[00:00:00] Welcome to Move With Deb. I'm Deb your friendly neuroplastician. And this is a podcast that explores the relationship between the body and the mind from a health at every size, judgment, free perspective. I teach you how developing a new internal conversation based on curiosity, self friendship and simple neuro-plasticity techniques can rewire your bodymind out of pain and emotional overwhelm to help you build the rich full life that you want to live. Disclaimer, this is not a replacement for medical care.
[00:00:50] Hello, welcome feelers and healers. This is Move with Deb, the podcast, and I am Deb, your chronic pain coach. And I am gonna just have a ramble today because I have been thinking about my trip to hypno thoughts that's coming up.
[00:01:11] And I keep imagining all of the amazing things that I'm gonna learn and then like how I'm going to synthesize that into my work with my clients. And so what I notice is I have been not really focused on work. And not really focused on making this podcast and very much in the future, but at the same time, my clients and I are having amazing experiences so I think I just was like, let me just come on and talk into this thing and share with you some of the work that I've done with my clients. And this week one of my clients and I we're really navigating both chronic pain coaching cuz she came to me having already worked through pain in one area so we're using a lot of her success stories, a lot of her embodied experiences in helping her navigate certain stressors in her life and different relationships.
[00:02:14] And one of the things that we were really talking about this week was this idea of self-trust. I know my body, especially when I'm feeling pain, there's this kind of kickoff of a mental experience where I'm like, somebody needs to help me. Somebody else, the medical industry, you know I need someone to help me, to care, for me, to take care of me, to make this better. And there becomes this external resourcing impulse. And none of that is wrong, but what we also know with mind body work is so much of our chronic persistent pain is a complex learned experience and there is an inner resourcing that needs to happen.
[00:03:09] And as we were talking about these, These kind of sticking points in these relationships. We were talking about being in the sandwich generation where you're taking care of parents and you're taking care of children and you know, who doesn't get taken care of Sometimes in those moments it might be us.
[00:03:29] I was relating some of my experiences doing elder care, and how all of that, you know, especially socialized pressure around caretaking, lands on women and people socialized as women. And these roles that we are both expected to take on and also desire to take on, but really reinforce this cycle of self abandonment.
[00:03:57] And the relationships that we have with the people that we are taking care of can also be complex. And if we don't have a process of listening to the part of us that doesn't wanna do any of this, it will show up in our bodies. That sense of resistance will just pop up somewhere whether that's like emotionally or physically.
[00:04:23] And as we were talking about these stressors, she noticed that her glute was getting more and more activated, was more and more painful. And as we were talking about giving a voice to the resistance, letting that part of her that says No be heard, she felt a release. And her glute relaxed and I was like, oh hey, I think your glute and the resistance are in conversation. It was really lighthearted. With this mind body work, what we're really doing is creating this evidence that there's not only a medical, physiological reason why we feel pain. There's so much research and evidence for that to be true.
[00:05:16] But the way that medical information gets relayed to us, this is a very complex paradigm, but all pain is made in the brain and is felt in the body, but it is not because there is always tissue damage. So learning to be the interpreter of our physiological symptoms is a part of this journey.
[00:05:39] And can be very, very empowering. One of the things that we identified in our session was looking for evidence of self-trust. Because one of the things that we noticed was the feeling of a lack of trust. And I was like, okay, where do you feel trust? What is all the evidence that you actually do trust yourself? And we found all of these beautiful moments, moments from the past, moments, from that day, moments, from earlier in the week, and we were able to articulate them, note them. When we identify things and create awareness with curiosity and love, we are able to turn the brain's attention and use the attention system and be able to tell ourselves a better story about what is happening in our body. So when we feel the experience of no trust or L or low trust, we can kind of turn our attention to this evidence list and really embolden, like feel like, oh no. In fact, here are all the ways that I do trust myself and maybe in this situation you know, I can navigate it better, right?
[00:06:58] Where do I, where is a yes, but it's really a no. You know, all of these things we have to source out and, and our body is our partner in this. And I had another client I was working with, and we were talking about kind of uprooting perfectionism, uprooting the history of childhood athletics, all of the messages that she got when she was doing gymnastics and how she viewed exercise and punishment. And they were really kind of sold as a package deal. We do some work on body image, what's so interesting is sometimes people think they need work on body image, and I'm like, I think you actually have a pretty great body image you just think it should be better. There's a perfectionism about it. That if we just believed that we feel good in our body all the time, that all the socialization will just magically disappear. And I was like, I don't know how that. That it just, we get to choose how it affects us, and over time as we're rewriting it, what's actually really important, just like the evidence list, is to notice where we're already doing it.
