Personality Types & Neuroplastic Pain – Is There a Connection

Hi there, everyone. Sorry about the delay. Welcome to my Tuesday Night Live with Bend and Snap Active People Getting Back on Track. Welcome. Sorry about the slow start. I've been clicking on different buttons and things have been working quite slowly. It seems to be when we have warm weather, everything seems to work more slowly for some reason. So Today I want to talk about the connection between personality types and neuroplastic pain, neuroplastic symptoms. And those— the definition I will use for neuroplastic pain and symptoms is where people have got an issue where they've not found any medical, physical, structural cause or no tissue damage or anything, anything physical, which points us in the direction to an alternative explanation which is not commonly known in mainstream medicine, which is where the brain is generating those symptoms which will replicate a genuine legitimate physical issue where there is actually no fault with the body. So a big part of this process for many people when they start learning about this is noticing the connection between personality types and those that are, in general, I'm not saying that everybody who has these different personality traits would develop any symptoms, but it really does appear that there is a massive thing in common that people will recognize many of these symptoms within themselves. So please say hi if you're here and type in the chat. I'm hoping everything's working because it's saying action needed, so I'm just going to carry on regardless and hope that it's working. And apologies if it's a bit glitchy and a bit slow, I'll do my best. So it's just really, really interesting when you actually begin to look into this, and part of the screening tools to Diagnose a neuroplastic condition is actually looking at what type of a person you are, what type of traits do you have. So before I move on and go a bit further into all of this, I just want to say that it doesn't matter what your personality is. We're not saying that your personality is the cause of your pain or your symptoms. We're not saying that if you are a perfectionist, for example, or a people pleaser, or somebody who worries a lot, that that's the reason for your pain. Because we wouldn't want anyone to see that as a reason to blame themselves for having a symptom, because there is just absolutely no way that you are to blame for anything that is happening. This is This is not something that you can cause, this is something that is happening automatic, you can't blame yourself for it because it's not your fault, so that's not really the road that I would like to go down, so I wouldn't want to explain it and give anyone the wrong impression that we're saying that just because you've got a certain personality trait that some people are more likely to experience this than others, and there's nothing that you can do about that. You don't have to go away and get a whole new personality transplant, you know, that's not necessary for this to happen. Even just the recognition and the acknowledgement about, about some of this stuff is enough in itself to really shift things and really get a new outcome for yourself, so it's actually really exciting. So I really hope the audio and everything's working. Um, but what— so what I am saying is that potentially this— these type of personality styles may well influence why the nervous system becomes sensitized and why your nervous system can be very, very protective. And you might have heard people calling it hypervigilant. That's quite a— A commonly used word. So when we talk about personalities, we're thinking about patterns that might, you might recognise in yourself, you know, when they're described. I'll give you some examples. It's really interesting when I do this because everything that gets shared, I recognise every single one of them in myself, and I'm like, yep, tick, tick, tick. Tick, tick. So Dr. Schubiner's new book is out. It's been out for probably a month or so, maybe longer now, and I've listened to it twice now on Audible. And he actually goes through— one of his chapters is about this, this— he has a dedicated chapter just purely talking about personality traits. And I was listening last night and I was like, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick. And a lot of those things I still recognise in myself, but yet I have recovered from so many chronic symptoms. So it doesn't mean that you do need to completely change who you are as a person. So here's some examples: being very, very conscientious, wanting things to be done properly, wanting things to be done perfect, being a perfectionist, having really high standards, finding it difficult to say no. Taking responsibility for things that really you didn't need to get involved in, taking responsibility for other people, wanting to keep everybody happy, wanting to help everybody, not wanting to let anyone down, pushing through when you are really exhausted, keeping going when you're really, really struggling, finding it really difficult to rest. Needing to feel that things are in good order, like you're in control. Or being an overthinker, being very, very self-critical, being very, very judgmental to yourself, having really high standards. What else? All of those types of things. There'll be many more that you'll recognize too, but that's just a little starting point. Another one, another good one is not, like, putting your needs before others, so you're forever putting other people's needs ahead of your own and not putting yourself on the list of those people that you take care of. So maybe neglecting time to yourself for your own self-care