00:00:37.380Nicole Sachs is a speaker, writer, podcaster, and psychotherapist who has dedicated her work and her practice to the treatment of chronic pain.
00:00:46.800She's a faculty instructor at the Omega Institute, the Art of Living Retreat Center, and author of The Meaning of Truth, Embrace Your Truth, Create Your Life.
00:00:55.200I wanted to speak to Nicole because my family has been through a lot in the last five years
00:01:00.440in particular, and I've been learning what I can to help them.
00:11:53.340Right? So like, let's say for example, you have capital T trauma. Let's just take it to the best,
00:11:59.120the biggest extent, capital T trauma, abuse, neglect, being raised in a wartime situation,
00:12:04.800anything that is extremely traumatic, the memories of that and the reliving of that are perceived by
00:12:10.260your nervous system as much more dangerous than a migraine or fibromyalgia or anything that makes
00:12:15.920you stay small and quiet and lay down and stay away from the world. So it will keep you there
00:12:20.920in a quite loving and protective way until we can make our systems aware that it's safe to feel
00:12:30.420these things. And of course it's not always safe, but there's work to be done, which is in the
00:12:35.980second facet of do the work. There's work to be done to convince this system that protects us
00:12:41.760without our permission, that, that we can feel that we can be with our experiences once that
00:12:47.740happens. And this is why the work can be rather miraculous. If you deign to use that word,
00:12:53.740the nervous system is like a switch. When you flip flip from fight or flight to rest and repair
00:12:59.640systems go into equilibrium remarkably quickly because in many ways we are incredibly similar
00:13:06.400to the animal world. So if you look at like a, um, a herd of gazelle, they'll be grazing.
00:13:11.940They'll be at the watering hole. The predator is introduced. The lion walks onto the Savannah.
00:13:16.120The whole herd goes up. The ears go up. They start communicating with each other. Everyone
00:13:20.680is tense. They're ready to flee. And let's say it just casually keeps walking. Maybe it just fed
00:13:25.220or whatever, as soon as it's out of energetic range, the whole herd usually shakes it off.
00:13:31.920They go back to grazing. They don't run 50 miles just in case it comes back. That's not the way
00:13:37.840our animal brain works. And that's the part of us that is protecting us even in our evolved human
00:13:43.980state. And so once we flip that switch, once we allow the brain and the nervous system to
00:13:50.660understand that this stuff we've experienced is experienced, although traumatic, although
00:13:56.100incredibly painful is safe to feel and to be with, and that we can do that. The pain signals stop
00:14:03.600firing. This is why people have these incredible transformations. You know, I have clients
00:14:09.140regularly who are in motorized wheelchairs or are bed bound for more than a year, like really long
00:14:16.280time that are now running marathons. I mean, I'm not joking. This stuff is insane in terms
00:14:21.980of the transformations. So I don't want to keep going if you have questions, but that's the
00:14:25.940belief part. Yeah, go ahead. I do. Um, how do you convince somebody who's been in chronic
00:14:33.740fight or flight or chronic pain for years that they can calm down? Cause that's kind of what
00:14:41.340you're saying, right? Yeah. You're asking an excellent question. You just like throwing me
00:14:45.660these, uh, these softballs, because you can't, you can't because it's the nervous system. And
00:14:51.540it's the same thing that's took me off the curb in London. That's why we do the second thing,
00:14:55.740which is we do the work because no one can calm your nervous system down, but you, I can talk you
00:15:01.560into belief, or I can talk you into suspension of disbelief. I can bring you to a place where
00:15:08.400you're open, but nobody can do the work for you, which is another really unfortunate part of this,
00:15:13.980that people can feel really angry about because it's way, I often say my work is simple, but it's
00:15:21.160not easy. Meaning what I'm about to explain to you today, Michaela is not going to blow your
00:15:26.240mind. And it's simple. It's, it's pretty simple, but the reason it's not easy is because it takes
00:15:32.360consistent patient work with ourselves to bring the nervous system, which has the mentality of,
00:15:37.980let's say an abused child or an abused animal, like a dog that is ready for, for attack or for
00:15:45.240flight or for fawning or for being frozen. It's ready. It's at the ready. So the way you convince
00:15:52.160oneself or a person is by doing the work. And so what the work is I teach a practice called
00:16:00.100journal speak. Now journal speak is indeed a journaling practice, but it's not just a
00:16:04.820journaling practice, it's essentially teaching you a foreign language. It's teaching you to be
00:16:10.260fluent in a second language. And the way that works is that I teach people to go to the places
00:16:17.900that are very triggering gently and softly by doing it at the pace of their own consciousness.
