THE #1 Strategy to Cure Neuroplastic Pain or Symptoms

In this special episode, where we're joined by our producer (and fellow psychotherapist) Alex Klassen.

We each showed up - without any previous conversation -  ready to share our answer to the question:

What is THE #1 Strategy to Cure Neuroplastic Pain or Symptoms?

And as you might predict - we didn't all pick the same strategy!

Join us as we discuss:

• Becoming informed about neuroplastic pain and symptoms
• Diving in to the work
• Show and tell method for nervous system retraining
• The importance of bringing embodiment into your whole life
  
  For more free content, check out the links for our YouTube channel, Instagram, and Facebook accounts in the episode description
  
  
  

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 neuroplastic, not structural. 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 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, one of the wonderful therapists at our agency in Calgary, Alberta. https://www.painpsychotherapy.ca/

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

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

Disclaimer: The information provided on this podcast is for general in...

Transcript

Welcome And Resources

SPEAKER_02 0:00

Welcome to the Mind Body Couple podcast.

SPEAKER_00 0:03

I'm Tana Murtoff.

SPEAKER_02 0:04

And I'm Ann Hampson.

SPEAKER_00 0:06

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

SPEAKER_02 0:12

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

SPEAKER_00 0:21

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.

Framing Today’s Challenge

SPEAKER_02 0:51

Hi everyone. Hi, everybody. Welcome back.

SPEAKER_00 0:54

Welcome. Today we have a special guest, our producer, Alex Classen.

SPEAKER_01 0:59

Yeah, I am camera mic facing today rather than behind the scenes. I know.

SPEAKER_00 1:04

So usually Alex is helping structure our conversations. He's also editing out the weird mouth noises that me and Ann do, or the weird bickering that sometimes happens between things. Never, never. We're just joyous all the time. So we have Alex stain with us actually right now because we are all filming a big project that we hope to launch in early summer, and we'll share more of that in the future. But we have been filming for hours upon hours this week.

SPEAKER_01 1:42

Yeah, we've been in these chairs in front of these lights.

SPEAKER_00 1:46

Ready to go.

SPEAKER_01 1:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:48

And we're super excited about it. Uh, we think it's worth it.

SPEAKER_01 1:52

Yeah, it's feeling good.

SPEAKER_00 1:53

It is. So today's topic, we came up with a bit of a unique one. We want to talk about the number one strategy for healing chronic pain and symptoms. But what we did is Ann, Alex, and me all secretly to ourselves came up with what we think the number one strategy is. And during this episode, we are each gonna share what we think.

SPEAKER_02 2:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 2:20

So up first, Anne is gonna share her number one strategy for people healing their chronic pain and illness.

SPEAKER_02 2:28

Yes. Okay. So this is mine. We'll see what you guys think of it. But it's becoming informed and diving into the work.

SPEAKER_00 2:37

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 2:37

Is that yours?

SPEAKER_00 2:38

It's not. It's not either of ours. Okay. So break that down. Like, what would that look like for someone who's actually like wanting to become informed and really dive in?

SPEAKER_02 2:48

Yeah. When I think of somebody becoming informed, they're listening to podcasts, they're kind of looking at the research, they're maybe looking at your YouTube channel, they're finding out all the different resources that tell them about a brain-based approach and really trying to soak that in. Even people that come to me in therapy, they're working with me, but then they're doing other things as well. And they really want to learn. They want that cognitive brain to become on board as well. That is huge. And so we need that. We need that understanding to get progress, to start moving forward. The diving into the work is the other piece, but what do you guys think about kind of really that cognitive education piece?

SPEAKER_00 3:30

You're right. I've seen some people almost try to skip over the understanding and skip over consuming a lot of the brain-based content at first. And you're right. I think it's such an important piece of like creating safety. I think this goes back to even you go back to Dr. John Sarno, who a lot of this work originated from. There were so many stories where they talk about the book cure where someone would like read his book and their pain or symptom would just go away. Yes. Now, for the listeners, that doesn't happen to most people, but it does have not common.

SPEAKER_02 4:04

But it does happen.

SPEAKER_00 4:05

Yeah, it takes place. And they like dove into this understanding and really started to like embody that understanding.

