Why can recovery be so challenging part 2

Hi again, sorry about that. I've just joined from my phone because my laptop has been doing some crazy, so I just didn't want to miss the second part of the session. And I've just quickly checked and I got— I think I've got about 8 minutes in and then I think I literally just went silent. So apologies for anyone watching back, and hopefully you'll catch this part 2. So I'll just do a quick summary about what I was talking about. At the beginning, and I was talking about people getting to a point where they understand about mind-body, they understand that that's them, they begin implementing the approach, and then they just find it really difficult, really, really difficult. Like, they'll do and do and do, and they might not see any difference, they might not see any results, they might not see any changes in their symptoms. And they'll be like, this is not working, and so on and so on. And I just want to leave you with a lot of hope there, to reassure you that that is absolutely part of the process and it's absolutely normal and it's nothing to worry about. And it doesn't mean that nothing's happening, just because nothing obvious is changing or shifting, it doesn't mean that you can't do it, it doesn't mean that you can't recover from your chronic symptoms. And I'm just going to pick up from where I left off because the bit that I got to, I was just talking about— let me remember, let me remember. So I think I was just talking about how for me, once I understood how the process works, I found it a lot easier to keep going. With things but getting nowhere, if that makes sense. Keep going but you feel like you're getting nowhere, but when you know, you know. You don't care how long you've got to keep going and doing it before you start eventually to see changes and shifts. So the bit that I wanted to get into is once you know and understand that actually your brain is there to protect you, And that was a big shift for me, understanding how this works, because I was told that I had an incurable issue of fibromyalgia. I was told you can't recover, you just got to be your best, go do your best, best to go out there and be the best case that you can. So I was stuck. So I was doing the best I could, I was doing everything that I was advised to do. I was out there being strong, being active, doing everything the best I could, running ultramarathons, but I was under the belief that I had an incurable situation. There is no known cure. But when I learned about this stuff, I knew differently. I was like, they're not— they were— they just don't know. They're doing the best they can in mainstream medicine, but they just don't have the answers. And I tried to ask them questions and I kept getting sent away and being told, no, no. So I just did my own thing and thankfully it brought me to this and it brought me to specialising in this and becoming a qualified neuroplastic recovery coach practitioner. So wow, all those things that I were told Fortunately weren't the truth, and now I'm here to share them with everybody who will listen, who's interested. So today's session was more about giving a lot of reassurance that if you do know about this stuff and you've known about it a while and you've been practicing and you've been implementing all the things that I suggest on a weekly basis, and but yet you're thinking nothing's working, nothing's changing, stay where you are. Because it's absolutely fine, and it's absolutely very, very normal, because it does take time. But once you know deeply, with clarity, that your brain and nervous system are designed to protect you, they're not designed to send you on your way for a great day out and a great fun adventure, and lots of happiness and joy and smiles and whatever else, that's not what that's designed for. It's doing its job. Number one job, survival. Survival, survival, survival. And if it perceives something as a threat, as a danger, if it perceives the symptom itself, whether it's pain, fatigue, tension, dizziness, irritable bowel syndrome, migraine, all of these things that I relate so massively with because I don't think there's one that I've not had, then Really, the important thing to understand is that danger does not mean that there has to be physical damage. And like I said before, sorry if I'm repeating, but I've worked in the NHS since 1998. I've been nursing a lot of years, and we were always taught that pain symptoms meant look to the body, look to the body, what's wrong, physical damage. But we now know that that's not, that's not fact. We now know that the danger could be a perceived danger. If the brain could get it wrong, it'd rather get it wrong than you die. So whether that might be avoidance of an activity, whether that's that you are genuinely fearful, you might know that I'm genuinely fearful. I didn't actually see myself as fearful, ever. I thought I was brave. I thought I'd do things anyway. I'd throw myself into anything. But actually it was fear-based. There was a lot of things that I was doing that were fear-based because I was avoiding light, I was avoiding not wearing glasses, I was avoiding sitting, I was avoiding a lot of things. Fear, which I didn't see as fear. Pressure on myself to be a good parent, be a good wife, be a good colleague, whatever it might be. Panicking about what's— how it's going to be tomorrow, how hard is it going to be. Active people will relate to this, worrying about movement. Is it going to make it worse? Is it going to come back? So yeah, that in itself is enough for your nervous system to say, give Jo a migraine. And how many migraines did I have where I was literally mid-mountain, like, having to just Come round so I could see where I was actually putting my feet. Really dangerous when you think about it, but my brain was doing the job. It was doing, doing its best to keep me safe. But me being frustrated at that and getting angry or