The Core Wounds That Drive Chronic Pain, Anxiety & Self-Sabotage (And How to Heal Them)

Welcome to the Cure for Chronic Pain Podcast with me, Nicole Sachs. You are here. Hello my friends. I'm happy to be here with you guys today. This is Nicole and you have reached my podcast, the Cure for Chronic Pain. Welcome to it. We are going to be discussing something today that is really foundational and important. And I'm always keeping my eye on what you guys are asking, what people in the communities are asking, what people are writing to me on DMs and emails and all the places I get information. And now that we're on Substack, so many of the comments on Substack, around what it is that would move the needle for your healing. And so today I am going to hone in on one of the most important concepts in any sort of healing, whether it be mind body or just emotional or figuring out why your relationships keep going in the wrong direction or understanding why you're parenting is such a struggle. And that is the concept of the core wound. And I remember when I first heard it years ago, it might even have been in grad school. I mean, it's been a long time since I've been working with the concept of the core wound. I remember feeling the profound impact that landed in me when I started looking at my own core wounds. And I don't want to be hyperbolic or making something sound like it has more gravity than it needs. Meaning, I'm not saying that you have some wound and it's festering inside of you and you'll never be okay. Anything I'm ever talking about here is information. Information on how you can understand yourself. One of the things Lisa says that I love is our job is to teach yourself yourself. We want to give you the tools. So you start having a more intimate and fluid connection with the essence of who you are. Because when you are walking around armed with that information, you are not so confused all the time. Like, why is this relationship continuing to make me suffer or why can't I seem to get out of certain thought loops or why can't I control my reactions around my mother or whatever it is? So our job is to help you understand yourself, create a fluid interaction, no barrier between your understanding of why you do the things you do, why you react the way you react. And of course, we use journal speak as the tool with which to get under it, to get inside of it. So that's what we're going to talk about today. Before we dive in, I want to remind you of two things once again that I'm getting tons of DMs about the first is questions about coaching. Ever since we started our one-on-one coaching program, we have a ton of people coming through the door and asking, how do I know if this type of one-on-one help is right for me, right? Like, you could be going to a therapist, you could be going to a group, you could be going to, you know, a retreat. And those are all amazing things to do. But if you feel like you need that one-on-one support, that person that is so dedicated to your experience that they are in it with you every week, it's just like therapy, but it's therapy through the lens of the Sarno Sac Solution, which is the practitioner training that Lisa and I wrote with Christine Sarno that certifies coaches in this specific method and we have this incredible team of coaches. So if you would like to get a sense peek behind the curtain and see if coaching is right for you, we are having our second in the series of Inside the Coaching Room calls. It is next Friday, the 17th at 10am Pacific time. So please do check your international clock because we do have people occasionally who aren't sure about time changes and come at the wrong time. 10am Pacific time next Friday, April 17th. Come and join us. It is a completely free call. You can sign up for it at www.nacolesax.com/coaching. And when you come, not only are you going to meet some of our coaches, you're going to hear some of their philosophies, the way they work with clients, the way they approach their own healing because just PS. One of our coaches has not only been certified in the Sarno Saks practitioner training and interviewed extensively by us to see if they fit completely into the way that we want to communicate, but they've all been on their own healing journeys. Not one person we will ever bring into our coaching world is going to be someone who hasn't done this work themselves. And we really do seek people who not only have done the work, but have done the work from a place of real desperation and understanding what it is like for each of you to be walking through this. So take advantage of that and every ticket holder to this event, which is free, receive a 20 minute free call with a coach to get a sense of what it is that you would be working on together and the way in which we move people through this work. So that's happening next week. Make sure to sign up, only ticket holders will get the Zoom link and be able to come even though it's a free event. And the other thing I want to remind you is this time of year is when Omega really fills up every year. I'm talking about this in the spring. If you are interested in coming and being with us at last week of June, all you have to do is go to knucklesacks.com and click on the retreats tab or you can go to eomega.org and search my name and that is the way to join us in person five days life changing week. Okay, so without further ado, let's start talking about core wounds because there is a motivation underneath every one of your actions that you might not completely understand. And that's something that's really, really important to drill down on. When you're moving through your life, there are things that will consistently challenge you and there will be things that consistently let you up inspire you, put you into the flow. The core wound affects both. The core wound affects the things that feel like they are constantly getting in your way and keeping