Unstoppable Body and Mind

Episode # 127- Unlearning Anxiety with Lucas

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

 

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

 

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

 

Listen for more, and be sure and get on my "Unlearn Your Anxiety and Depression" Book Club list if you want more help in this area for free!

https://body-and-mind-lifecoach.myflodesk.com/bookclub

 

You can check out Lucas' music here:

Hannah/Lucas Pop Music - Idylmind  https://linktr.ee/idylmind

 

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

 

General info: lucasfackler.com

 

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

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

 

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

 

Website https://bodyandmindlifecoach.com

 

Here's a free 6 week link to Curable: 

http://www.curable.com/betsyjensen

Transcript- Automatically Generated:

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

Episode #126- Healing Years of Pain & Symptoms with Kristina, Stacey and Callie

In this episode, I interview 3 women with amazing healing stories.  We all met as Moderators for the "Tell Me About Your Pain" Facebook group created by Alan Gordon.

 

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

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

 

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

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

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

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

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

 

Here's a free 6 week link to Curable: 

http://www.curable.com/betsyjensen

 

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

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

 

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

 

Website https://bodyandmindlifecoach.com

Episode #125- The 6 F’s- Reactions that Increase Pain

This Episode is what Dr Schubiner calls "The Six F's" in his book "Unlearn Your Pain"

 

These are natural reactions to pain, but they also cause the brain to amplify the pain or symptoms.

 

Here are the 6 F's, listen for more info:

 

"Fear of the pain or other symptom: We fear the sensation of it as it can be so severe and unpleasant; we worry about whether it will go away and when or when it will return; we spend a lot of time wishing it will go away

 

Focus on the pain or other symptom: We pay a lot of attention to it; we monitor it; we focus on how it feels and if it is changing or getting worse

 

Frustration with it: We get upset, annoyed and angry at the pain or other symptom; we become resentful that doctors haven’t fixed it or don’t understand it; we become sad for what we have lost

 

Fighting it: We work hard to overcome it; we try to push through it; and we get exhausted in the fight, especially when we feel we are losing the battle

 

Trying to figure it out: We spend a lot of time thinking about it; we search for answers online, in doctor’s offices and with alternative care practices

 

Trying to fix it: We spend a lot of time and money on treatments that haven’t worked; we try anything and everything that might work; we get desperate for a cure; we get depressed when one doesn’t materialize."

 

The way you react to pain can cause your brain to produce more of it or decrease it, so reacting differently on purpose will help you feel better.  

 

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

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

 

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

 

Website https://bodyandmindlifecoach.com

Transcript- Automatically Generated:

This is Betsy Jensen, and you are listening to Unstoppable Body and Mind, Episode 125, The Six Fs, Reactions That Increase Pain. In this podcast, we learned to upgrade our brain and understand the power of our thoughts, to heal and to create the results we want in our life. Become the person in control of your healing and make peace with your life.
Become unstoppable body and mind. Hello, my loves. You may know that I did a book club for Dr. Schubiner's book, Unlearn Your Pain.
All of the videos for the replays are actually on YouTube. You can go to my YouTube channel, Body and Mind Life Coach. And I really love doing these book clubs because I learn so much and I get to really study this information so I can present it to you guys.
And Dr. Schubiner's Unlearn Your Pain is chock full of good information. He's been a researcher in this field for so long and has a great way of distilling down the concepts into simpler ways to understand what's going on with pain and especially with chronic pain and chronic symptoms. As you probably know by now, in most cases, chronic pain and disease doesn't actually show you that there is something structural going on or how much tissue damage there is.
When you have chronic symptoms, it's often the case that you have neuroplastic pain. Your brain can produce pain even when there's no injury or long after an injury has healed, which is usually three to six months at the most. So one of the concepts that's really important to learn when doing this work is that the way that you respond to the pain actually makes a difference on whether the brain keeps producing the pain or not.
Basically, it's like a volume knob. When you react in certain ways, the brain turns up the volume or amplifies your symptoms. The six Fs are normal reactions to pain.
So if you have these reactions, don't beat yourself up. They're very normal. It's understandable.
But you also want to know what these six Fs are and recognize them in yourself because you could be inadvertently causing your pain to become higher and higher. And there are more effective ways of handling your pain, reacting to pain that actually retrain the brain and rewire the brain to produce pain less and less. So pain is not just about what kind of damage there is going on in our body, but it really has a lot more to do with the ways that we're reacting to the pain.
So I'm going to go through the six Fs that Dr. Schubiner lists as these natural reactions that increase your pain or other symptoms. The first one and the biggest one is fear. Any type of fear-based response means you're in a survival state.
You've activated the nervous system. And when the nervous system is dysregulated, any kinds of symptoms can happen in the body, ranging from numbness to muscle soreness, to fatigue, brain fog, dizziness, tinnitus. Basically, the brain uses these neural circuits when there is danger, and the brain can activate these neural circuits even when there is no structural danger, but the nervous system is dysregulated.
It's basically misinformation from the brain. When you have pain and react with fear, it activates the pain-fear-pain cycle, which I talk about in episode 69. So fear of the pain is normal.
It's unpleasant, it doesn't feel good, and we start to worry that something more may be going on. We may think about when it's gonna go away or when it might return. There are many people that don't even enjoy the time that they have without symptoms because they are fearing when the symptoms may come back.
And of course, being in that fear-based state, it's more likely that your symptoms will come back. So notice if you're responding with a lot of fear because this will increase your pain. F number two is focusing on the pain.
This is something our brains naturally do. We might focus, pay attention to it, try to find patterns, think about it a lot, notice if it's getting worse. Our brain loves to create stories to explain things and to understand them.
And so our brain may be on the lookout for pain or any other kind of symptoms as a way of trying to understand what's going on. But this focusing on it can actually increase our symptoms. Many times I've heard of people Googling their symptoms, reading all about them, maybe even keeping a pain diary, and they've actually shown in research that people who do keep a pain diary and keep track of when their pain is worse, they actually do have pain that lasts longer than people who are not as focused on it and aren't tracking it.
F number three is frustration. This is so common, especially I see this with people who like to be good, like to do well at things. I work with a lot of physicians, and so a lot of them have been used to being able to solve problems and understand things.
And a lot of people can have an understanding of what's going on. And then when they have pain, get really frustrated. They might make it mean that they're not doing a good job or this won't work for them.
They may be annoyed or angry or upset at the pain that it's back. They could be frustrated that the doctors haven't fixed it or the doctors don't understand what's going on. They may be frustrated about things they're not able to do anymore or things that they've lost by having the pain.
So again, this is such a normal reaction to have, but it also causes the brain to produce more symptoms. If you're frustrated with your pain, try and be so compassionate with yourself. F number four is fighting it.
Some of the personality traits of chronic pain include being a perfectionist, working hard, a strong sense of duty. And in our society, we're really taught that the harder we work at something, the better our results will be. So sometimes people fight the pain.
They want to overcome it or push through it. And when we're in this urgent perfectionistic state, that's the nervous system state of flight. And when we're in flight, we could do all of the right techniques to heal, but because we're still in this dysregulated state, our brain keeps producing the symptoms.
For many people, it's more a matter of slowing down and doing less, rather than trying to fight hard and do more and work through it. When we're fighting the symptom, it's like telling your brain, this is important, this is dangerous. We've got to be on high alert about this.
So it's understandable that our symptoms could increase. F number five is trying to fix it. This obsession with figuring something out and fixing it is also part of the flight nervous system state.
It's this activation, you can't rest, you need to keep reading things, listening to things. The problem when you're in this nervous system state is that even when people do give you the right information, you might doubt it, you might not believe it. I've talked to several people who have actually done a consult with Dr. Sarno or Dr. Schubiner or Dr. Strax and gotten information that, yes, your pain is neuroplastic, and yet they keep trying to figure it out.
And basically this nervous system state is like if you could just get the right information and really believe it, then you'll feel better. And so they're constantly searching for this information and keeping themselves in this high activated state. Oftentimes, I hear people say, if I could just figure out what it was from my childhood or if I could just learn the right technique, then I'll be able to figure it out.
But constantly seeking for more information and trying to figure it out and trying to overanalyze everything that's going on, it's like running on a hamster wheel. You're not getting anywhere, and eventually you're gonna get tired. You're burning yourself out.
Again, this is a case where sometimes people need to take a break from all of the figuring out that they're doing. And instead of listening to more podcasts and doing more reading and getting on forums and discussing it, it might be better to just read some other kind of book, read a fiction novel or a romance book. It's pretty counterintuitive, but if you notice you're in that state of trying to figure it out, that could be what is keeping your pain around.
And the last F is trying to fix it. You might have been looking all over for a solution, trying all kinds of treatments that haven't worked, getting desperate for a cure, and even getting depressed if the fixing isn't working. You might even start to think, I've tried so many things, nothing is working, so chances are nothing will.
But when we're coming from that urgent fixing energy, as I talked about before, you could be doing all the right things, but still being so much in the fear states, your brain keeps producing the symptom. So notice how you generally respond to pain. Notice if it's one or more of the six Fs.
And if it is, again, these are natural reactions, so you don't have to beat yourself up about them. The best thing is to start by just noticing and observing and maybe even labeling it. Oh, here I am going into fix-it mode.
Here I am trying to figure it out. This time the pain is really frustrating. Having understanding and vocabulary for it is part of what gets us out of that pain-fear cycle.
The more we can become observers and notice rather than reacting. The main thing, pain reprocessing therapy or PRT teaches is to respond in different ways that don't increase the fear but increase the feelings of safety. I like to think of the nervous system states.
So instead of responding with fight, flight, freeze, you're noticing what's going on and then getting to that rest and repair state as much as possible. That's the state of safety. It's gonna be okay.
Trust the process. This is temporary. And it's not to say that this is easy.
I'm making it sound easy that when you have pain, you're gonna respond with calmness and indifference and not caring. But the more you practice, the easier these types of responses will be. Sometimes it's really hard to believe that you are actually safe and that there's not a problem.
So going through a book like Unlearn Your Pain can really give you a lot of opportunities to examine what's going on, looking at your past, looking at your personality traits, and give you a lot of insight for that proof for your own brain that this is neuroplastic. When you have that belief, it's a lot easier to not react with the six Fs. Other things that people can find helpful could be distraction or going into the body, like with somatic tracking.
Each time you respond in a different way that's calmer and with these messages of safety, then your brain can form new neural pathways, and it learns to produce the pain less and less. It can be like a toddler that's throwing a tantrum, and when you reward it, you give the toddler some candy, then they learn. But when you could just be calm or ignore the tantrum, then the child learns not to continue to do it.
It's not effective. But this does happen over time. Dr. Schubiner says this process is a lot like training a puppy, and the more you can be compassionate and patient, it will actually go a lot quicker than if you're frustrated and impatient and expect that it should just be easy and happen immediately.
If you want more information about reactions to pain that actually increase your symptoms, check out episode 69, The Pain-Fear-Pain Cycle. The way that you react to your pain does make a difference, and that's one of the main principles and keys to this work. And if you want extra support on your healing journey, be sure and check out my membership program, my monthly membership with group calls where you will have a community of supportive people going through the same process, having the same kinds of questions and struggles with tons of information and support about how to navigate this in the most effective way.
Okay, guys, thanks for listening, and have a great week. Bye. Thank you so much for listening.
I hope you learned a little bit about your brain today that helps you in your life like it helped me. Please be sure and subscribe and leave a review. And of course, be sure and share this podcast with someone you know that wants an Unstoppable Body and Mind.

