Why Positive Thinking Isn't Enough The Secret to Changing Your Recovery Expectations

Hi there, Bend and Snap! Welcome to my Tuesday live session where I'm going to speak for the next 30 minutes-ish. Um, I've decided to go from my laptop again for a change because I've been going from the mobile phone the last few weeks, but I just for some reason thought let's try from the laptop for a change and see whether the comments work. So please say hi if you're here, let me know you're here in the chat. Any comments, questions, shares, general messages, you're welcome to type in at any point, and let's see whether it works. I just thought why not. Just— my hair's all wet because we've been doing my Tuesday night hula hooping session, And finally we get rain, which is really exciting because we've not had rain in as long as I can remember. I genuinely don't know how long it's been since it last rained. So it's—I just didn't even mind about getting wet. It was really nice just being out in the rain. So yeah. So today's session, I am going to. Well, the title is Why Positive Thinking Isn't Enough. Like, a lot of people are like, oh, you just need to think more positively, you just need to think better, think positive, everything will be okay. So, and a lot of people are like, well, I'm doing that and it's not working, why is it not working? So the title for the session is Why Positive Thinking Isn't Enough. And the secret to changing your recovery expectations. Because I had positive thoughts, I had great expectations. As soon as I first knew about TMS, tension myositis syndrome, mind-body syndrome, neuroplastic pain, they're all the same thing, just a different name. I had brilliant positive thoughts. I was like, wow, what, you mean recovery is possible? So I had great positive thinking, but unfortunately it didn't just happen like overnight. So that's kind of what I'm going to speak to today. And apologies that I'm not seeing anything, so clearly this is not updated. Facebook does not seem to have improved how they do the live, like nothing's showing up. So I'm really sorry if I'm ignoring you, but thank you for being here. I really appreciate it. Yeah, it's been a really busy day with an unexpected trip to take my brother to have a checkup because he had surgery last Tuesday. He had an operation and I had to take him in for a bit of an emergency checkup today, so it was an unplanned 3-hour there and back drive. So fortunately everything's good now, so I'm really pleased that Everything's okay there. So yeah, let's just get going then. So welcome again for anyone that's just joined. I'm going to talk about why positive thinking is not enough and the secret to changing your recovery expectations. Expectations being the thing really that I'm going to focus in on a little bit today. And just to start with, There is a book called The Expectation Effect. I listened to that book this time last year. I thought it was a really good book. If you go on Amazon Audible and just put The Expectation Effect, it will come up, and I'll share it in the comments afterwards. There were some really, really interesting experiments and examples in that book that really does a great job at capturing the power of an expectation, like, really, really has some good examples on how the body, the physical body, will respond based upon a belief or an expectation. It's incredible. One of the famous examples that's used in the book, which you might have heard about, is the milkshake research exercise where they gave a group of people a really filling, really high-calorie milkshake and they measured their levels of ghrelin. I always get that hormone wrong, but it's the hunger hormone. And they gave another group a really low-fat, slimline version and they measured their hunger hormone and the results are incredible because the body responded based upon what it expected, what it believed, what it was told about these milkshakes. But the real truth behind it is that the milkshakes were both exactly the same. They were both 300 calories. All the people were given the exact same nutrition, the same amount, but their body responded based upon what they were expecting. It's incredible. It's incredible to think that that is possible, but this is how powerful an expectation is. So, I mean, how is that going to help with chronic pain symptom recovery? Well, it's really important information, and that was just one example from that book. There were so many other things in there that were really useful. So a lot of people get caught out really, like, wondering, well, I am expecting, I am thinking positively, but then they'll say, like, but how am I supposed to be able to expect it when every single day for the last 6 years, I have literally woken up seized up in discomfort and stiffness and pain. Like, how on earth am I supposed to expect things to get better? And honestly, valid question. I thought the same thing. How on earth can I expect things to shift, things to ease, get easier? It's a good question, but ultimately, the brain has been stuck in a predict— can I speak? Prediction, predictive coding. It's a predict— a prediction machine. So if it's been predicting what's going to come next, so it'd be predicting pain's going to come, dizziness, fatigue, migraines, IBS, anxiety, whatever it might be, whatever the experience is, And if it's been doing