Why Your Clutter Hurts More Than You Think with Jane Hogan | Heather Aardema

I've been looking forward to this for so long, especially after I read your book, which was so good. And we'll talk about that later. Where I want to start with you today, though, is I want to ask you about your personal clutter. What kind of clutter did you have that was blocking you from becoming the person you are today?

Oh, goodness. The. I carried clutter in my mind, and that was for my whole life. I never felt good enough. Even though I was captain of the cheerleaders in high school, even though I became an engineer, even though I was a great mom to my kids and did all the stuff and volunteered and was, you know, the president of the swim club and all. I never felt good enough. I never felt good enough. And deep down inside. And that held me back because I just. I couldn't express my true self to the world honestly. And I think that is what led to the pain that I ended up having in my body. Why.

Why do you think that was there? Why do you think? Why do you think that happened?

Why do I. Why did I have the belief that I wasn't good enough? I think, you know, it goes back to childhood. I think a lot of people in childhood, we have these experiences, you know, and it can make us believe. We just turn experiences into a belief about something. So I didn't have big trauma. I didn't have the major trauma. I had mild trauma. I had an older sibling that teased me, but that teasing was enough for me to believe that I didn't have anything worth saying because. And actually, I even started to stutter. Heather. And my parents are really worried, and I don't remember this, but, you know, they were kind of concerned. And so eventually, you know, the teasing stopped, or at least not when my parents were around. It wasn't as bad, and, you know, but I still hung on to this. These seeds get planted in our mind early on, and we're basically, before the age of seven. We're in a theta state. Our brains are in a theta state, like a hypnotic state. So we just kind of take it all in, and that forms our beliefs that we hang on to the rest of our lives. And even though I did all these things to feel confident, I really had, deep down, didn't have the confidence, and sometimes it still shows up, and I. And I have to deal with that clutter then. Right?

We are works in progress, aren't we?

We absolutely are.

And so you. You mentioned pain a moment ago, and you were in a lot of pain. And so tell us what was going On.

Yeah, well, I had. I had. My mother had died really suddenly, and she was my closest, really. And it was very sad because I obviously didn't get to say goodbye to her.

And then I also. I was the executor for her estate, so I had to deal with all of that. My parents were travelers and collectors, and they had lived in their house for 50 years. You can imagine it was a lot of stuff. And she lived about 7 hour drive away from me. So it's not like it was close yet. I had to deal with it all. And I had two older siblings and a younger sibling. And so I think what happened actually is, you know, why did my mother pick me? I was the younger sibling, but we were close. And that's why she picked me to be the executor. I mean, it's no, like, prize, believe me. It's a lot of work. But I think this basically brought that dynamic back between my brother and I. And it's just like those old feelings that I had when I was little were coming back again, and he was reverting into that as his behaviors as well. You know, it's so weird. It's so weird. And I think it was Ram Dass who said, if you think you're enlightened, go spend a week with your family.

And then you'll realize, okay, those old stories are still hanging on. And so basically what happened? About a year after my mom died, and as I was dealing with all of this and dealing with my siblings and everything and all the contents of the house, I started having this pain that it was intense. You know, it was no pain. And then it was intense pain. My arm had to go in a sling and it started migrating around my body. And it just. I mean, I knew it had to be the stress because it was the worst stress I had been under my whole life. And I thought, okay, I just got to get the contents of the house dealt with, get the house sold, and I'll be fine. I'll take a vacation. And I took a vacation and all of it was done. But I got worse. And I. Then I. Basically, within three months, Heather, I went from being my healthy, vibrant self to being barely able to walk, couldn't make a fist with my hands. I was getting stuck in bathrooms because I couldn't turn door handles. I could. I could hardly brush my hair like it. I was just in a really bad way. And I was only 50 and I didn't know what was going on. And I was at this like, worst case, worst state. Of my life. I was just lying there, my husband had gone to work and I was basically get in bed and going, I can't believe this has happened. Happening to me. Like, how did this happen? And, and I was just afraid for my future. And I thought, okay, I'm ready to be done. And the next moment I heard a voice. This is the best thing that ever happened to me. I heard a voice in my head that wasn't my voice, but it said, you're going, your life isn't going to turn out like this. You are going to figure this out and you're going to teach other people. That changed everything.

