You Don’t Have to Hurt Separating Stress from Symptoms

Hi there everyone, welcome to Bend and Snap Active People Getting Back on Track. Welcome to Tuesday session, You Don't Have to Hurt. Separating stress from symptoms. That's the title for today's session. Please say hi in the chat if you're here. Please welcome anyone that's new also. Welcome, welcome. I will check the comments after I finish speaking because I have a weird glitch with Facebook and it doesn't usually come up live. Maybe one day it will surprise me and it'll come up. But yeah, apologies for that. I've chosen to just go from my laptop just because it's easier than doing it on a little mobile phone. Sorry about the wet hair, but no judgment area. I know you will forgive me for coming on with wet hair. I've just spent an hour hula hooping in the rain, so I've not had time to dry my hair. I've just come back absolutely drenched. I've literally just brushed— I've literally just brushed the hair And that's it. It's just drying off naturally. So, um, welcome to the session. Um, this session today is inspired by so many messages that I've received recently with clients that I'm working with where life has got lifey, it's got challenging, it's got stressful. Um, like for example, things like unexpected relationship situations, being rejected from family members, family members shutting each other out and not wanting to make contact with each other, those kind of things that can happen in life and how it can be connected with having more and more symptoms or an amplification, like increased symptoms, increased pain, increased suffering, little things, well, not even little things, but things that happen in life which are always going to happen, those things that we have got zero control over, the general things that every single person usually can relate to, whether that's a health scare, a family drama, an unexpected An unexpected financial situation, an unexpected, something that's landed on the doorstep. What that might be, I do not know. I'm just thinking of a lovely thing that landed on my doorstep unexpectedly on Friday night. We didn't get home till midnight, and I looked down and I was like, oh, there's a parcel down there! And I grabbed it, and it— and I like, literally, it made me jump because when I tried to pick it up, I was like, it actually like made me jump because I couldn't quite work out what it was. It's like when you put your hand in one of them boxes and you don't know what's inside it, and then I looked at it and I was like, ah! Big shout out to Jess if you're watching tonight, thank you Jess, because Jess delivered me 3 cucumbers which she'd homegrown on her allotment, but I didn't know what it was, so as I picked it up it kind of like, woo! But that was an unexpected delivery. I'm going a little bit off track, but fortunately it wasn't a stressful delivery. Um, so yeah, it could be like unexpected outgoings, finances, unexpected things with childcare, unexpected changes. You— anyway, I'm not going to keep going, but life is life and we're never going to stop these things. Um, like car repairs, whatever it might be, emails, deadlines on work that's just expected to do more and more and more at the last minute. So anyway, I'm having a lot of conversations with a lot of people who kind of, they just sort of like accept the fact that when life is feeling more busy and hectic, it's like they, they're like, well, it's, I'm going to be hurting more. And it's like, I want to be here to really share with you that No matter what's happening life-wise, you do not have to have symptoms and you do not have to hurt just if you're having more stress going on. Like, the two things, we, we can actually, with a good understanding, we can separate the two and we can actually show through how we respond and how we behave in these situations. That the symptoms are not necessary. So I'm going to talk really just for the next 20 minutes or so on useful things which I found can be really helpful in these situations where we've noticed that we're struggling more than usual because something that we don't like is happening, that feels stressful. So just a little bit back to basics. For those of you that have been here a long while will already know this, but our brain has one job and one big job only, is to protect us, to keep us alive, to keep us safe, and the brain unfortunately can get it wrong, so it can perceive Things as dangerous that are not actual threats to our survival, that are not actually dangerous to our, our health or our survival. So for example, it could perceive that me having a fallout with my next-door neighbor is a genuine legitimate threat to my survival, and in order to protect me, it can initiate back pain of the worst Type, the most extreme kind. That's just an example of something that could happen. Other people may develop the worst case of reflux, and so on and so on. And if you've got numerous symptoms, you could get a new thing happen, and we can get so sidetracked. Like, what are the chances? I've lost my job, or I've been made redundant, my next-door neighbour has complained against something, I've been reported to the These are just examples, by the way. This has not happened to me, but these are things that do happen to people, and they can be malicious, or they can be, you know, I've been reported to the RSPCA, animal care, and I don't even know what you call it, animal welfare, whatever it might be, and a letter's rocked up saying that I now owe £10,000. This is just me just making stuff up. And what can happen? On the back of it is some people genuinely believe, oh my gosh, how unlucky that all of these bad things are happening, and on top of this, what are the chances of me, my back