25. How to get back to the activities you love when healing chronic pain & fatigue

In this episode of the Heal with Grace podcast, hosts Grace and Liana discuss strategies for getting back to the activities you love while recovering from chronic pain and chronic fatigue. They introduce the concept of pacing, which involves gradually increasing activity levels to avoid post-exertional malaise and to build confidence. The conversation highlights the importance of awareness, visualization, and setting safety nets to manage pain and fatigue effectively. They also delve into the science behind neuroplastic pain and offer real-life examples to emphasize the potential for recovery. This episode is a must-listen for anyone looking to reclaim their life from debilitating symptoms.

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Transcript

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[00:00:00] Grace: Hello and welcome back to the heal with grace podcast. I am here with Liana and if you've been listening, you definitely know who she is. she's a wonderful mind and body therapist with elevate therapy and a huge part of the mind body healing method program. And we're here today to talk to you about How to get back to the activities that you love when you're recovering from things like chronic pain and chronic fatigue.

Most likely, if you're listening to this, you know that you've had to pretty much change your life. There's a lot of things you've had to stop doing because of pain in your body because of high fatigue and energy, you can't do them. And so through this process of healing and recovering, you learn that actually those things you can do, right?

It's. You just have to learn how to get back into them. Even if you've been told by who knows, professionals, doctors, whoever that you can't do those things. We're here to say that's not true. We can retrain our brains and regulate our nervous systems to help you get back to that.so that was a long intro to before I even introduced Liana.

but anyway, thanks for being here, Liana and talking about this with me. 

[00:01:08] Liana: Yes, absolutely. Thank you for having me. I'm excited to be back for another episode. 

[00:01:12] Grace: Yeah, I think it's really great. We can be able to talk to them together, talk about these things together because we both come from obviously the same trainings, but, you know, we have different perspectives and it's really helpful for people to hear.

So, 1st of all, let's just jump into it. what does it even mean? Like, how do you go from feeling like you can't do anything because you have so much pain in your body or maybe not even be able to get out of bed to. Truly doing all kinds of things. and the term, especially coined for chronic pain.

Fatigue recovery, like any is pacing and if you haven't heard that term, what pacing really means is it's basically like a self management strategy that involves regulating activities to help you move from. Wherever you are now to what you actually how you actually want to be functioning in the world without what's called post exertional malaise, which is going to and what that means is sometimes when we're going through this, we can.

Our bodies fear these activities as dangerous and so all of a sudden, when we're starting to do new things, our body's like, whoa, hold on and might send us even in a more spiral of pain or fatigue, because it doesn't like that. It doesn't thinks all these things we're doing are dangerous. And so we want to avoid that.

So there's a way of doing this. By going from where we are to where we want to be. And we don't do that overnight. That's essentially what we're talking about. How do we get there? How do we do this in a safe way? And I say safe in quotes. If you're not watching this video of this, because sometimes our brain are going to.

It's totally going to perceive this is not safe. These things, but we just have to kind of work with us along the way.Is there anything around that that you want to add just to the initial idea of what we're talking about? 

[00:03:02] Liana: No, I think that's a great introduction. Yeah, I think you covered it. 

[00:03:06] Grace: Yeah.

So a few things to note, and I'll just actually, I'll just describe the differences here when we're talking about healing from chronic pain. Oftentimes, if you're dealing with things like fibromyalgia, joint pain, muscle pain, back pain. Or headaches or migraines or things like that, oftentimes. You are actually doing an activity, whether that is an exercise or a sport you used to do, or even just writing in the car or sitting or standing.

And you're having a lot of pain, and so you don't really know where to go with that. You're doing all the things to help yourself, whether that's sitting on cushions or walking versus sitting or all the things you're trying to do. And what we know about healing from the mind and body connection is that those things actually aren't dangerous.

It's just your brain saying, I don't. Want to do that. I, I, I need to feel pain somewhere. So we're going to have pain when you do all these things. And so in order to get to back to where you want to be, we have to start doing those things slowly. So I'll give an example.I'll give an example of my own past because that's easiest.

if you know anything about my story, you know, that in grad school, I had a lot, a lot of pain, to where I was told, you know, my body's just not built for yoga and yoga was my favorite thing to do. I was really getting into it at that time. And so I was told, you know, I'm hyper mobile. I have all I have a couple of bulge discs in my spine.

