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Stay Sparked #48 - "Processing Pain"
6 Plays1 year ago
Pain may be a physical sensation, but it affects the mind and spirit deeply. How can we be with our pain? And how can we rise above it?
Books mentioned:
Anatomy of Spirit by Caroline Myss
Healing Back Pain by John Sarno
HOSTS
BETSY FINKLEHOO is a healer of massage therapy, CranioSacral and Dharma Coaching. She is an 8 year burner and has spent the last several years seeped in the personal development world, cultivating her passion for transformation and growth. Her recent project, The Power Affirmation Journal and virtual group empowers women to cultivate self awareness and healthy habits so they can live in greater freedom, mind body and spirit.
http://poweraffirmation.com/
Click here to get a FREE affirmation for Stay Sparked Listeners!
HALCYON is full-time Love Ambassador. He is the founder of Hug Nation YouTube channel and daily zoom gratitude circles. He is co-founder of the Pink Heart Burning Man camp and the 1st Saturdays project for people experiencing homelessness. In his free time he coaches individuals on how to live joyfully and authentically. His other podcast is "Hard on the 80's."
http://JohnStyn.com
JANUS REDMOON is a 10-time Burner, and has spent the last several years as an advocate for psychedelic medicine research and treatment. He is the founder and CEO of NuWorld Nutritionals, a nutritional supplement company providing mushroom-based, all-natural products to improve and maintain health for both body and mind. (Use code "SPARKED" for 10% off)
http://www.nuworldnutritionals.com
MASSIVE Thank you to Dub Sutra for their beautiful opening music. Check out their incredible music catalogue online.
https://dubsutra.com
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction to Pain and Personal Experiences
00:00:01
Speaker
Welcome to Stay Sparked.
00:00:04
Speaker
On this show, we explore how to stay inspired in the modern world through the most profound lessons from Burning Man, relationships, entrepreneurship, psychedelics, spirituality, travel, and more.
00:00:17
Speaker
On today's episode, we talk about pain.
00:00:21
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We talk about our personal experiences of rising above pain.
00:00:25
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And we share modalities to help us process, deal, and move through the other side of it.
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Enjoy the episode.
00:00:34
Speaker
Hello and welcome to Stay Sparked.
00:00:36
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We are three longtime friends that have been sharing conversations that have been igniting our souls.
00:00:42
Speaker
And now we love getting to share them with you.
00:00:45
Speaker
I'm Betsy.
00:00:47
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I'm Halcyon.
00:00:48
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And I am Iannis.
00:00:49
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We always love starting with gratitude.
00:00:52
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So I'd love to start us off with my gratitude today is for self-care practices.
00:00:58
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This morning, I was just really so grateful for the simple habits that have been coming into my life, like dry brushing.
00:01:06
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I don't know if you guys have gotten into dry brushing, but I'm so grateful that I have committed to building that as a habit.
00:01:12
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I do it every morning and it just really supports my lymph flow and soft skin and exfoliation.
00:01:18
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So I'm grateful for the simple self-care practices.
00:01:22
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Beautiful.
00:01:24
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How about you, Halcyon?
00:01:26
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I am feeling grateful in this moment for male tears.
00:01:29
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A number of times in the last week, I have cried myself or experienced people crying, seen some celebrities cry in podcast interviews, and really seen a different response where the host wasn't like, hey, don't cry, man.
00:01:43
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Like a male host was like...
00:01:45
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Hey, let it out.
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Just holding space.
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And I think that I'm an easy crier and I think that it's important for men to cry.
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And so I'm just grateful that more and more men are finding that part of themselves and letting it out.
00:02:01
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Beautiful.
00:02:02
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Yeah, I love that.
00:02:03
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I could probably use a good one of those myself.
00:02:06
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Yeah.
00:02:06
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So, yeah, I think probably probably schedule that as a man.
00:02:12
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Okay.
00:02:12
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That's a masculine approach to whatever gets it done.
00:02:17
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Yeah.
00:02:19
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My gratitude is for a couple of friends in my life, specifically my friends Katya and Lynn, otherwise known as Lynnfinity.
00:02:29
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They have been really good friends over the years and since the arrival of Rumi, my little boy, my little baby boy.
00:02:40
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They have stepped up, stepped up in some really important ways for myself and my partner and have eased, eased, eased some stress and burdens of my life and have, yeah, just made my life easier.
00:02:55
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So I want to thank them without getting into the details.
00:02:58
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They're awesome people.
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Been friends over a decade and I really love them, love them both to pieces.
00:03:02
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So thanks, Lisa.
00:03:04
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Beautiful shout out.
