← What Are You Made Of?
What Are You Made Of?
From Chronic Pain to Healing: Nicole Sachs on the Mind-Body Connection That Changes Everything
00:39:43
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- [00:00]
A
Welcome back to the what do you made up show. It's your boy C. Rock here and I am with Nicole Sacks and she's going to share what she's made of today. So thank you for joining us today. Nicole, thanks for being here.
- [00:10]
B
Thank you for having me.
- [00:12]
A
Yeah, my pleasure. It's always good to have people that are making an impact. I love surrounding myself intentionally with the right people and people that are, you know, changing lives and impacting and helping people. You know, we just were having a conversation about that and so. Yeah. So thank you for all that you do.
- [00:29]
B
Thank you.
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A
Yeah, it's one thing to make money, but we, you know, it's. If you can make an impact doing it, you know, you can never not be fulfilled with it. So. All right, so the question I have to start the show every time here is what are you made of?
- [00:41]
B
Well, I have about 30 seconds to figure it out and so I'm gonna just rip.
- [00:46]
A
Wait a minute, hold on. Before you go, what's the name of the show?
- [00:51]
B
What do you mean?
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A
And how long have you been booked?
- [00:54]
B
A million years. But I guess. I guess I never really. I never really considered the thought what I am made of. I oftentimes think of other people. But you know what, let's just go.
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A
I just want to make sure I did. I did all my part, you know.
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B
Indeed, indeed. It's. It's my bad. But. No, but I love it. I love it because I am never afraid of. Just be my whole thing, my whole entire brand is slow down, pause and get the kind of honest that is going to change your life. So what I would say I am made of is a borderline embarrassing passion for sharing. That which has worked for me has changed my life. And I feel like. Like I can't keep myself from that level of enthusiasm, which can be a little bit embarrassing. But that's what I am made of.
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A
Yeah. Well, why do you think it's like embarrassing to you or the like people around you? Family or.
- [01:48]
B
No, it's not that. It's maybe a different brand of embarrassing. It's like I used. I remember I had a therapist once and I said I feel like I'm a puppy. Like when you first get a puppy and it's so. Everything is so exciting and it's jumping around, it's jumping on everyone and you're like, sh. Like, take a beat. And I think, because I think that, you know what, like I can be very, very like into what I have to say. But it's always because I'm so lit up by the fact that it impacts people so deeply.
- [02:19]
A
Yeah, I. I feel the same way, you know, and I think it comes from all the interviews I've done, and people have, you know, ask these questions, too, and myself as well. We've gone through something, most of us, and overcame something. And we're so thankful because we were in suffering or dealt with abuse or whatever, that we're so thankful to get out of that and, like, shoo. That we can't but help but, like, talk about it. So what did you go through and, you know, maybe in younger years, whatever, that maybe led to you being so much like a puppy? Yes.
- [02:52]
B
It's cute. Puppy. Yeah. No, it's. It's a very decent question for the purpose of saying. When I was 19, I was in college, my back went out completely, so I couldn't walk. My parents brought me home, and like any responsible parents, we did the MRIs and the X rays and the orthopedic surgery consults. And what came out is that I have a very significant structural abnormality in my spine. It's called spondylolisthesis. That it was like a degenerative, kind of aggressive case. And so they said at 19, no more exercise, no more travel, no more riding in the car for more than an hour, because it would be like bumping and destabilizing, very specific sleeping positions. And the kicker, the likelihood that you're gonna have a biological child is slim to none because, like, the weight of the baby on the back is just so dangerous. And so I'm 19 years old. I'm a freshman in college, and I've kind of like, whoa. It's like a pretty intense thing to rece. And so, you know, I understood it. I took the right precautions, and they gave me a little handicap thing for my car so I could go back to college. I didn't have to tax myself. And with enough