Episode # 30- My Struggles , My Successes

In this episode I talk all about myself!  Struggles with my anxious mind, ulcerative colitis, and some things I've learned from my pains and doing this work.  

 

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Transcript:

This is Betsy Jensen, and you are listening to Unstoppable Body and Mind- Episode 30. My Struggles, My Successes. 

 

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 friends. I thought it would be fun today on this podcast to talk about myself. Today, I wanted to share with you a little bit more about what I'm working on and the things that I've accomplished and had some success with that I think you'll find interesting. 

 

Just like you guys, I am trying to better myself. And with that comes some pain.  Sometimes discomfort, sometimes emotionally and sometimes physically.  And I want to talk about that today. So you know that I go through the same stuff too.

 

But first I have an announcement.  Most podcasts already do this, but I've decided to have the day of the week that my podcast comes out as Monday. So I think I've been kind of hesitant to commit to it always coming out on a certain day because my brain tells me what if that doesn't happen?  And it's better if you just, you know, do it sometime during the week. That's the procrastinating part of my brain apart that doesn't want to be pinned down or held to anything.  But I've decided to do it. Monday is the day that you will be receiving new podcasts. I figured it was a nice way to start the week. And so that is my commitment to you all that even if it's midnight on Monday that you're going to be receiving a new podcast each Monday. That's if you're in the US. I know. Some people are listening in Australia. And so it might be a different day of the week there depending on what time you listen. 

 

Okay, so let's talk about me and my problems. We're going to start with my struggles, because I definitely have them and life is 50-50 for me.  And even though I have been doing thought work for about five years, it doesn't mean that I still don't have any mind drama, and that my thoughts are clean all the time. That's not really the point of the human brain, it will never get to that part where I'm not thinking negative thoughts, or I'm not struggling because I have a human brain that is programmed for survival. So it is always going to be on the lookout for negative things and will be very, very good at showing me all of the negative things.  Because that is the best way to survive according to the primitive brain. 

 

So one of my struggles is an anxious mind. I would say I have anxiety. I've never been diagnosed with it. I've never had to take medicine for it. But I definitely have a lot of anxiousness in my life. And I will just basically wake up feeling anxious, probably nine out of ten mornings. Sometimes in the middle of the night, I'll wake up and not be able to go back to sleep,

or even just during the day, I'll start perseverating on something and get really anxious thinking about it. I think my brain is very good at overthinking things, and looking for worst case scenarios and pointing them out to me. And even before I discovered thought work, I was this way

and with thought work on this way.

 

I honestly think my parents are quite anxious people, and it's probably just part of my genetic and cultural heritage. But I don't let it stop me. And I've learned some tools to deal with it. These are things that work for me.

 

The first thing is writing things down.  Sometimes I don't even know what exactly I'm thinking, I'll just have this knot in my stomach and tightness in my chest, maybe even a lump in my throat just kind of this constricted feeling and general uneasiness, almost sometimes dread. And usually there's a bunch of thoughts behind it. Something about my kids in school or

my business, or my ex, or feelings that I'm not doing enough, or how messy my house is.  Really, it could be anything. My brain wants to find all the reasons to feel, overwhelm and anxiety and it can find them.   Even on vacation, a lot of times I wake up anxious. 

 

So at this point, I know that's how my brain is. And I don't try to fight it. And I've found some strategies that work for me to deal with it. And the first one is journaling. So when I feel overwhelmed about all the things that I need to do, I start writing a list of what they are. I write down lists, I write down thoughts, anything that comes to mind.  I will write it down on the page so that it's not swimming around in my head and overwhelming my brain. And that usually helps at least a little bit. 

 

It's like I always teach these emotions need to be felt. Those feelings need to be validated. And so I don't try to push it away and pretend like it's not there. I actually dive a little bit deeper in and explore what is going on for me. 

 

The second thing I do is try to get my parasympathetic nervous system activated. Just try to calm my nervous system. Whether that is actually sitting and meditating, I've been doing that a lot more lately, and I really think it's been helping all areas of my life. Sometimes I'll just lay in bed and take some deep breaths before I get up. And for me, I feel so much of my anxiety in my stomach and it's related to my ulcerative colitis symptoms, which I'll talk about in a sec. And so I really try to breathe, as if I'm breathing all the way down into basically my intestines. Like I when I inhale, I breathe all the way into my pelvis. And then when I exhale, I try to exhale completely.

