The Mind-Body Couple

Leveraging Your Strengths for Pain Recovery with Gemma McFall

• Tanner Murtagh and Anne Hampson

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Ever notice how your chronic pain worsens during stress but mysteriously disappears when you're deeply engaged in something meaningful? That's exactly what chronic pain recovery coach Gemma McFall discovered during her decade-long battle with debilitating back pain.

From meticulous symptom tracking (she literally mapped six specific pain points daily) to endless medical treatments across continents, Gemma's healing journey dramatically shifted when she discovered the mind-body approach through Dr. John Sarno's work. Within three months, she experienced her first pain-free day – not by fighting harder against her pain, but by understanding its true origins.

What makes Gemma's approach uniquely powerful is her focus on personality strengths. Rather than viewing traits like perfectionism and high achievement as problems to overcome, she helps clients recognize these as fundamental aspects of themselves that simply need balancing. Using the Gallup Strengths Finder assessment, she guides people to leverage their natural strengths while avoiding the burnout that contributes to physical symptoms.

"I realized there was a direct correlation – on days when I couldn't express my 'Achiever' strength, I'd get pain. And on days when I used it too much, I'd also get pain," Gemma explains. This insight led to her development of the "4P" coaching framework: Pain understanding, Personality insights, Past experiences, and Practical tools – a comprehensive approach that meets each client exactly where they are.

Whether you're mapping your own pain patterns obsessively or feeling lost in an endless cycle of treatments, this conversation offers a refreshing perspective on recovery.

Connect with Gemma here:

Website - https://gemmamcfall.com/

Free Self Assessment - https://gemmamcfall.com/free/

LinkedIn - www.linkedin.com/in/gemmamcfall

Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/gemmamcfall/

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. I'm Tanner Murtaugh and I'm Anne Hampson.

Speaker 2:

This podcast is dedicated to helping you unlearn chronic pain and symptoms.

Speaker 1:

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.

Speaker 2:

Links in the description of each episode. Hi, everyone, welcome back to the podcast. Today I have chronic pain recovery coach, gemma McFall, and she knows what it's like to live with chronic pain. After struggling with lower back pain for 10 years, she found lasting relief through the mind-body approach and now helps others to do the same using a blend of powerful science-based tools. Science-based tools Gemma is trained in pain reprocessing therapy SERPA old pain to go and laughter yoga.

Speaker 3:

So thanks so much for coming on the podcast.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, thank you for having me, tana, it's really great to be here after so many episodes of listening to you. Yeah's wonderful, and we were talking before. We are in very different places of the world and very different climates. Um, so, for listeners, I'm in calgary, alberta, canada, and right now this is being recorded in may, so we may not have snow for the summer, but it's it's hard to, and you're in Dubai, is that right?

Speaker 3:

Yeah, and the temperature here is like 48-ish today, so yeah, a lot hotter 48 Celsius, is that right?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, that is hotter than it basically ever gets in Canada, all year round, all year round. Well, I'm so glad that you've come on the podcast so, to start off, maybe you could share with the listeners a bit about your personal journey with chronic pain and coming to a mind-body approach, and how your healing progressed.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, thank you. My story is so typical of all the stories A lower back pain from the day I became an expatriate living abroad, which basically stayed with me for 10 years, and during that 10 year period I did all the usual stuff that I know that your listeners have done themselves. Have done themselves injections, physio, osteopath, um, chiropractors, um, just doing everything you know new bed, new shoes, new chair, new, new everything in the hopes that it would, uh, alleviate the pain. And, interestingly, through the whole 10 years I genuinely thought I was making progress, which is so stupid because I look back now and I can see I was getting worse and worse. But as I was doing stuff, I felt like I was in control and I was moving it forward. But then you ask, how did I get to the mind-body? It was John Sarno's book, the Healing Back Pain, within the first page, or something. I was like this is it and I knew it. I knew it. So it took me from reading that book, about three months to get first pain-free day, which was incredible.

Speaker 2:

Wow, yeah, and I want to mention a few things there. I think if we backtrack a bit, you're right. Like I think it's so common when because that's a long time to have pain for um and it's so common I remember thinking this when I had chronic pain as well that you're always doing the next treatment and the next treatment and the, the new shoes or, you know, the new chairs. I was an expert in that too. I had all sorts of fancy chairs, and it's interesting because people think they're almost progressing. Like that's such a common thing where people feel like they're they're on to the next thing over and over again, that they are progressing forward, even though, objectively, a lot of time the pain's just like worsening over time yeah, yeah, do you know?

