The Hidden Layers That Block Healing

0:00:00 - Speaker 1
If you've ever felt like there are 462 different things to navigate on your pain healing journey, you are not alone. Today I wanna dive into the complexity of how different things can really get layered on top of each other, which can lead to things feeling incredibly confusing and overwhelming and often like you're just like spiraling. But it is possible to break it down. Now, for example, let's say you're like, oh my gosh, i am being told I should rest more, but I can't rest more because I need to pay my bills. But when I think about making more money so I could have a job where I rest more well, that brings up my social anxiety in terms of trying to get a job. Well, maybe I also wanna start my own business, but being visible gives me more stress, which makes me hurt more, right, which then leads into the whole thing. So you can feel like these things spiral on top of each other. Or if you're like me and you're a mom, then it's like oh my gosh, i maybe wanna chill out a little bit more or have more time for myself, but how am I supposed to do that when I have a kid to take care of? And then when I think of hiring more care. That runs into the money problem, which runs into the whole fact that my son has been kicked out of multiple schools and so I actually have way less child care than I'm supposed to right now, or I was expecting to at this point, which leads to me feeling more overwhelmed of how do I manage all of this right. Totally hypothetical, of course not. So again, you are so not alone, where these things can just feel so linked, and it's like you try to like turn over one stone and it, like right, opens up Pandora's box, and then it's like, oh my God, where do I even start? Here's the thing it is totally possible to start and take things piece by piece and see the interconnectedness, to honor it and also to do this in a way that leads us less overwhelmed and allows us to keep moving through, versus getting stuck in overwhelm and inaction. And trust me, if you're there, you are so not alone. Getting overwhelmed and stuck in inaction has been my MO, because my goodness has my journey felt like this. So you have come to the right place, y'all. You have also come to the right place if you just want realness, because I just stopped the recording to take my cat out who had just jumped on my lap And before I hit record again, I was just like let me casually take a sip of water and it went down the wrong pipe and I literally just spit up a mouthful of water onto my carpet because it was like either that or it was gonna explode all over my computer And I just was having a coughing fit for the last 10 minutes. 

So, one I don't know exactly where I left off. Two sorry if my voice sounds a little weird or I need to cough because, oh my gosh, does anyone else do like? I feel like I do that probably way more than is normal. Anyways, okay, we're here, we're back, not even three minutes in. Here's the thing that I wanna say. 

When there are all these pieces that feel like, oh my gosh, if I just touch one, that it opens up this Pandora's box, often there is a linchpin thing right. It's like this piece that really is like the root of it all, and it's not like when you address it everything just magically disappears, because that's not the case. But often when we can keep kind of going deeper and keep really uncovering underneath and digging through and can find that root, i find it actually can make things feel a whole lot less overwhelming, because it's like, okay, this is all related in some way. These aren't all separate issues. It's not like, oh my gosh, i have this like 10 thing long to do list of different areas in my life I need to work on. While they all do need some degree of intention, one we can set a lot aside, and that's like when we can kind of focus up the root that like interconnects them all, you start to see shifts in every area. I really wanna talk about not just going to the root, because before we get to the root we have to take a step back and we have to look at the layers that have formed. So I'm gonna give an example first, so to make things a little easier, because it can get complex. We are complex human beings, right? 

Let's assume pain had a clear starting point, and if you're someone like me who basically has had pain since birth or as long as you can remember, then what I'm gonna recommend you think of for yourself in this episode is if there was a point where it really shifted into impacting your life in a significant way. We're gonna circle back to why it starts so young for some people, but for now, well, that's a whole mother layer. So for now, see if there's a moment you can bring up that really sticks out of when things like shifted, it's like things got worse or it's like, okay, all of a sudden, wow, okay, no, yes, i've had pain, but this is different. Now it's really impacting me. So for me it was my car accident. 

