The Mind-Body Couple

Better Mindset, Better Results! A Path to Healing Chronic Pain & Illness

• Tanner Murtagh and Anne Hampson • Episode 114

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Why do some people recover from chronic pain and illness with seemingly imperfect techniques while others follow every strategy meticulously yet struggle? The answer lies not in what you're doing, but how you're doing it.

The foundation of effective healing isn't mastering complicated strategies—it's cultivating the right mindset. When we approach recovery with intensity, pressure, perfectionism, or fear, we inadvertently signal danger to our nervous systems, perpetuating the very symptoms we're trying to resolve.

True healing begins with creating safety. This means embracing slowness, lightness, and ease in your practices and daily life. It means removing self-imposed healing deadlines and giving yourself permission for days off without guilt. It means slowing your walking pace, speaking more deliberately, and allowing unstructured free time—simple yet powerful ways to signal safety to your nervous system.

Facing fears represents another crucial mindset shift. While strategic avoidance during intense flare-ups makes sense, perpetual avoidance reinforces your brain's perception of danger. Those who recover most successfully gradually expose themselves to feared triggers, sensations, and activities, dismantling their "rule book" of avoidance behaviors one small challenge at a time.

Perhaps most fulfilling is reclaiming purposeful action. Chronic pain often disconnects us from activities that bring joy and meaning. Reconnecting with your values—whether through helping others, enjoying nature, or simply having dinner with friends—regulates your nervous system in ways meditation alone cannot. Start wherever your current capacity allows, extending compassion to yourself throughout the process.

Finally, cultivate genuine hope in your recovery through whatever resonates—understanding the science, hearing success stories, or tracking "healing wins" beyond pain reduction. Notice how you're responding to symptoms with less fear, widening your world, and improving emotional regulation as evidence of your progress.

This week, we challenge you to focus more on your healing mindset than on perfecting techniques. The path forward isn't about trying harder—it's about creating the internal conditions where healing naturally unfolds.

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.

Speaker 2:

Welcome back. Anne is sick today.

Speaker 1:

Yes, you might hear it a bit in my voice. I apologize for that.

Speaker 2:

She's doing the best she can. You know, today we got a good topic. It's an overlooked thing by a lot of people when they're trying to heal their chronic pain, chronic illness, using a brain and nervous system. Approach Our topic better mindsets, better results.

Speaker 1:

I like that. Actually it's a pretty simple topic, but it's straight and to the point and it's very true, the better results that we want. We really need to focus on what our mindset is around healing.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, and here's the thing is, a lot of people, when they come to this approach, they want to learn and do the fancy strategies. Yes, and I love my fancy strategies.

Speaker 1:

You do Tanner, you're like all into them, and not that I'm not into them, but Tanner's like super into them.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, All the technicalities all that stuff and it pains me sometimes because what will happen is I'll explain. Let's give an example. I'll explain a brain retraining practice for pain and symptoms and I've thought this out for hours Like I've written. You know worksheets. I've had you or Alex edit the worksheets. I've done all this work to be all fancy. I teach the client the fancy strategy. They come back, they're not doing any of the fancy strategy, but their mindset is correct and it works far better than if someone was perfectly doing it.

Speaker 1:

And that's a really important point to make, and so something that we really want to share on this podcast is it's not always about what we're doing, it's about how we're doing it.

Speaker 2:

Here's a bit of a tongue twister. It's not just what we do, it's how we're being while doing the doing.

Speaker 1:

Yes.

Speaker 2:

It's vital. Yeah, it's a really vital step to understand this Mindfulness embodiment practices. They help your brain reestablish safety within the body and nervous system. Practices do the same. Yes, but if we're going at this with a lot of intensity, with almost this pressure, this danger, it's going to make them not effective long-term.

Speaker 1:

Well and I think that is a common thing I hear where people will say I've been doing all the strategies, I'm doing it all, and then they'll feel really confused of why they're not seeing any relief or results or shifts, and often it is about how we're doing them. So, like you said, are we doing it with pressure? Are we doing it with intensity? Are we doing it with outcome expectation? That makes a difference.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, and ultimately, when you think about it, it's about safety.

Speaker 1:

Yeah.