 

Episode # 124- 10 Myths About Pain

In this episode I put together the 10 biggest myths I've seen around pain (especially chronic pain).

 

Lots of new pain research is coming out, so if you think you know about pain (like I did as a Physical Therapist), there may be some new findings that surprise you.

 

Here are the 10 biggest myths about pain, and be sure to listen for more explanation on each of them:

 

1-pain equals tissue damage

2-If I have pain or symptoms after exercise or food, it means that exercise or food is what caused my pain.

3-The longer I’ve had pain means the longer it will take to heal

4-I will have to re-live traumatic experiences in order to heal from them

5-If I don’t have significant childhood trauma then I shouldn’t have chronic pain

6-If my pain is mind body, I have to have 100% belief before I can heal

7-I need to be perfect at healing

8-If I have neuroplastic pain it means that I’m weak

9-If I have been doing the work and still have pain it means there are repressed emotions I haven’t yet found

10- The goal is to be totally regulated and pain free

 

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

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

 

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

 

Website https://bodyandmindlifecoach.com

 

 

Episode # 123- Unlearning Anxiety

Anxiety is a symptom that goes hand in hand with chronic pain and disease.

In this episode I talk about what anxiety is, how it affects the body, why it's so common, and how to unlearn it!

I give an example from my own life, and some techniques you can use to teach your brain to produce anxiety less and less.

If you are looking to support your growth in a loving, fun and nurturing community, check out Alignment Oasis and the specials I have going on now:

https://www.bodyandmindlifecoach.com/alignment-oasis

 

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

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

 

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

 

Website https://bodyandmindlifecoach.com

Transcript-Automatically Generated:

This is Betsy Jensen, and you are listening to Unstoppable Body and Mind, Episode 123, Unlearning Anxiety. In this podcast, we learn to upgrade our brain and understand the power of our thoughts, to heal and to create the results we want in our life. Become the person in control of your healing and make peace with your life.
Become unstoppable body and mind. Hello, my loves. I really wanted to talk about anxiety today because it is a very common symptom for people who have chronic pain or disease.
In fact, it's kind of like the chicken or the egg, which came first. Many people who have a tendency towards more anxious thoughts, they're more likely to develop this neuroplastic chronic pain. Alan Gordon said in his book The Way Out that the fear of his symptoms becoming chronic is actually what caused his symptoms to become chronic.
And once you have pain or symptoms that don't go away quickly, it's common to develop a health anxiety about symptoms in your body. So I think of anxiety as just another version of one of the neuroplastic symptoms your brain can produce. So first, just a definition of anxiety.
It's intense, excessive and persistent worry, and fear about everyday situations. So anxiety could be normal if you have a stressful situation, like public speaking, but it becomes a problem when anxiety feelings become excessive or interfere with your daily life. You might identify with some of these symptoms of productivity anxiety.
This is what I really associated with before. So feeling like you're not doing enough, feeling guilty or ashamed when you take breaks or rest, feeling like you're always behind and you can never catch up, obsessively planning, checking emails, messages or to-do lists, feeling irritable or easily frustrated if things don't go according to plan, or feeling so overwhelmed that you procrastinate and avoid tasks. And you could feel on the edge, irritated, and like your mind is always racing.
This can affect your sleep, and you could even have night anxiety where you can't stop worrying about the next day. You have intrusive thoughts that come up at night and a racing mind. You replay the day and keep thinking about what happened.
You're tossing and turning in bed, and you're worried about not getting enough sleep, which causes you to get less sleep. And even though you're feeling physically exhausted, you can't sleep. With anxiety, you could have memory issues and trouble focusing.
You notice that you worry a lot and overthink. You have a lack of patience and need constant reassurance, and you could even have panic attacks. Anxiety is this activated state of the nervous system.
So it's like fight or flight. It's more in the flight. Like you're running from a tiger.
You're running to try to constantly find problems and fix them and solve them so that you'll feel safe. And this can be depleting to your body if you're in this flight state of anxiety for too long. It takes its toll on your body.
You could have a racing heart, shortness of breath, tightness in your chest, numbness, dizziness, or spinning vision, headaches, muscle tension and body aches, shaking, excessive sweating even when you're cold. You could feel a lump in your throat, again, because of this muscle tension, preparing you to run for a tiger, but there's no tiger chasing you. And during fight or flight, your digestive system turns off because digestion isn't as important as finding safety.
So this can lead to stomach issues and stomach pain. For people who have health anxiety or a lot of focus on the symptoms of their body, they may feel these symptoms of anxiety and focus on them and how uncomfortable they are and worry what is wrong, which actually leads the brain to produce more anxiety because this danger signal is heightened. Eventually, you might start to avoid activities that might cause you anxiety, and so you're getting less interaction going out and pleasure in your life, which also tends to produce more pain and anxiety.
A study from Pennsylvania State University even found that negative moods and anxiety affect your immune system and the production of inflammation. When we're used to living in this anxious, high alert state, it actually might feel uncomfortable to start feeling good. So we might have anxiety when things go well.
If you could imagine sleeping in the jungle, you kind of want to be on high alert. You don't want to let your guard down. You want to see what possibly could happen.
You don't want to relax and let go. It's like waiting for the other shoe to drop, this high alert, constant anxiety state. Renee Brown talks about this as rehearsing tragedy.
So even though there may not be something to necessarily worry about, we start feeling good and safe, and that actually promotes more feelings of anxiety and fear. Dr. Joe Dispenza says, You can eat all the right foods and do all the right things. But if you're living in anxiety and fear, you're viewing the world from the worst case scenario because that's what you do in survival.
And there's no energy for growth and repair. The living in chronic anxiety is living in these survival states, and it causes these physical effects in the body, and you're not getting to that calm, rest and repair state. And if you do, that could even be a source of anxiety because you're not used to feeling that good feeling without worrying and fear.
But the good news about all of this is that that habit of the brain of going into anxious thoughts is just like these neuroplastic habits of chronic pain. And it can be unlearned, it can be treated the same way, and we can actually rewire our brain to produce less and less anxiety. The first way to do this is to realize that anxiety is false information.
It's a false danger signal. It's a misinterpretation of the brain of thinking something safe is actually dangerous. So we want to see it just like other forms of neuroplastic symptoms that when we are getting this very real symptom in our body, these feelings in our body, that it's not an actual threat, it's just this habit of the brain of finding danger where there isn't really any.
This can be hard though, because again, there's these physical symptoms. You're producing adrenaline and cortisol to activate you, to get you motivated to do something, to solve something, to fix something, to run away from that tiger, to feel safe. So the feelings of anxiety are really prompting you to do something and take action at a physiological level.
So we need to actually respond to them differently in order to train the brain to produce them less. Just like when we have a pain signal, we want to respond with more calmness, with messages of safety. And when we react differently to it, the brain doesn't continue amplifying that anxiety response.
One way to think about anxiety is that our brain really dislikes the unknown. Having something that we don't know what's going to happen is distressing to our brain. Anxiety prompts us to do something to solve that unknown, to eliminate that feeling of the unknown.
But what we want to do is actually start to tolerate that feeling of the unknown and not react to it. And as we know with neuroplasticity, when we have a different response, it trains our brain to produce that anxiety less and less. So things like mindfulness to the present situation and positive feelings like gratitude can actually help rewire those pathways of anxiety.
So I think of resolving anxiety or any of these other physical symptoms in two main ways. There's the top down and the bottom up approach. So the top down is changing your thinking.
And sometimes you're able to reframe things. You're able to remind yourself, oh, I don't need to worry about this. You're able to know, oh, this is just the unknown that my brain doesn't like, and that's all that I'm feeling.
But other times, trying to rationalize, trying to send messages of safety cognitively through your brain and your thoughts is not quite cutting it. And your body still has this response, and then that affects actually what you believe and think. So there's the bottom up approaches, which are more somatic, meaning using your body.
So I want to give you an example of what happened with me last week. That's actually why I thought about recording this podcast, and I recorded it last week, but it didn't work, had to re-record it. And so here's an example of what happened.
I was sleeping and woke up in the morning, actually about 3 a.m. with anxiety, and I could feel just this uncomfortable feeling in my body and heart racing, and I started thinking about what was going on. And for me, the unknown was, I had a week coming up where my sister was out of town and my family was in charge of helping my dad, and there were some things that I still wanted to get done that week, and I was worried about schedules and how we'd work it all out and how I'd make it work.
So my brain was in this state of, there's something new going on this week that's out of the ordinary, out of the routine, something we haven't dealt with exactly before. How are we gonna figure out? How are we gonna solve it?
And there was this like racing mind and then just a lot of body symptoms that were uncomfortable. So the first thing that I did was I labeled it. I identified, okay, this is anxiety, and it's because my brain has an unknown.
And then what I did was actually somatic tracking, just like you would do somatic tracking with a pain signal describing how it feels in your body and the shape and the color. I did that with anxiety. So I said to myself, this is anxiety.
It feels like my heart is racing. It feels like it's hard for me to breathe. My chest feels tight.
My stomach was really tight and hurting. That's one of my big cues for me that I am having some stress since most of my issues were GI issues to begin with. I feel this energy to try to go do something, even though I'm tired and I want to sleep.
And I just tuned in to how my body was feeling and described it. It kind of felt like a lot of fast moving energy, like a buzzing, tingling and activated feeling. And it was mainly throughout my chest and I was also feeling it in my head.
And to me, it was like kind of warm and the color red. So one way to start creating some new neural pathways is not to go down the rabbit hole of, how do I solve this problem and how do I fix it? And what should we do this week in order to feel better?
It was just stopping, labeling that this is what's going on and actually tuning in to how my body felt. Because I want to send the message to the brain that this is not something I need to worry about right now. This is a danger signal that is a false danger signal.
I was actually in no danger at that moment laying in my bed, thinking of something that was going to happen later in the week. And so I wanted to reaffirm to my brain that at this present moment, right now, in time, you're feeling sensations. And all of those thoughts around them are not what we need to focus on right now.
And they're not even really dangerous. Once I was able to notice how my body was feeling with anxiety, I started working on some somatic approaches, some bottom-up approaches of changing my body state so that I would feel better. I chose breathing and I actually tried a few different breathing methods to try to put that roadblock up and distract my mind and form these new neural pathways to start to focus on the breath rather than the thoughts in my mind.
For me, since I was having those stomach tightening issues, I really found that the breathing method that helps that for me the most is diaphragmatic breathing or it's called belly breathing. So basically, you imagine that you're inflating your stomach, you're breathing all the way down into your belly as you inhale and really let that stomach expand and stretch out as you bring the air down there. And then as you exhale, your stomach comes in.
So I was trying to breathe through my stomach. And I know from experience that with some of my clients, that's not even always possible. They can't even quite take a full breath.
So there are many other breathing methods you could try. I did some box breathing, which is breathing in for four, holding for four, holding for four, exhaling for four, and holding for four. I did a few rounds of that.
I tried the physiological sigh, which is breathing fully in, and then you breathe in a little bit more, and then a long exhale. Anything with a long exhale helps engage that parasympathetic calm state, the rest and repair state, and decreases that fire flight or sympathetic response. So there are many different breathing techniques.
You can experiment with them, find different ones to try and see what works for you, but just know that breathing is one of the ways that you can change your body state, and then that can change what's going on with your mind and your thoughts. So for me, just focusing on the breathing for a little while and even just trying some different methods of breathing helped calm me down quite a bit. When my thoughts would return to the planning or the fear, I just noticed I was going into the thoughts and into the story, and I tuned back into my body.
And for me, since it was the middle of the night and I was in bed, I didn't really want to get up and do any of the physical moving techniques that can calm anxiety. And so I laid in bed and found a meditation, a guided meditation that I listened to, and I was able to focus in on that rather than the thoughts that were swirling around. And I was actually able to get back to sleep by listening to that soothing context of this guided meditation.
What I was able to do is show to my brain that I'm able to shift my focus. I sometimes think of a spotlight where the brain is spotlighting these certain thoughts, these certain feelings, and I'm moving the spotlight to something else that's more calm and more neutral and not even related to this false danger signal. Sometimes when I have anxiety during the day, I may move my body, go on a walk, or use some of my other senses to calm my nervous system.
So you can use your vision with a peripheral vision technique where you focus on something and then expand your vision so that you're seeing more of the periphery. I've used tapping sometimes, which uses the acupressure points and helps calm the body through pressure. There's things like humming or going and getting a glass of cold water that can help.
There's a variety of different techniques that you can try for calming anxiety through your body, but all of them involve doing something that's distracting or focusing on something else rather than engaging those thoughts and going into those thought loops of trying to solve this quote unquote dangerous problem. And sometimes for me and my clients, I found that once the body gets a little bit of soothing, then we are able to better access some of those top down approaches. Here are a few other ways to think about anxiety that have helped me.
One thing I've heard is that anxiety and excitement use the same physiological response in the body. So if you think of excitement, it's actually very similar to those feelings of anxiety, maybe like a tightness in your stomach or in your chest or racing heart. That can happen with excitement too.
Imagine you're about to go on a roller coaster and you're feeling that excitement of it. And so I've heard that anxiety is excitement without the breath. So sometimes when I'm feeling those feelings of anxiety, I can remind myself how closely they resemble those feelings of excitement, but without the breath so I can remember to breathe.
Another way I've thought about this habit of anxiety is that our brain actually likes solving problems. It gets a little bit of dopamine when we have a problem and we fix it in our mind. And so we may have inadvertently trained our brain to look for more problems to fix so that we get this little bit of dopamine.
So this is the habit that is going on, looking for problems, trying to find things to solve. And so it's like the brain is kind of throwing a stick for us to go chase. And every time we chase it, it reinforces this pattern of when there's a stick thrown, we have to go chase it.
So I try to think when some of these anxious thoughts come up, I don't have to chase every stick the brain is throwing. Or if the brain is opening a door with these thoughts of anxiety, the brain can keep opening these doors, but I don't have to walk through them. So the point here is that we're not trying to eliminate anxiety.
We're not fighting it once it comes up because we're in this habit. Anxious thoughts will come up. That's just not even a problem.
It's just how we react to them that will change how our brain keeps producing them or not. Then you can go to maybe some mantras or affirmations that resonate for you when you have anxiety. So I've gathered a few that I want to read to you, and you can see if some of these, even just one of them, resonates with you that you could use during times of anxiety.
It's okay that I'm feeling this way. It's uncomfortable, but it's safe. This moment is temporary.
I'm in control. I can do hard things. I'm enough.
My anxiety is lying to me. I'm allowing this sensation in my body to be present. I'm not in any danger.
This is just my mind playing tricks on me. I can get through whatever life throws at me. I have the power to control my thoughts and feelings.
I'm stronger than this emotion. I'm in full control of my body. I'm confident.
I'm not afraid to make mistakes. I'm good at solving the problems in the moment. So if or when it comes up, I will solve it easily, and I don't have to think about all of the what-ifs right now.
I know that I'm able to ask for and receive help if I need it. I've survived this before, and I can survive it again. This is the feeling of the unknown, and I can get used to it.
My feelings are allowed to be here. I'm in control. When you can lean into those feelings of anxiety or the unknown and tolerate them more and more without reacting, then, as I've said over and over, your brain will produce them less.
This is the way to unlearn anxiety. And then one last thought is that the opposite of anxiety is not calm, it's trust. So often you'll hear people say, just calm down and calm your mind, and if that seems really hard, going to calm may be too far of a leap for you, and you don't even have to get to this calm state, but you could maybe lean into trust.
For me, starting to trust is this feeling of, if this thing comes up, I'll figure out how to handle it. I have a very powerful mind that can solve problems, but I don't need to solve all of these problems right now. I can trust that if it does come up, I'll know what to do or I'll ask for help if I need it.
So I hope this helps if you identify with having any kind of anxiety. First of all, knowing that it is very common. It's a survival state that your brain has learned and gotten very good at going into.
It may even be a state you've lived in for a long time, and that is still okay. You will be able to rewire it. You'll be able to teach your brain not to go into it as often as you allow it and understand it and react in these other ways rather than getting into all of the thoughts and problem solving.
And lastly, what I'll say is, I've found it very common that people start with symptoms of chronic pain, and when those symptoms go down, they actually have an increase in anxiety. So maybe they haven't really thought of themselves as a super anxious person, or maybe that was something they dealt with in the past, and then the pain has preoccupied their mind. But it can be one of those symptom imperatives.
It's kind of like whack-a-mole. You hit down that pain, and then something else pops up, a new symptom. And often one of those symptoms can be anxiety.
So it's very normal. It's also able to be reversed, and just takes patience and compassion with yourself and consistency. It's like training a puppy.
You don't have to eliminate that behavior of the brain, but you just respond to it differently over time, and the brain learns to produce it less. If you are struggling with anxiety or other physical symptoms, and you're ready to take it to the next level, apply all of this work, have a community of people around you that are going through something similar so you don't feel alone, then please check out my group coaching membership, Alignment Academy. I have the link in my bio, and you can check out more about how you can support yourself through this time of change, rewiring your brain, and healing in a compassionate way and in a way that will get you the results faster than if you were doing it on your own.
Okay, thanks guys. Have a good 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 #122- Pain When Things Are Good