Speaker 3:

I had a very elaborate picture that I drew every day. I had six dots on it which was symbolizing my lower back, and each day I would put a cross on which of the dots where I felt the pain. And I tracked that every day, thinking that when I went to a surgeon I I would be able to say look, it's here, then it's here, then it's here, and then some days it's here and it was. I was so obsessed with it, just tracking how the pain moved. At this point I didn't realize pain moving was a sign of it being a mind body thing. I was just trying to figure it out so I could help the surgeon, you know.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, yeah, very committed, kind of physically, and that's such a common thing which makes sense, because our pain or physical symptoms are so overwhelming for anyone who's gone through it and so, as a result, we just enter perpetual fight or flight for a lot of us and then, as a result, we're hypervigilant, we're just. That's such an elaborate I never had the, the six dots, but that's such an elaborate way to to track your symptoms each day. And so much from the sounds of a kind of hyper focus on the body and on the, the pain sensations themselves.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, when I look back on it now it's, it's unbelievable. You know how many years last. And anyway it's for. The one says once I've gone through it and healed, it's for a reason.

Speaker 2:

And you look back and you're like I'm better for it, you know and if we backtrack even further in your journey, you I think you had said like as soon as you started to travel abroad is when the pain started. Do you feel like there was like a connection in terms of those two events?

Speaker 3:

definitely, definitely. I mean I think if we say is my, it was my symptoms more because of personality or my childhood or stressful events in the moment, I would say personality is the number one thing for me, by far. The pressure, the high achiever, the perfectionist people, pleaser all of this. I tick all these boxes and I think the pressure that I'd put on myself for so, so, so, so, so long when it came to moving abroad, I think I was so full that it was the final nail in the coffin, if you know what I mean.

Speaker 3:

So I think, yes, definitely there was an emotional oh my goodness, I'm moving to Dubai and what does this mean for us. But I think for me it was mainly personality, that one incident of like, yeah, oh my goodness, we're moving, but then it was straight away. I was in the pain fear cycle, um, you know, and and also Dubai's very heavy on insurance card, so you can go as many times as you want with your medical insurance card and you just keep getting medication, treatment, medication treatment it never seems to run out, um, so that fueled it. That really fueled it. If I was in the uk and I was on a waiting list to see a doctor, I think I would have been in a much better position because I wouldn't have been obsessing about the medical side as as much yeah, like there was so many medical options and availability that it just kind of drove that pain fear cycle even further in.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, yeah, and I think that's so important for for listeners to pick up on is like these different elements of why the symptoms came on in the first place, because I think people want such a neat understanding of their pain. We like this, we like simple ideas, and I often talk about on the podcast and YouTube channel that it's complex. It's complex in nature. People don't like hearing that, but it is complex. Human beings are complex and so there's all these factors that let up, like all these ways that you've learned to cope in the world, which I share, all of these as well, as our listeners know.

Speaker 2:

But all these ways like high pressure, high achieving often that comes with perfectionism, self-criticism, and we get away with it for quite a while or we think we're getting away with it. Often it comes with a lot of anxiety or difficult emotions or dysregulation, but it just kind of builds and builds. I like the way you said that. It just built and built and built and then you have this big kind of stressor take place. I'm similar to this, for traveling is one of the big stressors that I have, and you have this big stressor and the symptoms come on and then it's like our, our emotional nervous system, response thoughts and beliefs that just build as a result and just catapult us even further into it.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, yeah, I think, where you said we get away with it for so long, not only did I get away with it like the perfection is the high achiever, I was proud of it, like I was really proud of it, like I could work harder than everyone else, I never missed a deadline, like I'd been rewarded for this for my whole life. So I couldn't see any reason why I would want to give up any of that, because it had only ever been a good thing for me. So, yeah, it was an interesting journey.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, it is. It is one of those things I don't know what you find with your own clients that you work with, but I find selling that on like hey, like you probably need to change some of these ways you've been coping for a long time. I find that that's such a hard sell for some, because you're right in the society we live in, like these traits are praised, like no employer, no big business owner or anything is going to complain about you being high, achieving excessive working, being meticulous with things. Um, so it's right, and it's probably even back in childhood I'm speaking from my own experience like these traits were praised, uh, for a long time, and so you're right. It's almost like this badge of honor that people have of like I can work harder than everyone else, and we almost live in this kind of fantasy around it, I find sometimes. But the reality is it's probably caused dysregulation for years in lots of ways um tana.

