Nicole Sachs on Chronic Pain, Fixing My Back, and The Magic of Her Work

00:00:00.000 | What's going on, y'all? This is another episode of Curious Mike. I'm here with my dear friend,

00:00:03.740 | Nicole Sacks, who has actually been on the show before. And I'm here with my boy, Cam Michaels,

00:00:08.880 | first time appearance. Me and Nicole did an episode about two years ago,

00:00:14.480 | and this woman quite literally saved my life. I showed up in her DMs, struggling, not really

00:00:24.180 | able to move. This is after my third back surgery, and I'm feeling really hopeless. I was going

00:00:32.460 | through a stint of severe pain. If anyone knows my story, you know that I've dealt with

00:00:37.920 | the back injuries throughout my career. So this is after my third surgery, and I am literally

00:00:43.840 | not able to move on a couch for 10 hours in the day, doing research, figuring out how I can heal

00:00:50.500 | myself, what I can do to get better. And I stumbled across Nicole's work. You know, I've always been

00:00:56.460 | someone who has, you know, the physical work has always come easy to me, you know, doing the rehab,

00:01:02.180 | doing the things that the strength coach says, you know, my diet, all that has been on point

00:01:07.180 | my whole career. So I couldn't figure out why I wasn't getting better, you know, three surgeries in,

00:01:14.420 | I'm like, man, like, if my career like is in jeopardy, you know, I didn't know if I'd be able

00:01:19.500 | to go out there and play against the best that best athletes in the world on a night to night basis,

00:01:24.020 | feeling the way I was feeling. And so I came across your work. And we have a podcast episode that

00:01:31.020 | details a lot of this, but I came across her work, shot her a DM, researched her on YouTube. And this

00:01:37.600 | woman, like I said, changed my life after meeting her. And she actually pulled up to my house. And

00:01:44.320 | it was a weekend from you moving into LA. And I was out here for the summer. It was like divine timing.

00:01:48.680 | It was very aligned. Exactly. Yeah.

00:01:50.320 | It was very divine timing. She pulled up while I was laying on the couch, not able to move when we had a

00:01:54.840 | conversation. And I worked through these steps with her and I was healed. And for the last two seasons,

00:02:01.640 | I have played 81 out of 82 games. And then last season, I think I played 79 out of 82, which was the most

00:02:09.400 | on my team. And that is after three back surgeries and dealing with chronic pain since I can remember,

00:02:16.280 | you know. So welcome, Nicole Sachs. And thank you for those of listeners who did not listen to our first

00:02:25.000 | episode. Why don't you recap a little bit about what it is you do and how you were able to help me?

00:02:31.560 | a little bit. Yes. First, the first thing I have to say, because I feel like really dumb as you're telling

00:02:37.960 | this really sad story about how you've had three back surgeries and you're laid on the couch and I'm

00:02:41.880 | smiling ear to ear because I know how this story ends. And I remember meeting you and thinking, is there,

00:02:49.320 | is it possible this guy is going to pick up what I'm putting down? And when you did and really ran with it,

00:02:54.680 | I just, I appreciate you. So thanks for having me back on the podcast. So yeah, let me just talk a little

00:03:01.480 | bit about what I do. I'll start briefly, briefly with my personal story, just so people know

00:03:06.680 | that I really qualify. When I was 19, very similar to the first age, you got your first back problem.

00:03:13.880 | My back went out completely. I was at college. I had to come home. I missed final exams. And my parents,

00:03:20.200 | as any responsible parent would, you know, x-rays, MRIs, orthopedic surgery consults. And I was

00:03:27.000 | diagnosed with a structural finding called degenerative spondylolisthesis. And I was told,

00:03:33.560 | all right, no more exercise, no more sports, no more travel. You know, you have to be very careful

00:03:39.640 | about what you lift. And the likelihood that you'll have a biological child is slim to none. Like it was

00:03:45.640 | a crazy thing to hear at 19. And they were not recommending surgery because I wasn't in professional

00:03:51.880 | sports. I was a kid who just like living regular life. But they said, one day you're going to need

00:03:56.760 | spinal fusion surgery. And there was just something in me, you know, you can call it a spiritual awakening,

00:04:03.480 | whatever it is, where I was like, I just feel like there's more. But I didn't really know where to put

00:04:08.280 | that. As I moved through my life, I went to graduate school. I started training to be a therapist. And I

00:04:13.640 | came upon the work of Dr. John Sarno, who I believe you came upon before you came up to mind.

00:04:19.720 | John Sarno's book, Healing Back Pain, was the first introduction to that line of work that maybe

00:04:25.640 | my problem wasn't a physical issue. It wasn't a structural issue. There could be more to the story.

00:04:31.800 | That was my first kind of like inkling. But that was a year before I DM'd you, because it seemed at the

00:04:36.920 | time very, very, like most people that will feel like very kind of off putting kind of like, is that

00:04:43.800 | really, can that be possible? So it took me a year and another surgery and another bouts of pain to

00:04:50.760 | finally circle back. It was my last hope. So reaching out to you was after reading Dr. Sarno's book and you

00:04:57.720 | were his... I was his, well, I came in as his patient. So I started young as his patient.

00:05:03.240 | And I was in a very desperate way. And through working with him and understanding the brain science,

00:05:11.000 | which I'm going to touch on in a second, behind why we have chronic pain in the first place,

00:05:15.560 | I was able to actually evolve his theories. And I started lecturing with him at NYU. And I did that

00:05:21.560 | for years. And then when I was in private practice, I started taking his patients as my clients. And

00:05:27.560 | working in total partnership with him in order to really help people pretty much until the day

00:05:34.760 | he died, until he left practice. And so I'm going to give a little primer. Just, I know people could

00:05:41.160 | go back and listen to our episode. Yeah, no, no. I would love if you could recap

00:05:45.160 | the specifics and the brain science. Yeah. So like for a guy like Michael or for a girl like me,

00:05:49.880 | when you have a structural finding and you have terrible pain, it's very hard to hear at first something

00:05:56.280 | about the mind-body connection. Because I think it confuses people and they think maybe,

00:06:01.640 | are you saying the pain is in my head? Like, are you saying I'm making it up or I'm at fault or I'm

00:06:06.360 | hysterical or I'm overly sensitive? So I always start with saying, the pain is not in your head.

00:06:12.920 | There is brain science behind why the human body feels anything. So like,

00:06:20.120 | I could lecture to a room of a thousand people and I could say, raise your hand if you've ever been

00:06:24.760 | stressed out or overwhelmed and you get a headache, right? Everybody's hand goes up. And I'm like, okay,

00:06:29.720 | keep your hand up. If you ran to the ER that night for a CT scan of your brain, like you thought you had

00:06:35.160 | a brain tumor. And everyone laughs and they put their hand down. And I say, what I'm teaching you,

00:06:39.480 | and this is so key to get people's resistance down. What I'm teaching you, you already believe.

00:06:45.160 | You already believe that stress can cause a headache. You already believe that you can get like broken

00:06:51.160 | up with or get bad news and you lose your appetite. You already believe that when you're really sad or

00:06:58.920 | moved, water falls out of your face. You cry. Like what's a more basic mind body interaction? So it's,

00:07:06.120 | it's nothing new, but chronic pain comes hand in hand with fear, meaning and giving away our power

00:07:14.760 | because we have no choice. So this is nobody's fault. And so what I help people understand is that pain

00:07:20.920 | by its very nature is protective. So like in the early humankind, if you cut your arm and you didn't feel

00:07:27.720 | pain, you wouldn't clean it. You wouldn't take care of it. And it might get septic and you might die.

00:07:32.920 | So pain is here to stop us in our tracks and say, you have to take care of yourself. Those are the brain

00:07:39.400 | signals that are going on when pain becomes chronic. Got you. So in my instance, it was back pain. Your

00:07:46.680 | instance as well. Tell the people a little bit about the extent of what we're talking. We're not talking

00:07:52.440 | about just back pain, just headaches. We're talking about pretty much anything chronic. And that ranges

00:07:58.680 | from chronic anxiety, chronic depression, chronic fatigue, chronic, you know, back pain, knee pain.

00:08:07.160 | You know, you had a surgery on your knee and for some weird reason, your knee is not getting

00:08:10.760 | or the other knee starts hurting. Yes. I remember at the similar time, my foot, I had the plantar,

00:08:15.400 | plantar fascia. I started doing her work and that slowly started dissipating like crazy. And talk a

00:08:21.080 | little bit about how, so if someone goes and gets an MRI or they've had surgery and they're like, I know

00:08:26.600 | that I'm bone on bone. I know that I have a bulging disc. You know, I know that, and they have real

00:08:32.840 | justifications for why they're in pain. Talk about what is like a normal, um, like timetable for

00:08:39.960 | healing before it becomes chronic and before it has something to do with the mind-body interaction.

00:08:45.240 | No, it's, it's a, it's a great question. And actually it's the only reason you even missed

00:08:50.120 | those few games last season is you like sprained your ankle, I think.

00:08:54.040 | No, I got a hamstring strain and it was a normal healing time.

00:08:57.000 | Exactly. So this is what I'm saying. I am not saying that there is a mind-body connection for

00:09:01.880 | acute pain. We pull our muscles, we hurt ourselves, we cut ourselves, we break bones. There's, I love

00:09:09.560 | the medical model. I love Western medicine. Heal me, right? Like give me a cast, like give me an

00:09:14.360 | antibiotic when I have an infection. That's not what we're talking about here. We're talking about

00:09:19.240 | once the medically agreed upon time that something should have healed is over. And oftentimes with chronic

00:09:25.880 | pain, it's over for like months or years. Yeah.

00:09:29.320 | Or if a finding that you're, they're seeing an MRI, they're, they're considering it degenerating,

00:09:35.720 | which I know is like one of the things, you know, you have to take a look at pausing right there and

00:09:41.880 | getting curious about why these pain signals keep firing. So, you know, one thing that I think is kind

00:09:47.880 | of an interesting way to frame it that I've sort of started bringing in is there was agreement at one point

00:09:54.040 | in our global society, whatever you would want to call it at the time that the earth was flat.

00:09:58.840 | And the reason there was agreement that the earth was flat is because it was all you could see,

00:10:03.720 | right? And so who could blame you? Like you rode your horse from here to here and the earth was flat.

