Nicole Sachs on Healing Chronic Pain, Facing Repressed Emotions, and Lowering Your Stress Reservoire
00:00:00.000 | I've been slacking lately. That's the resistance. I know I hate it because I
00:00:05.720 | know it's the most important thing but I'm just like man I don't really feel
00:00:08.440 | like making time for it. Well ask me that question and we can talk about it because that is like a
00:00:13.040 | really like the most common thing that happens to people. It's so annoying.
00:00:18.560 | Not to like you know like keep you in suspense the whole point is this if your
00:00:23.320 | nervous system perceives the stuff that you're gonna look at in your journal
00:00:26.280 | speak as dangerous what happens is it speaks to you in your own voice and
00:00:29.880 | your voice says I don't feel like doing this or I'm too tired I've got better things to do or I've got more
00:00:33.680 | important things to do and that... Which is literally that that quote where you were
00:00:37.160 | talking about like we're more afraid of the light our light and our potential
00:00:42.120 | than we are of like the more comfortable darkness that we've kind of been in for
00:00:45.440 | a while. It's true. It's like we're kind of like we... Yeah so just so you know though
00:00:49.840 | it is actually impossible for the reservoir to go down if you don't do the
00:00:54.720 | work. Yeah if you don't do it. Yeah. Exactly. And so just like just know that. You have to do it.
00:00:58.960 | That's the way you have to talk to the resistance because the resistance is
00:01:02.000 | wily and it's gonna be like no no I got you like we're just not gonna do it.
00:01:06.160 | Well I guess I'll ask you about it. Should we like start like is this like are we starting? It's rolling.
00:01:10.640 | Welcome to another episode of Curious Mike. I am here with my friend Nicole.
00:01:22.800 | Yeah we have a lot of good stuff to talk about today. I thought we would start
00:01:26.160 | with how I found your work and then you can kind of start with what you do. Yeah.
00:01:29.400 | So everybody kind of knows kind of was dealing with some back issues for a
00:01:35.200 | while probably since junior year of high school going into senior year. That's
00:01:41.320 | when I first started kind of dealing with my back issues. It kind of got worse
00:01:45.200 | going into college. Tried to find all different physical therapists all
00:01:49.920 | different kind of chiropractors and different things and none of them really
00:01:53.960 | worked until eventually you know I needed a surgery. I thought that would
00:01:57.960 | fix it but about seven eight months later I needed another one and then
00:02:03.080 | recently about a year and a half two years ago had my third back surgery and
00:02:07.540 | meanwhile you know I'm putting my trust and my hope into all these different
00:02:12.400 | practitioners, all these different physical therapists, chiropractors, all
00:02:17.120 | these are even the surgeon you know just praying that they you know knew
00:02:20.420 | something that I didn't know about how to fix myself and then kind of kind of I
00:02:24.680 | think I got to a point where like I got to figure out how to fix this on my own.
00:02:28.120 | I got to take matters into my own hands and I remember someone recommending the
00:02:32.520 | book Healing Back Pain by Dr. Sarno and I thought it was going to be a book
00:02:36.360 | about like just things you do like physical activities, you do a physical
00:02:40.360 | therapy. Managing it. Exactly but it was the complete opposite. It was about
00:02:46.400 | dealing with emotions and if and if anything about my understanding about
00:02:51.040 | the TMS is wrong, correct me while I'm talking. Yeah, yeah I will. So far you're right on.
00:02:57.080 | Basically when I'm reading this book Dr. Sarno was talking about how as humans we
00:03:03.360 | have a lot of repressed emotions and there's this syndrome called TMS that he
00:03:09.440 | it's tension myositis. It's tension myositis syndrome in his first book and
00:03:14.480 | then it was evolved into tension myoneural syndrome. Got you. But like do
00:03:18.320 | you want me to like just explain it real quick because I think people like well
00:03:20.840 | you you go first. Yeah so I'm just like so basically from my understanding of the
00:03:25.040 | book it was how our emotions play a big part in our physical body and sometimes
00:03:32.120 | when we don't deal with emotions you know a lot of times this is this comes
00:03:35.840 | from a very specific personality type you know perfectionist, do-goodist and all
00:03:40.000 | these things we have a tendency to repress emotions not not bring them to
00:03:44.560 | the forefront and in turn our body can create pain to distract us from those
00:03:49.360 | emotions. And so even just like getting into what we'll talk about and you'll
00:03:53.960 | explain it 100 times better than me I was like this is what I feel like I'm
00:03:58.080 | missing. This book is describing my personality. I've tried every physical
00:04:02.000 | tool to heal myself from this chronic back pain. Nothing has seemed to work and
00:04:07.560 | this just felt like it was talking directly to me and it touched something
00:04:12.800 | in me that I just felt like was it. And then you know I came across your work
00:04:17.240 | reached out to you and yeah now kind of get into what you do and then we'll go
00:04:22.480 | from there. Yeah all right that was actually really great. It's really great
00:04:25.880 | for me to hear how you're understanding it because your understanding is the
00:04:29.240 | perfect doorway through which to like get to the deeper meat of it. So
00:04:33.880 | essentially the most important thing I like to say at the beginning of any
00:04:38.400 | interview is like this is not like hippy-dippy yay let's feel our feelings
00:04:43.000 | and your physical pain goes away. And even though that's wonderful and nothing
00:04:46.880 | against that this is straight-up brain science. And so that's like the most
00:04:51.200 | important thing that I can get people to understand which is when we repress our
00:04:55.000 | emotions enough it sends a signal to our nervous system that we're in danger. The
00:05:00.920 | reason we're in danger is because the nervous system perceives your repressed
00:05:05.120 | emotional world as a predator to your life. So like if you look at the human
00:05:09.640 | being our fight-or-flight mechanism which is the brain stem is the same as
00:05:14.800 | in the dawn of early man. And so we've developed amazing evolutionary brain
00:05:21.480 | structures beyond that but in our very nature that that same reflex that keeps
00:05:26.840 | us alive that pulls your hand off a hot stove it's the same exact 2023 and a
00:05:32.680 | hundred billion years ago whatever humans started. So the point is that when
00:05:38.360 | our repressed emotional world gets to a certain point and Dr. Sarno called it
00:05:42.880 | the reservoir of rage so like he called it rage I call it rage sadness despair
00:05:48.960 | shame you know embarrassment regret grief you know terror all the things
00:05:56.000 | that that are so natural to human beings when that reservoir gets to be in
00:05:59.680 | maximum density and threatens to spill over and inform our conscious minds of
00:06:04.800 | how scared and stuck and regretful we are the nervous system perceives that as
00:06:09.680 | a predator just like a woolly mammoth it's the same signal that goes off and
00:06:13.600 | so what it does is it shifts into chronic fight-or-flight at that point
00:06:17.200 | and at that moment pain signals are sent by the brain into different areas of our
00:06:22.400 | bodies because it is seen as a protective mechanism just like pain is
00:06:26.680 | always a protective mechanism I know we've discussed this if you run and you
00:06:30.640 | break your ankle the reason why huge pain erupts from that spot is because
00:06:35.000 | your brain is saying something's wrong you need protection like crawl off into
00:06:39.200 | the bushes like find safety you're gonna get eaten out here you know pain is
00:06:43.400 | seeks to protect us so the same exact mechanism is what happens when there's
00:06:47.160 | too much repression the brain goes into fight-or-flight it sends inflammation
00:06:51.440 | muscle constriction spasm all sorts of different sensations into the body and
00:06:55.840 | it causes us to slow down but until we understand that we don't know that
00:07:00.760 | constantly repressing our emotions is like causing this process so we tend to
00:07:05.720 | focus exactly what you did on the area of the body that's hurting so your back
00:07:10.560 | was hurting you went to a physical therapist you went to a massage
00:07:13.440 | therapist you went to an acupuncturist you go to a surgeon right that makes
00:07:17.560 | total sense whereas somebody else your back pain is somebody else's migraines