For others, maybe it was a point of impact or an injury like this, or maybe it was a more generalized time in your life, like, oh, it was like after I started that new job, after I moved across the country, or it was actually six months after I got married for no apparent reason, like things were going great and we were happy and we had finally settled down right. Whatever it is for you, i want you to invite you to look at this as before pain and after pain, kind of like BCE and CE does for history. Now, this is crucial, this before pain and after pain, look, because when the difference between these isn't recognized, it can lead to a lot of frustration and feeling like no progress is being made on your healing journey. So if you're someone who has done a lot of inner work, for example, and feel like you aren't making much progress or maybe things have felt really plateaued. Really pay attention here, really try to get clear on this before pain and after pain, because this may be the missing piece that helps you move forward. Because here is what often happens. 

There is the beginning point of pain, whether it was a traumatic injury or something that happened over a period of time, and there is everything that happens in response to that pain, the after pain, and there is then also everything that led to the pain happening in the first place or led up to the pain. If it happened to be something like you know what I had, like a car accident, right, it's sort of like you had an injury. I don't think it's like, oh, something you did caused it, right, but it's like there was all this events that happened before pain and after pain. And if you are someone who it's like your pain happened for no apparent reason, definitely the before pain becomes that much more significant. But I find it is incredibly significant even for people where it was an injury that had just nothing to do with you. It's like you can't help it. Shit happens, right. So people tend to fall into three different categories when it comes to chronic pain Category number one there was an injury or an incident And then you have the layers of response to the pain that led it to turning chronic. 

So, for instance, take my client Stacy. She had normal life stressors, like everybody does, and quite a lot actually. And so after her knee replacement which she was not well prepared for thanks to some shitty things that were told to her and you know our healthcare system trying to just get things through as fast as possible but anyways So when the pain hit her afterwards, which is expected after knee replacement, she was taken so off guard that it sent her into a massive fear response. Without diving into all her details, for her it was really her response to the pain and the subsequent events that you know happened because of her response to her pain that led to her pain going from a normal healing process that happens after knee replacement to it turning chronic. And when those were addressed, when we were able to just address kind of post-surgical incidents, her pain went away. We didn't need to dive into before pain things that happened, even though she did have a whole number of life stressors. 

Category number two chronic pain develops over time due to life stressors, traumas or unprocessed emotions or a combination of all those. When this is recognized, working through all the before pain events as needed will lead to healing. My client, tao, was a great example of this. She came in reporting neck pain that flared up when she would argue with her husband. She knew her pain was due to stress. She could see that connection. Her neck pain had started after one significant fight and then lingered on, but then would flare up in response to any subsequent arguments or fights, And so for her it was really way more about the way she was interpreting and reacting to her husband. So we worked through ways to shift her response and regulate her system and her neck pain went away. She again, she didn't have a massive fear or anxiety response about her pain because she was able to see why it was there. 

Category number three is a mix of both. The chronic pain develops due to life stressors, traumas and unprocessed emotions, and then there are the layers of response to the pain that amplify and prolong it, and chances are, if you are listening to this, you fall into category number three, and you're not alone here. Me too, even though I had again a car accident right, this is this particular incident. I am absolutely 100% category number three, this mix of both, and what I find are so many of the programs and apps and other chronic pain things that are out there. They tend to be geared towards people in category one or two, depending on the thing, on the program, but the reality is for so many out there it isn't that clear-cut or simple. It's this mix, it's this layering that happens, this intertwining hence the name of the podcast the unweaving that needs to happen. I'm gonna take myself, for example, because I am category number three. 

First off, i already had pain and many emotional things I was working through before my concussion, but they felt manageable, like I was living my life. I had things, of course I wanted to shift, but I mean I was getting by. Then I had my concussion and it added on all sorts of layers because of the way I responded to it, from medical gaslighting that was happening to others gaslighting me, to fears around money, since I couldn't work and I had zero supplementary support through any type of disability insurance or insurance in general, because, as I think I've told on this podcast before, i had zero support despite having medical insurance or anything like that. So I was. I do want to acknowledge I was lucky and I am privileged enough to know my parents are not gonna let me starve or be homeless. Okay, so I absolutely have that privilege where I know I could, if it comes to it, move back in with them or they could provide me some level of support. 

