Nervous System 101: How to Know If It’s Behind Your Chronic Pain or Illness

[00:00:00] Hey there, and welcome to the Heal With Grace podcast.
[00:00:03] I'm your host, Grace Secker,
[00:00:05] and I'm a holistic licensed therapist
[00:00:07] and nervous system coach who believes
[00:00:09] that the chronic and often unseen symptoms
[00:00:12] you're living with are a sign
[00:00:14] of something deeper going on.
[00:00:16] A sign that your nervous system needs attention.
[00:00:19] In each episode, I'll share the science
[00:00:21] behind the most common chronic health disorders
[00:00:24] plus holistic tips using mental, physical,
[00:00:26] and spiritual practices.
[00:00:28] You'll hear what I've learned in my journey
[00:00:29] and the true stories from our trusted guests
[00:00:32] so you can feel less alone in your experience
[00:00:35] and give yourself grace
[00:00:36] no matter what you're going through.
[00:00:38] So without further ado, settle in and get cozy.
[00:00:41] It's time to Heal With Grace.
[00:00:42] Hello, everyone, and welcome back
[00:00:44] to the Heal With Grace podcast.
[00:00:47] I am excited for today
[00:00:49] because we're gonna take it back to the basics.
[00:00:52] So if you've been listening to this for a while,
[00:00:54] this is gonna be probably a good overview
[00:00:56] or maybe even something you're like,
[00:00:58] so I hadn't thought about it like that before, right?
[00:01:01] This episode is also meant to be a starting point.
[00:01:04] So maybe someone sent this to you
[00:01:07] or if you're someone who Googled
[00:01:09] or AI searched holistic or mind body healing
[00:01:13] or nervous system healing, then maybe you found this
[00:01:16] and I want this to be an entry point
[00:01:18] so that you can understand what are we actually saying
[00:01:21] when we say your nervous system is involved
[00:01:24] in your pain or your illness, your migraines,
[00:01:27] your chronic back pain, your neck pain,
[00:01:29] your chronic fatigue, your IC, your pelvic floor pain.
[00:01:34] So much of our nervous system is involved in our symptoms
[00:01:38] and actually I'm gonna teach you
[00:01:40] that it's not just involved,
[00:01:42] it is totally the cause
[00:01:44] of what you're experiencing physically in your body.
[00:01:48] So if that's you or if it's someone you love,
[00:01:50] maybe you're trying to help someone out that you love,
[00:01:52] I'm going to break down
[00:01:53] one of the most important ideas here
[00:01:56] and explain it to you really simply.
[00:01:58] Just the thing that I wish someone had had
[00:02:01] explained to me like very early on
[00:02:03] when I was struggling with my own pain and illness.
[00:02:05] So let's get into it.
[00:02:07] First and foremost, let me paint you a picture
[00:02:10] of if you're in the right place or not.
[00:02:12] You have had symptoms, meaning certain pains,
[00:02:17] certain diagnoses of illness, certain gut issues,
[00:02:20] back issues, illnesses,
[00:02:23] maybe you've gone down the rabbit hole
[00:02:24] of different hormone health, cortisol spiking,
[00:02:28] immune system decreasing, and you have no idea why
[00:02:32] and maybe you try so many things to help yourself
[00:02:35] like a morning routine, an evening routine,
[00:02:38] eliminating caffeine, quote unquote, cleaning up your diet.
[00:02:42] You're trying so many things to help yourself,
[00:02:45] trying to sleep better, right?
[00:02:46] You're trying to do everything right
[00:02:48] and maybe you're starting to feel
[00:02:49] a little bit better about that
[00:02:50] but your physical symptoms haven't changed
[00:02:53] and maybe you actually still feel like you're fragile
[00:02:56] or you've done none of that at all
[00:02:58] and you're just like, I don't know what to do anymore,
[00:03:00] help me because you've gone to so many different doctors,
[00:03:02] so many different specialists
[00:03:04] and for some people, the tests keep coming back fine,
[00:03:07] like there's nothing wrong.
[00:03:09] For other people, they come back with certain labels.
[00:03:12] It's not a functional diagnosis,
[00:03:13] meaning there's nothing wrong with your organs.
[00:03:15] There's not a fractured bone, something like that.
[00:03:18] The functional diagnoses have stayed around for a while
[00:03:23] and this could be anything from hypermobility,
[00:03:27] a bulge disc, bursitis, hip instability, back instability,
[00:03:32] an embedded infection, high inflammation,
[00:03:35] gut dyspiosis, mold.
[00:03:38] Maybe you've had the explanation
[00:03:39] that you have SIBO in your gut.
