S6 E8 | “Managing” Pain Vs. Healing Pain

Hello everyone and welcome back to the Mind Body Medicine for Chronic Pain Podcast. My name is Sean Hershey, I am a therapist, I am your host and I am so glad that you're here that it is awesome to be here with you. Welcome, welcome, welcome, so this is where we talk about healing from chronic pain and chronic symptoms using emotional and psychological modalities. Most people don't even know that that's possible but it is. It most absolutely is and you know that because you are here and if you didn't know that now you have at least heard me say that so now you know, even if you don't fully believe it now at least you've been introduced to the idea and now you know, so welcome, okay. Today we're talking about managing pain versus healing pain so we will get into that. Before we do I want to say I've had so many really great success stories with clients in my private practice lately which is so awesome and so gratifying and so rewarding and it is so nice to see people moving out of chronic pain and chronic symptoms into a life that is so much happier and is so much more freedom and is so much more authenticity and attunement to the real self and setting boundaries and feeling good about oneself and trusting one's emotions, not fearing one's emotions, it is so gratifying to see that. And I want to share that with you listening that this is what's happening in the private practice because this is what happens when people do this work and when people settle in and really focus on this, it really shifts their life and it really shifts their pain and their symptoms. So that is what you are doing by listening to this if you commit and if you you know like take this seriously and go down this path and do this work, the psychological work to teach your brain and your nervous system that it is safe to feel physical sensations that's part one, the emotional work to teach your brain and your nervous system that it's safe to feel emotions that's part two and the work of patiently attuning to your true self teaching your brain and your nervous system that it is safe to be you doing this work really helps people and I am watching it happen and I hope you are feeling it, I hope you are feeling it in your body, I really hope you are feeling it. So obviously I can't talk a lot about my client's success stories because I value their confidentiality and they are not my stories to share but I will just share the very high level details of client who I worked with for about a year and we just recently ended therapy, sciatica was this person's major symptom and you know we did a lot of work together over a year of therapy and this client did a lot of emotional work, a lot of boundary setting I would say and you know symptoms improve and improve and improve and they did a lot of psychological work in the realm of like not fearing this symptom, not freaking out about the symptoms not trying to you know even emotionally this client really worked on not trying to like figure it all out emotionally and like get to the bottom of it and what is it, what is it, what is it, what is wrong with me if it's not, if my sciatica doesn't understand my body it means there's something really wrong emotionally, let me figure this out and you know that's a balancing act because we did figure a lot out, they did need to set a lot of boundaries with people, they did need to act differently and sort of emote differently within themselves and be kinder to themselves so there was stuff to figure out emotionally but this client also did a lot of work on not getting you know kind of lost in the what's wrong with me, woe is me side of figuring it out, this client was just like yeah I have to deal with my emotions, okay moving on let me not freak out about the symptoms and low and behold we ended therapy recently because this client is out of chronic pain okay, how amazing is that, that's the direction that you are going in as well and I just want to say this person just went on a major trip and our final session was when they had just gotten back from the trip and you know we were checking about how things are going emotionally which looks much better you know the client was updating you this and that like this is going much better, that is going much better and the client was very focused on like their emotional life so I asked and while you're on the trip and now that you're back like how are you feeling in your body, how are you feeling with your pain and symptoms and like how are you feeling in your body and the client paused for a second and then just said one word amazing which I was like hell yeah how are you feeling in your body hmm let me think amazing, that was such a great win for everyone involved that's such a great win and you know it would have even been a win had this person been like oh you know better pretty good I'm feeling in my body like pretty good still some symptoms here and there of course but like managing doing okay you know better at responding to them not freaking out thinking psychologically not physically, you know that that would have been a huge success just that a huge success my god that's a huge success but the one word how are you feeling in your body amazing that's an even huge success right so I just want to share that with everybody listening so that you can know this is possible for you this is how this goes this is possible for you okay success story success story and there's others but I'm like you know I can't spend all my time talking about that kind of thing but just know that this stuff is helping people and it hopefully is helping you too and and you know of course if you would like some targeted individual support around this stuff I am of course a therapist and you can be my client that is a possibility for you and you can get in contact with me to schedule a consultation through my website my body medicine for chronic pain dot com or Sean Hershey dot com both will take