When the Brain Predicts Pain with Vanessa Blackstone

[00:00:00] Hey there, and welcome to Heal with Grace. I'm your host, Grace Secker, and I'm a holistic
[00:00:05] licensed therapist and nervous system coach who believes that the chronic and often unseen
[00:00:10] symptoms you're living with are a sign of something deeper going on. A sign that your
[00:00:15] nervous system needs attention. In each episode, I'll share the science behind the most
[00:00:19] common chronic health disorders plus holistic health tips using mental, physical, and spiritual
[00:00:25] practices. You'll hear what I've learned in my journey and the true stories from
[00:00:29] our trusted guests so you can feel less alone in your experience and give yourself grace
[00:00:34] no matter what you're going through. So without further ado, settle in and get cozy. It's
[00:00:38] time to Heal with Grace. Hello, hello, and welcome back to the Heal with Grace podcast.
[00:00:46] We have Vanessa Blackstone back with us for the second, actually third time, second solo.
[00:00:54] And by the way, if you have not listened to her previous episode, I will link up
[00:00:57] below how you recommend we talked about how to create safety in your nervous system. So
[00:01:01] I'm really excited to have you back. Thank you so much, Vanessa.
[00:01:04] Yeah, thank you. I'm excited to be back because I'm thinking that too. I'm like,
[00:01:07] this is the third time that we've done this together. I think we like each other.
[00:01:12] Yeah, I think we're good. We're, you know, we're good parents.
[00:01:15] We are. For people who have not heard you or are new to the podcast, can you give a
[00:01:21] little intro? Tell us about yourself.
[00:01:23] Yeah, so I have been in the work of pain reprocessing therapy for about eight
[00:01:28] years now. I started off unintentionally. I kind of fell into this work literally.
[00:01:35] I had a horrible final year of grad school with all of my different pain symptoms.
[00:01:40] I've had migraines since I was 11 and they grew from menstrual migraines to
[00:01:45] multiple migraines a month that would last five days or so.
[00:01:49] And they grew to more vestibular and like vertigo based and aura and made me
[00:01:54] super, super sick. And then I started getting hives when I would get really
[00:01:58] stressed out or hot. And then I had pelvic floor pain and IBS and neck
[00:02:02] pain that I thought was being caused by the migraines or vice versa.
[00:02:06] And so I was one of those people that just had like the whack-a-mole symptoms,
[00:02:10] like everything kind of going on and not really sure what to do about it.
[00:02:13] And I deferred on a PhD program because of all the symptoms and I just
[00:02:19] needed a break and I fell into this work and I got going on it
[00:02:24] professionally, but then started realizing it kind of fits personally.
[00:02:30] And once I realized a lot of the times when we were talking about clients,
[00:02:34] we were talking, I was actually talking about myself and I could relate to
[00:02:37] my clients more than I realized I could as when I started doing the
[00:02:40] work personally. So I consider myself recovered.
[00:02:44] I have extinction bursts every now and then.
[00:02:47] I started this work at the Pain Psychology Center that founded PRT.
[00:02:51] And I will say we're kind of like the kind of the gold standard
[00:02:56] practice for PRT. We started with a small team when I started,
[00:03:01] eight of us maybe. And now we have 46 providers, I think.
[00:03:06] And yeah, now I'm the executive director of the practice.
[00:03:10] I co-authored a workbook called the Pain Reprocessing Therapy Workbook
[00:03:15] that came out last year with my co-author, Olivia Soneko.
[00:03:19] And we were on your podcast together as well.
[00:03:23] And yeah, now we're here.
[00:03:26] Now, now Olivia and I both have met you in person, which was so fun
[00:03:30] at our little book event earlier this year in Boulder.
[00:03:34] And it's been a long journey of a lot of different things.
[00:03:38] But I'm I'm here now and I'm stoked.
[00:03:41] Yeah, yeah, you've done such incredible work in the community.
[00:03:44] And I'm excited for today because I know that the way that you can
[00:03:49] speak about some of this work is really bringing in examples
[00:03:52] and metaphors that really help people understand it.
[00:03:55] So even if we were to take a step back for a second and when we
[00:03:59] say pain reprocessing therapy, what exactly do you mean?
[00:04:01] Yeah, people that are new to it.
[00:04:03] It's kind of in the phrase itself, right?
[00:04:05] If you think about it, it's a modality of therapy that's aimed
[00:04:09] at reprocessing pain.
[00:04:12] So basically changing the way in which we respond to our pain.
[00:04:15] Learning about where pain comes from building our own evidence
[00:04:19] that supports that our symptoms may actually be coming from
[00:04:23] this overprotective nervous system that we have.
[00:04:26] Understanding the evidence that applies this perspective of
[00:04:30] neuroplastic pain and the way in which we can apply that to
[00:04:33] ourselves, utilizing techniques, the main technique within
[00:04:38] somatic within pain reprocessing therapy is somatic tracking,
[00:04:41] right? It's a mindfulness based technique to approach
[00:04:44] sensations with a little bit more curiosity than we might be
[00:04:47] used to using when it comes to our pain symptoms.
[00:04:51] And then basically just reinforcing all of that over
[00:04:54] and over and over again, the information, the evidence,
[00:04:58] the mindfulness based work through somatic tracking,
[00:05:02] leaning towards more positive sensations and emotions and
[00:05:05] knowing that this pain is not the whole story of what is going
[00:05:08] on and just doing this on repeat over and over and over
[00:05:13] again, to even like make it more succinct for our brains that
[00:05:16] want to go, well, but what about this?
[00:05:18] But this feels unique and different.
[00:05:19] But what about this over here?
[00:05:20] And we go, no, it's the same thing under the same umbrella.
[00:05:24] We can just have the same conversation for something
[00:05:27] else that comes up.
[00:05:28] It's just about changing the way in which we respond.
[00:05:32] That last part is so, so, so, so important.
[00:05:34] I think I talk about it a lot.
[00:05:37] It comes up all the time.
[00:05:39] Because it needs we need so much repetition because if we've
[00:05:43] been in the same patterns, our brains, our nervous systems,
[00:05:45] our bodies have been in the same patterns over and over
[00:05:48] and over again, where it is hyper vigilant to external
[00:05:52] stimuli, which is what we're going to kind of talk about.
[00:05:55] And it's been doing that for however many years.
[00:05:57] Some people, it's one year.
[00:05:58] Some people, it's 20 years, 30 years, however long.
[00:06:01] It takes time to rewire that, reprocess, right?
[00:06:05] The idea of pain or the response to pain.
[00:06:09] And I find especially often people are like, well,
[00:06:12] I'm having this new issue now.
[00:06:13] Well, I'm having this new issue now, right?
[00:06:15] And it's, I get it.
[00:06:17] It's in the beginning, it's hard to realize, really?
[00:06:21] Is this also this pain, this sensation, this headache,
[00:06:24] this thing in my back or whatever it is, this gut issue?
[00:06:28] This is also something that's pain-oriented?
[00:06:32] It's like, we have to wrap our minds around this idea.
[00:06:35] And it takes time.
[00:06:36] It takes time.
[00:06:36] It really does.
[00:06:37] It really does.
[00:06:38] And I think something that is important to acknowledge too
[00:06:41] is that when we say pain, when you and I say pain,
[00:06:44] we're not just talking about back pain.
[00:06:47] We're talking about symptoms in general.
[00:06:49] If I had it my way, I would totally
[00:06:51] call it symptom reprocessing therapy
[00:06:53] because I know that pain doesn't necessarily
[00:06:57] apply to the hives that I would experience.
[00:06:59] It's just uncomfortable and embarrassing.
[00:07:01] And you can see it.
[00:07:03] And it's just everywhere, right?
[00:07:04] Or pain doesn't apply to the experience of vertigo.
[00:07:08] It's just really dysregulating and really unsettling
[00:07:12] to feel really dizzy, right?
[00:07:13] And so the same thing with IBS,
[00:07:15] not always painful, just an uncomfortable thing
[00:07:18] that's happening.
