Unstoppable Body and Mind

Episode #40- Beliefs

Did you know beliefs are just thoughts you think over and over again?

 

Beliefs that aren't serving you can be questioned.  

 

You will know to question a thought by WHAT YOU FEEL IN YOUR BODY.

 

Use your body sensations as a guide to start figuring out your emotions, thoughts and beliefs.  

 

When you feel something in your body you don't like, resist the urge to pull away.  The more you react calmly and without fear, your nervous system can move from fight or flight, to rest and repair.

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

*Curable App- 6 Weeks Free with this code http://www.curable.com/betsyjensen

 

If you like this podcast, please give it a five star rating and review on Itunes  https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-unstoppable-body-and-minds-podcast/id1493360543

 

 

Episode #39- Going In To the Body

 

Today's podcast includes two exercises for going in to the body.

Going in to the body, instead of retracting and dissociating from it, is an important way to start building a mind body connection.

It is a process you can use for processing emotion, decreasing physical pain and resolving trauma.

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

*Curable App- 6 Weeks Free with this code http://www.curable.com/betsyjensen

 

If you like this podcast, please give it a five star rating and review on Itunes  https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-unstoppable-body-and-minds-podcast/id1493360543

 

Transcript- Automatically Generated:

This is Betsy Jensen, and you are listening to Unstoppable Body and Mind, episode 39, Going Into the Body. 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 friends. Today, we're going to talk about going into the body.
But first, I have some updates. My total podcast downloads this year has almost reached 5,000, which is exciting. I have 31 ratings now on iTunes.
You guys have been really doing your part, giving it ratings and reviews, which I really appreciate. I am still doing a drawing for a $100 Amazon gift card. So if you submit a rating or a review, then take a screenshot, email it to me, or if you follow me on Instagram.
So there's three possible entries per person. So on November 15th, I'll do a drawing for those who have entered to win, and someone will be the lucky winner of $100 Amazon gift card. My email is info at bodyandmindlifecoach.com, and all the information will be found in the show notes.
I've had a lot of listeners from Katrina Ubell's podcast who have started listening, so welcome to all of you. Many of you are physicians, and I've been doing a lot of consults these last couple of weeks with some of you. It's been awesome to talk to different physicians, people in the medical field, people who are interested in learning more about the mind-body connection.
And so I've been thinking of what I've been teaching that I could share with you on the podcast that might be helpful. One of the main principles that I teach is about going in to the body, to really describe the sensations and the feelings as if you're doing it very neutrally. I do this in the Somatic Tracking Meditation episode of my podcast, but I am gonna talk about it here today as well.
I've been listening to Peter Levine's book Healing Trauma, which I totally recommend. It's so interesting, and it talks about how trauma is biological. So I had this realization that was so funny this week.
The things that I've always thought were biological and physical, I've been learning about treating emotionally. And then something that I thought was mainly emotional, like trauma, that you would deal with by talking and analyzing your emotions. Peter Levine talks about analyzing and addressing biologically.
But what is really fascinating is that what I have been learning through life coaching, mind-body medicine, and with Peter Levine, there's this common modality, a way of addressing pain, disease, processing emotions, going through trauma, completing the cycle, is to go in to the body. Think of all the dissociation we have from our bodies. When you have chronic pain or you've suffered with disease, you may think your body has betrayed you.
You may hate your body. You may not trust your body. There may be resistance and even fear, thinking about how your life is limited, what you can or can't do.
There's a lot of times fear of the unknown, what if it gets worse? What is my future hold? What if something else happens?
When you have sensations, you may try to retract away from them, to tighten up, to resist, to push through, maybe even just ignore your body and whatever sensations it has. Now, what comes up for you, as I talk about your body? Take a moment to think if you have a loving relationship or fearful relationship with your body.
Do you feel like you're at war with your body? Are you scared of it?
Let's try right now just to be curious. Let's put the history and the past and the diagnoses and the prognosis over to the side. You can have them back when you want them.
But right now, I want you to just experience going into the body with me. So if you're driving or can't attend right now, maybe this is something that you can just listen to and come back to later when you have a chance to take it deeper and start integrating back into your body. So start by sitting or laying in a comfortable position.
Take some time to feel your body resting against the surface. You can close your eyes, rest them gently closed, and start to lengthen the amount of time you're breathing out and breathing in. And start to lengthen your breath and notice where you feel your breath.
Notice where you feel your breath in your body. Notice if you feel it in your nose, in your throat, in your lungs, maybe the rise and fall of your chest or of your stomach.
Start to pay attention to the movement, to the oscillation, the in and out of your breathing, and make it longer and longer as you calm and relax.
Begin to scan your body.
And describe anything that you come upon in your body. What grabs your attention? And how can you describe it neutrally?
Start by the area of the sensation that you have. And you can describe how big or small it is. If it seems to be dense or moving.
If it has a color, what would it be?
What quality does it possess? Is it a sharp or dull sensation? Is it a warm or cold?
How else can you describe it?
Keep focusing on this area, and notice what happens as you bring your attention to it. Does it change at all?
Maybe you can breathe air into that area. Imagine the breath swirling around whatever area you're feeling this sensation. And as you exhale, imagine anything coming out that's no longer serving you.
Pushing it out, releasing it, exhaling completely like you're wringing out your lungs before you breathe back in.
Try and be neutral as you notice this area. Try and go a little deeper as if you could shrink yourself down and look inside into that place. Maybe look with a flashlight like you're shining it around, being so curious about what you find, reacting so calmly to what you see.
There's really nothing to be upset about in this moment. We're just curious about what's there, going deeper and observing.
When you feel sensation, remember that you can go into it rather than pulling away from it. You may even ask it, why it's there? Does it have a message for you?
And then just calm your mind, breathe in and out, and listen. Some people hear a voice, some people feel a feeling, but maybe you can be open to whatever comes to mind. Even if you think it might be silly or irrelevant, maybe question it.
The more you practice asking your body, the more it will give you answers. Now, you can open your eyes. This is an exercise you can do anytime that you're feeling pain.
If you're feeling sensation, even if you're feeling emotions and want to process your emotions, you could notice when something's feeling off in your day. Maybe you're feeling frustrated, or you're feeling nervous or anxious, or maybe you're feeling excited about something. Really notice when you have these emotions, what they feel like in your body.
You might describe them as where they are in your body, how the quality of the sensation, how it feels. The more you tap into these signals from your body, the more aware you can become of what emotions you're feeling. It sounds weird, I know, to think we have to become aware of the emotions that we have.
But honestly, we're not taught to recognize our emotions. If anything, we're taught that we shouldn't feel certain emotions. People who are into coaching, sometimes we coach ourselves out of feeling so quickly.
So notice if there's something in your body, though, that's not quite feeling right. Maybe there is a little residual emotion that you're not recognizing. Or maybe you can start to recognize those emotions that come up frequently for you.
This is a way of connecting with your body. It's a way of becoming more in tune. It's a way of processing emotions and also releasing trauma going into your body, describing the sensation that you have.
Now I want to do one more exercise with you. This is from Peter Levine's book Healing Trauma that I referred to earlier. And he talks about getting comfortable with penduluming your emotions, basically where you are able to ramp up or increase your excitement level and then come back down.
He said people that have had traumatic situations that have not been resolved have difficulty when they do start to experience that heightened sensation of their nervous system ramping up. And so this exercise with going between emotions of excitement and grounding can be really important. So I want you to get comfortable and close your eyes again.
Really feel the contact you have with the surface that you're sitting on or laying on. Closing your eyes, letting the muscles of your eyes relax.
Taking deeper and deeper breaths, letting your shoulders relax away from your ears. Notice if there's any tightness that you're keeping in your body and try to soften it.
Now here we're going to visualize that you are a tree. So you can be any type of tree that you want. A willow, an oak tree, a pine tree, a big majestic tree that has branches and leaves.
It has a trunk that's stable and strong, and it has roots that go deep, deep into the earth. It's as if there's a magnet pulling those roots to the earth, to the center, and also spreading the branches and leaves up into the air, away from the earth.
Imagine this in your body, that your trunk is the trunk of that tree that is strong and resilient. Now imagine the leaves and the branches. They begin to sway in the wind.
And as the wind picks up, they really start to rustle. They begin moving more and more. And notice this in your body.
Where do you feel movement? Where do you feel intensity?
A big gust of wind comes. It blows the tree completely over to the ground.
There is some anticipation, some excitement, some wonder. As you notice that it's falling to the ground, how does that feel in your body?
But the tree is strong, and it comes back up. The trunk has been centered. The trunk is resilient.
The trunk is strong, and the roots pull it down, down to the earth. Feel this grounding sensation. Feel the stability in the core.
Feel the strength in the base. Feel the roots grounding to the earth.
Now shift your attention again to the leaves and branches in the wind. Feel how your body changes as you observe the movement.
Now, return again to the roots. Return to the grounding. Return to the trunk and the base.
Okay, so you can open your eyes. Now, going back and forth, you may have been able to feel the difference between those two emotions, of excitement, or maybe even a little bit of anxiety or worry, and then the grounding and relaxation and trust. Those are a couple of brief examples I wanted to share with you today about going into your body.
This principle is very important in desensitizing your hypersensitivity to pain. The more neutrally you respond to these situations, it sends the signal back to your nervous system that it doesn't need to be hypervigilant in this area. It sends a signal back to your brain that it does not need to continue to amplify the pain production.
So though it may be something you've avoided, going into your body is actually one of the first things that you can do to work on rewiring your brain to produce less pain. So that's what I have for you this week. Be sure and check out my Instagram.
I'm putting out a lot of new content there. And give yourself some chances to try going into your body this week. 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.

