The Mind-Body Couple

Tanner's Flare-Up: Lessons from the Flu

• Tanner Murtagh and Anne Hampson • Episode 96

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After battling a relentless bout of stomach flu that turned our household upside down, we uncovered profound insights into the mind-body connection that we're excited to share with you. Picture this: each family member succumbs to illness, fear creeps in, and suddenly, we're revisiting our mind-body techniques to navigate the chaos. In this episode of the MindBodyCouple podcast, we unravel how fear not only hijacked our minds but also manifested physical symptoms, offering a firsthand look at the phenomenon of neuroplastic nausea. 

We tackle the challenging terrain of obsessive-compulsive behaviors, particularly in the context of health anxieties, and introduce the liberating concept of radical acceptance. Our discussion highlights the often overlooked cycle of fear and compulsiveness that exacerbates distress and how self-compassion can be a guiding light. As we share our personal stories, we encourage you to embrace your circumstances without resistance. To our cherished listeners, thank you for joining us on this journey. Stay connected with our community for more resources and support on your healing path.

Tanner Murtagh and Anne Hampson are therapists who treat neuroplastic pain and mind-body symptoms. They are also married!

In his 20s, Tanner overcame chronic pain and a fibromyalgia diagnosis by learning his symptoms were neuroplastic, not structural. Post-healing, Tanner and Anne have dedicated their lives to developing effective treatment and education for neuroplastic pain and symptoms.

Listen and learn how to assess your own chronic pain and symptoms, gain tools to retrain the brain and nervous system, and make changes in your life and health!


The Mind-Body Couple podcast is owned by Pain Psychotherapy Canada Inc. This podcast is produced by Alex Klassen, one of the wonderful therapists at our agency in Calgary, Alberta. https://www.painpsychotherapy.ca/


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


Check out Tanner's YouTube channel for more free education and practices: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC-Fl6WaFHnh4ponuexaMbFQ


And follow us for daily education posts on Instagram: @painpsychotherapy


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

Lessons on Mind-Body Healing

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, hi, everybody, welcome back. Welcome back. We have an interesting episode for you all today.

Speaker 1

Yeah, we do. We wanted to talk about kind of lessons Tanner's learned, but I learned as well about mind-body healing from our experience of the stomach flu.

Speaker 2

Yes, so to give context, this story of when our family and I mean our whole family got the stomach flu was, I think, about 10 months ago.

Speaker 1

Oh yeah, like it's ingrained, it's like in my mind. I will never forget.

Speaker 2

Yeah, you know anyone who's a parent out there. You know, when I was single, or even with Anne, but didn't have kids, I used to think, you know, getting sick, that really sucks, right. And then when you have kids, you're like, whoa, this really sucks.

Speaker 1

Yeah, yeah, it's like it sucks on a whole other level.

Speaker 2

Yeah, it's awful, and the stomach flu is right up there is probably the worst.

Speaker 1

Well and like. So we talk about the stomach food like as vomiting and hopefully we're not grossing anyone out as we share these stories, but I had never experienced the stomach food like this, like ever in my life. This was the first time of experiencing what we're trying to describe.

Speaker 2

Yeah, so what happened? And this is important for the lessons.

Speaker 1

I learned.

Speaker 2

But what happened is my daughter got sick first.

Speaker 1

And the way this stomach flu Did she get sick first she did yeah.

Speaker 2

And the way this presented was completely fine. Within 20 minutes of starting to feel ill, vomiting profusely Like it was like real quick, and so my daughter got it first.

Speaker 1

Wait, wait. We have to explain all of the pieces here, though. When our kids vomit, tanner, tanner struggles, and I think maybe listeners out there relate to this, and so it's on me. I'm holding them. They're vomiting on me, they're sitting on me vomiting. I just I feel like throughout our stories I have to share these parts of it. Tanner.

