The Mind-Body Couple

How to Talk with Your Hurt Part (Meditation Included)

• Tanner Murtagh and Anne Hampson

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Your body speaks in sensations, not words, and chronic pain or illness can be its desperate cry for safety. When your nervous system feels threatened—whether from past trauma, prolonged stress, or childhood adversity—it generates protective symptoms as alarm bells.

Most of us respond to these signals with frustration, anger, and self-blame, creating a vicious cycle that only heightens nervous system dysregulation and intensifies symptoms. Breaking this pattern requires a fundamental shift in how we communicate with the hurt parts of ourselves. This episode explores the cognitive dimension of that shift through self-kindness phrases—gentle wishes like "May I care for myself during this moment of suffering" or "May I accept myself just as I am"—that provide an alternative to the harsh self-talk perpetuating our pain.

These phrases differ crucially from positive affirmations because they acknowledge our struggles while opening possibilities for healing. When combined with deep breathing and regular practice, they begin rewiring our automatic responses to symptoms. Through Tanner's personal story of childhood bullying and subsequent perfectionism, we see how understanding the origins of our nervous system patterns allows us to provide precisely what our younger selves needed but didn't receive—acceptance, belonging, and unconditional worth. 

Ready to transform your relationship with chronic pain and illness? Practice the guided self-compassion meditation in this episode, and join us next week as we explore the somatic dimension of creating safety through touch, movement, and breathwork. For additional support, check out our digital course with comprehensive resources on nervous system regulation and self-compassion: https://www.mbodycommunity.com/

Tanner Murtagh and Anne Hampson are therapists who treat neuroplastic pain and mind-body symptoms. They are also married! In his 20s, Tanner overcame chronic pain and a fibromyalgia diagnosis by learning his symptoms were occurring due to learned brain pathways and nervous system dysregulation. Post-healing, Tanner and Anne have dedicated their lives to developing effective treatment and education for neuroplastic pain and symptoms. Listen and learn how to assess your own chronic pain and symptoms, gain tools to retrain the brain and nervous system, and make gradual changes in your life and health!


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


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


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


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


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Speaker 1:

Welcome to the MindBodyCouple podcast.

Speaker 2:

I'm Tanner Murtaugh and I'm Anne Hampson. This podcast is dedicated to helping you unlearn chronic pain and symptoms. If you need support with your healing, you can book in for a consultation with one of our therapists at painpsychotherapyca or purchase our online course at embodycommunitycom to access in-depth education, somatic practices, recovery tools and an interactive community focused on healing. Links in the description of each episode.

Speaker 1:

Hi everybody Welcome back.

Speaker 2:

Hi everyone.

Speaker 1:

We have a pretty good topic for you today.

Speaker 2:

Yeah. So we're going to discuss how to talk with your hurt part. I think many of the listeners as well as us. We're human. Many of us have a part of us that feels hurt or unsafe due to past things we've gone through, and today the idea is we're going to provide some ideas of how you can respond to your chronic pain and symptoms in a manner that helps it heal. So, as we discuss on our podcast, you know, when symptoms are structurally or physically caused, responding physically makes a lot of sense Right Diagnosis, physical treatments, rehabilitation. However, as we've discussed so many forms of chronic pain, chronic illness, are neuroplastic and essentially if you're this is the first time you've ever listened to our podcast what this means is that the brain has become sensitized and the symptoms are generated because the brain feels in danger.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, and I think that's really key and we really need to highlight that. The brain feels in danger. That is a big piece to remember and that's why we want to respond to it in a way that creates that safety.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, because I think for so many people, there's a part of us that chronically feels unsafe and it's crying out. It's screaming out to us in the form of symptoms. It's how our body kind of speaks. You know our nervous system. It doesn't speak words, it speaks sensations, and so when we chronically feel unsafe, chronic pain, chronic illness is really just a symptom of that.

Speaker 1:

It's an interesting way to think about it, tanner, because, like right away with that description, I feel like I want to be kind to my nervous system. I want to be kind to that part, like when you lay it out like that, it's like, oh, like you feel almost for yourself. But I think when we struggle with chronic pain and symptoms, or maybe like chronic illness, like you mentioned, we don't often respond in kindness, like we get angry and we get frustrated, and so I like your description, but yet we tend to not respond in a way of soothing or safety.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, and I think a lot of people, it makes sense develop neuroplastic pain and symptoms because they're chronically dysregulated. And when we're chronically dysregulated in our nervous system we naturally are slanted towards the negative. We're slanted towards self-criticism to self-blame, self-criticism to self-blame and you think about these neuroplastic symptoms. I know it feels unhelpful, but it's just your nervous system frantically trying to protect you and the first step is really getting curious and starting to listen. Yeah, so I want to talk about three reasons the brain can generate pain and physical symptoms. Number one, of course, the body was injured and has now healed, but the brain accidentally continues to generate symptoms, almost to falsely protect us.

