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. Okay. We're going to talk about it.
00:00:11.800 | Okay. Because that is like a really like the most common thing that happens. Really?
00:00:15.640 | Mm-hmm. This is so annoying. Not to like you know like keep you in suspense. The
00:00:21.400 | whole point is this. If your nervous system perceives the stuff that you're
00:00:25.280 | going to look at in your journal speak as dangerous, what happens is it speaks
00:00:28.840 | to you in your own voice. And your own 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 important things to do.
00:00:34.240 | And that. Which is literally that that quote where you were talking about like
00:00:38.440 | we're more afraid of the light. Our light and our potential than we are of like
00:00:42.800 | the more comfortable darkness that we've kind of been in for a while. It's true.
00:00:46.360 | It's like we're kind of like we. Yeah so just so you know though it is actually
00:00:51.400 | impossible for the reservoir to go down if you don't do the work. Yeah if you don't do it.
00:00:55.560 | Yeah exactly. And so just like just know that. You have to do it. That's the way you
00:00:59.520 | have to talk to the resistance because the resistance is wily and it's gonna be
00:01:03.240 | like no no I got you. Like we're just not gonna do it. Well I guess I'll ask you about it.
00:01:07.040 | Should we like start like is this like are we starting? It's rolling.
00:01:12.040 | 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.
00:01:29.440 | So everybody kind of knows kind of was dealing with some back issues for a
00:01:35.240 | while. Probably since junior year of high school going into senior year. That's
00:01:41.360 | 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
00:01:49.960 | different kind of chiropractors and different things. And none of them really
00:01:54.040 | worked until eventually you know I needed a surgery. I thought that would
00:01:58.000 | fix it but about seven eight months later I needed another one and then
00:02:03.120 | recently about a year and a half two years ago had my third back surgery. And
00:02:07.600 | meanwhile you know I'm putting my trust and my hope into all these different
00:02:12.440 | practitioners all these different physical therapists chiropractors all
00:02:17.160 | these are even the surgeon you know just praying that they you know knew
00:02:20.440 | something that I didn't know about how to fix myself. And then kind of kind of I
00:02:24.520 | 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. Yes. 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 dealing
00:02:47.440 | with emotions and if anything about my understanding about the TMS is wrong
00:02:53.440 | correct me while I'm talking. So far you're right on. Basically when I'm
00:02:58.520 | reading this book Dr. Sarno was talking about how as humans we have a lot of
00:03:03.760 | repressed emotions and there's this syndrome called TMS that he is tension
00:03:10.600 | myositis. It's tension myositis syndrome in his first book and then it was
00:03:14.880 | evolved into tension myoneural syndrome. Gotcha. But like do you want me to like
00:03:18.680 | just explain it real quick because I think people like well though you you go
00:03:21.440 | first. Yeah so I was 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
00:03:32.160 | 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
00:03:39.960 | all 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
00:06:09.720 | 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
00:06:34.960 | your brain is saying something's wrong you need protection like crawl off into
00:06:39.160 | the bushes like find safety you're gonna get eaten out here you know pain is
00:06:43.360 | 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
00:06:51.480 | muscle constriction spasm all sorts of different sensations into the body and
00:06:55.860 | 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
00:07:17.520 | total sense whereas somebody else your back pain is somebody else's migraines
00:07:22.400 | and somebody else's migraines is somebody else's fibromyalgia or
00:07:26.040 | irritable bowel or skin disorder and so that person is going to a headache
00:07:31.080 | specialist and that person is going to a person who deals with fibromyalgia and
00:07:35.440 | nerve pain all of those people though are dealing with the same exact process
00:07:39.720 | of the brain sending these signals and so until we deal with the root of it
00:07:44.000 | it's kind of impossible to get better why do you and I feel like your work and
00:07:48.720 | what you do is going to become very in the forefront of treating this type of
00:07:54.680 | stuff in the near future why do you think that this is like new knowledge to
00:08:01.120 | a lot of people and my second question is what personality types is it and why
00:08:07.960 | do you think the text those type of people most yeah so the first question I
00:08:11.680 | mean we could both speculate that obviously if you heal through my methods
00:08:16.560 | and through dr. Sarno's methods a lot of people don't make a lot of money you
00:08:20.720 | know I mean a lot of the chronic pain industry focuses on the surgical model
00:08:24.240 | the medical model and pharma and I am NOT I'm always really careful when I'm
00:08:29.040 | 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
00:08:50.840 | 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
00:09:00.120 | started in the 50s I started my work about 20 years ago I think there's a
00:09:05.200 | groundswell I think there's enough people that are like you know what
00:09:08.960 | actually this worked for me when this other stuff didn't or I heard a podcast
00:09:13.480 | and now of course with technology and the internet there are podcasts there
00:09:17.280 | are websites there are YouTube channels so I just think enough of the