I have all these reasons why I shouldn't be doing yoga. Shouldn't be doing exercise actually at all. And mind you, I was 25 and I remember being like, okay, is this really my life? but what I did in order to move through that. Was reminding myself over and over and over again that I am safe that I am.

Okay. As I'm moving through these and providing evidence for myself that actually, it's not the physical manifestations or without the physical reasons of my body that I'm feeling pain. It's just my brain. So it's a very important distinction.and listening to a lot of stories. That helped me understand that this is possible to heal was really helpful as well.

So I did things like, I would go to actually, I didn't even start going to classes. I would do things like really short 10 minute practices at home and I would incrementally explain. Expose myself to different ways of moving 10 minutes, 20 minutes. Eventually, I went to a yoga class, but that took me a while.

Actually, it really did, because that would freak me out. If I all of a sudden learned about this and was like, okay, cool. I can go tomorrow. That's too much. Right?when we're talking about chronic. Fatigue when you are, and there's a whole spectrum of it, right? There's some people that can't get out of bed.

There's some people that are pretty functional in life, but they're really struggling and they're crashing all the time. And so when we're learning how to heal through that, we have to be able to understand. That even though there are people that used to not be able to get a bed and get out of bed, and now we're doing spin classes, that's going to take some time to get used to as well, because we're telling our nervous system.

We can handle those things, but we're taking care of ourselves in order to get there. So, those are just a couple examples, and we'll keep going into them, but I want to pause to have Leon to talk a little bit more about what it actually means to provide that evidence for ourself and that reinforcement.

For our brain and our nervous system to help us. Learn how to do this. And what's the reason behind that? 

[00:06:27] Liana: yeah, I think especially when like pain and teague and different symptoms are really high. I think it's important to understand that, like, biologically, like, we're primed for survival.

And so, like, the fear response to these symptoms is very, very normal. It's not It's like, you know, you, you touch a hot stove, but we have pain so that we remove it and don't actually harm ourselves. And so it's very counterintuitive to be like, wait, but I'm feeling all the, this pain, I'm feeling all these symptoms and believe that it's not real.

But. That's why, like, this gradual build up that grace that you're talking about is so important, because as we can do this build up very slowly and gradually, that's part of how we gain evidence. Right? And I think part of that is also understanding that.

When we do things that we enjoy. We're less likely to have symptoms. which is like 1 way that we can gain evidence. And so, like, I also like to encourage people when they're starting to get back into activities, like, start with something that you, like, miss the most that bring that, like, used to bring you the most joy.

That's a lot of fun for you because. That's going to be the activity that. Is least likely to, you know, spike symptoms versus something that, like, you already hated, but you feel like you should do it. Right? and so I think that that's kind of an important thing, to keep in mind. Also, like, as you are building up.

Because our brains love familiarity, we've like, when you, you know, they like, our brain likes to travel down the same neural pathways over and over. It's very comfortable. And so when we start to make changes, so when you've been avoiding. Different activities, things that have spike symptoms in the past, it's very likely and this is important to know before you begin.

Getting back into activities. it's likely that you're gonna have a spike in symptoms, a spike in fear. And I like to let people know that in advance too so you can anticipate it because that doesn't mean that this activity is actually dangerous. Or that you can't do it. It just means that your brain is kind of like going into this, like, revolt mode of like, wait, I don't want to change.

Right? Like, I, it loves to travel this space. Same pathway. And so it truly is just, this natural response that, there's been like studies done on this, that is a very natural common response that happens when we begin trying. but a way to begin kind of, building evidence to kind of keep in mind for you as you're going along is like, are your symptoms consistent all the time?

are there times that It changes throughout the day. Does it change on different days of the week? Does it change dependent on the weather? Does it change depending on, like, certain conversations you're having? Or, you know, like, if it's an uncomfortable or stressful or emotional one? does it change when you're doing things that you love?