Speaker 1:

Which is, I think, pretty common. I see that a lot.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, where someone has an injury, but for most of us, within a couple weeks to a few months with bigger injuries, our body has this remarkable ability to heal, but then pain continues on or illness continues on and people are confused as to why.

Speaker 2:

Number two the brain has come to fear certain movements, stimuli, environments, and essentially this is because of associations, and our brain is an association-making machine. Yeah, it's really good at that, so it's good at linking a certain condition with a certain outcome, but it does this accidentally and with neuroplastic symptoms. This happens Like, for example, I was convinced walking caused my back pain, but my symptoms are neuroplastic, so walking was actually safe. It's just my brain had like glued those two things together and this can really cause people's pain or symptoms to be perpetuated, and we do a lot of work with people to support them in unlearning that, because that is possible. Number three the nervous system has been in this chronic state of dysregulation and this can be due to our lifestyle habits, relationships, childhood, adversity, trauma. The symptoms as we're talking about are signaling that we feel in danger.

Speaker 1:

Yes, and it becomes a bit of this and we talked about this before, but a bit of this loop when we start feeling in chronic dysregulation because of the symptoms. So we have our symptoms going on, we try to get rid of them, or we can't figure them out, or we feel like we're bumping our head against the wall, and then more dysregulation follows and it becomes this cycle as well.

Speaker 2:

Yes, it becomes this very negative feedback loop man feedback loops they suck.

Speaker 1:

Yeah.

Speaker 2:

Like as human beings, we fall into them so easily. Yeah and yeah, like just that chronic dysregulation, unsafety, like any of those feelings. They're just going to perpetuate this cycle. And so you know, there's for many of us. There's this part of us that just feels unsafe and, as a result, our nervous system is crying out with symptoms, and that's what we want to start to shift. There's that hurt part of us, that part of us that feels deeply unsafe, and learning to talk to that part of us in a different way is really essential. Now, in our next episode, we're going to talk more about the somatic lens of like how can you attend somatically to this hurt part? But today we're going to discuss, like, the cognitive, like how can you talk to that part of you that feels hurt or unsafe?

Speaker 1:

Yeah, and this is a really important piece of it, and I know we talk a lot about kind of you know not paying, you know paying some attention but not too much to the cognitive piece and really dropping in somatically. But I think when we talk about soothing and kindness, we really do need that kind self-talk a little bit and that kind compassionate phrases as a part of our practice, and so I do think this part is really important for sure.

Speaker 2:

So we're going to talk about self-kindness phrases. This comes from two big self-compassion researchers, kristen Neff and Christopher Germer. They do a lot of great work in the self-compassion space, so we figured it'd be a good place to start of. Like, how can we start to create new self-kindness phrases?

Speaker 1:

Yeah, so, like we've mentioned, along with fear, it's very common to respond to our symptoms with frustration and self-blame. I don't think I've met anyone that didn't respond to their symptoms in that way. Learning to change our talk and relationship towards our symptoms when they're present is important. The nervous system dysregulation fuels symptoms generation. So if we're responding in a dysregulated state, then we are going to kind of create more symptoms, and that's the cycle we want to break.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, and I think it's so important, kind of like what you mentioned, and I think it's so important. You know it can be more of this dysregulation like nervous system states like flight, like feeling anxious, but that dysregulation for so many includes what you just discussed, that self-blame, that self-criticism, and it's just the fuel for neuroplastic symptoms.

Speaker 1:

And so practicing self-kindness, starting with self-kindness phrases, is really key, because we're teaching our brain again to respond differently. And so phrases we can either think of them or we can say them out loud, and we want to evoke that feeling of self-compassion. What we want to do right now is we're going to talk to you a little bit about how to give self-kindness phrases, and we're going to go through an exercise where we're going to say some and we want you to explore how they resonate with you. And so when we do self-kindness phrases, they're usually made in the form of a wish. So may I, or I wish to.