being put out? Oh my God, my back went out on Saturday as I was doing the vacuuming, and all of this other stuff. And if we're able to actually understand the system and how the brain really works and how it can communicate with us, In the form of feeling body pain or symptoms, as in nausea, stomach distress, reflux, itchiness, burning. When I was unwell a couple of weeks ago, I had a, like, a viral infection, like a throat infection, I lost my voice. Luckily it happened after the Tuesday Night Live, Wednesday morning, it was fully gone, and by the time Tuesday came again, I could speak, so I was okay. But actually what happened was I had this really weird area on my ear, and it was really— the skin was on fire. It was like, it felt like it was really, really itchy and burny. And it's like, whoa, what is the chances of all these things happening? But when we understand that the brain can do this because it could be perceiving those things, as dangerous to our survival, and we know we can actually use our conscious mind to say, let's be real, Jo, is this actually a real threat to my survival? And we can call out, call out the brain for what it's doing and be like, no, it's not, and actually I can handle this and I do not need to have this symptom. And just even knowing that and understanding that in itself, responding more calmly when things are really getting tight, when the shoulders are getting really painful or the pain's kicking in, we can consciously, with our understanding— and trust me, when you actually see this in real time helping you and working for you, and you have a little bit of a click moment where you actually Connect the two, and you're like, you actually recognize or see something settling down when you've thought in this new way and understood it in this new way and responded, like, with nice slow breathing, physically doing everything you can to actually just drop the body, drop the jaw, let your face relax, and breathe slowly, and just You know, you can even say to yourself, I know life is pretty stressful in this moment, there's a lot of crazy stuff happening, but I don't need to hurt. Okay, and just take the breaths and relax your body and just see what happens. It's a start, it's a cool, calm response. You know, if things don't change instantly, again, do not be disappointed because this stuff does not always change quickly. It can take time and repetition. Because the brain gets really, really good and it learns. And if you've had a lot of stuff happening and a lot of chronic pain and symptoms over a long period of time, the 2 things can be connected, like as a learned response, as a conditioned response. So it can take some repetition, but it is possible to have a really crazy, busy, stressful life And not have the symptoms. It is possible, and I know it's possible because I've got rid of so many chronic symptoms and my life is just as crazy and stressful as it always was before. Always, always. There's nothing much different. I'm still having to deal with really difficult things in life, you know. And some hard days where things are tough, getting lots of sad news at times, finding out really sad things. So I know that it's possible with the repetition and response in a nice calm way and the understanding and getting that actual clarity for yourself. So let's just think of a little example, and I'm really sorry about not making comments. I keep clicking, but it's not coming through. So think about maybe a recent stressful moment in your life, whatever that could be, something that you actually was like, ah, wanting to like maybe kick off and stamp your feet about, whatever it might be. You might not have wanted to respond that way. You might have just cried and just been really sad and overwhelmed, and notice what actually happened in your body at that time. Yeah, like, did you feel some tension? Did you feel a flare-up of something that you've got that's persistent already? But just begin to recognise it, and if you can think of something recently, you might actually have some relevant experience that you can look back and have a little click moment with anyway. So it could be that your brain learned, like, over a period of time, or even over, like, a one big one-off moment where it learned to treat that stress as a danger. But we know that it's uncomfortable, but we know that it's not a real legitimate danger. We know it's not harmful. And we know that the brain is capable of raising false alarms in the form of symptoms and pain. So we know that we can actually do new behaviours, respond different ways, and develop completely new neural pathways so that you'll get a completely different outcome. So then the autonomic, the nervous system, which we have zero control over because this is The subconscious can actually respond in a completely different way than what's happening maybe right now. So we are teaching the brain, the nervous system, safety. We're actually teaching that I am safe, even when we know that the stress is rising and we're getting wound up over what somebody said to us or about us or whatever that is. We're no longer— or world events— we're no longer pointing the finger out there and saying that another person or an action outside of us can create what's happening inside of us. We're actually recognizing that all experience is created from the inside. Out. So everything that we experience, that we see, that we feel, that we, um, that, that is our life that we're living, are what we're experiencing consciously. So all the, the things that I'm seeing are being created via my brain on the inside, creating the images, It's creating my feelings, what I taste, it's creating everything based upon previous experiences, previous conditioned