Finding Safety

Welcome to episode 6 of the Unweaving Pain Podcast. I'm your host, dr Andrea Moore, chronic pain specialist, and, as always, the content in this podcast is not to be taken as medical advice. Now just a little bit more about me, because I feel like I've just launched into pain and you might be like who the hell are you? And if you want to know like my credentials and background, like listen into the first episode, because I do go into that. But I also just wanted to let you know a little more like personal stuff in case you're interested. 

So my family and I actually moved up, moved up, up and moved from Washington State to Lexington Kentucky almost a year ago now, which feels insane. Yeah, we did it like smack in the middle of the pandemic, because we moved in June. We had like zero plan. I mean, we had a little bit of a plan, but not much and so we are now settled in Lexington Kentucky. So if you're nearby, hi, and let's say, my husband's an avocosfitter, loves programming workouts and because of that we have like a full home gym which is always fun, and our son, remy, is four years old and is just absolutely hysterical, exhausting and sweet and just like so highly skilled at making sure I'm continuing to do my own inner work and exposing places that need healing, because man kids are freaking good at that. So, yeah, just both of us are just kind of trying to live our live our dream of having our own business and making our own hours and, you know, doing things we love so we can just spend as much time with each other and with family and exploring and helping people. So it's it's been a good time and a fun journey, full of all kinds of exciting things. 

And so, also, as this podcast is gaining a little momentum, I really want to know where you're listening from and a little bit about you. So if you have any pressing questions, if you just want to share, hi, I listen to you and this is where I'm from. Like, please let me know and I'm happy to give you a little shout out. The best way is just DM me on Instagram, dr Andrea Moore, or just shoot me an email, andrea, at Dr Andrea Moorecom. I really, really love knowing more about my listeners because I'm here to support you, so the more I know about you, the more I can support you. 

All right, so last week we talked about the traits of perfectionism and how perfectionism is highly, highly linked to a sensitized nervous system. And, if you recall from a few episodes ago, a sensitized nervous system occurs when the brain is repeatedly experiencing threats. And these threats can be physical or emotional, it doesn't matter, the reaction is the same. And why is this important to chronic pain? Because pain, ultimately, is due to a threat response. Also, remember, we don't have pain receptors in our body, we have threat receptors. So over time, this threat response becomes actually wired into our nervous system. 

Our brain learns a certain scenario could be dangerous and to be on high alert at all times. That demands this like hyper awareness of the situation, whether it's a movement. So it might be a specific movement, like bending forward or lifting something up, or it could be something like walking into a workplace or driving down the street, or it could be something like you know walking by a certain person, or you know someone coming over to your house, whatever it might be public speaking. So again, these can be emotional. Certain movement, thought pattern, like any of these things can wired in and you can have it wired in one scenario and not in the other scenario, okay, which is why pain and threats can be just confusing sometimes. So a lot of times these correlations make a lot of logical sense and they are protective. 

So, for example, let's say your low back is hurting after a ton of repetitive bending, and this repetitive bending is done with kind of like zero intention or awareness, like you haven't warmed up, you're really not engaging your core properly. It kind of makes sense that your back is going to start hurting, because if you continue to do that over time and there's like again, I like really want to emphasize the zero awareness maybe you don't have the muscular support to do it, because bending in itself is not problematic, it's. It's doing it in a way that your body can't support. And when it's done over and over and over and over and over and over again okay, it makes sense your back's gonna start hurting because it's like, hey, if you, if you keep doing this, you like legitimately might cause an issue. So it's gonna start hurting before because it starts to see that as a threat. Or let's say, you know, when you spring your ankle really badly, it's gonna still tinge, if you like start running on it. And even in these cases the pain is probably still not what you think it is, because, let's say, that ankle now is totally healed, like it's well past this six month mark of healing. The pain, that tinge you feel when you're running is not what we again, this is like tangenting into what we've already talked about, but I think it's so important to emphasize, especially for just the rest of this episode to make sense, because we're going to be talking about safety in a second here. 