Pain when things are good is a phenomenon I see when people are unlearning pain and learning to regulate their nervous systems.

 

When you're used to being in high alert, then letting your guard down and feeling safe can actually seem dangerous.

 

We can expand our ability to stay in the "rest and repair state" longer, but some people have learned resting is "lazy" or having fun is "selfish".

 

Watch for this in yourself- if your symptoms come in a time of more calm or peace, don't worry!  

 

This is actually a sign your nervous system is EXPANDING. 

 

The rest and repair state can become more normal for you than survival mode, but the nervous system has to go through growth to get there.

 

If you are looking to support your growth in a loving, fun and nurturing community, check out Alignment Oasis and the specials I have going on now:

https://www.bodyandmindlifecoach.com/alignment-oasis

 

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

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

 

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

 

Website https://bodyandmindlifecoach.com

 

Transcript- Automatically Generated:

This is Betsy Jensen and you are listening to Unstoppable Body and Mind, Episode 122, Pain When Things Are Good. In this podcast, we learn to upgrade our brain and understand the power of our thoughts, to heal and to create the results we want in our life. Become the person in control of your healing and make peace with your life.
Become unstoppable body and mind. Hello, my loves. I wanted to record this episode because this is a phenomenon that I see a lot.
As people are healing, making new neural pathways, rewiring, regulating their nervous system, it can actually feel unsafe in a way to just let your guard down and feel good. So if you think about the nervous system states, the rest and repair state, the parasympathetic calm state, that state is when you trust and feel okay about things, and things are going to work out, and you're not on high alert. But if you're used to being on high alert, being in the calm state can feel dangerous.
And that's what I want to talk about. I actually experienced that over Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving was actually my birthday this year.
And so it was a really, really fun weekend, basically. The Wednesday, the night before, I had my birthday dance. Actually, during the day, some friends helped me get this couch that I really wanted, and they moved it into my house, and it's in awesome condition, and it's so soft, and I just felt so grateful.
I got spoiled all day Wednesday. And then Thursday was Thanksgiving, my actual birthday, and we had a great get together with my family, and some really good times, and people were celebrating me there. And then that night, I started getting some anxious thoughts, some familiar stomach symptoms, discomfort.
And it would be easy to say like, oh, I just had Thanksgiving dinner, that's why my stomach is upset. But what really tipped me off were the kind of thoughts that I was having. I started kind of having these ruminating thoughts.
I was actually thinking of that couch that I had gotten the day before. And there was another one on the Facebook Marketplace that I thought might have been slightly better. So I was regretting my decision about that couch.
I had recently helped purchase a car for my daughter, like a used car, and then it had mechanical problems right off the bat within the first week. And so I was, you know, questioning my judgment. And the biggest tip off though for me was I was having these thoughts like, what if mind-body stuff isn't true?
What if what I'm teaching, you know, doesn't actually work and doesn't help people? And that's when I was like, okay, brain, what's going on? I think what had happened was I'd seen someone in my family like rubbing their shoulder and talking about getting an injection.
And it was from across the room. I wasn't part of the conversation. But, you know, as a physical therapist before this, a lot of times they would ask me about my opinion.
And I just, I think everything basically was going so well in my life, feeling really loved, appreciated, adored, taken care of. And I started just worrying about things that didn't even really make sense. So even though, you know, I've had so much success myself in my life, it's changed my life, to have this mind-body perspective and to understand things and change things in my life so I could feel better.
And I know it's happened for so many of my clients and, you know, hundreds and thousands of other people that also use these methods that other people have worked with. Like, of course, this mind-body stuff works. And so I think my high alert system was just looking for something to worry about.
Kind of like I haven't been worrying about something for a while, and it doesn't really feel safe to just feel this good for this long without starting to worry about things. Can you guys relate? Does this sound familiar?
Part of the reason this happens is this is just how the nervous system changes. Over time, there's an expand and then contract. So when I was feeling good for a few days, it was like an expansion, and then the nervous system kicks in.
Hey, are we still safe? Let's worry about this. And then I can expand and contract.
So you don't always have to be improving. In fact, this is just the sign that your nervous system is growing. The rewiring is working.
Subconsciously, my nervous system is still always going to be scanning possible dangers. So for me, when I was having those GI symptoms, I quickly related it to the kinds of thoughts and worries that were coming up. I could really see that there were some thoughts that were out of the ordinary for me to think.
And I also did take a peppermint pill because generally that does help soothe my stomach and indigestion and gassiness and all that. So for you guys who are wondering, when you do have actual physical symptoms caused by your brain and nervous system, you can choose how to react, but your brain doesn't have to do all the work. I think as long as you're acknowledging, yes, I can see that this has a mind-body component.
Oh, I'm stressed in this way. This makes sense. Then you can still use things that feel appropriate to help with some physical soothing.
So you might take a bath or use a heating pad or take some medicine. Those things are okay. And you can still rewire your brain to realize this is a stress response.
And when I just soothe myself or mind myself, it's okay. And work on stretching out those times and feeling better more and more of the time and trusting that it's okay to feel in this calm, safe state more and more of the time. Your nervous system will expand.
The rest and repair state can become more of your normal state, and you'll have less body symptoms and pain. Here are some of my clients in Alignment Academy talking about just this.
I feel like my basal stress level is lower than it has been in five years since all the things started. And so that's huge.
I feel like I've been just winning all over the place lately with regards to my pain and my body and all of that. I just keep like cluing in to when I'm not having pain, which is more often than not the case, I'm starting to really try to think like, am I feeling safe? You know, really trying to clue into that feeling of safety.
And I just I keep noticing it over and over again. So maybe that's part of the reason or the reason why my pain has just been so much less.
I have something amazing that happened. I had a high school reunion event. I have all these diet restrictions and trouble eating things.
And I went there and had so much fun and was able to eat all the stuff. I didn't have pain. Like normally the thing that I always fear is like the heartburn, the pain, like, you know, severe pain in my stomach.
And I didn't have like any of that.
Amazing. If you are looking for a community of support for similar people focused on wellness, please look into Alignment Academy. And actually, depending on when you listen to this, at the first of next year, Alignment Academy is getting a makeover.
My new program will have all the same content, but it's called Alignment Oasis, an online wellness retreat for body and mind. Instead of having a feel like learning an academy and more work, I know that everyone already has a lot of work. It might not sound relaxing to come to a program and have a lot of homework and things to do, but for Alignment Oasis, we'll have just the same material to cover with an emphasis on fun.
So instead of a workbook, there'll be a playbook. It'll have games and activities and a lot of guidance. If you are not sure where you are on this journey, what activities to start with and where to start, that's best for you.
Maybe you've tried it on your own, and you see how having some support and community could help. Or maybe you've tried other groups and didn't get the results you wanted. Chances are you've tried a lot of things to help with your healing, and I understand it can be frustrating to think of another option.
And what if it doesn't work? In Alignment Oasis, I'll help you feel more relaxed when you come to coaching calls. You'll learn so many tools and ideas for soothing your nervous system and calming.
It'll be like going to a beach resort that you can access from your own home. When learning is combined with play, the brain learns so much quicker. In fact, scientists have discovered it takes about 400 repetitions to create new synapses in the brain, unless it's done in play, in which case it only takes 10 to 20 repetitions.
When you're unlearning pain and learning to regulate your nervous system, play helps by not just telling your nervous system that you're safe, but actually showing it. So check out the link in my show notes. I have some special introductory pricing going on for Alignment Oasis.
Hope to see you there. Thanks guys. Have a good week.
Bye. Thank you so much for listening. I hope you learned a little bit about your brain today that helps you in your life like it helped me.
Please be sure and subscribe and leave a review. And of course, be sure and share this podcast with someone you know that wants an unstoppable body and mind.

