The Mind-Body Couple

Unlearning Chronic Pain: Embracing Emotional Awareness and Expression Therapy with Paul Lapointe

• Tanner Murtagh and Anne Hampson • Episode 85

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Imagine a world where chronic pain is not a lifelong sentence but a puzzle that can be solved. That's exactly what Paul Lapointe, our esteemed guest from the Pain Psychotherapy Canada Clinic, discovered on his remarkable journey. After facing his own debilitating chronic pain, Paul unearthed the transformative concept of neuroplastic pain—a revelation that turned his world upside down. Join us as Paul shares his story of struggle and breakthroughs. He offers insights that challenge our deepest beliefs about pain and our bodies.

Emotions can be both a burden and a balm, especially in the realm of healing chronic pain. In this episode, we unpack the profound role of emotional awareness and expression therapy (EAET) in both our personal and professional lives. The conversation highlights the continuous journey of emotional work, shedding light on the societal norms that can hinder us from truly connecting with our emotions. Anecdotes, including a touching story about teaching a child to express anger, illustrate the transformative power of embracing emotional expression. Discover how connecting with our emotions, whether naturally or through therapy, can lead to significant reductions in chronic symptoms.

Tanner Murtagh and Anne Hampson are therapists who treat neuroplastic pain and mind-body symptoms. They are also married! In his 20s, Tanner overcame chronic pain and a fibromyalgia diagnosis by learning his symptoms were occurring due to learned brain pathways and nervous system dysregulation. Post-healing, Tanner and Anne have dedicated their lives to developing effective treatment and education for neuroplastic pain and symptoms. Listen and learn how to assess your own chronic pain and symptoms, gain tools to retrain the brain and nervous system, and make gradual changes in your life and health!


The Mind-Body Couple podcast is owned by Pain Psychotherapy Canada Inc. This podcast is produced by Alex Klassen, who is one of the wonderful therapists at our agency in Calgary, Alberta. https://www.painpsychotherapy.ca/


Tanner, Anne, and Alex also run the MBody Community, which is an in-depth online course that provides step-by-step guidance for assessing, treating, and resolving mind-body pain and symptoms. https://www.mbodycommunity.com


Also check out Tanner's YouTube channel for more free education and practices: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC-Fl6WaFHnh4ponuexaMbFQ


And follow us for daily education posts on Instagram: @painpsychotherapy


Discl...

Speaker 1:

Welcome to the MindBodyCouple podcast.

Speaker 2:

I'm Tanner Murtaugh and I'm Anne Hampson. This podcast is dedicated to helping you unlearn chronic pain and symptoms.

Speaker 1:

If you need support with your healing, you can book in for a consultation with one of our therapists at painpsychotherapyca or purchase our online course at embodycommunitycom to access in-depth education, somatic practices, recovery tools and an interactive community focused on healing.

Speaker 2:

Links in the description of each episode. Hi everyone, welcome back to the podcast. Today I'm not with Anne, but I am joined by Paul LaPointe. Paul LaPointe is well one of my friends. He's a colleague as well. He works at the Pain Psychotherapy Canada Clinic. So thanks so much for coming on, paul.

Speaker 3:

My pleasure, I can try to pretend that I'm Ann, but I don't think I do a very good job at it.

Speaker 2:

No, you wouldn't. Me and Paul spent like so much time together. Actually, this last few weeks is like the least I've seen you in like a month, like it's just been. You know we were taking multiple trips together, just hanging out and having some tenor withdrawals for sure, exactly exactly. We had a, we had a training, somatic training, and then we also went to the Psychophysiologic Disorder Association Conference in Colorado. You, me and Anne all went together.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, it was phenomenal. I was shocked how many people were there. Also surprising was how many people came up to you and Anne talking about how much of an impact this podcast and your YouTube videos have made on them yeah, yeah, well, I appreciate that.