The pain is probably not what you think it is. It's not that there's more damage happening in the ankle or that you're injuring yourself more. It's actually a protective mechanism of like hey, don't forget about me, maybe there's not enough muscular support. Or like, ooh, in the past when you ran there was a threat. You know, last time you ran after your toddler on uneven grass you sprained your ankle and the ankle still has that memory. So it's kind of this like, hey, just just be careful, you know, like type thing it slows you down. So again, it's protective. But in that scenario your brain was trying to do is just remind you to like pay attention. Not that there's actual damage being happened or actual damage happening. So anyways, in other cases the correlation really might not be obvious. So, for instance, let's take that ankle above where it did have that old injury and we assume that's why it hurts. Like it's like I sprained my ankle really bad and now you know that was five years ago and it still just bugs me every now and then and it could be it could be very related to some tissue stuff that needs to be addressed or if it be something entirely different. 

So I actually recently had a client and she had a very again. It was this very specific ankle injury she could trace back to. She was doing like this high intensity workout. She sprained it, she fell on it really weird and definitely sprained it and definitely did cause damage and injury to it. But by the time I saw her she was well past the six month mark of healing. So the tissues had healed but she still wasn't able to get back to the running and jumping she was able to do before. 

So when we really dug into the issue it turned out to be this fear pattern that was embedded in and once we were able to semantically touch into it and release it, she was literally able and this was like actually with her within a session. So I didn't even touch her ankle, okay, and we were able to she was able to get up and just jump around all of a sudden with no pain and like the look on her face was like Holy shit, you know what I mean. Like she hadn't been able to experience that for months and just like still so endlessly fascinated at seeing these like immediate strength and decreased pain responses without any hands on, or like movement work. It gets so cool. And another amazing example like this was I was working with a client who could barely turn her neck and again, it had been like this probably for years. And we actually worked through a process which uncovered this like deep on process grief. We processed it, released it and by the end of our work together she pretty much had functional neck mobility mobility with no pain. So what is the essential ingredient in allowing these processes to even work in the first place? Like what were we doing on a nervous system level to allow this movement to happen? And the answer is safety. We provided safety. We took away the threat response. 

So just want to enter in for all you perfectionists listening for the idea of safety. It is not an all or nothing, a black and white concept at all. Okay, we will continue throughout life to move between feeling unsafe to safe and we can do that. It can happen very quickly, all right, like in a moment, a moment's notice, okay, the goal is not to feel safe 100% of the time, because that would be kind of weird and problematic. Like you want that feeling of something isn't right and to feel unsafe when you're not in a safe situation, like walking down a dark alley or something because you want your nervous system and body to like react appropriately in those scenarios and it will, like you can just trust that your nervous system is going to do that all right. But I just want to like emphasize the fact that it's like it's okay if there are times you don't feel safe. That's okay and it's normal. 

So, anyway, safety can happen and in the context from healing from chronic pain, it will likely happen in these tiny microdoses, all right, because we can find it in that moment or in just one brief moment. Or it can happen with like a ton of intentionality, so you can purposely set up a safe space and experience, and that might take some planning and thought. Or it can just happen in these like little microdoses in the moment, with kind of like a spur of the moment, thought of like oh, I'm going to bring in some safety right now. So, like for all you moms out there, it's like that difference between seeing Legos strewn across the floor and you could intentionally decide to pick them up and clean them up, so you don't, you know, walk on the night like if they're especially if they're cross your room, so you don't get up and walk on them at 3am later. So that's like an intentional thought to create safety later on. Or maybe you're just in the moment and you need to just get out the door. You know you can find safety by tiptoeing through them, right, versus just barreling right on without shoes and stepping on them and hurting yourself, okay. So it's like you can again do that in the moment, or that, more intentional, later on. Safety, because if you just choose the option of not safety and just barrel through right, it's that those fuckers hurt, like, and you get to be shocked and pissed. When it hurts, right, the pain is very, very real, it freaking, sucks, and the next time, though, you see Legos all over the floor, you get to choose differently. Maybe this time you get to create safety. 