you right there and you also get so much of this information through the podcast so it is here for you this kind of feeling is here for you okay oh one other brief thing that I want to say because I've gotten a few emails from people who listen to the podcast just asking like how can I um like I want to ask you a question in the show notes there is um ask Sean a question on the podcast that is right in there um ask away you know click down there ask a question on the podcast that is in the show notes for every single podcast it is a copy and paste job so that link is in there every single time um and you can always ask me a question there and you if you ask the question it may become the topic for a future podcast episode and you will get a thorough answer all right managing pain and symptoms versus healing pain and symptoms that is what we are here to talk about today all right before most people discover TMS work mind body work neuroplasticity work there are so many synonyms that are all names for the same thing it's the stuff that we talk about on this podcast before people discover this kind of work what most people are told by doctors and providers is some version of well we don't know what's going to fix this we don't know what's going to heal this whatever the symptom may be so what we're going to do is focus on managing it whoo and that is a downer right to hear that kind of thing is such a downer because most people when they first get the symptom you know the first symptom that um comes up they think like uh this is going to go away I'm going to be able to heal this I'm going to be able to recover from this this is not forever and then as the symptom remains and becomes chronic and the back pain the neck pain the hip pain the shoulder pain knee elbow um all the musculoskeletal stuff the neuropathy migraine sciatica ibs which is my most awful symptom for the longest time the different forms of pelvic pain the fibromyalgia the skin stuff the arthritis stuff the chronic fatigue whoa the chronic fatigue the long covid and I mean there's so many more symptoms all of that stuff as it becomes chronic and it's months and then it's many months and then it's years and then it's many years. You know what this is like. Suddenly, even just the idea of managing the pain and symptoms becomes like, it feels like that would be a miracle. If you were only just able to manage it, to minimize it, even that would be a miracle because the symptoms can be so, so awful. So today we're talking about the difference between managing pain and healing pain. What all of us want to be doing, of course, is making the pain go away. Right? Like that's the goal. That's obviously the goal. And so we're gonna get into this today managing versus healing because it's not actually so simple. You know, what I would love to say about TMS work and neuroplasticity work is that what we will do is heal your pain. You will no longer be managing anything because you will be healed and you can just go on and live your life and everything will be perfect after you do this. And there's no need to manage the symptoms anymore. That would be a really nice message. But I, and that kind of is the message, but I wanna just like flesh that out because it's more complex than that. Doing neuroplasticity work is a complete mindset shift. So the old mindset that's more like, you know, I would say black and white thinking where it's like, either you have a problem or the problem is solved. You have back pain or your back is good. This is not that. You know, we're moving out of that and we're learning as Dr. Sarno would say, his classic, classic line, thinks psychologically, not physically. And that involves something very different because even when you have have healed from chronic pain and symptoms, which is very possible. I mean, I very much consider my IBS to be healed at my chronic IBS. And yet I still have symptoms sometimes. And so I still do manage the symptoms, but the way that I manage them is psychologically, not physically. And so that is very important. It's a huge difference. It's so much more life giving and positive and affirming to be managing one's symptoms psychologically because that's what is actually happening. And if you are a sensitive human being like I am and I'm just gonna take a wild educated guess and say like you probably are a sensitive human being like I am if you're here, okay. I am going to break some news to you, you are who you are and that's not gonna change. Your symptoms are going to change. Yes, your sense of confidence is going to change. Yes, your sense of like ability to like move around the world with like, you know, being yourself that is going to change. Your, you know, fear that your emotional states are going to be so bad and I will never improve in your stuck with depression, anxiety, crippling, OCD or even just like, you know, moderate OCD, stuck with that kind of stuff. No, no, no, that kind of stuff will change. Will you always be a sensitive person who lives in a sensitive body who has to manage that? Probably, yeah, probably. So it's important not to get lost in managing your symptoms with nerve blocks and managing your symptoms with very structurally oriented physical therapy and managing your symptoms by believing something's wrong with you. It's important to get, that's thinking physically, excuse me. What we want to do is move into thinking psychologically. It is important to transition into managing. I don't even like using that word, but it's the word we're going to use 'cause that's what we have and language is limited and so it is what it is. It's important to move into managing your symptoms psychologically. What does that mean? That means maybe it's time to look at your emotional life. Maybe it's time to set some boundaries in your life. Maybe it's time to go home now. Maybe it's time to take a break. Maybe it's time to go on vacation. And maybe it's time to stop thinking that something's wrong with