Chronic Pain/Symptoms Are Actually The Side Effect (Find the Root Cause!)

In today's episode, Tanner and Anne provide ideas on how to get to the root cause of your chronic pain or symptoms.

Neuroplastic pain/symptoms occur when there's a sense of danger and dysregulation in the brain and nervous system - not due to physical disease or damage. So it makes sense to ask - what's creating this sense of danger?

You'll learn about pain/symptoms can be fueled by:
• Prolonged high stress, including perfectionism and people pleasing
• Childhood adversity and trauma as sensitizing factros
• Pathological views of the body fueled by medical ideas, Googling, ChatGPT, fear, and avoidance 
• Emotional resistance
• Dysregulated responses to feeling pain/symptoms throughout the day.

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 Ways To Get Help

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Welcome to the Mind Body Couple podcast. I'm Tana Murtaugh and I'm Ann Hampson.

SPEAKER_02 0:06

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

SPEAKER_01 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_02 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. Now

Why Symptom Chasing Backfires

SPEAKER_02 1:01

I would say for most people, the main goal is I need these symptoms to go away as fast as humanly possible.

SPEAKER_01 1:10

Yeah, and you know what, Tanner, I think that's a pretty good goal. Most of my clients want that too, and we get that.

SPEAKER_02 1:17

Yeah, it it makes sense. And I can speak from experience that I did this. At first, I tried to make my symptoms go away using physical assessments and various physical treatments. And eventually I did this by frantically using all the psychological brain-based strategies. That's not gonna work. And the shift needs to happen where we stop trying to treat the symptoms and we treat the root cause.

SPEAKER_01 1:50

Ah, and I like that. And that's what this podcast is about today.

SPEAKER_02 1:54

That's what it's about. We're gonna break down what's really causing your chronic pain and symptoms, how the nervous system becomes sensitized, and why shifting to focusing on safety instead of symptom reduction is the real key to healing.

SPEAKER_01 2:13

So we hope this is helpful for you guys. This is something I think we talk about with most of our clients.

SPEAKER_02 2:19

Yeah. And even before we dive into all the information we're gonna give people, I do want to state right off the bat, there's probably not one root cause.

SPEAKER_01 2:31

No, and we're gonna outline something that we commonly see with clients. Um, and usually it's a mixture of these things. So we're gonna give you guys a bit of the secrets today, a bit of the answers.

SPEAKER_02 2:42

Yeah. And

Podcast Format Changes Ahead

SPEAKER_02 2:44

we wanna just discuss quickly that our podcast, we're, you know, reformatting things.

SPEAKER_01 2:52

Yeah. Um, how long have we been doing the podcast for, Tanner?

SPEAKER_02 2:56

We have been doing the podcast for I believe three years.

SPEAKER_01 3:02

Oh my gosh. It's that's a long time.

SPEAKER_02 3:05

It's a long time.

SPEAKER_01 3:05

That's a longer in some ways than I imagined when we first started. We had no plan. We didn't.

SPEAKER_02 3:13

We just kind of dove into it.

SPEAKER_01 3:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 3:15

And we called our producer Alex and we're like, hey, can you like edit this for us? Like it's like a very, you know, off the side thing. But now we're we're reformatting a bit to give listeners variety. Yeah. So me and Ann are still gonna do some together. Um, myself or Ann are gonna interview various guests. We're gonna try and include the expert therapist at our clinic a bit more.

SPEAKER_00 3:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 3:44

And we're also gonna try to do some meditations and sprinkle those in so that people can follow along.

SPEAKER_01 3:51

And our producer Alex is gonna be joining a bit of like from behind the scenes, he's gonna be coming forward a bit with a lot more um upfront involvement in the podcast and sharing a bit of his wisdom as well.

SPEAKER_02 4:03

Yeah, I think that's so key, and people know Alex a bit. But Alex probably knows the brain and nervous system science like so greatly, uh, even in areas m far better than myself.

SPEAKER_01 4:20

Oh, yeah. I always refer to Alex with some stuff.

SPEAKER_02 4:23

He's got a real science brain going on.

SPEAKER_01 4:26

Once in a while, too, there might be a podcast with just one of us. And so I might take charge and do my own. Tanner might do his own, Alex might do his own. So we're playing around with a bit of different style, and we hope you guys like it.