[00:03:41] Maybe you have food sensitivities like out the bazoo.
[00:03:46] I'm trying to think of more because there's a lot more
[00:03:48] but these are many, many examples
[00:03:50] of what you might have been told
[00:03:51] that you're trying to help yourself with
[00:03:53] and you're trying so many things
[00:03:54] but it might not actually be working that well, right?
[00:03:58] And this is so, I have to say this first,
[00:04:00] like this is not to say like, oh, F the medical system,
[00:04:03] like nothing's gonna work, it's all to hell,
[00:04:07] you just have to manage the rest of your life,
[00:04:09] you're just someone that's sensitive
[00:04:10] and it's gonna have things wrong with you.
[00:04:12] I am not saying that.
[00:04:13] What I'm actually really saying is that
[00:04:15] there's just a lot of this nervous system,
[00:04:17] mind, body, health, information and education
[00:04:19] and research out there now
[00:04:20] that people just don't know about.
[00:04:22] Like doctors don't know yet.
[00:04:24] Other practitioners don't know yet.
[00:04:25] We're trying to change that.
[00:04:27] By the way, if you are a practitioner listening to this,
[00:04:29] I have something for you towards the end of this episode
[00:04:32] but my point being is that it's just,
[00:04:34] this is new information
[00:04:35] and so we're making progress
[00:04:37] helping you get out of these stuck places,
[00:04:39] whether it's dizziness, gut stop, headaches,
[00:04:42] anxiety, perfectionism, all of these things
[00:04:45] that lead up to what we know is a stress nervous system
[00:04:49] and a brain stuck in danger mode.
[00:04:50] So I wanna explain to you what that means.
[00:04:53] Basically, your body has gone through a lot over time.
[00:04:57] Maybe you're like,
[00:04:58] I don't even know what it's gone through.
[00:05:00] That's okay.
[00:05:01] It's usually underneath the surface.
[00:05:02] There's a lot of subconscious happening right now
[00:05:05] or maybe you're someone who's like,
[00:05:07] yeah, I've had trauma in my life.
[00:05:08] I know that it's stuck in my body.
[00:05:09] I know I need help.
[00:05:11] Okay, cool, you're in the right place
[00:05:13] but if you're still kind of questioning all this,
[00:05:15] I wanna walk you through this.
[00:05:16] So let's talk about your nervous system.
[00:05:20] I want you to think of your nervous system
[00:05:22] and your brain as your body's built-in security system.
[00:05:25] So when we talk about your brain is causing more symptoms,
[00:05:28] literally your brain is the powerhouse.
[00:05:30] So when there's something going on in your body
[00:05:34] that is either it is inflammation or it is a virus
[00:05:38] or it's a sensation like pain that sends signals
[00:05:42] from the part of your body
[00:05:43] where you're feeling pain up to your brain,
[00:05:45] your brain categorizes those things as dangerous.
[00:05:48] And then it sends signals to your body to say,
[00:05:52] hey, danger, danger, let's feel pain,
[00:05:54] let's feel illness, let's feel something
[00:05:57] because we're not okay.
[00:05:59] And that's a great response.
[00:06:00] We need that, right?
[00:06:01] We need our bodies to be on alarm and to help us.
[00:06:04] The problem is that if you're listening to this
[00:06:07] or you're thinking of someone right now,
[00:06:09] it's probably because that signal,
[00:06:11] that danger signal in your brain
[00:06:13] and the stress placed in your nervous system is stuck.
[00:06:17] It's always on danger.
[00:06:18] It's always stressed.
[00:06:20] And what we need is to help rewire that
[00:06:23] because what it's doing is it's constantly scanning.
[00:06:25] Am I safe right now?
[00:06:26] Am I in danger?
[00:06:28] And it's doing that under the surface all day
[00:06:30] without you ever thinking about it.
[00:06:33] And so what most people don't understand
[00:06:35] or never got taught, like we just never taught this.
[00:06:37] We never knew this
[00:06:38] is that your nervous system isn't just on or off.
[00:06:41] It's not just stress or calm.
[00:06:44] It shifts between it like different gears.
[00:06:46] So for example, safe and settled,
[00:06:49] rest and digest of your nervous system,
[00:06:51] which is one state of being, is the first gear.
[00:06:54] It's where your body doesn't need the danger mode.
[00:06:57] It knows that you're okay.
[00:06:59] Your digestion works well.
[00:07:00] You're sleeping okay or really well.
[00:07:03] You feel connected to people.
[00:07:05] You can rest.
[00:07:06] You can enjoy things.
[00:07:07] Your body is doing all its background repair work
[00:07:09] and this is where the healing happens.
