EP94 Kari and Paul - Pain

This is episode 94 of the Empowered Athlete Podcast.

Welcome to the Empowered Athlete Podcast. Created to support athletes in their pursuit of excellence and inspire others toward their best lives. Hosted by Kari Schneider, coach to top performers in sport and life. And Paul Durden, former national and professional volleyball player.

Hello. Hello everyone. Welcome to the Empowered Athlete Podcast. Kari and I are back and we're thrilled to be with you once again. It's been a long summer, it's been a Covid summer, but we are back and we are ready to talk with you about pain today. Pain. Not pains in the butt, but pain in general.

Pain. I was going to say the good, the bad, the ugly. And then I thought, well, is there good pain? But we'll dive into that, right?

But before we do, we have to let you know that after an incredibly successful 31 day online reset program that we ran in May, in May that spawned a group that has continued on since we ran it, they were so fired up and the gains and changes were so big in their lives, we now have our second shot at trying to run a reset, but with the in person component as Covid restrictions are starting to lift across the province of Ontario. So Kari, if you will, can you please let our amazing audience know about this newest reset that we will be running?

For sure. Okay, first of all, the group you alluded to coming off the first reset is called the Empowered team. And this became an incredible group to as a coaching group. So group accountability community, we fire each other up. We have a power up morning on every Monday morning. We have coaching calls a couple times a month and there's just all kinds of cool things that have come from this group and so that's available to everybody whether you're doing the reset or not. However, the reset that's coming up is a pretty special one. And I think it's this feeling of okay, well we'll try to make this happen, but we are going to make this happen because we feel that hesitation because the first reset was supposed to be an in person one where it's partially online. But then there's this three day getaway. We couldn't do it because of COVID So now we're like, okay, we're gonna re go. We have this retry at the in person part of it because everyone's been so great at being safe and so great at supporting our own health and each other's health. So we have the ability to get an incredible, incredible cottage in Muskoka. And so we're going to do this reset and it's for health care providers who have been going through all the things during COVID So it's for the physicians, even the police, frontline workers. So physicians, police, paramedics, firefighters, nurses, physios, even, even healthcare administrators. Because these are the people who have been up to their eyeballs. Yeah, these are the heroes trying to navigate the adjustments in Covid and so many other people have too. I don't want to disregard other people, but this particular reset is going to be focused on those people who have just been trying to do all the things because they've been our front line and that's important.

Yeah, like they've. They're the front line. They're the heroes of this pandemic who due to their job have to interact whether they want to or not. And they've been doing this for months for everybody else. It's time for them to have something for themselves. A chance to recharge and you know, just get ready as this is, you know, to give them the tools to be able to excel and grow in this crazy environment.

Well, the cool thing about the reset is it is this thing that can revamp the body because it's, it's very. There's a physical component, there's a training component. This is the thing that can really recharge the spirit and the soul. Because when you've been giving, giving, giving to other people and working so hard, it becomes a real drain. Especially if you're someone who isn't getting the ability to step away from, you know, you come home and it's a lot at home. Maybe there's homeschooling even while you are working long hours. So the reset is exactly that. It's about resetting. But what happens in the reset is so much more than just resetting to neutral or resetting to your normal level. It really causes a greater step up and energy level and production level in life. And that's what we found in the first reset. Even though it was only online for 31 days, this one has that online and in person component. So this is about greater energy, recharging the mind, body and soul, soul revamping the body, reconnecting with other humans in a way that is deep and fulfilling and really moving the needle in the areas that you want to see move forward. Whether it's your purpose, whether it's your family connection, whether it's your body and health. That's what this reset is about. It's a really, really incredible program. So we're super excited about it. As you can tell it starts in September. We're going to be getting out the link. Hopefully in the show notes for this episode, we can get the link for more information for people and, yeah, we will spread the word.

Yeah. And if you know someone who you think needs that reset just needs to take care of themselves a little bit because they've been giving so much. Absolutely. Recommend it. Share the link with them. Share our email info powercondition.com but let them know about this. It is the biggest gift you could give them for the fall.

And just as a teaser here, just so people really understand this, this three nights in Muskoka, it's fully equipped with everything you need to just fill your cup. So we've got the chef, we've got the activity, we've got the nature meditations, we've got the deep work, we've got the water right on the water right near hiking areas. There's just so much that's going to be incredible about that part of it as well. So we're, we're just beyond. I can't wait. I can't wait. I'm excited. So today we're talking about pain.