[00:07:19] So whether it's pain or whether it's just a symptom
[00:07:22] or a sensation, whether it's sensory based
[00:07:24] or whether it's something that feels a little bit more
[00:07:26] nuanced, like the word pain is such an umbrella term.
[00:07:31] And there's so many things that go underneath it
[00:07:32] because you don't have one part of your brain that
[00:07:35] covers back pain and then one part of your brain that
[00:07:38] covers vertigo or that covers IBS
[00:07:41] or covers a burning sensation in the bottom of your feet,
[00:07:44] right?
[00:07:44] It all comes from the same part of your brain.
[00:07:46] That's why the treatment is the same.
[00:07:48] You mentioned earlier, you mentioned the phrase
[00:07:50] extinction bursts.
[00:07:52] Maybe you have a few extinction bursts now,
[00:07:54] but you do categorize yourself as recovered or say
[00:07:58] that you're recovered, right?
[00:07:59] What exactly does that mean?
[00:08:00] I think it's important to note, if you don't mind.
[00:08:02] Yeah, so extinction bursts are a burst of the behavior
[00:08:06] that we're trying to extinct.
[00:08:08] We're trying to extinct this pain,
[00:08:10] reduce it, greatly reduce it, and eradicate it, right?
[00:08:13] And with that, that means that we're
[00:08:15] going to have a little surge every now and then
[00:08:18] when our nervous system freaks out.
[00:08:19] And when your nervous system freaks out,
[00:08:21] unfortunately it can't talk to you.
[00:08:24] Your nervous system is like a baby or a dog.
[00:08:27] It shows you when something is wrong
[00:08:30] and you're just playing a guessing game, basically,
[00:08:32] to try to understand how to soothe it, right?
[00:08:34] So this is the hard thing about when your nervous system
[00:08:37] freaks out or gets really overstimulated or dysregulated
[00:08:41] or something happens, especially when you've
[00:08:43] been feeling well for a long time, right?
[00:08:45] It's a burst of the behavior.
[00:08:47] This old neural pathway that we're not walking down
[00:08:51] as often anymore as habits or as a way of responding to life.
[00:08:56] And we're doing new things.
[00:08:57] And it's like every now and then the nervous system,
[00:09:00] your overprotective parent checks in on you
[00:09:02] just to make sure you're OK, right?
[00:09:05] And so an extinction burst is that exact thing,
[00:09:07] a burst of the behavior, a burst of the sensation
[00:09:10] or the pain that you're trying to extinct.
[00:09:12] It can really trip you up.
[00:09:13] It can make you feel like you're falling backwards
[00:09:16] or you're back at square one, right?
[00:09:18] But this is such a non-linear process.
[00:09:21] It's not straight up and down.
[00:09:23] It's up and down and around and all over the place.
[00:09:25] So I always say that when you're having an extinction burst,
[00:09:30] it's not necessarily that you've slid backwards.
[00:09:32] That would mean that you'd have to forget every single bit
[00:09:35] of information that you've learned
[00:09:36] and not be able to remember it at all
[00:09:39] and just not have any of that knowledge.
[00:09:41] And your brain was wiped clean since you
[00:09:43] started doing this work.
[00:09:45] That's not it.
[00:09:46] It's just a dip in the progress forward, right?
[00:09:49] It's just a dip and we hang out in that dip
[00:09:51] until our nervous system feels more regulated again, right?
[00:09:54] But it's a part of the process.
[00:09:56] It's all about learning how we respond
[00:09:59] and responding differently.
[00:10:00] I will tell you the last time that I had an extinction
[00:10:03] burst, I actually posted a video about it
[00:10:04] because it was so significant.
[00:10:07] It was a really bad migraine.
[00:10:09] But I had it for maybe a night.
[00:10:11] Started at like 9 PM and it was up and through like 1
[00:10:16] and then I woke up the next day with like a 0.5 out of 10
[00:10:21] when the previous day was absolutely a 10 out of 10.
[00:10:23] And for me, usually I would cancel plans and my week.
[00:10:29] I would completely shut down and worry that,
[00:10:32] oh my gosh, my symptoms are coming back.
[00:10:35] It would usually last up to five days.
[00:10:38] It lasted the evening.
[00:10:39] I felt pretty great the next day,
[00:10:42] given how I was feeling.
[00:10:44] I could kind of understand why it came up
[00:10:47] because of some things that I was dealing with.
[00:10:51] And I didn't once think that this met my symptoms
[00:10:53] were coming back or canceling plans or anything like that.
[00:10:57] I just kind of just, I don't know, just shut down.
[00:11:01] And I was like, oh, I feel like crap.
[00:11:02] And just kind of met myself where I was at,
[00:11:05] but not a single fear thought came up.
[00:11:07] So that's how I know this work has worked for me.
[00:11:10] I wasn't afraid of how I was feeling.
[00:11:12] I just worked with my nervous system
[00:11:14] instead of against it.
[00:11:15] And not a single thought came up
[00:11:17] of this being like symptom related.
[00:11:21] Yeah, and or at least for me when I've had those times,
[00:11:24] and actually I just recorded a podcast about mine
[00:11:29] that happened last month
[00:11:29] because it was really significant too.
[00:11:32] And letting it be what it is
[00:11:36] instead of trying to make meaning out of it, right?
[00:11:37] It's kind of what I'm hearing you say.
[00:11:39] The fear, for me, the fear popped up a little bit
[00:11:41] just because of where I was and everything.
[00:11:43] But I knew that it wasn't just gonna be forever or last
[00:11:46] or anything like that, right?
[00:11:48] I knew that it would move through and move on.
[00:11:52] And that's really important
[00:11:52] because if we get really freaked out
[00:11:54] and anxious about it and fearful
[00:11:55] about what's happening in our bodies,
[00:11:57] then it creates more of those symptoms
[00:11:59] to protect us from the actual fear,
[00:12:01] which is what we talk about a lot.
[00:12:03] So I wanted to talk about that
[00:12:05] because there's a lot of questions
[00:12:07] from people at least in my community
[00:12:08] and in my group with my body healing method around
[00:12:11] is true recovery really possible?
[00:12:13] Can I truly not have any symptoms anymore?
[00:12:16] And sometimes with that,
[00:12:18] we end up putting pressure on ourselves
[00:12:20] to make some kind of full recovery, right?
[00:12:22] Which isn't super helpful,
[00:12:23] but also at the same time we're human
[00:12:25] and that thing's ever perfect
[00:12:27] and we go through life and stressors come up
[00:12:29] and like you said, our nervous system protects us again.
[00:12:32] So I think it's helpful to be realistic
[00:12:36] and yeah, maybe that pops up sometimes
[00:12:39] but it doesn't drive our life or yeah,
[00:12:43] I mean drive our life,
[00:12:44] which I'm sure it sounds like for you,
[00:12:46] definitely for me too,
[00:12:47] it did at one point in time,
[00:12:49] multiple points in time actually, yeah.
[00:12:52] You know, I always make the crass joke of like,
[00:12:56] who are we to think
[00:12:57] that we're never going to be uncomfortable again, right?
[00:13:00] Like, and okay, why do you get uncomfortable this way?
[00:13:05] Like why do I get migraines
[00:13:06] and why do you get your symptoms
[00:13:08] I have no idea.
[00:13:09] I have no idea why this is our thing.
[00:13:13] We can get all philosophical about it
[00:13:15] and be like, oh, I'm like a very like anxious thinker.
[00:13:19] So like maybe I get migraines
[00:13:20] because my brain is like going a million miles a minute
[00:13:23] or like maybe because I learned them
[00:13:25] because my grandmother had migraines as well.
[00:13:27] Like I have, the reality is I have no idea.
[00:13:30] Like I don't know why we get the symptoms that we do
[00:13:34] but the question of like,
[00:13:38] are we going to ever fully recover is so interesting
[00:13:43] because if you really break it down,
[00:13:46] it like actually does it make sense
[00:13:49] because we're going to feel something
[00:13:52] because of some reason at some point,
[00:13:56] it's just a matter of can I get myself
[00:14:01] to work through these fears,
[00:14:02] these protective parts that I have, right?
