Episode #117- All About Me

This episode was part of a video I created to "Meet the Moderator" in the Tell Me About Your Pain Facebook Group.

 

They had me answer some questions about myself and my healing journey, and I wanted to share that with you here.

 

If you are want to spend some time learning with me, while you get to know yourself and how to rewire your symptoms, be sure and join my Virtual Retreat September 2 and 3, 2023.    

It will be an all day event both days- going through all of the modules and workbooks that I created for Alignment Academy- live!

 

There will be time for Q& A and coaching on your questions.

 

It's $149 or free for Alignment Academy members, so now is a great time to sign up!

 

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https://www.bodyandmindlifecoach.com/alignment-academy-membership

 

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For fresh content on healing chronic pain or disease, follow Betsy

on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/bodyandmindlifecoach/

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Website https://bodyandmindlifecoach.com

 

*Free Nervous System Modules- 4 free videos explaining the nervous system, how it affects your health, and how to regulate it  https://view.flodesk.com/pages/620ffa96e0eda1a0d870b5a6

 

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Transcript- Automatically Generated:

This is Betsy Jensen, and you are listening to Unstoppable Body and Mind, episode 117, All About Me. 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. This episode is a Q&A that I recorded for a Facebook group that I moderate.
So I'm a moderator of the Tell Me About Your Pain, Alan Gordon's Facebook group, and they asked each of the moderators to answer a few questions about ourselves. I thought I would use some of my questions and answers for you to also get to know me a little better on this podcast. So here we go.
Hi, everyone. My name is Betsy Jensen, and I am here to introduce myself as a moderator. So first question, tell us a bit about yourself.
Okay, my name is Betsy Jensen. I live in the US in the beautiful state of Utah, and I have four kids, three boys and a girl ranging from 21 next month down to 15. And I am divorced.
I have two cats and one dog, a golden retriever. So cute. And I have been coaching for the last three years as body and mind life coach.
Before that, I was a physical therapist for 20 years. Can you summarize your mind-body syndrome or pain journey in a few sentences? The condition that brought me to mind-body syndrome was actually an autoimmune condition called ulcerative colitis.
As I mentioned, I was a physical therapist and really had some pains here and there, but didn't struggle a lot with chronic pain that was debilitating. But the digestive system for me was affected, and I had a lot of stress in my life, and most of the stress was generated by my own thoughts and pressure that I put on myself. Now I know the adaptive behaviors that my nervous system came up with, like flight, perfectionism, and fawn.
I lived in most in my life, so it makes sense that my digestive system shut down. So at the time of my life that I discovered the mind-body approach, I was getting divorced. My symptoms were flaring.
I was changing a whole bunch of things in my life, including moving out to an apartment with my kids all alone. You know, there was just a lot going on, and I was also very, very open to coaching. I had already been listening to coaching for a couple of years, and the mind-body approach just made so much sense to me.
I had always believed in a mind-body connection, and I actually majored in psychology. So I've always really liked the mind-body approach. A few people told me that ulcerative colitis was psychosomatic and referred me to John Sarno's book, The Divided Mind, where he specifically talked about ulcerative colitis.
It was before I learned about curable or Dr. Schubiner or Alan Gordon. So in that sense, you know, I just had so much belief. I was actually quite relieved and excited to hear that there was something I could do with my thoughts, creating different results in my body, because I already believed that from coaching.
So I started with the mind-body approach, loved it, healed my ulcerative colitis, really changed a lot of stressful things in my life. You know, during that time, my divorce got resolved and, you know, I started yoga, all of these healing, life-changing ways of looking at things, where I wasn't putting so much pressure on myself. And then I learned about curable and, and I started noticing that I loved talking about this stuff to anyone that I could talk to.
And when I would work with people for physical therapy, not everyone was receptive to that, but when they were, I just felt energized and excited to talk to them about it. And, and it was, it helped me so much in my life. So I was eager to share.
And so then I started really thinking, maybe I could coach on this. Maybe I could be a coach and this, the life coach school who I listened to does a coach training. And right about that time at my job, I manifest all this money.
It was back pay of about two years worth of working an extra five hours a week that they didn't know that I was working. And we figured out all at this time that they owed me all this back pay and they paid me. And I took that as a sign to just do that life coach training.
And then started specializing in working with people with chronic pain. And it's just been amazing. I mean, it's just, I loved physical therapy, but this is so much more effective and it changes people's lives in all areas, not just with pain.
So it's like looking at the whole person. I love it. Okay.
How are your chronic symptoms now? So now I just call my symptoms, my barometer. So I do have symptoms.
I wouldn't even know how often it's kind of more dependent on, you know, my stress level and how much I'm pushing myself or going out of my window of tolerance because I keep expanding in my life. So I keep, you know, doing things that are scary and sometimes my nervous system freaks out. But I see my symptoms as just that information, that it's time to recalibrate or soothe, do things that are helpful for my nervous system, rather than it being, you know, like, oh, the disease is back.
What have I done? You know, or, or something mechanical has happened, right? So my chronic symptoms now, I wouldn't say they're, they're chronic.
I'd say they're more just an indicator, like a gas gauge of, you know, how good of a job I'm doing with my self care and boundaries and being kind to myself and those kinds of things. What were the biggest influences on your journey? So the biggest influence was finding out about Dr. Sarno, Divided Mind.
At that same time, I was finding out about Joe Dispenza and his book, Becoming Supernatural. And at that same time, I was also getting into the secret. So the Law of Attraction.
And it's amazing to me how much neuroplasticity follows those rules of law of attraction. What you focus on, you create more of. And PRT principles go right along with what they teach about.
If you focus on pain, you create more of it and it's good to focus on different things and distract. It's fascinating. So I'd say those are the top three biggest influences when I started on my journey.