Speaker 2:

It was. Uh, it was a bit surprising, to be honest, like when me and Ann first went and then, all of a sudden, like people really were listening to the podcast, which is very cool. Um, yeah, but I'm. I we've been planning this for for months, paul. We, we had it scheduled and then you were sick and then we got busy. So we're finally sitting down and talking about this and you primarily work with people with chronic pain, chronic symptoms, and I know you come with a lot of experience as well as personal experience. So, to start off, can you just tell the listeners why you're interested in working with chronic pain or chronic symptoms?

Speaker 3:

Yeah, thanks, tanner. It's good to finally be here after we've had so many kind of false starts. So for myself, I've kind of had a lifetime of chronic pain and had lots of injuries when I was growing up. Broken bones dislocated my shoulder a whole bunch of times and for me my injuries always would heal and then I'd get better, and then they would kind of come back or just stick around for long periods of time and I always kind of made up, the reason being that that was the price I paid for just living a pretty active lifestyle.

Speaker 3:

And then, when I was, I kind of went through different career changes. I was a paramedic for about 10 years, went on to become a teacher for a while and then a mental therapist for the past 10 years. And while I was a mental therapist my pain symptoms just started getting worse and worse and worse and I was doing every therapy under the sun and nothing was seeming, nothing was working. And as they were getting worse, I started to then develop new symptoms and for me it got so bad.

Speaker 3:

During the pandemic is when things really started to spike for me, and it got to the point where it was so bad where I wasn't able to work anymore. So again, what that led me to do is just even try even harder with all the physical treatments. And I was doing chiropractor treatments weekly where they're doing Graston treatment, where he's digging in with a metal tool in my back, and I was doing physio and IMS treatments for their doing the deep needling and acupuncture, and I mean the list goes on and on and on and things just kept getting worse and worse and through it almost feels like some miracle, through some act of something, I came across this work and it was life-changing for me.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, and it's quite the story that you have and I really appreciate you sharing that and what you've kind of been through. And it's interesting. I always think about this with myself because when my symptoms came on, I was training to be a therapist I was in my undergrad. And it's interesting because, as therapists, this idea of neuroplastic pain and symptoms maybe not in depth, but it's not new to us we somewhat learn about this fairly lightly as we're getting educated about this, fairly lightly as we're getting educated. But when were the first signs when you started considering maybe my pain is neuroplastic, maybe this is what's going on? How did that develop for you?

Speaker 3:

Yeah, I think about that therapist, that role, being in that role at the time. So many of our clients come with a feeling of guilt like how did I not see this? And as they start to learn more about it, and some people come in knowing a lot about it already and there's often a sense of guilt like how I've lost all these years, how did I not see it? I think of you and I, tanner, and we were both in the profession and, to be honest with you, tanner, as I was experiencing my symptoms I don't have the list anymore, but at one point I counted them and there was over 30 different symptoms I had Just like the wildest symptoms and I was on the road to, like you asked about. When I saw the signs, I was fully bought in that my body was falling apart. I remember I had a surgery booked in the States where they were going to do something called a Neeson fundoplication where they would sew your stomach over all these digestive issues. And even at that point and I was well into being a mental therapist for a while and it just didn't even cross my mind and I kind of think of what Schubert often talks about is kind of like the first. When you first have some symptom, the brain's automatic reaction is to going towards there's something wrong with the body.

Speaker 3:

And it took me a while, a long while, to get off that track. So I guess, to answer your question, it was that I exhausted everything else Like I'd done everything, and there was a few kind of voices along the way. I remember I met with a surgeon here in Calgary who was like recommending, you know, to try and maybe think of some other things before I go down the surgery route. So some of those probably helped. But I think just trying everything else, nothing else worked, and then literally coming across. I think just trying everything else, nothing else worked, and then literally coming across. I think it was a video on YouTube. It was pre your days of having your channel, which is probably why, when we were down the state, so many people were impacted by the material you've created. So that's kind of what really even opened up the possibility for me.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, and so that was the starting place, which we have a lot of similarities. We know this, paul, which is a nice story, you know. Of course there's differences, but there's a lot of similarities between the two of us. And mine was similar where I came to like a YouTube video that had a bit of a eureka kind of moment around, but that was kind of the starting place. And how did it develop from there? Like where did you kind of go? Like when you first came to this idea and you had exhausted all the physical options, like I? What people really want to know is how did you heal? Like what are the things that worked for you, that didn't work for you? Like how did that progress forward?

