The Mind-Body Couple

Give Up Control??? Embrace Uncertainty!

• Tanner Murtagh and Anne Hampson • Episode 88

Share episode

Unlock the secrets to navigating uncertainty in your healing journey with insights from the MindBodyCouple podcast. Ever wondered how your nervous system's subconscious signals might be impacting your emotional regulation and perception of safety? Join us as we explore the concept of neuroception from polyvagal theory, revealing how childhood adversity, trauma, and chronic pain can skew these signals, leaving you feeling more vulnerable. You'll learn practical strategies to enhance emotional regulation and reduce the fear of uncertainty, empowering you to transform your response to life's unknowns.

Embrace a new way of living by letting go of the excessive control that binds you. Our episode guides you through recognizing whether your actions are fear-driven or genuinely rooted in self-care. Tanner and Anne introduce a mindful practice that shifts your focus from pain and symptoms to engaging in valued activities, helping you identify how uncertainty manifests in your body. With a compassionate approach, they explain the importance of staying within a "healing window" to avoid overwhelming sensations. By practicing presence and observation, you'll cultivate a greater tolerance for uncertainty, enabling you to live more fully and freely.

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. 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. Links in the description of each episode. Hi everyone.

Speaker 1:

Hi everybody Welcome back.

Speaker 2:

Welcome back to the podcast. Mm-hmm, we have a good topic today.

Speaker 1:

I'm feeling a little goofy, though, so I'll do the best I can, all right.

Speaker 2:

All right. The topic today for this episode is give up control.

Speaker 1:

Ah, you say it like. There's such an intensity, Tanner.

Speaker 2:

Such intensity. You know, the real question that we want to talk about first is how do you deal with uncertainty? It's important to know this. Yeah, it is. I think, yeah, like it's common to feel difficult emotions, nervous system dysregulation, when facing uncertainty with either life and challenges in life, or our pain or physical symptoms.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, and I want to kind of say here we're going to talk about it in the context of someone maybe struggling with chronic pain and symptoms, but I think everyone struggles with this idea of uncertainty and how to kind of have peace with that.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, and people with neuroplastic pain and symptoms. In my experience I'm generalizing in bits, so if you don't relate to this, that's fine. But most people really struggle with uncertainty. They have so much dysregulation, so much difficult emotions popping up and I want to talk about why this is yeah, and it comes back to this concept of neuroception that they talk about in polyvagal theory. I love the concept neuroception. I'm going to explain it to people here.

Speaker 1:

If anybody is like me. So before we went, like we did the podcast right now, before we recorded it, I was like, oh, I need a refresher on neuroception. I sometimes I feel like this concept I don't know, not eludes me, but it's one that we really need to spend some time on. So thanks for kind of explaining it right now.

Speaker 2:

You know your difficulties with uncertainty. It comes back to neuroception. So think about at first. I want to talk about what perception is, and most people know this. You perceive things in the world consciously and you're perceiving usually if things are safe or dangerous. So, for example, when you come home from work and you're perceiving that your partner's a bit grumpy.

Speaker 1:

Oh my gosh, they're a bit upset they're.

Speaker 2:

You know they're moving around kind of rigidly, they're frantically doing dishes. You're perceiving like, ooh, I got to be careful here. I got to ease in his hands in this mood, you know, here I got to ease in his hands.

Speaker 1:

In this mood, you know, it's funny because if that were true, you would be cautious, you would think about what you said. But often I don't get that feeling from you.

Speaker 2:

When you perceive that, Tanner, I'm doing the best I can, you know, okay, but you make perceptions consciously If situations, external factors or internal sensations are safe or dangerous. The thing is, is neuroception comes first? The way you can think about neuroception is it's your nervous system scanning In every moment of your entire life, even before you had conscious memory. It's scanning. It's scanning internally, externally in relationships scanning.

Speaker 1:

It's scanning internally externally, in relationships, and it's scanning for signals of safety or danger. Uh, and so could someone, maybe and maybe this isn't scientifically correct, but a way to think about it. Could someone think about that as like maybe their intuition, or like a sense they might get?

