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The Physical Symptoms of Trauma: Chronic Illness, Chronic Pain, & More
01:13:42
What if your chronic illness, pain, or fatigue is not random but a reflection of unresolved trauma stored in your body? In this episode, Sarah unpacks the powerful link between trauma, the nervous system, and physical health. Drawing on her own lived experience with autoimmune disease and chronic illness, she explains why time alone does not heal all, how unresolved experiences live on in our bodies, and why nervous system regulation is the most effective medicine. You’ll get tangible somatic tools for how to process unresolved trauma and emotions by doing what’s called “completing the incomplete experience,” along with steps for reconnecting with your body, validating your pain, and restoring safety and resilience to your system. Later in the episode, Sarah is joined by Rachel to answer listener questions about menstrual cycles, fertility struggles, and navigating chronic pain. Tune in for clarity, reassurance, and hope that healing is always possible.
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Hi, I'm Sarah and welcome to youo Makesense. I'm a somatic experiencing practitioner, an expert on trauma resolution, attachment parts work, and nervous system regulation. This podcast is a manual to understanding your human experience so that you can navigate the world with freedom, ease, empowerment, and create the life that you desire. Remember umake Sense all parts always. Welcome back to youo Makes Sense. It's so, so good to be here with you. For this episode, we have had more questions submitted on this topic than any other, so I'm really excited to bring this to you and my hope is that it shows you how much you make sense. So in this episode we're going to talk about the physical symptoms of trauma and how it affects our bodies. The thing about the physical symptoms of trauma and chronic dysregulation and chronic pain is that they can be quite isolating experiences. As somebody myself who experienced a lot of chronic illness and autoimmune disease and chronic pain, that didn't seem to make sense and went on for a very prolonged period of time, it was really confusing and it felt wildly isolating. And I went to so many doctors and tried so many things and nothing seemed to stick. So I just want you to know, if that's been your experience, you most certainly aren't alone. And more often than not, there is a reason why this is arising. There's also, I just want to name a lot of research now on the correlation or link between unresolved trauma and chronic illness and autoimmune disease. So let's get into this. So trauma is not an event or events that occur. It's how that experience overwhelms our system's capacity to process what's occurring. So it's an energetic experience of overwhelm in our system. Now, if we don't have the conditions necessary to process that trauma after it ends, it becomes stuck. Stuck and stored in our bodies. The two things that are necessary to process trauma through our bodies are safety after it ends. And the second is something called a mutually empathic witness. That is another person who is regulated in their own nervous system, meaning they are holding an anchor of presence and safety for us. They're also not afraid of our activation or dysregulation. And they aren't trying to change or manipulate what's occurring in our bodies. They're simply holding the container. If we have that and safety, our organism knows how to process that traumatic energy through our bodies. This is innate and inherent in who we are. But again, if we don't have those conditions that are, that are required for that to transpire. The energy which is what trauma really is becomes stuck and stored and lives inside of our bodies. Now, the result of that is our nervous system thinks that that experience is still happening in this present moment or could happen at any given moment in time. So a lot of times I hear people say time heals all, just give it some time. But time doesn't heal all when it comes to trauma. That experience is still very much alive in our physiology, in our bodies. So it doesn't matter if it's been two days or 50 years. My nervous system is going to think that it is perpetually happening right now or could happen at any given moment. So, so again, as I named, that energetic quality of the trauma resides in our bodies and lives, in our tissues. Our system is waiting to do something called complete, the incomplete experience. What that means is that it brilliantly is saying if I can just make that traumatic experience different, then I can resolve it and it will actually be marked as complete in our bodies and in our psyche. And there are a lot of ways that in my work I see unresolved trauma living out in people's bodies. And certainly this was the case for me too. Just want to give you some examples of what that can look like. A lot of people have traumatic surgeries. I will name that. Of course, having surgery in general is traumatic, but if, if the experience itself was not a successful surgery, that can be imprinted or marked as trauma for us. So, for example, if somebody wakes up during a surgery which unfortunately does happen, that is an or overwhelming experience of danger for our bodies and our nervous system. Our nervous system doesn't understand that what's occurring in that moment is actually to help us. It thinks, oh my gosh, I'm, I'm an animal and I'm being eaten alive by a lion right now. This is really, really dangerous. And so as the result of that trauma, that if it, again, if it doesn't have the conditions necessary to process through it becomes stuck and stored. And it's very common that after some surgical experiences that, that end up being traumatic, our bodies don't properly heal from it. So, for example, it's very common that the incision itself won't heal properly and people can go a very long period of time with it continually getting infected and the, the scar being raised and really painful. Very common when we have unresolved trauma around surgical experiences. Another example, let's say someone has a skiing accident and they, they're going down the mountain and somebody came on their left side and hit them. They fell over, broke their leg, and had a concussion. So if I'm working with someone in that situation, for example, I might notice that their body is bracing towards the right. And so they. They might report back and say, I have a lot of chronic neck issues on my left side. There's so much tightness on my right side. And their. Their head will literally be tilted. Why? Because their system is still bracing for contact. That event is not over. It is perpetually being relived inside of their bodies. Another example that isn't physical and is more emotional is if. If someone had a violent, emotionally violent experience in the past, whether that was a romantic relationship or with a parent. So if that occurs for someone and it's not yet resolved, the moment they hear someone raising their voice, even if it's, by the way, raising their voice in celebration, like they're a sporting event, people are yelling. Or of course, it could be somebody that's frustrated, Their system will immediately go into the same response that it went into when they were experiencing that emotional abuse. And they might go into what's called freeze in their nervous system like deer in headlights. I have so much panic, but I can't move, or they'll collapse and shut down. Everything that I just named are examples of how trauma is alive and well inside of our bodies. The beautiful thing is that when we do this work, we are actually able to complete the incomplete experience and bring resolution to what occurred. When that happens, everybody, it gets marked as complete in our bodies and in our psyche. And the result of that is I no longer have the suffering, the symptoms, and the dysregulation that have perpetually followed me throughout my life. And just to go back to those three examples, it is fascinating and wild what actually happens inside of our system when we do this. For example, if you had surgical trauma and you have a scar that never healed properly, and it's really painful, the scar tissue will start to change and the scar will start to heal differently. This is very common that that happens if you experience physical abuse. I experienced sexually sexual abuse that was quite violent. And so parts of my body actually healed finally from what occurred to me decades and decades before. And that meant the tissue went back to what it was like at the moment of being injured, and then it repaired properly. It's amazing how our bodies have the ability to do that. So