Can your brain be the key to healing chronic pain?

In today's episode, we'll discuss chronic pain and the evidence-based mind-body techniques that will help our listeners treat and manage their pain symptoms. I'll be speaking with Trace Miller, a certified holistic coach and a mind-body practitioner and the founder of Innate Wisdom. Welcome to Beyond Diagnosis, a podcast to raise your awareness, decisions, and voice for alternative practices so you can take back control of your health. I'm Rita De Michele, your host, a mindset and empowerment coach, and the founder of the Onus platform. Join me each week so you can create the health of your dreams. Welcome, Trace, to the show.

Thank you, Rita. Thank you so much for having me. I've been looking forward to this for a while, so it's Good to be here.

Oh, fantastic. Now today we're going to be talking all about chronic pain. So to understand what that actually means when they say chronic pain as opposed to just pain, it's— I did a bit of a search and it seems like it's defined as anything that is longer than 3 months or persistent, like on a daily basis. What causes Chronic pain and the symptoms.

Yeah, you're right that medically classified as 3 months or longer. And we have acute pain and then anything, any pain, anything that doesn't heal, it becomes chronic. And it's fear and stress is the simplest way to put it, that our systems, our nervous systems get caught in this perpetual cycle cycle of fear and stress and makes it chronic. And it's often unconscious. I have my own healing journey, and this is what I found, that I was caught in this— it's like a hamster wheel, caught in this perpetual cycle of a nervous system, and we're not letting it rest and relax. And so our systems are constantly activated and creating pain. Um, as a kind of like an alarm system, single signal, or if we're running away from a lion constantly. That's what keeps us in this chronic cycle. And it's not necessarily anything is even physically wrong, even though the symptoms are often physical. It's just literally our nervous systems and our brains overactivated.

So you're saying that even if the Uh, pain, like the actual event, like you've, you've broken your arm, you've hurt your muscle, you, you've pulled your back, you have slipped disc, whatever. If that doesn't exist anymore, the pain can still be there because of this.

Absolutely.

And this is what they're— and this is what they're considering as chronic pain. So chronic pain actually, is it physical? Or is pain just pain and then it becomes chronic because of this loop that you're saying?

The physical sensations are absolutely real. I know a lot of people unfortunately get dismissed by doctors saying their pain's not real, it's all in their head. And this is not what I'm saying or mind-body medicine is saying at all. The physical sensations are absolutely real. So you feel the pain, but what is causing it and what causes actually all pain, whether it's acute or chronic, It literally starts in the brain. So if you burn your hand on the stove, which is acute, you very quickly, you get signals from your brain to take your hand off the stove, and that keeps you safe. So that literally comes from your brain as well. So that's the neuroscience of a little bit of it, of pain, that it— and then in the chronic instances, it's just your brain is confused and it's misfiring and giving you physical— I like to call it sensations as opposed to pain. That's part of the training of the brain, um, but it's giving— it's mis— it's misfiring, um, falsely because it's, it's been so sensitized. And some people are in chronic pain for years and years or decades, right? So the nervous system is so fried that it's mis-signaling. And so the actual sensation is real, but there might not be any physically— and often there isn't any structural issue. Even with people with back pain, which is a common chronic issue, they may have an MRI by doctors and it may show like disc bulge is a thing. Disc degeneration, uh, disc hernia is a common thing. And even if that is shown on the MRI, that is not what's causing the pain necessarily, because even people in 60s, 70s, 80s, they have those physical abnormalities, but they aren't experiencing any pain. So there's a lot, there's a lot to it, but definitely doesn't guarantee the pain at all. That's fascinating.

That's really, you know, I think a lot of people will be very surprised by that. And so how does— you mentioned, um, a bit about the neuroscience. So how does understanding the neuroscience of pain help individuals better manage their chronic symptoms?

Great question. Um, and this is the crux of my work. I, as you said, I'm a mind-body practitioner, and in order to heal the body, we literally you have to look at the mind slash the brain.

