A (18:20)
Okay, cool, cool. So the, the three that I, that I teach about are emotional is number one. I think that'll be easier to understand. Psychological is number two. And being misattuned and misaligned with your true self is number three. So number one, emotional. Most people with chronic pain are people who have learned somewhere along the way that, like, the emotions you feel, like, the strong emotions you feel are, like, not safe, not good, certainly not easy, maybe will not be attended to by others, don't matter to others. And therefore, like the emotions that we feel, like it's best to not feel it. And we can be very good at trying to fix emotions, trying to solve Emotions, trying to fix the things that are underneath our emotions, but solve the problems that are underneath our emotions. And that's great. You know, a lot of therapy is about that. And like, that. That's great work. And there are some things that you can't fix for and something you can't solve for. And you meet every. Every therapist knows that. And there's a huge difference between fixing your emotions versus just feeling your emotions and allowing yourself to feel your emotions and not being afraid to feel your emotions. And so most of us with chronic pain are the type of people who want to fix everything. We don't want to feel it. We don't like to feel it. And we come by that honestly because usually that's like, you know, we were in an environment that in some way was not validating and did not see us, and we were not mirrored. And certainly it could. Absolutely. This can come from trauma. And so we feel emotions are a threat. So as emotions rise in the body, which will happen every day, you know, not a day goes by without emotions. As strong emotions rise in the body, that feels threatening to the mind, body, system. And on an unconscious level, the body will create pain and symptoms because it's afraid of, you know, it's similar to, like the hand on the hot stove. It's like the emotions have a similar function in the body. It's like as that rises, the body's like, no, no, no, don't like, don't like dangerous. And that, of course, creates a danger signal. So a huge part of the treatment for chronic pain is learning how to befriend your emotions. Because, I mean, most of us have a lot of repressed emotions, a lot of stuff we don't like to address. And so airing out and getting to know and making friends with those repressed emotions is a huge part of dealing with chronic pain. All right, so that's the first thing. Emotional pain, where the emotion causes the danger signal, which causes the pain. Second is psychological. So this is. This is the realm in which pain is caused by the sense of threat that causes the pain is the. Is the pain itself. So there's something called the pain threat cycle. I mean, it's for people, for therapists who are similar with a panic disorder, it's like that. But with pain, where it's like, the thing that gives you the most anxiety is the sensations of anxiety. This is like where the. The pain, you know, when. When you have, say, you wake up with a pain in your neck and you don't know it, but it's because of some emotional situation you're dealing with. And then it goes on and on, and it's days and it's weeks, and then maybe the emotional situation has now blown over, and that's okay. Awesome. Good. That is sort of resolved, at least temporarily for now. Good. But the pain may remain because every morning you might wake up like, oh, God, my neck. How does it feel right now? Oh, maybe it feels okay. What if I sit up when I'm working today? What kind of position do I need to be in? Oh, is my neck going to start hurting? Oh, no, I think I feel it. I think, oh, God, it's going to be a bad neck day. Right. And all of that, that becomes the new danger signal and stresses out your body so much that it's going to perpetuate the symptoms. So there's something called pain threat cycle, which is like when you feel pain and you're threatened by the pain, and pain is a danger signal. So feeling threatened will make the pain worse. And then when the pain get worse, gets worse, you feel more threatened, and then it causes more pain and more threat, and you just like going down a downward spiral. So what we really work on there, what I work on with my clients there, is not being afraid of the pain and the symptoms and learning to reverse that cycle. And that cycle can get real bad. People without, certainly through no fault of their own, they're just not familiar with what's going on. They end up bedbound, housebound, you know, people, the chronic. I think there's a. There's a belief that, like, if your chronic pain or chronic symptoms are emotional in nature, there's no way it could be that bad. Like, if it's really bad, something really wrong with your body, and that's not true. These emotional and psychological symptoms can be incredibly bad, incredibly severe. And so, so, so, yes, getting out of that is important. All right, last thing briefly, in terms of the three ways in which chronic pain typically rises, first, we talked about emotional. Second, psychological. Third is where the danger is like the fear of being your true self. Everywhere you go, there you are. We all know that. And if you're always. I mean, chronic pain usually happens for people like me who have been taught along the way, like, you're not right how you are. You should be different. You shouldn't be this way, you shouldn't be that way. You should be more like this. And everywhere you go, your true self is there. You know, we're all born with a temperament. We're all born with a personality, and of course, you know, the environment affects us hugely. We can develop this way or that way. And yet all of us, like, we are all a real person who has a real personality. And, and like we come into the world with something. And if you are trained to dislike and try to repress whatever's inside you, that will be there all the time. And so every, you know, everywhere you go, you may be feeling threatened by your true self. And this is some of the hardest work. It certainly has been for me, and it is for most people who are on this path. But making friends with yourself and allowing yourself to be yourself will drastically help with chronic pain. And people like, that's a far leap for a lot of people who are like, wait, but I need to get a, you know, I need to get an mri, I need to get an X ray. And to just say like, you actually need to befriend your true self is like for so many people. But in most cases it is actually true. And so it can be kind of a long on ramp. You know, like I start with people with like the education and the emotional stuff and usually getting, getting into like being yourself and learning to love yourself. It doesn't have to be so dramatic. Like you love everything about yourself, but just learning to tolerate yourself, that's like a later phase of treatment. So I. Okay, last thing. I just want to briefly say Dr. Sarno has a list of personality traits. This is a list of traits for people, typical personality traits that people have who fear their true selves and typical personality traits that people have who develop chronic pain. And a lot of people relate to this stuff. And a lot of therapists have this personality profile. Perfectionism, goodism, wanting to be seen as good by others all the time, people pleasing, high conscientiousness, stoicism, low self esteem and highly self, self critical. I certainly relate to basically all of that. And I know a lot of your listeners will and a lot of therapists will. And so what I want to invite people into is like, if you or the clients who you have are experiencing chronic pain and have that kind of personality profile, there's a good chance that this is what, that this is what they're either they or you are dealing with in their body or in your body. And the good news is, like, there really is hope for this. It can absolutely get better. Like if you treat the symptoms emotionally and psychologically, you can be doing worlds better. Like the symptoms will go down significantly, go away in many cases. Certainly not be chronic anymore. There's so much hope and so I want to. I want people to know that because, like, I needed this information so long before I actually got it. So it feels good to be able to share this with people. And I hope that this lands with some of your listeners and that they, you know, that they feel hopeful and maybe are. Because this can be a really big awakening. Like, for some people listening to this, it might be like, oh, wow, wait, could this be true for me? And that is a huge awakening. And so I just want people to know there's a lot of hope for these conditions.