[00:08:13] Where are you all already feeling really solid and great in your body image and your self-concept? And then from that place, that really rooted, grounded, empowered place, right? We are able to narrate like, oh, I used to think this and I used to do these activities and this is the way I used to view my body, and then this is how I do it now.
[00:08:38] And we get to experience that, that change and that transformation,. And when we experience transformation that we have already experienced, that we have already created and done the work for ourselves, then we know that more transformation is easy. And we just have to then get really curious about what's the sticking point that's happening right now When we were able to view her environment and, and notice where are all the little places that this old patterns are kind of getting a little uh, I mean triggered maybe is the right word, where those old patterns are getting triggered.
[00:09:14] But they weren't really being triggered. They're just kind of being nudged. They're being like, oh, I can feel this. But when we pull that camera lens back, we're actually seeing like, oh, that's just that old pattern. That's just that old discomfort. That's just that old story. I actually, now, from this place, I can look back and be like, I don't live there anymore. I actually don't care. Actually, this isn't my problem. This isn't my burden. I am free from it, and yet it's still gonna be kind of, especially around things like body image, it's still gonna be around us unless you, you know, go off and live in a cave somewhere. And then I'll probably still show up in the cave.
[00:09:58] So, It's really good to know where we feel solid. With clients. I talk about wiping the slate clean. That we are going to be in our today body because when we spend a lot of time comparing ourselves with what we used to do, how we used to think, What we used to anything.
[00:10:19] It, it's like we create an extra hurdle. It's, it's almost like if you imagine it, If we were in a time machine or if we had to like go backwards, rewind ourselves to go forward, it just is taking extra time. And so it can just be really useful to notice when we start to have those thoughts, when we start to compare ourselves, when we start to think about, oh, I used to do this.
[00:10:46] My invitation is always. What is the, what's the desire underneath that comparison? What is it that you're trying to evoke or remind yourself or remember, or revivify for yourself now? If you had a really amazing time being a runner, and right now running is not available for your body, what is it?
[00:11:11] Is it being outside? Is it being in the wind? Is it being by yourself? Is it being in beautiful places? Is it just moving your body? Is it the quiet? Like, what is it that you are trying to experience? Because there's more than one way to have an experience. When we give ourselves multiple options, We can just start living in the now and in our today body.
[00:11:41] And then when we live in our today body and we also understand the mind body connection, and we also understand how we create prediction errors and update our brains idea of what is going to be happening, then we can start moving in a way that makes sense for now thinking about where we're gonna get to in the future. There is only now, and I know I've said this before, cuz when we get to the future, the future is really just now. It's like, and then today is the past, right? So I find it really helpful to think about time as a part of this experience. To work on slowing down, becoming aware of my thoughts, not just experiencing my thoughts, but creating a relationship with my thinking and my feeling and my actions.
[00:12:35] And when I get into a lot of thinking and thinking about the past, it's really helpful to be like, what is the desire that's underneath this? What is it that I want? Sometimes it's just like, yeah, I just had a stray memory. I saw something or heard something, or felt something that reminded me of the past and just wanna have a moment of relating to it. We can change our relationship to anything we're experiencing. And that's not the same thing as you have to, or you should, or it's also not the same thing as saying, if you're experiencing, uh, unpleasant emotions or physical sensations, then it's your fault. I am not, and I am never saying that ever, ever, ever, ever.
[00:13:21] And. We have the power to change our relationship to what we're experiencing, and that is the place of magic and transformation in this mind body work. I had former client and they were telling me about some foot pain that they had randomly in the middle of the night, and they really in that moment, having worked with me, trusted their body to be able to put some weight on their foot and just stand there and be like, you're fine. Really just go with this sense of like, there's nothing wrong and just, engaging with the discomfort, it passed. It was like meeting something, meeting a fear, meeting this moment that was just happening in their body and watching it change.
[00:14:15] And in the past they said they would've just gone right to fear. So the first part was jumping into curiosity rather than fear, that is the transformative experience that we helped kind of plant that seed in their body. That is the most important seed, which is curiosity over fear.
