The Mind-Body Couple

Work Somatically to Heal Trauma

• Tanner Murtagh and Anne Hampson • Episode 136

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We answer Joni’s question about healing medical trauma after a health scare and show how to restore nervous system regulation using embodiment, exposure, and personal safety signals.

We break down therapy room steps and an at-home plan to reduce dysregulation following traumatic events.

We explore:
• Medical trauma as a driver of health anxiety and chronic symptoms
• Why avoidance reinforces danger
• Embodiment defined and made practical
• Building personalized safety signals before processing trauma
• Staying within the healing window and pacing
• Using repetition to desensitize triggers and stabilize safety

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_02:

Welcome to the Mind Body Couple podcast.

SPEAKER_00:

I'm Tana Murtaugh.

SPEAKER_02:

And I'm Ann Hampson.

SPEAKER_00:

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

SPEAKER_02:

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.

SPEAKER_02:

Hi, everybody. Welcome back to the podcast.

SPEAKER_00:

Hi, everyone. We have an exciting episode. So we've been taking questions from the listeners. Yes. And we picked out a question that we want to explore today. And it's really on this topic of using somatic practices to heal trauma and reduce symptoms.

SPEAKER_02:

And we think this is a really great place to be because we think a lot of people probably relate to this.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. We know that the correlation between chronic pain, chronic illness, and trauma is massive. Yes. And in our line of thinking, if we want to heal our chronic symptoms, we need to heal trauma.

SPEAKER_02:

So we hope this episode is helpful for you guys. And we're going to try to stay as practical as we can in terms of how to apply what we're talking about.

SPEAKER_00:

Yes, practicality. We're going to break down, you know, what would this look like in therapy?

SPEAKER_02:

Yes.

SPEAKER_00:

We're also going to break down, okay, if I'm doing this at home by myself, what does the process of working through trauma actually look like?

SPEAKER_02:

So we're going to start with reading our question and we'll go from there. This is a question that was submitted from Joni from Canada. And Joni writes, Over the past month, I've experienced an unexpected medical crisis involving hospitalization, invasive testing, and significant uncertainty. As the acute medical symptoms resolved and follow-up testing normalized, I noticed how activated my nervous system had become with health anxiety and fear of recurrence. With consistent mind, body and somatic practices, my hypervigilance and anxiety has settled significantly, and my body feels much safer again. First, we want to say, Joni, we're so sorry to hear what you've been through. It sounds like it was very difficult.

SPEAKER_00:

It is a very challenging thing. Yeah. What we call medical trauma. And to do that healing work with medical trauma is incredibly difficult.

SPEAKER_02:

Yes.

SPEAKER_00:

Very rewarding. Lots of benefits, but a really hard process. And I want to say it already sounds like you're doing some really important, amazing work. You're guiding your brain and nervous system towards safety. That's clear. And you have tons of awareness. The fact that you are aware of this means that you are ahead of the game.

SPEAKER_02:

Mm-hmm. And that's huge. Because you're right, Tanner, when it comes to a bit like that medical experience, that can be very traumatic. And I think that can be downplayed in our society today.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, it really, it really often is.

SPEAKER_02:

Mm-hmm. Okay. So Joni has another question here then. She says, after an acute medical trauma, how can someone best consolidate that sense of safety and prevent fear for regripping during future body sensations, setbacks, or medical follow-ups, especially for people with a history of neuroplastic symptoms or health anxiety?

SPEAKER_00:

Yes. Really important question. As we said, you know, medical trauma is often downplayed. We live in this massively medicalized society. And so getting procedures or surgeries or invasive testing is just normal. And as a result, what I see is doctors and therapists will miss when someone has faced medical trauma. And that's clearly what it sounds like is going on right now. Now I've experienced that because anyone who's had chronic pain or chronic illness, our interaction with the medical system is so constant. And, you know, I had many negative experiences over time. And to heal, I had to work through some of these negative experiences.

SPEAKER_02:

Mm-hmm. Well, and and that makes sense. And again, when we're interacting with the medical system, we're already used to having these kind of not feeling heard, not having a voice, bumping up against the system. Those can really compound.

SPEAKER_00:

And for a lot of people, I've worked with people that are terrified to step into the hospital or terrified to go to their doctor or see their surgeon. There's such terror that builds with some of these experiences.

SPEAKER_02:

That can be very real fear. And it makes sense why that has happened. And so we really need to spend time validating these experiences, understanding them, but also doing a bit of the work, the healing work that Joni describes, and that we're going to talk about a little bit of how do we work on that nervous system regulation as we move forward?

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. Because that's really what Joni, you seem to be wondering is how can I reduce this trauma response?

