Show up and Share Session

Hi everyone, welcome to our group Bend and Snap: Active People Getting Back on Track. I'm Joanne Lee Smith and I'll be your host for this evening. I've never said that before when I've gone live in this group. I'm not sure where that came from. Welcome to my unplanned show up and share session, and apologies for anyone that's confused because I basically did not do it correctly, and I've just realised when I've gone to join live that I didn't set the event up properly, and it looked as though it was in person and it wouldn't let me join, so I've had to just quickly click a few buttons So welcome to anyone that's new here. Apologies for not being perfect. Only joking, no apologies. I hope you feel better for seeing my imperfection in action, because there's something in that, there's something really special in that, seeing that nobody's perfect. And often when other people mess up, we all go, ah, yeah, I I could drop my guard because I do that too. We all do it. So this week, been a bit of a tough week really. This time last Tuesday, for those of you that were here listening, you might have noticed that I had a bit of a husky voice. I had a little bit of a frog in my throat this time last Tuesday. By Wednesday morning, my voice had gone. I lost my voice. Oh no! By the way, please say hi in the chat, the comments, please ask any questions at any point. If you're here, massive welcome, and apologies if I don't respond to those, but I always check afterwards and I like to look through any messages. So yeah, I got— I said this time last week that my voice was struggling, next day I had no voice for about 3 days, so Ooh! It was a challenge, but fortunately I'm feeling a lot better. It was like a throat viral, we all get them, I don't think it matters how fit, how fit we think we are, we all sometimes get these things from time to time, so yeah, it's been an interesting week, and I did have to have a day or two where I did actually have to rest the voice and not even attempt to speak, Which was really kind of interesting and kind of peaceful, but I did struggle with it because I'm a chatterbox, so that was a challenge really, not being able to use my voice as much as I would like to do. Yeah, so today's session, I am literally just showing up. I didn't have an agenda, I didn't have a subject to talk about, I left it late to get the invite out, but every now and then, from time to time, I like to do these sessions where I just show up and share what's relevant, what I've been doing recently, what's in my mind, what I think will be helpful for other people to help you to getting back, you know, to activities, getting back to the lives that you maybe once enjoyed that you may be having to take time away from due to, if you are having any chronic symptoms or chronic injuries or chronic pains or any symptoms that you're feeling stuck with. I just want to share really each week, each Tuesday, anything that is relevant that can really help you because lots of you have been with me on this journey right from day one, Some of you guys know me from before I even knew about neuroplastic pain and neuroplastic symptoms, also known as mind-body symptoms, and other things that you might have heard it labeled as perceived danger pain, central sensitization. There's lots of things that are basically saying the same thing. And for those that knew me over 2 years ago, I did not know that we could recover from many of our chronic pains and chronic symptoms. There were things I didn't know it was even possible because I'd not been trained in, in these things. I did not know The coaching training which I did was nothing to do with specialist pain and symptoms management, or not even management now, we don't call it that, we call it recovery because we know that it's possible to fully eliminate many of the symptoms. So in the beginning, I started out helping other people just like me at the time, who may have had chronic pain, they may have been like me, they may have been diagnosed with fibromyalgia and told there is— it's just a case of coping, it's just a case of managing, doing the best you can, and not knowing, basically just kind of believing that this is how it's got to be, so I'm just going to go out and do the best I can. But as part of that journey, back in 2023 is when I first found out about a legendary doctor called Dr. Sarno, and he's really known for what he called TMS, tension myositis syndrome. He was an orthopaedic surgeon, and this doctor he realised that there was a connection between his patients experiencing pain, and he realised that it was not— the cause of the pain was not what everybody thought. It wasn't because they had abnormalities on their spinal X-rays and MRI scans. He realised there's something more going on here that's creating the pain, And it's not because the body's the reason, because the body's damaged, why these people are in pain. He noticed the connection between emotions, which I spoke about, I think, last week in the session that I did last week, and he noticed the connection between repressed emotions, one of the big emotions being anger, rage, And the people did not even know they had that, you know, in their unconscious, and it wasn't until he educated them and explained that he realised that the brain can do this to protect, because we've got a safety, and the brain, there is a danger/safety going on, and if the brain decides, oh, I'm safe, everything's good, we're all calm, there's no danger, everything's safe, then it will not raise an alarm. And the alarm is the pain, the symptom, the back pain, the stomachache, the headache, the migraine, whatever it might be. He realized that, um, what he