you and to start thinking that something is right. If your body is screaming out, that does not mean something's wrong with you necessarily. It could mean something is right with you. Your body is picking up on the fact that you are so sick of your job and you need a break. Your body is picking up on the fact that you are so sick of your kids, which doesn't feel good to admit, but maybe you are. And if so, that's okay. That would make you a normal parent. Maybe your body is picking up on the fact that you're so sick of your kids that you need a break. Higher a sitter, no matter how much it costs, it's worth it. You need to have a different schedule, have different boundaries. You need to manage your relationships with your kids, your family, your loved ones. You have to manage those relationships differently. Something that's big for me, I'll just sort of randomly share this as a sidebar. I stress over work, of course, I mean, who doesn't? And my work as a therapist feels so important. You know, I'm like, oh my God, people are trusting me with their stories and their life and their healing. And that is so important. And so I definitely can get stressed out about my work. Normally, at the beginning of a day, I feel stressed and then once I get into it, I'm like, oh, this is like fun and gratifying. By the end of a day, being a therapist is a cool job because almost always, if I'm on my own anxiety spiral at the beginning of the day, just one client in and I'm like, oh, it's okay. (laughing) I'm okay. And by the end of the day, I feel kind of like energized and uplifted. And I read that somewhere that like a great way to manage your own emotions is by helping someone else. And I just want to second that opinion 'cause that's someone who does that professionally. I'm like, yeah, it really does make one feel better. But anyway, if I were to say, you know, say at the beginning of a day, my hip is hurting and it's a long work day with a bunch of client schedules and I'm like, oh, God, I feel stressed. I really want to help people and I fear that I, you know, won't be good enough and whatever it may be that, you know, whatever the anxiety might be coming up. I could read that and think like, well, I have to leave this job. It's too stressful for me, I can't handle that. And that's not right. That's not what I really need. What I really need is not to leave the job but to have a more chill relationship with the job to be kinder to myself, to show up and recognize that like being a human and just letting myself be myself, letting my heart come out of my, letting my heart be there and sort of flow out in my words, letting my heart flow out in my actions, just being the human being that I am and just letting that be there and trusting that that is enough, that is a great way to approach a work day for me. So I say that as an example because you see how much less stressful that is, it's not like, oh, I have to manage the anxiety and maybe if my hip is hurting at the beginning of the day because of the anxiety, it's not that I have to manage that by quitting the job or taking the day off, it's that I have to manage it by having a different relationship with my sense of responsibility. You see what I'm saying there? The same goes for your kids. The same goes for your relationships. The same goes for your spouse, your boyfriend, your wife, your whoever we're dealing with. You may have to, you know, you may have this shit, I don't know, maybe you have to leave your relationship. I don't know. You may have to just have a different relationship with your relationship, a different relationship with what you quote unquote, oh, your partner, a different relationship with what you quote unquote, oh, your kids. You might have to have a different relationship with that and that is hard because you wanna, oh, your kids, the world, you wanna, oh, your kids, everything you wanna be there for every single need especially because you, I know you, 'cause you listen to this podcast and we have a lot in common, me and you probably, if you're like me, a lot of your needs weren't met. So you wanna be like, I'm there for every single need all the time, I'm gonna be that parent and you can't be, you can't be, okay, you can't be. Just like, I, you know, I am very confident as a therapist, I've been a therapist for many years. Would I say that I'm the perfect therapist? No, because no one is, it's impossible. Do I meet every client's need in every session every time? No, because that's impossible. Am I still a very good therapist who feels confident in doing this work and charging money for it? Yes. Are you still probably a great parent, a great spouse, even if you have some boundaries and you're not perfect. Yes. Yes. Yes. Did that final yes really hit your nervous system? I'm going to say one more time. Yes. I want this to hit your brain because it's so important that you go easy on yourself. It is so important to go easy on yourself. Okay. Back to managing pain versus healing pain. I'm going to get into. I just did a broad Google search pain management techniques. Okay. So this is this is what mainstream Google is offering to people who are Googling pain management techniques. All right. Medical and pharmacological options. This is the first thing we offer over the counter drugs. I be profan a set of men if in blah blah blah other stuff. That is the I know of a set of medicine. Am I saying that right? I know that recently Donald Trump got in trouble for not knowing how to pronounce that. A seat of men if in. I'm as dumb as Donald Trump. I'm like, I don't know if I'm pronouncing that right. At least I'm not as powerful as Donald Trump because whoa, whoa. That man needs to be taken down so many notches. I can't even. So the first option that Google is giving us is over the counter drugs. All right. So already we're in the something's wrong with you and you've got to dull the pain and numb it because something's wrong with your body. All right. So