And then I found Cureable and Dr. Schubiner and Alan Gordon. And those three references and people have been so, so helpful just with the information that they give, the approach, the way that they explain it. It doesn't sound all woo and fluffy, like, you know, just about repressed emotions, although that can be part of it.
There's a real science based explanation for this now, which I just love. What tips would you give to those who are new on their symptom free journey? So new on the symptom free journey is an exciting time, but it is also kind of a delicate time.
So I would just say to become really familiar with this process of ups and downs in trauma healing and nervous system stuff, they call it expand contract. So there's this normal ebb and flow of life, and it's easy to think that you're doing it right when you're feeling good, and then think that you're doing something wrong when you're not feeling good. So trying to just get really neutral with those times that you're low and you're frustrated, and this too shall pass, and these things are temporary.
That's what I would advise those people who are new. What tips would you give to those who have been on this journey a while, but who aren't where they want to be in regards to their chronic symptoms? So I would say, first of all, good job for sticking with it this long.
And there's probably some reason that you have stuck with it this long. Something resonates with you. But there's also probably some reason that it's not quite fully clicking.
And with some people, it clicks really quickly and with others, you know, your nervous system just takes time to rewire. So if you've been a high intensity, high guard kind of person, on high alert, then it may be hard for your nervous system to just accept that you're safe. So if you're not where you want to be, my main advice, I would say become the detective for the opposite, like crazy.
And what I mean by that is like, imagine a detective from the movies that is keeping track on their little notebook of every little clue. Be like that with times that you feel good, because you want to start showing your brain that there are times that you feel good to look for those times and to find them more and more often. Okay, so detective for the opposite, like crazy, just start to be your own evidence.
Any little crumb, any little clue that you're like, you know, I was talking to my sister on the phone and we got laughing. And for a little millisecond, I forgot about my pain and it didn't hurt. So be detective for the opposite, like crazy, get a notebook and just like write down every little clue because your brain wants to forget and wants to not remember that.
And the other thing I would say is sometimes it's not a matter of doing more. It's a matter of doing less. So really get curious about any pressures you might be putting on yourself, any expectations, any blocks.
If you're very hard on yourself or critical, if there's a lot of frustration, just know that any of those can be part of the pain, fear cycle. Fear is not just anxiety or worry. It can be disappointment, frustration, anger.
So just notice any of those little tweaks that you can find, those subtle little things, little beliefs that you might have that it's still structural. Those little tweaks can make a big difference. And if you're having a hard time spotting them yourself, please, please look for a coach or a therapist who has been trained in this or another specialist who can give you some feedback and just getting some outside reflection.
If you haven't noticed a change in yourself, getting that outside point of view, fresh eyes can be really, really helpful. Why did you choose to become an MBS or pain coach? Well, I just feel like now that I look back at it, my whole life was leading to this.
I loved learning about the body and mind body. Even before I went to physical therapy school, I've worked with people in pain for a couple of decades. And then like I already described, I'll keep this one brief because I already talked about it.
But when I started noticing that when I would talk about it, it was energizing to me, then I was like, okay, this is, this is what I want to pursue. If people want to connect with you or your business, how should they do this? Okay, so I would definitely follow me on social media.
So Body and Mind Life Coach, you can find me on Instagram and on YouTube, Body and Mind Life Coach, and here on Facebook, it's Betsy Jensen. I'm always putting out new content there, and I have a podcast as well, Unstoppable Body and Mind. If you like listening to podcasts, I also post the videos of the podcast on YouTube, if you'd rather watch them.
And my website is bodyandmindlifecoach.com. I do have a group coaching monthly membership that is a great option for getting your coaching needs met either through the weekly group calls or through written coaching. And I do have a few one-on-one spots depending on availability.
You can see all of the details on my website. What would you like to say in conclusion? I would like to say that although this journey can be hard, it is so rewarding.
And the things that you may think of as weaknesses right now, like being very sensitive and having a lot of emotions, those can actually be your strengths. So as you learn to tune into your body, do this work to change those personality traits associated with chronic pain, learn to have boundaries and stand up for yourself and not do things out of duty and starting to really know how to care for yourself and value yourself so that you can then give to others, not giving from an empty cup. Doing this work will change your life in so many ways that you don't even know.
It's not just about getting out of pain, but changing these behavior patterns and these thought patterns will result in better relationships with others, the ability to make more money, more creativity, inspiration, connection with other people. There's so many benefits to doing this work. So you're in the right place.
Don't be shy to hop on with celebrations or questions, and we will answer within the guidelines that we have. That's what we can do in this group. And I'm just grateful to be a part of this group with you guys.
If you are listening to this when it comes out, I want to make sure you know that coming up soon, September 2nd and 3rd, I am doing a virtual retreat. It's going to be a Saturday and Sunday where we will spend the day going through all of the modules that I've created for Alignment Academy. I'll be teaching them live to answer your questions and make time to go through the workbook.
So basically spending the weekend with me on this virtual retreat, you will go through all of the modules and workbooks that I have for my Alignment Academy. It's teachings on pain reprocessing, understanding pain, the nervous system, emotions, processing emotions, how to feel emotions on purpose, how to connect with your body, and how to develop your intuition. It is going to be very insightful.
You can use this time to really get to the root cause of your chronic pain and understand it differently. This event is totally free for Alignment Academy members. So if you've been wanting to join now is a great time.
You can 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.