 

Episode #121- Tree Meditation for Calming Anxiety

Anxiety may be a familiar state for you - whether you have chronic pain or not.

 

Anxiety is the nervous system state of "Flight".  We are often not running from a tiger, but we are running to do more, scan for danger, and fix problems.

 

Anxiety is uncomfortable in the body, and prompts action- doing or thinking constantly to feel better.

 

The solution to unlearning anxiety and teaching the brain not to go into anxious habits is to go INTO the sensation instead of trying to avoid it.

 

This tree meditation will help you explore the sensations of anxiety neutrally, so you can help them pass and train your brain to produce them less.

 

For a limited time, book a 55 min Clarity Session with me for just $39.

Bring a struggle in your life (chronic pain, relationships, business, emotions, health), and leave with understanding to improve it.

New clients only, one per person

https://calendly.com/thebetsyjensen/39-clarity-session

 

For weekly calls and community support integrating this work into your life, check out Alignment Academy:

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

 

Please subscribe and share this podcast with someone who might love it!

 

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

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

 

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

 

Website https://bodyandmindlifecoach.com

 

*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 #120 -Play is Medicine

Did you know play and fun may be the missing piece to your healing?

 

Our society tells us we must work hard to get what we want, and we may discredit things that seem too easy.

 

But there are many scientific benefits of play.

 

We can learn faster (It takes only 10-40 repetitions in play, vs 400 repetitions).

 

Play, happiness or joy release endorphins (pain relieving qualities).

 

Play improves brain function, flexible thinking, improves memory and stimulates growth of the cerebral cortex.

 

Play is restorative- and it is the opposite of the fear-based survival states.

 

But if you’re not used to playing and find it hard, you can grow your capacity to be in the “rest and repair state”.

 

Listen in for more explanations of play as medicine, and how you can start to add more play to your life!

 

For a limited time, book a 55 min Clarity Session with me for just $39.

Bring a struggle in your life (chronic pain, relationships, business, emotions, health), and leave with understanding to improve it.

New clients only, one per person

https://calendly.com/thebetsyjensen/39-clarity-session

 

For weekly calls and community support integrating this work into your life, check out Alignment Academy:

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

 

Please subscribe and share this podcast with someone who might love it!

 

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

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

 

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

 

Website https://bodyandmindlifecoach.com

 