not only does the physical tissue repair, but my system is, in terms of my emotional landscape is actually free. No longer is that occurring. I have been freed from the past. Now let's go to the example of being yelled at or emotional violence when we are actually able to resolve this. When I hear people yelling and celebrating or people frustrated, I no longer go into freeze and I no longer collapse. Why? Because my nervous system is not saying that's dangerous anymore. Because the past is over and I am actually here in the present. And that's the beauty of this work. Not only does it allow us to resolve the past, it allows us to live a free present life. So now I want to talk about how chronic dysregulation leads to chronic illness in our bodies. The result of unresolved trauma is that our nervous system is going to be perpetually protecting us. And essentially dysregulation itself is active self protection. Our nervous system is coming to our aid. Short term experiences of dysregulation are something that our bodies know how to handle. So let's say that, you know, I had a momentary experience of not being safe. An earthquake happened and I went, I would want to go into dysregulation. Why? Because I need to ensure I'm safe, my family is safe, my friends are safe. And so I might go into my fight or flight response where anxiety, worry, frustration, fear, terror, rage, live. Or I might shut down and disconnect from my body altogether if it felt really overwhelming. So I dissociate, I leave my body, I become numb, disconnected, and so on and so forth. Now, after the earthquake ends and I am able to come into safety, my nervous system says, all right, I don't need to protect you anymore. And it comes back into its state of regulation, it's ventral vagal complex. I feel good present here and to this moment. And my body is back in homeostasis. And our nervous systems have the ability to do that. And when that occurs, everything functions well in our bodies. But when we have long stays in dysregulation, it creates chronic illness in our bodies. And I want to explain why. So our beautiful autonomic nervous system is filled with thousands of nerve endings. Think of those, like tentacles. And they're brilliantly designed to make contact with every organ system in our bodies. So they're communicating to the organ systems all the time. Each of your organs take a lot of energy in order for them to function optimally. That means they also take a lot of blood flow. So when you are in danger, it wouldn't be very advantageous for all of that energy to go be dispersed. We want to concentrate that energy towards what is necessary to ensure the highest likelihood of Our survival. So the moment that your threat detector, which is called neuroception, in your brain stem perceives danger, like it thinks something is not okay, it communicates via your autonomic nervous system to every organ. And it says, hey, we're not safe right now. And we need all of the energy that you can donate in order for that energy to go towards survival. So that means that. And by the way, this happens when the nerve endings constrict. That's the communication process. So they constrict and they communicate to your liver and say, hey, we don't really need to focus on detoxifying so much right now. Can you give up as much energy as possible so that it can go towards survival? Survival. And your liver says, yeah, I can give up. And I'm making up a number here. I can give up 50% of my energy resources and my resources as a whole and still function. So I'm going to be okay, and I'll give this up to you to go towards survival. Your GI tract does the same thing. Your stomach does the same your same thing. Your colon does the same thing. Your gallbladder, kidneys, your immune system, your brain, your reproductive organs, they're all on board to give up their as much energy as possible in order for you to survive. So all of that energy and blood flow goes to your heart. Your vagal break opens up. It's like a dam. So that blood flow can pump through your heart and it goes to your extremities, your arms and your legs, so that you can fight or flee and ensure your survival to the highest degree. If you're in your state of shutdown, that's energy conservation. So think of it like a baron hibernation, everything shutting down as a way for you to leave your body so. So you don't have to feel the perpetual pain of what can't be stopped. And in both situations, all of these internal systems are functioning suboptimally. Again, if it's short term, it's not a problem, because after a few hours or a few days, all of that energy goes back to its rightful place. And now your liver is a hundred percent back online, your immune system, your GI tract, and so on and so forth. But if you're like me and you had trauma occur that wasn't able to resolve for long periods of time, that means long periods of dysregulation. And so over the course of time, if I'm dysregulated for a year, for two years, for five years, for a decade, for Two decades, all of these internal systems begin to break down. Not because they want to, not because you're inherently broken, not because you're weak, not because something is wrong with you, but because no organ system, and by the way, no organism could function long term suboptimally. So it's like your immune system says, hey, I've really been hanging on here for a couple of years or for five years or for six months or for a decade. I can't keep fighting everything because I don't have the support that I need to do it. So we start to get sick all the time, and then we start to develop things like autoimmune diseases. Our GI tract is saying, I can't actually absorb nutrients anymore. That creates a lot of fatigue in our bodies, of course, and. And being in many ways malnourished and not having the nutrients that we need. It also creates inflammation in our body. And so our GI tract and our stomach starts to become really inflamed. And it's saying, I'm really, really trying, but I don't have what I need. Then we develop ibs, Crohn's disease, colitis, ulcers, and general issues with our digestive traction. This will happen with our reproductive organs. They take a lot of energy to function optimally. And so over time, not having the proper blood flow and energy they need, they say, well, I don't know if I'm going to be able to bring life into this world because I'm not fully resourced. And every organ system in your body is doing the same thing again, it's not because you're broken. It's because all of that energy has been going towards survival instead of going towards thriving. And I just want to share that personally. For me, this was my experience. I was getting sick, like, every few weeks. If I went out into the world and was around, you know, germs in the world, my system couldn't fight it off. My white blood cell count was so low, I started to develop lots of gut issues. I had ulcers all the time, colitis, ibs. Just chronic, chronic gut issues. I had fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue, so lots of autoimmune issues. I had skin issues. Very common when we have chronic dysregulation, chronic dry eye. Just so many things occurring in my system all the time. And I just want to name that. If you struggle with chronic illness, I understand how lonely that experience can be. I was devoting so much energy to trying to get better, but I would go to doctors Western medicine, and they would, you know, give me what seemed like a band aid and then I would take a medication that had symptoms to the medication. And none of it seemed to really resolve what was occurring. Then I started to go to functional medicine doctors and naturopaths and do, you know, more Eastern medicine. And that was really helpful, but it didn't stick, didn't seem to last. And that was because the most important thing I wasn't aware of and I wasn't focusing on the most most important and best me medicine is bringing regulation to your nervous system, then all of those really helpful and wonderful interventions can actually take effect. And lastly, I just want to say, when you struggle with chronic illness, it can be very isolating because it's not visible, it's not physically seen a lot of the time. And so people around us can begin to get frustrated because we have to cancel plans a lot or we're not able to do the things that we used to do. And it can create quite a disconnect. And that loneliness or isolation then exacerbates the illness that we're experiencing because humans need connection. So I just want to name my. I personally understand this very well. I understand the cycle of it. And in just a bit we're going to talk about how we make our way out of it. And I deeply want you