Like, I, I have. A client who loves going to live music and when they go to shows, their pain goes away. But the 2nd, they leave, it comes back. Right? So, these types of things are really good indicators that the pain that you're experiencing, Or symptoms is being derived from your brain. So the more you can start collecting, evidence like that as you begin starting, getting back into activities and feeling fear come up as you begin to start having that list of evidence handy is really helpful to help you kind of negate the fear that's coming up. Cause you can say no, but like if this was some crazy disease, I wouldn't have pain on both sides of my body.

I wouldn't change throughout the day. I wouldn't have it. Sometimes, you know, at an 8 other times at a 3 or of intensity, things like that.Grace, do you have anything to add to that? 

[00:10:53] Grace: I just want to highlight a couple of really important points because I love that you brought this up. One, that when we have pain and when we don't is really important to recognize.

And I often hear that people and myself included didn't really understand that at first, or I'll even ask some of our students and clients of, you know, okay, so when do you have pain and when do you not? And they're like, I don't know. I have it all the time, but if you actually dig a little bit deeper, or actually, sometimes you don't have to dig that deep and just recognize, yeah, there are some times I don't.

And sometimes it's weird. Sometimes people are like, I don't know. It just, it happens randomly. That's a huge indicator, right? That it is. Way more what we term neuroplastic pain or actually, sorry, you and I don't turn that that is a term created by pain reprocessing therapy called neuroplastic pain, which is a type of chronic pain that occurs when the brain misinterprets safe signals from the body is dangerous.

Which can cause symptoms that are not due to ongoing structural damage or disease. And so, when we can create that understanding in our brains, and we can recognize, oh, it's worse at night, or it's worse in the morning, or it's worse when I do these things, or it's worse when I'm at my job, or it's worse when I'm with my family, and these other times, it's not that bad.

Those are really important things to understand and to highlight to give our brain more evidence that variability and pain doesn't make sense. That's not actually structurally based. I had that aha moment with my therapist actually back in school. And I remember saying, cause she asked me and I was like, well, yeah, like last night I went out with my friends and I, I didn't think about it.

I kind of forgot about it. But then when I got home and I was getting into bed, it was like a huge spike and I couldn't go to sleep, you know? So it was that aha moment of, Oh yeah, that doesn't make sense. I didn't get it, but. Once you learn more about this, you recognize, actually, that's a pretty good indicator that it's neuroplastic pain and that we just have to reinforce to our brains that we are okay.

We don't need that pain. So, I'm glad you highlighted that, or you talked about that because that's really important and. You're right, it builds that evidence list for us to work with. 

[00:13:11] Liana: Absolutely. Two more things that popped my head when you were talking, is like other things that I often hear is like, if somebody gets, you know, if you're really feeling tired and run down, like symptoms pop back up, or, if you, you know, like stress is really high at work, like higher workload, working longer hours, those types of things, because your brain is in a heightened stress response.

And so then it begins. Responding differently to the sensations in your body. Yeah, yeah, 

[00:13:39] Grace: definitely. And so when, when we're talking about understanding this, the big first step is awareness, right? Awareness of how the pain happens, what's going on, when is it happening? and same with fatigue as well.

Chronic fatigue. Again, it really does look different for so many people, but oftentimes you can track when it's getting worse and when it's not as bad. For fatigue, and when you crash versus when you don't crash and again, it's not an exact science, but it's very helpful to become super aware when that's happening, or even when it started.

Right? Some people have a history of recognizing when it started, and they can pinpoint maybe within a year or so span of oh, yeah, there were all these things that were happening in my life. You know, that's really important to understand too. So when we can become aware of our specific patterns. Then we can help ourselves move forward.

So yeah. Okay. So then with that, how do you usually talk to clients about moving forward once they're aware of that pattern? What's that? What's that slow progression, the steps to work through pacing? 

