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Wednesday May 18, 2022
Wednesday May 18, 2022
Expand- Contract
This is a principle of growth I first learned about from Peter Levine and Trauma Healing.
He talks about how expansion is followed by contraction, and that this is the normal process of growth.
When I found out everyone who had been with me at the Peter Levine retreat had a week of contraction when we came back to real life, I started noticing this principle other places.
With chronic pain this principle can be called “symptom imperative” (Sarno) or “extinction bursts” (Alan Gordon). Basically when you start healing, there can be a flare up or a new symptom that shows up.
The Upper Limit Problem, as described by Gay Hendricks in “The Big Leap” is an example of how we may sabotage ourselves when we reach levels of success that are uncomfortable for us.
There is a way of stretching in Physical therapy, called contract-relax. And yin yoga is a restorative yoga.
There are many examples of expansion and contraction as a normal way of growing, so be compassionate with yourself along this journey when there are natural ups and downs!
Listen here to learn more!
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 95, Expand, Contract. 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. In this episode, I talk about this principle of expand and contract.
I first really started learning about this with the nervous system healing and Peter Levine, he's a somatic practitioner and he uses this small toy ball that as you pull it apart, it expands into a bigger ball. It's called a Hoberman sphere. And so you can Google that if you want to see what that is.
But he talks about nervous system healing, that as you expand, there's naturally a little bit of contraction, and then there's more expansion and a little bit of contraction. So he talks about that a lot. I actually went to a retreat with Peter Levine for a week and the last couple of days were remarkable.
I felt really, really like some deep issues were resolved and healed, and then the next week I went into freeze. My nervous system got overwhelmed, dysregulated, and I was really hard on myself about it. And then one week later, after the retreat had ended, we had a meetup with the group, and everyone talked about how they experienced their week, and they had all experienced this basically contraction after this big expansion that we'd all grown together and connected, and so much had happened.
And then we went back to our lives and responsibilities and things and our minds and the world, and there was this natural contraction. And so it helped me to see that in real life, to know that this expand contract is really very normal. And I started really noticing it in a lot of different places after that.
So with chronic pain healing, when people first start to learn about how to heal and rewire their brain, you could say, more than heal or regulate their nervous system, there's usually some results, some experience that's positive. And then there can be what they call either the symptom imperative, that's what John Sarno would call it originally. Extinction burst is what they call it in the way out by Alan Gordon.
So just know that your body may try, or your brain and your body, your nervous system, there may be some reaction as the normal pain that you're used to or whatever you're changing, the thought process that you're used to having is changed. Something new may come up to take its place. Another example of this is the upper limit problem.
If you've read The Big Leap by Gay Hendricks, he talks about as we're evolving and changing, often we'll kind of reach this upper limit of what we're comfortable with, allowing ourselves to have the new title or the riches. Sometimes we just, or the happiness, it doesn't feel safe to us. It doesn't feel good to us.
We don't accept it. And so we start a fight. We have an accident.
There's something that happens that brings us back down to the amount of suffering and misery that we're used to. So one of the things I talk about in Alignment Academy in my course is actually allowing positive emotion because it sounds like that should be easy for us because it is, it should be easy for us. It should be our natural state, but it's not what we're taught.
It's not how we've conditioned our nervous system. And so it doesn't just give up easily if it feels there might be a threat. In physical therapy, there's a concept called contract relax, where we're working on increasing range of motion.
So we're working on, again, expanding, but what we do is have the patient contract. So if I was trying to stretch the shoulder, for example, I'd have them push up against me and then relax as I took their shoulder back further into the stretch. So that principle, again, reminded me of this concept as well in yoga.
There's a whole form of yoga, yin yoga, that's a restorative yoga. So we're not always meant to just push and do high power vinyasa flows. We're also meant to restore and regenerate and rejuvenate the body through the practice of yin yoga and through even yoga.
Nidra is a sleeping yoga. So although we're not taught about that in our current society, this is ancient wisdom of how to keep our body regulated and healthy. Often in life, you'll see seasons and times of things of work and rest.
And even with my son, my 18 year old, he's been working on working out. And so he's been trying to build his muscles and he gives himself rest days because that's actually better for building your muscles. And he alternates muscle groups.
So he's not working out the same muscles day after day. He's resting certain ones and working out others. He's actually bulking and cutting.
So with his food, he was very, very restrictive at first. And then it was weird to me because I've never dieted this way, but he started bulking. So he was eating whatever he wanted in these massive amounts.
And then he started cutting again. And the whole time he's getting more and more muscular. So I don't understand any of that.
But again, it just goes to show that we're not meant to steadily push and grow and expand. There's kind of these growth and rest periods. In fact, I just saw a video of a ball being released onto a surface that was just flat and then rolled back to the other side versus a ball being released on a surface that had a slight curve up and down.
And then as it got to the other side and went back, it had more momentum because as it goes up the hill and down, it kind of gathers this speed. So the contrast is part of life for us. If you think of us as energy, energy is moving.