to know that is so very possible. Did you know that your nervous system is creating your entire lived experience right now? In every. Every other moment of your life? It's responsible for your feelings, sensations, the thoughts you have, the behaviors that arise. So everything you do or not do is a result of what's going on in your nervous system. And it creates your perception of self, others, and the world around you. That means, my friend, it's literally creating everything about your lived experience. And the thing about your nervous system is someone has to be in the dry driver's seat of it. So if you are not driving the vehicle of this nervous system, it takes over on cruise control. And the number one job of our nervous system is to keep us safe and alive. So if it has to choose between the life we really want or keeping us safe, it's always going to choose keeping us safe. And when it does that, it leaves us living a smaller life than we feel called to. We feel unable to step towards our purpose. We feel small, stuck in our relational dynamics. And when it's protecting us, we experience a lot of symptoms that we don't like, like anxiety and depression and hopelessness and racing thoughts and so many things that Cause us suffering in our lives. When you begin to understand this system and then you get into the driver's seat of it, you begin guiding your life towards everything that you're desiring and, and you get to feel good in your body and in your life. In the process, I've created a self guided program for you called Nervous System Essentials. This program is going to teach you about your nervous system and then it's going to equip you with tangible therapeutic tools necessary to actually bring it into regulation so you can live the life you are here to live and feel good in the process. The program is under $100 and you'll have access to all of the courses, course material for as long as it exists. Check out the show notes to learn more and sign up. So the next thing I want to talk about is moment to moment psychosomatic symptoms that may seem to pop up or arise out of nowhere for us. What I mean by that is if you experience things like sudden migraines or you haven't even been around people, but you just got, you're getting sick or got sick, sinus pressure, pain that seems random in our bodies, that just shows up like in my arms or into my hands. So much of the time this is the result of having repressed emotion that has not been able to discharge out of our bodies and be expressed for many of us in our lives, usually stemming in our childhood. But of course this can happen later. We didn't have experiences where when we had emotions it was met by an adult or by another person with I welcome this emotion. I want you to have it. I am not making it bad in any way and I'm going to support you in processing it through your body. Now what I want you to know is your body inherently knows how to process emotion. It's designed to do this. By the way, anyone here who has a pet, if you notice your animal is anxious or frustrated, they're going to do things to get that emotion out of their bodies so that they're free from it. You know how to do the same exact thing. But if we grew up in environments where we were told not to do that, or it wasn't safe to do that, the emotion becomes internalized. Another reason why we internalize emotion is because we're disconnected from our bodies altogether. And of course, disconnecting from our bodies is the result of having persistent overwhelm and lacking of safety. And so our nervous system says the only option here is to leave our bodies altogether. I'm going to disconnect from my truth, my feelings, and the sensations that I have in my. My body overall. For both of those reasons, that means that when I, in my present life, am experiencing any kind of struggle, overwhelm, anxiety, frustration, sadness, loneliness, instead of being able to make contact with it and do something called discharging it. So ridding it from our bodies, it becomes stuck inside. And emotion is energy. Remember I said it has to go somewhere. So it's as if it gets lodged inside of us and it usually takes up residence in certain parts of our body. So it's very common. For example, let's say I. I'm feeling frustrated about something and I'm not telling my friend or my boss or my partner that it might manifest itself as a migraine or perhaps as a sore throat or as eye issue or, or a skin issue, or I might feel really sick when I wake up. The kind of sick, like I'm hungover, but I didn't drink anything. What's going on? All of these are psychosomatic symptoms that are resulting from the internalization of that emotion. And this is really, really common. A lot of the time when we experience this, what do we do? We try to treat the symptom. But if you just treat the symptom without getting to the root of the problem, the symptom will persist. And so it's really important to understand that this is often an indicator that there is an emotionality connected to this that needs to be addressed. In a bit, we're going to talk about how we do this, but what I want you to know is when you are actually able to. To express that emotion, to make contact with it, to be with it, not try to change or manipulate it, but to hold it in your system, it will always want to leave your body. It doesn't want to stay there. It wants to go. And when that happens, the symptoms that you're occurring shift and, and sometimes they can shift wildly, fast. You can go from one hour experiencing pain, like chronic pain down your leg, to all of a sudden that pain is gone. Why? Because I was able to relieve myself of the emotion causing the pain in the first place. So another thing that can be really common is that a lot of us will find ourselves getting sick either before we are about to do something that feels scary or after we do that scary thing. When I say scary thing, I'm talking about the things we might actually really want to do in our lives, the things that we are deeply desiring more of, like more vulnerability, more exposure, more abundance, asking for Help being seen more, whether that's in your purpose or relationships. Maybe taking risks, traveling, seeing the world. So our deep, deep desires that we actually want. It is very common for a lot of people that they will get sick in the lead up or again as I named, they'll get sick after. So I just want to explain why this can happen. Really two reasons. Number one is because I'm experiencing anticipatory anxiety. Our nervous systems like what they know. So if I'm stepping towards something new, it doesn't have any data point on that. The result of it, that is it will actively protect you via dysregulation before you experience that thing. Because it thinks if you are protected in the as a precursor to experiencing it, it can prevent against all the bad possibilities that could happen. Which is why you might find yourself running through everything that could go wrong. That is your nervous system trying to make many game plans for how it can protect you. It's not doing this because it wants to harm you. It's doing this because it doesn't yet know that those things that you desire are safe for you. Now remember, I named the result of chronic dysregulation means that your immune system is not functioning optimally. And so because of that, I am more predisposed to getting sick because my immune system isn't able to protect me from germs and viruses and bacteria and so on and so forth. So that's one reason why this can happen. The second is because of protective parts. We have lots of episodes on parts work, so I invite you to listen to those. But we have these beautiful protective parts. Their job is to make sure we never experience the pain of the past that we did. So as I'm going to step towards this thing that I really want. Usually the things you want the most have flavorings of stuff that was dangerous or inhibited in the past. So if new experience or being out of control meant danger in the past, then you traveling the world is going to seem really dangerous to this part of you. And it's very common to have a protective part that will try to sabotage you stepping towards that thing as a way to keep you safe. And that can manifest as getting you sick because it's saying it's really smart, right? If I get you sick, you won't be able to do that presentation at work. You won't be able to have that conversation with your partner. You won't be able to go on that trip. So that's another reason why we might notice we, we get sick in the lead up to things, the primary thing to focus on here is bringing regulation to our nervous system and reparenting those parts. When you notice you are in