SPEAKER_02 4:38

Mm-hmm. Now,

How Neuroplastic Symptoms Work

SPEAKER_02 4:40

for the new listeners, we know that many forms of chronic pain, chronic fatigue, chronic dizziness, or other chronic symptoms are neuroplastic. Yes. Or partly neuroplastic. So what this means, when someone's symptoms are fully neuroplastic in nature, there is no damage or disease in their body that is triggering and worsening their symptoms. They're occurring because the nervous system has become sensitized. And I like to explain this to people, Ann, because I think it just breaks it down nicely.

SPEAKER_01 5:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 5:20

That this is how neuroplastic pain or symptoms occur. Number one, the body is not damaged or diseased in any way.

SPEAKER_01 5:30

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 5:30

Number two, the body sends safe signals up to the brain, letting the brain know, hey, we're okay. Number three, a sensitized brain, though, misinterprets those signals from the body. And then number four, the brain produces pain or symptoms to alert and protect us. Right. That was my one minute of science, I promise.

SPEAKER_01 5:57

Well, and that's good. And and we like to, we like to let everybody know and remind everybody about that in most of our podcasts because it's important to understand how neuroplastic pain and symptoms work.

SPEAKER_02 6:09

Yeah. Well, I think it's it's a key to anyone new to this area that we need to understand the neuroscience of pain and symptoms. Yes. Like the accurate neuroscience. And that's what we've spent a lot of our time on. And Anne came up with this topic today of pain and symptoms are the side effect of a deeper cause.

Shift From Fixing To Safety

SPEAKER_01 6:36

Yeah, and it's important to me because I think I think it's that is something I talk about with people a lot. Often when we have pain and symptoms, we focus in on them. We want to stop them, like we started talking about in the beginning. Our focus is the pain and symptoms. And sometimes I think we come to learn in this approach that, oh, our focus needs to shift a little bit. We still want those symptoms to reduce. Um, but that isn't necessarily our focus in the healing work. It's a side the reduction becomes a side effect as well.

SPEAKER_02 7:12

Yeah, it does. Here's the question not to ask. Don't ask yourself, um, and people ask those on my YouTube channel all the time. Tanner, what's the two strategies I need to do to make these go away as fast as possible?

SPEAKER_01 7:25

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 7:26

That's the wrong question. I get the question, but it's the wrong question. The question needs to be what is causing my nervous system to become sensitized? Uh because as you recall from me breaking down the steps one, two, three, four of how neuroplastic symptoms develop, it's when the nervous system becomes sensitized that the brain's going to produce pain and symptoms. And really, a very simplistic answer is it's a sense of danger.

SPEAKER_01 7:56

Well, and you're right. So it's our it's our body becomes this alarm system and it's it's trying to tell us something. And we need to step back and listen to what it's saying.

SPEAKER_02 8:06

Exactly. Like the danger is the problem.

SPEAKER_01 8:10

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 8:11

The pain and symptoms are the side effect to that. They're the output of how your nervous system is letting you know that it's feeling in danger.

SPEAKER_01 8:21

Well, instead of that hyper focus on the symptoms, we need to shift and and yeah, ask, okay, why is this danger being alerted right now?

SPEAKER_02 8:29

Yeah. And so the sense of danger, that really is where we need to focus and figure out, okay, what are all the factors that we call them sensitization factors that are increasing this sense of danger?

SPEAKER_01 8:45

All right. So we're gonna go through some of those factors right now.

SPEAKER_02 8:48

We are. We are gonna go through a number, and as we go through them, think about like what are all the different factors that could be increasing a sense of danger.

SPEAKER_01 8:57

Okay. Again, yeah, we wanna highlight usually it's a multitude of things. And often when we're working with clients, they're working on a little bit of all of these.

SPEAKER_02 9:08

Yes. So let's dive into it. Prolonged

Prolonged Stress And Coping Styles

SPEAKER_02 9:11

high stress.

SPEAKER_01 9:13

Uh, I think I talk to everybody about prolonged high stress.

SPEAKER_02 9:17

Yeah. You would think it's really obvious to us, but I know from experience that when when you're in the stress, it's sometimes hard to see like what are all these things that are causing this prolonged stress for me.

SPEAKER_01 9:32

Oh, yeah. You're just in it. You're like in the waters and you're navigating, and sometimes you're in survival mode as well. So you don't see.