and your own needs is another example. So, I mean, you might recognise some of those things, and most people will have some of those things that they recognise about themselves. And not everyone will have any chronic pain or any symptoms, and they may have all of them too. So we're not saying that this is a— if you have these, you will have this, like X doesn't equal Y. But what you will find is that many, many people will recognise many of those personality traits. Especially those that have had a long-standing history of chronic symptoms, for sure. I've not met one person who doesn't tick many of the personality styles, if not the majority of them. It's really rare that somebody doesn't have them and that they do develop chronic symptoms. So this is why it's so important that we do raise awareness and do talk about this. And share this and recognize it for ourselves. Because if you do recognize yourself in this and think, oh my gosh, you're definitely not alone there. And it's a very common pattern in, like I said, the majority of people. So they're not, they're not, they're not even bad personality traits. These traits are what people love. You know, no one's going to turn around and say, Jo, stop being more conscientious. Jo, stop putting other people ahead of yourself. It's very rarely that someone will ask you to stop doing these things because they— other people love it, you know, they benefit from that massively, especially like in the workplace or in family life, friendships. Being highly driven, wanting to be— do well and be successful is not bad, But when it becomes an issue is when our nervous system is constantly operating as though we need to continue with those amazing standards, constantly being on guard. Like, it, it does become a problem for many people. And for me, it was following the car accident really that the imaginary bucket that was coping with all this stuff was probably filling very gradually until one day something happened and it overflowed and I developed chronic symptoms after having an accident. And for some people that happens with no obvious reason, no accident, no genuine obvious cause, and they're left bewildered wondering what on earth happened. What on earth happened? Because we all have a different amount of tolerance. This is imaginary, by the way, because we've got no way of measuring how long a person can sustain that level before their imaginary bucket will overflow. But hopefully you get the analogy, makes a little bit of sense. Because having pain and having symptoms, it's not as simple as Um, that being damage in the body. There is so much more going on, which I'll just see whether I can explain a little bit more. Because pain is produced by the brain as a protection response. It will warn us if there is legitimate tissue damage, if there is a legitimate— like, I burnt my arm ironing. And clearly it did warn me that I burnt my arm, like that was a legitimate warning alarm. I actually have got a little scab now, which is healing quite well. So obviously there are occasions where that does— is a legitimate damage to your body, but the same process happens Again, can happen when the brain perceives that there is a problem and that there is a potential threat, and it will alarm us with symptoms too, even though there may not be any legitimate damage. So, um, and that, like I said, there doesn't need to be an injury or, um, any particular thing. It can literally respond with physical symptoms If there is some stress, some fear, anticipation about a certain event, any uncertainty, an argument, conflict, any emotional distress, any, like, lack of sleep, feeling overwhelmed, lots and lots of thoughts, feeling unsafe, worrying, anything like that. That's just a few examples. There's so many things that could be perceived to be dangerous. And like, I mean, if you imagine, like, if you've spent your whole time, your whole life, that as long as you can remember, being a carer, looking after others, worrying about others, being highly critical of yourself, expecting more from yourself, whatever you've done is not good enough. And you're the person that everybody else comes to, everybody relies on. Working really, really hard, getting the exercise in, organising everything, just being whatever you might be, whether you're a— whatever role you're playing in your life, and not necessarily even having a moment to actually acknowledge how you might be feeling. You might not have time. For that, um, you might not even have a chance to have a rest, and you might not even have a moment just to sit down and eat something and take your time with it, um, then potentially for some people that, that kind of, um, approach eventually, um, the nervous system Can get more and more sensitized to that, and when it becomes too, too much, they could perhaps develop some back pain, as an example, or they could perhaps develop headaches or migraines or many, many things. Um, so they might just get a sudden onset of something. It could be, um, the sensation of a urine infection. Um, it could be anything along those lines, but then they may begin researching, they may begin trying to do physical treatments to make that better, they might start doing things differently, looking for a perfect treatment, and then monitoring, and then all of a sudden, in that attempt to make that issue feel better, to try and address that, um, what can then happen is— that the nervous system deems the behaviours to try and address it and fix it. And, oh my gosh, this is really bad. And the fear behind that, the nervous system can see that as an alternative sense of double threat. We really do need this now, but this is really, really serious. And