But I had layers of shame and worthlessness that already existed prior, right before pain, but they then got massively amplified after pain, because who the heck was I if my brain didn't function like I thought it should? Also, i had a ton of perfectionism around healing that led to massive guilt and self-deprecation, because I had a ton of knowledge about what I should be doing to heal and I, straight up, felt incapable of doing it, which led to massive daily inner battles. So a lot of this, as you can see, is this intertwining of before pain and after pain responses. Beating myself up for feeling worthless wasn't new, but it got a lot worse after my accident. So why is this all so important? Well, here's what happened for me Because I was already on a healing journey, just to a little bit of a. I wasn't trying to heal my concussion, but I was already trying to heal myself, because I already thought my brain wasn't functioning as it was supposed to because I had ADHD basically my entire life. I was diagnosed in the third grade. I just went harder at the healing journey I was already on Now. 

For me, this healing wasn't the type of healing work I talk about now Like I talk about it as healing work because that's what I thought I was doing, but what it basically was was orthorexia, wrapped in a pretty bow, tied in with an obsession of being the most perfect, intelligent human being. Because my goal pre-car accident because of my ADHD was to have a brain that works like everyone else's and to be 100% on whenever I needed it and basically be a robot. Like I wanted to operate at 110% at all times. Like, why not? Why is that not possible? I should 100% be able to do that at all times should always be amazing. And now I tried to achieve this by eating an optimal diet I say that in quotes for brain health and do all sorts of supplemental healing protocols for my brain. 

Again, orthorexia, wrapped in a pretty bow in the name of healing and being perfect and having zero inflammation in my body, because that's so unhealthy for you. Only I was really bad at it Like I could lecture all day long about the quote unquote perfect diet, but I never really did it. I mean, to my credit, like if I am in and this applies to this day pretty much if I'm making a meal at home, it's probably pretty healthy. But I also, especially in my 20s and around the time of my car accident and leading up to it, i drank a shit ton and constantly ate out which I never felt guilty about at the time, like while I was eating out, like I was always your hamburger and french fries girl, or like the biggest plate of nachos, you know. But then later on or it might be days later when my brain would feel off, or I was just having a bad day, or not I couldn't recall a word or something like that I'd go into this fear response about oh my God, it's because I created all this inflammation in my body because I ate that hamburger the other day and oh my God, the seed oils are so terrible for you, right, okay, so this was all present before the car accident. So when the car accident happened, i doubled down. Only I was just as bad at following through with any sort of protocol as well after the car accident. But now it was like my brain was literally on the line right, like this was a whole new level of like, quote, unquote need to follow these strict protocols. So the shame and fear of inflaming my brain. I mean, whatever, 10 tuple this is that a word. I was going to say quadruple, that didn't seem big enough. I mean massively amplified. 

And somewhere along the way, i think, because I could never quite manage the eating right part, i really clung onto the emotional healing part. Right, it was another means to the end, like if I can just heal my inner child, then I don't need to worry about the fact that I can't manage a healthy diet. But I could do that. So I dove deep into these before pain events. Right, so this was after the concussion. I started doing all this emotional healing work of things that occurred pre pain, but my results sucked. 

Honestly, i was always left basically feeling worse after sessions because I'd work with these practitioners that claimed insane results after just one session. Right, like you know, work with me just one time and we're going to clear all this negative energy or we're going to heal your inner child, we're going to have complete symptom relief. So I'd get you know, i would get so excited leading up to these sessions I would feel like so much hope. I'm like, oh my God, this is my answer. And then after the session, either nothing would feel different, so I just spiral into hopelessness and despair, or they would literally tell me Oh, something's kind of off in your energy field. I have never worked with anyone like this. You need way more sessions. 

But I never pursued more sessions because they left me feeling absolutely horrible at my about myself, like I was this freak show they'd never seen before and it scared me. It really really deeply scared me. Like I really was like Oh my God, something is so wrong with me. And in retrospect and it was funny because I don't think I realized until I was actually thinking about it for this episode I always took what they were saying as this really intensely cruel, cruel comments they were saying to me and like they did not want to work with me. More was always like that's, that is the impression that I had. 