00:09:20.240 | information has gotten out there that the change is starting to happen from
00:09:23.800 | the bottom up and one of the things I say when I'm lecturing large groups of
00:09:27.880 | people is I ask them I'm like I'm gonna ask you like a really triggering
00:09:31.240 | question but I just want you to not get triggered and think about the answer how
00:09:36.400 | long would you like to suffer and like people sometimes their first reaction is
00:09:40.840 | well don't tell me that I'm choosing my suffering I'm like you're not
00:09:43.240 | consciously choosing your suffering but if you're willing to open your mind and
00:09:47.920 | look at the fact that maybe there are solutions you have not yet explored and
00:09:52.280 | replace your fear with curiosity there might be a solution there that you could
00:09:57.080 | try and that's when they look to this kind of work so I think that's what's
00:10:01.480 | happening right now right and I think um like for me I'm lucky I caught it let's
00:10:06.040 | stay kind of on this path I'm lucky I caught it like 25 instead of a lot of
00:10:10.880 | people oh my god yes and they've tried everything and now they're in their
00:10:14.440 | later years and they're like I give up like and then they may come to your work
00:10:18.360 | way later on obviously we want to get this to a point where it's common
00:10:23.960 | knowledge and things like that why do you think it attacks the certain
00:10:30.160 | personality type and yeah yeah talk about that for a second before we get
00:10:33.940 | into the actual work of what yeah how you fix it no it's a great question and
00:10:38.400 | and one of the reasons I was so super excited when you reached out to me one
00:10:41.920 | of them was your age because like you said coming to this early is just such a
00:10:46.640 | gift it doesn't mean people can't heal when they're older the brain is plastic
00:10:50.840 | and it will literally change for every day that we live until the day that we
00:10:54.640 | die so there's always room for change but coming to this young like I did you
00:10:59.040 | know I first learned about it at 19 I really came into it probably like right
00:11:03.320 | exactly about your age in my mid 20s and and it's like given me so much time to
00:11:08.840 | have a life of infinite possibilities you know I mean like and in like the
00:11:13.440 | really spiritual sense of how crazy this is I was told I would never have
00:11:16.920 | biological children because of my back disorder and because I didn't listen to
00:11:23.160 | that and found mind-body medicine I have three whole human beings and God knows
00:11:27.120 | what they're gonna do in the world so it's all just so like mind-blowing if
00:11:30.440 | you look at it sort of like in a meta kind of way but another reason I was
00:11:36.400 | really excited when you came to me is the concept of professional sports we
00:11:40.840 | are so used to hearing that people have an injury and it becomes their injury
00:11:46.120 | that's the player with the bad knee that's the player with the bad back
00:11:49.320 | that's the player with this and that shoulder wrist whatever and so many
00:11:53.640 | people don't understand that after a certain amount of healing time even if
00:11:58.200 | you tear your ACL or do something that super requires surgery after a certain
00:12:02.520 | amount of healing time when something becomes chronic it's because this
00:12:06.040 | mind-body system takes over which we'll talk more about and so that's just so
00:12:10.400 | exciting to me because to kind of get into your next question there are so
00:12:15.000 | many people in professional sports that have the same personality which is like
00:12:20.080 | super high achieving put a lot of pressure on themselves perfectionists
00:12:25.320 | people who it's very important to be seen as doing a good job seeking a lot
00:12:29.880 | of approval I mean obviously sports is not the only place where this exists but
00:12:33.720 | it's just like when you're good enough at something to be on that in that kind
00:12:37.640 | of arena you are gonna have this personality being your own worst critic
00:12:41.560 | 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
00:12:49.680 | these characteristics are so susceptible to TMS and the mind-body pain we're
00:12:54.000 | talking about is because there's so much opportunity to dump in the reservoir
00:12:58.360 | right if you're the kind of person that's like super easygoing and you
00:13:02.160 | 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
00:13:08.860 | you know they they go along to get along and it's no big deal many of us it's
00:13:13.240 | 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
00:13:28.240 | pressure on yourself to be good and to be seen as doing a good job and that's
00:13:33.200 | that's the people that get this that's so crazy talk about your individual
00:13:37.160 | 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
00:13:46.760 | 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
00:14:48.480 | 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
00:14:57.640 | come to college and physically bring me home and then I went through the battery
00:15:02.040 | 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
00:15:13.560 | 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
00:15:39.040 | 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
00:16:02.120 | for more than 60 minutes if you can even imagine and that when I slept I got to
00:16:07.120 | 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
00:16:16.920 | 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 was 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
00:16:38.840 | 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
00:16:47.640 | 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
