Your Chronic Pain Is 100% Real and Here’s Why Your Nervous System Is Still Behind It

[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 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 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] Hey y'all, welcome back to the Heal With Grace podcast.
[00:00:45] Today I'm answering a question that I get often
[00:00:48] and that I know if you're here
[00:00:51] you've probably thought about probably a million times.
[00:00:55] The one that goes like, hey, okay,
[00:00:59] but my pain and illness is real, right?
[00:01:02] I know it's real, isn't it?
[00:01:06] But then how is my nervous system involved in it
[00:01:08] if it is real?
[00:01:09] So first of all, yes, I'm just gonna actually answer it
[00:01:13] right now and then I will explain it.
[00:01:15] Yes, it is 100% real.
[00:01:17] Your body is actually having an effect
[00:01:19] is having some sort of symptom going on in the body.
[00:01:25] There's an illness, there's a sensitivity, there is pain,
[00:01:29] there might even be inflammation,
[00:01:30] there might be a migraine that's raging.
[00:01:34] It is all real and also your nervous system
[00:01:37] is still very much so behind it.
[00:01:39] It doesn't mean that if your nervous system is behind it
[00:01:41] that it's not real.
[00:01:42] That's what this whole episode is about.
[00:01:44] I want you to save this episode
[00:01:46] if you're going through a flare
[00:01:47] because I need you to come back to it
[00:01:49] over and over and over again so that I can remind you
[00:01:53] there's nothing else you need to figure out.
[00:01:55] If you've gotten all the scans and the tests done
[00:01:57] and you've done your due diligence,
[00:02:00] you don't need to do more.
[00:02:02] What you need to do is start to respond
[00:02:04] to yourself differently.
[00:02:06] That's rewiring your brain.
[00:02:08] And if you're in a flare, you are not going backwards.
[00:02:11] It doesn't mean you're failing.
[00:02:12] It doesn't mean you're doing something wrong.
[00:02:14] Your pain and symptoms and illness can be 100% real
[00:02:17] and it can be driven by your nervous system
[00:02:20] and brain at the same time.
[00:02:22] Those things are not opposite.
[00:02:24] What we've been taught is that they are, but they're not.
[00:02:28] And once you understand this
[00:02:30] and you remind yourself or you listen to this
[00:02:32] and I remind you over and over and over,
[00:02:34] I think it's going to take a weight off of you
[00:02:36] that you've been carrying for a long time.
[00:02:38] So let's get into it.
[00:02:40] I'm gonna name the trap of this first, right?
[00:02:42] Because almost everyone gets stuck in this
[00:02:44] in some way, shape, or form.
[00:02:46] We've been handed this idea
[00:02:47] that there are only two options, right?
[00:02:49] Like either your pain is physical
[00:02:51] meaning there's tissue damage, there's something torn,
[00:02:54] something shows up on a scan,
[00:02:55] or it's all in your head, meaning it's not real
[00:02:58] and it's just anxiety
[00:03:00] and you just have to retrain your brain and that's it.
[00:03:03] By the way, when I say pain,
[00:03:05] that's just a general term for all kinds of symptoms.
[00:03:08] So I mean anywhere from migraines to dizziness,
[00:03:11] pots, fibromyalgia, long COVID, pelvic pain,
[00:03:16] bladder symptoms, histamine reactions,
[00:03:19] food sensitivities.
[00:03:20] All of those I'm going to say are pain or illness, okay?
[00:03:24] So I mean, I get it.
[00:03:25] Like you're having to totally rewrite
[00:03:27] how you understand health, right?
[00:03:31] We have been taught and told you get sick,
[00:03:33] you feel pain, you feel something in your physical body,
[00:03:35] you go see a doctor, you get evaluated,
[00:03:38] you get assessed, you get treated
[00:03:40] with a diagnosis and a prognosis.
[00:03:42] That is not bad.
[00:03:43] That is not wrong.
[00:03:44] I am not saying we have to stop that, right?
[00:03:47] There are plenty of structural issues and illnesses
[00:03:51] and things that need that type of treatment.