SPEAKER_02 9:40

You don't see it. And this could be for a number of different reasons. Could be your children. Yeah, our children do this to us. Uh, it could be relationships. Also stress for me. Like with your wife. I meant in my direction for years. Um, it could be your work environment. Yeah. Or even just the type of work, not necessarily like a toxic workplace, but it could just be like high pressure work that you're doing.

SPEAKER_00 10:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 10:09

Um, or it could be certain events that have taken place over your lifetime. Now, I want to say that prolonged high stress can also be like how we cope in the world. What do you mean by that time? So as we age, and I'm gonna give an example in a second, but as we age, we all learn either helpful or unhelpful ways of coping. Yes. And if you're human, you have unhelpful ways of coping. That's normal.

SPEAKER_01 10:38

If you're human, we're all human here. So you're saying we all got them. We all have them.

SPEAKER_02 10:42

Okay. We all got them. And this can look like high achieving, perfectionism, people pleasing, excessive conscientiousness, like always trying to be good or highly moral. Um, it can be this like high intensity, almost like pushing uh pressure, expectation. For some people, though, it's the opposite. It's low intensity living that we talk about, where people are not moving, they're not interacting with the world, they're not connecting with others, they have no purpose or meaning.

SPEAKER_01 11:14

So some of these that you list tend to understand, like kind of like we all know social isolation maybe isn't helpful for us, or kind of maybe not pushing to grow isn't always helpful. But the higher ones that you talk about, maybe the um the conscientiousness, the all of wanting to please people, wanting to do good, I would be confused of like maybe how that's unhelpful.

SPEAKER_02 11:40

Yeah, I I talk about it with people where it can go too far. Yes. Where like if you're appeasing others, or you're always being good and moral, or you're like always taking care of other people, what happens is your needs come last. All the time. And if your needs all the time come last, that is going to dysregulate you and cause chronic stress.

SPEAKER_01 12:10

Ah, okay. So it might not always look how you imagine chronic like high stress should be. Yeah. It can be sneaky that way. Because I wouldn't consider, I wouldn't be like, oh, that's high stress. But when are the way we're being leads to chronic dysregulation, which is stressful in our bodies.

SPEAKER_02 12:31

Yes. Yeah. And I think it's, yeah, it's a bit of a different way to think about it. Yeah. And this is where like it can be very sneaky. Like people aren't aware of that. So let me give you a general example of what we see with our clients of how this would progress through their life. So they grew up in a home with high pressure parents.

SPEAKER_01 12:56

Like what? Like what's the highest thing?

SPEAKER_02 12:57

Their parents loved them, but their parents had high expectations on their academics, um, their sports, or their hobbies. Yes. Like, and there can be varying degrees of this, but they had these high expectations placed on them, high pressure for them to succeed. Then the child starts to believe and learn that I am more worthy and I am safer if I please my parents, if I make sure I keep the peace, if I do everything perfectly, and if I place being successful over top of my well-being and my needs.

SPEAKER_01 13:41

Ah, so that's where kind of the drive for to do well and success kind of goes over the edge into maybe not helpful at all.

SPEAKER_02 13:48

It goes over the top. And unfortunately, with their parents or with society as a whole, or with boss bosses as they age, all those traits I just listed, no one is ever going to complain about those.

SPEAKER_01 14:02

People are gonna praise those, they're gonna want it.

SPEAKER_02 14:05

They're reinforced. Yes. So the so the child and eventually the adult that they become has been conditioned that this is how I ensure that I feel safe and I am loved by others.

SPEAKER_01 14:19

So I want to again kind of reiterate that that would be the high stress and dysregulation, but in a sneaky form that I think a lot of us don't recognize.

SPEAKER_02 14:28

Yeah, and it chips away. And for some people, it just becomes really overwhelming in childhood. But a lot of times what I'll see with the clients we work with is that as they become adults, as you become an adult, let's be honest, more responsibilities come up.

SPEAKER_00 14:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 14:46

You have to, you know, take care of your family. You have children, you get more high-pressure jobs, or you're in like a high university program that's a lot of stress. Relationships can get more complex. Um, and so, like, as we become an adult, stress increases. And then how does this person cope? Well, they just drive up, being more perfect, achieving more, pleasing everyone else, putting everyone else's needs above their own. And this is the pattern where, yeah, they've had stressful events, but also with the way they're coping, it amplifies it. And eventually their nervous system can sensitize and produce pain and symptoms.