Speaker 3:

Yeah, you're talking about the similarities. I remember on the trip trying to convince you that we might be brothers with our connections, so for me, like the actual knowledge of it was such a huge component for me. The thing I often kind of like state to people is like I went from like not being able to walk across my lawn which was true right, I had like such bad plantar fasciitis at the time. That was just like I was like I'm almost on crutches for a while I couldn't walk, and then within like four it's different for everybody, but for myself, within four to five months I had this like pretty steep improvement and and I was like running marathons within not marathons, triathlons within within four to five months. So I think the knowledge piece was huge and and all the other components for me and again we talk about everybody's journey is a little bit different but all the other components are things that I'm continuing to do.

Speaker 3:

Now I still find like I still symptoms still kind of creep up every now and then I notice them and I just it's looking at my healing, I'd say I'm probably like 95, 96% better and I'm still doing the little things that I've kind of been picking up along the way. I think the pain reprocessing therapy piece was huge and Alan Gordon's work there. And then I think of what you and I often joke about is just the deep affection I have for emotional awareness and expression therapy. I think the emotional work is applicable to so many people that I work with, but, like the thing I always tell my clients, too, is it's also applicable to me, it's a lot of those things that uh uh, that that therapy uh uh talks about and tries to highlight for people was something that was present for me, that I never saw.

Speaker 2:

And I think you know the the, the deep affection you have for emotional awareness and expression therapy. And specifically, dr Schuberner puts it lightly when we were going to the ppda conference we had this running joke of like how paul was gonna ask schubert to adopt him, and I was gonna.

Speaker 2:

I was gonna ask alan gordon to adopt me, you know like there was this joke, so yeah, and and I think that that really and we're going to dive into like your practice and and what that looks like. But it's great to know you had the education, you had some of these skills and strategies from from pain reprocessing therapy and then a lot of the emotional processing that comes from emotional awareness and expression therapy that we continue on doing and I agree with you. There it's. I I've said this many times before on the podcast.

Speaker 2:

You know this is very this approach. It's very different than for lots of reasons, but it's very different than going to physio. It's very different than chiropractic work, because the goal there is like you go, you do these exercises, you get these adjustments, you never think about them again, you move on. Where this is not that right, like there, there is like if people want to maintain their, their healing and, you know, keep seeing improvements along the way, there is this continual kind of work. There's this continual internal work that we need to be doing, right, mm-hmm.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, I think of. I think when I talk to clients about it is like I'm in the same boat as they are right With the emotions work is I often hear people after we use PRT for a while is a lot of those things I think people can start to use on their own quite a bit and the emotional work. It's often a more difficult journey for people because there are so many defenses and things that people have internally that are keeping them from feeling these emotions that we're working on. And when I say I'm in the same boat, I truly believe that I'm, like you said, continuing to do the work. When I said I've got that 95 to 96% improvement, the improvement still continues because I'm still doing the work alongside the clients, I can empathize how difficult it is because it's also hard for me as well me as well.

Speaker 2:

yeah, we've shared lots back and forth about our our own personal struggles with just connecting to emotions, like being aware of emotions, like um, we, we had this moment at the, the, the ppda conference, that that I maybe you remember, paul, but we were all sitting at a table and and one lady came up and was just talking to Anne about how helpful the podcast was and Anne like got emotional like free.

Speaker 2:

She's got emotional, started crying, you know, like, was very thankful, gave me a hug and then left and in my mind I was like, wow, like that's wild, that someone is like because I've done a lot of work myself as well, and like there's such a free flowingness that and I have always admired that ann has to to her emotional experience, like there's no resistance, there's no defense. It's just like I feel sad and like and I feel happy and I feel angry and I'm just gonna feel it. But I know, you know we've talked back and forth about just our own struggles of like having the inside the emotions are there, feeling them in the body and like moving through them.

