Why Having Multiple Symptoms Is A Good Sign

[00:00:00] Hey, and welcome back to the heal with grace podcast. So today I want to normalize something
[00:00:07] that might often actually freak you out. It's freaked me out many times. And I've gone down
[00:00:11] the rabbit hole so many times of trying to figure out like what symptom is this? What's
[00:00:16] happening in my body? Why do I always have this? And there's many people in this world
[00:00:21] in the chronic pain and illness world who identify as being someone that there's always
[00:00:25] something wrong. Like there's always something wrong with me. Oh, of course I have this X, Y,
[00:00:31] and Z, or of course I got injured. Of course I got hurt. That's just me. I get sick. And
[00:00:37] I'm not saying that to blame you or say, you know, you're doing it to yourself or
[00:00:42] anything like that. I just really want to normalize that when that's been our experience
[00:00:47] in our bodies, it just becomes that becomes your identity. And although I'm not necessarily
[00:00:52] talking about identity and illness today, I am talking about the idea that or not the idea,
[00:00:58] but the what happens is called the in symptom imperative, the symptom impermanence
[00:01:03] is when you have multiple different symptoms and they might move around. So I want to
[00:01:08] dive into that and help you understand actually, even when it sounds like a really bad thing
[00:01:13] or something that's really difficult to deal with, which it can be, it can be a good sign.
[00:01:19] So let's dive in and I want to tell you why this is a good thing.
[00:01:25] Hey there and welcome to Heal with Grace. I'm your host Grace Secker and I'm a holistic licensed
[00:01:31] therapist and nervous system coach who believes that the chronic and often unseen symptoms you're
[00:01:36] living with are a sign of something deeper going on. A sign that your nervous system
[00:01:40] needs attention. In each episode, I'll share the science behind the most common chronic health
[00:01:45] disorders plus holistic health tips using mental, physical and spiritual practices.
[00:01:50] You'll hear what I've learned in my journey and the true stories from our trusted guests
[00:01:55] so you can feel less alone in your experience and give yourself grace no matter what you're
[00:01:59] going through. So without further ado, settle in and get cozy. It's time to heal with Grace.
[00:02:07] If you've ever felt like your body is playing whack-a-mole with symptoms like
[00:02:12] one week or a few years, it's back pain, then it's digestive issues, then it's headaches,
[00:02:18] then it's random tingling or fatigue and maybe some of it goes together. And every time you
[00:02:23] start to think, okay, maybe this one thing is finally getting better, something else shows up.
[00:02:29] This is when the spiral starts to happen. You think, my body must be falling apart. I must
[00:02:34] have 10 different conditions at once and I'll never figure this out. But what you don't
[00:02:39] know is that this shifting of symptoms is one of the biggest green flags of neuroplastic pain.
[00:02:44] It's actually a really big check mark when I am evaluating someone for neuroplasticity.
[00:02:50] No, I'm sorry for neuroplastic pain. It's a good sign because it's your brain that's doing
[00:02:56] this, not your body. It's behind what's happening. And if your brain is involved,
[00:03:01] that means it's reversible. It means you can heal. And again, I am not saying that
[00:03:06] what is happening in your body, your pain, your headaches, your fatigue, whatever it is,
[00:03:11] I'm not saying it's not real, not at all. It is very much so actually happening.
[00:03:16] It's just that the root cause is more of your brain and your nervous system.
[00:03:21] So that's what I want to tell you more about or talk to you more about is this
[00:03:25] this phenomenon in the recovery world called a symptom impermanence or symptom imperative.
[00:03:32] First and foremost, let's define it clearly. So it means that when symptoms move around,
[00:03:37] fluctuate or change, this is an indicator of brain involvement. It's when one symptom is replaced
[00:03:43] with another because the underlying emotions or stress haven't yet been fully felt or processed.
[00:03:51] The brain's number one job is to keep you safe. And sometimes it believes that emotional
[00:03:57] pain or stress is too much for you to handle. So instead of letting that come up,
[00:04:03] it diverts your attention into physical pain. And if the pain in your back stops working
[00:04:08] to hold your attention, the brain gets creative. It tries your stomach or your head or your bladder.
[00:04:15] That's not because your body is just breaking down and is weak. It has all these issues.
[00:04:21] It's because your brain is trying to protect you. So anything that is structural stays put.