[00:03:53] But when you've had pain or illness symptoms for a long time
[00:03:57] and you've tried many different things
[00:03:58] and they haven't worked and they are listed
[00:04:01] as a neuroplastic symptom, brain or nervous system based,
[00:04:05] the treatment is not in the physical,
[00:04:07] it's in your brain and in your nervous system.
[00:04:09] And that's not a bad thing.
[00:04:10] It doesn't mean it's all in your head
[00:04:12] and it doesn't mean it's not happening.
[00:04:14] I'll even talk to people sometimes
[00:04:16] where they've been working with me for a while
[00:04:18] or they've been in the mind, body, healing method program
[00:04:20] and maybe they've actually done pretty well.
[00:04:22] They're moving along in life,
[00:04:24] responding to their selves differently,
[00:04:26] maybe even not going long periods of time without symptoms
[00:04:29] and then they'll have a flare
[00:04:30] and they'll show up to the call and they'll be like,
[00:04:33] ah, but I know there are things wrong
[00:04:35] but maybe there is, like maybe they missed something,
[00:04:38] maybe the doctors didn't actually find something
[00:04:42] that was wrong, right?
[00:04:43] Maybe I have something benign
[00:04:46] or I have some rare gene or like something like that
[00:04:48] and maybe it's just that
[00:04:50] but there is something real this time
[00:04:52] and they use the word real.
[00:04:54] So I usually have to stop and say, first and foremost
[00:04:57] what you are experiencing is real.
[00:04:59] It is very real.
[00:05:00] It's not verses in your head, right?
[00:05:03] Pain or illness is not a damage meter.
[00:05:06] They are dangerous signals
[00:05:08] and those are really different things.
[00:05:11] Pain doesn't measure how damaged you are.
[00:05:14] It doesn't mean there's something horribly wrong
[00:05:16] that's going on in your body
[00:05:18] that needs to be physically treated.
[00:05:20] Pain and illness is your brain's best guess
[00:05:23] about whether you're in danger.
[00:05:24] So when it says, yep, we're in the stress response,
[00:05:27] we are in danger mode,
[00:05:28] it's going to then send actual physical signals
[00:05:33] to your body, to that part of your body
[00:05:36] to send a signal of whatever symptom you're carrying.
[00:05:41] Pelvic pain, gut issues, migraine, whatever it is.
[00:05:44] It literally sends out that signal,
[00:05:45] okay, there's something going on in the body,
[00:05:47] let's send symptoms to it.
[00:05:50] It doesn't mean, well,
[00:05:52] and because you can have something abnormal in your body,
[00:05:55] we all do.
[00:05:56] If you are a human, you are not perfect
[00:05:59] and if you do enough testing,
[00:06:00] you'll find something wrong.
[00:06:01] I promise you.
[00:06:02] I've found a million things wrong in my testing
[00:06:05] and everything that I've done,
[00:06:06] MRIs, x-rays, gut testing, hormones, like so many things.
[00:06:11] And there are some things that I have treated
[00:06:13] and it has helped,
[00:06:14] but there are many things I've treated
[00:06:16] and they truly didn't change my symptoms at all.
[00:06:20] So the question was never, is it real
[00:06:22] or is it in my head?
[00:06:23] The real question is,
[00:06:25] what is my nervous system responding to?
[00:06:27] Because the pain is always real.
[00:06:30] It's the source that we get to investigate
[00:06:32] and change how we think about our bodies.
[00:06:34] So first and foremost, I have to say, of course,
[00:06:37] please don't skip this, get assessed.
[00:06:41] I would highly recommend getting assessed by a practitioner
[00:06:45] if you need an MD or a PT or something like that
[00:06:48] on the physical realm.
[00:06:50] Please find someone that is trained in mind-body modality
[00:06:54] that is probably trained in PRT,
[00:06:56] which I will link a website below
[00:06:59] that you can go and it's a listserv
[00:07:01] for practitioners that do this work.
[00:07:03] So you can find one in your area.
[00:07:05] There's plenty that do online assessments.
[00:07:07] Go and get checked out.
[00:07:08] It's a wonderful way to give your brain that idea that,
[00:07:12] hey, or to rule out anything that's going on, right?