00:16:26.420And so essentially here's the way it works. You make three lists. One is labeled childhood,
00:16:33.860which could also be labeled past stressors. One is labeled daily life, which is anything that is
00:16:39.300the constant onslaught of what we're dealing with today, which oftentimes there are bridges between
00:16:44.200the two. And the third is personality because a lot of people that are the highest, for lack of
00:16:50.900a better word, highest strung, um, most susceptible to this kind of, um, dance between the brain and
00:16:57.540the nervous system are people who are perfectionistic, who are goodest, meaning it's very
00:17:02.520important to be seen as a good person, to be helpful. People who are rather codependent,
00:17:06.880meaning like enmeshed, like I'm not really okay, unless you're okay. People who are their own
00:17:11.760worst critic, um, you know, people might tell you you're okay, but if you find some problems
00:17:16.280with yourself, that's going to consume you. And this energy of this kind of personality,
00:17:20.600and there's many other traits, um, can really feed it's the lens through which every experience
00:17:26.400is filtered, you know, cause we are who we are. And so we make three bulleted lists and they don't
00:17:32.180have to be, um, really, they don't have to expose you in any way. It's like names of people or, um,
00:17:39.780big categories like money or like, for me, I moved a lot as a child, like constantly. And so I was
00:17:45.660always making new friends. So like moving was like a huge thing in my childhood that really
00:17:49.700got me, got me unmoored. Um, so, so the list is exhaustive. It's, it's really just a brain dump
00:17:55.780to the best of your ability. You can always add to the lists of everything that could be
00:18:00.440just a thing. And, and people get, especially the personality types get very like, I want to do this
00:18:07.500correctly. So I get a lot of questions about the lists and I'm like, no, no, no, there's no way to
00:18:11.980mess this up unless you just choose not to do it. Like it, and the list also could be something so
00:18:17.700potentially trivial as like that time in fourth grade with the bully, but that time in fourth
00:18:23.180grade with the bully matters, you know, and, and it affected you if it affected you. And sometimes
00:18:28.020the things you think are going to be the biggest heavy hitters turn out to be just playing your
00:18:32.060tapes and just your stories. And sometimes the smallest things that you think were no big deal
00:18:36.540open up an experience that can really be transformative. So once people make these
00:18:42.620lists, I teach them this practice called journal speak, which is an impolite, unfettered rant,
00:18:50.220a allowing of the inner child. Cause I also do a lot of work around inner child work,
00:18:55.360allowing to the, of the inner child to scream, to scream, to cry, to be a victim, to, to win
00:19:02.080the argument because even the best parents, even the most loving parents shut us down as kids.
00:19:07.660It's the very nature of childhood versus adulthood and every, so, so there's a reservoir
00:19:13.400inside of us of rage, shame, sadness, grief that has been unfelt experiences that have not been
00:19:21.100seen and heard, um, terror, fear, meaning there's so much. Okay. So this reservoir exists inside of
00:19:28.180us and what the journal speak process does is it dips a ladle in this reservoir and it dumps it
00:19:32.900off every time you do it. And so the reason for chronic symptoms is that when the reservoir,
00:19:39.020I know I'm giving you a lot of information, but I'm, I'm sorry, but it's like, there's so much
00:19:43.320to this. It works. It works. Okay. Just interrupt me, please. If I'm, if it's too much, um, when
00:19:48.960the reservoir hits maximum density and threatens to spill over and inform your conscious brain,
00:19:55.000the one that the nervous system is always monitoring for danger, how overwhelmed you are,
00:20:00.420how terrified you are, how unable to manage you are, how triggered into your past trauma you are.
00:20:07.040When it hits maximum density, that's when a symptom fires because essentially the symptom
00:20:11.480fires to protect you because it is a protective mechanism. If you can feel your fibromyalgia,
00:20:18.080your migraine, your back pain, your shoulder pain, if you can give it meaning, if you can go
00:20:22.580to the doctor, if you can obsess on it, what was going on over here calms down. You stop thinking
00:20:28.500about it because you only have the capacity to think very seriously about one thing at a time.
00:20:33.400And so it's a distraction. It is a distraction. It is a protective distraction and it freaking
00:20:38.440works because as soon as you are attending to your health, which without our health,
00:20:43.520we have nothing. We all know that. And as soon as you're attending to your health or your pain,
00:20:48.080which will get your attention just like this before anything else, these mental tumult,
00:20:55.920this mental tumult over your unresolved stuff, it lays down. It really works. I mean, if you start
00:21:02.280thinking about it in yourself, we all can come to understanding how it really works.
00:21:06.240And so essentially what this journal speak is doing is gently and systematically for 20 minute
00:21:12.660sessions at a time, followed by a 10 minute loving kindness meditation. So it's a 30 minute practice
00:21:17.440dumps a ladle out, calms us down and through repetition and practice, what ends up happening.
00:21:24.940And I have 20 years of experience to the most crazy transformations, the stuff over here,
00:21:31.120the distraction stops happening. It, people often say it's magic. And I'm like, it's not magic.