[00:14:06] Can I work through these fears to understand
[00:14:08] that just because I feel something,
[00:14:09] it doesn't mean all of the things that I think it means.
[00:14:14] Like we are human and we're gonna get sick
[00:14:16] and we're gonna get hurt and we're going to grieve
[00:14:20] and we're going to get really stressed out
[00:14:23] and we're going to feel unheard
[00:14:25] by a certain person in our life
[00:14:27] and we're going to have a really bad day
[00:14:30] or 70 bad days.
[00:14:32] Like we're gonna have so many things happen
[00:14:35] and it's just about how we ride those waves.
[00:14:39] We are going to feel uncomfortable again.
[00:14:41] You're never going to not ever be uncomfortable
[00:14:44] but you're going to have a new way of responding
[00:14:47] that hopefully reminds you
[00:14:49] that this uncomfortable moment
[00:14:51] doesn't mean what you think it means.
[00:14:53] That's just your brains coding, right?
[00:14:56] That's just your brain perceiving things
[00:14:59] based on how your brain is wired to perceive them.
[00:15:03] Yeah, I think it was,
[00:15:05] I believe I first heard Charlie Murrell talk about
[00:15:08] the fact that it's a human response.
[00:15:10] Yeah.
[00:15:11] Everyone has some sort of physical response
[00:15:14] to stress and emotions.
[00:15:17] Some of us, a little more chronically,
[00:15:19] a little more intense than others
[00:15:22] but we are not immune to it
[00:15:25] and that's part of our, yeah,
[00:15:27] part of life we're going to be uncomfortable
[00:15:29] and pain's going to happen in some way, shape, or form.
[00:15:32] So, yeah.
[00:15:34] It's true.
[00:15:35] It's always a tough pill to swallow
[00:15:37] because I think that, especially when you have been
[00:15:39] in a chronic state of discomfort,
[00:15:43] it's really hard, you don't want to swallow that pill.
[00:15:48] You don't want to metaphorically.
[00:15:50] You don't want to say, well, this could come up again
[00:15:55] but I'm changing the way in which I respond.
[00:15:57] You're like, well, why am I investing all of my time
[00:15:59] into something that is telling me
[00:16:04] that I'm going to feel uncomfortable again, right?
[00:16:07] Because we've tried everything else and nothing's worked.
[00:16:11] So, obviously the way that we're doing things
[00:16:13] is not working.
[00:16:14] We have to do things differently.
[00:16:16] We have to have a different perspective.
[00:16:18] We have to learn a different response
[00:16:21] and consistently choose that different response.
[00:16:24] It's really difficult
[00:16:26] but we, again, a crass direct response
[00:16:31] that I will even say to my clients sometimes
[00:16:34] is everything that you've done so far hasn't worked.
[00:16:37] So, might as well do something different.
[00:16:40] And there's some trust in that.
[00:16:41] There's a leap of faith in a way.
[00:16:43] There's some risks that we have to get ourselves
[00:16:46] to takes a lot of courage.
[00:16:49] A lot.
[00:16:50] I mean, I've never met, I don't know if you have,
[00:16:52] I've never met anyone
[00:16:54] where this has been their first stop.
[00:16:57] No.
[00:16:59] One time we had somebody long time ago
[00:17:02] at the Pain Psychology Center and we were all in group
[00:17:05] and we were like, I don't know what to,
[00:17:07] should we tell them to go to the doctor?
[00:17:09] Like, I don't know what to do.
[00:17:12] Cause even we weren't used to that.
[00:17:14] We were like, huh?
[00:17:15] Like, why are they coming here first?
[00:17:17] And it's like, they don't wanna go
[00:17:18] to do anything else with that.
[00:17:21] I don't know what to do with that.
[00:17:24] It was so interesting because we're so used to like,
[00:17:27] you know, somebody having seen, you know,
[00:17:30] 20 something plus like providers to get here.
[00:17:33] And it was so interesting.
[00:17:36] We're like, oh, we wanna be like the first way
[00:17:38] in which people treat things.
[00:17:39] But then once they do that, you're like,
[00:17:42] I don't know, are you sure?
[00:17:44] Maybe we need to get some imaging done.
[00:17:46] And like, you know, it's just like,
[00:17:48] it was such a funny thing.
[00:17:50] I will never forget that moment where we're all like,
[00:17:52] I don't know what, I don't know what to do.
[00:17:55] That is funny.
[00:17:56] I have not had that experience.
[00:17:57] I've only had like, my brother has dealt
[00:18:00] with long COVID recently.
[00:18:02] And so the first couple of months,
[00:18:04] like it took a couple of months, I would say,
[00:18:06] which is so much shorter than anyone, right?
[00:18:08] But that's because he has me as a sister.
[00:18:10] And I was like, hey, hey, you know,
[00:18:13] he dismissed me for a little bit,
[00:18:14] went down the other, all the other roads
[00:18:16] and eventually listened and like leaned in.
[00:18:20] So I think that's one of the shortest amount of times,
[00:18:23] but not the first thing.
[00:18:24] So yeah.
[00:18:26] Totally.
[00:18:27] I always joke that my family thinks the work that we do
[00:18:30] is so cool and interesting,
[00:18:32] but it doesn't apply to them.
[00:18:34] I'm like, you know, I just, I love it.
[00:18:40] You know, it's so interesting
[00:18:42] when you're on this side of things,
[00:18:43] when you, I feel like when we have this like,
[00:18:48] this key to unlock this door and it's,
[00:18:51] it's scary how hard it is to like go in
[00:18:53] through that door frame or it's,
[00:18:55] it's scary to go in through that door frame.
[00:18:58] It's really hard to go in, right?
[00:18:59] And especially when somebody knows you
[00:19:02] and knows the work that you do, it's interesting.
[00:19:06] It creates an extra barrier, I think sometimes.
[00:19:09] And it just takes somebody else,
[00:19:10] sometimes having the conversation with them
[00:19:12] or them mulling it over like you're saying.
[00:19:15] Yeah.
[00:19:16] Because it, I mean, yeah, it's just,
[00:19:18] it's foreign until you can really grab onto it
[00:19:20] and you need it.
[00:19:21] Again, it ends up being the point,
[00:19:24] the last end, the last, you know, desperate place of,
[00:19:26] okay, fine, I guess I'll try this.
[00:19:29] Totally.
[00:19:30] Yeah.
[00:19:31] Okay, so I'm gonna switch over a little bit
[00:19:32] to what we came in here to talk about
[00:19:35] is predictive coding and what exactly that means.
[00:19:38] You actually kind of mentioned it a little bit ago.
[00:19:41] First and foremost, can you describe
[00:19:43] what exactly predictive coding is with our brain
[00:19:46] and our symptoms and why are we talking about it?
[00:19:49] Yeah, this is actually one of my favorite topics.
[00:19:52] It's kind of a nerding out topic.
[00:19:54] So predictive coding is basically this.
[00:19:59] Our intuition is that we walk through the world passively,
[00:20:04] that we just perceive things as it really is,
[00:20:08] but increasingly neuroscience has proven to us
[00:20:11] that's not how our brains work.
[00:20:13] Rather, much of our perceptions are the results
[00:20:16] of predictions that our brains make
[00:20:19] about the world around us based on past experiences,
[00:20:23] emotions and beliefs.
[00:20:25] So as a result of that,
[00:20:27] we don't perceive the world around us as it really is.
[00:20:31] We perceive the world around us
[00:20:33] as our brains predict it to be, right?
[00:20:36] So we don't actually see with our eyes, right?
[00:20:40] We see with our brain.
[00:20:42] Your eyes are just funnels
[00:20:44] so that your brain can compute what it's picking up on.
[00:20:47] Your eyes are like little binoculars
[00:20:50] and your brain is actually doing the work
[00:20:52] and sending the signal to you, right?
[00:20:53] To your awareness of like, that's what you're looking at,
[00:20:56] right?