[00:07:16] There's oftentimes where I've had a lot of people
[00:07:18] that come to me and they said,
[00:07:19] yeah, I've done this testing, I've done that testing
[00:07:21] and I'm pretty sure like there's nothing,
[00:07:23] I know this is mind-body.
[00:07:25] I know this is neuroplastic.
[00:07:26] But then we start working and they have a flare
[00:07:28] and their brain just goes, I can't let it go.
[00:07:31] I just can't let it go.
[00:07:32] There has to be something wrong.
[00:07:33] There has to be something wrong or did they miss something?
[00:07:36] So I will go get them.
[00:07:38] I will send them to someone to get assessed, like, hey,
[00:07:40] all right, first we work with it
[00:07:42] because we don't wanna always send signals to your brain
[00:07:46] to always go get something checked out, right?
[00:07:48] Anytime you have a fear,
[00:07:51] we don't want to just keep constantly reminding yourself,
[00:07:54] your brain that, oh, it is physical,
[00:07:56] like keep go treating it physically.
[00:07:58] But if we're going around, around, around,
[00:08:00] especially with those of you who have OCD thoughts
[00:08:04] that are in ruminations around your health
[00:08:06] and around anxiety, it's not a bad thing
[00:08:09] to get checked out by a mind-body practitioner, okay?
[00:08:13] I actually had a colleague, Dr. Schechter,
[00:08:15] come on the podcast that said the same thing
[00:08:18] when he was on the show a few weeks back
[00:08:20] and he's a physician who's done this work for decades.
[00:08:23] You can find the link below as well.
[00:08:25] This is literally all the work that he does
[00:08:27] and he's been a doctor for a very long time.
[00:08:28] So what I'm going to talk about today more so
[00:08:31] when I'm going through the details of this
[00:08:33] is for the people who have done that,
[00:08:35] who've been checked out and either nothing shows up
[00:08:37] or something is showing up,
[00:08:38] but it doesn't fully explain how much pain
[00:08:41] or symptoms they're in.
[00:08:42] That is the conversation.
[00:08:44] So there's two different parts to this.
[00:08:46] One, I wanna speak to the people who have real symptoms,
[00:08:49] real pain, but they don't have any positive testing.
[00:08:53] So if that's you, if you've gone down the rabbit hole
[00:08:55] of all different types of testing
[00:08:57] and you pretty much scans have shown up with nothing,
[00:09:00] that is such a strong indicator
[00:09:02] that this is my body, this is neuroplastic.
[00:09:06] But again, it doesn't mean
[00:09:08] that there isn't something actually happening
[00:09:09] in your body, right?
[00:09:10] You are having real feelings of pain.
[00:09:14] You are having real feelings
[00:09:15] that something is not going well,
[00:09:18] but the treatment is not to keep going with the physical.
[00:09:22] It's to one, watch how you respond to yourself,
[00:09:25] meaning when you're in a flare,
[00:09:27] are you going down the rabbit hole of oh my gosh,
[00:09:30] what's wrong, what's wrong, oh my gosh, now I'm gonna be,
[00:09:32] I can't live my summer the way that I wanted to.
[00:09:35] I'm not gonna be able to take this trip.
[00:09:36] I'm not gonna be able to do that.
[00:09:38] What's gonna happen in a couple of years
[00:09:39] if I'm still down this road, right?
[00:09:42] I'm even just gonna take a breath for a second.
[00:09:44] That's stressful.
[00:09:46] Even just me giving that example,
[00:09:49] and I can notice myself, if you noticed,
[00:09:51] I started talking really fast
[00:09:53] because that's the stress response.
[00:09:55] That's hypervigilance.
[00:09:57] You talk fast, you breathe fast,
[00:09:59] you can't get enough breath.
[00:10:01] When you're in that stress stay,
[00:10:03] your body goes into danger mode
[00:10:05] and it sends you more symptoms.
[00:10:07] So, if you are someone that doesn't have anything
[00:10:12] they can show on a scan or a testing
[00:10:14] that says something's wrong with their body,
[00:10:16] I want you to keep reminding yourself,
[00:10:18] hey, I've had those clean scans.
