The Mind-Body Couple

Part 2: How to Go from Bed Bound to Fully Moving

• Tanner Murtagh and Anne Hampson • Episode 125

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Fear quietly writes rules that shrink a life: no hard chairs, no long walks, no lifting, no plans. In this episode, we share a practical roadmap to go from bedbound and fearful to confident and moving, grounded in the science of neuroplastic pain/symptoms and the lived experience of rebuilding capacity step by step.

We start with the real pivot points—those “open window” moments when symptoms ease or stamina returns and the brain shows its hand. From there, we layer in safe self-talk that actually lands, not platitudes: evidence-based lines you repeat before, during, and after activity. We bracket everything with nervous system regulation so your brain can learn while your body moves—breath work, grounding, sunlight, humor—and we use visualization as a gentle warm-up to exposure when the real-world step feels too big. Then we walk through the rule-breaker embodiment practice: tiny, tolerable exposures, conscious pauses to feel and regulate, and a gradual climb anchored in choice and safety rather than grit. To tip the scales, we pair movement with reward—music, nature, connection, even ice cream—so your predictive brain expects something good. The final lever is consistency: small reps, often, with permission to adjust during flares without abandoning the plan.

You’ll hear Tanner’s story of being essentially bedbound and how a single uplifting moment unlocked a 25-minute walk, plus clear steps you can adapt to your own goals: sitting comfortably again, returning to the gym, walking farther, or reintroducing stimulating environments. If your pain or symptom has been medically cleared and fits a neuroplastic pattern, these tools help retrain the danger alarm and expand your world without pushing through high symptoms. Listen, choose one small rule to challenge this week, and track your wins—like pain not worsening with more steps or faster recovery after a flare. Those are neural milestones worth celebrating.

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_01:

Welcome to the Mind Body Couple Podcast.

SPEAKER_00:

I'm Tanner Murtough.

SPEAKER_01:

And I'm Ann Hampson.

SPEAKER_00:

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

SPEAKER_01:

If you need support with your healing, you can book in for a consultation with one of our therapists at painpsychotherapy.ca.

SPEAKER_00:

Or purchase our online course at embodycommunity.com 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_01:

Hi, everybody. Welcome back.

SPEAKER_00:

Welcome. We are about to leave for Boulder, Colorado.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

We're speaking at the ATNS conference. Me and Alex.

SPEAKER_01:

Maybe you should say what that means, Tanner.

SPEAKER_00:

Um, Association of Treatment for Neuroplastic Symptoms. I think you got it, right?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

Um, and me and Alex are speaking there, which is very exciting.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, pretty cool. We're gonna um see a lot of people that are really influential in this field, which is really exciting and learn a lot and hear a lot of stories. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

And by the time this episode airs, we would have already done it. But we're about to go right now.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

So in today's episode, part two, how to go from bedbound to fully moving.

SPEAKER_01:

Yes. And I hopefully that if you guys listen to part one, you're ready to dive into part two.

SPEAKER_00:

So in part one, quick recap, we discussed condition responses. Yes. Which essentially is when a condition gets linked to a certain outcome. So for pain, what happens is say sitting in hard chairs gets linked with back pain. Right. And as we know, a lot of times this is just your brain making a mistake. When our symptoms are neuroplastic, meaning there's no damage or disease in the body, it's due to your brain being stuck in danger mode. What's happening is your brain is just labeled, okay, sitting in a hard chair is dangerous, so it produces pain.

SPEAKER_01:

And I think when we think of rule book, then we decide, okay, we must stay away from sitting in those chairs.

SPEAKER_00:

Exactly. You get all these do's and don'ts rules that people develop to try to keep themselves safe. And your activity last time was creating your rule book, writing it all out, thinking about it. And this is really vital because now that you've made your rule book, we need to go about breaking these rules, which essentially is gonna help you live more fully, maybe sit in hard chairs, or even much more, such as running or moving your body in a certain way.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. So for this episode, you know, if you wrote it down, pull up that piece of paper, or just kind of have those rules fresh in your mind as we go through this.

SPEAKER_00:

Because by the end of this episode, you're gonna have seven powerful strategies you can begin to use each and every day to retrain your brain and reclaim your movement. It's a catchy, catchy line, hey.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, but good.

