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.