[00:10:21] We know there's nothing medically wrong.
[00:10:24] And then you keep responding to yourself
[00:10:26] with compassion and flexibility and neutrality.
[00:10:29] Take some breaths through those difficult moments
[00:10:32] when you're in your symptoms.
[00:10:34] Like even as I'm doing this right now,
[00:10:36] my shoulders are dropping a little bit.
[00:10:39] I noticed my heart rate come down a little bit.
[00:10:41] And if I were having symptoms right now,
[00:10:43] like headache or gut, like whatever the symptoms are,
[00:10:46] I would be breathing in that feeling
[00:10:49] instead of resisting it and pushing away from it.
[00:10:54] I would imagine my breath soothing
[00:10:57] that part of the body that feels symptoms.
[00:11:00] So, fun fact, actually,
[00:11:01] this is such a side tangent, but go with me here.
[00:11:04] I recently got the aura ring
[00:11:06] and for a long time I never wore any kind of watch
[00:11:09] or ring or anything like that,
[00:11:10] the tracks because me and tracking
[00:11:12] have never gone very well together,
[00:11:14] especially when I have a history
[00:11:15] of disorder or eating and overexercising.
[00:11:18] For many, many years I just didn't track anything
[00:11:20] and I still don't, to be honest, that much.
[00:11:23] I just don't need to.
[00:11:24] That's not helpful for me.
[00:11:26] I can get fixated on it.
[00:11:27] But I got this for a few different reasons,
[00:11:29] other things that I'm just kind of looking at right now
[00:11:31] in my life, in my health,
[00:11:33] and it tracks obviously your heart rate and sleep
[00:11:35] and I've actually been using it to be really curious,
[00:11:38] like interesting.
[00:11:39] To be honest, overall, I've been pretty pleased.
[00:11:41] I usually have a pretty high score each day
[00:11:43] because I take care of myself,
[00:11:44] but there have been some times where it'll be like,
[00:11:47] you've had a lot of stress today, right?
[00:11:49] And stress is not always bad.
[00:11:51] It can be good, right?
[00:11:52] Stress is just normal.
[00:11:54] But when I record podcast episodes,
[00:11:57] you can see my heart rate increase.
[00:11:59] And it's like, oh, you went through a stressful time
[00:12:02] right there.
[00:12:03] And to be honest, it's just because I get excited
[00:12:06] and I can start talking fast
[00:12:07] and I put a lot of effort and energy into these
[00:12:11] and I feel like I need to be on
[00:12:12] to really share this information
[00:12:14] and get it across to you.
[00:12:16] And my point in that is that when I'm in this,
[00:12:19] I can feel myself, right?
[00:12:21] I want you to become really aware of how you notice
[00:12:24] your body going through states of stress or non-stress.
[00:12:28] And remember, stress is not always bad,
[00:12:30] but if it's chronic, it is.
[00:12:32] So when I take a breath and I slow down my speech,
[00:12:36] I start talking from the root of my spine
[00:12:38] instead of high up in my chest.
[00:12:41] Can you tell that my voice changes?
[00:12:42] Can you tell that my pace changes?
[00:12:45] That my breath changes?
[00:12:46] I'm not necessarily saying that talking fast
[00:12:49] or being passionate about something is bad,
[00:12:52] but I wanna give you an example
[00:12:53] of what you can recognize for yourself in the moment.
[00:12:56] This is a pattern for me,
[00:12:57] so I've learned for a long time
[00:12:59] that when I'm teaching, I'm leading, I'm guiding,
[00:13:02] I'm passionate about something, I can talk fast,
[00:13:05] and then I get really amped up
[00:13:07] and I am working on slowing that down
[00:13:10] and being a lot more clear and concise
[00:13:13] and variable with my range of speech.
[00:13:16] I'm playing with that to see, okay,
[00:13:19] if I do that, can I stay consistent
[00:13:23] with this relaxed state of my nervous system while I teach?
[00:13:27] Now, that's going into the nitty-gritty here,
[00:13:30] but I think you get what I'm saying, right?