Speaker 2:

It's about restoring safety, Neuroplastic pain and symptoms. They are being generated because your brain is sensitized. They are being generated because your brain is sensitized and so when the brain can start to realize the body is structurally safe, it can stop generating the physical symptoms. And when your nervous system becomes regulated, pain and symptoms reduce. And how we do that is we cultivate safety. And this means if the mindset is still creating a sense of danger, as we said, these practices won't actually create safety long term.

Speaker 1:

So an unhealthy mindset can look like pressure or being impatient, maybe being angry or frustrated, trying to force healing. Judgmental of ourselves, perfectionism, scared and hopelessness.

Speaker 2:

And in this episode we're going to really outline some key attitudes to bring to your healing work. We want to support you in creating the mindset you need to heal creating the mindset you need to heal and we encourage people to really write some of this down, remember it, check in about it each day, what we cover in this episode. I always send this to clients after my first session across the board, because I want this dialed in right off the bat, starting to work on cultivating the right mindset, and ask yourself.

Speaker 1:

How am I?

Speaker 2:

being while I'm doing what I'm doing, so let's dive into it, anne.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, First, we want to be slow, light and easy.

Speaker 2:

High intensity pressure often how I can function in my life. If I'm not careful, it puts you in this state of fight or flight or potentially fall and freeze or shut down over time and this can result in your symptoms worsening.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, and so if we're doing any healing technique or skill but it's accompanied by that kind of high intensity or pressure is not going to work. And I always tell people if you notice that's happening, stop. You're better off kind of not engaging in that for now and taking a break and then returning to it later.

Speaker 2:

I totally agree with that. You are better to do nothing than to do this healing work with pressure and intensity.

Speaker 1:

Well, and that can be a hard thing to kind of grasp, because our brain and our desire to get better is like no, I must do and I must fix, and I'm going to kind of force this along and so thinking, oh, actually I'm better off doing nothing right now can be really complicated and difficult for people and I really empathize with people because that's a really hard thing to start leaning into. I think.

Speaker 2:

It is. It's such a different mode of living Lowering our intensity level, as they often talk about in pain, reprocessing therapy, lowering our pressure, not being self-critical. These things don't come naturally. They didn't come naturally to me. It's been cultivated over time. But it takes practice. And the first step is you need to notice when that high intensity mode starts to take place.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, awareness is always first.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, so we got some simple tips to be slow, light and easy.

Speaker 1:

Yes, okay. So don't set a deadline for your healing like number one.

Speaker 2:

Oh, yeah, definitely.

Speaker 1:

Super hard to do, very hard. Anytime I've had a person set your healing Like number one. Oh, yeah, yeah, definitely Super hard to do Very hard.

Speaker 2:

Anytime I've had a person set a healing deadline, like in five months I need to be pain and symptom free for my wedding. That's not going to go well. I get why people get there, but it's already putting a bunch of pressure on the process.

Speaker 1:

I like goals though. So sometimes I've chatted with people that's like, okay, I have a vacation for in the future. I like cultivating, kind of like hope and joy, maybe like visualizing what that goal might be. But there's gotta be a lightness to that, a looseness to that.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, it's like that flexibility.

Speaker 1:

Yeah.

Speaker 2:

Consistently practice daily strategies, but not too much or too often.

Speaker 1:

That's complicated, I think, because, like rightly so, I think we can get caught in like well, what exactly is that?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, and I think you'll have to really explore it. If the healing work is starting to feel like a chore or it's starting to feel really unpleasant, like some of it is unpleasant Don't get me wrong Like you're dealing with unpleasant sensations, but if it's starting to make you more and more dysregulated, it may be a sign you're doing too much. Yeah, I always talk about you, want to be consistent, but not intense.

Speaker 1:

Yes, yeah, notice how the practices impact you differently each day.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, such a key point because you want to explore and experiment. Don't just apply a bunch of healing practice templates without exploring what's actually working for you. What's the best practice for me? Right?

Speaker 1:

Yeah, take a day off from doing healing work and just forget about it. Yeah, I like that one. So that's again another hard one, and that also goes opposite to what we think of, like again that stopping that, not doing piece.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, this is such a hard one for people.

Speaker 1:

Yeah.

Speaker 2:

Because people feel guilty or people feel like they're giving up.