anticipatory anxiety of the future, that is not here. What we must do is take the hand of our nervous system and our parts and say, let's come back to this moment, the only moment that is here, and let me show you how we are safe right now and how adult me can protect all parts no matter what arises. The other thing that I want to name is it's really common to feel sick or run down at the very least, when we step towards new big things in our lives. Why? Because as you're stepping towards something new, you are opening the aperture of your ability to receive the positive. That takes a lot of energy. It doesn't just feel good at first. Receiving greater intimacy requires exposure. It can feel overwhelming, exhausting, and of course, like a lot, because I'm energetically holding more. The result of that is I may feel more depleted after taking that step. That it's also very common in the lead up. I might notice more dysregulation arise because my system is saying, oh my gosh, oh my gosh, we're actually doing this thing. And then the result of that is I might find myself getting sick after because I have again opened the aperture of stepping into something new and something bigger. The more that we consistently take tolerable steps towards new things. So we don't take steps that are beyond our capacity. We make them smaller and titrate them. The more we do that, the more we regulate before and the more we comfort our parts, the less we get sick before and after experiences that are new. So another phenomenon that can happen when we are chronically dysregulated is that our recovery time when we're sick is much slower. So if you notice that when you get a cold, this would happen to me. Like friends or partners I was with, they would get better in three days, and I would take two and a half weeks to get better or three weeks to get better. And it was so frustrating. I couldn't understand why I got the same cold they got. And yet it was lasting so much longer. Or let's say I got, you know, I was traveling and I got food contamination. And it would be something their body could recover from in a couple days. And it took me literal months to recover from. Why was that happening? Well, remember when you're chronically dysregulated like I was, my nervous system was functioning suboptimally so if theirs had 100% of resource to fight that cold, they could do it in three days. If I was functioning on 25% or 10% of those resources, it's going to take my body a lot longer. My hope is that in hearing this, you can have compassion for your body. For so many of us like myself, my body was where trauma occurred. I felt like my body wronged me, and then I felt like my body wronged me because I was suffering in it all the time. But what I want you to do is see what's actually true here. The truth is that your immune system and every other system inside of you loves you so much it will never give up. And even on 10% of the resource that it needed, my immune system was saying, I will keep fighting for you. I am so tired, but I won't stop even while you sleep. I'm not going to sleep. I'm going to keep going. And I'm fighting with very, very little to ensure that you survive and you are okay. My hope is that in hearing me say that you can turn towards yourself right now and have the same compassion for your own illness and suffering and how your body is working very, very hard to keep you safe in it. And then this other example I gave of me, you know, getting of contamination from water or food, and someone I was with was sick for a couple days. They didn't even need an antibiotic or anything to support, you know, natural antibiotics to support the fighting of what's going on in their gut. And it would take me, I'm not kidding literal months. Why did that take me so much longer? Because I had, you know, at that point, 25 years, almost 30 years of my life spent in pretty chronic dysregulation. And so the result of that is my gut microbiome was way thrown off. My gut microbiome was incredibly out of balance. And the resources that my GI tract in my stomach needed, they weren't getting. So if I'm functioning on, I don't know, let's say, 15% of what my GI tract actually needs, and I don't have a balanced gut microbiome. So the bacterias are not balanced, the good and bad bacteria are not balanced in my system, then of course, when something comes in that is not good, my system's not going to be able to fight it in the same way that theirs is. But again, what I want you to hear in this is it was still fighting. Had to actually work a lot harder because it didn't have as strong of an army as someone with a healthy gut microbiome. And the more that we bring regulation to our nervous system, the more that our often, what's often referred to as our second brain, our gut microbiome, begins to come into homeostasis. The more we have blood flow and resources and energy in that space space, the faster that we recover. And so I just want to name here, if you notice that that's happening for you, everything seems to be slower than others. It's not because you're not as strong or you're inherently unbroken. Your resources have been going towards survival. When we regulate our nervous systems, those resources can go back towards their rightful place. So now let's talk about what to do to begin bringing resolution to our chronic pain and chronic illness. And the beautiful thing is this means healing in the process. The number one best medicine that you can give yourself is regulating your nervous system. As I shared with you, when we're chronically dysregulated, our organs and our body as a whole is not able to function optimally. When you are regulated, all of the resources and energy go towards their rightful place. And your system knows how to thrive, it knows how to function well. It just needs the conditions necessary for that to happen. So bringing regulation to your nervous system needs to be a priority. As someone who experienced decades of chronic illness, I can tell you that that is what brought resolution to the chronic illness that I experienced in my life the most. And then I'll say on top of that, doing other supportive interventions, their medical interventions can be wildly helpful. Working with a functional medicine doctor and a naturopath, doing acupuncture, all of these things are, are, are really helpful. Taking proper supplementation. A lot of people are taking supplements without even knowing what their deficiencies are. So working with someone who's really skilled, whether that's a naturopath or a functional medicine doctor, to get to the root of the problem and then start addressing, you know, what's most helpful is one area at a time. And when you do that, it's a trickle out effect. Once we bring support to one region of our system, it will systemically help to heal other areas too. And of course this isn't medical advice, but what we do, again know is that chronic dysregulation creates chronic illness. And there's lots of research on that. And again, from my own experience, that was certainly the case. And bringing in these other interventions that I named medical interventions in tandem with regulating my own nervous system is really what changed everything. The next thing that we want to do is I want you to validate the pain that you're experiencing in your body. And then I want you to turn towards what's actually working well inside of your body. Our systems have adapted to notice what isn't working. And that's really, really smart for survival. Because if I can focus on what's not working, I can then try to fix what's not working. And the unfortunate thing about that is, is what we focus on expands, right? So if I am only orienting towards the illness or the pain in my body, that becomes how I experience my body. So we don't want to deny what is. I want us to name it and notice it. And then I want to see if we can turn my orientation towards what is working in my body. This can also help people who feel like your body has wronged you in a particular way. So this could literally be doing exercises like, can I put my hands on my legs for a moment? And if I have the ability to walk, can I connect to the ability that I have to move around this world? Wow, look at that. All the things my. My legs do to serve me. Can you connect to the somatic experience of that? Can I move my hands and just notice that you have the power to make this happen? I am actually empowered. I am not helpless. Can I place my hand on my heart and notice that my heart is beating just for me? You know, it's. It's keeping you alive. Nobody but you, and it never stops. Can I connect to the somatic experience of that? What is working? And next, I want you to connect to experiencing