Speaker 3:

I remember that moment well and thinking a similar thing. I used to teach this course where it was like a kind of a speaking public speaking course and instructional course and in the course people started to talk about things that were very deep to them and they all knew each other. So there's already this connection and I was kind of this outsider coming in and I remember one time somebody was sharing a story and it was very moving, very powerful, very emotional, and everybody around the circle was just freely crying and one of the guys who was one of the participants looked over at me and like how are you not crying? Are you a rock? And at the time I was thinking, yeah, great, I can be fully, I can hold this stuff down, I'm just as solid as can be.

Speaker 2:

But I think there's a cost to that and that cost is for me, was, it sounds like for both of us was these symptoms that have now started to teach us that there is an importance to being connected to those emotions there very much is and this is some of the harder stuff like connecting to, because most people are aware of their pain and so changing that relationship, of course, can be hard, or change the relationship to chronic fatigue can be difficult, but they can feel it.

Speaker 2:

There's an awareness where, you know, many of us coming to this, we kind of land on two extremes. I find a lot of times for people that have neuroplastic pain or symptoms, either they're just shut off right, like there's just there's little awareness, there's a little connection, there's, you know, there's not, and definitely not expression of emotions taking place. Other people, they feel everything so intensely, right, and I had a mix of both. It can be a mix of both, but some people are feeling things so intensely and never feel safe with emotional experience. And I think when we talk about emotional awareness and expression therapy, which I know is really the model that you highlight in your practice, if I understand correctly, absolutely yeah, and so just to give the viewers like a little bit of a taste of what that looks like, you know, how would you kind of explain emotional awareness and expression therapy to people that are first coming to these ideas?

Speaker 3:

Well, I'll try to channel my inner Schubner explanation. Probably this would be, from my perspective, right, because it probably there are some. But the different trainings that, um, you and I have with the somatic experience, the fact we're doing that together, I think it probably influences it as well. But, uh, I think a lot of people sometimes come in and say, oh, you know, I for sure feel my emotions, I feel mad sometimes, which I get as well, but a lot of people I don't think are actually feeling the emotion somatically, physically, in their body.

Speaker 3:

So usually what some of the one of the approaches that I'll take is usually looking to something from the past, right, something that has some emotional hook for them, a time where they felt that anger could have been present or that sadness or grief was present and for some reason they weren't really able to feel it.

Speaker 3:

Maybe some reasons internally, or maybe the situation.

Speaker 3:

And what we'll do is we'll just go back into the situation and just have the person try to bring themselves as fully as possible right, like things that they heard or things that they felt at the time, things that they like the smells in the air, whatever it is to try to like, recreate the situation and as they kind of talk about the story that happened, is to try to see what comes up emotionally Right.

Speaker 3:

And sometimes what's a common thing that I find is people will talk about feeling, yeah, I feel angry about this, and then we'll kind of check it out and often that anger is actually showing up in the body as either disconnection, numbness or sometimes tightness as resistance, tightness as resistance. And the work that I kind of flow between is to try to sometimes put a little bit more pressure on to try to get through the things that are defending the person from feeling that, and most of us have some defenses of whether it's using humor or intellectualizing or rationalizing, so sometimes putting a little pressure to get through those defenses, and other times it's kind of just slowly looking for a way to try to, to try to align the person that I'm working with and myself to try to make our way through the defense in a gentle way.

Speaker 2:

That's a great explanation of like you know, basically bringing forward these emotions from the house, feeling them presently in the body um and allowing yourself to essentially move through them right, totally right, and and that's the.

