The Mind-Body Couple

Healing Story: Simon's Journey Healing their Chronic Widespread Pain

• Tanner Murtagh and Anne Hampson • Episode 87

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What if the chronic pain you experience isn't just a physical ailment, but a complex interplay of emotions and neurological patterns? Join us on the MindBodyCouple podcast as Simon unravels his personal journey of battling chronic pain. Despite expert opinions leaving him at a loss, Simon's story is one of resilience and discovery. He sheds light on the neuroplastic nature of his symptoms and how hypervigilance and maladaptive coping mechanisms played a role in his suffering. His journey takes many twists, from feeling isolated and frustrated to finding hope in new therapeutic approaches and psychological insights that paved the way for his healing.

In this compelling episode, we explore Simon's experiences with treatments like myofascial release therapy and discover the transformative impact of Alan Gordon's book, "The Way Out." With a focus on pain reprocessing therapy and the courage to confront personal growth challenges, Simon offers a message that healing is not just possible but multifaceted, leaving listeners inspired by his resilience and hopeful for their own journeys.

Check out his YouTube channel here: https://www.youtube.com/@déjouerladouleurchronique

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.

Speaker 1:

And I'm Anne Hampson.

Speaker 2:

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 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 am joined by Simon, and Simon is here. I'm very honored to have you to share his healing story, which is a remarkable one. We have been emailing back and forth prior to this and just in the little bit that you shared about your story and what you've overcome is truly amazing, so I really appreciate you being here.

Speaker 3:

It is. Sometimes I forget, sometimes it's in the bag. So I think about oh, what are my struggles now? And I have to go back. Oh yes, a year ago I was in a really bad way.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, yeah. So I want to really start to dive into people learning from what they can get out of your healing story, and I think you have so much to offer in terms of, like, a message of hope and your own personal learnings from this. But can you share at first, you know, when you know how long ago your chronic pain, chronic symptoms, first started to develop?

Speaker 3:

Yes? Well, that is the question when does it all start? And the naive answer long ago. The pain started in the right foot when I was 32 and now I'm 40. But a big part of the process has been to connect the dots and not see these weird symptoms as coming out of nowhere. That's how I used to see them, these weird symptoms. Nobody can tell me what it is or where it's coming from. So I'm having this foot pain when I'm 32. And more and more the process has been to connect the dots and not see the pain as coming out of nowhere, but being a slow, gradual process and even the logical conclusion of years of poor coping mechanisms and bad adaptations that maybe were useful at some point in my life but started to really be a hindrance. So the pain started when I was 32, now I realized that the months before I developed tinnitus ringing in the years, yeah, and, and that went away with the process in my mind. I didn't even think about the tinnitus because it was structural.

Speaker 3:

I worked with heavy machinery for a long period yeah but I didn't do anything to get rid of the tinnitus. I just turned down my hypervigilance and the tinnitus just kind of went away okay. But even before the tinnitus, years of high anxiety, very high anxiety, and that's controversial. Does the anxiety create the symptom or is anxiety just one more symptom? I tend to see it as the first symptom. My anxiety was way up for years before the symptom, so I guess it started when I was 15 and it was manageable. But when I was 28, the anxiety became crippling, where I started avoiding more and more.

Speaker 3:

I avoid romantic relationships too hard. Friendship creates a lot of conflicts. There's anger arising. I'm afraid of my own anger, yeah. So I avoid friendships. I'm isolating more and more. Work is getting harder and harder. Situations that call for a level of stress of 2, 3 out of 10. I jump straight to nine and so I start saving my money to isolate myself more and more. I don't need to work as much, I have very little needs. So I'm painting a picture here where I'm basically a hermit at that point Avoidance, avoidance, avoidance. And I didn't need to deal with the anxiety because when I avoided everything the anxiety wasn't that high. But then the pain came and I could not ignore that it was loud.

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Speaker 3:

So that's when I was 32 and I got my first foot pain and that's when most people would say, yes, it started. And so I go see the podiatrist and they say, oh, there's nothing wrong with your foot and are you sure you're in pain? Oh, yes, I'm sure I'm in pain. And then the pain spreads to the other foot. A lot of people have seen that. When it gets symmetrical, that's weird. So let's try orthotics. Oh, the pain now is spreading around. Um, I'm starting to have pain in my right shoulder. Yeah, they find calcification. I'm happy about that. Oh, yeah, structural, there's something structural. I'm not crazy. Yeah, and I read on the internet and they say, oh, no, the amount of calcification that I have. Some people have that without any pains. But then the pain spreads to the left shoulder and there's no calcification there. So we're back to square one.