steroids and muscle relaxers and, you know, painkillers, I moved from acute pain to chronic pain, meaning I could walk. But I was like that girl with the bad back. Like, be careful, everybody. Lift the thing for Nicole. And it was like a really messed up transition. I'm a very athletic, energetic, excited about life person, and I was obsessed with little kids. I mean, when I was a little girl, I used to, like, swaddle up my stuffed animals. Like, I wanted babies, and I was an only child, so I wanted them to be like mine, you know? So it was a huge devastation. But, like, how much can you really take in when you're that old. So I kind of think I just, like, repressed a lot of it and just went through my life. And then it's a super long story, but. And I tell it all over the place on my own podcast, so I'll leave it here just to say that I found the work of Dr. John Sarno, who at the time was an attending physician at the Rusk center for Rehabilitation at NYU Medical center, and he helped me understand what I now teach, which is mind body medicine. It is not that the pain is in your head. You're not hysterical. You. You're not making it up, and you're not overly dramatic. There is brain science behind why the human body acts the way it does. The reason that we are full of inflammation and muscle constriction and spasm and neuropathy is literally because we're stuck in a dysregulated nervous system in fight or flight. Like, it's just a fact. This is. A lot of people confuse my work as, like, oh, she's a therapist. So we're talking about, like, feelings and, you know. Yes, we are. And this is hard science at the core of it. And all of it is. Is discussed in my book. So I'm always able to, like, say, if you're a skeptic, I get it. I love a skeptic. Just go take a look and then let's talk about it. All that to say, I used the tools. I regulated my nervous system. I had three children, I exercised till the day they were born. I'm 53 years old. I'm in the best shape of my life. I can run five miles barefoot on the beach. I have. My life is. This is where I'm a puppy. My life is so profoundly changed and created by understanding the foundational science behind why we are suffering society, whether it be pain, fatigue, anxiety, long Covid. There's so many places we could go, but. So I've basically dedicated my entire career to writing, podcasting, traveling, teaching, speaking, and helping people understand this work.
- [06:35]
A
Yeah, I mean, I can see why that. That diagnosis isn't, you know, be life altering.
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B
It was nuts.
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A
But, you know, you can go one in two directions. You could be like, oh, and take everybody's victim treatment. Right. Or you can be like, I'm not enough of this now. Now that you figured all this stuff out, which we'll dive into in a second. Like, did your spine. Is it still the same low?
- [06:57]
B
Yes. So, okay, so here's like, a little thing that people really don't get, because how could you, this is not, you know, we're moving it to the mainstream, but this is not something a lot of people understand. We are rife with normal abnormalities, and they are all over our body. You know, I like to say we don't look all alike on the outside. We can all tell each other apart. We don't look all alike on the inside either. Nobody's skeleton looks like the one hanging in third grade health class. Like, we are all different. We have bulging discs. We have different abnormalities structurally. We have different gut microbiomes. We have different ways in which our bodies are quote, normal. Normality is a spectrum, just like in every part of human life. And so, yes, I have a spondylolisthesis. It is apparently, according to orthopedic surgeons, extremely severe. And it does cause my body to function in a certain way. Meaning if you look up spondylolisthesis and structural changes in the body. I have really tight hamstrings. Like, I can stretch and go to a yoga class seven days a week if I felt like it. I can't touch my toes. Who cares? I mean, it's not like, like a life ending. But it's the truth that because of my abnormality, it affects like, certain flexibilities in me. However, it does not cause pain. It makes a lot of sense that they thought that was the cause of my pain because correlation does not equal causation, but, like, it makes sense. So I understood that that was a starting point. But once I understood the real gen, that's when I was able to do the work to change my life.
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A
Okay, and so what was the real genesis?