that's the first thing. Second thing they offer prescription medications. Here's how you number two offering for pain management techniques. Use muscle relaxers, nerve pain medications, targeted anti-inflammatories under a doctor's guidance. All right. What's the third thing that they suggest? Interventional procedures. Consider nerve blocks, trigger point injections, joint injections. This is coming from the Cleveland clinic. That is a this is the AI summary and they're saying like this comes from the Cleveland clinic. That is a very raputable medical establishment that a lot of people listen to pay attention to. Guess what people don't pay attention to? Mind body healing. Okay. I wish that were different. But people pay attention to this stuff because A, it's more mainstream. B, it's easier. Like it just flows with the level of consciousness that most of us vibrate at and most of us were socialized into treating pain in the body by blocking it. Nerve blocks, injections, joint injections. That's what we're used to and that's the that's the frequency of consciousness that a lot of us are vibing at and shut the body up, turn it off, something's wrong with it if it's in pain rather than the work that I'm encouraging you to do today, which is truly I really think. It sounds a little I don't know grandiose, but I really think it's you're elevating your consciousness by treating your body not necessarily as something's wrong with it every time you're in pain, but as maybe something's right, maybe something's right with your body and you have to listen to it and manage the pain psychologically instead of managing the pain physically. Okay. What else do they offer on Google AI or we're going to have a nice little conversation with Gemini about pain management techniques? All right. Fourth thing they offer, physical therapy, work with a therapist on guided exercise to build strength and fix posture. Okay. I mean, physical therapy can be great. Physical therapy can also definitely reinforce that there is something wrong with your body and there's something wrong with you. We do not want that for you. Fixing your posture. You don't have TMS pain because you have bad posture. It's not how it works. All right. Fifth thing they offer. Gentle exercise. This one I just find really sad because I'm like, oh God, I just so relate to this. Gentle exercise. Do low impact activities, like walking, some other examples, to keep the joints mobile. Gentle exercise. I mean, if you're into gentle exercise, awesome. I love a good walk. I live in a very cute neighborhood in Brooklyn. I love taking a nice walk around the neighborhood. I love a good walk. Right now it's been so annoyingly hot that I'm not in a walking place, but hey, soon the summer will chill out a little bit and it will be more manageable to take a walk. Gentle exercise is awesome, but here's the shadow side of that. If you're someone who would like to use your body in a more rigorous way and you feel like you can't because you have pain in symptoms and someone has told you, you can only really engage in gentle exercise and you certainly can't run, certainly can't wait lifting with extreme caution only and you better be wearing all the braces. You better have your knees braced up. You better have your back braced up. You better have what else do people have? I don't even know. You see this stuff all over the place and you've probably worn these things before. You've probably worn these things before. I used to have little knee braces. That was so nuts. That was such a brief TMS symptom that I had before I learned about TMS. I had knee pain for a while and so I had these little knee braces. I don't think I'm very confident they didn't help. The knee pain, luckily with all the hip stuff I've gone through, knees have stayed pretty much pretty much untouched by my TMS outside of that one. There was a couple months where I had the knee issues with the knee braces and I would go to the gym with knee braces on because I thought that was necessary. That kind of stuff, I just want to warn you, gentle exercise is awesome, but if you're limiting yourself from, if you would love to do more but you feel you can't, I just want to warn you. I just want to warn you. You might not really need to be that gentle with yourself. Your body is probably a lot stronger than you think it is. Just to wrap this up, what other options are they giving us? Heat packs and cold packs, apply ice, reduce swelling, heat relaxes, tight muscles, pacing, rest, mindfulness, meditation. That's cool. Cognitive behavioral therapy, work with a counselor to reframe negative thoughts. It's like they're getting there. They're in the very, very shallow end of TMS work. They're getting there. You already know what managing pain is like you already have the opioids that they give you to manage pain. You already know what it's like. Healing pain. We are going to get into the idea of healing pain. Let me tell you a story about when I was working. My first-ever job as a social worker and therapist, I started as an intern therapist in 2013 and then I became like a full-time therapist in 2014. I was working at a big clinic, Union Square, New York City. It was a cool neighborhood that was downtown. I felt very like, I felt very adult. I'm like, I have my downtown job. I wear my outfits. I work in the city and was living in Brooklyn. I felt very, very adult, very posh, cool city. I was giving that girl at the time. I was giving very much giving that girl. We're in this clinic on East 16th Street, Manhattan. It was a Union Square as a transportation hub so you can get there very easily from all the burrows, different parts of the city, uptown, downtown, wherever it may be. You can get to Union Square pretty easily. It was such a cool clinic. The clients are from all over the city, all walks of life. I was a very diverse group of patients who were there, very hard work. That's for sure. It was very hard, very stressful. Working