The Mind-Body Couple

Navigating Holiday Stress: Mind-Body Tools for Managing Chronic Pain and Embracing Imperfection

• Tanner Murtagh and Anne Hampson • Episode 89

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Ever felt the weight of the holiday season bearing down on you, especially when managing chronic pain or illness? You're not alone. Join us as we promise to equip you with a "mind-body holiday toolkit" designed to navigate the intense pressures of festive obligations, relationship dynamics, and financial strains. Our heartfelt discussion sheds light on the common yet overwhelming experience of striving for perfection during the holidays. We share personal stories and effective strategies to help you prioritize your well-being, embrace authenticity, and foster emotional balance during one of the busiest times of the year.

Throughout our conversation, we emphasize the power of setting boundaries as a crucial step towards maintaining regulation and peace during the holiday rush. From limiting the number of activities you commit to each day to confidently saying no to certain requests, we provide actionable advice to shield yourself from stress and its impact on chronic conditions. Dive into our insights about letting go of perfectionism and celebrating genuine, spontaneous moments that truly matter. Whether you're grappling with chronic pain or just the seasonal hustle, our episode offers support and guidance to help make your holiday experience more manageable and fulfilling.

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 neuroplastic, not structural. 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 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, one of the wonderful therapists at our agency in Calgary, Alberta. https://www.painpsychotherapy.ca/


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


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


Disclaimer: The information provided on this podcast is for general in...

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.

Speaker 1

Hi everybody, welcome to the podcast.

Speaker 2

Hello everyone.

Speaker 1

We have, as you might probably guess and maybe you read the title, so you actually know but we have a bit of a holiday holiday episode it is.

Speaker 2

You know it's holiday season. Yes, I know there's lots of people from around the world celebrating different holidays. In our house it is christmas chaos oh yes, and I I'm feeling it.

Speaker 1

I'm feeling christmas chaos and I empathize with anyone else feeling Christmas chaos because it's hard and it's tiring and it's exhausting.

Speaker 2

It is yeah, but our son? Well, both of our kids are happy, but our son is especially happy.

Speaker 1

Is he happy? He loves chaos.

Speaker 2

Well, he gets stressed. Yes, he doesn't have the insight yet that his excitement turns to stress. Took me about 30 years. 'll get there, yeah, but you love special things, oh, yeah, it's all about like special things.

Speaker 1

so christmas traditions, special things, which makes a lot of pressure on us. I feel like. I feel like the pressure amounts to make it just as special or more special than last year.

Speaker 2

We're going to talk about today one thing we want to congratulate yes, our producer, alex.

Speaker 1

Yeah.

Speaker 2

Just had a baby daughter.

Speaker 1

Yeah, and so as we talk about pressure with our kids, we hope he's not feeling the pressure right now and he's in kind of the honeymoon wonderment of new baby. Yes, We'll hope that period lasts for him you said yes, very like, I don't know, very apprehensively, because you well, I was just thinking back to like when we had our son.

Speaker 2

I had that and our son was in the NICU for a bit, so we had a bit of a. It was stressful, the NICU, yeah, but we also just didn't understand the severity of his health conditions and why he was there yeah. So we had a bit of a NICU holiday.

Speaker 1

Yeah, we had a bit, and then when we took him home, we were like, oh, this is what it means to take care of a baby, and it was a bit of a shock to the system. And so we are very excited, alex, for this time for you, and we know there's a roller coaster of emotion.

Speaker 2

Yeah, he's got a holiday baby.

Speaker 1

Ooh, a holiday baby Pressure off, hopefully in this time.

Speaker 2

Just hibernate with your baby. Yeah, okay, we got to move on. Yeah, anyways, okay.

Speaker 1

But we want to talk. One thing we want to talk about is the pressure of this time.

Speaker 2

So today's topic the mind-body holiday toolkit for chronic pain and symptoms.

Speaker 1

And I like that, I like this idea of a toolkit and so because we want to think, going into this holiday season or these maybe next couple of weeks for people, that we have a toolkit, that we have strategies, that we have things we can use and so we can feel a sense of control, and control in the good sense of the word, I want to say and the reason we bring this up is the busiest time at our clinic.

Speaker 2

Pain Psychotherapy Canada is usually starting in the first week of December right through to the end of January. The first week of December I get a wave of people reaching back out, being like I was healed, my pain went away, it worked. And as the holidays creep in, all of a sudden symptoms start to creep in. This is a common thing, I can tell you definitively. I'm book solid until the end of January, almost right now, because it's just it's a stressful time.

Speaker 1

Yes, and so if you relate to that, what Tanner just shared, please know you're not alone. Again, it's very common, we see that a lot and it makes sense, just like I was describing when we came into the podcast today of the pressure and the stress and the overwhelm with this time.