Speaker 3:

It was like that for a long time, kind of stable, but then it really started to spread. I woke up in the middle of the night One time. I didn't do anything weird during the day and I'm in such knee pain my right knee I'm crying. I don't know where that's coming from. And it all went downhill from there Left knee, then the groin, then the hip, and it's starting to go round and round. I call it the carousel of pain. One day my shoulder hurts eight out of 10. And I pray, pray, oh. If only this pain could go away. And it goes away, and it goes to my foot. Yeah, but now this shoulder that was hurting eight out of ten is zero. That. That should have been my first clue, like because?

Speaker 2:

because what you're painting a clear picture of here is just the evidence. It's neuroplastic in nature. There's so much. It's inconsistent, it's moving and spreading. There's different symptoms Some they can find mild physical abnormalities, others none Like. There's so much evidence. But I relate to you here in the sense that when we have all these symptoms going on, even for myself it just creates so much confusion and fear as these things are taking place.

Speaker 3:

Nobody had any answers. For me the fear was way high. So when it stayed like that for a long period, of course the doctors do all the blood tests. They take everything out of the way and then they tell me of course, well, you have fibromyalgia. That's what they told me, which is an exclusion diagnostic. There's no machine that beeps like beep, beep, beep. You have fibromyalgia. It's just, we've excluded everything else. There's nothing wrong with you. Therefore you have fibromyalgia, and, believe it or not, this kind of reassured me at first. It kind of put the fear a bit down, like oh, it's a real thing, it's a condition you have, that fibromyalgia. It's incurable.

Speaker 3:

At that point I was like what's the point of accepting this word if it's uncurable? And I start reading about it. And there's some strategies Count your spoons, count your marbles Avoids, just try to manage the symptoms. And it helped a little bit. But the pain was really bad. So they started giving me medication and I started to take 75 milligrams of amitriptyline. That was like an old antidepressant. He told me that's going to turn down the volume of your pain. So it went from seven, eights and nines to some four, five, six, sevens and I was happy with that for a little bit, but I saw that I was plateauing. Okay, this is it. This is it for the rest of my life Just four, five, six, sevens all the time, and I can't do much. So then I started to look for lots of therapists bodily therapists.

Speaker 3:

And I've tried everything, the usual modalities, but then I read in this book that this woman, she healed herself from fibromyalgia with myofascial release, the John F Barn technique.

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Speaker 3:

And so I go see this therapist in Montreal and she says I have healed myself from fibromyalgia in two years with this technique. And this is amazing for me this is the first person I ever meet that's healed fibromyalgia. Never heard of it. It's incurable. So then she becomes kind of my guru and I do everything she tells me to do. If I just copy her then I can heal the fibromyalgia. But this was very expensive treatment.

Speaker 3:

And then I meet one of her friends and she healed herself from fibromyalgia with this treatment as well Her as well in two years. And they tell me you need to set a date for your recovery. And they tell me you need to set a date for your recovery. They say see yourself in two years being healthy. And I really improved with that program. They say it's not just physical. They say your fascia is tight, you need to release your fascia, but it is also psycho-emotional. And so after a year and a half I'm doing a lot better. And at that point I don't mind saying in total I spent $20,000 in this therapy, $20,000.

Speaker 3:

And the therapist that helped me I learned later yes, she put herself in debt, she borrowed from the bank to do that therapy. And after a year and a half, I'm improving, but I still have a lot of pains and the two years approaching and I'm like, oh my God, I can't do it in two years Like these two women. What's wrong with me? Like they did it, I can't do it, I'm not good, I'm not good enough. And then, after two years, she totally cuts me off. She's like no, I tried to make appointments with her. She's like no, it took me two years. You should be able to handle it by yourself by now.

Speaker 2:

Oh, my goodness.

Speaker 3:

And I felt so rejected, so abandoned. And when she did that, um, I went back to the way I was before and even worse, the worst I've ever been in my life. So this is last winter and I'm back in my bed and I can't move and I can't do anything and everything hurts. Watching TV immobile in my bed, is excruciating.