[00:07:11] This is the home base.
[00:07:13] Now, when people talk about needing to be
[00:07:17] less in the stress response
[00:07:19] and more in the relaxation or rest and digest response,
[00:07:21] we're not talking about being there all the time.
[00:07:23] That's not normal.
[00:07:24] What's normal is going in from stress to non-stress.
[00:07:28] Rest and digest into fight or flight or freeze
[00:07:32] and back and forth.
[00:07:33] The problem is that if you're listening to this,
[00:07:35] you're probably more in the fight, flight, freeze,
[00:07:37] duck place more often than not.
[00:07:39] And what we want is you to be more fluid
[00:07:43] in both and probably more often than not
[00:07:45] in the rest and digest safe and settled into that first gear.
[00:07:48] So that's the whole point of this.
[00:07:51] Now let me explain the second gear.
[00:07:52] The second gear is what most of us know as fight or flight.
[00:07:56] Think of it as slamming on the gas pedal.
[00:07:59] Your heart speeds up, your muscle tenses,
[00:08:02] your breathing gets shallow, your stomach knots up,
[00:08:05] your body's getting ready to handle a threat.
[00:08:07] Literally to fight back against something,
[00:08:09] whether that's external like fighting a person
[00:08:11] or fighting yourself.
[00:08:13] A lot of times our bodies fight itself,
[00:08:17] which leads to pain or illness
[00:08:19] because there's a war if you will within us.
[00:08:21] And the stress response to fight or flight
[00:08:23] is something we actually very much so need
[00:08:26] in short-term danger, right?
[00:08:27] If a dog lunges at you or a car swerves into your lane,
[00:08:31] you want to hit the gas pedal the other way.
[00:08:33] You want to run the other way.
[00:08:35] Again, the problem is when your body gets stuck
[00:08:38] with the gas pedal pressed down
[00:08:39] for weeks or months or years.
[00:08:42] That's when you get things like chronic tension,
[00:08:44] pain, racing, heart rate, gut problems,
[00:08:47] high inflammation, the wired anxious feeling
[00:08:50] that won't turn off.
[00:08:51] Immune response is slow because if you think about it,
[00:08:53] when you're stuck in that fight or flight,
[00:08:56] you're on guard all the time
[00:08:58] and that's exhausting for the body.
[00:09:00] So it depletes other parts,
[00:09:02] other ways of your body regenerating.
[00:09:05] It depletes your immune system.
[00:09:06] May not be able to fight a virus very well
[00:09:10] when you're in the constant stress response.
[00:09:12] You wear down over time.
[00:09:15] So when something does come into your body,
[00:09:18] whether there is an initial infection
[00:09:20] or maybe you started eating a certain way
[00:09:23] and you started getting sensitive to foods,
[00:09:26] it's not about the food.
[00:09:27] It's not about the initial injury
[00:09:29] or the initial danger that happened in your body.
[00:09:31] It's that is just the last straw.
[00:09:33] So I hear this all the time.
[00:09:34] For example, I have a client
[00:09:38] who had a strain in her knee after working out one time.
[00:09:44] It wasn't a pop, it wasn't a tear,
[00:09:46] it wasn't anything crazy.
[00:09:48] She just noticed the next morning,
[00:09:49] waking up being like, oh, something's wrong.
[00:09:52] And now she's had chronic knee pain
[00:09:55] for years ever since then.
[00:09:57] And so she attributes, she's like,
[00:09:58] oh, I did something wrong in that workout.
[00:10:00] What often happens is that it's not the workout,
[00:10:03] it's actually stress built up over time
[00:10:05] in the stress response to where finally your body goes,
[00:10:08] okay, well, we can't handle this stress,
[00:10:10] we don't know what to do with it.
[00:10:12] We don't know what to do with this difficult relationship
[00:10:14] or this hard place in our job,
[00:10:16] or maybe we don't feel really good about where we're living
[00:10:19] or maybe we've never learned to express our emotions.
[00:10:22] And so your brain and your nervous system say,
[00:10:24] okay, well, there's a susceptibility
[00:10:26] to pain in this knee.
[00:10:28] And it's a lot easier to feel pain in physical form
[00:10:31] than it is emotional or mental form.
[00:10:33] So we're gonna send some danger to that knee
[00:10:36] so you can focus on it instead of these other things
[00:10:39] like emotions that we're hiding you from.
[00:10:40] That's what's happening.
[00:10:42] Now I got a little sidetracked.
[00:10:44] So let me talk about gear three, which is the shutdown.
[00:10:47] And then I'm gonna summarize all this.
[00:10:49] So the shutdown is the brakes or running on empty.
