at times.
Yeah, right, right. It's like that, that classic case of like, when you have that, that thing that you're avoiding, it's like pushing a beach ball under water. And you're just, there's so much resistance and there's so much, it takes so much energy and it's so draining, and then it just rebounds up anyway, right?
And so that idea of the more we want to get rid of something, whether it's chronic pain, and we go that route of like trying all the medicines and trying all the doctors and procedures and all these things and still having chronic pain, or what happens, I had forgotten about the neck pain because we didn't, like I didn't deal with that symptom. But that makes sense, actually, I see a lot of people whose chronic pain symptoms decrease and then anxiety comes up. You know, it's like they kind of, it's like a whack-a-mole.
It's just like, yeah, yeah, totally goes down. Another one comes up. And so then anxiety, like you alluded to earlier, kind of makes you feel like you're doing something and it makes you feel like you're productive and you're doing stuff for your business or you're right.
Like you're thinking about things, you're solving problems, you're but you're really like ruminating and right. So it's easy to see how anxiety could feel very different than the chronic pain stuff. But we actually treat it the same, right?
We reframe it. We see it as something not so scary. It's misinformation from the brain rather than believing all of the brain stories, right?
Yeah, that's a big one too. You know, the anxiety, staying busy thing, I used to think when I was doing well with the business and all the things I'm doing, music and video and all this stuff, I was starting to have anxiety, but everything was good. I was, you know, making more every year and new doors were opening.
But I had this energy I didn't know what to do with. And I felt like a shark, you know, how supposedly a shark can't stop moving or it dies. And it's like that I just kept thinking of myself that way.
And didn't know what to do with that energy. And I thought, well, if I use it to constantly make more, you know, music or content or come up with new business ideas that I'm harnessing the energy to be more successful. And all I was doing is just digging a deeper hole.
Because, you know, it wasn't until it wasn't known. It wasn't until I found yoga that I could slow down a bit. Yeah, and like realize, like, you know, chilling out in the beginning, like doing a slow flow yoga and then Shavasana for like 15 minutes after doing, you know, just laying there and being like I can just do nothing and but it's doing something for me doing nothing is healing me.
Yes, I'm so glad you said that because that was a really key thing for me to understand is that even laying there, I'm not doing nothing. Like, that's actually when my digestion works, that's when the cells repair, that's when, you know, I take deeper breaths, that's where I can get into that brainwave state. Like, that's not doing nothing.
That's like plugging in your phone and saying, my phone is doing nothing right now. It's like, if you don't do that, your phone really is going to do nothing to actually allow it to have that non activity. That's that's just how we are.
But I think I was that same way where, you know, I almost thought I could just like fall asleep thinking about problems and solve them in my sleep. And yeah, really what I was doing is just creating problems to solve and then solving them. And it's just like running on this treadmill.
And so, yeah, you're doing activity, but is it getting you anywhere? And and, you know, it's depleting to do that.
Yeah, it really, yeah, it was really draining. And my partner's, we've been together for a long time. She had a family member over once, like two summers ago or maybe last summer.
And he said something about, like, how when you spend time thinking, you can actually burn more calories than when you're exercising. And I was like, holy crap, like, no wonder why I've why I've felt so depleted for so long because of all that ruminating and like trying to plan business things, trying to move the needle, as I would say, and like get somewhere extra. And I just would be like, you know, all I do is take a walk today.
I'm exhausted, you know, but the entire day I'm constantly thinking and cycling and trying to think of the next move. So that gave me a little nugget that I think about from time to time, him saying that and going, oh, damn, like, how did I not know that? You know, how have I never heard that before?
Okay, yeah, so yeah, I just think of it as it's just like depleting to just be like running all the time or sprinting all the time or right. Like it's just natural, like looking at the seasons and how things grow. And right, there's there's times of rest, there's times of growth.
And for some reason, our society has just turned us into thinking we need to be these robots that continuously work and continuously, you know, need to be moving the needle. But a lot of us come to that realization once, you know, these these physical things start happening. Like I just can't do it like that anymore.
And a lot of times we blame old age and, you know, just, you know, just getting old. But I really think that the more we just allow those times of tuning in and aligning and getting to that rest and repair state, that's that's why they call it, you know, rest and repair, rest and digest. How's that been for you?
Are you adding more of that into your life?
Yeah, I had been trying to do that before working with you. But now, but yeah, now it's like I'm just seeing it as it's as essential as eating or drinking water or whatever. I'm treating it like that severely, not just like, oh, I could use a break.