[00:20:57] And so the story that I have behind this, first of all,
[00:21:02] I don't know if you have heard Olivia tell this story,
[00:21:04] but Olivia talks about walking on a hiking trail.
[00:21:09] Olivia lives in Juneau, Alaska
[00:21:11] and I will all tell it lightly
[00:21:13] because she's much better at telling her own story than I am.
[00:21:15] But the reason that I like her story so much
[00:21:18] is because even though I'm sure I could come up
[00:21:20] with something at one point in time
[00:21:22] that was a predictive coding thing for me,
[00:21:25] I always used Olivia's for a long time
[00:21:27] and I told her, I wish I had my own story
[00:21:32] that was like this powerful
[00:21:35] and then mine literally happened later that day.
[00:21:37] So Olivia's story is this, that she was walking on a trail.
[00:21:41] She lives in Alaska.
[00:21:43] It was the end of the day
[00:21:44] and the night is coming up behind her
[00:21:46] and on the right on this trail,
[00:21:48] she sees signage for a possible avalanche.
[00:21:50] Like walk steady and slow, be careful.
[00:21:53] And then on her left is steep, snowy,
[00:21:56] like dense mess that she couldn't walk through.
[00:21:59] So night's coming in behind her.
[00:22:02] She's got avalanche thread on the right,
[00:22:04] steep, dense, snowy mess on the left
[00:22:06] and she's walking ahead and then all of a sudden
[00:22:08] she sees this wolf up ahead on the trail
[00:22:11] and she stops and she's like, oh my God, there's a wolf.
[00:22:14] She's like, what do I do?
[00:22:15] Oh my God.
[00:22:16] And she's like taking a moment
[00:22:17] to kind of try to think through where she goes
[00:22:20] and what she does and what was I'm sure
[00:22:24] like 30 seconds probably felt like a lifetime.
[00:22:27] Then she sees a person come up
[00:22:30] from the other side of the wolf
[00:22:31] and then she sees a leash in the hand
[00:22:32] and then she realizes, oh my God, that's not a wolf.
[00:22:35] That's somebody's dog.
[00:22:37] Wow, right?
[00:22:38] And I was telling Olivia again,
[00:22:40] like I wish I had my own example.
[00:22:43] But it came up all of a sudden.
[00:22:47] I was actually talking about predictive coding
[00:22:49] with a client and it happened.
[00:22:52] So the morning of this moment that I had
[00:22:56] I was meeting with my admin assistant
[00:22:59] and she was asking me, oh my gosh,
[00:23:02] did you feel the earthquakes last night?
[00:23:05] And I hate earthquakes so much.
[00:23:10] It's the one thing in the world
[00:23:11] that will literally send me into like immediate tears
[00:23:14] other than seeing like, I don't know,
[00:23:17] a video of like a sad animal video or something.
[00:23:21] It's the one thing that as soon as I feel
[00:23:22] like it's happening, my eyes just tear up.
[00:23:25] It happens within a millisecond.
[00:23:27] And I was in a, I mean, we were totally okay.
[00:23:30] Yes, sure, it was scary,
[00:23:31] but like we were totally okay.
[00:23:33] I was in a really bad one when I was 12.
[00:23:36] Like all the windows in our house totally blew out
[00:23:39] cause the side of my grandparents house
[00:23:41] was on like stilts.
[00:23:42] And so that side of the house like totally got jacked up
[00:23:46] and my sister like ran through the kitchen
[00:23:48] and ran over like a broken piece of ceramic from a mug
[00:23:52] and it went like straight through her foot.
[00:23:53] And like, you know, so it's filled with like hospital
[00:23:56] and like chaos and like chaotic home
[00:23:59] and everybody's like yelling in the house.
[00:24:01] And it was just like really,
[00:24:02] I think it was like a 5.7 or something.
[00:24:04] I can't remember, it was pretty big.
[00:24:05] And so I just, I hate them so much to my core.
[00:24:09] And so my Cindy, my admin assistant was like,
[00:24:12] how did you feel them last night?
[00:24:13] She's like, there's like three of them.
[00:24:14] And it felt like somebody was shaking me awake.
[00:24:17] And I was like, I hate it so much.
[00:24:20] And then we're joking about how it's good here
[00:24:22] in California, technically,
[00:24:24] you want those little pressure releases
[00:24:25] cause it lets you know the tectonic plates are moving
[00:24:27] and rather than building up and, but still.
[00:24:31] And I don't like the conversation.
[00:24:33] I don't like earthquakes, but I'm not carrying it.
[00:24:36] You know, I'm not like terrified now.
[00:24:38] I'm not feeling symptomatic.
[00:24:39] I'm not nothing.
[00:24:40] I was just, you know, kind of like being extra dramatic
[00:24:43] just cause I'm just being like, oh, thank you so much.
[00:24:45] And we were, anyways,
[00:24:47] let's go into a work conversation and we moved on.
[00:24:49] And then I'm in a session later in the day.
[00:24:53] And I'm in this session and I have headphones on
[00:24:55] so I can't hear what's going on around me.
[00:24:59] And all of a sudden my monitor starts shaking
[00:25:02] and then the light above my monitor starts shaking
[00:25:04] and my whole desk is shaking back and forth.
[00:25:08] And I, let me tell you the speed at which my heart moved
[00:25:13] to my butt and like my hands got clammy
[00:25:16] and my client isn't looking at me.
[00:25:18] They're looking down, talking, talking
[00:25:20] about their own predictive coding stuff.
[00:25:22] And I'm like, oh my God, I'm about to hang up
[00:25:24] on this person because I can't do this.
[00:25:26] Like this is too much.
[00:25:27] And I'm kind of freaking out.
[00:25:29] And then again, probably 30 seconds or less,
[00:25:31] I suddenly realized I had put in a load of laundry
[00:25:35] before the session.
[00:25:38] And my laundry room is on the other side of my office wall
[00:25:42] and my home is raised.
[00:25:44] So there's a crawl space under my home.
[00:25:46] And when the washing machine goes on the spin cycle
[00:25:48] it shakes everything.
[00:25:51] So I was like, and then of course
[00:25:54] when my client stops talking,
[00:25:55] I was like, so as you were talking,
[00:25:59] I told them what happened.
[00:26:02] It like took a while for my hands to like not be sweaty.
[00:26:06] It was so, it was so uncomfortably hilarious.
[00:26:10] And I texted Olivia like, oh my God, I have my example.
[00:26:15] It was really hilarious.
[00:26:17] And it, so basically like what this all tells us, right?
[00:26:22] Is that with Olivia's sense of sight, right?
[00:26:26] She can, if she was with somebody
[00:26:29] she would have been able to tap them and be like,
[00:26:30] hey, are you seeing what I'm seeing?
[00:26:32] Is not really a wolf over there.
[00:26:34] These felt sensations in the body are especially prone
[00:26:37] to these kinds of predictive mistakes.
[00:26:40] If I didn't have my headphones in
[00:26:42] maybe I would be able to correct that felt sensation.
[00:26:45] One time my husband was in his office
[00:26:48] and had his headphones on
[00:26:49] and I was walking around the house
[00:26:51] and he takes his headphone out and goes,
[00:26:52] do you feel that?
[00:26:53] And I was like, it's the washing machine.
[00:26:55] It's on the spin cycle and he was like,
[00:26:56] oh, okay, I thought it was an earthquake.
[00:26:58] So it wasn't just me, like it's a thing, right?
[00:27:01] But in that moment, in this virtual session
[00:27:03] with my headphones on and the sensation in my body
[00:27:06] there's no way to double check my perception
[00:27:09] with another person.
[00:27:11] Your perception is all that you've got.
[00:27:13] And as a result of that misperceptions
[00:27:16] in the realm of sensations are especially durable
[00:27:19] and they have a way of going on and on and on and on.
[00:27:23] These especially durable misperceptions of sensation
[00:27:26] are also known as neuroplastic pain.
[00:27:29] We can retrain our brains to switch from predictive mode
[00:27:33] into a more passively receptive mode
[00:27:35] to feel things as they really are.