Speaker 2:

Yeah. So I think that's so key. Like that, may I or I wish the reason they talk about it like this is it's different than positive affirmations. I think there's such a key in like the difference our brain responds Like a positive affirmation is like I'm beautiful and strong and that's great. Those work actually quite well when someone's self-esteem is high enough. But for people that are coming in this dysregulated, self-critical place telling yourself I'm beautiful and strong, it's just too far off from how you almost feel.

Speaker 1:

And so how does the may I language work?

Speaker 2:

The may I. The point of that, as Neff and Germer discuss, is that your brain always knows a wish is potentially true, can be true, right, Like. That's the idea of. Like I wish I feel strong, May I feel strong, May I accept myself as I am. Like you get the idea like you're saying it in a way of kind of well wishes for yourself.

Speaker 1:

Okay, and with these we want to be concise, so not too specific, but clear. We want to make them meaningful, so obviously something that resonates with you, and usually we tell people to rotate through three or four personal phrases, saying them or thinking one at a time with exhale, so we want to kind of combine breathing with it as well.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, like how I use them Again with it as well. Yeah, like how I use them Again. I'm going to explain this, but everyone might use them a bit differently is and I'm always changing mine, right, I'm always getting creative but I have like three or four, and so each time I exhale I think one in my mind, and then the next time I exhale I think the next one, and I might just rotate like that for five minutes just to have the deep breathing to soothe myself. And then also these like self kindness phrases that I'm saying to that hurt part or that part of me that feels unsafe.

Speaker 1:

All right. So we want to take you through a bit of an exercise. I'm going to go through some phrases. We want you to allow yourself to let them sink in, kind of feel out which ones resonate for you. As I say them, go ahead, if you can, and repeat each line to yourself and be curious about your emotional response and just listen to what that's like for you. And so I'll start them now. Go ahead and do deep breaths in through your nose and that long exhale out through your nose, if you can. May I care for myself during this moment of suffering. May I know I belong. May I know my worth and value. May I love myself unconditionally. May I accept myself just as I am. May I remember I'm not alone in this. As we bring you guys back, we want you to ask yourself what did you notice? What phrases feel right for you? But with these phrases we also want you to make them your own, and so if some work for you, then that's great. If you need to modify some, totally do that. We want to also say that repeating these phrases when we notice that hurt part of ourselves or a pain and symptoms, might feel a bit unnatural at first, but with regular practice it becomes an automatic response it's a good zen, self-compassion meditation and I liked it

Speaker 2:

I liked it and you know it's. It's one of these things of I like what you said there that it needs to be a regular practice when we have these deep parts of us that feel hurt or unsafe. You know, using the cognitive such as what you just discussed and somatic skills. It's not a one-shot deal. It's not like you're going to be able to do this once or twice and feel remarkably different. And when we talk about our hurt experience are hurting parts. It needs to be understood. And so why is my brain feeling unsafe in my body and in my life?

Speaker 2:

I think with a lot of people that we work with with chronic pain, chronic symptoms, they've faced prolonged high stress, childhood adversity or trauma, and so even if these situations have passed and you now are actually completely safe, your nervous system becomes sensitized and it starts to generate these protective symptoms, almost as this alarm system. Right, it's like the alarm bell is going off. That's our symptoms. It's just letting us know, hey, the danger level is still too high and our nervous system remembers these things. So, even if they're decades in the past, like we can become wired to be in this kind of state, wired for danger.

Speaker 2:

For myself, I've really experienced that when I was in, I would say, late elementary school. All the way to high school, there was just perpetual bullying emotional, physical bullying, and I've talked about this lots now. That wired me to always be looking for danger, to always be hyper vigilant, and it caused this part of me to be quite hurt and feel quite unsafe. And that part you know. How did I solve that? How did I? In the moment I dealt with it, with perfectionism. That was the solution, because I wanted to feel loved, I wanted to feel worthy, I wanted to feel seen. So what did I do? I went and tried to be as perfect as I could in school and hobbies, when I was at home with my family.

Speaker 1:

Well, and what do you think looking back on it, tanner, that part of you, what you needed at the time, that you didn't get or didn't get from others or yourself.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, it's a good question. Like I think I, especially with my peers, I really just wanted to feel like I belonged. I wanted to feel safe. At school, I wanted to feel, you know, acceptance, belonging like, but it was so far from what was taking place in my external world. Now perfectionism took off because, as I did that, I did get more social acceptance. It did create more safety, it did create more belonging, and now my nervous system has become wired.