00:10:09.560 | And if you lived near the ocean, you looked out on the horizon and it was flat and everyone you knew

00:10:15.320 | agreed with you. And what I really think, and this is probably the most impactful thing we can communicate

00:10:21.080 | in this episode is we are in a flat earth moment when it comes to chronic pain recovery, because it is

00:10:27.960 | failing. The opioid crisis is epic. The ineffective, ineffective nature of surgery to cure pain, you know,

00:10:37.240 | surgery can repair an ACL. But so many times, five years, 10 years later,

00:10:42.040 | oh, that's my bad knee. I can't do stuff because, you know, these pain signals are a result of a brain

00:10:49.000 | and nervous system in long-term fight or flight. And that's why it doesn't matter if it's IBS or chronic

00:10:54.920 | fatigue or migraines or fibromyalgia or back pain or shoulder pain, because where it ends up, the signals

00:11:01.880 | end up going are somewhat immaterial. And I know this can be triggering for people, but when you pause

00:11:07.800 | and learn, when you don't use your resistance as a bar to curiosity, you will start to understand it

00:11:14.440 | will make perfect sense. And that's when you really change your life. Talk a little bit about, okay,

00:11:20.600 | for the people that feel like, for me, I've had surgeries, they've, they took part of my discs out.

00:11:27.000 | People may have bone on bone, people may have what is considered a normal abnormality. We've talked

00:11:32.920 | about that where like, people can't wrap their mind around the fact that even if you've had surgery,

00:11:37.960 | even if you do have bone on bone, even if you do have, you know, like, you're off balance from side

00:11:44.040 | to side. I remember I used to get so caught up on the fact that like, I would go to the chiropractor

00:11:47.640 | and they would say my hips were slightly off. I would start to feel that and I was so like, fearful and

00:11:54.600 | scared of it that my back starts hurting, you know, like, I remember the first time I went to the

00:11:59.240 | chiropractor. And they said like, or it was a doctor and they said I had degenerative disc disease.

00:12:06.360 | I remember from that appointment on somehow my pain just got worse and worse and worse. And it was the

00:12:10.440 | fear and it was the like anxiety surrounding it that I felt like tightened up my muscles. So talk a little

00:12:16.680 | bit about what is normal abnormalities and also what actually is causing the pain. Is it muscles

00:12:23.800 | tightening because of the fear, the flight or fight response? What's actually happening when people feel

00:12:29.560 | really stiff in their back or like their knee is really sore and hurting? Is it the inflammation that

00:12:34.680 | comes with being in flight or fight or what actually is happening? So I think the first thing, like, we'll just

00:12:40.040 | do like a tiny neuroscience lesson. The first thing that I didn't understand until I really dove into

00:12:45.320 | this is when you burn your finger, when you burn your hand, you don't feel pain in your hand. Here's

00:12:52.840 | what happens. And this is just agreed upon science. You burn your hand and the nerves in your hand send a

00:12:59.160 | message to your brain. And the message says one thing, the sensory environment has changed. Something

00:13:04.600 | changed down there. Now in your brain now we have to interpret, is that change good or bad? Because

00:13:10.040 | sometimes when you get a message in your brain that the sensory environment has changed, it's because

00:13:13.880 | you're having a massage and you're like, oh, that's really good, right? But when you burn yourself,

00:13:19.160 | what the sensory environment has changed means is there's danger. Burns could cause infection. They

00:13:24.280 | could cause tissue damage, whatever. The brain makes sense of that based on its interpretation of your

00:13:32.360 | perception of the problem. Okay? So when you burn yourself, first of all, you know, burning yourself

00:13:37.720 | isn't good. Second of all, it hurts. All this information goes up to the brain. What the brain does

00:13:42.360 | is it sends pain signals. So even though it's expressed through your finger, you are feeling it in your brain.

00:13:50.440 | This is something that people are like, you know, it blows their mind. So what happens when you are told

00:13:57.160 | that something is wrong with you is that you will start to attach meaning and dread and fear to the

00:14:03.960 | thing, especially a person like you who uses your body as your career and uses your body as your hopes

00:14:11.000 | and dreams and aspirations. And so all of that gets attached with a dread like, what if I can't do this

00:14:16.760 | anymore? Or what if I'm going to be bad at it? And then what will that feel like? Well, that'll feel

00:14:20.600 | like humiliating or like all the things that happen. And so if we can understand that our perception is

00:14:27.720 | our reality, if you are walking down the street and you see an outline of someone and you think they

00:14:33.320 | have a gun, your body is going to do the exact same thing, whether it's a bush that in the shape of a gun,

00:14:40.200 | or it's a person who's actually out to harm you until your perception changes. So like once you walk

00:14:46.760 | down the street and you're like, oh, it's a bush, it's going to take a minute, but like everything

00:14:50.360 | is going to calm back down. The problem with chronic pain is it keeps us in fight or flight.

00:14:55.880 | You're perfectly, you articulated that great. Because I remember I was told so many times,

00:15:01.240 | once they figured out I had back problems, they were like, don't be very careful when you pick

00:15:06.040 | something off the floor, be very like straight back and pick it up like that. I remember I would

00:15:11.080 | be so careful everything I did. Don't sit slouched. Don't sit, you know, you have to keep your posture.

00:15:16.200 | Like I was told so many things that would harm my back and I'm living my whole day. I'm going about

00:15:21.240 | when I get out of bed, I'm rolling onto my side. I'm pushing up. I'm being very careful about how I get

00:15:25.400 | out of bed. I'm very careful about how I sit. All these things until I got to the point where I 100%

00:15:32.520 | agreed with what you were teaching and it freed me to do anything I wanted to do with no fear.

00:15:37.960 | I don't even think about when I pick some off the floor that I got to keep my back somewhere. I don't

00:15:41.960 | even think about how I sit. I'm chilling, you know, like, but it took me a while to really get to that

00:15:47.240 | place of 100% belief in the work to where I can just live free. You know, if something happens in

00:15:55.000 | the game and I get hurt, cool. I know it's going to subside. I know that if I, we play two games or

00:16:01.400 | four games in five or six nights or whatever it is and my back's a little sore. I know that's normal

00:16:06.600 | acute soreness from working out and it's going to subside after a day or two, but it took real

00:16:12.040 | belief, I feel like, to get there. I had to really get out of that fear mindset. How do you feel like,

00:16:19.480 | because I feel like, you know, I want to get in a little bit into the journal speak and how people

00:16:24.600 | can, and, and, you know, you know, the reservoir, but a lot of it is just belief that nothing's wrong

00:16:30.600 | with you. How much of healing is belief in this work? And then how much is actually doing,

00:16:37.000 | doing the work to lower that reservoir, which I want you to touch on next?

00:16:41.000 | So, and I think that like eventually when we all, when we all start talking, the, the,

00:16:45.400 | this will bring us all together in a sense. There are three facets of my work and I look at them like

00:16:52.440 | three legs of a stool. So without all three legs, the stool is not going to stand and it's believe,

00:16:58.040 | do the work, journal speak, and patience and kindness, self-compassion, understanding the

00:17:04.200 | goodness in you. Now, a lot of people look at that third leg and they're like, yeah, that's okay, fine.

00:17:09.720 | Like I'll believe, you know, I'll read about the neuroscience, Nicole, and I'll like, you know,

00:17:13.880 | listen to your podcast and I'll marinate in the material and I'll listen to Mike.

00:17:17.160 | Self-compassion shirt, cute. You know, that's like for hippies. And what I want to say is that

00:17:23.720 | all three legs need to be strong and nurtured in order to stick, for the stool to stand.

00:17:31.240 | So let's talk about belief for a minute. Once again, we're going to dip into neuroscience. And I think the

00:17:35.880 | reason why I lean so hard into science is because when people understand that I'm not making this up

00:17:41.080 | because it's like, would be like a really lovely way to look at life, they can kind of quell their

00:17:46.360 | skepticism and their attachment to diagnoses or the medical model. So in terms of neuroscience,

00:17:52.680 | the human brain seeks what it can predict, which is why you are more likely to warm to a situation that

00:17:59.640 | you've done before. It seeks the familiar. And so in that way, we learn to believe by exposing ourselves

00:18:07.960 | over and again to the new thing that we intellectually know we need to learn. That's how a kid can learn

00:18:14.520 | calculus. And that's how we can learn about this mind body science. And so in terms of believe, honestly,

00:18:21.560 | the best thing to do is to listen to the success stories. I have hundreds of them on my podcast is the end of

00:18:28.760 | every chapter in my book, Mind Your Body, which just came out this year, is another person's stunning

00:18:35.240 | move from total fear and often disability to full freedom. Michael is the end of one of my chapters, which

00:18:43.400 | is super, was super fun for us to work together on. And, um, so like, that's the best way to go to

00:18:48.680 | believe. Learn about the neuroscience, which I also teach in the book and listen to people just like

00:18:54.760 | you. That's a thing. It's a similar, and you know, we're going to introduce you in a second, my boy,

00:19:00.040 | you're not just- You're being so patient. He's being so patient all day. But it truly is in his, in his line of

00:19:06.760 | work and your line of work. I feel like to get people on board, it is individual testimonies. It truly is.

00:19:13.080 | When I sat down and I listened to people that had stories just like me that were healed through the

00:19:19.000 | work, that was what got me really thinking it was possible for me to heal. So belief is such a big part

00:19:25.400 | of it. Compassion for yourself. Talk a little bit about doing the work in the journal speak and

00:19:30.440 | a little bit about the reservoir that builds up and really, really what we're talking about. What we're

00:19:36.280 | talking about is repressed emotions and how they can manifest as physical pain. They can manifest as

00:19:42.760 | anxiety. They can manifest as headaches. They can manifest in so many different ways.

00:19:47.000 | Talk about that and talk about how you can lower that reservoir and you can start seeing some progress

00:19:53.640 | and some healing. So like, I think the best way to talk about it is inside each of us, you can just

00:19:59.480 | imagine like a clear science beaker. Okay. And inside, and I call that the emotional reservoir. And inside of

00:20:07.080 | that is everything that we don't have time or capacity to feel. And like, you know, people talk about defense

00:20:16.920 | mechanisms. Well, the reason they're called that is because they defend us. We have them for a reason.

00:20:21.960 | So repression in its very nature isn't bad. It is helping us get through the day. Like think about

00:20:28.280 | your day and the different frustrations that come in. If you had to feel every way that that triggered

00:20:35.000 | you, by the way, every way it reminded you of your childhood, of your pain, of every time someone made

00:20:41.400 | you feel small in the same way when you were a kid and powerless, you would be paralyzed. You would not be

00:20:47.480 | able to get on with your day. And so as a very natural way, we unconsciously repress a ton of emotions.