*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 120, Play is Medicine. In this podcast, we learn to upgrade our brain and understand the power of our thoughts, to heal and to create the results we want in our life. Become the person in control of your healing and make peace with your life.
Become unstoppable body and mind. Hello, my loves. Today, I'm talking about one of my favorite concepts, and that is that play is medicine.
Play is important. Play and fun are part of healing. We tend to have this idea that we need to work hard, that healing is going to be hard, that things aren't very valuable if we don't work hard to get them, and we tend to even discount if things are easy.
Like, it's not going to work if you're just having fun, resting, feeling good. You have to work hard to get the results you want. But the opposite is actually true with healing, especially healing chronic pain and disease.
When your nervous system is already dysregulated and in a high alert state, working hard and pushing can keep you dysregulated. You just need to have the balance of work and play for healing. I'm going to tell you a few of the scientific reasons that play is important.
When we learn in play, we actually learn much more quickly. Dr. Karen Purvis says that scientists have discovered it takes approximately 400 repetitions to create a new synapse in the brain. Unless it's done in play, in which case it only takes 10 to 20.
So 400 repetitions, doing it the hard work way, versus 10 to 20 repetitions when you're doing it in a fun, playful way. Your brain learns better that way, and it actually changes the chemicals in your body. This is a quote from Curable.
Joy, play, relaxation, spontaneity, acceptance of the present moment, and gratitude all have the ability to release pain-inhibiting chemicals in the body. In play, we actually release endorphins, so we feel less pain. Play also improves brain function and encourages flexible thinking.
Play improves memory. It sparks creativity and imagination. It keeps us feeling young and energetic.
It stimulates growth of the cerebral cortex, and play is restorative. So instead of just trying to tell your nervous system over and over that you're safe, in play, you're actually showing your nervous system that you're safe. In nervous system terms, you could think of play in the parasympathetic calm state.
When you're feeling safe, when you're feeling connected and inspired, when your basic needs are met, when you're not focusing on fear and worries and unmet needs, you can be in the state of things are going to be okay. Life is working out for me. And even being in that state momentarily, it's the rest and repair state, has healthy benefits for your body.
We need to not just decrease our anxiety, but increase the amount of time that we're in this parasympathetic calm state, feeling content, satisfied, happy, joyful, grateful, and we can do that through play. If you're not used to resting or playing, it can seem boring. It can seem pointless, like you should be doing something.
If you're used to being in that high alert state of flight, where you're perfectionistic, and you don't feel like you can rest, and you want to always be doing things, it can be actually uncomfortable at first to lean into resting and playing. I've had people where they actually start to get pain signals because they're resting and their nervous system is not used to it and wants to keep going back to that high alert state to give them something to worry about. So realize if you haven't been in that safe-feeling, playful state very much lately, that first of all, that's understandable.
Don't be too hard on yourself. If it's not easy to just start having fun, let your guard down and start wanting to play. I have a million screenshots saved on my phone, and this quote is from Adam Grant.
Resting is not a waste of time. It's an investment in well-being. Relaxing is not a sign of laziness.
It's a source of energy. Breaks are not distractions. They're a chance to refocus attention.
Play is not a frivolous activity. It's a path to connection and creativity. I love this because when I look at the description of the parasympathetic calm state, it is the place that you're actually using your prefrontal cortex more than the survival states, you know, where you're using your primitive brain, your amygdala, limbic system.
So in the parasympathetic calm state or when you're playing, you have a better ability to connect, to learn, to be inspired, to be in the present moment, to connect and to be creative. In pain reprocessing therapy, like in the book The Way Out by Alan Gordon, they talk about avoidance activities. Even that name kind of makes it sound bad, like you're not doing it right because you're avoiding.
But especially when your pain is high, you're not going to be able to process all of the emotions or the physical sensations. You're not going to be able to do somatic tracking as easily, which is being neutral about sensations. So especially when your pain is high, you need to distract.
You need to avoid. You need to just go watch a show or lay down or take a break from work and stretch. We're not meant to process all of our feelings and emotions all of the time that won't help us heal.
We have to have these times that we're also feeling good, having fun, thinking pleasant thoughts. Especially if you're in the nervous system state of freeze. That is the overwhelm, shut down.
You're likely to have a lot of negative, sad, depressed emotions like shame and helplessness, hopelessness, overwhelm, despair. And you also have a very low capacity for processing emotions when you're in shame. You're so dysregulated and you're having so many of these negative emotions, it's too much for you to process.
You're not going to process your way out of them. A lot of times you'll hear you have to feel it to heal it, but when you're stuck in freeze, you could just keep feeling it and feeling it and feeling it. And because of the pain fear cycle, your pain is actually getting worse.
So please understand that part of healing is not just working hard, but also leaning into things that feel good. There's a book called Letting Go by Dr. David Hawkins, and he talks about when you're in a very stressful situation, that it's actually good to take some purposeful distractions. So you're not just mindlessly going to the pantry and eating whatever's there, but maybe you do get your favorite chocolate bar and have some pieces of it.
Here's a quote from Letting Go that talks about how we can mindfully push emotions away until we have the capacity to deal with them. When the emotion or we could talk about pain, sensation, is overwhelming, we want to disassemble it and let it go in bits and pieces. He says, It's all right consciously to push away as much of the emotion as we're capable of at the moment.
It's also all right in this circumstance consciously to utilize escape mechanisms, such as going out in a social situation, playing with a dog, watching television, going to the movies, playing music, making love, or whatever one's habit is under the circumstances. So this is how you can reduce the intensity of the feeling or sensation so that you can process it when your brain is more online. One example I noticed where I had resistance in my life to feeling good was when my mom passed away.
And I remember within the first few days, I was also doing some normal things of life, as you do, taking my daughter to school, and I heard a song on the radio that I liked, and I started to dance to it and smile. And then I remembered, no, I can't. I'm in grief.
Almost like it would be not honoring my mom if I felt good when there's this bad situation. And you might see some of that in yourself. Maybe it's because you've had pain so long or because of the things in the world or someone else that you love is sad, and so you don't really feel okay about feeling good in your life or doing things that bring you joy or have fun.
But although it's counterintuitive, although it may not feel natural at first, play and fun and joy and happiness may be the missing piece to your healing. Now, if you're like a lot of adults that I talk to, they don't even know what they like anymore. They don't have really good ideas of things that are fun for them.
Often the people that I coach with chronic pain, the thing that they really used to love, they're not able to do anymore because of their pain and restrictions with activity. So it can be a challenge to start to have ideas of what's even fun for you. This is part of the process.
It's like this playground you get to experiment with and see what you like. It can be intimidating at first. That's normal.
So here are some ideas for play. Laughter, so sharing a joke. Playing with a pet or child.
And I just remember when my kids were young and they would want me to play with them, how draining and exhausting that was for me at that point. I was not in the parasympathetic calm state. Felt like I had a lot of things to do.
So if it seems more taxing to you to play with a child or a dog, choose something that sounds easier from this list. You could remember what you like to do as a child. So maybe you were into art or construction or science kits or more social activities.
You could go outside. Even if you're not able to walk outside, sitting outside, putting your bare feet on the earth, those types of things can feel fun and playful. You could dance or listen to music.
And even if you're not physically able to get up and dance, even closing your eyes and visualizing yourself dancing can be very powerful. And also just prioritizing play, giving yourself some time to be lazy and figure out what comes up for you, what ideas you have. I like to think that there are hundreds of different ways that you can regulate your nervous system, that you can rewire your pain, and that you can process these emotions.
And what we get to do is figure out for us what feels most downstream. I got this concept from Abraham Hicks. They talk about upstream and downstream.
So if you put your canoe in the river and start paddling upstream, you're not going to get very far, and it's going to be really tiring. And it will look like you're working really hard and you'll feel really accomplished because you've done so much, but also you're not going to get as far. And downstream would be you put your canoe in and you get a lot further because you're going with the flow.
It's not as hard for you to make yourself do these things that are supposed to be beneficial for you. So what's upstream or downstream for me is going to be different than for you. Something that's downstream for me is dancing, like partner dancing.
And for other people, that would not be pleasant or relaxing at all. You can really start with thinking of what's the next easiest thing. When I first started this work, I would think, okay, I'll relax by buying a new instrument, taking lessons, and learning a skill.
Like, that's what I was thinking I would do to relax. But this I'm talking about just playing, spending time, doing something that you enjoy without a result or outcome that you're looking for. Sometimes there are just things you have to do, and they're not very fun.
So I do like to ask myself, how could I make this more fun? Or how could this be more playful? So sometimes I might set a timer, or I might turn on some music.
Use your powerful brain to ask it questions like this, and you may be surprised at what answers you come up with. I promise you that going downstream and working with your nervous system and doing more things that are playful and fun and bring joy, this will help your healing faster than working hard and trying to do it perfectly. If you feel like fun might be part of what you're missing in your healing journey, then please look up my coaching and my programs.
I'm offering a $39 clarity call with me. If you want to talk more about your situation and how play may help you in your healing journey. 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 #119- High Alert

One habit that leads to the perpetuation of chronic pain is being in high alert.

 

Do you often go to the worst case scenario?  Do you habitually worry?  When you don't have pain are you thinking about when the pain may return?

These are signs you are living in high alert, and making your pain worse.

 

When the brain is in a high alert, fear based state, then it can percieve normal signals in the body as dangerous and produce pain.

 

High alert can be reinforced by technology, facing uncertainty, or feeling trapped.

 

Listen in for more details about the high alert state and how we can rewire those neural pathways to ones of safety, calm, peace and freedom.

 

For weekly calls and community support integrating this work into your life, check out Alignment Academy:

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

 

Plus click below for my special PRT-based group if you have back or neck pain specifically.

 

This six month group will walk you through PRT concepts, the latest research on back and necks, and even individual coaching sessions for deeper somatic work- all for an amazing low price:

 

https://www.bodyandmindlifecoach.com/happy-back-&-neck-club

Transcript- Automatically Generated:

This is Betsy Jensen, and you are listening to Unstoppable Body and Mind, Episode 119, High Alert. In this podcast, we learn to upgrade our brain and understand the power of our thoughts, to heal and to create the results we want in our life. Become the person in control of your healing and make peace with your life.
Become unstoppable body and mind. Hello, my loves. Today is an episode about this tendency of many people who have chronic pain or disease to be in high alert and how that high alert state affects our body.
Spoiler alert, it does not do helpful things for our body to constantly be in high alert. As you may know, I've been doing a book club for Alan Gordon's book, The Way Out, and he has a chapter all about breaking the habit of being in high alert. And he has a couple of interesting quotes that 55% of Americans say that they are dealing with a lot of stress.
And we know from neuroscience and studying chronic pain that when people are in more of a fear state, if they're on high alert, they're sensing danger, then their brain is less likely to interpret the signals correctly. The brain is more likely to interpret safe signals as dangerous when you're in a fear-based state. So decreasing this habit of being in high alert will decrease your chronic pain.
Now, one area that can cause people a lot of high alert is technology. Our phones are something that we may check several times a day, maybe hundreds of times a day. And we have constant access to emails and social media and news and all of the Google information about medical conditions, all at our fingertips.
So it's very easy to live in a state of high alert, thinking that everything is always dangerous because we're consuming information, teaching our body that things are dangerous, especially if it's like news that is cultivated to get us into a fear-based state. So you can look at how you're using your technology. You do not have to be perfectionistic about it.
And I like to see that there are some benefits of technology. And even things like social media, you could follow people that are posting funny videos of babies and kittens and funny memes, and you could have a very different experience scrolling on social media than someone who is engaging in activating arguments and comments and ingesting a lot of fearful information. They've shown that your cortisol level goes up every time you hear your phone notification or think you hear your phone.
And I've definitely experienced this as I've been a moderator in some of these groups and putting my stuff out there and receiving comments. My brain automatically goes to fight or flight when I see that there's a comment about my post. I'm in this state of anticipation as I open it.
And so far, knock on wood, no one has ever been really mean or said really hurtful or fearful things to me. And my brain is starting to get out of that habit rather than assuming the worst every time I see a notification. But just notice for you, when you're getting notifications or when you're checking your phone, what state your nervous system is in and what emotional state you're in.
Another thing that can put our brain on high alert is when we're facing uncertainty. Our brain does not like things that are unknown, unpredictable, and uncertainty can cause stress to the system. And we can accentuate that by our beliefs.
We can really believe that every decision we make is very important. And often we can get into this nervous system state of flight where we are trying to find problems and trying to solve them. And by doing that repeatedly, our brain starts to think this is very important and will actually start creating problems for us to worry about and then solve.
We know that our brains actually do get a little bit of dopamine when we solve a problem. So this is a way our brain can control getting little bits of dopamine in an uncertain situation, is to think of all the things that could happen and how we would solve that. And it can seem like a productive thing to do, but when we are worrying excessively, when we are overthinking, when we're preoccupied with things, we are in this flight mode of the nervous system.
We are not thinking clearly. We're using our survival brain, and we're actually perceiving the world differently when we're in any of these nervous system states. So if you're in fight or flight, you're more likely to see the world as dangerous and just perceive it that way.
So you may have gotten into the habit of seeing things that could be dangerous and thinking about them and worrying about them, but worry does not help. It really doesn't help anything. It really just makes your nervous system dysregulated, and most of the things we worry about never actually even happen.
And when you're not worrying about things, as much, you may be surprised about how your life unfolds in different ways than you ever would have possibly imagined. If you tend to go to the worst-case scenario, maybe you could spend some time thinking about how you do want the situation to go and what if it does go well. And if there are little things that you can do to calm some of your fears about uncertainty, you could start to develop the belief and find evidence for the belief that things are going to be okay either way.
Usually when there is uncertainty, like a decision we're making, if it is a decision we didn't already easily make, it's because either outcome has some positive and some negative. They're probably about 50-50 on either outcome. So seeing that either way things turn out, you still have tools to support yourself.
You may have the ability to ask for help or problem solve in the moment. You don't have to worry and stress about it now if you have that belief that when the time comes up, you'll be able to use that great analytical mind of yours in the moment to solve the problem. You don't have to do it right now.
That kind of thought has helped me a lot as I've been preparing for podcast interviews, for example. So I used to stay up at night thinking about how I would phrase things, kind of going through the interview in my head, not getting great sleep, feeling more brain fog and confusion in the morning. So instead of doing that, I have just come to this place of understanding that my brain thinks well on the spot.
If I don't plan it, things go better. I'll be inspired to know what I need to say as long as I focus on my nervous system and remaining more calm. Then those things flow naturally, and I don't have to figure everything out ahead of time.
The more you worry and look for things to worry about, the stronger those neural pathways will be, and the easier it is to find things to worry about. But the more you practice seeing safety, that you can do it, that things work out, that you don't have to do things for everyone. Sometimes it's better to let them actually learn and do things for themselves.
Keep looking for examples, like we do with Detective for the Opposite, with pain. Look for examples of there being uncertainty, and you being able to handle it. Maybe thinking of other times that you've worried quite a bit about things that never actually even happened.
Another big way that we stay on high alert is by feeling trapped. Dr. Schubiner said in his experience, and he's been doing this work for decades, he has found that every case of mind-body syndrome or neuroplastic pain has an element of feeling trapped. So maybe you're feeling trapped in your job or in a physical situation in your house.
But I want you to think for yourself. If you have chronic pain or disease, if you have a sense of feeling trapped in some way, feeling trapped will put your nervous system in high alert. Sometimes you may be in situations that you feel trapped by your pain.
I know for me, I struggled with a lot of digestive issues. So there are many times that I felt like I needed to excuse myself from a conversation and go find a bathroom. And usually, actually, that's when I would have the worst type of symptoms is when I would think, you know, there's this amount of time that I need to be here talking to this person before I can leave or there isn't a bathroom nearby.
Any of those feeling trapped without an escape or without a solution would actually make my symptoms so much worse. There may be certain things that you develop that you're able to say to people to get out of a conversation or to set yourself up for success by knowing where the bathrooms are, or you could schedule yourself breaks so you're not rushing from one thing to another and you're giving yourself more time in between. In The Way Out, Alan Gordon uses an example of feeling trapped on a plane when the person next to him was asleep and he wanted to get up to stretch his back but didn't feel like he wanted to wake up that person.
What he did in the future was change his seat for the return flight home so that he was on an aisle, and then he found that he only actually did need to get up once or twice during the flight, but just giving himself that permission and that access to getting up if he needed to, he found he actually didn't even need to get up that often. How does this resonate? Do you see these patterns of being on high alert in your life?
This is contributing to your chronic pain. When you're in high alert, your brain is more likely to misinterpret safe signals of the body as dangerous. So fear and high alert do produce more pain.
Pain reprocessing therapy, PRT, is focused on decreasing these neural pathways of fear, danger, anxiety, worry, high alert, and making new neural pathways, building new connections to the emotions that we do want, safety, calmness, and freedom. So not just decreasing the high alert and anxiety, but increasing the time we're feeling safe and good. And that's what I'm going to talk about next week on the podcast is embracing and leaning into more of the positive feelings.
And that's one of my favorite things to teach about. If you are resonating with this information, if you want to learn more about pain reprocessing, and if you want to do so in a community with support and with coaching, I have some great options. Alignment Academy is my monthly membership where you'll get loads of coaching, group coaching, and written coaching.
Plus, I have a super cool group coming up focused on back and neck pain exclusively called Happy Back and Neck Club. Although PRT does treat all symptoms the same way, I wanted to have a group focused on backs and necks partially because there's so much research out there. It's one of the most commonly studied areas, partially because as a physical therapist, I had a specific interest in this and treated a lot of people with back pain.
And I've even struggled with my own back pain on and off. So I feel like I have a few personal tricks up my sleeve of what I've found helpful, including things like kinesiotape to help support the nervous system and the fascia. Happy Back in Net Club is an amazing low price for individual and group coaching.
So please check that out in the show notes if that's of interest to you. All right, my loves, have a great 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 # 118- Pain is a Danger Signal

New pain science teaches something different than what I learned in Physical Therapy school  20 years ago.

 

Pain is not directly related to the amount of injury present in the body.

 

Pain does not indicate tissue damage, but rather pain is a danger signal.

 

Research into chronic pain shows the brain actually processes it differently once it’s lasted past 3-6 months.

 

There are 44 areas of the brain associated with chronic pain, and the main one is the center of learning and memory.

 

Just as pain can become learned, it can become unlearned - through pain Reprocessing therapy (PRT)

 

Listen for more info and research about how pain is a dangerous signal, and how it can be unlearned by PRT.

 

Plus click below for my special PRT-based group if you have back or neck pain specifically.

