The Mind-Body Couple

Retrain Your Brain: Harnessing Somatic Tracking to Conquer Chronic Pain and Illness

• Tanner Murtagh and Anne Hampson • Episode 91

Share episode

Discover the revolutionary approach to retraining your brain to conquer chronic pain and illness as we welcome a fresh start in the new year. Through candid reflections on our holiday experiences, we underscore the critical importance of easing pressure and maintaining emotional regulation. Dive deep into the transformative practice of somatic tracking, a cornerstone of pain reprocessing therapy, which empowers you to replace fear and frustration with calmness and compassion. By cultivating a sense of safety around bodily sensations, you'll begin to lay the groundwork for lasting healing and relief.

Journey with us into the world of somatic tracking and uncover its pivotal role in managing pain, symptoms, and anxiety. Learn how techniques like breathing patterns, visualization, and imagery can shift your emotional responses, creating a positive emotional state. Whether you're practicing formally through meditation or informally in daily life, we'll guide you through the concept of the "healing window," where discomfort is tolerable, and techniques are most effective. Listen in for practical tips on integrating somatic tracking into everyday routines, empowering you to discover personalized strategies for your healing journey.

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 to our podcast. Welcome back, yes, we are recording this. What like two days after Christmas.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, so this is our date night. It is actually yeah, so this is our date night.

Speaker 1:

It is actually. We went out for dinner, which was nice, and now we have some childcare upstairs. You guys might hear a bit of noises. We apologize for that, and now we're doing our podcast recording. Doing our podcast while our babysitter is tending to our children. Yes, and we are tired. It has been a tiring holiday season, kind of like what we predicted.

Speaker 2:

for sure, yeah, but it was good, it was fun, our kids had a good time.

Speaker 1:

Yep, and I think if you had listened to earlier podcasts, we had the goal of taking the pressure off and trying to kind of keep that pressure down as much as we could, which I feel like we did.

Speaker 2:

I think so. For the most part. I felt quite regulated this holiday season, which I, for the listeners, has not always been the case.

Speaker 1:

No, usually, tanner is incredibly dysregulated at the holiday season.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, yeah, so we're doing well.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, yeah so we're doing well.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, this is why you have to keep doing the practices after you're out of pain for this reason.

Speaker 1:

Well, and I think it was good and you're right Like taking the pressure off was definitely helpful. Imagine how you would have felt if you had that pressure kind of dialed up.

Speaker 2:

So we know the holiday season can be hard for a lot of people. We know that it can be a trigger for our chronic pain and symptoms and so if you're you're feeling that way, let's get back on track. We're moving into the new year, there's lots you can do to support yourself and we really try to amplify and give away basically the techniques and strategies on this podcast for people.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, for sure, and so this podcast today is ways to retrain your brain out of chronic pain and illness in the new year.

Speaker 2:

Yes, we got to retrain that brain.

Speaker 1:

Yes.

Speaker 2:

And this podcast. We're going to talk about a favorite skill that's from pain reprocessing therapy called somatic tracking.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, and we've talked about this in other podcasts, but we think it's important to kind of really revisit this and do a somatic tracking focus episode today.

Speaker 2:

It's a useful skill. This skill I am covering with people in usually my second or third session every time.

Speaker 1:

Why are you doing it early on in your work with clients Tanner?

Speaker 2:

Well, you have to understand like we often have this emotional response to our pain or symptoms. This could be fear, frustration, despair, annoyance, and you think about the nervous system. We often shift to this state of fight, flight, freeze, shutdown, and so this dysregulated emotional response, it can really actually start to worsen our chronic pain and symptoms. And so, yeah, when I'm working with someone, I'm focusing on a lot of areas. You know emotions, nervous system, state, creating social safety, processing trauma. But in order to have the pain or physical symptoms reduced, we need to actually change our emotional response, our nervous system response to them.

Speaker 1:

Yes, and so it's crucial, at least when we work with clients, that we help clients learn how to do this right away so they can start practicing the shift.

Speaker 2:

In response it's such a useful skill because it helps us change that emotional nervous system response and using it we can learn to respond with more ease, lightness, calmness and compassion to our symptoms.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I know that can feel really overwhelming to hear responding in that way, and sometimes I talk with people about somatic tracking is or like changing response. It's often the response that goes against our instinct that we try to shift to, so that could be hard to get our minds around a little bit and why we're doing this is really important to understand, because it's not a coping skill.

Speaker 2:

That's what I want to be clear about, because I hear this a lot of like oh yeah, somatic tracking, just be mindful of the pain, like, learn to cope with the better. No, no, that is not what we're doing well, why, like?