[00:14:55] Liana: Yeah, we'll definitely, you know, go into it armed with your evidence list.and then I always like to start, like, with visualizing doing whatever it is that you want to do.

so whatever the activity is, if it's running, if it's eating certain foods. If it's

social activities, interactions with certain people, whatever it is that you want to get back to, just visualize yourself having a. Really great run going on your favorite trail on a beautiful day. and just feeling great and the whole time having a great time. And then when you're finished, you know, feeling really good as well.

because our brains are just really powerful. And so even the act of visualizing, doing something, Impacts in like Physically and, helps begin. Building that connection in our brain that, like, hey, this activity is safe. So even though you didn't physically do it, the active visualizing kind of tricks your brain in a way of, That you did, like, there's been such interesting studies that kind of back this up of where. You take 2 groups and neither group exercises, but 1 of them has specific exercises that they visualize that group will get stronger at the end of the. Of that clinical trial or whatever study that they do. and I think that's so fascinating, but it's a great, Example and indicator of like how powerful our minds are. And so simply by visualizing what you want to get back to you, is a really great way to set yourself up for success. 

[00:16:34] Grace: I'm actually going to stop. I'm going to highlight there that, if you want to go back and listen to the episode 21 that we talk about, or that I talk about visualization, I talk exactly about what Leon is saying and then I expand on it.

So it could be really helpful to listen to after you listen to this.

Okay, 

[00:16:54] Liana: and then, you know, plan what you want to do. So, like, if it is like a particular run, you know, plan what the path is going to be that you're going to take, plan. You know, when you're going to go these different things, you can even, like, if you have, like, old pictures of running of you running or, pictures of where you used to like, to run, you know, looking at different things to just continue to kind of like.

Have it solidified in your brain and then I also think it's really important to give yourself an out.so basically being. Going into this, like, you want to start very small. So if somebody's goal was, we're gonna stick with this example of running. If somebody's goal was to get back to running, I would have them start with, like, I don't know, 3 minutes of running or something very, very small, maybe even a minute.

It just kind of depends on what place they're in. Right? but no, in advance, if the paint or if the fear is very high before you start. It's really important to do some type of somatic and, you know, brain safety exercises to help yourself get into a more regulated place before you start. So, that's part of this and then once you begin, if.

Once you start, if pain starts cropping up, and you're not able to manage it using the tools. That we've, you know, I always teach different brain and somatic tools to bring along as you're moving this journey. If you're not able to, bring down the pain during the run, and it gets to too much. I always, the scale that I like to go off of is like, going off of a scale of like, 1 to 10, 1 being no pain at all, 10 being like, you're bedridden.

I don't really like people to do this if they're higher than a three. and so if the pain starts creeping up, you know, into like the four and five and you're not able to bring it back down, that's when I say, okay, you need to give yourself an out in advance before you even start, just know, like, if it gets too high, you're going to say, okay, great, I did it, I did a little bit.

Got too much, but I need to give myself that kind of like safety net of knowing that I have an out if it gets to be too much, because remember the whole point of this is that we want to reinforce safety to our brains. And so if the pain begins getting too much or your symptoms get too much, if you continue to push through it, it's actually counterproductive, right?

It's only showing your body that what's going on. You're trying to get back to is dangerous. And so you want to keep that in mind as well. And so if that's the case, no worries. Like you rain a little bit and that's great. And you know, kind of celebrate that with yourself and then do whatever you need to do to kind of bring your brain and body back to a place of safety.

And then we would just keep repeating that for a while. There's no like exact science to it. It's truly listening to your body. And as you gain more confidence, the fear and symptoms keep going down. And maybe you have, you know, a few 5, 10 minute jogs of feeling pretty good. Then you say, okay, like, let's try a 12 minute jog or a 15 minute job.

And you just gradually build up in that way. Just continuing to communicate those messages of safety. and the main thing is that we're continuing to have these corrective experiences. 

[00:20:22] Grace: Yeah, I love that. We have to have those. I call them safety nets, basically, like having a safety net for whenever we are increasing our exposure to the things that we fear, right?

Our brain is going to be nervous about them. They're going to be fearful about them. But if we can have outs, we can have safety nets that can help calm that fear, which is really what we're trying to do. Calm the fear around the symptoms around the pain. I actually had a good example as I have a client who was dealing with some fibromyalgia pain and a lot, pretty high sensitivity in terms of pots.

a lot of like sensory issues. And we were talking about going to, I can't remember the long movie. Her husband really wanted to see it like a 3 hour movie, really long movie and, you know, stuff being stuck in a movie theater. Maybe if she couldn't get it, I'll see, you know, being stuck there for 3 hours was really fear inducing.