getting upset or believing that I'm stuck here for the rest of my life, which is what I was told, this is, you're going to be the rest of your life, was not helpful. And I spent a lot of years there, Managed to get to doing half marathons, but again, I'd be wiped out, I'd be exhausted, I'd be in bed, um, worrying about when's this going to finish. Um, so naturally people will start, um, monitoring or checking or all these things, it's quite common. So this is why we can get quite stuck and it can get really challenging because It can be so scary, like, um, when you're doing CALM and you, you know a lot of this stuff, but you're still getting, um, the— something's still being perceived as dangerous, whatever it might be, and you're still getting symptoms. Um, this is why it can get really difficult. And this is why I decided to talk about it for today, because we're not just dealing with the physical part of it, we're dealing with— not just dealing with the physical symptoms themselves, we're actually trying to undo years and years and years of avoidance, or years and years and years of conditioned responses, which I've talked about in other sessions, beliefs, patterns, predictive coding, all of these things that I've talked about before and I'm sure I'll talk about again, but it's all of that stuff that we are trying to teach, but unlearn you could say, because many people have actually been taught, whoever it might have been from, That the symptoms are danger, you know, danger, you know, that it is an emergency. And actually, we're now saying that we are going to respond the complete opposite. It's not an emergency that you're having a heart palpitation, or, you know, please do not get medical advice if you are having symptoms that— and you, you know, but it was just an example. But for example, I can happily sit through a heart palpitation and know that that is just my nervous system protecting me, and that will go very quickly, for example, or whatever it might be. So we're not dismissing anything physical. We're never— we're not being silly. We're not going completely silly. We're always going to make sure that we've done our Due diligence, due diligence, can never say that, to make sure that there is nothing dangerous. So yeah, if your body responds with sensations because there is some potential, and we're able to consistently respond differently, eventually, it might take time, but eventually things will shift. So don't worry that nothing's happening and you're not getting anywhere. You're not failing. You, you will get back, um, but you do need infinite patience. As I always talk about, I call it infinite patience, um, and as always, it doesn't mean that these things that we're experiencing are made up. It means we're real humans. We are human. They're real. We can't imagine up something. There's no such thing as it's in your head. I mean, that expression's not helpful in the slightest because it's not actually, um, real. Like, there is no such thing as that. Everything is real. All pain, all symptoms are real. But where it comes from is it's generated in the brain. So that's, I think, where it comes from about it being in your head. Well, the symptom is in the body. You feel it physically, but it's where it's generated in the brain, so I think that's probably where that comes from. But, um, so yeah, you're not making it up and you can get well. And so actually there is a lot of hope, no matter how long you've been implementing and getting nowhere. It doesn't matter how long. This is the way forward and this is the path to recovery. It's about understanding what creates safety for you, because what creates safety for you will be completely different For me, we've just been doing the dance my mum sent me on Facebook. She sent me this little video and it was called The Stress. It was just a silly dance, it was really good fun, and it said stress— I thought it was called Stress Free Dance or Stress Buster Dance or something like that. It was really fun and I did it at the end of the hula hoop session as a bit of a, like, cool down, nice finish to the session, and we all enjoyed it so much. And I said, and it said on it, that it was the equivalent of 30 minutes jogging, and we literally just did the dance for like 30 seconds or a minute, and it said on it equivalent of 30 minutes jogging, and when we got back we actually were, we'd been laughing so much, and it's quite warm outside, and we, and I literally felt as though I'd done a 30-minute run. I mean, I had done hula hooping, but I don't normally feel that feeling, and I was like, that is so weird that that happened, that I did this little dance and I felt as though I'd done a 5K run. I'm not kidding. It was funny. I'll post it in the group for everyone to look at. But honestly, one thing that changed everything for me was understanding how the human system works, how the mind, how the body, how the nervous system works really simplistically. I learned most of my things from the courses that I've done with the ATNS, Dr. Schubiner, Courses that I've done, I'm just trying to think of the main sources of information, the books that I dug deep into, where else, online watching recovery stories, there's so many examples I just can't think of them off the top of my head, but I've done quite a few different courses and I learned all of this stuff, but That's the thing I'm looking for, the Curable app. I learned a lot using the Curable app and I've recommended that in the past and shared the link in the group too, because it staggers the learning, it's not overwhelming, it's day by day, you just, it comes up on your phone, it's nice and easy to follow, it explains it in language that is just nice and plain English, so I'd recommend that for anyone that's in the beginning. Um, because if we feel like we're hopeless and we're stuck in a body that's actually against us, then that's no way to get well. Um, that's a really