The Mind-Body Couple

5 Habits Preventing You From Healing Your Chronic Pain & Illness

• Tanner Murtagh and Anne Hampson • Episode 94

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What if the key to alleviating chronic pain lies in the way we perceive and engage with our own emotions and habits? Join us as we tackle this intriguing question and uncover the habits that might be hindering your healing journey. We dive into the necessity of downtime and how regulating your nervous system can be a game changer. Plus, we're thrilled to introduce our new weekly virtual Qigong classes, perfect for anyone looking to enhance their somatic movement and breath work. These sessions are accessible to all, regardless of physical capability, and offer a unique opportunity to bridge the gap between mind and body, encouraging a more hopeful and optimistic mindset.

Understanding the full spectrum of emotions is a cornerstone of our discussion, as we explore how avoiding or suppressing emotions can lead to physical pain, drawing insights from experts like Dr. Sarno and Dr. Schubiner. We highlight the importance of embracing all emotions as a pathway to healing, and share personal stories, including a humorous anecdote about using cleaning as an emotional avoidance tactic. We also address the fear-driven avoidance of movement and how it can limit life experiences. By sharing strategies like graded exposure, we aim to inspire you to challenge negative thinking, embrace movement, and lead a more connected and fulfilling life.

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


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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 back to the podcast.

Speaker 2:

Hi everyone.

Speaker 1:

Me and Ed have a nice day off today, yes, our kids are at their grandparents' place, which I feel like, at least for me, was so needed to have a break. Think about, like you know, when we talk about nervous system regulation, sometimes I'm waiting for that break to kind of reset for myself, and I need that.

Speaker 2:

Need the break. Yes, you're going to live it up. Anne's informed me that after this You're going to live it up. Anne's informed me that after this she's going to stay in her bedroom for the next seven hours.

Speaker 1:

With the cats. And for me not to bother her. That's the living it up I want. I never get to spend hours just like relaxing and lounging, hanging out with the cats. You know, doing some work on my computer, I've been fantasizing about this all week literally, so do not bother me, Tanner.

Speaker 2:

See, we're very different in this way. I've gotten better over the years at relaxing, but I couldn't do it for seven hours.

Speaker 1:

That would be my nightmare, and it's so funny because I have to get groceries, but I'm not touching this time. I'm getting groceries after I pick up the kids with the kids, which is also something I hate to do, but I am maxing and making the most of my time, which, for some people like me, you need that. You need that downtime to reset or regroup and I need it, yeah.

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Speaker 1:

Well, I hope you have a good day, anne.

Speaker 2:

I'm excited you deserve it, you do feel happy, so we're going to dive into our topic in a second.

Speaker 2:

But I have a new offering. Ah, yes, I am running weekly drop in Qigong classes. Yeah, so the classes are available for people worldwide. Yes, and they're held virtually through Zoom. They're every Friday from 9 to 10 am MST or Calgary time and they're relatively cheap, I believe $20 Canadian plus tax per class. And really, this class it's going to include, you know, 35 to 40 minutes of somatic movements and then 20 to 25 minutes of somatic work with sensations and or breath work.

Speaker 1:

Awesome. One question that comes to my antenna what if someone really wants to do it but they're not so into the movement part? They're more like wanting to do the seated part. Yeah, it sounds like there's a piece like a bit of both.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, the idea of this is I am trying to get people moving. Yeah, because a lot of us have such a relationship with movements and chronic chronic pain, chronic symptoms, a very negative relationship. And so you know, if you the somatic movement, I'm gonna instruct it as standing, but you could do it sitting. A lot of these moves you could do even lying down, um, so we can, people can modify if they come and um, make it kind of their own practice. Eventually, I want people standing and make it kind of their own practice Eventually. I want people standing and doing it. That's my hope, that's the hope of this podcast. We want people using their body fully, living fully. But you got to start where you're at.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, no, and I think that's awesome. I think it's good to know that people can hear hey, there's no pressure of like fully engaging in all of it, and it's okay to feel it as you go.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, but I'll drop the link in the description of this episode. So if people are interested, they can book online. But I want us to dive into our topic. Today we have, I think, a very needed topic, a very helpful topic for people, and this is five habits that prevent you from healing your chronic pain and chronic symptoms.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, and I agree. This is super important and often you know I'll chat with people and it is spending time thinking okay, what is still reinforcing pain and symptoms, what is keeping them fueled, what is keeping them going? And so having that awareness is key, and these habits are things that we see commonly occurring for people.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, we tried to compile a list of things that we commonly see getting in people's way, yeah, and personally I've experienced getting in the way of my own healing. So number one, number one negative thinking about pain and symptoms.