 

Episode #38- ”You are the Placebo” by Joe Dispenza

Today I talk about Joe Dispenza's book, "You are the Placebo."  I give just a few examples from the book, so if you're interested in more the book is such an amazing resource!

 

The placebo effect demonstrates how the mind makes physical changes in the body, just by having a belief or expectation that something will happen.  

It demonstrates the power of your thoughts in healing.

 

If you want to listen to the podcast episode I did for Katrina Ubell's podcast, click here: 

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/weight-loss-for-busy-physicians/id1199570390?i=1000494569383

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

*Curable App- 6 Weeks Free with this code http://www.curable.com/betsyjensen

 

If you like this podcast, please give it a five star rating and review on Itunes  https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-unstoppable-body-and-minds-podcast/id1493360543

Transcript- Automatically Generated:

This is Betsy Jensen, and you are listening to Unstoppable Body and Mind, episode 38, You are the Placebo by Joe Dispenza. 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 friends. I'll tell you what, I have had a great week. I was on Katrina Ubell's podcast.
She has a podcast, Weight Loss for Busy Physicians, and I've been working with her for the last six months, and she had me on her podcast to talk about her progress. Okay, so this is the title of it, which I just love. It's episode 196, How I Cured My Chronic Pain and Acid Reflex with Betsy Jensen.
And I have had a lot more listeners this last week to the podcast, which is exciting. Last week, my podcast had had about a hundred downloads for the week, and this past week, it was 1,400. So about 1,300 new downloads compared to the week before.
So any new listeners, welcome. I've also had more ratings and reviews on my podcast this last week. So thank you guys so much for that.
I was at 16 ratings last week, and now I'm at 24. So I really appreciate you taking the time to give some feedback and help this podcast be found by more people. Plus, I love reading the reviews from you guys and hearing your feedback.
I wanted to read one of the reviews that I just got. It's from KMR Doc, brand new listener. I found you through your appearance on Katrina Ubell's podcast.
Just listen to 34, number 34, about understanding the mind body pain connection. So well explained and make so much sense for the things going on in my life. Sent it to a friend for reference as well.
So glad I found you. Thank you so much. I really appreciate that feedback.
And if you haven't listened to episode 34 yet, it is such a great summary of basically what TMS is, what Dr. John Sarno called TMS or mind body syndrome. So take a listen to it if you haven't yet and see if it resonates with you. Now I am still doing the $100 Amazon gift card giveaway on November 15th.
So you can enter by giving my podcast a rating or review or following me on Instagram. So three possible entries. You can email me info at bodyandmindlifecoach.com.
The links will be in the show notes. And let me know that you've submitted a rating review or followed me, and you'll be entered to win $100 Amazon gift card on November 15th. Okay, that's all the housekeeping stuff.
I'm going to tell you today about several examples from Joe Dispenza's book, You are the Placebo. So it talks about the placebo effect, which many of you I'm sure already know, but it's a big factor in modern day medicine. In fact, placebo trials, double blind studies, all of that is because there is such a thing as a placebo effect.
First, we'll start just by talking about when it was basically discovered. The first one he talks about is Henry Beecher, who was an anesthesiologist in World War II, and they basically were running out of supplies, and they ran out of morphine. And so he started using saline, and many of the soldiers either had a reduction in symptoms or completely had no sensation of pain when they were injected with saline, thinking that it was a painkiller for them.
Then when Henry Beecher returned to the States, he is the one who started studying the placebo effect in drug trials. So basically what that would mean is there's randomized trials, two groups. A group that is given the drug and a group that is given a similar type of pill that is said to be the drug, and there's a huge placebo effect.
Spoiler alert. It's real. It's really hard to even tell how much of it is your brain creating.
These things. Okay, so in 1962, there's a study in Japan where they took 13 children who were allergic to poison ivy. And they would, I love this, in the 60s, they would rub poison ivy on one arm, and they would tell the children that it was a harmless leaf.
Only two of the children showed an allergic reaction, 11 of them did not. Then they rubbed a harmless leaf on the other arm and told the children it was poison ivy. And they all, all 13 of them developed a rash from the benign leaf.
When they believed the information that was told to them about whether the leaf had poison ivy or not, their body reacted accordingly. So on one hand or one arm, a poisonous substance had no effect and a plain leaf created symptoms because of what the children believed in their mind. This proves that thought could be more powerful than the physical environment.
Another study from the 60s, they took 40 asthma patients that were given inhalers full of water vapor. They were told that the inhalers contained an irritant. 19 of them, so 48%, developed asthmatic symptoms like restricted airways.
So almost half of them, when they were just given water vapor, and were told that there was an irritant in there, almost half developed asthmatic symptoms. 12 of them, or 30%, suffered full blown asthmatic attacks. So almost 80% of them basically had either symptoms or a full blown asthmatic attack, inhaling water vapor that they were told had irritant in it.
Then they were given another inhaler which was said to have medicine in it to relieve their symptoms. Guess what? It was also just water vapor.
But all of them had a reversal of their symptoms when they were given the second inhaler of water vapor that was said to have medicine to relieve their symptoms. Again, showing that their thoughts are more powerful than what was actually going on in reality, if you think about it on a chemical level. There's also what Joe Dispenza talks about as a nocebo effect.