Speaker 2

And so why this can really trigger our chronic pain, chronic symptoms whether you're still recovering and they're just worsening or they've come back is the pressure. It's the pressure to make everything perfect, the pressure to make it special for our son. One thing that I really felt when I was healing because in the last year I was very depressed with my chronic pain and it's the pressure to feel a certain way. Yes, like we have this idea, the pressure. It should be joyful. Your heart should be full of love and compassion. This feeling it takes a lot of pressure for a person to just feel a certain way, takes a lot of pressure for a person to just feel a certain way. Then you add, in difficult relationships with family members, that now you have to see around the holidays. Yes, life gets busier financial stressors and there can be a lot of social stressors and events.

Speaker 1

For sure, and so there's a lot of expectations in this time and, like you shared, tanner, this kind of unspoken idea of how we want it to be, and then often it's never exactly that way, and so this pressure I think, that we put on ourselves, or these kind of silent or quiet messages we might get from others yeah, and I can tell people definitively, in the three and a half years I had widespread chronic pain come every December.

Speaker 2

It would get so much worse. Yes, for all the reasons I just listed, it would just get so much worse, and I really had to create a toolkit for myself as I started to heal for how I was going to handle the holidays.

Speaker 1

And it's interesting because you say that, tanner, because I remember it getting so much worse for you around this time and I at the time I didn't know as much as I do now and I would be really confused, because I know how much you love the holiday season and so I would always be like a bit blown away at how difficult this was for you, even though knowing how much you love it, and I just didn't understand all the pieces that you mentioned.

Speaker 2

Yeah, and it's the biggest one for me was just the pressure to to feel happy, to be joyful, to be social, like I really felt that, because when I was so dysregulated and I in pain, it was just not possible. So there was this contrast compared to years prior when I didn't have pain, how much I would lean in and we'd be making snowflakes out of paper and watching our 50 Christmas movies and whatever it was. It just was really hard to get there. So let's dive into this toolkit. We're going to go through five different things to keep in mind here to better your chances of your pain staying minimal, your symptoms staying minimal, or to handle these flares. And so these five aspects, you probably need an element of each of them as you approach the holidays.

Speaker 1

Yes.

Speaker 2

Number one. Number one Set boundaries, boundaries.

Speaker 1

Okay, and I think boundaries isn't really a new word for a lot of people, and so, in this context and struggling with chronic pain and symptoms, why is boundaries so important?

Speaker 2

Well, welcome my people, pleasers.

Speaker 1

I am also a people pleaser yeah, I laugh because I am also a people pleaser as well sometimes. So we relate to this.

Speaker 2

Oh, yes, so much. And around the holidays, this appeasing behavior, this pushing past your limits, like it's just coming at you in all directions, and so, all of a sudden, people are pushing way past their ability to kind of tolerate things, their ability to kind of tolerate things. And the one thing I want to mention here is don't wait until the week before your holiday to start setting boundaries. Like don't wait until Christmas Eve to be like, if you celebrate Christmas, to be all. These are the boundaries I've been set today.

Speaker 2

Like this is an ongoing thing as we approach this season and we have to base it on your own nervous system. Like we have to value our regulation. We really do, we need to value it, we need to put our needs first and I and to have a connection to the body. Like a lot of the work we do is like this somatic focus. The reason why I mean people attend somatically to pain or symptoms or emotions or dysregulation is so that you can start taking cues off of your body based on what you need. And so I always tell people start to visualize the holidays, start to visualize you know what are boundaries you can put in place that are going to give you more of a sense of safety and connection.

Speaker 1

Yes, and so, leaning into what do I need? What will create safety for me, I think that's a really great way to look at this. Boundaries tenor of like okay I'm, I know I need to honor creating safety in my nervous system. I've been learning that throughout all these podcasts episodes, so boundaries is a part of that and that gives a bit more understanding. There with the boundaries for sure, I think kind of what I was sharing earlier as a parent and this pressure to do good by my children. I can overstep my own boundaries there as well, and I think if you're a parent listening to this podcast, you probably relate to wanting to do everything for our kids but stretching ourselves so thin as well, and so it's understanding what are your limits?

Speaker 2

here. Yes, and some examples of this is only having one holiday activity a day. We're doing this right now when we have the parties, and it's hard because family want to hang out, they want to spend time with us and we're very kind about it. But we know, like we know ourselves, we know our kids can get very dysregulated. So leading up to it we might have parties and things, but that's the one thing that day.

Speaker 1

Yes, and that might not apply to you. You might be able to have a day full of gatherings. Apply to you, you like, you might be able to like have a day full of gatherings, um, and so everybody might be different in learning this, but we know for us we all can get very dysregulated if we pack too much in.