that on repeat for months and months and years, then it makes sense that you might not even know this is happening. But if that's been happening, and that's the evidence, that's the proof, that's the fact, what's been happening for years and years, then it makes sense that you've started to expect that to happen. And this can be on an unconscious level. You might not even realize that you're doing it, like literally, you genuinely will just innocently just wake up and before you've even thought of anything, you've gone automatically to checking, is it there, how's it feeling, how, you know, can I move, can I get out of bed, that kind of thing, so, um, how's today gonna go, it's just an automatic prediction machine. I noticed this with food. I noticed that, um, like, I eat based upon what my brain thinks is coming tonight or tomorrow. And because I'm an active person and I'm always kind of on the go and doing different things, I noticed that— I noticed the power of how smart the brain is. at predicting what's going to be happening. It's just efficient, it's super efficient, it wants to go for the easiest possible path, so it just becomes an automatic process. So I'm noticing a lot with nutritional requirement, um, as an example, about how my brain is gonna predict based upon previous examples, um, and always making predictions. That's its job. It don't really have a job to make sure that you're comfortable and having a great experience all the time. It's all about survival, protection, and that kind of thing. So it's trying its best, keeping you safe, predicting what's gonna happen based upon what happened yesterday and the day before and the week before and the year before. And as I said, you can research this, it's called predictive coding. Or a conditioned response to. So it's just doing what it's supposed to do and based upon what it thinks. And it can just get really on a repeat pattern. So having an awareness, again, going always back to the point of recognising that if you've checked out your symptoms and if they've not found an official structural or physiological issue, Then we know that frequently there's no damage in the body. We can have pain, we can have symptoms, but we can have no damage in the body, which seems crazy, but this is very possible. So because the brain has learned to expect a certain thing, this is where people can't— it can make it more difficult. To shift, um, to expecting a better outcome, um, because the brain will do everything it can to stop you from expecting a better outcome too, and it will always be looking for evidence to prove that to be true, like to justify the protection. So you can't go often, it's really rare that people can go Straight to having this amazing expectation that tomorrow is going to be an amazing day, everything's going to be so much better. It's really rare that you can do that in one step, and because when often, most of the time, that doesn't happen, you've had all these high hopes and these really positive thoughts and big expectations that, you know what, tomorrow I'm going to wake up and it's going to be a great day, like it's gonna feel brilliant, and then you end up feeling really, really disappointed because your brain is doing the best it can and it's expecting without us even having a conscious awareness. So then we feel disappointed that that didn't work. I'm just using an example really, um, on how many people experience, um, action needed. I'm sorry about this, it's saying close unused Applications, but I don't actually have any open. So hopefully this is working. So they they think it doesn't work. They lose all hope, like oh nothing happened. I expected a really great thing and nothing changed. And again, expectations need to be realistic at the same time. So it's nothing to do with you not being positive. Okay, and not having positive thinking, because you can have it. It's not about like purely positive thinking, because if you're able to understand thinking for what thinking is, that's like really jumping to the root, because the thought is there to protect us too. And if we're able to understand it for what it is, it's part of the the prediction, then we know that it's not a truth. So the problem is that deep down you're just not going to believe it, and it's more of a feeling than something that you can say to yourself or just doing this positive thought kind of thing. And I'll do my best to do this justice because it's not always an easy thing to explain. Okay, so the brain loves actual evidence. It, like, likes things that are actually genuinely legitimately, like, deeply believable, not just, like, false kind of herp, like, it can sense in— is inauthenticity a word? I I think it is. It can sense something that is not authentic. So if we're just wishful, trying to force some kind of positive thinking, the brain is able to sense that, nah, no chance, no chance. Tomorrow's not going to be a brilliant day because look at all the other days where you've had this for the last 16 years. So Instead of, like, expecting it to believe something that feels impossible, it's about doing it in maybe a much smaller step. So the expectation that maybe tomorrow could just even be just a 1% easier, like, I can just do a little bit better, a tiny bit better, and just, I can actually feel slightly calmer if something flares up. It's just