SPEAKER_01 4:12

Yeah. I think like the way you framed it, it's almost kind of two parts in what you're saying, right? Which is like to get informed and to dive in. It's almost your step one and two into healing, because like you guys are saying, you can't skip over the importance of understanding how neuroplastic pain and symptoms work and how the brain generates them. Because like that's not something we're taught. It's not something that's even still particularly mainstream within a medical and physical pathology focused diagnosis for pain. So I think coming to really understand that like neuroplastic pain is real, neuroplastic symptoms are real, they're generated by the brain. You can't really dive in properly if you don't know how that works, right?

Education Creates Safety

SPEAKER_02 4:59

Yeah. So many people dive in, but they don't have the understanding, but then it doesn't really land. Yeah. Or maybe we're not diving in enough. Because we know when we're doing this work, it is a lot of work. We have to put it in our daily lives, we have to kind of change our lifestyle a little bit, we have to really dive into it and it's full on. But if we don't understand why, then why would we dive in? Right. Right. And so it's that two-piece thing.

SPEAKER_00 5:25

Yeah. I I will say, yeah, it's it's interesting because even if you take a really common brain-based strategy that's used, such as somatic tracking, it's like, okay, great. Like, yeah, people that are consistently are using somatic tracking, that usually helps long term.

SPEAKER_02 5:41

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 5:42

But if people don't understand the purpose, they don't understand like how that's actually can affect pain and symptoms long term, it's like it almost isn't effective. But I wonder, Ann, because my thought, and you have these two pieces, right? Like learning, of course, but then diving in. But there is those people where they get caught in the learning phase. You know what I'm talking about? Like where people have been watching YouTube videos on this content for a year, but they haven't really dove into the work. Like they kind of got caught up in the understanding and didn't actually put in action from the understanding. Right.

SPEAKER_02 6:22

You're right. That that for sure is a piece. Well, and it makes me think of like this example. So I'll say an example from my personal life. I'm doing this course. I think if you've been listening to our podcast, you know that I work with horses or I like horses. And so I'm doing a horse, a course about horse training.

SPEAKER_00 6:39

Horse course.

SPEAKER_02 6:40

A horse course. Yeah, and it's personal to me, but there's a lot to it. There's a lot of information, there's a lot of things to apply. There's actually a lot of work to dive into. I am embarrassed to say I'm not doing it very well. I'm kind of doing it a little bit here and there and skimming the surface. I'm not even really doing it as it's laid out. Um, I know I can be doing more. And so I feel like I'm doing a little bit, I'm not doing a lot. In a sense, I'm not diving into it. Um, and I'm not prioritizing it. And I'm like that kind of watcher of like, I'm just learning, but I'm not applying.

SPEAKER_03 7:18

Yeah.

Avoid Getting Stuck In Learning

SPEAKER_02 7:18

I know I can be having a very different experience. And my excuse is I'm too busy. And I think that happens a lot with our clients with this work too, of like, I can watch, but I'm too busy or I can't apply.

SPEAKER_03 7:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 7:32

Well, then we're not gonna get the results we want. I'm not gonna get the results I want in my course. Uh, we're not gonna get the results we want in healing if we don't get informed and dive in and really make this priority.

SPEAKER_01 7:43

And then it sometimes runs the risk if somebody kind of half tries a mind-body approach and they're not fully educated or informed on how neuroplastic pain and symptoms work, or they don't fully dive in to a lot of the brain retraining or lifestyle change type of strategies, and there's sort of a partial effort, and then there's just partial or sometimes no results, they might give up. And then I'm always worried that they'll conclude that maybe it wasn't neuroplastic or maybe this approach doesn't work for me. So I think, you know, that's why we're trying to give this message.

SPEAKER_00 8:17

Well, I think yeah, it's so it's so key what you said right there, because you're right, like people don't see the results. And again, immediate results is rare, even if you are diving in. But I've heard so many stories, like with people sharing, where they've they've consumed some education, they might try try a strategy here or there, and you're right, they eventually conclude all my symptoms are neuroplastic because they're not changing. But there wasn't enough commitment to no, we need to like fundamentally start to change things. And and really at the beginning of the work, like you do need to dive in, like you do need to like learn about this stuff, use the practices, such as like doing emotional work or learning to connect with your nervous system about the day, or connecting to pain sensations and learning to create safety, like all of that takes time to develop those skills.