with that clinic was totally nuts, but the clients were fun. Learning the ropes of how to be a therapist there was cool. It was a really cool experience. One of the things we did while I was working at this clinic, we would have different, I don't even know what they call them, but we'd have meetings that were so eye-roll. You know how meetings can be, professional meetings can be so pointless. We had a lot of that, but we would also have meetings where they would bring in trainers. We would have various trainings for the therapist and the staff. Some of which are really cool. One of the, so this is probably 2015 or 2016. That was probably like a little bit into working at this job. We had a training that was about managing chronic pain and the trainer was a psychologist, and I, at the time, surely had clients with chronic pain and symptoms because TMS is so, I mean, comment. Like so many of us have some level of TMS and neuroplastic symptoms. So I'm sure I had a bunch of clients who had that, but I was not, excuse me, I was not attuned to that. Like I was not paying attention to that because I didn't know to pay attention to that. Like I had been socialized into if something's wrong with the body, then something's wrong with the body. If something's wrong with the brain, then something's wrong with the brain, and that would come out sort of emotionally. So that's what I'm working on. And I don't just say socialized meaning like this is what I picked up in my family and in school. I mean, socialized, it's school as in like kind of like elementary school, high school. I was socialized into this in a graduate program for mental health, okay? Cultural forces are strong. They permeate your family. They permeate your early education. They permeate, you know, the interactions you have daily with people. They permeate educational institutions. They permeate everything, you know, like this permeates everything. So I had been socialized into this in my master's program. And I was socialized into a false understanding of how the world really works and a false understanding of how the body really works. So when we had this training about like managing chronic pain at this clinic, now that I've been a therapist for like a year or two, I was like, oh, that's interesting. But I don't really have clients. Certainly, they're not coming to me for chronic pain. But I guess who has severe chronic irritable bowel syndrome, me, Sean Hershey has that. So like I'm going to go to this training and like, you know, normally with a training, if it was like a training about anxiety or trauma, I'd be like, oh, okay. So I have like these few clients in mind because they're really struggling with this. And I really want to get better at helping them. So like, I'm going to go in with the mindset of like thinking about these specific cases and like, what can I do to help these people I'm working with this chronic pain training? I was like, no, no, this is this is for me, like I'm going into this as a professional. But this, this one's for me, like I'm, I am here to think about myself. So we all file into the office. It's, you know, is it one of these awful, the clinic was so awful, like I wish I could, I wish you could see it. It was so awful. Like have you ever worked in or been in a space that is just so old, dingy, fluorescent lighting awful? And I just have to say this space has sit, the clinic I worked for moved into a different space and this building was bought by I kid you not. The building that I learned to be a therapist and was but which was a federally qualified health center for people mostly unmedicated was, and it was dingy, it was dingy. It was, it was the place was awful, had a lot of heart, but physically looked atrocious. I kid you not, this building was bought by a luxury club and restaurant and it is now completely renovated. I literally walked past it like a year ago, I walked past it and one of the guys out because I was like lingering in front of it being like, oh my god, this is what it looks like now. And one of the guys outside was like, can I help you? And I was just like, I used to work here when this was a health center. This is just insane to see this building now. It's so pretty. And he was like, come on in, let me, let me show you around. I walked in unbelievable, complete transformation, jaw dropping, the place is gourd, it's gorgeous. It's like this low lighting, deep, dark, lush colors, money, money, money, everything looks amazing. You can only go to the first floor as a member of the public and this building has six floors. So to go up to the upper floors, there's, and that was where I worked was floor number two. That was mental health. I didn't go up there anymore. That whole area is a members only club. I've seen the pictures on their Google image, you know, the like maps portion, scourges, it's totally gorgeous. It's a part of hotel, this place is gorgeous and I'm just like, that's so crazy. But anyway, this room that I'm sure now is a gorgeous spa area or part of a restaurant god knows what it is now. At the time, it was a very awful dingy fluorescent lit meeting room that we would have our nasty little meetings in. So we all file into this place, it's 15 or 16, sit down, and the trainer starts talking to us about managing chronic pain psychologically. And what do we get? I remember this so clearly because I was so disappointed. Like I really went into this thinking like, okay, like I'm going to get something out of this. This is going to be helpful for me. What did we get? I don't know what brand of psychology this is, but it was the gate theory is what she trained us on. So it was like pain and symptoms can be kept in the gate and you can close the gate, you know, the sort of the metaphor, or you can open the gate and that's where the symptoms and pain come flooding out. And we want to do everything we can to metaphorically keep the gate closed. So the gate does not metaphorically open. So all these