Speaker 2

yeah, and just that ability, like giving yourself permission during this season but in any time, to be honest, to say no to families, to family requests Like that, can be a very vital thing. I think the other thing that I like to have people bear in mind because it can create a lot of stress is having financial boundaries too.

Speaker 1

Okay, so that's a big one. Yeah, why is that important?

Speaker 2

Because people want to be kind and be loving and so they spend so much money. But what I've seen with so many people I've worked with, this come January there's just this ginormous heap of stress because they've pushed themselves financially way too far, and so it's all the boundaries, it's social gatherings, it's activities, but it's also the financial as well.

Speaker 1

Yeah, and setting boundaries like this, especially if it's new for you or challenging, might not always feel comfortable. So again, this is a bit of an exposure activity of like. Can I set boundary here and expose a bit to the blowback maybe by family or the blowback of my own kind of expectation?

Speaker 2

Yes, and by setting boundaries you make it so that you value your own needs. Yeah, putting your needs first, you stay regulated and your pain or symptoms reduce or dissipate.

Speaker 1

So that's a good thing to remember also.

Speaker 2

Why we're doing this. Number two feel difficult emotions. This is vital, whether it's certain family members triggering you past trauma around this time of year, just grief from you know, not feeling a certain way. We need to slowly and gently approach our somatic self and feel emotions in small doses so they're not building up during this holiday season.

Speaker 1

Yeah, and I think often this season can be difficult because it's a mix of emotions really, sometimes extreme excitement, other times overwhelmed, sometimes loneliness, like you said, or grief, or those difficult emotions too, and we want to create safety with all emotions, regardless of what they are, and again, this might be difficult too, of having a bit of exposure.

Speaker 2

Yeah, and I think what I always tell people and again, this is useful any time of the year, but especially around the holidays. Like I said, there's that pressure to feel joyful and love, give yourself permission, accept and allow. This is how I feel, because forcing yourself to try and like, enjoy things when you're not there again, some of that can be okay in small doses and that's later in this list, but you got to start with the accepting and allowing of this is how I feel this holiday.

Speaker 1

Yep for sure. So a bit of that radical acceptance piece. One thing I talk with people is like sometimes we're busy, we're in the mix of everything. We can't dive deep into our emotions at that moment is setting feeling times. I don't know if anyone listening has heard of like setting worry breaks, of like, oh, I'm going to do my worrying for my day at 5pm for 20 minutes. You can do the same with feeling times of like okay, I'm busy, I can't, you know, cry it out right now because I'm doing something, but at 5 pm I'm going to go and acknowledge what emotions I've been feeling and give space for them.

Speaker 2

Yes, and if you want extra support, I have emotional practices on my YouTube channel Links in the description, but also in our course. We have a lot of regulation skills. Emotion practices yeah, over 60 plus practices that people can try out there as well, and right now we have the 20% off discount for the Heal for the Holiday sale.

Speaker 1

Yeah for sure. And so whatever modality you use to allow yourself to explore your feelings, just putting a little bit of time to bring those to the surface and purposefully kind of move towards those, it's a great way to do that.

Speaker 2

Yes, Number three reduce perfectionism.

Speaker 1

So that's a kind of that pressure piece, a little bit of taking that pressure off my best friend, perfectionism. Yeah, still a little bit. Still a little bit.

Speaker 2

It's interesting for myself. It's different every person but people pleasing to me. I've just been able to kill that trade off more and more Like I just. I'm myself Like unapologetically Good for you, sometimes to Anne's dismay.

Speaker 1

I wish you would have people pleased me a little bit more. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2

I'm working on it, but perfectionism has been a difficult one. We did an episode a few episodes back on perfectionism. So if you're new to understanding how perfectionism can trigger your chronic pain and symptoms, which it absolutely can, go back and listen to that episode. We give lots of tips, but this really, yeah, like as Anne's saying, it comes to taking the pressure off around making the holidays perfect for yourself or for your family.

Speaker 2

One thing I think about is the things around the holidays that I really valued as a kid, like you know, those memories that really just like hit home. They were spontaneous, they were they sure they were maybe at parties and different things, but there was this spontaneity of what my parents were doing or what other family members were doing, like what activities we just started to do, and so like there was no pressure to make this thing perfect. And that's how I view it, that's how I almost rationalize it to myself of like you don't need to put all this pressure on, you don't have to make the perfect turkey dinner and like have every side be perfect and make sure dinner starts right at five o'clock and have a seating arrangement for everyone. Like all of that, like letting some of that go. This year, what we're doing, we have Christmas Eve at our house with our family and our siblings and things. Last year it went pretty smooth. Last year we cooked a bit. People brought some dishes. This year we're doing pizza.

Speaker 1

Yeah, and we're excited for that. And again, you might be listening to this and be like no way I'm doing what tanner just described with the big meal.