nourishment and pleasure via your body. This is really important because for most of us that have experienced chronic illness or pain, there is no experience of nourishment or pleasure associated with our bodies. So using all the senses you have access to to do this, as you're eating something, really take in the smell and the flavor of it. Can I be nourished by that? Can I experience pleasure with it? Can I touch something soft on my skin and feel the enjoyment of that? Can I take a bath and enjoy the warm water on my body? Can I listen to music and let my body move to the music and enjoy that? The more that we orient towards pleasure and ease in our bodies, the more we are able to be in our bodies as a place of safety, and the more that it creates regulation in our system overall. A couple other really important things. One is coming into connection. It's very common when we have chronic illness or chronic pain that the inclination is to isolate. I don't wanna actually be around people. It feels like it'll be a lot of energy to do that. But a lot of the time when we're feeling really exhausted, it is not because we're out actually tired. It's because we're wildly dysregulated. So if you lean into connecting, you'll often find that you feel a lot more vibrant after. How is that? I just output energy, but I feel more awake. Why? Because co regulation or connecting with other people brings us into regulation. And I'll give a caveat there other safe people. What we want to do is connect in a way that feels tolerable. So that might be connecting with a pet, with a loved one, saying hello to someone on a walk, meeting up with a friend for coffee or for dinner, going to a dance class. Whatever it is that feels tolerable for you, I want you to lean into that even though it feels uncomfortable. The more we do this, the more it regulates our system. And then very lastly here we want to focus on externalizing what has been internalized. Remember, energy has to go somewhere. And if we're not allowing the emotionality of our experience to create come out, it's going in. So what I invite you to do, if this is new for you, we need some tools or resources that can help us externalize. It's not just easy to connect to what we feel and then express it. One of the ways you can do this is by listening to music. Put music on that connects to what you're feeling and you won't even, don't even have to know what you're feeling. You can just ask yourself what music feels resonant for me right now, that'll clue you into what you're feeling. Because you're going to want to listen to something that reflects back what you feel as you listen to that music. Let your body move to the music or be moved by the music that helps to externalize. Another thing that you can do is do journaling or stream of conscious writing. So I don't want you to think about what you're writing. Allow your body to write to you. That can help express what's inside. Exercise is a wonderful way to express what is inside. When I go on runs, I really allow my body to express express what it's feeling. A couple years ago when one of my dogs passed away, who and when I speak of my dogs, in case you're not an animal person, you're like, why did you talk about a dog? So much for lots of people who have had experiences like I did in childhood, where I had no. No safety, no safe home, no safe person. Animals can be the first safe attachment and can be wildly healing for people with complex trauma. So for me, that was the case when I got my dogs 14 years ago. And so the loss of him was a very big deal for me because he was my first home. So anyway, one of the things that I did to process that grief was I would go on runs. And what I would notice is as I was running, emotion would start to come out and I would be weeping. While I was running, the grief was able to move because I was being moved, literally. So weightlifting, exercise, walking, hiking, running, all of those things really can support us to move energy through and then sound, allowing sound to lead the emotion. So this doesn't mean making beautiful sound, although you could sing, but. But it might be a growling or yelling or weeping. So sound helps to move emotion out too. And of course tears do as well. If you notice tears arising, a beautiful prompt you can ask yourself that comes from Peter Levine's work is if my tears could talk, what would they say? They likely have a message for you. All of this helps to not only resolve the past, it helps us to process the present and it allows our bodies to come back into homeostasis. And when that happens, the chronic illness we experience, the chronic pain that we experience, experience in so many ways can begin to dissipate. Enjoying what you've heard so far and want to go deeper into somatic healing? I have a free workbook called how to Gain Control over how youw Feel and it will help you to get in the driver's seat of your experience and step towards your desires with more ease. Check the show notes below for a link to download. So we're going to get to the Q and A portion of this episode. We have Rachel back here with us today. For those of you that are new to this podcast, Rachel is a trained social worker. She has been on my team for a long time and she runs every program community that we have. So all the programs that I offer. She is the leader inside of the communities. She runs different calls. You'll find her in her email inbox. She is my right hand person and is an expert in this work as well. So she takes time to to read over the questions that are submitted and and we come here together to get those answers. So I'm looking forward to good getting into them today. Hey Rach, good to see you.
- [40:10]
B
Hi. Really lovely to see you. Yeah. And this first question has a mention of the menstrual cycle. We get asked this question so much because so many people struggle around the week before their period, during their period, and just wanting to know, like, what impact the nervous system has. So I'll read the whole question for you, but I know you'll be answering something that, yeah, loads and loads of people will be glad to hear the answer to. I heard a study saying that women tend to suffer from autoimmune diseases more often than men. And are women's nervous systems impacted by our unique physiology, for example, phases of our menstrual cycle, pregnancy, etc.
- [40:52]
A
So it's a great question. Gabor Mate talks a lot about specifically women in autoimmune disease. This has less to do with the biology of a woman's body and more to do with conditioning. So it's very common. The way that little girls are raised is to be a nice little girl, you know, and how are boys raised? Anger is okay, but sadness or softness or gentleness isn't okay. And thankfully, this is finally changing in our world. But for you and I, or anyone older than us, it was really a messaging of that. We see it in fairy tales, you see it in toy stores that these toys are for girls, these toys are for boys, and it's segregation that happens very early on. And include, it includes emotionality. So because of this, little girls adapt and what they learn to do is say, well, anger, which is a healthy, normal emotion. I am being told that if I express that I, I am not good. I'm not a little princess. You know, people say that to little girls like, you're a little sweet princess. And what does it mean to be a sweet little princess? It also means being strong and being, being courageous and being your own little lioness cub. But that's stripped from us. So this is one of the reasons why more women than men or people who identify as female tend to internalize what happened to them. Because our system said it won't be accepted if I actually express the appropriate emotion here, which might be frustration, anger, or to defend myself. I was also conditioned and this is globally happens to little girls conditioned to be a caretaker. I have to take on the role of ensuring everybody else is okay. And again, that's modeled in our homes or you know, again was historically I really think and very hopeful about this changing. And I just want to name we have done such a disservice to men because for again our generation or older, the messaging was don't feel feelings that makes you weak to have emotionality. Well, it's a normal part of the human experience to have emotions. So guess what has to happen that has to become internalized. Don't lean on others, don't need somebody else. So, so many men are isolated in their experience. There's, there's many more women's circles out in the world. There's many more communities for women to come and be embraced with each other, and very few for men. And why? Because we've been conditioned