00:07:22.440 | and somebody else's migraines is somebody else's fibromyalgia or
00:07:26.100 | irritable bowel or skin disorder and so that person is going to a headache
00:07:31.120 | specialist and that person is going to a person who deals with fibromyalgia and
00:07:35.480 | nerve pain all of those people though are dealing with the same exact process
00:07:39.760 | of the brain sending these signals and so until we deal with the root of it
00:07:44.040 | it's kind of impossible to get better why do you and I feel like your work and
00:07:48.760 | what you do is gonna become very in the forefront of treating this type of stuff
00:07:55.000 | in the near future why do you think that this is like new knowledge to a lot of
00:08:01.400 | people and my second question is what personality types is it and why do you
00:08:08.120 | think the text those type of people most yeah so the first question I mean we
00:08:12.080 | could both speculate that obviously if you heal through my methods and through
00:08:16.880 | dr. Sarno's methods a lot of people don't make a lot of money you know I
00:08:20.880 | mean a lot of the chronic pain industry focuses on the surgical model the
00:08:24.640 | medical model and and pharma and I am NOT I'm always really careful when I'm
00:08:29.080 | interviewed to say I have nothing against those models I want there to be
00:08:32.960 | surgery and medical advances and medications like I am NOT a Puritan but
00:08:37.640 | at the same time those solutions are not fixing the chronic pain problem which is
00:08:42.640 | exactly what you found in your life so I actually think the reason this is new
00:08:46.160 | knowledge is because I've always said this is going to be a bottom-up
00:08:50.800 | solution not a top-down so if we're looking at big pharma or we're looking
00:08:55.560 | at surgeons no one's going to be giving us this information but dr. Sarno started
00:09:00.480 | in the 50s I started my work about 20 years ago I think there's a groundswell
00:09:05.760 | I think there's enough people that are like you know what actually this worked
00:09:10.380 | for me when this other stuff didn't or I heard a podcast and now of course with
00:09:14.760 | technology and the internet there are podcasts there are websites there are
00:09:18.200 | YouTube channels so I just think enough of the information has gotten out there
00:09:21.360 | that the change is starting to happen from the bottom up and one of the things
00:09:26.120 | I say when I'm lecturing large groups of people is I ask them I'm like I'm gonna
00:09:30.000 | ask you like a really triggering question but I just want you to not get
00:09:33.120 | triggered and think about the answer how long would you like to suffer and like
00:09:38.920 | people sometimes their first reaction is well don't tell me that I'm choosing my
00:09:42.120 | suffering I'm like you're not consciously choosing your suffering but
00:09:45.960 | if you're willing to open your mind and look at the fact that maybe there are
00:09:50.000 | solutions you have not yet explored and replace your fear with curiosity there
00:09:55.160 | might be a solution there that you could try and that's when they look to this
00:10:00.200 | kind of work so I think that's what's happening right now right and I think
00:10:03.480 | um like for me I'm lucky I caught it let's stay kind of on this path I'm
00:10:08.000 | lucky I caught it like 25 instead of a lot of people oh my god yes and they've
00:10:12.720 | tried everything and now they're in their later years and they're like I
00:10:15.720 | give up like and then they may come to your work way later on obviously we want
00:10:21.520 | to get this to a point where it's common knowledge and things like that why do
00:10:26.480 | you think it attacks the certain personality type and yeah yeah talk
00:10:32.800 | about that for a second before we get into the actual work of what yeah how
00:10:35.920 | you fix it no it's a great question and and one of the reasons I was so super
00:10:40.260 | excited when you reached out to me one of them was your age because like you
00:10:43.800 | said coming to this early is just such a gift it doesn't mean people can't heal
00:10:48.680 | when they're older the brain is plastic and it will literally change for every
00:10:52.840 | day that we live until the day that we die so there's always room for change
00:10:56.760 | but coming to this young like I did you know I first learned about it at 19 I
00:11:01.120 | really came into it probably like right exactly about your age in my mid-twenties
00:11:05.200 | and um and it's like given me so much time to have a life of infinite
00:11:10.280 | possibilities you know I mean like and in like the really spiritual sense of
00:11:14.760 | how crazy this is I was told I would never have biological children because
00:11:18.320 | of my back disorder and because I didn't listen to that and found mind-body
00:11:24.040 | medicine I have three whole human beings and God knows what they're gonna do in
00:11:28.080 | the world so it's all just so like mind-blowing if you look at it sort of
00:11:31.360 | like in a meta kind of way but another reason I was really excited when you
00:11:37.320 | came to me is the concept of professional sports we are so used to
00:11:42.560 | hearing that people have an injury and it becomes their injury that's the
00:11:46.980 | player with the bad knee that's the player with the bad back that's the
00:11:49.840 | player with this and that shoulder wrist whatever and so many people don't
00:11:54.160 | understand that after a certain amount of healing time even if you tear your
00:11:59.160 | ACL or do something that super requires surgery after a certain amount of
00:12:02.760 | healing time when something becomes chronic it's because this mind-body
00:12:06.480 | system takes over which we'll talk more about and so that's just so exciting to
00:12:11.000 | me because to kind of get into your next question there are so many people in
00:12:15.640 | professional sports that have the same personality which is like super high
00:12:21.160 | achieving put a lot of pressure on themselves perfectionists people who
00:12:26.080 | it's very important to be seen as doing a good job seeking a lot of approval I
00:12:30.760 | mean obviously sports is not the only place where this exists but it's just
00:12:34.000 | like when you're good enough at something to be on that in that kind of
00:12:37.680 | arena you are gonna have this personality being your own worst critic
00:12:41.520 | you know other people could criticize you but no one's gonna do the job that
00:12:44.960 | you do to yourself right and so this the reason this personality characteristic
00:12:49.640 | these characteristics are so susceptible to TMS and the mind-body pain we're
00:12:53.960 | talking about is because there's so much opportunity to dump in the reservoir
00:12:58.320 | right if you're the kind of person that's like super easygoing and you
00:13:02.120 | never kind of give yourself a hard time and you're just chill that's not a
00:13:05.760 | person who really experiences a lot of chronic pain because they're just like
00:13:08.840 | you know they they go along to get along and it's no big deal many of us it's
00:13:13.200 | funny when I used to lecture with Sarno at NYU our auditoriums would be filled
00:13:17.920 | with like heads of state heads of clergy CEOs like it was always the people that
00:13:25.120 | held themselves to their highest standard because it puts so much
00:13:28.200 | pressure on yourself to be good and to be seen as doing a good job and that's
00:13:33.160 | that's the people that get this that's so crazy talk about your individual
00:13:37.120 | stories so people can hear your your testimony and how how you healed from
00:13:43.200 | from your situation and how crazy your situation is because I think a lot of
00:13:46.800 | people think you know they're more messed up than other people or this
00:13:51.040 | might work for a certain situation that wouldn't work for mine or I've already
00:13:54.400 | done the surgeries or you know we talked about you know a lot of people times
00:13:59.320 | people go get an MRI and their MRI might come back clean but they're in pain but
00:14:03.520 | there's a lot of people where they go get an MRI and there may be something
00:14:05.840 | wrong with them your work speaks to those people as well yeah for me like my
00:14:09.880 | MRI showed things that were abnormalities but you call them normal
00:14:15.720 | I'm one abnormalities talk about your situation and to all those kind of
00:14:20.360 | groups of people yes so dr. Sarno first coined the phrase normal abnormalities
00:14:26.200 | because as I'm not a medical doctor I borrow all the medical stuff from him
00:14:30.020 | because it's all so true and then I can take it and kind of build on top of it
00:14:34.160 | so I come by this honestly I came into dr. Sarno's world as a patient of dr.