When you are given a suggestion that you may develop some certain symptoms, then you are more likely to develop those symptoms if you believe that. So, for example, they took women and gave them a placebo for around their time of the month, basically they said, you'll have worse PMS, you'll have symptoms that are a little more exaggerated than normal. And 70% of them had that.
They were suggestible by that prompt that taking that pill would cause those effects in their body, in their mind, in their emotions, and guess what? They did. So he also talks about how you would probably be a little more susceptible to catching the flu during flu season.
So he says, winter long, you're seeing articles about flu season and about signs all around about getting flu shots. And they remind us that if we don't get a flu shot, then we'll get sick. And then if we see someone that's sick, are we like the Japanese children who believe that their bodies react from their programming?
Or the asthmatics who developed symptoms and then relief of symptoms because of what they thought was in their inhalers? Here's a quote from You are the Placebo. Are we more likely to suffer from arthritis, stiff joints, poor memory, lagging energy, decreased sex drive as we age simply because that's the version of the truth that ads, commercials, television shows and media reports bombard us with?
What other self-fulfilling prophecies are created in our minds without being aware of what we're doing? Good question, right? I think there are those self-fulfilling prophecies.
Pain is definitely one of them. I've heard a lot of people say, you know, Oh, my dad and all my brothers have bad shoulders. We've all had this surgery, you know, whether it's GI symptoms or sinuses or add backs, you know, we definitely just absorb part of that programming from what we hear around us and our body will start to show that.
They'll show those things just like the Japanese children that developed a rash when they thought that there was really an irritant on their skin. And of course, all of this was before COVID. So just insert that.
Okay, more examples. In the late 70s, Dr. John Levine gave placebos to 40 dental patients who had just had their wisdom teeth removed. Most of them reported relief.
So just had surgery instead of getting the good stuff. They're given placebos. I'm just thinking of all those videos of people doing crazy things after wisdom teeth.
They're given wisdom teeth removal, given placebos, most reported relief. And then they gave them Naloxone, which is an antidote to morphine. So this drug chemically blocks the receptor sites for morphine and endorphins, the pain relieving chemicals that our body naturally produces.
So when the patients were given Naloxine, the stuff that blocks the antidote to morphine, their pain returned. That proves that their bodies, when they take a placebo, are actually producing the chemical, like morphine, the endorphin in the body that has that feel good effect. They were creating their own endorphins in their body, producing their own painkillers.
So Joe Dispenza suggests that we are our own pharmacy, that our minds can make all of these natural things to heal our bodies and make us feel better. Exactly how placebos work is still a mystery to neuroscientists, but they have uncovered several important clues. Placebos help the brain release natural chemicals and change brain activity in ways that mimic the effects of real drugs and treatments.
So Joe Dispenza says that our brain is a natural pharmacy. And if you can remember, it's our thoughts that are creating our emotions. So it's those sentences in our brain, our thoughts, which trigger the nervous system to interact with the endocrine system, which is where the neurochemicals and hormones and neurotransmitters are released throughout the body to cause feelings, feelings, those vibrations that we have in our body.
So basically with a placebo, if you think that something has a great chance of working and you're optimistic and you're positive about it, and especially if you keep taking a pill every day, you're thinking those positive thoughts and having that reminder every day, and you basically start to reprogram your brain, produce those chemicals as if that drug is working, when it's basically all just your thoughts and your beliefs that are making it work. Crazy. Okay.
This one's fascinating. In 1981, in New Hampshire, men in their 70s and 80s took part in a five-day retreat. Half of them were asked to actively imagine being 22 years younger.
The other group were asked to remember being 22 years younger, but not to pretend to be different than their actual age. In the retreat, they had environmental cues, like looking at old issues of life and Saturday Evening Post, listening to music of that time, talking about political events and sports heroes all from 22 years ago. They talked about current events, so that was 1959.
Both of the groups, after this five-day retreat, where they immersed themselves in seeing, listening to, interacting with, imagining, talking about being in 1959 instead of 1981, both groups got physically younger. So that means they took some measurements before and after. Their height had increased.
They grew taller, basically, as their posture improved. Their joints became more flexible. Their fingers lengthened as a result of the arthritis diminishing.
Their eyesight and their hearing got better. This is in five days. Their grip strength improved, and they did better on memory tests.
Some of the men, by the end of five days, gave up their canes and were playing flag football. Not tackle football, he says, mind you, but flag football. But if they're in their 70s and 80s, imagining being in your 50s and 60s, that's still pretty active and great.
So then if you compared the two groups, the group that actually pretended that they were younger, as well as talking about it, you know, listening to all the verbal cues and the cues from the environment, they actually thought of themselves at that age and were just really pretending to be younger. And that age, they measured significantly better than the other group in all of those areas. So definitely shows that their body chemistry responded to their thoughts, and change was not just in their minds, but in their bodies.
Joe Dispenza in his meditation retreats shows that there can be changes in people's DNA after day meditation retreats. Research is revealing how thoughts and feelings as well as our choices, behaviors and experiences have profound healing and regenerative effects on our bodies. The power of the thoughts can create physical changes in our bodies.
The placebo may be inert, but the effect is not. 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.