There's a vibration to it. So we're not meant to stay still. We're not meant to just constantly expand.
We are meant to expand and contract. Think of a child that is going through a growth spurt or maybe a teenager, they need a lot of rest. And if you look up this concept called cognitive dissonance, so cognitive dissonance is when you are learning something new that contrasts, that is different than what you have previously believed.
And your brain is holding two opposing beliefs. And that is actually psychologically, physiologically and emotionally draining for your brain. So there's actual like physical tiredness from learning these new things, from developing, from growing, you know, your thought capacity, your emotional capacity and your spiritual capacity.
So all I'm saying here is that all of this rewiring the brain does take energy and to be super kind and gentle with yourself. If you do notice yourself needing some rest or needing more rest or really breaking away from some of those beliefs that you've been conditioned to believe that you need to be working all the time, because as we look around and see many, many, many examples around us, that it makes sense that we have times that we grow and times that we rest and times that we restore. If you are looking for a way to apply this in your life and you wanna coach, I'm so excited to announce my new monthly membership program.
For a low monthly price, you will get a weekly group coaching call with me, and there will be recordings available of the calls if you wanna listen back on your own time and hear other people being coached. There'll be a private podcast for that, as well as a private Facebook group where you can write in about your celebrations or receive written coaching. You'll have access to all of the modules that I use in my group coaching program, Alignment Academy, that you can watch on your own time, and an app like Netflix that you can have to access different meditations and lessons and workbooks.
So no matter what your learning style, I've got you covered. Here's a testimonial from one of my clients that's been in my group coaching program for about three months. Hi, Betsy.
I just wanted to say thank you from the bottom of my heart for everything I've learned through your program. I get overwhelmed with emotion and gratitude when I think of the skills you've given me and the quality of life I've been able to return to. I was hopeless and discouraged before starting your program, and now everything has changed for me.
I'm doing the things I love again and stepping into the genuine, authentic me. Just wanted to let you know how grateful I am for the work you're doing. It's truly life-changing.
These kind of results are common. Another one from my group was having pain with running when she began the program. And this week finished a triathlon that she wanted to do without pain.
If this is calling to you, check the show notes for more information about the program and how to sign up. All right, you 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. 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.
Wednesday May 04, 2022
Wednesday May 04, 2022
This episode is all about what I did (and thought) when I had a sudden incidence of severe back pain a few days ago.
I talk about kinesiotape, how to handle a new pain, and all of the ways I could see it was neuroplastic despite feeling real.
Right after my back pain ended, I got sick. So I talk to you about the judgement of myself I had with that more than the back pain.
All in all, I am glad to be on the other side of it! But I learned a lot!
If you ever wonder what to do with a new pain or symptom, this episode is for you!
Link to video about taping my back: https://www.instagram.com/tv/CcvgnqjALZb/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link
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
Saturday Apr 30, 2022
Saturday Apr 30, 2022
I wanted to share this episode about the techniques I have found helpful in getting rid of my urinary incontinence.
As well, you can see the process of my journey- being curious, open to information, taking what worked for me, and being open to my own inspiration for new ideas.
For me, there were a combination of physical and mental techniques I used to get this result.
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 93, How I Cured My Incontinence. 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 is going to be an episode that I've been wanting to do for a while, but haven't felt totally comfortable with, but I think it's very, very important. I do want to let you know in advance that I will be talking about female anatomy and female incontinence, which is urinary incontinence.
And if this is not calling to you, it might not be an episode that interests you. But incontinence does affect the majority of women. There can be different kinds.
Urge incontinence is when you have the urge to go suddenly and you don't make it to the bathroom in time. And there's also stress incontinence, which is with like jumping or sneezing or running with impact. So it's actually very, very common, and there's not much done to treat it.
And what's typically suggested for incontinence is to strengthen the pelvic floor doing Kegels, so contracting the pelvic floor muscles. But one of the problems is that some of the incontinence can actually be caused from the muscles being chronically too tight, too much tone. So I had both types of incontinence, and sometimes in my life, it was worse than others, which actually makes sense now that I know about the emotional component to these physical manifestations.
And there were times in my life, I think even before I had kids, I have had four kids, but I think even before that, I had some incontinence with like sneezing or laughing or like falling. And maybe even some urgent continence, too. So I think it is a very common thing with women and something that's not very commonly talked about.
It took me a while, like I said, to even record this podcast. But really, it's not a shameful thing to talk about. It's definitely something that I can help you understand, at least what has helped for me.
And my approach has been kind of a journey of things I was led to and taken little pieces from here and there and what worked for me. But what I teach my clients and I want to offer to you is that you will have your own best answers and trust in that. So if you want to start on this journey of working on this, you can start to open your mind to information on the subject and what sounds good for you to try and how you are drawn to maybe a certain aspect of something and what seems to be working for you.
Just have this attitude of curiosity that you are going to be able to learn from yourself what works best. But I do want to give you what worked for me as an idea, and you can kind of see the process that I went through. So I would say during the time of my divorce, there was a lot going on.