And as I was thinking on it for this, i was like I actually wonder if they weren't trying to be at that like at all, that actually they just were like you need more sessions, right? And I was so stuck on this idea that I only needed one session that I just couldn't see it right. I saw everything through this lens of shame and worthlessness that was so intensely amplified after my car accident that I just couldn't hear what they were actually saying, and chances are that's actually what they were sensing. Is that deep shame that was very present from after the accident, but I was trying to work on things from before the accident. Now again, i don't know, i can't really go back in time, but I feel so confident that this was it And I really think that it was that blocking my ability to do the before pain work. Only I couldn't see that right, like I did not realize, and again, it's all in retrospect that I can see how intense my shame and self-deprecation and feelings of worthlessness were. 

And this is why this, what I'm talking about here, is so important. And this is something I do with my clients. Really, i mean all the time in my one-on-ones. It's like what is the the, the outermost layer we need to work with first to get us to where you want to go, and differentiating before pain and after pain might be the place to really start noticing those layers. Because when there are layers of, say, medical trauma, gaslighting, fear, self-shame and whatever else that comes up in response to the pain. I find it is incredibly important to work through those first, because they often, or almost always, will block access to what is underneath. And here is the bigger, more annoying but crucial, absolutely crucial to understand. Kicker to this Working through these after pain layers may not lead to pain relief, or at least not levels of pain relief that you are hoping for. 

They absolutely will lead to a massive pressure and burden being taken off you. You will experience a spaciousness to breathe that you didn't even realize you were missing. You will experience an ease and flow to your day that you didn't even know was possible. But the pain itself? it may not shift when looking at these after pain layers, because you haven't actually addressed what led to the pain in the first place. So you really can't expect it to heal yet. And here's what I found For many, working through the after pain events is enough, or at least enough for now. Their life opens up in ways they never imagined. This is where you hear of people coexisting with their pain in this really powerful, empowered way. They feel empowered and they are thrilled at where they are in life. 

I've had many clients like this. One in particular stands out. Let's call her Helen. She had debilitating fibromyalgia and intense after pain trauma because of how the medical field treated her And because of how her pain reactivated a lot of beliefs that were passed down from her family, like, for instance, pain means you're weak. She really had these intense after pain layers that needed to be addressed. As we worked through these after pain layers, she got to the point where she was able to garden, craft, able to have a ton of fun with her grandkids Because basically she reached all her goals, but she still had quite a bit of pain with them And she still had to lay in bed and rest for a few hours after more rigorous activity, especially after her grandkids. Or if she spent a long day gardening, it's like the next day, literally, she's like I might need to spend, you know hours in bed. 

At one point on our journey opened up really vaguely and briefly and never got to hear much more of the story about what sounded like some really incredibly intense, long lasting sexual abuse that happened to her when she was a child. When I began to in this moment where she said that I started to link the two together to really you know, i wanted to talk about that the before pain right, what led to the fibromyalgia diagnosis of the first place, because it all of a sudden made so much sense. She asked me to stop. She said I'm done. She's like I am so absolutely thrilled with what we have accomplished. This wound feels too big and dark to open. I want to leave it as it is. She just wanted to enjoy her life with the pain as it was, and I respected the hell out of her decision. And there are others like myself and many of my other clients that are not content to stop at this point. They want to dive deeper into the before pain events, and I respect the hell out of that decision too, because there's no right way to do this work. 

Some wounds truly are too big to heal in this lifetime And because of this what I found for many of us that fall into the number three category, especially if there's a long history of pain and or mental struggles, depression, anxiety, dysmorphia, eating disorders and more it's because we are carrying the weight of those who couldn't heal in their lifetime, and this is where we circle back to having pain that started before you could remember, or if it wasn't pain that you had having again the mental battles or just feeling different from the time you were incredibly young. Because what happens generationally is often traumas. Especially massive traumas, cannot be healed in one person's lifetime. And if we look back on history, it doesn't take much to see that most people have some significant trauma somewhere along their lineage. And the way I see it is, we are just now, for the first time in history, entering a point where we have the safety, capacity and knowledge to begin healing these again. Right, i do like to think that you look back on indigenous cultures and at the roots of a lot of cultures. The wisdom's there. We've lost it along the way and a lot of trauma came at times where this wisdom was lost. So we are finally discovering this wisdom again. 