[00:04:28] A broken ankle doesn't travel to your wrist. A migraine doesn't often travel to different
[00:04:34] parts of your body. Now again, you can have multiple types of symptoms. And not everyone
[00:04:40] experiences this when you have neuroplastic pain. So if you have one symptom of pain,
[00:04:46] if you have pelvic pain, or you have migraines, or you have neck pain,
[00:04:49] and it hasn't changed or you don't have anything else, that's completely fine. That's
[00:04:53] completely great. That's still neuroplastic. I just want to speak to the phenomenon that happens
[00:05:00] with quite a few people in this population of chronic pain and illness, where you have
[00:05:05] multiple different types of symptoms, and it can feel really chaotic and you don't really
[00:05:09] know what to do about it. But again, it is a strong indicator that it's neuroplastic.
[00:05:16] That is your brain and your nervous system are the root cause because neuroplastic symptoms are
[00:05:22] more fluid because they're driven by the nervous system and not tissue damage. Mobility of symptoms
[00:05:30] of pain of illness is actually proof that nothing's permanently damaged. So I'm going
[00:05:37] to give you the example of my story if you haven't heard it already. I first, well,
[00:05:43] I mean, to be honest, I can track neuroplastic symptoms back to when I was a kid. If I'm really
[00:05:49] being honest, I mean, I was hyper anxious, had lots of anxiety, like super, super anxious,
[00:05:56] and I started getting stress or what they called stress headaches. I think I was like
[00:06:00] 11 years old and they just came and they were there and they were horrible, almost like a migraine,
[00:06:06] but I was told they weren't quite a migraine and people just said they're stress headaches.
[00:06:11] I would literally wake up at night at 11 years old and my head was feeling like it was going to explode
[00:06:17] and had that for, I don't know, however long and then they kind of went away. And then I
[00:06:22] actually started having some pain in my body that I was then told that was hypermobility.
[00:06:27] And that was pretty early. That was like preteen era when I was in competitive cheerleading.
[00:06:32] And then, I mean, you don't need to know all of them, all of my different symptoms
[00:06:37] throughout my life. But I guess what I'm saying is it started then. And then it really,
[00:06:43] really got bad in grad school with lots of different fibromyalgia type pain. And then
[00:06:48] that's when I started to shift it. I started to heal it using pain reprocessing therapy.
[00:06:53] The thing is that what I recognize now, I didn't understand it at the time, but when I look
[00:06:58] back to that period, I very much so did. I mean, 90% of my pain went away using some
[00:07:04] brain training and just kind of understanding what was happening that it wasn't structurally based
[00:07:11] and then using some light nervous system regulation and then a little bit of therapy,
[00:07:15] little bit of emotional therapy. But I actually quit the therapy kind of early now that I
[00:07:20] realized that I didn't think about it at the time, but my pain had pretty much gone away.
[00:07:25] And so I was like, okay, cool, I'm gonna, you know, move on, which of course anyone would do.
[00:07:31] But a few years later, and even within those two years, I could probably
[00:07:36] pick out some symptoms. A few years later, it was all other types of illness,
[00:07:40] deep chronic fatigue, histamine reactions, gut issues, really bad headache type migraines again.
[00:07:48] And so this again sounds chaotic and sounds bad, which is not fun.
[00:07:55] But that is such a strong indicator of neuro, well, it is neuroplastic symptoms.
[00:08:03] So I have multiple different clients that deal with this as well.
[00:08:07] And the thing that's happening here is that we work with one thing. We start to signal to our
[00:08:13] brain that, oh, that pain doesn't need to be there. We're okay. We're good. We're safe.
[00:08:18] We're training the brain. We're not focusing on the pain structurally. We're not treating it
[00:08:22] structurally. We're treating it with nervous system regulation and some emotional health and healing.
[00:08:28] And so it does help and it does shift. The thing is when one thing in your body is there
[00:08:34] and it's starting to go away, your brain wants to focus on something else because that's what
[00:08:39] it does to protect you. That's how it knows to protect you. That's what it does because
[00:08:46] there's more deeper emotional stuckness that needs to be moved. So it's going to start focusing on a
[00:08:54] different area of your body or send you signals of danger to something else. So for instance,
[00:08:59] I've had clients that started with pelvic pain and really have increased the fact that they don't
[00:09:06] have it anymore. And then all of a sudden it starts shifting that now they start having
[00:09:11] these headaches. I had a client like go down that rabbit hole of like, oh my gosh, something's
[00:09:16] wrong. I'm having these horrible headaches every day. I need to go get it checked out.
[00:09:21] And I'm all for you getting it checked out. But I did have to remind her this is very,
[00:09:26] very common. You've been doing such great work and your pelvic pain has gone away.
[00:09:31] And yeah, okay, now your brain is going to send you some signals of danger to somewhere else.