Episode #37 - Is My Pain TMS?

In this episode, I talk about TMS- Tension Myositis Syndrome.  Or what Dr John Sarno also calls Mindbody Syndrome.

 

TMS is a defense mechanism of the brain, against what it perceives as a bigger threat to our survival.  Our repressed emotions.

 

Physical pain can come from the body (nociceptive pain) or from the brain (nociceptive pain).

 

TMS is a type of pain created in the body by thoughts and emotions.  There are personality types that are more prone to TMS- perfectionists, people pleasers and co-dependent (I'm only ok if you're ok.)

 

I am going to quote Dan Buglio's (Pain Free You) list of TMS conditions, see if any of them apply to you:

"heartburn, reflux, abdominal pains, IBS, tension and migraine headaches, rashes, anxiety or panic attacks, depression, OCD thought patterns, eating disorders, insomnia, fibromyalgia, back pain, neck pain, shoulder pain, repetitive stress injury, carpal tunnel, TMJ- jaw pain, tendonitis, facial pain, burning, numbness, tingling, muscle twitches, palpitations, chest pain, pelvic pain, muscle tenderness, "growing pains", knee pain, dizziness, tinnitus, vertigo, allergies, and asthma."

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

*Curable App- 6 Weeks Free with this code http://www.curable.com/betsyjensen

 

If you like this podcast, please give it a five star rating and review on Itunes  https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-unstoppable-body-and-minds-podcast/id1493360543

 

Episode #36- The Power of Questions

Asking good questions is a way you can start building trust with your brain and your body.  Do not ask negative questions or indulge in “I don't know.”  

 

You can start by asking yourself, “In this episode I talk about the power of questions, and how we can put our brain to work solving problems for us during the day. "What am I thinking?”or, “What am I feeling?”

 

Here are some examples of other powerful questions you can ask yourself each day: 

What am I grateful for?

How can I honor my body today?

What can I do to laugh a lot today?

How can I have more fun today?

How can I take time for myself today?

How can I make myself a priority so I have more to give others?

What do I love about myself?

What are my strengths?

How can I become more connected to my internal joy?

How can I make choices that benefit me and everyone around me at the same time?How do I feel in the flow?

How can I have more inspiration today?

How can I be more present today?

How can I show more love to myself?

How can I be more patient with myself and others?

How can I live my best life?

 

Try this!  It is amazing how much your brain will help you if you ask it!!!

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

*Curable App- 6 Weeks Free with this code http://www.curable.com/betsyjensen

 

If you like this podcast, please give it a five star rating and review on Itunes  https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-unstoppable-body-and-minds-podcast/id1493360543

 

Episode #35- Allowing Pleasure

Have you ever noticed that as humans we have a hard time allowing ourselves to feel pleasure, happiness or other positive emotions?

Our brains have a negativity bias, and on a primitive level feeling pleasure is perceived as dangerous to our survival.  We should not let our guard down, and we should always remember that negative things are about to happen.  Thanks, brain...

I talk about what Gay Hendricks calls the Upper Limit Problem, the difference between pleasure and buffering, and how to notice and cultivate more pleasure in our lives.  Even if you are struggling with pain, I will teach ways to begin increasing the pleasure and positive emotions you can feel each day.

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

*Curable App- 6 Weeks Free with this code http://www.curable.com/betsyjensen

 

If you like this podcast, please give it a five star rating and review on Itunes  https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-unstoppable-body-and-minds-podcast/id1493360543

Transcript- Automatically Generated:

This is Betsy Jensen, and you are listening to Unstoppable Body and Mind, episode 35, Allowing Pleasure. 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'm excited today because I'm trying something a little new. I, in addition to recording this podcast, I am videoing it too.
So I'm hoping to put it on my YouTube channel, which is Body and Mind Life Coach, as well as Instagram TV, Body and Mind Life Coach. You can find me there on Instagram. So today's episode is about allowing pleasure, which seems like something we would all want to do.
But if you think about it, humans really do have a hard time allowing ourselves positive emotions, allowing joy, happiness, creativity and pleasure. I first thought about this and heard about this when I was reading the book by Brene Brown. I think it was Daring Greatly.
And she sets a scene of people in a car, a family talking, and it zooms out and it shows them driving along a windy road, and then it zooms in and they're talking and stop. Imagine what is going to happen. Most people say something bad is gonna happen because this is how our brain works.
Remember the negativity bias that I talk about a lot. So this is a way that our brain helps us survive by always looking out for negative things, but it makes it really hard unless we are purposely trying to enjoy and cultivate more happiness to actually allow positive things in our life. Think about sometimes when you go on vacation and how you just have this urge to do things and maybe even check your phone a lot.
Think about, they call it Guilty Vacation Syndrome. In the UK, there was research showing that 66% of people did not want to leave their work to go on vacation because they felt guilty about leaving. Sometimes it's called the letdown effect, where you have a letdown of your perceived stress, then you're more likely to have illness or disease.
More people report having panic attacks on weekends. There was a study in Taiwan in 2015 that found that holidays and weekends have more ER admissions for peptic ulcers than weekdays do. It's like we're always waiting for the other shoe to drop.
Gay Hendricks talks about this phenomenon in The Big Weep, and he calls it the upper limit problem. We have a limited tolerance for feeling good and having life go well. It's like we have this internal thermostat of how much capacity for happiness that we have.
And when it reaches that upper limit, then we actually do things to sabotage ourselves so that we bring ourselves down to that more comfortable level. We all have limiting beliefs about ourselves, that we're not good at certain things, that we're shy, that we can't make a lot of money. So when we hit this upper limit, our brain manufactures thoughts that bring us back down to proving itself right, basically.
Our brains will look for evidence of the bad things about us, and the brain would rather be right and miserable or in a painful condition than to challenge those beliefs about ourselves that just don't feel true. He says we may even start fights with people or have accidents so that we are not in that uncomfortable happiness and bring ourselves back down to the emotions that we are more used to feeling. Does that sound crazy?
If you look at the model, so if you think of episode five, the model that I taught, it actually makes sense because our thoughts are what create our feelings. Our feelings create our actions and then our results. So if we have negative core beliefs about ourselves, our brain is going to point out things when we start to have feelings that are too happy.
Remember how you're too bossy and people don't like that or don't get too excited about your new promotion because you'll probably just mess it up like you've done before or just because you lost that weight doesn't mean that you're going to keep it off. You always tend to gain it all back and then some, thank you brain. Our brain is so good at reminding us these things that limit us.
With pain, this can happen too. And I've seen it so many times where people start to feel better and then overdo it and get hurt again or start to have another body part that starts hurting. When we hit the upper limit, we are uncomfortable with tolerating happiness or pleasure.
So we do things to bring us back down. Joe Dispenza talks about it on a cellular level where we're actually addicted to certain emotions. So take the emotion of stress.
If you have cortisol at a certain level, your cells become used to all of those receptor sites having cortisol in them. In fact, the next cells that are made actually have more receptor sites to accommodate for that cortisol. And then if you start depleting that cortisol level, if you start feeling a little less stressed, your brain will literally look around for things in the environment to stress out about to produce that cortisol for your cells.
So when we talk about just allowing pleasure, it's not that simple. We have to increase our capacity for tolerating happiness and positive emotions. Now you may think I'm good at tolerating pleasure.
I come home and I have a few drinks, or I buy things online, and I have so much pleasure. But I want to take a minute and talk about the difference between pleasure and what I'll call buffering. So buffering would be something that you do to avoid your emotions, that you do to make yourself feel good, but has a net negative effect.
So if you're coming home every night and drinking a substantial amount, it might have a negative effect on your family, relationships, or on your body the next morning. If you're compulsively gambling or shopping online, it may have a net negative effect on your bank account. So it's definitely a case by case basis.
Some things may in moderation not give you that net negative effect and be pleasurable truly. But for example, if you're on social media to the point that you're not taking care of your responsibilities, you feel kind of depressed because of all the things you're looking at, that might have a net negative effect. So I really want you to think about the difference between pleasure and buffering and what buffering might look like for you, but usually it's a way to get away from your emotions, not to actually feel true happiness or pleasure.
So how do we increase our capacity for pleasure? How do we tolerate more positive feelings in our lives? We have to increase our tolerance of feeling joy and feeling good.
The first way, as always with this work, changing any kind of thoughts or beliefs starts with awareness of what you're already thinking. Where are those areas where you have limits for yourself, those self-limiting beliefs? Where are your upper limit problems?
And then realize that feeling pleasure, feeling good, feeling joy is actually safe. Really understand at a primitive level that your brain is trying to protect you by offering the negativity and don't let yourself feel too good because it's gonna end, and really increasing that capacity on purpose starts with realizing that it's safe to feel pleasure and joy. We have so much guilt and shame in our culture, it will take some conscious effort to allow yourself to feel positive things without that guilt and shame.
But it is healthy for us. We show up as better people in the world if we allow pleasure for ourselves. Most of the time, our brain is so focused on planning for the future, thinking about the past, guilt, shame, stress, anxiety, that we don't even realize some simple pleasures that are around us.
But have you ever spent time with a child? They show us a way of seeing the world that is so different than the way that we get desensitized to. I saw a four-year-old last week that her mom got her a bowl of grapes, and she just was anticipating those grapes.
And then when she got them in her bowl, she was like, mm, grapes. And she was doing a happy dance, and she was walking over to the table, taking them over, just so full of joy. And then, you know how children eat, she took like four bites to enjoy that one grape.
And the whole time, mm, mm, yummy, this is so good. And it was just like a pleasure to watch her enjoy something so simple that much. It reminds me of what about Bob when he's eating, and he's like, mm, mm, mm, yum, yum, yum, you know.
That scene is so funny. I'm not doing it justice. But that's the kind of attitude we could have if we were really enjoying all of the simple pleasures that are around us.
So what are things around you that bring you joy? I have made a joy list, and it's something that I just keep in my planner so that I can add to it at any time. And I've written down simple things that bring me joy.
And my planner is actually one of them. I love my planner. And other things that I have on my list are sitting on my porch, drinking a cup of coffee in the morning, even the smell of coffee when I'm at the grocery store, wearing a summer dress on a warm summer evening.