[00:27:38] But this is where a lot of people get stuck
[00:27:41] is in their brain's predictive coding.
[00:27:44] I had the same client that I was having my moment with.
[00:27:48] He's an IT and when I was telling about what just happened
[00:27:55] this client shared something with me.
[00:27:56] If anybody is in coding or IT work,
[00:27:59] they shared the phrase pull request.
[00:28:02] And a pull request basically is to pull new coding
[00:28:07] into your existing coding to make a new code, right?
[00:28:10] And I was like, oh, that is what we're doing.
[00:28:12] And this client goes, yeah,
[00:28:13] I'm basically doing a pull request.
[00:28:16] I'm pulling a new code into my existing code.
[00:28:18] I'm like, but I love that so much.
[00:28:20] So we are doing a pull request with PRT, right?
[00:28:24] But our brains all have predictive coding.
[00:28:26] Mine was not pain related and neither was Olivia's.
[00:28:29] Probably I would imagine not.
[00:28:31] It's just a human thing.
[00:28:33] So imagine what we do with pain and our fears
[00:28:37] and all the things that we build
[00:28:40] of what we can and can't do
[00:28:41] and what we have to protect ourselves from
[00:28:43] and what's going to make it worse
[00:28:44] and what's going to make it better.
[00:28:45] And just, you know, and everything that you're told
[00:28:48] and it just creates this whole world of codes
[00:28:53] that are like literally wired to predict
[00:28:57] what you're trying to get away from, right?
[00:28:59] So in a sense, when we stay in this cycle
[00:29:05] of like, this is the confines
[00:29:07] in which I have to live my life,
[00:29:09] it kind of ends up reinforcing it, right?
[00:29:13] Yeah.
[00:29:14] Yeah.
[00:29:16] I see that a lot with people in terms of food and movement.
[00:29:21] Oh, yeah.
[00:29:22] Always fearful of what they're ingesting
[00:29:25] and taking into their bodies,
[00:29:26] going to affect them, anything.
[00:29:27] Food, liquid supplements, whatever.
[00:29:30] And any kind of movement if they have,
[00:29:32] and not just physical pain, but I mean anything, right?
[00:29:35] Bladder, pelvic issues or sensations.
[00:29:39] And I get it, there's a lot out in the world
[00:29:43] of what you should and shouldn't do with your body
[00:29:45] to not or to cause pain or sensations or whatever it is.
[00:29:49] So there's a lot of repetition
[00:29:51] of what can become the predictive coding outside of us.
[00:29:56] And so rewiring it takes like kind of,
[00:29:59] we were saying more education, repetition
[00:30:02] over and over and over again.
[00:30:04] And the understanding that it's probably not gonna go
[00:30:07] perfectly, because that is our automatic response,
[00:30:11] but there's countless, countless stories
[00:30:13] over and over again of people doing that.
[00:30:17] Yeah.
[00:30:18] Can you give an example of how that shows up
[00:30:21] with someone in some sort of painter?
[00:30:25] Yeah, neuroplastic symptom.
[00:30:28] I sure can.
[00:30:29] So, I'm gonna use the same client actually,
[00:30:35] the one who gave me the poll request.
[00:30:37] I'll give you that.
[00:30:38] An example.
[00:30:38] Yeah.
[00:30:39] They were experiencing debilitating neck pain
[00:30:44] for a very long time and did the usual process
[00:30:47] of trying all the things that didn't work to no avail
[00:30:51] to just feel worse, to feel worsening symptoms,
[00:30:54] more depressed.
[00:30:55] They were definitely, there's two kinds of arousal
[00:30:59] in terms of like anxiety or depression.
[00:31:01] There's hypo arousal, hypo depressed down right stuck.
[00:31:07] Hyper arousal, anxious, right?
[00:31:10] And there are symptoms of hyper arousal
[00:31:12] and hypo arousal that whichever one you're in,
[00:31:15] you know, like, oh, I'm experiencing anxiety about my pain
[00:31:18] or I'm experiencing depression about my pain.
[00:31:20] We can certainly experience both,
[00:31:22] but this person was clearly in a constant state
[00:31:26] of hypo arousal because of their symptoms.
[00:31:30] And the neck pain was just, it took such a toll
[00:31:36] on their work life and personal life
[00:31:38] and just put a stop to so many things.
[00:31:43] There's a big story behind their neck pain too
[00:31:45] that reinforces this fear of like,
[00:31:48] I don't ever wanna feel that again
[00:31:50] because it could lead to worst case scenario
[00:31:53] because for them one point in time, it did.
[00:31:56] And so a lot of our work was, you know,
[00:31:59] getting out of that trench, digging ourselves out
[00:32:01] of that trench over time with evidence
[00:32:03] and education and reminders and grounding
[00:32:06] just working at it and working at it.
[00:32:07] And eventually when they got to a place
[00:32:09] that felt really good, right?
[00:32:11] We encouraged now it's time to really start living your life,
[00:32:14] get back to work, get back into personal life,
[00:32:16] get back into your hobbies, right?
[00:32:18] All these things that is like returning to life.
[00:32:21] And the more evidence that they got that they could,
[00:32:24] the more that they felt like, wow, like,
[00:32:25] I am getting, I am in my life again.
[00:32:28] This is amazing.
[00:32:30] But the moment that there's any perception
[00:32:34] of a neck sensation coming back,
[00:32:36] they had recently went on a family outing
[00:32:39] and were doing something kind of strenuous,
[00:32:41] going down a water slide, you know,
[00:32:44] anybody with neck or back pain would never go down
[00:32:49] a water slide for fear of what it's gonna do
[00:32:51] to your body, right?
[00:32:53] But such a big thing that this person would do that
[00:32:56] given like the long journey, but they've been,
[00:32:59] they've had so much time
[00:33:00] since the really tough symptoms
[00:33:03] that I think time was also a factor too,
[00:33:05] just time heals and time allows us to gain perspective
[00:33:09] and that life can move forward.
[00:33:10] And so they were like, what the heck?
[00:33:12] I'm gonna go on this water slide, right?
[00:33:13] And they went on the water slide,
[00:33:15] this person is very tall.
[00:33:17] So when they went down
[00:33:18] on like a really steep part of the water slide
[00:33:21] and then it yanked them back up
[00:33:23] to go like higher on the other side,
[00:33:25] their top of their body bent over the back
[00:33:28] of the inner tube and they whacked their head
[00:33:31] on the base of the water slide.
[00:33:33] So then we're in session
[00:33:34] and they're describing this to me.
[00:33:36] And I almost got caught in it too, to be honest.
[00:33:40] They were saying, I had this happen
[00:33:42] and like I'm thinking that like maybe,
[00:33:45] maybe I injured my neck and I was like, ooh, maybe.
[00:33:49] Like you're, that sounds like that hurts.
[00:33:52] And then I went, wait, wait, wait, hold on.
[00:33:54] Our bodies are not that fragile.
[00:33:55] Our bodies are not that fragile.
[00:33:56] Like we are not as fragile as we fear we are.
[00:33:59] And I went, actually, you know what?
[00:34:00] No, no, I'm gonna, I'm gonna push back on that
[00:34:02] because, you know, what do you notice, right?
[00:34:05] And they were telling me
[00:34:07] all of their typical pain symptoms, right?
[00:34:10] Not anything new, right?
[00:34:13] Not anything like we weren't concerned about a concussion.
[00:34:16] We weren't concerned just because
[00:34:17] that wasn't being brought up.
[00:34:19] And certainly if they were ongoing, like, you know,
[00:34:22] head pain symptoms or just something, you know,
[00:34:25] it's our job to be like,
[00:34:25] I think you should go get that checked out, right?
[00:34:27] But as soon as I realized
[00:34:29] they were kind of like regurgitating
[00:34:31] some of the narratives around their old symptoms.
[00:34:34] It's like, oh, wait, wait, wait.
[00:34:35] Said, is there any chance
[00:34:37] that this is your brain's predictive coding?
[00:34:39] Right, I explained predictive coding.