We are. And pain is something that, you know, a lot of our audience have dealt with and our guests, if we think back, you know, to one of our earliest guests, Gavin Schmidt, is walking around with rods in his lower legs. We've had, you know, Joseph Polisifakis, who has dealt with the pain of an incredible concussion and is still dealing with the symptoms years after. And, you know, guests who've been thrown from horses. All of the athletes that we interview at some point have gone through some type of serious injury or dealing with something chronic because of their sport. There's been emotional pain, physical pain, all kinds of pain. So we thought it was something fitting to talk about on today's episode as Kari and I both continue to deal with pain in various shapes and forms on a daily basis as well. And so that is what we want to get into. Go ahead.

I was just going to say this is a tough topic because I, I intentionally do not speak about my pain because when I'm usually speaking or coaching or working with people, if it's in person, I'm focused on them and what they're going through. And it's rare that I'm. I mean, I've posted about my injuries, but I don't necessarily talk a lot. I don't think, anyway, about the pain. And, you know, I almost refuse to acknowledge that it's been chronic pain because I used to work Years and years ago, I used to work in a chronic pain clinic early in my career, and I saw what chronic pain really meant. Day in and day out, we saw these same patients coming in and out, and they were in this chronic pain clinic. It's kind of the last stop shop for, for insurance. And in that environment, people were supposed to be there for eight hours because they were trying to get them back into a functioning world of being able to work. And so there were the psychologists there, the physiotherapist, the athletic therapist, the occupational therapists, the physicians. This whole clinic had it all. It was very well equipped. And I was one of the rehab specialists there. And I thought to myself at that time, like, good grief, like these. How can these people be managing this pain all of the time? And because you're not feeling it yourself at that time, you wonder, how bad can it possibly be to really navigate pain? And now I have a totally different perspective.

And it's something that is unique to the individual. We have to mention that right up front that everybody has different levels of pain tolerance and deal with pain in a different way. And also there's certain types of pain that are, you know, fall into kind of different categories, if you will. If you, you know, if you've experienced back pain, you know that it's completely different from other kinds of pain that you might encounter in the way that it just permeates into everything you're doing. As an example. And then also across genders, I would argue, I don't know if this is true, but I think that women probably have, in some instances, definitely have a better pain tolerance than men. And the reason for that is giving birth. And so like we said, it is different for everybody and people deal with pain in different ways. And also your level of experience with pain is also definitely a factor. Terms of having come through certain types of pain and seeing a progression with it also gives you a little bit of mental fortitude or the ability to deal with other types of pain in a different way than if it's the first time you've experienced. I remember spraining my ankle for the first time.

So bad, the first time, so bad.

And I've broken my ankle. I'm never going to walk again. This is incredible. And then, you know, you do it again and again and you realize you have that experience of knowing what to expect, and that makes a big difference. It's the. Because so much, so much of it is obviously mental and the ability to wrap your head around, how long am I going to Be feeling this for.

Yeah.

Is there change in this state and.

Things like that and that it's a new type of pain. So for instance, if I've worked with an athlete or a client who is female and maybe they've had horrible menstrual cycle pain each month, but then they sprain their ankle for the first time and it's a different type of pain in a different part of the body that they're unfamiliar with. And it's their first ankle sprain and it feels like the end of the world. And I'm looking at it and I saw the mechanism and I'm thinking, you know, that's not a bad ankle sprain. It's really going to be okay, probably within two or three days. But to them it's horrible. And they think their season is done and you know, just because it's new. So new pain is a tough thing. And we've been speaking to physical pain in the examples that we're giving. But emotional pain or psychological trauma that causes pain is just as impactful on a human, if not more than the physical pain. And it's something that we simply typically don't address as much. So do you want to tell your. Do you want to tell like maybe a physical pain story of yours and maybe a emotional or psychological pain story as well?

Sure, yeah. I'll give an example from my career, something that dogged me definitely through the first half of it and it was something that. Well, I'll explain in a second, but came to manage and understand and ultimately kind of overcome. But yeah, I played a lot of volleyball, obviously in the high school provincial team, regional team, made the national team and then got into the heavy training volume when I joined the team in Calgary. And being young, I was 18 at the time. When I joined, I hadn't done it long enough to start to do serious damage to my body and was training fairly well. But then I remember we were playing in Japan, there's two games in a row back to back and in the second match we got 40 or 50 sets in that game.

And how old were you then?

I'm going to say 19.

Okay.

I might have still been 18. No, I was 19 maybe.

And you were young, but this is.

Young and still fairly new with the national team.

This is with the national team. Yeah.

So in the full time center and getting down off the bus after either after the match or the next time we were on the bus as a team, I felt this sharp twinge below my kneecap and it. And I was like wow. It was this, you know, just a stab.

Yeah, a stab of pain.

