The Mind-Body Couple
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
Disclaimer: The information provided on this podcast is for general informational and educational purposes and is not a substitute for professional advice, psychotherapy, or counselling. If you choose to utilize any of the education, strategies, or techniques in this podcast you are doing so at your own risk.
The Mind-Body Couple
Pathology Culture is Making Us Sick
Your body isn't failing you - your beliefs might be. Throughout history, healers and scientists have observed how powerful beliefs can create real physical symptoms — from the "voodoo deaths" documented in 1942 to modern medical misdiagnoses that trigger health declines despite no actual disease. That same power of belief has created what we call a "pathology culture" that's making millions chronically ill.
This episode dives into fascinating research that challenges everything we think we know about chronic pain. Studies from Lithuania reveal that car accident victims rarely develop chronic whiplash syndromes compared to Western countries—simply because they don't expect to. Even more striking, German researchers found that people in simulated car accidents (with no actual impact) developed whiplash symptoms at the same rate as those in real accidents. Meanwhile, demolition derby drivers who regularly experience multiple collisions report almost no neck pain.
Why? Because what we believe about our bodies fundamentally shapes our physical experience.
We explore the misconception that structural "abnormalities" seen on medical imaging are the cause of pain. Research consistently shows these findings—bulging discs, tears, degeneration—are incredibly common in pain-free individuals. When you're told your spine has "damage," your brain interprets that as danger, amplifying pain even when your body is structurally sound.
Most chronic conditions—from fibromyalgia and back pain to IBS, headaches, and chronic fatigue—can be fully or partly neuroplastic, meaning they're generated by the brain's danger signals rather than actual damage. Understanding this opens up powerful healing pathways through belief change, brain retraining, and nervous system regulation.
Ready to challenge your beliefs about your body and take healing back into your own hands? This episode gives you the scientific foundation to start that journey. If you've been frustrated by treatments that only address your physical symptoms, this perspective could change everything.
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...
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.
Speaker 2:Welcome back Today. Our topic pathology. Culture is making us sick.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's quite an intense topic there, Tyler. It's an intense topic.
Speaker 2:I think there's a lot of truth to this. I think there's an epidemic of chronic pain, chronic illness that we're facing and, if you're new to our podcast, our belief is that this is not due to our body failing. Most of the time, it's not due to damage or disease and it is more due to the brain and nervous system and these pathological beliefs that we have about our body.
Speaker 1:Yeah, totally, and that's really what we're diving into today with this podcast.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so we're going to share a story. Start with a story Story time, anne. All right, a little bit of research. That is quite fascinating. I read this when I was recovering and it was impactful to hear about. So we go back to as early as 1942. We're traveling back in time, anne.
Speaker 1:All right.
Speaker 2:To an American researcher named Walter B Cannon. All right, it's quite the researcher name. Yeah, walter B Cannon.
Speaker 1:I like it. It has a ring to it. It's very formal. It is yeah.
Speaker 2:Like the B, like Tanner G Murtaugh. What do you think?
Speaker 1:All right, keep going, okay, okay, so All right, keep going.
Speaker 2:Okay. So he was a physiologist, a professor who chaired Harvard's Department of Physiology, and he did some interesting writing about hexes and psychogenic deaths. These were often called voodoo deaths. So, to break this down, what he observed in cultures is that when these deep beliefs, these deep, powerful beliefs of curses and they often came from the authority of spiritual leaders when people had these deep beliefs that they were hexed or maybe they were going to die beliefs that they were hexed or maybe they were going to die, it would actually lead to serious health decline and, in some cases, death, which I think is quite shocking. If you haven't heard this understanding, but it's very different nowadays. Like a lot of us have more of this deep belief in the medical system and I think that that's very similar like we have this deep belief in the medical system of scans, of tests, and our belief around if our body's healthy or unhealthy. And so Canon suggested that the human nervous system essentially reacted to these psychological threats in life threatening ways, leading to these symptoms and health decline that takes place.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I think that's actually a very powerful statement that you just mentioned there, tanner, because that really is the idea of like what we believe makes us better or can also make us sick.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and you've heard these. There's like case studies that are interesting where people have been given terminal diagnoses that were actually incorrect. So people are given a terminal diagnosis they don't know it's incorrect and what happens is they have this huge decline in health and develop these physical illness, physical symptoms, even though it's incorrect. And it speaks to the power of belief about if our body's safe or in danger.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And now, with our medicalized society, people are getting all this information and a lot of times misdiagnosis is taking place or people find out that they have some three huge bulging discs and so they think that back pain is inevitable and it's going to be there forever.