Speaker 3:

You know, what I was kind of talking about was the awareness piece and then the secondary expression pieces which I think you're you're kind of suggesting now is is, once they're, once we can identify them in the body, then looking for ways to be able to let them out. I've had a few people say to me like I can feel them, I, I know they're there, I just don't know what to do with them and then. So that's where the therapy comes in, of looking at different ways to be able to, like verbally express them, um, use it through visualization, sometimes writing some way to be able to. I think it's the toughest thing. I remember reading a book on letting go and I'm always kind of after that like how do you feel these deep things and then let them go, and I think that's part of the letting go process is finding some way to express them.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I think there's both pieces that are so essential, which is very clear in the therapy model's name, but both are needed and I think that's where people get caught up is they either have one or the other going on. Potentially Some people have neither going on, like for myself, I had almost neither going on a lot of the time. But you know some people do. Yeah, you know, some people really struggle with the awareness. I really struggle to understand like that felt sense of emotion in the body, really connect with it. Be aware of you know, when I feel angry, like I feel like tension in my chest, I feel tightness in my arms, my hands squeeze my head starts to get hot, like like they connecting to that awareness and being able to sit with it is very essential. But the other piece to this, as you're saying, is the expression like this is this is how we move through it. It's not like we just sit still and feel the anger and don't do anything with it. I I always give the example.

Speaker 2:

I recently had my son, who's seven this was a few weeks ago One of his favorite toys broke. It was actually quite a sad moment and he was furious. And you know he has two therapists, his parents. So you know, we've taught him, like, how to express anger without becoming obviously aggressive towards others, right? So he has this routine he goes to his room, he stomps his round, stomps his feet around, he punches his bed, he like screams, like all of that, you know, as long as you know he's safe and he's not harming others, like that's expression of emotion. And it's interesting because kids, especially when kids come from safe homes, we do this really well. We, we we're able to, to allow our body to express these things outwardly, right? Um, whereas adults, we, we really get cut off, we get inhibited from actually achieving that that's often celebrated.

Speaker 3:

When people are able to push things down right and so many messages from society like you know, even like good girls don't get angry right like that's those messages. They can just be.

Speaker 2:

They can be so harming and sometimes they can be so hard to even see that they're, that they're present exactly, yeah, yeah, and you see the you know when you think about and and some of this is gendered, some not. But you know, as a, as a young man, I learned from other men around me that expressing my anger was somewhat appropriate, like this was like an appropriate thing, as long as like it was in certain settings, obviously said in certain settings it wasn't, but like expressing like sadness or fear outwardly was like this very taboo thing of like that's, that's not what you know a strong man is essentially, and it's so unfortunate because, yeah, like our culture, our society, it basically just inhibits us from feeling safe to feel emotions or express them outwardly.

Speaker 3:

I think that's so important to identify this stuff. It's not like some people start to feel shame or embarrassment that they don't have this connection, but we come to it often through very natural things going on in society or relationships. There's no nefarious motive for people to to make this disconnection.

Speaker 2:

Often it's done because it's it's something that feels safer yeah, yeah, and it comes at a cost, as you're saying. Yeah, it does, and and that's why emotional awareness and expression therapy has great results, showing research right to actually help a person reduce their chronic pain, their chronic symptoms.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, yeah, and I think of, like, not only the research results but I think, and you know, I always, you and I often talk about kind of our, our kind of draws to the different therapies and for me, like you, I think, the reason that this therapy there's such a draw for it for me is because, like, like you, I think the reason that this therapy there's such a draw for me is because I didn't see results. You know, it's not like a guarantee every session is going to be a success, but sometimes what would take like months of work and back when I was doing other therapies, often this is this sometimes within a session, sometimes you'll see some pretty dramatic, dramatic results.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, yeah, which is amazing. Well, I appreciate you sharing your knowledge about this. We've talked about this therapy a bit on our podcast, but not maybe in depth as we're doing today, and there's a lot of benefit. I think people need to know that there's lots of different approaches out there and it's important for people to kind of find their fit of what works for them. You know, yeah, and you know, in your work in this area, when we're trying to treat chronic pain, chronic symptoms, using, you know, a brain and nervous system approach, you know what are some of the biggest challenges that you find working in this area.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, uh, I think maybe a few things. One of the things you just said about kind of the approach is is that I don't. I really come to um, and you know in our conversations and the work that I do come to find that there's no one set way to do things. Um, often and I was the same way when I was going through I'm like what is the answer, what's the thing that to use here? Uh, and it's like different coming at it from different approaches. That that's why I like the fact that you know, both you and I have kind of have these different models to draw from and to kind of see what fits.