00:14:40.160 | Sarno when I was 19 I was a freshman in college and I was in a particularly
00:14:44.800 | stressful time having left home for the first time and all the stuff that
00:14:48.600 | happens in college and my back went out out I mean I couldn't walk I couldn't
00:14:53.520 | get off the floor to the point where it was so severe that my parents had to
00:14:57.680 | come to college and physically bring me home and then I went through the battery
00:15:02.080 | of tests and the doctors MRIs x-rays orthopedic surgeon consults and what
00:15:08.120 | they came up with is my MRI shows what they call degenerative spondylolisthesis
00:15:13.120 | which means that my lower spine has an abnormality so severe that like
00:15:19.120 | orthopedic surgeons go pale they like they don't know what to say to me when
00:15:23.080 | they see it because it's like they feel so sorry for me and essentially what
00:15:27.080 | involves is I have a vertebrae that is shattered and replaced with scar tissue
00:15:30.640 | and stress fractures on the vertebrae above and below and it kind of just sits
00:15:34.480 | if anyone ever have seen an MRI with spondylolisthesis it looks pretty ugly
00:15:39.000 | so of course of course this very well-meaning doctor looked at that film
00:15:44.880 | and was like this is what's causing your severe debilitating back pain and my
00:15:49.880 | mother was like freaking out and I'm her only child and I'm being told at that
00:15:55.600 | point life stops today no more exercise no more travel no more riding in the car
00:16:02.160 | for more than 60 minutes if you can even imagine and that when I slept I got to
00:16:07.160 | sleep in two ways either the fetal position or I had to have my knees three
00:16:10.600 | feet elevated or something like that it's insane in order to not cause all
00:16:16.960 | this pressure on the back blah blah blah they put me on opioids they put me on
00:16:22.560 | muscle relaxers on steroids you can only imagine everything that could be done
00:16:27.880 | for me the one thing that they didn't do is surgery because I was 19 and they
00:16:32.080 | said I knew you're different because you're using your body in such a
00:16:34.680 | physical way I was a psychology student my freshman year in college they said if
00:16:38.880 | you're not gonna go really hard on your body don't do a surgery yet because the
00:16:43.400 | surgery I needed was something called spinal fusion surgery which at the time
00:16:47.680 | in 1990 they said would be weeks in a body cast and would be limiting my
00:16:52.680 | mobility for life so like nobody was nobody was offering that but that was
00:16:57.240 | like it was a huge deal but what they said is I had to live this like extremely
00:17:00.760 | limited life and they said the likelihood that I would have ever have a
00:17:03.920 | biological child was slim to none because if I were willing to go on like
00:17:08.280 | eight months of bed rest maybe because like the the weight of the baby on my on
00:17:14.040 | my back so at the end of the day that was like a very obviously like a very
00:17:19.240 | extreme situation and so I went into like total denial I was like okay I'm
00:17:26.320 | like a child I'm not dealing with any of this and with all the medication it did
00:17:30.360 | bring me to a space from acute to chronic pain so I wasn't like I could
00:17:34.320 | walk but it's probably like what you deal with like they're really nagging
00:17:38.240 | annoying yes you always feel it you're always thinking about it yes that kind
00:17:42.960 | of thing and so basically what ended up happening was I lived through years of
00:17:48.160 | that I was careful with my travel I stopped playing any sort of sports and
00:17:51.520 | I'm an athletic person so that was really really upsetting I lived in fear
00:17:55.800 | and then when I was in my mid-20s I found the work of dr. Sarno and I was
00:18:02.120 | like huh and it was the same exact thing is like I read healing back pain and I
00:18:05.760 | was like this is like to me like this just it just I think it's almost a
00:18:10.720 | spiritual process - it's like your mind opens you don't even know why and I was
00:18:14.960 | like okay I'm gonna instead of turning all my my energy toward fear I'm looking
00:18:19.600 | to turn it toward curiosity like what is this I thought sort of crazy concept
00:18:24.560 | that anger could cause back pain because that was his basic first premise yeah
00:18:28.760 | the rage the rage exactly and I of course also did not see myself as a
00:18:33.200 | person who is rageful I was brought up in a family where my dad was like super
00:18:37.840 | super rage aholic and he daily was a daily drinker so he would drink and then
00:18:42.640 | he would get nuts on my mom and me and I really found that anger was dangerous
00:18:49.200 | and so I never expressed anger and I didn't feel anger that's the most
00:18:53.880 | important part I actually if I could have passed a lie detector test that I'm
00:18:57.920 | not an angry person I never get angry right those all it's being expressed
00:19:01.600 | through my back because it was so dangerous to be angry because it aligned
00:19:04.760 | me with for lack of a better word my abuser and so that was like a big thing
00:19:09.800 | for me and my work on myself but when I found dr. Sarno's work I moved through
00:19:14.800 | the process it's a long story but essentially I found my way to like
00:19:19.440 | complete cessation of chronic pain I have not had back pain in I mean at
00:19:25.280 | least 20 years I think that is some people's like like some people's like
00:19:32.540 | version of heaven like no back pain not living with their chronic pain okay so
00:19:36.840 | we get kind of like the personality type we get how this can affect a lot of
00:19:43.280 | different people in different ways back pain headaches shoulder pain what's the
00:19:47.880 | fibromyalgia that's another one fibromyalgia is a big one because that's
00:19:51.520 | nerve pain all over your body yeah okay so now let's get into what people
00:19:56.480 | actually need to do that are listening to this because I've started it we've
00:19:59.880 | talked a little bit about the resistance how you don't really want to do the work
00:20:04.920 | but this is how you heal and it's really not that complicated yes you have to do
00:20:09.360 | it all right so talk about that okay so the line I use around this is it's
00:20:12.800 | simple but it's not easy okay so it's simple I can explain it and the best
00:20:17.320 | most simplest way I can explain it is this you have a reservoir inside of you
00:20:22.080 | it's an invisible invisible reservoir so you picture a clear science beaker that
00:20:26.680 | is full of your trauma responses capital T and little t your anger at many things
00:20:33.400 | that have happened in your childhood in your daily life your shame because we
00:20:37.300 | all have it from our upbringings your sadness and grief your fear and terror
00:20:41.920 | your anxiety all the things that we experience naturally as human beings and
00:20:46.400 | picture that every time something happens that triggers you or rubs you
00:20:49.800 | the wrong way it's like a ladle being dumped in the reservoir okay so the
00:20:53.520 | reservoir gets up to maximum density it spills over it triggers your nervous
00:20:57.800 | system to inform your brain send a signal inflammation pain muscle
00:21:02.080 | constriction you need to be safe so if you're triggered by your aunt Edna who's
00:21:07.520 | always criticizing you and telling you you're a bad person when you're on your
00:21:12.180 | way to the family reunion you're gonna get a migraine well what happened all of