 

And this means that I'm taking longer, slower, deeper breaths, because the tendency when you are anxious, is to take short, quick, shallow breaths, which just ramps up the sympathetic nervous system, the fight or flight. 

 

And the last thing that I do with my anxiety is I get up and I get to work.  So once I've

kind of analyzed what's going on and what's stressing me out that day, I get up and do my morning routine, like making my bed, getting dressed. And I don't specifically try to repress the anxiety. I imagine it just coming with me. 

 

So Brooke Castillo, my teacher calls anxiety her “heavy purse.” She picks up her heavy purse, and she takes it with her wherever she needs to go. The other analogy I like for these emotions, is that they just ride in the passenger seat with me, they're in the car, but they're not driving.  They're just sitting there along for the ride.

 

And honestly, once I get going and doing things, I don't notice that they're there so much. So I wouldn't say I'm like, plagued with anxiety all of the time. But it's almost like it's just there in the background, waiting to show me reasons why I should believe it. 

 

What I've been thinking about a lot lately, when I am starting my day or getting going or have kind of those transition moments or some free time is what is the next right considered action. 

 

So if I'm getting ready because I have a zoom call at nine o'clock, the next right considered action might be to go brush my hair and look presentable, at least from the shoulders up for that call. 

 

And if I'm feeling some mom guilt, thinking that I haven't been giving my kids enough attention lately, then I will think maybe the next right considered action would be to go and watch a movie with them, or go on a walk with one of them. Because sometimes my brain gets overwhelmed with all of the things. So if I was like, Oh, my house is such a mess. And it's very overwhelming to think of every room and everything that needs to be done in each room.  So I would maybe just start with one of the rooms and one of the tasks, maybe it's just doing the dishes or maybe Just cleaning off my bathroom countertop, one thing at a time. 

 

Okay, here's another thing that I struggle with. And I don't even know that I would call it a struggle at this point. But it's something that I've noticed that my brain does. And I used to get frustrated with it. And I think that this is something that happens with all of our brains. And so I want to talk about it. And that's when I have a decision to make, my brain will offer me resistance. 

 

Here's an example of something that recently happened. I woke up and when I was meditating, I kept thinking about messaging someone to kind of ask for a favor.  And it was something I was a little uncomfortable with. But I also knew it wouldn't take too much of their time and that they would probably be willing to do it if I just asked. And so I did, I composed the message and then literally right after it I sent it, my brain was like, “that was a horrible idea. You shouldn't have done it. That sounded stupid. Why would you ask that?” You know, just all the things my brain wanted to tell me. 

 

And I've noticed that this comes up a lot. So I've actually gotten a lot better at not listening to that resistance. But I want you to know that it still comes up. It's still there. I think I talked about this in my decision making podcast, because it's part of what our brain does when we are trying to decide something. Our brains are pros at basically debate- where you argue for and against something.  Our brains can do that, depending on which way we're leaning towards, our brains will usually argue against that and I do notice that that comes up a lot for me, but I try to notice it and allow it to be there without listening to it too much.

 

Now, another thing I want to talk to you about is my ulcerative colitis. That is the autoimmune disorder that got me started on this journey of Mind-Body healing. And it's definitely a journey, not a destination. There have been times that I've been completely symptom free. And last fall when I had a colonoscopy, he said there was no active disease, which was awesome. 

 

But I've noticed, especially in 2020, that I've had some symptoms again, earlier this year in January, when I started this podcast and started coaching people and building a website and making posts on social media. I was admittedly much more stressed out and even got to the point, once there was some blood in my stool, and then I really got a little bit freaked out. I felt a ton of imposter syndrome. Like, “who do you think you are trying to teach people about healing that they can heal? And here you are. You're not even healed all the way. I mean, your symptoms are coming back.” 

 

Now, you know, looking back, I can see it was definitely stress related, I committed to taking some time for rest and repair. So not pushing myself quite as hard, taking naps when I was tired. I did a lot of coaching on my thoughts and my stress level. And what I was making it mean that I had some symptoms again, when I am pretty much symptom free and thought I was healed. But I don't think the timing was incidental. You know, I was really being vulnerable and probably repressing a lot of emotions to just kind of push through and my body was not going to let me get away with that.  So it brought up these symptoms.