But like, no, this is daily life stuff. I have I'm going to do this. It's not, you know, I'm not going to skip eating, so I'm not going to skip, you know, even if it's just three minutes.
Yeah, there's like no guilt about it in that way, right? You're not like, oh, my gosh, you have to keep giving calories to this body that, you know, it's like, of course, you're going to take care of it. And part of that is doing nothing sometimes, tuning out, not being in that fight or flight state.
Yeah.
And flight is really anxiety. Anxiety is that, you know, like feeling like you're running from a tiger constantly. And then a lot of people can't turn that off.
And when you give yourself time to rest and then you approach what it is that you want to do or have to do with work, it's starting to feel a bit more, you know, it's easier, I guess. And there's a little bit more clarity. It feels like acting with purpose versus just staying busy, you know.
And then imagine the results. Like if that's your approach when you're working, that can only give better results for yourself or your client or whoever you're working for.
Like I was thinking of that story you told about going to the music shop. Do you mind if you tell that story or if I tell it? Yeah, go ahead.
This is how I interpreted it. Sure, yeah. But like the gist of it was basically like, you know, each week we would work on some things like, okay, maybe I'll go to a store or maybe I'll go, you know, to this lunch with someone, right?
And even those things were stressful at first, but we did this graded exposure and just like prepping you for it. And it was always you always did better than you thought you were going to. That's how our brains are.
We just fear it so much and dread it. And then we like, oh, that was fine. But then the next thing, right?
But you went to this music store or something. It was a place where you were in your element. You were buying some equipment or something and you were present.
Instead of being worried about what people were thinking and what you might have done wrong or what might happen if you get anxiety right now, you were just present with what was going on. Had a great conversation with the owner. The owner was even curious about you doing some side work for him.
None of that would have happened if you were in your fight or flight state.
Exactly. Yeah, it was going to a new music shop that I hadn't been to in my neighborhood. And recently, I'd noticed sometimes anxiety would come up when I was going to go somewhere to spend money.
I didn't realize that it was because I was going to spend money. It took me a minute to realize how much I still think about financially where I was at and where I'm at now and how that makes me feel and how careful I am. Especially in music gear, if I buy it, I need to be able to make money from it or sell it back to break close to even what I paid for.
So there's all of that going into it normally when I'm just like, but what if I just want a thing? Yeah, that's my business, but sometimes I just want to go do something on the weekend, spend money and have a thing to play with, you know? And yeah, that particular time, I ordered it online, found out they were nearby and messaged them.
I was like, let me just drop by. And they said, OK. And then I go and check out the shop and then I'm apparently just in a good mood, you know, attracting them to me because they couldn't help but talk to me when I could.
It could have just been 10 seconds. I walked around the shop, said hi to people, and then the owner stood up and just starts talking to me like we've known each other forever. Nice.
And I had a moment of thinking like, well, normally I would probably be looking for anxiety to screw this up. But I was thinking, but I'm actually calm. I didn't plan for this.
I don't even know the last time I ate that used to get in my head. And I was like, but, you know, I'll just do this and then go home and it'll be chill. And it was, and it was just nice just to like not be in my own way, not be in my own head, go buy a thing, make a new relationship.
And then ever since, you know, I've been in contact with them, we've done some things together already.
So no way. Oh, I love that story. And I love that idea of like being present, being open, being that is attractive to people, right?
The fear-based states. I was talking to someone about this earlier. If you think of like a, like a magnet and those fear-based states are actually a repulsive energy.
It's like pushing away. And then the, even just a neutral state or, you know, a happy state that is attractive to people. So I love how you said that.
And it just feels, you know, if you feel better, even if you're not sure that you're exuding that, but you feel better, then you're going to, you're like, maybe I would have avoided it. Maybe my body language would have had a closed shoulder. Maybe I would have been angled toward the door.
I probably would have been more likely to just go like, let's just pick this up and go and not even do a loop and not even say hi.
Right, you could have just walked in, grabbed it, or if there was a line, you're on your phone, right? You know, just like secluded and shutting yourself down versus you're just here, you're looking around. You're not, if that thought of like, what if anxiety comes?
Did that ever come up? Like, does it ever come up to think of like, what if I get anxious?
That's the majority of my anxiety is thinking, what if I have an anxiety attack? That's the hardest part about it. But thankfully, I don't use my phone for it.
If I have anxiety, I always figure a phone is going to make it worse in most cases. So I just try to write it out, you know, but maybe I should distract myself with my phone. But I'm not a person who will do that.