that way. So, so one of the consequences for women is that internalization of what happened and also over giving. Now when we have internalized what happened, that energy has to go somewhere, so it's going inside. The result of this can lead to chronic illness and also autoimmune disease where our body is attacking itself. Why? Because that energy has not been able to go to its rightful place. So those are some of the reasons why we see this predominantly more with women than men and has, has very little to do with our biology and much more to do with the conditioning that we experienced. Now, second half of this question is we have so many women that have issues with their hormones and specifically issues complaining about issues with their menstrual cycle. So much so that we have normalized this to make it seem like it's just a part of what happens when you're in your cycle every month and when you get your period. I've for many years have worked with a really fantastic naturopath here in Los Angeles. And I was talking to her at one point about this. She knows the nature of the work that I do and we're talking about this normalization of things like I feel really sensitive, right? You know, during my period, I, before my period I have really intense symptoms. I swell a lot and get inflammation. I. During my period I have such terrible cramps for a couple days that I can't really do much and I don't, you know, I can't even wear my normal clothes. But that's normalized. So it's, it's made to be that this is just a part of what it's like to be a woman that's actually not normal. And what is, is that we actually notice very little symptoms when we are in our cycle. Meaning I'm not having, you know, severe cramping. I'm not having severe water retention. I'm not feeling severely low energy or explosive emotions or feeling like it's a roller coaster of emotions. There's certainly shifts that occur, but they're quite subtle. So, you know, I might feel like I'm not going to go lift weights today, I'm just going to go on a long walk. But I also feel totally fine to go to dinner with my friends tonight or I'm going to go on that hike today. So. Meaning it's very little negative consequence. And I would say they're, they aren't even negative. They're just a part of being whom we are. So again, then why does the normalization happen? Because so many of us are suffering with not having ease in our bodies. And one of the reasons for this is because our hormones are not in balance. And that creates the experience of having our cycle be quite tumultuous instead of filled with ease. Now, one of the reasons why our hormones go out of balance is because of chronic dysregulation. When we are dysregulated, we are releasing higher levels of cortisol and adrenaline, especially for our sympathetic nervous system, chronically. And the result of that is it throws our hormones off balance and we're not sleeping well, which further throws our hormones off balance. So we're not meant to be in long term survival, meaning dysregulation. If we are in long term dysregulation, there are repercussions of that. And one of them is imbalance in our hormones, which again, as I named, leads to then challenges or struggles with our periods. So the more that we are able to regulate our nervous system, the more hormones come back into balance and the more that those symptoms begin to recede and we start to experience our cycle from a way that can even be enjoyable. Meaning, like it's almost. You could compare it to the seasons of a year. You know, there's beautiful parts of summer and there's wonderful parts of fall and winter and spring. And that's what it's like every single month for a woman as you go through your menstrual cycle. And you know, for most of us, we might think of winter, summer, spring, fall as pleasant experiences as you recall them. Oh, I look forward to this part of that one and this part of that one. So when I'm in homeostasis, that's how I experience it. I also just want to name that when we're in chronic dysregulation, we're usually disconnected from our bodies. And that means that we're not properly tending our bodies. And the repercussion of that is we're usually doing things that exacerbate the problems we're finding ourselves in. So what I see a Lot is in this disconnection from our bodies. A lot of people wake up in the morning, start their day with one, two, three cups of coffee. They won't eat anything. They'll go to the gym and work out. They get home, they shower, they sit down at their desk and then they eat something. I've been awake for four and a half or five hours and I'm just eating now. And what I did is I fueled myself with gasoline that's thrown onto the fire of dysregulation. It just exacerbates that sympathetic activation. So what occurs is I am further throwing my hormones out of balance. Balance. Then we do things like we're not fueling our body with what it actually needs to bring us into regulation. So we need high amounts of protein each day, specifically in the morning, and very low amounts of sugar. But what do we tend to do? A lot of people eat high carb, high sugar breakfasts, which exacerbates hormone imbalance and exacerbates dysregulation. And now we're in this cycling over and over again. And what we tend to do is, and we're low energy, we fuel it with more sugar and more caffeine. So all of that exacerbates the problem that we're already in. And when we're really connected to our body, there's an internal listening to what we actually need. Yesterday we were filming. We filmed really pretty long days. And it's a lot of talking for me. You think I'm just sitting here. But it's a big energy output put to be filming, you know, four episodes a day. And I said to, to our creative director, I said, I eat like twice as much when we're filming as I do in a regular day sitting at my desk. And you think on a regular day I'm also working out. These are maybe 12 hour days when we're here filming. But I'm not exercising. But it's a huge energy output for my body and my, my brain to be able to do this work. Now if I wasn't really attuned with my body, I might not listen to it. And then I might restrict what I'm eating or eat the normal amount that I, that I would on a regular day. And I wouldn't be fueling my body in the way that it needs. So when we're actually connected to our bodies, we're always in a relationship of listening. And it will always ask for you. I really want everyone to hear this. It will always ask of you, not more Than it needs, not less than it needs, but exactly the right amount. And when we're in relationship to it, we trust that. Like we were eating lunch on our break. I was like, wow, normally I would eat half of it. I ordered something, I eat a lot, and it was the same exact thing. And I ate the whole thing, and I was still hungry. And I'm. I'm listening. And in that listening, my body's saying, I need more fuel. If you want to keep doing this for the rest of the day. And it becomes a really trusting, beautiful relationship. Our bodies will do things like say, I need extra rest. If you want me to support you tomorrow, I'm going to need you to give me more. And instead of being disconnected from that or not listening, we come into this really beautiful internal relationship of listening to our system. And I can certainly notice that when. If I'm low on iron or if I'm not having enough protein intake, I might feel like all I want to eat tonight is a steak. I don't even want vegetables. And for anyone who's a vegetarian, you might be like, I just want to eat a bowl of tofu. That's your system saying, here's what I need in order to give you what you need. So anyway, the more that we are able to be regulated, the more we're embodied, the more we don't punish our bodies because of a lot of us. I used to do this, punish our bodies because our bodies were the place where the trauma occurred. And so we can, can, can really feel like our body betrayed us. But the more, again, we regulate, the more that we listen, the more that we fuel our body exactly how it needs, the more that the resolution happens around our hormones in every other area of our life too.
- [52:42]
B
Oh, well, thank you so much for sharing that. Actually, we aren't meant to have these issues with our periods and menstrual cycle because it is so normalized. So just knowing that that isn't normal, and there are things that we can do to even out our hormones and work with our nervous system to create that deep relationship with our bodies. Yeah, that's really beautiful. I think a lot of what you shared will help with this next question. How do we become disconnected from our bodies and how can this be fixed? Asking from a fertility perspective.