Speaker 1:Well, and I think about you, tanner, when you were recovering and you were told things like that, like you were told okay, like you might be in pain forever. You're told those kind of statements and what was that? What did that do for your belief and maybe your ideas around your body? It was terrifying.
Speaker 2:And there was this despairing acceptance. Acceptance can be useful in the short run with some of these things and we've talked about that, but it was like this despairing acceptance Like I remember. A doctor told me I had hyperactive nerves and I would be in pain for life. That's a terrifying thing to be told from someone in an authority position. That left me and luckily, soon after that I found a brain and nervous system approach and realized that doctor was completely incorrect. It was completely a misbelief, but if I kept believing that my pain would have just kept coming.
Speaker 2:Yeah probably worsened over time.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And so we do need to understand this idea of fear and beliefs and how it can influence our physical health. And you know, now, nowadays, a lot of people well, lots of people have different spiritual beliefs we want to be respectful of, but a lot of people more have this deep belief in like the medical system, and that there's these people, these highly educated people and authorities. And again, I'm not knocking the whole medical system by the way, because I think there's a lot of benefit, I think it's expanded our lifespan, there's lots of benefits, but when it comes to chronic pain, chronic illness, it often isn't effective in actually providing useful treatment for a lot of people. Hence why we share this approach on our podcast.
Speaker 1:Right, and so a lot of kind of the approach that we're going to talk about in a minute is about shifting belief, maybe shifting belief that something is structurally damaged with the body.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and when we talk about this idea in our culture, like most of us assume that our chronic pain or chronic symptoms are what we call nociceptive or neuropathic. Yes, some fancy terms for everyone. Essentially, what this means is that the body is physically damaged in some way, or the somatosensory nervous system is damaged or diseased in some way.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:So a lot of us assume when we have chronic pain or illness it's one of these two things. But what we've come to understand through research, through neuroscience, that this is often not true. It doesn't mean that it isn't true for some people because it is, but often this pain or symptoms are neuroplastic in nature.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Well, and I think that takes us back to the research that you just mentioned, Tanner, because I know I've met with a lot of people and talked to a lot of people that spent a lot of time in the medical system trying to figure out what was like structurally wrong with their bodies to never even know of this idea of the power of the brain and belief in the nervous system and how that can impact pain. And so it's important to have awareness that actually, this is something to consider as well.
Speaker 2:Yeah, when we talk about chronic pain, chronic symptoms, being neuroplastic, some people are not new to this idea and hopefully you've been listening to our podcast for many episodes. But for people that are new, what this means is that the symptoms they're caused and amplified by the brain and nervous system processes and they're not due to disease or structural damage in the body.
Speaker 1:Now we want to put like a bit of a disclaimer here, saying for some people it can be, and so in certain disease processes and certain illness and certain things going on with the body for sure, but we want people to know that this is also a possibility that needs to be reflected upon.
Speaker 2:And I will go as far to say that it's more probable. The reality of understanding that pain and symptoms are neuroplastic might be a new idea to people, but there's research to show, for example, like neck and back pain most of the time is neuroplastic. That's a pretty bold statement. It is there's been great research studies that have shown this that you know, back pain, neck pain, being caused by structural abnormalities is actually quite rare.
Speaker 1:Where can people that are listening find that research?