00:20:56.920 | And the most, the ones we repress the most are the least convenient, grief, rage, shame, despair,

00:21:06.440 | and terror. Those are the big five. So not like I'm a little freaked out. Like I'm terrified or not like

00:21:13.720 | I'm pissed off. It's like I'm enraged. I might be scary if I show you how angry I am.

00:21:19.240 | These things are considered unsafe by our brain and our nervous system. And you have to realize that

00:21:26.200 | the brain and the nervous system have one primary purpose, which is to keep us alive. And so if

00:21:31.320 | there's a predator threatening our lives, which it actually is perceived as that when the emotional

00:21:36.920 | reservoir starts to overflow, the brain is going to do whatever it needs to do to protect you.

00:21:42.040 | So let's just give a little example, okay? You're feeling really angry about something. See,

00:21:47.000 | it's interesting for guys versus girls, but it's both bad. For guys, if they perceive themselves as

00:21:53.320 | being as angry as they might feel, they could get really judged or at the worst like case arrested for

00:22:01.320 | being enraged. Men are seen as scary. Women are seen as shrill, unfeminine, unappealing, like if they

00:22:11.000 | start getting angry. So no one in society is allowed to be angry. And you start feeling this rage building,

00:22:17.480 | right? And your emotional reservoir starts overflowing. What's going to happen? And this is nuts,

00:22:22.760 | but it's true. Your brain is going to sense danger the way it would if you were being pursued by a

00:22:28.920 | predator. It's going to go into fight or flight. And when the brain goes into fight or flight, it starts

00:22:33.240 | to seek ways to protect you. So if you were running from a predator, that way might be you could like

00:22:39.400 | run faster, jump higher, um, freeze more still, right? But if you weren't running from a predator

00:22:45.960 | and your brain logically knows that you're not, what can it do? Well, if you're so angry, you're worried

00:22:52.600 | that you might react and you get a migraine and you're throwing up, or if your back goes out and

00:22:57.720 | you're laying on the couch, you're safe. And it sounds nuts, but it is actually the perception of your

00:23:04.040 | brain that you are safer from yourself. It's like protecting you from yourself. So the reservoir is

00:23:11.400 | overflowing. And that is what leads us to need to figure out a way to dip a ladle in the reservoir

00:23:19.560 | and dump it out. So you're, you're saying literally that you, us as humans, our mind,

00:23:26.600 | we would rather feel a physical manifestation of repressed emotions, whether that's a headache,

00:23:31.560 | whether that's pain, we would rather feel that than feel our feelings.

00:23:34.040 | Well, rather is an interesting word, right? We have to dip into vocabulary here.

00:23:39.080 | I think most people who have terrible chronic pain would be like, you're crazy. I wouldn't rather be

00:23:45.480 | like on disability, but your brain would. And that's where we have to rewrite these neural pathways.

00:23:53.000 | And lucky for us as humans, the brain is plastic. It changes and rewrites until the day we die. So you

00:23:59.320 | don't have to worry that you're too far gone. People write me and they're like, I'm in my 80s,

00:24:03.000 | can I do that? And I'm like, yeah, you can. You know, if you have years left to live,

00:24:06.360 | or even days left to live, you can do this. And so your, your brain's perception is these repressed

00:24:13.080 | emotions rising. Now let's talk about another one, grief, shame, despair. If my despair rises to the

00:24:20.120 | point where my brain perceives it to be unsafe, you know, might I be in danger of hurting myself? Now,

00:24:25.640 | it may or may not be true, but your brain, if it perceives the danger, is going to protect you.

00:24:31.080 | And so what happens in this process is that it sends a message of inflammation. It sends a message

00:24:37.160 | of muscle constriction or spasm or neuropathy. And then you feel it. You know, the sensory environment

00:24:43.240 | has changed. There's danger, you feel the pain, and then you adjust your life accordingly. So now you make

00:24:48.520 | your life smaller, you're gentler on yourself. You don't have to draw so many boundaries because like

00:24:53.960 | you might want to say no, but you don't have to say no, you're sick. You like, it's almost beautiful.

00:25:00.040 | Like it's almost poignant to realize what a perfect system we have, where if it thinks you're in danger,

00:25:05.800 | it's going to protect you like that. And so the way I teach people to get out of it, and the way Michael

00:25:11.080 | was a warrior at being willing to just say, "Fine, I am sick and tired of being sick and tired. I don't

00:25:18.360 | want to live this way. I want to play basketball. I want to thrive." You're so young. Did I meet you at 24?

00:25:23.240 | Yeah, I believe so. I mean, like I have a 23-year-old daughter. Like it's like nuts to me how young you

00:25:29.160 | were. Three surgeries in at 24, three surgeries that were unneeded, I would say, after doing your work,

00:25:35.480 | unneeded, you know? And part of that is mourning that. Part of that is saying, you know, my favorite

00:25:41.800 | Maya Angelou quote, "When you know better, you do better." Like you didn't know. So like there has to be

00:25:46.520 | compassion for, "Okay, I did my best in that moment, but now I'm learning something, and I'm going to take

00:25:53.080 | my power back." Because this is not to be against doctors or chiropractors or practitioners of any

00:25:59.000 | kind. It is about knowing that the real expert is you. And when you learn that, and when you have the

00:26:05.720 | tools to go and go in there and do what you need to do to lower the reservoir, you live like Michael

00:26:11.400 | lives. He's got the same degenerative disc disease. I promise you, if you were MRI'd today, I at 53 have the

00:26:19.160 | same exact MRI. I've had three children. I exercised till the day they were born. I can run five miles

00:26:26.920 | on the beach. I can lift anything I want. I never worry about how I bend over and pick anything up.

00:26:31.560 | And any doctor who still sees my MRI, they go a little pale. They're nervous. They're like, "You're

00:26:38.040 | messed up." And I'm not. It's a normal abnormality. We look different on the outside, and we look different

00:26:44.440 | on the inside. Right. So talk about, talk about what I had to get in. What did I, the journal speak. Talk

00:26:49.800 | about lowering that reservoir and the process about it, and talk a little bit about the resistance that

00:26:57.320 | may come. Yes. Okay. So one of the things that I almost find comical when we get to this part of the

00:27:02.920 | conversation with anyone is that I'm going to tell people you can relieve your chronic pain through

00:27:09.560 | journaling through intuitive writing. And that, I get it. I almost step outside of myself. I'm like,

00:27:16.440 | "That sounds nuts." So I guess the best way for me to say it is when Dr. Sarno said it to me, and he

00:27:22.840 | didn't even necessarily tell me journaling was the only way. He just said, "It's a really good tool."

00:27:27.560 | You quiet down. You get in there, and you get opportunities for epiphany that you might not get if

00:27:33.640 | you were talking to a friend. Epiphany. I love that word, epiphany. And I love doing it for 15 to 20

00:27:40.680 | minutes, because you may come to an epiphany on minute 16 or 17 when your phone's away, and you're

00:27:45.960 | just writing for that long. You may come to some realizations about your childhood, about things that

00:27:51.800 | you haven't fully felt in there. That word epiphany, like, means a lot to me. But yeah, continue.

00:27:58.040 | Well, because it really wakes you up. And right, like, we all have to sort of wake from this slumber.

00:28:03.960 | And it's not our fault, the slumber, but it's the way we've been raised in the Western medical model that,

00:28:08.600 | like, if you have a physical problem, you need a physical solution. And so what journal speak does,

00:28:14.920 | so essentially what we're doing when we journal speak is we are putting a ladle in the reservoir and

00:28:19.640 | we're dumping it out. And what I think is really important for people to realize is,

00:28:23.240 | when the emotional reservoir is not overflowing, when it's like, no one's ever going to empty the

00:28:28.520 | whole thing. We're human beings. But when it's below that critical state, you will not have pain.

00:28:34.440 | I can almost say you cannot have pain. And here's why. Pain signals need to be intentionally sent from

00:28:42.440 | your brain and your nervous system. And if you're not physically being triggered, and you're not

00:28:47.480 | emotionally being triggered, you will not have pain. Like, I know you, Michael. You go through most days

00:28:53.080 | and you don't have back pain. And this is what I'm, and it used to be the biggest thing in your life.

00:28:58.360 | My teammates literally today were like, "Mike, you have to tell me." You know, we got done playing like

00:29:02.920 | 10 pickup games. We did conditioning. Then we lifted and my back was fine. And they were like, "Mike,

00:29:07.640 | you got to like, how is your back? Okay. You got to show me what you're on. You got to show me your

00:29:11.880 | protocol." I'm like, "Okay. Like, I'll show you what I do." You're not, you're not, you're not going to like,

00:29:16.920 | it's going to be different than what you think. But it's the truth of why I've been able to have three

00:29:23.400 | back surgeries and feel fine in my back, you know? And it's, it's the journal speak, which I was

00:29:29.080 | religiously doing. After we met that one day and I was laying on the bed, they told me about

00:29:34.120 | the journal speak and lowering that reservoir. I was religiously journaling. For me, I was typing,

00:29:40.760 | you know, I was typing on my computer and trying to go deep and figure out those emotions. But it's not

00:29:44.920 | a normal journaling. It's not a passive journaling. You are like trying to- It's like a hysterical temper

00:29:51.400 | tantrum. It's not like a document you want to save. No, and it's not a document you're allowed to save.

00:29:58.600 | So Leah, like tell them, like for you, what was your first journal speak? What was the realization

00:30:03.880 | that you came to that lowered your reservoir? And how is this journaling supposed to be? Because

00:30:09.400 | people hear a journal, they may think, you know, just talk about your day, talk about how you've been.

00:30:12.920 | No, this is like trying to let it all out. Yeah. You know, it's really funny. In retrospect,

00:30:19.000 | I created journal speak so many years ago that it is what it is. But I almost regret having the word

00:30:23.960 | journal in the name because it isn't regular journaling. Okay. So essentially Dr. Sardo and I

00:30:30.440 | met, he looked at my MRI. I was really young and he was just like, okay. He's like, I get it,

00:30:35.240 | how scary this looks. He said, there is no way that this abnormality is accounting for all the different

00:30:41.480 | ways you just explained your pain. He's like, you could go to the best doctors in the world. They're

00:30:45.560 | not going to admit that it is. He's like, so I'm going to tell you what's really going on, blah, blah,

00:30:50.440 | blah, blah, the brain science. And he's like, you need to get into this reservoir. So he tells me to

00:30:54.760 | journal and make like lists, make lists of like my daily, daily life, like just an inventory,

00:31:01.080 | what's going on, what's pissing me off, what's upsetting me. And then like make a list of my

00:31:05.720 | childhood or my past stressors and make a list of my personality characteristics that might be getting

00:31:11.800 | to me on a daily basis, like perfectionism or people pleasing or being your own worst critic.