If I'm in line, I try to be really, that's an exercise to be present, even at its worst, my anxiety, I wouldn't be in public going like this, you know, I'd be like, okay, here it is, it's hitting. Why do I feel so anxious? And then just kind of look around and try to be in the line and, you know, exist in public.
So before, if that had happened and you thought, oh no, what if I get anxiety and you start feeling the sensations, that would be really distressing. But now, if that happens, like, can you take us through how you would react now and how that would work?
So either one is probably, I'm probably going to have to pee. I drink a ton of water. And then as we know, you get nervous, that's kind of one of the first signs.
It's not a bad, we've talked about this. It's not a bad thing to have an out. So if it hits, I would probably just go to the bathroom, pee, splash my face and probably feel better.
But now I would add to that, taking 10 seconds and doing probably three deep belly breaths and maybe trying to identify with somatic stuff, like maybe notice something like holding tension, give it a color, just one of those tricks, but real quick, try to do it just so I can feel like, hey, I have some control over this before I go back out and re-attack the situation.
So even if it does come up, instead of having a fearful response, and even if you can't control it exactly, like turn it off like a switch, you feel more control when you have some strategies, and you've learned several strategies, you've learned them, like some of them you even knew before, but you're applying them differently, and some of them that you've learned now, you can apply with other sensations in your body too.
Yes.
So it's the same process.
It's almost like doing somatic work has helped me connect the dots between all the previous work. Because it's such a mindful thing that if you're mindful while you're getting acupuncture, that's how acupuncture for me, that's how it works. I've had people go, it didn't do anything.
And I was thinking, I bet your mindset was that it probably wouldn't do anything.
Yeah.
But if your mindset was like, this stuff is going to work. Like for me, I remember having my arms just melt away, and I couldn't feel my arms in a good way. And I would have an itch in my forehead and be like, I'm not going to move.
I can do this. And I would just be jabbed up with needles. But I was in the right mindset.
I wanted it to do something. I wanted it to give relief, and it totally did.
I'm not opposed to those types of things. If people, especially if it's not stressful financially, it calms your nervous system. That's what I always get back to.
For me, dancing calms my nervous system. I love going to a thrift store and just walking around. There's a few things that are unique to me that other people might be like, oh, I hate that environment.
Or dancing would make me feel horrible. I wouldn't like that at all. So just finding what it is for you that calms your nervous system, having a few tools that you can have, not feeling like you have to totally control it or never have it, but just knowing it's like if a wave comes, knowing how to ride the wave rather than just drowning with it or being swept away.
You're just like, okay, I'm just going to, the more I accept it, the faster it goes away.
Yeah, it's like a vibration in your body and you can notice it and go, it's here now, it's strong, but this song will end, and it'll stop.
Yeah, it's temporary, it'll stop. Yeah, okay.
Finding flow, though. So for you, dancing, going to the shop, like thrift shopping, me, it's music. Obviously, it's like this stuff, guitar, drums, producing a song, get into flow.
A video game, too. I ignored those for years because I felt guilty because I'm not going to get anywhere career-wise with video games, which isn't totally true because I make music and there's music and games. But anyway, it wasn't until I brought them back into my life that I gave myself some more downtime to not just mindlessly watch TV or something, which is fine, too.
Actually, I'm like, yay, I can finally mindlessly watch TV.
I like that, too. Give me a good show or binge at Fargo or something, which I recently did. But the cool thing about a game, especially if you have a Nintendo Switch or some handheld gaming thing, you don't have the phone distractions.
And you have to be active with your brain. So if your anxiety is really high, that's a great way to kind of get off of that for a second and turn that energy into something fun to start to rewire that. And that has helped me tremendously, too, to just go, man, I don't really have any more work to do.
I feel like I should. I want to do something. I'll play a game for a few and then take a walk and then hit a reset button Yeah.
Flow. It's all about flow.
Yeah, it's like less about what exactly it is you're doing, but more about how you're feeling about it, right?
Yeah, sure.
Something I don't know. I thought of cooking, right? For someone, that might be a super enjoyable process.
For someone else, they might be resentful and hating it and feel like it's a chore. But it doesn't have to be like the rest and repair doesn't have to be just doing meditations, laying on the ground. It could be an active thing, but yeah, it's that flow state.
And that is where you're more likely to connect to people. You're more creative. You're more playful.
It actually strengthens your immune system to be in that state. It's the state of digestion, and your reproductive system works better. So all of those rest and repair things, that flow state, that's actually where we would do our best work, or where we do have those interactions that propel us so much further in our business because we met the right person because we were attracting them versus just at home, not wanting to go out and just ruminating about how to make more money.