[00:09:37] It's really just your brain moving the goalpost. And so once you started to see this as a brain
[00:09:42] pattern, instead of a structural issue, the fear started to drop. And we do have a little bit more
[00:09:48] end to her emotional and mental health. And both symptoms started to fade. Something that's
[00:09:54] also somewhat common is working with symptoms like, I mean, anything, neck pain, migraines,
[00:10:00] pelvic pain, chronic fatigue, gut issues, food intolerances. And once we start to work with
[00:10:06] that high anxiety comes into play. I had a client where this happened where she was like,
[00:10:10] okay, my initial symptom, my neck pain started to go away when I did all this work,
[00:10:16] but now I am so anxious. And I want to highlight this because again, this is common as well.
[00:10:24] Anxiety is actually another symptom. So I'm going to go off on a little bit of a tangent
[00:10:30] here, but basically anxiety in our society has become normal, but it's not normal. Like high anxiety
[00:10:38] to where it's really difficult to get through your day, or you do need to take some medication for it,
[00:10:43] which I am not against medication. I'm just saying that it has become so normalized in our
[00:10:49] society that it's okay to be anxious or it's just normal, just is what it is. That's not
[00:10:55] okay. As a human, we are not supposed to be highly anxious or highly depressed. That's a whole other
[00:11:02] podcast episode, but that is a mechanism of our environment of how we live, of how we treat
[00:11:08] our bodies, what we put in our bodies and our mental and emotional health. Hey, friend, it's Grace.
[00:11:14] I know you're tired of feeling like managing your physical and mental health is just one
[00:11:18] big moving target. I also know that you've spent years of your life and hundreds of dollars
[00:11:22] on doctor's visits, juice cleanses, fad diets, and fancy supplements, only to feel like nothing
[00:11:27] about your chronic symptoms has changed. If this sounds like you, consider this your invitation
[00:11:32] to find a holistic health protocol that works for you and your body, even if you have chronic
[00:11:37] symptoms, unhealed trauma, or a dysregulated nervous system. That's exactly what's waiting
[00:11:42] for you inside the mind, body healing method. My 12 week group program that's designed to
[00:11:47] help you say body or chronic symptoms through learning how to regulate your nervous system,
[00:11:51] retrain your brain, and heal unresolved trauma. Our clients have found relief from even the most
[00:11:56] chronic of symptoms, including fibromyalgia, sciatica, migraines, gut issues, and other
[00:12:02] uncomfortable symptoms without pills or a long list of rituals and regimens. If you'd like
[00:12:06] to learn more about our program, head over to the show notes and learn more. Because the
[00:12:11] truth is that there is a protocol that works for you. You just might not have found the
[00:12:16] right balance for your body yet. Now let's get back to the episode.
[00:12:20] So my point being is that anxiety is another symptom because it's really your brain and
[00:12:27] your nervous system saying something's wrong. And so it's giving you these sensations of
[00:12:33] ansceness, of panic, of racing and ruminating thoughts, because it's saying something's not
[00:12:38] okay, so we need to figure it out and fix it. So sending you symptoms of anxiety.
[00:12:43] The exact same thing with physical symptoms. The thing sometimes with physical symptoms is
[00:12:48] anxiety actually usually is underneath them. So anxiety or fear about our symptom increases
[00:12:55] the symptom. So for example, you start to get a twinge, maybe you have normal, maybe you're
[00:13:00] someone that has migraines, you start to have the initial feelings like you,
[00:13:05] you know there's something coming on, you have that feeling in your head
[00:13:09] and your body that something's coming and then more panic and fear start to come about because
[00:13:16] of course it's scary. It sucks. You don't want to have a migraine. And so you start to get
[00:13:22] fearful and you're trying to like reach for all the things you know to help use medications,
[00:13:26] support systems, whatever you used. And that fear just increases more symptoms
[00:13:31] because the fear tells the brain, oh, okay, this is dangerous. Oh, okay, we need this
[00:13:36] migraine now. We're going to protect you from the danger. And so when we can decrease that fear
[00:13:43] about the symptom, the symptom can decrease. But then often what's left is what created
[00:13:52] the need for danger in the first place. And that's usually things that we don't want to feel
[00:13:58] experiences we don't want to sit with, emotions we don't know how to expand into.
[00:14:04] And what I mean by that is when we have certain experiences in our past or personality characteristics
[00:14:11] that we have taken on to help us be in society, be in our family, those work for a certain amount
[00:14:20] of time, but they don't anymore. So for example, maybe you grew up in a family or just in a time
[00:14:27] in society, right? Like a lot of us have where you had to be okay, because there was a lot of
[00:14:35] comparison of maybe your family to the other family or you to someone else like, oh, well,
[00:14:41] they have it so much worse than us are like, we wait, you have to be grateful for what you have.