responses, previous predictions, because the brain is forever predicting, even before something's going to happen, what's going to happen. So it's actually got nothing to do with those external stresses. It's, um, they're neutral ultimately, they're innocent. So another way that I'll share is that we think that it's my— if I put my hand on a hot stove, And I used to believe that it was my hand that was causing the pain, but actually it's not the hand, it's the brain that decides on whether or not the pain is felt, or whether or not there is any pain at all. It will send a signal to the brain and the brain will make the decision. So we know this, we know that All brain— all brain? All pain, all symptoms are created in the brain, and we know that the brain makes the decision, it's not the body. So a couple of really great examples to explain this a little more is there's a really, really well-known example which is so well known in the chronic pain world that explains how you can have Injuries and no pain, or you can have a really bad injury— sorry, you can have a really bad injury and no pain. You can also have pain too, or it can be the other way around where you can have pain but no physical damage, no injury as well. So one of the famous examples Is the construction worker who was on a construction site, and he jumped off the scaffolding, and he landed, and a massive, massive nail went straight through his boot, and the nail went straight through the middle of his, like, foot, it looked like it's coming straight up through the middle of the boot, and the construction worker was absolutely in top-level pain, screaming, being given Intravenous pain relief, morphine, top level. They got him to the hospital, they removed the boot safely, only to find that the nail had actually slipped between the toes, like literally between the toes, so there was absolutely no damage to the foot, and straight away the pain was gone. Once The construction worker knew that they were safe and that there was no danger. Their brain no longer created the pain, no need for it. So that's a really good example that can demonstrate how we can have extreme pain and no injury. And then there's another really lovely example. All these construction workers, if there's any in the group, big shout out to you, because I'm sure you've got your own stories of these situations. So this particular construction worker was working with a nail gun and shot the nail gun and thought, oops, he thought it had shot off and hit the wall. So again, no injury, well, he thought, no biggie, wow, that might have been a bit close, but everything's fine, no pain, got on with the day's work, carried on a couple of days later. Developed some pain, dental, thinking, oh God, I'm getting dental pain here, went in, get the teeth checked, and take an x-ray, and the nail had actually shot into the jaw. So if I was more organised, I'd do some slides for this and show you the photos, because this x-ray is incredible, because this person has got a nail right embedded in their face. Oh my God. where the nail gun shot in, but they didn't feel any pain. They didn't even know it had gone in their face. So again, no pain, but legitimate injury, a nail's been shot into the jaw. And then the third example, which is also really interesting when we're talking about how the brain can do this and what the brain's capable of, is a story about a A soldier who was really, really badly injured, really bad leg injury, shrapnel injuries, had to be helicopter lifted for safety and sent for emergency medical treatment, so legitimate injury, legitimate pain, had to be taken via helicopter, everything got sorted, operated on, Everything was fine, and then this particular person, 20 years into the future, was subjected to the same sound of the helicopter and instantaneously felt the intensity of the same pain that had happened 20 years previously. So again, showing that the brain is capable of connecting the 2 events together, the pain and the sound of the helicopter, and then in an instantaneous, it can recreate that exact same sensation. So there are some 3 stories there that really explain well what we're talking about here and what is possible. And I'll use a really basic example from where I've had injuries to my feet and I didn't know they were injured, I've been running and I've had a really sharp toenail which has been cutting the other one and it's bleeding all in my sock, and you take your shoe off. Or you've been running and you've got caught something inside your sock and you don't feel it, and then you take your sock off, and then you look and you think, oh gosh, there's lots of blood, and then you take the— have a look and there's a big cut there, but then you don't feel it until you see that it's there, and then you look down and all of a sudden, ouch! It's stinging like mad. There's another example, but there's so many, so many that we could use. So we are understanding this stuff and we are teaching our brain, we can call it out for what we can genuinely legitimately see, that real-life stressors are not a legitimate threat to my body, my body doesn't need to hurt, and a result of them. We can do the things, respond calm, repeat that over time. Very unlikely that you will not feel so much better by doing this, and that you will not notice things settling down way quicker than ever before. You can even call it out. The stress is not dangerous. You don't need to turn the symptoms on just because, you know, we're having a A big day here, my body is actually okay. Let me think, what else? Like, we don't need to do this kind of stuff. And also, I talked about this in— what, did I do this last week's session? Emotional awareness, okay? Because often, if we're having