00:17:14.000 | 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 as 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 too it's like your mind opens you don't even know why and I
00:18:14.800 | was like okay I'm gonna instead of turning all my my energy toward fear I'm
00:18:19.320 | looking to turn it toward curiosity like what is this I thought sort of crazy
00:18:23.800 | concept that anger could cause back pain because that was his basic first premise
00:18:28.560 | yeah 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 a holic and he daily was a daily drinker so he would drink and then
00:18:42.680 | he would get nuts on my mom and me and I really found that anger was dangerous
00:18:49.240 | and so I never expressed anger and I didn't feel anger that's the most
00:18:53.920 | important part I actually if I could have passed a lie detector test that I'm
00:18:57.960 | not an angry person I never get angry those all it's being expressed through
00:19:01.800 | my back because it was so dangerous to be angry because it aligned me with for
00:19:06.000 | lack of a better word my abuser and so that was like a big thing for me and my
00:19:10.360 | work on myself but when I found dr. Sarno's work I moved through the process
00:19:15.320 | it's a long story but essentially I found my way to like complete cessation
00:19:21.280 | of chronic pain I have not had back pain in I mean at least 20 years I think that
00:19:28.200 | is some people's like like some people's like version of heaven like no back pain
00:19:34.520 | not living with their chronic pain okay so we get kind of like the personality
00:19:39.880 | type we get how this can affect a lot of different people in different ways back
00:19:44.840 | pain headaches shoulder pain what's the fibromyalgia that's another one
00:19:49.880 | fibromyalgia is a big one cuz that's nerve pain all over your body yeah okay
00:19:54.360 | so now let's get into what people actually need to do that are listening
00:19:58.340 | to this because I've started it we've talked a little bit about the resistance
00:20:01.320 | how you don't really want to do the work but this is how you heal and it's really
00:20:06.640 | not that complicated yeah just you have to do it alright so talk about that okay
00:20:11.040 | so the line I use around this is it's simple but it's not easy okay so it's
00:20:15.200 | simple I can explain it and the best most simplest way I can explain it is
00:20:19.640 | this you have a reservoir inside of you it's an invisible invisible reservoir so
00:20:24.080 | you picture a clear science beaker that is full of your trauma responses capital
00:20:29.880 | T and little t your anger at many things that have happened in your childhood in
00:20:34.560 | your daily life your shame because we all have it from our upbringings your
00:20:39.560 | sadness and grief your fear and terror your anxiety all the things that we
00:20:44.360 | experience naturally as human beings and picture that every time something
00:20:48.040 | happens that triggers you or rubs you the wrong way it's like a ladle being
00:20:51.800 | dumped in the reservoir okay so the reservoir gets up to maximum density it
00:20:55.520 | spills over it triggers your nervous system to inform your brain send a
00:20:59.880 | signal inflammation pain muscle constriction you need to be safe so if
00:21:04.960 | you're triggered by your aunt Edna who's always criticizing you and telling you
00:21:10.000 | you're a bad person when you're on your way to the family reunion you're gonna
00:21:14.600 | get a migraine well what happened all of a sudden you're safe you have to cancel
00:21:18.120 | and go lay in the dark like it's it makes so much logical sense and so that
00:21:23.080 | process is happening every time the reservoir reaches maximum density now
00:21:26.920 | how does the reservoir go down well there are some natural ways that don't
00:21:30.840 | involve any hard work soothe factors you know you get a new girlfriend or
00:21:35.800 | boyfriend you hang out with your friends and have like a serious laugh you go on
00:21:40.240 | vacation you do something that you're proud of you know you win a big game
00:21:44.400 | okay great it does go down like that because it evaporates when we're in a
00:21:48.800 | state of ease and comfort but you can't count on those things in order to make
00:21:53.000 | your life you know perfect and so I teach a process that I developed through
00:21:58.440 | my own recovery called journal speak and very simply it is an exercise where you
00:22:04.440 | take 30 minutes of your day now I know that sounds like a very little time
00:22:09.360 | part portion of time to you and me but you know how hard it is when you
00:22:13.760 | actually try to do it but you take 30 minutes of your day for 20 minutes of
00:22:18.200 | your day you journal in the way that I teach that we could talk about in a
00:22:22.120 | minute and then for 10 minutes you do any form of loving-kindness meditation
00:22:26.360 | guided unguided I don't care something to connect yourself back to like I'm
00:22:31.520 | okay I'm a human being I have a right to my feelings I have a right to my anger
00:22:36.360 | and of course I have a lot of resources that really outline this if people are
00:22:40.480 | getting curious from this podcast and the point is when you do that 30 minutes
00:22:45.440 | a day at least in the beginning it's like putting a ladle in the reservoir
00:22:48.800 | and dumping it off and what's really important about the journal speak is it
00:22:52.880 | is spoken in the language of your inner child it is not spoken in the language
00:22:57.680 | of your grown-up responsible self that cares about what people think or that
00:23:01.960 | needs to be the best or needs to be seen as you know achieving it is a rant and
00:23:07.160 | it can be a rant like I hate this you know I F this like unfiltered unfiltered