Speaker 2:

that's the idea it's a feeling, and a lot of us don't have awareness of neuroception until we consciously start to bring awareness to it, because basically, your perception is coming out of neuroception. Like you feel a certain way, you're getting a certain sense. When you're around your partner and they're moving around rigidly and they're kind of grumpy, your nervous system is picking up. Oh, this is a tense situation. And then consciously you're like oh, my goodness, I got to be careful here.

Speaker 1:

So even before you saw me was there some kind of a maybe like on guard it was on guard.

Speaker 2:

There's a bracing that was happening. That's what happens when Anne's grumpy. But here's the thing about neuroception. Deb Dana talks about this. It can be accurate or inaccurate For some people. Their neuroception is. Dana talks about this. It can be accurate or inaccurate. For some people their neuroception is very accurate. For example, the amount of danger their nervous system is feeling is actually probably pretty accurate to the situation that they're facing. Okay, or the amounts of safety of their feeling is very accurate to how safe they are in a situation make sense. The problem is is that when you faced childhood adversity, you face that when you face childhood adversity, you face trauma. When you face chronic pain or symptoms, your neuroception it goes a little wonky and it's not by mistake. Like your nervous system has faced overwhelming situations in the past. So all of a sudden it becomes overly sensitive to signals of danger.

Speaker 1:

And so somebody with neuroplastic pain might be really experiencing this and coming out in their symptoms.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, like people really view sensations as quite dangerous. They really view factors in life that maybe are quite safe as dangerous and they face, when they face uncertainty, they view it as very dangerous, like it's much more dangerous than maybe actually the uncertainty that they're facing.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, and I think I agree with you, tanner, in terms of different people that I've met and talked to, this fear of uncertainty seems to be heightened.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I always give the funny story. This is not relevant, but it's interesting. Okay, you know, neuroception can be off the other direction. Oh yeah, so there's people walking around the world. It sounds nice to us who are always picking up on signals of danger, but there's people walking around the world that feel way safer than they should so their neuroception is wonky, yeah, in the other way, and it sounds nice, but it does get you into trouble. I when I was younger I played in like rock bands and used to come to my shows.

Speaker 1:

I did. I was his groupie Groupie, yes, I don't know Like one groupie but we had this drummer and he was.

Speaker 2:

I actually quite miss him. He was a great time to hang out with. He was so laid back, always in a good mood, always happy, and his neuroception, in hindsight I realized, was off. There was multiple times he was driving to band practice where his car would run out of gas, like he just had no inkling that, like he should take action on things that needed action. So it can get you into trouble.

Speaker 1:

So neuroception, when we talk about it, maybe being oversensitized or picking up too much, yeah, it's not necessarily a bad thing.

Speaker 2:

We need neuroception yeah, but we need to work with it, and so you know this is this affects us when we're going about dealing with uncertainty, because people feel so much fight, flight, freeze, shut down energy when they face uncertainty.

Speaker 1:

I think that's a really interesting way to look at it, tanner, because we can have this great fear response to uncertainty, but this actually gives an explanation of, maybe, why it might be greater than the next guy or greater than we think it should be.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, and I think about it between you and I am because we deal with uncertainty. I fear uncertainty too A bit, but there's situations that you're quite good in dealing with it, that's true when things are uncertain with our business. You know something isn't going right. Anne's like ah, it'll be fine, it's going to work out Tanner.

Speaker 1:

Tanner gets so mad at me about this. Why does that make you so?

Speaker 2:

mad, because the way I deal with uncertainty which is really what we want to talk about is by implementing strategies to control every outcome, and so I'm, like you know, lean into kind of just letting it go.

Speaker 1:

Don't get kind of caught up in uncertainty.