Mm-hmm.

And in order to heal from something, chronic issues, we need to understand the cause of it. And so many people don't understand what's causing it to be chronic. So by understanding the pain neuroscience, that alone is so empowering. In my first sessions with clients, I actually have a slideshow of pain neuroscience with all these different infographics and some videos. examples, just really getting to the crux of what pain neuroscience is. And then it allows clients or people suffering, they don't have to fear the pain because they are— they don't understand it. So by understanding something, you can make friends with it and not fear it anymore, which is again a game changer because that alone changes your nervous system by not fearing the pain. That's what keeps it in the perpetual cycle. We're fearing the pain, you know. which is understandable. I did the same thing with my issues. But once we learn that we don't need to fear it, and also the medical system, unfortunately, I'm not against the medical system at all, but for chronic issues, they just, they're lacking and they create fear and hopelessness. And again, that keeps people in a stress mode. So by understanding the pain neuroscience, what's causing it, it allows people to be empowered and liberated and know that they can actually heal. They can. They absolutely can.

Well, that's encouraging, and that gives people a lot of hope because there's nothing worse than being told that you're going to be like that for the rest of your life, or there's nothing that you can do. Um, my husband was certainly told that, and I felt, wow, how disempowering that must have felt for him to hear that, no, you're never going to be the same. Whereas, you know, you be proactive and if you can go beyond that, there's so much you can do. So can you please just, for people who are not quite sure what neuroscience is, can you just give a little snapshot? Like, what do you, what do you educate your clients with to understand that neuroscience element to it?

Yeah, excuse me. Yes, neuroscience is a fancy word for brain education. In this, in this case, it's brain pain fear education. So teaching people how the brain, as I touched on a little bit earlier, how the brain works with pain. It has an interconnection, right? So learning why the pain is created by the brain, it's a good analogy. I like to do analogies because I find they can be easier to learn from. A good one is a smoke alarm. In Australia, do you have smoke alarms in your house?

Absolutely do.

OK. Just checking. I live in Canada. And we got— so often, I don't know, in my case, they're very sensitive, the smoke alarms, right? So often you might open up the oven. There's not even any smoke, but the smoke alarm Goes off. So you're nervous, or people with chronic issues' nervous systems are like that. They're so sensitized that they go off by the littlest stress or pain. So we educate, getting more detail with clients or sufferers how that actually works. It's like people are running away from a lion constantly, and that is so— reaches so much havoc on our system that we literally Like, it literally will create physical symptoms because our systems are not made to be in this fight-or-flight mode constantly. So, so, and when I say nervous system, I'm using nervous system and brain kind of interchangeably. I know they're different, but they're all connected. Um, so just going through again the, the detail of the brain-pain connection and how it— Um, how the pain is— again, acute pain even is caused by the brain, and then it becomes chronic because that smoke alarm, you know, in our system is going off because it's so desensitized.

So that, that leads into the mind-body connection that, you know, every— you know, so many people in complementary alternative health and medicine always end up touching on the mind-body connection because it It cannot be separated. It is intricately connected. So how does, how does that mind-body connection help our listeners with chronic pain?

Um, and again, you know, obviously our minds and our bodies are literally physically connected. Everybody can see that. So, um, to separate them when it comes to, you know, physical disease or mental disease, anything, is just not valid. And there's tons of studies done now, actually. There's evidence, there's proof that the mind and the body affect one another. One great example is if you— everybody's had a physical symptom just from a thought. So if you're— the term butterflies in the stomach, I think most people are familiar with that. Oh, I have butterflies in my stomach, which means I'm nervous or anxious. I had a little of that today before our talk. A physical, um, like nothing's happening, right? But just through our thoughts or our anxiety, we get a physical reaction of having these little butterflies in our stomach, even though there's no actual butterflies. So that's just a really simple example of how the mind and the body are connected. Um, or someone— most people have, you know, have had a broken heart. You know, our heart has been touched, you know, but literally from emotions, we have this deep, deep physical pain, even though literally, literally nothing has happened to us physically.