00:21:36.860It's brain science, but it feels like magic when it stops happening. Cause you can't believe
00:21:41.840that just unearthing this stuff and sitting with it makes migraines go away. It's migraines are
00:21:47.540so physical. They make you throw up. They make you blind. And, and, and another thing that's
00:21:52.200kind of amazing about my ability to teach this is I have gotten everything, everything I've been
00:21:58.580treating people for over 20 years. I got it all. I had the migraines. I had the fibromyalgia I had
00:22:02.980because it would run through me almost like my body needed to show me how to teach. It's been
00:22:09.500amazing. And I am a person who is chronic pain free in across the board because chronic pain
00:22:15.500is an epidemic of fear and meaning. Chronic pain isn't about the pain. It's about the fear of the
00:22:22.820pain. It's about the anticipation of the pain that sends the nervous system into this fight
00:22:27.940or flight, leaves it there and then creates it's, it's, it's, it's an unfortunate, vicious cycle.
00:22:34.460And, uh, and I'll just throw it in there so then we can open it up for questions,
00:22:37.960the patience and kindness, which is the third aspect is just so integral because we are not
00:22:43.100kind to ourselves. We are not self-compassionate. We beat the shit out of ourselves at every turn.
00:22:49.080That's what we do. And that continues to dump in the reservoir and it keeps the system going.0.99
00:22:53.940And so I do a lot of work on inner child work and on self-compassion, not hippie dippy self-love.
00:22:59.880I'm talking real solid. I am here with you as if you would be with a friend. So that's
00:23:07.900That's the overview. Five years ago, I would not have believed any of that at all. But after I
00:23:18.400stopped taking medication, so SSRIs specifically, and started, because that really put a kind of
00:23:26.940a wall up or numbing on all of my emotions, which I didn't realize until afterwards. But when I
00:23:32.760started experiencing these emotions properly, I realized that if I didn't experience them,
00:23:39.260if I just kind of shut them down, that it would cause pain. Right. And I was like, that's amazing.
00:23:45.420So if you, you know, if you're in a horrible situation and you don't cry, you don't experience
00:23:51.620grief, you know, my arms hurt. I get like spots on my arms that feel like somebody's pushing on
00:23:57.740them. I was like, Oh, that's what that was. You know, it's a little bit odd to have an autoimmune
00:24:02.980disorder and then to also have emotional things impact you physically. And I guess it's more
00:24:09.540obvious if you think about a rat in a cage that's being stressed, they're going to physically show
00:24:15.340that, right. They're going to lose hair and things. It's going to physically impact them, but
00:24:18.800I wouldn't have believed it five years ago, especially not for something as serious as,
00:24:23.820you know, fibromyalgia or chronic pain. Well, I completely empathize with that there. I mean,
00:24:29.840what to me is the most, um, amazing, expansive part of the human experience is there are tons
00:24:36.640of things that you could, I, that you could say, I wouldn't have believed six months ago.
00:24:40.220I wouldn't have believed six days ago. You know, I, I, I'm just going to throw it in here just
00:24:45.740because it's timely. One of my very, very dear friends died, um, in the Miami building collapse
00:24:51.980this week. And it has been so sorry. Thank you. And it's been absolutely consuming me, but
00:24:58.120because I'm so in tune with my mind body system and the way it moves through me, I'm literally
00:25:05.020feeling how my grief and how my anger and how my shock is moving through my body. And it's,
00:25:13.520it's like, I, it's, it's, it's an experience that I had not had, and I could have explained it. I
00:25:20.580could have speculated on it a week and a half ago, but today I feel it differently. So what's
00:25:25.380amazing to me is the way we evolve constantly. And if we're just open, if we're just open to
00:25:30.980understanding that, that we don't know everything, if we are just open to that, that's for sure.
00:25:36.140It can be a much more, um, educational experience being alive. And so I, I empathize that you
00:25:44.940didn't understand this five years ago, or you wouldn't have been open to it, but that's what's
00:25:48.680amazing about this human journey is like, if we can just stay willing, it keeps informing us.
00:25:55.980Okay. So then I'm going to ask this, this is kind of the same thing I already asked, but
00:26:00.560my mom is, my mom had cancer and she did, she's in remission and whatever she tapped into
00:26:09.100when she thought she was going to die has really helped her express, express emotions.
00:26:15.300I'm going to just stumble through this, express emotions and try and let go of almost what she
00:26:21.140couldn't control. And she did that partly through AA, partly through religion, but whatever she's
00:26:29.740done has completely changed how she reacts to fear and stress and all of those things.
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00:27:01.920For instance, the traditional way of treating a person with a weak heart was to feed the person the heart of a healthy animal.
00:27:07.860Similarly, eating the kidneys of a healthy animal was believed to support urinary ailments
00:37:45.880do I want to forego my own needs from now until the day I die? You know, like, or can I live
00:37:52.140without having this child? Like when I thought about being a mom, it was so, and I know you're
00:37:57.020a mom. Well, it was so clear to me. I will be suffering in pain worse. If I don't have these
00:38:03.980children, I know they're going to steal my soul and they're going to wreck me with their suffering.