But if she started having high pain, what if the sense, like, the movie theater was too much and the image she would get brain fog dizziness. All the things and just by us creating a safety plan, safety nets, she was able to go and actually stay longer than she ever thought she could because we talked about, okay, well, if your pain does get high, you can walk out, you can leave, you can either take a break, go to the bathroom, or you can choose to leave, right?

You aren't stuck, but we, and that might sound obvious, but we forget that when we're in a fear state with our symptoms, our logical brain is cut off. So, actually, that doesn't make sense to our brains. It doesn't even think about those options. So we have to give ourselves those options ahead of time and remind ourselves we can leave.

We can do things. We can put our earphones and listen to a breathing exercise or a brain training exercise. You know, there's so many things we can do in that moment. To help calm the fear and calm the pain. And then again, of course, just like you said, being able to know that, okay, if it's getting too much, but that pain, that fatigue, whatever it is, that symptom is getting too high, totally opt out.

We don't want to push through, don't want to push through at all. if it's too high, if it's a little uncomfortable, yeah, we want to keep sitting with it because we don't want to back right off. That just reinforces the fear. So I know it might be a little complicated or. Might sound counterintuitive, but that idea of the scale, right?

If it's below a 4, okay, let's work with it. If it's above that, it's getting pretty high. Yeah, let's take ourselves out of the situation, calm down, calm our nerve system, and then move forward and try it another time. So, those are really, really important to have in place to know how to, how to help ourselves when we need it.

Right, 

[00:23:05] Liana: yeah, and I, I think the. The idea of perfectionism kind of popped up in my head as you were talking, because I think that that can be a common thing with this. and, you know, we, of course, like, want to get back to what we've been doing and. And so there can sometimes be this, like, internal pressure on ourselves, or sometimes if, like, your movie example, you know, you're going to the movies with somebody and so then there's this pressure, like, I don't want to, like.

Make us leave early.and so I think those things are really important to as much as you can be aware of and let go. Of and release yourself from, which I know can be easier said than done. but as much as you can, just like, recognizing that, like, this is where you are right now. And you were, I mean, for lack of a better example, coming to my head right now.

it's like, It's like a baby like learning to walk right and it's not gonna when you've been stuck in a Long term cycle of symptoms or pain, it's not going to go away overnight. It usually it takes time. And and so giving yourself that compassion through this. And if you need, you know, to communicate to people in advance to kind of take the pressure off of yourself, like, hey, I might leave the situation because I.

Need to, you know, take care of myself. that's important. And just, you know, remind yourself in these moments that like, this is temporary. This is a small moment in your life compared to the length of it. Right? And it is going to pass. And, you're learning new ways of. Responding to the sensations in your body that you're having, I think can be helpful just in kind of shifting some of the.

Internal dialogue that we have with ourselves when we're going through things like this. 

[00:24:58] Grace: Thank you for for saying that for reminding us, because it's very true. We, we forget that actually, this whole process of recovering is so much about learning how to take care of ourselves. And sometimes it does mean taking care of ourselves and prioritizing ourselves over someone else that we're with.

And that's important that is important. Sometimes it doesn't mean you do that every single time for the rest of your life. It's just in these moments when we're struggling or having to take care of ourselves that that's more important. And also, it's important to highlight to. Do these things in the company of people that you are safe with, right?

that's important too. I mean, it's going to be easier to do that with a family member or best friend or a partner than, you know, a group of random strangers or something, or just people you acquaintances. And so we want to know those places that we can feel safe with. The people we can't feel safe with, so that that that fear and that anxiety that perfectionism doesn't take over.

there's actually another, I'll give one more example, specific to chronic fatigue. We have a student in the mind body healing method who has been dealing with very deep, chronic, chronic fatigue for a long time and had to move home. She would maybe go out of the house for 30 minutes and feel like she would crash for days and couldn't, you know, couldn't handle any kind of energy that wasn't outside of the house.