Speaker 2:So on our YouTube channel we go through lots of these different studies and in our digital course we really provide like a full education on chronic pain, chronic symptoms, and include a lot of this research, because I think we need to increase this understanding and belief that not only can pain and symptoms be neuroplastic, but it often is the case. And so really, to put simply what's taking place here, the pain and symptoms they're felt due to the sense of danger, even though the body is structurally healthy or is healed from an injury already. Body is structurally healthy or is healed from an injury already. So neuro essentially describes like brain and nervous system and plastic means changed or developed. Alan Gordon, the creator of pain reprocessing therapy that's how he defines neuroplastic pain and symptoms and essentially, your brain changes in such a way that reinforces neuroplastic pain and symptoms.
Speaker 1:And so sometimes when I'm chatting with people and they've been in chronic pain for years and years and years, I think it is fair to say that the brain has had some changes over time just because it's been in pain, or generating pain, for so long.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and a lot of times people ask us, like clients ask us what determines if the brain is going to generate pain or physical symptoms. And the answer to point really simply is really how much danger your brain and nervous system is detecting. And we talk about pathological views of the body, that there's something really wrong with the body If your body's healthy. But we have all this information for example, what that sports medicine doctor told me about my hyperactive nerves. If we have all this information telling us, oh, there's something really wrong, it increases danger. And we do all these physical treatments. We're physically focused, we think that you know, something needs to be fixed inside your body could be completely healthy in those beliefs alone. And then if you add in, like nervous system dysregulation, other dangers in your life, you get this combination where chronic pain, chronic symptoms get created and developed for a lot of people.
Speaker 1:Well, and I think then we also start interacting with the world like it's dangerous a little bit too, in terms of how it might impact our pain or not.
Speaker 2:Yes. Now, a really common question we get, anne, is you know what health conditions could be fully neuroplastic or partly neuroplastic? Now there's a combination. I think a lot of people's symptoms are fully neuroplastic, but it can be a mix too. I want to be clear about that. And so, with these things that we'll just mention real quick, it's possible for it to be fully or partly neuroplastic in nature.
Speaker 1:Okay, so I'm going to go through a little bit of a list here and I want you to really listen out to see if you relate to any of these, and so fibromyalgia, chronic neck and back pain, abdominal and pelvic pain, irritable bowel syndrome, headaches, complex regional pain syndrome, crps, vestibular concerns and dizziness, tinnitus, chronic fatigue syndrome, pots, myofascial pain syndrome, chemical sensitivities and irritable bladder syndrome.
Speaker 2:So there's lots of conditions here. Now, what we want to do in this episode this episode, as people are listening, it's a little bit more sciencey and we're going to explain, you know know, some of the understanding of how pain and symptoms can occur from maybe just perceived injuries to the body or perceived beliefs about our body being damaged, and we want to bust some of these beliefs ah, like a myth busters myth busters.
Speaker 2:So we want to talk about the research on whiplash. There are some fascinating studies that have been done. I don't know how they got the ethics to do some of these studies.
Speaker 2:I know, but it has provided so much insight into how the pain system works. Here's the thing. In many countries there's an epidemic of chronic whiplash syndrome. Little definition here Whiplash. Most people understand what takes place here Following a rear end collision. What takes place is tendons and ligaments in the neck become strained from the accident, usually from the neck snapping back. This causes head and neck pain. Now this makes a lot of sense at first because there is some injury. But there was confusion around why does whiplash become this chronic syndrome over time?
Speaker 1:Okay, so chronic syndrome, meaning lasting for a long time.
Speaker 2:Yeah, like lasting for above six months, because typically our body's quite good at healing. We've evolved in this way. But for a lot of people in the western world they get these chronic whiplash syndromes where neck and head pain just continues on right, could go down to the back as well. So a group of researchers this is a fascinating study and thought they found the answer in Lithuania. So in Lithuania there is actually little chronic whiplash reported compared to most in the Western world. So it depends on country. But I think it's like Canada, the US, it's about 10%. About 10% of people following a rear-end collision will develop this chronic whiplash syndrome.