 

This six month group will walk you through PRT concepts, the latest research on back and necks, and even individual coaching sessions for deeper somatic work- all for an amazing low price:

 

https://www.bodyandmindlifecoach.com/happy-back-&-neck-club

Transcript-Automatically Generated:

This is Betsy Jensen, and you are listening to Unstoppable Body and Mind, episode 118, Pain is a Danger Signal. In this podcast, we learned to upgrade our brain and understand the power of our thoughts, to heal and to create the results we want in our life. Become the person in control of your healing and make peace with your life.
Become unstoppable body and mind. Hello, my loves. This episode is about a basic concept in pain reprocessing, that pain is a danger signal.
And if you are suffering from chronic back or neck pain, stay till the end and listen, I have something special for you. So basically this idea, this concept, that pain is a danger signal, is something that I recently learned. And I was a physical therapist for 20 years.
I worked with people in pain, a lot of people in chronic pain, but I never knew there was a distinction between the types of pain. When an injury is new and just healing, like if someone sprains their ankle and it's healing, that's different. It's actually processed differently and different parts of the brain light up than when pain becomes chronic, which generally they consider three to six months.
That's the normal healing time. Actually, a bone's normal healing time is six to 12 weeks. So within about three months, even a bone has healed.
So we know our body can heal, it knows how to heal, and we also know from brain scans of people with chronic pain that it's processed differently in the brain. And we also know now that all pain is produced in the brain. So the signals from the body come up to the brain for processing, and the brain determines what is important enough to send pain down to in the body.
So imagine that someone is being chased by a tiger and sprains their ankle. They are not even going to feel the pain of the sprained ankle as they're running from the tiger for their life. But when they are in a safer situation, they will feel that ankle pain so that they stop walking on it and tend to the injury.
So we know that pain is not related to the amount of injury, and actually many studies of pain-free people have now confirmed that. There have been studies of over 3,000 people who do not have back pain, and they find that things like disc bulges and herniations and degeneration and facet impingement, spondylolisthesis, so many different things that they used to say were causing pain are actually found in pain-free people. One study found that 64% of people with no back pain had disc bulges, protrusions, herniations, or disc degenerations.
So the majority of people have these things in their body, they're not causing chronic pain. I even found one study studying healthy, pain-free athletes. Oh, young athletes.
So people performing well without pain, and they're young, 89% of them had a hip labral tear. So usually we're not doing MRIs or imaging on people who do not have pain. But when they have, they start to find that there are normal abnormalities within the body that not everyone gets pain from, and especially chronic pain.
Chronic pain is actually involving many different areas of the brain, 44 different areas. About half of these areas of the brain are involved in increasing pain, and about half are involved in decreasing pain. So chronic pain is much more complicated than acute pain, how it presents in the brain after the neural pathways have been learned.
And one of the main areas associated with chronic pain in the brain, the anterior insula, is associated with learning and memory. So you can think of chronic pain as habits learned by the brain, pain patterns, muscle memory, basically, but through pain learned in the brain. Just like Pavlov's dogs were conditioned to have a response.
I didn't know this, but apparently Pavlov untrained his dogs from that response as well. And you can actually unlearn your pain through the steps of pain reprocessing therapy. When you learn that pain is a danger signal and does not mean that tissue is injured, it's like a smoke alarm that's going off when the toaster is cooking toast rather than when there's an actual fire.
So when the way we react to it can be different, we can help the brain unlearn pain. One thing we now know about chronic pain is the brain will produce more pain when the emotion of fear is involved. There are a few studies showing this.
And the first involved a hot probe and showing people some pictures. There were pleasant pictures and scary pictures. First of all, they noticed when people looked at the scary pictures, they would report greater pain with the hot probe.
And sometimes they would report pain even without the hot probe, but only when they were looking at the scary pictures and not with the pleasant ones. So we can see that the brain can produce pain when it senses danger and there's fear. Another example is a placebo car crash study that they did in Germany.
They made people believe that they were hit by a car, though they really just broke some glass and made it seem that way, but people were never actually hit. But 20% of the people did develop whiplash. And four weeks later, 10% of the people still had whiplash symptoms, even though they were never hit by another car.
And what was interesting about this group is that they were the ones that had the most emotional stress and distress in their lives at the time of this experiment. So basically, their nervous system was already stretched thin, plus something stressful, and their brain produced real symptoms of whiplash and pain in their body. One last very interesting case was a construction worker who jumped down and a nail went all the way through his boot.
He was in severe agony. They had to sedate him in order to cut his boot off. And then to their surprise, they found that he had no injury, not even a scratch.
The nail had perfectly gone between the toes, and there was no tissue damage whatsoever. Up until that point, though, he had very real pain. His brain looked at the situation with the nail through his boot and made the assumption that he would need to get medical attention and sent a lot of pain to that area to prevent him from walking on it and causing more damage.
But all that was really happening is the toes were getting some safe signals from the body of some pressure, but no damage. But the brain interpreted those signals as dangerous and created pain. Neuroplastic pain is when the brain interprets normal signals as dangerous and produces pain.
Usually, what we see happen with chronic pain is one of two things. It happens kind of spontaneously. People wake up with it.
Often, it's during a stressful time in their lives and they develop a new symptom. Or maybe you have had an injury. You were playing basketball and hurt your back, and you might have noticed and linked certain movements with pain.
So long after the tissue has healed, the brain can still create pain through predictive coding, and when the brain believes the area is still injured or needs protecting or guarding, it can still produce tightening and pain in that area with those movements or other random times. Usually what we see with chronic pain is it starts in one area and then ends up spreading to other areas or jumping from one area to another. When we can start to see this as more nervous system and fear-related and normal signals being misinterpreted as dangerous, then we can help the brain to rewire, to form new neural pathways and to unlearn this pain response, basically producing it less and less and less.
This is what pain reprocessing therapy teaches about, basic ways to do that, sending the brain messages of safety, different ways to somatically teach that to the brain and body. But it really starts with an education and this paradigm shift and starting to realize that pain is not reflective of the amount of damage in your body or injury. In the Boulder Back Pain Study, they found that people whose pain decreased the most were the people who changed their belief the most about pain being related to injury.
So that is, when they have a sensation of pain, not necessarily assuming it means that something is damaged or hurt or they've overdone it, learning new strategies to respond to with those sensations. And then by responding in different ways, the brain produces pain less and less until it becomes extinct. They showed in the Boulder Back Pain Study that rewiring chronic pain is possible for people who even have very severe structural changes.
There was one woman who had scoliosis, so her back was shaped like an S, over 73 degrees of scoliosis, and she was able to get out of chronic pain, and she didn't have to even do anything to straighten the spine. She stopped seeing her pain as dangerous. She was able to convince herself and her nervous system and brain on the body level that the sensations from her body are okay and safe, not dangerous, and then the brain produced that pain less and less and less.
If you are interested in learning more about pain reprocessing therapy, and especially if you have back or neck pain, I have an extra special offer for you. Although pain reprocessing therapy works on all the different types of body pains, if it's chronic, shoulder pain, knee pain, ankle pain, I am putting together a group just focused on people who have back and neck pain. First of all, that's very researched.
There's a lot more research on backs and necks because that's much more common in America for chronic pain. And because I've had back pain, some chronic back pain issues myself, I've dealt with a lot of people with back pain as a physical therapist, so I have a lot of the Western medicine knowledge about that. And I also have some special techniques up my sleeve, like kinesiotaping, which I think helps relax the nervous system.
It's like a moving brace for your body. So I have some specific information for people with back and neck pain who want to apply the pain reprocessing approach and get rid of their chronic pain. There will be group calls each week for our small group of just 10 people starting next week.
So I get these ideas and I act on them. So hopefully, you're listening to this podcast in real time, or maybe I'll be running another group like this in the future. It's called Happy Back and Neck Club.
And definitely, this is going to be my best priced offer if you're listening to this and get in on the offer now. Basically, I will be offering six months of group coaching calls involving training, especially months one through three to have some of the basics of pain reprocessing and the research that we know with Baxonex, as well as all of the support with the group calls. There'll be a private Facebook group for our little group.
And you will also get a three-month one-on-one coaching package with me included in this club. So this is 12 weekly sessions. Or if you want to even front load them and do two a week, you can get the amount of support that you're needing at the time that you need it.
You can listen to episode 79 about Kathleen and her chronic back pain recovery. And she was one that I coached for three months of one-on-one sessions. So three months of one-on-one sessions is super powerful, as well as the group coaching and the time that you're going to give yourself for six months to integrate and apply this information as you're rewiring your brain and neural pathways and your nervous system.
The one-on-one sessions are going to be an hour with me on Zoom where we can do somatic work, deep diving into some of your questions. And if you haven't experienced one-on-one coaching, I've been doing a lot of these single clarity sessions for people lately. And even in one session, they're reporting less pain, less anxiety, more joy in their lives.
So imagine what three months of one-on-one coaching could do for you. To get this program going, it is a very special, amazing low price of just $1,500. And if you purchase by Friday the 22nd, I will throw in three extra one-on-one sessions.
So 15 one-on-one sessions with me, $1,500 plus the whole group container. It's an amazing, amazing deal. So please jump on that if it's calling to you.
I'd love to have you in the group. There will be more information in the show notes, so be sure and check that out there. All right, guys.
Have a great 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.
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