Speaker 1:

Yes.

Speaker 2:

But you need a day off. You need a day off sometimes, and that's totally okay.

Speaker 1:

Well, and if we want to think of that in terms of like, how is that going to get me to my goal? Maybe part of healing is living life again. So if we can take a day off and lean into our life, that's also very important and like conducive to healing and recovery.

Speaker 2:

And, lastly, I like these ones. These are some of the simplest tips I give people. Use lightness, slowness and ease in your daily functioning, so this could look like walking and talking slower. That is the first thing I do when I'm starting to get intense. Just slow it right down. Allow yourself to be less productive sometimes. Focus on being present with your senses so sight, sound, taste, touch, smell and create space in your day for free time. Free time Nothing scheduled, no 20.

Speaker 1:

Well, you can schedule free time if you need to.

Speaker 2:

You can schedule the free time, but what I like to tell people was like, make a block in your day for free time. When you get there, decide what you want to do.

Speaker 1:

Tanner actually really struggles at this still. I know I'm so bad why do you think it's so difficult for you?

Speaker 2:

I love rigidity and structure Too much. I like it too much and and it's hard for me Like I think it comes out of a coping mechanism for anxiety a lot of the time for myself, where I structure things. But if I become too structured it's actually going to make you more anxious, because structure will help reduce anxiety, but for high intensity people they're overly rigid and structured and then it's going to make you feel more dysregulated. So it's a balance where in my schedule I put blocks now of like free time in, like capital leathers, don't effing book anything here.

Speaker 1:

And sometimes he still does, so he doesn't always listen to himself. But this is about teaching ourselves to slow down, to kind of move away from that high intensity work mode, say, for some people, to something else, and so this again is a retraining piece. Okay let's move to the next part of the mindset we need Face your fears. Yes, yes, very important, Also hard.

Speaker 2:

Also very hard. The number one line I tell people and I tell people whether we're working with them one-on-one or in our digital course. You cannot heal by perpetually avoiding everything.

Speaker 1:

Right, and that means like avoiding life, avoiding triggers, avoiding movement.

Speaker 2:

The sensations, the emotions, the nervous system state, even certain memories. Now I know I'm going to get people being like, well, when things are really intense, what do I do? And that's okay. To avoid that, like you can be avoidant but be strategic. A lot of people they just that's the only way they've learned to cope. But the problem is avoidance reinforces the brain sense of danger and then will cause you more nervous system dysregulation over time and worsen your pain and symptoms.

Speaker 1:

Yes, and that's really key. Asking okay, am I avoiding anything right now is important to kind of keep in your mind.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, facing those fears, whether it's the sensations in the body or like external exposure, like starting to run or starting to walk or go back to work those are really scary things and you do want to do it gradually. But the people that I see getting better, they're willing to lean into that consistently and face their fears. Face their fears of their triggers, of their sensations, of whatever it might be. And it's helpful to identify essentially all the rules that you've developed. Like we have a bunch of rules like don't focus on my anxiety, you know, lay in a dark room and I have pain.

Speaker 2:

Don't go for walks, don't think about certain memories. Like we have all these rules that build up that are essentially avoidance. It can be really helpful for someone to kind of write down like okay, what are all the rules, these strict rules that I'm following and each? Okay, what are all the rules, these strict rules that I'm following, and each day, what's one fear that I can slowly start to face? Don't do it all at once, that was going to be way too much, but a little bit each day can go a long way.

Speaker 1:

Well and yeah, and essentially a lot of this work is exposure, and so we need exposure, we need corrective exposure, so exposure paired with safety.

Speaker 2:

Next section of our mindset episode view symptoms as meaningful messages.

Speaker 1:

I giggle at this because I think many people listening are like oh my God, I will never view them as meaningful messages which is fair. And so how do you shift to start thinking that way, Tanner?

Speaker 2:

Mm-hmm, this can be really tricky. Yes, because when we have these unpleasant experiences pain or symptom sensations and they have in lots of ways for a lot of people and I really feel a lot of empathy for people because I've experienced it those symptoms have destroyed our lives in many ways the longer they've gone on, and so now we're on this podcast being like view them as meaningful messages. I get why you're probably swearing at me and Ann right now.