And then from there, you know, that was my start of chronic patellar tendonitis and both knees. Long story short, the more I played, the more reps I had just kind of a wave of good days, bad days. I dealt with knee pain specifically in that area right below my kneecaps. You know, I had these almost bumps of swelling for years. And it would get so bad. There was a season or two playing professionally where it would be rare that I wouldn't have a day where I was taking some amount of Voltaren to numb the pain and deal with it because it was constant. If I sat for any longer than 20 minutes in one position, my knees would start to ache.

So any longer flights were horrible. Flights were horrible for you because you couldn't even wiggle a little bit because you're so tight in that seat.

Yeah, I'd be sitting halfway up the back of the chair just so I could straighten my legs. If I couldn't straighten my legs, I'd be in agony. And so that was definitely probably the most difficult pain I'd say I dealt with for sure. And it was a long process of learning what I needed for my body and strengthening and just getting ahead of it and making recovery obviously becoming more and more important. But which that's a pain that was really bad and bad enough that it basically forced a drug habit of needing that Voltaire and to be able to perform and, and without was almost too much.

But it was more than Voltaren. It could have been Voltaren and Tylenol Voltaren and Advil Voltaren, but I mean at least it wasn't into something that was a heavier. I mean Voltaren is damaging enough as a anti inflammatory when it comes to your intestines, your intestinal walls, your stomach. You're not supposed to take that stuff long term and yet you were taking it for years and at the same time adding other painkillers on top of it. Or Tylenol 3s depending whether you're coming in and out of surgeries. How many surgeries did you have on your knees?

3.

Now I remember later in your career you were told by more than one physician or orthopedic specialist that you would have horribly arthritic knees. And you may not be able to be, you know, pain free after your career was done.

Right. But it's. Yeah, and I mean that's, that very well could be the reality, but.

And you kept going. Despite those warnings, you kept going. So that's the case of the want of the sport and the want of what you are doing to be, or your career, your pay as well, because this is. You're a professional, that being more important to you than the pain you're experiencing.

But I guess the good thing about that experience is that it forces professionalism on you. It forces you to realize that I have to find a way to get ahead of this or deal with this or take care of my body in the right way or my career is going to be cut short. And that scare or that worry, the pressure to manage my knees, translated to anywhere else on my body I ever felt something coming on after that. It's a huge motivator to. And you'll see this with people, professional athletes who have had injuries, they have a routine or something that they've adopted to manage it and are religious with it because they know how bad it can be if they let it go or slip. So if there is a silver lining or that or a lesson to take out of it, it's that. That you either figure it out, come.

Up, or it prompts a hardcore drug habit. Yeah, you know, I don't say lightly. I don't say that at all lightly because I mean, what you, what you describe as your drug habit was, you know, not nearly. Not nearly as bad as some of the other numbing practices that, that come along with sport or that we've seen.

Yep. And when the pressure is there to perform, you know you're going to do whatever it takes to be ready to do that, because someone else is going to take your spot if you're not. So that's my long story on probably physical pain and on the mental pain. There's been plenty, you know, I've gone through depression, a divorce. You know, we've had our ups and downs, and when we're down, that's kind of the lowest, you know, I can feel. It's just so alone and hurting emotionally that way that the pain, it's definitely not physical pain, but it's almost becomes physical because it generates in you this feeling of heaviness and lethargy and just almost, you know, the sadness that permeates and so that you're just everything. It becomes a struggle when you're in emotional pain that way. And so they're different, but they're the same. They. They just come through. And again, for me, it's getting a hold of tools and methods and awareness to be able to turn it around or it's going to, you know, it's people again. Have to medicate for it or will medicate for it, or numb with alcohol or another drug or something like that, it's just going to learn that way.

I was just going to say what was your. When you felt like you. Because there's a couple of things. Number one is that you also, you know, you mentioned divorce, you mentioned depression, you mentioned troubles that we've had, but you also lost your father at an age where you simply did not have the emotional or mental tools to be able to manage the grief. You also lost your brother to suicide. You have had these major events, but not necessarily known how to deal with that kind of pain. If you think back to. At a time, maybe when you had depression when you were younger, or you lost your father when you were younger and you didn't have as many skills to deal with that kind of pain at the time, how would you. How did you deal with it at the time? What was your way, your unconscious way or your way at the time to deal with that pain versus how you might manage some of that mental or emotional pain? Now.

I'm going to rephrase it in that I'll tell you what I did, but I didn't deal with it. So.

Right. Yeah. Or lack of.