Speaker 2:

And I, you know, I want to really say like that's a incredibly emotional thing that's taken place. Yes, that's a, there's a, a deep trust. I remember feeling that when, when I was in pain, there's a deep trust and all the practitioners that that were utilizing and and clearly, from there everything just spirals right back and worse to what it was before.

Speaker 3:

Yes, and it's gradual, the dawning that it's not structural. But that was a big, big moment for me because throughout this whole therapy I'm thinking right, I was like you, I couldn't sit in chairs, but more and more I can sit in the chair. So I'm like, oh well, it's because my fascia is being released, amazing. But then I get this huge emotional shock of rejection and of feeling not enough. These two women did it, I can't do it. And next thing, you know, I can't sit in chairs anymore. And I'm starting to think well, my fascia didn't tighten overnight.

Speaker 1:

No.

Speaker 3:

So that's where it dawns on me. And so last Christmas it's going to be almost a year I go to this party and I meet this woman and she says to me oh yes, I've had fibromyalgia and I'm totally over it, and I've never heard anybody say it so casually. And her son's like oh yeah, mom, you used to have fibromyalgia in the 90s, whatever. And they're talking about it like a bad cough or something, or the flu or something yeah and I'm like, oh, my god, I've never heard this.

Speaker 3:

And she says and I said what modalities did you use? I'm thinking she's going to talk about some type of physic, new physical therapy I've never heard of because I've done feldenkrais, you know I've all these things. She says, nope, psychotherapy Took me a year, just psychotherapy. I'm like, well, who's your shrink? I want to go see that person. Oh, no, the shrink's dead. Well, you got any books for me? She's like no, you won't. Probably Everybody needs to find their own books. That was another big step on my journey. Okay, wow, she healed, was my another big step on my journey. So, okay, wow, she healed herself from fibromyalgia in one year, with zero body work, just psychology. So I started looking around and of course I stumbled upon alan gordon's book the way out. So just to paint a picture here, I did not read that book. The first time I'm laying in bed and my mother is reading it to me. That's how bad I was.

Speaker 2:

That's how weird the symptoms were, yeah.

Speaker 3:

I couldn't even do jars. I couldn't flip the channels on the remote. That would burn my trapeze and my elbows. I couldn't do much and the book kind of went over my head. If you're only reading Alan Gordon once, don't be surprised. That's just the beginning. That went over my head. If you're only reading Alan Gordon once, don't be surprised. That's just the beginning. That's just the beginning. Then, a couple of times I got Curable. I think most people will be familiar with that application.

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Speaker 3:

And it helps a little bit, but it's all very I don't know who Alan Gordon is. I'm listening to these people give success stories on Curable. I don't know who Alan Gordon is. I'm listening to these people give success stories on Curable. I don't know who they are. I can't see their faces. It's all very abstract.

Speaker 3:

And I try, I do some somatic tracking. I did maybe like 40 somatic tracking. I give up. That doesn't work, doesn't work for me. Totally give up on what I called back then pain reprocessing therapy. Yeah. So then I'm thinking let's do like this woman, let's go for psychotherapy.

Speaker 3:

And I found somebody that does emotional awareness and expression therapy. Great, yes, and I go see him and it was a great session. I only had one session and then next thing, you know, he's saying I have this medical emergency in my family, I can't see you anymore. But he puts me back on track. He's like there's not just Alan Gordon, there's a whole bunch of people out there, there's our Shuganer and there's David Schecter and all these people. So even though I only did one session with him, he really put me back on track and I started looking at YouTube videos.

Speaker 3:

There's not much on Alan Gordon but I see very important in my process to see, I see Howard Schubiner, and then I fall upon all of you guys' videos and you're the first person I ever listened to and watched on YouTube, oh wonderful. So this whole process I'm describing here, from my first reading of Alan Gordon to the first time I stumbled upon one of your videos, is two months, but once I stumbled upon one of your videos to the moment I consider myself over chronic pain is four months.

Speaker 2:

Wow, so it was very, very fast for you, yeah.

Speaker 3:

Yes, I was very motivated very motivated, but not intense, not intense yeah, not intense.