It's extra tough when you're self-employed and self-motivated, and it's like how do you draw that line between... because I do music, so that's where I get into flow, but that's also where I have opportunities to make money. And I had a hard time getting myself into flow for fun for myself.
There was a time where I blocked it, and I was like, no, it feels I don't want to do that. And then I felt worse. It wasn't until I come down to my studio and create something, and be like, oh damn, I feel like I exercised or I checked some box that I needed to check.
And now I know that. Now I'm like going, I can't not play music. And I can't let career or money get in the way of doing that, because that's just been a part of me since my teenage years.
And that's how I deal with stress and anxiety and life in general, is like make some music, play some music.
Yeah, I love that. Definitely anything that you do in that flow state, it's like charging the batteries or it's like building more energy. So it's not a waste to have fun or to do things for yourself or to have that self-care and be creative with it.
It doesn't have to be going to get a massage and a bubble bath and a pedicure for self-care. It can be the things that light you up, the things that feel timeless, the things that you feel more energized afterwards instead of depleted.
I think cooking is a good one if you can find it. Some people maybe they'll never find it, but I've been on both sides of that coin where it's been like, I'm just too busy. I can't be bothered making food.
What am I doing? This is such a waste of my time. So now I try to go like, I don't even have to be like super chef dude.
It's like, let me just make something, but at least give a damn with the ingredients that I have and like just enjoy the process of making it because then I get to eat it. And that's it. Just be like, I have to do it anyway.
And this is kind of a pass from the boss to like take your time and make your food, dude, like enjoy it. And that's helpful because you're going to do it every day, most of us. So that's another just take a moment and be like, well, I'm making breakfast right now and I'm going to take my time, scramble my eggs and enjoy brewing my coffee the way I like it.
And then, you know, then have it and work will be there when I'm done.
Yeah, that's like checking in with the present moment. And you could do that with any of those daily activities that you do, like brushing your teeth. I've heard of that too, those two minutes that you brush your teeth.
Just be mindful, fill your feet on the floor, you know, feel the air against your skin, feel your clothes against your skin. Look around the room, right? Just like reminding yourself what's going on in the present moment.
Because our brains have so much of a tendency to be in the future or the past. And that's, you know, the future is really where anxiety is. The past is usually where depression is.
So being in the present moment, I love that idea of just like taking an activity you normally do anyway. And because the more we can simplify it, the more effective it will be, right? Like having an elaborate two-hour morning routine so that we can feel less anxiety.
Versus being able to like throw some things in here or there and just be mindful more of the time of things we're already doing.
The brushing the teeth one, you've said to me, and I do that now more often, like, you know, I brush like three or four times a day, which, you know, maybe maybe is close to too much.
But I'm like, I'm impressed.
Yeah, I just, you know, I work from home and, you know, the bedrooms on the third floor, but there's a bathroom on the second floor. And so if I have a smoothie, once I'm done, I like to brush the stuff off, you know, or coffee.
My dentist would love you.
Well, I haven't been to the dentist in a long time, too. So that's part of it, preventative care. But so I'm doing it three, four times, maybe five times a day.
I'm trying to, like, just go a little slower, which is going to be a better job anyway. And just kind of think about what I'm doing. Where are the bristles touching in my mouth?
To just another way to, like, be present and take a break from whatever it was I was doing, which is probably work. Go up, you know, finish my snack, get some water, brush my teeth, whatever, and use those little teeth brushing moments as other little two minute unwind, decompress kind of things. I love it.
Yeah, I love that. And I love the, like, three belly breaths. I mean, I love that idea of just, like, make it more manageable and then just try to kind of weave that into your lifestyle more and more.
Like, just change the lifestyle habits to include those micro relaxations. And then, you know, if the anxiety does come up, it's addressing it the same way we do with chronic pain. It's not fearing it.
It's turning towards it. It's being curious with it, right? Anything else that you've learned with the, you called it, like, the confronting it.
Yeah.
You know, people might be like, what do you mean by confronting it? Like, what did you feel the most from that?
When we did the somatic in one of the first sessions, you know, it's like, find that tension in your body and then, like, breathe into it and all that. And then it moves. Like, that awareness of, like, oh, damn, if that can move, isn't that the same thing that my anxiety is?
It's like this moving target that shows up in different ways. So, and I would try to hide from that. So, instead of hiding from it, I'm trying to do practices, like, when I go to my favorite park and sit in the grass, do my, take my shoes off and ground and stare up at a tree.