[00:13:33] Just that subtle shift of, okay, I'm talking a lot,
[00:13:36] this is nervous system, blah, blah, blah, blah, right?
[00:13:38] To, okay, this is what we're doing,
[00:13:40] this is what I'm talking about,
[00:13:42] and now I'm going to teach you.
[00:13:44] It's different, right?
[00:13:45] I want you to notice that feeling in your body.
[00:13:48] I notice it in my body.
[00:13:49] Again, I talk from my core instead of high in my chest
[00:13:54] and I'm more clear in my speech.
[00:13:58] This is just one example of noticing
[00:14:00] the different states of your nervous system.
[00:14:02] So when you're in a flare
[00:14:03] and you're going down the rabbit hole of my gosh,
[00:14:05] what's happening?
[00:14:06] I don't really know what's going on.
[00:14:07] Like when am I ever gonna get out of this?
[00:14:09] I hate this so much.
[00:14:11] You're going fast, you're thinking
[00:14:14] and you're talking from a stressed place.
[00:14:17] So one of the ways to move through flares
[00:14:19] is to respond to yourself differently.
[00:14:21] So, hmm, take some more breaths,
[00:14:24] slow down your thoughts as much as possible.
[00:14:27] Don't believe your thoughts.
[00:14:29] When you're in a flare in a stressed place,
[00:14:31] don't believe your thoughts.
[00:14:32] Don't believe the automatic ones that says
[00:14:35] something's wrong, you're not doing enough,
[00:14:37] you have to look for more.
[00:14:40] That's coming from the stress response,
[00:14:41] that's not the truth.
[00:14:43] All right, now I'm gonna get back
[00:14:45] for my little tangent right there
[00:14:46] and come back to what happens
[00:14:49] when there is real symptoms without positive testing, right?
[00:14:54] Examples of this could be pain that moves around
[00:14:57] your shoulders for two weeks,
[00:14:58] then your hip, then your jaw.
[00:15:00] Tissue damage doesn't travel.
[00:15:02] A dysregulated nervous system does.
[00:15:04] Or maybe it's chronic fatigue
[00:15:05] where every test is normal,
[00:15:07] but you're wiped to the bone.
[00:15:08] Or maybe you have some, right?
[00:15:11] Like people are talking about embedded infections
[00:15:16] or iron or maybe SIBO or gut dysbiosis
[00:15:20] or things like that,
[00:15:20] which are not bad to be treated,
[00:15:22] but it doesn't describe the full situation that you're in.
[00:15:26] Maybe you do have gut stuff.
[00:15:28] You have pain, bloating,
[00:15:29] maybe some urgency or frequency in the bladder.
[00:15:33] Maybe you have a totally clean scope,
[00:15:35] which is why so many people get an IBS label.
[00:15:38] It's real and it's often deeply nervous system connected.
[00:15:42] Maybe you have dizziness or tingling pots
[00:15:45] or like a buzzy feeling.
[00:15:46] Maybe you have tinnitus,
[00:15:48] that racing heart with a clean cardiac workup.
[00:15:51] Pain that flares hard under stress or eases on vacation.
[00:15:55] If it were purely structural, a beach wouldn't touch it, right?
[00:16:00] So what's going on is that your nervous system
[00:16:04] learned at some point that you were in danger.
[00:16:06] Maybe from an old injury,
[00:16:07] maybe from chronic stress,
[00:16:09] maybe from a scary season of life
[00:16:11] and it turned the alarm on.
[00:16:13] And then the alarm got stuck.
[00:16:15] The danger passed,
[00:16:16] but the system never got the all clear.
[00:16:18] So it keeps firing and it keeps producing
[00:16:20] real sensations to get your attention
[00:16:23] because from its point of view, it's still protecting you.
[00:16:27] So the symptom is real.
[00:16:29] The suffering is real.
[00:16:31] There's just no damage defined
[00:16:33] because the source isn't damaged.
[00:16:35] The source is a protection system that got stuck on.
[00:16:37] Negative testing is not the end of the road.
[00:16:40] For so many of you,
[00:16:41] it's the beginning of the actual answer.
