The Mind-Body Couple

Processing Shame to Overcome Chronic Pain and Illness

• Tanner Murtagh and Anne Hampson • Episode 95

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What if processing shame could be the key to unlocking your healing journey from chronic pain and illness? Join us as we promise to unravel this complex emotion and its significant role in recovery. Our latest episode features an exploration of how guilt, the feeling of having done wrong, differs from shame, which attacks our very sense of self. By shining a light on these often-confused emotions and highlighting their universal nature, we aim to guide you in processing them effectively within your healing window.

Discover the profound connection between chronic pain and deeply internalized shame, and learn how behaviors such as perfectionism and people-pleasing can be rooted in the fear of inadequacy. We navigate through the ways shame impacts the nervous system, often leading to numbness and disconnection. Through practical techniques and somatic practices, we offer strategies to retrain your brain and develop a compassionate relationship with your emotions. Recognize and name your shame, and embrace self-compassion to help break the cycle of pain and illness. This episode is an invitation to transform your relationship with yourself through cognitive understanding and mindful practices.

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, welcome back to the podcast. Welcome back everybody. We uh we hit a big milestone we did our podcast, yeah 50 50 000 downloads yeah, thank you everybody.

Speaker 2:

We feel so grateful for that really appreciate the support, and we've almost been doing this podcast for two years wow, that feels like a long time, but like it's gone quite quickly at the same time yeah, it's, it's getting up there.

Speaker 1:

We're getting close to 100 episodes as well we should do something like to celebrate the 100th episode. Now that I've said it on here, we will somehow, We'll think of something. What are we going to do? I don't know something special. Just stay tuned for that. Yeah, Anne's going to figure out a way to celebrate 100 episodes.

Speaker 1:

But it's pretty cool. It's been a while, and one thing I don't know when I think about back on all the different topics I love that we have so much diversity in the podcast and different topics, and our listeners have really helped us with that, with kind of letting us know what they want to hear and what they're interested in. So thank you again.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, yeah, well, we really do appreciate all the support. So today we are talking about definitely a difficult topic. Yeah, not many people love discussing this emotion.

Speaker 1:

No.

Speaker 2:

And so our topic for today is processing shame.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, and actually when Tanner mentioned that he wanted to do this topic, I had the same reaction of like really, I really want to go there, um. So it's relatable that this is not a comfortable topic and we understand and want to preface that. If you are already like oh, I don't know, to kind of stay within your healing window of is this the right topic for you today.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I think that's important because this is an emotion and even just discussing it can pull us down into it sometimes, yes, and you know everyone's different in terms of what emotional states they view the most dangerous, but shame is definitely up there for most people.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, Like I think universally everyone would probably agree with that. But we are talking about it today because it's important to kind of address and bring to light a little bit.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, in terms of healing chronic pain, chronic symptoms, I think often we do need to process shame and move through it. Yeah, and you know, shame, it's an emotion we all feel. We've all experienced shame at some point. Now, shame versus guilt let's discuss this briefly. Yes, because I think it's important to note the differences. Yeah, people have different theories on it, but I'll just give the basic understanding. Guilt let's use a kid example. This is what we got, so let's use a kid example. So my son the other day accidentally stepped on his daughter or my daughter's toy, so he was in her room where she shouldn't have been, and then stepped on his daughter or my daughter's toy. So he was in her room where she shouldn't have been and then stepped on her toy, and she's very protective of her room.

Speaker 1:

Yes.

Speaker 2:

What spiraled out was her crying, freaking out, saying get out of my room. Yes, this is a Tuesday for us people.

Speaker 1:

That's a common occurrence.

Speaker 2:

This is a Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday it's every day. And you know, I talked to him like hey, you're not supposed to be in your sister's room, like what's going on. And I could see on his face that he felt guilt. Yes, there was guilt, like he felt like I did something bad. Right, that's what guilt is. I did something wrong, I did something bad.

Speaker 1:

Right. So he kind of stepped on her toy. Wasn't supposed to be there Wasn't supposed to Felt like a reaction that maybe he didn't like from everybody, and then felt guilt.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, and we're cautious with our kids. Well, our kids are growing up with two therapist parents, so it's about as therapy of a house as you can get. But he felt some guilt, yeah. And here's the difference is guilt is what he felt of I did something wrong or I did something bad. Shame would have been the reaction of I stepped on that toy. I shouldn't have been there. I am bad.