I would do that. But I wouldn't want to think about the things that made me anxious. Now, I'm just trying, I'm dropping little bits in.
I'll just take a little bit of pepper in my scrambled eggs and be like, you feel really good right now, but what is it that makes it when you don't feel good? Let's go there for a second, you know? And then try to invoke just a little bit, but don't let it ruin my day.
But I'm doing that more now. It's like exposure therapy out in the wild. Next time I'm at a music shop, I'm going to go like, who cares that you're spending money?
You know, don't let the anxiety tell you, you shouldn't do this, like you didn't make that much or whatever. Instead of going like, don't think about it, don't think about it, don't think about it. Because if you're saying that, what are you going to do?
You're going to think about it. You're going to be anxious. So, you know, it's those things.
And then the other one is when you try to do breath work and your anxiety is at its worst, it's hard to do. You literally don't want to do it because you're like, I'm going to swear, you're like, fuck this. I can't do this.
Right. And even if I'm anxious and I'm at a restaurant and I go to the bathroom and take three belly breaths, they're not really great breaths. They're not very good at all, honestly.
But it's the fact that I'm trying when it's at its worst that reminds me I have a little bit of control here. And then the next time it's easier or when the anxiety is not as bad, it's like, this is easy. And then it just melts away.
But when it's really bad, I'm fully aware that it's probably not going to net the results that I really want. But it is a little bit. You know, but anxiety is going to tell you this won't work.
You can't do this. This isn't going to be helpful. Just tell anxiety, middle fingers, I got to do it, man.
I got to do it. I got to breathe and accept that maybe it won't be the most replenishing breath. And you're not going to go back to the meeting and feel 100 percent, but you're not going to feel as bad as you were when you went in.
Yeah, exactly. Yeah, it's just like you're riding that wave and it's temporary and it's going to end. But if you're trying to squash it down, it's like pushing down that beach ball and it's going to shift and cause more problems.
Yeah, it really truly is that. I just wish I would have had that clue five years ago. You can't just squish it into the pool.
Way, because it's so different than what we're taught. And same with even emotions. I have a lot of people that are like, I never want to feel angry again.
But how limiting is that in your life to think like a whole group of emotions I never ever want to feel again. And I'm going to make it bad, something bad about me if I feel it. I mean, the more we can just embrace these things.
One last thing I really like is just to even just label it. Oh, this is anxiety. This is not tightness in my chest.
Oh, this feels like, you know, a bunch of butterflies swarming around or whatever it is, like however you describe it. Just even labeling it sometimes can be super helpful for me.
It's helpful. And it's also helpful to remember that it's in small doses. It's necessary.
If you didn't know when to flight, you might get hurt, you know. So it's understanding like, well, this is it's hardwired in me. It's not there's no way that I'm going to make it go away.
And if I do, I'm probably addicted to drugs and other bad things are going to happen, right? You can't make it go away. You have to realize that it is hardwired for a reason.
It's for survival. It's just we get so mixed up in when we feel like we need to survive and when we're actually surviving just fine. And that's the big one.
And I think once you kind of wrap your head around that, you can start to live with it and have it be there when it's supposed to be there. When you've got a bad feeling about going into that neighborhood, you need it then. Or, shit, I almost got hit by that person lane changing.
You're hyper aware for a second. You need it then. But when you're just thinking about that email you got to write or go to that dinner or that lunch meeting or whatever, there's probably not going to be a tiger ready to eat you.
You're probably going to be ready to eat that pizza or something. Just look for that. Enjoy the food and enjoy the moment.
Don't be afraid all the time. Yes.
You notice you're feeling those sensations. You can label, okay, I'm in that survival state. And just teach your nervous system in this moment.
Okay, thank you. You're telling me you think there's a danger. And okay, we're safe, though.
There's not a danger. We've got this. And then maybe use some somatic techniques or sometimes some reframing.
But you're usually not as logical then either. You can't really talk yourself down. But as long as you have a few of those strategies and have that practice of, at least sometimes when it's more mild, you can practice it a little easier.
Your brain will produce it less and less over time. So that's the good news about this. It's not like it just stays this bad and then you have some techniques.
This whole process is actually rewiring your brain as well to just produce it less and less because it's not going to be as effective of a strategy anymore.
It's so true that you said you have to teach your nervous system. And you think logically, but I know there's nothing wrong. It doesn't matter.
Logic is gone. If you're as far along as me, it's some pre-wired crap that you have to get back in there and remake those new connections so that your nervous system doesn't always jump back to the thing it's addicted to, which is cortisol and adrenaline, when it doesn't need it. And it takes time.