then the cycle can commence, and it can then become a symptom, fear, trying to fix, monitoring, seeking for the answers, trying to fix it, attention. On the body, and then it can just keep going on a loop, a crazy loop. And this is just the way that the system works, and the brain can develop a conditioned response very quickly. We talked about predictive coding, and it begins to expect, it learns what's, what it expects is going to happen. So it just becomes that, that cycle that we've described before. And then that kind of a style approach, having that personality that's highly driven, I'm not going to give up, I'm not going to stop until I figure this one out, and trying harder and harder, which is my approach, which I, oh, honestly, over 15 years of, I'm going to figure this out, I'm going to get well, I can run 100-mile ultramarathons, believing that that might be the approach. Like, that's just a really big example of, of how that kind of personality style is unintentionally keeping the cycle going. So not because you're doing things wrong, but because ultimately, the brain is continuously receiving this message that something is wrong, something is wrong. Jo needs fixing, Jo needs fixing, Jo's not safe. She's not safe. Okay, so how about the perfectionism element? Because perfectionism is something that's spoken about quite often, well, in my world anyway. I hear people mentioning it a lot, like if they want to get well and that's their natural personality style, they And it's really common that people will bring that along and think that they're not doing good enough at getting well and they're not doing it quick enough and that they should be doing better than they are. Or if something crops up and things flare up, they blame that they're doing it wrong. They've ruined everything. Shouldn't have done that, shouldn't have done it this way. So nothing feels right, it's just a really difficult, um, a difficult situation to be in, um, when you're feeling as though you're not getting it right and it's not perfect, it's not, it's not the perfect, um, path, recovery path. So then the brain's got another thing to worry about too. So it's the opposite to what we need to be doing with the feelings of feeling safe, the messages being that we don't need to be perfect, perfect does not actually exist, you know, messages more like that are more helpful, but if this is how you are, then it's very difficult to believe that. So this is why many people do get a bit stuck in the cycle of that. But the first part of any process of change is to recognize it. It's just as simple as recognizing it. And often many things on the back of that will happen just by recognizing and it becoming conscious to you. that you're aware of it now, you're aware that that potentially, that is fueling what's happening with you. So I mean, I guess a quick example for me was when I knew that those things were part of the reason why I was in the cycle, then I was able to Think about that a lot more and just alter things just slightly, even a little bit slightly can make all the difference. Even just being more open with sharing about true feelings about what I really might want to say or share, and not putting myself at the bottom of the pile anymore. So just because you're a people pleaser, that, you know, we're not saying that's why you've got pain, but I would encourage you to get just curious. Like I said, just bring it, just notice, recognise. You can ask yourself, am I putting a lot of pressure on here? Am I saying yes to things that really I wanted to say no to? Like, am I actually saying yes and then regretting? Am I doing things authentically that I genuinely want to do, or just because I feel I have to do it and I don't have an option? Because we always have choices, we just don't always realise that we have choices. Sometimes we might think, I have to just accept that and be used to that because I don't have an option, but Ultimately, it's worth just considering some of these things. So yeah, just notice some of these things. How much time are you trying to be a fixer for yourself or other people? And another thing that's, that is another thing that's quite interesting, the fixing. The fixing mindset, because it's a lot of, a lot of energy and attention going into figuring out how to solve the issue, how to make it right. And again, like, those skills come in very big handy in certain areas of life, but when it comes to neuroplastic pain and symptoms, Sometimes we really have to recognise and notice that we don't need to do any of those skills in this process, because those are the things that are actually keeping the process going. So it's really— it can be really difficult. No one's saying that it's a quick click of the finger fix. And the brain gets really, really focused, and if attention goes to something, then it's just naturally just checking, testing, comparing, all these things, it just happens. So monitoring all of those things, but yeah, so for today's session, I just really wanted you to Have a little think whether you do show some of those personality types and just maybe just notice that to begin with and ask yourself, Is there an alternative option that I'm going to feel happier with? And often, even the, like, the fear of saying no to something is so big, but then it's amazing how many people are just like, yeah, alright then. They just, like, really easily accept it. Like, you think it's going to be a really big deal and that they're going to be really devastated and upset that you've said no, that you can't do something, and actually they're just like, yeah, all right then. I can remember reading, I think it was some research, it talked