Mm-hmm.

You have to— you literally have to heal. If you have physical ailments, you have to look at the mind, meaning the mental health, the emotional health. It's imperative because it's 100% connected and affecting your physical health. Emotional repression or aggression is a huge cause of physical ailments. And a lot of us have grown up in that Um, that kind of environment, unfortunately. And also just all the stress that everybody is under in different ways, um, that is causing these physical ailments unconsciously.

Um, yeah, yes.

So it's really key to look at the whole picture, the holistic approach.

According to, uh, neuroscience, have there— has— is there any evidence that Somebody who has more of a propensity towards a negative outlook compared to someone who sees things glass half full, does that have an impact on their pain or their ability to move beyond chronic pain?

Absolutely. Again, it comes down to how that negativity is affecting their internal systems. Because all the systems are connected. So our immune system, our digestive system, circulatory system. So when we have negative thoughts or processes, it literally goes— thoughts are so powerful. They literally go at a cellular level and again, go through all our systems. So again, it keeps us in that kind of stressed fight or flight mode, often unconsciously, which is our body is eventually speaking. When we get physical ailments, our body is literally speaking to us saying we need to do something different. Like, it often slows us down, even though some people keep pushing through, pushing through, pushing through. And so they literally stop. Our body is trying to tell us we need to slow down or we need to look at something or stress. There's, there's also certain personality types that are more susceptible to mind-body syndrome. And mind-body syndrome is an umbrella term For various chronic conditions, which meaning it's caused by mind-body and it's healable. But such as perfectionism, people pleasing, if you're highly self-critical, if you're highly sensitive, which I'm highly sensitive and I'm empathic. Yeah, so there's a lot of personality traits. Perfectionism, when we try to like we're putting this extra pressure on ourselves. So again, it can be slight, but we're keeping our system so activated that it's actually doing us. harm, um, and we don't even realize it unless, unless we have the knowledge. And this comes back to your other questions. This is why the knowledge is so powerful. If we understand what's causing it, then you can actually change it.

Absolutely. That's great points there. And, uh, it really is food for thought for the, uh, high achievers. Nothing wrong with being a high achiever at all, um, but like you say, there has to be balance there has to be times when you know to stop, switch off, relax, you know, to have that, you know, not to have the balance in life is obviously, from what you were saying, is a big contributor. And something else that you say is, uh, that there are 6 Fs that fuel chronic pain. What are these 6 Fs?

Yeah, this is one of my favorite things. Just, it's just, I find it very clear, um, for people to— because they don't understand what they're doing. And I, with my Healing Journey, I didn't understand what I was doing either. I tried all the things, but I still wasn't getting to that, that, that cause to fix it. So the 6 Fs are frustration, trying to fix it, trying to figure it out, fearing it, focusing on it, and fighting it. So, and these, all these things again keep us, our systems in this pressure mode, this fight or flight mode. This, this high alert system. And again, with my journey, I didn't realize I was keeping it in the system because I thought I was trying to help myself. And most everybody does this because it's understandable, right? You have this pain and of course you're going to fear it and get worried. It's, it's, it's the go-to. But then once again, you can understand how beneficial it is to step out of that fear mode and that focus mode. Um, it was a game changer for me when I was able to do that. I saw results very quickly. Um, at one point in my healing journey, I remember I had a list of— on my fridge, I had a list of 12 different self-care things I was going to do every day because I was like, I'm going to figure this out, I'm going to get to the bottom of this.

And there you are making the list.

Exactly. So I thought I was doing good, my intention was good, but yeah, it was keeping me in that like Mode. So just learning how to soothe yourself and your system. And this is why it is so helpful to get guidance within this process, because it is hard to do it on your own.