00:21:16.720 | a sudden you're safe you have to cancel and go lay in the dark like it's it
00:21:19.760 | makes so much logical sense and so that process is happening every time the
00:21:24.960 | reservoir reaches maximum density now how does the reservoir go down well
00:21:28.840 | there are some natural ways that don't involve any hard work soothe factors you
00:21:33.520 | know you get a new girlfriend or boyfriend you hang out with your friends
00:21:38.520 | and have like a serious laugh you go on vacation you do something that you're
00:21:42.960 | proud of you know you win a big game okay great it does go down like that
00:21:47.080 | because it evaporates when we're in a state of ease and comfort you can't
00:21:51.280 | count on those things in order to make your life you know perfect and so I
00:21:55.600 | teach a process that I developed through my own recovery called journal speak and
00:22:00.880 | very simply it is an exercise where you take 30 minutes of your day now I know
00:22:06.960 | that sounds like a very little time part portion of time to you and me but you
00:22:12.220 | know how hard it is when you actually try to do it but you take 30 minutes of
00:22:16.480 | your day for 20 minutes of your day you journal in the way that I teach that we
00:22:20.800 | could talk about in a minute and then for 10 minutes you do any form of
00:22:25.040 | loving-kindness meditation guided unguided I don't care something to
00:22:29.340 | connect yourself back to like I'm okay I'm a human being I have a right to my
00:22:34.480 | feelings I have a right to my anger and of course I have a lot of resources that
00:22:38.720 | really outline this if people are getting curious from this podcast and
00:22:42.200 | the point is when you do that 30 minutes a day at least in the beginning it's
00:22:47.080 | like putting a ladle in the reservoir and dumping it off and what's really
00:22:51.000 | important about the journal speak is it is spoken in the language of your inner
00:22:55.520 | child it is not spoken in the language of your grown-up responsible self that
00:22:59.920 | cares about what people think or that needs to be the best or needs to be seen
00:23:04.240 | as you know achieving it is a rant and it can be a rant like I hate this you
00:23:11.120 | know I F this like unfiltered unfiltered okay or it can be tearful or quite
00:23:19.240 | frankly it can be unbridled and excited if you don't think you have your
00:23:23.520 | permission to be that way in life like a lot of people are shut down for their
00:23:27.360 | excitement when their kids like simmer down it's not all about you you know
00:23:31.360 | like it upsets your mother when you're so whatever there are so many reasons
00:23:36.520 | that we repress you know like my son I've raised my kids in this and none of
00:23:40.720 | them have any chronic issues but when my son gets a stomachache which is his
00:23:44.000 | symptom imperative it's oftentimes because his favorite band is dropping an
00:23:47.880 | album at midnight and he's so keyed up he's got like so much excitement and he
00:23:51.760 | gets a stomachache so I taught him it's not just about bad things it's about
00:23:55.360 | anything that makes you feel like you don't have the power to express it you
00:23:59.440 | put pen to paper or fingers to keyboard and you let it dump you let it rip it is
00:24:04.640 | such a passionate emotional process or you get frustrated it's not it doesn't
00:24:10.480 | matter no matter how it happens you do it like a practice every day and what
00:24:15.840 | happens when you do it is the reservoir goes down and as soon as it is not up
00:24:20.200 | there triggering the nervous system in the brain into fight-or-flight you
00:24:24.080 | settle into rest and repair which is a parasympathetic functioning the pain
00:24:28.560 | signals simply stop firing and for anyone listening to this that thinks
00:24:33.820 | that's insane I can't imagine that I agree with you it sounds crazy and in
00:24:41.200 | the 20 years of me doing this between my podcast and my lectures and everything
00:24:46.400 | I've done to teach and to write millions of people are touched by this and their
00:24:52.540 | lives are completely transformed because they're not in pain it is it sounds
00:24:56.840 | insane I agree it sounds too easy to be true it's not because it's hard to get
00:25:01.720 | yourself to do it so maybe that's what you want to show I think that's just
00:25:04.960 | like it is it can be hard to get yourself to do it just because like
00:25:09.920 | especially as a man you like we want to just be able to go physically make
00:25:15.800 | ourselves better we don't really want to deal with our emotions or anything like
00:25:19.200 | that the reservoir so when it goes down and your pain stops and it's because
00:25:27.680 | you're dealing with all these emotions I think some people that will look at you
00:25:31.180 | as like a therapist a lot of therapists deal with kind of like speaking
00:25:37.060 | yourself into positivity or changing the way you think not a lot of therapists
00:25:42.840 | talk about dealing with the we've talked about this like a lot of therapists will
00:25:46.920 | talk about like looking on the bright side of things or changing the way you
00:25:50.380 | think about something you're talking about like no whatever deep down you're
00:25:53.880 | not allowed to express in your day-to-day life go there and and talk
00:25:59.500 | about it in your journal speak talk about why the people that just kind of
00:26:04.000 | try to change their mindset look on the brighter side of things they're not the
00:26:08.440 | ones that get better it's the people that actually deal with the really
00:26:11.360 | really hard stuff to get better so let's remember when you're asking question
00:26:15.440 | like this because I think it's an amazing question that like the work I do
00:26:19.840 | is not going to solve every problem in your life right so like let's say you
00:26:25.200 | have like really difficult time with communication and so like you might go
00:26:29.200 | to like a therapist that says listen you're so negative that every time you
00:26:33.400 | communicate with someone you're exhibiting negativity and they're
00:26:37.120 | exhibiting negativity back that might be a great therapy for that person who like
00:26:41.640 | can't communicate but that person is not going to get rid of their chronic pain
00:26:44.560 | through that therapy because the chronic pain is literally a physical reaction to
00:26:50.000 | this reservoir being too high so the reason I qualify that kind of question
00:26:54.200 | is by saying we are not here to solve every problem you have like the reason
00:26:59.900 | you're you contacted me was not because you want perfect relationships with your
00:27:04.120 | family and you know a perfect romantic relationship and and and that because
00:27:08.360 | I'm talking to you you're gonna be excellent on the court yeah maybe those
00:27:11.960 | things would be related but you're coming to me because you're like my back
00:27:14.760 | is killing me and I can't play like this and I'm saying okay let's start there
00:27:19.800 | how do we begin to get your back to stop zinging you this is how we got to get
00:27:25.600 | the reservoir down how do you get the reservoir down not by looking on the
00:27:29.440 | bright side you get the reservoir down by looking at the shit that is bubbling
00:27:34.160 | in it that you don't want to look at because your nervous system whispers in
00:27:38.080 | your ear and says it's dangerous look away if you know how much and I'm gonna
00:27:43.400 | I'm gonna be really hyperbolic here because I think it's important I'm gonna