setting an expectation that doesn't feel out of reach. So maybe I can be a bit less scared Tiny bit. Or even allowing the possibility that things might change, it's still a slightly new expectation, and it's more realistic, more believable, because I think you've got more chance of it feeling more authentic as well, because like I say, it's really hard to go from Um, in one step, it's hard to go from having 16 years of having the same thing on repeat in this predictive coding pattern. In the beginning, you begin to recognize, oh, I'm unintentionally expecting this, I'm checking as soon as I wake up. So it's just an awareness really, and then just a tiny little bit of a— even noticing that and understanding it and learning about that can be enough. To open up some, well, to create some space for a slightly improved expectation. So it's not about positive thinking; it's accurate, accurate, realistic thinking, having an expectation that your brain's not going to be like no chance. It's going to be more open to the possibility, and I really hope this is working. Just clicking to see if there are any comments popping up. Nothing's coming in at the minute. Okay, so this is probably one of the big lessons that I learned really throughout my long career. I'm going to call it a long career now because, I mean, I worked in the NHS since 1998. So I've worked in healthcare, in a healthcare career since I was 16, and my own recovery journey and everything along that comes with that, all the work that I've done in coaching, now specialising as a neuroplastic symptoms recovery coach registered with the ATNS, I've learned a lot about this stuff. And what was one of the really big breakthroughs, I would say, like realisations that I realised, is that there doesn't need to be one massive moment, like there's so many tiny little moments and different insights and things that you realise over a gradual period of time, that Repetition and calm, safety approach, it may take time, but wow, it really does make a big difference. And I think that for many people who are What's the word? At risk of developing neuroplastic symptoms. It is worth every minute of the patience. And what I did realise is that naturally— let me think how to explain this, what I'm trying to say. Like, I'll do a whole other session on this. I've just come up with an idea for next session. Because we're looking at like the different personality styles for people that are— well, research has proven that they have been more likely to develop neuroplastic chronic pain, chronic symptoms that mainstream medicine cannot find answers or can't really help. Is like, I'll do a whole session on this, it's like the personality styles. But what I have realised is that it's kind of, for some people, a good thing because you can use some of the personality styles about maybe not giving up easily, being high achieving, and also like, oh, I wish I could remember the word I'm looking for. It's like, like a, they call it a biotemperament. So like, naturally, people are born with a biotemperament, like the type of person that you are, and then your experiences kind of like reinforce that biotemperament. Like an example for me, is that I'm not easily impressed by things, or like, it takes me quite a while to get a wow, and I'm able to be really, like, consistent even though it takes time and I might not get results for a long time. Well, what I found is, I realised that, oh wow, that's actually a really good thing about my temperament, that I'm willing to wait a long, long time for the reward, because I realised that actually that's what's helped me to keep going through this process, because if I know that there's something way better at the end, then I'll ride it out and wait and wait and wait. And that's what it feels like with this recovery process, because you're having to repeat things and you just want the reward, like, now. Um, but it made me— I don't know if I've explained it well or not, but it made me realise that, um, being willing to wait for the To to get that is part of the patience behind this process. So, like in the beginning, I think I were expecting a massive giant miracle-like moment, and it never happened. But it's been such tiny gradual thing. But it honestly resulted from calm calm responses, expectations expectations expectations. I'm just going to repeat that a lot of times. Because I never realized that this was even happening, and it was a really big thing because when I started to just set it just a slightly different—maybe I can sit down just for a thirty seconds without being in discomfort—the expectation was just so. Little, that bit by bit it gradually, very gradually became more real, more possible, so to the point where I'm probably hitting records now for the amount of time that I'm able to sit down, and I wasn't sitting for more than, well, hardly ever, unless it was against my own will, having no choice and You know, having to be forced to be sitting down. It's choice now, so it is possible with understanding this stuff. And it's kind of like relearning a whole new thing, like learning an instrument. Like we wouldn't— like me with my saxophone, it's been a while and I'm not practicing regularly enough. It's taken me a while. I don't expect to master it overnight. I expect it to just be a little bit of an improvement each time that I have