Speaker 2:In Lithuania it's basically not occurring. So they were like, why is this happening? Like what is taking place? And the researchers discovered that in Lithuania they actually have little knowledge of whiplash. They have little fear that it's going to result in these chronic pain symptoms. I don't know about you and but every time I've been in a car accident and luckily I've been on too many major ones the first thing I think about is is this going to become chronic, like is this going to damage my body in some way? And I think a lot of people in the western world that's what they think about right, there's that first fear of like.
Speaker 1:Oh no.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we have this belief system that chronic pain could be very probable following a car accident, even a minor one.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:Now the researchers. Basically what they did is they interviewed 202 Lithuanian collision victims about one to three years after a rearranged car accident that they were in. They compared their pain levels with a control group of participants that had never been in a car accident, and what the results showed is there was no significant difference in neck or head pain for comparing the participants in the car accidents to the participants who had never been in the car accidents, and the results really suggest that car accidents may not be the cause of chronic whiplash syndrome. Does your cultural fear about chronic whiplash following a car accident increase your likeliness of producing pain? Because I think this belief system that we've developed in the Western world is often what's leading to chronic issues later on.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I remember when I first came across these studies kind of like what you're saying, tanner it was very impactful for me too, because I didn't realize that, you know, different countries or different cultures had different experiences of this and it really pits it in a perspective of OK, again, what we believe as a society impacts our relationship with fear, with experiences, with our bodies with fear with experiences with our bodies.
Speaker 2:Now the next study. I would say this is my favorite study that I talk about with clients. Yeah, because I think it's pretty fascinating. This is the one. I'm very grateful they did this study. I can only imagine the ethics board as they were trying to get this study passed, but it is quite fascinating. So this study was done in Germany and it was also on Whiplash. So what they did is they put 51 participants through a simulated car crash.
Speaker 1:Again, I don't know who signed up for that. Yeah, I don't know who signed up for that.
Speaker 2:Maybe they had a big reward for the people that signed up, but I wouldn't be doing that up for that.
Speaker 2:Maybe they had a big reward for the people that signed up. Maybe, yeah, I wouldn't be doing that, but a simulated car crash. So you're probably wondering, okay, what the heck is a simulated car crash? It's kind of complicated to explain. They took two cars. They lined them up back to back, there was a complicated system of ramps and pulleys and they put the participants, one at a time, in the front car and they made it seem like they were rear-ended. Right, there was a loud noise, the car moved forward like they did everything to simulate what it would be like to be rear-ended, but the the impact wasn't enough to snap their neck back, so there was no like physical damage that actually took place.
Speaker 2:So let's talk about the results here, because after three days so three days post simulation, simulated car crash almost 20% of participants reported whiplash syndromes that they associated with the car accident. Four weeks later, almost 10% of participants still have whiplash symptoms. Almost 10% of participants still have whiplash symptoms, all without physical trauma. One thing I find interesting about the study is that 10% that was still having chronic whiplash symptoms. That's about the rate that people get when they're in car accidents, just generally in the Western world.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:So the other thing that the researchers found, that people with higher pain after about four weeks, those participants had the highest levels of emotional distress or stress in their life at the time.
Speaker 1:Ah, okay. So that again leads to this idea of what was going on with, like when you had the onset of symptoms.
Speaker 2:So it pairs together. You have this belief of injury and you pair it with emotional distress. Pain sensations are very likely to take place, yeah, and I think for a lot of people, when they develop neuroplastic pain and symptoms, I see people almost have a perceived injury and this is hard to break apart when they perceived that they injured themselves and they have that strong belief my body's damaged now and if they're already going through hard times or dysregulated, we're likely to have the brain click on pain or physical symptoms. And so it really demonstrates this influence of pathological beliefs and how they can deeply influence our brain and nervous system. Now to shadow this in the other direction last study, I promise people, but this study is fascinating. They did a study on demolition derby drivers.