That's the other thing is be patient and have some compassion for yourself, which you've said, my therapist has said, and that one's, like, to really do it is really, it's kind of hard for some people, was for me, it's easy to say it, but to feel it for yourself.
Yeah.
Super important in healing, for sure.
Absolutely. Yeah, yeah. I think that's one of, like you said, the hardest things, and for some people, for me, it was, and also, you know, of course, the most beneficial, but the, just I feel like learning about the nervous system helped me be so much more compassionate with myself, because then it doesn't seem as much like, you know, like I'm, you know, hopeless and I'll never learn.
It's like, okay, this nervous system is really just doing its best. It kind of has the mind of a elementary school kid or something. So I just need to have it along for the ride and work with it and be friended and understand it more.
Sometimes it's actually probably giving me some good information and I can learn from it. But most of the time, I'm more of that re-parenting role of like, okay, you're safe. This new environment, of course, it's scary to you, but sending an email is still a safe, like no tiger is chasing you.
So it's just like re-teaching that nervous system in real time so that we can just keep evolving.
That's a good way to frame it, too, of it. Like, I used to feel like so bad because why am I so anxious? Why can I control it?
And it's not, it isn't like there's some king, mighty ruler. It is more like a child who's just confused. That is like, it's you, but it's not really you.
But you have, it is, you know, it's like your conscious mind is like, no, but I'm not that way. But if it's wired, if it's there, right, accept it, hold the child's hand instead of like pushing it away. Don't think of it as, like I said, like the dominant king, ruler of all things.
It's not. It just needs some nurturing and some care and see it, you know, look at it and don't avoid it.
Don't avoid it. Don't push it away. Work with it.
Reassure it that it's, it's fine to be there and we're good. And I've got you and I've got your back.
And yeah, exactly.
Amazing. Well, your story, I think, will help a lot of people. I think it.
Yeah, I think that's it's super inspiring. And I think because you had so much background in this stuff already, like you said, this was just the missing piece. And so I think a lot of things clicked into place for you pretty quickly relatively.
And are there any last thoughts or ideas that you might want to share or tips? Or I mean, I think we've covered everything I wanted to. But I also wanted to give you one more opportunity if there's anything else that's come up in your mind.
The biggest one is just be patient and take your time.
Especially in the beginning, it's like little bits of progress. Or even if you end a session and you feel even more anxious, look at it as maybe a good thing. Like, oh, I exposed myself today, and it wasn't a big deal.
Or it feels like a huge deal today, like that I did that. But it's necessary. To get back into those anxious moments, it's necessary when you have guidance, when you have someone to help you, then kind of identify them and breathe through them.
And it's going to be hard, but be patient. And the only other thing is, if you want to hear this music that I do, two places, one anywhere, Idle Mind, I-D-Y-L-M-I-N-D, it's like pop music. We did an album called Feel Good that is a lot of this stuff that comes from all my years of yoga and all these things, but also from a person who understands what it's really like to need something to feel good.
And then I have a meditation album when I was really heavy into doing yoga that I did. You can find on Bandcamp, Lucas Fackler on Bandcamp. So if you want to check out any of my tunes, that's, you know, maybe you can share some links somewhere.
We'll put them in the show notes for sure.
Cool. Yeah, yeah.
Other than that, I'm checking those out too.
Yeah, cool. And I think, and I thank you for your, your, the way you speak when you're doing the session is just so calming, and your, your mindset and all this stuff is just the right stuff for people who need help. And it has helped me tremendously, and I'm probably not done, you know, I'll probably hit you up again because it's just, it's good to check back in and treat myself to that session because I still need it.
I get coaching, but I want it. Yeah, I think everyone, like we have our blind spots, we have new things that come up. If we're doing it right, we're still evolving and right.
So new stuff is, is coming up for us. So yeah, it's been awesome working with you and seeing your progress.
Yeah, likewise. Yeah, I'd happily do this again later when there's more progress and we can talk, talk more about other things to try.
Yeah, yeah, exactly. All right. Well, thank you so much again.
And we'll wish you on your way and look for our next episode when we do that together and have your fun experiences until then. And make some good stories for us. All right.
All right. Take care. Thanks everyone.
Bye.
Bye everybody.
Thank you so much for listening. I hope you learned a little bit about your brain today. That helps you in your life like it helped me.
Please be sure and subscribe and leave a review. And of course, be sure and share this podcast with someone you know that wants an Unstoppable Body and Mind.
...more
45min
March 08, 2024 Episode #126- Healing Years of Pain & Symptoms with Kristina, Stacey and Callie
In this episode, I interview 3 women with amazing healing stories. We all met as Moderators for the "Tell Me About Your Pain" Facebook group created by Alan Gordon.