00:38:09.060And they're going to like take away all my personal autonomy. I knew that I was, I was old
00:38:14.880enough to get it, but I wanted them. And so when you can align yourself with the truth
00:38:22.320that life is a choice between what hurts and what hurts worse. And when you can stop begging and
00:38:27.820pleading the universe for a third option where you can do what you want and have no suffering
00:38:32.840attached to it, that's when we get peace. That's when we can live in the presence of our experience.
00:38:38.100okay you get it yeah I do I do kind of get that and what I learned over the last well I don't know
00:38:46.340I guess 29 years realistically but was that whole thing the the emotions I had which was like
00:38:53.040you know when I was little and I was diagnosed I was confused I was angry that diagnosed with
00:38:58.660arthritis right and then there was a lot of confusion a lot of anger and a lot of fear
00:39:02.680through the medical system. And I, I remember deciding in grade three that I just wasn't going
00:39:10.460to cry anymore. It was like, I'm not like, I don't want to feel that it's weak, but mostly I don't
00:39:15.460want to feel that. Right. And that screwed me over for a really long time. And I've only recently
00:39:19.920realized that feeling it, even though it makes everything worse for a little bit, because
00:39:26.100expressing that emotion hurts. The relief that comes after it is so worth expressing it.
00:39:33.160And it seems like that seems obvious and it seems simple. Like now that I've understood that, but
00:39:40.340you know, getting angry or getting sad or feeling grief, I think grief is a really big one feeling
00:39:46.300grief for when things don't go right. Or when you see somebody else suffer feeling that and
00:39:51.360it kind of lets it go for some weird reason, which is amazing, really, that you can be sad
00:39:58.940and then express it and then not be as sad. What I want you to understand, Michaela,
00:40:03.860is the moment before you figured that out, it hurt worse to cry. And that's the, that's the
00:40:10.320thing. That's true thing. And that's what people need to get. And that's why I do everything I can
00:40:16.040to release the shame connected to not healing fast enough or five years ago, or to not, you
00:40:24.020know, doing things differently till you did things differently, because the truth of the matter is
00:40:27.660it works both ways in third grade, where you decided you're never going to cry again. That
00:40:32.920was the less painful option until it wasn't anymore. And what's really amazing if we, if
00:40:39.180we're aware, okay. So if we keep ourselves awake and aware and our eyes open, when those scales
00:40:44.300tip just enough that we can understand that staying where we are hurts more than the uncertainty
00:40:52.160and the fear of stepping out. When we're aware of that, then we move. And I think the most painful
00:40:59.000time, actually the most painful time is when the scales have shifted, but we're not yet aware.
00:41:05.440So we're just suffering in the, in the current choices in our present situation, not understanding
00:41:11.640why does it hurt so badly until, and maybe it could be in the form of listening to this podcast
00:41:16.700for one of your listeners, like until something, and it can be, it can be the breeze that blows
00:41:21.140past your face. Like there's, it's so random. Something wakes you up in your eyes open and you
00:41:25.300go, wait a second hurts worse. What I'm doing. That's why, that's why it's so hard right now.
00:41:30.040And that's why some people experience what they call an extinction burst, which is when they start
00:41:36.520doing this work, the pain actually gets worse. They start, they start poking the hornet's nest
00:41:41.760of their trauma and of their repressed emotional world. And they're like, they're tempted to quit
00:41:47.760because like their pain is getting worse or their pain's moving around. So like, fine,
00:41:50.980my migraines went away, but my anxiety is crippling. And I say, yay, I'm all about that
00:41:56.720because that means you have it on the run. And that means you are beginning this process of
00:42:01.020healing. So it's so important to be really gentle with yourself as you're going through it.
00:42:04.840Okay. So speaking of being gentle with yourself, how do you teach people how to be kind to
00:42:13.300themselves? Do you have tricks for how to be kinder to yourself or the meditations you use
00:42:18.140or something? Yes. The first thing I want to say is, okay. So the first important thing to
00:42:22.900understand is it is important to be kind to yourself for years and years. It never occurred
00:42:28.640to me that that was important. I mean, I, I am, I, I am a real reformed, like what you're seeing
00:42:35.860today is not the person I have a fly, not the person that, um, that you would have seen when
00:42:42.780I was 25, I was a go, go, go outcome dependent. I want the, a everything requires, I, I don't want
00:42:51.820anyone to help me. I can do it all myself. Um, for like years and years and years, probably a great
00:42:57.240deal with my chronic pain was a result of that. So, um, so I didn't, if you had told me, so you
00:43:04.140say five years ago, you wouldn't have believed what I'm saying. If you had told me in my twenties,
00:43:07.720let's say that self-compassion was important. I would have told you to fuck off. Like I would1.00
00:43:12.820have just been like, that's the dumbest that is first of all, it's for weak people. Second of all,1.00
00:43:17.380yes. Second of all, it's a waste of time. Third of all, it's like, just not me. Like, you know,
00:43:23.540how we all say that's just not me. Okay. So what I think the most important thing first is for
00:43:28.660people to know, this is a real thing. Self-compassion is concrete. If you don't have
00:43:35.380it, you are suffering. It's like, it's like being thirsty and not having water. Like, I think,
00:43:41.540I think people need to understand that if you don't feed this part of yourself, this,
00:43:46.060this part of your, um, emotional consciousness, I could say this part of your heart, but that's
00:43:53.200even too soft. It's, it's a part of your, of the emotional energy that surrounds you.