Show And Tell: Build Belief

SPEAKER_01 9:08

Yeah. I would maybe say we can jump off your point to the point that I was thinking, because I was thinking about like the concept of show and tell, which is something we've talked about on the podcast and we talk about in our model and our course a lot, which is like it's really important to tell yourself that you're safe, right? And what you're talking about is by getting educated, by assessing your own symptoms, you can become more and more confident that your symptoms are neuroplastic, and then you can tell yourself, okay, it's my brain making a mistake, it's my nervous system being overprotective, my body is healthy. Yeah. The tell matters so much, yeah, but the show, the diving in, the show. Yeah. And so showing happens in a bunch of different ways, right? Great exposure with emotions, with activities. What would you say when it came to like not just the telling yourself your body was safe? What did you start to do to show it?

SPEAKER_00 10:07

Yeah, like I think it's sure. The education, like I read Sarno's books, I read some of Dr. Howard Schubiner's books, which he's got a few really good ones. And it was like fascinating education. I felt safer. I was telling myself, oh, my symptoms are neuroplastic. Yeah, I'm okay. Like, and I maybe I didn't fully believe it at first, but enough where like I could tell I was more regular. It starts to make a little shift inside. But my world, and remembers this, and actually you do too, because you were divergent.

SPEAKER_03 10:38

Right.

SPEAKER_00 10:38

Like when I was working at the wellness center with you, my wife was tiny. And it was in the process of shrinking at that time. Like I was just starting to learn about Sarno and Schumanner at the end of our time working together. And it was a situation where telling myself I'm safe wasn't gonna change to me living fully and gaining capacity in my life. So, to your question, what did I do? It's like, okay, every day I did embodiments, like which is somatic work with the pain sensations, with my nervous system states. I even did some trauma processing where I was showing myself, hey, I can be with these unpleasant things and learn to feel safe. Yeah, that's the first piece. But the second thing that I did, and why my healing actually took eight or nine months, is I wasn't moving. Even like in between meeting with people at the wellness center, I would lie on the ground. Like it was like that painful. So I needed to slowly and gradually sit on a couch for five minutes longer, because that really was scary for me. Or go for a five-minute walk. But I didn't have to do that once. I did that repetitively a couple times a day, yeah, while doing the somatic work, while telling myself I'm safe. But I had to show my brain, hey, you're able to do this. Totally.

Graded Exposure In Real Life

SPEAKER_01 11:59

And and it highlights that I think even if you were completely educated on neuroplastic symptoms and you believed that there was nothing wrong with your body, you still wouldn't be able to sit on that couch.

SPEAKER_00 12:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 12:12

Right? That's it. The only way to get to that next step is you gotta start doing it in a graded way and show your brain that it's actually safe so it can reappraise those sensations and that action.

SPEAKER_02 12:22

So like that action with exposure, really. Totally.

SPEAKER_00 12:26

And I think these are the actions that are really scary for people. Like I wanna like really empathize with the listeners. Like, I I truly get it. Like that was terrifying. Like me walking two minutes longer felt incredibly scary. And you overstep sometimes and you flare up, right? And you push it too far, and and I get why that's scary. But in order to get this like full, vibrant life with that brings a lot of purpose to you, it's the showing that needs to take place to your point.

SPEAKER_02 12:57

What helped you to get there though, Tanner? Because like that, I think that fear is very real. How did you move past that virtuality?

SPEAKER_00 13:04

It's a great question. And I think this is where the the show and tell connect. Because kind of like to Ann's point, all the education at the beginning, me slowly believing and self-assessing, oh, my symptoms are neuroplastic. It gave me, even though like walking for five to seven minutes felt really scary, that gave me enough, it gave me enough safety, and I would repetitively tell myself why I'm safe that I could take the leap and actually start to show. Yeah, you want to start with the telling because if you just start with the showing, it's like you don't actually have the understanding of why you're doing that.

SPEAKER_02 13:40

Okay, so back to the idea of like doing somatic tracking, but not really understanding why or how it works or something like that.

SPEAKER_00 13:47

Exactly. Yeah. So they're so interconnected.

SPEAKER_02 13:49

Yeah.