believed was happening— and there is, we now know, like, research-wise, that there is Truth in this, that he noticed that these emotions were, if they were bubbling up to the surface, a bit like a volcano that's ready to erupt, and the brain senses that, it will divert attention to back pain, chronic back pain, because it's much, it would deem much safer than a grown adult having an uncontrollable temper tantrum or a rage that could be deemed more dangerous. So he began to educate people in, there is actually, believe it or not, nothing wrong with your body, you know, everything is safe, you can move, you can begin moving again, you can, you can, that, you know, there's nothing that needs to be done, you don't need surgery. He started educating his patients. And he started teaching them about emotions, and he started getting them help with being able to feel some of those emotions. And once people could recognise it in themselves, he taught them all about, like, that he realised that certain personality types— I did a session another couple of weeks ago on personality styles and types— basically, people who are highly driven, highly motivated, very good people who want to do well, give the best, Go, go, go. Very critical on themselves, you know, can be quite hard on themselves. There's certain characteristics that they recognised that were a common theme throughout the many, many patients that they were seeing with back pain. And long story short, this doctor in the 1970s first recognised this connection And he wrote books, which, there's many, many books which are really great to listen to. I listen to books on Audible, The Mind-Body Prescription being the first Dr. Sarno book that, well, it was the second book that I actually listened to. The first one was called The Divided Mind, but I didn't quite hear what I needed to hear with that one, but The Mind-Body Prescription presented it in a way that really made me realise there is really something in this. And I also watched a lecture on YouTube. I just Googled Dr. Sarno and this lecture came up of him talking to a group of patients, and I watched the lecture and it really rang a lot of bells for myself where I could recognise myself, and that was the beginning really of the journey, which was, well, I'm just trying to think how long ago because lots of time's passed by now, so it's been almost 2 years that I've been fully, what I would class as fully implementing the approach, fully like made changes to how I do things in my own life. Before that, I had the knowledge for around 9 months, I had the knowledge, like I knew about They're called TMS, which is also known as neuroplastic symptoms now. I call it that because I trained with the Association of Treatment for Neuroplastic Symptoms, and I became one of their specialist coaches, so I call it neuroplastic symptoms now, but Dr. Sarno called it TMS, so you will find that there are TMS specialists and TMS coaches, which is the same as what I do. But I knew about it for over 9 months. I— it was there, the seed was planted, but knowing it, just knowing that, having knowledge is not enough for anything to change, especially for me when I'd been over 16 years by this point with chronic symptoms, many. I had various different chronic symptoms: migraines, eye pain, ear, jaw, neck, leg, back. So that's just a few of the many chronic symptoms that I was experiencing, extreme light sensitivity being another one. And so knowing that, having the knowledge, knowing, thinking, yes, this is definitely me, I can see that my brain Could be doing this when there is no, actually nothing physically wrong with the body. Like, they cannot find an obvious issue. I mean, like, MRI scans on my spine just would pick up on natural wear and tear, you know, like maybe some natural degeneration, but nothing that they would be like, oh, this is, you know, really extreme, like nothing obvious, but they'd say, your pain is mechanical, or, you've got— this is going to be forever, or, you know, I just get told all kinds of things. So I knew, I knew, but in my head I'm thinking, well, it's not going anywhere, nothing's changing, and life's still really difficult. Because I didn't quite know what to do with the information. Because ultimately, when you think about it, your pain— your pain, sorry, not your pain, your brain makes the decision on whether or not symptoms are going to be switched on or switched off. And for lots of us, they can be continuous. You know, they might, it might just be a continuous that never goes. Like, I would have described my, some of the symptoms from what I experienced were continuous, all day, every day, waking up numerous times in, in the night, always there whilst conscious. Yeah, always there whilst conscious, always could feel and be aware, obviously with varying levels of moving up or maybe moving down a little bit, but ultimately We have got absolutely like, that's a decision from your nervous system and brain, you know, it's automatic, so I couldn't just say, go away, well, stop hurting, and it would stop, like it wouldn't have been that simple, like I can't just say to my left hand, Hurt. You can't just look at your hand and tell it to hurt and then it will. Like, we don't have conscious control over these things, it's all unconscious, unconsciously— that's not even a word, but bear with me, I've not been well this week, so I've got a great excuse. So really, just knowing that wasn't enough. So And listening to the book, like, a couple of times still wasn't enough, so I literally went back, listened to the book again, and then I listened— I think this must have been, like, the second or third time, and— but then I— you hear different things each