00:27:47.320 | speak in journal speak for a second there is somewhere deep down inside you
00:27:51.860 | that actually hates your parents not like not just disrespects them hates
00:27:56.760 | them there's somewhere in there that you hate your kids you wish you could drive
00:28:00.600 | away and never parent them again there's somewhere in there that even though your
00:28:05.800 | ailing mother is like you're the dearest person in your life and you're taking
00:28:10.360 | care of her every day there is somewhere in you where you wish she would die
00:28:13.800 | because you can't do this anymore I mean that's the dark stuff I'm like it's okay
00:28:18.360 | every single human being feels these things you know and like it can be that
00:28:23.560 | those are very extreme examples but it could be really far-reaching like I need
00:28:27.280 | this job for the money and it hurts my heart every day to show up there because
00:28:31.240 | this job is not for me and it's killing me like that's a lighter version but if
00:28:35.440 | the if we don't look at this stuff and express it the nervous system has no
00:28:39.620 | choice but to protect us from it because when when it's not expressed it is seen
00:28:45.120 | as a threat so talk about why journal speak is important and you can't just
00:28:49.800 | like think yourself out of the pain because for me for example like I'll
00:28:53.480 | just try to think like okay like I know this is bothering me don't act like it's
00:28:56.560 | okay just just think about the negative thoughts so that they don't become back
00:29:00.360 | pain what and I think it's probably because when you're writing especially
00:29:04.240 | for a longer period of time like 20 minutes stuff comes out that's right
00:29:07.160 | that you normally wouldn't be able to think about consciously is that kind of
00:29:11.120 | why yeah so like one of the examples and I know you and I have discussed this is
00:29:15.100 | like if you were to adopt a shelter animal that has been abused right so you
00:29:19.400 | bring the puppy into your house and the puppy is cowering in the corner and like
00:29:23.360 | you're like why doesn't it love me I'm ready to be loved and the puppy's like
00:29:26.480 | because I've been beaten in the past and I need time to trust you need to sit
00:29:31.240 | with the things that have been dangerous so in that example let's say on the
00:29:35.440 | first day you sit and you put a treat in your hand and you just sit quietly maybe
00:29:39.280 | that day the puppy doesn't come maybe the next day the puppy gets like halfway
00:29:42.720 | and runs back to the corner but if you just show up every day and just sit and
00:29:47.160 | just be a safe space one day the puppy's gonna grab the treat and go run back to
00:29:51.120 | the corner but eventually that puppy's in your lap and then it's a friend for
00:29:54.560 | life and I think that your nervous system people don't understand because
00:29:58.680 | we have a time frame for the way we want things to go that your nervous system
00:30:03.880 | and your brain are protective they think they're saving your life by not letting
00:30:09.400 | you feel these things and so you get to your journal speak and you sit
00:30:13.280 | patiently and you write and you and when we actually have to slow down and put
00:30:17.640 | fingers to keyboard or pen to paper you you make space for epiphany right because
00:30:23.320 | when we think we think it a billion miles a minute right we're just like
00:30:26.160 | okay we miss so many things but you sit down you start writing and you can't get
00:30:31.680 | the words out quick enough to be that kind of reflexive thinker so then like
00:30:37.120 | you're in the middle of a sentence and I know you've experienced this because
00:30:39.680 | you've done a little bit of the work you're like holy cow wait a second I
00:30:43.440 | actually feel that way and and that's another thing like while you're doing it
00:30:48.120 | you're gonna get invitations from like your higher self whatever you want to
00:30:51.600 | call it if like if you're a spiritual person you might believe that that's
00:30:54.720 | like a divine inspiration and if you're not you might just feel like it's from
00:30:59.280 | your gut you're gonna get invitations and you're gonna get a sense like a
00:31:02.920 | whisper and you're gonna be like do I actually feel that way about that thing
00:31:06.920 | and that's where it's your responsibility to be brave and to say
00:31:10.400 | I'm gonna look into that and what I do in my journal speak is I stop there and
00:31:14.080 | I go I ask myself a question I just got a sense that I you know I'm not actually
00:31:20.440 | comfortable with that situation am I I never thought that before what makes me
00:31:25.640 | not comfortable and I ask myself the question and then I answer it and when
00:31:28.920 | you're in that dialogue it's like sitting quietly with that abused animal
00:31:33.320 | in the treat you're just creating trust with the system that thinks your pain is
00:31:38.040 | necessary to protect you and little by slowly you start to understand the way
00:31:43.800 | you feel the reservoir is emptied and it's like the puppy getting into your
00:31:47.520 | lap like you will it's amazing and I always like feel no matter how often I
00:31:52.720 | talk about it I just am on my knees in reverence to its power the way the pain
00:31:58.840 | signals stop firing and people are like you're never gonna believe it my back
00:32:03.080 | just doesn't hurt anymore I'm like I believe it unbelievable it's super
00:32:08.080 | exciting because I'm gonna get I'm gonna get there man super consistent in it
00:32:13.320 | okay so I want to bring up this quote we talked about this before we started the
00:32:17.840 | podcast sometimes us as humans the quote is about being afraid of our light being
00:32:24.760 | afraid of our potential yes I see that in myself like sometimes it's just like
00:32:30.560 | you have a fear of your potential we don't know how great we are we and so we
00:32:34.480 | feel safer kind of in the darkness of our of our bad habits of where we've
00:32:38.640 | been our whole life and that's where some of the resistance to this work can
00:32:42.240 | come from yes do you think it's straight-up willpower at the beginning
00:32:47.080 | just to get yourself to do it and then you see the results or yeah answer that
00:32:53.480 | and then answer also the there's three main things obviously believing is one
00:32:59.240 | of them you then you do the work and then the last one is patience and
00:33:02.600 | kindness for your patience and kindness so I think getting yourself to do the
00:33:06.520 | work has to do with actually believing that the work will work so yeah talk
00:33:12.720 | about those three things and how they're related and how you need all three to
00:33:16.440 | get over your chronic pain yeah that's that's that you you are like covering it
00:33:20.120 | all so I'll start with your first comment which was is it just willpower
00:33:24.280 | and honestly there is a little bit of like you know tough love at the
00:33:30.260 | beginning of this which is like if you keep doing what you're doing you'll keep
00:33:33.880 | getting what you're getting right so you will use your example you're coming to
00:33:37.400 | me because you're like listen since I'm 17 I've been having this back problems I
00:33:40.720 | have three surgeries that have not fixed the problem I have years ahead of me of
00:33:45.440 | success in my game if I am on the top of my game what do I do right and so I
00:33:50.120 | would say so you've been to doctors you've been to all these different
