Healing Your Anxiety AND Chronic Pain/Symptoms (With Free Practice)

Anxiety feels chronic for many of us, and it gets even harder when it increases due to chronic pain and symptoms.

Tanner sits down with our producer and fellow therapist, Alex Klassen, to zoom in on neuroception: your body’s antenna that scans for danger before your thinking mind even has a chance to weigh in.

When your neuroception is sensitized, it starts overreading threat in everyday moments. That doesn’t mean you’re broken. It means your alarm system is doing its job a little too aggressively.

From there, we share the simple but powerful idea from Pain Reprocessing Therapy :

Somatic tracking - using repeated calm, curious attention to sensations - helps the brain reappraise input from your body and environment as safe.

We guide a free anxiety meditation you can replay anytime to practice moving toward anxious sensations without spiraling, desensitizing your overprotective alarm system.

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

Podcast Mission And Resources

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome to the Mind Body Couple podcast.

SPEAKER_01 0:03

I'm Tana Murtaugh.

SPEAKER_00 0:04

And I'm Anne Hampson.

SPEAKER_01 0:06

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

SPEAKER_00 0:12

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

Why Anxiety Fuels Chronic Symptoms

SPEAKER_01 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. Hi everyone. Welcome back to the podcast. Today I am joined by our producer, Alex Classen. Hey, thanks for having me, Tanner. Well, welcome, Alex. And uh, you know, I know maybe our listeners are missing Ann, but but we got Alex today. So the next best thing, hopefully. Next second, second best, which I have to say because she's my wife, you know. So Yeah, you're under contract. I really am. So you know, today we have uh I think we have a really useful topic that that a lot of people struggle with. And we're gonna talk about anxiety, which I don't know about you, Alex, but most of the people I work with, they are they are one of the most hated sensations that that people can experience.

SPEAKER_03 1:42

Yeah, absolutely. And I and I think uh, you know, when it comes to working with chronic pain and symptoms like we do, many folks we work with have noticed a chronic sense of anxiety and in their body for a long time. Or sometimes folks haven't. But if you haven't had anxiety, you know, having chronic pain or different symptoms is a really great way to start feeling a lot of anxiety. So we're almost always, if we're working with chronic pain and symptoms, we're working with anxiety, hey?

SPEAKER_01 2:13

Yes. And today we're we're really going to talk about the interactions between anxiety and chronic pain and symptoms. And you know, there's been some brilliant, brilliant insights from pain reprocessing therapy around this stuff. And it's it really has completely changed the way we treat chronic pain and chronic symptoms. And, you know, neuroscience and counseling research has shown us that many forms of chronic pain and chronic symptoms are neuroplastic. Meaning that your body is actually safe. And what starts to take place is, you know, the inputs that people are getting coming from their body, their brain starts to misinterpret. And it misinterprets danger when there isn't any, and then it clicks on pain or symptoms. When it comes down to it, it's really about desensitizing your nervous system. Hey, Alex?

SPEAKER_03 3:20

Yeah. Yeah. And you know, we're going to talk about neuroception. I know we have that marked today as something to help people understand. Because, yeah, whether your brain is triggering chronic pain and symptoms or triggering anxiety more than it should, the common denominator is that sensitization, right? And so I think what we really want to talk about today is how can you desensitize your alarm system so that you have less symptoms across the board, whether that's pain, whether that's dizziness, uh, fatigue, or anxiety.

SPEAKER_01 3:52

Yeah. Yeah. No, absolutely. And I think one of the main ways we go about this is by starting to do somatic work with those unpleasant sensations, where people are starting to dive into their body, approach pain, fatigue, anxiety, and start to attend to it in a different way. Because even as I say that, like when I present this idea for many clients, they're like, why would I do that? That sounds terrible.

SPEAKER_03 4:22

Like, I don't want this is the stuff I'm trying to get rid of or ignore as much as possible, right?

SPEAKER_01 4:26

Yeah. And and the secret is like, yeah, you do need that exposure of approaching, but we're trying to attend in a different way, with with curiosity, with safety, with with calmness, uh, and non-judgment and non-judgment. And by doing that, essentially, we can desensitize the nervous system over time.