Emotionally, I was very unstable, and I remember experiencing a lot of incontinence at that time. The metaphysical explanation of incontinence, if you read Louise Hay, is emotional overflow, years of controlling emotions. So I do think that that played a part, and at that time, I was also really learning a lot about mind-body.
And so I read in Dr. Sarno's book, The Divided Mind, that genitourinary issues are TMS, or mind-body. So I started getting curious. As I always suggest with my clients, when you start to learn about this approach, just start by getting curious.
Just observe what's already there. So I noticed that I would get a very strong urge to urinate certain times. And it was usually during transitions, when I would be saying goodbye to someone and about to get in my car, when I would be pulling up to the house and about to go inside.
So that was interesting to me. I also noticed I'd had a belief that caffeine made that urgency worse, and that that wasn't always true. And so I started getting curious about that.
So I could see how there were some subconscious thoughts or emotions that seemed to trigger this urge for me to use the restroom when my bladder wasn't even really full. Because I also noticed if the urge went away, then often I wouldn't have to use the restroom for a while. So sometimes I'd have an urge like a wave, and then it would go away, and I wouldn't even really need to urinate for another half hour or hour or something.
So I started getting really, really curious and noticing what was going on. I was drawn to a course from a former PT about pelvic health, and so I learned from her that concept of contracting and actually fully relaxing those muscles. So I learned to combine the contraction and relaxation of the pelvic floor with my breath.
So for example, breathing in, clenching the pelvic floor muscles, and then breathing out, not only relaxing the pelvic floor, but almost like pushing out. And then I did another course by Kim Anami, who taught about the Yoni egg. So she calls it a jade egg, but there can be, mine is a rose quartz egg.
You can get it in different kinds of gemstones. And using the egg in your vagina gives feedback to that area, so you can establish a brain-body connection. And as well, you're able to have some feedback, some resistance, rather than a Kegel, where you're just contracting the muscles with nothing in there to actually squeeze.
So what I did, and this is what worked the best for me, and I think I was inspired to do it. No one directly taught it to me. But being a multitasker at heart, I really like this incorporation, and I feel like it has really helped with the incontinence.
Now, of course, there is the emotional aspect, which I am going to talk a little bit more about later, but just from the physical side, I think that there, you know, maybe there wasn't necessarily a weakness or a overtightness, but I think there was definitely just a lack of connection and a lack of awareness. And so what I do with my practice is I use the egg, it's inserted into the vagina, and then if you imagine the vagina like a tube, like a cylinder, you can divide it into six different sections. There's the right half and the left half.
And that is actually even a good place to start, contracting just the right half of the vagina, just the left half. And I had never heard of trying that before. And so when I did that, it was crazy, because the right side of my pelvic floor didn't contract at all.
Like I had to start with kind of imagining a contraction and then getting stronger and stronger with that. So it was really eye-opening to me that when I'd been doing a Kegel, activating the whole pelvic floor, I missed that awareness that the whole right side was really not even getting activated. So then to further divide into six sections, you would think of the lower third, the middle third, and the top third of the vagina.
So what I did is started combining it with breathing and taking turns contracting each area of the pelvic floor from the vagina. So as I would breathe in, I would contract the right lower section. And then as I would breathe out, I would relax the whole pelvic floor.
And then as I would breathe in, I would contract the left lower section. And then as I breathe out, relax. And then the middle on the right, middle on the left, top right, top left, going through each of the six sections, contracting each little muscle group, connecting it with the breath.
So the reason I think it works for me is because in meditating, the point is to clear the mind, to not have the brain chatter, the stream of conscious thought. And when I'm able to really just connect with the breath and the body and the contraction and the focus on my internal being, then I am not having that resistance and that brain chatter and the monkey mind. And when I do start to notice myself, just like with meditation, because I do it as my meditative practice, as I do start to notice my mind wandering, that's when I try to let that go and return to the breath and the body.
So I would say for me, this kind of evolved, and I wasn't necessarily trying to work on the incontinence, but that was something that I just noticed changed after I'd been meditating. Now, maybe that has to do with the emotional component as well, and so I will tell you about that, because the truth is that I would say my chronic condition of having incontinence is cured, but there are still times that I don't make it to the bathroom in time. I can't believe I just said that on my podcast, but okay, we're all adults here.
It only happens when there's that emotional overflow. It's that cue to me that there's something I'm neglecting within myself. Usually, all it takes is for me to sit down, write down, just start a free flow thought dump and download all my thoughts and just let myself write about whatever I'm feeling emotional about, feel the emotions, and then it's gone.
So it's possible that it's the meditating that has helped calm my nervous system, and that that's why I don't have the incontinence issues as much. So anyway, for whatever reason, all of the things for me, that has been the magic combination. And I'm not saying that it will be for you, but I want you to start to get some ideas from my ideas and from my process of tuning into my body and listening for the next right step.
And I wasn't feeling a lot of compulsion to do it. I was curious. I was playful.
It was like a science experiment. And ultimately, it became just part of my emotional barometer. So I know what's going on subconsciously.