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Love that.
00:03:07
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And I'd love to also on that note, give a little shout out to our listeners out there.
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Thank you guys so much.
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So many of you are dear friends of ours.
00:03:15
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Maybe some of you are new listeners and are just meeting us.
00:03:18
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So thank you so much for listening.
00:03:20
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And we also love to just put a little seed in your ear.
00:03:24
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If you've been enjoying these, please do take a moment to get on Apple podcast and leave a five star rating, even taking another few seconds to write a review that helps us to keep these
00:03:37
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episodes reaching farther and wider.
00:03:39
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So thank you so much to all our listeners out there.
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We love you so much and are so grateful for you.
00:03:45
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And if you're intimidated by the Apple podcast, we get it.
00:03:49
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But you can leave a comment and a review for us on our Instagram as well, and you can still be read on the air.
00:03:55
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So we're going to try and make this easy for you guys.
00:03:56
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Please leave a review.
00:03:58
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Yeah.
00:03:59
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Thank you so much.
00:04:01
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We love sharing these conversations with you guys.
Exploring Universality and Lessons of Pain
00:04:04
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And this week, we decided to talk about a relevant topic for something that's been happening.
00:04:11
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So we decided to talk about pain and our experiences of pain in our bodies.
00:04:17
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John has recently gone through a process of healing his body.
00:04:23
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And we've been talking a lot about what are the lessons and what are the different things that have been coming up.
00:04:29
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And there's just so much to tune into around this because I think it's something that's common for everyone.
00:04:35
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We all experience pain at some point in our lives, whether that is a
00:04:38
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physical injury that's acute or a chronic pain.
00:04:44
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So many different things happen in these physical bodies and how do we face pain?
00:04:48
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And so I'd love to start us off with an inquiry with you, John, around your recent process of facing this pain in your body and your healing journey.
00:04:58
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Has there been any insights or breakthroughs that you've had?
00:05:03
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Oh, wow.
00:05:04
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Well, first, just in case John and Halcyon are the same person on this show.
00:05:10
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So in case you don't know, the same person I'm John and Halcyon and Boo Boo and Fluffy Cat.
00:05:20
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Yeah.
00:05:23
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I will answer to all of those things and pinky.
00:05:30
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Yeah.
00:05:30
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I mean this, this, so yeah, I, I'm in pain as we were doing this, but it is a manageable level.
00:05:37
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But during the two and a half weeks during over the, over Christmas time,
00:05:42
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I experienced a continuous state of pain due to an unpinched nerve that I'd never experienced before.
00:05:51
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And at the time, I had no capacity to find any lessons in it.
00:05:59
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But as I've been able to get it to a place where I can be present enough to think and to communicate, and there's been massive aspects of insight.
00:06:11
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One is that I never fully understood what people were talking about when they talked about living with pain.
00:06:18
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You know, I think it's almost like when people talk about love and tell you fallen in love, you don't know what the word means.
00:06:25
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And I don't think I really got what it means to live with pain.
00:06:30
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Previously, I always kind of had a like, it hurts when I do this type of pain.
00:06:36
Speaker
And so I figured, oh, well, the worst case scenario, I just am still and watch TV or maybe take some painkillers.
00:06:43
Speaker
And the worst case scenario is that I just am bored.
00:06:49
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a state of ongoing continuous pain did massive things to my mindset, to my thoughts, to my ability to have relationships and really opened my eyes to how much of a relationship with pain involves your thoughts and your ability to be disciplined about where you let your mind go.
00:07:18
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So connected.
00:07:19
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Yeah.
00:07:19
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My mind and the body go right together.
00:07:23
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Yeah.
00:07:25
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I've, um, I've never had to deal personally with, um,
00:07:30
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anything approaching like chronic pain.
00:07:33
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But I think, I think we all know somebody who has and just kind of went and I've had a couple of friends who really kind of went deep into the process of sharing like their experience and their journey with that and kind of coming out the other side and healing it various modalities.
00:07:49
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But it's really a,
00:07:52
Speaker
Seems to be a thing where it's a relationship you almost have to navigate in order to get your way through it and out the other side of it.
00:08:00
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And I definitely want to acknowledge that there's some people who have had years worth of this and don't really see much.
00:08:10
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It is a thing that some people have to live with.
00:08:11
Speaker
And I think it's important that we acknowledge that.
00:08:13
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We're not...