Speaker 3:

I can talk to this point if you want, on the personality. So one of the main tools I use is um for all clients is gallop strengths, and it's a personality assessment that they go through, and so it shows them what their natural strengths are, what their natural personality traits are. And so, for example, with me, one of my traits is achiever. But with every one of your traits there's a plus side. I have high stamina, I can work long hours this type of thing, I have high stamina, I can work long hours, this type of thing.

Speaker 3:

But the downside of Achiever because there is a downside with each one is you might get burnt out and so on and so on. But what's really useful when you look at it from a strengths angle, is they are great traits and we're not trying to get rid of them. We just need to know when to dial them up and down, depending on the situation and also recognizing like, oh wow, I do have these traits and I am different to other people because these are my greatest strengths. Now I just need to learn how to use them to my advantage, not to change them, not to get rid of them. You still want to be you, but you want to use them in a much more effective way.

Speaker 3:

So I mean, just as a small example on Achiever people with Achiever love, task lists. Like, if I do something that's not on my task list, I literally write it on and then tick it off because I get so much energy from ticking things off. So a small adjustment with this is to write down on my task list, you know um, things that are going to make me feel great, like yoga, nidra, tick it off. I still get the same energy from ticking it off, just because it's not a a work thing.

Speaker 2:

That makes sense you can be achieving and perform in probably lots of areas, but it needs to be balanced with kind of rest, recovery, parasympathetic kind of energy, right? So in terms of your healing, I think you said correct me if I'm wrong about three months you had your first pain-free day. You're using a mind-body approach. I know the listeners always want to know like, what were the strategies, approaches, yeah, practices that you tended to use the most?

Speaker 3:

yeah, yeah, yeah, I know it's a great question. So, to my advantage, I did not know that there was anything other than the John Sarno book. So I only had one single resource, one book. I either believe it or I don't believe it, and I chose to just jump in and believe it because I didn't have any Facebook groups or anywhere to go and start questioning whether or not that was right, and I think that that was. I look now at the amount of resources that are there and I think, gosh, I know my like learner trait would have gone, sucking all that knowledge up and slowing me down. So I actually think less is more. I think you need just enough information to satisfy that doubt. And then, once you've got just enough, then it's time to start living again. And I think for me it was first of all just believing. I just believed it right, and then I started finding pockets of the day where I had evidence that I had no pain, or not no pain, but like I didn't think about it. So I started doing work.

Speaker 3:

At the time, actually, we lived in Dubai, then we moved to Sri Lanka, so I only discovered this approach when we were living in Sri Lanka, but we did five year stint there. I started volunteering at my son's school and while I was at the school I had no pain at all. I just not not at all, but like it just wasn't front of my mind. And then once I got home from this school then the pain would start again. And so for me that was great, because that was straight away on the evidence log, you know. So I would say the evidence log was the most useful thing.

Speaker 3:

The personality thing was huge, because at the time I had just got trained on Gallup strengths. I'd known about it for years. I'd been, I'd been understanding my strengths. From a corporate point of view, I was a HR director, so I used this as a tool at work. Um, but when I started looking at how to better leverage my own strengths, I realized the direct correlation.

Speaker 3:

Like on a day when I didn't get to use Achiever like I just didn't get to do it at all because I wasn't working I would get pain. And on a day when I used it too much and it was in overdrive, again I would get pain. So I started very consciously leveraging the different strengths I had. So like, for example, learner is one of mine, so I'd throw myself into learning, something like on a TED talk. I would just learn any old random thing. And in the process of learning I had no pain, because I was in a state of flow, because I love learning. Does that make sense? So I literally had this toolkit and I wrote down my five strengths and every single day I thought right, how can I use this one, this one, this one, this one, knowing if I'm fully being me, then I'll be in flow. And when you're in flow, you don't have pain.

Speaker 2:

Wow.

Speaker 3:

Does that make sense?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I really like this perspective for a number of reasons. First off, I think this is an old therapy model that I was trained in, fairly simplistic model, which is called solution-focused therapy. One thing that they valued in that in a major way is playing to a client's strengths, so understanding how can they utilize the strengths that they already have they're already coming into your office with to improve their life in XYZ way. I like this because a lot of times in the mind-body approach we get so focused on the negative side of things like perfectionism, bad, you know, worrying, in this way way, negative, like we almost view it in a very slanted, negative way.