Or you can think about it like in a nervous system state. I know that there's something activated that I need to soothe or pay attention to or just allow. So although this was very personal and vulnerable, it's also just very normal and natural.
And so I wanted to share this with you. The more we understand our bodies and do not fear them, then when these things do come up, you can address them the proper way and they go away. So whether this particular issue is something that you struggle with or not, you can use the same principle of getting very curious, starting to notice what emotionally is going on for you, and starting to trust that you will come across the right resources, that you will have the right inspirations.
You can trust what your body is telling you about what feels like the next best action to take, or maybe it's just to rest and to learn more about your nervous system and calming it overall. And speaking of that, if you are interested in finding out about more tools to understand and calm your nervous system, then be sure and check in the show notes, where I'll have a link where you can receive all four of these modules. They are the modules I created about the nervous system for my group coaching program.
It is some of my favorite work that I've done. And although it is part of my core curriculum, it's something that I wanted to share, because I think it is so valuable. It's about an hour and 20 minutes total for the four modules.
So plan on investing a little bit of time in yourself, if you're drawn to this, to learn more about how to regulate and calm your nervous system more, so that you can be in more of that aligned, parasympathetic calm state, where your inner healer knows what your body needs, where your cells can repair. It's called the rest and digest or the rest and repair state. It's the calm state of your body when you're not activated to fight or flight or freeze or fawn.
You are able to connect to people, be playful. You're able to best use your prefrontal cortex. You're able to learn and receive your creative, your inspired.
That is the parasympathetic calm state. And that is what I teach you about and how to get into more and more and more so that you can reverse your chronic pain, your chronic disease, these chronic conditions that are showing you when you're not in alignment with your true self. And if you're curious about this type of coaching and if it might help you, you can also look in the show notes for a link to a free consult with me.
All right, you guys, have a great day. 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.
Wednesday Mar 23, 2022
Wednesday Mar 23, 2022
Here are the FIT Criteria- From Dr Howard Schubiner's book "Unlearn Your Pain".
The FIT Criteria are general ways that neuroplastic pain behaves, that are different than if pain was structural.
You do not have to answer yes to all of these, with just one there is a good chance your pain can be rewired with this method.
When you start proving to yourself that your pain is neuroplastic, you can retrain your brain and nervous system to produce less pain.
Here are Dr Howard Schubiner's FIT Criteria:
FUNCTIONAL: (Symptoms do not fit with known structural conditions)
-Symptoms began without a physical precipitation
-Symptoms persist after an injury has healed (3-6 mo)
-Symptoms are in a distribution pattern that is symmetric
-Symptoms occur on one whole side of the body or occur on half of the face, head, or torso
-Symptoms spread over time to different areas of the body
-Symptoms radiate to the opposite side of the body or down a whole leg or arm
-Symptoms that occur in many different body parts at the same time
-Symptoms that have a quality of tingling, electric, burning, numb, hot or cold
INCONSISTENT: (Symptoms vary in ways that the structural condition would not)
-Symptom shift from one location in the body to another
-Symptoms are more or less depending on the time of day. Or they occur first thing in the morning or in the middle of the night
-Symptoms occur after, but not during, an activity or exercise
-Symptoms occur when one thinks about them or when someone asks about it
-Symptoms occur when stresses increased or one thinks about stressful situations
-Symptoms are minimal or nonexistent when engaged and joyful or distracting activities, such as when on vacation
-Symptoms are minimal or nonexistent after some kind of therapy, such as massage, chiropractic, Reiki, acupuncture, an herbal or vitamin supplement
TRIGGERED: (Symptoms are brought on by stimuli that would not actually cause the symptom physically, but they activate the brain to generate the symptom)
-Symptoms are triggered by things that are not related to the actual symptom, such as foods, smells, sounds, light, computer screens, menses, changes in the weather
-Symptoms are triggered by the anticipation of stress, such as prior to school, work, a doctors visit, a medical test, a visit to a relative, or a social gathering; or during those activities
-Symptoms that are triggered by simply imagining engaging in the triggering activity such as bending over, turning the neck, sitting or standing
-Symptoms that are triggered by light touch or innocuous stimuli, such as the wind or cold
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 92, The Fit Criteria, How to Rule in Neuroplastic 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. As you may know, I have been a long time Dr. Howard Schubiner fan.
I have recently been studying his book, Unlearn Your Pain for Book Club, and getting even deeper into what he teaches. And he really talks a lot about how to rule in, how to diagnose, how to understand and really see that your chronic pain is neuroplastic. Just as when you go to the doctor to try to rule in what is going on structurally or physiologically, these are ways of understanding how chronic pain behaves that's different than how it would behave if you had something structural, like cancer or a broken bone or infection.
But the thing about chronic pain is that it's tricky. It feels exactly the same as structural pain because all pain is created in the brain. Dr. Schubiner has been studying mind-body syndrome or neuroplastic pain for decades.