So, again, just knowing it's okay that these scenarios happen, where we don't create safety, and we can always learn. So for most people the example of Legos is really freaking obvious, right. I mean, stepping on Legos hurts like a fucking bitch, like I feel like that is a pretty universally known thing by now. But so you know, it's kind of a silly example. But what about when the threat is not as obvious as Legos? Right, that you didn't think or you didn't have a cue to create such an obvious cue to bring in safety? And I'm just gonna pause real quick because I know you might being like well, how the hell do I bring in safety? Just hold up, we'll get there. Okay. So when it's not as obvious as Legos? Because what about when the threat are like own internal thought processes are programming that our nervous system is holding on to that we might not even be able to see or recognize? Okay. 

So if we find yourself in this like repeated scenario of you're like okay, maybe I'm not feeling safe and I'm like noticing an increase of my pain in this certain scenario, you don't. This is not an invitation to beat yourself up over the fact that like, oh, I didn't bring safety and again, damn it. No, that the learning that's not happening is not because you're incapable of learning or not smart enough or, you know, didn't know better. No, or it is because you didn't know better. I mean there is a piece of that, because no one ever taught you how to look and identify these internal threats. Right, like it's not your fault that you don't know how to find safety, and I really, really want to emphasize that, like this is so, so not your fault. I mean, we live in a system, in a society that has actually really primed us to only look to external things and to ignore all these internal cues. So it is a skill we need to relearn. 

Now, when I personally learned that there could be like thoughts and programings and that I, like might inherently not be feel safe, I kind of rolled my eyes and I was like, seriously, like I'm a prejudiced, fuck white woman. Like, come on, like how do I not feel safe? Like I grew up with having a roof over my head, food in my mouth, clothes on my body, like grew up privileged, okay. And, of course, as I was thinking all these thoughts and thinking of how privileged I was and that that couldn't possibly apply to me, I set it with tons of tension holding through my body and a very big obvious or not obvious at the time, but a very ingrained pattern of tension and not feeling safe in my body. But I really at the time could not see or feel that and you might not see or feel that yet either, so just bear with me. Sometimes we just need to plant these seeds and it'll click later on, because holding that tension and waiting for the other shoe to drop was just like my and because it was my default state. It actually felt safe Because I didn't know any other state and so far my nervous system and brain learned when I feel tense all the time and I'm kind of living on this high alert, I'm living in like high alert all the time. 

Guess what? I live because I was still alive to prove that to myself right. So my brain's like this is great pattern, I love this, let's keep doing this. Which becomes the entire irony because basically, feeling unsafe and alert at all times can be so familiar that it feels like this false safety, and usually what that then means is when your body is truly able to like, feel and body safety, your brain and nervous system might freak the fuck out because it does not like new and unfamiliar things, new things, new scenarios, new like nervous system states are not freaking safe because it doesn't know about them yet. So, just just like, let that sink in for a second. They're going to back up to that feeling of like tension in the body at all times and then we're going to come back to the other piece. 

So if you have ever been to a physical therapist or massage therapist and been like repeatedly told to relax, it's probably a sign that you're holding this constant tension in your body. Or if they're like holy crap, your muscles are so tight and they're like ugh, they will not release Again, it's probably the sign that you have this tension and you might be like it doesn't even hurt or like or a lot of the experiences like I didn't even know those areas were tight, right, that's when it's become this like well, the default state can hurt. Default states of tension can absolutely be directly contributing to your chronic pain, and you can also be unaware of them. So let's just put that out there. 

But I can't tell you how many women were like literally holding their head up off the pillow, like it is still in the air, like they're just like actively holding it up with their neck muscles, and I can like see all their muscles firing and they're like I'm totally relaxed and I'm like your head's not even on the pillow, or like their arm is just like sticking out in the air, it's like not supported by anything. They're like I'm relaxed and I can laugh at this a lot, because this is totally me at times, like I actually just got massaged recently and I totally thought I was relaxed and she's like dude, like I'm not even holding onto your arm and it's like my arm was just up in the air and I was like damn it. And guys, I teach this. Okay, it's, it's funny, like it's it's okay to laugh at this and it's it's normal and it's just like it's just what it is and we can do something about this. Okay, but those are all signs that this might be something to look out for. 