Getting back to healing, which means you may be carrying, and likely are carrying, some amount of trauma or healing that is not yours, that did not happen in your lifetime. Now, i'm not going to dive deep into that right now, because just recognizing that it's not yours is huge. Just recognizing this isn't mine, or even asking the question of how much of this is mine, can sometimes be enough. It depends on your history, it depends on what's going on. It's again way more. We will have more episodes for that in the future because it's way more complex and nuanced that I can go into. But just starting there can create a massive shift And for many people it really is. All they need It's to just understand that what they're carrying isn't theirs And that often, sometimes that can look like so many different things. I said I wasn't going to get into it here. I'm going to get into it like one piece Is. 

Often, if you're carrying like, if you've ever found yourself saying something like there's just I have so much grief or I have so much anger, or I have, i have these emotions and I don't know where they came from, that can be a big, big sign. Now there are other things. Again, i am going to stop it here just because that really is. I don't want to not do it justice, but again that we start to look at these, but before pain versus after pain and acknowledging the difference between the two. Because if you are someone who is like, oh my gosh, that sounds like me, i am sure that I am carrying something that is not mine and you currently have a lot of fear, anxiety Or just a lot of other big emotions that happened in response to your pain, or again, maybe medical gaslighting or other traumas or just really just tough emotions that happened because of your pain. I am going to Tell you that it is worth looking at those things first, working through not all of it You never have to heal everything but working through some of the big after pain things, especially fear, and especially anything that has to do with Being able to look at Something that is uncomfortable. 

Right, if we fear our pain, it is impossible to look at the stuff that happened underneath and it's gonna be impossible to look at the generational things. We have to be able to be with and sit with our pain and intense emotions without Triggering fear, to look at the deeper stuff. And here is what I see a Lot of people doing and I myself tried to do. It's not a judgment, but it's like it's. It's hard, it's to see it constantly because people will go through years and years of work, and it's not like it doesn't have benefit, please, like that's not. That's not what I'm trying to say. I mean, this is what I did and I definitely can see where what I did absolutely helped. But if I could go back, i would. I would go at it differently, and and again. 

This is a pattern I see is they're doing this really, really deep work without having the full capacity to be with it. There's still so much fear being triggered with them of even just looking at some of the painful things that are underneath, because this stuff is hard to look at. It takes an ability to just look at something that is really big and scary and dark with Openness and curiosity, to look at an intense emotion that we're feeling or a thought that we're thinking or something dark That's coming up within us, and to be able to just be with it with this openness and this, and to hold it in a level of safety within our own bodies, because we need that to heal it. So for many, and myself included, it can take a Good amount of time to build that capacity up, to do that and, oh my gosh, is that worth doing? Like if I could set out to have one mission in this world truly and make a difference, it would be to increase people's capacity to look at the hard stuff, because People's inability to look at the hard stuff is Behind so much of the chaos we see in this world because it's so much easier to just turn a blind eye and be like, nope, i'm just gonna shut the door and not actually look at what's happening. Right, la la la, let me cover my ears. That's not happening, right, i'm not gonna look at it because it's too painful to look. But when we increase our capacities to look, oh my god, can we create change on so many levels, not just healing our own generational lineages, but literally healing systemic oppression and systemic inequality and Systemic systems that create so much pain. 

It takes an immense capacity to be able to look at these and to see the pain and suffering they're causing. Sorry, okay, i'm getting off, not sorry, i'm not sorry for that, but I am totally getting off on a tangent right now Because I feel so strongly about this. So, anyways, all of this to say, to bring this back, is if you have a fear response to your pain, if sitting in silence, if trying to do somatic work, if, when you do any type of healing work, it brings up a lot of resistance and fear in your body, one, you are not alone and nothing is wrong with you. Of course that's the case. The shit is scary and nobody has taught us how to do that. In fact, a lot of stuff has taught us to fear that, which is why you have that response in the first place. 