And he has classified the ways of ruling in that your pain can be treated in this way through the FIT criteria. FIT stands for functional, inconsistent and triggered. So I'm going to go over these with you so you can understand and start to look at the characteristics of your pain, becoming the detective for the opposite, like you're building a case that your pain is in fact mind-body, that it is neuroplastic.
It is the kind of pain that can be rewired so that you can get out of chronic pain. Functional means the behavior of the pain is not explainable by known structural conditions. So if your pain began without any physical cause, in other words, there was no injury that you really knew about.
You were doing normal daily activities when the pain occurred. If your pain persists after the normal amount of healing time for injuries, which is conservatively three to six months, if your pain has lasted longer than that period of time, then it's safe to assume that you have some neuroplastic pain, that the acute injury itself has healed. Even broken bones heal within six to 12 weeks.
So knowing that if your pain persists longer than that time, it is because of these neural pathways and habits that your brain has formed that are now causing the pain. Symptoms that are in a symmetric pattern. So maybe beginning on one shoulder and then moving to the other.
If anything is in a mirror image, it is highly suspect that you have neuroplastic pain. If your symptoms occur on the whole side of the body, the whole right side, or half of the face, half of the head, half of the torso, this is a good sign that nothing structural is going on to cause that because you don't have structures, nerves or muscles that just run on one side of the body. Symptoms that spread over time to different parts of the body, symptoms that radiate down the opposite side of the body or a whole arm or leg are not likely from a structural cause.
Symptoms that occur in many different body parts at the same time and symptoms that have the quality of tingling, electric, burning, numb, hot or cold, these are commonly mind body syndrome or neuroplastic pain, especially when there's no evidence of actual nerve damage. On the other hand, Dr. Schubiner does tell stories of people with compressed nerves that also have these symptoms that turned out to be mind body through this approach as they were able to extinguish and get rid of their chronic pain. But especially if there's no evidence of nerve damage and you're having some of those symptoms, hot or cold, electric, buzzing, tingling, it doesn't necessarily mean that a nerve is involved.
Your brain creates those same exact sensations in your body. The next section is I, inconsistent. These symptoms vary in a way that a structural condition would not.
So symptoms that shift from one location in the body to another, either within hours, days or weeks at a time. Symptoms that are more or less intense depending on the time of day or occur first thing in the morning or in the middle of the night. This is due to subconscious brain activity.
Dr. Schubiner is pretty clear that when you're just sleeping and turning, that is not enough to cause significant damage and pain. If you do have some pain, it should go away within a couple of days if there was an actual injury. But he is very doubtful that sleeping causes injuries, that that is usually neuroplastic pain when you wake up with it.
Symptoms that occur after, but not during activity or exercise. So think about this one. If it feels pretty good while you're doing it and hurts afterwards, that is not a sign of a structural injury.
If you were actually causing tissue damage, you would hurt at the time that you're damaging it and you would feel better with rest. Symptoms that occur when one thinks about them or when someone asks about them. This can be very common.
When you start being the observer of your pain, you'll notice sometimes when people ask about it, you talk about it. Or I know for me, when I would even think of drinking coffee, my stomach would grumble. So I knew that my brain had an association with that being a substance that would cause stomach pain for me.
If your symptoms occur with increased stress, or if they occur when thinking about a stressful situation. And if your symptoms are minimal to non-existent when you're engaged in something joyful or distracting, like if you're on vacation or not thinking about the symptoms, this is a very important one. Pain is in the consciousness.
So it's not that you are just good at managing your pain when you're doing something joyful and not feeling it. When you're not feeling it, it's actually not there. So look for those times that maybe sitting is something that bothers you, but when you were sitting watching a movie that you really enjoyed, you didn't even notice the pain for a little bit of time.
Start noticing if distraction ever helps your pain. And then if your symptoms are minimal or non-existent after some kind of therapy, such as massage, chiropractic, reiki, acupuncture, or an herbal or vitamin supplement, those are actually signs that this is neuroplastic. Doing these activities can calm the nervous system, can calm the danger signal and decrease your pain.
Now, none of these mean that the opposite is necessarily true. So if you haven't had a lot of relief from those things, it doesn't mean that your pain is not neuroplastic. But this is more if you have dramatic results where you go from a very severe pain to minimal to nothing at all with a treatment like that, that can be a sign that your brain and nervous system are calming down and producing less pain.
The last section is triggered. This means that the symptoms are brought on by stimuli that would normally not cause physical symptoms, but they activate the brain to generate the symptom. So symptoms that are triggered by things not related to the actual symptoms, such as foods, that even goes for IBS.
He's very clear that foods do not cause pain, smells, sounds, light, computer screens, menses, the hormonal fluctuations with women with their period, changes in the weather. And he says that weather has been shown in research to not increase pain despite what most people think, or if your pain is caused by specific movements. Now, if you want to argue some of these facts, you can probably make a justifiable case by what you've always believed, lots of evidence, what you've been told.