SPEAKER_03 4:50

Yeah. And I think it's like you were saying, there's this brilliant insight that came in the form of somatic tracking and pain reprocessing therapy. That's if you repeatedly bring calm, curious awareness to the symptom you're feeling, it helps the brain realize that you're actually safe. It's making a mistake, and it'll desensitize that over time. And the awesome thing about that is that doesn't just work for pain, it works for anxiety.

SPEAKER_01 5:18

That's it. And I think it's it's so often I see people, and you probably see this too, Alex, where they they kind of separate these different things as, oh, I have to treat this completely differently. I have to treat my pain or fatigue completely differently than anxiety or completely differently than my depressive symptoms. But there is this understanding that we need to start to create the safety with these sensations.

SPEAKER_03 5:45

Yeah. Do you remember when we were at the Association for the Treatment of Neuroplastic Symptoms Conference? You just made me think of, I remember there's a great clinician in this space named Christy Weepy. And I remember she said, like, PRT is kind of a one-trick pony, but it's a really good trick. And that trick is bringing calm, curious awareness to these different symptoms so that your brain can reappraise them. So, yeah, it's kind of the awesome thing is we actually get a unified way of approaching all these different problem symptoms. That's really what we're going to break down for folks today, right?

What Anxiety Really Is

SPEAKER_01 6:20

Yeah. And so we'll dive into this. I think the first thing to break down for the listeners, Alex, is what anxiety really is. And so when you're explaining this to clients, how do you typically define anxiety?

SPEAKER_03 6:38

Yeah. So I would usually help them understand that anxiety is part of the sympathetic branch of your nervous system. And I can't help but hand talk when I do that. So for those that are just listening, imagine me, I'm hand talking, I'm raising my hand. Uh, you know, your sympathetic branch of your nervous system is the part of your nervous system that mobilizes you, right? And so when it's regulated, the sympathetic branch of your nervous system is the best. It's the thing that gets you excited and passionate, it's the thing that gets you moving and exercising or playing. Uh, but when it moves into danger and dysregulation, it moves into fight or flight.

SPEAKER_01 7:17

Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. And I think that's so key to understand the differentiation because when people start to learn about the nervous system, they're like, oh, sympathetic. That's bad. That's terrible. But you and I, like right now, there is sympathetic energy happening in both of our nervous systems.

SPEAKER_03 7:38

For sure. I'm sure my heart rate, if I had a, you know, Fitbit on or something, would be up higher than if I was just quietly working by myself. Uh, because we're excited to talk about this. We're in performance mode.

SPEAKER_01 7:49

We are. And it's just when it becomes too extreme that people start to get this fight or flight response. You know, it's it's interesting because each and every day, most of us are going to experience some level of anxiety. And that's normal. But I think it's different to talk about like chronic anxiety, which, you know, how I talk about it with people is you get stuck. You get stuck in this like flight state for you know, days, weeks, months, and people are having a hard time shifting up to a safe, regulated state.

SPEAKER_03 8:27

Yeah. But you know, our clients often described as like feeling like my baseline is to be a bit tense, to be elevated, to be worried. That's almost like the default mode that I start to function in, right? And if that's happening, A, it's it's showing what we were talking about, which is there's this sensitization that's happened in your alarm system. And B, you know, when your system is is in that heightened state, you're gonna start to feel a lot of uncomfortable things in your body. And maybe those are classic symptoms of anxiety, right? Tightness in the chest, upset tummy, uh, you know, it could be tight in the jaw or tense in the muscles. But we also know that can open up the door to a lot of different types of pain and and other symptoms too.

Neuroception The Body’s Antenna

SPEAKER_01 9:15

Yeah, it's it unfortunately all gets meshed together. And earlier in the episode, Alex, you talked about the concept of neurosception, which I think is key to for people to understand here. Um, and related to what you just said, like how how do you define like neurosception for people?

SPEAKER_03 9:36

Yeah. I usually break it down by saying, you know, your thinking mind, once you're you're kind of understanding and you know, hearing words or telling a story, that's perception. And neurosception is always happening first. So I usually describe it as it's like your body's antenna. And it's, you know, it's pretty incredible. If you think about you and I sitting here right now, yeah, both of our brains are receiving so much information all the time. They're receiving no susceptive signals from all over our bodies. There's sounds around us in the room. There's the look on your face, the look on my face, we're reading each other. There's all of this information coming into our body. And when neurosception or your antenna is accurate, it's going to react to dangerous things that are truly dangerous. And it's going to kind of ignore uh things that aren't, right? But if that neurosception is sensitized, you know, I might start to think that look on Tanner's face right now. Does he does he think what I'm saying is stupid? Right. And now that neurosception would start to pick up danger, and now my body's going to respond with this anxious response. When maybe that look on your face was you just thinking about something else for a minute. In that moment, my neuroception might have been inaccurate.