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

So the next time there's a difficult sensation in my body, or the next time there's a need to interact with the medical system, how can I not have this high dysregulation in my nervous system? Again, it makes sense why you're having it. Yes. But we want to use some of these mind-body techniques to ultimately reduce that.

SPEAKER_02:

And so we mentioned it before that awareness is important, that of maybe of the experience, the validation, and maybe the awareness that hypervigilance might pop its head up as time goes on.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. And that's the good starting place. And in our approach, we talk about embodiment practices. Which gonna we're gonna break down step by step for people here. But you know, in our therapy practice, we've worked with hundreds of people with chronic pain, chronic symptoms, trauma, and also in our digital course. And in both of these, we talk about embodiment work. Yes. Now let me define this because that's a fluffy term nowadays, right? It's thrown out a lot. Embodiment, feel embodied.

SPEAKER_02:

It's a good term, though. I like the term.

SPEAKER_00:

I like the term, but I just I want to be very concrete of what this actually means. So embodiment means dropping out of your mind and into the awareness of your body. It's feeling these sensations of emotions, your nervous system state, pleasant sensations, and pain and symptoms. Embodiment essentially is feeling sensations with this deep curiosity. We want to be in the present with them. And instead of avoiding them or getting lost in them, we actually want to sit with them in the body and explore them. Right there, that part can be really challenging.

SPEAKER_02:

Why do you think, Tanner? Why is that hard for people?

SPEAKER_00:

Because as human beings, we have a very simple mechanism. It's a very simple mechanism. We do it all the time. We move towards what feels pleasant and we run away at light speed from anything that feels unpleasant. Rapes. It's just, it happens.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

Um, and some of this is okay, but that's what partly why makes trauma work so hard. Because when we have this trauma response, it's like this incredible dysregulation inside. And so it makes sense that the last thing a lot of people want to do is start to embody sensations and sit with them.

SPEAKER_02:

Well, and I imagine like going through maybe like a medical trauma or a difficult experience, once it's over, we just want to run away from it. And we're like, okay, that's done.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

Now I move on. But what can happen there, Tanner?

SPEAKER_00:

Well, the problem with avoidance is avoidance is a danger signal to your brain. What avoidance will do really well is it's gonna give you this little burst of relief. But the next time that sensation comes up, or the next time you have to go back into the hospital, we're gonna feel it even more. And so, like avoidance will actually dysregulate us further over time. And so that's why embodiment is so key because when it comes to healing trauma and chronic symptoms, it shows your brain that the body is actually safe, even though there is this sense of danger occurring. And I want to be really clear with healing trauma, there's repetition. And so it's not like you're gonna face that difficult dysregulating sensation once or face going to the doctors or the hospital once, and that'll be it. There's a repetition, and that's what we have people do because there needs to be this exposure over time that will teach your brain that you're actually safe. And now we want to talk about what this actually looks like in practice.

SPEAKER_02:

Okay, so we mentioned awareness, compassionate awareness, the use of embodiment practice. Where do we go from here?

SPEAKER_00:

So let's really break this down for people. Imagine you're one-on-one in the therapy room.

SPEAKER_02:

With Anne.

SPEAKER_00:

With Anne, preferably.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, as we've learned if you have been listening to our podcast earlier.

SPEAKER_00:

Well, if you've been listening, Chad GBT said that Anne is the better therapist.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

So you're better to go with Anne. But one-on-one with Anne. What we are going to start with is there needs to be the developments of your unique safety signals. So we will be covering with people, you know, breath work, visualization, safe self-talk, maybe some somatic movements. And what we're hoping for is people start to figure out what are the safety signals that work best for them. So let's imagine I'm the client with Anne. I know my safety signals already because I've done this work. But say Anne starts to explore the safety signals, we learn about them, and I discover, oh, sound works really well for me. Like shifting to the sounds around me works really well. Some soothing touch, like making circles on my chest and breathing deeply, tends to help. You want to know your safety signals first before you start to dive into processing trauma memories or sensations.

SPEAKER_02:

And it sounds like Joni is already developing a lot of safety signals by dropping in, spending time in the body, coaching herself to feeling safe, which she has done after that trauma experience.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. Yeah. So that's like the starting place. You please, people listening, if you're doing this on your own, do not skip that step. Because otherwise, what happens is people start to process trauma and get so dysregulated, and then they have no idea what creates safety for them. Yeah, this is huge. Yeah, you need this. Now, once the safety signals are in place, if Anne was, you know, providing therapy, she would have the person pick a sliver of that trauma experience. So she might have the person share with her a sliver of that memory. Maybe what happened right before the invasive testing. And as that happens, there's going to be a pausing and dropping in to explore the sensations of dysregulation that start to happen. So this is where you're dropping in and you're noticing, oh, my palms start to get sweaty. I feel the shakiness of my chest.

