Escaping the Perfectionism Trap and Embracing Healing

There's a pattern that I had in my life that shut down my healing process over and over and over again, and I see it in a lot of my clients as well. Welcome, welcome, welcome to episode 68 of the Unweaving Chronic Pain podcast. I am your host, dr Andrea Moore, the Pain to Possibility Coach, and, as always, none of this advice should be a substitute for medical advice. I am on a mission to help those suffering in chronic pain, whose lives are shrinking because of it, take back their life and expand it back out again so that way they can live life full out. If you know anyone else who could benefit from this podcast, please share it with them so they can find this information for themselves. Now, getting on to the pattern that I see. 

This pattern is so common and it gets in the way of healing every time. And it's because this pattern is really common, and it's common because of the way our society teaches us to think. But as common as it is, it doesn't mean it is helpful, and I'm not saying this from a point of judgment at all. It's just recognizing when something's helpful or it's not helpful. Sometimes patterns have their moments of being helpful, like if you have a stopper in your bathtub. It's really helpful when you want to take a bath. It's not helpful when you want to take a shower. It's also not helpful when you're ready to drain the bath right. It's not about good or bad or wrong or right or judging anything. It's just is this working here right now? And so I want to talk about a pattern that often makes it so. Things aren't working in your life, that things aren't feeling conducive, like you're constantly feeling stuck and running into a brick wall. 

I first want to talk about how this pattern really showed up for me, where I noticed it in my life, and then I want to talk about where I notice it in other scenarios, when I was working in the clinic, and then also how I see it show up for my clients. So how it showed up for me when I reflect back, it very much ties into perfectionism. It's this pattern of things need to be done right the first time, and if they're not exactly how we expect them to be, if things don't go exactly how we expect them to go, abandon it. So for me it would look like something like okay, i'm going to try meditation again, because this happened a lot. This was not a one time thing that I tried I would go and sit down and meditate or maybe try a different type of meditation, or you know this new guided process I had just read about and I would go and do it and my brain would get distracted or I didn't have some amazing outcome and some immediate life changes. So I'm just like nope, doesn't work, that failed or nope, i suck at it, right, it's just hard. Stop Like nope, that's it. I tried it. It didn't work. 

It could also look like when I would do a process of and this could be with a coach and this one came up for me a lot it could be in a coach, a guided process, again like I'm just listening to something on YouTube, or this happened so many times at the beginning of like online courses that I would buy where the initial piece is connecting with your future self or with your goals or your visions, and that felt like a hard no. I would try to connect and I would just see a black hole and I'd be like nope And then I would stop. So I would never finish the course. I couldn't get to the next lesson because there was such a black hole in the first lesson and it felt like I couldn't move on So I would stop. So again it was like nope, things failed, it didn't work for me, must try something else. This really happened a lot with anything related to uncovering my desires or tapping into my future self, or what could life look like, you know, without pain, without my concussion symptoms? It felt like such a black hole, like I was running my head into a brick wall that like I just couldn't imagine what life would be like. It just stopped me from going further. It stopped my exploration in its track. Now this pattern also showed up At the same time it's funny, though I didn't realize it was the same pattern, though while I was working in the clinic because all through this I'm in the clinic that someone would come in for a physical therapy evaluation, and I would see a lot of people with really complex chronic pain, as you probably know right, that's why I'm in this field, is I just the universe kept sending me people who really had these complex conditions, and it's really important to get a full evaluation. 

And the way things work in the clinic, especially when you're billing under insurance, is that you have to write up the evaluation before you can create a treatment plan and before you can start treating Unlike now where I have the luxury of not needing to do an entire history in one visit in the clinic it's a lot harder to do from insurance standpoint. You really have to get the whole history because if you try to do it later on, you can't bill for it, which then I get in trouble. It's whatever. It's a whole hot mess Again, the fucked upness of insurance, which is why I don't accept it now. So the point is is I would do a really thorough examination because it is necessary. 

A few times it would happen where then the person wouldn't come back, which is really frustrating because it takes an extremely long time past the appointment, like it could take an hour or two to then go and write up this evaluation which, by the way, we don't get paid like jackshitt for. But anyways, side note and I could all them and be like, hey, like you got, you got to come back, like what's going on? Like I want to get started on this treatment plan, like I'd have this amazing treatment plan all lined up now that I could sit there and start putting the puzzle pieces together outside of the session and, you know, start piecing things together from the evaluation. A lot of times people just wouldn't even respond. I mean, this didn't happen a ton, it just happened a couple times. 