And she's now built up the confidence because we've been working through a lot of fear and anxiety, the confidence to go actually, like, drive an hour outside of her town to go visit some friends. But the way that she was able to do that was we set up a lot of safety nets and then actually worked a lot around the fear because actually her fear before leading up to that was harming her even more than what the chronic fatigue would do.

She was so afraid that if she went, she saw her friends that she wouldn't be able to get out of bed for days after that, because it would wear her out too much. And so we really worked on recognizing. Okay. What you're more fearful of is the fear. So first let's work on that pain, fear cycle, and then let's put some safety nets in.

So her safety nets were, her mom went with her, her mom drove so that she could go be in the car and breathe and do all the skills she needs to do. she went and saw her friends and we reinforced the idea that actually remember when you're with your friends, you're having a good time. You're more in a settled state.

You can actually do thiS. It's a joyful place to be, right? It's not a stressful place. Yes, you're expensing some energy, of course, But it's actually more healing to be around people that you can feel secure and safe with and co regulate with in your nervous system than not to be, than to be isolated.

So, it's actually, we reinforced it. We termed it as medicine, like, doing this actually is medicine for you because it truly is. It is medicine for your nervous system. So she did that. She always knew that she could leave if she wanted to whenever 10 minutes and could leave if she wanted to. I think she ended up staying like 2 or 3 hours.

Something along those lines. Went home and yes, she was tired. Yeah, you know, she was tired at the end of the day. Probably went to sleep pretty early. and she even said, like, there were a couple of symptoms that popped up here and there, but actually I worked with it. I feel great now. And this is a couple of days later, you know, so we can use those.

Tools before, during and after they're all very important to help us get through this. And now she has that experience for reinforcement. She knows she can handle that kind of situation and do it again. So, it builds confidence that confidence is so huge when we're working through. getting back to the activities that we want to be doing.

[00:28:46] Liana: It really really is.I'd love to give an example. Yeah, examples are so helpful. Yeah, because I, I like to, I know I've talked about my John here a bit, and I like to share about it mainly because I think when we have like, a structural thing, we think that it just has to, we have to have symptoms along with it.

And, that was my belief for a long time. And so I became very hyper vigilant about, like. What I would consume, how much I would talk in a day, even like exercise, I started tracking, like how my jaw would respond to it. And I think, again, that's common when you're experiencing different symptoms and that hypervigilance ironically makes sense.

Symptoms or, and so along the way, I was like, oh, joy is in living your life. Like, if I'm going to have this for the rest of my life, like, I have to figure out how to live with it. Right? So I have to figure out how to bring these things back in. Because like you said, Grace, like. Connection is medicine, having fun is medicine, like laughing is medicine.

And so, I was like, okay, I'm just going to figure this out. And, we talked about that on another podcast, but, basically I, I started adding things back in and now, you know, I'm, Pretty much pain free. And that's because I did so much work around the way that I was responding to fear. And also like, I don't avoid anything anymore.

I don't avoid, like, I don't get fearful of days where I know I'm going to be talking all day or where I go straight from work into social activities. I'm like, it's totally fine. Or I don't, you know, I'm eating things that a year ago I was So I was like, no, I can't eat that. Like, that's going to hurt me.

and I can eat it now and I don't have pain. And I think. I like to share it because, I think it's really exciting that, you know, even when we have something structurally going on, there is still because there it's so much pain is generated by the fear. That we get around these things, that we truly can, we can still a lot of times very greatly like minimize symptoms or even, almost eliminate them.

[00:31:08] Grace: Yeah, I think that's really powerful, like you said, because you, you do have something very structural, like, in your job, right? That you're getting help with, but all these other things have contributed so much to your pain and you've worked with those to complete. Yeah. Not completely, but we've worked with those to really decrease the pain and the fear around what's going on.

Yes. So, so powerful to understand to learn. So, yeah, definitely. Thank you for that. 

[00:31:36] Liana: Yeah, welcome. 

[00:31:38] Grace: Really? I mean, everything that we're talking about, if we can, we can kind of sum it up in a way what we're talking about is. 1, being aware and understanding what neuroplastic pain is, and I will say this when we, when I say the word pain, I'll say symptom neuroplastic symptom, because it's not just physical pain, right?