you from what you want. And they affect your ability to drop in with the kind of joy and presence that you deserve into the positive things in your life. And for me, as I always say, I want to start with the end in mind. I want to start with knowing our goal where we're going is not that you don't suffer because we all suffer. It's part of the human condition. Not that every relationship, you know, you got this with ease because relationships are going to throw all sorts of roadblocks at us because relationships as Ram Das says are the hardest sadhana, which means the hardest spiritual work and the most rewarding because in order to really grow as people, we have to be made uncomfortable and there's nothing that makes you uncomfortable like your personal relationships because not only are you dealing with whatever they bring up in you, you're also dealing with the other person and other people are very challenging. And so it's really, really, really great work. So let's talk about, first of all, let me define a core wound. So a core wound is a deep emotional injury that is formed in childhood and it could be through significant trauma or it could be through, like we often say, you know, death by a thousand paper cuts, the little T trauma that's just insidious. It's, you know, repetitive and maybe it didn't cause you to be absolutely PTSD for any reason, but it did constantly get in your way, you know, like a critical parent. Or trouble with social anxiety at school or a physical attribute on your body or your face or your weight or something that like was consistent through your life or you're like, oh, you know, this is always the thing. So core wounds are gathered from all sorts of different inputs, but the most important thing to understand about them is they shape how you view yourself, how you view others and how you view the world. So I want you to think about your core wound, like you're putting on a pair of sunglasses and you forget that you have them on. So you're looking through these lenses at the world and you're making decisions, you're choosing relationships, you are deciding whether or not you are okay in whatever situation. And it's not always the full story because you may be looking through this core wound. So that's why it's very important to dip into it to understand where it is, as I often say, leading you around by your neck and we don't want that. We want you to have the clarity and the ability to make your own choices really understanding your motivations. So core wounds can be linked to beliefs around worthiness, love, safety and identity. And if you really think about it, those four things cover almost all of the situations that we enter into whether they be personal, familial, work wise, in terms of your career, your self-worth, these things are big factors. And so understanding your core wound is a way to or wounds, which we all have more than one, is a way to get underneath where these things have been problematic in your life. Remember that your relationship to your core wounds often drive your patterns of behavior. So when you are walking into your first day at a new office or whatever, you will have patterns of behavior, ways you relate to people, ways you swallow your own needs. These are things that are influenced by your core wound. So it's really important. And I'm going to take each core wound right now and I'm going to call it out with a phrase. And then we're going to see where these things are affecting you personally. And then I'm going to talk about how we journal speak our way and how we use inner child work as a way to move through these and to get so much more clarity. And let me also say that in the work I've done personally, you know, similar to the coaches, only bringing coaches on who have really lived this work. I don't talk to you about anything that I haven't lived myself. I don't talk to you about anything that I haven't been helped by or motivated by or relieved by doing. And so me identifying my core wounds, journal speaking about them, using my own original inner child work that I came up with through my own experience. All these things have changed my life so profoundly that I mean, I hate to make, you know, really sweeping declarations, but I don't feel like they lead me around anymore almost at all. And the reason is because you might not be responsible for your first reaction to something, meaning you're going to have sort of a knee jerk, reflexive response to most things in life. But you are responsible and it is a privilege to be responsible for your second reaction. And that's what I mean. My first reaction to something might dip into one of my core wounds, but my second reaction is informed. And in that way, I can slow down, I can see what just happened. Maybe I can make an amends in the moment. Sometimes that's really available to me. Like I reacted angrily about something that doesn't even have to do with the situation because it's my my sunglasses, it's my core wound. And I can turn to the person and be like, wait a second, wait a second, that was me. That was me. Can we start over? Like it just saves you so much heartache. Okay, so let's get into it. The first core wound I want to talk about today is I'm not good enough. It's a big one. So for every core wound, we're going to talk about the origin of the core wound and we're going to talk about the effects it could have on your life. And I'm just going to lay them all out in this podcast so you have them. And then each of you can take this, you know, and what's great about podcasts now is they have transcripts that are automatically available to you. And you can listen to them over and over again. And you can then take the time in your journal, speak to look at your core wounds. You can bring them to your coach. You can, you know, if you're going to join us at Omega, prepare for Omega by really thinking about these things and meditating on them. So