SPEAKER_00:

It's good. So I want to share a little bit about myself, and then we're gonna dive into these seven strategies. So by the end of my chronic pain journey, about three years in, I would say that last half a year was pretty rough. I was essentially bedbound. I was barely walking, I was barely moving, I was barely using my arms. I spent most of the time off work, lying in bed, lying in front of the TV, and being terrified to move because I just assumed movement, certain positions was damaging my body further. Now, to heal, yes, I had to understand all my rules. And there were probably hundreds of big and small rules that I was following, as Anne probably recalls. Now, essentially, over time, I started to break these rules. Using the seven strategies we talked about, we're gonna talk about in this episode. I started to slowly walk. I started to move my arms over my head. Eventually I started to run and lift weights. So I really want to give this message that if you're bedbound or, you know, any debilitating symptom, you may not be bedbound, you may just have a lack of movement or fear of doing activities. You know, I want to give this message that healing is possible.

SPEAKER_01:

Yes. And I think something that's important about that, Tatter, is kind of like we're asking you guys to do, you recognized some of these rules or some of these things that were keeping your world small, and you worked on intentionally challenging them. And again, we're gonna go through that process, but it's important to have that mindset of like, okay, I want to break this rule. I want to break this conditioned response.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

This is important to my healing.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, and I know it can be so scary.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

But this is the most one of the most beautiful parts about healing, without a doubt, because, you know, watching our clients in our digital course or in our one-on-one therapy practice, of course, you know, watching them have their pain or symptom reduced is great. But watching someone start to open their life up and live fully the way they want is just magical. Like that's, you know, it felt magical for me, but when I have other people working and achieving that, it's such a beautiful thing.

SPEAKER_01:

Well, and I think there's so much freedom to that, right? This freedom to kind of live life again when I think for a long time our clients and yourself, Tanner thought that wasn't possible.

SPEAKER_00:

Yes. And so we're going to dive into these seven strategies. Now, even though we're explaining them as these separate things, they do kind of compile on one another. Like you may use all of them at once, or you might use them separately. So there's a lot of ways to play around with this. But this is exactly what I did to go from bedbound to fully moving. Strategy one, look for an open window moments. Ooh, open window moments. So I explain this to people. So if you remember in our podcast episodes, many times we talked about the healing window. So this is the right level of exposure you can tolerate. So it could be the right level of pain, it could be the right level of walking that you can tolerate sitting with and being with before sensations become too much for you to tolerate. Now, what happens with people when their symptoms are neuroplastic is these open window moments will start to happen. So I'll explain this for myself. My biggest open window moment was when I had been off work. I was about to go back to work. This was probably like a couple months before I got into mind-body kind of work. And like I said, I was basically bedbound. But I went to this job interview, and actually Alex was working at this place. And I don't know what happened in this job interview, but it was the best job interview I've ever done in my entire life. It was like I knew instantly afterwards, I was like, I got that job. There's like no way. And I did get the job, but I was so excited and I was so uplifted that I all of a sudden went and walked around the university campus, because that's where the job was. I walked around for about 25 minutes and I barely had back pain. Now, before that, I was basically not able to walk five minutes. So that's like that window opening. And it's great evidence because all of a sudden I realized oh, like I'm actually safe to walk. Because if you have even a few of these moments, you know you're actually safe to be doing it.

SPEAKER_01:

And yours might not be as dramatic as what Tanner describes, but it might be just as simple as one day you have less pain, which seems surprising to you. Or you go to an event and actually it feels not too bad. So those kind of exceptions and anomalies are important to notice.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, well, that's it, is you know, say you went to that event and you stood way longer than you usually could, and your pain was more mild than normal, not completely gone, but more mild. That is, you know, this open window moment that you want to take note of because it's such great evidence that the rules you've been trying to follow were not actually correct.

SPEAKER_01:

And often they are there, sometimes really subtly. Um, but it's worth trying to reflect back and just be curious about them.

SPEAKER_00:

Yes. So essentially what you need to be doing is look at your rules and then look for the cracks. Look for the cracks in the rules where the rule wasn't actually accurate. So this is an exciting piece. And you know, some people don't have any of these, and that's okay, I want to state. Like if you don't have any open window moments, that's okay. As you start to do the rest of the strategies you talked about, you might find more of them.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, totally. Strategy two, safe self-talk. Of course, this makes sense that this isn't there.