Speaker 2:

You have a tolerance to it, where you're like things are uncertain. You're not denying that, but you have an ability to sit with it, and I've had to work on this a lot. But this proves to actually be an issue and this is why we're talking about it, because people are excessively controlling. This is how they cope with uncertainty, and they do this in life, often before they ever had chronic pain or symptoms, and that increases danger, and then they do that with their symptoms.

Speaker 1:

And so why do we think control will help with uncertainty?

Speaker 2:

Well, it makes sense. It's kind of the idea of, like you face uncertainty. If you really don't like that feeling, we convince ourselves the solutions then to try and control. So I'll give you an example. Right actually before my symptoms started many, many years ago over a decade ago at this point I changed my university program. I wasn't loving it. I changed into social work and I just felt like, oh, did I make the right choice? Like, what's my career going to look?

Speaker 1:

like Like I faced a lot of uncertainty and my response was to try to control, to just do the absolute best, be the top of my class, like it was driven from this fight or fight place and I remember watching you in this time, tanner, and I remember that uncertainty and that like confusion and doubt, um, and then I remember this like desire to control or figure it out and kind of the stress you would cause yourself yeah, and then my symptoms.

Speaker 2:

My symptoms started, like my pain symptoms started and I did the exact same thing. I controlled everything. I read excessively online. I went to every specialist imaginable. I did everything I could to try and control my symptoms, and perhaps you all relate to this. And here's the downside of control. There's lots of downsides, but it causes us to suck all the joy out of our lives. It causes us to take life in this super serious way.

Speaker 1:

So back to your example with me, I'm not taking it in this serious way. Me, I'm not taking it in a serious way. I'm kind of enjoying my time, whereas you, with this, need to control the uncertainty.

Speaker 2:

I've had to really work on it, because there's one thing I'm really great at Can I have to be cautious with it Is I'm great at making life serious.

Speaker 1:

Yes.

Speaker 2:

Oh, I'm awesome at that. Like I can make any, even a positive, situation incredibly serious, like sucking the joy and fun out of things. Oh yeah, I'm just like oh, we gotta and the business is falling apart. We gotta pull it together like it's it's.

Speaker 1:

I'm laughing, but when I'm in the moment, like it's hard, and yeah, and I can see that it's hard for you, and so your instinct is to control that uncertainty away. And so back to that example of like when you moved into social work.

Speaker 2:

There's so much, maybe, anxiety or fear that didn't need to be there and that fear of uncertainty and control yeah, and you know I like Nicole Sachacks' quote around this that control is just fear and fancy clothing.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, because I think in a capitalistic society.

Speaker 2:

It does get dressed up as all fancy, like we really think like, oh, they're in control, yeah.

Speaker 1:

Like it's like this positive thing yeah.

Speaker 2:

But it's driven from this place of fear instead of being driven from a place of love and aliveness.

Speaker 1:

Well, and I really like this too, because we talk about, like, the different forms of fear regarding, like, our relationship with our symptoms or the world around us, and so think insurgency, and so if we can notice control as a form of fear, then that is a great way to learn. Okay, how can I make a change there?

Speaker 2:

yeah, it reframes it. And the other thing I really want to hit home here is that control is going to perpetuate your chronic pain and symptoms and remind us why because it increases, just as you said, fear and dysregulation over time. Yes, so this could look like Googling constantly, always trying new treatments, getting your body retested and scanned over and over again, constantly trying to fix or fixate on your symptoms. I did this at points reading every mind-body book 30 times. Yes, there's a lot of great mind-body books. Please don't read them 30 times.

Speaker 1:

Well, and how can someone maybe notice like how can someone be like? This isn't, this is control. It's not me trying to really dive into this mind-body world. How can they, like, find that line? It's a?