Speaker 2:

This is a refreshing idea because you've kind of combined, first off, gathering this evidence, which you're gathering, evidence of what's triggering things, what's not, what's the evidence that this is more mind body, neuroplastic, which is great, but you've tied it in with figuring out, like how you need to live life to maximize your chances of having low pain or no pain. I feel like sometimes with people where they they're lacking. I don't want people tracking things too intensely but lacking the insight of tracking how the way they're living life and how they go about their day is influencing their symptoms. Because that's such an important piece? Because the goal of all of this, as you probably tell your clients too, is so you can go back to fully living, enjoying life, having this full, vibrant lifestyle that's what we all want.

Speaker 2:

Of course, we want the pain or symptoms to go away, but really it's a mechanism to get to living more fully in the way that we want, in the way that's meaningful to us. And what you've kind of done is you're breaking down as you're going. You know how much can I use this trait or not use this trait, and where's the balance, which is a beautiful way to kind of start to live your life a bit differently.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, no, I love it and I think when you use your strengths you feel stronger. It's as simple as that. So, and I think so many times with chronic pain, we've lost our identity completely. So I sort of help people to step back into who are they, you know, and and it just works. And then we look at how their strengths might be winding them down a rabbit hole. So like looking at the approach they're taking to recovery and with analytical, for example, they're great thinkers. But just helping them to see that they have this great strength of analytical, they're using it in the wrong way because they're researching too much over and over, and, over and over and analyzing all their symptoms. So then it's like, okay, let's not use analytical to fix ourselves, let's do something else. So again, it's like dialing up and down, it's like orchestra. I enjoy helping people to leverage the different strengths.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, it's such a thing that is often missed because people get so latched on to using these micro strategies, which I love. Micro strategies they're very useful, like working with your thoughts and beliefs, with some type of brain retraining, doing somatic tracking, doing emotional processing, even trauma work, like internal work, like all of that's useful. But the idea is learning like how can I live life differently, moving forward Again. It doesn't need to be extreme of like changing everything about yourself to get better. Of course, most people need to make some changes, but in this approach you're you're using the person's already innate strengths that they have and you're just trying to balance them out as you go.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, oh, I love the way you describe it back to me. It sounds good.

Speaker 2:

Well, it's wonderful this kind of leads us into. You know the approaches you're pulling from. So some of it is working with personality, as you're talking about, but you're trained in a lot of different approaches, which is wonderful when you're working with clients. Clients like what do you find? Like, what do you find the main areas to be the most effective, as you're, as you're working along with people?

Speaker 3:

yeah, I mean totally dependent on the person, um, but I generally take people through like a model, it's like a 4p, 4ps that I have, uh, personality, past and practical tools, so pain somatic tracking, for example. But I will do it maybe once or maybe possibly twice, just to prove to them that we, their brain, has the power to move, move or change symptoms. And I very much take the alan gordon route. There's a lot of humor in it, there's a lot of uh, it's like a fun session, you know, um. And then we look at beliefs around pain, whatever they need, in that first section to get kind of like 90 percent belief that their symptoms are a mind body, um, when people don't need the first pee at all, like they, they come in knowing that they've got that, they totally know that it's a mind body thing. And then personality is the whole strengths finder piece. Looking at personality, then past is we do timeline and we go line by line. But again, I don't do therapy week after week after week, like let's identify things, let's acknowledge it, some of the stuff we need to process. So I'll use techniques like in a child work or like, um, uh, you know, processing emotions through the, the feeling in the body, um, which is quite powerful for some people.

Speaker 3:

I'm also trained in a process called core beliefs, so, uh, it's a belief closet. You go in and you feel what your beliefs are. Maybe it's the all or nothing and it's an actual outfit, and then you take it off and then you choose another belief that is super powerful, um. And then the last p is practical stuff um. And again, it's different for everyone. I'm not gonna suggest meditation to someone who doesn't think meditation is going to work for them, you know. So it's. That's the general four p's, and I just pull on pain reprocessing therapy, the surface stuff, like whatever the person needs, it's there. It's like I've just got a toolkit.

Speaker 2:

I'm just like keep pulling different things out as I'm when yeah, which is which is great, and I like what you said and I think it's so important for people to know that everyone's healing is is individual. Like it needs to be individualized in a specific way. Um, like it's not this standardized do xyz, do this, that and the other, and you'll get better. Like there is exploration, which I think any therapist or coach is doing, where we're exploring. I like this, uh, this 4p model. This is great. So you're kind of pulling based on these different things to individualize someone's treatment as they're working with you yeah, yeah, I want to.