SPEAKER_01 15:32

Yeah. And I think when maybe many people understand this, it can feel a bit daunting. Because it's like, well, if this started from childhood, how am I ever gonna change that? And I think that's the I want to say problem with therapy. Many people see it and then they're like, now what? And that can be very overwhelming.

SPEAKER_02 15:51

It absolutely is. And no matter what you do, there are gonna be stressors in life, but we can learn to cope differently. We can learn to attend to emotions differently. Like, I want to give this message of hope that this is possible. I know it feels daunting, it feels scary, um, but it is possible. I have to still work at this. It's gonna be lifelong people. It's not, you know, you won't go to five therapy sessions and done. Like you're good to go. Like it's it's ongoing. And but by doing this, what we're doing is like you are now treating the deeper root cause.

SPEAKER_01 16:28

Yes. And I it's sorry, I was just gonna say that because that's right. That is a great example of the deeper root cause.

SPEAKER_00 16:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 16:34

In terms of like, okay, I need to look at this. And actually, my symptoms, they're telling me, they're like, hey, look at this.

SPEAKER_02 16:42

Yeah. It's like the symptoms were just the side effect. Yes. And we need to learn to live differently and cope differently.

SPEAKER_01 16:53

And

Childhood Trauma And Adult Triggers

SPEAKER_01 16:54

so another cause we want to talk about is childhood adversity and trauma. And I think there's a lot of research going on about childhood adsity now and linking that to maybe difficulties later on in life, stress or struggles. Um, and so we know that there's lots coming out. When we think of root cause, when we have a history of childhood adversity and trauma, there is a likelihood of developing chronic pain and symptoms.

SPEAKER_00 17:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 17:23

Now, when we think of, okay, what's the cause? What's the symptom telling us? Sometimes it is looking at what happened when we had that childhood adversity and how that's impacted our nervous system moving forward.

SPEAKER_02 17:36

Yeah. It's interesting because like everything you just stated, it's not new information.

SPEAKER_01 17:43

No.

SPEAKER_02 17:43

Like it's it, it's interesting because we've known this for decades. Yeah. That there's this high connection. If you faced a single childhood adversity or trauma in your life, even if it's in the distant past, later in life, you are 2.7 times more likely to develop widespread chronic pain, chronic fatigue, fibromyalgia, um, IBS or other chronic symptoms. So as you said there, Anne, like we've just known this for a long time that there's this huge connection between these things.

SPEAKER_01 18:16

And it's wild because when you when you lay that out, Tanner, it's like, okay, that connection is there. And I think again, when I work with clients, there's often this like, okay, now what? I can't change my childhood.

SPEAKER_00 18:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 18:29

I can't, you know, do anything different about that experience. But having some understanding, so back to understanding how neuroplastic pain and symptoms work is super important. And if we understand that there's a connection there, then we can know, okay, it's not just about the symptoms. Again, back to why did the symptoms develop? Yeah. It's a shift in thinking about the symptoms.

SPEAKER_02 18:52

Yeah, I think that's so key. Um, that connection that people start to make sense of. I think the other thing that'll happen with people we work with is it then motivates them to do the trauma work, which let's be honest, you need the motivation because trauma work is heavy. It's it's the hardest part, probably, of most therapy. And so, like, yeah, that motivation that people get from the understanding of the connection.

SPEAKER_01 19:20

Yeah. And sometimes I even see relief right away where they're like, oh, I see how all this connects. And again, it's that confirmation that the body isn't diseased or damaged.

SPEAKER_00 19:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 19:33

And we can see that. But I like what you said, Tanner, in terms of, okay, maybe we need to do some work around trauma.

SPEAKER_00 19:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 19:40

Maybe we need to kind of look at emotions connected to this or the patterns that have continued. So sometimes clients will talk to me about experiencing childhood adversity, and they've developed, maybe like you're talking about a fond response, perfectionism, this ways of coping that have come out of it that they now need to target.

SPEAKER_02 20:01

Yeah. So I know, Ann, you have just a general client example that we see with people at our therapy clinic.