Wow. It changed everything. From then on I just knew that I would figure it out. And so I just, I was just curious and experimented. I was, I was an engineer before that. Well, at that point I still was working as an engineer and I'm just a problem solver. So I started treating it like a engineering problem solving experiment and just kept on doing that. And I did a lot of things. You know, I started learning about anti inflammatory diets and taking supplements and treating bacterial overgrowths and all those things. And they all helped a little bit. But it wasn't until I addressed that mind clutter that we started talking about that I really, I really healed and finally let go of the pain. I really had to work on forgiveness and loving myself again. And that changed everything.

And that changed everything. And so I know you talk a lot about the mind body connection and can you describe that to us? What does that even mean?

Well, you know about the functional medicine coaching academy because you also did the same program and you remember that every month we had that mind body lesson. There was a mind body component every month. And I loved this. This was my favorite lesson every month. And when I thought about it, I knew that there had to be this connection. Like I was under this stress, you know, and then I had a change in my body. And so I knew that there had to be this connection. And I'd really been fascinated with this for years. Like I had, I had done.

Reiki, for example. So I knew that there was, that there was more to us than just this physical body. And then I, I had also, like I remembered years before reading Louise Hay's book called you can heal your life. I'm reading about the connection between like a thought pattern and then having pain or something happened somewhere in your body. And so I got the book again, it was an old book, but I got it and looked up because I was eventually diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis. So I looked up rheumatoid arthritis and it said something like resentment of authority. And I was like, oh, yeah, that was it. That was it. So, so, like, why does this happen? And I, I mean, no one really knows, right? But my. What I suspect is that our, our conscious thoughts lead to subconscious programming, and then the subconscious mind runs the body. And so the subconscious mind is like, oh, taking these thoughts and things that are in, in our mind and going, okay, you know, let's. We need. We need to protect against this feeling, that and thoughts that Jane's having, and turn on some protection in the body. And so it does that. Pain is just a form of protection. And so that's.

Wow, let's say that again.

Pain is a form of protection.

It is. It is. So just think about if you, well, you just recently had an accident, right? Where you had pain in your body, you had an accident, you get this pain. That's protection. Your body's saying, don't move. We need to heal this. So it make. It turns on pain to stop you from moving so that it can heal. You know, you're not going to be bending your wrists because, you know, it's like you got the pain there. It's like telling you the message, keep this still so we can focus on healing it. And so pain is protection. And what they know from neuroscience, I've done a lot of studies on this because I, you know, did leave my engineering career, became a functional medicine health coach. And now I help people with chronic pain. And I've done so much research. And what they know from the neuroscience now is that emotional pain, the emotional pain centers in the brain and the physical pain centers are the same. So emotional pain can turn on physical pain. And so, I mean, this connection is real. There's no separation really, between the mind and body. It's all connected.

Wow. I mean, that right there is a massive takeaway. Emotional pain, physical pain does. The fact that they're all connected.

Wow.

Okay. You mentioned having an engineering background. So I am wondering how that impacts your work today.

I think it really helps because as an engineer.

I'm a systems thinker, and I think when I first started my. My functional medicine coach, I thought, I don't have, like, I don't have this health background. I'm really at a disadvantage. But I don't see it that way anymore. I see it as an advant because I'm that system thinker. I'm like, okay, what is the big picture here? I'm not like didn't get into the nuts and bolts of all the organs and neurotransmitters, all those things. I just like the big picture. And really, that helps me isolate root causes. And the root cause is what we have to always address. There's no point in putting band aids on things. And with pain, unfortunately, the. The prevailing idea is we gotta cover it up or cut it out or hide it somehow. And there is a place and a time for that. But most of the time it's like, let's embrace the pain. What is it trying to tell me? And it's information. I see pain as information. So when I was doing all this experimenting and I was tracking and graphing and doing all these things, I didn't want to hide the pain because that was. But that was my information. Okay, is this working? Is this dropping down pain? Okay, all right. That is a piece of information. If I was taking something to cover up the pain, I'm, you know, losing that bit of information. So I didn't want to do it. But yeah, pain is. It is the way the body protects us. And.

Using that as information. I can see. Well, what is it trying to protect us from? That systems. That 30,000 foot view is like, what are we protecting ourselves from? And what it often comes back to is that mind clutter. The mind clutter that. I mean, there may be some body clutter going on too, but what I see mostly is mind clutter. Because people are.