[00:14:46] Everyone's really grateful for what we have, like, we could be so worse off. And that's not
[00:14:52] necessarily a bad thing. We don't want to go around all day being negative about everything.
[00:14:57] The gratitude state of being and really being happy with what you have is wonderful. Like,
[00:15:03] we need that. But if that's all the time, if we're constantly saying we have to be good,
[00:15:12] we are okay, nothing's wrong, nothing's bad. That's not realistic. That's not life. Pain
[00:15:19] happens. Sorrow happens. Depression happens. Sickness happens. Pain, you know, it all
[00:15:25] happens. That's just part of life. But if we're constantly covering up what is quote unquote
[00:15:31] negative with, Oh, no, everything's fine. We're all good. Oh, everything's happy. You always
[00:15:36] be happy. You don't look at the bag. You don't look at the negative. You don't look at what my
[00:15:40] cousin calls the poo poo. We don't look at the poo poo. Over time, that builds up a really low
[00:15:47] tolerance for any kind of pain or sorrow or grief or difficulty. You get what I'm saying? So like,
[00:15:56] if we're constantly positive about everything and we never allow ourselves to feel the pain,
[00:16:01] to feel the despair, to feel the sadness, then when that does happen, because it does,
[00:16:07] you cannot be human and live on this earth without feeling sadness without feeling pain
[00:16:14] at all. So when it does happen, when we have these automatic normal emotions come up,
[00:16:20] your brain and your nervous system say, Nope, nope, nope, nope. Those are not okay to feel.
[00:16:24] We're not supposed to feel those. I'm going to protect you now. So instead of feeling those,
[00:16:30] we're going to send you signals of pain and danger. So that's what I mean
[00:16:35] by we can start to learn how to get out of pain through brain training and nervous
[00:16:41] system regulation. But if we don't address those deeper emotions, those deeper states of being
[00:16:47] in experiences that we were never allowed to feel to be in, our brain will continue to
[00:16:53] send us signals of danger. And so maybe we have told our brain that it's okay to feel
[00:16:58] some pelvic pain and we don't need that anymore. It'll send you a headache or
[00:17:03] it's okay. We don't need bladder symptoms anymore. It'll send you anxiety.
[00:17:07] And let me circle back. I got off on a tangent there. Let me circle back to anxiety.
[00:17:15] Anxiety is what covers up the fear of feeling those things. The fear of feeling of being
[00:17:22] quote unquote negative because we've learned that it's a bad thing. The fear of speaking
[00:17:27] your needs because you weren't supposed to speak your needs or take up any room or
[00:17:30] space. You're just supposed to be the good girl and just do what you're supposed
[00:17:33] to do. Make good grades. Don't disrupt the peace. Keep going.
[00:17:39] But you have needs. We all have needs. We all have opinions. We all have wishes.
[00:17:45] But if you're not allowed to express those, if you're not allowed to feel those,
[00:17:49] if you've never learned how, which a lot of us haven't, then anxiety is a coping mechanism.
[00:17:56] It's going to keep you focused on the sensations and the thoughts of anxiety
[00:18:01] or symptoms to keep you away from the feelings or to speak your needs because you were never
[00:18:12] supposed to or allowed to. So why this is a good news? Why pain and symptom shifting around is a
[00:18:19] good news is because, for example, structural damage doesn't migrate. Neuroplastic pain does.
[00:18:29] And that's hopeful, not scary. When the brain starts shifting symptoms, it's showing its hand,
[00:18:36] essentially. It's revealing that it's behind the wheel because brain generates pain as a
[00:18:43] protective mechanism when it perceives danger. It's kind of like a little tugging on your shirt.
[00:18:50] It's kind of like a little kid tugging on your shirt, right? If you have children or
[00:18:56] niece and nephews or you've babysat before, you can probably resonate with this. If they can't get
[00:19:02] your attention with one thing, they're going to try another. That's what your brain is doing with
[00:19:07] symptoms. It can't seem to get your attention from this old symptom anymore. So it's going
[00:19:13] to get another one. It's going to give you another one. But the good news is that you
[00:19:16] don't actually have to give it the attention it's demanding. You can turn towards what's
[00:19:22] underneath the feelings, the fear, the perfectionism you've learned to cope with,
[00:19:29] and that's where healing happens. So how do you work with the symptom imperative?