Speaker 2:

I really do. I do think this is a really essential step, though you have to understand that pain and symptoms occur, as we've said, when your brain and nervous system are alerting you that it's feeling in danger and, due to our medically focused culture and our biological instinct inside, we automatically assume pain symptoms are a sign of physical damage or disease, and really a big mission of our podcast is to show people that that's often not the case or not fully the case and essentially we need to shift from physically treating our body to addressing this danger that we're feeling inside.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, and so that is stopping and asking okay, what is it alerting me to? Now, it might be a conditioned response, and it's alerting us to something that it really doesn't need to be alerting anymore. Yeah, but having this understanding of why this is going on is important. Yeah, yeah, and I'm actually pretty big on figure it out for, but not for too long.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, so the odd times over the years now, like since recovering from my pain, that I have a symptom. I'm doing this, but I'm doing it briefly, I'm thinking back. Okay, what could be the meaningful message here? Am I putting too much pressure on myself? Is there something emotional that happened recently? Has there been a big change at work? Did Ann just get upset with me because I'm not helping her clean up at home?

Speaker 1:

That happens A lot it happens.

Speaker 2:

That's the meaningful message. But I'm lightly exploring and sometimes, usually when I have symptoms now, they fade out really quick, but sometimes it's like two weeks later where I'm like oh, like that's what was happening. So like sometimes we just don't have the insight right in the moment. But it can be important to lightly ask because it might direct what healing work you're going to do, and if you can't figure it out so you don't know, that's okay.

Speaker 1:

The solution is still the same of like creating safety with the symptom kind of moving towards it, taking fear down.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, like there's still lots you can do if you can't figure it out, but we do think some awareness and getting some insight around this can be really helpful.

Speaker 2:

So the next kind of section we want to talk about is leaning into purposeful action. You know, one thing that often happens for most people when they have these sensations is we shrink our world. It gets smaller and smaller and smaller, and a lot of times it happens fairly gradually for people and they get to this place where, all of a sudden, their daily actions do not support their values their passions or what they enjoy.

Speaker 2:

And again, no one is to blame for this. I want to be so dead clear about this you are not to blame for your world shrinking and a lacking of purposeful action. This makes sense when we have pain and symptoms are incredibly overwhelming and we're just trying to get by.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, and usually that goes hand in hand with like okay, it gets, our world gets smaller, um, and our rule book gets way more intense. Yes, they go together.

Speaker 2:

So we say this because a big part of our approach is greater exposure to living life more. But we're not just doing this randomly. We want to start to lean in to purposeful things, meaningful things, things that you value, things that are enjoyable to you. This is some of the best part of the healing work.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, for sure.

Speaker 2:

It's reclaiming that excitement and that purpose and really starting to lean into it and bringing joy back into our life.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, and it doesn't always have to be something big like, okay, I value helping others, so now I'm going to go volunteer, which could be that for somebody, but it could be something as simple, as I value being out in the sunshine and I'm going to spend some time in my backyard for once, because I've stopped doing that.

Speaker 2:

Yes, exactly that. So again, I totally understand people listening to this section and they're like well, I can't do anything, as I enjoy it. Do the best you can for where you're at.

Speaker 1:

Yes.

Speaker 2:

Whatever, it is Like one of the first things I started to do as I realized my body wasn't damaged and this was neuroplastic. And I started to do this work as I started to go out for dinner with my friends. I couldn't go for a half an hour walk. I wasn't there, but I could tolerate sitting at a table and eating and socializing.

Speaker 1:

Well, and that when we think of like going back to things that we value, that can feel scary and overwhelming, it can feel new again and it can feel like a risk. So we can know, oh, this is what I want to do. But again, it's giving yourself compassion if that doesn't come easy right away.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, and I think the last thing I want to mention here is, you know, nervous system regulation. It isn't just about meditating or breathing or doing somatic movement.

Speaker 1:

Which is good to know if you're not into that.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, because some people find that challenging, which is okay. Yeah, totally Like you can regulate your nervous system by leaning into what you enjoy your hobby, social connection, purposeful action, whatever that might look like.

Speaker 1:

Yeah. Like that can be so regulating the final kind of area we want to focus on is having hope that you can heal and that's a loaded statement.