Speaker 1:

And I feel like everyone listening probably relates to this to a degree. And again, like I want to validate rightly so no one wants pain and symptoms, no one wants to kind of experience that and as we're living with those chronically, of course there's going to be a negative relationship there.

Speaker 2:

And for a lot of us, we come to developing chronic pain, chronic symptoms, because we are very dysregulated and what I mean by that is we're perpetually in states of fight, flight, freeze, shut down. And when this happens Deb Dana talks about this concept of story follows state the story in our mind kind of follows the state of our body. So if you have all these negative I shouldn't say negative unpleasant emotions, unpleasant nervous system states, you know if that's taking place and this is perpetual story in your mind is just going to follow. If you're feeling all this unpleasantness, you're going to have a lot of negative thinking. If you're feeling more safe, connected, we have more hopeful thinking, more optimistic thinking.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, so again, there's reason why that's happening when we're in that state of dysregulation for so long. And so because sometimes it's like, well, you know, there can be questions asked of me of like, well, why is my mind always doing this, why am I always thinking this way? How do I shift it? And we need to have compassion towards ourselves for being in this state chronically. But it's awareness that this is happening. And then, I think, intentionally working on how do we shift out of it, which can be hard at first.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, and we want to discuss a little bit about you know what this sounds like, because negative thinking it can sound very differently. Yeah, but maybe share with people in a little bit about you know how this could sound in terms of this negative thinking about pain or symptoms.

Speaker 1:

Yeah. So we're going to kind of, I'm going to read off a little list of common phrases or thoughts that we hear and something that we want our listeners to do is think about. Okay, do I relate to any of these or any form of these? And so this could sound like I'm never going to heal. Something must be wrong with my body. I'm not doing the healing work correctly. I need to make this sensation go away right now. I'm not safe to move this way. I'm going to pay for it, or this is hopeless and there's nothing I can do.

Speaker 2:

And the more we think and maybe people relate to some of these ways of thinking I know I did when I had widespread pain but the more we think this way, the more we feel dysregulated, the more the brain thinks okay, there's something really wrong with the body and it just perpetuates our pain and symptoms forward.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, and so, recognizing, am I in this type of spiral? Is it happening Sometimes, recognizing how often it's happening? So I've talked with people that realize, oh, this is in the background all day long and we can get used to being in this.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, it becomes so familiar that we almost don't notice it anymore, like I wasn't aware when I was in pain. You were probably very aware, but I wasn't aware that I was thinking about this in this negative, hopeless way, 80, 90% of my day.

Speaker 1:

Yeah.

Speaker 2:

And so to ever think that my symptoms are going to shift when I'm feeding that perpetually? I really had to. I had to make changes there.

Speaker 1:

Yeah.

Speaker 2:

And we're not going to dive into the full solution, but we did an episode a while back on messages of safety.

Speaker 1:

Yes.

Speaker 2:

This was episode 83, if people missed this. But essentially you know we do a lot of bottom up, like more somatic work with people. But some of this top down, like cognitively focused work, is important and starting to give yourself these messages of safety, reminding yourself of your neuroplastic pain or symptom, evidence why your symptoms are neuroplastic, that your body's safe, there's no damage, that using this approach you're going to heal, you're going to get better and these sensations, even if they feel high right now, they'll eventually fade, and that you got this. Maybe a little bit of an empowerment message, but these messages of safety shifting to that's essential. When I was healing, I did this little activity. It wasn't obsessive, I did it more as like a fun experiment game. But every time I noticed myself having a fear thought or a hopeless thought about my body, about my pain, I quickly give a message of safety and I won't get obsessed. I give a message of safety, I move on, redirect to my life. When I was drawn back, message of safety and it was just this simple brain retraining.