[00:19:36] First, literally just understanding it. This podcast is a great one. Nicole Sacks talks
[00:19:42] about this as well as a symptom imperative. Any work, PRT, pain reprocessing therapy,
[00:19:47] we talk about this all the time. So just becoming more aware of it and understanding,
[00:19:51] oh, when you have something pop up, start to question. It's not to mean you don't ever get it
[00:19:57] checked out 100%, go get it checked out if you need to. But once you start to really get
[00:20:03] more comfortable with this work, you kind of know most of the time I know, but it took me
[00:20:09] years, took me years of having multiple different symptoms to finally recognize like, oh, I know
[00:20:14] what this is. This is just my brain again. It's just my brain. So that's why that's what you do
[00:20:19] number two is you label it. This is the symptom imperative. This is neuroplastic. I'm not going
[00:20:26] to get fearful of it. I'm going to keep doing my work, keep doing my emotional work, keep doing
[00:20:30] my nervous system skills, because I'm not going to give it so much attention. It doesn't need
[00:20:35] it. It's just my brain trying to give me some signals of danger chart trying to protect me.
[00:20:40] Right. Then I might shift into curiosity. What might my brain be trying to protect me
[00:20:48] from right now? What feelings am I not giving space for? What's going on in my life? Where have I
[00:20:56] dismissed my needs or not spoken up when I needed to or not felt feelings that came up?
[00:21:04] Start to notice where shame and fear might be collapsing you.
[00:21:10] And what I mean by that is shame and fear happens so subtly sometimes or not so subtly.
[00:21:16] Right. A lot of times when we need to feel something or we have an experience that
[00:21:27] we're continuing the same patterns of maybe perfectionism or not speaking up starts to
[00:21:32] happen. There's some kind of shame or fear or guilt associated with it. So see if you can start to
[00:21:37] notice that. Try softening a little bit, breathing deeper, opening your chest, notice your body
[00:21:45] postures. Just slow down a little bit so that you can listen. Self-compassion is also going
[00:21:52] to be your best friend. As always, right? We love self-compassion. Remind yourself that
[00:21:58] this is not your fault. This is automatic. Your body is not broken. Your body is okay, is safe,
[00:22:06] and there's nothing to fear because you know how to work with it. Safety signals continue to
[00:22:17] send your body, your brain, your nervous system, so many signs of safety. Smile, laugh, journal,
[00:22:23] connect with someone, gently affirm to yourself, I am safe. My body is okay. My body is peaceful.
[00:22:31] My nervous system is stable over and over and over again and start to really visualize this
[00:22:37] state of being as safety. Say maybe you say like, thank you, brain. I see what you're doing.
[00:22:44] I don't need this symptom to feel safe anymore. I'm safe here in this moment.
[00:22:49] So let's recap for a minute. The symptom impermanence or the symptom imperative, same thing,
[00:22:59] is proof of neuroplastic pain, not structural damage, which is really great news. You don't
[00:23:05] have to go spend more money on doctors and more tests unless you truly need to and want to all
[00:23:11] for that. But I would suggest getting it from a doctor who understands this work. And then movement
[00:23:19] with symptoms equals a brain that is involved, right? It's a brain response. And this is the
[00:23:25] best news because the brain is rewritable. So the next time your symptoms shift, instead of
[00:23:31] panicking, I want you to see it as a signpost. Your brain is showing you that healing is
[00:23:36] possible because if your brain created it, your brain can uncreate it too. And if you
[00:23:43] want to understand more of how to do this and when this shows up, because it does, it shows up for
[00:23:48] honestly quite a few people, not everybody, but a large majority, I would say. I really invite
[00:23:56] you to go deeper, be involved in a community where you can be reminded of this over and over
[00:24:03] again. Because when we're in isolation, when we're with ourselves and we're not learning about this
[00:24:07] work, we're not in it all the time, it can be hard to recognize when these symptoms shift
[00:24:13] and not go straight into fear mode. So if you feel like you need more support, that's exactly
[00:24:18] what my clients and students are doing inside the mind body healing method, we get to go deep
[00:24:23] into working with the symptom imperative and actually rewire these patterns so that you
[00:24:29] can stop chasing fear every single time something new pops up and really learn how to get out of
[00:24:35] this response. So if you are curious, the link in the show notes below will guide you to the
[00:24:41] mind body healing method. And if you have any questions about it at all, please DM me and
[00:24:48] we will figure that out. All right, everyone, keep doing the good work. And I will see you
[00:24:54] next time. If this podcast means something to you, it would mean so much to me if you could do
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[00:25:20] well as others. Thanks for listening and I hope this brings you hope on your journey.