great way to stay stuck. Um, but when you understand what's happening, people get drastic reductions in, in what the nervous system perceives as danger, and some people incredibly have really rapid results, others are like me where it takes a long time and it's slow and gradual and you're thinking, is it, is something gonna change? How long can I keep my cool before I lose it, before I completely blow my top? So yeah, there's no journey that's just one, right, you've learned this stuff, You know what to do, you go and do it, and it's just all perfectly smooth. It's more like boom boom. It's more like going on a crazy trail run where you don't know the way and you're looking at the map and then you go that way and you're like, oops, clearly I'm not very good at reading maps, and you try and do it on your watch and then, you know, it's more like that. It's more like a crazy paving. And I personally feel like For me, it's like you don't even know when you arrive at your destination, it's that much of a gradual journey that you don't quite know you've got there. It's like someone, you might just realise one day, oh, I'm actually at the top of the mountain now, you know, that kind of feeling. So if you think of it like this, if you— I'm going to use my husband's car as an example because I've been driving it recently, the last few days, and I'm not used to driving it. I don't know what any of the buttons do. I don't know, I don't even know how to use the aircon on it. I didn't, I couldn't get it to turn it off, I was freezing, then I couldn't get it to turn it on enough and I was boiling. I didn't know how the machine works, the car, but yet I'm the one driving the vehicle that I don't even understand how it works. Well, it works the same with this mind-body recovery. When you realize you're the one driving this human machine, well, your brain, and you understand how it all begins to work, I mean, it's like incredible. Because if a warning light pops up, there's no worry. You just understand the system. You know at what point you need to go to the doctors. You know at what point you do need to go for emergency treatment. You know what's a mind-body sensation. You just get to know how to drive this amazing machine. You start to recognise what's what. You start to recognise what you need to do next, how you need to respond. It just gets better and better and better. So don't be disheartened if you've listened to a Dr. Sarno book And gone and had a go at doing something and it miraculously disappeared straight away. This stuff can take time, but you've got time, because what's the choice? Stay where you are now and be— and struggle and be disappointed, or have a go at an approach that has got zero side effects. The only side effect is recovery, as I always say. And, um, you're already disappointed. So if it takes a long time and the process is gradual, so be it, because that is so much better than staying where you're at now. Honestly, if you've got persistent pain, any chronic illnesses, anything like that, um, please be interested and please get in touch for a chat if you need help or you need to know more, because, um, I'm available to help. This is why I show up every week, and this is why I'm on my mobile phone right now, back on just to finish sharing what I wanted to share today, because I could have clicked off and just left the live and said, I'm so sorry, it all went pear-shaped, the tech failed, my office is like 40 degrees now— maybe I'm exaggerating, but it's, it's very warm in here. So I could have taken the easy road and just said, sorry everyone, I'm not going to continue tonight, I'll be back next Tuesday. But I don't do that because I want you to hear this stuff because this is what's got me out of over 16 years of misery. And I'm not going to go into details because, like I said, we want to be careful about how we describe what's happening in our situations, because again, that can be crucial as to whether or not things change, whether or not our nervous system decides, oh, we can let that one go now. Um, So please don't get upset if you have what people call flare-ups. I had so many, so, so many, so many, and they get easier and easier and easier. And every time you have one, it's an opportunity to actually do the things that are going to get you out of this sticky situation. So it's super exciting because actually there's no Um, negative. There's nothing really that is gonna be a bad thing, if that makes sense. Even if you are having continued symptoms, it's kind of a good thing because it gives us something to do to get— it helps with recovery if you are having, because if you're not having them, then it's very difficult to do this stuff. So it's kind of a good thing if you're having. Pain or symptoms because we need it to get through this. So I'm sure that it makes sense, hopefully, what I'm trying to say. So that is what helps. So even if you do have lots of those, having to go back and then reroute and go back the same route again and then go back the same way and whatever else, you keep doing it, you keep doing it. Because it works, it really does work. But yeah, it really is, in simplistic terms, as long as safety outweighs danger, as long as your brain is sensing more safety than it is danger, it's going to eventually switch down and off. So it is completely possible to fully recover from chronic symptoms. Completely possible. I know 1 million percent because I've recovered from so many, all of my chronic symptoms bar some back pain. And when I say some back pain, it is so much more easier than it used to be. To the point where it's just a matter of time now. I'm in this game with you guys. It's a matter of time. I don't know how much more time it'll take. It'll take whatever it takes, but it's shifting and it's gradual, and it's so gradual that it actually doesn't particularly bother me now. It's rare, rare that it does, and it's nowhere near as