different ideas, she's like, work with your clients on what will close the gate for them and what will open the gate. And like the flood gates are open and the pain and symptoms are coming on. Work to identify what opens the gate for them and what closes the gate. And then you want to focus on all the behaviors that are going to close the gate because we want to keep that gate closed. And let me tell you the examples were really disheartening. The examples of how to keep the gate closed was like, eat a very strict diet. Do not exercise, do not run, barely walk, sit in this position, not in that position. You know, if you eat a, you know, the histamine diet or the low FODMAP diet or the no sulfites diet, like those kinds of things tend to close the gate. So encourage your clients to play around with that, the gluten-free diet, the dairy-free diet. Maybe the, I mean, all the things, you know what I mean, just all of the things that many of which I know you've probably tried. And they have probably maybe even worked a little bit as a placebo. But in the end of the day, they've probably failed you. You've tried it. You have tried it. And I had tried a bunch of those things with that time too. And so I just came out of this training being like, ah, it is hopeless. My IBS is hopeless. Wow, I get like a front, you know, front sort of seat, front row seat to something hopefully new or different, managing chronic pain and chronic symptoms psychologically. And it was just, it was nothing new, it was very disheartening. And now that I know what I know about neuroplasticity and about TMS, I'm like, well, I know it's all garbage. I know that what we learned was garbage. And here's the thing that really kills me. So this happened in, like I said, 2015 or 2016, one of those. I was on East 16th Street in Manhattan while I was having this training. Dr. John Sarno, he had retired at that point. Yes. I believe by 2015, 2016, he would have been retired. But his practice was still open. He worked at the Rusk Institute for rehabilitation. That was literally, I looked this up before, it has multiple addresses. So I'm not exactly sure which one he worked at. My best guess is that where Dr. Sarno's clinic was, which had been taken over by a doctor, Dr. Ira Rashbaum, that clinic was a 35-minute walk away from where I was on East 16th Street that day. That clinic was a 22-minute subway ride away from where I was when I had that training on East 16th Street that day. We were so close, literally I'm looking at the subway map. There's 14th Street, there's 23rd Street, there's 28th Street and then there's 33rd Street and I could have gotten off there and walked right on over to Dr. Sarno's clinic and that would have taken 22 minutes. Even better, there was a Barnes & Noble on East 17th Street. That was a block and a half away, I could have gone right into Barnes & Noble and bought healing back pain. I could have bought the divided mind and I could have gotten some real answers, the information was there, it was there and it was so close and yet. I didn't it didn't make its way into my life yet. I didn't know it yet. And I went to this training that was garbage even when the information that was was eventually going to help me with the pain and symptoms I experienced. That information was already out there. It was already there. And granted, you know, by the time I found this stuff in 2022, there's a plethora of more information, more robust information, but it's the same basic stuff. It's more nuanced and more kind of abundant, more like, you know, just more of the same basic stuff. And it was right there. I could have walked out of that room and gone to someplace that could have really helped me. And that just pisses me off so deeply. It pisses me off so deeply. So let's talk about transitioning, which we're already doing, but let's just get a little deeper into going from managing pain to healing pain with mind body work, doing the work on your symptoms psychologically and emotionally. That means teaching your brain and your nervous system. Like I said at the beginning, psychologically teaching your brain and your nervous system that it is safe to feel symptoms. Once you rule out, you know, not everything is TMS. Not everything is neuroplastic conditions. So you've got to go to the doctor, got to get stuff rolled out. But once it's starting to look like it's TMS, then you know the symptoms are safe. There's nothing wrong with your body. The symptoms are safe. So that is the psychological work learning to feel safe in your body. Number two, the emotional work, learning to feel safe with your emotions because why is this pain coming up? This pain is coming up because the pain in symptoms are danger signals. If you feel scared every time you feel any symptom or sensation in your body, yeah, scared. That is going to create the need for a danger signal. And that's going to make the pain in the symptoms worse. Emotional. Most of us do not like to feel all the emotions that we have that is totally normal. And especially if you're the kind of person who's been trained to think like your emotions are very inconvenient for the people around you, you shouldn't be feeling this way. You shouldn't be feeling that way. You're very hard on yourself for the way that you feel. You have been policed about the way that you feel, then you take that in. You internalize that and you start to do that to yourself. And that's not your fault. That's how all of us are. That's how human beings are. The way that people treat us becomes the way we treat ourselves. And so every time those emotions that you don't want to have are rising in your system and this happens outside the level of full consciousness, you feel afraid of them. That causes a danger signal. And that causes pain in symptoms. So we have to work on really expanding your consciousness when it comes to emotions and feeling into your emotions and acknowledging what emotions are really there and making peace