Speaker 1:

And that's what was coming to my mind is like shifting out of this negative thinking. It is about brain retraining and our brain can get so used to going in this way of like going to negative thoughts, going to hopeless thoughts. We want to almost exercise that muscle of going into another way and that's a great example, tanner, where you described doing that. And then I like that you mentioned redirecting of like, okay, I'm going to kind of change the pathway here and then I'm going to move on and we want that consistently, we want to carve out a new pathway there.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, so there's the message of safety piece, the cognitive piece, but I also don't want people to lose track of some of that nervous system regulation, the somatic practices, the breath work we often talk about. That's also going to help shift the state of your mind. So both I think both are needed. Let's move on to number two on the list. Okay number two Avoiding feeling and expressing emotions.

Speaker 1:

Yes, and I think this can be confusing sometimes, because I I think almost okay, negative thoughts, I get it, but why is it so important to feel emotions, especially if we're worried that they're going to dysregulate us further, like maybe some negative emotions or difficult emotions?

Speaker 2:

yeah, I think this is, this is hard, and I I saw you catch that there because I think we, even as therapists, think about this this way sometimes. I try my best to never say negative emotions. Yes, it's hard because, even though we teach this all day, I get latched into thinking about it Right. Difficult emotions, unpleasant emotions, but there's no negative emotions.

Speaker 1:

Well, let's unpack this for a minute. Why do we view difficult emotions of negative? Do you think?

Speaker 2:

because they feel bad inside so we're like this doesn't feel good. Bad emotion, yeah, bad emotion, like you get this idea? Sorry, I'm saying it. That's not like our. Our kids like our daughter like when something happens. This is like the most adorable thing. Our daughter like when something happens. This is like the most adorable thing. Our daughter carries around this pink bear. That really isn't pink anymore.

Speaker 1:

No, it's a key.

Speaker 2:

Bear has to keep going for baths and the washing machine.

Speaker 2:

But, like, if, like, something will fall off her table and bears sit next to her, she'll be like bad bear. Bad bear it's adorable because she's, like you know, trying to make sense of her world. She's four, by the way. If this was happening at 15, we'd have a bigger issue. But we think about this in terms of emotions right, negative emotion, bad emotion because it doesn't feel good, but all emotions. We're meant to feel the full spectrum. We're meant, as human beings, to feel joy, happiness, love, but also fear, anger, guilt, sadness, like we're meant to feel the full spectrum on a daily basis.

Speaker 1:

Well, and that's right, and maybe a way to rephrase this, then, is all emotions are healthy and helpful. Okay, yeah, healthy, helpful, informative. Rephrase this, then, is all emotions are healthy, um, and helpful, and okay, yeah, healthy, helpful, informative. And it's changing relationship with um, maybe out of the bad yeah, but we've known this in research for a long time.

Speaker 2:

Dr sarno talked about this, dr schubiner talks about this a lot. It's not that difficult emotions or any emotion is going to trigger your pain or symptoms, but when you avoid them, you suppress them, you resist them. That's going to cause a lot of dysregulation in your system and the brain's going to click on pain or symptoms over time.

Speaker 1:

And usually that is with maybe the more difficult emotions for us to feel.

Speaker 2:

Yes, but I want to say this because there's a select number of people out there that relate to this. Some people, those emotions that we've, in our society, deemed as positive emotions which I don't agree with, like love, joy, connection Some people find those the most difficult.

Speaker 1:

Yes.

Speaker 2:

Due to like trauma or different things Like those are the ones that like, they feel those and they're instantly on alert, like they feel threatened by them.

Speaker 1:

Yeah.

Speaker 2:

So just know if you're listening like what ones you view as more unpleasant is going to vary, right, there's certain ones that are across the board, like shame.

Speaker 2:

People don't like the feeling of shame. I don't even, as I said, I don't feel good inside Like that feeling of shame. I've had to do a lot of work on because it's something that I run away from, but it's a useful thing. It's just sensations in the body, right, and you know I attach all this meaning to it, as most people do, but it's just, it's an emotion, it's sensations in the body, and so we want to talk of really quick. We don't want this could be a whole podcast episode in itself of understanding you know how you're avoiding your emotions can be really key here.

Speaker 1:

So we're going to go through a bit of a list yeah, and so again, I'm going to read through this list and I want you to listen out and think, okay, do I relate to any of these? And so this could look like talking through emotions without a pause, changing the topic when that emotion might come up, controlling a situation using alcohol substances, food, media, shopping, maybe as distraction, using humor or laughter, people pleasing or avoiding certain people in places that might bring that emotion up.