Embodiment All Day

SPEAKER_00 13:50

And you're right, but people need to do both. Yeah. So now to my point, my number one strategy. So it wasn't either of ours. It wasn't. So um, but it kind of builds off yours, which I think is key. Actually, it builds off both of ours, which is which is nice here. My strategy that I I talk about with all my clients, and I say this because you know, when my clients they really start to, you know, get their lives back, their symptoms reduce. There's just this trend that they all start to do this and work at this. And this is the understanding of as you're going about life and living in your day, you need to be embodied. I think what I mean by this is that what we've heard so far on this podcast is like, okay, it's important to educate, it's important to self-assess your symptoms and neuroplastic. It's important to tell your brain you're safe. It's important to show your brain you're safe. So there's all these like individual strategies and practices that are happening. You need to be embodied as you go about living your day. It's not like you do your one somatic embodiment practice once a day and that's it. And then disconnect with your body the rest of the time. Like it's not gonna go well.

SPEAKER_02 15:09

What would that look like, Tanner, in a maybe a day that is dysregulating or cause, you know, like has pressure or stress.

SPEAKER_00 15:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 15:17

And but being embodied throughout.

SPEAKER_00 15:19

Yeah. So let's let's use an example. Over the holidays, um, we had a lot of Christmas parties.

SPEAKER_02 15:28

Yes, we like Christmas parties.

SPEAKER_00 15:29

We like Christmas parties, but they're stressful. But they're stressful. And our our daughter, she's so similar to me, she likes routine, she likes structure. And so when the structure goes out the window, her little mind explodes because it's just like it has no bearing. And it and then she gets, you know, really upset, outbursts, anger, uh, yelling. And I think at the beginning of the holiday season, I was like, okay, I got this, I can handle this. Like, we got this. I'm pumping myself up. But by the end, it was like, whoa, like this is a lot. Um, and and that's what I mean is like as I was going about my day, I remember one of these last days of our holiday, I was like, we're about to be back at work, and I'm excited. But there were moments where I'd wake up and I knew, okay, this is what the day is going to probably look like. So I did some meditation. I did some safety signal practices in the morning. I like to do my yoga in the morning. But as we were doing childcare and as we were doing these activities with our kids, I'm staying connected. Okay, oh, my daughter's crying again. She's really upset, she's throwing things. How do I feel inside? I'm not stopping and meditating, but there is a connection of like, how does this make me feel as I'm going about my day?

SPEAKER_02 16:47

You get the idea, like a consistent connection with your body.

SPEAKER_00 16:50

There's connection, and that's part of it, but there's the taking cues off of my body. Right. And then responding with care and meeting your needs. I'm adjusting. And I remember one of these last days we went and got food, like we ordered food in, and that wasn't by mistake. That was because, oh, I'm feeling really burnt out inside.

SPEAKER_01 17:11

Do you know what this makes me think of? Yeah. Is I think you were filming. So we've been in these chairs a lot for the last four days. For like 35 hours. And when you got done your filming yesterday, you were like, what did you say? You were like, my body was in pain.

SPEAKER_02 17:27

It was in pain. Yeah. I was in some pain yesterday. Yeah. Right?

SPEAKER_01 17:30

And you were like really aware of that. What did you do after that?

SPEAKER_02 17:34

Um I think I think I took cues. Like I went and rest, I tried to relax, I maybe kind of slowed down for sure. Yeah.

Listening To Signals, Adjusting Plans

SPEAKER_01 17:42

What is interesting because I think like that pain that you were experiencing. I mean, yeah, sure, like there's posture, and these maybe aren't like the comfiest chairs to be in. But we talked about it. It probably has a lot to do with doing this type of stuff, is pretty high performance. Yeah, like the project we're working on, we're trying to like nail it. Yeah. So we're spending like three, three and a half hours like on, and your body was like saying no to that, right?

SPEAKER_02 18:10

And it's like uh about our project, there's a lot of stress, pressure. Um, maybe you're right, with performance, like challenge, like being in perfectionism mode a little bit, maybe when I didn't need to be. And so looking at that in hindsight. But I was dropping into my body after and recognizing, oh, what's happening? And then following suit with my action. Yeah. Is that what you're talking about?

SPEAKER_00 18:33

That's what I mean. And I actually want to rephrase, you know, this at this episode, we're talking about okay, what's each of our number one strategies to help people heal their pain and symptom? I'm gonna change mine a bit. Mine, I believe, is the number one strategy for you to maintain your healing.

SPEAKER_02 18:48

Ah.