with that. Making friends with your emotions. Making the unconscious emotions rise to a higher level of consciousness and befriending them and learning that they're safe. That's so important. That's the emotional work. And you can see clearly how that's connected to pain in symptoms. And then the third thing, there are three parts, like I'm saying, one, psychological, two, emotional, and three, patiently tuning to your true self. If you feel that being yourself is bad, if you feel that you are wrong, if you feel that there are things about you that are so unacceptable and wrong, you're going to repress that and you're going to feel scared to be your self all the time because everywhere you go, what's the end? It's to that. You're with me. You're listening everywhere you go. There you are everywhere you go. There you are. And if so if you're afraid of yourself, you're afraid to be yourself, then everywhere you go, your fear of being yourself will come with you as well as the self that you're afraid of will come with you. So you see how that creates so much inner tension and inner fighting and inner conflict. Yeah. That's going to cause a danger signal and that's going to cause chronic pain in symptoms. So healing pain is about learning to feel safe with your body psychologically. Number one, learning to feel safe with your emotions emotionally. Number two, and learning to feel safe with yourself. Attuning to your true self. Number three, that's the work of healing pain. That is the work of healing pain. We think psychologically, not physically. Okay. So now that we have a sense of what it is to manage pain and what it is to heal pain and truly I just want to say healing is possible. When you do this work, the symptoms can calm down significantly or go away entirely. That really does happen for people. Healing is possible. Now I want to talk a little bit more like, you know, we're weaving this in the theme of managing versus healing because we're talking about healing. And I want to weave in the theme of managing. So I want to just talk a little bit about my IBS because like I said, that's a symptom that I really don't consider a chronic symptom anymore. It doesn't like that's a symptom that I'm like, it doesn't bother me in any significant way. It's like very chill. It's not a problem that I have in a serious way by any stretch anymore. That's over. And does my stomach still hurt sometimes? Yes, it sure does. I recently actually went on a brief trip. My gut just felt a little too sometimes a lot, you know, fluctuating from a little to a lot off for like all basically all three days of this trip. Like there was not the whole time, but there were many waves and periods of being like, ugh, like loaded, gassy, pain like not severe. Well, there were a few moments of like, oh, I really don't like this. Mostly it was just a low to mid-level like, ugh. And the trip was awesome. I actually had a great time on the trip. But there were elements of like being out of my element, dealing with new stuff. Like I'm not going to go into like everything about the trip. There were elements of like complication. And you know, feeling like I didn't have much time to myself for much privacy or whatnot. Things that like, um, were just a little hard to manage, quote, unquote. And I was really feeling that in my body. And you know, various different emotional stuff that can come up. Yes, I was feeling that in my body. Then I get home. Well, even just like on the way home, my stomach felt completely fine. And then I get home a stomach fine next many days, fine, fine, fine, fine, totally back to normal. So I want to bring this up because the idea of needing to manage symptoms. Even once you feel that you've pretty much healed your symptom, your TMS symptom, the way that I feel I've pretty much healed the IBS. There is still some management that goes into this. And I'm going to paint you a picture briefly of the difference between if I was managing these symptoms the wrong way, which is managing them physically, the right way is managing them psychologically and emotionally. We'll get to that in a second. But I just want to say the wrong way. If I was managing these symptoms the wrong way, I would be like, Oh, I must have eaten like eight and something. What do you say, eight and I must have eight. I need to learn to speak English properly before I get on the microphone. I must have consumed something that was a bad for me. So maybe some of that I shouldn't have what might have been. And I would have just been thinking, what do I need to do? Maybe I want to like really massage my stomach out or I want to take, you know, if I was really back in the day, I want to take like, laxatives. I need to like really overdose on fiber. I need to, you know, I need to like, Oh, I should have brought my extra strength probiotics and like, Oh, no, now I need to while I'm on the trip, find extra strength probiotics and oh, God, that's going to be a whole thing. Like that would be truly I'm telling you that's managing the symptoms the wrong way. That is managing the symptoms the wrong way because that's managing the symptoms physically. Now I'm going to move into managing the symptoms psychologically. Managing the symptoms psychologically is more like thinking, okay, I know there's nothing wrong with my stomach. There's actually something right with my system. There's something right with myself. So I'm going to ask myself what's really going on here, knowing that like something feels off because something feels off. So what is it? What is off? And that, I mean, I'm not going to go into all the details of, you know, that kind of exploration that I went into. it shows you, this is what I like. This is what I don't like. This, clearly some of the stuff that's coming up now is something I don't like. It also shows you, this is like something I don't like, but is, you know, maybe aspects of this trip I don't like, but it's worth it, because aspects of this trip