Mindset and Relationship Impacts of Chronic Pain
00:08:14
Speaker
you know physicians or experts trying to tell people how to heal themselves or anything like that we're just sharing our own personal experiences with this and so take it so take it for what you will but yeah there's different different aspects of it like if we can live like housing it seems like you lived a fairly you know injuries aside you lived a fairly pain-free life up until very recently and that can be it can be disconcerting to have you know that experience of like yeah i mean i don't
00:08:43
Speaker
you know, feeling good, my body works and everything else.
00:08:45
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And then something stops working.
00:08:47
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And it's like, oh, it's like, I don't know.
00:08:49
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It's almost like getting slapped with your mortality a little bit.
00:08:53
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And that's a tough thing.
00:08:53
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That's a tough thing to navigate.
00:08:55
Speaker
Well, I think that injury, you know, as you get a little older in age, any injury or pain starts to have a deeper mental effect.
00:09:06
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You know, when you're young, you get hurt, you heal quickly, you bounce back.
00:09:09
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And then the same injury when you get in your forties and fifties doesn't heal at the same speed.
00:09:16
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And you start to have doctors say things like, yeah, it's probably just going to be that way from now on.
00:09:20
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You're like, wait, what?
00:09:21
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You know, and so in that mindset, at any time you get an injury of like, is this the way it's going to be from now on?
00:09:28
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Is this the way it's going to be from now on?
00:09:30
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And so when I was really in the profound, prolonged pain, people were sharing online some of their insights and their experiences and what they'd done.
00:09:41
Speaker
And I couldn't.
00:09:43
Speaker
I couldn't hear it.
00:09:44
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In fact, it was so scary to me, the thought that this might be something that I would have to live with forever, as people shared how they did it.
00:09:52
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I know they were trying to be helpful, but what I heard was, this might be something I have to be at this level of pain forever.
00:09:58
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And to give you an idea of the darkness, I mean, I said, I cannot live like this.
00:10:05
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It was what I was thinking.
00:10:07
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I started to resent my partner because I thought,
00:10:12
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if she wasn't in the picture, I could kill myself and at least I'd have a way out.
00:10:16
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But I'm committed to a life together.
00:10:19
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And so now I have to stay alive.
00:10:21
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And so then I wasn't talking to her because there was this like thing that I couldn't stop thinking about.
00:10:26
Speaker
And it was, I started to really understand when you hear stories of like, you know, Kurt Cobain was in chronic pain and heroin made it feel better.
00:10:36
Speaker
So he became addicted to heroin.
00:10:38
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And then he got to a point where just it wasn't worth it.
00:10:41
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I mean, there were times where if somebody said, hey, here is some fentanyl, it's going to make the pain go away, but here are all the reasons why you shouldn't do it.
00:10:50
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I'd be like, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:10:51
Speaker
What, it's got rat poison?
00:10:53
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I don't care.
00:10:53
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I don't just, like, I would have done anything to stop it.
00:10:56
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So I really have a compassion for the struggle.
00:11:01
Speaker
And especially, like, I think about, like, the opioid epidemic.
00:11:06
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It makes so much sense to me now.
Empathy and Compassion Through Pain
00:11:08
Speaker
Mm-hmm.
00:11:09
Speaker
Wow, it's really powerful to be able to experience something so deep and to access such a more, it sounds like compassion within your own self now to be able to see others and what they go through and have that deeper understanding because now you've had your own embodied experience of facing some of those
00:11:28
Speaker
dark places that come along from feeling so debilitated from sensation in the body.
00:11:34
Speaker
And that's really powerful.
00:11:36
Speaker
And, you know, it sounds like you have had some breakthrough because here you are, you seem like you're on the other side of some of that, that darkness.
00:11:46
Speaker
So what would you say is some, what was a, like a ring of hope that you started to climb?
00:11:53
Speaker
One of the things was starting to talk with enough people that have had experience with healing.
00:12:01
Speaker
But I really think that the big thing was having a noticeable shift where the threshold of my pain went from always the first priority thought in my mind to a nagging thought that was in my mind.
00:12:15
Speaker
You know, there was a period of time when my boy Asher was visiting and I was playing with him, you know, and I can hear his voice and I can see the blocks and the things we were building.
00:12:29
Speaker
But it was almost like that was a TV in the background.
00:12:31
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And all that I really could think about was, oh, oh, oh, oh.
00:12:37
Speaker
Or I would be holding hands with my partner, Lisa.
00:12:40
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And I was I'm at one level.
00:12:42
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I'm aware that I'm holding her hand.
00:12:44
Speaker
But.
00:12:45
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it was like I was underwater and that was all happening above the surface.
00:12:50
Speaker
And it was really isolating and alone.
00:12:52
Speaker
So once the threshold kind of dropped to a point where I could think about what was happening, I could be present with people, then it was like, at least I know, oh, okay, this is something I can live with because the pain is, there's room in the pain for me to have moments of presence with anything else.