SPEAKER_00:

And so we want to replace danger thoughts with specific, credible, safe self-talk. And this is such an essential one because we have so many danger thoughts about all these rules. That's why we've been following them. People have danger thoughts that I can't run. If I run, I'm gonna damage my spine more. People have, you know, danger thoughts of, oh, I can't go lift weights because every time I do that, my fatigue increases and there's something wrong with my body.

SPEAKER_01:

What if that's true though, Tanner? Like, what if every time they do that, they notice the fatigue increasing?

SPEAKER_00:

And so I think that's where it goes back to the first point that we have is like, do you have any open window moments? Do you have any moments where that rule wasn't fully correct?

SPEAKER_01:

And if you don't have any open window moments, like we mentioned, is likely still safe. And so, yes, it increases our fatigue, but actually we're not in danger in any way.

SPEAKER_00:

And I always recommend as you're doing the activity that you're, you know, but breaks your rule, like let's say walking, like as you start to approach that, you'd want to be giving yourself this safe self-talk in your mind.

SPEAKER_01:

So, like with your example, 10, or of walking around campus, of kind of acknowledging I'm okay, I'm safe, whether there's pain or not. I know for that time you didn't have any, but if there was pain, it would be the same. Yeah. Of like, I'm okay and I'm safe right now.

SPEAKER_00:

Exactly. Like I consistently had these messages telling myself, I relate to the neuroplaster criteria. I know that there's nothing been found wrong with my body. I know my body has been capable in moments in the past out of nowhere. And so for this reason, I know I'm safe to be doing this right now. Right. So I do think people need to find safe self-talk that lands for them and that's credible. So using your neuroplastic criteria, um, how you relate to those criteria, using some of the open window moments can make these safe messages more credible.

SPEAKER_01:

I know one thing that can be really powerful for people is the statement that this is going to pass. And so kind of leaning into the fact that, okay, this is how I feel now, but I can feel better later.

SPEAKER_00:

Yes. Those are other great messages, just telling yourself it's temporary as you kind of go. I think, you know, one thing that I did as I started to go back to the gym and I lifted such light weights at first because I was scared, but I was there and that's what mattered. As I was doing that in between sets, I would sit there and breathe and rehearse safe self-talk.

SPEAKER_01:

That's really a great way. Like you paint a really good picture of how to do that.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, like how you can start to incorporate this in activities.

SPEAKER_01:

Okay.

SPEAKER_00:

Strategy number three. Yes. Nervous system regulation.

SPEAKER_01:

Right. So that can include safe self-talk. That can help being regulating for nervous system.

SPEAKER_00:

I like to highlight this point because you never want to go into breaking a rule, such as going for a run when you haven't run in a long time, well, you're incredibly dysregulated even beforehand. Right. It's not ideal. It's really important to regulate before, during, after these exposures. And we're going to break down the steps for exposure in in a little bit here. But, you know, for myself, before I started to walk, and I like, you know, I want to be clear with people, at first I was just walking back and forth my basement suite apartments. Yeah. But before I would do that, I would do like 10 minutes of deep breathing lying in bed.

SPEAKER_01:

What was the and how did you feel? I I know you're outlining the purpose, but what was that experience like for you?

SPEAKER_00:

You know, it was still scary, but I was doing my best to stay as regulated as I could before going into that experience. Because essentially, people get this confused. When you do the exposure and you start to approach breaking these rules, the point isn't to do it without pain. Your brain is probably going to produce some level of pain and symptom. You've been avoiding this for a long time. The point is to teach your brain while you're in pain, while you're doing it, that you're actually safe. And so it really makes sense that before you do that exposure, you want to be regulating. And afterwards, you definitely want to be regulating.

SPEAKER_01:

And regulating, again, doesn't always mean calm, but it does mean kind of creating that sense of safety within your body.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. Like it could be something more technical, like breath work or qigong, or things like attending to pleasant sensations, but it could also be these like informal things of, you know, leaning into the sun on your face or watching a funny TV show. So like mix it up, but find ways to regulate before, during, and after, because that's going to put your brain in the best place to learn that it's safe.

SPEAKER_01:

Mm-hmm. Strategy number four, use visualization. I'll say that again. That sounded a little bit weird. Use visualization. That was better. Talk visually.

SPEAKER_00:

Visualization is a hard word.

SPEAKER_01:

I feel like I mess it up whenever I'm always with clients.