when you are with us, you can set yourself free. Okay. So the origin of I'm not good enough is repeated criticism, excessive expectations, and emotional neglect from caregivers. And so we all have our stories, you know, however you grew up. I know that I have oftentimes felt an interesting vacillation between I'm not good enough and I'm better than, you know, it's like the pendulum would swing so dramatically between I'm a piece of shit and who would want me and I'm better than this. I don't need this. Both of which are just like pretty much the same defensive reaction that I think probably came from where I touched into this core wound of just being repeatedly criticized in my childhood by my father and expectations. You know, they're not unusual. It's not like I was, you know, beaten when I got a B, but I was lectured and I was told it was unacceptable. And so it's like it's little tea trauma for me, but it's still constant and pervasive. And so the effects, so the origin is the repeated criticism, the excessive expectations and the emotional neglect from caregivers and the effects, the way it affects you today as an adult is perfectionism over achievement, self doubt and people pleasing. So like who among us has not been touched by this in some way. And by the way, when I talk about anything that happened in your childhood, we are not here to just lay blame left and right on your parents or on whomever. Like it's just not helpful. We can lay blame and if it makes you feel better, please lay that blame. I'm not here to keep that from you. I'm also saying like after we do it, we have that moment of real self compassion and then we decide I want to live in the solution. At least this is the way I live. I want to live in the solution. As soon as I really integrated, I really journal speak about it, which by the way is a thread through all of life that you can go back to these things and you can honor your inner child. Even though these things happened, there is an origin. I don't think it's really helpful to stay in the origin. I would rather stay in the effects. So if the effects are perfectionism over achievement, self doubt and people pleasing, I want to interrogate those. I want to say, hey, perfectionism, why are you here? Then I want to set my timer for 20 minutes and I want to let it speak and my journal speak unabashed or I want to say over achievement. I know why you're here. But are you serving me anymore? What are the side effects of you? I ask a lot of questions. Lisa is really good about this too, asking questions and her journal speak and allowing herself to answer. So keep that in mind as we move through these. Okay. The next core wound I want to talk about today is I am unlovable. So that's the label we're going to give this wound. The origin of this in childhood, conditional love, abandonment, rejection and emotional withholding. And here I also want to say that obviously there's no person that moves through a human life and has never felt conditional love, abandonment, rejection and emotional withholding. I mean, we go through school. We have friends. We have, you know, different stresses with teachers or with work or whatever. You're never going to be in a world where you are unconditionally loved and invited and included all the time. But the core wound forms when this atmosphere is continual. And so usually, even though I'm not leaning into years of living in the blame and the shame, it usually starts at home because that's where you are most actively exposed to these kind of feelings. And so, you know, if you are really accepted and loved and embraced at home, you can kind of withstand the normal bumps and bruises of the school and the friends, etc. But when you're coming home and this is the general tenor of your life, that can be where the core wound forms most actively. So the effects and adulthood from this core wound are clinging in relationships, fear of intimacy, settling for less and avoiding vulnerability. Now remember, I'm always so protective of you, meaning I don't ever want you to hear this and be like, oh my god, I am this thing. You know, I do cling in relationships. I do avoid vulnerability. I'm screwed. No, we are just using this information as a roadmap, a roadmap to teach yourself yourself, which is very powerful work and a very, very good use of your time because you are the person who can set yourself free. And that's another thing that I remember loving when I was writing about it in mind your body, which is even though we have been taught throughout entire lives to give away our power, to give our power to pills and to doctors and to treatments and whatever it is that has been shown to us as the God, you know, give your power away to these people. They'll fix you. I think the reason we're in such a crisis in our world with anything chronic is that it didn't work. We gave away our power and it didn't work. So here we are powerless. And what Lisa and I like to teach is the real expert is you. It doesn't mean that everything falls on your shoulders because there are tools and you can learn and you can get support. You know, if anyone needs more support, we have a community. It's called heal with Nicole. I meet with you guys every month and we sit and we delve deep into these topics and I answer your questions. Or we have our breakaway membership, both of which have a private dedicated Facebook page with people who are helping you all the time. So just know you aren't ever alone in this. And we have to honor the fact that these behaviors come up. These behaviors come up and when we don't look at them. First of all, of course, when we don't look at them, it can cause a lot of inflammation, muscle constriction, spasm and neuropathy in our bodies, which is most chronic illness, leads back to those. But it also can make it really hard to get into a relationship. You know, if you're really clingy, someone might be like, this is