[00:16:43] It just means you've been looking in the wrong place, right?
[00:16:47] When the real story is in the brain and nervous system response.
[00:16:49] Okay, now if you're someone that has real pain
[00:16:52] and maybe you have a positive test,
[00:16:54] and I'm gonna describe what we mean by that.
[00:16:56] So a positive test might be an MRI finding,
[00:17:00] an x-ray scan of a bulge disc
[00:17:03] or a torn meniscus that happened a year ago.
[00:17:06] It could be a herniation.
[00:17:09] It could be bursitis.
[00:17:11] It could even be SIBO and the gut.
[00:17:13] It could be food sensitivities that have racked up over time.
[00:17:18] Maybe there's some inflammation markers in your body.
[00:17:20] I want you to know these things
[00:17:22] that even when those tests are positive,
[00:17:25] your nervous system still is part of the pain story.
[00:17:28] Here's one of the biggest things
[00:17:29] that for me turned on the light bulb moment of like,
[00:17:32] my gosh, that makes so much sense.
[00:17:35] So researchers have taken MRIs of people
[00:17:38] with zero back pain.
[00:17:40] So people who feel totally fine
[00:17:43] and found bulging discs, herniations,
[00:17:46] disdagenerations and all kinds of findings
[00:17:49] and people with no pain at all.
[00:17:52] High inflammation markers, no issues.
[00:17:55] You could have two people with the same scans
[00:17:57] and one have symptoms and one doesn't
[00:18:00] or blood work or something like that.
[00:18:02] So what does this tell us?
[00:18:04] It tells us that the findings and the testing
[00:18:08] and then the amount of pain and symptoms you feel
[00:18:10] are not often matched up.
[00:18:11] The damage doesn't predict the pain.
[00:18:14] And I really need to say this very closely, right?
[00:18:17] So again, of course,
[00:18:19] please do what you need to do to take care of yourself.
[00:18:22] I mean, if you've listened to this podcast,
[00:18:23] you know that I very much value medicine,
[00:18:27] value functional medicine and value deeper layers
[00:18:29] of understanding yourself,
[00:18:31] especially when it comes to hormones and minerals.
[00:18:34] Like we do need help with that sometimes
[00:18:36] based on just the fact that like,
[00:18:38] the way that we live in our life right now
[00:18:39] doesn't really support the human body.
[00:18:42] And I just, that's a whole other episode.
[00:18:45] So I still very much so support myself physically,
[00:18:49] but when you've gone down that road
[00:18:50] and your symptoms are still blaring
[00:18:53] and nothing is really changing,
[00:18:54] then you got to ask the question,
[00:18:56] like, okay, then what's missing here, right?
[00:18:58] And usually it's because we haven't addressed
[00:19:01] the brain and nervous system.
[00:19:02] So for example, I had a client one time who found me,
[00:19:06] she was working with a functional practitioner
[00:19:08] and I think she did searching on her own
[00:19:10] and ended up finding me and basically was saying like,
[00:19:13] hey, I just, I mean, nothing's working.
[00:19:16] And it wasn't because she didn't like her doctor,
[00:19:18] she actually very much so liked her.
[00:19:19] But she got to the point where she was even just like
[00:19:22] so anxious and scared of taking a supplement
[00:19:24] or any protocol they changed would just send her
[00:19:26] into a flare or something would happen
[00:19:28] and she just couldn't handle it.
[00:19:31] So we started working with the body.
[00:19:34] We started working with her nervous system.
[00:19:36] We started retraining some of the responses
[00:19:38] that she had towards these things.
[00:19:41] And once we helped her become more safe and grounded,
[00:19:44] had a foundation of safety in her nervous system
[00:19:48] and started to change her brain's responses
[00:19:50] to food, to supplements,
[00:19:52] to things that actually she physically really needed,
[00:19:56] then she went back and did some of those protocols
[00:19:59] and her and her doctor,
[00:20:00] we connect a lot and share a lot of clients.
[00:20:02] She was like, oh my gosh,
[00:20:03] she is like a whole different patient.