00:43:58.360If you don't feed that, you will be irritable. You will be defensive. You'll be reactive. You
00:44:06.460will be, you'll push people away. These are concrete things that you don't want to do.
00:44:10.940They make your relationship suck. They make your life less full. And so when sometimes the best
00:44:15.760thing I can do is, is give that list and be like, have you been feeling that way? And most people
00:44:20.120be like, um, yeah. And I'm saying, okay, then first thing you need to know is self-compassion
00:44:24.920is the real deal. And it's not just for people who, you know, want to live on a commune. Like
00:44:29.600this is a very real thing. Um, so that's first thing. Second thing is, you know, cultivating
00:44:36.640best practices. Like I'm not an expert in self-compassion and I can't reinvent every
00:44:41.180wheel. So I look to the experts like Dr. Kristen Neff, N E F F. She is a world-renowned
00:44:47.920researcher in self-compassion and she has practices that I teach, you know, crediting her.
00:44:53.940I teach them at my retreats because it's just using, you know, it's using the tools that have
00:45:00.400been invented, but, but explaining them properly to people with the right context in order to open
00:45:07.340them to make everything is a practice. Everything is a practice. So it's like, if you wanted six
00:45:13.100pack abs, you could go to a trainer and they could be like, this is what you do. You do this,
00:45:17.000you do this and you do this. And you could be like, that's very interesting. If you don't do
00:45:20.640it, it doesn't matter. So like, it's, it's, it's, it's a practice. Okay. That makes sense.
00:45:30.260Neff. Okay. I'm going to remember. And if you're interested, I mean, I don't want to go on and on
00:45:34.680if you have more questions, but if you're interested, I can explain to you a little
00:45:37.120bit about Kristen's work, but I would, I would. Yeah. A bit. Okay. So essentially the, the, um,
00:45:43.620kind of the gold nugget of it is. So we are very, very good as a society in practicing
00:45:50.160compassion, other compassion. So what, what, what, um, generally we do in my retreats when
00:45:56.180we work on this stuff is we first cultivate what it would feel like bring ourselves into the space
00:46:01.600of your, your best friend or your child or your dog or something you feel very warmly to or toward
00:46:07.680is suffering. How would you behave? What kind of body language would you use? What kind of words
00:46:13.380would you use? What kind of tone of voice would you use? So we kind of come into that space.
00:46:17.140And then we say, I say, now I want you to picture the last time you really screwed something up.
00:46:23.240You really disappointed. You missed the mark. You really like you messed up.
00:46:27.740What was the tone of voice? What was the body language that you use toward yourself? What
00:46:33.320were the word choices that you use toward yourself? So we start to, first of all, delineate
00:46:36.680between other compassion and self-compassion or lack of self-compassion. And we do some exercises
00:46:42.440around, um, the physical feeling like holding fists and feeling the energy of that and putting
00:46:47.420arms out and closing eyes and feeling the energy of that. And just understanding the difference
00:46:52.300delineating between this feeling of self-loathing and self-criticizing and self-compassion.
00:46:58.080And then it kind of culminates in what we call a self-compassion break, which is
00:47:03.340bringing into your consciousness, a problem that you're having. Okay. So it's not,
00:47:07.720not super big trauma. Like, um, for me, like, I'll just give an example. It could be, um,
00:47:14.640getting my daughter ready for camp and dealing with the fact that she had real anxiety about
00:47:20.600camp and then COVID happened. And then, um, so now I'm worried that she's going to struggle.
00:47:25.860And now there's all these COVID regulations on camp. So it's like, it's an irritating problem
00:47:30.140that gets me emotionally kind of up there, but it's not like a horrible life ending problem.
00:47:35.300So you bring yourself into the energy of that. And then you do what's called a self-compassion break, which is you repeat three phrases. The first is simply, it's all labeling this hand to heart. This is a moment of suffering. That's it. Okay. Isn't it amazing though? Like you feel that energy shift, just acknowledging, ah, this is a moment of suffering.