Speaker 2

I have a real and this is important for the story, like when someone's throwing up around me, like if I'm too close, I start to gag. Like it's like an instant response. It's not great, so I'm not proud of this fact, but daughter got sick, yeah, fact. But daughter got sick, yeah. Then my son got sick.

Speaker 1

Yes, yes, like a few days later Just goes to the house. And then, a few days later, ann got sick Of course right, Because I'm like sacrificing myself as they vomit on me. This happens all the time. But yeah, and when I got sick, I was like you were down and out. I was basically—I remember I texted you in the night and I was like I vomited like 14 times at this point, yeah yeah, yeah, I can't leave the room, I can't do anything.

Speaker 1

I cannot work or tend to the kids or do anything. You must do it all. It was like this like I'm going to die.

Speaker 2

Text to Tanner all like it was like this like I'm going to die. Text to tanner. Yeah, I woke up early morning, got this text. I was like okay, I'm on it. And then a few days after that I got sick, so I just went right through the entire house and you know I had a bit of a regression in terms of, like my mind-body techniques around this period well, what happened to you when you started seeing all of us get sick?

Speaker 1

What was happening to you?

Speaker 2

It's like my terror grew, like each family member that fell, like my terror was growing, and this is the first lesson that I learned is fear is the driver for chronic symptoms.

Speaker 1

Now, one thing I want to say. As you like witnessed all of this with us, I think your fear was valid. You knew it was coming for you eventually.

Speaker 2

Yeah, but it was growing and you know the pattern of illness that happened with all of us was you instantly felt bad and then you were vomiting. Yes, but what happened to me is, after our son got sick second family member that fell down I started to experience nausea.

Speaker 1

Yeah, so, and I remember so Tanner would be like hey, I'm getting sick, I'm getting, it's happening, I'm feeling the nausea and I remember you're in this like panic, frozen mixture state.

Speaker 2

Oh yeah, it was like. It was like a frozen shutdown. Yeah, terror states of impending doom and so and I'm talking, I got nausea five days before I eventually got ill.

Speaker 1

And so, and were you truly feeling the nausea?

Speaker 2

Oh yeah, yeah, like it was through and through, it was neuroplastic nausea.

Speaker 1

Yeah.

Speaker 2

Without a doubt. Now, eventually, I did get sick, unfortunately, but it wasn't the same and I knew because I would go. And you know I get real deep into the fear and anyone who's had chronic pain, chronic symptoms under neuroplastic they get it like the more the fear grows, the more the symptoms grow and I remember seeing that like I was, like I, I was even pointing it out, I was like tanner, you're really fearing this, I don't?

Speaker 2

you don't seem like sick yet and I, I was trying to like calm the fear, so I knew what was happening and work briefly I remember he did that a few times and the nausea would completely go away and I'd be like, oh, I'm fine, or I'd go and do my yoga, yeah, and my nausea would completely go away.

Speaker 1

I remember that too, and you're like, the nausea doesn't seem to be there when I'm doing yoga and I was like, hmm, yeah, you're a little smug about it you're like you're.

Speaker 2

You're so sick.

Speaker 1

At that point I was like dying and tanner's, like I'm nauseous, that I was like I thought I had to go to the hospital. But, to be fair, that nausea you were feeling very much was real and I think that anticipatory fear that you had was so strong and that was really hard. So every time we were trying to, like you know, intervene there, it was really hard to intervene because there was that anticipatory fear and then the feeling of nausea and it was real and I want to be clear, it was really intense yeah like it wasn't like my stomach's a little greasy.

Speaker 2

It was like I would be like waiting in the bathroom.

Speaker 1

Yes, thank you, it was coming in and I remember that.

Speaker 2

And that's the thing about neuroplastic symptoms.

Speaker 1

that sometimes people don't believe is the severity, like how extreme they can be, and I want to apologize for that, tanner, because I know at the time and even now we're joking about it, but I wasn't very, since I had been so sick. I was like, oh, tanner, and I kind of fell into maybe blowing your experience off a little bit.