[00:20:06] We now can actually do the work that matters
[00:20:08] on a physical level.
[00:20:10] But until then,
[00:20:11] like when your nervous system is so dysregulated,
[00:20:14] it's gonna be hard to actually really implement
[00:20:19] some physical changes that might be needed.
[00:20:22] Foundational care like this will look like
[00:20:24] very much so nervous system support,
[00:20:25] mental health support, emotional support, right?
[00:20:28] Brain training.
[00:20:29] And along with that,
[00:20:31] we have to assess like, are you nourishing yourself?
[00:20:35] How much nourishment are you getting, right?
[00:20:38] I mean, I'm not gonna sit here and say like,
[00:20:40] if you have so many foods sensitivities
[00:20:42] and you react to everything
[00:20:43] and you're barely eating enough for your body,
[00:20:47] yeah, we gotta get you eating enough and nourish enough.
[00:20:49] That's part of nervous system regulation, for sure.
[00:20:52] Or if you're in like a high stress situation
[00:20:55] and you're not sleeping, yeah, we gotta work on that too.
[00:20:57] I'm not saying you can brain train everything.
[00:21:00] It's a whole system, right?
[00:21:02] I would be a hypocrite if I didn't say,
[00:21:04] if I said that, oh, you don't have to treat
[00:21:06] physical body at all.
[00:21:08] Now, that does depend on the situation, I will say.
[00:21:11] But what I mean is that I would be a hypocrite
[00:21:13] because I very much so say that
[00:21:15] our bodies involve so many things,
[00:21:17] mental, physical, spiritual, emotional,
[00:21:20] and we need often a lot of that support.
[00:21:23] But the point of all of this is saying
[00:21:25] that more often than not,
[00:21:26] what I see is that people go down
[00:21:28] the optimizing physical health routes so much
[00:21:32] before or without addressing
[00:21:35] some of the core foundational needs of the body,
[00:21:38] which is a safe nervous system.
[00:21:40] So, even when there's a real positive finding,
[00:21:43] the finding is rarely the whole story.
[00:21:46] Your nervous system is the amplifier
[00:21:48] and it decides how loud the signal gets turned up.
[00:21:52] There could be real tissue stuff,
[00:21:54] real nervous system involvement.
[00:21:56] There can be both.
[00:21:57] So whether your testing is positive or negative,
[00:22:00] your symptoms run through your nervous system
[00:22:03] every single time.
[00:22:05] There is no pain, no illness symptom that doesn't.
[00:22:08] Pain is created by the brain and the nervous system.
[00:22:11] It's not sent up from the body like a fax.
[00:22:14] It's produced by the brain based on how much danger
[00:22:17] it thinks that you're in.
[00:22:18] So think of your nervous system as a volume dial.
[00:22:22] Is there real pain issues?
[00:22:25] Is there real tissue issues?
[00:22:26] The dial can crack it up or keep it manageable.
[00:22:29] Are there no issues at all?
[00:22:31] The dial can still produce very real symptoms on its own.
[00:22:35] What turns the dial up?
[00:22:37] Fear, stress, anxiety, rumination in the mind,
[00:22:43] past trauma, bad sleep, lack of nourishment,
[00:22:48] lack of sunlight, feeling safe, feeling unsafe,
[00:22:53] being told scary things about your body
[00:22:55] over and over and over again,
[00:22:57] believing that you're broken.
[00:22:59] All of those things impact the danger signal
[00:23:02] in your brain and your nervous system.
[00:23:04] And what turns it down is safety,
[00:23:07] understanding what's actually happening,
[00:23:09] calming the nervous system,
[00:23:11] rebuilding trust with your body,
[00:23:13] rewiring those patterns
[00:23:16] to help you feel genuinely safe again.
[00:23:18] If you are someone that resonates with this
[00:23:20] and you're like, okay, yeah, I am,
[00:23:23] I definitely can see that I have my body symptoms
[00:23:26] that part of my symptomology,
[00:23:28] my pain and illness has to do with my nervous system,
[00:23:31] then I invite you to the next step.
[00:23:33] This is exactly the work that I help you do
[00:23:36] inside my signature program, the Mind Body Healing Method.