a busy time, yeah, then sometimes it can be very easy to be like, look, I've got too much to do, I have not got time to feel sad, I ain't got time to be mad and stomping around and letting all my anger out, I don't have time for these emotions, and, you know, we can end up sort of like not recognizing them or not noticing that or not giving time for that. And this is really big because, like I said in last week's session, we know that the brain is capable of protecting us with physical symptoms due to very strong and very powerful emotions that are not being— that have been shoved down or being repressed or unconsciously being repressed just because we've got really good at not dealing with them. So again, I really encourage you to do— even though you think, I haven't got time for this, I haven't got time to be feeling this— I really encourage you to actually ask yourself, slow down and say, look, what am I actually feeling right now in this moment? Am I feeling frustration, sadness? Like, what's behind this? What is this Back pain wanting to actually tell me. What do you want to say, back pain? You can have a word and find out what are you wanting to tell me, because you can guarantee that behind all of that there will be an emotion, and it's just about feeling it with no judgment. It doesn't take long, literally 90 seconds, you can actually be open to allowing yourself to feel without judgment and emotion, just a A raw feeling of whatever it is— sadness, anger, disappointment— because, you know, oh, I wish I could remember the analogy which someone shared about feelings. It was really good. I'm really sorry I don't remember it on the spot at the moment, but I encourage you to pay some attention towards that, and if you need help with that, then there's always help to do these things. I've recently done the EAET training, Emotional Awareness Expression Therapy training, which is absolutely brilliant, and this is the new superior approach to Dealing with chronic pain and chronic symptoms, and it supersedes other therapies by absolutely miles. The other therapies have not been shown to be effective at all, which is such a huge shame, but this one has. There's some new research coming out soon. I will share it in the group when I get a hold of that one, and I will be one of the first group of people to get hold of the research when that's out. We've been given the heads up in the session, the final session of the training that I did recently, so please stop avoiding feeling anything that feels like something you don't think you can deal with or you don't have time for, and really look for moments where you're noticing that you might be unintentionally avoiding, avoiding things, because that is such a giveaway. If you're avoiding crying or avoiding putting yourself in situations where you don't want to behave a certain way, or you don't want to feel angry, or you don't want to feel this, or you don't want to feel sad or mad or grief or jealousy or whatever, Embarrassment, shame. If you spot that you think you're avoiding, let that be a leading light for you. Let that be a big giveaway that the fact, the pure fact that you are actually avoiding that means you're gonna have to go for it, especially if you've got chronic pain and chronic symptoms, because going for it is sure to help you hugely. What else do I want to share for today? I need to finish a couple of minutes early because last week I got carried away and I ended up joining my session just a little bit late, so, yeah, so I just really want to exaggerate— I don't want to exaggerate, I'm genuinely wanting to share that We are— we can handle stress. We are designed to handle stress. Like, you know, we don't want to be 24 hours, all day, every day, under high levels of stress, but we are— like, our human bodies are designed to be able to deal with 30 minutes a day. I read that somewhere. I can't remember what research that was from, but it makes perfect sense. We're not designed to be stressed All the time, but we are able to handle amounts of stress and not have any detrimental effects. But for those of us that, where our brains have become very sensitive and they're just recognising everything as dangerous, every message that we receive, everything we see on TV, every post we see on Instagram, every time I see someone doing something that I really want to do, All of that stuff, if my brain's just sensing everything, my self-talk, my Jo's not good enough, she should look this way, you should look that way, Jo shouldn't come on live with wet hair, whatever, if I was caring so much about all that stuff, my alarms would be going crazy. So just want to reinforce that you don't have to hurt, you can separate those things. And the brain's capable of learning new ways. You're not stuck like that forever. So it's not about you're never going to feel a twinge again, you're never going to feel a symptom again. It's about when the fear goes, the symptoms lose the power. I'm not saying you'll never feel a symptom ever again, but it will not last the way that it has done in the past. And it may go and never come back too, that's possible. So yeah, I'm gonna leave it at that for today, so have a nice big breath, relax and have a lovely evening. Remember, it's normal to have emotions, emotions are safe, emotions are absolutely safe, so just go and feel them. That day when I felt disappointment like I'd never felt it before, It felt really good. Look out for how good you feel when you finally start to feel these things. Have a lovely week and I'll see you again next Tuesday, and if stress pops up, just remind yourself, this is not actually a legitimate danger, and keep repeating, and I'll see you all next Tuesday. Have a lovely week, bye! Bye!