So unfortunately, I wasn't doing something to deal with it. What I did is I just stuffed things away. And, you know, you mentioned right off the top that, yeah, I don't talk about my pain a lot. You know, you said that start this episode and yeah, so that was clearly missing for me in that physical pain. Yes, there'd be a conversation because always had access to therapists and, you know, coaches can see when you're, you know, tentative to jump or in pain. So there is a conversation around that which is really healthy and. And to a point, that's a whole other topic. But with the emotional stuff. Yeah, my method was to emotional stuff, stuff. It. It was that simple that I would keep it to myself, not talk about it and really not deal with it. And so it was just really just a time bomb that's bubbling away under the surface of, you know, things that aren't dealt with that haven't been expressed or haven't processed the feelings truly. And that's something that's been great in our relationship, is that you help draw that out of me and have been coaching me on sharing feelings more and emotions because I think generally speaking, as a guy, guys don't do that. But some guys do if they have close friends that they can share with, but not all do. And A lot of us are brought up to not cry or be a man. And so I think that in general, in combination with just kind of how I was brought up, I just kept everything in sight and so didn't deal with it, to answer your question. So.

I didn't mean to make light of what you were saying. I was snickering because my thought was, oh, every man wants a wife who's going to coach him through emotions.

Oh, yes.

Oh, please. Every husband and wife would be listening to this going, oh, hell no, that's not good. No. But I think some of it's happened inadvertently because you either see me coaching other people or, you know, the work that I've done for myself, and then we end up talking about it. And it has, has an effect for both of us to be able to work through things. But you mentioned, you mentioned how physical it becomes, the emotional side of things, the heaviness, this, the just the feeling, fatigue, the lethargy. And that's that psychosomatic part of physical manifesting what can come from either past trauma or pain that we haven't dealt with emotionally. And that kind of thing is. It's so bizarre in some ways because we think of how our physical pain is easy to talk about. Like you mentioned, there was always a conversation around that. But our emotional pain, it just, it doesn't seem so easy to talk about. And it's one of these things that some people are quick to provide help for, you know, physical trauma if someone was in the hospital, but if someone was so mentally traumatized that they can't function very well. You know, often people don't know what to do. And it's this thing, it all comes from the same place. Like our brain, our brain is controlling our body. Our brain is controlling everything. So it makes complete sense when someone is in vast emotional or psychological pain that it would then affect their bodies. And that. That has happened for me. And it's kind of a double whammy, I guess you could say, because if, if I had past trauma in my life that I didn't deal with, and then I create mechanisms to deal with that, like overworking, to prove that I'm valuable, to prove that I am worthy. And then that overworking not only creates situations for me because the type of work that I do creates more physical trauma. I've got this double whammy for pain that not only have I not dealt with the past trauma, hypothetically, of course.

It fuels lifestyle or work life that creates more pain.

Correct. So then it's. It's it's this double whammy. This is what's happened to me.

So I think. And I think so, just. So let's understand. I think you gotta put that into an actual example, because people here. But let me just quickly translate. So what Kari's talking about here is that. And correct me if I'm wrong, but things that happened to you during your childhood that weren't properly dealt with forced you to become an overachiever, an overworker to. That was your way of dealing with what happened to you and becoming that overachiever. Overworker. You would put your health and wellness on the back burner to achieve success at whatever your endeavor was at the time. Is that right?

Yeah. Yeah. And it doesn't. You know, you said that it forced me into this overachieving lifestyle. You know, for someone else, having experienced some similar things that I did, it's different for everybody. You know, one person might have become an underachiever and, you know, their favorite form of numbing would be alcohol or drugs or whatever. The next person might, you know, stuff it and numb it in other ways. You know, could be anything. But my way of dealing with it was to prove to the world that I was valuable, and if I worked harder, then that would do the trick. And so that was my way of doing it, not having known how or having the skills or tools or support to manage the trauma that happened when I was younger. And so then trying to. Here's the thing. It's like the, you know, when you said stuff it, stuffing that emotional pain stuffing, you know, trying to deal with the physical pain, but in some ways stuffing it with drugs in order to keep going forward. But then the emotional pain, stuffing it, just not telling anybody, eventually it's going to surface. And I can promise anyone who's younger listening to this, anyone who's older listening to this, it's going to surface in some form or another. And maybe it surfaces as a physical ailment.

Yeah. Heart attack.

Right. The stress that's been held for so long, especially for men, for heart attacks, maybe it surfaces itself as a emotional outburst or really shortness or difficulty in truly connecting with others or trusting others. But it's going to come up if it's not, if that pain or that trauma isn't dealt with in some way. And the reason, and I can say this for myself, and I can say this for other clients that I've worked with who I know personally, one of the reasons that people don't deal with, and maybe this is something you can resonate with as well is that it's so bloody painful to go through the healing process of whatever the trauma was or whatever the thing was to dredge something back.