Absolutely. Especially if you've never done, done that before, if you've never ventured into it, like you've never done meditation, you've never done yoga or anything like that. It's really hard to sort of switch from go, go, go To all of a sudden sit and be calm and be with yourself. I mean, that's one of the hardest things I think people, or what they struggle with when they're very active, when they're very active, is to calm themselves and calm the mind, to be with themselves. So, um, that brings me to—

Yeah.

So what are some of the barriers, um, to people from, you know, Healing— what are some of the barriers to healing from chronic pain?

Yeah, good question. Well, the fear, number one, fear and stress, the lack, the disempowerment that again is often received from, you know, the medical system and doctors. The lack of knowledge, not knowing what to do. But those are huge, again, because you literally, you literally can't heal. It's impossible for anybody to heal if our nervous systems are in this fight or flight mode. And then just not having the resources to not knowing where to go, and not knowing how to do it, because there is lots of tools out there. So, so yeah, again, lack of knowledge and that fear and stress of just Such big ones in that.

And I find that, um, one of the things that I deal with, with people is they feel that they can't advocate for themselves.

Yes.

You know, they accept what they've been told and they feel like, well, who am I to say I don't want that, or I don't think that's right? You know, being able to advocate for yourself for something else. Um, is really a big one. And a lot of people stumble on that.

I feel it is. Yeah, I agree though. It can be very hard. Even when I was experiencing my health journey, I was seeing so, so many different appointments. Um, and you know, I had quite a bit of knowledge of holistic health even before then, and I, and I wanted to heal it, but even then it just can be so intimidating. Um, and it is very hard. It's good to go with someone actually, have someone that can support you in that.

Absolutely. Be an advocate for you.

Yeah.

One of the things that I want to talk about was so many people go and get help for their pain and they're given medication, which is great. I mean, usually medication gets you through the day. It starts you off. For many people, they can't function if they are not on their medication. And a lot of those people do not— well, I'm sure a lot of our listeners do not want to stay on the medication their whole life. It's helping them right now, but, you know, really, who wants to stay on medication for their whole life if there's something else that can be done? So how do you— how does your work and your approach specifically help our listeners Now they've heard so far what chronic pain is, that it's coming from the mind. What do you do specifically?

Um, well, on that, on that guidance, people definitely have to heal on their own accord. One of my favorite mantras is the power is within you. So the power is within everybody. That's why I call my business Innate Wisdom, because it is— the wisdom is there and everybody they have to just get a hold of it and connect with it. And so I'm a guide, I'm a coach, and I help people. I give them tools, therapies. I'm a cheerleader because the healing journey is— it's a roller coaster. It's an up and down, right? And even when you get better, there's downs. So it's just so important to have that person. And just bringing my years of knowledge and training from various teachers and doctors and giving The tools. A great one is, um—

What sort of tools do you— yeah, so people understand what tools is kind of general. What sort of tools do you give them to work with?

Um, so somatic tracking. Have you heard of somatic tracking?

I have, but I don't know if my listeners—

Yeah, so somatic tracking, it's also called pain reprocessing therapy. That was a, aha moment for me in my personal journey, which is it's a A very short meditation type, 5 minutes maybe. And this comes back to the 6 Fs where you're being frustrated and fearful. So instead of doing that, you're taking space and awareness back and you're soothing yourself and your pain and, and being curious with it. And there's a process that you can get it online, actually, if your listeners even search somatic tracking. That's a really great one. Emotional Awareness and Expression Therapy is another great one. My mentor, Dr. Howard Schubiner, who was a pioneer in mind-body medicine, that's a really, really powerful one. And it deals with getting those repressed emotions out that we all have. And that was a big part of my healing because so much of us have this anger and this that we don't even know it's there, which is powerful. Another great one is journaling. Some people turn their nose up at journaling, And it can be done in so many different ways that often you can just find— a person can find a way to make it suitable for them. And again, it's literally getting out the frustration, the emotions, and creating a different perspective. It's, it's a game changer as well. Mindfulness, meditation, of course, are classic ones. Helpful breathwork is another one I go into with clients. I help clients with brain hacks. So brain training, talking about the neuroscience. So changing limiting beliefs and reframing, as you spoke of earlier, negative self-talk, which so many people do, if not all of us, changing that negative self-talk into positive self-talk. And it, and it's a process, but it happens actually quicker. Changing those neuropathways actually happen quicker than one can think. It doesn't matter how old you are. And even a little bit of an improvement. We don't need to improve right away all the way. Even a 2% improvement is huge, huge in the healing journey, huge with your brain healing. So, um, yeah, and it's client-centered too, just depending what clients speaks to them more, what practices.