They've had things in their lives that have created a defense. Defense physiology. Defense physiology. But also probably way back before that, there's defense, Defense behaviors. Okay, so it's behaviors of defense. So those kinds of things would be like, people pleasing, perfectionism, hyper vigilance, hyper independence, Always trying to make everyone else happy over explaining. Those kinds of behaviors are just ways we protect ourselves because we want people to like us or because we think being, you know, doing everything right and pleasing people will make us feel welcome by people. So it's. It's very. None of this is conscious, Right? It's all subconscious.

Yes, but you consciously decided to lean into that mind clutter to get curious about it, to figure out what stories were serving you, which stories weren't serving you. And at the same time, you didn't hide from your pain. You leaned into that pain. And so what I'm wondering is, how'd you, how'd you get through the pain? What did you have practices.

To help you move through that pain? And it sounds silly, but in a.

Less painful way, definitely. I mean, there's so much we can do. And there's a lot of science backing this up now, Heather, that simple practices can help lower pain in the moment.

What's a normal reaction when we have pain, especially when it's starting to become chronic and not leaving your life? And it's not like from an injury that is getting better all the time, but pain that hangs on and lingers. You start to think about your future and what that means. Like, that's what I was doing. You think about your future and what that means and all the things you're not going to be able to do, and then you have fear about that future. And that keeps a pain fear cycle going. Because what happens, you feel that fear, the brain goes, oh, things aren't going well out there. And then it turns on more protection.

Right? The nervous system feels like it needs more protection, so it'll turn on more pain. And so we get stuck in the cycle of pain and fear, pain and fear, and then we have more pain. So what I was trying to do, although I didn't know all this stuff at the time, all I knew was that when I sat still and I listened to a meditation or I did some breath work, I felt better. There was less pain. And so I tried to do more of those things. I sort of thought about it as. As pearls. Like, okay, if I can create these little pearls without pain and I can do a whole bunch of those in a day, then I can eventually have a day where there's no pain. And not that I could sit and just, you know, do nothing all day, but I found it then was teaching my nervous system to relax more, Teaching my nervous system to relax more. And then it could go, okay, things aren't so bad here. Now we can start focusing on healing. Because the body cannot heal in a state of stress. It can only heal in that relaxation state.

So you just said that we can only heal in that relaxation state. And you talked about breathwork. Is there a particular breathwork practice that you do. You do every day or every week that. That you really like that you could share with us?

Gosh, there's so many great breathwork practices. I mean, and it depends where someone is too, Heather. Like, if someone. Most people with chronic PA So I'm assuming maybe that might be the people that are interested in this show right now. But most people in chronic pain tend to hold their breath with pain, often tend to be chest breathers because they're in. Their nervous system is in the stress state. When we're in a stress state, we tend to breathe more in our chest. We breathe quickly, and we may even be holding our breath. So all of those things, if that's where someone is now, then they might probably want to just start with something kind of basic, and that is learning to breathe down low in the belly. So if that's where someone is, I would say begin with belly breathing. Now here's the thing. I heard this. I had all those. That dysfunctional breathing going on, and people would say, breathe in the belly. And I'd be like, I can't. Like I just couldn't get the breath down there. And so if that's you, then I would suggest you, the listener. I would suggest starting with an exhale. To me, this changed everything. And what I mean by that is we want to start by exhaling. And then when you're doing that, imagine and actually physically pull the belly button back towards your spine. So exhale. And I'm doing it now. Pulling the belly button.

I'm doing it too, Jane. I'm doing it too. Because I am a shallow breather and belly breathing always feels heavy to me. Like hard.

Yeah, yeah. So I mean, because it feels like I don't know where to start, right. I can't. I can't get this going. So we start with that exhale. Pull the belly button back towards the spine. Now when you inhale, push that belly button out. Now naturally, just because we are doing that down in the belly, we're gonna breathe slower. So we're gonna have the slow breathing, which is much better. We're going to be belly breathing. When we do that, we're activating the vagus nerve and the lower lobes of the lungs, which actually activates the relaxation response. So I'm using relaxation and stress response, like parasympathetic and sympathetic. So but we just want to activate that relaxation, parasympathetic response. And we will when we're breathing in low. So I find that is just a great place to start. Just, just try to do that. You could try it lying down on your belly. You could try it looking in a mirror. And once you've kind of. When you practice it more, you'll start to pay attention to it more and you'll notice, oh, I'm breathing up here again. All right, Just take a moment. Start with that exhale.