[00:10:53] If fight or flight is the gas pedal,
[00:10:56] the gear three, the shutdown is slamming the brakes.
[00:10:58] When your system has been in danger mode for too long
[00:11:02] and it feels like it can't fight or escape,
[00:11:04] it does the only thing left.
[00:11:05] It powers down to protect you.
[00:11:08] And this is where a lot of things like fatigue live,
[00:11:11] depression, that bone deep exhaustion, brain fog, numbness,
[00:11:16] the feeling of being checked out or flat
[00:11:19] or even sometimes that tired but wired.
[00:11:22] Maybe you feel like you're watching your life
[00:11:25] from behind glass.
[00:11:26] If you ever wondered why you're so tired
[00:11:28] when it doesn't feel like you've been doing that much,
[00:11:30] this is probably why.
[00:11:32] Your body is literally saying like,
[00:11:34] hey, we can't keep going like this.
[00:11:37] And it's just safer to shut you down
[00:11:39] instead of actually confront what we need to confront in life.
[00:11:44] And when I say that, I also wanna mention
[00:11:46] it's not because you're too weak to confront it.
[00:11:49] It's not about you.
[00:11:50] It's not something you're doing or not doing on purpose.
[00:11:52] This is totally subconscious
[00:11:54] and happening underneath the surface.
[00:11:56] So basically a healthy nervous system
[00:11:59] moves in and out of these gears all day, weeks, months,
[00:12:03] throughout your life and then comes back home
[00:12:05] to safe and settled and that's normal, that's healthy.
[00:12:09] But when your nervous system gets stuck
[00:12:11] on the gas or stuck on the brakes,
[00:12:13] it sounds the alarm to the brain
[00:12:15] and says, we're not okay, danger.
[00:12:18] So your brain says, okay,
[00:12:19] let's find some kind of susceptibility in the body.
[00:12:22] Maybe you had a bulge disc at one point.
[00:12:25] Maybe you've had migraines
[00:12:28] or maybe your family's had migraines
[00:12:29] and so your brain goes, well, that's something that we know.
[00:12:32] Or maybe you've had a little bit of sensitivity
[00:12:35] to some foods and so now it's gonna really ramp that up
[00:12:38] and make you sensitive to all foods and have gut issues.
[00:12:41] Maybe you have hypermobility or Ehlers-Danlos syndrome
[00:12:45] and that is real and functional.
[00:12:48] But your brain goes, okay, well,
[00:12:49] we're just gonna attach to that
[00:12:51] and send more symptoms like dizziness or POTS
[00:12:54] or you're gonna injure yourself more
[00:12:56] and that's why you have pain.
[00:12:58] That's why you have issues is because of this syndrome.
[00:13:01] I know that might sound a little out there,
[00:13:03] but we see it time and time again,
[00:13:07] let alone the amount of times
[00:13:09] that we can look in the past,
[00:13:11] like for example, two people can have the exact same scan,
[00:13:15] X-ray of their spine next to each other.
[00:13:17] One has the exact same bulge disc
[00:13:19] in the same place as the other person.
[00:13:21] One has pain, one does not.
[00:13:23] One person is diagnosed with hypermobility in their bodies
[00:13:27] or two people are, right?
[00:13:28] Two people are diagnosed with this
[00:13:30] because they go through testing and it's obvious
[00:13:32] that it's something that we can actually say
[00:13:34] with a structural test.
[00:13:36] One person has issues, pain, different types of diagnoses
[00:13:39] and labels associated with it.
[00:13:41] One person doesn't at all.
[00:13:43] No biggie, no issues.
[00:13:44] That doesn't make sense, right?
[00:13:46] So if it was something truly structural, right?
[00:13:49] If there was some sort of illness in an organ
[00:13:52] in both people, you're going to have issues
[00:13:54] because you have to treat that.
[00:13:56] But with these functional labels,
[00:13:58] they're labels because they can't really explain
[00:14:00] the origin of it.
[00:14:01] And this is what we're saying is the origin,
[00:14:04] actually not just saying it,
[00:14:05] we are showing it time and time again
[00:14:07] through new research and through how people are healing.
[00:14:09] This is not because your body is broken
[00:14:11] or weak or too sensitive.
[00:14:13] It's truly because your body's security system
[00:14:16] got stuck in a protection gear
[00:14:17] and forgot how to shift back.
[00:14:19] And this might sound a lot right now,
[00:14:21] but this is good news.
[00:14:24] Like truly, truly good news
[00:14:25] because a stuck nervous system is not broken.
[00:14:29] It's not something you just have to live with and manage.
[00:14:33] It's a system that learns something.