SPEAKER_02:

Okay, so that would intentionally bring up some of that trauma experience, some of the sensations and dysregulation.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. And I want to be clear here. What we did is we had a person share a sliver of a memory, a portion, and then drop into the body to dysregulation. Because the trauma itself is the dysregulation. It's not the memory. And so that's really key to understand. And so that's what we're trying to get towards. And then you're going to start to sit with it, explore it. And if it gets a little too much, you would then shift to using a safety signal.

SPEAKER_02:

Okay. So again, so important to know what these are before you do that exposure work.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, because that way you know or your therapist knows exactly what's going to guide you back towards safety. And then you could do a little bit of shifting back and forth between the unpleasant, more dangerous sensations and the safety signal. This is originates from Peter Levine, he calls this pendulating somatic experiencing. There's this intentional shifting back and forth between safety and danger, pleasant and unpleasant. And when a person feels ready, eventually they might share another portion of the memory.

SPEAKER_02:

Ah. Okay. So that exposure to every sliver, creating safety with it. What does that do along the road then, Tenner?

SPEAKER_00:

So along the way, what's happening is you're getting exposure to the memory and the sensation. This kind of danger signals taking place. Yeah. And then you're regulating.

SPEAKER_02:

What would this practice mean for someone then moving into, as Joni writes, a follow-up appointment, moving into kind of another time that they might be sensitized again?

SPEAKER_00:

It's a great question. So this can even be done live. So for example, we explained, okay, in the therapy room with the memory and then attending to the sensations. I've had people do this on their own where they drive to the hospital and sit in their car for 10 minutes outside.

SPEAKER_02:

Ah, so purposefully going to bring up the sensation.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. Like you're going there and it's going to activate you. Yes. And then you're going to use the embodiment to sit with that activation, use the safety signals to regulate down. This is what exposure does when done correctly. It increases the activation, it's present, and then you regulate. And with repetition, what will happen is that memory becomes significantly less activating, or sitting in the hospital parking lot becomes significantly less activating.

SPEAKER_02:

Ah, okay. So when we think of, in some ways, planning for the future or future events and that kind of fear of what do I do next, this is a great method to kind of work on this ahead of the game a little bit.

SPEAKER_00:

Absolutely. And I like that you said ahead of the game because I've worked with people, a new client, no fault of their own. There's no judgment. People don't understand this stuff. And that's okay. That's why we're kind of explaining it on the podcast. Where they come to see me, you know, they clearly have some medical trauma. They got two weeks until their next surgery. It's not a lot of time. It like it's still beneficial to come to therapy, without a doubt, and start to work through it. But the problem with trauma work, well, there's lots of problems with trauma work. Part of it is very dysregulating and feels very dangerous, feels very scary.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

But the other part is it takes time. It takes time. So no anyone listening, whether you're doing this with your own therapist or on your own, it's knowing that the slowness, it needs to be done slow.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

Like that's essential. If you go too quick, what happens is you push outside your healing window.

SPEAKER_02:

So again, Joni, I really want to commend you from what you write in terms of the work you've already started doing right away.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

That's awesome. And then it's like, okay, there might be continual work along the way of that desensitization.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. So let me explain the healing window. The healing window, we want to stay within this when doing trauma work. Yes. So within the window, it's uncomfortable. We don't like it there. You know, like that example we just gave, the person brought up the memory, they got activated.

SPEAKER_01:

Yes.

SPEAKER_00:

But it was at a level that they were within the window, they could tolerate sitting with it, exploring the shakiness in the chest, the sweatiness of their palms. Like they could practice sitting with it. And it wasn't so much that they got so overwhelmed they went flying into high fight or flight or completely shut down and dissociated. So we want a person to stay within the healing window as they're doing this.

SPEAKER_02:

And understanding what that is for you might take some time. It makes it might take some feeling out. It might look different than maybe the next guy.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. And also know that if you get pushed out your healing window, it happens. Don't panic. That happens to me all the time in session when I'm working with someone. That's normal.

SPEAKER_01:

It doesn't make you look good. I know.

SPEAKER_00:

It doesn't make it, but I'm just again go to me.

SPEAKER_01:

Go to me.

SPEAKER_00:

Oh my goodness. I'm just saying that trauma work is a bit messy.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

But the reason we only have a person share a sliver of the memory, a little piece, is so that the dysregulation is the right level that they can tolerate sitting with it.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

Now let's talk about if you are doing this on your own.