There was one or two times where people would be like or the receptionist would relay back to me that they decided to go a different route because they didn't get better, they didn't notice a difference And it's kind of like, well, no shit, we didn't do anything, like you just had the evaluation, like we haven't started treating yet, and so, luckily, as I also became more experienced as a PT, i found ways to mitigate that. But, like at the beginning I didn't know that that was a thing, i didn't realize that people weren't just going to come back because I didn't completely change their lives on the first visit, right? Or like I didn't set them up, like I didn't provide them enough information. I was like partially on me. But also, right, there's this mindset of like, well, i went to this appointment and I didn't get better, so why should I come back When the reality was we hadn't done anything to make them better, other than I got all the history? I needed to then develop a treatment plan that would then help make them better, right? 

Anyways, just showing again, it is an example of where these things can show up. It seems so silly sometimes when we see it. But also can you recognize where maybe you've done something like this, and this really is the pattern that I want to touch on where we are rejecting the information that's coming in, like the evaluation, and we're mistaking it for the treatment itself? Because often in this inner work it requires what I call this introspective inventory of what is true in this moment. What are our systems holding, what are our beliefs, what are our feelings, emotions, unprocessed traumas or just even scenarios that are present, and to take a step back and evaluate those can feel so challenging when it's not what we want. 

But the problem is is in order to take an aligned action, an action that is going to help, that it requires us to step back and see what is present. But when we reject what's present, it doesn't allow us to take the next step. It's so similar to the person who gets the evaluation but then doesn't return for the treatment because the evaluation didn't make them better. And there's absolutely no judgment of this, because, oh my gosh, did I have this pattern myself and does it still pop up at times? Absolutely, can we see what is true, without any shame or making it mean anything about you, but, in fact, being this amazing thing to discover, because ultimately, it is something that we'll get in the way of what your true desires are. So being able to see it for what it is is actually the fastest way to be able to get to your goals, to get to your outcomes that are in alignment with your true self. So, personally, i feel like uncovering this pattern or if you are recognizing this of like, oh yeah, i feel this. I think that's amazing. 

Seeing this pattern myself helped me so much in my healing journey. It is what stopped that stagnation, of that feeling stuck up, all the resistance I felt And I see this also in my you know my clients, sometimes in my group programs where I'm teaching a process. You know I'm laying something out, i have to lay out a teaching, there's gotta be a foundation that's laid in place. And then it's this feeling of like, well, i tried it or I watched this video, but it didn't work, so I'm gonna stop. And luckily I have one. I have people who are so amazing and motivated to do the work and to dig in now that by the time they come to me that I don't really face the issue of people not showing back up again, which is amazing, because then we can talk through it right, and we can. We can really work through the pattern and what's going on and see it in its full glory. And this is why I actually create my packages the way I do, in that it is a commitment to yourself, it's a long term commitment to yourself. I don't actually have people do session by session, because it's too easy for this pattern to take over and to prevent you from booking the next session. 

And this is where perfectionism is so sneaky, because it really is this perfectionistic pattern at play. But it runs so much deeper too. I feel like actually even just calling it perfectionism, while it does have a lot to do with it, almost cheapens the pattern because it's it's so much deeper than this. It's really right. I mean, perfectionism in itself is such a deep rooted pattern because it is a underlying, often a fear of seeing ourselves, seeing that we are human. Right. Perfectionism is this desire to not be human. Moving past. Perfectionism requires us to see that we are in fact, humans, and often for our nervous system, this can feel like the ultimate threat. 

I had an example of a client who I've been working with quite some time And with my one on one clients we have Voxer, which means it's just a free app. It's like a walkie talkie app. It just means we can go back and forth and talk to each other unlimited between conversations. So it's like super fun And it's amazing And I love it. Anyways, she was relaying something that she was working through over Voxer And the way she just talked about working through this thing was just so beautiful And it showed how much progress she had made in combating this pattern, in moving past this pattern and being able to recognize it and just keep going, and it was just such a beautiful exploration. So this is a yes or no decision that my client had to make energetically. This has been a yes. It feels like a yes, so aligned, it's a yes. 