Speaker 2:

fine line and you have to understand, like, what's driving it behind it. Just like we said, is this being driven from a place of fear? Or are you watching my YouTube channel, reading the books, doing the strategies, but are you doing it from a place of like? You know this is, this is so I can create safety, this is so I can really care for myself and and I'm hopeful about this the actions can look very similar, but the drive behind it can be different, and that's what we want to be careful because this excessive control, whether it's with physical treatments or with our approach, is more in brain and nervous system approach. It's, it's going to worsen things over time. It's not the solution.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, and so it is a bit of a mindset shift of like actually letting go of that control, the need to figure out and fix, the need to be in control of uncertainty, to try to like let go of that a little bit. That is the solution.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, and I'm aware of the irony as people listen to this because you're listening to us now. Hopefully this isn't the 10th episode of ours that you've listened to in a row, but once you're done listening to us, today, we want people to move your attention away from your pain and symptoms and onto something that you value, like. It's okay to do some of the work, to listen to the podcast, but we have to watch that obsessive controlling line.

Speaker 1:

Yes, and so that redirecting can be really good, and sometimes that can feel like, oh, I'm kind of letting that uncertainty win, or I feel like I'm in the drowning in the sea of uncertainty if I stop these actions. But that's what we want to practice.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, and so the solution. Let's move on to this. I don't think many people are going to like the solution. It's the hard part here. We need to learn to sit with uncertainty and not take excessive action to control it.

Speaker 1:

And, to be fair, I don't like it either. I think no one really likes this. It's not easy or comfortable.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, we need to be an observer, and so, you know, the first thing we talk about with people is just somatically, we need to learn to understand how certainty feels somatically to you, like that's a really important thing, so that you can identify it quickly in the future. And you know, for me it is, you know, short breathing, it's tense arms, it's constriction in my chest, heart rate rising, and so like it's important to start to figure this out. So what I want people to do is we're just going to do this for a minute or two. Again, this is over a podcast.

Speaker 2:

So if you don't, if you feel it's too intense right now, that's okay, but I want to kind of guide everyone through this for a second. So what I want to practice right now with everyone is just becoming aware of how uncertainty presents in your body. And so what I want people to do, if it's accessible right now, if it's too overwhelming, that's all right, you can just skip this part. But I want people to think about a situation they're facing where there's just some mild uncertainty. Just bring it to mind for a moment, perhaps even noticing the actions of how you tried to control in this situation, and now I want you to move out of your mind and notice in your body how does uncertainty present?

Speaker 2:

Just scan your body, from the top of your head to the bottom of your feet and just noticing how uncertainty is taking place, perhaps being aware of your heart rate, your breathing, how your muscles feel, what sensations are taking place. Just be aware of what occurs moment to moment as you sit with the sensations. Briefly, you you Perhaps being aware of what shape, size, color, texture the sensations are. And we want to keep it in the healing window so you can shift to something safer if the uncertainty is too intense. Shift to just focus on your breath, maybe shift to a pleasant image, a calming image. A calming image Because we're intending to the uncertainty, but we also want to create safety with it.

Speaker 2:

And lastly, I really want people to listen to their body and notice if there's an urge to move a certain way, to kind of release these sensations. So, for example, this could be lightly shaking out your arms or your legs bouncing up and down, it could be tightening your hands up and then slowly releasing, or any other movement that you kind of desire. But just play around with for just 30 seconds doing some type of movement, if you feel comfortable to move through the sensations, just noticing what happens as you do this. When you're ready, we can end this practice and just allow yourself to return to the room. So what we just went through is a brain retraining activity.

Speaker 2:

Thanks, tanner. It's exposure to sitting with uncertainty and it becomes easier over time. This principle of mindfully observing things is true with our pain and symptoms. It's true with all sorts of things, with cravings, with addictions, with compulsions and our tolerance to sit with uncertainty and move through it. And the one thing you really want to be aware of is just that healing window, like make sure it's not too intense as you do this.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, and too intense also can be not too long. So say you're listening to this back and you like this, but you're only doing it for a portion of the time. Tanner did it.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, so it's just keeping in that window and we're just helping people kind of learn to observe their own experience. So, instead of compulsively controlling, learning to sit with uncertainty and be with it.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, and so this is a really great practice to try out as much as you feel comfortable, but I'd almost say a couple times a day, of like sitting and pausing and allowing that and then continuing on.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, and the second way we can work with uncertainty in this pattern of control is behaviorally. Yes, so we can look out for this controlling behavior. For myself, this could be planning out my entire day in 15 minute intervals, my entire week.