00:33:54.200 | practitioners God knows as a person in your position you have access to the
00:33:58.000 | best of the best and you're not better so it's time to have a little tough love
00:34:03.040 | and be like you got a freaking do something different yeah even if you
00:34:07.400 | don't want to even if the whispers in your ear which come from your own
00:34:11.880 | thoughts are no I just don't feel like you're right now I'll do it later and
00:34:15.440 | then later comes and you don't do it and then it's the next day which I'm sure
00:34:18.240 | I'm sure you recognize because I've been there too I'm exactly the same by the
00:34:22.600 | way as everyone else I resist my own work because I'm human so the way to
00:34:26.680 | begin if you're really struggling with any sort of chronic issue anybody who's
00:34:30.160 | listening is you have to make a decision to do something differently and it's
00:34:35.220 | funny because I'm in the process of writing this book and this morning
00:34:39.760 | before I came here to talk to you that is what I was talking about that there
00:34:43.260 | is great power in making a decision because you're like you take back the
00:34:48.280 | reins of your own life and when you've been medicalized all you've been doing
00:34:52.060 | is giving away your power for years and years and so it's like okay I'm gonna
00:34:56.520 | believe because Michael's saying it because Nicole's saying it because the
00:35:00.520 | hundreds of people on my podcast that have been interviewed are saying it I'm
00:35:03.760 | just gonna believe for the moment that this actually has some credence that
00:35:08.160 | this is gonna work and then I am going to show up for myself every day now
00:35:12.880 | here's what happens if you're able to be consistent you let's say for example
00:35:18.040 | I'll give an example that's not you you have neck pain and every day when you
00:35:22.160 | back down your driveway and you turn your neck you get like this horrible
00:35:25.320 | zing down your back and you're like hating it and it's affecting your life
00:35:29.440 | and it affects every minute of your day if you do this work consistently what's
00:35:33.440 | gonna happen is on like the X number of day because we never give a time limit
00:35:37.720 | because that stops people in their tracks you put your turn your head to go
00:35:41.920 | down the driveway and like you get halfway down the driveway and you
00:35:45.260 | realize you haven't felt it yet now if you if that happens to you it's likely
00:35:49.320 | because your brain is in that sort of suggestive mode it's gonna come at that
00:35:52.760 | point but you had that moment right this is how our body becomes our proof and
00:35:57.440 | now let's say on the next day or on a week later you get all the way down the
00:36:01.720 | driveway and you start turning your head to start driving away and you're like
00:36:04.920 | holy shit I didn't feel it that whole time that's how it happens it starts it
00:36:09.600 | gives you an invitation like are you safe without me can you just do you need
00:36:14.240 | this pain and what happens as you go is your body becomes your proof and anyone
00:36:19.600 | in the world who has ever been evangelical about anything whether it's
00:36:23.800 | the newest health fad or something with religion or something with child raising
00:36:28.440 | like there's all sorts of places that we are evangelized it's because it happened
00:36:33.200 | to you right like I'm a mom of three my children are all almost adults now but
00:36:37.680 | when they were little and you got your kid to sleep through the night you got
00:36:41.000 | nuts you call all your friends do this do this do this this lavender oil and
00:36:44.720 | this song and this whatever because everyone's desperate to get their kids
00:36:47.880 | to sleep through the night anything that is a felt-sense experience then you
00:36:52.840 | believe it and that's when belief is really solidified is when you're like I
00:36:57.800 | did this consistently so it is a little bit of willpower at the beginning and
00:37:00.920 | then by doing it consistently my body becomes my proof then if you keep doing
00:37:06.920 | it I have no chronic pain anymore and let's remember there's no cure for human
00:37:11.960 | pain you're still gonna get a headache now and then you're still gonna be on
00:37:15.240 | the court and you're gonna be in a specifically stressful moment and your
00:37:18.160 | back will like just sing you a little and you go yeah yeah I got you I got you
00:37:22.560 | I'm really stressed right now I'll get to my journal speak later I'm cool and
00:37:25.800 | all at that point that's all your nervous system needs to be safe because
00:37:29.040 | it trusts you you sat with the treat for long enough it trusts you the back pain
00:37:33.080 | goes away you finish the game and then it's your responsibility in the next
00:37:36.160 | couple days get to your journal speak because there's there's there's stuff
00:37:39.120 | building up right so it's not a life sentence to have to do the journal speak
00:37:42.720 | it's at the beginning to get yourself into the new neural pathways of not
00:37:48.000 | firing for pain 100% yeah and I've talked to you about this trying to make
00:37:54.120 | sense of it you know you say it's kind of crazy to believe this and it might
00:37:58.960 | sound crazy to some people but the way I look at it is in 2023 in the world we
00:38:04.040 | live in all the pressures of I've talked about this in the Western world the
00:38:08.240 | American dream all these things of just working so hard to become something to
00:38:12.680 | get to the top all these things chronic pain anxiety depression all these things
00:38:18.080 | are so much more prevalent now and they were even 20 years ago I mean they were
00:38:22.880 | a thing obviously but it's getting more and more of an epidemic all these
00:38:26.680 | chronic issues you talked about in one of our sessions you go over to some of
00:38:32.840 | these other countries they don't really deal with certain chronic pains and I've
00:38:36.600 | heard that there's some country that doesn't deal with a lot of back pain
00:38:39.320 | there's another country you said no whiplash yeah so why do you think that
00:38:44.840 | these problems are rising in the world and I I think you come at like the
00:38:50.440 | perfect time because as these problems rise and keep rising this work also will
00:38:55.320 | rise and that's why I'm trying to you know partner with you bring awareness to
00:38:58.840 | it you know be able to be a testimony in the future of being pain-free because
00:39:03.120 | I've done everything you know I mean and so yeah talk about why you think it's
00:39:08.960 | more prevalent now and why you think other countries and things sometimes
00:39:13.560 | don't deal with the same things we deal with here so I'll back into your
00:39:16.920 | question by answering the one that I just didn't I do it you gave me two and
00:39:21.040 | I think it's important to focus on what you just asked me before you said there
00:39:24.800 | are three facets of my work okay so that's like it kind of it's it goes into
00:39:28.480 | the same point so if the three facets of my work are believe do the work which is
00:39:33.160 | the journal speak and patience and kindness for yourself and all three of
00:39:36.520 | those are like three legs of a stool and without any one of them the stool will
00:39:41.160 | not stand and so it's like super important to practice the belief so your
00:39:46.240 | nervous system can go into rest and repair and allow you to do the work to
00:39:49.680 | do the work to lower the reservoir so you can stay there and then to just stop