All right, so going back to that whole, like it's almost like this switched system of safety where feeling safe actually feels unsafe, okay, so that's like a signs that that might be the case for you. Where you actually find safety in feeling unsafe is when you're constantly finding yourself in situations that lead to like overwhelm, drama, stress, like things are constantly happening to you Like oh, because of this person, my life is a fucking mess right now, or like I was planning to do this for myself, but this person came in and this scenario and whatever this thing happened to me. All right, I had actually just had a client yesterday who her experience was like the epitome of this, because I am very aware this is going on for her. She's not quite there yet or not quite open to seeing this yet, but that's okay, we'll get there. So she had decided to take a relaxing weekend with her boyfriend and this was like the first one in years and she was planning for and I had been talking up to her leading up to it, and you know, so I finally seeing her for the first time after this weekend. I'm like how, how is your relaxing weekend? And she made us. 

Oh my God, it was fucking horrible, it was the worst weekend ever, and it started by them actually taking a wrong turn and driving like over a hundred miles out of their way. So when they finally found where they were supposed to go which is like supposed to be in like this, like remote area of like a state park or a forest or something I don't know exactly where when they finally got there, she realized she forgot her suitcase so she had no clothes no, nothing, okay, like literally had nothing with her other than clothes on her body. So they then needed to drive, that they spent, and so they got there really late at night. So then they spent most of the next day driving around to like the nearest towns which none of them were close and like they're just tiny little towns because they're in the middle of nowhere to buy some new things, and then, like, by the time they got back, and then the next day, which is the last day that they had there, it like just like monsoon rain the whole time. 

So she described her experience as just like awful, stressful, horrible, and then, like proceeded to tell me about like 20 other things that went wrong in like the course of the following three days. And if you're listening and you're like, oh, that's exactly what happened to me, or what happens to me all the time, then chances are this is your nervous system loving the hell out of drama, anxiety, overwhelm and stress, because it's familiar and so much compassion for that. And it's okay. Just recognizing it is the first step here, because for a nervous system that has learned that safety is actually safe, the exact same scenario could have sounded very, very different. So she instead could have come in and been like oh my gosh. I have to tell you a hilarious story. 

So first we took a wrong turn and we ended up driving over 100 miles outside of our route. But, oh my gosh, it led us through the most gorgeous scenario that we would have been like gorgeous scenery that we would have never been able to witness had we stayed on route. And then we got all this extra quality time in the car. We listened to this like amazing playlist, and we had some deep conversations, like we really got to bond. And then we finally got there. 

Oh my gosh, it turned out that I forgot all my clothes. I had spent all this time packing and it was frustrating as hell to discover this. But the next day we decided to just go and check out the quaint little towns that were so cute. They had all these like cute little boutique shops, and so I got to have like kind of this awesome reason to buy some new fun pieces for myself and new clothes, and I just love them so much. And then it freaking ended up raining the rest of the time. So instead of hiking and, you know, spending time outdoors like we had originally planned. We got to snuggle up, just get super cozy together and just like really bonded away. We haven't in a long time and we just like, really got to truly like, be in each other's company. It went nothing like we planned, but it was so much fun. So much fun, right. Do you see the difference? 

Like in the second example, all the same scenario happened, right, but there was a lot more safety to be present and, and because of this safety, she would have been able to bring in things like gratitude, the ability to receive joy and pleasure. But those things can really only happen when we're able to feel safe first. So if you've ever tried a gratitude practice or kind of heard this concept of like oh, you know, being grateful can be really helpful or like bringing in joy or pleasure or even some positivity, right, if you, if you've like, have heard this concept and you're like, and whatever, we could do a whole. I will at some point, do a whole thing on toxic positivity, okay, but let's just keep it at here right now. But if you ever tried any of these practices and you've really disliked it, it's probably because your nervous system actually feels unsafe, being safe, and when we're talking about pain, we can literally feel the unsafety right Because it literally freaking can hurt. So in some of the chronic pain, that whole scenario, and obviously she has chronic pain that's why I'm seeing her Her pain was worse the whole weekend and it's not surprising because she had all these things out like that were happening, that were causing her to stress, which was increasing her nervous system sensitivity. 