00:13:16
Speaker
And what I also learned, at least from talking with other people, is that threshold can change as you get used to it and as you work on these mental things about working with the pain, which I say I am a total infant in this.
00:13:30
Speaker
Like as I talk to people who talk about their many-month journeys, you don't just get to put in a –
00:13:40
Speaker
a meditation tape and wake up and go okay cool now i have total control over this pain so but it
00:13:48
Speaker
I just to go back to the other things about the compassion.
00:13:52
Speaker
I really felt a massive like heart expansion in the same way that like if you've ever just like, oh, my gosh, there are people living in a war zone right now.
00:14:01
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And that's the reality.
00:14:02
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Like, oh, my God.
00:14:03
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Like and it just like shudders you.
00:14:06
Speaker
I had that same feeling like, oh, my God, the number of people, the millions of people that are living in chronic pain.
00:14:11
Speaker
And that is part of their world.
00:14:13
Speaker
Like it was, it, that is the, one of the massive gifts of this is I feel this connection to a suffering in humanity that, uh, it's beautiful, even though it's horrible.
00:14:26
Speaker
Yeah.
00:14:29
Speaker
And it's interesting.
00:14:29
Speaker
It's not, it's, there's a, it's tangentially involved, but we're talking about a similar thing.
00:14:34
Speaker
Um, my partner, um,
00:14:37
Speaker
recently went to strolled around Balboa Park with our newborn baby, with the stroller.
00:14:43
Speaker
And so she's with the stroller and she has to navigate this world with this.
00:14:46
Speaker
And she shared that she got a whole new insight into what people with wheelchairs, for example,
00:14:53
Speaker
have to deal with it is a different world that is a different experience and like she's like i can't go that way because i can't get the stroller down there and just realizing and you don't you don't get it until you until you get it until you're in it and this is that's just one aspect of that where it's like wow i i thought i knew or i thought i had an idea i really didn't and waking up to that and you know like we're talking about now
00:15:17
Speaker
Chronic pain is very similar, like feeling like we get it, but until you're in it, it's yeah, you don't get it until that moment.
00:15:25
Speaker
That's a deep insight.
00:15:26
Speaker
And we coming back to before we get back into pain, that idea of there's so many things like heartbreak, you know, like you don't get it until you felt it.
00:15:36
Speaker
And there's and I think that's important thing as you go through the world to just in the back of your mind, know that you
00:15:42
Speaker
you can't really put yourself in anyone's shoes and to try to leave some space for a level of compassion that of of of holding space with things that you really can never understand absolutely and then to be able to come into a place of recognizing privilege you know what a privilege it is to be free of pain at certain times or what a privilege it is to be able to not be on wheels
00:16:10
Speaker
You know, to be able to see these gifts that are all around us all the time and not to be taken for granted.
00:16:17
Speaker
You know, I think that's one of the things that comes up a lot in some of the sessions that I do.
00:16:21
Speaker
because I'm a body worker, I do massage therapy and energy work.
00:16:25
Speaker
And one of the things that we focus on a lot with my clients is finding appreciation for the healthy parts, because it's very easy to get overwhelmed by the pain.
Gratitude and Healing in the Face of Pain
00:16:38
Speaker
And that is the main priority of thought, as you said, right?
00:16:41
Speaker
But when we're free of pain, do we acknowledge one of the main priorities of thought is the sense of liberation and freedom in our movement?
00:16:50
Speaker
right how often do we pause to appreciate working knees right our knees are so precious i know personally i tore my meniscus many years ago and it was really awful it was debilitating it changed everything for me at that time i was healing and i didn't realize before that how important my knees were until one of them went out and so since then i really always like to keep coming back to like wow my knees are working
00:17:20
Speaker
My ankles are working.
00:17:21
Speaker
I'm feeling good right now.
00:17:23
Speaker
And I feel like that sometimes can only come after an injury, right?
00:17:28
Speaker
It's like you just went through this really awful pain in your shoulder and your neck.
00:17:32
Speaker
And it's like, wow.
00:17:33
Speaker
Or after you get sick, right?
00:17:35
Speaker
And you come back into the healing.
00:17:37
Speaker
It's like, oh, I'm so grateful to be well.
00:17:40
Speaker
But it's rare that we think about that.
00:17:42
Speaker
before.
00:17:43
Speaker
Right.
00:17:43
Speaker
So I really love to be able to keep coming back every day, checking in.
00:17:47
Speaker
How am I feeling?
00:17:48
Speaker
Where am I feeling?