Speaker 2:

This is a secret. You know, I'm always cautious when people share their timeline because everyone's like, oh no, four months and and uh, you, you know it's good for not being intense about that, but it, you know, even just getting to this place is such a long journey and I really appreciate you lining it out in this way because you're right, like from the very beginning of this interview. One of the things that you said that I think is so vital to know for people is it's not like the chronic pain, the chronic symptoms started when the symptom hit, being isolated. All these factors, they just and old wounds along the way that have been, you know, affected by people negatively, like all these factors led up to the symptoms developing.

Speaker 2:

And then, of course, when you have the chronic symptoms, like so many people, myself included all of a sudden there's intense fear. There's intense trying to fix it, trying to figure it out. Intense fear. There's intense, trying to fix it, trying to figure it out, and you know it led this beautiful way to this journey. That's kind of occurred for you here Now that we're starting to talk about, you know, the healing aspect of your journey. One thing that I really want to talk about is you know what changes were really the most important, as you were in this kind of healing process, like when you think back, what were the ones that were really effective for you?

Speaker 3:

Yes, I don't have to look far for that. I have all the answers ready. I know what worked for me. So, as I said, alan Gordon was a very abstract person for me. I don't know who he is, I have no idea, and these success stories on Curable very short, almost sounding miraculous. That's why it's very important to understand. It's long, it's gradual and it's step by step. But when I watch your videos, next thing you know, uh, I can really relate to you. You're in my kitchen, you're in my living room and I'm watching, uh, two, three, four of these videos a day at first, which is the phase that you call acquisition of knowledge. Next thing you know, okay, I'm starving for this information, I need a lot of information and you're, you're supplying it to me and you have these concrete strategies. So the first one is don't set a date on your recovery. And finally, someone who understands what they're talking about. This date setting strategy that I use with these other people is the worst strategy. Do not set a date. So right now, my confidence is increasing. This guy knows what he's talking about.

Speaker 3:

Stop talking about the symptoms. That's the first thing I ever did and it burned my lips for two weeks. I thought it used to be a great catharsis for me to talk about the symptoms and I had to tell people around me that, like I know, you're not supposed to talk about the symptoms, but you can tell me. You can tell me, no, no, we don't, we don to talk about the symptoms. But you can tell me. You can tell me, no, no, we don't, we don't talk about the symptoms anymore. And you're laying out all these really great strategies and more and more I'm relating to you. Before, when I was an hermit, I used to write books and more and more I became stifled by perfectionism.

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Speaker 3:

And, and and. Eight months later I'm in chronic pain. That was the last thing that was giving me pride. You know, my identity was I'm a writer, but the writing was gone.

Speaker 3:

And who am I? I'm nobody now. I'm not doing anything, I'm just a loner hermit. So I really relate to your perfectionism. And you start talking about the classic personality that Sarno described, putting too much pressure on myself, and I'm noticing all these patterns. So on the one hand, I'm doing sort of the narrow Alan Gordon pain reprocessing therapy, which is, increase your activity, your physical activity, more and more gradually and tackle the fear, and you don't care about the symptoms. The symptoms can go up and it doesn't matter.

Speaker 3:

That took a long time and a lot of videos. So one key was repetition, repetition, repetition, repetition. So I'm using your videos in this way I go out and I do more. Last day I walked 15 minutes, now I walk 20 minutes and I come back and the symptoms are high and I'm like, oh, I did too much. I did too much.

Speaker 3:

And I watch a Tanner video. I was like, no, you didn't do too much, it's not structural, it's psycho-emotional. So the videos I watch them spaced during the days, like that, as ways to reassure myself. That's why it worked, because more and more I was getting to know you. I feel it's an illusion, but I felt like I knew you. That's what made it really personal. And so on the one end, I'm doing pain reprocessing therapy on that way and challenging the symptoms daily. But on the other end, now I'm starting to dive more and more into the emotional side and my shame, the feeling of not being good enough, not being enough and trying to tackle, like, why am I trying to be a perfectionist? Is it because I'm afraid people won't love me? And if I can just be perfect, maybe they will love me? So I'm doing these two strategies in parallel.

Speaker 2:

Which I think is wonderful, because that's what I always tell people is. You know everyone's healing is different, as you know you've kind of discovered along your way from hearing these. You know these kind of miraculous stories even before you kind of got started with people recovering. Everyone's healing is different, and you know that's the thing about being human. We're complex. We're complex beings. That's the idea is like. Often healing can be more complex in nature. We're applying these different things, like you're using some of pain reprocessing therapy stuff. That's great. You're starting to do the graded exposure, you're reducing the focus on the symptoms and it sounds like you did it in a very structured way. And the one thing that you mentioned there that I think is so hard is when we start to do the graded exposure and the symptom increases, then we don't take 20 steps back, because then it just takes so much longer. Um, of course, right, and the videos were what?