And the other ways this can manifest is when you already know a movement is going to hurt. That's like when you are preemptively like saying to yourself oh, I know that's gonna hurt. Like you know you're about to do something. You're like this is gonna hurt. You're like already bracing for it. Or that you like notice that fear creeping in before you have to like bend down to pick something up. Or like you avoid going upstairs until like the very last minute, like the very you know your piling stuff on your stairs at home because you don't want to go upstairs more than you need to, cause you already know your knees are gonna hurt. Or like you're dreading getting up in the morning cause your back is gonna ache. So you might even find yourself in these scenarios like using words like, ah, I might tear more or I'm gonna damage it more. I can feel my nerve getting pinched or like it's bone on bone. 

The hard truth here is, the more we dread, fear and tell ourselves we're causing damage, the more we are bringing this unsafety around that movement or activity. It's gonna further sensitize your nervous system, which leads to more pain. The more our system is sensitized, the more pain we will have. And in these scenarios you're pretty much always gonna prove yourself right, because chances are those movements are hurting right, like you are feeling the pain there. But in having all those thought patterns around it, it's just really letting the nervous system know that feeling unsafe is the way to go and is helpful when really it's not okay. But it's just kind of proving and ingrained the pattern further and further by being like this movement is gonna suck, it's gonna hurt, and so then you're like our tactic and your nervous system is like God, we like that. You're being protective because it's already sensitized and they're like it works to make this hurt, because then you guard more and brace more and you're protecting it more when really over time, that is not an effective adaptive pattern anymore. 

It once was, but it's not anymore, not with chronic pain and in the like flukes in it not fluke but in the scenarios where, like in those above scenarios, where, like, maybe you're anticipating that it's gonna hurt and it doesn't you might find your brain calling it a fluke scenario, like, oh wow, that was weird, that was a total fluke, that that movement didn't hurt. Or finding yourself saying things like oh, we're gonna pay for that later. Or well, making excuses like well, it's only cause I'm already warmed up right now, that's why that didn't hurt. So all of this just leads to this vicious cycle of nervous system sensitivity which, again can't say this enough is going to increase your chronic pain. So how, then, do we decrease the nervous system sensitivity and how do we use that tool to actually then decrease our pain? It's by bringing in this safety piece. So how are we gonna bring in safety? 

One of my favorite ways is Dr Valerie Raines' repower tool, and if you've been listening to this podcast, I've actually already gone through it and I'm going through it again because it's that important. This isn't a tool you use one time. It would be equivalent to being like, well, I drank water once and so therefore I'm hydrated. Or like I slept one time and now I just don't ever need to sleep again. Like it doesn't work like that. This is something you need to be consistently bringing into your life in order for it to be to like have like the cumulative effects right. Like you could drink water super well and hydrate for one day, but that doesn't carry over for the next day. So we're gonna do it again together, because you really can't overdo this one Like. I use this multiple times a day and I use it both in like a longer format, which is we'll go through and by long. I mean like it's probably gonna take two minutes, but you can also do it kind of snap your fingers and do it in like 10 seconds. So, first and again, if you're driving, of course, you can still do it while you're driving, just keep your eyes on the road, be safe and don't close your eyes. If I prompt you to close your eyes, obviously, but otherwise, if you are doing something, if you're cleaning, if you, you know, if you have the ability and it is safe for like your children or people around you, whatever to actually stop right now and put your like hand on your heart or just, you know, stop whatever you're doing, it'll be even that much more effective, and if not, it's okay, you can still do it while you're even doing other things. 

The first thing is to just look around. They literally take time to look, look in all the corners of the room, look behind you, look all around to really notice that you are in fact safe. Like it is literally taking in your surroundings and being like, hey, brain, look, there are no saber tooth tigers, there are no giant snakes hanging in the corner, there is no creepy guy over there. Like literally finding the safety. And if you're not safe, well then go somewhere where you are safe. Okay, so this is just taking it and you can be really super playful about this. Like, look, brain, there's no saber tooth tigers, we're safe. And like, joke around, have fun with this. And so, again, we're really just feeling the safety in your surroundings, no matter what is going on in your life right now, no matter what is going on in the world right now, or right now, here, in this moment, you are physically safe. 

