Your a Hero

Hi there, welcome to the Bend and Snap Trail Therapy Tribe. Here I am again. Tuesday, 8 PM. A little minute late almost joining because for some reason I didn't type in the name and the title of the session. I'm just sitting there thinking I'm ready to click go and I've not filled in any of the details, so it doesn't let you go without. So welcome if you're here. Welcome new members too. Lovely to have you here. If you've got any questions at any point, please feel free to type during the session. I don't always get them coming through. I keep clicking refresh and nothing happens. Don't know why. Sometimes it works, but it's rare, so I just keep trying. And then I kind of do my best to check on my mobile phone as well. But it's not coming there, so I'm going to make a start for today's session because I have another session after this at 8:30 that I need to jump straight into, so I'm hopefully going to finish a couple of minutes early. Just so that I'm not working every night until after 10 PM, which tends to be my usual trick. So this title for tonight's session was actually really helpful for me personally when I realized that I thought that because I'd been going through symptoms and pain for so, so many years, I thought, I'm failing, I'm not getting better, I'm doing everything I can, I'm working so hard. And if someone would have turned around and said, Jo, you're a hero, I would have probably just wanted to— I wouldn't have done this, but I may have wanted to do some harm because I just would have been angry. It wouldn't have gone down well. So please don't be offended by the title of tonight's session, but I do know how it feels to be on the other side when you're in deep despair. If people are telling you that you're doing well, you're doing well, you're doing well, you're doing really well, you're the best-case outcome. I got told all sorts, and it just— I allowed it to make me angry, and it didn't need to do, because actually I'm now on the, uh, over the other side of the fence, and I'm like, oh my God, they were right. That is actually true. I understand why they may have been saying that now. So, um, Dr. Clark, who is one of the big mind-body doctors— not big, but he's big, big known, he's got a bit— he's a big name in the, in this space. Um, I don't know how big he is, I've never met him in real life. Um, but I've watched so many of his interviews. He has a podcast and he does success stories with, with people, and he always sort of like talks about this concept in his sessions, and I really loved it when I heard this. And he kind of refers to people with chronic symptoms as being heroes too. And what— how he describes it, I really liked, because he said that those with chronic symptoms and chronic pain are carrying this invisible load. They're carrying the equivalent of £50 more than the current world weightlifting champion and still showing up, and that is absolute hero style. And I never saw it like that, the invisible load that those that are carrying, because it's not obvious to others and it's so difficult to articulate. And if you're not around people that experiencing the same thing and have the same understanding. It's so difficult. But you really are, you really are being a hero to your families, to your colleagues, to your neighbours, who, you know, all those people that you show up for every day despite carrying this invisible load, and more than anything, yourself. You know, to yourself. Because no matter how brutal the days are, no matter how hard it is, no matter what the struggles are, you know, you'll get through the day, whatever it might be. You know, getting up might be a struggle, getting— doing the work. Some days you're just at a point where you're thinking, I've tried everything, there's nothing left to try. And this is not working, and that it's a complete failure, and this is, this is going to be the future. That's how it feels. That's like the equivalent of the hero's journey, you know, when you're watching an actual— I don't get time to watch a lot of films or movies or things like this, but I do, I have done in the past. I've watched, you know, The Hobbit. I've been to the cinema and watched different films. I can't think of an example off the top of my head, but we all relate to this because we all know that it wouldn't be a hero's journey if they hadn't have had the ups and downs and they've gone down the dead ends and, oops, I'm gonna have to go do it this way and that way. But imagine if You were actually watching yourself in the movie, would you be shouting, quit, stop, don't bother, there's no point? Or would you be, would you be your own cheerleader saying, get up, you've got this, keep going, keep going, you can do this, you're gonna get there, you're gonna recover, you're gonna be fine, you know? There's always the struggle, isn't there, in any of those movies and those heroes, sort of, to get to that happy ending point. And it kind of is a nice way of explaining the journey that we go on with chronic pains and chronic symptoms and things. I just quite like that concept. It's just a nice way of looking at things. So So please don't get angry if somebody tries to refer to you as a hero, because they're right, you really are. Give yourself a pat on the back and accept it, and don't be like me, don't learn the hard way. Accept it, because you might think that you're stuck there forever, but as I've been saying, week and week and week, We can— No, as I've been saying every single week for the last year now, I've been talking about mind-body symptoms. I've been talking about how we know, we know differently now. You know, mainstream medicine is catching on. This message is getting out. It's getting out there. I was watching a podcast earlier from a British GP who was teaching this exact same stuff. It's getting into the NHS. The message is getting out there. So It's going to take time, but we know that the vast majority of chronic pain and chronic symptoms is curable. There's an app. I paid an annual— best annual, you know, it's worth every penny— annual member on the Curable app. There's an app called Curable. There's a reason it's