 

I kind of recalibrated myself, and I haven't had those severe symptoms again.  Sorry to talk about like poop and stuff, but it's kind of what you deal with with ulcerative colitis. 

 

But what's interesting is I still do get the pain, I get it. That's where I feel my stress is in my stomach in my intestines, it feels like I would call it like a bubbling, green geyser, that when I feel anxious or stressed about things, then I have kind of this bubbly churning in my stomach. But I kind of use that as my barometer of me needing to either deal with some emotions, or give myself some time to rest and repair. 

 

And it happened to me last week where I had kind of some like sharp pains in my stomach and it was a little more than the normal just like stomach grumbling. And I didn't make the connection until I was telling my friend about it a little bit later, that what had happened is I had just made a pretty vulnerable post on Instagram where I had this big salad that I was holding and I was talking about how I used to eat salad out of fear, because I hated my body and wanted it to be different. And I was coming from this place of fear eating salad and I didn't

enjoy it.  And then when I had my ulcerative colitis symptoms, I just couldn't even eat vegetables at all. I mean, it was looking at a salad like that will literally just make my stomach churn. And so I had to, for years completely avoid raw vegetables.  And I have started eating salads again, and it's been fine. And it's, and I love salads now, and I'm not eating it for any reason, because I hate myself. I'm really eating it out of love, because sometimes a salad just really sounds good to me.

 

And so it was just this very raw, open post about basically how I was healed. And just a few minutes later, that's when I started getting those symptoms. And again, my brain in the moment, I wasn't like, “Whoa, I eat that salad. That was horrible.” I actually had a pretty important coaching call with someone that I was a little nervous to coach and I just thought it was kind of about that. But then when I was telling my friend about, like how bad my symptoms were this last week that one day, I was like, Oh, that was the day, and it was right after I made that post, and I ate that salad. 

 

Seriously, I think my brain and my nervous system were like, “this is dangerous, you're being vulnerable. You're putting yourself out there in a way that doesn't feel safe. And so I'm going to give you these symptoms and this pain, to keep you small, to keep you hiding to keep you in the cave and safe and in pain where I can take care of you. And you won't have to risk any of those hurtful emotions of someone rejecting you because you put yourself out there.”

 

So what I did in that moment was, you know, I had that call coming up and so I did some tapping.  EFT, I have an app for it called the tapping solution, which I think is really awesome. And they have meditations and tapping for different conditions or circumstances in your life.  Whether it's fear about Coronavirus, or being in the military, or wanting to get a good night's sleep and they have one for the intestinal issues or stomach issues or stomach pain, and I did that tapping app.  And it completely I mean not completely, took the pain away. It went from like a seven to a three, but it drastically reduced it enough so that when I went to do the coaching call, I felt fine. 

 

But yeah, you guys, I still struggle with it. A lot of people with chronic pain, who are no longer dealing with chronic illness have their pain or disease where, you know, they experience it every day.  And it's like the focus of their life. But it'll pop up every now and then. And I it's kind of I think of it as the way my body speaks to me. And again, kind of that barometer or signal danger signal, because that's what we know pain is to tell me, “hey, something needs to be recalibrated in your life right now”, or just for me to recognize, “yeah, you're doing things that are out of your comfort zone, and risking rejection is not the biggest thing to be feared.”

 

I really can't control how other people think of me and I want to show up the way that I want to show up. But just there just was some time it took me to just kind of uncover some of those emotions and figure out what was really going on. And I imagine that won't be the last time in my life that I'll have to do that.

 

So I count my ulcerative colitis as a struggle and a success because I've definitely learned so much through it. And I'm actually thankful that I do have it because that's what brought me to this work, and all of the amazing things that I've learned and the things that I'm helping people with right now. 

 

So I want to tell you a couple of interesting stories that I would call successes along this journey. The first was involving some knee pain that I had last year, and I had some knee pain that lasted about six months. And one thing that was interesting that I noticed was one time watching a yoga teacher demonstrate a move, and I thought it would hurt my knee and my knee instantly started hurting. So I knew that it wasn't totally structural. 

 

And of course, I've been you know, I've been thinking about this stuff for a long time. reading about it, you know, exploring it. I knew that I was almost certain that it wasn't something structural, but I've also been a physical therapist for 20 years. And so in the back of my mind, I was like, “all of these symptoms really point to a knee meniscus being torn.” And a little part of me believed that that might be the part of my pain that I just couldn't get over because there was something structural. 