Kristina has a list of symptoms that were healed with the mind-body approach. Including anxiety, eating disorders, depression, hypothyoroidism, adrenal fatigue, POTS, leaky gut, histamine intolerance, insomnia, adrenal insufficiency, and hashimotos.

Stacey suffered for 18 years with chronic fatigue, fibromyalgia, IBS, Lyme disease, insomnia, body pains, and pelvic pain.

Callie had anxiety, insomnia, fainting, and neck pain, which she found out was a congenital neck fusion with “creative wiring in her neck”. She was told if she moved her neck wrong and she could be paralyzed, so she had medical trauma and increased fear. Her pain spread through the left side of her body and she began to have joint instability (ankle sprains, knee dislocation, hip popping). She was diagnosed with myofascial pain syndrome, fibromyalgia, migraines, chronic fatigue, unexplained rashes, acne, and had pelvic pain with sitting.

Listen for more about their healing journeys- what they found most helpful and advice they would give others when doing this work.

You can find more about Kristina and Stacey's group coaching here: www.christianbrainrewire.com
And Kristina's email is www.kristinacarlton.com

Stacey has a free "Stretch and Breathe Nervous System Regulation Class" https://www.wholisticallyrenewed.com/fitness

And Callie's contact info is [email protected] or on her facebook page https://www.facebook.com/people/Brain-First-Chronic-Pain-Coaching/61555738854975/?mibextid=LQQJ4d

Here's a free 6 week link to Curable:

http://www.curable.com/betsyjensen

For fresh content on healing chronic pain or disease, follow Betsy
on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/bodyandmindlifecoach/

Youtube https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCvXZSYYGL2cfJl-oEOzqspA

Website https://bodyandmindlifecoach.com
...more
1h 5min

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