However, there's a lot of fear in saying the yes And she's coming up to the kind of game time of when she has to make this yes or no decision And she was sitting with it again and doubting the yes. And when she explored what would it feel like to say no, she had so much relief in her body And it was just like, oh my gosh, I could just say no And it felt so good. However, here is the coolest part, because I was listening to this over Voxer and I was like, wait, wait, no, this isn't supposed to be a no, it's supposed to be a yes. Not that I ever make decisions for my clients, but I was getting kind of invested in this because I've been hearing about it for a while And I know it's a yes for I. Just I know it's a yes for her, but then she kept going And she said so. 

I then was curious about why it felt the relief, because it would have been so easy to just stop there, to let herself off the hook, to be like, okay, well, got the answer, had the relief, there we go. But she didn't. She had so much evidence already to know that it wasn't really a no, so she took the next step. She examined the relief And she found that the relief was actually about not having to make the decision, to not having to tell others about the decision, to not have to deal with the possible consequences that could come from this decision. The relief was basically about just letting herself off the hook, from having to take an aligned action that aligns with what her authentic wisdom wants, because that feels really hard sometimes. That in itself can feel like such a threat. And what was so cool about this was that she took that next step, even when it felt like there would have been this really easy stop. And this is where so so many people stay stuck, and this is where I stayed stuck for so long. Only my stop right, my easy stop was resistance. It was like such a full body, like know that I was getting that. I just listened to right. What was so interesting about hers was it was actually like a that relief where she could have just been like Oh, okay, well, that's what my body saying. I should just stop right. 

But this work can go deeper. It's nuanced. It's knowing when you you're complete versus when there's more to get curious about. It would be so easy to take the easy way out and just stay stuck in a cycle of Hey, i'm in a job it doesn't pay, well, my boss is kind of a dick. Yeah, i don't really love what I do, but you know that the job market's really tough out there. Who knows what kind of job I'd have to get. So I'm just gonna stay safe and stay in my job, versus knowing that this is not the right job for you, that knowing there's something more that you want for your life and then knowing that it's going to take a lot to face all of that, to face the fears that come up, to face the scariness of having to search for a new job, to have to get vulnerable, to maybe start from scratch, to maybe get it wrong. 

So often we stay. It's better to just stay in like this known and fake safety than to take the next step, because ultimately, this work takes steps, processes and tension to get the results that we want. And so, whether your hard stop is about it just feels safer and it feels better to stay exactly where I am, or your hard stop is like what I was experiencing and you know I have other clients experience where it's just this like nope, this feels scary and wrong and there's resistance, so therefore I'm just not going to do it. What if you could take the next step after that? What if you could approach that with this wonder driven mind, which is what I teach and harp on in my paint to power program is approaching things with this open, curious, wonder driven mind, to be like huh, what is that about? That's really interesting. And not see it as a stop, as a oh nope, i guess that went wrong, so fuck that up, i'm gonna run away now. Now I want to use a tangible example in this because I think sometimes, when we're talking about our inner world, it can sometimes be easier to just think almost outside of it and in metaphors at least. That always works better for me. 

So, and what came up as I was writing this episode, was this experience we had at our old house. So at our old house we had this daylight basement. It's sort of hard to describe, but what we had what I refer to as a gravel pit that created it, and that there was basically a large swimming pool sized area. That was what I like to call a manicured hole in our ground, in our yard, that created the day lightness of it, not like most normal daylight basements, which is based on like the slope of the earth. Right One day I come home, it was raining super hard and I realized that our gravel pit is now literally a swimming pool. It is full of water. Now we have a basement door that is attached to our gravel pit and I was like, oh shit. So of course, i run downstairs and there is just water rushing in under the door. Now, we later calculated it out and I'm not saying our math is perfect, but it was roughly 15,000 gallons of water that were basically uncontrollably seeping in under the door. 

And to our very, very finished basement. Like it had gorgeous bamboo floors, like that was like our family area and my child's play area. My office was down there. This was not some like shitty basement. This was like literally like a story of our house. Okay, this our house was two stories and the basement was very much operated as a fully functional story of the house, okay, and there was literally nothing I could do to stop it. Now here's the thing. I didn't want that. Of course I didn't want that. I had so many other things to do that day. 

We were actually leaving, i think the very next day or two days later to go out of town for Christmas, for me to fly home from Washington to Michigan to be with my family. I had to go to work, i think, take care of my child. I don't even remember. There is nobody wants to deal with that shit, but in that moment you don't have choice. Now we're going to skip past a lot of the intense emotional turmoil that was happening in that moment. 