[00:14:38] I like to get people thinking about and experiencing a new relationship with thoughts and feelings and sensations that's based on curiosity. That's based on the, the willingness to experience something. When we do somatic tracking, we just notice what's happening. We kind of go inward, not to change, although in hypnosis we do change, but I always like to start with that kind of pure foundation of somatic tracking, where we just start with almost like a, hello.
[00:15:12] Hello, oh, you are a sensation that feels like a stone in my chest. Let me actually pay attention and notice you and not just react. We can learn a lot about ourselves when we slow down and pay attention, there's always a lot of information that's popping up in our thoughts, and we can just get curious about those too.
[00:15:41] So that's where we start, slowing down, getting curious, leaning in, investigating. But not the kind of investigation, my client and I had this conversation this week, not the kind of investigation that goes, what did I do? What did I do wrong? Right.
[00:16:01] You know, as we get older we get this like kind of haha funny thing, whereas like, you know, you sleep wrong and your neck hurts and you wake up in the morning and you're like, what did I do? All I did was go to bed. What did I do wrong?
[00:16:14] It's kind of an insidious, subconscious drumbeat, right? When we, when we think about what we are primed to believe about the body, we certainly are primed to believe that there is a fault and someone is to blame. And there is, some kind of like almost, uh, even a belief of punishment. And that we have done something wrong. And those are really strong narratives. If you're fat you can't even get away from those narratives. And they get into our mind and we may have been raised with them. Believing that there's, that we did something, that whatever is happening in our body is our fault and our responsibility. And, if we just figure out what we did, you know, then we can fix it.
[00:17:03] Obviously pain reprocessing is about creating change a hundred percent. The ultimate goal is to feel less pain. I share that goal with my clients. I mean, I let my clients set their goals, so they're the ones that are telling me what they want, but that's the goal.
[00:17:21] And at the same time, we're not just looking for a remedy, we're looking for a deeper, more in tuned awareness using pain neuroscience as a foundation of understanding. And so we don't just jump right into, what did I do wrong? Because that is, certainly kind of a threat to the ego and sense of self, this sense of wholeness that we are looking for.
[00:17:51] And when we talk about decreasing fear, and threat physiology we wanna like take responsibility but avoid self wounding. Right. Like if we're feeling pain and we're having a hard time, can we meet ourselves with love and care and compassion not being mean to ourselves, not repeating these external systems that are punitive, can we be that cycle breaker for ourselves?
[00:18:24] And sometimes in pain reprocessing, we also do outcome independence, but I like to think of it as like, you know, we're still not yelling at ourselves, we're still not dismissing, we're not really pushing through. There's this kind of wink and a nod like, mm, I see you. And I also believe that there's nothing wrong with my body.
[00:18:43] I also believe that this is some kind of nervous system response. I also believe that, that this pain is a habit, but it's not a pushing through, denying our human existence and needs. For me and the way that I work with people, it's always about loving more, connecting more, being more aware and appreciative of all the many selves that live inside of us. And sometimes we're mad and resentful and our glute is like, hello. Raising its hand being like, can I please get some attention? Because I am mad and resentful and you're not letting me feel this, and so I'm just gonna be mad. And it gets spicy.
[00:19:32] We have a spicy glute feeling. This is part of building this inner conversation, which leads to self-trust. And the way that I work with people is with a lot of kindness and humor and helping them see grace, cut themselves some slack, and start to pop open these pain behaviors and getting people towards living and doing the activities that they wanna be doing in their life.
[00:20:01] Maybe that's all I wanna say is just that it's possible. Somebody on one of the mind body Facebook groups said, what was the most important thing for you to recover from pain? I said, believing it was possible. Belief is an incredibly powerful tool and there is an entire science and of the mechanism of belief, the foundation of placebo and nocebo is built on this idea of belief. And just believing that it was possible is one of the things that continues to give me support in my own personal mind, body work, staying updated with peoples pain recovery stories and as I see other people heal and I listen to their stories and I take that information in and I use that as a part of my embodied storytelling, what am I telling myself about this experience that I'm having in my body?