SPEAKER_01 10:57

Yeah. And I think that's it, is for most people when they have, you know, chronic pain, chronic fatigue, nervous system dysregulation, you're right. The neuroception, it does become inaccurate. That's just the reality. It starts to, as you said, Alex, it starts to miss all the safety signals, right? Um, such as myself, you know, kind of smiling now and then. Like it starts to miss all the safety signals and it starts to pick up more dangerous signals than are actually there. Yeah. Yeah. And so when we talk about someone who has any of these chronic conditions, including chronic anxiety, the reality is neuroception is going wonky. It's it's overreading things. Now, I will say a caveat here that there are, of course, situations where people are facing like very real social danger. And in those situations, you could be in a chronic anxious state and your neuroception is accurate.

SPEAKER_03 12:00

Yeah. Unfortunately, it would be accurate, right? That like you're feeling in danger all the time, rightfully, because you are, right?

SPEAKER_01 12:07

Yes. But I think for a lot of people where they have some level of social safety, they're safe in their environment at work, it's just the fact that neurosception has become inaccurate for them and oversensitive.

SPEAKER_03 12:21

And I think, you know, if I think about the counseling work that I did before we specialized in chronic pain and symptoms. Often folks were coming in. I didn't have the languaging then, but they were really coming in for neurosception-based issues. I'd have somebody sit down in the counseling chair across from me and they'd say, you know what, life's going pretty good. Everything's okay, but I still feel worried all the time, or I still feel tight in my chest all the time. I just can't stop feeling anxious. And that's a really good indicator that, okay, the alarm is too sensitive. The antenna is picking up, like you said, danger signals and missing safety signals.

When Social Cues Trigger Alarm

SPEAKER_01 13:00

Yeah. Yeah, I think that's key. And as you were talking, I have a I have a good example of this. This is more around a social situation. And I'll use Anne as my example here. Um she's not she's not here, so she can't stop us from doing that. But um this was way back right after I had recovered from my pain sensations. And looking back, my neurosception was still way off. Like I was still struggling with waves of anxiety that would come out of nowhere. And one thing that would happen is when when Anne would come home from work, like you know that that feeling when your partner comes home from work and they're like, they're on edge. Like it's clear they had a bad day. And I would get so lost in my mind about it. Like when I would sense that, when my nervous system would sense that off of her, yeah, I'd be like, I would start to think like, did I do something wrong? Um, did I make a mistake? Was I supposed to like do some chore that I forgot about? Like my mind would start to race trying to, you know, frantically solve this. And a lot of times there was none of that. It was just, you know, my my partner's a little bit upset. Um, we all have those days. But my reaction inside was so extreme of all these racing thoughts, and then this like burst of anxiety that felt like way bigger than it needed to be for that situation. Totally.

SPEAKER_03 14:37

And you think, like, you know, if you try to map this out with almost like a neuroception process, it's like, so Tanner's home, he and comes in the door, and maybe her tone or her body language or the way she answered his, you know, how was your day? It felt off. It felt kind of uh maybe a bit withdrawn, or maybe it felt a little grumpy or something. And the neuroception, rather than being like, you know, okay, and isn't in the best mood, probably had a tough day, neuroception is saying, danger, danger. I did something wrong. I must have done something wrong. And now you launch into that fighty, flighty response, right? Lots of sympathetic bursts. You're now feeling that in the body. And I can relate to what you're saying. And I would say, even sometimes when my partner Kim has been uh, you know, in in a bad mood, I'll also sometimes start to be like, what's wrong?

SPEAKER_02 15:35

Are you mad at me? You know? Yeah. And then no, why would I be mad at you? And now I'm like, well, now you're annoyed with me. And so now I feel I'm stuck in this anxious state of like, well, I don't want to pester you, but I feel like, uh, right? All because and you can get trapped.

SPEAKER_03 15:50

And of course, once you're in that anxious state, your neurosception likes to find more things, right? So you're elevated and it might start to worry about your taxes or it might start to worry about your kids or whatever, right? And and then if we don't see it and intervene, this might just go on and on and on.