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B
The real genesis is this. We live in a human body that is ruled by the brain and the nervous system. The reason this is essential, since the dawn of humanity. If we did not have a nervous system that reacted like this, meaning you pull your hand from a hot stove, you jump out of the way of a trajectory you run, and you can run on a broken ankle with no pain until you perceive yourself to be safe. Once you slam a door and lock it and the predator is outside, your ankle is going to erupt in pain. Because you need pain two ways. One, you need it to alert your, your, your conscious mind. Wait, there's a problem. We need to attend to this or else we could be eaten on the savannah. Because, you know, if you have a broken ankle and you don't figure out a way to heal yourself, you're lame and you're going to be pick right? So, same reason that, like, when you cut your arm it you feel pain because this is all dating back to the dawn of, of being civilized humans. If you cut yourself and you didn't feel that pain, well, there's blood, right? So you could be eaten by a predator. There's infection, you could get septic and die. So there's so many reasons that pain is essential and there's so many reasons that the brain and nervous system can giveth and taketh away depending on that level of fight or flight. So when you're in acute fight or flight, you're like literally running for your life. You're not going to feel any pain. You're going to have changes in circulation, digestion, respiration, elimination. You're not going to feel hungry, you don't have to go to the bathroom. Like everything is there for one purpose, to keep you alive. However, once you are knowing that like the predator isn't right there, all of these things are going to start becoming a problem because your body doesn't understand why is our circulation messed up? Why am I so inflamed? Why are my muscles spasming? Why do I have trouble digesting? Right? So IBS symptoms, so many things get out of whack because we live in a society of constant predators. The Internet, all of the social media, all of the ways we judge ourselves. Your children are predators because you are overwhelmed with taking care of them or you care so deeply about your hap, their happiness that you're always like kind of tight inside. Your parents are your predators because it's like, it's complicated. Growing up, you were mistreated or like you were misunderstood, or you were an energetic mismatch to your family. There's so many reasons and it's so normal. There's nothing wrong with this. But what's wrong is we don't understand that our nervous systems get stuck in constant fight or flight. And it looks like, where can it protect us? Where can we use this pain? That it's a protective function to keep this precious human that we're in charge of safe. So like a real quick example, I had a client who was sexually assaulted very young and she was like 16. So she just like ashamed, never told anybody, buried it. Now she finds herself in her 40s and she is invited to a rape crisis gala where she is going to do good by donating and by being supportive of her friends who have founded this. She gets a blinding migraine that day. She's vomiting. She cannot go. Now, of course, it's quote, not her fault, right? Because she's sick. She's in bed. She can't go. She misses it. So we end up in session, you know, a couple years later. And she's telling me about this situation. I just asked. I had no idea. I was like, just curious. Is there any. Do you have any connection to, like, this personally? And she just, like, broke down and she's like, I have to tell you something I've never told anyone. And she tells me she had lost her virginity in this assault. It's horrifying. And so what does her nervous system do in the most adaptive and beautiful way? Literally, when you think about it, she's about to go into a space of grave danger, to be reminded to hear speeches, to have, like, all this stuff. Blinding migraine, vomiting on the bathroom floor. Okay, guess I'm not going to. This pain is protective. It keeps us what I call safe in the unsafest way. But people get chronically in that loop.
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A
Well, how did. How did she. How. Like, even if she knew that and then she shared that, then how does she fix that?
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B
So that's like, basically by the way the body.
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A
Did you answer the question? I'm just. I don't think I heard your genesis for your.
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B
Oh, well, that was the back. The back pain in college and, like, coming through.
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A
No, but what was causing your pain, Your back pain, though?
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B
Ah, let's.
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A
Let's hit that real quick. And then we're going to talk about how.
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B
How it's the same.
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A
It's the same thing.
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B
It's the same. It's the same answer. So it's a perfect place for you to kind of call back to it. Here is the part that people really struggle to understand. So I'm going to, like, slow down and explain it. You are experiencing pain, whatever it is, or fatigue or anxiety or OCD or a panic disorder. Like, this really is a huge bracket of things that make people suffer. So you're experiencing that. So let's just make it really simple. You're experiencing shoulder pain. Okay. You have a shoulder. You got an mri. You know, they see a little arthritis, they see a little something. But, like, it shouldn't account maybe for, like, the extreme pain you're in. Maybe have a bit of a frozen shoulder, whatever. Okay, so you've been given a diagnosis. Let's say there are, you know, cortisone injections you could try, or you could try this and that, but nobody is telling you that the pain can go away permanently from these things. There's a treatment, but there's no cure. Maybe there's a surgery but there's no guarantee of pain cessation. So here you sit. So you could say, well, then why are you in pain? If Nicole is saying that the arthritis is a normal abnormality, here's why you're in pain. Each of us has what I'd like you to envision as a reservoir in our midsection. So just picture like a clear science beaker that starts at your belly and goes to your chest. Okay? And in this reservoir are many different things. The vestiges of the childhood stuff. Right. The stuff like that, you just. Who has time for that? Right? The everyday life, the kids, the money, the love life, the career, the self worth, the body image. Right? All the stuff that we are constantly dealing with. And, and, and day to day life is actually somewhat complicated. Complicated because it also ties back to the childhood. Because like, if someone cuts you off in traffic and you know, like, what an asshole and like, whatever, and you're leaning on your horn and yeah, that person's an asshole. But also that person is reminding you unconsciously of like the bully in 8th grade or like your dad and the way he always. Whatever.