Speaker 3:

helped me amazing I watch four or five every day between activities, and it was always. If I'm coming back from the walk or the activity and the symptoms aren't that high, I don't watch a video. It's really like that's the tool I use to reassure myself.

Speaker 2:

But then, on the other hand, you're starting to do that deeper emotional work which is so vital for so many people, as you kind of found for yourself, and not just the emotional work, but it links to all these coping mechanisms such as like perfectionism or putting pressure on yourself, and so you start to do some of that work as well along the way.

Speaker 3:

Yes, and what I've discovered is that this second process is lifelong. Discovered is that this second process is lifelong, it's a life journey. So at first you're hyper symptom focused. So of course your definition of healing is getting rid of the symptoms. That's just as far as you can see. You can't see any further. When I'll be rid of the symptoms, I'll be healed. But more and more you see it's a way deeper process and then your goal becomes way further than just healing the symptoms. It's about becoming whole, as Gabor Maté would say. And then, once your vision or your goal starts to be way further than just emitting the symptoms, then they kind of just kind of fade away and you think, wow, that used to be my end-all, be-all, just getting rid of the symptoms. But here they are gone and I'm not done with the emotional work. It's going to be a lifelong process.

Speaker 1:

Yeah.

Speaker 3:

So I definitely eliminated all the conditioning pain. I would call it where my brain did faulty associations like sitting is dangerous, walking is dangerous. So I'm getting rid of all these symptoms and I think, well, I'm done now, no more symptoms. And then a symptom. I was symptom free for months and then a symptom popped back up and I felt into the structural trap Because I was like, well, I don't have any neuroplastic pain anymore, so because I really increased my physical activity, yeah, and so I'm like, oh, I injured myself. I did too much jogging, swimming, bicycle. I fell into the structural trap.

Speaker 3:

And now I see that sometimes I do get symptoms still, but they're not like faulty conditioning. It's when I put too much pressure on myself, and I still do it. Sometimes I put too much pressure on myself and in the afternoon my spine will start to to burn and itch, and so now I know it's like, okay, wow, take the pressure off and then the symptoms go away. So now it's not so much.

Speaker 3:

Before I didn't try to learn anything from the symptoms. It's just kind of faulty information, just noise. I don't know what to do with it, just recondition. But now when I get a symptom, I know it's a message from my body and it's like, oh wow, too much pressure Because I'm telling people here in Montreal about these YouTube videos in English people in chronic pain and they say, oh no, I can't speak English well enough to understand. So before I would never have been able to do this. I was afraid to get my picture taken. If you take a picture of me, I would take your phone and delete it and now more and more like the process is not overcoming pains but overcoming other fears.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, and I'm starting to do these. Oh, I'm going to have to do them myself. So now I'm doing these YouTube videos for people in French, and sometimes, you know, I YouTube videos for people in French and sometimes, you know, I'll do like too many. And I went from victim I was a victim of chronic pain and now I'm trying to be like in the savior role. So I'm exploring all of that. Why am I doing that? I went from victim to savior and I'm trying to save everybody from chronic pain. And sometimes I put too much pressure on myself. I do videos and I try to talk to people on Zoom, answering emails, and I'm trying to write a book about it, and then my spine will start to burn and it's like, okay, we'll take a walk in the park. It's not physical. I can do as much physical activity as I want. I can do anything I want. Physically. It's when I put too much pressure on myself and then I take down the pressure and then the symptoms go away.

Speaker 2:

Which is, I think, such an important message here, because even though you had this reduction, elimination of symptoms, we're still human, and part of being human is we get these meaningful messages coming from our brain and nervous system, and this is such a key learning for anyone who's healing. That you've kind of mastered here is like, when a symptoms come on, understanding like what are the signs, what is it letting me know of? And pressure? You're similar to myself. Pressure is a pretty common one for myself in terms of the odd time I get pain or symptoms.

Speaker 3:

I really related to the gardening story, where you became really intense about gardening. Yeah, it was supposed to be to relax and here you are getting intense about gardening.