00:23:16.240 | okay or it can be tearful or quite frankly it can be unbridled and excited
00:23:22.600 | if you don't think you have your permission to be that way in life like a
00:23:25.820 | lot of people are shut down for their excitement when their kids like simmer
00:23:29.440 | down it's not all about you you know like it upsets your mother when you're
00:23:33.360 | so whatever there are so many reasons that we repress you know like my son
00:23:38.840 | I've raised my kids in this and none of them have any chronic issues but when my
00:23:42.480 | son gets a stomachache which is his symptom imperative it's oftentimes
00:23:46.040 | because his favorite band is dropping an album at midnight and he's so keyed up
00:23:49.880 | he's got like so much excitement energy gets a stomachache so I taught him it's
00:23:53.520 | not just about bad things it's about anything that makes you feel like you
00:23:57.000 | don't have the power to express it you put pen to paper or fingers to keyboard
00:24:01.480 | and you let it dump you let it rip it is such a passionate emotional process or
00:24:07.520 | you get frustrated it's not it doesn't matter no matter how it happens you do
00:24:12.380 | it like a practice every day and what happens when you do it is the reservoir
00:24:17.800 | goes down and as soon as it is not up there triggering the nervous system in
00:24:22.080 | the brain into fight-or-flight you settle into rest and repair which is a
00:24:26.120 | parasympathetic functioning the pain signals simply stop firing and for
00:24:32.000 | anyone listening to this that thinks that's insane I can't imagine that I
00:24:37.080 | agree with you it sounds crazy and in the 20 years of me doing this between my
00:24:43.360 | podcast and my lectures and everything I've done to teach and to write millions
00:24:49.280 | of people are touched by this and their lives are completely transformed because
00:24:54.880 | they're not in pain it is it sounds insane I agree it sounds too easy to be
00:24:59.520 | true it's not because it's hard to get yourself to do it so maybe that's what
00:25:03.560 | you want to share I think that's just like it is it can be hard to get
00:25:08.600 | yourself to do it just because like especially as a man you like we want to
00:25:13.160 | just be able to go physically make ourselves better we don't really want to
00:25:17.520 | deal with our emotions or anything like that the reservoir so when it goes down
00:25:24.080 | and your pain stops and you it's because you're dealing with all these emotions I
00:25:29.000 | think some people that will look at you as like a therapist a lot of therapists
00:25:35.160 | deal with kind of like speaking yourself into positivity or changing the way you
00:25:40.700 | think not a lot of therapists talk about dealing with the we've talked about this
00:25:45.480 | like a lot of therapists will talk about like looking on the bright side of things
00:25:48.760 | or changing the way you think about something you're talking about like no
00:25:52.120 | whatever deep down you're not allowed to express in your day-to-day life go there
00:25:57.880 | and and talk about it in your journal speak talk about why the people that
00:26:03.600 | just kind of try to change their mindset look on the brighter side of things
00:26:07.160 | they're not the ones to get better it's the people that actually deal with the
00:26:10.880 | really really hard stuff to get better so let's remember when you're asking
00:26:15.160 | question like this because I think it's an amazing question that like the work I
00:26:19.760 | do 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
00:26:33.420 | 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
00:26:44.600 | 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
00:26:59.920 | 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
00:27:25.640 | the reservoir down how do you get the reservoir down not by looking on the
00:27:29.480 | bright side you get the reservoir down by looking at the shit that is bubbling
00:27:34.200 | in it that you don't want to look at because your nervous system whispers in
00:27:38.120 | your ear and says it's dangerous look away if you know how much and I'm gonna
00:27:43.440 | I'm gonna be really hyperbolic here because I think it's important I'm gonna
00:27:47.360 | speak in journal speak for a second there is somewhere deep down inside you
00:27:51.880 | 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
00:28:05.760 | 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 okay we
00:30:27.600 | miss so many things but you sit down you start writing and you can't get the
00:30:31.800 | words out quick enough to be that kind of reflexive thinker so then like you're
00:30:37.280 | in the middle of a sentence and I know you've experienced this because you've
00:30:39.840 | done a little bit of the work you're like holy cow wait a second I actually
00:30:44.280 | feel that way and and that's another thing like while you're doing it you're
00:30:48.520 | gonna get invitations from like your higher self whatever you want to call it
00:30:52.000 | if like if you're a spiritual person you might believe that that's like a divine
00:30:56.280 | inspiration and if you're not you might just feel like it's from your gut you're
00:31:00.360 | gonna get invitations and you're gonna get a sense like a whisper and you're
00:31:04.200 | gonna be like do I actually feel that way about that thing and that's where
00:31:07.920 | it's your responsibility to be brave and to say I'm gonna look into that and what
00:31:12.040 | I do in my journal speak is I stop there and I go I ask myself a question I just
00:31:17.160 | got a sense that I you know I'm not actually comfortable with that situation
00:31:22.080 | am I I never thought that before what makes me not comfortable and I ask
00:31:26.800 | myself the question and then I answer it and when you're in that dialogue it's