[00:14:35] It learned to protect you.
[00:14:37] It learned to protect you from some
[00:14:38] either traumatic experiences or not feeling seen or heard
[00:14:43] or not knowing how to manage or feel your emotions.
[00:14:46] There's a lot of layers on why this can happen.
[00:14:49] But it learned that those things are not okay
[00:14:52] and it stressed your nervous system out over time.
[00:14:55] And so eventually something had to happen, right?
[00:14:57] Something had to spill out
[00:15:00] and instead of the emotional pain,
[00:15:02] it turned on physical symptoms.
[00:15:06] And because it learned this,
[00:15:07] our brains and our bodies are so amazing y'all.
[00:15:10] They're just so wise and wonderful
[00:15:12] and we can unlearn it.
[00:15:14] We know this like neuroplasticity
[00:15:17] is literally the brain's way of changing.
[00:15:21] So when you have this stuck place in your nervous system,
[00:15:24] you have certain neural networks in your brain
[00:15:27] that have encoded this pattern essentially.
[00:15:30] So you have these brain patterns that keep sending danger.
[00:15:33] But what we've known for many, many years
[00:15:36] is that neuroplasticity means our brains can change.
[00:15:39] It used to like, like long time ago,
[00:15:41] we used to think like,
[00:15:42] oh, you hit 25, you have one brain
[00:15:44] and that's it, can't change anything.
[00:15:45] That's old, way old news.
[00:15:47] We know now that brains can change.
[00:15:50] Furthermore, we now know that these patterns
[00:15:52] that are patterns in the physical body
[00:15:55] actually have patterns in the brain,
[00:15:57] so we can change that.
[00:15:59] Which is why now these symptoms that I'm talking about,
[00:16:01] chronic pain and illness,
[00:16:03] we call them neuroplastic symptoms.
[00:16:05] It literally is like this symptoms of your brain,
[00:16:09] symptoms of your nervous system.
[00:16:10] And so we're literally built
[00:16:13] to be able to shift back home now.
[00:16:15] I go way deeper on this whole nervous system piece
[00:16:18] in a couple of other episodes,
[00:16:19] so I'm gonna link those below
[00:16:20] just so you can get more information here.
[00:16:22] I don't wanna like bombard you
[00:16:24] with all this stuff in one episode.
[00:16:26] I really want you to put deeper feet in
[00:16:28] and grasp what's happening.
[00:16:30] And if this is something you already know
[00:16:32] and you're like, yeah, I know.
[00:16:34] Honestly, hear it again.
[00:16:35] Over and over and over again.
[00:16:37] Part of how our brains
[00:16:39] and our nervous system changes is repetition.
[00:16:41] And when I say repetition,
[00:16:42] I'm literally like, I'm saying it
[00:16:44] over and over and over and over and over again.
[00:16:47] Well, think about it this way.
[00:16:49] If you have been living with symptoms for years,
[00:16:53] it's gonna take some time to rewrite those.
[00:16:55] It is, it's totally possible and happens all the time,
[00:16:58] but it's gonna take some time to rewire those patterns.
[00:17:02] And the way that we rewire is repetition.
[00:17:05] Repetition with changing our brain, brain training,
[00:17:08] repetition with changing the somatic body signals,
[00:17:11] meaning the hypervigilance in the body,
[00:17:14] anxiety in the body,
[00:17:15] feeling uneasy or uncomfortable in the body.
[00:17:19] We have to change both the brain to affect the body
[00:17:22] and both the body to affect the brain.
[00:17:23] So if you really want to understand how to tell
[00:17:27] whether your symptoms are coming from your nervous system,
[00:17:29] listen to the episode below on how to know
[00:17:32] if your symptoms are caused by your nervous system.
[00:17:34] It's episode 114, linked below.
[00:17:36] And that one picks up right where I'm leaving off today.
[00:17:40] This is the episode to really help you grasp
[00:17:43] like what's happening in your body.
[00:17:44] So I wanna give another summary here.
[00:17:46] What happens in our nervous systems
[00:17:48] is that we end up with this small window of tolerance,
[00:17:52] which is why it feels like you're sensitive to everything.
[00:17:55] I mean, man, that was me.
[00:17:56] Like I had one point was just like,
[00:17:58] I guess I have to live in my house and be in a bubble.
[00:18:00] Like it feels like if I go anywhere, I do anything,
[00:18:03] I react in some way, shape, or form.
[00:18:05] I react to food, I have pain, I get sick.
[00:18:08] Like it was just like one thing after another.
[00:18:11] And that is a small window of tolerance,
[00:18:16] meaning your nervous system doesn't have the tolerance
[00:18:20] for anything else that might be that comes in.