00:31:17.640 | Okay. So I make these lists and I'm like, okay, you know, I'm just so desperate for help and I'm

00:31:23.560 | following, you know, his guidelines. And my story, it's important to say, because otherwise it would

00:31:29.080 | be confusing for a new, new person. My story really happens in two acts. My first act was that I

00:31:35.160 | understood Dr. Sarno's work. I sort of half read, kind of skimmed healing back pain and I got it enough

00:31:42.040 | to move on with my life, get my graduate degree and have two out of the three of my children.

00:31:46.520 | Then when my son was 10 months old, I wasn't careful about lifting his little baby walker.

00:31:53.160 | I felt, I felt a pain through my back that took my breath away. And I went into a shame spiral

00:31:58.120 | that you could not imagine. Like I've done this to myself. I wasn't supposed to have the kids.

00:32:03.240 | Now my back was out. And I went through a year of horrible chronic pain, just like, you know,

00:32:07.960 | um, on every muscle relaxer, like, like steroids, like painkillers, crying myself to sleep at night,

00:32:16.760 | not able to lift my kids, not able to properly parent. That's what brought me into Dr. Sarno's

00:32:21.400 | office live. So that's where you find me with the whole journal speak thing. So he's telling me to

00:32:28.280 | journal. I'm like going through all these topics and I feel like it's a whole lot of nothing. I feel

00:32:33.080 | like I'm playing my tapes. I'm writing, I'm tired and I have babies. And like, it wasn't that I wasn't

00:32:37.880 | tired, but like nothing felt revelatory. Nothing felt like an epiphany. And then one day I'm writing

00:32:44.360 | about motherhood and I'm writing all that, those tapes. And I had, and this definitely, there's no other

00:32:49.640 | word for it, but then a spiritual awakening, there was a voice and it came to me and it was not my

00:32:54.200 | voice. It was a voice that said a sentence that I was not wanting to hear. And I feel like in that

00:33:02.040 | moment I had an openness that I honor because I said to myself, there is something going on in there that

00:33:10.120 | is different, darker, deeper than what you think. So listen to this epiphany, listen to this revelation

00:33:16.200 | that's coming in. And the revelation was, I hate being a mother. It was the ugliest,

00:33:23.400 | most unwelcome sentence. It didn't make sense to me because I'm such a maternal person and I've been

00:33:28.840 | desperate to be a mother for so long, but I had the bravery to write it down. So I wrote that sentence

00:33:34.600 | down and I, it was gut wrenching. I almost feel like I was going to be sick. Like it was really, and I said,

00:33:38.840 | fine, let's go. And I replaced my fear with curiosity and I went and I was like, I hate this.

00:33:46.440 | I'm terrible at it. I'm failing. I'm a pain. And then I really went darker. I had the wrong children.

00:33:53.560 | My daughter doesn't look like me. This wasn't the plan. And it, I took, I just stopped worrying. I knew

00:34:01.640 | that I had the right to throw this out when I was done. Nobody was ever going to see it unless I

00:34:06.200 | showed it to them. So I just went hog wild. I just started writing the truth. But what's so important

00:34:13.880 | that people understand is that journal speak doesn't stay true. So as I'm writing it, what started to

00:34:18.760 | happen for me is I started to realize, wait a second, this doesn't feel true either. I don't hate my kids.

00:34:24.040 | Like what's, what's in there. And I started to be more curious and more curious. And what I came to

00:34:30.360 | was that when I was little and I was really scared and sad and feeling alone, I made this really quiet

00:34:36.840 | promise to myself that one day I was going to have my own family and I was going to be in charge.

00:34:42.200 | And I was going to be the perfect mother. And I was going to have this beautiful thing. And it was going

00:34:47.320 | to heal like the wounds of my childhood, which is as sweet as it is, like a really preposterous thing to

00:34:53.560 | think. Like you can't heal your childhood by having babies. Like anyone who has a kid, I don't know,

00:34:58.760 | Cam, do you have kids? Yeah, three of them. Okay. Sir, you understand what I'm saying.

00:35:02.840 | Yeah. Well, it puts a lot of pressure on you too. That puts pressure on you as a mom to

00:35:07.000 | totally heal your own wound with that. Not only does it put pressure on you,

00:35:09.800 | it is the most ridiculous notion that these like self-centered new humans that are trying to find

00:35:16.280 | their way in the world are going to be so perfect and loving to you that they're going to heal that

00:35:20.600 | little inner child inside. So anyway, all that to say I went wild. I came to a place of real compassion

00:35:28.120 | for myself. I really did. It was like when you're cried out and you're like wrung out on the floor and

00:35:32.920 | you're like, "Oh, I see." Like I feel peace. And I understood all of this stuff that had been going on

00:35:39.800 | inside of me. And I saw my children for who they were. Not some function of me, but like these beautiful

00:35:45.720 | little people who are making their way in the world, they were one in three. And I woke up the

00:35:52.040 | next morning and my back pain was 80% gone, never to return. This is over 20 years ago. And then I was

00:35:59.880 | like, I found the answer and I started journal speaking. Okay. In this like expressive, unapologetic,

00:36:06.760 | five-year-old tantruming inner child way, like playing with truth. Like, do I hate this? Maybe

00:36:14.840 | I hate it. Let's talk about what if I did. Do I, am I desperate for it? Like playing with it. And within

00:36:20.200 | a couple of months, my chronic pain was totally gone and never to return. And this is the tool.

00:36:25.160 | I was the same way. I was in my room typing, writing away, trying to explore everything that I really

00:36:32.040 | think. Not the things that people tell you to think, not the ways I'm supposed to feel about

00:36:37.240 | basketball or I'm supposed to feel about this and that. I started writing about how I really feel

00:36:42.440 | about all the lists that, that there was three lists, I think, uh, characteristics. It was like

00:36:49.080 | childhood. And then there was another one. I started using those as prompts and getting deep and doing that

00:36:53.720 | inner work that people talk about, but a lot of people don't really do. When you really dig in deep-

00:36:58.280 | People don't even know what's in there. They don't.

00:37:00.120 | They don't. If you sit down there and write for 15 to 20 minutes-

00:37:03.400 | 20. 20, oh yeah, 20. And you really try to dig deep, you will come to some realizations about yourself

00:37:09.720 | that you never even knew were in there. And that's what happened to me. That's my same story.

00:37:14.280 | Every single day, my back got a little bit better. I've never had a back spasm to that extent,

00:37:22.680 | to where it takes me out for days. I haven't had it since. And I'm, I have no fear that I ever will

00:37:26.920 | again. Um, so we, we both have two really amazing stories. At the end of this podcast,

00:37:33.160 | I may want you to share a couple other amazing stories that you've encountered,

00:37:38.520 | but I think this is where I want to introduce Cam. And I want you to tell a little bit about what made

00:37:46.440 | you want to call me the other day and talk to me about this. What was your personal story

00:37:51.560 | with this kind of stuff? And what made you be intrigued about this?

00:37:56.200 | Well, one, I, I called you cause I'm, you were starting to talk about some of this stuff.

00:38:01.320 | I think I actually asked you who your doctor was for your back surgery. And you're like, bro,

00:38:04.280 | it wasn't my, it wasn't the surgeon that got me in hearing, hearing about your, just your, your journey

00:38:09.560 | through this stuff, which I was like, bro, this is actually what I'm seeing in basically everyone's

00:38:13.000 | life that I'm working with right now is walking through. I just call it fear, but it's these ways

00:38:17.880 | that we've repressed all the stuff. So I've had a bunch of experiences with it. And then the second I

00:38:23.560 | hear Nicole talk, I'm like all the confidence in the world. Cause you're like, this is actually what

00:38:26.840 | the brain brain does. And so I started to see a lot of these stories of people who

00:38:31.000 | really made an agreement about themselves early on in life. They believed some kind of lie,

00:38:36.520 | usually through some kind of memory that they, they, they had, they experienced some kind of trauma

00:38:42.200 | that formed a real, a view of themselves, like an identity of how they saw themselves and learning to

00:38:48.840 | kind of walk through that with them. This is by the way, it's like what the scriptures calls confession,

00:38:52.600 | right? Like, it's like, it's really funny because a lot of times we think of when we hear like

00:38:56.200 | confession, we just hear this like emotional, I'm telling God, I'm sorry or something.

00:38:59.960 | But confession is, it's what you said. It's telling the truth. It's just being absolutely honest about

00:39:05.560 | what I believe about myself, the things that have happened, the things that I've repressed.

00:39:09.960 | It's what, it's like, it's what David says in Psalm 32, right? He says, when I kept silent,

00:39:14.280 | my, my bones started to hurt. Like he's like, my bones wasted away. My bones wasted away. So there's

00:39:20.440 | this like beautiful picture of what everything you're saying. It's like, when I repressed, when I kept silent,

00:39:25.080 | when I said the things I felt like I was supposed to say, my body started to ache and hurt. So I don't

00:39:30.680 | know. I mean, in my mind, it's like, what kind of chronic pain is my guy, David talking about that?

00:39:34.760 | He doesn't have that kind of language to say, but he's been keeping it down for so long. And so I had

00:39:40.680 | my own kind of experience through this. And then basically it's just experience, right? It's my own

00:39:45.480 | story being like, Hey, this worked for me. I'd love to kind of help walk you through some of these things.

00:39:49.560 | And then same thing. You just start to see stories, not as much actually like physical pain, a couple.

00:39:54.200 | I mean, I had one. I mean, I had a, I started to have, I never had a nice beard, but I had a little,

00:39:59.560 | little neck beard, a little neared is what they call it. But I had this. And all of a sudden, just like

00:40:05.080 | one day, I just started having this bald spot kind of creep in and it started to spread kind of across

00:40:09.160 | my face. And I'm kind of like, what's going on? Am I about to go bald? I go into the dermatologist.

00:40:13.800 | They say it's this kind of alopecia. I'm getting a little scared. I'm like, this is about to come

00:40:17.240 | all the way across my, my head. And basically they told me they were like, this is a form of stress.

00:40:22.680 | Like you have some kind of stress in your body that it's like, it's an autoimmune thing that it's

00:40:26.520 | fighting back. And so it's surprising that the doctors even went there.

00:40:30.280 | I'm impressed. I feel like if we're going in that direction, that makes me feel good.