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A
Or when you're being an asshole. Right. And yourself.
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B
Right, right, yes. Or when you're being an asshole. All that self loathing Exactly. And then we have personalities, okay? Their nature and their nurture. But like, we're perfectionistic or we are codependent, or we are like goodest meaning, like you really need people to see as a good person, or you care deeply what other people think. All of these things. There's like a little bit you feel, think of like a tip of an iceberg. All the rest of it gets dumped in the reservoir. And by the way, this is basic psychology. Repression is a defense mechanism because it defends us. None of us could go through our lives and like, deal with our responsibilities if we didn't have the ability to not feel everything all the time. I mean, think about it. You're a big guy, you'd be kicking everyone's ass all the time. I'm a smaller woman. I'd probably be literally crying about everything all the time. And I'm not trying to be light about it, I mean it. If I had to feel everything, I would be paralyzed with my level of grief. I just know my personality. And so we repress out of necessity. Okay, here's what happens, and here's where I'm answering your question. Picture this reservoir and it starts bubbling up to the top. It's reaching maximum capacity for whatever reason. Everyone has a different story. Here's what happens when it starts to spill over. It's knocking on the door of consciousness because a lot of this stuff is unconscious. You just don't think about it consciously. And when it knocks on that door, what it's threatening to do is tell your conscious mind how stuck or sad or terrified or ashamed you are. Like, it's gonna be big. And your nervous system starts sensing a predator. The way that, like the herd of antelope is at the watering hole and the lions walking through the savannah and you see the whole herd, right? They're tense. Everybody's looking at each other like, are we going to flee? Now, let's say the lion just fed, so it just keeps walking. Now it disappears into the tall grass. The, the herd is going to shake itself off, but it's going to keep drinking at the watering hole because the danger isn't there. But this is the problem. We have an unrelenting life, each of us. The danger doesn't disappear. We're living with it. We're living with. There are internal predators, the calls coming from inside the house. So once it does this spillover, the nervous system senses a predator and now it goes into fight or flight. And it's going to look for a way to protect you. It's scanning the landscape of your body. Your nerves, your, your muscle groups, your. All your different systems. You know, a lot of people get like bladder urgency or pelvic pain. Like, all our systems are being scanned. Now a lot of people ask me, how does your nervous system choose which one to target? Like, why did I get back pain where someone else gets ibs? And modern science can only go so far because if you've ever heard the cliche like, we only understand 6% of the human brain, I don't know what percentage we're at in 2026, but it's not nearly the majority. Scientists understand that when you're adrenaline and your cortisol shoots up, a parent can lift a car off a baby. Like, we understand that's true, but no scientist can tell you exactly how the brain functions, how that happens, What I mean, we can describe it, but it's sort of like unless you are going to understand things more deeply than we're able to at this very moment, we know it happens. We can't understand exactly why. So I can tell you that in my 25 years of doing this with like hundreds of thousands of people, really, because if you count the virtual stuff, here is what I've come to. Because the brain and the nervous system are incredible. And on point and just brilliant at keeping us alive. They will scan the landscape and they will find a place where there's a weakness, where there's an opening. So for example, it could be a perceptive weakness, like I have migraines because my mother and my grandmother had them and I always know they run in my family, right? Or a structural weakness that I do have an abnormality in my lower spine and lower back. Pain was my first symptom. Having said that, it doesn't always make sense and it can be sort of random and sometimes it's only in the rear view that we understand why it makes sense. But all in all, all I can say is it is brilliant how well it works because the moment we go from confusion to some level of understanding, meaning, I am overwhelmed. I'm a freshman in college, I'm away from home for the first time. Complicated feelings of self worth all whatever's going on, my back goes out. So I go from real confusion that the human brain doesn't like. Human brain likes predictability and what it can expect, right? And what it can redo. Loves habit. And so that's like a really dangerous place. My back goes out. Now what happens? Well, first of all, it softens me. I'm allowed to ask for help. Mom, dad, help me. Something I probably would not have wanted to do. Second of all, there's a plan. We're going to bring you home, we're going to take you to the doctor, we're going to find out what you need to do, we're going to get you treatment. As sad as this sounds, the human brain would love to keep you right there. Which is why so many people get stuck in habitual patterns of suffering, whether it be mental or emotional, for decades. Because your brain will keep bringing you back to the same thought and the same pattern until we consciously can pause and change the channel.