SPEAKER_01 20:10

Yeah. And so I'll share this right now. And it is a common kind of theme that I see. So I want you to imagine a client that, kind of like Tanner's client, is experiencing difficulty in their home. They've experienced a traumatic event. So maybe that may be a traumatic event with a family member. Um, from there, they learn, oh, the world isn't always safe. Maybe they learn they need to protect themselves some way. And then they move on through their kind of young adult years with this belief of like, okay, I need to protect myself. I need to keep myself safe. Sometimes that's conscious. And so I've talked with clients where that is a conscious understanding of like, okay, I need to operate this way. Sometimes it's very much unconscious.

SPEAKER_00 20:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 20:59

A way they're navigating life, but always in back to stress, this high stress way and this dysregulated way of feeling on guard.

SPEAKER_02 21:09

Yeah, I think key that you said there is sometimes they're aware of that overprotectiveness that they live with, and sometimes they're not.

SPEAKER_01 21:16

Yeah. And sometimes the therapy or the work, and so the work you're either doing on your own or with somebody else, is about navigating that and realizing that's been going on. Yeah. The more we live our way life in that way, and our nervous system continues to be dysregulated, sometimes that client will find a breaking point. And so, back to this example, um, my client's ticking along, they're learning to protect either consciously or unconsciously because of that adversity that they've faced. And then something will happen, maybe in their job, and it'll be really difficult. And it almost tips the scales, and then widespread chronic pain will happen, and the the ability. To function just completely lowers for them. And there's a bit of confusion as to why.

SPEAKER_02 22:06

Yeah. All of a sudden this person has a danger happen at work. Yeah. Maybe a boss is mean to them or disrespectful or, you know, whatever might have happened. And then all of a sudden, pain and symptoms are triggered. So it's for some people, what will happen is like the trauma will happen and pain and symptoms will happen right away. Right. Fair. But I think for a lot of people, what we'll see, and this is why they don't connect it, is the trauma happened way in the past. And yeah, something triggering happened more presently, but they're not linking the two.

SPEAKER_01 22:37

One thing I want to highlight here, because I have this conversation lots with clients. If you're struggling to see this, we want to work on this and look at this. But if we can't dig anymore, it's okay to stop digging. There's still a solution.

SPEAKER_02 22:53

It's just people understanding okay, what's the likeliness that some of these things are causing danger and sensitization? You're not going to know exactly. Yeah. I have some ideas of why my pain came on, and I think some of them are pretty correct. I don't know 100%. Therapy's not an exact science. And so it's just important that people get that and not like search for certainty.

SPEAKER_01 23:16

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 23:16

Um, as you're saying. So the next one we want to move on to is pathological views of the body.

When The Body Feels Fragile

SPEAKER_00 23:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 23:26

So it's normal to assume when you're having physical symptoms, that means there's a physical problem.

SPEAKER_01 23:32

Yes, of course.

SPEAKER_02 23:33

And so what do people do? They Google away. They Google everything. I'm bad for that as well. Yeah, and it's bad. I since recovering, I don't Google any health stuff. That's my rule across the board. Um ChatGPT is the new one. People are having whole conversations and, you know, finding all the physical things that are wrong with them. It could be seeing medical professionals and getting a lot of different clinicians' opinions. And so what'll happen is that people develop this whole view of their body over time that's broken, that's fragile, that they have to protect and not move, not do activities, uh limit everything, which makes sense because when you have pain and symptoms, you're trying to make the pain and symptom go away.

SPEAKER_01 24:20

Right. Right.

SPEAKER_02 24:21

And so people avoid everything to try to make sure that they're safe.

SPEAKER_01 24:24

Oh well. And one thing I want to say shifting this idea can be hard if we've been doing that for years around our body in chronic pain and it almost becomes identity.

SPEAKER_02 24:34

Yeah. Like for myself, you know, early in life, um, this started to become my identity. And so long before I had pain and symptoms, I remember, like in my early teenage years, I did have this natural fear of my body. Um, I had fears of symptoms. I had fears of sensations, like things felt off.

SPEAKER_01 25:00

Do you know where that fear came from for you, Taylor?

SPEAKER_02 25:03

I don't exactly know. Like it almost just gradually happened over time. And and it wasn't something that was like overly taught in my home, I don't think. Um my father, for example, uh, when he's ever had injuries, injuries or anything, um, he's just been like, oh, we're fine. He's letting he doesn't think about it.