- [53:19]
A
So our bodies are the. In many ways, I guess I'll say it this way, they're like the scene of the crime. Our bodies are where the trauma is experienced and where the trauma lives. The trauma is not living in that house or that school that you experience it in, it's also not living in that park where that bad thing happened or in that intersection where the accident occurred. It's living in you. And until it's resolved, that's where it resides. So here are the options. Do I want to be in that intersection where that car accident happened forever, perpetually, or do I want to escape that? I don't know anyone that would say, I would like to be in that perpetually, please. Or any trauma we experience. So instead, what it, what our brilliant, beautiful nervous system does is it says, okay, well I have something called your dorsal vagal complex. It's been evolving for 500 million years, so it's very, very good at doing its job. What it can do for you is it can be a numbing cloak. So if you can't, if you're not watching this on YouTube, you can. We have, we have this on YouTube. If you're like, what do you mean on YouTube? We record this as a show. So watch it on YouTube. Check us out. So anyway, what I'm doing is I have a fist in one hand. Imagine the fist is the activation. So the overwhelm, the terror, the rage, the hopelessness, the, the fear, all of that activation happening in your sympathetic nervous system. My other hand, I'm using it like, almost like it's a cloak and it's covering up the fist. So our dorsal vagal complex does that for us. And in the covering up, it supports us to disconnect from sensations, from feelings, from remembering what happened altogether. Now the, the double edged sword of this is, the only way for that disconnection to happen is we have to leave our bodies because our bodies is the place where it all occurred. And so herein lies why so many of us are wildly disconnected from what's happening in our bodies. We find lots of ways to disconnect from our bodies. Being focused, overly focused on other people, being in our minds all the time, thinking cognitively all the time, preoccupying ourselves with other things in our lives, all ways to disconnect from our bodies. I work with a lot of people and have over the course of the last decade. And even if you're saying like, well, I've never been to an accident and I don't have really extreme trauma for many of us, we weren't taught even how to process emotion. So when you feel angry or sad or scared, what do you do? Nobody taught us what to do. And you know what they probably taught us was what they did, which was disconnect or Pretend it's not happening. So in working with so many people, I will ask people, what are you feeling right now? And oftentimes people will go into a story. So if I say, what are you feeling? They'll say, well, it's just like my partner's not listening to me. And it makes me, you know, really frustrated. And I just feel like there's this relationship is hopeless, and. And it's. It's not going to work out. And I feel really scared about that. And we go into another story. None of that is actually embodied. So then I might say, again, what do you feel? And without the story, what do you feel? And a lot of times people say, I don't know. I don't know what you're asking me. So my job is to help shepherd the process of coming back into our body. And we have to do this in a slow and titrated way. And we can't expect ourselves to know how to do that. If no one taught us, this is why you cannot heal on your own. I don't know. But I would certainly not try to figure out how to fly a plane by myself. I wouldn't try to figure out how to do knee surgery on myself. And I most certainly will not try to figure out maybe the most important thing in our life, which is how to navigate this human experience from our truest self and resolve trauma in the past. And I'm an expert in this. And I have three people currently that I am supported by. You don't have to have three people. I. You know, this work is my life's work, so I always want to grow, and I do this regularly as a profession. So. So it's really important that we have help and support in the process. So my job, again, is to help shepherd people back into their bodies. So if I'm working with someone that says, I don't know what I'm feeling, I might start with saying, okay, well, if you can remember that dynamic that happened, just think about the dynamic. What is one feeling that comes up? And they might say, hopeless. Okay, great, we have a feeling. Hopeless. Now, what in your body told you you were hopeless? This can be more challenging. Like, I don't know, it's just hopeless. But the truth is, there's something in your body signaling that. So I will say, okay, and everyone, I'm going through this because I want you to practice this. Scan your body and ask yourself, if there's one place in my system, my body, that's telling me this, where is it coming from? And Maybe they say, oh, my throat. Just notice my throat. Great. Perfect. Now, if that hopelessness could have a color, what would it be? So I'm cueing in more on how we get into your body. First thing that comes to you is, right, it's dark blue. Okay. Does it feel heavy or light? Heavy. Does it. Is it moving or is it still? It's like, still like a cold rock. Amazing. Now, if we could ask that sensation, if it could speak, what would it say? Because it always has a message. And it might say, I'm never going to get out of here. And then I might ask, when is the first time you remember having that feeling and that thought and the sensation? Oh, that was when I was little and I felt like I wasn't going to get out of the house. That was always filled with conflict. Oh, how interesting. So now, not only did I get them into their body, we've made contact with the root of it and the part that's present. So here's the. I invite everyone listening to be. If you struggle to be in your body, you struggle to know what your truth is. This is a great exercise to help with that. You can also do it around positive things. You are with your animal and you're smiling and you're like, I love you. Okay, what tells you that you love them? I don't know. They're really funny. I think my dog's funny. It's actually really serious. But anyway. But what's telling me that, oh, my face is warm. What else do I notice? So again, we can use positive things or negative things to get into our body. The more that we do this, we're showing our system it is safe to be here. I am not at that intersection anymore where it was just filled with pain and suffering. My body can be a place of peace and ease. And my compass. It is meant to be your compass. Look at any animal in nature. I've never had a cockatoo come to my house and say, hey, can you help me figure out what to do? I'm really struggling to find a mate. I don't know what's going on. Or really struggling to build a nest, to keep having struggles around our nest, or my community doesn't want to invite me in. I'm not sure what to do. I'll pay you money to help me. They don't do that, Right? I don't know what my truth is. I don't know what to do. They. They know like, they know, like they know they don't need me. They don't need anyone else. Why? Because they're so connected to their internal listening. The compass is inside. I am not the answer for anyone. Anyone makes you feel like they are the answer for you. Please don't work with them. You are the light at the end of the tunnel. You are the answer. But we all need support. And when we have that, we become wildly empowered in our lives.
- [61:22]
B
Yeah. So that's really great to hear about. And would you be able to just say a little bit around how that applies to, to the fertility process?
- [61:30]
A
Yeah. There's a number of reasons why we might struggle with our fertility as it relates to unresolved trauma and our mental health. So I don't know exactly for this person because I've, I don't know you, I haven't worked with you. So I just want to name a couple of things here. I've worked with many, many, many people who struggle with fertility. One thing that's really important to understand is when you are dysregulated, your nervous system is saying, I think that there is a lion chasing me. We are in danger. Now if we look at evolution, right, and everything in our species and any living thing, plant creature, it wants to survive and it wants to thrive. So our system, if we are in survival, it's going to say, now is not the time to have a baby. We have to get away from this danger. And if you got pregnant right now, you wouldn't be able to run from that lion very well and you'd probably die and the baby would die too. So let's not have that happen so that you can survive. So it is very common if you are experiencing chronic dysregulation, that you will struggle with your fertility. And again, doesn't that make sense? Your body's not doing that because it wants you to suffer. It's not doing that because it doesn't want you to have a baby. It's doing that because it's saying, I don't think it's safe right now to do that. If you are in safety, that's another story. So one of the most important things we can do when it comes, if we're wanting to, to get pregnant, is to focus on your nervous system. And a lot of people are in their sympathetic nervous system. And so what they tend to want to do is control. So, okay, okay, I, I, I'm not, I'm struggling to get pregnant. So what I'm going to do is I'm going to go to acupuncture, I'm going to do all the things I'm going to, I'm going to meditate, I'm going to, blah, blah, blah, blah. But it's coming from our sympathetic system. And if we're approaching it from that place, we're just going to be controlling and get more sympathetic. There's no amount of supplements that you can take that's going to fix this. The most important medicine is nervous system regulation. So the more that you regulate, the more that it actually shifts what's happening in your fertility. And another important thing to know is when you're in your sympathetic nervous system, all of the blood, your blood, goes to your heart. The vagal break opens up. Think of it like a dam to your heart, and the blood rushes through your heart and then to your limbs. Why is all the blood going to your limbs? Because it wants to run as fast as you can or fight as fast, as hard as you can. That means that the blood flow that would normally be going to your brain, your GI tract, and guess what, your reproductive organs are no longer going there. And so it's very common that one of the reasons we struggle with fertility issues is because we don't have enough blood flow going to our reproductive organs. And when you're chronically in sympathetic, that isn't going to change. So the more that we regulate our nervous system, the more that that blood flow goes back to its rightful place. It knows how to do that. It wants to do that. It just doesn't know it's safe to do that yet. And it takes a lot of, as I named, a lot of blood flow for our brains and our reproductive organs to properly function. This is why, by the way, if you've ever done fertility treatments, they will really recommend fertility acupuncture. What does fertility acupuncture. It's wonderful. What does it do? It brings blood flow back to your reproductive organs. That, coupled with nervous system regulation, will do its job to ensure that that your system has everything it needs to bring life into the world. So again, there are a number of reasons why we struggle with fertility. You know, it would take us a long time to talk about all of them, but these are some of the most important. And the more you regulate your nervous system, the more that changes.