Speaker 1:Oh yes.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so it's a good one too.
Speaker 2:These people are purposefully like ramming into each other in cars for an extended period of time, like they're doing it for fun, which might blow some of our minds you would expect, these people would have a high level of pain because there's a lot of impact. There's a lot of maybe physical trauma. But the one study on them it was done on a number of drivers they reported almost no neck pain following several collisions, which is mind-blowing actually Following several collisions.
Speaker 1:Which is mind-blowing actually.
Speaker 2:And you wonder why this is. It's an interesting idea Like why are these people that are purposefully doing it? And one of the things I think about is I don't think they probably view those collisions as like, maybe traumatic. I think a lot of us, if we're in a car accident, especially a major one, we view it as this, like trauma. It's unexpected, it's sudden, which makes sense, but these people are, like, intentionally doing this.
Speaker 1:Well, maybe there's also the belief that if they are experiencing some pain that they're going to heal shortly after, so they're like there's no fear of the sensations after.
Speaker 2:Yeah, these studies demonstrate the significant influence that beliefs and the expectation of pain and symptoms can really have, even though the body is not damaged, and so we want people to think about this. Like how might learned ideas like learned ideas you've had from your culture or family system about injuries, disease, aging, viruses, bacterias, foods like how? How are your belief system influencing how you view your body?
Speaker 1:Well, and I think that kind of reminds me of Tanner, and maybe we've talked about this on the podcast at some point before but you've mentioned going to physiotherapy or seeing your family in physiotherapy growing up and like that was kind of a normal thing, right? Not normal in any way in my family, and so I don't think any of us and I think my mom now or some family members now but I don't remember anyone going to like physiotherapy. It wasn't even a word I knew growing up. It wasn't a thing.
Speaker 2:It's fascinating because I was in physio at a very young age.
Speaker 1:And I have never been in physio.
Speaker 2:For, like injuries from sports and different things, and I had this belief. My parents were not to blame for this, by the way, I think it just developed where my parents were often going to physio. So I kind of grew up thinking, as I get older, my body's probably going to fall apart. Yeah, get older, my body's probably going to fall apart. Yeah, like I had that, that, that belief system.
Speaker 1:and so when I start to experience symptoms as I got older and older, part of me thought like, oh, this is just normal right and it's like okay, it's normal, I should go to physio and again like we're not knocking physio in any way, but we want to use this example to show the belief of like normalcy, maybe around something in terms of the body well, I think it almost leads into this discussion of understanding structural abnormalities, because a lot of people don't realize that chronic pain and symptoms with with a physical cause are very rare.
Speaker 2:Most of us assume when we have pain or physical symptoms something's wrong with the body.
Speaker 1:And who is the recent researcher here that really says that? Dr Schubiner, one of my favorite researchers, and I wanted to highlight that because he is someone that's done extensive research into this area and a trustworthy source oh, 100%, and what this means.
Speaker 2:a lot of people don't realize that medical treatments are often actually really poor at treating chronic pain. They are great at treating acute pain.
Speaker 2:Yes, so if you have an acute injury and you do all these physical treatments, the outcomes are much better. But physical treatments are having these poor outcomes because most chronic pain symptoms are neuroplastic and we need to understand that abnormalities like structural abnormalities are really normal and it can occur without pain and symptoms. So a lot of the research that's been done and some of this research is decades old they found that structural abnormalities in the back are often very present without causing pain. So really quick stats here Bear with me people, but I think it's important. One study they examined the spines of individuals with no back pain and they found that 52% had at least one bulging disc and 27% had at least a disc protrusion.
Speaker 1:So if I was in that study, I don't have back pain, but there's a high likelihood that something would be found for me.
Speaker 2:Yes, you and I, you know, middle-aged. If we scan our spines, I can promise you if you scanned my back from a decade ago, it'd probably be in better shape than it is now Because develop these normal wears and tear, it's typical Like we're all going to have that. Yeah, another fascinating study they did was on the spines of healthy 20 to 22-year-olds, with no pain. They found that 42 to 54% had degenerative discs and 25% had bulging discs.