00:40:34.280 | Yeah, hopefully. So, but so I, I just started to do kind of my own stuff. I'm like, what am I,

00:40:38.280 | the main question I'm asking all the time is like, what am I, what am I actually afraid of here? Like what,

00:40:42.360 | what kind of stress am I maybe carrying in my body? And you just kind of pull on that thread.

00:40:47.080 | And, uh, I was journal speaking without knowing I was journal speaking, I guess, you know, just by

00:40:51.320 | myself writing some stuff down. I went through a couple kind of guided reflection and prayer times

00:40:56.600 | with, with my wife actually, and, uh, had a couple of memories that I like literally could not remember

00:41:02.280 | at all, but just they came out. I was like, oh my gosh, I could not believe it's an epiphany. Yeah. It comes

00:41:07.240 | up. Um, in the memory, I realized that I'm, I became, I like became afraid of something and

00:41:12.840 | it was shame really. So I felt this shame in my body and in this memory. Uh, and this is what

00:41:17.800 | I think is amazing about Jesus. I have this, uh, in the kind of prayer reflection time, I,

00:41:22.840 | I mean, he comes into the memory, like, and he restores and rewires the memory. So it's like,

00:41:26.920 | I have this memory. I, I walk out of this room and I'm ashamed and my head is down.

00:41:31.320 | And actually like in this memory, I don't know what kind of intuitive space I'm in my,

00:41:35.560 | in my mind. This is epiphany at its like peak to me. I'm just crying tears. You know, like,

00:41:40.200 | I feel like I'm crying tears that, uh, whatever, seven or eight year old Cam didn't cry. You know,

00:41:45.720 | like I was just, I walked out, I walked out of this room and in the memory, Jesus just lifted my shoulders

00:41:50.440 | up, lifted my head up and basically just told me he loved me, but it wasn't like a, we know that it's like,

00:41:54.920 | God, God loves you, bro. But it was an experience with that in this memory. And like two days later,

00:42:00.680 | my hair starts to grow back on my face. So it's just like immediately, but it's like,

00:42:04.600 | I was carrying this in my body and in my mind, it's just, I was just told the truth. I found

00:42:09.480 | kind of what I believed about myself and I was just honest about it. And you don't want to go there.

00:42:14.040 | It's like so scary. That's the thing. You'll be resistant to going there, but this is where it's

00:42:20.440 | really important. People understand your resistance isn't a decision. It comes back to brain science.

00:42:26.600 | Your resistance to quote, going there is because you haven't yet understood that going there is safe,

00:42:33.640 | which is why education and knowledge are the prescription at the beginning, because the whole

00:42:39.080 | believe part is understanding that we've had it all wrong. And, you know, we know about it in terms of

00:42:45.080 | like stories like, oh, you ever want to like fight the monster or the bully, you face them. Like,

00:42:50.760 | we know that in like story, but it's actually the truth of the human system that we have to walk into

00:42:59.560 | those dark rooms and turn on the light. And we're not taught to.

00:43:02.680 | And that's my, my guy, David Goggins. I'm a big David Goggins fan. He said he starts his day off

00:43:08.760 | with emptying, emptying those cabinets. Like yeah, the running, he does a hundred mile runs. He

00:43:13.960 | is one of the best in shape 50 year olds, like ever to live. He said he does his hardest thing first.

00:43:20.760 | And that is going into those cabinets and emptying them, them dark spaces and doing the mental work.

00:43:25.400 | That is so much more brave and more strong than going and doing a tough lift or a tough workout.

00:43:31.560 | Like this, this work is not easy, but once you get to the point where you're willing to do it,

00:43:37.640 | you will see change in your life. For those of you that don't know, Cam is a pastor. So he,

00:43:43.320 | um, he ministers to a lot of Christian people. And this seems to be an idea that is really kind of,

00:43:51.240 | I feel like the Christian church or religious people in general are very like, um, they're kind

00:43:56.760 | of like stuck in because they feel like they can pray, you know, praying to God and their pain goes

00:44:02.840 | away or pray. But then when you, when it doesn't, or you, you don't get healing. Now you're questioning

00:44:07.800 | God. Now you're questioning if he wants the best for you. Now you're questioning, you know,

00:44:11.400 | is scripture true? It says, ask God for anything and he'll give it to you. But maybe you're asking for

00:44:16.920 | healing and it's not happening, you know, what? And then they're not knowing that he kind of gives you

00:44:23.160 | the tools in scripture. If you read the scripture, like you said, it talks about confess and you will

00:44:27.800 | be healed. It talks about in Psalms, um, he's writing about his back was aching with pain. And then he,

00:44:35.320 | he was being silent, but he confessed to God. He expressed his emotion, his, he, his guilt was lifted

00:44:41.320 | and his body was restored. Like there's all this imagery in scripture about this mind body connection,

00:44:47.080 | which even made it easier for me to buy into. Yeah, bro. Um, but talk a little bit about why

00:44:52.680 | you, cause you call me and you were like, man, like, like I love the pastoring thing, but this is really

00:44:57.960 | calling my name. Like, yeah. What do you, what do you feel like that is? No, it's a great, it's a great

00:45:02.200 | question. I think one, people are extremely well-meaning, right? Like they, they're, they take scriptures,

00:45:07.880 | they want, they want to believe God for things. Um, but I think even the way we see God work in

00:45:14.200 | the scriptures is, is right in line with this. Like he always actually, he never like picks us out of

00:45:21.000 | our pain and just drops us into it. He always is moving people through stuff. Like that's the whole

00:45:25.160 | narrative of scripture. So even like, I think of David in Psalm 34, he says, which is a promise of

00:45:30.440 | God. He says, the Lord delivered me from all of my fears, which is like amazing. I don't know.

00:45:35.160 | Like, could you imagine a life where you're just like not afraid of anything? That's what he's kind

00:45:38.040 | of saying. But when he says this passage, he says, like he delivered me from my fears. And so anybody

00:45:44.920 | who's like reading the scriptures, that word deliverance has a real connotation to it. Like

00:45:48.440 | there's a whole story to that word. Like deliverance is God moving the Israelites and the Hebrew people

00:45:54.680 | out of captivity and into the promised land. Right. And we know the story. So, you know, the story is not

00:45:59.720 | him dropping in, picking them up, moving them to the promised land. Right. So it's, it's never that. I think that's a lot

00:46:04.440 | of times when we think of prayer, it's like, I'm going to pray it away. I'm going to pray and it's

00:46:07.960 | just going to get fixed. I think it's what God is always inviting us into is moving through this stuff.

00:46:13.080 | Right. So that's the story, right? They, they move through a red sea. They move through a wilderness

00:46:17.640 | pain. And I'm sure they're suffering, suffering, suffering in that journey. The whole journey is

00:46:22.920 | this like, and it's belief, it's faith. It's like one step at a time. This feels so scary, but it's got to

00:46:28.440 | be better than where I've been. So you just keep going and you keep walking. But that's what he's David's saying. I'm on the other side of that.

00:46:33.720 | He delivered me through this journey from all of my fears. And so I think when we think about the

00:46:40.280 | way God wants to answer prayer or move in our own lives, it's always through stuff. And that's the

00:46:45.480 | story of Jesus too. He moved. He doesn't just like come down as like, I'm going to save the world. It's

00:46:49.560 | through his like death. It's through the cross. Like it's through this painful journey that he lives and

00:46:55.720 | displays for us. So it's, it's always moving us through things. And so honestly, even when we hear,

00:47:01.240 | when I hear Nicole talk, I'm like, of course that's how it is. Why would that be surprising that we have

00:47:04.920 | to move through our pain to get to freedom? That's the whole like kind of biblical story. It's how it's

00:47:09.480 | how we're wired as humans. Yeah. That's the, yeah. So it makes, it makes actually total sense now,

00:47:14.200 | but it's a different way of looking at things. It's a, it's a different perspective shift.

00:47:17.800 | Yes. And I feel like it, your goal is to bring this into the medical world and make it more like, um,

00:47:25.880 | accepted there. And I feel like one of my goals, one of your goals is to

00:47:30.280 | help the Christian community who there's so much hurt. There's so much pain. There's so much chronic

00:47:36.600 | anxiety. You're like, man, why as a Christian, if I really have faith in God, why am I dealing with

00:47:40.680 | anxiety? Why am I dealing with this? You know, it's funny because like other countries don't deal

00:47:47.080 | with this as much as the Western world. And a lot of it is because they are willing to put their phones

00:47:52.840 | down, spend time in meditation, spend time internally going. They know them. They like,

00:47:58.760 | they're getting to know themselves. They're, they're honest. They're not putting on this facade that

00:48:03.320 | people here like to put on. They're not like playing that perfectionism role. They're not,

00:48:08.520 | their whole life isn't about grind, grind, grind. I got to fake it till I make it. I got to be somebody.

00:48:13.080 | They take the time in a lot of these countries to sit down, self-analyze,

00:48:20.040 | do that deep work. And it shows in the fact that here in America, here in the Western world,

00:48:25.400 | we deal with so many issues that in other places aren't really as, isn't that, is that, am I,

00:48:32.760 | isn't there like some stat that like, I remember you telling me about how like whiplash or something

00:48:39.480 | here. I forget what that story was. I don't want to quote anything that I can't quote perfectly,

00:48:43.320 | because that was something I think I remember reading like very specifically when we met last

00:48:47.640 | on the podcast, but there's something along the lines of like, I think it's in Sweden.

00:48:53.000 | Like it's, it's in maybe in Scandinavian countries, like something like there's no such thing as

00:48:57.480 | whiplash. Like they don't understand, like that's not in their vernacular.

00:49:01.400 | Yeah. And, um, but, but what I do want to say about this whole thing of newness. Okay.

00:49:08.280 | There's no sect of society that is more rooted in tradition than Christianity.

00:49:15.960 | Right. They're just eons of tradition and writings and texts. So I come to it with a lot of compassion,

00:49:24.520 | which is, yeah, it's going to be really hard to embrace something new. So the one thing I want to

00:49:30.360 | say to inspire kind of you both when you're in this Christian community or in these conversations is

00:49:36.280 | the same way I look at the medical community. This is never going to be a top down change.

00:49:42.120 | This work that I teach, I mean, I mean, obviously it would be fantastic. I don't think is going to come

00:49:47.960 | from the medical model, the surgical model, or big pharma. Maybe one day it will, that would be

00:49:53.080 | fantastic. But I think this change is really going to come from millions and millions of people who hear

00:49:59.480 | something like this podcast and say, I want to change. It is going to be a groundswell of people

00:50:06.680 | that say, I want to change my life. And that's how you can inspire people one at a time. And then to me,

00:50:13.800 | what happens is we reach a tipping point in society where enough people are having this conversation.