[00:21:05] This work is incredibly powerful in helping reveal our internal relationship to ourself. One of the things that I notice I've been doing a lot is working through and out. I'm almost imagining in Harry Potter and the pensieve, like taking out those memories, out of my mind and putting them away. Taking out those places and those beliefs that my body is broken, and that it's not okay and that it's lesser than, that it needs Like this really big kind of intervention. I think that was always the way that it was viewed when I was young, especially around weight loss.
[00:21:52] I had gone on a liquid diet, you know, and interventions were always seeming like they had to be these big, drastic changes, like who I was and what I felt and what I did was not enough and I needed to change, and the change had to be this big thing supported by a lot of different ways that we talk about people and their bodies and it leaves me in this place of feeling like I'm not enough. I am not okay. Who I am today is not okay. I have to be different. I have to be better. And I feel like I'm still in the process of uprooting and finding all of those little hidden moments of that.
[00:22:36] I feel like I'm excavating all of that belief out of me, really just connecting with the me that I am today and really finding a lot of pleasure in moving, in having a body and even one that still feels pain, really putting my attention on pleasure and care and love and affection for myself in ways that I think in the past I. I was told I kind of had to earn them or prove that I deserved that. And I, I'm just not interested in that anymore. So there's a lot of different ways that I am creating this kind of new landscape for the me that lives inside this body. I'm really enjoying applying this mind, body, viewpoint in my self.
[00:23:30] It feels very loving and generous. It feels very like future focused and fun in a way that like, is really different than, I'm gonna go on a diet, that kind of belief system that kind of like, I have to fix something that's broken inside of me and then I'll be able to go do all of these things in my life that I wanna do.
[00:23:53] It's an interesting but in empowering kind of experience to go through and sometimes it can take a while. So I also just wanna say that for anybody who's still struggling, it's okay. It's okay if it is a start and stop, process that if it is take some time for you to work through all there is to work through.
[00:24:16] There's a lot of different layers to this, and so we just start with what's happening in your body? What do you believe about what's happening in your body? Where's the fear? And then we look at pain behaviors. We look at inner dialogue, we look at kindness and compassion. We look at the ways that we deal with stress.
[00:24:37] We look at how we relate to even having a body. Like are we feeding ourselves? Are we getting sleep? Are we listening to our bodies when we're like, Hey, I really need to pee. Do we get up? Do we attend to ourselves? And there's all kinds of things that we learn as we're going through this process of getting curious, getting curious without judgment, not getting curious because there's a right answer, but really getting curious because you know, sometimes we just assume what's happening and we really like haven't even stopped to be like, Hey, body, what's up?
[00:25:19] What do you wanna tell me? What's going on? And so as we start to practice that process of slowing down, creating awareness, getting curious, and reflecting love towards ourselves, all kinds of things can happen. So I've been feeling really great about the work that I've been doing with people, helping them change their pain, change their relationship to their bodies, which then helps them change their relationship to work or change their relationship to other people, and to the past.
[00:25:54] It's been kind of this really special time and, sometimes I feel really pressured to come up with like these deep lessons, that I share on the podcast. And what I know about my work is like one powerful conversation can change a lot of things.
[00:26:11] I had somebody I did peer coaching with and she sent me a message that said like, Hey, I really just want you to know that our conversation changed so much for me. And I was like, okay, I'm gonna receive that and hear that and sometimes, We can have all of the tools, but also it's the willingness to have the conversation and to explore together. Sometimes it is too scary to explore on your own, or we're just habituated to ignore and avoid. So what we do in our sessions together, in our time together is like, Hey, we're gonna do the opposite of that. We're gonna create the experience of safely looking in. I'm gonna help you practice. That's what we're gonna do, is safely and curiously look in and see what is there to be witnessed.
[00:27:07] I hope that there's things in this conversation that has, given you stuff to think about. You know, when we listen to things and when we connect the dots and we make these aha moments for our mind and body experience, like those are really powerful.
[00:27:24] I repeat often, my first encounter with this work through the Curable app and through Dr. Sarno's work, really set me on this path of relating to my body differently, and I had a very dramatic and transformative experience just through applying new information and it gave me a completely different context for what I was experiencing in my body.
[00:27:50] So I hope that my podcast helps create the same for you. And if this is work that you feel inspired to do and would like a guide, I am here for you. You can book a curiosity call with me and I'd be happy to tell you what the process is to work with me. I hope that you are well. Thank you.