00:47:55.700I'm still, I'm still at the stage where just hearing that makes me feel like snorting,
00:48:01.040which isn't like, which means I'm, which probably means I'm just not there and I'll be there in like
00:48:07.140three months. But that kind of, you know, this is a moment of suffering. I don't know how I could
00:48:12.420take myself seriously and do something like that. Even though I fully believe you fully, I just.
00:48:19.040Okay. But that's so amazing. Three months. No, but that's amazing, Michaela. Cause here we are
00:48:23.880in the midst of a conscious moment of conflict, like you're, you're conscious enough to know
00:48:31.040that you probably will shift on this. Oh, 100%. So you're not, you're not stuck in kind of the
00:48:37.980thickness of that moment where like, you're just like, okay, Nicole, whatever, move on. That's
00:48:42.540stupid. Right. So like you're conscious enough to have an observational self. Look, I'm being1.00
00:48:46.840a therapist right now, but you're confident enough to have a conscious enough to have an
00:48:51.320observational self to say, Hmm, that's so interesting. I'm observing that this is making
00:48:56.440me skeptical or this is making me roll my, my inner eyes. Okay. Yeah. But what's incredible
00:49:03.260is I would, um, invite you to try it maybe later, get yourself into the space of something that's
00:49:12.140really bothering you. You know, your kid isn't going through what my kid is, but your kid's
00:49:15.980going through something or your dad's going through something or somebody in your life is
00:49:19.660going through something that matters to you and it makes you suffer. And if you can bring, this
00:49:23.920is why the, in the retreats, this is a really powerful exercise because people are each in
00:49:27.360their own little bubble of experience. And when you sit there in your discomfort and label it
00:49:33.460and say, this is a moment of suffering. Okay. You can take the hand off your heart. If that's too
00:49:37.500cheesy for you, like labeling it, being present with it. So like the way you would, if someone
00:49:43.880else were suffering and like, you wanted to ignore, you wanted to see them. You wanted to
00:49:47.480make them feel seen and heard. Like you're not alone in this. Essentially, this is a moment of
00:49:52.780suffering. We need to say that to ourselves because when we're suffering, we feel so alone,
00:49:58.280even if other people are suffering around us, our own personal hell feels very alone. And so the,
00:50:05.440the, um, self-compassion break, the first sentence in that, which is, this is a moment
00:50:09.920of suffering is an acknowledgement is a seeing of like how we wish others might see us or how0.64
00:50:15.620we would be willing to see others to acknowledge this sucks for you right now. This is hard for
00:50:21.580you. Okay. So maybe that can be a little bit more palatable. Yeah. You know what? Something clicked
00:50:26.940while you were saying that I actually, I, I sit with it now. Like I know enough that when I'm
00:50:32.560feeling the grief or, or compassion or stress or something, when, when somebody else is suffering,
00:50:38.020I'm aware enough to say, you know what? I, this feels horrible right now, but it'll,
00:50:43.780if I experience it, it'll go away. So it's not a, this is a moment of suffering,
00:50:48.800which is what I said, what made, what made me slightly skeptical, but I,
00:50:52.640I don't think I've been naming it. I think I've just been experiencing it and being like,
00:50:56.540it's okay to experience this, but I haven't said this is what it is. So that's not a very far
00:51:02.080apart. No, you're, you're not going to take three months. You might take three more minutes. You're,
00:51:05.400you're almost there. Okay. Okay. Okay. You're so close. Um, so, so that's the first sentence,
00:51:10.120which is, this is a moment of suffering. The second sentence is essentially everybody suffers,
00:51:17.340right? It's, it's just about taking this human experience that you're having and making it
00:51:22.260ubiquitous. Suffering happens for every person. You know, there's a line that I think is really
00:51:28.300powerful, which is never compare your insides to other people's outsides. You know, like we're so
00:51:33.620used to like looking at other people and being like, they've got it all, especially in the world
00:51:37.540of social media and comparison. And what do they say? Um, compare and despair, you know? And so
00:51:43.220like, if you don't, if you can, that second sentence, once you label your moment of suffering
00:51:47.840to say, everyone suffers, everyone is going through what they're going through in their
00:51:52.340own way and opening yourself up to like basically being a member of the human race.
00:51:57.420And then the third sentence is just in this moment, very simply, what can I do right now
00:52:02.860to be kind to myself. And it can be as simple as I'm pausing the stupid, you know, social media0.99
00:52:10.100or where I'm on, that's making me feel terrible. I'm going to take a walk. I'm going outside and0.99
00:52:15.240I'm putting the sun on my face for one minute, whatever it is, it breaks the cycle of that
00:52:20.540constant self-criticism or self-loathing or whatever negative ugliness you're feeling.