00:50:20.600 | I do really think we're getting there that then the institutions can't help but listen because their flock

00:50:28.040 | is saying, but wait a second, I was in terrible pain and now I'm living a full life. Don't you want to

00:50:33.720 | hear my testimony? Don't you want to hear? And I feel like then there will be probably like the, the less

00:50:40.520 | rigid parts of every type of society that say, okay, let me at least hear you. And that's what we're doing

00:50:47.000 | with podcasts that we're doing, we're doing with non-traditional media. We are bringing messages and

00:50:51.640 | stories. Storytelling is our greatest gift as human beings. It's funny. I don't even know if it's the,

00:50:57.720 | I think it's sometimes spiritual community has such a hard time because you have the quote unquote

00:51:02.920 | truth. So, you know, the right answer. So you, I don't know. It just, so it feels really hard

00:51:07.800 | sometimes to get someone to write down what you wrote down where it's like, but this is actually

00:51:12.120 | what I believe because you kind of know that's not a good thing to say and I'm not supposed to say that.

00:51:17.960 | And so I think that's, I think that's one of the things I see a lot is people who know the right

00:51:21.880 | answers. Like I know God loves me. Well, the right answers, right?

00:51:25.000 | Which is quote unquote, the expected answer. And that there is a voice, I believe that there's a

00:51:30.520 | voice inside of you that's wanting to say, there's more like, that's not really what you believe.

00:51:35.080 | That's not really what you think. There's actually something that you don't want to look at.

00:51:38.200 | And, but once you look at it, you can release it and let it go. And you don't have to carry it anymore.

00:51:42.440 | I think what could be really relieving to people is you might not realize why it's not what you

00:51:49.480 | think. There's a richer explanation to your experience. So I've had Christian people come

00:51:54.600 | to me and they're racked in pain and it takes them months to quote, say the thing that they don't want

00:52:00.520 | to say. And they might say, I don't believe in God. And they feel like they're going to be struck down.

00:52:05.240 | And I go, okay, let's start there. Let's gently hold space for that. And once they deconstruct

00:52:11.880 | what they're really feeling, which is exactly what you said, they prayed for relief. It didn't work.

00:52:16.920 | And they got this sort of dark, like background to their feelings of like, if that's not happening,

00:52:23.560 | then maybe God has forsaken me, then maybe I don't believe. So they get to this place where they have

00:52:27.480 | this ugly, dark secret that they think they don't believe, that they refuse to say it's making them

00:52:34.280 | sick. Then they say it and I go, okay, well, it's not going to stay true, but you just have to be brave

00:52:37.880 | enough to say it. Say what you feel. Okay. I don't believe in God. Fine. Let's

00:52:41.320 | start there. Now we start deconstructing. And they're like, have a stronger relationship with

00:52:46.600 | their faith than they ever have. Because they wiped away all the confusion. They're like,

00:52:52.040 | now I see. Because instead of praying for strength and getting relief, they prayed for strength and

00:52:59.320 | they got the opportunity to be strong. And that is the difference.

00:53:03.160 | Man, you know what's, that's really incredible. I, I, there was a point in my time where I was

00:53:08.280 | watching a lot of YouTube videos, where it'd be like, Christian versus atheist debates. Or I even

00:53:13.240 | watched like, Christian versus Satanist debates. Or I would listen to like, Satanists speak. Like,

00:53:17.960 | how do you believe in, like, why do you worship Satan? And a lot of their stories were what you said.

00:53:25.000 | They asked God for something or they, or, or they felt like God let them down in some way. And it

00:53:31.720 | completely made them be an atheist. Or for some people, it got, they completely flipped on God and

00:53:38.280 | went to Satanism. And the reason was because they had an expectation from God that he didn't meet. And

00:53:45.800 | my thing is how much pain do you have to be in internally to, to completely abandon the idea of

00:53:50.920 | God or completely go against God. That's a lot of like pain. So if you were to dissect that with

00:53:55.320 | those people, they would get to a point of like, there would be those feelings that you're talking

00:54:01.240 | about. And there's room for healing when you actually make room for these epiphanies. Some

00:54:07.320 | people don't even know really what they think about certain things. They honestly don't, they haven't

00:54:11.400 | done the internal work to even know like what's going on. And it, it truly is. It takes the

00:54:17.160 | intentional time, which I feel like the way the world is modeled today, the way that, you know,

00:54:23.240 | it's nine to five, no one's waking up at, it's hard to wake up at 7:00 AM and do an hour of internal

00:54:29.320 | work or however long before you go to work. So then people get home from work, they're tired of stress.

00:54:33.000 | The last thing they want to do is open up their notebook and write for 20 minutes. So it takes a real

00:54:39.800 | intentionality to get to know yourself, to get to, to, to figure out what you're hiding and figure

00:54:45.880 | out how to confess it, figure out like that takes real effort. Is that why you think that

00:54:52.040 | a lot of people don't get healed as they just don't take, can't take the time?

00:54:55.800 | Here's what I think. I think that, like I said, there's neuroscience behind resistance. So sometimes

00:55:01.560 | you think you don't want to do something, but it's really your brain and your nervous system

00:55:04.920 | whispering in your ear and saying, you've got better things to do. You're too tired. You know,

00:55:09.000 | you'd rather sleep in an hour, but it's like Dr. Sarno used to say, denial of the syndrome

00:55:15.000 | is part of the syndrome. And I've kind of evolved that to say, resistance to the work is just another

00:55:21.960 | form of chronic illness. Like resistance is the headache. Resistance is the back pain.

00:55:26.840 | Resistance is the whisper that you hear in your own voice, which is your favorite voice,

00:55:31.000 | the one you trust that says, no, no, no, do this. And so you, this is what I'm saying. What I hope to

00:55:36.360 | inspire people to do is to pause and to be like, wait, how much do I value my life? Like,

00:55:42.840 | I like love to look people in the eye and be like, this is your life. Like, what's it worth?

00:55:48.600 | Are you willing to challenge your long held beliefs and just try something and say, I'm committing to

00:55:55.000 | this. And like when they do, and when they start seeing changes in Michael, I remember walking through

00:56:00.200 | this with you and it was so wonderful. When your body becomes your proof, when it's undeniable that

00:56:06.600 | what you're doing is changing your physical body, then the resistance really does go. Then you're like,

00:56:13.320 | let's do this. You don't have to, you don't, you can just try it. You can try to journal and try to talk

00:56:19.880 | about your feelings and try to whatever, and then see if things change that literally

00:56:24.520 | is your body is the proof. And that's what happened to me. Like, I was like, man, is this really?

00:56:29.160 | Then I started to feel like a little less, I started to feel a little bit more like mobile and

00:56:32.920 | I felt like some of the stiffness was going away, like, and I just kept going. And it's really,

00:56:39.960 | it's really amazing. Cam, do you have any other things that you want to like,

00:56:45.160 | touch on or questions you want to ask her? Like at this point, this is just a free-flowing

00:56:50.200 | conversation, you know? No, I think the one, the one thought I'm having is, I don't even think it's a new

00:56:56.280 | thing that this is. Like, I think when I, once you kind of experience some of this stuff, you go back in,

00:57:01.480 | you look at the story of Jesus and you're like, this is actually always what he wants to do in

00:57:05.560 | people. Like, he always is trying to pull the truth, what they believe about themselves. Like,

00:57:09.480 | I think of the, that woman, like there's this woman at the well, John, John chapter 4. There's this woman

00:57:14.600 | who goes at high noon to pull water from this well, which is the only reason you would go there is

00:57:19.160 | because you're ashamed and you don't want anybody to see you. Jesus, this is always what he's doing.

00:57:24.280 | He meets this woman in her shame. Like he goes up there, he's like, I got to go pull water at high noon and talk to

00:57:30.040 | this woman and they start this conversation and the woman tries to stay up here. Like she tries to say,

00:57:35.320 | who are you? Are you greater than our father? Like she tries to talk about theology and philosophy and

00:57:39.800 | all this stuff up here. And Jesus, this is always what I feel like he's doing. He wants to go to the

00:57:44.760 | place that she doesn't want to go. Yeah. He's like, where's your, where's your husband at? And she's like,

00:57:49.720 | because she knows that she's, she's on her fifth husband and that's why she's ashamed and she's the,

00:57:54.040 | the town, whatever. Like this is, this is her identity. And so he pulls it out of her. He won't

00:57:59.160 | just be like, let's just talk up here. So he always draws deeper. And I think even in that story, right?

00:58:04.440 | That's the, that's her transformation. It's a crazy story because her, she runs back into the town and

00:58:09.160 | eventually is like, you guys got to meet this guy who told me everything about myself. Like it's not

00:58:14.200 | even a good, like that's it that happened, but there's so much power. And I think this is always

00:58:18.920 | what God is trying to do in us is pull out the fake. And so you'll never like even really connect with him

00:58:25.320 | unless you are totally honest. So there's those things that we agree with, like God,

00:58:30.360 | God disappointed me. Tell him that like you, he's not afraid. You talk about like compassion.

00:58:34.760 | He is, I mean, that's, that's one of his identities of himself. Like he is never angry at us

00:58:39.480 | with how we feel. In fact, that's the thing he's always trying to pull out of us.

00:58:42.920 | Isn't there like some verse about coming to him? Like, like, like, like your complete,

00:58:48.200 | like self don't come to him as like a, you can't go to him in that form of a facade or like that

00:58:55.960 | fakeness. Like he wants you to come with all your doubts, all your guilt, all your shames,

00:59:00.760 | all your things you're anxious about, and like talk about them with him. If you, if you, you know,

00:59:06.440 | like a hundred percent. Yeah. I mean, I think of that passage in Matthew 11, where he's like,

00:59:09.720 | come to me, everybody who's weary and tired, heavy laden. Even if you think about that word,

00:59:14.040 | like heavy burdened, like your, like stuff is weighing on you. And he's not saying that's the

00:59:18.760 | thing that you need to figure out and then come to him. He's like, bring all of that to me. And then

00:59:23.640 | I love, I love his language. Like, and you'll find rest, rest for your soul. Like, I mean,

00:59:27.000 | that's what you're experiencing. Like your rest on the inside now is resting on the outside. Like you're,

00:59:32.680 | you've been in fight or flight your whole life. And then it's like, you release some of these things

00:59:36.840 | and now your body is at rest. Like it's a, it's a beautiful picture. I think that's in my mind.