Tax Anxiety And Desensitization

SPEAKER_01 16:10

Yeah. Well, I think that's that's it, is like it's catching it. And that's what you know, when neurosception is inaccurate, that takes time to regulate. I want to be clear with people, it just takes time. And we're gonna provide you free meditation at the end of this uh episode that people can start using. But a lot of times it's just catching, oh, my neurosception's off here. And I think even Alex about um last night, me and Alex were like texting back and forth. And uh, you know, in where we're located in Canada, like all the taxes are due today.

SPEAKER_02 16:46

So like Yeah, this is the tax day. It's simple, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 16:49

We both use the same accountant, and like we're we start to get in this process of like anxiously texting about taxes, and like it's it's just a great example of like, yeah, sure, is there some threat there? Yeah, like we need to get our taxes done. But at the same hand, you know, as Alex knows for me, like taxes is such a like anxiety-provoking thing. Um, when you run a business, you get these like scary letters from the CRA. And I remember the first letter I got like five years ago. It like, I was near panic. Like it just felt like, oh my goodness, like, are they gonna shut down my business? It was it was like nothing, but I like it blew up in my mind. Yeah. But over time, by catching that and by doing some of this somatic embodiment work that we're gonna practice at the end of this episode, my response is less now. Like I remember my six months ago, I got a scary letter from the CRA again. And I in the end, they actually owed me money, but but it was it was okay. Like my neuroception became more and more accurate through practice.

SPEAKER_03 17:55

Totally. And the more you interact with taxes, or you know, CRA's Canadian Revenue Agency for those, uh everyone knows IRS in the States, I think, probably because of Hollywood, right? Uh ours is CRA. Uh the more you interact with them and kind of coach yourself in this way, you sort of desensitize that response. It just becomes part of doing business over time, right? So you can really, with repeated exposure to anything, you can desensitize a response. And I think that's where, again, we we loop back to this brilliant insight from PRT that really what you're, you know, what Alan Gordon's talking about with somatic tracking is repeatedly bringing attention to your pain or your symptom so that your brain can realize that it's actually safe. And then that reaction is going to drop over time. Yeah. And so then we think, well, we could do this with anxiety too. People do this with public speaking, right? Yeah. You can do this with phobias, you know, if you had arachnophobia, if you started going to the pet store every day and getting closer and closer to that tarantula, you know, aquarium over there. If you did that every day, you'd eventually feel okay about it, right? So you can do this with the anxiety in your own body. And that's the really exciting thing about this.

Stop Avoiding Start Feeling Sensations

SPEAKER_01 19:20

So many important things you said there. I I just think that like that's that's the starting place where I find healing can really take off for people, is when they just get a willingness and an openness to start to drop in and feel into anxiety instead of using every distraction and avoidance behavior possible. Right. Because now, for example, I'll use this as an example again. When I used to get those letters from the CRA, I would run around chaotically, frantically texting my accountant, you know, checking my records repetitively at like five in the morning as soon as I got the letter. And by six in the morning, I'm gonna be just uh a hot mess at that point.

SPEAKER_03 20:11

And so yeah, you you've now kept yourself in a state of anxiety for hours, right? And your system is is gonna be taxed by that. And you're also you've also taught your system that when it feels this way, the thing it should do is continue to freak out, right? And so it's more likely to do that next time. Whereas if you respond in a different way, right?

SPEAKER_01 20:33

Exactly. Like now, when I get those letters, I'm, you know, I'm taking some actions that I need to take, such as like sending an email to my accountant, but I'm very quickly dropping in and allowing myself the space to just feel anxious about it and get that exposure to feeling into it instead of running away from the feeling as quick as I can. And as I do that, use these somatic skills to create safety. It's again, it's exactly what we need to do for pain and symptoms, but people can also do this with a chronic anxious state.

SPEAKER_03 21:13

Yeah, exactly. Rather than responding to symptoms, whether that's pain, any type of physical symptom or anxiety, rather than launching into fixing or avoiding, you're actually moving toward it and feeling it in the body. And that radical shift is extremely healing for the brain.

SPEAKER_01 21:33

Absolutely. And so now we're going to dive into actually practicing this.