Speaker 1:I feel like that's kind of confusing, because then if someone were to find that in their scans, what are they to believe about that? Necessarily, can that ever cause pain?
Speaker 2:Yeah, and that's the hard part and we do want to be careful here Make sure you're consulting with your doctor and understanding, like asking important questions of like are the abnormalities found? Are they lining up with pain sensations, like that type of stuff. But it's important that people consult with their physician. Don't just listen to this podcast and take our word for it. Like we want people to be responsible and safe for their health, but it's just the understanding that at a young age, we get abnormalities. This is normal, this is typical and it can occur without pain so other areas of the body can have abnormalities without pain.
Speaker 1:So, for instance, neck 87% of us may have a bulging disc in the neck. The shoulder 72% have a superior labral tear. The hip 69% of adults have labral tears. And the knee 97% show abnormalities.
Speaker 2:Yeah, all without pain. And so it's just coming to this understanding that when we have chronic pain symptoms, most of us get scans, yes, and then when something's found, if you know, a lot of times things aren't worded correctly or we don't get the full medical explanation. So we're left thinking there's something really wrong with our body. I've even seen clients where they had back pain. They got scanned, they found out they had abnormalities and in the coming weeks their back pain doubled. Like there's that strong belief of like oh, there really is something wrong.
Speaker 1:Well, and it makes sense, and so I really want to say it 100% makes sense, when something's found like that, to conclude that that is the source of the pain, and sometimes we want that. After all this journey, we're looking for answers, and so I really want to empathize with people that this is a really complicated thing we're talking about.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I think coming to understand this, moving away from pathologizing the body, I think that's a big part of our approach. It can bring on this new sense of hope. Now, again, I want to say it's important to investigate possible physical causes and treatments. I tell someone, if they come to see me and they haven't been investigated, I'm encouraging them go find out, go get tests done, go get assessed by a physician and then maybe we'll have more information to know that this is neuroplastic. So we can't skip that step.
Speaker 1:Yes, there's a really important like ruling out piece to this. We can't fully start to believe or hold on to hope maybe in this neuroplastic idea without ruling out other things that might be say dangerous.
Speaker 2:And most people have done this almost in excess, so usually we don't need to track people because they've done this excessively. But that first step is through assessing for neuroplastic pain and symptoms. A few episodes ago, me and Anne outlined all the criteria.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:So if you're wondering, is my symptom neuroplastic? You can go with self-assess, listen to those two episodes, self-assess if your symptoms are neuroplastic in nature and we want to build this case. And by doing that we start to shift our belief system. We start to come to understand, oh, our body's actually okay, and then we can start to approach a lot of things differently. Part of it is like I said we start to view our body as safer and healthy. But another big thing is we start to approach movement, we start to approach life more because that fear can start to reduce.
Speaker 2:We start to do brain retraining exercises supporting someone, changing their emotional relationship to the symptom, and we start to regulate the nervous system, restore safety there, and this can lead to even deeper trauma, work or life changes that we need to make. But it starts with the belief and that's what we really want to talk about. You know we're here to support people. Our digital course we have everything I know we talked about quite a few studies today. Yeah, but it has a full pain symptom education, because we want to start with increasing someone's belief that this is what's going on. And then we go through all the things I just listed the brain retraining, the exposure, the nervous system regulation, the emotional, the trauma work. We can take healing back into our own hands.
Speaker 2:And that's why we designed that course. So there's just a full system that people can start to do at a self pace on their own.
Speaker 1:Well, and just to add in this other thing about the course that we find really helpful for people is this there's this whole community group. So when people do purchase the course, you are welcomed into this community where everyone's trying to kind of work on this together, really instilling that hope, fostering that belief, and so it's kind of amazing to see that support.
Speaker 2:So I hope this episode was helpful for everyone. Yeah, yeah, and we will talk to you next week. Talk to you next week.
Speaker 1: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.