Speaker 1:

Right, so maybe the internalization of the self-narrative that can come from that.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, there's this thing of, instead of just being like I behaved poorly, you're now saying I'm a bad human being, or I should feel shame, or I'm just there's something fundamentally wrong with me.

Speaker 1:

Well, and I like that way of looking at it because I think that can make it easier to understand. Like I did versus I am.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, and most of us fall into feeling shame, and fall into feeling shame when it's needless, you know guilt guilt already brings a response of oh, I need to change my behavior in the future. Right, but for a lot of us we sink to shame.

Speaker 1:

Well, and it's interesting because, if we go back to that example, my hope is for our son that he didn't think oh, I did, and then later on started thinking I am, and in some ways maybe that is happening for him and we don't know. And so it's important to talk about this shame and kind of these beliefs that we kind of bring into our minds.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, Because shame feels very uncomfortable and threatening to most people, but in actuality it's just a set of sensations that we're safe to feel.

Speaker 1:

And so then, why, if they are a safety field tenor, why do we resist it so much, like even this podcast? Why was I resisting it so much?

Speaker 2:

Well, I just think the sensations can be really intense, yeah, and they really hit hard for us and, as a result, we feel something that unpleasant. We want to run away from it.

Speaker 1:

Well, and something I think is interesting is the narrative that we attach maybe to the sensations of shame and we believe those and so also understanding maybe they're not true or really unpacking that sometimes is important.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, because there's the two pieces the cognitive piece of understanding that fundamentally you are not a bad person, regardless of what you've done in the past Right, and also feeling the shame somatically, yeah, and learning to feel safe with it.

Speaker 1:

Right, we want an understanding kind of of both of those pieces. So if our son had internalized that and felt shame okay, he felt the sensation, but maybe we would work with kind of the cognitive thinking he had there.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, we'd work with the cognitive, but then we would also support him feeling safer with the sensations of shame.

Speaker 1:

And you know, when I'm working with people I'm often using this kind of embodiment approach where people can learn to feel safer with the sensations of shame and respond in a way that more restores safety uh right, yeah, well, and I think, like most of us probably relate to feeling that sensation, having beliefs attached to it throughout our lives, and then either fully thinking this way about ourselves that's not always true and running from the sensation that might pop up and that just is our response throughout our lifetime to the feelings and sensations of shame yeah, and we were talking about this last night because me and ann are very different here I throughout my life.

Speaker 2:

it's improved greatly in doing the work that this approach provides, but I felt a lot of shame when I was younger.

Speaker 1:

Okay, so again, outline like, what did that mean for you? Like you felt like you were bad or something was wrong with you.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, like I really fundamentally felt like there was something really wrong with you. Yeah, like I really fundamentally felt like there was something really wrong with me. And this makes sense because I have a history of being bullied. That happened in grade school. I've had a history of eating that was pretty close to disordered, if not disordered, at points. I've had a history of addiction and then as well, later on in life, chronic pain that I recovered from All these things when they were happening and you know I was really struggling mentally. They were being inspired by this felt sense of shame, like there's something really wrong with me.

Speaker 2:

And I think with chronic pain and symptoms, people feel this a lot, right, they almost internalize. Even when they learn there's a neuroplastic cause. It almost worsens it for some people. Yes, because people are like okay, my body's actually not damaged, not diseased. This is a brain and nervous system issue. I've been stuck in a state of survival, I'm to blame for that. And then they feel shame about their symptoms. Yeah, I think that stuck in a state of survival, I'm to blame for that.

Speaker 1:

And then they feel shame about their symptoms. Yeah Right, I think that can be a familiar response.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, and even before learning about neuroplastic pain and symptoms, people can feel shame as well, like they feel like there's something fundamentally wrong with them.

Speaker 1:

Yeah.

Speaker 2:

And blame themselves for it.

Speaker 1:

And understanding, like if this is kind of your relationship with the pain and symptoms, or just relationship and yourself throughout the world, is important because that can perpetuate pain and symptoms, that can keep them strong.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, and you know this can often sound like others don't struggle like I do. It's my fault for developing chronic pain and symptoms. I'm just not smart enough to heal. Others can heal, but I'm too far gone. Like there is this like feeling of shame of the messaging that people give themselves about their symptoms. Yeah, and we need to shift that. It's really hard to heal when we're constantly being flooded with feelings of shame.