That's a great point.

So freaking painful to heal and it's exhausting.

If we have an emotional conversation, you and I, when it's done, I want to just go to bed, I'm done. I am just more tired than having trying to run a 10k or something. You know, it's. It is draining and different kind of way that I am just not. I don't have the strength or the practice. It's.

It's so challenging. So then it feels natural. Yeah, natural to avoid it. And same for physical pain. People who go through chronic pain. I've been through a long bout of chronic pain right now and it is so draining and tiring. So the physical or the emotional pain, or even trying to heal from either of them, physical or emotional, tends to be so tiring, so draining and painful in the process. Think of it almost as physical therapy. When you go for physical therapy, if you've had a car accident, if you go for physical therapy, if you've had an ACL reconstruction, it's so painful to go through that process to get the ability back. And it seemed same thing is true to go through the physical or the emotional healing or traumatic psychological healing. It's painful to go through that healing process. However, and this is the big distinction, this is the big nugget that I personally have found. It's so much better to go through that pain of healing than the long term suffering of carrying around the pain that was just never dealt with. Because once you go through that pain of healing, it is so.

Freeing.

Oh, and it's the weight.

Yeah, the weight is gone.

Isn't it funny that we use a physical description to describe an emotional but healing.

It's like I said before though, when you're in that depressed state, you feel heavy, you feel lethargic, tired. Yeah. And it removes that. It is physical.

It's the incredible lightness of being. Once you've taken away what you've been carrying around so long, if I think of some of the things for me or you I've carried for years, the unworthiness feeling of, you know, not being good enough, of being just verbal trauma and physical trauma and sexual trauma from my childhood and young adolescence, that then you just carry that around that's so heavy that it's still you and still part of you. And when you release it and heal through it, and just come to that place of understanding of how amazing life is and how even no matter how horrible something was, it really helped to shape the amazing in us as well. That, that.

Well, and just quickly, that's the end game to get to what you just described there. That's when you truly have success. I would say as a great measure of having dealt with something. When you can reframe it, the story goes from being what happened to you to this thing that happened and having that understanding that you wouldn't be the incredible person that you are today, that you wouldn't have some type of a strength or, or some type of resiliency that would not be there had you not gone through that.

And when some people hear what you're saying, they may think that that sounds insane.

It sounds like bullshit. It sounds like bullshit. Yeah, it's literally you. You and I still struggle with this, but you not being thankful for the rape that happened to you when you're a teen, but understanding the power that it actually gave you, that you couldn't be who you were or are today without it, and the other experiences that you had, which is very hard to hear and understand. But when you can get to that point, you are so powerful, you. You own it. You own your life and you don't give the power to anyone else. You are in complete control.

It's exactly that. And it's the kind of thing that if you can own your origin story, your past, everything that's happened, if you can own all of it, even all the shitty things that we've done, you know, we've all been assholes in some form or another, excuse me, my language ear muffs, children. We've all been total jerk balls in some form or another, you know, and then we beat ourselves up for it and you know, we might have some serious apologizing and making right to do, but if you can own all the things, even the things that other people did to you or things that should never have happened and you know, things that were regrets. But if you can own all of it and really have compassion for your true story, then that means you can be the author of your next chapters. You can write what's coming next instead of your past owning you and your past making you feel bad and making you do this and you're, you know, you're that former abuser or that former awful thing or that, you know, whatever, having all of that dictate every, every ounce of your next move, that letting go of all of that is so much more Powerful and so freeing and so much lighter. And that's the healing that you know. And here's it goes. It blends. It couples with each other. This same psychological and emotional pain can even have come from physical pain. I know people who have gone through horrible cancer survival stories that were really, really traumatic, and then to have them hit with it again and then to overcome that, but then have emotional and psychological trauma coming from that physical pain that they had to deal with. So then the two go together. There's so much there. But it is that. That whole thing that we're describing that sounds so. Rainbows and butterflies and unicorns sounds insane, and it's not. We've experienced it. You and I have experienced that incredible feeling of healing from something. That incredible feeling of healing from emotional pain, that incredible feeling of healing from physical pain and being stronger than you were pre injury, being stronger than you were pre whatever the physical trauma was. And that's exactly what happens emotionally and psychologically being stronger and more powerful when you. Once you've come through a really thorough healing. And that is the kind of thing that, you know, it doesn't necessarily exist all of the time. We still hit more road. Road bumps or speed. Speed bumps or challenges or roadblocks. I should say we still hit more and still have. But it. But then we realize that, holy cow, I know what can happen if I deal with this really well. I can get to the other side and it's gonna go be okay. It's the. It's the thing that I know that Tony Robbins says it's that pain is inevitable and suffering is a choice. So I love that we're all gonna have pain. And even if we've overcome a shit ton of pain, there's gonna be more pain of some form or another, because that's what life has and it's okay and it's going to be okay. But continuing to suffer by hanging on to certain pains is the thing that we have choice over. And that's where I'm so freaking lit up by being able to not only go through it ourselves, not only in our marriage, like our combined relationship, but individually as well. And also what we go through in coaching other people. Because it is. There's nothing more rewarding than helping people or provide some tools to help coach them through a process of healing and see what comes to the other side. Because so many other things open up that you never even thought could have been on your radar. Greater connections, greater job opportunities, greater. Like, I can't count the number of things that have opened up once I let go of other things that were clouding my view of what was possible.