I love starting with an exhale to me, like if I. For fun, if I wanted to create deeper meaning out of that, right where letting go of the excess work, letting go of the clutter, the pent up breath that Isn't starting with the release? Starting with the release?

Yeah.

Starting with subtraction instead of addition.

Beautiful, beautiful. I love that. And then if someone wanted to go a little bit further, what I find is a beautiful breath work. It's well studied by the HeartMath Institute, and that's a heart focused breathing. So I don't know if you want. Do you want me to do that? Do it with your children.

Let's do that.

Definitely. Okay. All right, so let's do a heart focus breathing. So I don't. Even if you're not a belly breather, let's just don't worry about that for now. We just want to focus on just. Just breathing. Just breathing in a way that's comfortable for you. Okay. So just. You can relax. You don't have to close your eyes. But if you feel more relaxed closing your eyes, you can do that and just let your hands relax by your sides or on your lap. You could do the sitting or lying down. And first of all, just notice the. Your breath. Just notice the inhales and the exhales. You may notice some movement in your body. You may notice as you're inhaling and exhaling, the feel of the breath as it moves through your nostrils and airways. And then just imagine that as you inhale, you're inhaling into your heart area. So just inhale into the heart area. Just imagine that it's. The air is swirling around there. And then you can exhale again. And then inhale into the heart again. The air circulating and swirling around your heart. And then let it go again. Another inhale into the heart area. Air coming in, swirling all around your heart, filling up the heart, and then release. And now I'd like you to think about a time when you felt love. Maybe you felt love towards a child or a pet or another person. Or maybe you felt someone loving you. Just take yourself back to that person. Time, place. Imagine that you're there now. See if you can notice the surroundings around you. Who's there? What colors do you see? What sounds do you hear? What do you feel on your skin?

Do you feel any warmth or air moving.

Or the touch of your clothes? And notice that this feeling of love, you can feel it in your heart.

So switching from thinking about this to feeling this in your heart. And as you breathe, imagine that this feeling in your heart is expanding. With every inhale, it gets bigger as if you were blowing up a balloon. Another breath, and it gets bigger again.

And bigger again. You could let it get bigger than your body. You can let it get as big as you want. You can even let it fill up the room that you're in. Oh, beautiful. This feeling.

Of love. Just notice how good it feels and then pull that feeling back to your heart again as if you're saying, this is mine. Pull it back and tuck it away into your heart, knowing that you can come back to it whenever you want. All you have to do is breathe into your heart. And just like we did before, you can use your inhales to let it get as big as you want again. And you can pull it back again anytime you want. It's always there for you. And then now just notice your breathing again.

Notice your hands and feet. And then when you're ready, you can open your eyes again.

Jane, that was beautiful. And your voice is so calming that it could. I think it could put anyone to like this into this most peaceful sleep ever.

Well, thank you. People say they love my voice on meditations, and I obviously talk a lot slower when I'm doing something like that. That. But what I really want everyone to know is that that feeling of creating love, we think that actually love has to come from someone else. But what we did there was create a feeling of love on your own, right? You created that feeling. That feeling can be created anytime you want. And that feeling of. Of that love, of love, it is actually as a vibration in the body. That vibration is a healing vibration. So coming back to whatever, whether you've got pain or whether you've got something else or an emotional pain, you can create with this breath work. Create this feeling that is. Then it's a healing feeling, but it also feels good. You can help diminish emotional pain because you're replacing it with a loving feeling. That doesn't mean you never feel your negative emotions, emotions. I just, I want you to know there. There's a time and a place for that too. But if we want to create healing, then we need to be intentional about that and, and, and make it happen. And we've proven with this that you can make that happen. And that breath work, we know that it's actually associated with a calmer nervous system, clearer thinking, improvements in a whole host of health conditions, also better relationships. So there's just so much, so many beautiful things about that breath work. But that's one of my favorites.

You just said the word intentionality or intentional. And the name of your book is Pain Free On Purpose. What do you mean by on purpose?

Can you.