Speaker 2

Yeah, and I appreciate that, but I also know that at the time none of us were our best selves. No, Like we had been trapped in this house with kids ill kids for a week.

Speaker 1

Yes, we're trying to juggle work.

Speaker 2

Oh yeah, it was dark, you know, and this is one of the downfalls. I always tell people of running our own companies yeah. It comes with lots of benefits.

Speaker 1

Right.

Speaker 2

But it comes with a lot of pressure of like, if I don't work, I don't make money, right, and so like whenever and that was part of it, I think, the thing that was driving the fear for me uh, interesting, so there's other factors. There was other factors of like, like you know, and can't work for a week, you know, like what, what do I do? And I it's a bit needless, but that's what was building the fear even more of like what if I'm off work for a week, you know what are the consequences? Like, it was all of it.

Speaker 1

it was just think it's important to recognize that, because sometimes, like, there's fear about our sensation so maybe fear about the nausea of like, oh my God, I'm getting sick but then there's also other fears about maybe, like you're talking about work and money and all that contributing to the sensation growing, and so it's not always fear of the sensation, it's fear in general.

Speaker 2

Yeah, to the sensation growing, and so it's not always fear of the sensation, it's fear in general, yeah, of what the sensation is going to mean for our life and anyone who's had chronic pain, chronic fatigue, chronic dizziness, other symptoms we have that fear of, like. It's not just that we fear the symptom, because we do, and we fear it. It's unpleasant, we don't want it to be there, but we also fear, like, what's that going to mean for our life, our greater life?

Speaker 1

when it's important to look at. That is like, okay, what does fear look like in my life, on my day-to-day, and how much is that impacting pain and I think it's.

Speaker 2

It's such a. It was such an important learning for myself, because I've been out of debilitating chronic pain for a long time and this was like a new. It felt like a new experience of, oh yeah, like fear can create these intense, prolonged symptoms.

Speaker 1

Well, and what does that kind of tell you, tanner, of like being out of chronic pain for such a long time? And then this experience, maybe with different types of pain sensation, come on for you.

Speaker 2

Well, I think what I tell people is, and this is why maintaining the work is so key. I had a bit of a stumbling here, right, but it was only brief, and when we have, like, a strong mind-body connection, we are more prone to these things.

Speaker 1

Yes.

Speaker 2

That's just known. I know most people don't want to hear that.

Speaker 1

Right, it's like can I cure it forever and never experience anything like that again.

Speaker 2

And this was temporary, like I had some nausea for two or three days. It's not like it ruined my year or anything, and part of that is because I maintained the healing and I caught the pattern pretty early on, partly with your help, but I caught the pattern pretty early on, partly with your help, but I caught the pattern pretty early on, and I think that's the other key ingredient here of why we need to maintain doing some of this work, because when we have a strong mind-body connection, our brains are just so suggestible.

Speaker 1

Well, and something that and this is 100% the same, but sometimes I'll hear from people that they've had an injury here and then the next year they had an illness, and the next year they had something else, and then something else, and it always kind of prolongs symptoms. And this is an example maybe if you hadn't been maintaining a work tenor or didn't know about mind-body approach, then maybe symptoms for this would have lingered too, and I think this is how we can get multiple mind-body sensations throughout a lifetime in some way is our reaction.

Speaker 2

People almost get these like serial neuroplastic symptoms where they heal one thing Right and then it's like on to the next for a couple of years, which I empathize with anyone because I totally get how easily it is. But this is my first lesson.

Speaker 1

Second, lesson I learned, so you were in fear.

Speaker 2

Yeah, yeah. Second lesson obsessing equals suffering.

Speaker 1

Ah. So what was your obsessing looking like? Oh, it got out of control.

Speaker 2

Yeah, You're laughing because you remember this period.

Speaker 1

Oh yeah Well, and I just know you can be very obsessive, so I am like imagining, like the intensity of your obsession.