SPEAKER_03 21:40

Yeah, we want to give you a meditation for this. We debated on who everyone knows Tanner's voice. Uh, and then Tanner's like, well, maybe you should do one then. Uh but yeah, we want to we want to give uh a free meditation. Maybe Tanner, I I can I can do it. Do you want to break down, you know, almost like the posture and give people a little bit of rundown of

SPEAKER_01 22:00

What you're looking to do here. Yeah. Like what we're going to dive into. So we kind of break it down into there's there's four elements here that people can practice and what what we're going to guide you through. So you're dropping in and you're starting to describe the sensations. So you're dropping out of your mind, into your body. You're starting to describe, okay, how does my anxiety present? What does it feel like? Is my chest tight? Do I feel heat or sweatiness? Are my limbs a bit shaky? So you're really starting to get to know it. And then a second step to this is like deepening your connection, seeing if you can sit a little bit longer with the sensations, if you can notice not just the intense parts, but all the subtleties taking place. If you can start to notice any shifts or changes that happen as you sit with it, as you're doing this throughout the embodiment practice to really get that exposure to your anxiety. Now, the third element here is what we call the healing window. And so with you can imagine a window. I realize not everyone's watching the video. If you imagine a window, you want to be in that window. So in the window, it's unpleasant, but it's the right level of anxiety that you can tolerate attending to. If the anxiety gets too high, you're going to be outside that window. Like when I was first practicing, I could attend to like a two out of 10 anxiety. Over time, I would have widened and now I can attend to like an eight or a nine. But just, you know, I always tell people don't cheat the window, just practice where you're at and what's tolerable.

SPEAKER_03 23:48

Yeah, because if you try to sit with it and it's totally overwhelming for you. Yeah. Then it's not really teaching your system that this is safe to feel. Exactly. Right. You know, if I if I use like the tarantula metaphor, it's like, you know, if you're walking into that pet store, don't go right up and tap on the glass and and freak yourself right out. That's not going to help your phobia. Start step by step with just kind of going to the edges and kind of feeling what you can feel, right?

SPEAKER_01 24:16

Absolutely. And I I like that example. It's it's it makes it very clear to people that like be reasonable as you do this. Yeah. Now, the fourth element is what we call shifting between safety signals and danger signals. Now, the danger signal in this example could be the anxious memory that you have. It could be the anxiety itself, the sensations. It could be any pain or symptoms you feel. Like these are often danger signals. And when you feel safe enough, you want to attend to these sensations. But if it starts to get too much, you can shift to a safety signal. And this could be breath work, this could be present moment sensing. Uh, it could be tapping or somatic massage, visualization, or safe self-talk, which are cognitive safe messages someone could say. So again, if the danger is getting a little too high, shift over to a safety signal. And then once you're more regulated, you can shift back to danger. And you can have this nice flow where you're getting the exposure to the anxiety, but you're also creating safety at the same time. Yeah. So this kind of breaks down the whole process for people of what this essentially looks like.

SPEAKER_03 25:32

You're basically teaching your nervous system that anxiety is safe to feel. It doesn't have to automatically launch me into worry or kind of spiraling into certain behaviors or thoughts. It's teaching your system that I can feel this safely and I can also move away from it. And that's the really powerful thing that we want to teach the nervous system that these anxious sensations are safe to feel and they also don't have to become kind of that vortex that sucks us into them.

SPEAKER_01 26:01

Exactly. Exactly. And so we've kind of set the stage, and now we'll uh we'll let Alex guide us through an anxiety practice.