too much for me. And without the right tools to understand yourself, you might just panic. and flee, or you might be just devastated when someone walks away. So all of this is here to empower you. Nothing should feel frightening, and know that journal speak is a fantastic tool. In addition to any of the other supports that we offer to move through these, they do not need to lead you around. Okay, the next core wound, I don't matter. It's painful. These are very painful. The origin is being overlooked, ignored, or emotionally dismissed, consistently in childhood. And once again, my brain is always moving to different situations where this isn't necessarily with someone to blame. Like for example, I don't identify overly identify with, I don't matter, however, I know that it has been a pain point in my life. And when I think about the origins of being overlooked, ignored, and emotionally dismissed, it wasn't happening in my house. But as a result of my life and the fact that we moved so often, I started new schools many times, new camps, I was just always the new kid. And I think that the, I don't matter, the place that this ever touches into that really raw place in me is because, situationally, you get overlooked, ignored, and you get ignored and emotionally dismissed when you're new, especially when you're young, even if people don't mean it, even if kids aren't being mean, you get dismissed because you don't know what's going on. And people just move on and you have to really keep up in order to integrate yourself. And so, you know, just widen the lens really big so you can make room for every part of you. So the effects of this core wound in adulthood are difficulty asserting your own needs, chronic self-sacrifice, and invisibility in relationships. And that's so much TMS is cultivated here because, you know, remember that all pain is in the withholding. All pain is in what you can't speak. So if you have needs, which we all do, and by the way, there's no shame in having needs, it is human, it is evolutionarily necessary for you to have needs. And you are not able to assert them. What that means is you're chronically self-sacrificing, you're swallowing them, you're saying, "No, no, don't worry about me, I'm fine." Huge cultivator of TMS because that will build up and build up and guess how that makes you feel. Breaking enraged. Yes, it makes you feel sad. Yes, it makes you feel scared, but I'll tell you what it makes you feel. This one. More than anything, you want a freaking kill. You can't stand the fact that no one's paying attention to you, and you're so angry at yourself because you know you're setting the stage for it. So all this stuff is such great fodder for your journal speak. We're going to get to that at the end. Okay. I am bad and wrong is our next core wound. And in the deck that I originally wrote for this, that I share with our heal with Nicole member community when we delve into this topic, the photo on this page is me. And I'm so cute in this photo. I'm just, the reason I'm telling you this is because I'm looking at it as I'm talking to you. And it's just such a look on my face of like, I'm not going to do what you want me to do. Because what we do with our core wounds often is we mask them with the opposite. So if I am bad and wrong is my core wound and it's a big one for me, a lot of my life has been spent saying, I'm right. I know. I don't need to listen to you. I'm right. But of course is the opposite of I'm bad and wrong. And it's pretty empty when you live like that because inside you know you're lying, you know you don't think you're right. You know you're terrified and scared and unable to figure out what to do. So you put your arm across your arms. I'll put this photo up on Instagram so you guys can see it. And I'll put it in, I'll put it up in my stories when I drop this podcast so everybody can see what I'm talking about. And across your arms and you kind of give that look and you say, come on man. I know. You don't always know. And that kind of defensiveness can also lead to a lot of TMS because there's an internal conflict there. There's an internal struggle. You know you don't know. You know you think you're bad. And so the origin of this is shame based parenting punishment and being blamed for family issues. And the effects in the adult world are internalized guilt, self sabotage, imposter syndrome, and self-loathing. And my goodness, have I experienced these? Self sabotage is such a frustrating thing. You know it's like every time you're right there about to get something, you just screw it up and you're like, I can't believe I just did that. And it feels so unconscious. It feels so out of your hands. And then you only really recognize it afterward and guess what happens? Self-loathing because once you have, quote, ruined something for yourself at your own hands, what a piece of shit you are. I know a lot. This is a simple example, but it really lands for me. Food. I had such a complicated relationship with food my entire life because as a child I really used it to soothe myself, which is like so common. And you know it's the first drug of choice, right? It's the drug that's always available to you from the moment you have access to the pantry. And so what I would do all the time as a teenager, as a person in my 20s, and probably God, for most of my life, I'm really not like this anymore, but it has taken quite a bit of journal speak and reflection and integration. But what I would do is I would self sabotage, you know I would say I'm not going to eat that crap and I would eat that crap. And then I would loathe myself. I mean, it was an activity to loathe myself. And like, oh God, I mean, what is that doing? Nothing. But unfortunately, the human brain, you know, I'm always dipping back into the neuroscience, the human brain loves repetition and it loves to be able to predict the next action. So if I am going to repetitively