To make matters even worse, the entire Seattle area was flooding at the time, like there was. Like the rains were so bad that there was like we were not the only house flooding, it was like record flooding everywhere. So we could not get anyone to come in to pump out the water, which is what needed to happen, because how else are you going to stop 15,000 gallons of water that are just coming in under your door, like you can't barricade against that. We tried. It didn't work. Um, so nobody was answering the phones, like we couldn't get anybody to come out and help us. It was awful, right, like it was just a really shitty situation. Luckily, we were able to rent out a pump and you know, i mean it took a few hours, but we were able to pump out the water. 

But at this point, the damage was already done and what had happened is? it turned out that what had caused this, i mean, on top of the like, immense rains honestly, i don't know if it would have mattered, but what basically happened was there was an electrical failure to the pump that was supposed to prevent this. On top of it. As we also then found out, the floors had been installed incorrectly and they had been raised up about six inches on untreated wood planks, while it ended up being like, wow, where's all this? there's a lot of water coming in and that there should be more water in our basement. It turned out it's because it was all seeping underneath and was sitting now underneath our floor, soaking into untreated wood, which, if you know anything about that, that means hi, there's gonna be massive mold and issues. 

Okay, the reason I'm bringing this all up like what the fuck am I talking about my flooding house, right, and like the absolute mess and chaos is because I think this is often how life goes, and it's so interesting when I look back to both this time literally, of the flood, and also in my, like, emotional journey and healing journey. There's just so many parallels that I see that obviously, i didn't see them at the time, but what so often happens is that there's a lot of problems that lay latent. In this case, it was that the electricity wasn't working to the pump and that our floors were installed incorrectly. These were always there. Well, we don't know how long the electrical issue was there, but the point was it was there, it was probably going on for a while. We just didn't know, and obviously the floors were like that from the moment we moved in and probably for years and years before that. 

And it's not until something comes in and triggers it up that it really brings awareness and amplifies the issue massively. In life, this might look like unprocessed trauma or emotional wounds that just really weren't an issue. You were getting by just fine until something triggered them up. So now, on top of the issue of whatever triggered it up whether it's chronic pain, losing a job or having a flood in your house the latent issues rear up, amplifying it massively. And I see this so often with chronic pain. Right, it's like you're getting along fine. You're like I was living my life totally fine for 20, 30 years as an adult. Why is it all of a sudden now that childhood trauma is affecting me, or now that generational trauma is affecting me, or now that xyz problem with my knee is affecting me, when I haven't changed anything? and I think this is often what happens is there's a lot of latent things And it's only when something just triggers it up or shines a flashlight on it that it's like oh hello, i am here And it kind of rears its head very loudly all of a sudden. 

When this happens, you have two choices, and one is you can get stuck in how unfair it is, how confusing it is, like why did this happen? Like in our case, in the house. In the house we actually had, like I think, three or four different companies, because we got a lot of things evaluated, because the pump was such an issue. Be like, whoever installed this violated so many safety and code issues. They're like this should have never been allowed. But nobody caught it, nobody said anything And that went for like both the people selling the house and our own inspectors. Right. And same thing with the floors like they were just straight up installed incorrectly, but like it didn't get caught And at that point there was nothing we could do about it, like it had been way too long. 

There was no point in dwelling on why the fuck did this happen? And don't get me wrong, i absolutely went through that of like what the hell? But it's like, it is what it is right. There is that element of like and now it's here. And now my only option is to either again spiral in this and stay stuck here or be like okay, here's what is here, and now I don't really have a choice but to work through it. I don't have to really like it, but I do have to work through it if we wanna live our lives again, because the other option was leaving it as it was and letting our basement mold and losing access to an entire floor of our house. Like, wait, what? Like, what, right, that option doesn't work. 