I really like, so it's worth putting up with some, you know, like headaches and like annoyance, and it's, you know, some pain and symptoms, because I'm in some ways really glad to be here, and I'm really happy to be here. I'm really happy to be doing what I'm doing. And so it's worth it. And I can tune into myself and really figure out what are the experiences here that I like and make it feel like it's worth it. And what are the parts of this that I know I don't like? And so like, honestly, I can avoid those psychological and emotional triggers in life, not that, I mean, all this is complicated. This is why having a therapist help you with this stuff can be really helpful, because not that the idea with managing your symptoms emotionally and psychologically is like, avoid all emotional triggers. The absolutely not. The real goal is to befriend the emotional triggers. It's to befriend the emotions so that you can handle the emotional triggers. But some things are things that I just don't want to put up with, like, you know what I mean? It's complex, it is nuanced, and this is the work of managing symptoms emotionally and psychologically. And then I get back home and everything goes totally back to normal and it's like, okay, great, that is awesome. Yes. So managing pain and managing symptoms through traditional pain management, like what we were talking about with the meds and the nerve blocks and the injections and all the things that you've done and that maybe have helped you a little bit for a little while and then they are not the long-term solution. Managing your pain that way, it takes you further and further away from yourself. It takes you further and further away from your intuition. It takes you further and further away from nature and reality and the way things are because you are living like I am both of us in human bodies. We are part of nature, we are part of the natural world. And so tuning into ourselves is tuning into nature and reality, tuning out of ourselves is tuning out of nature and reality. So managing your pain through traditional pain management which is the way that most people, including professionals, including top notch professionals who have degrees that make mind look like child's play. And these, you know, some doctors certainly can do things that I could not do for you. You know, I would never say everybody has their role in your life and my role is not to be your doctor. It is impossible. I'm not a doctor. I'm a licensed clinical social worker that said, I really hope that you allow this work, this mind body work and this TMS work. I really hope that you allow this work to fill the role in your life of helping you heal and manage however you want to put it. Both words are, you know, it's like life is complex and it's like heal, manage, whatever you want to say. This is how you heal your chronic pain. This is how you manage your chronic pain if we want to sort of see it that way. This is how you do it with mind body work. And I really hope that you allow this work to take that place in your life because the people with the big fancy degrees that the big fancy places, they're going to be telling you things that are going to be taking you farther and farther away from yourself, okay? Now, the flip side. Managing pain emotionally and psychologically that gets you closer and closer to yourself. It gets you closer and closer to reality. It gets you closer and closer to truth. It gets you closer and closer to being whole. If you're journaling, if you're meditating, if you're in therapy, you're discovering more about you. Your pain and your symptoms will help you do that like nothing else will. You know, like this is a door. These pains and symptoms are doors that if you go through that door and you learn how to interpret what this symptom is really saying to you you are going to be so much closer to yourself, so much closer to being whole, so much closer to being who you truly actually are. Okay, you like that? All right, I certainly like that and I like that for you and I want that for you. All right, wow, that is it. Let me just say, I just want to leave you with the idea that like it's not so clear cut as like you will heal your pain and you will never have pain or symptoms again. You know, that's a great message and you actually might come pretty close to that. Like I feel with my gut, I've come pretty close to that and that's awesome. So know that that is possible, but also know that the idea that like you will have to manage these symptoms forever. That's not true. And the idea that you will have to manage being a human and probably knowing you and knowing me a sensitive human in a difficult world with a lot of emotions and with a body that feels a lot of stuff physically. Yeah, you might have to manage that from the day you were born until the day you die, okay? And the best way to manage that is to manage it emotionally and psychologically not to manage it by doing physical interventions that are not truly going to help you. Okay, this has been awesome. You've been so fun to talk to and I'll talk to you next week. (upbeat music) If you're looking for a therapist, you found one and you can decide, does my vibe resonate with you? Therapy is an opportunity. Therapy is an opportunity to tune into you to learn to feel more comfortable being yourself, to feel more comfortable with your emotions and to feel more comfortable existing in the world in your body. Do you have difficulties in your life? Maybe it's chronic pain, maybe it's something else. Maybe you want to become a person who likes yourself. Do you want a therapist to help you? And would you like me to get to know you and to help you? That is actually an option. You can find me at SeanHershi.com or MindBodyMedicineForCronicPain.com. Both go to the same place and if you're looking for me, I'd welcome a message from you. SeanHershi.com MindBodyMedicineForCronicPain.com and you can request a free consultation. (gentle music)