Speaker 2:

This is the solution when you feel in danger. This is how you feel safe, and so that got repeated over and over again throughout most of my life, right up until my chronic pain starting, and it was a big thing. Now, perfectionism it was trying to help, it was trying to protect me, but it just over time it caused this chronic dysregulation, actually made me feel more unsafe in my body, and that level of danger got so high that chronic pain started to produce. And that level of danger got so high that chronic pain started to produce, and so I really had to do a lot of this self-compassion work. I had to attend to that part of myself from when I was a child that felt this way, like I had to start talking to myself. When I was first sailing, I did some inner child work and I know that's part of what we include in, like our digital course, for example but I did some of that work of like going back sitting with that part of me providing what they needed.

Speaker 1:

Well, yeah, and that's why I asked that question, because when we think of it, it makes perfect sense that that part of you and you at the time when you were young needed love, support, compassion, and somewhere along the line we kind of lose that for ourselves. But it's like, oh yeah, why aren't we giving that to ourselves now or to that part now?

Speaker 2:

Yeah. So I know people often want like, okay, what did Tanner exactly do here? That's what you made me think of there. Like what, what did I exactly do? So I remember when I was first healing, I would sit for periods of time I don't remember how long and I remember really committing to this for especially a couple of months, like a daily practice of visualizing that her part of me, the part of me that was younger, my younger self, what I was going through and providing the words right that they needed to hear. I would listen, what they needed and then I would provide what they needed with these self-kindness phrases. Now, next episode we're going to talk more about like how do you somatically attend and create safety with that hurt part? But that was a big part of it. It's like I needed, you know, I needed in the presence, exactly what my younger self needed.

Speaker 1:

it's interesting that way, because that's a really great thing, say that again. Yeah, like what.

Speaker 2:

I need in the presence is exactly what I needed back then. Yeah, it's so interesting because I remember when I was first doing this work, I was like, well, maybe that's just me, maybe that's just a chance of like, like I just need the same thing. No, like every person I work with, often what they need to hear, the soothing touch they need, the safety signals they need is probably what they needed back then. So back then, when I was getting bullied, I needed social acceptance, I needed love, I needed care, I needed someone to tell me it's okay and that I was worthy and belonged. And so by doing some of that visualizing, providing what I needed to hear, I was better able to do in the present as I go about, and this really helped shift my perfectionism in a very meaningful way.

Speaker 1:

So understanding why our symptoms are occurring is inherently self-compassionate it takes a bit of maybe the slightly, not completely, but a bit of the anger and frustration out when we try to understand, okay, the why, and then care for that. Yeah.

Speaker 2:

Now, the last thing I want people doing is frantically. You always give this advice.

Speaker 1:

Yes.

Speaker 2:

Don't. Don't. If you become obsessive about this and you're like searching for that hurt part like that almost becomes more harmful. I think it is useful to do some of this work and to understand what are the hurt parts of me, the parts of me that feel unsafe. Why did that occur? And just connecting into this is often why chronic pain and symptoms are occurring.

Speaker 1:

Well, and that's a good point, tanner and I am big about that of like not trying to figure out the why too hard, but this responding with compassion, whether we know exactly what the hurt part is, is still the solution in a lot of ways, yeah, and we can coach ourselves.

Speaker 2:

We can coach ourselves towards safety in a more accurate and helpful way, and I think that's so vital. So we want everyone to practice these self-kindness phrases, simple practice. You might just over and over again repeat that five minute little meditation and end it, but in our digital course we have a ton of resources on self-compassion. When we're teaching people to work with nervous system dysregulation, emotions, part of our approach includes this sense of self-compassion. Today we did more of the cognitive. Next session we're going to do more kind of the somatic, the felt sense of safety in our body.

Speaker 2:

If you need extra support, the link for our digital course is down below. The link for our digital course is down below. Now other resources I will put a few links down below for Kristen Neff and Chris Germer. So if you're wanting to do even a further deep dive into self-compassion, really go check those links out. And, as I said, next week we are going to talk about the physical way of responding to your hurt part. We're going to discuss soothing touch, somatic movement and breath work. So thank you everyone for listening.

Speaker 1:

Thanks for listening.

Speaker 2:

And we'll talk to you next week.

Speaker 1:

Talk to you next week. Thanks for listening. For more free content, check out the links for our YouTube channel, instagram and Facebook accounts in the episode description.

Speaker 2:

We wish you all healing.