Speaker 2:

So these are some of these behavioral avoidances. We also want to mention some mental, some cognitive avoidances that happen. This could be invalidating your emotion, thinking without stopping to notice what's being felt, trying to stay positive like toxically positive thinking, denying or downplaying issues, turning anger inward and blaming or shaming yourself, daydreaming or fixating on something else, focusing on fixing your pain or symptoms, hyper-focusing there and avoiding memories or certain triggers. So this is a lot to take in, but we wanted to give a real outline because everyone has different ways they avoid emotions.

Speaker 1:

Right, I'll share a really silly one that I used to do, um that you may wish that I do more of nowadays.

Speaker 2:

But uh, but I've improved dance. So is this the cleaning? It is. Yeah, oh man, the old me like I remember when I was very messy. I'm sorry to cut you off there.

Speaker 1:

I feel like I have to rant to people right now go ahead is a messy guy. He doesn't want you guys to know, but he is. He's a messy guy around the home. I know it bothers me.

Speaker 2:

I'm sorry. I'm sorry. You do a great deal of work keeping our home clean.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, yeah, which I'm grateful for you make.

Speaker 2:

My friend said it the other day. I was talking to my best friend About how you're messing.

Speaker 1:

No, no, no, Over text. I feel like you should reach out to your friend and he was like you know something?

Speaker 2:

And I already knew this, but he just had this insight after knowing me for well over a decade. He was, like you know, one of your problems. He was like you really struggle to have multiple focuses, don't you? He was like he just don't you.

Speaker 1:

He was like. He just decided to tell you that.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, we were talking about something. He was like he's like when you get into something, it's like you have blinders on, like you don't see anything outside of that and I. That is the case.

Speaker 1:

Yeah.

Speaker 2:

Um, when our son was first born, I remember like in the first couple of weeks my mom was like, what are you doing? Cause I was excessively cleaning our little apartment. Cause I in because I was so stressed out but it was like an avoidance yeah of like I don't want to feel stressed, I just had a son. What does my life mean?

Speaker 2:

now I was like, oh, I'm thinking about anything, I'm just gonna excessively clean, and it wasn't a very big like basement suite apartment we lived in, so there really wasn't that much to clean, I was just like excessively, but it was like an avoidance strategy Right, which I wish maybe I had a bit more I do.

Speaker 1:

I wish you can lean on that a bit. And so avoiding strategies we all have I have some too and we use that as a way to almost cope cope with emotions, cope with what's going on in life, and it's not necessarily like a bad I say that with like air quotations or like a wrong thing necessarily, but having awareness of like, okay, what might this be? Maybe covering up what might be, what am I avoiding as I lean on this? And so being able to stop and pause and ask those questions is important, just to have insight.

Speaker 2:

It doesn't mean you can't you know, tanner to feel safe yeah, like I think there's within reason, like some avoidance is okay, yeah, but too much avoidance of emotions, it is one of these habits that will perpetuate your pain and symptoms.

Speaker 1:

Yes, if you're using it too much and so one thing that I'm wondering is how do you know the line?

Speaker 2:

it's hard. It's a hard question to answer because everyone's different. I've seen people where they can get away with a lot more avoidance and some people can get away with very little. For myself, like, I might get away with avoidance for a week Maybe if I'm lucky. But if I push it for much past that, like I'm either going to start to get pain or symptoms, which is rare. It's more likely I'm going to get a high level of anxiety ah.

Speaker 1:

So understanding those patterns is important. Then I was like okay, what does it look like, what is that pattern?

Speaker 2:

and then you know yeah, yeah, let's move on to the third habit on our list that is going to keep your pain or symptoms going.

Speaker 1:

Yes, and so that is lack of movement. And I think when we struggle with chronic pain and symptoms, movement is going to become less and less, and again rightly so. It feels hard to move, we can't move, it's painful to move, and so that lack of movement is valid when we have a neuroplastic component to our pain that can reinforce it because it gives signals to the brain that actually movement is unsafe when in reality it likely is safe.