And again in chronic pain. This could be so frustrating because all of a sudden you're being thrown not only pain, but now you're becoming aware of all this, like emotional turmoil or childhood trauma or ancestral trauma or just all these things that are now feeding into it. And it's like I didn't fucking ask for any of this. Like whoa, right? And it's like coming at you super fast and it can be really overwhelming And it's so easy And I know I got stuck here for a long time is to be like why is this happening to me? Right, like the why me? And to get stuck in feeling like a victim or feeling like you've done something wrong, or to be like what did I do to deserve this? And I got stuck in all of that. Again, there's no judgment of that. I really just wanna bring awareness to that, because that type of thinking won't ever get us what we want, which is to feel better and just to live our lives and to be able to find joy and connection and love right And just be able to move the way you wanna do what you want. And yet all of a sudden you've been kind of handed this shit sandwich where you're like having to deal with so many other things that you didn't freaking ask for. 

The reality is is nothing can go back and time and change that. Often we are left with a huge fucking mess And the reality is is this is what healing can look like. A lot, and I think there's so many things that we can do to help make this process smoother. That's why I have my program. I've seen it make the process so much smoother for people. But there's always gonna be this point where things are so messy. But can that mess actually be okay, because you can see what's on the other side? Or maybe you can't even see exactly what's on the other side, but you just know how much better you're gonna feel on the other side. Or maybe it's just a trust and a knowing that things are going to be better on the other side, even if you can't even touch into what that might feel like. 

And I'll say I really found this to be true in the midst of the chaos that was this house situation. There was absolutely a lot of again, a lot of emotional turmoil in the first couple days, but after that, once things got situated, once I could see things for what they were and also we knew we were going to be selling our house in a few months and I could see the benefits to that. It actually just became really exciting. It became this really exciting opportunity to remodel the basement and make it look just even better and a lot more cozy, because it was always very cold down there because of the bamboo floors. Also. It was like, ooh, actually we can add value to our house by making it look a certain way, because there was a lot of things that and work that needed to be done in the basement. Like there were some terrible wall colors down there And, frankly, we just weren't going to bother painting it. It felt like way too much work And this kind of forced us to do it all And I think we absolutely got a much better deal on our house in the long run because of it, but it didn't mean I loved every minute of it or I like wanted any of that to happen. 

And there was a period of time like especially those that bright when it happened. Like that day it was like I think I had to call off work. I really don't remember if I had to or if I was already on break, i can't remember But I had to definitely re situate my whole day, clearly because I had a lot of things I probably wanted to get done And now I'm dealing with how to get 15,000 gallons of water out of my yard And there was a lot of things that needed to be put on hold because all of a sudden again, you're just handed this like shit storm. But we actually still made things work. Like we still took the time to fly home, like I still went to Michigan, celebrated Christmas and we like made arrangements for the Rota remediation companies. Like I remember it being a massive headache while we were there, but I didn't want to miss out on being able to see my family. It was all worth it. 

And what's so interesting again about looking back on this time and then looking at my own healing journey is. I know. Had that happened even a year or two earlier, honestly we may have canceled the trip. Or if we still did do the trip, i would have been in such a victim, or really just woe is me mindset, because that is where I lived for so much of my life. I would have been in such a negative headspace. I would have probably made it the topic of every single conversation about oh my God, look at this horrible thing that is happening to me. Because I was a really shitty situation Looking back and being like looking at how I handle that. 

It's really cool to see how much work I had already done to be at the point where I was actually able to go and enjoy time with my family and not just enjoy time but actually get things done in the process, because I remember being on the phone with insurance companies and all of that And it's like taking care of things, being responsible and not let it ruin my time. It was just like okay, like this sucks, but this is part of being an adult owning a house, and like we're going to get through this, and it was just that trust and confidence that things would work out. And again, don't get me wrong. It sucked, it cost a ton of money that we didn't have and definitely weren't planning on spending. But I think this is one of the biggest things that this healing journey and exploration has given me is this ability to move through really shitty things, and again, it doesn't mean I like them, but they just don't feel so shitty. And I think part of that is because I know now that I will make it through, that you come out the other side, that it's not like this forever. And this is what I really want to get at right is to being able to see that next step. To see that, even though things feel really shitty right now, or you're even having a certain emotion, or even like my one client who felt the relief at the no, even though she knew deep down that it's a yes of like oh wait, there's more here. This isn't where the buck stops, this is not where things end. 