00:31:30.640 | like sitting quietly with that abused animal in the tree you're just creating
00:31:35.160 | trust with the system that thinks your pain is necessary to protect you and
00:31:39.480 | little by slowly you start to understand the way you feel the reservoir is
00:31:45.280 | emptied and it's like the puppy getting into your lap like you will it's amazing
00:31:50.240 | and I always like feel no matter how often I talk about it I just am on my
00:31:55.480 | knees in reverence to its power the way the pain signals stop firing and people
00:32:01.000 | are like you're never gonna believe it my back just doesn't hurt anymore I'm
00:32:04.040 | like I believe it unbelievable it's super exciting because I'm gonna get I'm
00:32:09.440 | gonna get there man super consistent in it okay so I want to bring up this quote
00:32:15.360 | we talked about this before we started the podcast sometimes us as humans the
00:32:22.720 | quote is about being afraid of our light being afraid of our potential as a person
00:32:26.480 | yes I see that in myself like sometimes it's just like you have a fear of your
00:32:31.720 | potential we don't know how great we are we and so we feel safer kind of in the
00:32:35.880 | darkness of our of our bad habits of where we've been our whole life and
00:32:39.480 | that's where some of the resistance to this work can come from yes do you think
00:32:44.480 | it's straight-up willpower at the beginning just to get yourself to do it
00:32:48.360 | and then you see the results or yeah answer that and then answer also the
00:32:55.240 | there's three main things obviously believing is one of them you then you do
00:33:00.120 | the work and then the last one is patience and kindness for your patience
00:33:03.480 | and kindness so I think getting yourself to do the work has to do with actually
00:33:08.240 | believing that the work will work so yeah talk about those three things and
00:33:13.520 | how they're related and how you need all three to get over your chronic pain yeah
00:33:17.760 | that's that's you you are like covering it all so I'll start with your first
00:33:21.560 | comment which was is it just willpower and honestly there is a little bit of
00:33:26.880 | like you know tough love at the beginning of this which is like if you
00:33:32.560 | keep doing what you're doing you'll keep getting what you're getting right so you
00:33:35.760 | will use your example you're coming to me because you're like listen since I'm
00:33:38.640 | 17 I've been having this back problems I have three surgeries that have not fixed
00:33:42.720 | the problem I have years ahead of me of success in my game if I am on the top of
00:33:47.360 | my game what do I do right and so I would say so you've been to doctors
00:33:52.600 | you've been to all these different practitioners God knows as a person in
00:33:56.280 | your position you have access to the best of the best and you're not better
00:34:00.320 | so it's time to have a little tough love and be like you got a freaking do
00:34:04.900 | something different yeah even if you don't want to even if the whispers in
00:34:10.480 | your ear which come from your own thoughts are no I just don't feel like
00:34:14.280 | you're right now I'll do it later and then later comes and you don't do it and
00:34:16.920 | then it's the next day which I'm sure I'm sure you recognize cuz I've been
00:34:20.360 | there too I'm exactly the same by the way as everyone else I resist my own
00:34:24.080 | work because I'm human so the way to begin if you're really struggling with
00:34:28.680 | any sort of chronic issue anybody who's listening is you have to make a decision
00:34:33.160 | to do something differently and it's funny because I'm in the process of
00:34:37.080 | writing this book and this morning before I came here to talk to you that
00:34:41.640 | is what I was talking about that there is great power in making a decision
00:34:45.840 | because you're like you take back the reins of your own life and when you've
00:34:50.320 | been medicalized all you've been doing is giving away your power for years and
00:34:53.840 | years and so it's like okay I'm gonna believe because Michael's saying it
00:34:58.960 | because Nicole's saying it because the hundreds of people on my podcast that
00:35:02.160 | have been interviewed are saying it I'm just gonna believe for the moment that
00:35:06.240 | this actually has some credence that this is gonna work and then I am going
00:35:09.880 | to show up for myself every day now here's what happens if you're able to be
00:35:14.560 | consistent you let's say for example I'll give an example that's not you you
00:35:20.080 | have neck pain and every day when you back down your driveway and you turn
00:35:23.840 | your neck you get like this horrible zing down your back and you're like
00:35:27.360 | hating it and it's affecting your life and it affects every minute of your day
00:35:31.240 | if you do this work consistently what's gonna happen is on like the X number of
00:35:36.080 | day because we never give a time limit because that stops people in their
00:35:39.160 | tracks you put your turn your head to go down the driveway and like you get
00:35:43.880 | halfway down the driveway and you realize you haven't felt it yet now if
00:35:47.560 | you if that happens to you it's likely because your brain is in that sort of
00:35:50.760 | suggestive mode it's gonna come at that point but you had that moment right this
00:35:55.600 | is how our body becomes our proof and now let's say on the next day or on a
00:35:59.400 | week later you get all the way down the driveway and you start turning your head
00:36:03.840 | to start driving away and you're like oh shit I didn't feel it that whole time
00:36:07.280 | that's how it happens it starts it gives you an invitation like are you safe