about, it said something about why many, many people struggle to say no, and I don't know whether this is true or not, and I don't know, I don't even know the reference for the research, but it said that when we're young, when we're young children, we hear no so many times because we might ask for something and get told no, no, don't touch that, no, you're not allowed that, no, you're not allowed this, that then when we grow up, we find it really hard to say no. And I guess the concept there is because we felt so upset about being told no that we don't want to do that to other people, but I don't know where I read that, I heard it somewhere and it kind of made sense to me, but realistically, just look out for what you think the personality traits that you're having that are not serving you well, the things about you that you're like, this is not working for me, and just see whether there's anything that you can do to tweak it slightly, just to suit you a bit more? Because even if it's with like being perfectionism, well, am I willing to just leave that, that shoe just slightly out of line? At the end of the day, you've put everything away, everything's tidied up, am I willing to just leave that? This is just an example of what I've personally done over the time, Because I would have liked my things to have been put in certain orders, and the lights would have been in certain positions, and the curtains would have been dangling in a certain way, and I recognised that this is not working, and I'm spending so much time putting things in certain places and in certain ways, and I guess that was— Maybe, um, some perfectionism about wanting it to be in a perfect way, and maybe some, uh, maybe some what people might describe as, um, OCD thoughts. But either way, you can recover from all of those things. Um, so it's just bit by bit, just working through them. Um, Do I really need to be such a high achiever? Does it really matter if I don't get top grade on this exam? You'll laugh at me because when I did my coaching exams, I was so nervous because I was responding as though if I didn't get like really great passes and do really well, I actually started having a twitch in my eye because my nervous system was so worried about not doing well in that. And it, does it really matter? Does it really equal my value as a human being if I've not got top marks on an exam? No, I realise that now. I realise a lot of stuff, and I realise that you don't always have to be the really strong one who's not able to show their emotions, who's not able to shed a tear here and there, you know. That's just personal examples to me. Like, I would hold back, like, showing that. And yeah, what else do I want to say? Because I've gone over slightly because I started a little bit late, so apologies for that. Yeah, emotions really, because I just hinted upon that. That is one big, big part, and actually I've just inspired myself for my next session, so I actually will in the next session do that. I'll talk about emotions. So for today, just remember that having pain and symptoms might not mean that there's a problem with your body, okay? You would need to get a diagnostic and you would need to have everything ruled out medically, but if you've had that done, you can teach yourself. The brain is what they call neuroplastic, which means that it's Capable of relearning a new way. It's capable of developing new pathways, and it can take time, and it can happen quick for some people. There's no right or wrong. There's no one-size-fits-all, one way to do this. It's a very different journey for every, every single person, but there's many similarities. So if, um, you'd like to hear more, then please, you're welcome to get in touch. But just look at some of those personality styles. You can Google TMS personality types, you can see whether you recognise any for yourself. And yeah, ask for help if you need it. But I hope it's been useful. And I just want to let you know that I'm away, okay, for the next 3 weeks. So I'll be back on Wednesday the 2nd of September. So that means that there's going to be 3 Tuesdays That I might not be able to do the live, and it won't be at this time because I won't be in the UK because I'm going to Orlando for 19 nights. So I'll let you know in the group about what my plans are because I've not had time to even think that far ahead. But thank you so much for being here and listening, and apologies for ignoring any comments because it's not working. I should have gone on my mobile phone. Thank you as always and appreciate you all for being here in this group. Please share it with a friend if you think that they'll benefit too. I'd love the group to grow. I think we're almost up to around 300 members now, which is lovely, but it would be amazing if that number would continue to go up because I don't actively promote the group. I just see what happens naturally. I don't share it purposely, very rarely, very rarely. So yeah, please share with anyone that you think will benefit, and let's share this with more and more people, because those people that are suffering from chronic pain, chronic symptoms that medicine just want to pull their own hair out trying to help, because they don't want— a lot of the doctors that I work with in the NHS, they don't enjoy it because they don't know what to do with those people. But this is the answer that they're not trained in. So please send them this way so we can do them a justice and really help them to really improve life for themselves, because recovery is possible if your symptoms are neuroplastic, and many, many are because it's a human condition. So thank you so much, and I'll see you all next time. Bye! Bye!