Speaker 2

Whatever way you choose, work on having an element of pressure off in whatever you decide to do yeah, because I thought about christmas eve and how I want to be with my kids and have fun with them and have fun with you, ann, as well. Wow, I don't want to, and this is a personal thing. So, again, I'm not judging people for having like a big dinner. Find your own ways to take the pressure off, but I want to enjoy that day.

Speaker 1

And I appreciate this as your spouse, tanner, because I actually know in the past, when you are in that pressure mode to kind of do what is expected of you or try to do things perfectly, you're not as with us. You're not as with us mentally, no, you're noticeably agitated. And so, yeah, this, this is what we want too.

Speaker 2

Yeah, as Alan Gordon, from the creator of pain reprocessing therapy, often has a slogan of just lower the stakes. The stakes don't need to be so high. If it doesn't work out perfectly, if dinner starts at 5, 10, like, it'll be okay, and I think we need to have that mentality. And it's not like just think about this once and move through your whole holiday season, like for myself. I need the reminders throughout the day. I'm reminding myself, like lower the stakes take the pressure off.

Speaker 1

This doesn't need to be perfect and again, this is exposure, so that that slogan lower the stakes might not come naturally to you. It might feel a bit nerve wracking if you're trying to practice this, and that's okay.

Speaker 2

Yeah, number four, stay consistent with your healing work.

Speaker 1

Ah yes, Don't just abandon it all.

Speaker 2

This is what happens to people as they this is why our clinic is employed in January alone is, and I'm guilty of it too. Sometimes things get busy, you're leaning in and so people stop everything. Yeah, and whatever it is, whatever you're doing for your healing, whether it's some breath work, whether it's somatic tracking, maybe you're doing some emotional work, whatever Just stay consistent. Yes.

Speaker 1

Keep up your daily kind of routine if you can.

Speaker 2

People greatly underestimate how much healing work they need when stress increases. Yeah, this is so common so I try to like increase it more than I think what I need, because that's really important. Yes, so just don't take the whole holiday season off Again. Still make time to enjoy it and do these things, but for what's been working for you, keep going with it.

Speaker 1

Yeah, for sure. And Tanner's point of like it's okay to loosen the grip on it a bit and not like we don't want to swing fully the other way of being like very intensely controlling about getting it all done but still put the things that are working for you of like. Okay, I have my morning routine that's focused on nervous system regulation. I'm gonna need that in this stressful time, so it's acknowledging. What do I still need?

Speaker 2

yeah, yeah and lastly, number five lean in to pleasant experiences and traditions.

Speaker 1

Yeah, because it's a perfect time maybe for that for some of us.

Speaker 2

And so we don't want to think about this in terms of like, all or nothing. We've had a point earlier on of like, feel those difficult emotions. Allow yourself to feel the way you feel, and you can do that and at the same time, try to lean into things that you usually enjoy about the holidays, lean into traditions. I think learning to hold both is vital, like so many people with neuroplastic pain and symptoms, myself included, we are all or nothing people. It is either like I'm going to do this exactly this way, rigidly, or I'm not going to do anything at all. But you can hold both. You can feel those difficult emotions and grief, whatever it might be, but then also do your best to try and savor these small moments, savor these pleasant feelings that come up, even if they're just 30 seconds or a minute at a time.

Speaker 1

Yeah, and if you want more kind of information on savoring pleasant sensations and leaning into those, I think you have some information on your youtube channel, right tanner, to focus more on that. Yeah, um, we have like practices connected to our course as well. Yeah, that focuses on that.

Speaker 2

So if this is something you're really interested in, there's a lot of resources to access yeah, because at the same time as you're feeling these things, you want to widen your world, you want to start living life again, and part of living life again isn't savoring these moments during the holidays that you enjoy, savor traditions. I know that can be hard, but again it's exposure is really vital. So this is our mind, body, holiday toolkit yep, we hope it was helpful.

Speaker 1

If anything, if you're like I don't really know what to take away, we want to kind of run through these uh, five points again really quick. So number one we have setting boundaries. Number two feeling difficult emotions. Number three reducing perfectionism. Number four stay consistent with your healing work. And number five leaning into pleasant experiences and traditions yeah, so we covered five main ones.

Speaker 2

Yeah, but I also want to say at the end here your your mind body holiday toolkits, probably unique, so like add the things in that. That makes sense for you year by year, like mine's always changing because I learn new things. Yeah, I learn. I learn new things about what works for me and what doesn't. Uh, I'll let you all know how ordering pizza goes on christmas eve hopefully not stressful I don't think it'll be stressful.

Speaker 2

I'm gonna have a five minute phone call and then, uh, be goofy with my kids the rest of the time.

Speaker 1

So yeah, sounds like a pretty good plan.

Speaker 2

Yeah, so thank you everyone for listening. Thank you for listening and we'll talk to you next week. 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.