[00:18:24] Think of it as like the example
[00:18:26] of an overflowing bucket, right?
[00:18:27] If your bucket is just overflowing,
[00:18:29] it's not gonna have any tolerance,
[00:18:31] any way to sift through anything else
[00:18:33] that's poured in that bucket.
[00:18:35] And when I say these things,
[00:18:36] I mean, it could literally be a food.
[00:18:38] It could be a person.
[00:18:39] It could be a car ride.
[00:18:40] It could be travel.
[00:18:42] Anything that might seem just totally normal in life,
[00:18:45] you feel like you're sensitive to now.
[00:18:47] That's what I'm talking about.
[00:18:49] So over time, your nervous system has become very sensitive,
[00:18:53] which really just means a small window of tolerance.
[00:18:56] But what happens often with nervous system education
[00:18:59] and support is people kind of just stop there.
[00:19:01] Like, oh, I recognize I'm sensitive.
[00:19:03] And then maybe you kind of get validated.
[00:19:05] You're like, okay.
[00:19:06] Yeah, I'm just gonna take care
[00:19:07] of my sensitive nervous system, which is great.
[00:19:11] I want you to take care of yourself.
[00:19:13] That's a big part of this process.
[00:19:15] But the next level of this
[00:19:18] and really what this is all about
[00:19:20] is expanding your window of tolerance.
[00:19:23] So that basically you can teach your nervous system
[00:19:26] that, hey, even if we have stress,
[00:19:30] we can totally handle it.
[00:19:32] I don't need you to react to it.
[00:19:35] I don't need you to send me signals of danger.
[00:19:37] I don't need more pain.
[00:19:39] I don't need to be more susceptible to illness.
[00:19:42] I think this is truly the real wellness work.
[00:19:45] People are doing this by things like cold plunging
[00:19:48] and sauna and diet and like optimizing health.
[00:19:52] And I'm not gonna totally shit on those.
[00:19:54] Like they're not bad.
[00:19:56] I mean, I take care of myself.
[00:19:58] I've always been into health and wellness.
[00:19:59] And at this point in my system and my body,
[00:20:01] I feel pretty good.
[00:20:02] So I'm kind of curious about like,
[00:20:04] what does optimizing mean?
[00:20:06] But when you are in chronic symptoms, pain and illness,
[00:20:11] you don't need to optimize.
[00:20:14] You need to expand your tolerance,
[00:20:16] which happens in two ways.
[00:20:18] One, you start to build safety in your nervous system
[00:20:22] so that you have a foundation of, okay,
[00:20:25] it's like a foundation of grounding, right?
[00:20:27] It's like you gotta mend the soil.
[00:20:30] You have to create more of the good soil, water it,
[00:20:33] so that there's a good foundation for more to grow.
[00:20:36] For the flower to expand essentially,
[00:20:39] or to plant more flowers, you have to have a foundation,
[00:20:42] a stable, a secure base, secure soil
[00:20:45] in order for more to grow.
[00:20:48] That starts with creating more safety in your body.
[00:20:52] And then the rewiring and the changing patterns
[00:20:56] is that expansion.
[00:20:58] That's rewiring.
[00:21:00] Regulating is this safety component.
[00:21:02] Rewiring is, hey, we're changing these signals
[00:21:06] and we need both.
[00:21:07] We have to have both in order to help you get out
[00:21:10] of that stuck place so that your body and brain
[00:21:12] don't need to send you danger
[00:21:14] that includes all different kinds of symptoms.
[00:21:17] And you know, I'm actually just going to name
[00:21:19] all these symptoms right now,
[00:21:21] all the different types, at least so far.
[00:21:23] There's more on this list.
[00:21:25] Honestly, we're discovering more and more about
[00:21:27] what is a neuroplastic symptom?
[00:21:29] What is a neuroplastic label?
[00:21:31] So far, what we know are things like chronic headaches
[00:21:34] and migraines, fibromyalgia, chronic pain.
[00:21:38] It could be neck pain, back pain, shoulder pain,
[00:21:40] hip instability that could come from anything,
[00:21:44] whether that's disc degeneration, bulge disc,
[00:21:46] torn labrum, nerve issues, hypermobility, right?
[00:21:50] EDS and hypermobility is one of them.
[00:21:53] Sciatica, any kind of muscle pain
[00:21:55] that keeps on going without any treatment
[00:21:57] but actually being effective.
[00:21:59] Food intolerances is a big one.
[00:22:02] I'm not talking about allergies, like true allergies.
[00:22:04] I'm talking about any kind of food sensitivities
[00:22:07] or intolerances.