00:36:12.000 | without me can you just do you need this pain and what happens as you go is your
00:36:17.000 | body becomes your proof and anyone in the world who has ever been evangelical
00:36:22.280 | about anything whether it's the newest health fad or something with religion or
00:36:26.880 | something with child raising like there's all sorts of places that we are
00:36:30.600 | evangelized it's because it happened to you right like I'm a mom of three my
00:36:36.000 | children are all almost adults now but when they were little and you got your
00:36:39.100 | kid to sleep through the night you got nuts you call all your friends do this
00:36:42.600 | do this do this this lavender oil and this song and this whatever because
00:36:46.560 | everyone's desperate to get their kids to sleep through the night anything that
00:36:49.560 | that is a felt-sense experience then you believe it and that's when belief is
00:36:54.800 | really solidified is when you're like I did this consistently so it is a little
00:36:59.520 | bit of willpower at the beginning and then by doing it consistently my body
00:37:04.280 | becomes my proof then if you keep doing it I have no chronic pain anymore and
00:37:10.080 | let's remember there's no cure for human pain you're still gonna get a headache
00:37:13.920 | now and then you're still gonna be on the court and you're gonna be in a
00:37:16.440 | specifically stressful moment and your back will like just sing you a little
00:37:19.920 | and you go yeah yeah I got you I got you I'm really stressed right now I'll get
00:37:23.840 | to my journal speak later I'm cool and all at that point that's all your
00:37:27.760 | nervous system needs to be safe because it trusts you you've sat with the treat
00:37:31.040 | for long enough it trusts you the back pain goes away you finish the game and
00:37:34.400 | then it's your responsibility in the next couple days get to your journal
00:37:37.520 | speak because there's there's there's stuff building up right so it's not a
00:37:40.720 | life sentence to have to do the journal speak it's at the beginning to get
00:37:44.440 | yourself into the new neural pathways of not firing for pain 100% yeah and I've
00:37:51.280 | talked to you about this trying to make sense of it you know you say it's kind
00:37:57.120 | of crazy to believe this and it might sound crazy to some people but the way I
00:38:00.480 | look at it is in 2023 in the world we live in all the pressures of and I've
00:38:06.560 | talked about this in the Western world the American dream all these things of
00:38:10.040 | I'm just working so hard to become something to get to the top all these
00:38:13.560 | things chronic pain anxiety depression all these things are so much more
00:38:18.760 | prevalent now and they were even 20 years ago I mean they were a thing
00:38:23.280 | obviously but it's getting more and more of an epidemic all these chronic issues
00:38:28.080 | you talked about in one of our sessions you go over to some of these other
00:38:33.040 | countries they don't really deal with certain chronic pains and I've heard
00:38:36.800 | that there's some country that doesn't deal with a lot of back pain there's
00:38:39.560 | another country you said no whiplash yeah so why do you think that these
00:38:45.000 | problems are rising in the world and I I think you come at like the perfect time
00:38:51.040 | because as these problems rise and keep rising this work also will rise and
00:38:55.800 | that's why I'm trying to you know partner with you bring awareness to it
00:38:59.140 | you know be able to be a testimony in the future of being pain-free because
00:39:03.160 | I've done everything you know I mean and so yeah talk about why you think it's
00:39:09.000 | more prevalent now and why you think other countries and things sometimes
00:39:13.400 | don't deal with the same things we deal with here so I'll back into your
00:39:16.960 | question by answering the one that I just didn't I do what you gave me to 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
00:39:28.440 | 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
00:39:36.600 | 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
00:39:58.600 | in other like in Western Europe and in Asia and other developed the most
00:40:04.640 | highly developed cultures we are so hard on ourselves everything is about
00:40:09.520 | achievement everything is about go go go and I think that the cultures that you're
00:40:13.840 | 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
00:40:23.720 | about like I know in Japan there is a syndrome and I can't forget the I can't
00:40:29.760 | 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
00:40:46.960 | away and and and that's an extreme thing in Sweden there was a study that was
00:40:53.200 | done on refugees children of refugee families that had come from war-torn
00:41:00.000 | areas that were being given asylum in Sweden by the way there was a
00:41:03.920 | documentary made about this if people want to look at it and it's called life
00:41:08.600 | 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 gonna have to
00:41:38.400 | go back to their war-torn country within 24 hours the child wakes up from a
00:41:43.160 | 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
00:41:54.360 | 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 that's
00:42:18.160 | amazing so I don't think it's as far-fetched as as you make it sound like
00:42:23.000 | to me when I hear this and I think for a lot of other people they will feel very
00:42:26.600 | relieved by hearing your work yeah tell them where they can find your work if
00:42:31.920 | there's anything else you kind of want to share about like anything at all
00:42:36.120 | because you're the smart one here not me go ahead and spit your wisdom um you
00:42:41.320 | know I guess what I'll say just to kind of tie it up with what you just said