- [21:10]
A
So, yeah, and, and the thing about when you were at school, when you, you know, you're back, it gives that, that opportunity to ask for help and all that. But like, what about sympathy? Like is. Is giving sympathy someone to someone, hurting them or helping them?
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B
You know, it's a complicated question. So what I really seek to do is empower the individual because you giving sympathy to someone else, honestly, it's just an act of compassion. So I always think empathy and sympathy, unless you're feeling like you're hurting someone because they're becoming such a victim or, you know, there's so many different ways to look at it, I think from the other is always welcome What I need to teach people is that we are living in a society where we are literally trained to give away our power. From the moment we understand power structures, we are trained to give away our power. First of all, doctors are God, right? So, like, you walk into a doctor's office, if they tell you what to do, you are literally trained to give away your power. How else do we give away our power? Pills, supplements, alternative treatments, Like, I'm not saying any of these things are bad. I'm, by the way, a huge fan of modern medicine. Always get yourself checked out first. It's the first thing. I forgot to say it, but it's the first thing I often say because I don't want anybody using my work to deal with, like, a cancerous tumor. I don't want anybody ever missing anything. However, when you get to the place where a doctor either says there's a diagnosis but no cure, we can't find anything wrong with you, or try these treatments, and you go through all of them and you're still suffering in any way. Pause and understand. There is incredible metamorphosis and, and clarity when you understand the brain and the nervous system.
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A
So with the, with the reservoir that you were talking about. Yes, it's overflowing. What have you. How do you empty it?
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B
Once again, you're. You're really a great interviewer. Bring me right through, because this is. This is. The next thing I'd say is that this is what has. My. My entire work has been built on is three. Three legs of a stool. And as we know, with a stool, it needs all three legs to stand. The first leg is every moment of this conversation we've had thus far. I like to call it believe. I think if I created this so long ago that I think if I had to do it today, I think it would be educate or understand. Because it's not about believe. It's like, you know, you can believe in gravity or not, but if you jump out of a tree, you're going to fall and break your leg. So it's not about believe. This is straight up science, but it's about understand. Because until you get that this is going on, you really can't consciously change anything because your brain will just keep operating in that kind of knee jerk, you know, reflexive reaction. So believe first. And that is like, understand the brain science. You know, listen to podcasts, read a book, you know, do whatever it takes to really get it. Second leg of the stool I call do the work. This is where your question comes in. We need to find a way to put a ladle in the emotional reservoir and dump it out. We need to get it below maximum capacity because nobody's ever, never going to fully eliminate their reservoir. We're human beings. There's no cure for the human condition. There's no cure for acute pain. You're always going to have bumps and bruises. You're going to get a bad headache or whatever it is. What there's a cure for is chronic pain, suffering, illness, and many diagnoses. Because chronic pain is an epidemic of fear and meaning. Because the fear and the meaning we attach to it is what's keeping the nervous system in fight or flight. So I teach a tool called journal speak. Many people get confused and they're like, oh, I've journaled before. This is not your, like grandmother's journaling. This is a very specific practice that I teach that has, you know, I have a lot of resources where you are able to sit down, hone in to what is in the reservoir, and then do this really raw, unapologetic, politically incorrect brain dump that allows it to come out. Then you destroy it. And then there is like a meditation piece where it builds a bridge between the journal speak experience and then your regular life. And I will tell you, I. I mean, one of the things I did with the book is the last few pages of every chapter is a different person's story in their own words. I edited it just for, you know, clarity, but I did not change the voice. These people are speaking for themselves. The transformations, Mike, are so freaking wild. People go from fully bedbound to like being triathletes.