[00:22:08] Y'all, you're not sensitive to foods
[00:22:10] unless you have a literal true genetic component to it.
[00:22:14] It's your nervous system.
[00:22:16] IBS is a big one.
[00:22:18] IBS is totally gut brain connected.
[00:22:20] That's neuroplastic.
[00:22:23] Disorder eating can fall under this category.
[00:22:25] There's a very big overlap between disorder eating
[00:22:28] and neuroplastic symptoms.
[00:22:30] And I have another episode on that too
[00:22:32] that I can link as well.
[00:22:33] POTS or chronic dizziness.
[00:22:35] There's a lot more of this recently
[00:22:37] and we really are trying to get the word out there
[00:22:39] that this doesn't have to be your life.
[00:22:41] It's not autoimmune.
[00:22:42] It's not something that you have to live with forever.
[00:22:45] POTS, chronic dizziness, tinnitus.
[00:22:48] Those are neuroplastic, nervous system based.
[00:22:52] Chronic fatigue.
[00:22:53] ME-CFS, long COVID.
[00:22:57] We very much so know now that those are neuroplastic
[00:23:00] and we can totally retrain.
[00:23:02] It's not something that you just have to live with
[00:23:05] or it's not the whole like extra proteins
[00:23:09] or embedded infection or something like that
[00:23:10] which also takes me to IC
[00:23:12] interstitial cystitis or OAB, overactive bladder.
[00:23:16] This is very, very much so neuroplastic condition.
[00:23:19] I work with a lot of people with IC or OAB.
[00:23:22] You can be told a lot of things, right?
[00:23:25] There's something wrong with your bladder.
[00:23:27] You have an embedded infection.
[00:23:28] You have chronic UTIs.
[00:23:31] Those might be there,
[00:23:32] but it doesn't need to cause you pain symptoms,
[00:23:35] burning, urgency, things like that.
[00:23:37] Pelvic pain also goes along with this.
[00:23:39] Chronic pelvic pain, very neuroplastic.
[00:23:43] Other symptoms with a six plus month lifespan
[00:23:46] with no relief after medical intervention.
[00:23:48] So there's a lot of things out there
[00:23:49] like, oh, chronic anxiety, high anxiety,
[00:23:52] depression, things that haven't been treated well,
[00:23:56] that you're just managing.
[00:23:58] Those, we usually see a nervous system component to it.
[00:24:02] I am not saying that all physical ailments
[00:24:04] are neuroplastic.
[00:24:05] No, if you go and need to get something treated
[00:24:07] and you get it treated, you go through the protocol,
[00:24:09] you go through the treatment and it subsides
[00:24:11] and you're done, great.
[00:24:13] That was structural and that's not neuroplastic.
[00:24:16] But what I've just described is more in the neuroplastic.
[00:24:19] If you want to go deeper
[00:24:21] on the science of how all this actually affects your body
[00:24:24] and you want to learn truly,
[00:24:25] like even if it's on that list that I just said,
[00:24:28] or there's more or there's something else
[00:24:30] that you're questioning,
[00:24:31] I have a link below that you can watch a free video
[00:24:34] called how to know if your symptoms
[00:24:36] are nervous system driven and then what to do with it.
[00:24:38] And it's exactly what it sounds like.
[00:24:40] It walks you through how to tell
[00:24:41] if your nervous system is behind your symptoms
[00:24:44] and way more deeply than I can do just in one episode.
[00:24:48] So I find that link below, go ahead and watch it.
[00:24:51] You can let me know if you have any questions.
[00:24:53] I want to say another thing as well here that very clearly,
[00:24:57] what I'm saying is that it's not just in your head
[00:25:02] because when I say this, you might be like,
[00:25:04] but it is real, right?
[00:25:05] People think that all the time, like, but it's real.
[00:25:07] Yes, it is real.
[00:25:09] Neuroplastic symptoms do not mean your symptoms
[00:25:12] are just all on your head or they're just anxiety
[00:25:14] or they're just stress.
[00:25:16] I really need you to hear that.
[00:25:17] Your pain is real, your fatigue is real,
[00:25:19] your dizziness, your gut stuff, all of it.
[00:25:21] Every single thing is 100% real.
[00:25:24] You are not making it up,
[00:25:25] you're not being dramatic and you're not weak.
[00:25:28] When your nervous system creates a symptom,
[00:25:30] that symptom is as real as any other.
[00:25:33] The difference is not whether it's real.
[00:25:35] The difference is where it's coming from
[00:25:37] and that changes everything
[00:25:39] because it means the goal isn't to find something
[00:25:41] to cut out or medicate away.