Speaker 1:

He does that.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, my entire. All your healing work for the week.

Speaker 1:

I just plan it out meticulously yeah, well, and one thing about if you guys do that or do something like that is there can be no room for flexibility, and so when things don't go perfectly, it's a blow up yeah, and so this could also be like working excessively on a big project that's due soon.

Speaker 2:

You know you have a presentation. You do it 10 times before you present. I used to be guilty of that, for sure um, or just controlling all of the exposure to your pain or symptoms, like just avoiding everything. Yeah, that's good this can really present, and you know, focusing on your symptoms, right, like testing for them, checking for them, talking about them. We just want to watch out for these controlling behaviors that are perpetuating dysregulation.

Speaker 1:

Well, and it's again. What is the energy behind it, and is it kind of this light and easy type approach? Is it that kind of I'm going to be curious, or is it driven by fear?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, and once you've identified, you know, these controlling behaviors, we want to see if we can reduce them a little bit by a little bit. It's still a healing window because like this is exposure. So if you just like try to remove all the control from your life, you're going to move into panic pretty quick. It's going to be too much. So just like try to remove all the control from your life, you're going to move into panic pretty quick. It's going to be too much. So just like we talked about the healing window, like mild sensation of uncertainty at first, when you're doing this exposure to control, think mild, small baby steps, you know choosing to not plan out how your healing work is going to be for the remainder of the day.

Speaker 1:

And so, and thinking of this as exposure is a really great way, because that means okay if I'm exposing myself and I'm practicing. I understand that this is probably going to be a bit challenging at times.

Speaker 2:

For myself with presentations. Instead of practicing 10 times, see if you could practice, you know, five or six times, like just lowering the number a bit. Don't go all the way down to one, that's probably going to be too much. But really just giving some of this light exposure can go a long way.

Speaker 1:

It can be redirecting the attention to something preferred, so Wait, I have a question that's popped up in my mind, tanner. So your example that you had shared about me and my like oh everything's going to be okay, kind of mentality about different things Are you trying to practice that more and expose yourself more to that idea?

Speaker 2:

You're practicing like that lightness and ease with uncertainty. It doesn't, it's not just going to occur Like we can practice that response and not controlling and sitting with uncertainty and trying to be more light with it. You're going to have to fake it a little bit at first, like, but the practice over time can really be beneficial. So it's just it's starting to do some of this. So we really talked about the solution to tolerating uncertainty and reducing control. There's somatically and behaviorally. There's two different areas people can focus on. And so, in summary, the great thing about changing your habits around control doesn't mean you're giving up control or admitting defeat. I think it's important to be clear on that. Just because you're giving up control doesn't mean you're just giving up, like some people feel like if I don't perfectly control my healing, I'm just giving up on it, right, and so that's not the case. Like, this is an actionable step that's going to help you heal and you're changing your habitual response to pain or symptoms or other challenges in life, just like I've talked about with presentations.

Speaker 2:

Now, when I do presentations, I practice once, that's it that's, but you've had to work towards that took time to feel comfortable with the uncertainty and we really just want people to start to simply catch when they're trying to control and be really aware of this and intentionally make that shift behaviorally and over time. These shifts can reduce all that pressure that people are feeling and you're going to stop working so hard, which is great, and so this can really lead to more safety and less pain and symptoms over time.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, for sure, and it's definitely like a work in progress. So we want to tell everybody, just trying this on and chipping away at it, that's really good. Tanner's changes that he's described didn't come overnight.

Speaker 2:

No, it took time. So we've given lots of ideas. Yeah, this is a useful podcast for people. Yeah, we hope so. Yeah, so we will talk to you next week. Talk to you next week, take care.

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.