Because we're talking about any kind of chronic symptom. That we become aware that, oh. Yes, it's truly like, we truly feel it's not just all in your head. And I'm saying that in quotes, like, it's not just all in your head and you're making it up, right? It is true symptom, true pain, true exhaustion, true, whatever it is for you.

but the origin of that. Is your brain misinterpreting signals of danger and your nervous system being a high state of stress. And so when we can learn how to use our brain training skills, when we can learn how to create safety in our minds and our bodies. Through skills that we've talked about on this podcast before skills that we teach people in our program.

And learning how to express emotion, and all of this really is understanding how to have a better relationship with ourselves. Right? Understanding how to have a better relationship with your nervous system, with your mental health, your emotional health. And when we can feel safe in doing so, we dispel the belief that the symptoms are physically based.

And then we can actually do the things we want to do. It's so cool to see the transformation when that happens, you know, people going from like in bed or barely able to walk to like, literally doing anything in their life that they want to be doing. so yeah. Yeah. Anything to add to that? 

[00:33:23] Liana: No, I just, it truly is amazing.

Like I sometimes I'm like, gosh, it feels like it's magic. People can go from like feeling so debilitated and depressed and Overwhelmed and just inundated and symptoms and then, you know, committing to really believing that they can change this that they can get back to the life that they love. and being able to do that is just incredible.

It's incredible. I. It really excites me and it's an incredible thing to watch. 

[00:33:59] Grace: Yeah, and be part of. Yeah, I'll say it's 1 last thing is that if you're hesitant about this, it we're not just saying this from a place of, just believe something, it'll change. Right? Yes. There's part of that kind of in this, but it's so much more.

It's so much deeper. And everything we're talking about is backed by studies and research. And so. You know, it is not just us. We've, we've been trained in this and we know we've not only experienced it ourselves, but also work with clients, been trained in it. And there's just so much power and understanding it all.

And I, I understand it is a whole, I mean, you're kind of changing how you see health. You're changing what that looks like and understanding it. I was just talking about that with someone this weekend of they're like, I mean, that's so cool, but it's hard to conceptualize. And I'm like, yeah, it is. It's it is.

It's a. You've been taught 1 thing we all have about health, about what that means about pain, chronic health, what can change, what cannot change and we're like, radically changing that taking a 180 belief system to it. So, it takes time. It does. And I'll tie it back into the idea of that evidence.

Once we have that evidence. That we can change 1 little thing. We see that within ourselves, then you get the confidence that, oh, I can actually do this. And that's also why it's really helpful to hear recovery stories. So there's, I have a couple episodes here of not only myself or Liana, but other students making the same type of trajectory and healing.

And there's other podcasts out there that talk all about stories and healing. Sorry, people who have healed through really debilitating chronic illnesses. So, seek those out. So your brain understands that it's possible. 

[00:35:51] Liana: Yeah. And I think, you know, it's, it is backed by science and it's also, when you go to doctors and they flat out tell you, like, you will, unless you have a surgery, you won't, you'll have pain forever.

Or you'll just have pain forever, period, or we don't know what's going on. So here's a pill. I'm not saying they're working within their scope, and I understand that, but it can be difficult when you've been told that over and over and seen so many doctors and practitioners and nobody's able to help you to be like, wait, really?

Like, if I work on regulating my nervous system and learn. Brain retraining tools, I can be symptom free. And the answer is yes. And. You know, when I, when I talk to somebody that is highly skeptical. my question is, it's like, well, what do you really have to lose? Like, are you willing to just give it a try? Because. isn't being symptom free, like, worth trying something new? because, yeah, it is kind of asking us, like, you say, grace to kind of. Really revolutionize the way that we think about, our health and what is and isn't possible.

and I, I think a lot more is than we are often, taught to believe. 

[00:37:17] Grace: Definitely. Okay. Okay. Anything else you think you'd like to add to this? No, thank you. Okay. All right. Well, I hope this was helpful. if you have any questions around this, you know, where to find us dm. there's also a link below in the show notes to the podcast website page and I'm accepting any types of questions that you want us to address on here.

So let me know if there's anything. and if not, thanks for listening and we'll talk to you next time.