Even some research will corroborate that pain can be worse with some of these things, but it doesn't mean that the pain is worse because of something structural. It can be something that is generated by your brain and that means it's mind-body. That means that it's neuroplastic and can be rewired because the structural nature of these things in themselves should not need to cause chronic pain.
And so sometimes just opening the door, just a crack, so you can start to shine some light in and think maybe it's possible that my period is not affecting my pain as much as I think. And you start to look for examples of the opposite and start to be your own best evidence of how the pain may actually change and that stressful times are worse than others and thinking about it might bring it on. Or sometimes you have the pain when you're not having your period.
So just really starting to be objective and then you usually can find things. All of my clients have always been able to find something that starts to prove to them that their pain is mind, body, that it's this neuroplastic pain, and then they're able to get out of pain because of this change of beliefs. Symptoms that are triggered by the anticipation of stress, such as prior to school, work, a doctor's visit, a medical test, a visit to a relative, or a social gathering, or during those activities.
So anything related to stress and your pain is getting worse, then that is a sign that your pain is neuroplastic. It can be rewired. Symptoms that are triggered by simply imagining, engaging in the triggering activity, such as bending over, turning the neck, sitting or standing.
So this is a great way to actually even diagnose if your pain is neuroplastic, and to start the rewiring process to treat it if it is. So you can listen to migrated exposure meditation. You can get quiet and kind of tune into your body, listen to your body, and imagine yourself doing a painful activity, and just see how your body responds.
And sometimes it will actually respond with some tightening, with some contracting and with some pain. So you can start to imagine yourself doing the pain-free activity with joy, with happiness, with a smile on your face. And that is one way to start rewiring your brain.
Last, under the section of triggered, is symptoms that are triggered by light touch, or symptoms that are triggered by innocuous stimuli, such as the wind or cold. So in general, people with neuroplastic pain are sensitive to touch and light touch, but this is more indicative of a hyperactive nervous system than it is actual pain from structures, because the pain receptors are deeper in the body. You do not have to have all of the fit criteria in order to start believing that your pain is neuroplastic.
Look for any of these that might be true for you and start to be a very objective observer of your beliefs and of your pain. I've had so many conversations with people where I have just introduced the idea that the pain can be coming from these feelings of being trapped, from repressed emotions, from a stressful lifestyle. They start to open their minds to the possibility and within days, their pain is gone.
So become the detective for the opposite. Write down things that surprise you because your brain has a tendency to not acknowledge them or to forget them and keep making the case for yourself that your pain is neuroplastic and can be rewired. If you have been enjoying this podcast, please take a few minutes to rate and review it and to share it with someone you know that might benefit from this information.
Thanks guys, have a good one, 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.
Monday Mar 14, 2022
Monday Mar 14, 2022
Today I have a great interview with Elle Mace, who coaches people on making peace with food and their bodies.
I was drawn to her work because of my own journey with dieting, hating my body, developing and eating disorder, and then finding my way to intuitive eating.
The diet culture is based on unworthiness, scarcity and restriction. All of which tend to perpetuate overeating and nervous system dysregulation.
As you start to accept your body and heal your relationship with food, you can reach a place of peace and calm- learning to trust your body.
I am an intuitive eater now and love my body- and it actually seems to be getting better with age! Listen in, especially if you want to heal yourself from obsessing about weight and food.
Check out Elle Mace on Instagram : https://www.instagram.com/iamellemace/
or Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/memyselfher
For fresh content on healing chronic pain or disease, follow Betsy
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Website https://bodyandmindlifecoach.com
*Free Nervous System Modules- 4 free videos explaining the nervous system, how it affects your health, and how to regulate it https://view.flodesk.com/pages/620ffa96e0eda1a0d870b5a6
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Wednesday Feb 16, 2022
Wednesday Feb 16, 2022
Today I talk about the Parasympathetic/calm state- the nervous system state where our body can rest and repair.
When we are in survival states (Fight/Flight, Freeze/Fawn), we use more energy and compromise the organ systems of the body.
But in the calm/ rest and repair state, we have increased circulation, digestion, and immunity.
We have more activation of the prefrontal cortex- so we are more collected, present and creative.
It is a learning state, and we are more receptive AND intuitive.
This parasympathetic/calm state takes less energy for the body. It is a place of more ease and flow.
Your cells are either in defense mode or repair mode, they can't be both.
So by giving yourself a chance to rest or play, you are "Doing something" very important! You are letting your body heal!
For fresh content on healing chronic pain or disease, follow Betsy
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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
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Transcript- Automatically generated:
This is Betsy Jensen, and you are listening to Unstoppable Body and Mind, episode 90, The Rest and Repair State. 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 want to talk to you today about the parasympathetic calm state.
You might hear it called rest and repair, rest and digest, rest and reproduce. It's the calm state, the ventral state. Could also call it the window of tolerance or as I've been calling it, alignment.
If you think of a zebra that's out in the wild, when the zebra is being chased, they'll go into a fight or flight, run away. But then when they're not being chased, the zebra will go to a state of relaxation, where it's eating, it's digesting its food, reproducing, playing, resting, and that is the parasympathetic calm state. Now, the problem, the double-edged sword that we have as humans is that we have these powerful brains, these prefrontal cortexes that can think of abstract things and we can think of the future and the past, and that means we can worry constantly.