another practice, and it's like that with recovery process. It's it's like a whole. New learning process, you could say. You're teaching, you're kind of like reteaching your brain a whole new, something new that it's gotta do on repeat, on repeat. It doesn't need to be a perfect thing, there's no one way for everyone, it's just a process that you've just, it works, it really works. There's so many people benefiting So just notice the little things, like just pick yourself up on it if you notice, oh, am I expecting that I'm going to get a certain outcome? Oh, I'm going to be running in the bright sun, so I'm going to get a migraine, like I've always got a migraine when I've run with bright sun. That was my old story, that was my old expectations, and sure as anything, Sure as anything, I had more than I can remember. So tonight's going to be a really, really bad night. I never sleep. I wake up every however often. I'm in and out, up and down, moving around. Like, I just never saw it that I was expecting that because it was just an unconscious thing. A predictive coding. The brain, just super, super smart, doing these things without my knowing. But when you learn this stuff, you can really begin to just do things slightly different. So before getting in bed, for example, before going out on that walk or that jog, or before getting in the car, before doing your exercises, you can just ask yourself, what do I expect might happen? And if you get an answer that's undesirable, oh, it's going to be awful, oh, then don't, like, try and convince yourself. Just recognise it for, oh wow, this is interesting. A bit of predictive coding going on here. So don't argue with it, just try soften it slightly and say something like, oh, interesting. Well, maybe on this next occasion things might just be a little bit easier. So maybe, um, you could maybe like have a little word with your own brain, have a little conversation with your brain, because people do talk to their brains. I know it sounds a bit funny and a bit silly, but Oh my gosh, it's only like talking to yourself, isn't it? And how many people do that? Lots. So maybe you could say something along the lines of, maybe you don't need to practice— not practice, protect me quite so much on this next jog, because actually I don't really need as much protection anymore. You can trust me a little bit. I'm going to be fine. Maybe I'm going to cope better than you think. So you're not forcing that positivity. Like, you know, you're not— but you're also not opening, um, but you are— sorry, you are opening the door to new possibilities, which is huge. It seems too simple, but it's not. Simple is the way forward. Um, it don't have to all be perfect. You don't have to be a special kind of capable because If you're a human, then you are capable. Like, nobody has got one more ability over another. Like, we're all capable of this. It's the way that we all work. But you have to be willing to believe that you can take the steps and move in this direction, because honestly, once the expectation shifts to more on the safety side than the everything is dangerous side, then gradually this unnecessary amount of protection which has been created via the symptoms and the pain as an alarm, as a warning, to somehow give us a message that we might not be understanding because we might be thinking that this is a physical issue, then we can actually— The nervous system changes. Just one little expectation at a time, that's all it needs to begin to go into a whole new direction. So yeah, please share your stories if you do watch this back. Um, um, I'd love to hear like your real-life examples, and then you can just little bit by little bit just Take little steps to improve what you think is possible, and give it a go and see what happens. I'll use this really random example as something that I did, like, partway through this journey, and really I was just sort of like playing around with things that I'd been learning and like, oh, I wonder if this works, I wonder if, I wonder if it can help me with Waking up in the night to go for a wee, you know, needing the toilet in the night, because again, I had a lot of predictive coding going on in a lot of different things, and I remember being like, oh well, just really like calmly, like just setting an expectation before I went to bed one night that I don't want to, I don't think I need to wake up at 3 AM for a wee, I think I can sleep longer. I think, I think I can go a bit longer without needing the toilet tonight. Well, I was absolutely blown away because I say that like don't be expecting miracles and things to happen really quickly, but I mean that is also a possibility because the first time I did that I was shocked because I made it to 5 AM. So I made it even longer than normal just by setting a little bit of a Maybe it will, maybe it won't, maybe I'll wake up, maybe I won't. I was blown away with what's possible, so play around with this stuff, play around with this stuff. And if you are interested, then have a listen to that book too, it's really interesting. And I will see you all next week, and I think I'll speak a bit more about the personality types, so at least that's a subject for next week. Have a lovely week, everyone. Gotta leave now because I've got a session to jump onto. So have a lovely time, and I'll see you all next time. Bye.