00:39:53.360 | beating ourselves up and I think in Western culture whether it be America or
00:39:58.640 | in other like in Western Europe and in Asia and other developed the most
00:40:04.680 | highly developed cultures we are so hard on ourselves everything is about
00:40:09.560 | achievement everything is about go go go and I think that the cultures that you're
00:40:13.880 | referencing are the ones where it's less about that or the ones where it's not
00:40:18.160 | we're not so held to a standard like I'm gonna just pick things that I've read
00:40:23.680 | about like I know in Japan there is a syndrome and I can't forget the I can't
00:40:29.720 | remember the name of it where people literally like drop dead it's it's um
00:40:33.640 | it's like an overworking syndrome this is a true story and it mostly happens to
00:40:37.720 | men we're in there like 40s they just literally die and it's because they're
00:40:42.800 | so overworked and so overstressed that their system shut down and they pass
00:40:46.920 | away and and and that's an extreme thing in Sweden there was a study that was
00:40:53.160 | done on refugees children of refugee families that had come from war-torn
00:40:59.960 | areas that were being given asylum in Sweden by the way there was a
00:41:03.880 | documentary made about this if people want to look at it and it's called life
00:41:08.560 | overtakes me and it was nominated for the Academy Award a few years ago these
00:41:13.240 | children are falling into comas at a crazy rate literally healthy children
00:41:19.480 | get sleepier and sleepier and they fall into full comas their bodies are healthy
00:41:24.280 | their vitals are fine but they're in comas and their parents have to feed them
00:41:28.160 | through feeding tubes there's one story where the parents get a letter that the
00:41:34.200 | family has been granted permanent asylum in Sweden and they're not going to have
00:41:38.260 | to go back to their war-torn country within 24 hours the child wakes up from
00:41:43.080 | a coma that she's been in for 18 months this is all on the documentary because
00:41:47.120 | she was so unsafe thinking she was gonna have to go back there after what she
00:41:50.560 | witnessed that her body shut down into a coma so I guess what I'm saying is like
00:41:54.400 | the human body is capable of extreme things to keep us safe that's like the
00:41:59.160 | TMS to the extreme those two things but in certain countries where the culture
00:42:03.920 | is not to put so much pressure and stress on us the body has no need to
00:42:08.920 | protect us in that extreme way or in like much lighter ways like a little bit
00:42:13.080 | of back pain and those cultures don't seem to have those problems it's amazing
00:42:18.640 | so I don't think it's as far-fetched as as you make it sound like to me when I
00:42:23.560 | hear this and I think for a lot of other people they will feel very relieved by
00:42:27.200 | hearing your work yeah tell them where they can find your work if there's
00:42:32.080 | anything else you kind of want to share about like anything at all because
00:42:36.480 | you're the smart one here not me go ahead and spit your wisdom um you know I
00:42:41.440 | guess what I'll say just to kind of tie it up with what you just said about how
00:42:45.560 | I say it's so far-fetched I think the reason why I start with like this is I
00:42:50.640 | know this sounds crazy it's because I so badly want people I want to meet people
00:42:56.480 | where they are so my original degree that I got before I did all the
00:43:01.280 | trainings that I've done is I have an LCSW which means I was trained as a
00:43:05.840 | social worker and a social work mantra when you first start school is you start
00:43:11.080 | where the client is at so I'm not gonna come in and be like Michael here are the
00:43:15.440 | psychological theories and principles that I think would affect your life I'm
00:43:18.720 | gonna come in and say hey how are you like what's bothering you like tell me
00:43:22.160 | exactly where you are so I can meet you there so we can start working together
00:43:25.840 | as a partnership to help you that's what social work is and I think the reason
00:43:30.320 | that I after 20 plus years of doing this still say I know this sounds so crazy
00:43:35.680 | too crazy to be true is I never want to lose somebody because they start
00:43:39.880 | listening to this conversation they're like yeah we forget it you know like I
00:43:43.280 | that could never apply to me doesn't she understand that I have an L4 L5 you know
00:43:48.360 | doesn't she understand that like I have been diagnosed with fibromyalgia like I
00:43:52.240 | get it I get it I have been you I am you I am you you are me nobody would mistake
00:43:58.720 | me for you on the street but in our souls we are the same and so I think I
00:44:03.880 | say that to say like wherever this finds you however hard this is to believe for
00:44:08.640 | you or maybe easier like it is for Michael like it is possible for you to
00:44:13.400 | totally transform your life and the stories that I get so so I've been
00:44:19.120 | working virtually in terms of like having online offerings for let's say
00:44:23.840 | let's say maybe since 2016 when I first published my my book so like that was a
00:44:29.840 | book that was my first book I'm working on my second now but then I got the then
00:44:33.480 | I did the YouTube channel then I did the podcast then kovat hit we all got stuck
00:44:37.320 | in our houses and I was doing virtual retreats all over the world what happens
00:44:41.440 | is enough people are touched that then I get received like emails from thousands
00:44:45.400 | of people around the world that I've never met so these are people that
00:44:49.160 | couldn't possibly be like influenced directly by me because they just saw
00:44:53.060 | something that I put out online and these people are saying I was on
00:44:57.200 | disability for seven years I was bedbound and now long kovat long kovat
00:45:02.760 | is such a huge deal where people are so debilitated by long kovat people are
00:45:06.680 | doing my work all over the world receiving crazy amounts of input from
00:45:11.080 | people they're all better all better no long kovat symptoms and I have plenty of
00:45:16.120 | them interviewed on my podcast it's actually another one this week and so I
00:45:20.680 | guess what I'm saying is like wherever this finds you whomever you are if you
00:45:25.800 | can replace your fear with curiosity and you can just look at what hasn't worked
00:45:30.640 | for you and realize like maybe I want to just try something it is the most
00:45:35.920 | incredible opportunity for a change in your life and I love that you see it the
00:45:41.280 | way you see it because you are you know half my age like I want people your age
00:45:46.240 | to be like man there is a better way to live and I don't have to just do
00:45:50.740 | everything that I thought was like the limits of my possibilities you know yeah
00:45:55.640 | especially early on I think it's important that people consume a lot of
00:45:59.640 | the content to build a belief here the stories here the testimonies of people
00:46:04.320 | you know getting better so can you tell people a little bit about why that's
00:46:09.840 | important and where they can see your stuff and where they can because I have
00:46:12.840 | the luxury of getting to have your phone number talk to you you send me podcasts
00:46:17.000 | to watch meet with me in person other people might not have that so where can
00:46:21.360 | they consume this build their belief and ultimately get better yes that's great
00:46:27.880 | and it's really important and we talked about this when I first met you which is