00:59:41.080 | I'm like, that's always what he's trying. That's good news to me too. Like when I think of the good

00:59:45.160 | news of the gospel of Jesus, like that's, that's really good news that I can really empty myself

00:59:52.200 | fully and completely. And he'll meet, he'll meet me there. And that's kind of, that's the healing

00:59:56.680 | process is that we can let go of some of these things. A hundred percent. And the thing is like,

01:00:01.160 | this is, this life is difficult. There will be difficulties. So when your back might get better,

01:00:06.760 | because you started doing some of this stuff. Now you might realize like, oh, like it's, it wants it,

01:00:12.120 | stuff moves around. Like I remember for, I told you this, like my back got better,

01:00:17.720 | but then for some, I've never been an anxious dude, never been a depressed dude.

01:00:21.080 | For some reason it was like, when my back started getting better,

01:00:24.600 | I started getting more moody, more anxious, more depressed. And I was like, how is that even

01:00:29.000 | possible? Like I'm feeling better physically. And you talked about how that back pain really was like,

01:00:35.160 | my complete focus was on that. So I didn't even have time to be anxious. Like things will,

01:00:41.960 | why does that happen? Why does your brain start to like, when one thing gets better, it moves to another

01:00:48.360 | thing. Like, and it might move around and you just got to keep digging deep, keep daily, you know,

01:00:54.040 | trying to do some of this work. If it's not daily, trying to get three or four times in a week, you

01:00:58.120 | know, but why do you think that happened? Well, I know why that happened. Um, no, it's, it's, it's a

01:01:03.640 | fantastic question. And thank you always like, you're so good at this. Like, thank you for remembering

01:01:07.880 | every point we need to hit. Cause it was like what people will ask. So here's the thing. And it's actually

01:01:13.480 | really a perfect time to bring it in because if you think about the concept of God or Jesus is like

01:01:18.600 | your greatest protector, the greatest love, the greatest place for you to rest

01:01:23.000 | in the heat, if we're looking at it through neuroscience, your brain and your nervous system

01:01:27.720 | are that figure. Okay. So they're tasked in keeping you alive, no matter what. So they're not necessarily

01:01:35.880 | going to trust you when you say everything's fine. Right. Let's say that like, there was someone

01:01:42.520 | attacking me at this house and I looked, you know, everywhere I knew to look and I'm like, no,

01:01:47.480 | no, we're good now. We're totally fine. But there's one place I forgot to look. And that's the place the

01:01:52.040 | person came in and attacked us all. The nervous system knows that the human being without the right

01:01:58.360 | kind of reflection can't possibly have looked in all those corners. And so the reason that the pain or the

01:02:05.960 | sensation of anxiety, depression, fatigue moves around, which we call is actually a name for it

01:02:11.960 | in my work, the symptom imperative. It means Michael came into this work with back pain as his symptom

01:02:17.880 | imperative. It was like the way it was expressing. As he did the work, anxiety and depression are kicking

01:02:23.720 | up. The reason it moves around is what your nervous system is doing. Is it saying, okay, okay,

01:02:29.240 | I see you moving toward where you need to go, but I'm not sure yet that you can survive. I'm not sure

01:02:35.880 | I trust you because I'm in charge of keeping you alive. Let's do, let's move it over here. Let's see

01:02:43.000 | if I move it over here. And are you going to buy into it here? Are you going to take to bed because

01:02:48.200 | you're fatigued or depressed? Are you going to be paralyzed in anxiety? Are you going to start

01:02:52.520 | panicking? Now, maybe you'll be tempted to do so because it scares you. This is why this is a great

01:02:58.360 | thing to bring up because don't be afraid. There is nothing more positive than when you have it on the

01:03:03.960 | run because that means it's on the run and on the way out. And so it's like, it's like, it's like,

01:03:09.560 | if you think about the reservoir, like if you had a thing of liquid and on the bottom there was like sludge,

01:03:16.360 | okay, and the sludge was making you super sick. Well, how do you get sludge out? First,

01:03:22.120 | you put in the spoon and you start mixing it. The first thing that's going to happen is everything

01:03:27.080 | gets really dirty. But how are you supposed to strain it out until you get it moving? And so like,

01:03:34.680 | that's all the symptom imperative is. It's like your nervous system in the most loving, most perfect,

01:03:40.760 | most aligned way, just like spiritual work is like, let's see if you need help.

01:03:46.520 | Like you got this back pain going, you know, leaving, but like, are you okay? Like maybe if

01:03:52.360 | I give you a little panic attack, like you're going to, then I'll protect you. Then you'll go to bed. And

01:03:57.000 | you learning, standing at the center of yourself can say with compassion, thank you. I'm okay.

01:04:05.320 | I know I don't, it doesn't feel okay to think about these hard things, but I'm actually okay. So I'm

01:04:11.080 | going to go do this now. I'm going to get up a half hour early and go, as Michael says, to the mental gym,

01:04:17.000 | before I go to the physical gym, and I'm going to do it. I'm going to prove to myself. And the most

01:04:22.680 | beautiful thing happens, which is you start to form a trusting and loving relationship with yourself.

01:04:30.760 | You start to trust yourself because you say you're going to do something and you actually

01:04:34.600 | do it and you show up. Yeah, a hundred percent. And that's, that has been my resist. Once I saw my

01:04:41.000 | back pain get better, it was hard for me to keep going back into the journal speak until I had it,

01:04:45.560 | until I had like a little soreness or something like, so I feel like, you know, life, this life has

01:04:51.480 | difficulties. It has things that stress us out. It has things that makes us anxious. You can't do this

01:04:57.320 | work and get out of physical pain and then just stop forever. That physical pain may never come back,

01:05:03.240 | but this work, like you've stated multiple times to me, the pain going away is the very tip of the

01:05:10.200 | iceberg of the blessing that this type of work gives to you. The blessing that this type of work gives to

01:05:15.720 | you is you get to move through this life with all these difficulties and all these hardships and you

01:05:20.920 | actually get to navigate them in a way that is like, like you can still be at peace.

01:05:27.640 | You can be present. You can be present. You can be, you can feel joy. You know, it's really funny.

01:05:32.680 | And I obviously am so not saying this as an absolute, but when you were just saying, um, about scripture

01:05:38.360 | and you're like, imagine moving through life without fear. I do. Wow. Yeah. I do. It doesn't mean nothing scares me.

01:05:45.720 | Appropriate things scare me. Just like acute pain hurts me. So like, if something scary is happening,

01:05:51.480 | I'm appropriately afraid. Yeah. But I don't, I don't pre-grieve. And you can see it in her.

01:05:56.840 | No, you can taste it. Yeah. You can see it. Like I tell you all the time, like you're,

01:06:00.280 | people always talk about good energy and high energy and whatever, and high vibrations, all these like,

01:06:04.600 | you know, new age terminologies. You looking at you, whatever terminology you want to be, full of joy,

01:06:11.480 | full of light. That is what you exude. Like when you walk in a room, when you speak and I feel like

01:06:16.760 | that comes from, you know, it's like when you've worked through the stuff, it's like, what else is

01:06:22.040 | holding you back? Like, I think that's the question for so many people is like, what, what is actually

01:06:27.080 | holding you back from experiencing this life and light? I think that's bro, even my own journey.

01:06:31.960 | Like I would always consider myself, I mean, I'm a basketball guy. So like confidence was like always

01:06:36.280 | something that like you project and we're doing some of this work. Like I have, yeah, you walk

01:06:40.760 | back into some of the, you're writing stuff down. You have this memory pop up of like second grade when

01:06:44.920 | you wet your pants at school and you're like, oh my gosh, my whole life, I've been afraid to go back

01:06:50.920 | to being the embarrassment that I was in second grade. And every little thing I experienced, every failure,

01:06:56.600 | every fault along the way, just reinforced this kind of like lie that I believed about myself.

01:07:00.760 | I'm going to embarrass myself. Yeah. But when you get it out, it's like, wait, what is that?

01:07:04.680 | It's just crazy. It's so, I actually really do think that our society is moving so in the direction

01:07:11.160 | of this that really makes me excited. Like for example, I have three kids and two of them in their 20s

01:07:17.000 | now, but one's a teenager. And what I've loved watching about Gen Z is like their favorite line is,

01:07:23.720 | oh my God, I was so embarrassed. Like they tell the truth about it. They're okay.

01:07:27.720 | Like my generation, I'm Gen X. Like we said nothing. It was be cool, be perfect. You know,

01:07:33.880 | like the magazines when I was a kid were all like Kate Moss, like everybody was impossibly thin.

01:07:39.320 | Everybody was airbrushed. We didn't know they were airbrushed. We just thought, oh, I'm terrible

01:07:43.480 | because that person's perfect. Nowadays, like I think the one good thing about social media is kids

01:07:49.720 | are like on there on Tik Tok, like they cry and they tell their embarrassing stories or like they

01:07:54.760 | have their college acceptance videos. They don't get in and they post it anyway. Like this, I believe

01:07:59.960 | this new generation is informing us, like be imperfect, show up as you are because that is what heals not

01:08:06.920 | being perfect. Yeah. You, you've seen firsthand the people that are very like expressive of their emotions

01:08:13.080 | and very just like, don't have a problem crying. Don't have a problem. It's, it's those people that

01:08:18.440 | struggle with perfectionism, do good as in people pleasing. Those are the people that some of this,

01:08:23.800 | it's called TMS, correct? Yes. Yes. It's, it's those type of people, which I'm one of them.

01:08:28.440 | I'm sure like a lot of people are that way. They kind of struggle with some of these things. The people,

01:08:35.240 | like you said, it may be moving in the direction where people are appreciating authenticity. Yes. And

01:08:41.720 | people aren't as afraid to be imperfect. And I think that that will in and of itself help this epidemic of

01:08:49.080 | like chronic pain and, and, and things like that. So that's exciting. Yeah. Can I ask a question?

01:08:56.040 | Yeah. I'm curious. Like a lot of times when I do, especially with guys, like you were just saying,

01:08:59.320 | it feels like they work through something and then they haven't cried in like 20 years. And then all of a

01:09:05.560 | sudden it's like water works. Yeah. Like why, why, what is that? Like why, especially like,

01:09:11.320 | I don't know if it's, I mean, you don't want to say it's just especially true of men,

01:09:14.120 | but I just feel like I've experienced it with guys. They start to cry and they're like, oh my gosh,

01:09:16.920 | I haven't cried. And then they feel free. Like, they're like, I feel like the biggest weight is

01:09:21.320 | off my, because I just had tears come out of my eyes for the first time since I was like 10 years old.