Speaker 2:

Yeah for a lesson. Who are unfamiliar with this story? What happened is I was trying to pick a light and easy hobby and so I. I had this image of like, oh, gardening nicely with my kids in the background, and then within three weeks, I dug up every garden bed around my house. I took a week off. Work Like was just. It was. It was outrageous. So I learned from that as well. Uh, as you're kind of learning here, but that's the other essential is it's it's maintaining our healing long term. Yes, and I think something that you said is so key is it's not like you just do this work, you get better, you stop and you never think about any of this again. That's, that's just not. I've never seen that work for anyone like there. Maybe you don't need to do so much of the brain retraining for the symptoms because it's there less, but no, I don't.

Speaker 3:

I don't do that anymore exactly.

Speaker 2:

But there is this deeper work, whether it's with coping mechanisms or whether it's with, you know, just deeper wounds or emotions that we've kind of felt that you've done such a a great job in maintaining which is amazing and all these projects that you're working on. Um with your permission after, I can share some of those links in the in the episode description, because yes the fact that you're doing these videos in French is amazing.

Speaker 3:

Yes, it's for people who only speak French, Because if you speak English, go watch them directly. And I'm telling people all the time go watch Tanner's video with the French subtitles.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I like it. I like it. Well, this is amazing. I really appreciate you coming on here sharing your healing story, sharing your message of hope. It's truly miraculous and amazing and you know you've done such deep, meaningful work with yourself and you're right. You've gotten so much out of this compared to just the symptoms reducing. Now you're facing other fears, which is amazing.

Speaker 3:

Yes, that's been my discovery. Pain was my teacher. I avoided, avoided, avoided all my life. And then, because I could avoid all that stuff, but then pain I just couldn't deal with. So it was my message to stop avoiding. So the way I handled pain showed me how to tackle my message to stop avoiding. So the way I handled pain showed me how to tackle my other fears as well. I said, okay, I can just do the same thing now with my fear of talking in public or making a video oh okay, wow, I can get back out there and have friends again.

Speaker 3:

The pain taught me how to avoid avoidance, how to avoid avoidance.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, how to avoid avoidance I like that. So, so important, so you know. One last question for you here that I that I like to ask people is you know what advice would you give someone just beginning their their mind body journey? Like what, what advice would you typically give someone?

Speaker 3:

When they are starting, I tell them to focus on what you could call pain reprocessing therapy. At first it's too hard to make the connection between your emotions and your coping mechanisms and the symptoms. So at first I was very methodical. I tackled symptoms like oh, my brain thinks handling a mouse or a keyboard is dangerous. Do five minutes of keyboard First of all. Visualize yourself, do it, trigger a symptom. Then do somatic tracking. Teach your brain this reaction is not dangerous, it's just an overreaction.

Speaker 3:

So that's my first advice you tackle pain reprocessing therapy and you kind of clear the way and you get rid of all these symptoms. Because at first there's just too many symptoms. I was in pain all day. How can I see the link between my emotion, my coping mechanisms? But then they start to clear away and you only get like one symptom once in a while. So now it's way easier to make the connection, like oh, when I put too much pressure on myself, my spine starts to burn. So that's my advice focus on pain reprocessing therapy first and do the the emotional, the psycho-emotional work in parallel and more and more the pain reprocessing therapy part will fade away and you're going to be left with this emotional work that basically never ends. It's layers and layers and layers and it takes a lifetime and some people would say several lifetimes. I'm not into, let's not get into spirituality, I don't touch that. But certainly, yes, there will still be deep emotional work to do one day before you die.

Speaker 3:

Yes. So that would be my advice Don't think that there's an end to the healing journey. There's an end to the symptoms. I could be totally symptoms free if I wanted to. But uh, I you know sometimes I dance with it, you know, I, I I do two days, three days. I put too much pressure. Oh, do the symptoms. Take it easy. The symptoms go away. I really don't fear the symptoms anymore. I don't care. I see them as really useful. Now, amazing, useful feedback. Yes, I have been putting too much pressure on myself. Take it easy, do some meditation.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, this is some great advice that you've shared with everyone here. So, again, I want to thank you so much for coming on the podcast to share your story. I really really appreciate it. So thank you everyone for listening, and I'll talk to you next week.

Speaker 3:

Bye-bye, thank you.

Speaker 1:

Thanks for listening. 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.