SPEAKER_00 18:49

Because the times, the few times a year where I get pain, still happens. It's pretty brief now. It's I I have a good system. It is when I become disconnected from my nervous system. Usually for me, I'm pushing too hard, I'm putting too much pressure, there's too much expectation, and I'm not noticing the signals. The signals going off. And now my body needs to let me know because of pain. So it's like to your point, Anne, you're right. It's like, okay, you need to be connected, but you now need to adjust your life and your day and how you're going about it based on how you feel. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 19:26

So like a listening. You need to be.

SPEAKER_00 19:28

You need to be listening.

SPEAKER_01 19:29

Yeah. Or it'll get louder, right? Or, like, I mean, we structured our filming for our project so that all three of us were doing about two to three hours each day. And imagine if we were trying to smash through and do eight hours. Oh, yeah. Like imagine how your body would have felt or how multiple would have felt. Yeah. And again, somewhat because of the physical posture, but largely because it's an intense level of nervous system performance to sustain, right?

SPEAKER_00 19:56

And we even think, it makes me think when we organized our filming, because we have these three chunks for three of us to film, I I asked you both, can I go first?

SPEAKER_03 20:04

Yeah.

Performance Pressure And Pain

SPEAKER_00 20:05

The reason is is like when it gets later in the afternoon and I try to perform, I get so stressed out. Right. I know that though, because I've connected enough and taken cues off my nervous system. That's what I mean, is like that's really good information for someone to be aware. Okay, as I'm working or as I'm taking care of my kids, how do I need to be adjusting things to make sure I have one foot in regulation? 100%.

SPEAKER_02 20:30

Well, and I think about applying this thing, it is having some understanding or willingness that we will have to, or they like all of us, has to make shifts if we're gonna start listening to our nervous system a little bit.

SPEAKER_00 20:42

You know, we can all be a little stubborn, myself included. And we're all in situations where we know, okay, there are danger signals going off around me. And we know, oh, I'm dysregulated, but we kind of like dig our feet in, and it's like I'm not changing anything. Right? Like we've all been in those situations, and and that like pushing through mentality is what's going to push your nervous system off the ledge and result in pain and symptoms escalating.

SPEAKER_01 21:12

Totally. Well, and you can almost think about it. Like we joked around with the idea that like, what's the opposite of embodiment? Disembodiment, which sounds like a horror movie. We didn't go with that term. We didn't get with that.

SPEAKER_00 21:24

There was about 30 seconds where we were like, oh yeah, disembodiment. Sounds good. And then we're like, oh, actually, that sounds like dismemberment, and we're like, That's a different type of podcast.

SPEAKER_01 21:32

Yeah, we're not doing that. Um but you know, it kind of in what you're sharing is like when the sort of front of the brain starts running the show like that, yeah, and saying, like, no, we have to finish this. This has to happen. I'm gonna get this done today, and the perfectionism, the productivity, everything. We do effectively split ourselves.

SPEAKER_03 21:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 21:52

And the deeper part of our brain that's feeling and is a nervous system is not getting listened to.

SPEAKER_03 21:58

Yeah.

Personalizing Your Strategy

SPEAKER_01 21:59

And if you Don't do it. Like you're saying, it's going to start to shout and say, like, hey, this isn't healthy, this isn't safe, and it's going to talk to you in the form of symptoms, right?

SPEAKER_00 22:08

Totally.

SPEAKER_01 22:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 22:09

So this is our podcast episode. We want to give a big thanks to Alex for coming on. Yeah, I'm glad it worked out. It was fun. Thank you, Alex. You'll be editing this later.

SPEAKER_01 22:19

I will. Yeah. I'll try not to perfectionistically edit myself. Because I'm used to editing you guys, but it's uh it's gonna be weird to edit me.

SPEAKER_00 22:30

It's harder, right? Yeah. Well, you know, I think this is a great episode, and I'm glad we didn't all have the same strategy that we think is number one. But I think the listeners, what I what I want everyone to reflect on is, you know, which one fits better for your case right now?

SPEAKER_02 22:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 22:48

To be honest, you probably need a mix of all three that we kind of talked about. But depending on where you're at and you're healing, you might need something different. So it's something to really consider. Um, and thank you everyone for listening. And we'll talk to you next week.

SPEAKER_02 23:04

Thanks for listening. Talk to you next week.

SPEAKER_00 23:06

Okay, thanks all.

SPEAKER_02 23:13

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 23:24

We wish you all Quiet.