SPEAKER_00:

Like I'm like, when I always notice in Alex, our producer, he edits our meditation. So he's probably quite annoying. But in the visualization, meditations in our course.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

I think I said the word visualization, like repetitively trying to get it's it's tricky. It's a tricky word.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, but it's important.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, so visualization. So sometimes starting to approach breaking a rule is too big.

SPEAKER_01:

Right. It feels too overwhelming, too dysregulating. We can't even fathom going there right now.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. Like at first, I started with walking and that was like doable. But something like going to the gym and lifting weights felt so far off. Yeah. I hadn't done that in years. Uh, I could barely like push doors open at the worst of it. However, visualization is like this little baby step when activities just feel too scary.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, it's like a start to exposure without actually doing the activity.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. And I um when I was healing, I also read the book. I can't remember what book it was by him, Joe Joe Dispenza. Uh, he wrote lots of different books and talks about visualization and how important that can be to heal the body. Um, so I used a lot of this. So what I would be doing was I would start to visualize doing military press, lifting my arms above my head. And eventually I got to this place where I could feel, you know, actually nice as I was doing it.

SPEAKER_01:

Ah, so you started pairing that nice visualization with kind of that activity. Got it. And then when you started doing it, it felt a bit safer.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. Now, one thing I want to note with people, you still want to make sure you're staying in the healing window in terms of anxiety and pain level with visualization, because don't be surprised, is that if as you start to visualize breaking a rule, it triggers some pain and symptom.

SPEAKER_01:

Right. And also that's part of the exposure. So that's not a bad thing if that happens. Okay, we're already exposing to the sensation right there.

SPEAKER_00:

Exactly. So just yeah, I like to put a disclaimer so people aren't surprised. Plus, it's great evidence it's neuroplastic. If you're starting to get pain or symptom with visualization, we know what's happening. Now I'm gonna explain steps just to break this down. Um, we have a whole section and meditations in our digital course, but I'll explain the steps just so people understand. Like, okay, like what do you mean by visualization? What do I do? So, number one, begin visualizing breaking your rule.

SPEAKER_01:

So, for example, if it's chairs, you're literally thinking of yourself sitting in the chair.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. Uh, or walking or lifting or bending or whatever it is. Um, lots of people, it's foods, like visualizing eating a certain food, but that's the first step. Then at some point, after you visualize long enough, you pause and you practice embodiments. So you bring attention to the unpleasant sensations of symptoms, emotions, or nervous system dysregulation that have taken place. You drop in, you describe them curiously, and then you use some type of safety signal, for example, like breath work, um, you know, a pleasant visualization, uh, some somatic movement, safe self-talk. And so you're practicing this whole embodiment as you're doing this. And then once you feel more regulated, you start to visualize breaking the rule again. So essentially you can do this in rounds. Now, over time, what I want to have happen, like say someone did three rounds where they visualize, they pause, they do embodiment. By the third round, what I would want people to be doing is starting to visualize what foods feel nice. What would feel nice about going for a 10-minute walk?

SPEAKER_01:

Like maybe getting ice cream at the end.

SPEAKER_00:

That's where your mind would be.

SPEAKER_01:

I use that example a lot with people.

SPEAKER_00:

Some Anne motivates herself to exercise with the ice cream.

SPEAKER_01:

I like ice cream. And I think some people might relate to this.

SPEAKER_00:

Okay, okay, no, no, no. Ann does love ice cream and cake.

SPEAKER_01:

Yes.

SPEAKER_00:

We actually have a thing in our house. Like there can't be cake in the house.

SPEAKER_01:

No, and actually, there's cake in our house right now. I feel like we're going off topic right now. But there's cake and I'm not eating it until Saturday. But you've been thinking about it. I have.

SPEAKER_00:

You've been thinking about it.

SPEAKER_01:

Okay, let's keep going. No one wants to hear this.

SPEAKER_00:

Okay, but these are the steps. So if you're not ready to actually do the exposure to breaking your rule, start with visualization. Uh early on when I was healing, I was doing this like once a day, just for like 10, 15 minutes.

SPEAKER_01:

And that endpoint that we interrupted means just pairing and leaning into the pleasant sensation as well that you want to bring into it.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. So like Anne's visualizing, eating her nice ice cream as she walks, right? But that that would be the idea. Like you're you want to get to this place where you can teach your brain, hey, we're safe to do this. And yeah, visualization can be such a powerful tool, tool. So like please people don't skip this step.