Speaker 2

I have some obsessive, compulsive tendencies. They've been reduced greatly over the years, but I can snap into them quick. And this one it felt like there was like impending danger Every time another family member got ill.

Speaker 1

I'm so sorry. I can imagine you're watching this.

Speaker 2

You know, know it may suck to be the first one who got sick, but to be the last one. It's just like you're watching dominoes fall and you know you're at the end of the line like it's not great, and so my obsessing got out of control and so what did that look like?

Speaker 1

what was the, the form it was taking? So there was the constant thinking.

Speaker 2

Like I don't think I thought of anything but that all week.

Speaker 1

And what were you trying to do with the thinking? Were you trying to, like, figure it out?

Speaker 2

It's like I was trying to figure it out and fix it in my mind. Like my obsessing almost becomes like I'm fixated on these intrusive thoughts of like I'm going to get sick, yeah. But like I'm fixated on these intrusive thoughts of like I'm going to get sick, yeah. But then I'm obsessing in my mind, thinking like how do I problem solve my way out of this?

Speaker 1

Right.

The Power of Radical Acceptance

Speaker 2

And, as a result, that's the obsessive part, but I have a bit of OCD. The compulsive behaviors was, you know, like distancing myself, like washing my hands perpetually, like my hands were bleeding.

Speaker 1

I remember, and I remember the distance, and oh, I was angry at you. I know you were. Because, I was like I'm dying, or I almost died with my illness and now I'm taking care of my kids. I was so mad.

Speaker 2

To be fair, after you got ill, though, I took over. Do you not remember this? Yeah, because I couldn't leave the bathroom you had to take over. Give myself some credit here. Oh, okay.

Speaker 1

I just don't paint the. You're painting a certain picture. For those pictures.

Speaker 2

This is how the last domino fell, his hand got out and I knew at that point I'm like, I'm sunk, it's over. Yes, but the obsessing like constantly hand washing, constantly washing where I'm sitting, yeah, like, it was like, but it it took on a life of its own.

Speaker 1

Well, and it's interesting because I obviously, we know hand washing and sanitizing and distancing is important for health, obviously, and I'm not saying we shouldn't do that, but we can get so fearful that that can become an obsessive loop.

Speaker 2

Yeah, and with any neuroplastic symptom it's so easy to get into this obsessive compulsive patterns because we're obsessing, thinking that that's useful, like we're obsessing thinking that like we can problem solve this, we can fix this, we can figure it out. So we obsess 80% of the day and then you have all these compulsive behaviors.

Speaker 1

Well, and it's like, okay, I, I must do this, and then the intensity increases because the fear is increasing.

Speaker 2

So it's like I'm just gonna wash more or I'm gonna do this more, um, which also increases the fear and my lesson here was these obsessive, compulsive patterns just equal suffering and I want to be clear, I did get very sick at the end of this. All the fear and obsessing was worse.

Speaker 1

Through and through. That's interesting, and I'm speaking for myself personally here. To be fair, tanner, you didn't get that sick.

Speaker 2

I still got.

Speaker 1

I was pretty ill.

Speaker 2

Don't invalidate me, I just thought you're not as sick as the rest of us. He was sick. Yeah, you're invalidating my experience. I'm sorry and it's publicized. I'm sorry, but it was like all the fear and obsessing and compulsive behaviors. They were worse in the long run than the actual symptoms I got in the end.

Speaker 1

Yeah Well, and I think that's a really good realization to have of like okay, and not that pain and symptoms aren't bad, but in your story, at least right now, was it that bad? Yeah, but actually I was fearing it so much.

Speaker 2

Yeah, and you know I understand people listening.

Speaker 1

Some of you have really intense symptoms and we don't want to diminish that, and I'm not saying that those aren't really hard, because they are.

Speaker 2

I remember having debilitating, widespread pain.

Speaker 1

Yeah.

Speaker 2

But the amount of obsessing and fear that I have was escalating. The suffering yeah, in a huge way and it was perpetuated for it because the more I obsessed into these compulsive actions, I just perpetually felt nauseous at a high level for four days before I actually got sick.