[00:34:41] I gave the fun examples and was like,
[00:34:43] so you see, like sometimes we are just coded.
[00:34:46] We're wired to perceive sensations in our body
[00:34:50] because of past experiences.
[00:34:52] Your brain goes, I had neck pain for years
[00:34:54] and it took me so long to get back to enjoying my life
[00:34:58] that when you go do something
[00:34:59] that's an example of you enjoying your life
[00:35:01] and you feel like it didn't go well
[00:35:02] and now you have this symptom after
[00:35:04] that it's a sign that you can't enjoy your life.
[00:35:06] That's your predictive coding.
[00:35:09] That's not a reflection of you
[00:35:10] not being able to enjoy your life.
[00:35:12] That is your brain's predictive coding, right?
[00:35:15] And I kid you not, the next session,
[00:35:17] this person was like, I'm totally fine, you're right.
[00:35:20] It was entirely my predictive coding.
[00:35:22] I did the pull request.
[00:35:24] I know that this is, I just smacked my head
[00:35:28] and we said, and yeah, that hurts.
[00:35:31] And then you have to be around kids the rest of the day
[00:35:33] that are screaming and playing
[00:35:34] and you're like, oh my God, get me out of here.
[00:35:36] So it's like, of course, all that is so understandable
[00:35:40] but it does not mean your symptoms are coming back
[00:35:44] and that you can never go to a water park again
[00:35:46] and that you can never get on a water site again.
[00:35:48] It doesn't mean that your body can't handle it.
[00:35:50] It doesn't mean that your neck just deteriorated
[00:35:52] in that exact moment
[00:35:54] and that you're going to go back
[00:35:55] to how life was before.
[00:35:56] That's your brain's predictive coding, right?
[00:36:00] And again, that person with their felt sensation
[00:36:03] in their body, they're the only ones
[00:36:05] that can perceive it that way in that moment.
[00:36:08] And the more that they're checking and checking
[00:36:10] and rolling their neck and touching,
[00:36:12] and oh my gosh, it's so sore.
[00:36:14] The felt sensation with their perspective
[00:36:17] based on their past experiences is just going,
[00:36:20] oh, this is bad, right?
[00:36:23] And then they come here and we talk about it
[00:36:25] and I'm like, I'm bulldozing that wall down.
[00:36:28] You are not building that wall here.
[00:36:33] Yeah, it's frightening.
[00:36:35] I mean, that is frightening.
[00:36:36] It is, who wants to do that?
[00:36:38] Like, I'm like, ooh, that sounded awful, you know?
[00:36:42] Yeah, exactly.
[00:36:44] I've actually had a couple of those experiences,
[00:36:46] especially in my early years of symptoms
[00:36:49] or awareness of my symptoms was a lot
[00:36:51] of chronic pain in all of my body.
[00:36:53] And I've since then had a couple,
[00:36:56] like I've fallen off my bike or I was doing some,
[00:37:00] I like to play around with movement
[00:37:01] and I like fell off, I felt pretty high off of bladder
[00:37:05] and like landed on my hip and those hurt.
[00:37:07] Sorry, I had huge bruises.
[00:37:10] But I remember reflecting back thinking
[00:37:12] that was just that day that it hurt.
[00:37:16] It didn't continue whereas before, oh my gosh,
[00:37:19] I would have gone into, oh, so much fear
[00:37:22] and thinking I needed to go and get adjusted all the time
[00:37:25] and I just totally messed up my body.
[00:37:27] And then I would have had the fear, or not the fear,
[00:37:29] but I would have felt like a failure,
[00:37:31] like how did I do this again to me?
[00:37:33] And I'm so fragile and I'm so weak.
[00:37:35] Yeah, totally.
[00:37:36] And I never had that in recent times, yeah.
[00:37:39] You know what, I may have shared this example
[00:37:42] with you before, but some time ago,
[00:37:45] my husband and I were in a motorcycle accident.
[00:37:48] We were hit by a car and we flipped
[00:37:49] and flew like 40 feet into oncoming traffic
[00:37:52] and got up with like, he had a bunch of broken bones
[00:37:55] and my shoulder was dislocated and I had a broken wrist.
[00:37:58] And just like, I, you know what's so funny is,
[00:38:04] this is such a weird thing to say.
[00:38:07] I loved, actively in the moment,
[00:38:13] knowing that my greatest fear of getting into an accident
[00:38:18] happened and that I could get up and walk away.
[00:38:21] I was almost in like PRT brain the whole time.
[00:38:24] I'm like, this is amazing.
[00:38:25] I don't, I don't feel any of my symptoms.
[00:38:28] And like, that's so, I can get up and walk away.
[00:38:31] Wow, I just like lived through my fear.
[00:38:33] And like, and I was like cracking up at myself
[00:38:37] even in our recovery process.
[00:38:39] Cause I don't, this was understandably,
[00:38:43] it's one of my greatest fears,
[00:38:44] like what's going to happen if we get hit by a car
[00:38:48] and like, are we going to be okay?
[00:38:49] And we weren't all okay, but we were okay, right?
[00:38:53] It wasn't all right, but we were all right, right?
[00:38:57] So I, I learned that like, whoa, we can get hurt.
[00:39:03] Like you can get hurt and it means nothing
[00:39:06] other than, ouch, I just got hurt.
[00:39:09] And I'm going to be down for the count for a little bit.
[00:39:12] And maybe next time I like do things a little differently
[00:39:16] but honestly for us, I was like,
[00:39:17] we do nothing differently
[00:39:19] because it wasn't our fault.
[00:39:20] We didn't, I couldn't,
[00:39:21] there was nothing I could have done to prevent that.
[00:39:24] So I'm going to do it again
[00:39:26] because it's a hobby and I enjoy it
[00:39:28] and you probably love messing with movement
[00:39:31] and like doing new things.
[00:39:32] And so we remember like bodies get hurt, but bodies heal.
[00:39:37] And it's not all right in that moment,
[00:39:39] but we'll be all right.
[00:39:41] And we will figure it out and it doesn't mean symptoms.
[00:39:44] And we can in those moments
[00:39:46] like change our brains, predictive coding, right?
[00:39:48] And we're going to have to know like,
[00:39:50] this is just a moment
[00:39:52] and we're going to take a pause and we'll come back, right?
[00:39:55] But it doesn't mean all the past experiences
[00:39:58] that our brain is saying that it means.
[00:40:00] Yeah, exactly.
[00:40:01] And when that happens, it's,
[00:40:03] or when we can get to that point,
[00:40:05] it becomes a lot of freedom.
[00:40:07] Yeah. Right?
[00:40:08] So much freedom in your life to just live.
[00:40:10] It does.
[00:40:11] And not worry so much
[00:40:13] and hyper fixate on what's going to happen,
[00:40:16] what's not going to happen,
[00:40:16] how your body's going to respond
[00:40:18] to what you need to do to control it
[00:40:20] or control the environment.
[00:40:21] And that takes a lot of energy.
[00:40:23] It does.
[00:40:24] Yeah.
[00:40:25] Yeah.
[00:40:26] So, okay.
[00:40:30] Is there anything else around predictive coding
[00:40:31] that you feel like is important to note here?
[00:40:35] You know, I really think that it's important
[00:40:37] to remember that your brain isn't engaging
[00:40:42] in its predictive coding
[00:40:44] because your wiring is wrong.
[00:40:48] Right?
[00:40:49] It's not that there's like some jacked up,
[00:40:52] like virus filled code in your brain
[00:40:56] that needs to be worked through or else.
[00:41:00] It's not an example that you're malfunctioning.
[00:41:03] It's an example that you're working too well
[00:41:05] but you're using a code
[00:41:07] and wiring that doesn't serve you anymore.
[00:41:09] Right?
[00:41:10] There are these parts of us.
[00:41:14] All of these parts that we have
[00:41:16] that have all different jobs.
[00:41:18] Right?
[00:41:18] Parts that protect us.
[00:41:20] Parts that help us problem solve.
[00:41:22] Parts that have us brace, right?
[00:41:24] Our reflexes that brace for the impact of something.