Speaker 3:

So sometimes it can be a little challenging to figure out just what is the right fit for somebody. I'd probably say another thing would be is that it's not always just so clear cut. I know we're kind of presenting just some of the basics today, but things can be pretty complicated, right, like even the fact with when doing emotional work. Like sometimes you go after an emotion that's present in the room and that emotion itself can be a defense for other emotions that are maybe the underlying emotion. Being thought right, it can be a little complex at times, and then I'd probably say one of the other biggest ones is more of a personal one, and I would say that I think there's a real benefit for our clients that you know that you and I have been through this experience. That can be helpful.

Speaker 3:

Speaking from personal experience, it can be a bit of a double-edged sword. Sometimes it can be really helpful the fact that you know I can empathize, I can understand where a person is, and what I often tell people is like I have the same personality traits that are often found in other people with neuroplastic symptoms. So, like one, being like overly conscientious is I'm can be really tied to whether somebody gets better or not, which I think the the the downside of that, the challenging part of that is, is we work so hard with our clients to try to take off that intensity and sometimes there's an internal intensity as a therapist to like I want this person to get better, making slow things down, like like we do in somatic experiencing and uh, and look for ways to take pressure off the person we're working with, take the pressure off us, take a take pressure off the process, um, and then that's something that I I found that I've been working on yeah, yeah, I appreciate those points.

Speaker 2:

You know, you're right, healing is complex and I think that's a message that I give people often because, you see it, you see it happen with people where we do some of the simple teaching or processing, you know, for a handful of sessions and someone doesn't see results and what takes place is people are now comparing their healings, every success story they listen to out there and then, as a result, they feel like there's something wrong with them and then they approach they're just not doing it right, it's not working well. But the thing is is like some of the strategies, although can be very helpful or very simple from this approach, but we're applying them to a complex human being. Yeah, you know, for myself, I fall into this, still fall, still to this day. This is what happens to me. Maybe I'll be feeling, you know, anxious one week, for example, right, or I'm feeling kind of sad, or maybe you know it doesn't happen too too often to me, but maybe I start to get a hint of a symptom taking place and you know I have enough strategies in my toolbox that I can just pull out, and I'll pull something out and I'll apply it and it works great. It works great.

Speaker 2:

All of a sudden, I feel way better the next day.

Speaker 2:

You know, I'm back on track, things are going well, and then what happens in my mind, my high-intensity, perfectionistic mind is I think I've found gold where it's just like this is the thing I need to use all the time.

Speaker 2:

Things are going to work great in every situation, because I had this one experience where it works well, so now I'm going to use it repetitively, and then, of course, I'm I've let down, um, but it's, it's just so interesting because I I know, I know better, but I still, because of the ways I cope in the world. Like this is where my mind moves to, and that's the thing is. You know, we get lots of comments on a youtube channel with, like a meditation or somatic tracking or something, with people being like okay, do, do I just do this, do I just need to do this twice a day for the next several months and I'll get better? And the reality is it's probably not, because you're right, as you said, paul, we're complex. We're complex individuals. We need healing work in lots of different areas. We need to explore the nuances to all of this and how they kind of affect us.

Speaker 3:

It makes sense, though that reaction or that the process that you kind of fall into with it is because it is so. I'll speak for myself. It's just so. There's something about it that's so exciting and so like. It just draws you in, like whether it's your own symptoms coming down or like when it happens with somebody else. The same thing happens to me. I just get. I get excited right in session, like you see um, or between sessions, somebody comes back and and they're saying that their symptoms have dropped. It's just such a or sometimes in session, it's just such an exciting thing to be a part of um that it makes sense. Then you start to go off saying, well, like this, this, this trying this exact same approach with everyone, and you're right, it's kind of finding what fits for for that person yeah, exactly, and yeah, I think that that's, you know, the one piece you talked about.