time you listen to something again, so probably— I'm guessing now, I'm just completely guessing, but I'd listened to it a few times, And, and then I finally listened to the point where I decided I'm going to actually do the thing that is recommended in the book, which was the Dr. Sarno Mind-Body Prescription. And it basically— do the thing that was recommended, which I didn't want to do. I really didn't want to do the thing. And I'll share with you what it is. You'll have heard this before if you've been with me a while. It was journaling, it was like writing, which I didn't want to do. I didn't want to spend time writing, I didn't want to waste my time, I didn't have much time, why would I want to stand there? Because I couldn't sit, by the way, I'd never sat down, I never sat down hardly ever, I had a stand-up desk that was always up, it rarely went down, and it went up and down quite a lot because I only sat down for hardly any time before it was going up again. to the point where I burned out the motor on my second one. I burned out an electric desk. So I really was avoiding doing that. And again, I want to share this with you because I now know this in hindsight, that avoiding doing these things is part of the amazing system of protection. It's like we don't want to do the things that might help us, and it's actually a second line of the defence, the way that this protection system works. So for some reason, I didn't want to do writing down, I didn't want to spend time writing down, and all it was asking me to do was just write down a simple 3 lists: things from the past, Things in the present, and I forget what the third one was. Apologies for that; it'll come back to me. But oh, per what it was, I've forgotten. I've completely forgotten because I don't do anything fully structured. So it was just basically think about all the things that you could be really mad about, really angry about. that you've never actually allowed or felt, or you've just kind of pushed away and thought, I ain't got time for that, I'm just gonna forget about it and move on, I'm over it, I'm over it, I'm not bothered about it anymore, kind of stuff. And anyway, I finally decided, what's to lose? I was just struggling so bad, there weren't— not much else I could do. I was diagnosed fibromyalgia, it was like Just be on pain relief forever, just keep moving, keep doing your best. And so I didn't really have a lot to lose by this point, and I just decided I'm gonna get the pen and I'm just gonna have a go at doing this journal thing. I didn't quite know how to do it, I didn't know what I was doing, but I just decided, let's just go, let's just go, Jo, and write down whatever comes to mind. So I just did it. for about 7 days, but I'm guessing because I didn't count the days, I didn't time anything, I just did it, um, for I think for about a week because when I looked back I had quite a few pages of scribble. Can't read the scribble, it's just scribble, it's not even written neat or anything, there is no neat writing with me, so I just literally went back Over my lifetime, I went back as far as I could remember and I just freestyle went for it, but the amazing thing was that even on the first time after doing that, it was the first time in my life that I felt a reduction in pain without taking pain relief and without having to do exercise or move or, you know, do anything like that. It was just me and I was standing there at my desk doing this and I just noticed a reduction and that were enough really for me to think there's something in this, there's something in this approach. And I did that in the beginning and by the end, after that week, I realised I no longer needed codeine, which was massive. It was huge because I'd been relying on taking that once a day. I didn't take the top dose, but I took it every single day for a lot of years, and I just realised I don't need it anymore. It were bearable. Everything sort of like had reduced. It felt bearable. And then I got all in. I started to share in my live sessions And then some, and then I was sharing, this is a couple of years ago now, just like I am doing now, and clients that I were working with, at the time it was mainly other runners, I was sharing the book links, I was sharing what I were doing and how it was helping me, and other people began to do similar, and I started getting messages from people, sharing with me that, wow, they'd been getting benefits too, and, or people that had not been able to run because of certain, like, chronic issues that have been going on 6, 9 months, maybe 12 for some people in the beginning, and some were fully, like, getting fully recovered way quicker than I was getting results, but I was so pleased to see it that, long story short, I then thought, wow, if this can happen with that, and I started learning more and more and more about this kind of thing. I was learning about pain reprocessing therapy, I was learning about emotional awareness and expression therapy, I was learning about, like, Uh, great. Oh, I'm trying to remember all the different things. Um, like exposure therapy, like, um, getting used to doing things, um, that you've avoided doing for so long. And bit by bit, I was like, oh, I think this is gonna work for, um, the light that, you know, me being reliant on sunglasses. And I did that exposure therapy bit by bit, imagining that I can go out and take the glasses off and look even up into the sky a little bit, and imagining I can go around the block, and then in real life beginning to do it tiny bit by bit. So long story short, that brings me to A point in this journey where lots of things are so different for me personally, that it's got to the point where I now