SPEAKER_01:

Strategy five rule breaker embodiment practice.

SPEAKER_00:

So this is the scary part.

SPEAKER_01:

Okay, so this is actually past visualization and engaging in the exposure.

SPEAKER_00:

Yes. And you really need to do that real life exposure. This step, well, you could do all the steps before this. If you never do this step, it's not going to get better.

SPEAKER_01:

Right. And so that's an important piece because I think sometimes we visualization is important, but it can become super safe. And then we just can stay there for a really long time. For too long. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. So it's it almost becomes avoidance. The point of the visualization is to make it to the rule breaker embodiment practice. And so this is graded exposure. And I like to be so clear with people on this that as you do an exposure to something you've been avoiding, let's go with and going for a walk. As you start to walk to the ice cream shop, pain will occur.

SPEAKER_01:

Yes.

SPEAKER_00:

That's very normal. What I'll see people do is they're willing to do the exposure and they increase by five minutes. It's going well. They stay at that five minutes. It's going well. They increase by two minutes. They get pain, they take 25 steps back. And if you do that, it's going to take 50 years. Now, I never want people pushing through doing the exposure when you're in high pain. No, no, no, that's not the point. And I do want to be clear with people because this is a podcast. Make sure you're cleared by your doctor to do movements. Yes. But the point of the exposure is for Ann to start walking, feel the pain, create safety with the pain. And over time, the pain level will come down.

SPEAKER_01:

And it's okay to slow down. So Tanner talked about taking all these steps back. We can sit down on our walk. We can sit down on a bench. We can breathe and regulate. We can go at a slower pace. If we have to stop, okay. And then we try again tomorrow. The point is not to go back a hundred steps, but it's okay to go back two if it's too dysregulating.

SPEAKER_00:

Well, that's what it is. And if you have a pain flare, take a few days off. Be reasonable. But for myself, you know, when I was increasing my walking, um, I did this piece by piece. It was over a couple of months. At first, I was walking, like I said, back and forth my apartment, sit down, do embodiment, back and forth my apartment. At first, I was only doing maybe like five minutes at a time. Then I all of a sudden I could walk outside for 10 minutes after a few more weeks. And then I went to 15. And there was some bumpiness in there. I want to be clear that it wasn't all smooth. And eventually over several months, I was able to walk up to an hour. And that at that point it stops counting. But but that's the idea is like you can make progress consistently. The safe you feel at that level, the pain's gonna go down, you can increase a bit more.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

So the steps. This is gonna be very similar to visualization, but people get confused by this. So I'm gonna like break it down. Number one, begin exposure to breaking the rule. As we said, small at first, maybe walking for two minutes, sitting in an uncomfortable chair for two minutes, light exercise. Uh, it could also be things like exposure to light, sounds, certain foods. And then after you do that for a period, a small period, you pause the activity and you practice embodiment. So again, you're dropping in and describing unpleasant sensations, symptoms, emotions, nervous system state. You're using all those safety signals we talked about to create regulation. And once you're regulated, you can start to break the rule again. Eventually, just like with visualization, we want people to get to a place where when they're doing the exposure, they can also notice what feels nice about it.

SPEAKER_01:

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. And that does happen if that seems far off right now. That does happen as you go through this gradually.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. And I want to explain a technical point here. The steps I just explained almost have it in rounds, right? Like do the exposure, do embodiment, do the exposure, do embodiment. Eventually, when I could walk 10 or 15 minutes, I was just like tracking my sensations, emotions, creating safety as I walked. So I was doing both together eventually. I wasn't like pausing every, you know, five minutes to do this. So it can become a bit more fluid over time. We explain it in rounds because for a lot of people, that's all they can tolerate. And you're better to do these little bursts.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, for sure. Strategy six, pleasant and rewarding. Ooh, pleasant and rewarding. Yeah. And that's really important piece. So I think it's really common to do this type of thing with pressure, intensity.