Speaker 1

Well, and so it's understanding that and that can be really hard and stopping, try to step out of obsession when our brain is telling us, no, we need to. Obsess can feel really difficult.

Speaker 2

That's the second lesson. Lesson number three yeah, radically accepting and allowing symptoms is key. Radical acceptance there is probably not many concepts, psychological concepts, concepts that are more hated than radical acceptance.

Speaker 1

Really, I quite like I know you, I know you and it has a deep love with radical acceptance wait, what do you mean by that?

Speaker 2

I just think you're really you're really, I think, and for good reason I feel like you might be insulting me. I'm not insulting you here. I I wish I had this because, like me, getting to radical acceptance is exactly what I described already. I get incredibly fearful.

Speaker 1

It's like incredibly painful to get there.

Speaker 2

I have obsessive, compulsive patterns. And finally, I radically accept Anne's like oh, this is terrible. I'll radically accept this Like it's like so quick.

Speaker 1

I find radical acceptance very useful because then if you stop the fight, it actually makes things much easier.

Speaker 2

Yes, which I guess is what you're saying and I've learned this so many times and it's still like I'm just clawing my way toward towards radical acceptance, like it really. But once I became ill, there was only one thing to do. Yes, and I remember you know, because you were back at work at this point- yeah. And the kids were back at school or day home. I don't know where they were, so I was really ill at this point.

Speaker 2

I don't know where they are. Yeah, it's fair, and I'm like on, like laid back in my chair, just feeling awful. Yeah, and that's where I came to radical acceptance.

Speaker 1

And what did that look like for you when you felt like, okay, I am.

Speaker 2

It was like this and I didn't do it once in the the day, day and a half I was really ill, like it was constant of like because, like there's this pull of like, I feel terrible inside. I'm going to do everything I can to avoid this Like check out, run away.

Speaker 1

Right.

Speaker 2

And radical acceptance is like you're stopping the running away. You're stopping the fight, as you just stated, and you're truly just. You don't have to approve of it, but you're radically accepting. This is what it is and I'm going to be with this experience.

Speaker 1

Yeah.

Speaker 2

And I was. I sat with it, I kept bringing myself of like I'm not going to fight this anymore. I fought for four days being fearful and obsessive, only to get ill in the end. And I'm not. I'm done fighting. And so there was like a real deep, radical acceptance and allowing of what was taking place.

Speaker 1

And even though you felt so bad, Tanner, what do you think that did for your nervous system?

Speaker 2

It supported it. It took away a lot of the sympathetic activation.

Speaker 1

Yeah.

Speaker 2

It just diminished a lot of that and, as a result, I started to feel better and things started to fade.

Speaker 1

Yeah.

Speaker 2

And so you know, radically accepting and allowing our chronic pain, chronic symptoms, is really difficult, but every single person I've seen heal has done this at some point in their journey. Yes, you cannot skip this step.

Speaker 1

Well, and then hopefully, it's important to start realizing hey, actually, this is useful. I think we fight radical acceptance so much because we think, oh, we can think we're giving up.

Speaker 2

Exactly.

Speaker 1

But it's actually the opposite. We're just kind of stopping the parts of the fight. That isn't helpful.

Speaker 2

I know our producer, alex Klassen. He often talks about trying to sell people on radical acceptance. He tells people like this is an actionable step. Yes, and I think that's so important to understand because people think I'm giving up and if I radically accept, I'll never get better because I'm just throwing in the towel. It is. It is one of the first important steps people need to be making. It might take a long time to get there, but it's one of the vital early on steps that's going to make the rest of the work possible.

Speaker 1

Yeah, for sure.

Speaker 2

I'm no longer trying to get rid of this. I'm no longer fighting against it. I'm just going to accept and allow it's here, and then I'm going to use all the molly, molly techniques I've learned to cultivate as much safety as possible.