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A
Give me an example, Give me an example what somebody would write that's like the rawest.
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B
Oh, the journal speak.
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A
Yeah, give me. Yeah, give us an example.
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B
Well, do you want me to use my own?
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A
Sure, yeah, whatever you want to do,
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B
you know, because, because, because I. I could speak about many people's just, you know, obviously anonymously. But I will tell you how journal speak was born, which is I was a mother of two, right? So I was told I would never have kids. I found the mind body medicine. But my real recovery is two distinct chapters. Because the first chapter was reading Dr. Sarno's book. He like, had many best selling books. Understanding the theories, like kind of. And then being like, I'm probably fine, I'm fine. I was very young, you know, and so I got married. I had my first two kids. And when my son Oliver was 10 months old. So this is quite a while ago, he's 21 now almost 22, I was. He was toddling around in a walker on my deck, and I didn't want him to go over the two little stairs from the deck to the driveway. So I just picked up the baby walker with the baby in it and I brought it down the two stairs. And like, I'm sure people with bad backs are wincing and being like, don't do that, but you actually can do that. All right, but in that moment, I mean, be careful. Follow your doctor's orders. But. But in that moment, my back felt like a hot knife, an electric knife was dragging through my lower back. So here's two things that happened in that moment. The first is I set the baby down and I literally called out to my friend who was with me, and I was like, something. It's like an emergency. Something happened and I need your help. And I, like, in the shape of an L, hobbled into the house. And that began the. A year. The. The darkest year of my life. A year of the darkest chronic pain. Three days a week in physical therapy, electric stim treatments on my back, opioids, muscle relaxers, steroids, like everything you can imagine that modern medicine could throw at it. Because the second thing that happened to me is I went into a shame spiral. You know, this is your fault. You make terrible decisions. You were told by a doctor you shouldn't have kids. Now not only have you ruined your life, but look, now you have two babies, you've ruined theirs. Like, the. The shame was heavy. So I go into this terrible year. It culminates in an experience that many parents will relate to, which is I have two toddlers. They are now one and almost three. They were in a deli. I'm trying to pay, and my kids are like, grabbing all the impulse buy, right? The Swedish fish and the like, chocolate covered pretzels and mommy, mommy. And they're wild. Yeah, stop it. Sound like. And like I'm wrenching one out of one hand and the other one picks up. I mean, it was, first of all, I can bring myself back there. Like, it was, yes, it's humiliating. But not only is it humiliating, it was. I was feeling very powerless because I felt my back starting to lock up. So I pay. I get them by the wrists because we didn't have a stroller. We were really close to the car. And now I'm in an active parking lot. Cars are whizzing by and I can't get my kids in the car. So I'm standing there with the wrists and I'm Literally, like, in a panic. And I just leaned my head against the driver's side window of my car, and I just cried. I was just like, I am out of options. Like, this is a disaster. I'm endangering my children. So I actually kind of blacked out. I don't remember getting them in the car or getting them home, but somehow I did. And I do remember this. After I got them to bed, I remember sitting on my bed and looking out the window, and it was like a clear night and stars and trees. And I just thought, I surrender. I surrender. I've been a year in this modern medicine. I don't think it's bad, but it's not helping me. And I remember Dr. Sarno in that moment, and he was, thank God, still at NYU Medical Center. And I got an appointment with him, and I went into the city and I wrote a novel, Mike, of. I'm such a. Like a. An A student, you know, I wrote a novel of, like, when