And to parallel it even more to the healing journey because I'm sure you're dying to know all the details about this flood in my house often what happens with healing is that there is a time period where it really does consume a lot more of your life than feels ideal. I know, for me, when I was deep in it, there were weeks, months, i don't know, probably a year period where it felt like I had some massive emotion or something I was moving through almost daily, like I cried more than I ever have in my entire life combined. But it's just because I was in that really messy place. And same thing with right the situation with the flood. It's like there was this time where it was so messy, like literally messy, like they were taking apart all of our floors and having to throw out everything. All right, like for weeks we couldn't access our basement And they kept finding more issues on top of it. It kind of felt like the more we would do, the more issues that we would uncover. And I think this is so common for healing as well is it feels like you finally get to one thing and then it's like, oh bam, here's this other thing. 

And even in this flood, when they finally took out all the floors, dried everything off and then coated in some whatever I don't know what they had to coat it in before they had to carpet down to make sure there's no mold growth or anything the basement freaking flooded again. We thought we had taken care of the electrical issue and it hadn't. And I remember walking downstairs and seeing like two inches of water on the floor and being like what in the actual fuck? How is this happening? right, it just like it felt like I could feel myself fall right back into that, like whoa is me? Oh my gosh. And then it was so cool to see how quickly it shifted. Probably like within a five minute period, there was this realization of like oh my gosh, we're about to get our carpets installed tomorrow. Had this not happened today and happened two days later, our carpets would be saturated, right, like we would have had to get our entire carpets then removed and everything like all that money would have just been thrown out the window. And so it was so quickly able to see what a gift it was that this happened, because it was so much easier to take care of. 

So often on this healing journey, it kind of feels like things are improving and finally looking good and they're like bam, shit hits a fan again, right, but often it's because the universe is trying to show us something that is being missed or that needs to be attended to, not because you need to be punished in some way or that you did anything wrong or not, that everything has to be some convoluted lesson, because it definitely doesn't, but because we're human and we just miss things and sometimes the universe really wants to make sure we see them, and often the one way it gets our attention is by big things happening, because subtle whispers aren't doing it. So whether it is a pain flare up or a sudden job loss or your basement flooding again, you will be shown. And it's like when you can see these things for what they are, it's so much easier to move through them. To move out of that like what the fuck? what did I do to deserve this response, which sometimes It still happens as my default response, but to then shift into like, oh my gosh, thank God this happened. Or like, wow, what a gift it was that this was shown to me. And I want to say sometimes that doesn't happen until we have moved through something. 

Sometimes it's hard to see that in the moment. You don't have to be able to see that right away, but it's being able to look back on things and see that can be really helpful, because I think it helps you then move through other tough times, because sometimes before doing all the fun stuff and getting to the things that we want. That shitstorm, or what feels like a shitstorm, has to happen first. It's what puts everything in the place it needs to be. It's what builds the foundation. In the case of the flood, it's literally like we need a certain foundation to be able to have a functioning basement that wouldn't randomly flood every time it rained, you know, so we can have carpets on the floor, so then we could do the fun part of decorating and putting the furniture where we wanted and getting to enjoy it as a play space and a family room. 

So in a healing journey, it might feel like there are those weeks or months where there's just so much more crying or moving through or journaling or just extra intention and time. That has to happen. But if we don't move through that, it's the equivalent of just seeing the flood and just slamming the door and being like, nope, i don't want to attend to this, it doesn't change that, it's all there anyways. And now you've lost a massive part of your house. Right Like now, i can't access my basement if I just shut the door. 

This happens to yourself, too, if you shut the door on these parts of yourselves that are trying to be healed, that are trying to be processed, you lose access to so much of yourself, including happiness and joy, connection and love, because it often takes moving through the dark parts. Through seeing those, connecting with them, hearing them, understanding them, being with them in this really compassionate, loving place that is, gives you access to the parts that we all want. The access to It's seeing all of the parts and letting them have a seat at the table, integrating them. In the weeks or months or heck years where things are deep and dark and scary are, when the floors are being ripped out and a new foundation needs to be laid down, can either look around and see the mess and despair, things that you didn't ask for, things you didn't even play a part in creating, or you can see what it's making space to build. But when we reject it because it's not what we want, then you will never get what you want. 

So in my pain to power program, i teach the whole self integration method And the biggest thing that can trip people up in this process is hitting resistance within these steps, now within the program. I talk about this and you know we kind of mitigate it before it's an issue But I want to address it here because so often people hear a step of healing and think that that one step is enough, or like, oh, okay, try XYZ thing. And they try it And it's like, well, it didn't. Again it going back to the beginning. It didn't yield the results I wanted, but it's like that was just one step. It was one step that then revealed the next step. 