Speaker 1:

Yes, and so it's important to start recognizing if this is happening and happening around the relationship with pain and symptoms, and then start acknowledging that or bringing that to awareness, or if you're working with a therapist or having the conversation around that.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, and I think it becomes more escalated for a lot of people when they start to feel shame about the ways chronic pain, chronic symptoms, have interfered with their life.

Speaker 1:

Yeah.

Speaker 2:

So you know, I hear a lot of people saying to me like I'm not as successful as other people. I haven't earned or saved as much money. As successful as other people. I haven't earned or saved as much money. I'm failing to provide what I have hoped for my friends and family. I can't work as hard as many other people Like they almost start to. So they have to change their lifestyle because there's sometimes and then they feel more shame as a result of not reaching what they think is normal shame as a result of not reaching what they think is normal.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, and again, the shame concept or shame term would be this belief that something is wrong with us, or I'm not good enough or I'm a bad person. This can look a lot like grief too, of like grieving the life that we weren't able to live or can't live because of pain or symptoms, but shame is more like there's something like it's me, I'm bad and so I think it's just being really aware of of how shame is presenting for you yeah because they can be sneaky.

Speaker 2:

You think about, like perfectionism, people pleasing. These are behaviors, these are coping mechanisms that are driven by shame. Without a doubt, I have both of these.

Speaker 1:

So give some examples of like of it being driven by shame.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, so like there is this idea of like I need to become successful enough, or else I need to become successful enough or I'm worthless.

Speaker 1:

Okay, so there's like extreme ends here.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, so like then, there's the push of like. All my behaviors now become about me not feeling shame, same with pleasing others. I need to please, you know, and I need to please my friends. I need to please other people in my life and if I don't, I won't be social, socially accepted and I won't be good enough and so when did you start realizing that you were operating this way and and kind of seeing it for what it is, tanner?

Speaker 1:

Because I think it can be hard to be like, oh, that's shame, and there's shame over there. It can be hard to see that.

Speaker 2:

It really can be, and we just want people to start looking out for this Not excessively, not intensely, but looking out for this. It took me some time, like I knew perfectionism and people pleasing were an issue early on when I was healing neuroplastic pain, but I didn't really connect them with shame I didn't understand like shame was driving a lot of my actions, yeah, and as a result, I'm just perpetually in this state of basically high fight or flight or completely shut down.

Speaker 1:

Would understanding so say, someone is starting to see this in their kind of day-to-day life? Would understanding the history of shame be important? So sometimes people talk about do I need to go back to childhood? Do I need to go back into my life For you? Was that important for you?

Speaker 2:

I think it was for myself. I can't say it was for everyone, but it was for me because I think it helped me understand how this pattern developed Right and that was vital. Like I think that was vital and also bringing compassion to myself.

Speaker 1:

So shifting the relationship with that sensation.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, and it helped me cognitively, I think, just understanding all these factors that brought about me at a young age feeling shame constantly.

Speaker 1:

Well, and that's it, when we start recognizing oh, like I do experience shame a lot. We don't want to experience shame on top of the shame, and so moving towards compassion is important, like you said.

Speaker 2:

But I think a lot of times when we're in deep shame, like that's more of that dorsal, vagal state, like that's where we're starting to feel frozen, numb, shut down, disconnected, hopeless, helpless, like I think it really lives there. And so if someone's constantly in this dorsal, vagal shutdown, I think a lot of them are constantly feeling this shame, perpetuate their life. And you know, if shame's not named, understood, intended to you know, the presence of shame leads to the amplification of pain and symptoms. And this makes sense because your shame, if we're constantly there, is just dysregulating our nervous system perpetually. And this is why it's so important to retrain the brain with somatic practices that not only build safety with pain and symptoms but also restore safety with our emotions and our thinking.

Speaker 1:

So if we went back to the example of our son so say that happened, he felt guilt, but it then became shame, and say he, you know, could do this and recognized oh hey, I have shame there what would? What would he do in a healing way with that?

Speaker 2:

what would be like, what would we want him to do if we were like you know, I think as a parent, I probably and I say this carefully because I'm a more somatic therapist, but I probably would start with the cognitive a bit understanding, have them understand like, hey, like you did something you knew you weren't supposed to do, but just because you did something like that doesn't mean that you're fundamentally wrong or a bad person.

