The Mind-Body Couple

Parenting Your Inner Self: A Journey to Healing Chronic Pain and Illness

• Tanner Murtagh and Anne Hampson • Episode 99

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In today’s illuminating episode, we dive into the transformative concept of self-parenting—an essential practice that feeds our emotional needs while promoting healing from chronic pain and symptoms. With an engaging blend of personal anecdotes and professional insights, we unravel why many struggle with self-compassion and what it looks like to be your own nurturing parent. Through our candid discussion, we explore how our childhood experiences shape our present-day responses to stress and emotions, often leading us to neglect our needs. 

This episode highlights the importance of being attuned to your body’s signals, exploring how self-awareness can drastically improve emotional regulation and ease chronic pain symptoms. We share practical advice on embracing a compassionate inner dialogue, allowing for moments of rest, and challenging the intense pressures of everyday life. 

Join us as we discuss the art of parenting ourselves, redefining what it means to give love and care to the inner child within. By reflecting on our past and actively nurturing our present selves, we can open doors to healing. Listen and discover the profound impacts of self-parenting—it’s more than just a concept; it’s a pathway to well-being. Don’t forget to subscribe, share your thoughts, and leave a review!

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 the podcast.

Speaker 2:

Welcome back. We are in the midst of a family sickness.

Speaker 1:

Yes, I apologize if I sound a little bit sick. I am the start of the sickness which we fear will spread.

Speaker 2:

Yes, and last time we talked about parenting while healing.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I feel like this falls into that a little bit.

Speaker 2:

right now we're talking about parenting while podcasting.

Speaker 1:

It is.

Speaker 2:

And usually me and Anne are pretty good. We do it on Fridays when our kids are at school, but currently it is Sunday at 1130 and our kids are upstairs watching TV. So I have a feeling our producer, alex, is going to be cutting in and out as kids whip downstairs.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, a little bit, so we apologize if there's any bumps here, but this really leads us into our podcast topic for today, which is not really. It's not about parenting with kids. It's more about parenting ourselves, self-parenting, self-parenting, yep, and I want to say this is a topic that I talk about with a lot of people that kind of for recovery. We need to learn how to self-parent.

Speaker 2:

Yes, I think it's very essential. And when we talk about you know like neuroplastic pain symptoms especially if you're new to our podcast neuroplastic pain symptoms, they can arise in different ways. In some cases, the pain and symptoms started from an injury, a physical issue that heals, but then the brain just continues to generate the symptoms over time.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, and then sometimes in other cases there's actually no injury or event, but symptoms. They kind of come on suddenly or they start to build over time.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, and I think in either case, the common thread in all of this is a dysregulated nervous system.

Speaker 1:

Yeah.

Speaker 2:

This is what triggers and perpetuates neuroplastic pain and symptoms. It's when we're in this chronic stress state, a chronic dysregulated state of fight, flight, fawn, freeze or shutdown, and essentially you think about pain and symptoms. They're an alert mechanism, they're the brain's protective mechanism. So when we're dysregulated it's just going to start to fire this stuff off.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, and I think it's not uncommon when I talk to people that most people, when they look at their life kind of before symptoms or when symptoms started emerging, that they weren't really looking after themselves in a way that was helpful for them.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I think and and we're careful here, because no one's to blame for this- no we we do have hold the responsibility, which can be scary, like we hold the responsibility actually, like changing this and working on this. But even for myself, long before my symptoms started, I was clearly like my mental well-being, my nervous system state it was like the last priority on my to-do list and, as a result, I wasn't being a good self-parent, I wasn't taking, I was working hard, way past my limits, but everything else, everything else in terms of like mental well-being, just fell flat for me.

Speaker 1:

Well, and I think sometimes, like obviously, and for many of us, myself included, we don't realize that until something happens. Realize that until something happens and for, like when we're talking about chronic pain and symptoms, usually that's just something that happens, where we're like, oh now let me look back and see kind of what was going on.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, like a common thing I see with people is like they're missing cues to meet their own needs, and this can happen for several reasons. For a lot of people we're just not embodied, we aren't very skilled at feeling or responding to our body and nervous system cues and essentially this means we don't know when we're dysregulated until it's really extreme and we don't respond with rest, exercise, breathing practices, play downtime, like we don't provide our nervous system essentially what it needs. And most of us we just didn't grow up with the practice of mindfulness, embodiments, meditation, qigong, like all these things are really essential.