So a lot of the work is about developing the capacity to be With it in the first place, to be able to look at our fear, because until we can do that, until we can be with our pain from a much more neutral and curious place, we cannot heal the before pain stuff. It is so worth doing this work of doing the work of the after pain and Working with what our response to pain is, because once we do that, oh my gosh, does it open up your capacity to do so much more of the deeper work. But, like I said, the reason, what I really want, if you get anything from this episode, it is that if you find yourself in category number three of like, you're like yep, there's definitely a whole bunch of shit leading up to the pain that I'm pretty sure is creating it, and I Definitely have a lot of fear in response to my pain, or I had a lot of trauma, medical gaslighting or other things that happened in response to my pain, or a lot of grief and sadness about a life That I've lost and things that I've missed out on because of my pain. Working through those after pain things is going to be really, really important again. You don't need to work through everything. It's not about ever like perfectly clearing anything. That's Not the point of this but there are going to be certain things you need to work through and that work May not shift your pain, But it will open up the capacity to then do the deeper work that will shift your pain. 

And again, like I said, for some, especially if there are significant traumas in your life, some might choose To say I'm gonna stop there because they are so happy with their results. Or you can choose to go deeper, and that's not a decision you need to make now. Okay at all. And and I say this to emphasize, because I do have people who seek out my work and they're like I don't want to have to open up Those wounds that I have closed off, that I have suppressed down, like there is some Dark shit that happened to me when I was a child. I don't ever want to have to open that. Am I gonna have to open that box? and the answer is no. You really don't. I Can't promise pain resolution. Right, i'm never gonna promise pain resolution. I can't promise pain resolution, you know, if you're not willing to like go deeper, but it's not a problem, because you will get massive results And you will absolutely gain the ability to live a life that feels so much more empowered That you feel in control of that, doesn't feel like pain is running by just looking at the after pain stuff. You never have to open up some wounds that feel too dark to open up. 

And if right now, the idea of doing any of this work feels super scary, We always are meeting you where you are. You never, ever have to make that decision now and it might just be. Hey, i'm just gonna do the work to just look at this one particular fear that I have, or to just be with grief without it setting off my fight-or-flight response. Right, like you can nuance this work and meet yourself exactly where you are, without like ripping off the Bantate, because I think that's what a lot of people do. They want this deep cathartic like let me go heal this deep wound that happened and it's like you cannot get to it. You don't have the capacity to be with it and in fact, that is where you can truly retraumatize your system or send yourself up into such a freeze response, because it's like you've just gone too dark. 

And normally what happens, honestly, is what I see is people just throw up such a big resistant wall that, like you're just adding more layers That you're gonna have to work through. And that's exactly what I did. Oh, my god, did I build up a ton of layers and the good news is is you can always work through them, but anyways, okay, i Hope this was helpful. I really hope that you are now able to see, especially if you're someone who's been doing a lot of work, where maybe it's like you just You have been doing a massive amount of work that has hopefully freed up a lot of your energy and hopefully has led to results that you can feel And the reason your pain hasn't shifted is because you have. You just need to take the next next steps into the more before pain, like what led to the pain work. Or if you're someone who's been doing a lot of work and You've neglected the after pain work because you've been trying to deep dive into the before pain work that you can kind of see Now where you have been hitting a wall or have plateaued, and That in itself can be really frustrating to look at. And again, you're not alone in that. That's exactly what I did. That's a lot of my clients did, and the good news is is you can turn that around really fast. We can back it way up and Regive you the insights and and work through that. 

So I'm so curious to know what opened up from this episode. What were there any aha moments? Please share it with me. Just DM me on Instagram or let me know. Shoot me an email. If you go to wwwunweavingchronicpaincom, you can send me a message from there. 

I believe that's a new website. I I think you can leave comments or something. Oh my gosh, i should know this more before I'm saying it. But anyways, i now have a new podcast page. So there you go. At the very least, go check it out. Don't quite know how to work at tech wise yet, so excuse me, but shoot me a message on Instagram or you can always email me directly and, as always, my Instagram is the probably the best place to post a video. I'm is the probably the best place to find me. It's yeah, i love, love. I can talk at dr Andrea Moore and Please, if this episode is helpful, share it with a friend, share it with others, leave a five star review, because that is what helps people find this. 

A lot of love and Labor and time and energy goes into making this podcast, to making this free contact, that content that I hope Can help you and that I've had so many people You know tell me that just listening to this podcast has led to them healing their pain, healing their relationship with pain, like it's amazing, and so I want this to spread and leaving a review as one of the best ways to help that happen. So, as always, thank you so so much for listening. I appreciate you so much. I'll talk to you later. Bye You. 

Transcribed by https://podium.page