Speaker 3:

I want them to feel the journey, because for me it's very important as a clear end date, like I don't take on a client for like six months or a year, anything like this there's a beginning and there's an end and at the end maybe it's eight sessions, six sessions, eight sessions, maybe 12, but at the end of that we'll reassess and, like, my goal is that they don't need more sessions. That's it by the 12th or 8th or 6th, they've got everything they need to go and live life. It's really important for me to get people up and running, give them everything they need and have them believe right from the beginning they're not going to need months and months and months.

Speaker 2:

Does that make sense? Yeah, no, it does make sense. I think it's so important. I think I know what you're saying here, but I want to clarify because people get confused. You're basically setting them up so they have all the knowledge, this kind of individualized plan, so they can go and start approaching life. What usually isn't happening is it's not like you're pain freeing from that moment forward, so you're good to go out and just live. Yeah, you know what I mean Like it's such a misconception that people yeah, no, I I see exactly.

Speaker 3:

No, no, I'm not saying I never promise by the end of these sessions you'll be totally pain free, no like, by the end of these sessions you have everything you need to live life and manage the symptoms. And you know and and continue to recover. And often, towards the end of people's sessions, I'll space them out to prove to them they don't need me. You know, have two weeks off, have three weeks off and then we'll have the next session. You know, um, so it's just my way and I know that's not how everyone works, but no but.

Speaker 2:

But I think we're similar in this way where for a lot of people it doesn't need to be this longstanding thing. It's setting someone up as best we can so they can go and apply things and if they need to come back for some check-ins, that's great. But it's like this setup of how you start to approach and live life and I'm similar to you in the sense of really motivating people like that that deeper healing really happens when people start to live life even though they still have pain or symptoms. They still have pain or symptoms. Like I think that's such an important piece where some people almost imagine okay, I'll be pain-free or nearly pain-free, and then I'll start to approach life again. That's not what happened with me. It doesn't sound like that's what happened with you. That's a really rare thing. Like, usually the symptoms continue to reduce as you learn to live life differently and more fully yeah, totally yeah.

Speaker 3:

I always get so excited. You know, like, when I get a new client and I'm like, what would you have if you could have anything? And they're like no pain. I'm like, yeah, okay, no pain. Apart from the no pain, if I could wave a magic wand, what is your biggest dream? And it's getting that dream on paper. You know like I want to be able to run behind my child when they're cycling, or you know, because then we've got something to aim for. It's that dream that you aim for, not the no pain. You know like I want to be able to hike, I want to be able to go on holiday, or you know this, this is the exciting part that is the exciting part.

Speaker 2:

People struggle to answer that they do, because what happens is that people have been in chronic pain, chronic symptoms, for years.

Speaker 2:

As you've said, a lot of people start to lose self-identity.

Speaker 2:

I'm speaking generally here for the audience, but for a lot of people, like, the pain or symptom almost becomes the identity and trying to resolve the pain and symptom becomes the identity, like it's all of our energy. As you said, with your six dots you're tracking each day, like what's taking place, it's like all of our focus and attention and we want to teach people to change their relationship with their symptoms. But you're right, right, like, I think people struggle to understand, like, what are your goals? Like, what would you want to be doing if these symptoms reduced or became eliminated? Because, like, we need this other focus of putting time and energy into other things, such as your example where, where you know you're learning each day or you're practicing, achieving in certain ways each day, like you're starting to live a more full life and the focus is moved elsewhere, away from the symptoms, which is such a vital step. I know it's super hard to do for people, but it's such a vital step, a huge step forward and actually healing yeah, it is massive.

Speaker 3:

I had when I went through my own thing. My image was me running behind my baby when he was learning to cycle. But at the time when I made that image in my head he was like one years old, you know, he was nowhere near cycling age, but like I had it anchored and I thought about it every day, I will run behind his bike when he's learning to cycle, and I did wonderful, that's great.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I think some of that visualization, those that imagery, can be so motivating and really put us in that mindset that we need. Yeah, well, I really appreciate you coming on sharing about your own journey with chronic pain and also the wonderful work that you're doing. So, as I said at the beginning, I'm super jealous of your climate. Most of the time, of course, it might be a little hot for me I'm not used to that but what I will do is if people are interested in working with jemma, I will put jemma, your bio down below and all the links so that people can reach out to you if they need to.

Speaker 3:

Okay, that would be amazing. Super well. Thank you very much, tana. It's been uh great talking to you. I should just dial in and talk to you every week. It's quite therapeutic hearing my own stuff back on me.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, well, yeah, thank you. Thank you again for spending the time and thank you everyone for listening, and I will 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.