Speaker 1:

Well, yeah, and I think a lot of things you just listed off, Tanner, like, have been around for you know, many, many years and in many different cultures. But if we don't grow up learning about it or if it's kind of not part of the way we operate, then that's right. Why would we be using those types of things for nervous system regulation?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, we just essentially don't learn to be in our body.

Speaker 1:

Yes.

Speaker 2:

And I think nowadays, like kids, are getting a lot more of this, which is great.

Speaker 1:

A lot more talk Like our son's like learning breathing patterns in school Like that never, happened when I was in school, that's so funny because I feel like there was one night where we were teaching him some breathing and he's like, oh, I know this, it's bear breathing. And I was like what?

Speaker 2:

And he's learning about it in school. So I think there's more discussion, at least right now where we live, around these types of practices. We're moving in that direction. But our culture it's very cognitive Meaning. We greatly privilege thinking and analyzing over actually exploring and expressing emotions or dysregulation.

Speaker 1:

Yeah.

Speaker 2:

And so as a result, like if we're just in our head, we just miss cues constantly from our body and sometimes we feel, even though it can feel very unsafe.

Speaker 1:

But sometimes it can also feel emotionally safer when we are kind of up in our head than in our bodies.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, and then what will happen to people is exactly this we start to run our system too hard. We just run it into the ground. Perfectionism, for example I'm a perfectionist, recovering perfectionist but we're just intense, we're really intense people. We're intense with our work, with our family life, even with hobbies, and so what I'll see with people and why we've really struggled to self-parent because maybe we're saying this with our family life, even with hobbies, and so what I'll see with people and why we really struggle to self-parent, because maybe we're saying this concept of self-parenting and you're like what are you even talking?

Speaker 1:

about.

Speaker 2:

Tanner and Ann. Part of the issue is like we're not taking cues off our body. We're just like running our body and nervous system into the ground. We're doing the opposite of parenting.

Speaker 1:

Because why would that be the opposite of parenting, Tanner?

Speaker 2:

Well, you know, when you think about you know a good parent. There's probably many definitions with that, so I might define this Okay your definition, then, like I think a good parent of course teaches values to their kids.

Speaker 2:

I think that's very essential. A good parent models values. A good parent brings compassion to their kids. I think that's very essential. A good parent models values. A good parent brings compassion to their child, supports them, helps them express and feel their emotions. This is like essentially what a good parent does. You know, if our son comes home, he's bullied by someone at school that day. Like we're spending time supporting him, being with him, making sure he feels supported, helping him work through that. Maybe we change our plan for the night so like he gets more support because he needs it that night. This is good parenting in my opinion. But when it comes to self-parenting, we've really we just fall flat a lot of the time.

Speaker 1:

So it's like kind of rarely what you just described do we apply to ourselves.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, and to heal neuroplastic pain and symptoms, we need to become more skilled at self-parenting. This means listening and responding to your nervous system and emotions. I'm going to say that again Listening and responding it's both that are taking place.

Speaker 1:

Sometimes I think this can be confusing, because if our nervous system is always kind of sending pain signals and kind of like with a conditioned response or with something that it doesn't necessarily need to be, sometimes I think people will talk with me about well, I don't want to listen too much because it's saying everything is dangerous. So what is that balance of like listening to our nervous system, paying attention, but still kind of challenging as well?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, so it is. It is a balance. I get what you're saying in the sense that sometimes we're feeling in a heightened state of danger when everything around us is actually safe.

Speaker 1:

And we want to teach.

Speaker 2:

You get these with trauma triggers, yes, but I think by connecting more to our body, to our nervous system, we learn that, Like I know Situ I've talked about it on the podcast before when I travel, it is a Everything is dangerous too. Everything is dangerous. Going to a new coffee shop is dangerous. Right Leaving the hotel room is dangerous.

Speaker 1:

So you know cognitively that it's probably not.

Speaker 2:

But I still need to support myself way more while traveling. Even though I consciously know, okay, I'm completely safe right now, I still need to bring compassion to care to myself, probably do more somatic work.