SPEAKER_02:

Right, which can feel scary. So again, we support and you know, we're therapists. So therapy is great. And a lot of people need to do this type of work with the therapist. But some people can also very much do this work on their own too.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. I just want people to be safe if they're doing this on their own.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

I'm not saying that to scare people. I've worked with lots of people in our digital course that using our course were able to do this on their own. But you just want to make sure you have the right level of education around this stuff and have a bit of a process, kind of like we're outlining today. So, how you would do this on your own? First off, make sure you know your safety signals. Already covered this. Don't dive into trauma work unless you know what your safety signals are. Next, you're going to intentionally activate with a sliver of the memory. Now, if you're doing this on your own, some people talk it out loud to themselves. Some people visualize, which we also do in therapy sometimes, the visualization. Some people write it.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, lots of people write it. That's super common.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. So find what works best for you, but do not sit and talk and write for 30 minutes and ignore your body the whole time.

SPEAKER_02:

Okay, so that would be that drop in piece.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. You're using the memory to activate the dysregulation. And then as the dysregulation occurs, so again, maybe your legs start to feel shaky, your shoulders feel heavy, you feel sunken down, a little shut down and numb. Like as that happens, you want to be aware. So like you're activating with that memory, and then you're dropping in and doing the embodiment work. So again, make sure you're in the healing window. And then after you've sat with the dysregulation a bit, use some safety signals. And then if you want, you could shift back and forth between danger signals and safety signals. So an example of this is you could shift to let's say this person really likes a certain type of breathing. They shift there, they enjoy that sensation. They shift. Back to the activation, the shutdown, numb feeling. And they might go back and forth for a bit. This is an example of like if you were doing it on your own, how you could go about it. I like to be clear with people. Sometimes I've heard people say, I did this for three hours. That's way too long.

SPEAKER_02:

Ah, yes. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

Like be reasonable with yourself. It's a lot on your nervous system to process this stuff on your own or in therapy. And so even when I'm doing it in therapy with people, it's often not the entire session. Some people can tolerate that, but that's a lot. That's a lot to be sitting in your body with this level of activation.

SPEAKER_02:

If you're interested in this and doing it on your own, we offer a lot of information about how to do this in our digital course.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, we have a whole process that we outlined with practices to support people in doing this. Yeah. So if you need that extra support, the link will be in the description of this episode.

SPEAKER_02:

One thing we want to say that if you're experiencing health anxiety or neuroplastic pain or symptoms chronically, then you know your system has become sensitized to body-based dangers. You're not stuck with this. Again, it's having that awareness that this is going on.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, I think it's it's so key. You know, this isn't permanent. You can work your way through this. It's not hopeless. No matter how severe your symptoms are, no matter how severe your trauma response is, I have seen people make remarkable recoveries by doing consistent work. You know what? A sensitized brain and nervous system, it's just overprotective.

SPEAKER_02:

It's like it's protecting you really, really hard. It's doing its best.

SPEAKER_00:

It's doing its best. And it doesn't mean you can't get better. So by doing this embodiment work, it can lead to chronic symptoms and dysregulation reducing over time. But if you've been doing a lot of like brain retraining activities for your chronic pain and chronic symptoms, and you got some progress, but it didn't take you the whole way, it might be important for you to start to explore: do I have trauma? Have I faced childhood adversity? Is there medical trauma, like Joni was talking about? Or is there sensitization trauma, which is the trauma response you have from the onset or progression of your chronic pain and chronic symptoms? This needs to be explored for a lot of people to fully get better. And, you know, if you've been at it for a while, it's definitely worth starting to dive into some of this.

SPEAKER_02:

So again, we want to highlight with embodiment practices, you increase awareness of physical sensations in your body. So you're not avoiding them anymore and you're not staying stuck in like thinking mode.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, get out of thinking mode.

SPEAKER_02:

Totally. You teach the brain to feel safe with the sensations, so through exposure, like we've been talking about, and that repeated part, repeatedly bringing awareness to them.

SPEAKER_00:

Nervous system regulation, again, means the brain will engage in less worrying about health problems. It will feel less triggered by memories or by future medical experiences. And so your nervous system is learning as you do this. It's learning how to access safety more easily and to hang out there longer. And that's what this repetition of trauma work can teach.

SPEAKER_02:

And so we hope, Joni, that this was helpful in terms of your question. And we hope everyone listening that this was a bit of a guide of what to do if you feel like you're in a similar boat.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, we thought this was such a useful question. Again, because so many people with chronic pain, chronic illness have had these negative medical experiences, medical traumas or trauma with their symptoms.

SPEAKER_02:

And health anxiety moving forward.

SPEAKER_00:

And health anxiety. And so anyone who's gone through that, we we do truly feel for you. We know how difficult that can be. So thank you so much for listening. Thank you for listening. And we'll talk to you all soon.

SPEAKER_02:

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.