Speaker 1:

why are you so clear on that?

Speaker 2:

because this approach that we provide on this podcast that we talk about all the models we pull from. Our goal is to reduce or eliminate the chronic pain or symptoms right and so you're not doing this just to feel calmer and still have pain, actually changing your emotional nervous system response over time, little bit by little bit, every somatic tracking you do over time. That actually helps your brain feel safe and it starts to basically retrain the brain out of pain and symptoms.

Speaker 1:

Yes, and it's okay to think about it that way. So if you're practicing somatic tracking and we'll go more into that as we go through this podcast it's okay to know. My end goal is, hopefully, I'm doing that brain retraining to change my pain. However, in the moment we want to, you know, loosen the grip on that goal and then focus on I'm creating safety.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, at this moment and that's a really clear point here is there can't be a design. This is the hardest part about somatic tracking, even though I just said, the purpose of somatic tracking is long term, we can retrain out. Yes, that's a long term. In the short run, what we do is we create more safety with the sensations so I guess back to this idea of calm while the pain is there.

Speaker 2:

Okay for the end goal then, yeah, brain returning yeah, the goal we we talk about it when you're doing somatic tracking you're trying to get these little healing wins. That's it, these little healing wins. And the healing win isn't that you did somatic tracking and your pain shot down 50%. That can be a happy side effect, but that's not the goal during the actual activity. The goal during somatic tracking is we're trying to feel a little bit safer and if you get these little healing wins where you feel a little bit safer, a little bit more at ease with it, over time that will retrain your brain out of chronic pain and symptoms, or at least one of the skills is going to help you do this right. And so somatic tracking essentially what it is. I always tell people it's a form of exposure. Yes, anytime, anytime you see a therapist I know there's probably some therapists listening who are not going to agree with what I'm about to say but I'm going to say it anyways.

Speaker 1:

Will I agree with that? I think you will, okay.

Speaker 2:

But that's because you know you're my partner.

Speaker 1:

Oh, I don't always agree with you as your partner. Yeah, that's true, or as your business partner, or as your business partner.

Speaker 2:

As any partner.

Speaker 1:

Yeah that's true, yeah, anyways, go on, we'll see.

Speaker 2:

We'll see if you agree. I think anytime you see a therapist, no matter what fancy strategy they're saying they're using and there's lots of fancy ones. I like fancy strategies.

Speaker 2:

You know, for example, I do a lot of somatic experiencing with people. It's great, I love doing it. It's kind of fancy with people. It's great, I love doing it, it's kind of fancy. But anytime you're doing any form of therapy with your therapist, they're doing a form of exposure. They always are. There's a form of exposure taking place Because, whether you're dealing with pain, chronic symptoms, anxiety, depression, there's a form of exposure that's woven into everything, because we know it really works. And this is what somatic tracking is I would agree with this.

Speaker 1:

Hey, you do agree.

Speaker 2:

I like it yeah, I'm right, and I know my uh, our uh colleague, our producer alex, is probably like cheering right now because he loves I'm sure he's cheering, he's's excited.

Speaker 2:

He's excited about this. But somatic tracking is a form of exposure. So you think about exposure. I always give the example of social anxiety. Okay, the easiest example, one of the best treatments, if not the best treatment, for social anxiety is exposure. Yes, even more than medication. And here's the thing. People don't like it very much, but it works quite well.

Speaker 2:

And so with social anxiety you have to understand is someone's anxious about social situations, they're anxious about people, places, whatever, and what they do is then they avoid and they shrink their world more, and more and more until it gets really really small. Same thing happens when we have pain or symptoms. Right, we shrink our world more and more and more Happened to me when I had pain and so exposure, essentially, with some of the social anxieties. Say, you have them have a friend over for coffee at their house and they do that repetitively many, many times. And then they move up to going to a coffee shop with a friend repetitively many times. And then maybe they have a family gathering, such as on the holiday season, and they start going to bigger family gatherings. Essentially, what's going to happen is that hopefully their brain starts to register oh, I'm actually safe, I'm okay. And when that takes place, their anxiety starts to come down.

Speaker 1:

That's funny because I have an example that I use with clients too, and yours is way friendlier than my example. So my example of exposure is I talk about the person that has maybe been in an accident, like a car accident, say.