I love long walks on the beach. I'm just kidding. I love listening to children when they're playing and hearing them laugh.
I love seeing a dog with its head out the window. I love taking my dog on a walk in the mountains and watching him just run around with joy. That brings me pleasure.
I love when people wink. It brings me joy to give a compliment to someone. I have joy with taking a bath, listening to music, listening to podcasts when I'm doing housework.
I love kombucha. I love funny movies. I love the feeling of clean sheets on my bed.
I love going to yoga. I love teaching yoga. It energizes me.
So those are some things that I have on my joy list, and I suggest that you start a joy list too. And especially look for those things that you find joy in, that you've almost forgotten about, that you don't notice on the daily, but are there for you every day that you can take pleasure in, these small moments of the day. The more we notice and experience these pleasurable things, the more we will allow ourselves to feel positive.
So thinking back to the model again, pleasure is an emotion, a feeling. And emotions, feelings come from our thoughts. So we can also increase our pleasure by changing the thoughts that we have about things.
One of the thoughts might be, I can allow myself to feel pleasure, or it's not dangerous to feel pleasure. It doesn't mean that I'm bad or selfish if I'm taking time and doing things for myself. Taking care of myself is the best thing that I can do for the people around me.
Another big part to recognizing those pleasures that are all around you is to be mindful to be present in the moment. So whatever you're doing, if you're taking a shower, then you could really notice how the warm water feels on your body. And if you're washing yourself, really touch your body and feel it and feel the pleasure with that.
Maybe putting on lotion, taking the time to actually put it on like you would lotion up a baby rather than just slapping it on. If you're eating, are you savoring the food that you're eating or are you shoveling it in or are you eating in your car? Taking time to notice the touches and tastes and smells and sights around you.
I remember one time I had a student with me that was a photographer, and she would always comment on how the sky looked or how the mountains looked. And those were always there for me, but I had so much more awareness of them when she started pointing them out, and I began looking for how cool the sky looked, too. Notice the amazingness, I don't know if that's a word, how amazing it is when a child is telling you a story.
And maybe it isn't about something that you find necessarily interesting, but maybe have curiosity and fascination for why it's interesting to them. Being present with people and really listening to them will not only increase your pleasure, but allow them to feel more seen and heard. Having that attitude of fascination and being curious is a great way to increase the pleasure in your life.
Gay Hendricks has you think how much love and abundance am I willing to allow and how am I getting in my own way? Now, if you are struggling with a lot of pain at the moment, which you may be if you're listening to this podcast, this might seem very challenging for you. How can I find pleasure, possibly, when I'm in such a state of agony or such a state of discomfort?
And it starts with very small steps. But remember, the more you're focusing on the pain and obsessing about the pain and thinking about it continually, you're actually creating more neurons that are associated with creating pain in your body. More of your brain capacity starts being focused on pain, and your hypersensitivity to pain increases.
So it's especially important for you to start increasing your capacity for pleasure. I think of with the law of attraction, where you don't want to focus on the things that you don't want. So you're not focusing on, you know, when is this pain going to go away?
I hate this pain. But you want to focus as much as possible on what you do want. Maybe for you, you're not quite at the point where pleasure seems like a reality, but you can start by at least getting yourself out of the fight or flight response when you have pain.
I talk about this in my episode, Somatic Tracking, a meditation for pain. So you could actually lay down and do this meditation and really notice that you can feel sensations in your body. You can focus on them and describe them without going into fight or flight and without trying to retract from the pain and pull away from it.
Actually going into the sensations, discovering more about them. And this way, you're going to start decreasing that, you're going to start rewiring your brain to create less pain. I think about in yoga, when I've been in a very uncomfortable position and thinking about keeping that steady breath, focusing on my breathing, that can really help with the physical discomfort or the challenge that I'm feeling with my muscles burning or stretching.
So we always have our breath with us. It's a tool that we have from the moment we're born until the day we die. And it's something that we can use to actually get out of that fight or flight, get into the parasympathetic nervous system where we calm our bodies and we aren't in a state of creating more and more pain as we focus on it.
So being aware of your breath, slowing your breath is such a helpful tool in the times that either you're feeling pain or your brain is just feeling out of control. You know, you have a lot of thoughts, you have some anxiety, things that you're thinking of with guilt or shame from the past, whatever it is, taking a deep breath. That's always so important.
What brings you joy or pleasure may be different than what brings other people or myself joy or pleasure. So this is a chance to really think about for you what is positive for you? What do you want more of in your life?
I suggest really trying to tune in to your inner voice. If you find me on Instagram, I did a reel, which is a little short video clip with music, where I show you how to listen to your intuition by swaying back and forth. So what you would do is close your eyes, ask yourself a yes or no question, and depending on which way you sway, that's your answer.
Yes, usually forward. No, it's backward. And this is one good way of starting to tune in to your inner voice.
If you feel like you don't have a good connection with your inner voice, do know that the more you practice, then it does become stronger and stronger. I love how Glennon Doyle in her book Untamed talks about really connecting to her inner voice. She calls it the knowing.
She said that when she started meditating, she started with ten minutes a day, and she could feel that she would sink down into herself more and more, where she wasn't on the surface with all of those thoughts that were thinking about crazy things and jumping from one subject to the next. When she sank down lower and lower, she would have this answer. She would have the knowing.
And it would not necessarily come as a voice to her. It was like a nudge. And then she said when she would act on that nudge, it was like warm liquid gold flowing through her veins when she would do what the nudge had told her to do.
And this is how she would do the next right thing one thing at a time. She said it felt almost like a game where you're not focusing on the end. The knowing wanted her to keep coming back and keep asking what is the next right thing, giving her that nudge, and then she would do it.
So she said, just practice this formula, sinking down, feeling the nudge or the knowing, acting on it, doing what it says, feeling the warm liquid gold, and then repeat forever. I really like this because it is easy to get overwhelmed with what is the big picture, what are all of the things out there that are necessary to do. But we can always slow it down, find in ourselves what the next right thing is to do.
And again, it's very individualized, so it's not going to always look the same from day to day or from person to person. But that's what's beautiful about it, and that is what will help us evolve to the next versions of ourselves by following that voice, that nudge, that knowing, and allowing ourselves the capacity to enjoy, to have pleasure, to have happiness, to show love without guilt. So please think about this over this next week.
Maybe start the joy list, think of what things bring you pleasure, practice knowing the next right thing to do, and see if you can increase your capacity to have positive things in your life. Because once you're turning away from the negative, focusing more and more on the positive, that's what will grow. So thank you for joining me today.
If you haven't already, go to iTunes and give my podcast a review and a rating, please. I would love it. And we'll see you next week.
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.