[00:25:43] The goal is to help your nervous system
[00:25:45] feel safe again and then rewire.
[00:25:47] They're real symptoms, right, in your body.
[00:25:50] It's just a different root cause
[00:25:52] than you've probably been taught to look for
[00:25:53] and so those things are true at the same time.
[00:25:56] If you wanna really get solid
[00:25:58] and if this is right for you,
[00:26:00] again, go below, sign up for my free class
[00:26:03] and you can watch it and get much more clarity.
[00:26:06] If you have really specific questions,
[00:26:08] if you were like, oh, that kinda fits me,
[00:26:10] that kinda doesn't, that's where I go deeper.
[00:26:13] And before we go, I wanna say one more thing.
[00:26:17] Especially if you're listening to this
[00:26:18] because someone sent it to you,
[00:26:20] the fact that someone in your life shared this with you
[00:26:23] means that they see you and they wanna help you.
[00:26:25] They're not saying you're just stressed, right?
[00:26:28] And if you're finding this
[00:26:30] and you're just stepping into this world, welcome.
[00:26:33] You are not broken.
[00:26:34] You have not run out of options.
[00:26:36] It's such a lovely world to step into.
[00:26:39] There's a whole layer to healing
[00:26:40] that most people never get told about
[00:26:42] and you've just found the door to it.
[00:26:45] The mind-body healing world is just this wonderful family
[00:26:48] of people that just wanna help each other.
[00:26:50] And furthermore, all of us therapists and clinicians
[00:26:53] and coaches that are doing it, we are a family
[00:26:57] because we are on this mission.
[00:26:58] We are on this mission to change how people see their health
[00:27:02] and not just change it, but help you change,
[00:27:04] like help you get out of the stuck place, right?
[00:27:06] So that's the whole point of this podcast.
[00:27:09] That's why people have free YouTube channels.
[00:27:11] Like we're literally just trying
[00:27:12] to get the information out there
[00:27:14] so that people can heal
[00:27:15] and they don't have to suffer forever.
[00:27:18] So welcome.
[00:27:20] I am so glad you're here.
[00:27:23] Please be very gentle with yourself.
[00:27:25] This can be a lot to take in at first.
[00:27:27] And also, again, it's a wonderful place to land.
[00:27:31] I am here.
[00:27:31] If you have any questions at all, you can DM me.
[00:27:35] And by the way, this has been happening recently
[00:27:38] that people do DM me, but it goes straight to spam
[00:27:40] or my trash folder.
[00:27:42] And that folder, I don't check it
[00:27:44] because there's just so much spam there.
[00:27:46] Unfortunately, people spam you all the time.
[00:27:48] So if not, you can always, if you sign up
[00:27:51] for the master class, you can reply to our email
[00:27:54] and reach out at hello at healwithgrace.co
[00:27:58] and we will get back to you.
[00:28:00] And if you are a practitioner or a coach or a therapist
[00:28:03] or someone that sees clients
[00:28:05] and you're wanting to understand more
[00:28:06] about how to help them in this,
[00:28:08] I'm so glad you're here too.
[00:28:09] Seriously, that's our mission.
[00:28:10] We can help more clinicians understand this work.
[00:28:13] We can help more people.
[00:28:15] So I am creating a training for therapists
[00:28:19] and coaches and practitioners
[00:28:21] to help you go deeper into this work for yourself
[00:28:24] but also truly learn how to confidently treat
[00:28:27] clients and patients.
[00:28:28] You can find the waitlist below.
[00:28:30] We start this fall, 2026
[00:28:32] and I will send you more information when you sign up.
[00:28:34] This is the first time I'm doing it.
[00:28:36] So there's a founding cohort that will be the first one
[00:28:41] and you'll get special pricing
[00:28:43] and things like that as we go through it.
[00:28:45] So make sure to sign up if you're interested at all
[00:28:47] and we can go from there.
[00:28:50] Until next time, take care of yourself
[00:28:53] and keep healing with grace.
[00:28:55] If this podcast means something to you,
[00:28:57] it would mean so much to me
[00:28:58] if you could do these couple things.
[00:29:00] One, go to the healwithgrace show page
[00:29:02] wherever you listen and tap the plus sign
[00:29:05] or click on the follow button so you don't miss an episode.
[00:29:08] It helps both of us out.
[00:29:09] While you're there, if you could give a five star review
[00:29:12] so that this podcast can reach more people,
[00:29:15] it would mean so much to me
[00:29:17] so I can continue sharing episodes
[00:29:18] that help you as well as others.
[00:29:21] Thanks for listening
[00:29:22] and I hope this brings you hope on your journey.