00:42:45.100 | about how I say it's so far-fetched I think the reason why I start with like
00:42:50.080 | this is I know this sounds crazy it's because I so badly want people I want to
00:42:55.840 | meet people where they are so my original degree that I got before I did
00:43:00.920 | all the trainings that I've done is I have an LCSW which means I was trained
00:43:05.680 | as a social worker and a social work mantra when you first start school is
00:43:10.160 | you start where the client is at so I'm not going to come in and be like Michael
00:43:14.840 | here are the psychological theories and principles that I think would affect
00:43:18.200 | your life I'm gonna come in and say hey how are you like what's bothering you
00:43:21.720 | like tell me exactly where you are so I can meet you there so we can start
00:43:25.360 | working together as a partnership to help you that's what social work is and
00:43:28.560 | I think the reason that I after 20 plus years of doing this still say I know
00:43:34.680 | this sounds so crazy too crazy to be true is I never want to lose somebody
00:43:38.680 | because they start listening to this conversation they're like this we forget
00:43:42.480 | it you know like I that could never apply to me doesn't she understand that
00:43:45.880 | I have an L4 L5 you know doesn't she understand that like I have been
00:43:50.240 | diagnosed with fibromyalgia like I get it I get it I have been you I am you I
00:43:56.160 | am you you are me nobody would mistake me for you on the street but in our
00:44:01.040 | souls we are the same and so I think I say that to say like wherever this finds
00:44:06.600 | you however hard this is to believe for you or maybe easier like it is for
00:44:10.240 | Michael like it is possible for you to totally transform your life and the
00:44:15.960 | stories that I get so so I've been working virtually in terms of like
00:44:20.720 | having online offerings for let's say let's say maybe since 2016 when I first
00:44:27.240 | published my my book so like that was a book that was my first book I'm working
00:44:31.720 | on my second now but then I got the then I did the YouTube channel then I did the
00:44:34.960 | podcast then kovat hit we all got stuck in our houses and I was doing virtual
00:44:39.200 | retreats all over the world what happens is enough people are touched that then I
00:44:43.440 | get received like emails from thousands of people around the world that I've
00:44:47.040 | never met so these are people that couldn't possibly be like influenced
00:44:51.360 | directly by me because they just saw something that I put out online and
00:44:54.760 | these people are saying I was on disability for seven years I was
00:44:59.360 | bed-bound and now long Kovat long Kovat is such a huge deal where people are so
00:45:04.480 | debilitated by long Kovat people are doing my work all over the world
00:45:08.320 | receiving crazy amounts of input from people they're all better all better no
00:45:13.960 | long Kovat symptoms and I have plenty of them interviewed on my podcast it's
00:45:17.680 | actually another one this week and so I guess what I'm saying is like wherever
00:45:22.960 | this finds you whomever you are if you can replace your fear with curiosity and
00:45:27.920 | you can just look at what hasn't worked for you and realize like maybe I want to
00:45:33.040 | just try something it is the most incredible opportunity for a change in
00:45:37.920 | your life and and I love that you see it the way you see it because you are you
00:45:43.760 | know half my age like I want people your age to be like man there is a better way
00:45:48.720 | to live and I don't have to just do everything that I thought was like the
00:45:53.080 | limits of my possibilities you know yeah especially early on I think it's
00:45:57.760 | important that people consume a lot of the content to build a belief here the
00:46:01.880 | stories here the testimonies of people you know getting better so can you tell
00:46:07.720 | people a little bit about why that's important and where they can see your
00:46:11.080 | stuff and where they can because I have the luxury of getting to have your phone
00:46:14.960 | number talk to you you send me podcasts to watch meet with me in person other
00:46:19.560 | people might not have that so where can they consume this build their belief and
00:46:25.080 | ultimately get better yes that's great and it's really important and we talked
00:46:29.440 | about this when I first met you which is so much belief is cultivated when you
00:46:33.840 | marinate in the material because like it's your brain will keep triggering
00:46:38.400 | like not safe not safe not safe go back to the doctor go back to the treatment
00:46:41.920 | go back to the med and like you need something to counter that and so being
00:46:46.480 | in the material is so important so let's see obviously I can't work with ever
00:46:51.200 | anyone everyone so I created online courses they are self-directed they're
00:46:56.560 | both my website is the cure for chronic pain calm you go to the website click on
00:47:00.800 | courses there's one for specifically for anxiety because crippling anxiety is
00:47:04.880 | just a symptom imperative like back pain and anxiety are the same thing they're
00:47:09.560 | just how they're being expressed from the brain and so there's one freedom
00:47:14.320 | from an anxious life one is called freedom from chronic pain which is what
00:47:17.520 | we're talking about any sort of pain or problem fits under that umbrella I also
00:47:22.440 | have a podcast my brand is called the cure for chronic pain so if anyone's
00:47:25.520 | really interested it's the name of my podcast it's the name of my youtube
00:47:29.060 | channel and it's the name of my website they'll find me and on Instagram I'm at
00:47:33.760 | Nicole Sachs LCSW and lots of new content there every day and I'm just