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Speaker 1:

And what helps for them is to slowly start moving towards the vehicle and so they might go and you know they're scared to drive. So their exposure is sitting beside the car and they're kind of doing nervous dysregulation and easing the anxiety there. Then eventually they move up to sitting in the car and creating safety with that until eventually they feel safe to start driving again. And then that's that corrective exposure to the anxiety they might feel until they start feeling safe again operating that vehicle. But mine sounds a bit dark when I say my example compared to yours, so maybe I'll use yours.

Speaker 1:

If anyone out there is listening has heard me say that example, they're probably like yeah, ours is better.

Speaker 2:

Mine's a little bit more like welcoming Kind of yeah, mine's a bit. A little kinder.

Speaker 1:

But they're both the same, so they're both examples of exposure and this is our long-winded way of saying sorry.

Speaker 2:

Hopefully you're still listening that somatic tracking is exposure.

Speaker 1:

Well, that's right. So both of these examples are exposure to, maybe a trigger or a situation creating this kind of negative response, trying to change that response. Yeah, it's the same with somatic tracking to the pain.

Speaker 2:

The issue becomes with somatic tracking is that you're always exposed to your pain, right? It's hard to run away from.

Speaker 1:

So, like the person that was in the accident, they can just stay away from a car, yeah. Or the person with the social, anxious accident, they can just stay away from a car, yeah, or the person that starts anxious.

Speaker 2:

They could hide out in their house, right, not that that's going to help them in the long run, no but. But with the sensations themselves, it's really hard to disconnect. Like if you have chronic, really severe shoulder pain, right, it's hard not to focus on laser and be there. But it's the wrong type of it's the exposure that breeds more dysregulation more difficult emotions and that's what's driving the pain forward.

Speaker 2:

So with somatic tracking, we're doing something different. We're intentionally approaching the sensations. We're intentionally approaching them, being with them, trying to create safety with them over time.

Speaker 1:

Right.

Speaker 2:

So it's being with the sensation, with a different response than what we normally would do, exactly so I'm gonna we're gonna explain the three components of somatic tracking and then I'll do a little mini somatic tracking for everyone. Awesome, if you're still, if you're still listening at that point it's gonna be good. But somatic tracking is kind of three components that you're tying in right. You've got the mindfulness yes, component number one, and that's exactly what we were saying. You are approaching the sensation with no judgment, no desired outcome, lack of control, like you're just letting it do its thing. You're observing what it's doing, what it's taking place in your body. It's really a step towards embodiment, like we're trying to really be with the sensations, come home to the body and notice what's taking place.

Speaker 1:

So this is as opposed to maybe the sensation is always present, but we're frustrated with it, we're annoyed, we're trying to get rid of it or fix it away. So we're trying to not be with the sensations in that way.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, exactly. So we're trying to do it in this more open, curious, interested fashion. Yeah, the second component is messages of safety. Now I do want to refer to episode 83 that we did. It was all on messages of safety. So if you want a full episode on messages of safety, go to the episode 83 and check it out. But messages of safety, go to episode 83 and check it out. But messages of safety are these cognitive messages you're giving, reminding yourself that the pain or physical symptoms are neuroplastic and that you're actually physically safe right.

Speaker 1:

So that's why it's really important to have a belief, before you kind of practice somatic tracking, that this is neuroplastic or a component is neuroplastic.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, and that's why we give so much education on neuroplastic pain, on how to gather evidence. There's lots of episodes and contents, if people kind of flip through our episodes but you're starting to increase that belief by giving these messages of safety. Right, this is just a sensation. I'm not in danger, I'm okay. All that's taking place is my brain feels in danger right now and I can create safety with this and so back to those other exposure examples.

Speaker 1:

The person with social anxiety would be saying the same of like I'm okay, yeah, it's in sensation, I'm okay in this crowd of people. Or the person that's trying to get back to their car I'm okay, I'm safe, now I can, I can drive again and be okay same idea, exactly. Third component yeah, positivity, ah, this is part of the rewiring this can be a complicated one, I think, for people to understand yeah, you're trying to induce a positive state, right, what Alan Gordon calls it is positive affect induction.

Speaker 2:

It's a pretty fancy term, but like we're trying to, we're trying to change the emotional response and this is where you can get really creative and you got to play around a bit. You know, when I'm working with someone, we might be doing some type of breathing pattern to bring about some calmness.

Speaker 1:

I might be using analogies or certain stories, maybe imagery yes, a lot of people um, not everybody, so if it's not your thing, that's okay, but a lot of people like visualizing their pain in a certain way or bringing in imagery or getting really creative that way, and that creates it kind of like a light, positive experience when approaching the pain yeah, um visualization can be your friend here yes, I've had people visualize a happy, nostalgic memory, yeah, and really lean into that.