[00:41:28] Parts that overthink and ruminate.
[00:41:30] Parts that want to be perfect.
[00:41:32] Parts that just don't want to deal with uncertainty
[00:41:35] or parts that are saying that we're really fragile.
[00:41:38] There's all these like protective parts
[00:41:40] that our brain is just like wired and coded
[00:41:44] to engage in because of past experiences.
[00:41:49] It's not a bad thing.
[00:41:51] It just sometimes we need those parts
[00:41:53] and sometimes we need space from those parts.
[00:41:56] Right?
[00:41:57] Sometimes those parts all want to be at the wheel
[00:41:59] at the same time.
[00:42:01] And sometimes we just need to ask
[00:42:03] those protective parts for some space.
[00:42:06] Right?
[00:42:06] Because though it makes sense
[00:42:07] that we want to problem solve this right now
[00:42:09] because that's just how we're wired.
[00:42:11] Right?
[00:42:12] Problem solving is a trait that serves us
[00:42:14] and has served us many, many times
[00:42:16] and will continue to serve us.
[00:42:19] But there's some areas where we're learning
[00:42:21] like, oh, I might not need that problem solving part
[00:42:24] in this moment.
[00:42:26] I might need to ask for some space.
[00:42:27] I might need to put that part down.
[00:42:29] Right?
[00:42:30] And I might need to take the wheel to remember
[00:42:32] like this isn't about fixing this or avoiding that.
[00:42:36] This is about learning to respond
[00:42:38] to what I'm experiencing in a new way.
[00:42:41] Yeah, yeah.
[00:42:43] Okay, thank you for that.
[00:42:44] And one more thing that I realized,
[00:42:46] I wanted to note, what if someone says,
[00:42:51] yeah, but I do have these scans to show
[00:42:54] that there is something wrong in my body
[00:42:57] or like in my case, for a long time,
[00:43:00] I was fixated on the fact that I'm hypermobile.
[00:43:04] I'm on that hypermobility EDS scale.
[00:43:06] And honestly, that was stuck for me for a long time.
[00:43:11] I didn't end up having a lot of association with it,
[00:43:14] but I just assumed, well, yeah,
[00:43:15] I'm gonna have sensation in my body because of that.
[00:43:18] And now I realize I don't have to.
[00:43:20] So what do you say to someone who's like, well, yeah,
[00:43:23] but I have real, real physical abnormalities in my body?
[00:43:29] First and foremost, the research driven part of me
[00:43:34] wants to say there's a lot of data out there
[00:43:37] that proves to us that just because we have findings
[00:43:41] in our imaging, that's not 100% indicative
[00:43:44] of why we feel the symptoms that we do, right?
[00:43:47] So there's literal proof, right?
[00:43:49] Just out there for us to take a look at,
[00:43:53] I promise if you Google,
[00:43:54] I always forget what this one study is called.
[00:43:56] And so anytime I just Google like asymptomatic
[00:43:59] research findings, it always populates.
[00:44:01] I forget which one it is, but it's really wonderful.
[00:44:03] It's like this study where they kind of collect data
[00:44:09] from a variety of different age groups
[00:44:11] and put them on a spreadsheet.
[00:44:14] And they list all the different abnormalities in their backs
[00:44:18] that they see according to their age group, right?
[00:44:21] And what the percentage, what the likely percentage is
[00:44:25] is that they are experiencing disc degeneration
[00:44:28] in somebody's 20s.
[00:44:29] I think it's something like 36 or 37%.
[00:44:32] And then it just goes up over time.
[00:44:34] Everybody in this study is asymptomatic.
[00:44:36] They don't feel these things, but they're there.
[00:44:39] So there's literal data that shows us
[00:44:43] your image findings are not 100% indicative
[00:44:48] of why you feel what you feel, right?
[00:44:50] So we can say that, right?
[00:44:52] This imaging exam, this sensation is not the whole story
[00:44:57] of what is going on, right?
[00:44:58] My first client when I started here
[00:45:00] was diagnosed with RA.
[00:45:02] You would think, especially as a therapist,
[00:45:04] I'm like, this is outside of my scope.
[00:45:05] I don't know what I'm supposed to do with this.
[00:45:08] And I don't know if this is okay,
[00:45:10] that I get somebody to respond to this differently.
[00:45:13] But it was because the way that they experienced
[00:45:15] their symptoms, which typically with RA
[00:45:17] or with many arthritic conditions is in the morning.
[00:45:19] Mornings are rough, but predictive coding,
[00:45:23] your brain says in the morning, A, B, and C happens.
[00:45:26] And guess what you do?
[00:45:27] You cater to A, B, and C.
[00:45:29] You walk carefully, you walk peacefully,
[00:45:31] you take things slow, you don't pick up the thing
[00:45:34] that you just dropped, you feel a sensation
[00:45:36] and you stop opening the sliding door for the dogs
[00:45:39] and things like that, right?
[00:45:40] You get caught in this kind of like habit, right?
[00:45:44] And this person eventually reached out because of that.
[00:45:47] And now they consider themselves completely pain-free.
[00:45:50] They just reach out for like family stuff every now
[00:45:53] and then, even with a diagnosis like that.
[00:45:56] So image findings is not 100% the explanation.
[00:46:00] I think, I've had, it's funny to say, I think,
[00:46:02] I think I've had like six concussions in my life.
[00:46:05] I can't remember.
[00:46:08] That's kind of a conundrum.
[00:46:10] But I remember when I was told that I may be having
[00:46:19] some of my migraine symptoms because of the concussions.
[00:46:22] I'm like, I knew in like my heart
[00:46:25] that it didn't totally make sense
[00:46:26] because I've had my migraine since I was 11.
[00:46:29] That was before any concussion.
[00:46:31] But I also knew that like, oh my gosh,
[00:46:33] maybe these concussions are gonna make
[00:46:35] the existing thing like 10 times worse.
[00:46:39] We can go through things and we can have things happen
[00:46:42] and we can have things show up on our imaging.
[00:46:44] And still it's not a 100% explanation
[00:46:48] for why we feel what we feel.
[00:46:50] But I understand wanting to,
[00:46:53] and feeling like we need to hold on to that.
[00:46:55] Because again, that protective trait
[00:46:57] that feels like we're really fragile
[00:46:59] is just trying to help us.
[00:47:01] Yeah.
[00:47:02] And honestly, that could be a whole other episode
[00:47:04] of identifying with our diagnoses or lack of diagnoses
[00:47:10] or sensations or pain and what that means
[00:47:12] and the attachment about it, so.
[00:47:13] It really can be.
[00:47:15] Exactly, yeah.
[00:47:16] Fourth time's the charm.
[00:47:17] Exactly, exactly.
[00:47:20] Thank you so much, Vanessa.
[00:47:22] This was really helpful.
[00:47:23] I know that this is a really important topic
[00:47:25] for people to really grasp and understand
[00:47:27] because it sneaks up on us so much.
[00:47:28] We can get it.
[00:47:29] And then, I mean, like your client example, right?
[00:47:32] Then we're like, oh wait, it's a predictive coding again.
[00:47:34] I'm just assuming that I'm gonna have pain
[00:47:36] because of what happened.
[00:47:38] Yeah, I always joke.
[00:47:40] I'm like, you're gonna get so annoyed with me
[00:47:43] and this work because you're gonna start going,
[00:47:45] oh, that's predictive coding.
[00:47:46] Oh, that's predictive coding.
[00:47:47] Oh, that's, oh my God, stop, all of it.
[00:47:50] I'm like, no, I want you to get annoyed
[00:47:51] because I want you to see how annoying it is
[00:47:54] that we get stuck in our brain's predictive coding.
[00:47:57] It's such a true, it's constant, constant, right?
[00:48:02] When we are sitting here talking,
[00:48:03] I'm not kidding you, we're sitting here talking.
[00:48:06] I'm gonna be really honest right now.
[00:48:08] I look at my dog, that's Charlie.
[00:48:11] I look at Charlie in the background
[00:48:12] and Charlie is almost 15 years old.