00:52:27.200And if you do that enough, that's, it cultivates self-compassion. It's sort of a concrete way to
00:52:32.360cultivate self-compassion. Okay. So those are just steps people could use to start being nicer to
00:52:39.080themselves. Yeah. And also just to touch into the moment, because it's not just being nicer to
00:52:43.360yourself. It's to feel like in sort of a cellular way, how to shift out of it. Because if, you know,
00:52:50.900human beings are very unconscious beings. If we don't concretely shift out of things, we stay in
00:52:56.340them. So it's just, it's a practice. Okay. That makes sense. Let's see. I had a whole bunch of
00:53:05.000questions for you. Okay. Okay. You, you talk a bit about chronic fatigue syndrome. So that's
00:53:10.640something I suffered from terribly. Um, and then I managed to change my diet and get off of
00:53:18.640medication and probably start experiencing things. And I, it went away. Thank goodness. But
00:53:25.540for people suffering from chronic fatigue syndrome, is it the same kind of steps that
00:53:30.880you talked about before kind of like ladle out unfelt emotions? Yes. So this can be a really
00:53:37.620triggering conversation. Just, I'm going to tell you that straight up because first of all,
00:53:42.900chronic fatigue is incredibly challenging. Really? It's really, it's a bad one. And I'm
00:53:48.480not saying that to make anyone frightened if that's what it's, it's no harder to recover
00:53:53.160from than anything else, but the experience of it is incredibly deflating because without any
00:53:58.400energy to do anything, it feels impossible to take necessary steps, which is what we're trying
00:54:04.880to tell people to do. So I just want to bring connection to that, that chronic fatigue is a
00:54:08.900really, really tough one. Having said that the other reason it's triggering, and this could be
00:54:13.960applied to chronic fatigue or any diagnosis is that people get very tied and, um, connected
00:54:23.520to their diagnosis because they have no other choice. So once again, I want to say this with
00:54:29.320complete empathy and love, cause I've had almost everything has moved through me. So I get it
00:54:34.540that, um, including chronic fatigue, that what I'm about to say is the truth, which is
00:54:41.640your chronic fatigue is his back pain. His back pain is her pelvic pain. Her pelvic pain is his
00:54:49.500migraines. His migraines is her irritable bowel disease. It is immaterial the way this process0.97
00:54:56.820shows up in one's body. So that can be triggering for people because people are like, I am a person
00:55:02.800with migraines. I have a migraine disorder. This has ruined my life. Don't tell me that I'm not a
00:55:09.420person with migraines. And I'm always saying, this is not what I'm saying. What I'm saying is
00:55:14.140the manifestation of the brain science that causes the nervous system into fight or flight that
00:55:19.580causes these symptoms to fire is it's, it's just immaterial the way it shows up in people. So
00:55:25.580although chronic fatigue is a, certainly a thing it's treated no differently than migraines or
00:55:31.360back pain or knee pain. And I just know that people really get very up in arms about this,
00:55:37.120but it's just the truth. And the reason I know it's the truth, and this is where you can either
00:55:41.840choose to believe me or not. And that's on your, you know, that's on your path, whatever. I've been
00:55:46.680doing this for 20 years, over 20 years now in my own body and with thousands and thousands of
00:55:52.700people around the world. And I watch what happens, which is they present with chronic fatigue.
00:55:57.860They start doing the work, the chronic fatigue lifts and they call me and they're like, I have
00:56:02.240having these chronic daily headaches. I can't get rid of them. And I say, I know, honey,
00:56:05.780I love you. It's okay. Let's keep going. And then they continue doing the work and they're
00:56:10.200unearthing more things and they're becoming more intimate with their trauma. And maybe they're
00:56:14.380making some changes in their lives, maybe, and not always, but like it happens. And then they're
00:56:18.980like, it's the damnedest thing. The headaches are gone. I haven't had a headache in two weeks.
00:56:23.320My anxiety is so high. And I say, I know because this is what happens. It's that like, until the
00:56:29.580nervous system, which I said has the mentality and the emotional ability to understand as a
00:56:34.440five-year-old child who's been abused because it's a, it's a primitive system. We have to just
00:56:39.460stay with it consistently and kindly until, and, and eventually all these things that move through
00:56:45.480you, which by the way, this doesn't happen to everyone, but eventually it passes. And then you
00:56:50.700become a person who simply is a human living a human life. I'll get a headache. It's not like
00:56:55.880I never experienced pain. It's just that I don't experience fear with it. So when I have a bad
00:57:00.600headache. I don't think I'm always going to have a bad headache. I think today was a lot and this
00:57:06.480is going on and this is going on. And there are things going on that I can't even possibly know
00:57:10.780what's going on. And I practice acceptance. Sometimes I take to Advil, like I'm not like
00:57:15.540completely against the medical model, whatever, you know, do whatever is your, you do. And then
00:57:21.420like, I allow it to pass. I feel what I need to feel. I'll jump to my journal speak practice.
00:57:26.080I'll talk to my therapist. I'll, I'll go to a meeting, whatever. And then it passes. So it's
00:57:33.660really, so the answer to your question is it's really all the same stuff. Okay. Why would it
00:57:43.280manifest so differently in people? This is where we have to open to the mystery of the human brain.