sabotage myself, the brain will move unconsciously and reflexively right to self loathing. The thought will come into my mind, well, you never can do anything, right? You can't stick to anything. You're gross, you're fat, you're, you know, I mean, just awful, awful self loathing. And of course, imposter syndrome because if you're always loathing yourself, even if it's unconscious, the moment something good happens to you, the moment you get the position or you get the grade or you get invited or that person asks you out, you know, and you're like, hey, the next thought, which also is unconscious and reflexive, but we have to call it out is you don't deserve to be here. You don't belong here. You've faked your way into this. And now look at you. Everybody thinks that you earned this and you didn't. You're an imposter. Every single one of these is every one of us, my love. It is not a problem. This podcast is not calling out a problem. This podcast is calling out a truth and when we can call out truth and just label it for what it is, we have the power to be the expert. We have the power to dig ourselves out of this situation and it's not that hard once you understand this stuff. Next core wound is I am not safe. So the origin of this, and this is oftentimes related to capital T trauma, not always, but often trauma abuse unstable environments and witnessing violence. I mean, you know, my heart aches for every one of us, every one of you, every one in our global community. We have been through it. People have had abuse, neglect, they've been attacked. They've been in war zones. They've been in violent divorce. They've been in domestic violence situations like this is real. This happens to many, many of us and it can lead to the core wound of I am not safe, even if ostensibly it looks safe, right? I'm here. Nobody's at the door banging on the door. It can be a feeling. And so the effects and adulthood of I am not safe are hyper vigilance, chronic anxiety, control issues and avoidance, avoidance of conflict, avoidance of difficult conversations, avoidance of standing up for yourself. So all of these do tend to bleed into each other because let's say you have this core wound of I am not safe, it also can obviously lead to you swallowing your needs because, you know, you don't want to have that difficult conversation that can lead to a lot of TMS. And so all that to say, it's okay, it's just a core wound that needs to be examined and loved and loved. You know, the word love, it sounds so trite, but in the end it is the most powerful energy in the world. It can squash fear. If you can put your hands on your body and ground yourself and say, I am going to do this work now, I know what's going on. going on, I can be safe in my body. I can be safe in my mind, in my re-structuring the way I view things. I can take off these glasses that tell me that everything in the world is unsafe. This is what's coming for you when you understand what's going on. The next core wound, I am powerless and helpless. So the origin of this one is a past or a childhood of being dominated or dismissed, particularly in childhood or traumatic situations and the effects and the adult are learned helplessness, passivity and difficulty making decisions. And I dated someone once who really had this core wound. They had been incredibly dismissed throughout their entire childhood by a very ill parent who was likely having a borderline personality and it's very confusing and it's just really challenging to be in a relationship with someone who cannot make a decision. First of all, it's painful watching them vacillate and it is a lot of responsibility for the other person in the relationship to always make the decisions. And so just be aware because you want to be in the center of your experiences and you want to have a hand in your next right considered action. It's not always in your control and part of this core wound is passivity. You will feel like nothing's in your control but that's not true. You do have control. You have control of what you pay attention to. You have control over your responses when you can pause and do the work to respond rather than react to life. You can say when you draw a boundary, you can choose to stay or leave. And these things might feel if this is your core wound like you don't have control over this. I'm powerless. This life is owning me. It's not true. It's never true. It's never as simple as it seems when we are unconsciously following the core wound. So keep that in mind. The final core wound that we're going to talk about today. Another one that is very much one of mine is I don't belong. Once again, I did move a ton and I think that's probably the real genesis of this one. But the origin in general is exclusion, cultural disconnection, being bullied and feeling like you're quote different. Something about me just doesn't fit in. And you know, when I entered the rooms of recovery over 11 years ago, this was a refrain that really helped me because most people said that when they were growing up, there was just something about them that felt like it didn't totally fit in. And you know, it's easy to assign other people good characteristics, meaning when you're young, you could look around the room and you could say, I'm different. I don't fit in but look at them over there. They do. They think that everyone wants them around or there. They have such social ease. And sometimes that's true. I can't say that's never true. But the more I know people and the more I move through this work that I have the privilege to do, which is meeting so many of you guys and talking to you and understanding you and especially at places like Omega, we're like, I'm really spending time knowing you. Nobody really feels like they are as, you know, at ease as other people might think they are when they look at them across the room. And even if the ease is there and generally true, like let's say