And I think it's the perfect time to segue just a little bit into what are the tools, what do people need to do to get to the place or to be get to a place of continual practice of dealing with these types of things. And I would start the list on the mental side and I want to get us back to physical pain as well for all the athletes and active people that are listening to us, because there's definite strategies for dealing with physical pain. But on the emotional side, right out the gate, you know, go to therapy, go talk to a professional. I've done it and it's fantastic. And as Kari's mentioned, I mean if you listen to us, you know that we love Tony Robbins, we love reading about all these different things to get power and presence and get in a position to be able to deal with the things that life is going to be throwing at us. Landmark. There's all kinds of things that you can do to start this work and.

Those are coaching programs, which is different than therapy. A therapist, a licensed therapist is going to be somebody who you may have insurance coverage for. You may, you know, they will be trained in specific types of practices, perhaps cognitive behavioral therapy. They'll be specifically trained in certain things and they will be equipped to manage something that's more clinically diagnosed, like depression. And coaching programs are not in that realm. However, they are a fantastic tool for keeping you. It's like brushing your teeth. You know, if you got to go to the dentist and get some hardcore dental work done, well, that might be your therapist from the mental side of things. But the day to day work, the coaching work, the mindset work, the thought management, the self talk, the meditation, all of those things, that's your day to day brushing your teeth and flossing and doing the things that are going to keep get the cobwebs out, get the weeds out and put the fertilizer in and put the sunlight and the water that needs to grow the right kind of mindset, to grow the right kind of choice of thoughts instead of the pre programmed thoughts that came from a place of that didn't work, that doesn't work for your best life. So there's a distinction there between whether you're going to choose a therapy therapeutic route or a coaching route based on what your needs are. And it might be a combination of both because that's plenty indicated in lots of times, lots of situations.

And of course everyone knows that physical activity directly translates into better mental health. That's known. But, Kari, please explain just really quick for our listeners, all the research that's coming on around gut health and how that is linked to our mental state, because we have to mention that you can do these exercises of talking to people and taking courses and things, but what you're putting in your body and how you're taking care of your gut health is the almost hidden key here to it all.

Yeah, there's so many things that in how I coach and what I do. You know, it's this very. It's physical, it's nutrition, it's mental, it's spiritual, it's all of the things. However, you know, we can't even do a podcast talking on butt health. It's butt health. We can do that next show, gut Health, because it's just. Yeah, it's so huge and broad and still poorly understood. But if you think of this as your third part of your nervous system, if you've got your sympathetic and your parasympathetic and you've got this third part that's poorly understood and rarely talked about, and it's this millions of nerve endings that go from your main nerve or right through your gut. And it is your gut health also contributing to your emotional health. And if somebody is depressed and if somebody is having, you know, major emotional difficulties, there's a correlation between poor gut health and emotional health as well. So where do people feel nervousness in their gut? They get the butterflies, they get the pit in their stomach. It's all. All of those nerve. And that's very primal. That goes back to how we choose our foods, how we, you know, it's all connected. And, yeah, so there's so much there, and we talk about it so much. We think everybody knows about this, but it's worth mentioning because not everybody knows about it. So if we're to give you tools, tangible tools right now to help your mental health, it is things like lots of water activity every day, sunlight, eating live foods, whole foods that really contribute to your bacteria, fueling so your prebiotics for your probiotics. There's so much there that the music.

You'Re listening to, the television shows that you. The connection, it's talking to people, which has been incredibly difficult in the last few months with COVID So it's one to be aware of. As we mentioned before, it's connecting with people and talking.