Speaker 2:

Challenge the belief yeah like there'd be this challenging of beliefs, I would probably instill some compassion. Um similar to my clients, also with my kids I often share stories where I did something wrong uh, so kind of normal right like normalizing.

Speaker 2:

Like we all make mistakes, like this is normal as human beings. None of us are perfect. Some of us strive to be perfect myself and quitted but none of us are perfect. We make mistakes and you know he's a little young to maybe understand the difference between guilt and shame, but I would really instill some compassion from myself. So he felt like you know I did something wrong, but my dad still really loves me.

Speaker 1:

Well and yeah, and we apply this like. This example is about a child, but that is similarly what we need to start doing with ourselves.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, exactly Like I think, with ourselves. We need to be doing very similar things yeah, changing our cognition about ourself, understanding even past factors of why we often are in shame. Yeah, you know, when we talk embodiment practice like a somatic process for processing shame, there is a way to go about doing this and we'll go through this is kind of what we use a lot with clients these different elements, um, but even just keeping these elements in mind as you're working with shame because, as I said, shame can feel very overwhelming, so we want to be careful the first thing that I have people do when you start to notice shame, come on, like if it's not too intense, like drop into your body and really describe like well, how does the shame present?

Speaker 1:

okay, so that would maybe look like mindfully, yeah, being in your body in the kind of present, being, curious about it, moving towards it.

Speaker 2:

You're dropping out of the cognition.

Speaker 1:

Yeah.

Speaker 2:

I always tell people it's kind of like treating your thoughts like background characters in a movie Poor background characters.

Speaker 1:

They're always there, but no one's focused on them.

Speaker 2:

You can let the shameful thoughts do the thing. You don't have to stop them, but just let them be in the background, drop into your body and describe your experience, your somatic experience For myself. Drop into your body and describe your experience, your somatic experience for myself. I get this sickening feeling in my stomach.

Speaker 1:

I think a lot of people do when they and usually that is what treats us to run or avoid. Is that sickening?

Speaker 2:

oh yeah, like that feeling, I even, as I said it, I felt it a little bit I felt it when I thought about the podcast.

Speaker 1:

Hopefully, no one thought it when they read the title of our podcast. Just um.

Speaker 2:

I apologize for triggering people here.

Speaker 1:

But that's right, because that is our reaction, because it's such an intense sensation usually.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, so I get this nauseous, constricting feeling in my stomach and my body goes like real cold, like ice cold, almost numb, like it's almost kind of that frozen feeling for me. But that's what you need to do you drop in, you describe, you deepen the connection, you really explore it. Like really explore the sensations, like what happens to it as you sit with it for a moment. Does it stay the same? Does it intensify, does it decrease? You know what I mean. Like describe it even further, like shape, size, color, texture.

Speaker 1:

Really start to understand the sensation in a bit more detail okay, so spend and I usually talk with people about it, like in this way of spending time with it, yeah, hanging out with it, yeah linger a bit, linger, linger a bit.

Speaker 2:

As long as you can, as long as you can our next point is staying within the healing window.

Speaker 1:

so if your healing window is maybe shorter than somebody else's, that's okay, so linger as long as it feels still okay to do so.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, if it's getting escalating, we'll explain later in the process what to do. But, as Anne said, like the next thing that we talk about is the healing window, and we've talked about this on the podcast before, but if this is your first time listening.

Speaker 2:

You imagine, like a window and this is within the window is what you can tolerate sitting with. Like how much shame sensation can you tolerate sitting with? And we want to stay in that window where it's uncomfortable but it's tolerable. You start moving outside that window. Things start to get real hairy, it escalates, it becomes too intense for us to stay present with. So you just got to be real honest, like some people have a really small healing window for sitting with shame. Yes, so don't sit with like the thing that you, the biggest mistake you did in your life, is not where to start this process yeah, so that's right.

Speaker 1:

It's a. It's a gradual approach. It's starting kind of small.

Speaker 2:

Because if you're not in the healing window, you're just going to disconnect and shut down Like it's going to be too intense, yeah, and you're going to go avoid. So you got to catch it and make sure you're doing it when it's a tolerable level. Number four yeah, fourth step. Again, we're saying these are steps. They could be in any order. Just want to be clear with people. You don't have to do like one to five here. But number four shift. This really ties into the healing window. You're starting to go outside that window. You can't tolerate the sensations of shame. That's when you need to shift.