Speaker 2:

Now, somatic tracking you can do more as this formal meditation, as we're about to do, but you could also do it informally, like when I was healing. I didn't actually know what somatic tracking was, but I was doing something pretty similar and at the time I've told this story many times I was watching Modern Family and those that love Modern Family have seen all 11 seasons four times at least but what I would do is I would be tracking the sensations in the back of my mind, giving messages, safety. Lean into watching the show, savor it, enjoy it yeah it was a way to induce a positive state.

Speaker 2:

So, like you can do it informally, as you're already doing something that is creating this more positive um you know affect for you to kind of experience totally, and we kind of encourage people to play around with some outotracking in both ways.

Speaker 1:

So like more of a formal meditation way that maybe we'll walk you through in a moment, and then on the fly, which what Tanner describes. And I always say to people, if you don't have time to really do much of it, it's just a shift in response that we're trying to get to. So say, you're in your busy day and you notice the pain sensation. Okay, how do we work on shifting, shifting response and bringing in these three categories into it? And it might be some quick messages of safety, kind of leaning into it, doing some breath work and continuing on the day. That's good too, and so a lot of that throughout the day is a win as well yeah, yeah, there's just lots of ways to play around with it.

Speaker 2:

So, if people don't more like the meditative style, it's like, okay, walk in your favorite nature spot while you do this, yeah, like enjoy the, the sun on your skin or you know, the view of the trees, whatever. It is like really leaning into that and enjoying, um, that pleasant experience. But we've talked about it enough. Now we're going to try one. So you're welcome to try this as we go. You know, when I'm working with clients, we have a lot of recordings we're providing people and in our digital course we got a whole bunch of different variations of somatic tracking that you can check out if you want. Variations of somatic tracking that you can check out if you want. But with somatic tracking, an important piece here is you want to do it within the healing window, okay, and so the healing window is you can imagine a window, okay, all right, I'm imagining it.

Speaker 1:

Imagine the window, anne, I am. And when you're in the window, anne, I'm imagining it. It's uncomfortable in the window Anne. I am.

Speaker 2:

And when you're in the window, anne, I'm imagining it. It's uncomfortable in the window, anne, oh, okay.

Speaker 1:

You're in the window. That's not what I was imagining. Okay, discomfort window.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, yeah. Discomfort window Could be emotions in. There Could be some stress from the holidays. In this case, though, it could be pain.

Speaker 1:

Are my kids in there?

Speaker 2:

Your kids yelling at you could be in there. Oh yeah, that's in there. Hopefully you're in the window, but when you're in the window, you can tolerate it.

Speaker 1:

Okay, and so you want to start with somatic tracking, so they're only yelling at me a little. Yeah, yeah, so with somatic tracking.

Speaker 2:

You want to start when it's more mild to moderate, so it's uncomfortable. If you're outside that window and it's too intense, you're not going to be able to tolerate it. It's going to be too much and you're never going to feel safe and rewire your brain.

Speaker 1:

Yes, and that's true of any kind of exposure you do. It's not about just pushing through to like full intensity or anything like that, it's gradual.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, so right now I'm going to do a some added tracking, but because I don't I'm not sitting in the room with you.

Speaker 1:

Make sure you're in that window of more mild to moderate and you can tolerate this right now. And if it gets to a point, so say you follow along with the somatic tracking and you notice no, like this is too much or it's out of the window, that's fine, that's where you stop and that's okay, perfect.

Speaker 2:

Yes, okay, that's fine, that's where you stop and that's okay. Perfect, yes, okay. So if you're going to fall along, you can close your eyes or lower your gaze, and at first we're not even going to focus on the pain. What I want you to do is I want you to intentionally slow down your breathing. So if you can in and out through your nose your breathing, so if you can in and out through your nose and as you exhale, make the exhale long and drawn out.

Speaker 2:

And what I want you to notice is where in your breathing cycle right now it feels the nicest or it feels the most pleasant. Is it when you inhale and your lungs and belly fill with warm air? Or is it when you exhale and everything releases and everything comes back and relaxes? And wherever that point is, each time you get there and you're breathing, really lean into it, really let yourself savor that experience. Because when we have chronic pain, chronic symptoms, we get really good at focusing on the unpleasant, and so now we need to practice intentionally focusing on the pleasant sensations inside and once you feel maybe more of a sense of ease or lightness inside, now we're going to shift to notice your pain sensations. So scan your body from the top of your head to the bottom of your feet and just notice where in your body right now are you feeling pain or physical symptoms? It could be other things like fatigue or dizziness. And once you've kind of located them, notice are they more localized, are they more widespread? And how would you describe the sensations? Are they tingly, burny, achy, heavy, floaty? Just noticing what the sensations are like. And I want you to approach, if it feels accessible the sensations. So almost each time you exhale, moving in a little bit closer, and we're focusing on them and exploring them with curiosity and interest. But I want to be clear you don't need to focus on them with a bunch of intensity, you don't need to lock into them, kind of like you're studying for a test with criticism scrutiny. All we're doing is we're focusing in this light, easy way with criticism scrutiny. All we're doing is we're focusing in this light, easy way, just allowing them to do their thing moment to moment. And what do you notice about them? Do they increase, decrease, move or change in any way? And whatever they're doing is perfectly okay. And I know right now it feels like something's taking place in your body. It feels like something's going wrong, but it's important to understand that when the pain or symptoms are neuroplastic, your body is completely healthy. It's completely capable. All that's taking place is your brain's just been stuck in this state of danger or survival for a long time and your only job right now is just to change your response, understanding that you're physically safe. We don't need to fear or be frustrated about the sensations. We don't need to feel despair or hopelessness. We can just learn to attend to them in a different way. So with each exhale it's just letting yourself sink into your body a little bit more, but just sinking in with a sense of safety and pain or physical symptoms.

Speaker 2:

You know the sensations. I always explain. They're kind of like snow falling in the sky, which is winter here in Canada. So it's a timely analogy. But it's kind of like snow falling in the sky. And for a long time we've been trying to avoid the sensations, the snow falling. We've been trying to run away from them, hide, hibernate, living in fear of the cold, of maybe a blizzard taking place, living in fear of the cold, of maybe a blizzard taking place. But we can also learn to attend to snow in a different way. Just think about kids playing in the snow. Like my seven-year-old son, he loves playing in the snow, making snow angels, throwing snowballs, and he gets cold and experiences unpleasant things. But he's also learning to enjoy himself regardless of these sensations. And so right now, see, if you can just allow the sensations to fall like snow in the sky and you can just observe them, let them do their thing.

Speaker 2:

And as we finish this practice, what I want you to do is I want everyone to scan their body, from the top of their head to the bottom of their feet, and I want people to pick out an area of their body that feels pleasant right now, even if it's just a small area it could be the tip of your nose, it could be the bottom of your feet on the ground but find an area that feels either pleasant and, if not pleasant, neutral.

Speaker 2:

And once you find this area, move your focus there.

Speaker 2:

And once you find this area, move your focus there, move your focus there and really allow yourself to get to know that sensation, noticing all the subtleties to it, how it presents, how you would describe it.

Speaker 2:

You can almost practice like breathing right into it, right into the area, and, as you exhale, just allowing it to expand a little bit. And now what I want you to do is shift back and forth. We're going to shift between the pleasant sensation and area and the area of your pain or symptoms, just shifting back and forth between the two, teaching our brain that both of these areas are completely safe. It's just, your brain has interpreted the more pleasant sensations as a safe area of the body and it's interpreted the areas you're feeling pain or physical symptoms. That area is potentially dangerous. But it's just reminding your brain both areas are completely safe and okay to attend to. To finish off, just take one more deep breath in and out, slowing it down, just know to see where your pain or symptoms are at and then, when you're ready, you can come back to the room.

Speaker 1:

Thank you, Tanner.

Speaker 2:

There you go, it's the somatic tracking.

Speaker 1:

It was pretty relaxing.

Speaker 2:

I did it too we, uh, we do apologize if during the somatic tracking you heard uh, her kids screaming at all. I could hear them a little bit, but hopefully not too much for you, you know my kid analogy with them playing in the snow fits in well, you hear these kids playing in the background right Yep. But that's one version of somatic tracking. I want to be clear about that. There's hundreds of ways to do it.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, and again back to that very quick, informal way that I mentioned earlier. That's a way to do it too, and so, again, somatic tracking is moving towards corrective exposure and shifting a response, big or small.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, and so play around with it. I always give the homework of, like, do somatic tracking consistently, yeah, you know. If you can do it once or twice a day, great, but also explore trying it all sorts of different ways totally and we want to smatter it like.

Speaker 1:

smatter it, spatter it maybe throughout the day in some ways, so like if pain is constant. Yes, we don't want you to be constantly kind of in this space, but we want it to become a consistent response.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, so thank you everyone for listening.

Speaker 1:

Thank you for listening.

Speaker 2:

And we will talk to you next week.

Speaker 1:

Talk to you next week. To you next week. 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.