And if I were to say something that bridges the gap between both emotional pain and physical pain, it's really going. It's doing an assessment of where are you right now? When you can acknowledge where you are right now with physical pain or emotional pain. Where am I right now and what's the cost? What's the cost? We really start to understand and really know where you are right now because of that physical pain. So, for instance, if somebody is suffering with back pain for a really long time, well, what's the cost? And the same goes for emotional pain. What's the cost of that back pain? Is it that I can't be active as much? Is it that I can't pick up grandchildren? Is it that I can't. I can't move the way I want to? Is it that I'm losing sleep over it, or I can't have sex or whatever? What's the back. What's the cost of that back pain? When you start to acknowledge where you currently are and what the cost of it is and how much have you paid? If this is the cost, how much have you paid into that cost? Okay, it's been, let's say it's been a year of not being able to do the thing you really love doing. Maybe it's biking, maybe it's been. Maybe it's golfing. Maybe you've paid a year of not being able to bend over and pick up a child. What have you paid so far for that cost of pain in your life? And then you start to go, okay, where's your threshold? Like, is enough enough? What am I going to do to that's different than what you've been currently doing to start to make a difference in the right direction, move the needle in the right direction? Am I paid in full? Have I had enough? Is a year enough? Am I paid in full on that thing that I've had enough of? And this applies the same for emotional pain as well. If it's a, you know, an awful relationship, if it's a. An awful relationship with yourself about your body, like, have you. What's the cost of that? Are you done? Have you, have you paid the price? Has it been 20 years of it? One year of it? What are we done?

Cash that check.

Exactly. If we're paid in full and you are done with that, that's when people have reached their threshold and they're ready to take more action. And I see it in the gym all the time.

I see.

Seen it in mental coaching all the time. When I'm coaching corporate clients at a high executive level, it's like, okay, I'm done being in this State because I'm ready to go to that next thing. So I'm paid in full. The cost is way too much for me to keep going down that route. So now it's time to do this. And that is that threshold. When people reach that threshold, they're ready to take massive action into what they want next. And that is one of the biggest things that's needed to get out of pain, whether it's emotional or physical.

Yeah, getting to the physical side specifically. I know for me it's becoming, you know, a researcher or a scientist with your own body. You have to be willing to, obviously you gotta reach out and talk to professionals, but what are the best treatments for this that are known? But also know that it's different for everyone and that your body may not be responding. One treatment that somebody's doing will work magic for them and it'll do nothing for you. And so throughout my career I tried acupuncture, you know, every kind of therapy that could be thrown at me because I understood and just experienced that different things worked in different ways on different parts of my body. And so reaching out for that help, being ready to try things, noting things, taking note of where you're at every day so that you can look back on it and see if there's slight progression or slight change that you may not be aware of on a day to day basis because you're in it. Having that kind of research or scientist attitude towards your problem and then being able to do the work, being professional, to do everything that's prescribed and give it a try and work through it a little bit to see if you're getting any kind of a result because it's not a, you know, there's in a magic pill that's going to turn it all around.

I freaking love that professional attitude because it's, it means taking full accountability and responsibility. And when you do that, when you're picking your professional that you're going to work with, you're not going to pick the person who has never worked with your problem before. You're not going to pick. Right. You're not going to pick the person even if it's an emotional thing or whatever it is. You're not going to pick someone who can't possibly understand what you've gone through. You're not going to pick someone who does not exemplify what you're working toward. You know, you're going to pick because you all, you know, you've had a massage therapist that maybe had never worked with athletes and you try and have that massage therapist work on your injury or some pain that you've had and it just typically, it often just doesn't work. You know, you might get lucky and have it work, but that's why you would go to that massage therapist who has had extensive experience working with somebody who's had your type of pain. And you know, so those are things that you want to ask. If you're going to be really professional, really accountable for your, your next steps, that's how you're going to get more, you're going to get the benefits or get the results and that's how you're going to draw the right people to be around versus somebody who's going to fuel staying in that painful situation or whether it's physical or mental.

And then just like the mental side for the physical pain, it's all the other things we just talked about. It's eating really well, it's getting rest, it's doing all the extra stretching, it's watching your mental state because it is a mental battle guaranteed. It's not easy. I know firsthand what it's like every day to be dreading, warm up because you know that you've got to get that painful area of your body going and to get, get it through until it's a warmed up state where you're functional is, it is just a weight on your mind before you get through it every single day. And you have to just do the extra things to get in as positive a state as you can and get your focus off of the pain and what it's going to be about and focus on things that move you forward and keep you in a more positive state to deal with it. It is absolutely a struggle. No, no doubt about it. And I mentioned really briefly that you don't want to spend all your time in therapy. A lot of athletes get hooked into this mindset of hurting every day and then fix me. And they, and they, you see them, they're in the clinic almost all the time for everything. You need to have a fighter attitude of I do not want to be in here, I want to take care of this on my own. I need to take care of my own. Yes, but I'm going to, I will be in here for therapy, but I don't want to be a regular. You want to have that just working like attitude of getting the therapy, getting the treatment, but being motivated to do the things outside of it that are prescribed and just get control of it yourself so that you're not a regular and that you just don't default to going into that fix me attitude that you just mentioned.