Speaker 1:

So, even though maybe I'm interpreting danger where there isn't, I still need to respond, so the response would be almost upping the self-parenting in that time. It doesn't necessarily mean retreat, though.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, like. A great example of this is when we talk about self-parenting. You just have to think the opposite of what you would do with parenting. So our son, very sensitive, like his father, very sensitive. I've been in situations where I've seen him interact with his peers and everything from the outside perspective. The kids were fine, everything was okay. But like he's so sensitive if you know someone like turns around to talk to someone else or like these little moments, that he has a huge emotional response. Now it's not going to be helpful for me to be like, hey, like you're fine, your friends, like you like it's all good, don't worry about it. Like I still need to respond to the sensitivity of that situation and maybe get to a place eventually of like reinterpreting the situation, but I still need to meet his nervous system where it's at. Okay, you know, if you've identified that you're failing to understand and meet your own needs, it can be helpful to ask why.

Speaker 1:

So some things we might want to ask. Is our competitive culture inviting us into intensity or almost a workaholic kind of mentality? Did our own parents have high expectations that influenced our intensity? Were you often praised for how hard you could work or what you could achieve? Were your role models and mentors also working hard and lacking self-care? So those are good questions to reflect on.

Speaker 2:

Because it is helpful to understand why we became the way we became Like, how did this occur, yeah? And understanding that starting to ask them these questions can be vital.

Speaker 1:

Totally, and it doesn't mean like we want to look back on our past and blame our parents and caregivers, but it's important to get some insight because often the way we were parented tells us how we maybe approach emotions, how we approach kind of nervous system regulation or following those cues, and so it can be really informative.

Speaker 2:

Now it's time for sharing story. We're going to share some of our learnings.

Speaker 1:

Okay.

Speaker 2:

Sharing story Anne.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I don't know if I like that.

Speaker 2:

You want me to go first in the sharing story?

Speaker 1:

No, just stop calling it sharing story.

Speaker 2:

You're so upset that I keep saying sharing story, no, I don't like it.

Speaker 1:

No, just maybe talking, we can say talking.

Speaker 2:

Talking circle. Oh Okay, so good. So we did think we'd share some of our favorite lessons and values we learned from our parents, which have helped us parent ourselves, for sure. It's helped us with self-parenting, and so one that I want to talk about comes from my father, and I don't know what happened to me. I miss this.

Speaker 1:

It was helpful later because I reflected on him, but I missed it when I was like a child this but didn't embody. It's like I saw it.

Speaker 2:

But I chose to run the opposite direction, oh, which was the wrong direction to go and then I came back, okay slowly.

Speaker 2:

But one thing about my father that's very opposite for me is he's very balanced. He's a very balanced man and in a really great way, like he really balances out work, family time, hobbies, like he is not willing to push himself too hard in any direction in a really beneficial way, like when I was growing up, like he worked, but you know he didn't work too hard, he wasn't working weekends, he had time to play soccer and hobbies, he spent a lot of time with us as kids. Like there was this balance. And then there's me and I did not do that. It's like I I just excessively pick one area and I just dump all my time and energy into that.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, and so balance. But it was helpful reflecting back on like, oh yeah, like he kind of had it figured out and now I'm moving more in that direction of like spending time with hobbies, making sure I spend time with, you know, my family, making sure I work and work hard, but not to the point where I'm just like that becomes my entire life. So this balance, I think, has been really helpful. It was a helpful lesson in terms of my self-parenting now, because I'm constantly making sure I'm balanced throughout the week. It's a real challenge if I'm not really conscious of it.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I think for me, like, what comes to mind is just kind of the value and act of compassion, like I always remember receiving a lot of compassion from my family and I definitely not like Tanner. I don't think I ran from that. I think growing up I became very compassionate towards myself and I was able to kind of apply that to myself and still have was myself and I was able to kind of apply that to myself and still have and that is a big tool that we talk about with a lot of people, that I also use for myself when we think of that self-parenting piece.

Speaker 2:

It's true, and you were probably the person that I know who just very naturally has a ton of compassion for yourself, like Like you're just not critical of yourself, like you're not.

Speaker 1:

I don't know, that's a good point no.

Speaker 2:

no, it's great.

Speaker 1:

It just sounds funny the way you say it Like. I let myself off the hook easily, though I don't know.

Speaker 2:

Like in a good way though. Yeah, yeah, like I think there's something to it that I think so many people struggle with self-criticism. Yes, with self-criticism, yes, especially people with neuroplastic pain and symptoms. Yeah, because self-criticism, self-criticism is going to breed danger, danger is going to bring symptoms, but for yourself, like I think you just so naturally you're never willing to go there not really like there.

Speaker 1:

Obviously I can be self-critical and there's some areas in my life that stand out more than others, where I can fall into that more. But I'm happy to say I haven't fallen into that a lot throughout my lifetime Like I have obviously, but it hasn't been something. It's always something I can rein in when that's happening. Yeah.