Episode # 34- What is TMS??? Lessons From Nicole Sachs, LCSW

I just finished an amazing virtual retreat with Nicole Sachs, LCSW.  Today I want to share with you wisdom I learned from Nicole- both from the retreat and from her podcast, The Cure For Chronic Pain.  She explains TMS so beautifully.

 

Nicole was a patient of Dr John Sarnos, and then went on to work with him.  In this podcast I will talk about what Nicole teaches- about TMS, JournalSpeak, and having patience and kindness for ourselves on our healing journeys! 

 

“The pain is not all in your head, but the solution is not in your body.” -Nicole Sachs, LCSW

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

*Curable App- 6 Weeks Free with this code http://www.curable.com/betsyjensen

 

If you like this podcast, please give it a five star rating and review on Itunes  https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-unstoppable-body-and-minds-podcast/id1493360543

 

Episode # 33- Can Pain Be Your Superpower?

In this episode we look at pain in a different way.  Many people who have gone through the process of doing this body and mind work view their pain as something they are grateful for, their gift, or even their superpower.

Pain is a danger signal.  When people learn to see pain or disease as a sign from their body, and learn the tools to address what needs attending to, then pain can be used like a barometer.  A gauge to let them know it is time to check in or recalibrate.  This extra information helps with coping skills, stress management, and helps identify and change personal issues so they aren't passed on to others.  Learning to manage pain and disease is a meta skill that can be used throughout life to help you become more attune, and become evolved to the next version of yourself.

 

RATE AND REVIEW THIS PODCAST HERE: screenshot and e

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

 

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

 

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

 

*Curable App- 6 Weeks Free with this code http://www.curable.com/betsyjensen

 

If you like this podcast, please give it a five star rating and review on Itunes  https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-unstoppable-body-and-minds-podcast/id1493360543

 

Episode # 32- How It Feels To Be Wrong

I got the idea for this podcast from a Ted Talk by Kathryn Schulz, where she says how it feels to be wrong.  It feels like you're right.  

 

The brain has programming and the world we perceive is based on what what we bring in that validates what we already believe.  Even thoughts that cause us mental or physical pain are kept because they are known and predictable. 

 

I talk about questioning all of out painful thoughts.  As well as using pain signals or poor health in the body as a red flag to check in emotionally and mentally.  

 

This is the path to freedom.

RATE AND REVIEW THIS PODCAST HERE: screenshot and email for two entries for the $100 Amazon gift card drawing

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-unstoppable-body-and-minds-podcast/id1493360543

For a third entry, follow me on Instagram:

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

Email me the screenshots showing your rating, review or follow- 

Info@bodyandmindlifecoach.com

For more information, check out my website https://bodyandmindlifecoach.com

Or to schedule a free 60 min coaching session, click here,  https://calendly.com/thebetsyjensen/free-consult

Episode # 31- The Evidence File

Today I want to share a life hack for rewiring old programs in your brain.  It's called the evidence file.  You write down evidence against the current belief you want to change- whether on 3x5 cards in a file, or on a list somewhere you keep.  For example, I have an evidence file of nice things people have said to me or successes I've had.  So when my old program of "you're worthless" comes up, I can easily look at evidence that proves it's not true.  

 

You can use the evidence file to make a case against your pain.  Notice on purpose the times you DON'T have pain when you expected you would.  It is so much easier to notice and focus on when you do have pain.  But reacting to pain with strong emotions like frustration, worry or fear, just strengthens the neuronal connections that reinforce the pain is important.  Most of chronic pain is neuroplastic pain that is created by the brain because of emotional factors, but felt in the body as pain.  

 

The evidence file will help you decrease the strength of the neuronal connections in your brain, and rewire your brain to make less pain.

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

*Curable App- 6 Weeks Free with this code http://www.curable.com/betsyjensen

 

If you like this podcast, please give it a five star rating and review on Itunes  https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-unstoppable-body-and-minds-podcast/id1493360543

 

Transcript- Automatically Generated:

This is Betsy Jensen, and you are listening to Unstoppable Body and Mind, episode 31, The Evidence File. 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. I have a little life hack for you today, something that I've started doing in my life that I really like. And so something that I wanted to share because I think maybe you'll like it too.
And it's called The Evidence File because basically our brain has a lot of beliefs already, these programs that it's formed. And our brain likes to find evidence to prove the thoughts that we already believe true. So subconsciously, that's what it will continue to do.
If we're not actively taking a look at what kinds of things we're thinking, then these programs will just run on default. About 95% of our thoughts are believed to be subconscious. And so I think of those as the programs that are running behind the scenes where what we're thinking is what we're seeing basically on the computer screen, and all these programs are running in the background that make all of those things work.
You can tell I know a lot about computers. So when we're working on changing our thoughts, it can be really difficult for our brain. It's hard for our brain to change to new thoughts sometimes.
I mean, sometimes we can just choose to believe something differently, and it really clicks, and we can change instantly. But sometimes with some of those really old programs that we've been thinking since our childhood, it's a little harder to change those. And so some of the programs may be negative things that we think about ourselves, or just qualities that we feel like are facts about ourselves that we don't really question anymore.
We just find more and more evidence to prove them. So if I have a belief that I'm not good at making new friends, then when I go to a place where there are more people that I don't know, I probably will act a little bit awkward, stick to myself, not want to talk to people, and not only find evidence that supports that I'm not good at making new friends, I'll actually create more of that evidence by the actions that I take by not talking to people. So what we're going to talk about today is a strategy to start being conscious of things that may go against our strong beliefs and to start compiling some evidence in the contrary.
And I heard this term, The Evidence File, from another podcast, Danielle Savory, and she was talking about putting, actually making a file, like in your file folders, and writing down things on a 3x5 card that were for her. She was talking about things that are good about yourself, compliments you've received, things that you're proud of, that you did well, successes that you had, and writing them each down, putting them all physically into this evidence file so that you could at times pick it up, take those out and read through them and remind your brain that there have been some positive things that have happened in your life and that people do in fact like you and you can succeed at things. Because remember, the natural state of the brain is to look for what is negative.
In fact, we feel very uncomfortable with being very happy, you know, just tolerating that sense of fulfillment and happiness and success. It actually feels quite uncomfortable for most of us. We have to build up our tolerance to thinking of ourselves in this new positive way.
I've started doing this and for me, it's less convenient to have a three by five card handy and put it into a file folder. So I just have a page of my planner that I've devoted to my evidence file of those positive things or times that I've been successful. So when I've worked with a client that says I've changed their life, I wrote down Katrina Ubell said that I've changed her life.
If you're in the Life Coach School group, you know who that is. She's kind of a big deal. She's a doctor.
She's someone that I worked with. She said I've changed her life. At yoga, someone said I had a beautiful flow.
My dad said that I've always been a teacher and as soon as I learn something, I want to teach it. Another client said I'm saving her life. One of my friends said, you are a great mom and I see it and know it.
Don't let anyone or anything try and tell your brain anything different. My neighbor once said that my vibe is like sitting by the ocean, so I love that. Just reading over those, like I'm smiling, I'm feeling a little energized.
These are actually things that people have said and having it in one place like that where I can just read through, then my brain can literally go from a state of, you know, kind of thinking I'm worthless and I'm not doing things right to having some hope and remembering why I love this work. So I have this list of positive things. And then I heard on another podcast about keeping a list of your taxes, the taxes you've paid.
And those are basically the negative things that have happened, times that are hard, struggles that you've had, things that you wouldn't call successes, maybe failures or things you can learn from. But not trying to look at it in that way of like, what can I learn from this? But really just recognizing this was a really hard time for me, and I really felt emotional about this, and I've paid my taxes in this way.
I always talk about how life is 50-50. So we're not coming out of it pain free. We're not coming out of it without a little bit of struggle or difficulty or hard times.
And so by writing those down, it reminds me that I've been through that, and so those positive things are also going to be coming because I've been paying my taxes. I had someone sign up to work with me and then just change his mind at the last minute. I had a course that I waited a little too long to sign up for, and the morning that I was like, okay, I'm signing up, I found out it was full.
I had someone not respond to a message that I sent, and I made that mean a whole bunch of things. And again, I'm not trying to self-coach myself here. I'm not trying to sugarcoat them or find the silver lining or say that was really good that that happened.
I'm just putting them all out there, listing them, because I know that for each of those times, I can just plan on something good happening to me because I've paid my tax. And for me, it just kind of feels good to write them down sometimes to be like, look, this sucked. I didn't like it.
And it was hard. And just validating that, you know, there are some negative things in my life. And that's part of being a human.
There's one more type of evidence file that I would suggest. If you are having chronic pain or disease, if you're struggling right now with something that you're working on, healing and understanding, then what I usually tell people to do is to be a detective against your pain. We are all very good at thinking of physical reasons why we feel the way we do in our body.
So I might think, oh, my knees are hurting because I was running up and down the stairs a lot yesterday, or my stomach is hurting. What did I eat recently? Or I woke up with this kink in my neck.
I must have slept on it wrong. So we are all very good at being detectives who notice pain and notice what could be going on physically that would cause it. And of course, we notice pain.
It gets our attention. But what I would suggest here is that you make a case against those things that you've been thinking cause your pain. So what I mean is if you say that it hurts when I sit for 30 minutes, then really be perceptive to what's going on throughout your day.
And maybe there's a time that you have sat for more than 30 minutes and not had pain. Like you're watching a really good movie that you're interested in, and you notice it's been 45 minutes since you last had pain or an hour. Maybe you notice that as you're making the bed, the kink in your neck doesn't hurt.
Most people, when I talk to them, and I really get them to think about if there's ever been a time that they expected to have the pain but they didn't, they can think of at least one time that it's happened. Maybe it's like first thing in the morning, you roll over and realize you don't have any pain. And then as soon as you have that thought and that realization, you roll back and, oh, the pain is there.
But we're very quick to notice the pain, not as adept at noticing when we don't have pain. So it's going to be a challenge to think that way. But, you know, maybe if it hurts to walk up the staircase, you might notice that the first two steps don't hurt.
It's not until the sixth step. Just be really, really interested and curious about when you don't feel pain. I think about, like, hunger.
Sometimes I can have a physical sensation of hunger, but then I get either, you know, very nervous about something or I'm having a good time doing something, my mind is distracted, and I'm not noticing the physical hunger. And I think the same can be happening with pain. And the purpose of building all this evidence against your pain is basically rewiring your brain to not think of things so structurally, to not automatically assume that the pain is because of a structural change in the body.
Because we know from MRI evidence that people who have structural changes don't necessarily have pain, even bulging discs or rotator cuff tears or misalignment of your spine. Most of us do have something physical that if we looked with an MRI, we could see some structural changes, but it doesn't mean that that's what's causing our pain. So I want you to clue in to those times, being very selective and writing them down and starting to make this case against your pain.
Another thing to think about is what is going on for you emotionally or psychologically at the time when you're getting pain. So using pain as that red flag or warning signal to check in and then instead of automatically thinking, oh, it was probably because I was squatting down six times in a row to pick things up that my knee is hurting, but maybe the stress of moving to a new place and the timeline that we have and, you know, all of these other psychological factors could be what's going on. This is a quote by John Sarno.
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, a recurrent source of irritation, anything in the psychological realm. For that sends a message to the brain that they're no longer deceived by the pain. When that message reaches the depths of the mind, the subconscious, the pain ceases.
And modern neuroscience does back this up. When we feel pain and we respond with fear and we have anxiety and lots of stress about it, then it reinforces that neuroplastic pain that's created by the brain and felt in the body. But if we can continually react with not focusing on the pain as much, not having fear around the pain, not strengthening all of those neural networks that are associated with pain, up to 95% of the pain in chronic pain is because of this neuroplastic pain.
Alan Gordon, the Director of the Pain Psychology Center in LA, says, the majority of chronic pain is not caused by physical problems in the body, but by learned neural pathways in the brain. So when we're not reinforcing these neural pathways by thinking of all the physical causes that could be contributing to our pain, then we are rewiring our brain. When we can react with calmness and knowing that this is just something emotional that we're feeling in our body, because our reservoir of those emotions that we try to repress and the stress that we've been carrying around for so long is getting too high and we need to do something to get ourselves back in balance, then pain doesn't become such a threatening, scary, vast of unknown that continues to keep us in fear and creating more pain.
So think about your evidence file. Do you want to start creating an evidence file of those positive things that have happened to you, nice things that people have said, successes that you've had? Do you want to have a list of the taxes that you've paid, like I do, or do you want to also have a list like a detective making a case against your pain, the times that you didn't have pain when you might have expected to and the times that when you did feel pain and thought of a psychological cause, if the pain changed for you at all or lessened.
Rewiring our brains does take some effort. It takes some energy. It takes some focus.
It takes a shift in your mindset, but it is absolutely possible, and it is totally worth it. So start gathering your evidence. Start making an evidence file so you can rewire those old programs from your brain.
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.