high. So Just to finish off for today, it's not— for many people, it's not going to be about one magical moment, one magical breakthrough. It's going to be more about repetition, repetition, with— not with, oh, I'm not sure about this, I'm still on this hand thinking that I've got something catastrophically wrong, we're talking about when you get to the point of crystal clear clarity and then the repetition that goes with that. So if you are having no results, then definitely ask yourself the question, am I still questioning a structural cause? Because that's going to keep you stuck. So we need to iron that out, clarify that 100%. If you think that Like me, I had chronic migraines for a lot of years. I'd never even saw them as chronic migraines because I just had them for so long that they came regular. Never thought I'd have a life without them. I never thought I could go a year without them. I never thought it'd be possible. So I would have been like, oh yeah, there's something in my genetics, there's something in my system, you know. But if I'd have had that query and I'd have still had that, oh yeah, I've got visual light stress disorder and all these things, It would have never happened. I would have never been able to move forward, but because I had a new belief that no one could have told me otherwise, it would have been like trying to convince me that I'm not Joanne Smith. So this is what I mean, get yourself to this point of clarity and you can just continue with the approach and you're going to recover. Highly, highly possible, highly, highly probable. So this is, like I say, why I'm so passionate, because my own journey has taken me here. On this journey, my own health journey's brought me here. I couldn't have factored that into my future. I began coaching other runners, other trail runners, to live with chronic pain and chronic symptoms, to do the best they could despite, like I did for so many years. That's where I began, because I didn't know about this, but now I do. We can share that with everyone, anyone who's willing to listen. So, um, I know what it feels like to be thinking and being in that situation where you think it's over, my active days are over, my days of getting out running and climbing mountains and cycling and doing all these things, it's not going to happen. Because I went Through the, the process over a long period of time, and I went through building up to doing half marathons, well, even 5Ks, to marathons, to half, to ultras, to doing 100-mile-plus ultramarathons, and it wasn't a perfect journey, and it wasn't easy, and the majority of that journey I didn't know about this stuff. If only I'd known about this stuff at the beginning, how differently would that have been? So yeah, my journey is not perfect, not perfect at all, but I do have a lot of experience with this stuff now, and I just love to share and help others to do the same. So one thing for sure, that my relationship with what I did never recognise as fear has completely changed, completely changed, now that I understand how the system works, now that I understand that what's happening and that it's false alarms. I'm not going to be scared of my, um, fire, um, fire alarm going off when I know there's no real fire, and it's the same with these concepts of these symptoms. So yeah, um, I'm gonna leave it at that for today. So the final message for today is going to be that it may feel challenging right now, but please, please know this: A difficult recovery does not mean that recovery is impossible. Having flare-ups, having increases, doesn't erase what you know, what you've been doing, and it doesn't erase your progress that you might not even notice. It doesn't mean you're failing, um, it just means that your nervous system is struggling to feel safe, You're only human. Do the best you can to recognize, am I creating safety here, or am I fueling what, what my nervous system could be perceiving as a danger? Be kind to yourself. Self-care, self-compassion is massive, massive. Knowing you're enough, authentically you, being you, all that stuff's massive. So keep learning, keep showing up. Keep coming here as long as I don't like put you off. Hopefully I won't do that. And thank you so much for being here and watching, and I'm sorry about not answering questions and whatever I'm doing today. I'm just one of those. But I'll be back again next Tuesday, and I just want to say to you all that the strongest, most resilient people that I have met in this world of— in this active world, I'll call it, The athletes, the active people that I meet, are honestly the most resilient people that I know, that I have met, and so many, in fact, many, many, many of the people that I've made friends with in my running journey since I started running in 2013, all the way up till now, when I really got into like doing marathons in 2018 and onwards, they've been the times that I've made bigger friendships, especially in the ultra running, because you spend a lot of time together. But those people have been the toughest, most resilient people that really have rebuilt themselves from really difficult places. And there's a massive pattern in this, in this world. We all sort of share a lot of things in common, and I've met so many people with so many chronic symptoms who run ultramarathons and marathons, and they don't realize, like I didn't realize, that I was doing it as a— I call it an avoidance strategy, as in avoiding the symptoms because it gave me some time away. But there's many people that just don't know that recovery is an option for them, and I was one of them. And I've seen so many people in the same But that don't know recovery is for them either. So I'm just going to leave it at that. Recovery is for you and it is possible, and there's a lot of help out there and you don't even need to pay a penny for it. So get in touch and have a great week and I'll see you all next week. Thank you. Bye. Bye.