Speaker 2:

It's such a flaw in the way we're designed as human beings that we all no one's to blame for we just it's how we kind of function is you know, if you start to have chronic pain, chronic fatigue, chronic dizziness, and you start to understand you've had some of these experiences where you move more and your symptoms get worse you just learn okay, movement bad. Right, I'm saying that lightly, but I truly remember that that I was terrified of movement and so, as a result, I avoided it at all costs. But as you're saying, ann, this lack of movement just keeps this avoidance. It teaches the brain okay, the body's not safe to move. And then the next time you move, it just triggers more pain, more symptoms.

Speaker 1:

Right, and so then again triggers that like, oh, I really can't move. And sometimes, when I'm talking to people about moving towards movement again, there is going to be an increase in pain and symptoms, at first because the brain has labeled that as dangerous, and also sometimes, if we're not moving for a long time, also our body's not used to that, so we're going to feel that too.

Speaker 2:

It's something we do a lot with people, this great exposure, getting them to move. That's actually partly my motivation behind running a.

Speaker 1:

Qigong class.

Speaker 2:

I was just thinking like this is a big thing, like Qigong involves regulated movement. You're breathing, you're moving slow. I'm trying to help teach someone. Hey, you're safe to do this.

Speaker 1:

Well, and that's something to remember, if you do decide to partake in that class of like, okay, as I venture into movements I'm not used to, the brain might be on alarm of it.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, but if we can slowly start to approach movement gradually, with regulation, it's the key to creating safety. And, like you said and it's going to be bumpy in the short run as I started to move my body again, I went from basically bed bound housebound. I was barely leaving. It was bumpy at points but as I worked through the bumpiness, all of a sudden I could walk half an hour and then I could run and then I could lift weights again. So I think there's great benefit outside of just your pain reducing you get to start to fully use your body again as your brain starts to rewire and learn that movement is actually safe.

Speaker 1:

And what allowed you to get to through the bumpy part? Was it knowing that I'm physically okay?

Speaker 2:

I really came back down to. I really understood my symptoms for neuroplastic. Yeah, again, sometimes I wasn't fully convinced but I knew the alternative was just never moving again Like I didn't like the alternative. So I had to take the risk and again, like for people listening, we're explaining this for a general population. Always ideal to talk to your doctor, make sure you're safe to be engaging in these things, working with a practitioner, even a physical practitioner if you need to, because we want to do this safely over time. But we want to overcome that fear of movement because this lack of movement is one of these habits that is going to keep you stuck.

Speaker 1:

Well, and back to the other habit that we mentioned of negative thinking. This is an important place to be challenging that thinking, as you might engage in movement.

Speaker 2:

Okay, habit number four yeah, that is keeping you stuck.

Speaker 1:

Avoiding living life and so again kind of avoiding movement.

Speaker 2:

It's very common also to avoid the world, the outer world, things that might trigger pain and symptoms outside of movement, like engaging in social relationships or going kind of engaging in the bigger community, yeah, or work Like we thought we know that point three and point four are similar, but they do build on one another. If we have a lot like avoiding movements, it just seeps into avoiding living life. Right, I barely saw my friends. I barely went out for dinner with you Like I was scared to go out for dinner and sit in booths.

Speaker 1:

I remember that and that was like as your partner Tanner, I remember that was very hard for me, something we have not talked about, I think on this podcast before, and I just realized it we canceled our trip to Europe. Do you remember this? I do.

Speaker 2:

That was early on and I forgot about that, but we had this amazing Finnish university go to Europe.

Speaker 1:

Yeah.

Speaker 2:

And I could barely get out of a chair or walk and we had to cancel and we lost a ton of money.

Speaker 1:

I remember our travel agent was like oh yeah, you're covered, and then we were not covered.

Speaker 2:

It was a big loss. We're going to go to Europe one day. We'll do this. I'll face my fear of travel. But like there was such an avoidance of living life and again you're not to blame for this it makes sense when we have these debilitating, widespread symptoms, that you start to avoid. But here's the thing is this lack of purposeful action that we talked about in our last episode. If we don't not have purposeful action based on values, passions, creativity, it's going to leave us feeling angry, anxious, empty and low.

Speaker 1:

Well and that's true in passions our mental well-being is going to go down, and that impacts pain and symptoms Exactly.