called Curable, because neuroplastic symptoms and neuroplastic pain is curable. And there's enough evidence and scientific proof to prove that. So this is not false hope, it really is possible. So some people get really stuck in the, in the, the rook when they begin to learn about this stuff. They learn about the brain and how the brain works and how the brain is responding to a perceived danger. And that it's turning on the panic alarms, it's turning the alarms on, but it's a false perception of danger. The brain is deciding that an emotion is more dangerous, and it will protect you by switching on a symptom to distract you from an angry emotion, a sad emotion. The list is endless. It could be a fear. failure, a fear of symptoms themselves, a fear of pain if you've had that. But in a nutshell, people get really upset and they think that it's a punishment. They think that their own body has gone against them. They actually feel like it's their own brain's out to get them. And we need to correct this, you know, because that's not true. The brain is on your side. It's, it's, it's warning you, it's protecting you, it's doing everything it can actually to keep you alive and safe. But we can correct the misinformation. It's just a misinformation, a false alarm. It's based on— it could be on a one-time event where something's happened, or it could be where it's gone on so long that it's become a conditioned response. Last week I talked about conditioned responses. So again, it all comes together bit by bit, having all of these different understandings on what's going on, but you will have your own big moment where you do see it to be true for yourself. Dan, who I was in his group coaching, he called it the holy cow moment. Actually, he swore, but I won't use the swear word because I'm not a swearer, but he uses that. Dr. Schubiner, he calls it the click moment. I like the click moment where everything just clicks. I call it the penny drop. I have a little penny and I just always have the little penny with me in my office because I like looking at the penny and thinking the penny's dropped because it takes time for me and then the penny drops, usually a long while after it's dropped for other people. So, um, you'll have your big moment where when you begin learning this stuff and you, um, look at your symptoms individually and you do the assessments, which I can share. And I've actually had a good idea this evening. I'm going to put some links in the files in this group so that there's going to be like links to certain websites that are really helpful, and I'm going to do like a little library in the file section, and I'll post it to let you know that it's there. I'm not sure why I didn't think of doing that sooner, but I will be going to do that. I used to have all the files with all the old Facebook Lives that went in there, but Facebook has now stopped keeping the recorded sessions from the past because there used to be lots in there that you could look back and watch through, but sadly that all got wiped from Facebook. They're no longer allowing us to store in the Facebook communities, so I transferred all of that onto my PC, so I do have all of those recordings. At some point I will put them onto my YouTube channel, Um, it's just a timely admin task and, um, it'll just take me time to feel like doing that, but I will do it at some point. But yeah, you will have your moment where you realize if you look at how your symptoms behave, if you get curious, if you question like, oh, does that actually make sense that I was sat there really comfortable, um, for 5 minutes and then all of a sudden I'm sat there with my massive pain, why were I able to sit there pain-free for 5 minutes? This is just an example, but if you get curious rather than getting angry and resisting and pushing away and desperately trying to fix and desperately trying to do what I did— TENS machine, spiky mat, hot pack, burns from the hot water bottle because I had it strapped to me permanently. I had burns on my skin. Pffff. So if you get curious, if you've had your— if you've been checked out by a doctor, medical professionals, and they have ruled out anything serious, they've ruled out structural, they've ruled out fractures, infections, cancers, tumors, anything serious, they're pointing you in this direction. So just say thank you so much and accept it. Don't go down the rabbit hole of believing that there's something missing. They must have missed something. They must have missed something. Because all that happens is the brain will amplify things even higher and you'll experience even higher, even heightened symptoms and pain on the back of that, because this is all to do with the brain perceiving danger. So we need to respond in a different way by turning those danger signals down, however that might be for you, because it is so unique to each and every single person. Some people can, um, do a jigsaw and that will calm down those signals. That would heighten my signals if I did a jigsaw, just an example. For me, clearly movement, running, being active, being mobile calms down those signals. Um, that works for me. My brain's saying, oh, Jo's on the go, Jo's on the go, she's fine. Um, it got unhealthy when Jo did not stop being on the go. And you know what, I mean, I probably was already on the go anyway, always, but I'm a human and I do need to have moments where I can just sit and eat a meal without suffering, which is amazing that I can do that now with this, following this process and understanding. So yeah, we can miss— not miss, we can correct the misinformation. We can do this. Whatever that might be. Some people like to write a journal. There's a lot in— there's a lot of people that have recovered with that, with doing that. I did that for a week, and then every now and then I do a scribble, and it really is a scribble. So I've not done it for as long as I can remember, but this morning I just randomly Because I, being a 3 Principles practitioner, I go with the, um, just, I go with the approach of I don't plan anything, I don't have any process, I don't have a strategy, I don't follow any particular techniques. I don't