We can think of the past and regret it. We can think of the future and have concerns about it. And so we can actually keep ourselves constantly in a survival state.
And that's how most of us are living. That's definitely how I was living. As I look back five years ago, and I was either in fight or flight, or freeze or fawn, which are all survival states that I talk about on the Nervous System Basics episode.
And I will continue to talk about a lot because these survival states will actually transform the way your body functions. Using more energy, imagine if you were sprinting versus a slow jog or a walk, your body is functioning differently when you're in survival mode. So the relaxed state is the parasympathetic calm state, and what happens to your body physiologically when you're there.
So in this state, there's increased digestion, increased circulation, increased immunity, increased functioning of the prefrontal cortex, increased oxytocin, the hormone for relation and connections, and increased recovery of the body. So this is the state where your cells are regenerating, that natural part of your body that knows how to heal, like when you get a cut, when you're in the parasympathetic calm state, this is where your body does rest and repair. There's decreased defensiveness.
So when you're not in the survival states, you'll have less defensive posturing, emotions, and that tension in your body that can come when you're going through the world thinking that everything is dangerous. In this state, your nervous system feels relaxed, regulated, and safe. You may feel more connected with others, more creative, playful, present, and curious.
This is where you would think thoughts like, I'm safe, I'm enough, I'm worthy, I deserve this. When you're in this state, you do have an increased capacity to self-regulate. So less of the things around you will bother you when you're in this calm, relaxed state.
You might even think of sometimes in your life that you have felt very excited by life, maybe you're newly in love, and if something happens, like someone cuts you off, you feel more able to deal with it. You are not as upset. And in this state, you'll feel more openhearted and generous and giving.
This is the state where you can come up with ideas. So what I'll often see with my clients is that when they start to regulate more and more, if they have issues around money or around time or around relationships, the more they get regulated and get into this calm state, they start to come up with their own ideas. They start to see things a little differently.
And this is really where the magic happens. I've had so many clients of mine who have time scarcity issues start to think of some clever ways to hire out something or to have something delivered or to just drop altogether the pressure they're putting on themselves about something. This is like the state where when you're in the shower and you have your best ideas, this is the kind of creativity and inspiration you can expect to have more and more of in the parasympathetic calm state.
It's also where you access your intuition. This process that I teach of tuning into yourself, starting to learn these cues from your body and what they mean in different contexts, by doing that, you actually do get into this parasympathetic calm state more and have access to your higher self, to your intuition, to that inner voice that you have. And the more you access that, the stronger it gets.
This calm state actually takes less energy. If you think of the survival states, they're all putting our body into a compromised function of either hyper arousal or shutdown. So getting into this parasympathetic calm state actually benefits your body and mind in so many ways.
Now, for a lot of us, we have ideas about how we should always be doing things. We maybe feel unworthy or that we should be giving more. So if you notice that it's hard for you to calm down and to regulate and to get to a very calm place, that is normal in our society, but maybe you can think of some times in your life where you have felt this peace, where you've shown up with this calm.
And really what's going on for you in those times? What kind of thoughts do you have? And how can you spread this into more and more areas of your life?
When you're not needing to use as much energy to be in those survival states of fear, you open yourself up for more ease and flow in your life. But I will warn you, trying to let yourself relax a lot more may feel uncomfortable at first. I definitely have had a hard time, sometimes in my life, even taking off days of work.
And you would think since I own my own business now and I do my own coaching, I could just take days off whenever I want, but that's even been worse for me at first until I learned about regulating my nervous system more. So I just used to work and work, and the quality of work was not as good. And I was getting burnt out, I was getting exhausted.
So this way of living takes less energy. Your work will be more inspired, more creative, more intuitive, more in tune, and you're giving your body that chance to really rest and repair that it needs. One way that helped me to think of it initially was to think that although I felt like I was doing nothing when I would just take a nap or lay around or just stare out the window, I'm actually doing something.
I'm giving my body that chance to work. Your cells could either be in defense mode or repair mode. They can't be in both.
And so when you're in survival states, you're in defense mode. And when you're regulated, you're in repair mode. So it might seem like you're not doing anything, but below the surface at the cellular level, you really are.
Another quote is that if you don't choose time to rest, then your body will choose it for you. So if you can find these little ways to calm yourself more and more throughout the day, regulate your nervous system, there will be many great results for you. I promise that.
Have a good one, guys. Bye. Now, if you want to learn more about how to regulate your nervous system, how to process emotions, how to process pain, how to rewire your brain, how to make decisions, have boundaries, and have more fun in your life, then I'm happy to announce that I have just the program for you.
Starting February 22nd to 22-22, this is a program all about alignment. And I'm not talking about the alignment that I talked about as a physical therapist for over 20 years. I'm not talking about the physical alignment of your spine and your body, but the alignment of yourself with your body, with your inner self, with the knowledge and power that you have within you that is responsible for healing, that will help you with making decisions and being true to yourself.