[00:48:15] And as we're talking, I have this sudden thought of like,
[00:48:19] oh, Charlie's gonna die one day.
[00:48:22] And I don't know how I'm gonna handle that.
[00:48:25] How is Gertie gonna handle that?
[00:48:26] She's my three-year-old golden retriever
[00:48:28] that's laying on the floor.
[00:48:30] And I was thinking like, how's Gertie gonna handle that?
[00:48:32] Maybe I'm just gonna have to take Gertie everywhere
[00:48:34] with me so that she doesn't feel alone.
[00:48:36] And as I'm thinking, my hands were getting kind of sweaty
[00:48:40] and I was like sitting up straighter
[00:48:42] than I usually would,
[00:48:45] not because to have good posture
[00:48:47] but because I was getting uncomfortable.
[00:48:50] And then you said something and I'm like,
[00:48:53] oh no, I wasn't paying attention for 10 seconds,
[00:48:55] probably less honestly,
[00:48:56] because we have these thoughts so quickly.
[00:48:59] And then I was like, oh no, what's gonna happen?
[00:49:01] Oh no, I'm not gonna answer her question.
[00:49:02] I'm just gonna ramble.
[00:49:03] I'm not gonna sound good.
[00:49:05] And oh, I hate not sounding good.
[00:49:07] And all these things, it's our brain engaging
[00:49:13] and it's predictive coding.
[00:49:14] My brain is going, my dog is aging,
[00:49:17] so I know that's gonna happen.
[00:49:19] And I am engaging in an intrusive thought
[00:49:21] that is making me physically uncomfortable.
[00:49:24] And that physical discomfort
[00:49:25] is making me suddenly aware that I'm not listening.
[00:49:28] And then makes me start worrying
[00:49:30] about not sounding smart enough or good enough.
[00:49:33] And it happened in 10 seconds.
[00:49:35] And then I was like, what am I doing?
[00:49:37] Oh my gosh, pay it.
[00:49:38] Like just, I don't know what I'm doing.
[00:49:40] Oh my gosh, pay it.
[00:49:41] Like just, just chill out.
[00:49:43] And I was like, okay, now I'm back.
[00:49:45] It's so, it's so funny, but our brains do this.
[00:49:50] Don't be afraid of it.
[00:49:52] Like please, I tell clients all the time,
[00:49:54] like this is normal.
[00:49:56] They'll be like, yeah, but what if I think about,
[00:49:57] like when this person dies,
[00:49:59] or what if I think about, what if normal?
[00:50:01] Yeah, but like, what if I think about like,
[00:50:03] you know, driving my car
[00:50:05] and like what it would feel like to like,
[00:50:07] just veer off for a second because I'm like,
[00:50:09] and then I feel scared,
[00:50:10] like am I experiencing something that I shouldn't be
[00:50:14] and that's normal, right?
[00:50:15] And like just, I feel like I'm constantly saying,
[00:50:18] this is your brain's predictive coding.
[00:50:21] We know that bad things happen.
[00:50:22] We know that bad things have happened to us.
[00:50:24] We know that we're going to eventually lose people
[00:50:27] and things that we love.
[00:50:29] We, you know, think it all
[00:50:31] within a span of five to 10 seconds
[00:50:33] and it creates physical sensations.
[00:50:35] Don't let it trick you.
[00:50:38] Don't let your protective brain trick you
[00:50:40] into thinking that this is a sign
[00:50:43] that there is something wrong with you, right?
[00:50:45] We all do this.
[00:50:46] It's totally like, quote, unquote, normal.
[00:50:51] The exact situation you described within those 10 seconds,
[00:50:54] I was nodding so hard because I'm like, oh yeah,
[00:50:56] it's happening to me all the time.
[00:50:58] The, oh crap, I wasn't paying attention.
[00:50:59] Oh my gosh, I'm not going to sound good.
[00:51:00] Oh my gosh, I'm not going to be enough
[00:51:01] and I'm not going to help people enough
[00:51:03] or whatever, you know.
[00:51:04] Totally, totally.
[00:51:06] We all do it.
[00:51:07] It's so, it's so normal.
[00:51:09] And I just, I just, if there was anything
[00:51:11] that I like really want to like give people
[00:51:14] as much as possible is any thought that you have,
[00:51:18] no matter how scary or icky or uncomfortable it feels,
[00:51:21] I know it's really easy to think
[00:51:24] that it means something bad about you
[00:51:26] and the way that you are, but try,
[00:51:29] try not to look at it that way.
[00:51:32] It's a concept called Kierkegaard.
[00:51:35] It's from this philosopher, Sorin Kierkegaard.
[00:51:38] It's like Dutch philosopher, I think.
[00:51:40] Kierkegaard means anxiety from freedom of thought.
[00:51:44] If we have context that these things can happen
[00:51:46] or context that they could possibly be true,
[00:51:49] we are going to have this freedom of thought
[00:51:52] and we're going to get anxious because of it, right?
[00:51:54] So if we know of people that have driven their car
[00:51:57] off the side of the road,
[00:51:59] or we know that that's happened
[00:52:00] because we saw it in the news,
[00:52:02] we know that life happens and our pets pass
[00:52:06] and or we know that we actually have lost our train of thought
[00:52:11] in a conversation before
[00:52:13] and we've listened back to that audio
[00:52:15] and we're like, oh my God, what was I saying, right?
[00:52:17] If we know that these things happen,
[00:52:19] it just starts, it like coated into your brain, right?
[00:52:24] And when we have this anxiety from freedom of thought,
[00:52:27] we like don't give ourselves room
[00:52:30] to acknowledge how human this is.
[00:52:32] It's just, it's really important to know
[00:52:34] when your brain is engaging and it's predictive coding,
[00:52:37] when you are having this freedom of thought,
[00:52:40] even if the thoughts feel icky or scary, right?
[00:52:43] Ever thought about like, you know,
[00:52:46] cooking in the kitchen with your significant other
[00:52:48] and you're arguing and you're like,
[00:52:49] I wonder what would happen if I just like stabbed them?
[00:52:51] It's normal, like, you know, like it's, I swear,
[00:52:56] it's a weird thing to say out loud,
[00:52:58] but it's so normal, you know?
[00:52:59] So I just, I think that I just,
[00:53:01] I really like to bring that home.
[00:53:03] So people know that these kinds of thoughts are okay
[00:53:06] and they're particularly scary when they're about something
[00:53:10] that we're trying desperately to get out of.
[00:53:14] Yes, they can be very scary.
[00:53:16] One, cause they're not talked about enough.
[00:53:17] So thank you for bringing that up.
[00:53:18] You're welcome.
[00:53:19] Normalizing it, right?
[00:53:21] We're normalizing it and to reduce the shame
[00:53:25] that you might feel when you have those thoughts.
[00:53:28] So yeah.
[00:53:29] Okay.
[00:53:31] Now it is time to wrap up.
[00:53:34] So again, thank you so much for coming on.
[00:53:36] Who knows?
[00:53:37] Maybe there will be a fourth time.
[00:53:39] I see it.
[00:53:40] I see it.
[00:53:40] I feel it.
[00:53:41] My predictive coding says that it's going to happen.
[00:53:43] Yeah, it's amazing.
[00:53:46] Okay.
[00:53:47] All right, Vanessa.
[00:53:48] Thank you so much.
[00:53:49] We will link links below for where people can find you.
[00:53:53] I watched your story on the migraine too,
[00:53:56] on your real talk, which was interesting
[00:53:59] and thank you for putting that out there too.
[00:54:00] Yes.
[00:54:01] So things like that.
[00:54:03] Anything else you want to say as we close?
[00:54:05] No, I just appreciate you.
[00:54:06] I love doing this.
[00:54:08] Thank you.
[00:54:09] Okay.
[00:54:10] Appreciate you too.
[00:54:11] If this podcast means something to you,
[00:54:13] it would mean so much to me
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[00:54:18] wherever you listen and tap the plus sign
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[00:54:37] Thanks for listening
[00:54:38] and I hope this brings you hope on your journey.