And then bringing attention to your breath, notice how, through all of this, through whatever's been going on before you were listening, whatever might be going on after, your body just continues to breathe you. You don't need to think about it, you don't need to put in any effort, and just bringing attention to your breath, exactly how it's happening right now. If it feels good, you can close your eyes here and you can even take note if it is short and shallow. Maybe you were just running after your kids and you're breathing hard right now, or maybe you're taking long, deep breaths. Whatever they are in this moment is totally perfect. You don't need to change anything. Then notice any smells. Maybe some lovely springtime smells, or there's a favorite candle or essential oil that you can even just grab and sniff. Or maybe it stinks. Maybe your baby just pooped. You get to notice that too. All of it, and you're just noticing. You're not changing anything. We're really engaging our senses here. 

So the next thing is taste. If you have a glass of water or some hot coffee or some yummy treat nearby, whatever it is, you can put it a little bit in your mouth and just really take the time to taste it, and then we're gonna bring in touch, touch your skin, stroke your neck. Usually your neck is exposed if you have you know if it's, if you're warm and you're wearing short sleeves, you can stroke your arms. You can even stroke over your clothes, but that skin-to-skin contact is really nice, whatever feels good here. And as you're doing that, just noticing any sounds around you maybe it's super loud and there's, you know, cars honking, or maybe it's really quiet. Are you just hearing the sound of my voice or your breath and just linger on any of these? I always like to linger on the touch personally as long as you need. 

And through all of this, notice how you are always supported by the earth, by gravity, by your floor, your chair. Wherever you are, you are supported and held. So that's the repower tool. That's finding safety. And again, that was kind of a slightly longer version. You could make that even longer or you can make it really short of like. 

You notice yourself feeling really unsafe. It's like okay, look around, got it, no tigers, cool Touch. You know I usually just go right to touch. Then it doesn't smell, it's cool, all right, I already feel a little safer. You know it's it's. You can do it really quickly as well. And so, after doing that, just notice, did you? Did you notice any changes in your body? Was there any different sensations? Chances are, you may feel a little more calm and relaxed and if not, that's okay. 

It actually may take time to build up your body's trust for something like this and there might be some people who even feel like less, like it makes you feel uncomfortable and just really any reaction to this is okay, because if your nervous system doesn't feel safe being safe you may have some discomfort with this practice. If that's like a really deep rooted thing, and then whatever it is, even if you might have instances where your nervous system doesn't feel safe in certain scenarios being safe but in this one you're like oh, I took that totally and I feel great. Ever it is, it's totally okay. And if you aren't quite having the relaxed, calm feeling that you were hoping to one, it's just letting go of expectations. But two, even in that scenario, you can let us let your nervous system know of hey, we took time to notice our safety and guess what? We did not die. Like yay, let's celebrate that. It felt super uncomfortable and we did not die. So even if you only felt a smidge and more relaxed, you really can notice and celebrate this. Okay, it takes a full 10 seconds for the nervous system to begin to rewire in this new pattern of safety, but it only takes a split second to wire in fear or feelings of unsafety. So we really want to take this time to relish in it. So it's like, even after you've done the tool, noticing any changes, any, any more calm, any more relaxation, and like taking a full 10 seconds to just notice and celebrate that. 

And I do want to say and really acknowledge that when you are in pain, this becomes more challenging. And I want to make it really clear that the goal of this exercise is not to get rid of pain in the moment. Did it, for some people, actually help reduce or even possibly eliminate pain in the moment? Yeah, it can. There are some people who absolutely can have that effect, but it's really not the goal. That would just be a side effect in that moment for that person. It's really really important to detach from that as the outcome. And I would not expect it as an outcome because with chronic pain and essential part of healing is finding safety even in the presence of your pain. 

Especially in the presence of pain and yes, I know that might be hard to take in sometimes it's actually about teaching your body that your chronic pain is not a threat, because the more it thinks it is a threat, the more your nervous system becomes sensitized and the more you will have pain for all you logic thinkers out there who are scared of like. But if I teach it that it's not a threat, then it's going to stick around forever. It's not how that works. I hear you. I hear your concerns. It's really not how that works. Oftentimes, by accepting it, by learning to like, live it and find a safety, your nervous system calms down, which then decreases the sensitivity, which oftentimes will decrease the chronic pain. That in itself might not be enough, but it is an essential, an essential component that you cannot skip over. 