Speaker 2:

The other piece you kind of mentioned is just how, as therapists, we struggle with this too, because we're doing this work, because we want to see people get better, and we have this way of coping, of being intense or perfectionistic or highly conscientious or people-pleasing, and, yeah, I think it's important to note to people that we have to do a lot of work on ourselves, not to get pulled in to functioning like that, because we're not going to be able to help anyone if we just start to drive forward in that way.

Speaker 3:

Right, and the human brain is so suggest by hope, it's okay to share. But I know we've talked about in some of our group consults about, like working with the client, and they're kind of talking about a symptom and then all of a sudden kind of think later on like oh, that that area is kind of bothering me a bit, a bit too right, so the brain is just so, so suggestible and um, um, but again like uh, after going through, like both of us going through so many different things that don't work, it's, it's, it's it's so nice to be able to offer some, a person, something that's based on research and experience, that that again don't want to state for everybody. This is exactly. These things are going to be helpful, but for a lot of people we've, we've sure, seen a lot of success.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, and We've seen a lot of success we have, and you know I really appreciate you coming on here. I think you're a wealth of knowledge to share with this community and I'm trying to think of what your schedule looks like right now.

Speaker 3:

Are you accepting people right now? I just started accepting after about three or four months of not taking clients.

Speaker 2:

I've just started to accept a few more people again now. Okay, wonderful. So anyway, let's see. Paul is accepting. What provinces can you work in again?

Speaker 3:

So I'm in Alberta, ontario and BC In person. I can do that in Calgary, but the other provinces are all virtual. Okay, great.

Speaker 2:

Well, I'll make sure the clinic link's down below. If you're interested in booking in with Paul, you can reach out to us and we can get something booked in. Paul's a very requested therapist at the clinic, without a doubt, and you weren't accepting people for quite a while over the summer period, just being so busy. So that's great, you're accepting people now.

Speaker 3:

And before we go, I appreciate the kind comments from you Also just wanted to share.

Speaker 3:

When I finished, or when I finished, when I came into this work, I was so excited about it and I was like I'm going to go provide this and launch this.

Speaker 3:

And I remember searching and the one place that it was in Canada was in my own city and I was like, oh great, and I remember reaching out to you and so that's where I just wanted to be, um, extend my appreciation to reaching out to you and, um, I can't remember how exactly it all came to be, but you were extremely you're like let's, let's come, come join me in this work and, and it's just for me, it's just been such a phenomenal fit. Uh, I feel like, uh, before this I was working in a pain clinic and so much of the work was trying to like even suggest this might be a possibility for people, which was kind of a pretty difficult work at times, and now so many of these people are coming to us with open to this work and just uh, for me it's been a really good fit. So I appreciate the kind comments, but i'm'm also really do appreciate being part of this team that you have as well.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, and I think it was a. It was kind of a funny story of how you came to the practice, because I think you had reached out and then you said you had worked at this pain clinic where Ann used to work. My partner and Ann was like oh yeah, paul, I know Paul.

Speaker 3:

He's a great guy.

Speaker 2:

I was like great, so I hired Paul. It wasn't me, I didn't get references, because Anne was, like I know, paul, and then it turned out that it was the wrong Paul, yeah.

Speaker 3:

Hopefully I am close to being equal to that Paul, because I know and thought quite highly of him. So yeah, but after we've worked together for a while and I know, like you said, we've developed a friendship over things as well.

Speaker 2:

So now you're probably better than the other, paul.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, I'll take it. I don't know.

Speaker 2:

Again, thank you so much for coming on. Thank you everyone for listening and I will talk to you next week.

Speaker 1:

Thanks for listening For more free content. Check out the links for our YouTube channel, instagram and Facebook accounts in the episode description.

Speaker 2:

We wish you all healing.