Alignment is just getting to that parasympathetic calm state, the ventral state where you are connected, where you are collected, where you are creative, where you are playful. And getting to that state more and more often in your life will result in better healing, increased immunity, decrease of current pain, and more fun in your life, more flow and ease and serendipities. If you have chronic pain or disease, your body has brought you to this point where you probably notice the more you focus on it and try to fix it, the worse things are becoming, the more it's spreading.
The answer is tuning into your body, learning about yourself, learning not only what the real root causes of your pain, but more importantly, what to do now. If you think that possibly life could be easier, that you don't need to work hard all of the time and try to give from an empty cup, please click the link in the show notes and get on my email interest list for six months, working with me in a small group on your personal alignment. 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.
Thursday Feb 10, 2022
Thursday Feb 10, 2022
In this episode, I interview Dan Buglio from “Pain Free You”. He has been doing daily YouTube videos about becoming pain free for almost 3 years, and has over a million views!
He explains chronic pain as “Perceived Danger" pain. The danger isn't real, but the brain PERCEIVES it is, and amplifies or produces pain. Chronic pain is not a sign or true danger, but an issue of misinformation/ bad data.
"If danger is what is feeding this, safety is the solution." We talk all about what this means and how to do it!
Here are some highlights from our discussion:
8:49- Your Brain’s primary job is safety and survival
11:33- What if you don’t yet 100% believe?
13:05- How to teach your brain you are really OK
16:08- Symptom imperatives like anxiety, insomnia
20:26- Principles to reduce pain- Knowledge, Acceptance, Teach Brain it’s Safe
27:22- Don’t believe your thoughts
32:19- Do you push through the pain?
41:38- Insomnia
43:49 Coughing up the phlegm analogy
45:50 Survival states and calming
You can check Dan out on YouTube here: https://www.youtube.com/c/PainFreeYou
Pain Free You Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/PainFreeYouNow/
Thank you Dan!
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
Tuesday Feb 01, 2022
Tuesday Feb 01, 2022
I am so excited to bring you more information about something that has changed my understanding of somatic work completely- and that is understanding the nervous system.
The nervous system is our body's threat detector, and will put us into survival states which physically effect all systems of the body.
These survival states are helpful if we are being chased by a tiger. But living in fight/flight/freeze or fawn will take it's toll on our body.
We can learn to identify these states by noticing our body's reactions.
Increased heart rate, breathing, tension in the jaw and arms? You are probably in "fight".
Scattered thinking, anxiety, can't sit still, trying to fix, always doing? You are probably in "flight".
Lethargic, confused, dissocaited, space, overwhelmed? You are probably in "freeze".
People pleasing, no boundaries, over apologizing, worried about what others think? You are probably in "fawn".
Getting into a survival state is normal, it is part of growth. But we just want to be able to return to the PARASYMPATHETIC/CALM state as much as possible to give our bodies a chance to rest and repair.
This "VENTRAL" state is also called our window of tolerance. It's where we are calm, collected, connected and creative.
Each time we are triggered into a survival state and return to the window of tolerance, we resolve a little piece of trauma from our past.
Getting into this window of tolerance is our place of alignment- where we can tune into our inner voice and be our best selves.
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
Monday Jan 03, 2022
Monday Jan 03, 2022
In this Episode, I interview a pain coach and fellow Physical Therapist, Dr Andrea Moore.
We talk about her story with chronic pain and perfectionism, and why it doesn’t work to try and fight the pain.
We often can’t wait to get out of pain. But the frustration and urgency to change are actually what can keep us stuck.
We retrain the brain through acceptance, and allowing what is. As we develop our ability to sit with discomfort, our brain becomes less reactive to the sensations in our body.
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
Monday Dec 13, 2021
Monday Dec 13, 2021
Today I interview Katrina Ubell- a well known Life Coach, and host of the podcast “Weight Loss For Busy Physicians”.
We recap her healing journey and how understanding the connection with her body and mind helped her cure her chronic pain and get off her medications.
Katrina had a lifelong history of aches and pains, starting with patellafemoral pain in 6th grade. She had sciatica and was wearing an SI joint brace. She had many different pains throughout her body, and was even diagnosed with Fibromyalgia.
Not only did she get out of chronic pain, she was able to get off her medicine for acid reflux, allergies, ocular rosacea and dry eyes.
One thing I really admired about Katrina’s approach, was her curious and playful attitude about her current body beliefs, and what might be possible to change.
Through her work in weight loss coaching, she had developed a relationship with her body based in beliefs, rather than limits.
Through this work in Body and Mind Lifecoaching, she learned even more about how to be in collaboration with her body.
As she learned to trust her body, feel repressed emotions, calm her nervous system, and rewire her brain, she no longer had chronic pain or the need to take her medications.
If you would like to hear more about Katrina Ubell and my work with her, check out my interview on her podcast- Weight Loss for Busy Physicians:
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