01:09:25.320 | But what, what's happening in the brain? There's so, there's so many different things happening.

01:09:28.840 | There's obviously a physical release, a physiological release, but I think what's bigger

01:09:33.480 | than anything else is just, um, the shame of not doing it is a powerful force. So it's like,

01:09:43.160 | The shame of not crying? No, no, no. The shame that has kept them from crying.

01:09:46.760 | Oh, okay. Yeah. Yeah. So the shame, sorry. The shame that has kept people from emoting,

01:09:51.640 | especially men, um, is, is huge and it takes up a lot of space. So, um, a good visual for that.

01:09:57.000 | I love speaking in metaphor because it helps people understand.

01:10:00.120 | Is picture if you spent your entire life kind of like chest deep in a pool in water and in between

01:10:09.160 | your knees was a beach ball. Okay. Now we have all tried to hold a beach ball underwater. Like when we

01:10:14.520 | were kids, it's really hard. Okay. But picture you spend your whole life holding that beach ball

01:10:20.040 | underwater because you perceive in your mind and the story you've told yourself that if that beach ball

01:10:26.440 | breaches the water, you're going to die. I mean, these are the stakes. Okay. These are how people live.

01:10:31.320 | And so think about all the energy it takes. Okay. So your hands are up here. You're living your life.

01:10:37.400 | You're doing your work. You're raising your kids. You're making your money. And all the while you're

01:10:41.240 | constantly doing micro adjustments to your knees to keep that beach ball under the water. There's a tremendous

01:10:47.640 | energy, like expenditure with that. Now, one day you're talking to your pastor, you're talking to your best

01:10:54.920 | friend, you're talking to your therapist. And it's like, you just can't do it anymore. Right? You reach

01:10:58.600 | that breaking point, your knees shift, you panic a little, it reaches the surface and you start crying.

01:11:03.800 | You just really just like, you can't help it. It's so reflexive. Now you're letting it out. It is

01:11:10.280 | tantamount to the beach ball. Actually, if we're all just pretending we're standing in a pool, breaching the

01:11:15.800 | water. Okay. So what's going to happen when breaches the water? First thing that's going to happen is it's

01:11:19.080 | kind of go like boop. It's going to like, maybe it's going to make like a little splash in your face

01:11:23.560 | or like, it's going to like startle you. And then you're going to go, oh, that's what I was trying to

01:11:29.800 | keep from happening. And like, it goes over and it's like bobbing in the corner of the pool. And you're

01:11:33.560 | like, I've spent my whole freaking life managing this thing and it's harmless. I cried in front of a

01:11:39.960 | pastor and I didn't die. You know, I'm still a man. I'm still attractive to my wife. Like, these are things

01:11:46.040 | more attractive most of the time, let me say. Same. To the fellows out there. If you cry to your wife, you're

01:11:51.000 | more attractive? Being vulnerable. No, Michael, like, seriously, seriously, trust me. I know women. Vulnerability

01:11:59.880 | is the sexiest thing about a man. Hello. It's true. And it doesn't have to mean crying. It means like being

01:12:08.120 | self-reflective. Being able to admit you're not perfect. I think the problem is a lot of men

01:12:11.480 | would rather appear cool to their dude friends than cool to their, you know, some men really,

01:12:19.480 | really care about the opinion of other men. And when you are a man that knows how to feel your emotions

01:12:25.000 | and you know how to express your emotions and you know how to be like imperfect, like that comes off

01:12:30.760 | really strange. Like I, for example, have recently opened up on a couple of things that were very

01:12:36.840 | vulnerable and very honest. And it took a lot of people by like surprise. They're like,

01:12:41.080 | man, no one's talking like this. It encouraged some people. Other people thought I was like

01:12:45.000 | slow or a moron because I'm willing to open up about certain things that no one else.

01:12:49.640 | It's just so rare. That's why I think that's why there's work. It doesn't, for a lot of men,

01:12:54.600 | it's very hard to embrace this work. I had no choice. And like I've said, this woman has literally

01:13:00.600 | saved my career and saved my happiness and saved my life. But for a lot of men, it is really hard to

01:13:08.680 | grasp, I think. I want to say something about being a leader though, okay? Why is there one leader with

01:13:14.600 | masses of followers? Because being a leader is rare. And that is where I say, you're right, probably

01:13:21.080 | societally, that's more of the norm. But what does it mean to be different? What does it mean to be brave and

01:13:27.640 | bold enough to say, all right, I know that's not true though. And be the example for however many

01:13:34.440 | guys who look at you and go, oh, really? Okay. I don't have to hide. There are people that think

01:13:41.640 | I'm crazy, I'm sure. There are people that have accused me of being new age, which I'm so not,

01:13:48.760 | or being like pseudoscience. And I say, okay, I'm not gonna, I'm not for everyone. But there's also

01:13:56.360 | people, and this is not an uncommon situation. And I may have told you this before, but I may not,

01:14:02.440 | where I get emails from people and it's like really dark. This one woman wrote me and she said,

01:14:09.880 | it was Christmas coming up on Christmas. And I was sitting on the couch and on the opposite couch was

01:14:15.480 | my husband and my daughter. And I was Googling ways to kill myself because I was so dark with my chronic

01:14:21.240 | pain. It had gotten so far that I just didn't think I could survive. And she said, and I made a deal with

01:14:28.200 | myself that if I wasn't well by Christmas, like I was going to get my family through Christmas and I was

01:14:32.040 | going to take my life. And she's like, and it was three in the morning. And it was a deep dive on Google.

01:14:36.680 | And I found an interview you gave. I have chills all over every time I think about this. And she's

01:14:40.840 | like, and now it's six months later and I've never been happier. And I'm pregnant with my second child

01:14:45.960 | and I'm back to work. And she's like, and the last line of these emails is always, I can't believe I

01:14:51.880 | didn't know that this work was an option for me. And that's why I show up every time someone asks me to

01:14:59.000 | speak. I want to, this is my gospel because I want everyone on the planet to know this work is an

01:15:05.640 | option for them. I'm going to get hated for it. I'm going to get judged for it. Not everyone is going

01:15:10.440 | to pick up what I'm putting down, but she did. Yeah. And that is where I get my strength.

01:15:16.360 | Well, I feel like, and even when you've done the work, like you have, you're free from other people's

01:15:20.120 | opinions and approval too. You know, like that's part of, that's part of the fight or flight is like,

01:15:23.960 | we're, yeah, you could tell in the way she's talking. You're like, you don't care. You actually don't

01:15:28.200 | care. Cause you're so moved by your own calling and what you're supposed to do that it's kind of like,

01:15:32.840 | who cares. Yeah. I mean, listen, I'm not, I'm not like I'm human. So I'm sure like,

01:15:37.240 | like there'll be a day where I get like, or there has been, but like very rarely,

01:15:40.760 | but there'll be a day where like someone writes something mean enough to me that I'm sure I'll

01:15:44.280 | take me down a little bit. But like the, the greater good of being a leader and being a person

01:15:49.880 | who's willing to be the way you are is to me, everything in life, what, you know what I say,

01:15:54.760 | life is a choice between what hurts and what hurts worse. And that sounds negative, but it's actually not.

01:16:00.360 | It's realistic because expectations are the root of all heartache. And if you expect life to be

01:16:07.000 | good or bad or like happy or sad and not have those gray areas, you're going to pretty much be

01:16:12.280 | miserable. When you realize life is a choice between what hurts and what hurts worse. I can be a leader.

01:16:17.480 | That's going to get me judgment. That's going to get me scorn. But does it hurt worse to stay quiet and

01:16:23.880 | to just not be true to myself? For me, the answer is yes. So I go with that, knowing that there's side effects

01:16:29.320 | and it's not always perfect.

01:16:30.520 | Well, my last thing for you was going to be to share a story, but there's no more powerful story

01:16:36.520 | than what you shared. My story as well, your story, your story. Guys, this is Nicole Sacks. She is one of

01:16:45.240 | my top three favorite humans on this planet. She has helped me in so many ways. She has a book.

01:16:53.320 | Mind Your Body. Mind Your Body. I am featured in it. So if anything, go check it out.

01:17:00.440 | So it's the best book in the world. No, this has been a really encouraging conversation. And even,

01:17:07.000 | you know, from both sides, I feel like it's going to touch so many people that are struggling in this

01:17:13.480 | area. I don't want to keep you guys here for two and a half hours. I could talk all day about this stuff,

01:17:19.400 | you know, but we're going to continue keeping this conversation fluid and hopefully this

01:17:24.280 | conversation reached someone. Do you guys have any closing things you want to say? I feel like we

01:17:29.400 | touched on like a lot, like what's happening, how to fix it. You know, you gave the science behind it.

01:17:36.760 | You know, I feel like we touched on a lot. Is there anything else?

01:17:38.760 | I really think like, I've always given you this compliment. You bring me through talking about this

01:17:44.120 | work as well or better than anyone I've ever met. I really need you to know that. Like it is the

01:17:49.240 | highest compliment I can give because I know all the stuff, but I don't always remember to say it all.

01:17:54.280 | And he's like, uh-huh. Now we're moving on to this. I'm like, that was what was next.

01:17:57.400 | The only thing I would like to close with is this work is done best in community and knowing that you're

01:18:06.040 | not alone. So, you know, I'm sure you're going to put my website in the show notes. Like come,

01:18:11.320 | it's just NicoleSacks.com. Come to my website and find the ways that you can be supported because we

01:18:16.920 | have different communities, stuff that anyone can afford. And it's just like, you can know that you

01:18:23.400 | are not unique, which even though we're all seeking to be unique, it's actually a great,

01:18:28.200 | great news to know that you're not alone. You're just human. You're just like everyone else. And I want

01:18:32.680 | people to know that like there is support. This is, this is a great conversation, but if it lights

01:18:37.560 | something up in you and you want to do this for yourself, come sit with us.

01:18:41.400 | A hundred percent. A hundred percent. I appreciate you both being here. This has been, like I said,

01:18:46.520 | every time we speak, like it's, it's one of my favorite conversations, one of my favorite episodes.

01:18:51.160 | I think I said that last time. I appreciate you pulling up from Columbia, Missouri. My man Cam pulled

01:18:56.840 | up for this conversation and I think it'll be really powerful. So appreciate you guys

01:19:02.040 | and Curious Mike out.

Nicole Sachs on Chronic Pain, Fixing My Back, and The Magic of Her Work

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