So, and what, what physical, uh, things could they do? What physical actions could they do respecting their pain level Um, we're not going to do the old gym thing, you know, you know, but work through the pain, or, you know, no pain, no gain type of thing. So how can they respect the level they're at and do something physical to help themselves?

Yeah, great, great question. Um, well, it depends, of course, where they're at with their pain and whatever's going on with them, but movement of any kind— and some people it might be a They're laying down, just moving your arm, any kind of movement, just keeping that body movement, walking, of course. If someone has back pain, just slowly moving. And people can know, you know, it's good to push a little bit, you know, but you don't want to pass— go past that point, as you're saying. Because that's another thing with the brain, actually. This is where it gets tricky. So for instance, a person with back pain, they start to fear chairs unconsciously because when they— a lot of times when people sit down, that's more painful when they're standing up. So unconsciously, the brain starts to signal that actually a chair is unsafe. And that's actually what perpetuates the cycle. And it sounds so simple or even silly maybe, but that literally is what's happening. So And so this is why it's good to push a little bit. And some of the therapies I do, like pressure testing, challenging the clients with what is actually painful. Like, is light touch painful? Sitting in a chair painful? And just seeking nature of any kind is always a good thing, even if you can't go walking, getting outside, walking down to your mailbox, yoga. Super straightforward. Yoga is another great one, or stretching. Um, so just any kind, because of course when your body doesn't move, that, that's not a good thing either. Hmm.

Well, just to recap what you were saying, it's our thoughts. The pain, the chronic pain, is actually seems to be like a, a loop in our brain. Fear. And, and, um, what's one other that I've forgotten now? It's just slipped my mind what you were saying.

Um, stress.

The stress, yes, stress, etc. So recapping on all of that, I believe you had chronic pain and now you're so much better, and that had led you to getting into this type of work. Can you just tell us a little bit about your story and, uh, why you became a mind-body coach?

Yeah, absolutely. Um, I try to condense this here. It started in 2018. That's when my symptoms first started. Very nonchalant, not a big deal, you know, not very often. But then after months pass And time passed, years passed, and it got worse and worse. I had Raynaud's. I don't know if people— some of the people who have it will know what I'm talking about for sure.

That's Raynaud's syndrome, isn't it?

Yes. Yeah. So it's when your hands and your, um, your fingers and your toes and sometimes other body parts get really cold and numb and frozen, and there's all sorts of other issues that go along with that. Um, so that started very innocently, and I didn't have the terminology for it then. I had no idea what was going on. It got worse and worse. So that was one of my main— I also had autoimmune skin issues, fatigue, depression. And before that, I had experienced a lot of hardships like divorce, homelessness, isolation, like lots of things. It's actually when I landed in a really— I finally had a safe home, a comfortable home when the symptoms started. So the body again is that smart that like, we're going to wait until you're actually somewhere safe. And then we're going to be like, okay, you still have stuff to deal with, which is a lot to do with it was repressed emotions. Like, you know, I thought I dealt with emotions but I hadn't. And then it just got worse and worse. And I always knew there was a solution. Like, I knew that my body is speaking. Our bodies are always speaking. Our bodies are built to thrive and heal. So I knew there was underlying issue there. And then it wasn't until I came to this mind-body medicine and mind-body syndrome that it— that lens, it was like clicked, and my healing started right away, got to the cause of it, and just really understood it in a Um, it can be quite complex, but it's also very simple. So just really able to simplify it and, and again, use those tools I mentioned and see differences. Uh, my Raynaud's is 90% better. I wouldn't— I wasn't able to go outside. I had surgery on my— I lost a part of my fingertip. I had a surgery. It was a horrible thing. Um, but my brain was starting to fear, which I knew this before, the cold, all this stuff, because I had, you know, so it got— I was stuck in this perpetual cycle. So, so now I, you know, I do things outside no matter what temperature it is. And I know, I know how to respond to the pain. And this, this is the key, actually, what I'm guiding people is knowing how to respond in a loving, soothing way to yourself, as opposed to responding with fear and panic. So this is— that's the key, you know, responding to yourself with self-compassion and love, which is so hard when people are in such hard, really deep pain. That's, that's the trick.