- [65:16]
B
Oh, great. Thank you so much for sharing that. And so the next question is an audio question, and it's around feeling chronic pain and discomfort in the the body.
- [65:27]
C
Hi, Sarah. I just had a question about chronic pain. So I find myself when I'm using different tools to, you know, regulate my nervous system, all I can Focus on. And all my body is saying is screaming at me about, you know, my physical pain. So I've been doing a lot of tools, you know, physically, to try to help that first and then kind of focus inward. But, you know, you have good days and bad days. So I don't know if you have any comments on this. It's just kind of overall physical uncomfortability that kind of takes over in the moment. Anything will help. Thank you.
- [66:09]
A
So we can get into this really vicious cycle when we're dysregulated of we're not only experiencing dysregulation, but then secondary things begin to arise as the result of it. So for many of us, and I know this was true for you, Rachel, this was certainly true for me, we begin to develop psychosomatic symptoms as the result of unexpressed, unresolved trauma and emotion. Because, remember, it has to go somewhere. So if it's not going out, it's going inside. So because for myself, I had to disconnect from my emotions and also not express emotions, that means that not only was I disconnected from them, but they weren't even able to be expressed in my body at all. So if I was about to do, you know, historically in my life, if I was about to do something that scared me, I would get sick. Why? Because I wasn't actually processing the fear and allowing myself to be with the fear. I was disconnected from it. Or if there was a challenge happening in my life that I wasn't addressing, I would get a sinus infection. Why? Because I wasn't actually being with the emotion that was there. So this is the. The cycle that we. And I know that's true for you. Right. Rachel, in a previous episode, I know you talked about it, but could you share a little bit in your own experience of that, too?
- [67:32]
B
Yeah. So, like you said, I've had a lot of sinus issues, and then that turned into neuralgia. And so you spoke the other, on a different episode about healthy aggression, and using the tool really helped the neuralgia. And then one night, I just ended up getting so upset and crying, and it's like I could literally feel all the tension pouring out of my face. And then the sinusitis went. It was really interesting to see. Oh. What I had bunged up in there from not having a willingness or not even not having a willingness. Like, it was really unconscious to me that I had stored and bottled up all these feelings. So. Yeah. But once they poured out, it was like, oh, I felt clear, you know, the next Day, like, from going for the most excruciating pain the next day, just feeling fine and, like, better than I'd felt in a really long time. And it was, yeah, just such a. Yeah, Powerful, strong experience.
- [68:31]
A
Thank you so much for sharing the details of that, Rachel, because this. We are magic beings. Not even just magical, you're just magic in and of itself. Truly. Truly, we are magic. And when. And I've experienced exactly what Rachel has said myself, and I have worked with so many people. I have witnessed this and all the trainings that I've done with so many people that when we actually allow our system to release what has been stored and stuck these symptoms, a lot of the time will magically just go away. To go from, I'm having this chronic, chronic pain. And then you were able to let the emotion out, and the next day you felt clear. I can't tell you how many sessions I went into with my own somatic therapists and practitioners and feeling like, whoa, I'm about. I feel like I have the flu. And all it took was accessing the emotion that was underneath. And not even the next day. By the end of that hour, all of the symptoms were gone. And of course, if you actually have the flu, that is a very different thing. I'm not saying that when we process this, and if I have influenza, influenza is gone. But what I'm saying is when it's psychosomatic, when it is linked to emotionality, when you shift out of that emotion, the migraine's gone, the sinus pressure is gone, that feeling like I'm about to get sick is gone. So really want to just name that for this person. The other thing I want to say is when you regulate your nervous system, you come into your body. That doesn't mean it's going to feel good to be in your body. And I'll go back to that metaphor of running from a lion. If you're running from a lion, you're running, running, running. Am I going to be able to think about my torn rotator cuff? Oh, geez. I'm not going to be able to throw a baseball. I don't throw baseballs, but you know what I mean. I'm not going to be able to throw a baseball next month. What a bummer. I'm not. Or I. I pull my hamstring. Oh, that's really painful. I can't believe I have a pulled hamstring. Your body's so brilliant. It won't let you feel them on purpose because isn't that cool? I Mean, that's really cool. Obviously, I know this, and I've been saying this for a long time, but when I'm speaking, I'm also listening to myself as a participant in this process of this podcast. And that's really amazing, isn't it, that our system can do that. It can disconnect us from that experience. Why? Because it's so smart. It knows if you focus on that, you won't be able to survive, likely. So once you're in safety, I made it away from the lion. Guess what? Your system says, okay, now that we're not running from the lion, you can be with what is. And all of a sudden, now I am feeling the pain in my rotator cuff, the pain in my hamstring, and I'm feeling emotional pain. I'm feeling the. The grief that I've been running from a lion for 20 years. Oh, my gosh. Other people haven't been running from a lion. I wish I got to have my teenage years and my twenties, and now that I'm regulated, I'm actually feeling that grief, that loneliness. Oh, my gosh. I didn't really get to have a parent. Wow. And so I'm naming this because you feel physical things and also emotional things when you're regulated that aren't just. Just lovely, rosy things. But the beautiful thing about it is I am present to them, and they aren't overwhelming to me, and I can process what's here. So if you're noticing physical pain in your body, what I invite you to do is we don't want to. We don't want to disregard that or pretend it's not there to notice it. And then what I want you to do is, can I also orient to what is working in my body or what feels good? I might orient too. Well, my heart is beating just for me. Can I notice that? And then can I experience pleasure in some way in my body? Maybe it's by rubbing my own hand or feeling something warm or smelling something pleasant. How can my body also be a place of ease and pleasure? And the more that we do do that, the more we can actually orient to what's working, and then that begins to grow. The more we regulate our nervous system, the. The more that that pain begins to go away, the more we process the emotion, the more. The more the psychosomatic symptoms begin to dissipate, too. So thank you, Rach, for being with us today. Thank you always for all of the. Just. All of the ways in which you share your wisdom here and your own lived experience. I know that it helps so many people and it's just a joy to have you here.
- [73:04]
B
Oh thank you so much.
- [73:06]
A
Thank you.
- [73:07]
B
And I just wanted to say like to anyone who is suffering and feeling like the intens pain, like yeah, my heart is with you. Like it it's a big deal being a human and it can feel messy and hard and yeah, I just hope that what I share and I know what Sarah shares is helpful. So yeah, thanks for being here and listening.
- [73:28]
A
Thanks Rach. And thank you everyone for listening. We will see you next week. Enjoying this episode and want to go even deeper into somatic healing. You can join my email community for weekly teachings, tools and live events. Click the Show Notes to join.