00:46:31.040 | so much belief is cultivated when you marinate in the material because like
00:46:35.960 | it's your brain will keep triggering like not safe not safe not safe go back
00:46:40.520 | to the doctor go back to the treatment go back to the med and like you need
00:46:44.120 | something to counter that and so being in the material is so important so let's
00:46:49.160 | see obviously I can't work with everyone everyone so I created online
00:46:54.200 | courses they are self-directed they're both my website is the cure for chronic
00:46:58.520 | pain calm you go to the website click on courses there's one for specifically for
00:47:02.880 | anxiety because crippling anxiety is just a symptom imperative like back pain
00:47:07.960 | and anxiety are the same thing they're just how how they're being expressed
00:47:11.000 | from the brain and so there's one freedom from an anxious life one is
00:47:15.760 | called freedom from chronic pain which is what we're talking about any sort of
00:47:19.120 | pain or problem fits under that umbrella I also have a podcast my brand is called
00:47:23.960 | the cure for chronic pain so if anyone's really interested it's the name of my
00:47:27.440 | podcast it's the name of my youtube channel and it's the name of my website
00:47:30.480 | they'll find me and on instagram I'm at Nicole Sachs LCSW and lots of new
00:47:36.440 | content there every day and I'm just doing everything I can it is my passion
00:47:41.440 | mostly because it's created my entire life had I not found this work I would
00:47:47.320 | have no children I would I can't I don't even know if I'd still be around because
00:47:50.760 | what would there be to live for you know like it was just it was it's it's it's
00:47:55.240 | just so huge and powerful for me and and there's lots of ways to find it and I'm
00:48:00.640 | producing more stuff all the time and my hope is to get it out there I think I
00:48:06.400 | said this to you every time I get an extreme email the last line is I can't
00:48:12.120 | believe I didn't know about this I can't believe I didn't know this was a
00:48:15.400 | possibility for me so very simply I just want as many people as possible to know
00:48:19.600 | it's a possibility for them one more question because I'm trying to put
00:48:24.160 | myself in the the listeners place so for me I've had three back surgeries now
00:48:29.640 | there's some structural changes and that can limit some people's beliefs because
00:48:34.200 | they're like oh well I did the surgery now it's not really current now it's
00:48:37.740 | structural all these things talk about a little bit before we let you go about
00:48:42.800 | the extreme cases that you've seen people get better from and you've even
00:48:47.040 | said to me like the body is such a miraculous healing yes machine that even
00:48:51.680 | if you have some scar tissue or some bone-on-bone or whatever the case may be
00:48:56.840 | your body can find a way to work around it and not yes the pain signal yes one
00:49:02.800 | hundred percent I cannot say this with enough confidence and if people need
00:49:08.000 | confidence please feel free to borrow mine because I cannot tell you how sure
00:49:12.760 | I am I have so first just so you know before I stopped being in private
00:49:16.960 | practice I was in private practice from 2000 to about 2019 so I was in practice
00:49:26.540 | for a long time where I saw very specific cases over and over again of
00:49:31.080 | people who had surgery people who hadn't surgery had a surgery people who had
00:49:35.720 | scar tissue people who had things like me where the MRI is so severe that they
00:49:40.400 | have like a whole vertebrae that's scattered that shattered and replaced
00:49:43.880 | with scar tissue like extreme situations all of them if they do the work with
00:49:48.960 | belief and patience and kindness for themselves we're able to eliminate their
00:49:52.920 | chronic pain it is brain science if if you cut off your head you're not going
00:49:58.680 | to feel anything right so the pain is not in your head but that we must
00:50:03.080 | consider the workings of the neuro the the nervous system and the brain in
00:50:07.200 | order to know that that's the only way we feel things so if we eliminate this
00:50:11.720 | process the pain signals are not necessary now people might think oh no
00:50:16.760 | no but I have bone-on-bone in my knee so no matter what you say that's gonna
00:50:21.600 | create pain and the only thing I can say to that is the only question that is
00:50:27.080 | important for me to ask you is how do you feel today because how you feel
00:50:32.120 | today is how you live your life and so it's like if I worked with people that
00:50:37.640 | have all these varied MRIs and all this findings that have no pain because the
00:50:43.160 | miracle of their body has been able to bypass that and not send pain signals
00:50:47.080 | because their nervous system didn't see a need for there to be in pain then what
00:50:52.000 | how did how do you even like what even matters beyond that you know what I mean
00:50:56.000 | and so all I'll say is this and I think you and I talked about this and it's
00:50:59.720 | probably important to mention it even the best scientists in the world only
00:51:03.960 | understand a certain percentage of the working of the human brain I know
00:51:07.960 | there's a cliche that says like oh we only understand 6% of the brain and
00:51:11.760 | understand its workings maybe in 2023 that's a higher percentage but no matter
00:51:16.560 | what it is it's not we don't get close to a hundred percent so no scientists in
00:51:21.520 | the world could say I can explain to you exactly why that bone-on-bone is making
00:51:26.920 | you hurt because they also couldn't explain exactly why that same person
00:51:31.840 | with that same exact film has no pain from doing this work because the brain
00:51:36.400 | is is complex and so all I would say is if you can't believe to suspend your
00:51:42.480 | disbelief and allow yourself to let your body be your proof because I am certain
00:51:48.120 | that I have seen enough cases over the years that there's nothing that can stop
00:51:53.360 | you from being pain-free if you do this work right and the good thing is you've
00:51:56.880 | got a lot of these people in your podcast so just go listen to their
00:51:59.560 | stories and do the work and I'm speaking for myself too I gotta do it too cool
00:52:05.760 | well this has been super eye-opening I really think that like I told you I want
00:52:10.000 | to help be a testimonial in the future for this work I want to partner with you
00:52:15.240 | and really get this out there because people who are in pain I trust me I've
00:52:19.480 | seen the best of the best I've tried everything and I've still had three
00:52:23.040 | surgeries and I believe this is the cure I'm sure this is the cure and you've
00:52:26.760 | already seen some change I've seen some progress already I see it and I kind of
00:52:30.400 | knew I had an inkling in my brain like way in the past that you know what my
00:52:35.600 | I'm doing I work harder than anyone I keep my core super strong why would I at
00:52:39.760 | 17 or 18 have back pain and I always had an inkling there's no way it could be
00:52:44.920 | physical it has to be tied to some some other stuff but to actually you know
00:52:51.040 | have the proof and now talk to you it's really really helped and I like you said
00:52:56.080 | I've already seen some progress so I'm looking forward to continuing it so
00:53:00.280 | thank you so much for being on thank you for having me
00:53:03.640 | curious Mike out
00:53:07.040 | (upbeat music)