you're a kid who just really excelled in school and you had a lot of friends and you're athletic and whatever this, you know, the strategy would be to get through life with the most ease. Let's say you had it in your quiet moments when you don't make the grade or when you get broken up with or when you didn't score that winning goal, you're in your bed that night and you do feel different. You don't belong. And like we, it's just human. There's just no way around it. And so whatever place in this entire podcast you are finding yourself just also realize that you do not need to get stuck there and you don't need to think that this is a permanent way of being. It's just, it's the human condition. So the effects of this in adulthood are social anxiety, identity, confusion and chronic loneliness. And the reason I say that this one is also mine is I remember having such a strong feeling and it also kind of bled into self pity, but the feeling was I am always alone. I'm alone even when I'm in a crowded room. I'm alone at a party. I'm alone even when I am standing in front of the room and speaking and people are looking up at me with adoration. I'm alone. And it was really confusing to me for so many years because I am not an alone kind of person. I'm really social. I'm really comfortable being social. I love public speaking. You guys know me. And feeling that alone in a crowded room feeling was incredibly cutting. It just felt so hard to climb out of until I started learning about the core wounds. And I was like, wow, I did have a lot of exclusion growing up because I was always new and I did have a lot of cultural disconnection because my father was an immigrant. He spoke with a pretty thick accent and my parents were like, they weren't weird. I thought they were weird, but they weren't super weird, but they were like a little different just because of my father culturally and also because we I didn't have any siblings. So my house wasn't like one of these houses where I would go over someone else's house and that felt normal. You know, there were lots of kids and there was a playroom and there were toys like my house was kind of austere just in so much as it was like an adult house. I had my room and I certainly wasn't. I didn't have a lack of things no matter the financial situation of my parents. You know, I had what I needed, but it was just I felt like it was weird. I felt like it was different and whatever we label ourselves as children becomes our reality. Our perception is our reality, of course, in life. And so, you know, that chronic loneliness that landed in me, I think was really normal considering what I had perceived my childhood to be and I'm an understanding the core wound, journal speaking about it and then being able to say this makes sense, but confusion dissipating is a huge part of this because you just say, okay, I don't need to go back and make my life perfect. I don't need to heal every relationship. I don't even need to go back and rewrite this. I just need to understand it and in understanding it, there is so much healing possible. So let's talk for a moment now about inner child work and about what we need to do to start examining these core wounds because it's not about immediately breaking free and it's not about listening to one podcast and being like, okay, I'm good now, but it is about knowing the UF power. The reason journal speak is so effective in helping us climb out of our core wounds and all the things that they have, all the scars that they've left on us is that it's private. Yes, you can talk to a therapist and of course, I love therapy. I love any interaction where human beings can support and guide each other. But sometimes there are things that you don't want to say to anybody. Sometimes it feels embarrassing or sometimes it feels too vulnerable or more than anything and this is where I think journal speak is the most effective tool. Sometimes you don't know how you feel. Sometimes you're like, you know, for some reason, I can't be vulnerable in relationships, but I kind of don't know why. So it's embarrassing to start talking about it because every time I talk about it, I feel like I could be not telling the truth. I could be saying something about myself that isn't even true. And then of course, there's this panic of like, am I continuing to perpetuate something in myself because I'm saying it's not true. You know, all of this is kind of overblown because you're not really doing that to yourself, but that can be something that stops you from expressing it at all to anyone. Journal speak is totally private. You write on the top of the page, I am bad and wrong and I always have been. We always go with the hyperbole for journal speak. We push it. As I love to say, we take it to the limit one more time and that is the way journal speak is most effective. And then you start writing about it and you start like a court reporter, which is, I'm bad and wrong because and it might be because I'll never forget that time in eighth grade when I said the wrong thing to the wrong person and I was completely ostracized. All of my friends dropped me, you know, whatever. Start there. Start there if it occurs to you and just start writing about it, start talking about it and then as your adult self who has perspective, you can say, wow, really does feel like a kid who went through that and really integrated that kind of negativity would decide that they were bad and wrong. And then it, you know, journal speak is another thing which is like it time travels, like you could be in eighth grade, but then the next day you could be at a luncheon you were at last week and, you know, feeling really outside of the circle, but not knowing why because whatever, you know, it just take that bunny, put it down in the fresh snow and watch it. It's going to go left. It's going to go right. It's going to go back. It's going to go forward. Just let it, just let