Speaker 2:

And now we're going to shift the talking circle to some other topic. We also want to talk about reflections of some things we needed to learn later.

Speaker 1:

Yeah. So this might be things, maybe like Tanner's saying, that we did see but didn't embody, or maybe it's also things that we didn't learn from our families. Maybe we learned the opposite growing up Then. Now we've really had to kind of learn as adults.

Speaker 2:

Yeah. So one thing that I'll share is and with the best intentions of my parents, like I think we were just a really busy family. So you know, we, we were in multiple activities every week, we went skiing every weekend, um and, and so one thing I learned is that almost busyness brings safety, like I think I internalized oh, I need to be busy to be productive, to be safe, like I kind of internalized this feeling, and one thing I've had to relearn as an adult is that I can be safe while resting. That rest is okay. Yes, every Sunday, shortly after this, what I do is I just I sit and I watch just a terrible movie.

Speaker 2:

I try to watch a good movie, but they often turn out terrible because I have like an hour and a half where kids are napping and so, like it's just a way that I'm intentionally practicing rest. Yeah, it was such a thing that I had to learn over time. Yeah, and I such a thing that.

Speaker 1:

I had to learn over time, yeah, and I think for me something I've had to learn too is kind of a pressure off, almost that good enough mentality sometimes, and I've really had to embody that and it doesn't mean I don't want to work hard or try at things or excel. Sometimes I don't need to do it with pressure, and so I've been really trying to apply that in my day-to-day life and I almost really teach that to myself as an adult.

Speaker 2:

No, I agree, and that's such an important lesson I think so many people need to learn.

Speaker 1:

Yes.

Speaker 2:

And really like, as you're engaging in this healing work, you want to consider the type of parent you'd like to be for yourself.

Speaker 1:

I like that, like what kind of parent do you want to be, and then what kind of parent do you want to be to you?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, like perhaps you need more permission to rest, like myself, be average, embrace your averageness.

Speaker 1:

Well, that's kind of like what I was saying, that pressure off of like not everything has to be spectacular all the time.

Speaker 2:

I embrace your averageness. I feel Santa needs to work on that a lot. Okay, that's not where we were going with this at all All the traits that Yann is doing is so bad but I think we're joking. But, like all of us, have traits that are average or below average.

Speaker 1:

And actually it's okay to be okay with that, and that can feel like a very uncomfortable statement if, like, we've kind of learned the opposite Exactly.

Speaker 2:

Perhaps you know you need to be more assertive to meet your own needs, perhaps you need to lovingly push yourself a bit. Some of us, you know like we need a little bit more pressure, actually like we need to like move towards goals and purpose.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, something that can be useful is imagining. Just imagine a child on the soccer field kind of just playing along, but they had a bad fall. They run to their parent or coach, kind of like neuroplastic pain and symptoms. There's no structural injury to treat or focus on, but that child would still need care. They would need compassionate attention from the parent or coach. It wouldn't be helpful if the parent was overly fearful because they fell. It would feel shaming if they were blamed or corrected harshly for what happened and it would feel scary if they were sad or despairing with them. They would need that love and support and that way they could build that confidence. And so that's an example of kind of parenting to that child that we might want to embody to ourselves if we were to stumble or make a mistake.

Speaker 2:

Exactly. It's a great example because you can think about. You know, how would that parent respond to the child and would that response create more danger or more safety?

Speaker 1:

Yeah, and I often reflect on that idea with people of like how would you respond? How would you respond to your own child? And if you don't have children, how would you respond to just a young person in your life? Or we can reflect back on our inner child of like what did we maybe need when we were younger?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, because often, as adults, we need the same thing. We need what wasn't provided. And so self-parenting people, we encourage you all to be loving parents for your needs, both in responding to your symptoms and when living your daily life.

Speaker 1:

Yeah.

Speaker 2:

So I hope this episode was helpful for everyone.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, we hope that you know you took something out of it and if anything, kind of what value do you want to apply to that self-parenting for yourself?

Speaker 2:

yeah, and we made it through this whole podcast without a kid running downstairs.

Speaker 1:

I'm a bit concerned though, so I'm gonna like race upstairs after this we're gonna go upstairs.

Speaker 2:

There's gonna be like bubbles.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, because it was very quiet, which is odd.

Speaker 2:

Something's happening up there. Oh yes.

Speaker 1:

We're going to go parent, but in a loving way, I promise 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.