believe that you need to have, um, anything really serious and strict. But this morning I'll just give you an example of how it felt really helpful because I was feeling, I wasn't feeling too good. We had a sad day yesterday because we had to say goodbye to my mum's Toy Poodle Cabaret, and she's been in our family for a lot of, lot of years. So she would have been 17. I got it wrong. I kept saying that she was going to be 18 on the 8th of December. Oh, that's so sad. And I was saying it's her 18th birthday coming, she's the same age as my son, and I got it wrong. My mum got her birth certificate out and she was born in 2008, so she was getting old, but I added a year on by accident. I must have got a little bit ahead of the game. But it was such a sad day because we had to say goodbye to her yesterday. So she— We had to make a difficult decision and we had to take her to the vet. But she's not been eating and drinking, and she's had dementia for a long time, and she's not been able to see, and she's been wobbling everywhere, and we've looked after her, and we've been doing Cadbury's cares every single day for a long time. Like, she needed to have her eyes really washed and cleaned, and just, it's just, it's been a tough time. So this morning I felt, I just felt the need. I didn't plan this, it wasn't in the In the plan. It's not something I do every morning. And I did a little bit of my random scribble. You can't read it because it's not English. It's just a pen squiggling. And normally it's a lot messier than that, and I don't even normally get it in line. So I've done well this morning on that because I don't normally write in lines at all. I write wonky. So that's what I did. It literally took me about 3 or 4 minutes. This morning. This is how bad, like wonky and things, but I don't have any order with anything. It's chaos. It's chaos is my book. My book is chaos, but that's good because that's just what works with me. Um, so whatever it might be, just do what feels right. Just trust. Just do what feels good to you in the moment. So where were I up to? Sorry, I lost the plot a little bit there. It has been a long day though, and I've been doing hula hooping and everything else. So, right, yes, so we're going to go back to this because I was talking before about that click moment and knowing Well, that really is important. But if you, if you've not had that, don't be disheartened. Don't be disheartened that you might still not know for sure if your symptoms or issues are being created via neuroplastic pain or symptoms, or whether it's physical or structural. Don't worry if you don't know the difference. Get help. Get me to take you through it. Just drop me a message. I will literally take you through it. I have so many slots per week where I can do the complimentary sessions. I'll help you get the clarity, and I'll send you on your way in the right direction. And you need— you're in good hands. You're in safe hands because trust me, I've done my homework. I've done my research. I've done my courses. I never stop learning. I work with the— I'm in the professionals development group with all the doctors, psychologists, all the leading practitioners in the mind-body medicine world. So you're in a safe place and you will get a lot of clarity on the back of that. So it really helps by knowing that, but it also massively helps by getting that clarity and actually doing it. Like, once you've got the clarity, once you've got the knowing, once you've had the penny drop, the click, whatever you want to call it, it's going to be so easy to actually implement a different approach. You're not even going to need to— like, to me, if you'd have said scribble on a piece of paper, I'd have refused. I'd have been the rebel who said, no, that don't work for me. Like, that's— I'd have been a rebel. I wouldn't have implemented any of these ideas. I wouldn't have had— I wouldn't have listened to their own ideas. Like, but when I knew, I knew. When I knew, I knew. It was easy. It was easy to respond differently. It was easy to do different behaviours. It was easy to not get a— not look at my body and not try and fix the body. It just happened so easily because I had the penny drop. It was just simple, you know, going out in light, getting away from using sunglasses all the time, even in the dark, even on the computer. I get messages from people that used to work with me from in the past, and it's lovely because they remember how How I used to do things, and they're like, wow, isn't it incredible that Jo is no longer going out in glasses? But once you know, you know, it's simple. It's not actually a big effort to do things differently. So the implementation part, clearly you have to do it, it has to be done differently, but really, it's not that difficult when you know. The consistency can be difficult, and the fact that you'll continue to have symptoms, you'll continue to— not everyone, but many, many people for quite a long time, because it's a very gradual, slow process for a lot of people, that the symptoms don't shift for a long time. So it's got to be like this really new way, this consistent way. But as time's going on, you're not even realizing it, but things are changing. They really are. They really are changing. And if on some days things are really flared up to feel like to the worst, even though you might have had a slight improvement, don't lose hope when that happens either, because that's part of the process. It really is. That is an opportunity to keep going with the consistency and the calmness and the giving yourself those messages of safety, doing something different in those moments. I'm actually a fan of somatic tracking too. That's when you're having some pain, but instead you kind of really feel into it and get curious about it, and you're okay with it being there. You're like with it, and what happens is that actually shows your brain That it's not a danger, that it's not dangerous being there, and that you're not that interested or bothered. And for so many people that begin to do this, they actually— you don't do it with an intention, it's just a case of, I'm just going to be here, and the brain