[00:23:39] It's my program that walks you through
[00:23:40] calming the stuck nervous system,
[00:23:43] creating that safety,
[00:23:44] which helps turn the dial back down
[00:23:47] and then helps retrain those patterns
[00:23:49] out of danger mode and end to safe mode.
[00:23:52] We have a couple of different tracks.
[00:23:54] You can go self-paced or you can join the program.
[00:23:57] And so these are the two options that we have
[00:24:00] from now on.
[00:24:02] The program involves three times a month,
[00:24:05] monthly calls with me or Leana,
[00:24:07] our other Mind Body Therapist,
[00:24:09] and a community chat portal.
[00:24:11] And then you also get the self-paced program
[00:24:13] for life when you join.
[00:24:15] So if you have any questions, just let me know.
[00:24:17] If today gave you that language
[00:24:18] for something you've felt for years,
[00:24:20] then this is your invitation to go deeper
[00:24:23] and to really get that support that you need
[00:24:25] because yes, we can learn about it.
[00:24:27] We can listen to all the podcast episodes,
[00:24:29] but if you're not actually practicing
[00:24:32] the change in your body,
[00:24:33] then it's not going to make a whole lot of difference,
[00:24:37] just listening to a lot of stuff.
[00:24:39] We actually have to experience the shift
[00:24:41] from danger to safety.
[00:24:44] And if you're a therapist
[00:24:45] or a practitioner listening to this,
[00:24:47] I would love to invite you
[00:24:49] to an upcoming master class that I have
[00:24:52] on how to actually bring this nervous system work
[00:24:54] into your practice with a real framework behind you.
[00:24:58] I'm going to teach you a few different tools
[00:25:00] to start doing this work today
[00:25:02] and to really help you feel more confident
[00:25:05] sharing these tips and tools and insights
[00:25:07] because I know in the beginning can feel like,
[00:25:10] oh, I don't wanna, you know,
[00:25:11] I wanna make sure I'm giving the client enough
[00:25:13] and I wanna make sure that I'm really helping them
[00:25:15] through this, but it feels like really
[00:25:17] out of my comfort zone to do this kind of work.
[00:25:19] So that's exactly what I'm gonna help you with.
[00:25:22] The link below to learn or to come and join is below
[00:25:26] and it is completely live.
[00:25:28] I will be leading it and offering Q and A at the end.
[00:25:31] So I would love to see you there.
[00:25:33] And if you're listening to this
[00:25:34] and you wanna send it to a practitioner
[00:25:36] because like, you know, maybe someone you're seeing,
[00:25:38] maybe you're seeing a doctor, a therapist,
[00:25:41] a coach, a PT, and you're like,
[00:25:44] I wish that they would learn about this too.
[00:25:48] Send it to them.
[00:25:49] That's exactly what this is for.
[00:25:50] All I want is to get this information out to people,
[00:25:54] out to more practitioners
[00:25:55] because then it's a ripple effect, right?
[00:25:57] Then they can help the peoples that they see.
[00:25:59] Okay.
[00:26:00] I wanna leave you with this one last thing.
[00:26:03] If you've spent years being told your pain is real
[00:26:06] and then in the same breath being told
[00:26:08] there's nothing wrong,
[00:26:09] I know how crazy that might feel,
[00:26:11] but please know that you're not alone in that feeling.
[00:26:14] So hear me one more time.
[00:26:16] Your symptoms are real.
[00:26:17] You're not making it up.
[00:26:18] It's not in your head.
[00:26:20] It's not just stress.
[00:26:21] It's not just anxiety.
[00:26:23] Your nervous system is a part, if not the whole story,
[00:26:26] which means this is not a life sentence.
[00:26:29] A stuck system can become unstuck
[00:26:32] and a turned up dial can be turned back down.
[00:26:35] That's how the body actually works.
[00:26:38] You were never broken.
[00:26:40] You were protected.
[00:26:41] And now you get to teach your body
[00:26:42] that it's safe to come home.
[00:26:45] Until next time, take care of yourself
[00:26:47] and keep healing with grace.