Speaker 1:

And what does this shift to look like?

Speaker 2:

So you're shifting between unpleasant and pleasant, right or fight, fight free, shut down and safe and connected.

Speaker 1:

Sometimes, when I'm describing the shift to people, we talk about kind of shifting to focusing on breathing, and for some people that feels nice. So it might be like, okay, I'm focusing on breathing, and for some people that feels nice, yeah. So it might be like, okay, I'm focusing on the sensation of shame, maybe that stomach feeling, and now I'm going to focus on the nice lightness of my breath and then back, and so that would be the titration maybe exactly.

Speaker 2:

You're going back and forth intentionally. Yeah, this is in somatic experience and they call it pendulation just another fancy term for it but you're just. You're shifting right, like that's really what that concept is, what we're basing our shifting off of. You're shifting back and forth and you want to teach your brain to go back and forth between pleasant and unpleasant. We're doing the same thing with pain and symptoms. Yeah, go towards your pain and physical symptoms during somatic tracking. Shift back out to something more pleasant.

Speaker 1:

And that allows us to stay within the healing window but also associate the two together a little bit of oh, maybe it's not so bad.

Speaker 2:

Yes, and the fifth and last thing Safety signals.

Speaker 1:

So this is what you're shifting to.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, you're shifting to a safety signal. Now, in our approach, we talk about a lot of different safety signals. This could be a whole podcast episode in and of itself, so we'll just mention them. One safety signal that lots of people like is just present moment sensing, yes, shifting to sight, sound, taste, touch, smell. It reconnects us, it reorients us to the present.

Speaker 1:

And so it's intentionally deciding okay, I'm gonna focus here, I'm gonna shift here yeah, like sounds always work for me when I'm doing emotional work.

Speaker 2:

It's getting too too intense. I close my eyes and focus on the sounds around me and just close your eyes. She's listening to the sounds, which is just my voice talking to you and but it isn't always pleasant.

Speaker 1:

It's not pleasant, I'm sorry you're welcome to shift though.

Speaker 2:

Okay, thank you. Okay. Safety signals, though present moment sensing, can work really well.

Speaker 1:

Pick a sense that you actually like attending to right and so, yeah, like I use the description of breath work, but then I also know some people said actually that that really dysregulates me. Yeah, so it's knowing what, like we can shift to easily. Maybe that feels nice yeah.

Speaker 2:

so there's present moment sensing. There's breath work. On my youtube channel the links below I have breathing practices on there so people can go check that out for free. It could be somatic movements all also on the youtube channel. I got a lot of qigong uh, running my qig Qigong class, by the way, every Friday we had a good turnout for the first class. That was exciting. But somatic movement great way to create safety. It could be certain types of tapping. There's lots of therapy modalities that use tapping and lots of people enjoy that and it could also be safe self-talk. So this is more of the cognitive, but you could just remind yourself of you know, even though the shame feels intense, I know that maybe I made a mistake but I'm not a bad person and I can work towards loving myself. That's a safe message to yourself, right? Safe self-talk.

Speaker 1:

And so this process. If you're kind of sitting here wondering what do I then do with shame? This is kind of a guide to explore, to see what that's like.

Speaker 2:

You're getting exposure to it and the benefit here is that next time shame comes up, you got experience actually approaching and attending to it. Yeah, you've faced that fear, you've approached it, and so next time it's going to be more tolerable, you're going to be able to be more connected Maybe not every time, but hopefully, as you do it repetitively, and you're going to feel safer with it.

Speaker 1:

Well, and I think if we know that avoiding certain emotions can contribute to pain and symptoms, then we need to start moving towards them and changing relationship with them, and then this is an example of doing that.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, and by doing this our nervous systems are going to become more regulated and neuroplastic, pain and symptoms reduce. Yes, so I tie that in there. I feel like people need motivation to work with Shane, because no one wants to work with Shane.

Speaker 1:

And that's fair. So definitely knowing okay, my end goal is this, without outcome expectation way over there, awesome.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, Also, our course has 15 emotional practices to help you heal. So if you're trying to heal on your own, you're watching other videos online. You need the extra support. Our course outlines it all and the link is down below that people can check out. So I hope this podcast was helpful for everyone. Yeah, Again, we're very thankful for the 50,000 downloads.

Speaker 1:

Yes, that's amazing, so thankful.

Speaker 2:

And we will talk to you all 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.