It's so powerful and I love it so much myself. But I think it's worth taking a moment to really describing kind of the genesis of that name or why that name was important to you, what it means.

There's a couple of reasons. I mean, when it popped into my head, I thought, oh, my goodness, that's the perfect name for my book. Because for a long time I was using a different name than that one. But when I thought of it, I was like, this is absolutely it. Because really, my book is partly my story, and I share my journey and back to. From pain to, you know, work, to being healthy and strong again, and also the mistakes that I made, I share that. So. And it led me to my purpose. So it's kind of my purpose. So pain Free on purpose. It led me to my purpose, but it's also being on purpose is intentional, so it implies intentionality. And I think we need to be intentional, most of us. And I was like this most of my life, I would say until I was 50, until all this started to happen, that I was very reactive to life. So whatever happened, I was just like, reacting. I didn't really have a intentional thought. It's just whatever I'm thinking is what I'm thinking. But we can change our lives, we can change our physical body.

With how we think because it changes our physiology and so.

And changes our physiology for the good.

Yes, well.

Exactly. Exactly.

Yes. Yeah. So I like that people get the message right from the title that it is on purpose, it is about being intentional. But that also means it puts you in an empowered position. Right. It's not reactive, it's empowerment. So there's a lot behind that title that really felt so right for me. When I.

When I hear the on purpose, I think of living by design and not default. And whether it's clutter, whether it's pain, whatever, Whatever the heaviness is, when we show up on purpose, we regain our agency and anything can be possible. Whatever lightness we want, it's there for us. It does require being intentional, though, showing up on purpose. And so I love that dual meaning of the book for you, Jane. I think it's really powerful.

I love it too.

And speaking of that book.

Pain Free on Purpose.

You have a gift for our community.

Yeah, I'd love to share a gift.

Totally free, if you want to get the first. Well, actually, it's the introduction to the book. So the introduction is where I start off. It's very powerful imagery. And I start off with my lowest point and explain a little bit about what led me to writing the book. So I Think you're gonna love it, and I'd love to give it to you. So Heather has a. We'll have a link for you to get that.

Yes. And I will say I have read Jane's book, and it is spectacular. I am so proud of you, Jane, for creating such a beautiful, worthy piece of work.

You take some complicated concepts, and you make them really tangible. I felt after reading your book that I understood my body better in a way I never had before. I. I'm just. I can see your engineering mindset, you know, taking the complicated and making it simple. And. And so I just. I just really appreciated your book. I thought, well done, you know, so many people. This will benefit so many people. And so thank you for making the introduction a gift. You all. The introduction. It's so. It's worthy in its own right, and it will help you create lightness in your life. And so I'm excited about that, Jane. Also, I want to ask you, you know, at school of. School of Living lighter, we say often, you can go heavy, you can go light. And we talk about the lighter path. And that lighter path is different for everyone. What I would like to know is what does the lighter path look like for you?

Okay. How. How can I encapsulate this? You know, it comes to having awareness to me, awareness of thoughts and feelings and aware that I can create the feelings that I want to create. And so the lighter path is about, well, how do I want to feel? I can create those feelings. I don't have to react. I don't have to take offense to things. It's just I can choose to be who I want to be and be intentional about that, be that on purpose. And how I want to be is calm, how I want to be is loving and kind and compassionate. And I find when I go through life that way, that is the lighter path for me.

And you get to go through your life like this for the rest of your life. How exciting is that? You said, right, you were mostly reactive, just like most of our. Most of us are. And you had this epiphany. You had this experience, and you really did turn your pain into purpose. And so, Jane, thank you for being an inspiration to me, to us all. And where should we go if we want to learn more about the work that you're doing?

Thank you for asking. Well, my website is thewellnessengineer.com so that's who I am now. Not the. Not the structural engineer anymore, but the wellness engineer. And I have a YouTube channel and Instagram at the WellnessEngineer or Facebook.

It's a Jane Hogan Health and so you can find me on any of those channels. And I love to do videos. I love to share and talk about being pain free on purpose. Wonderful.

Jane, thank you so much for sharing your experience and your wisdom with our community. I think your perspective is going to bring so much lightness to so many, just like it's brought lightness to me. So thank you Jane.

Thank you Heather. Thank you for all the wonderful work that you do in the world and spreading lightness. I love it.

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