So kind of an example here is, let's say, your entire life. Whenever you got a piece of mail, it was horrible news or just something terrible, okay, like it was on paid bill you didn't even know you had. Or it was like an eviction notice, or you got served. Anyways, over time you might start to avoid checking your mail in the first place. You might not want to even open any of it. Right, you're like, fuck, this mail sucks and your system starts to learn that. But what if, just what if you actually are missing some really good stuff? What if there's a check back from a company that you missed, like a refund or somebody's baby announcement or a wedding invitation. Maybe it was a freaking free vacation to the Caribbean, I have no idea. Right, if we don't kind of take at all, maybe some of what we might be seeing as negative, we might miss a lot of the positive, because the reality is this pain is always delivering a message and the truth is, especially through childhood injuries, a lot of association and previous association with a message that pains. Trying to deliver sucks, like it's. 

You have a lot of evidence that it has not been a fun message or a positive message. Like when you skin your knees after falling off a bike, like I mean, we could sit here and put a positive spin on it, of course, but like in the moment you're like that, just sucked right, like nothing super fun about it. Let's say you broke your arm and you had to sit out of, like swimming in the pool the whole summer, like you know, when you're in elementary school and all you can think of is just that sucked to miss out on all that time with your friends. Or you sprained your ankle in high school and you had to sit out in prom, like whatever it is Like there's probably been a lot of evidence in your life for having injuries has sucked Like. I really want to acknowledge that and also say that with that, over time, our brain really starts to associate pain with missing out, with these hard times and with general just shittiness. But what if we open that message or a mail and one day it was actually like the greatest invitation we ever received All of a sudden we do start looking at pain, especially chronic pain, as a way to start listening into our bodies. And here's a difference. Here it's an invitation to heal, not to fix not to fix your bandaid because nothing is actually broken or wrong, but an invitation to actually heal. And it's slow, steady repetition that works best here in bringing in the safety that is required for all of that. 

This is not a one and done exercise. Like I said, you not expect magical changes. It's just planting a seed and if you plant a seed you have to continue to water it, to nurture it, to feed it. It might grow really slowly. The results aren't measured by checking every five minutes to see if it's growing. If you plant a seed and five minutes later or like an hour later, you're like, well, fuck, it didn't grow, just throw out the seed. You're never going to see the results and you try a new one the next day. Let me try this seed. Give it an hour. No, it didn't work. You can do that literally for the rest of your life and you will never have a seed that grows Right. 

But if you give it time and you continue to nurture it and water it and give it the space it needs, guess what? Over time you will start to see this beautiful plant emerge and you can enjoy every step of the journey. When you first see that little shoot sprout out Maybe if you have a glass container, you know you can see the roots form all the way up until whatever beautiful flower it is that you've planted or fruit that it's, you know, now bearing it gets to be a really cool journey where you get to appreciate and just like celebrate every step and also have a lot of days where you're like, well, it looks fucking same as yesterday, right. And then it's kind of like you wake up and you're like, wow, look, now it looks different. But we'd miss that all right if we were looking for these just like quick fix outcomes and only looking at these short term little things. 

So just start by bringing in the safety wherever you can, whenever you remember maybe you use like going to the bathroom as a cue, or washing your hands as a cue of just taking like a little extra moment to be like, hey, nervous system, I'm safe and that's all you need to do. You don't need to do anything else around that right now. How would that feel? Do you think that's doable? If it is awesome, and so just always listening in to the body with that safety and just taking into account and noticing what happens when you do that, all right, so I want you to let me know how this exercise goes for you If you're feeling resistance to it, if you tried it and whatever outcome you experienced whether it was nothing to, you felt worse to, I felt amazing. 

I want to hear all about it. So reach out to me on Instagram at Dr Andrea Moore, or my website, wwwdrandreamorecom, and always, always love to hear from you and thank you so much for listening in. If this episode or this podcast in general is helpful, please share it with friends, especially if you know anyone who is struggling with chronic pain and who use this information. This information gets out by you sharing it and, if you are so inclined, you can also rate it on iTunes. Every mention rating is so appreciated, so thank you so much and have a wonderful rest of your day. Bye-bye. 

Transcribed by https://podium.page