00:57:50.420So, um, you know, there's a cliche and I don't know what percentage we're up to in 2021 that
00:57:55.800you, we only, the best scientists in the world only understand 6% of the brain. And I don't know
00:58:00.200what percentage we're up to, but it's not high. Probably not six. Yeah. It's, it's, it's somewhere,
00:58:06.000but I have no idea. Okay. So the way I can explain this best is think about the phenomenon of
00:58:11.680adrenaline. So if a baby is trapped under a car, a parent in that moment will have the capacity to
00:58:19.800lift the car. It's been documented scientifically many times. It's an adrenaline response. It is a,
00:58:25.180it is a short period of superhuman strength that is enacted by a flood of cortisol and adrenaline
00:58:33.160based on real panic and need to preserve life that allows the brain to allow the body to lift
00:58:41.920a car. And you and I both know we can go outside right now with all our best intentions and there's
00:58:47.440no freaking way you're going to lift a car. So this is truth. Okay. What I'm saying is truth
00:58:52.640in that same fashion, the brain and the nervous system can perceive in each person,
00:58:57.800the place in your body and in your system, that it will be believed that it will be enacted upon.
00:59:05.220Now, sometimes I believe this has to do with a structural abnormality. I do have,
00:59:10.640I have spondylolisthesis. My MRI is jacked. Like if you show my MRI to an orthopedic surgeon who
00:59:18.240doesn't know about my work. They go pale. They don't know what to say to me. It looks really
00:59:22.480gross. I've seen it. I have, I have, um, a vertebrae that shattered and replaced with scar
00:59:27.760tissue. I have two vertebrae that sit on top of one another without a disc. I have stress fractures
00:59:33.640above and below. I look mutated. It doesn't affect me at all, except for a couple, um,
00:59:39.840physiological connections to, um, spondy, which is that I have almost no flexibility in like,
00:59:46.640I can't touch my toes. I can get down to like mid calf because it's just, it's just a structural.
00:59:51.720Um, and it's very hard for me to sit up straight. Like when I meditate, I need to sit up against a
00:59:55.720wall or something because it's, I have weakness. I have like, it's, it's very mild, but except for
01:00:01.240those two things, which are just structural, I have no pain ever, ever, ever. And so what I'm
01:00:08.220saying is the pain, I believe I had a childhood. It was not horrifying, but I had a very stressful
01:00:16.900death by a thousand paper cuts kind of childhood, um, that needed to be expressed that by 19 had
01:00:23.660reached critical mass. And this is where my, you know, the buck stopped with this, with this place
01:00:30.660in my back. And then when I went for the MRI, of course it was totally reasonable that this would
01:00:35.600be the reason for my pain. And off we go. Not everyone gets a finding. There's really no
01:00:40.340finding with migraines or fibromyalgia or irritable bowel. Usually, you know, there's
01:00:43.820it's so it's, so it's, it's, it's, it's just, this is where we have to just kind of release
01:00:50.040ourselves to the mystery because I don't know why it goes. Some people seem to find a reasonable
01:00:54.980place. You know, that, that story I told you is reasonable. Sometimes there isn't.
01:00:59.380okay well that's very interesting I've like through trying to heal me and through my family
01:01:09.040being sick I've there's just so many factors that come into play and they all seem to matter
01:01:16.000which is crazy right at the beginning I pretty much put myself into remission with diet and was
01:01:21.640like diet is everything, right? Because that's what changed my life. And then, you know, my
01:01:30.860family members got sick and I started suffering again. And it was like, well, I seem to be more
01:01:36.860sensitive to food. How is that possible? You know, like, like, oh, there's more to it than this.
01:01:41.860So then I was like, oh, sleep matters. Wow. That was mind blowing. And it was like, oh,
01:01:46.460exercise actually does improve your life. Right. And when you're cripplingly depressed and someone
01:01:51.940tells you to go on a treadmill and you're like, fuck you, that's not going to help. And it was1.00
01:01:55.960like, oh, exercise matters. And now it's like, oh, you're, you know, your experience of emotions
01:02:02.080can make you sick, which is crazy. And I think I learned a lot about that when my mom had
01:02:08.820cancer and through all the scientific studies we looked at, it was like, she's going to die.
01:02:15.460and that's what everybody said and then she had surgery which also almost killed her and then she
01:02:23.040even though it wasn't supposed to work she like found god became okay with something something
01:02:31.140switched and you could see how she interacted with people and it was like and she was she knew
01:02:36.200when she was going to get better and then she got better it made no sense and so i don't know man
01:02:43.100Well, no, I actually want to say something about this and I don't know how you're going
01:02:46.600to feel about it, but I'm going to say it anyway.
01:02:48.480I'm not saying that diet wasn't important and I'm not saying that sleep isn't important
01:02:54.720and I'm not saying I'm, I don't discount any of it and I care about my diet and I care