 

And I had a friend check out my knee. And she's in medical school and she was feeling around and said, Your fibula is really tight on this side. And literally, as soon as I really fully believed that there was some other structural explanation for what was going on. Then the next day, my knees stopped hurting.  I mean, this is a lot like the UC, where occasionally I will have some knee pain. It'll come every once in a while. And now that I do the pen vent process, I've actually had it go away quite quickly when I journal or if I'm kind of bored with it.  Like I've talked about before, just like “oh, there it is.” And not making a big deal of it. 

 

So that was an interesting learning experience. And that's how I try to look at these instances of pain that I have. Now, as you know, this is a great chance for me to kind of like conduct a little science experiment on my body and to learn something. 

 

And then the last thing I'm going to tell you about that I thought was fascinating was I spent some time at the lake cabin with my cousins and did some surfing behind the boat. And one of the times I face planted, and you know, kind of jarred my neck as I landed, and I thought, even in the moment I could start to feel it tighten up and I thought “for sure, tomorrow I'll have some soreness,” but like it's not a big deal. I wasn't worried about it. But I've also had a lot of experiences after falling waterskiing or any other activities like that snowboarding when I face planted. You know, I'm like, “Yeah, sometimes muscle soreness would probably be quite normal.”

 

And yes, the next morning, I did wake up with some muscle soreness, mainly on the left side when I would turn my head, and even a little bit of a headache. And I thought just for the sake of an experiment, I mean, I have a really good reason of why it should hurt. And it's within the first 24 hours. So I do believe there's kind of some legitimate clean pain that's not created by your brain. It's created by your body, like if you had a sprained ankle or a broken bone. But I thought just for the sake of an experiment, I'm going to try some journaling. And I did rage on the page, you know, I really let it out and didn't hold back with my emotions.  And anything that I could think of I wrote down.  And literally my neck pain went away. I mean, actually, so the end range of motion when I would turn completely, at the very, very end, I could feel, you know, a little pinch. But like as far as just walking around, my headache was gone. 

 

That day we went cliff jumping, and it didn't bother me at all. It was really just when I like turned my head fully 100% or 95% to the left, I could feel it a little bit. So most of the day, it was good. I totally didn't notice it. But later that day, we all went out to dinner, and I paid for everyone. And then I had checked my account and this big bill that I didn't expect to come out that day had come out. And I noticed like there was this money situation where I had to transfer some money pretty quickly and was hoping that I didn't already incur any fees or anything. And so I started feeling that neck pain again, wouldn't you know?  So I realized it, obviously quite quickly then.  And so that time I was with my cousin, her kids and all my kids and I wasn't able to sit down and journal. But I was able to just recognize this is exactly what's going on. My mind did not go immediately to a structural cause it went to this emotional cause. And as soon as I was able to like acknowledge, listen, this money situation is fine. It was just this little glitch I had to take care of, I'm safe. Then my neck pain went away again. 

 

There's even a quote from Dr John Sarno, where he talks about, if you are having some physical pain, think about something psychological instead of something physical. Actually, I'll just read it to you. He says, “I suggest to patients that when they find themselves being aware of the pain, they must consciously forcefully shift their attention to something psychological, like something they're worried about a chronic family or financial problem or recurrent source of irritation, anything in the psychological realm.  For that sends a message to the brain they're no longer deceived by the pain. When that message reaches the depths of the mind, the subconscious, that pain ceases.”

 

Guys, we're just humans, we are always going to have one pain or another, or an illness.  There are things that are going to happen. And instead of thinking of them as either a weakness and character that we know all this mind body stuff, so why would this possibly happen? I mean, that's how I used to feel for sure. When I was starting this work and putting a lot of pressure on myself. These things are gonna happen even to the most experienced Mind Body practitioners, I'm sure they still happen. And you can look at them as a chance to get deeper into yourself to maybe learn something about yourself.  And to almost do these little science experiments.  Definitely not a fearful way of thinking of anything that starts happening to your body.

 

Thanks for listening, I hope that you got some little pieces of inspiration from hearing me talk all about myself. But I do think maybe hopefully it was a little bit helpful to hear about my humaneness and the real struggles and things I've gone through and the success I've had too. Thanks for being on this journey with me.

 

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.