Speaker 2:

It's all a messy package, unfortunately for anyone listening. Yeah, but growing back to a meaningful lifestyle is essential. Back to a meaningful lifestyle is essential. So people check out last week's podcast episode on purposeful action to get started. And you need to get started before your pain and symptoms reduce. Here's what will happen. People are like I will live life once my pain and symptoms start to reduce. That is not the order this happens in. I get why people think that and I thought that, but I needed to start to widen my world approach, life, have purposeful action and, as a result, my brain started to feel safer. It realized, oh, tanner's actually safe to do these things, and then the pain level started to come down.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, that's very similar with like growing motivation. We need to start doing things for motivation to happen instead of like waiting for motivation to come.

Speaker 2:

Finally, we've made it to the last habit. The last habit that is going to keep your pain or symptoms going. High pressure, number five.

Speaker 1:

I feel like this is one that you really can relate to, Tanner.

Speaker 2:

I have to throw this on there. This is me. It is you. I've improved over time.

Speaker 1:

Yes.

Speaker 2:

But I can fall into this. This is the thing that will really dysregulate my nervous system. I have to be very aware this can look like excessive fight or flight energy in our daily tasks, high expectations of ourself and timelines for healing, moving quickly, everything feels urgent and trying to complete excessive tasks in the day. Obviously, this ties into perfectionism and we need to learn. Here's really what we need to be doing. We need to learn to be motivated without fear and instead use love and compassion to drive us forward towards our goals. That one sentence right there. That is a really hard thing to achieve, that we need to learn to be motivated without fear, without fight or flight energy, and use love and compassion to drive us forward towards our goals. It is a very hard thing to do. I am still working on it and I've been working on it for a decade, and it's gotten better over time.

Speaker 2:

This morning, I even thought about this. Right before this, I recorded a YouTube video that I'm excited to release later this week, but I had this moment in the morning. I was like, okay, there's a few things I want to do today, because I have a training later on afterwards, after this, and I was like it's a busy day, but I thought to myself. I was like you have these things you want to do. Are you doing this out of fear? I asked like am I doing this out of fight or fight? And I was like no like.

Speaker 2:

I have this great idea for a video before we record this podcast. I'll record it for 10 minutes. I'm excited about it. I think it's going to be really meaningful and helpful for people, and so there was love and compassion driving me forward. If I had spent this morning, you know, doing this, doing the podcast, doing the video, you know, playing with our dog but it was all from this like high pressure, urgency standpoint I would have done the same amount of actions and felt way more dysregulated.

Speaker 1:

Well and it's interesting you say that, tanner, because I do that quite a bit in the mornings and so my morning is quite busy I really, you know, handle the kids, get everything going, transfer them everywhere, and I'm doing tours all the time throughout it. But I too, I'm trying to recognize okay, am I doing this in this like high intense pressure way, which sometimes I am, or can I try to slow down, stay regulated, take that pressure off during it? And both times I'm still doing it all, but it feels different in my body.

Speaker 2:

It feels different in my mind and it makes a difference for the rest of my day. Yeah, it's the pressure. And so for people that have this tendency, this coping way of coping of high pressure, one of the keys is reducing the pressure. Pretty straightforward, we've kind of explained it a bit. But it's just the intentionality of reminding yourself, like I try to remind myself every morning, like I'm not being guided by this, like urgent perfectionism today. Yeah, that's not what's guiding me. I have things I'm interested in doing, but like the days where it gets away from me, where I'm engaged in high pressure, oh, it doesn't doesn nice inside.

Speaker 1:

Well, and that can be a brain retraining piece too, like of like consistently having to kind of work on this.

Speaker 2:

And lower pressure is going to regulate your nervous system. It's going to create safety and that is going to equal out to symptom reduction long-term.

Speaker 1:

So we made it through our list, yeah, and we hope this was helpful for everybody, and you might not resonate with all of it, but hopefully some of it.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, so think about these habits that might be keeping you stuck and preventing your healing from chronic pain, chronic symptoms. So Anne is going to go hang out in the bedroom now. Oh yeah.

Speaker 1:

Yep and just relax. And I'm going gonna loudly play my guitar in the background no, yeah, I'm just joking.

Speaker 2:

I won't do that to you no, please no so thank you everyone for listening. Thank you for listening and we'll talk to you next week.

Speaker 1:

Talk 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.