Right. You're a regular on the maintenance, so you're regular on the okay, I need this. Maybe it's a chiropractic adjustment. I'm a regular on the okay, I'm going to get this massage because I know that it helps me stay on track and keeps things where I need to be. So you're a regular on the maintenance or the therapy from that side, but not on the attitude of fix me. Like, it's your job to fix me. And there needs to be some level of ownership on our brains and bodies. If we expect everyone else to do everything for us, we're never going to get anywhere close to what our potential is. And we're also not going to be able to live this amazing, energetic, fulfilled, connected life. And that's what I think living is about, is getting the most out of life. Like just getting squeezing the best juice out of everything life has to offer.

Yeah, I think that's a great way to wrap up that whatever it is that pains you, physical or emotional or what have you, that it's that attitude that don't have the attitude of fix me. Take ownership of where you're at, talk to the right professionals as it relates to what you're going through, and get after that biggest, fullest life that Kari's just talking about right there.

Whoop, whoop. So it's pouring rain here, and in.

Terms of living a big, full life, that means asking questions as we move through life. So I now bring out the book of questions.

I swear you asked me last time.

I'm holding the book.

I'm writing it down. I'm writing it down next time.

Gregory Stock, PhD, the author of the Book of Questions, is our resource here. Of course, it was the number one New York Times bestseller with over a million in print. Please choose a number, Kari.

59.

Any reason you chose 59 popped into my head. By controlling medical research funds, you're in the position to guarantee that a cure will be found in 15 years for any disease you choose. Unfortunately, no progress on any others would be made during that period. Would you target one disease? Well, so you get to choose the disease. That's important that you in 15 years would guarantee that one disease would be cured, but no other disease. There'd be no progress on anything else.

The crappy part about this.

Can you make that call?

Right, the crappy part about this. A. You know, we're in Covid right now, and COVID 19 is a disease from the Coronavirus Cove, too. And at the same time, I also know a lot of numbers about what the top killers of people are, and they are, you know, their heart disease and cancers. And so. But at the same time, I wonder, okay, do we call depression a disease? Because it's almost like this. I'm very much a try and kill two birds with one stone. And I would feel that if we qualify or qualify depression as a disease and we could cure mental health, which we can, I believe if we could cure mental health issues, then I think that would spiral into so many of the other physical health issues. So I don't know if one disease.

And remember, you're blocking everything else.

I know. That's why I feel like if I chose cancer or I chose heart disease, even though we'd be saving more lives, I feel like then what's the point if there's a whole bunch of people who are miserable or. Or unhappy or. You know.

I feel like this is a question from an economist, but what's your answer?

Right. Because I'm thinking it from it broadly, if we qualified mental health as a disease, I would say that because I can't justify saving so many people if they're not, because the numbers for depression and mental health are right up there with the numbers of people who die from heart diseases and cancers and that kind of thing. So I can't justify saving everybody's life just to be miserable. So I would. I would say. I would say.

So you would say? Yes. And you would cure mental health?

Oh, there was an option for a. No, no, there's not an option.

Well, the question is, would you target one disease? Oh, would you make that call to target one, or would you.

No, I wouldn't target one.

Keep the status quo.

Yeah, I don't think I would target one if it meant everything else gets shunned. I don't think I could do that.

Okay. Yeah, we have an answer to question 15.

But if I had to pick one, then I think I would. And we call. Yeah, I think I would go with depression.

Okay, well, you're working on that anyway. So there is.

Yeah, I'm working on all of it. I'm working on preventing the heart disease, the cancer, the depression. I'm working on all.

There you go.

Yeah, done. Check.

Well, thank you, Kari. Thank you, listeners, for.

Thank you.

Pain. Have a wonderful day.

Have a painful day week.

Yes. And we will be just kind of giving a quick overview. We're into August here, and there'll be more Mindset Mondays coming up and we will be getting back into a slate of interviews and interviews coming up in the fall for you. So enjoy your remaining month of summer.

Tune in and milk everything you can get out of summer, because there's just about a month left. So live it up safely, of course, with the best health and also promoting your best immunity and being safe, all those things. So lots of love to you. Stay safe, everybody. Enjoy your summer. Get outside, be outside as much as.

You possibly can, and we'll talk soon. We're out. Sa.