gets the message eventually that it's not getting your attention in that way anymore. So all of a sudden the brain gives up and thinks, this is not necessary because everything's fine, but it does take a bit of time. So again, there's all sorts of help out there for that. There's audios, there's people that— I mean, I've got lots of access to lots of different resources, so if you struggle, give me a shout. But yeah, the Once you get into the swing of doing different things, experiment, have fun with it, do things differently. Simple examples may be that— so I used to be on pain relief every day, not massive doses, not massive amounts, but I used to take pain relief at least once every single day. I no longer do that now. But for some people, they might have a massive rise in symptoms just with the thought of not doing that anymore, like the fear of that not being there. Well, I attempted in the past numerous times to not take it, and every time I attempted it, I had a massive increase, like to the point where it just wasn't sustainable. And this is a really common pattern with a lot of people. And, um, and if I knew now— um, if I know now— if I knew then what I know now, I would have potentially had a go at doing this, this thing too, which is really helpful for many other people that were on daily medications. I would have, in all honesty, just to test or to be curious, Because clearly it was not, um, if I could get from being on that every day to being on, not on it within a week and, and things were the same, then it wasn't actually working. But what some people do is, I'll get, don't worry, I'll get to the chase. What some people do is they get a family member to give them the, give them it, but instead they might give them half the dose, or, you know, obviously if you can disguise it or do it however you need to do it. But there's ways and means of actually testing what's really happening by playing around a little bit with the medication dose as well and different things like this. And then thinking, did that— did it work? Were there changes afterwards? Because some people have had miraculous insights on the back of doing little things like this where they've realized that actually I was— I didn't take 2 co-codamols, I actually took 2 plain paracetamols. I mean, it depends on how good you are at knowing the difference and tasting and looking at the tablet, you know. It does work for many people though, like messing around like that and doing different things. Um, um, there's so many other ways, like we, we call it provocative testing, um, with talking through the symptoms, um, the way that we ask questions about how they behave, um, and all of these different things you can do for yourself. You can get curious. Um, but yeah, once you get into the swing of this Things do start to shift and change. But yeah, all heroes didn't come out winning the first time around, did they? Let's face it, they get knocked down and get back up again, get knocked down, like me, kept doing. And so yeah, it's a genuine, genuine struggle, but also It's a real struggle. It's not made up. I'm so happy now about the way that these things are being described, about how professionals are being educated into how they explain things. There's just a lot of information that's getting out, which is really helpful because we were always sort of sent away being told it's in your head, it's in your mind, it's in And that's really not very validating when the symptoms that you're feeling are very real. And now they're actually validating that and agreeing, yes, it's real. It's a big breakthrough. It's a massive breakthrough. From years and years and years ago when we didn't have this understanding and we didn't know this, we didn't know that it was all created in the same way, all being created through the brain. And so heroes who are getting up and carrying on every day through these symptoms are experiencing an amplified, off-the-charts version of what it would feel like if it was structural. So even more of a hero, the fact that you're continuing despite that. Um, so One question, because I need to leave now. Sorry. And I'm sorry I've ignored all your comments, but I'm grateful that you're here. I know that you're here because every week I look on and I think, oh, they have been there. So I'm so grateful that you're here. All right. I'm gonna— I'm just gonna do this one quickly. Okay, so me, I was living my life. Yeah, I carried on. I ran ultramarathons. I ran 100-mile ultramarathons. But I still hurt massively. I still had massive symptoms in the background. I coach people to live with symptoms and do what I was doing because I didn't know 2 years ago, I didn't know that recovery was an option. So I was one of those people, I'm living my life, it's miserable, I'm broken, it's hard. It's a fight. It's a struggle. But doing that is not the answer, because if that was the answer, I would have got well, wouldn't I? Because I was carrying on. I never took time off work. I worked. Yeah, I reduced the hours, but I did have children and I did have other commitments. So if doing that was the solution, then we wouldn't have a crisis of chronic pain. That is not the solution. Understanding this, knowing what's really happening, having that little penny drop moment for yourself, really, really getting curious. Do the questionnaires, do the Dr. Schubiner FIT criteria— functional, inconsistent, and triggered. Do the full criteria. We can diagnose very, very accurately a mind-body symptom. So if you think you've got mind-body symptoms, get them diagnosed. If you're struggling to do it by yourself, get help. That's why there's so many lovely people in this mind-body world that are doing this work, and I'm one of them now. So get help, please do. Yeah, so it's a case of getting the understanding and then implementing what you've understood, and it happens quite naturally. Not as hard as you think. So I'm going to leave it at that for today. So have a great evening, everybody. Bye. Be relaxed. Continue being heroes, but know that you can recover too. And I'll see you all next Tuesday. Thanks for being here. See you next week. Bye. Bye.