Speaker 2:

I think it is a loaded statement. Now. I have a really fixed memory about this, actually. So when I was healing, that was back what would that have been? 2015? I think it was around that time where I finally started to come to this approach. In 2015, there was not the resources there is nowadays. There really wasn't like a dedicated podcast, there wasn't any apps, there wasn't these big digital courses and there wasn't as much research. I basically had Dr Sarno's book, Dr Schubiner's book and Dr Schechter's book.

Speaker 1:

Then like a chat forum.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, and there was like it was called, tms Wiki I think it's actually still up where people would post their success stories and I'll get into that in a second. But I was watching this YouTube video and there wasn't that many. There was a YouTube video I think it was Dr Schachter, but I want to be cautious here where he said in that video, you know, hope can be healing and it didn't hit. At first I was like what are you talking about? I've been debilitated and can't move. But it built over time. I started to make actions and start to cultivate hope. Hope's not going to just click on. If you've been let down by physical treatment. After physical treatment and all these assessments and all these medical practitioners, we kind of have, you know, this real disappointment in our body, in the medical system, and so we're scared to have hope. I think it's really scary, but we can start to do things to start to cultivate hope over time.

Speaker 1:

Yeah Well, and back to that kind of example that I mentioned of like having that goal that you're, you know, being kind of loose about and not being so intense about, but having that in your mind, I think can be really important. That can help with cultivating hope. So I've had people think about okay, I want to imagine myself running freely on a beach. I'm not going to be pressuring myself, but I'm going to allow myself to lean into that imaginary kind of vision and cultivate a bit of hope that one day maybe I can get there.

Speaker 2:

Yes, I think that's a really good point, a really good example of how people can do this, and it's important to know how is hope cultivated for you, because everyone's a little bit different. Some people really are science-minded like myself. Dr Schubiner's book worked really well for me because it had the brain science. I'm very science-minded and so for some people, for some clients I've worked with reading the research studies.

Speaker 1:

Yes, that's a common one.

Speaker 2:

It's, it's makes sense. Yeah, and for other people that care less about the research study, so it's knowing where you land. Some people they like to watch more success stories and you know we've witnessed so many clients get better, so many people in our digital course get better and for some people it's those success stories, it's those testimonials that are online. There's lots of YouTube videos on that that people want to listen to and lean into. Now, if you were watching success stories six hours a day, that's too much.

Speaker 1:

So that's back to the kind of pressure around healing strategies. Yeah, that intensity.

Speaker 2:

So in our approach we have people cultivate hope by looking for healing wins.

Speaker 1:

Yes.

Speaker 2:

Now a lot of people. They think the healing win that they're always tracking is where is my pain or symptom level at Right, which is a healing win. But it's only one of many healing wins and when I'm first working with someone, I'm not looking for these healing wins around like pain or symptom reduction early on, because there's other things that are more important to be tracking that are better predictors of success long-term.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, so cultivating hope by noticing healing wins might look like responding to symptoms with less fear, frustration or despair.

Speaker 2:

Focusing or fixing your symptoms less.

Speaker 1:

Widening your world and activity.

Speaker 2:

Pain and symptom reduction.

Speaker 1:

Increased belief of your symptoms being neuroplastic.

Speaker 2:

Approaching or expressing emotions with greater safety. Maybe it could be feeling calmer and more at ease, reducing the pressure to be perfect or please others.

Speaker 1:

And healthier communication or boundaries in relationships.

Speaker 2:

And there's many more, like you know. We want to list some out that we often see. But explore, look for little healing wins on your own journey. Like everyone's journey is a bit different.

Speaker 1:

And one thing that's nice about getting into the maybe the habit of noticing healing wins. When we start to like, notice them and acknowledge them, our focus isn't as intensely on pain reduction Our end goal is that but we need the focus to be on lessening fear, living life again, and that takes that pressure off when our focus shifts a bit.

Speaker 2:

So this was a lengthy episode.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I hope that was okay for you guys.

Speaker 2:

We wanted to lay it all out yeah, better mindset, better results. This is what we're going for. So this week, I want everyone to focus on cultivating the right mindset. You need to heal. Focus more on the mindset than the strategies this week. Yeah, yeah. So thanks 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.