SPEAKER_00:

Yes. And that's not gonna help you because again, the point of this is to teach your brain that you're safe. And this is the simplest strategy on this list. It is very effective, and you can get super creative and funny with it. What you're doing is you're pairing the new exposure with something pleasant, such as ice cream. Ice cream. There you go. Uh certain music. Like I would listen to like certain playlists, fun playlists in my um earbuds as I was walking. I've had people eat certain snacks that they really like. Connection, like you're going to the gym, you're going with a friend. So it's more about the connection, community you're having. Um, so just find what kind of clicks for you. I've had people where they're practicing walking or running, they do it in their favorite nature spot. Start pairing pleasant things with the exposure.

SPEAKER_01:

And one thing I want to mention here, and this isn't exactly about pleasant, but I think it's helpful is sometimes knowing that we have an out takes that pressure off. So it's like, I'm gonna do this, but if I can only do it for a minute, that's okay. And then I'm just gonna go relax in my nature spot. And so knowing we have almost like that back door that we can slip out of takes that pressure off and can make this easier. So I want you to do pair it with pleasant and also that ability just to stop whenever you want to and know you're in control that way.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, it makes you feel less trapped. I like that point. Like, don't do this where you feel trapped. Totally. I've seen it where people are like in one year and running a marathon.

SPEAKER_01:

Right. That that can be feel very trapping and so much, so so much pressure, right?

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, it's too much. Try try to make this as light and easy as possible. Um yeah, and just savor anything, any pleasant sensations you feel as you do this. I would say as your healing moves along and the exposure activities get bigger, they can become more rewarding. So, you know, walking back and forth in my apartment for five minutes wasn't that rewarding.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

It was like whatever. But all of a sudden, when I was back at the gym and I had all these endorphins and it was like all this pleasantness, that was really rewarding. So the bigger the activity gets and you move towards what you actually want, it can become way more pleasant just naturally.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, yeah, for sure.

SPEAKER_00:

Strategy seven.

SPEAKER_01:

Yep.

SPEAKER_00:

Anne's favorite word.

SPEAKER_01:

Yes, be consistent. That means do it over and over and over again.

SPEAKER_00:

This is our bonus strategy. If you uh maybe people didn't catch this, but last episode we were like, we have six powerful strategies, and now there's seven.

SPEAKER_01:

Oh who knew?

SPEAKER_00:

Um, but this is really key.

SPEAKER_01:

Um well, and I think that makes sense for the visualization of like, you can't just visualize once. We want to keep leaning into visualization, even in small pieces throughout the day. Like spatter that throughout your day a little bit, right? Same with us. I imagine, Tanner, you're walking.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, I was doing it twice a day.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. And it wasn't just once, it was twice with intention. And then we want to build up more. So we want to keep pairing and breaking this condition response or pairing what's pleasant over and over again.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, and it's normal to have setbacks. Like there were days where all of a sudden my legs and back would flare up. I took a few days off. Which is okay. Some strategic avoidance. I wasn't gonna push through that. But when it was more mild to moderate, I learned, hey, I actually can keep doing this, and my pain's not perpetually getting worse and worse.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. That is a really good thing. So I have people starting to do this type of exposure, and they're like, okay, you know, the pain's the same, but actually it's not worsening. It's not making it worse. That's a really good thing to know.

SPEAKER_00:

Oh, it's such good, such good evidence of safety.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

Um, and even those small wins, they accumulate into big wins. Yes. So just keep being consistent. You know, if you do this exposure once every week or two, it's it's not gonna be enough.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

So, you know, we really want to invite people, review your rule book from last episode. Choose one small rule to start breaking this week.

SPEAKER_01:

One that feels fairly safe yet challenging.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, like just a little bit of a challenge. And use these seven strategies we talked about as you do that. And just keep track of your steps and acknowledge your progress as you go. So, thank you everyone for listening. If you need extra support with uh graded exposure, start. To get back to living fully, um, our therapy practice, pain psychotherapy Canada, can work with people in every province in Canada. Yeah. Uh, and then our digital course, the somatic safety method, is available worldwide. I feel like every QA in the uh digital course, we're talking about exposure. There's so many questions because even though we're we're laying it out in length, it it does vary person to person.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, yeah. So you're right. We have monthly QA sessions that we do with participants in the digital course to help really answer some of those specific questions to their cases. Exactly.

SPEAKER_00:

So thank you everyone for listening.

SPEAKER_01:

Thank you for listening.

SPEAKER_00:

I'll talk to you soon.

SPEAKER_01:

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

SPEAKER_00:

We wish you all healing.