Speaker 1

Well, and when I'm talking with people about pain flares, which I think, when you know your sickness was a it's kind of like a flare, kind of like a flare when the pain is so high. Radical acceptance is so important at that time.

Speaker 2

Yeah, and we're not saying that you need to like intensely focus on your horrible pain flare for eight hours, but there needs to be this acceptance of I'm having this flare right now. Yeah, I'll do the best I can to create safety, but I'm not going to do everything to try and force this to go away.

Speaker 1

Totally, and I'm not going to kind of white knuckle and push through it either. So it's an acceptance that this is kind of where things are at right now, but also the belief that it will pass. Did you believe when you were sick that it was going to pass? Yes, yes. Well, and I guess you saw it pass for a while.

Speaker 2

Yeah, and it was. It was, and I think that's the difference here I want to be clear about Like compared to our chronic pain or illness, there can be a lot more what ifs, of what if this never goes away.

Speaker 1

Well, more what ifs, of what if. This never goes away. Well, and I know for some, people it doesn't always pass in the sense of a pain, swear passes, and so, yeah, that can be a bit difficult to, yeah, where I knew that, yeah, this, no matter what I do, it's going to come back down.

Speaker 2

Yeah, but I can promise, if I stayed in fear and obsessing, I would have had nausea long past the period of actually being ill. And so that was the third lesson. Now the fourth and final lesson yes, feel, feel feel.

Speaker 1

So you're saying feel the illness that you had at full force.

Speaker 2

I'm saying feel the illness like when it was tolerable, but I'm more talking about feel the emotions and dysregulation about the symptoms you've had.

Speaker 1

Ah, okay.

Speaker 2

About the experience.

Speaker 1

So allow the emotions, so the frustration you had, maybe the fears you had around work, maybe the overwhelm, because after 24 hours I got better, but there was a lot of.

Speaker 2

I was just living in survival mode for a week and there was a lot to process, there was a lot to sit with to help my body kind of move through. And so I think sometimes people forget this is, when you have a pain or symptom flare, your system's kind of in survival mode, yes, and so after a period of high symptoms, we often need space to feel our emotions, to feel our nervous system state. This is a very vital part of the healing and now I think people should be doing this every day, if I'm really honest, feeling emotions, feeling nervous system state. But especially after overwhelming situations whether they're pain flares or not, like it could be any overwhelming situation we need a lot of space and slowness to reconnect with our body and help things move through.

Speaker 1

Well, and that's why it's important, sometimes when we're like, okay, I had a pain, flare, or I had a stressful situation, now it's gone, then I just move on. Well, then we're always kind of just pushing through. We need to kind of slow down and listen to the system and listen to our bodies, like you're saying exactly, and we have lots of content in past episodes on feeling emotions nervous system.

Speaker 2

Last episode we just did it on shame, actually, yeah. Then I have lots of free practices on YouTube and if people want a more in-depth like our digital course has lots on feeling emotions feeling nervous system, state how to move through that. Lots of practices in there.

Speaker 1

But this is a vital step and so this was our episode yeah, on you know lessons I learned about mind body healing from the stomach flu well, and I think it's an interesting way of looking at things and we hope, um, as you guys were listening, that you found it a helpful way to kind of look at it. Um, and obviously you know, t Tanner's stomach flu is, of course, not comparable to anyone's experience of pain, but we wanted to kind of use this kind of as an example of how the mind can be so influential. Because I think you definitely experienced that.

Speaker 2

And even for people that have already recovered or have gone a long way in their journey. I want to showcase, you know, with my own example of how easily we can slip back into having this relationship with symptoms in our body.

Speaker 1

Well, and when I think of radical acceptance, that's an important thing to radically accept too, that okay, once in a while, this is going to happen.

Healing Through Listening and Connecting

Speaker 2

Yeah, yeah. So thank you everyone for listening. Thank you for listening.

Speaker 1

We'll talk to you next week. 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.