SPEAKER_01 25:24

He must usually do the opposite.

SPEAKER_02 25:26

He's just like, yeah, whatever. Like, he doesn't worry about it. Um, but I was just so fixated in, and that was difficult. And and so in my late teenage years, early adult years, before I had pain, I was still making sure, oh, I eat certain diets.

SPEAKER_01 25:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 25:44

I'm exercising a way to make sure I don't injure myself. Like these were things that were happening. There was this kind of a like low, median level health anxiety. Um, but then my pain and symptoms happened and it exploded.

SPEAKER_01 25:58

Oh, so back to that point I was making earlier on about when pain and symptoms come on, the high stress and relationship we have to them.

SPEAKER_02 26:07

Yes. That's it. Like we just like, we just get this whole response to our symptoms as it's happening. And we start to view, I did, like my body's broken, my body's fragile. That led to the belief, oh, it's permanently broken, it's never gonna get better. Um I remember this was a darker time in our history, but I had this thing probably in the first year I had chronic pain where I had some like mouth pain, and I was convinced I had mouth cancer.

SPEAKER_01 26:40

Yes, I remember.

SPEAKER_02 26:41

A thought came into my mind one day and it just locked in.

SPEAKER_01 26:44

Which is the power of thoughts. Yes. Something to mention there.

SPEAKER_02 26:48

Yeah, and then I was checking, and then I was I went to like five dentists, and every dentist was like, you're fine, like everything's good. But like it was just such this belief that was part of a more major problem that I just viewed everything in my body as like potentially damaged or broken. And that's hard. And I think it's important to understand that this is gonna increase the sense of danger, as you just said a few moments ago.

SPEAKER_01 27:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 27:16

That is gonna sensitize your nervous system. A lot of people that develop neuroplastic pain or symptoms, um, they either had the pathological view of their body before that, or it developed soon after the symptoms started.

SPEAKER_01 27:31

And something I'm working on with clients often is changing that relationship to pain and symptoms.

SPEAKER_02 27:36

Yes. It's it's changing the belief system we have in place. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 27:40

And that's hard. That's a hard thing. Recognizing that this is happening is a start, is super important.

SPEAKER_02 27:46

Yeah, and that's why we provide so much content for free. Because like consuming the brain-based education, starting to assess that your symptoms are neuroplastic, all of this helps reverse this pathological view of the body. It's like really where our treatment starts with people, I would say.

SPEAKER_01 28:07

Yep. All

Emotions Plus Resistance Equals Pain

SPEAKER_01 28:09

right. So the next cause is resisting emotions and dysregulation. I feel like I want to resist emotions and dysregulation, as I say that right now. Yeah. It's super common to want to resist them. So again, we have our symptoms and they're flaring.

unknown 28:24

Hmm.

SPEAKER_01 28:25

Am I resisting anything there? Am I resisting dysregulation? Am I resisting emotions? So it's a shift in viewing symptoms again.

SPEAKER_02 28:34

Yeah, I think like when people come to this approach, you probably see this too. They get the equation wrong of why pain causes or why emotions cause pain or symptoms. They get the equation wrong. So people learn, oh, when I have difficult emotions, that's gonna flare my pain or symptoms.

SPEAKER_01 28:52

Which it can.

SPEAKER_02 28:53

It can. But the equation's not quite correct because if people live by that, it's like now they naturally start to resist.

SPEAKER_01 29:04

And avoid, avoid the difficult emotions or difficult things.

SPEAKER_02 29:07

So as you just said, I think the correct equation is emotions plus resistance is gonna equal pain and symptoms.

SPEAKER_01 29:16

Yeah, I like it, I like that. Um, and many clients that I'm working with, once they start to recognize that, are learning to move towards emotions, all types of emotions, yeah. Maybe exploring some emotions they're not used to experiencing. So when if we go back to maybe we've had childhood adversity or kind of that, like kind of that high stress all the time, we're avoiding maybe a specific emotion that we need to give more time or attention to. So I want to share some client examples right now. Yeah, um, and just themes that I commonly hear. Sometimes clients are talking about, well, I never learned to explore emotions. And so, what's the point? Yeah, I don't want to experience bad or negative emotions. I think emotions are useless. I hear that a lot. What's the point of emotions? Emotions are useless. I learned that they're dangerous. I was never allowed to explore anger or frustration. Um, there's so much more. Is there anything that you can think of that you hear from clients about emotions?