I bend, when I. This and la, la, la. And like. And this is the treatments. And I mean, I like. It was. It was, like, in chapters. And I, like, solemnly, like, push it across the table to him. And he. And. And I. And I tell you this. This is the truth. My hand to God, he took it, and without losing my gaze, he threw it in the garbage. Now, there was, like, a metal waste paper basket next to his. And this man was already 80 years old. I mean, he had had it. And he looked at me. He goes, let's examine you. He had my films up on the screen. Let's examine you. Gave me a full physical exam. Takes me back into the office. He says, I want to explain something to you. I don't care when your back hurts. It's immaterial. Thank you. Love you. But that is not the point. The point is I'm looking at your films. I'm looking at your physical. There is no way. He's like, go to Mayo. Go to Harvard. Go to Hopkins, wherever you want to go. No doctor is going to tell you that your pain experience maps to this one abnormality. It doesn't make medical sense. Sometimes it shoots up into your shoulder. Sometimes it's sciatica. Sometimes it's like a shin splint, you know, Sometimes it's on the left side, Sometimes it's on the right. Sometimes it's numbness. He's like, what you have. And this is a. An acronym that he created, tms. It stands for Tension Myoneural Syndrome. The only reason I even mention it Is because any Sarno people will be like, right. Tms. And it's, like, good, like shorthand. But really all it means, it's the umbrella under which all of these chronic symptoms live. It is this confused relationship between the mind, the body, and the nervous system. So he explained to me what was going on. And he said to me, one of the best ways to get your reservoir out is to journal. Now, I have to. I have to tell you that if anyone's ever skeptical about my work, you gotta know you got a friend in me. I was like, all right, buddy. I'm like, I can't lift my children, but you want me to journal. Like, I was. I wasn't rude, but inside I was rude. And I was like, I. Okay. Like, that sounds like really. No, but he said, you'd be surprised. You don't know what's in there. And I was like, all right. So I was desperate enough, you know, Some people in recovery call God the gift of desperation. Like, I was just. Just like, I got nothing, right? So I go home and I'm making these lists as I was assigned. Childhood, daily life, and personality. And I'm journaling, and it feels like a whole lot of nothing. I'm, like, playing my tapes, right? I know about that time in sixth grade, my dad was the worst. You know, whatever. So I get to the topic of motherhood, and I'm like, okay. So I put motherhood on the top of the page. I was in, like, it's just like. I want you to picture it. I'm in, like, a deli in the corner, like, with a yellow legal pad. And I am writing. I'm tired. I have two babies in cribs. I have two babies in diapers. This wasn't the plan. You know, my ex husband's always. Well, he's my husband at the time. He's always working. I'm always alone, you know, and I'm playing my tapes. And I had what I would have to call a spiritual moment because there was a voice that came into my consciousness that is not the voice of me. Now, I'm not schizophrenic.
- [33:03]
A
No, no, I get it. I get it.
- [33:04]
B
It came, and what it said is, you're lying. And I thought to myself, not lying. Like, this is my life. I have the kids. I have the tired. And it was just a voice that said, it's something darker. It's something deeper. You are not paralyzed in pain because you're tired. You're not paralyzed in pain because you're changing. Diapers like, what's going on? And I remember I started writing on the paper. Am I allowed to fully swear on this podcast?
- [33:31]
A
I don't know. Are you?
- [33:32]
B
I think so. I was like, nicole, what the fuck is going Like, I was. I was like writing in all caps. I was like pissed. And then I wrote the first line of journal speak ever penned. And it was, it's not that I'm tired. It's not that I'm overwhelmed. It's not that I'm doing this alone. It's that I hate it. I hate being a mother. I hate my kids. I had the wrong kids. I was supposed to have kids that looked like me and looked up at me and it was perfect. I said, I have these wild monsters and I hate this. And I'm not only. Not only do I hate this, I'm a.
- [34:10]
A
It's funny. I know. You should. It's funny.