So, for example, in the whole self integration method, step one in itself can throw up all sorts of protective parts in the nervous system, because that step is the desire for difference. We can't skip this step, because otherwise you're just trying to make changes that aren't even one of your desires. This is where people get stuck in a pattern of all I need to lose 10 pounds because that's what finally allows me to feel worthy, or then I'll be able to apply for that job I want, or I need to lose 10 pounds because I heard that's what's going to help my knee pain right, versus actually stepping back and evaluating, is this a true, authentic desire or is it just a distraction? for some, just connecting with the desire for difference is enough to just get them rolling right into the next step. But for many, especially when you have been dealing with chronic pain. It's almost like that question in itself creates the mess, gives you a ton of data of what is in the way of getting what you want, of even connecting with that, and can you see that for what it is? that it's actually showing you exactly what needs to be attended to to have the outcome you desire. 

When we can start to look at things like this, when we can start to see the mess right, to see all the things that need to be uncovered and dealt with and worked with because they are presenting themselves I don't recommend going and searching for things, but when they are presenting themselves, that it's actually really exciting, that it's like, oh my gosh, holy crap, i just uncovered this pattern that is so not supported for me anymore And now I get to work with it because it is here. And here's what I really want to leave you with. When something is presenting itself to you, it means you have the capacity to look at it. It means you have the capacity to hold it, even when it does not feel like it. 

I find so often many people will go about things and be moving through really tough times and they don't have chronic pain. It's only once they almost come to this degree of safety, or their life feels settled, that pain comes in. And I find it's or my assumption of that what I see is that it's because there is finally the safety and the capacity for these things that have been wanting to be heard, to be heard. So can you trust, whatever is being presented to you is being presented because you can attend to it in some way or another. Maybe it might not look like what you thought it was going to look like, but that, maybe that's part of it, right? So here's what I really believe is that if there are things being handed to you, if it feels like those shit sandwiches are being handed to you over and over, and it's because you can do it, you can attend to them, you can work with them. Maybe you need to gain some more skills and tools, like the ones that I teach in the whole self integration method and the pain to power program. Maybe you need support. Maybe that's actually what you're being called to is actually getting support. I don't know what it is for you, but what I do know is that if you are seeing it, if your body is sending you a message. It is because it is ready to be attended to and you do have the capacity to attend to it, and that you get to do that in a way that is right for you and your nervous system. 

And the last piece I want to say about that is often it does require support. We aren't meant to do this work alone. For a long time I really thought I could just do this alone. I needed to be independent, and that was a pattern in itself. Our nervous systems are social, connected systems. We feed off of each other. We have mirror neurons that respond to each other. Whether that support is from a friend, from a loved one, from someone who can really hold this space for you and you feel safe with and can aid you through this, or it is through support from a coach, of someone like myself who can really take you through this, the support is so healing in itself. 

It's why I started the pain to power program, because the group aspect the group healing that happens every week, when people are being witnessed and loved on in exactly the state they're in and can see others going through similar journeys, or even see themselves and others in ways that they wouldn't have been able to see, without that mirror almost shining back at them is so powerful. And so if you are interested in having a community support in a community that is held with safety, where vulnerability is embraced and loved upon but also everybody has this common goal in mind of connecting with their true selves, of knowing that there's no dogma in healing, of knowing that everybody's on their own path and can see that in everyone, and the pain to power program is where you want to be, if you are struggling with chronic pain and you need support and you know support is the next step for you, even if it feels scary, even if group feels scary, often it can because there is that vulnerability aspect. But if there is a piece of your soul that is like, oh, i could see where that would be so helpful and it would be so amazing to know that I am not in this alone then make sure you get on the wait list for the next time the program is released. If you get on that wait list, you are going to be able to be one of the first to access the program, including some amazing early bird specials. So make sure you just get on. That way you can learn more details about it once they are all released. 

And my invitation to you is to also know that, if right now things are feeling really messy and that feels like you are stuck, is to know that there's always another step Now, there's always another side to this, that wherever you are, it's not where you're gonna stay. I know that to be true for you because right now you're taking an action, you're listening to this podcast, which just shows me how much you are taking the steps. So I just want to celebrate you for that And if you found this episode to be helpful, please give us a five star rating on iTunes. It helps other people find this podcast, other people get the support. Share it with a friend and also don't forget to sign up for that wait list. I'll see you next time.