00:47:38.720 | doing everything I can it is my passion mostly because it's created my entire
00:47:44.040 | life had I not found this work I would have no children I would I can't I don't
00:47:49.280 | even know if I'd still be around because what would there be to live for you know
00:47:52.880 | like it was just it was it it's it's just so huge and powerful for me and and
00:47:58.240 | there's lots of ways to find it and I'm producing more stuff all the time and my
00:48:03.120 | hope is to get it out there I think I said this to you every time I get an
00:48:08.640 | extreme email the last line is I can't believe I didn't know about this I can't
00:48:14.400 | believe I didn't know this was a possibility for me so very simply I just
00:48:18.040 | want as many people as possible to know it's a possibility for them one more
00:48:21.480 | question because I'm trying to put myself in the the listeners place so for
00:48:28.080 | me I've had three back surgeries now there's some structural changes and that
00:48:32.600 | can limit some people's beliefs because they're like oh well I did the surgery
00:48:35.840 | now it's not really current now it's structural all these things talk about a
00:48:39.880 | little bit before we let you go about the extreme cases that you've seen
00:48:45.040 | people get better from and you've even said to me like the body is such a
00:48:48.960 | miraculous healing yes machine that even if you have some scar tissue or
00:48:53.100 | some bone-on-bone or whatever the case may be your body can find a way to work
00:48:59.640 | around it and not yes the pain signal yes 100% I cannot say this with enough
00:49:06.040 | confidence and if people need confidence please feel free to borrow mine because
00:49:11.120 | I cannot tell you how sure I am I have so first just so you know before I
00:49:16.000 | stopped being in private practice I was in private practice from 2000 to about
00:49:22.280 | 2019 so I was in practice for a long time where I saw very specific cases
00:49:29.520 | over and over again of people who had surgery people who hadn't surgery had a
00:49:34.440 | surgery people who had scar tissue people who had things like me where the
00:49:38.560 | MRI is so severe that they have like a whole vertebrae that's scattered that
00:49:43.080 | shattered and replaced with scar tissue like extreme situations all of them if
00:49:47.440 | they do the work with belief and patience and kindness for themselves
00:49:50.640 | we're able to eliminate their chronic pain it is brain science if if you cut
00:49:57.120 | off your head you're not going to feel anything right so the pain is not in
00:50:01.160 | your head but the we must consider the workings of the neuro the the nervous
00:50:06.320 | system in the brain in order to know that that's the only way we feel things
00:50:10.120 | so if we eliminate this process the pain signals are not necessary now people
00:50:15.600 | might think oh no no but I have bone on bone in my knee so no matter what you
00:50:20.360 | say that's going to create pain and the only thing I can say to that is the only
00:50:25.920 | question that is important for me to ask you is how do you feel today because how
00:50:31.680 | you feel today is how you live your life and so it's like if I worked with people
00:50:37.600 | that have all these varied MRIs and all these findings that have no pain because
00:50:42.760 | the miracle of their body has been able to bypass that and not send pain signals
00:50:47.120 | 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
00:51:08.000 | there's a cliche that says like oh we only understand six percent of the brain
00:51:11.480 | and and understand its workings maybe in 2023 that's a higher percentage but no
00:51:16.360 | matter what it is it's not we don't get close to a hundred percent so no
00:51:20.920 | scientists in the world could say I can explain to you exactly why that bone on
00:51:25.920 | bone is making you hurt because they also couldn't explain exactly why that
00:51:31.080 | same person with that same exact film has no pain from doing this work because
00:51:36.040 | the brain is is complex and so all I would say is if you can't believe to
00:51:41.580 | suspend your disbelief and allow yourself to let your body be your proof
00:51:45.720 | because I am certain that I have seen enough cases over the years that there
00:51:52.320 | is nothing that can stop you from being pain-free if you do this work right and
00:51:56.160 | the good thing is you've got a lot of these people on your podcast so just go
00:51:59.000 | listen to their stories and do the work and I'm speaking for myself - I gotta do
00:52:04.280 | it - cool well this has been super eye-opening I really think that like I
00:52:08.920 | told you I want to help be a testimonial in the future for this work I want to
00:52:14.680 | partner with you and really get this out there because people who are in pain I
00:52:18.800 | trust me I've seen the best of the best I've tried everything and I still had
00:52:22.840 | three surgeries and I believe this is the cure I'm sure this is the key and
00:52:26.680 | you've already seen some change I've seen some progress already I see it and
00:52:30.000 | I kind of knew I had an inkling in my brain like way in the past that you know
00:52:34.600 | what I'm doing I work harder than anyone I keep my core super strong why would I
00:52:39.480 | at 17 or 18 have back pain and I always had an inkling there's no way it could
00:52:44.840 | be physical it has to be tied to some some other stuff but to actually you
00:52:51.000 | know have the proof and now talk to you it's really really helped and I like you
00:52:56.000 | said I've already seen some progress so I'm looking forward to continuing it so
00:53:00.320 | thank you so much for being on - thank you for having me - Curious Mike out
00:53:07.100 | (upbeat music)