SPEAKER_03 26:12

Yeah, sounds good. So maybe what I'll invite everybody to do is, you know, you can sort of sit back, or if you want, you could lay down. You could be standing. I just want everybody to kind of find their way into a body position uh that feels wakeful uh but as comfortable as possible. And I want you just to start by coming into the present moment, kind of shifting from mind to body with your breath. So I want you to make your in-breath nice and slow. Make your exhale even longer. Let all that air leave the body before you breathe in again. And we'll just use the breath as a safety signal to start. Feeling the cool air as you breathe. As you breathe out. Seeing if there's anything you can release in your shoulders, your jaw, your belly. And just slowing down that whole cycle of breath. That slow breathing manually tells your brain, tells your nervous system that you're safe. And then in this next step, you can gather your awareness and you can sort of ask yourself, can I feel any anxiety in my body right now? And if there's already some feelings of, you know, tension, tightness, nervousness, anything that you would describe as an anxious sensation, then that's already here. And if there isn't, I'm gonna invite you to just bring to mind a minor stressor or a minor worry in your life. Just something that would cause a little bit of anxiety. So for me and Tanner will think about taxes, right? But think about whatever feels like, oh yeah, that's that's something that just brings a little bit of that anxiety into my body. So now kind of dropping in. Just noticing. Where can I feel the sensations of anxiety? Noticing what you can feel in the head. Down through the brow, through the jaw or the neck. Noticing how things feel in your heart. Down through your belly, all your organs. Reminding yourself, even if you're feeling some uncomfortable sensations, these are completely safe to feel. Just observe them. And if anxiety is familiar to you, you might know right where to go to find it. You might go looking for it. Yeah, it's usually right there in my belly. Right there in my chest. Right there in my head. Sort of look around for any anxious sensations you can feel. Give them permission to be here right now. Remind yourself that by responding to anxious sensations with this safety, with this curiosity, you're actually desensitizing your neurosception. So just keep exploring, keep feeling what's here. So let's do that now. I want you to think about one of those perfect moments. Maybe the best meal you ever had, the best beach you ever had your toes in the sand on. Moment with a pet or a person. Just bring one of those moments into your mind. Bring it alive in your body. Remember where you were, how it felt. Notice if it brings a little bit of a smile to your face or a warmth to your body. As you're doing that, take that long, slow breath in. A long sigh out. And then we can shift one more time towards danger signals, sort of doing another rep here. Going back to any sensations of anxiety you can feel. Or intentionally evoking those sensations just by thinking about something that's a bit of a worry. Just kind of letting that anxiety well up, noticing what that feels like in the esophagus, the stomach, the intestines. What that might feel like in your muscles. In your facial expression. Reminding yourself you don't have to react to it. Just feeling it. That's your job right now. And even if you do notice it, you feel a bit frustrated by it, annoyed by it, just noticing that. That's normal. Taking that long, slow breath. Reminding yourself it's safe to feel this. And then when you're ready, you can shift away again. You've done some really great work here. Sort of shift back, back to your breath. When you're ready, kind of back to the room. Give yourself some credit for practicing with these sensations today.

Healing Wins And Closing Notes

SPEAKER_01 34:29

Thanks, Alex. Yeah, no sweat. That was wonderful. We soothed our uh our tax anxieties. Our tax. Yeah, we were talking about taxes and brought it up, but uh we we got there. And I and you know it's just a great example of how we can we can attend to these unpleasant, anxious sensations inside, but still work on creating safety. And if you didn't feel a hundred percent safe or a hundred percent calm by the end, you didn't do anything wrong. That's okay. It's it's you know, in our approach, we talk about getting little healing wins. And, you know, the healing win isn't always that your anxiety reduced and vanished during your practice. That happens now and then, but you know, we can't force that. The healing win could be, oh, I could approach it a bit more. I could sit with it a little bit longer than before. Yeah. I didn't I didn't have so many, you know, danger self-talk thoughts happening in my mind. I was able to like stay more present in my body. Or maybe you just felt 2% safer. It's like great. Chronic anxiety won't go away with one practice. You know, we don't want to we don't want to oversell people. That's not the reality.

SPEAKER_03 36:01

Like, no, because then people feel like it's not working for them. Yeah. And and that's not the case. And you could say the same about any of this embodiment practice with your chronic pain, your chronic symptoms, or your chronic anxiety, right? Especially in the beginning of the practice, like you said, just being able to sit with them and responding in a way that's curious and safe in their presence, that's the win in the beginning. And if you stack up more of those wins, then you start to get this reduction in the symptom over time.

SPEAKER_01 36:33

That's it. Yeah. You're just stacking them up over time. Um so I hope for everyone listening, this was a helpful practice. Just remember to be consistent with it, whether you're following along with this episode, time and time again, or start to experiment and try it on your own. That's a great way to explore it as well. But Alex, I appreciate you being on the podcast. Yeah, yeah, happy to join. I uh Alex is the one always editing mining hands stuff in the background, and so it's nice to have you on the podcast to share here. Yeah, exactly. So thank you everyone for listening, and I will talk to you soon.

SPEAKER_00 37:25

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

SPEAKER_01 37:36

We wish you all healing.