- [34:13]
B
Yeah, it's funny. And not only do I do I hate this, I'm failing at it. I'm fail. I'm terrible at it. And here is what is freaking amazing. I started doing this and then I paused and I was like, I'm not sure if this is really true, you know? Yeah, they're whatever they are, but they're like my beautiful babies. I love them. They're toddlers. I'm not like a moron. I know that. This is the way toddlers behave. What is it, Nicole? What is it? And then I went ham on my parents. You guys made terrible decisions. You screwed me up. You did this and this and this. I'm really going. Like, you would never speak to another person the way your journal speak. Okay. And then the klieg light turned on me. Self loathing. Just all the ways, like, you're the problem. Yeah. Blame your parents. Blame your kids. Huh? What's really. And I'm going. And I landed in a place that if you could have given me a lie detector test and truth serum, I could not have found. And this is why Journalspeak works, because I. I had like this realization in this memory. And it wasn't like an uncovered memory. It was just a realization that when I was about 11, 12 years old, in a particularly difficult time in my childhood, I made a sacred, solemn promise to myself. And that promise was, one day you're going to get out from under these people and they're terrible decisions and all the power they have over you. And you are going to be the parent. You're going to be a mother. And oh my goodness, it's going to be magical because you're going to know all the right things to do and you're going to remember the pain of this moment. And I realized I always get chills when I say this because it was so real for me. I realized with such compassion that the reason I felt like I was failing at parenting is because it wasn't healing the wounds of my childhood. It wasn't going back and rewriting all that loneliness and all that pain that I had. And I landed on, oh my God, that's what's going on here.
- [36:08]
A
Like that Just where.
- [36:09]
B
What's going on here?
- [36:10]
A
Yeah.
- [36:11]
B
So nuts. So this doesn't happen for everyone. I do know that I am like, this is my purpose in life, right? To be doing this. But I wake up the next morning and my back pain is 80% gone, never to return. This is now over 20 years. And then I was like, okay, let's freaking go. And I took my list and instead of playing my tapes, I said, how do I really feel about this one? Win every argument you've ever entered into. Be rude, be impolite, be unfair, be pathetic, beg. Be the things that you would never be. And then rip it up and throw it away. One of my clients used to say, it's like blowing your nose in a tissue. You don't need to look at it again. You're getting something out. And through this process, I became chronic pain free for all these years. I used to get chronic migraines. I never realized they were the same thing. Don't get those anymore. And had a third child exercised till the day she was born. And now my kids are 18, 21 and 23. And I live the most expansive life and I teach this. Wow.
- [37:17]
A
All right, so man, that was a great conversation. I hope you all got something out of that. Nicole, where can people go deeper with you?
- [37:25]
B
Well, the easiest place to find me is Nicole Sachs.com we created what we call a hub. It's like you enter and welcome home. And we have one on one coaching with a whole group of people that I supervise every week. They're amazing. Every one of them has this story of their own life. They've all come through this and they are certified in the SARNOSAC solution, which is our practitioner training. So any practitioners out there, if you want to get certified in this and bring it to your communities, that's on there as well. We have membership, community, global. We meet with people all over the world. I answer your questions in real time. We do lessons. We meet like several times a month. On Zoom, we have live retreats. We're in New York at the Omega Institute at the end of June. We're at Miraval in Austin, Texas. Texas in September. And then we're booking more right now, just basically. Oh, the Cure for Chronic Pain podcast.
- [38:17]
A
You know, we love.
- [38:19]
B
We love podcasting. I have hundreds of episodes. They are completely free. They are not paywalled. So you can go and listen to hundreds of stories just like this one. I am, by the way, not unique. My story is boring. I know it's part of. Probably hard for you to believe because it's an interesting story. It's so typical. Like, this is the shit that goes on when you wake up to what's been going on in your body and you know how to get rid of it. And then the third leg of the stool. Self compassion. I never knew self compassion was important. I thought it was kind of like light bs. It is so essential to understand what it means to treat yourself the way you would treat the people you love most. Because doing this practice without self compassion is like bailing out a boat with a hole in the bottom. Like, don't waste it. Don't waste your time. So we teach that and, you know, Instagram and substack. I'm bringing the work everywhere I can think of.
- [39:15]
A
Amazing. Thank you so much for joining us today. And sharing that vulnerable story or stories means the world to me to have, like, authentic people on this show. So thank you so much and. And hang tight while we wrap this up because I want to talk to you to the show. Okay.
- [39:30]
B
All right. Thank you.
- [39:31]
A
All right, that's this episode of the what do you made up show with your boy C. Rock here signing off with Nicole Sack sharing what she's made of. Make sure you hit the subscribe follow button at the top of your favorite podcast platform and keep coming back. And until next time, be that one.