I love it. I love your story. That's— it's fantastic. I mean, you obviously came from hardship, and it's always when you stop that your body goes, great, now there's, there's space for me to give you the message of what you need to heal. And sometimes that gives it to you in a big way, depending where you are and what level it's going to go. You haven't been listening, and now I'm really going to give it to you. So it's, oh, it's, it's excellent that you've actually come through, that you're at the stage you are. And what, from that, what specific action can someone do today to help their chronic pain experience?

Um, one, to know that there's hope. And this is why this work is so powerful, because hopelessness is just, it's a horrible space to be in. So knowing that if you have mind-body syndrome, which most chronic conditions are to some degree, is that you can actually heal. Um, but one specific thing I can leave you with is I like this analogy, is most people have had a dog or know of a dog or a puppy. And, you know, you train a puppy, you have to, you know, give it love and compassion and understanding and patience. So you really want to give yourself that. So train yourself like you were a puppy, or train your brain. Soothe yourself, give yourself compassion, patience, understanding. And that's the, that's the beginning of the change, you know, rather than coming from this fear mode. You can again heal by this, this compassion and knowledge that there is hope. And seeking a practitioner, seeking someone that can guide you in that, because again, it is so hard to do.

Mm-hmm.

alone and just can keep you on track and keep you encouraged. Encouragement is such a powerful thing in itself as well, because again, it is a bumpy, bumpy road for sure.

Definitely. And you have kind of touched on what I was going to ask next, but I'm going to ask it anyway. What message would you like to leave our listeners with today?

Right. Um, yeah, kind of what I said last time, that there's Your body is built to heal and thrive, and you are no exception. The listeners are no exception. And I'm not diminishing how hard it is because it is very hard.

Absolutely. Yeah.

Yeah. And people have come from so much trauma and, you know, all the stuff that's really hard. Um, but if you get the right help and if you're also willing, you have to be willing to put some effort forth. This isn't a quick Fix, but you can get to the root cause, which this is healing. This is beyond treatment. This is actually healing your system. So yeah, you can do it, and the body is built to heal and thrive.

Beautiful. What a great message to leave everyone with today, and thank you, Trace, for so much for coming onto the show and sharing that knowledge. I'm sure anybody with chronic pain. will find that so interesting and hope— with a bit of hope that they don't have to stay where they are. They don't have to just be— have the pain and have it numbed with medication. There are other things that we can do, and the brain is so powerful. That mind-body connection is so powerful. And for any of our listeners who would like to explore that further, Please, Trace's details are in the show notes. You'll be able to connect with her on socials, email her. Her website will be there. Do contact her because really this is the way to go when people want to heal from something. Trace, thank you so much for being on the show.

Thank you so much for having me. It was a pleasure.

I would love to know what was the biggest insight or Aha moment you got from this interview, so you can now speak up, take action, and make informed decisions for your health. And if you like this episode, get instant access to your free ebook, Alternative Wisdom: Taking Back Control of Your Health, at life-onus.com.