SPEAKER_02 30:19

I think one thing to mention that we see a lot is just the modeling. It's like, yeah, if you if you watch your parents and they never express emotions outwardly.

SPEAKER_01 30:32

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 30:33

They always were just kind of even keel and they like just responded with very little stress. So, like, this is an example of like parents are doing that to try and be good parents and supportive and provide this home that's that's loving. But what happens is like a child learns, as you just say did, oh, emotions aren't appropriate to feel and and express outwardly. Because they've never experienced that in their home. And then they come to a therapist like you or I, and we're like, hey, you gotta like feel and express these things. Yes. And it's a whole new different language that happens.

SPEAKER_01 31:08

And it can be really uncomfortable for people to think, oh, I have to change my relationship to my emotions, right? Not just my relationship to pain and symptoms, also my relationship to all of my emotions.

SPEAKER_02 31:20

Yeah, but this is the root cause is you need to stop resisting your emotions. You you don't need to make the emotions go away. You're human, you're gonna feel emotions every single day, the whole spectrum. That's that's normal. It's just we need to reduce the resistance and create more safety in actually feeling and expressing these things.

SPEAKER_01 31:42

So back to kind of what is the cause. I think with a lot of my clients, there's this difficulty allowing emotions. And we're working on that with the other things that we've already listed.

SPEAKER_02 31:55

Yeah. And so this leads us to our last factor.

Breaking The Sensitization Cycle

SPEAKER_02 32:00

Uh the sensitization cycle. Yes. So the sensitization cycle. If people imagine there's a feedback loop, and so people have pain or symptoms, and then they have a dysregulated response to their pain or symptoms. Danger-oriented beliefs or thoughts, danger-oriented behaviors or avoidance, nervous system dysregulation, or things like difficult emotions. So this is how they're responding to their pain and symptoms. And then what happens is your brain feels more in danger, it sensitizes further, and maintains or worsens your pain and symptoms.

SPEAKER_01 32:42

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 32:42

And so this is the spiral that happens. It's key to understand this because it means that we need to work on changing our response to pain and symptoms, not the pain and symptoms themselves. Like pain or post-hosting therapy, that's kind of the main goal of that approach. Right. Is like, okay, we just got to respond differently. But it's so easy to fall off track with that. Hey.

SPEAKER_01 33:08

Why do you think it's easy to fall off track, Tanner?

SPEAKER_02 33:10

Well, I I think because in the background, we want this approach to work and we want these symptoms to go away, and you're desperate to more fully live life and feel free and all those wonderful things. And so even when, you know, I'll explain to a client, hey, practice some somatic embodiment work with your pain and symptoms until next session. Here's the process. We practice in session. All we're doing is we're just trying to feel a little bit safer, a little bit calmer, a little bit more at ease as you attend to your pain and symptoms. They're like, okay, got it. Next section they come back and it's like, my pain and symptoms aren't going away when I do this. Like it's so easy to slip. And I say that jokingly because like I fell into that. But you just want to watch this because I think that sensitization cycle, we want to understand, okay, how are we responding? How are we responding to our pain and symptoms as we come to this work?

SPEAKER_01 34:12

And I think that's a starting place. That is really a starting place that I work with everybody. I think. And we're always talking about that response. It's really key in understanding that um and making that that shift.

SPEAKER_02 34:26

Yeah, making the shift. I almost tell people each day, remind yourself what I'm focused on today. So I've been responding differently to my symptoms. I'm not trying to make my pain or symptoms go away. I'm responding differently.

SPEAKER_01 34:39

So again, it's not really about the symptoms, it's about how we interact with the symptoms, is about everything that maybe led up to the symptoms that we want to really focus on.

SPEAKER_02 34:49

Absolutely. Absolutely. Again, root cause. Yes. Treat the root cause, not the symptom.

Closing And Free Resources

SPEAKER_01 34:56

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 34:56

And so thank you everyone for listening. Thank you for listening. And I will talk to you next week.

SPEAKER_01 35:02

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.

SPEAKER_02 35:20

We wish you all healing.