basically, this is pretty much all I'm doing now in my world of coaching. I still coach in the NHS too, so I do all kinds of other coaching which is not specific, but in my personal self-employed world, this is all I do now. All I do is coaching people with these similar— no matter what these symptoms or conditions are, whether it's chronic fatigue, whether it's fibromyalgia, whether it's chronic back pain, whether it's reflux, burning mouth syndrome, it could be chronic itching, it could be— there's so, so many different symptoms that can actually come into this category. So that's become my passion now, my passion. I don't want anyone else to be brought into the medical system believing that there is no other alternative. Because there are other options which, which not everybody knows about. It might not be common knowledge, and it can be a little bit interesting at first to get your head around, but the good news is it's finally like there is an answer that there might have been no answers for, and there is actually Not false hope, real hope. Real hope to reversing some of these symptoms which many have become conditioned. The brain is a predictive machine. It's very good at learning something and then replicating that based upon patterns from the past, the neural pathways that have been developed for pain. it can just keep on going and going and going. And so we are— we literally can use our conscious mind, we can use our, um, you know, like I said at the beginning, we can't do the decision, that is automatic, but we can influence the decision through how we use our conscious mind and how we, um, how we respond when When things are happening, because we can actually get involved and we can use all many different ways that will be personal to each individual person to reverse the danger messages and turn them into messages of safety. I like the danger-safety way of looking at things because ultimately when there is A pain or a symptom in the body, that is there because— that is there to protect, because the brain has deemed something to be dangerous. And that something could be— it's guesswork figuring out what that something is, but we don't need to know what the something is. We just need to know that the brain has deemed something as dangerous. So if you don't know exactly what it is and you can't work it out, That's fine. It's all about getting on in there and ensuring that the message of safety tips the danger off, so we outweigh it with safety. Examples may be frustration towards pain, towards symptoms, thoughts of a catastrophic future where this is forever, emotions that we are not able to feel, that we are unaware, that are being repressed. It could be fear of the actual movement itself, avoidance. There are so many things, but in general, if we can outweigh that with nothing to be worried about, nothing actually broken, And so on and so on. That's just a few examples how we'll respond rather than getting all uptight and annoyed. It might be just a case of sitting back, taking some slower breaths, giving ourselves something that we believe, like, I know this is reversible, it's possible to recover, anything like that, and so on. So it's a— it's not There's no way of knowing how long the process will take because that's like saying, how long is it going to take you to train for a marathon? Everybody has their own unique journey, but this approach really, really works and it's incredible. So I'm just sharing really some things that I picked up along the way, but there is so much more, but it begins with just the basic understanding, um, that— and knowing that the— yeah, knowing that all pain and all symptoms that you're experiencing are all real. They're all real. Like, forget that it's in your head stuff. Forget the feeling like you've been sent away, being told that you're imagining it and that you're going— and that you're crazy, because You can't do that. That's not possible because the brain creates everything, regardless of whether there is a structural fault, regardless of if you've got a broken leg or not got a broken leg. The brain can generate the exact same pain whether there's a wound or not, or whether there's an injury. So it starts with that understanding, but it also begins in being willing to begin to do the things that you don't want to do. Like for me, if I have not, if I, why on earth I didn't put a pen to paper a lot sooner, I don't know, but no one ever actually recommended that to me and I probably would have been open to it if someone would have shared earlier on in the journey, like the benefit, but who'd have thought it would have started with with that, and then as time goes on, I found out so much more. So thank you for listening. I hope it's been helpful because I want to share the hope there that no matter what you think right now, no matter what you've been told, no matter whether you do have legitimate structural issues as well, We're all human, and there is always an element of neuroplastic pain going on. Like, I don't think I've come across a case, even with legitimate issues, like for example rheumatoid arthritis, I've not come across a case that hasn't still benefited from having this understanding and using the approach, like, in their own life to get a reduction. So, you've got nothing to lose. There's no side effects, only feeling better. So, sleeping better, eating better, being able to eat everything you want again, and so on and so on. Being able to exercise again, doing the things you enjoy, moving more. Yeah, it's endless. I could go on for hours and hours and hours, but It's getting late and I've got a session now, so I'll see you all next time. Have a brilliant week. See you next week. Bye!