it and follow it with compassion. The whole time you're writing, you remember, I can love and guide my way out of this simply by asking what's happening. You don't have to come up with any solutions. There should be no pressure to be better. You are just asking questions, answering them and allowing that information to not be something that you avoid or repress. You look at that page when you're done and you go, "Here we are." That was in there. That was in there and I'm letting it out. Please do not worry that journal speak will make your life worse. It will not stop you manifesting good things. In fact, it is quite the opposite. It will invite in every single thing that you are wanting because it removes the static between you and everything that's coming for you by simply saying, saying, saying what has been in there as a blow. As a block because if you can't look at that, you can't look beyond it. That's the little plug for journal speaking about these things and the inner child work. Last thing I'll say is one of the best journal speaking tactics that I have ever found is to do it through the lens of the inner child. Once again, we do spend a whole half day on this at Omega and it is incredibly, incredibly powerful life changing work. The essence of inner child work the way I teach it is that we find a child. We find one of the versions of ourselves that could be actual child. It could be yourself in your 30s. Depending on how old you are. It's just a past version of yourself that felt vulnerable and felt scared and felt weak and felt angry and what have you. You go back to that person. You get an image. I get an image of her in eighth grade. I know what she looks like. I know what she was going through and I say to her, "Hey, honey. I know that you spend your life being affected by this core wound if I am wrong and bad or I don't belong." Tell me why. Tell me what it's like to be you. What was it like that day where you got into a fight with that girl or what it was like that day where you got that terrible haircut? This is a true story. It was such a bad haircut that literally I truly feel like it affected a year of my life. What was that like when you walked into school seeing people look at you like that? These things are so silly in the rear view but you know what? It was really important to me then. I know that there's pain that lives within me because it just hasn't been heard. That's the most insane and healing thing and the most revolutionary thing about Journal Speak is the simplicity of being seen and heard simply by yourself. Unlocks doors to healing, to understanding, to ability to love and be loved like that you would never even imagine. It's funny is sometimes I get lost in the life benefits of my teachings and I'm like wait it also eliminates your chronic pain because the pain is simply your nervous system protecting you from these feelings. It's so wild. So if you want to learn any more about this stuff, if you want to take a deeper dive please do know everything I teach often has more resources. And inner child retreat recording on our website. It's kind of hard to find which is something we really need to retool but you click on the courses tab and then you'll see full shop is one of the drop down menus and there's all sorts of retreat recordings there on many different topics and one of them is inner child work. So if you want to sit with me as I really like lay that out in detail you can do that and and if you want more support you can come and join our community you just click on the membership tab and you can join and then you can ask me your questions and or if you don't want to do any of that. Journal Speak is free. You can do this on your own and you can receive all the benefits of it if you can keep yourself from being resistant. Oh, and it just occurred to me as I'm saying that our theme for inside the coaches room next Friday is resistance is how to get over your own blockages that keep you from doing the work that keep you from believing that keep you from having self compassion. Where does your resistance lie and how can we get past that that is a huge bonus of coming to these inside the coaches room because first of all you're going to get a sense of what it would be like to connect with the coach but also you're going to get some content that might really help you so that is the theme thank you Nicole for figuring that out at the last possible second and and so join us. So final plug for that it's totally free it's next Friday at 10 a.m. You can go over to www.nacole sacs.com/coaching and you can sign up to be with us and every person who signs up is eligible for free 20 minute call with a coach to really connect personally and to get a sense of what coaching is like. Alright my loves if you're doing this podcast please from my heart go over to wherever you are listening whether it be iTunes or Spotify or I heart or wherever and rate and review this podcast it helps people find it it raises the algorithm whatever the hell that is and I appreciate it and I appreciate you. Alright much love until next week this has been Nicole sacks with the cure for chronic pain podcast and I will see you then bye bye. Hi I'm Tamsen Fidel journalist and author of How to Menopause and host of the Tamsen show a weekly podcast with your roadmap to midlife and beyond we covered all from dating to divorce aging to ADHD sleep to sex brain health to body fat and even how very menopause can affect your relationships and trust me it can each week I sit down with doctors experts and leaders in longevity for unfiltered conversations pack with advice on everything from hormones to happiness and of course how to stay sane during what can be well let's face it a pretty chaotic chapter of life think of us as your midlife survival guide new episodes released every Wednesday listen now on apple Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. [BLANK_AUDIO]