00:17:49
Speaker
Good.
00:17:49
Speaker
Really celebrating.
00:17:50
Speaker
Okay.
00:17:51
Speaker
I'm actually feeling really good in my, my body.
00:17:53
Speaker
If my low back hurts, then okay.
00:17:56
Speaker
I acknowledge that my low back might hurt, but you know what?
00:17:59
Speaker
My feet feel really good.
00:18:01
Speaker
My head feels really clear.
00:18:04
Speaker
Um, you know, whatever that is, I think it's an important,
00:18:06
Speaker
place to balance.
00:18:08
Speaker
And it takes mindfulness and courage and strength to be able to get into that mindset.
00:18:14
Speaker
Because yeah, it can.
00:18:16
Speaker
Yeah, it can be overwhelming sometimes if you do have pain.
00:18:19
Speaker
And that's why a gratitude practice is so helpful, you know, because your mind doesn't go to what's working.
00:18:28
Speaker
Your mind on its own without steering it will go to what's not working, what's hurts, what's uncomfortable.
00:18:35
Speaker
That's just the natural flow.
00:18:36
Speaker
And so if you can train yourself, as you were talking about, to when you feel discomfort, that to be the little like,
00:18:45
Speaker
And that means that everything else is working.
00:18:48
Speaker
You know, as you are blowing your nose and fill stuff, you're like, oh, my immune system is kicking ass right now.
00:18:57
Speaker
How often is it?
00:18:58
Speaker
It's always battling things.
00:19:00
Speaker
You know, it's always winning all the time.
00:19:02
Speaker
And then so when you're when the white blood cells are just crushing it is when, you know, you're witnessing it happening.
00:19:10
Speaker
Oh, I love that.
00:19:10
Speaker
Totally.
00:19:12
Speaker
It's the mucus is actually a good thing.
00:19:14
Speaker
Right.
00:19:14
Speaker
I actually like had this thing with a friend of mine where she was blowing her nose a lot.
00:19:19
Speaker
And instead of being like, Oh, this is so awful.
00:19:22
Speaker
This is horrible.
00:19:23
Speaker
I feel horrible.
00:19:24
Speaker
It's like,
00:19:25
Speaker
Thank you body for working to get out what needs to get out.
00:19:29
Speaker
So every time she would blow her nose, she would say, thank you mucus.
00:19:32
Speaker
I'm healing.
00:19:33
Speaker
I'm actually getting better.
00:19:34
Speaker
You know, same thing with like other symptoms, right?
00:19:37
Speaker
When the body is wanting to release and clear out, it's the body's way of getting well, right?
00:19:42
Speaker
A fever when you have like the sweats, it's like trying to push something out.
00:19:45
Speaker
It's like, okay, thank you body for working to get me to being well.
00:19:49
Speaker
Or like in a plant medicine ceremonies, one of my teachers and guides shared that the purge is actually getting well, right?
00:19:59
Speaker
It is celebrating that we're getting well.
00:20:01
Speaker
It's not getting sick.
00:20:03
Speaker
It's we are in the process of getting well.
00:20:07
Speaker
You know, that's so my my talk therapist that really helped me to uncover trauma over the last year and a half is also a body worker.
00:20:17
Speaker
And she was working on me through this pain.
00:20:19
Speaker
And she she actually mentions, you know, I've been asking you how you were feeling in your body during our sessions and was surprised that you had not experienced more pain because there is.
00:20:29
Speaker
a shifting of your physical that happens with the releasing and letting go of traumatic things.
00:20:37
Speaker
And that she helped me to see that it's like a glacier melting.
00:20:45
Speaker
And so parts of you are defrosting and there are things that are releasing and letting go.
00:20:49
Speaker
And at the place, the juncture where it goes from frozen to defrosted, that's pain happening.
00:20:56
Speaker
And so this isn't
00:20:58
Speaker
a necessarily a bad thing it is what happens and there's just all this stuff in the body that now needs to release and that hurts yeah yeah it's um it's an interesting uh practice frankly to be able to focus on what is working when something is not um and to not beat ourselves up for maybe not doing that to uh
00:21:26
Speaker
you know, all the time or 24 seven, we're wired to focus on the negative.
00:21:31
Speaker
Um, just we're hardwired from back in the day from an evolutionary standpoint to, because the stuff that's negative in our lives, excuse me, actually threatens our survival.
00:21:40
Speaker
So it definitely,
00:21:42
Speaker
catches our attention more than the positive stuff.
00:21:44
Speaker
So when one thing is not working, super easy to fixate on that.
00:21:50
Speaker
And it's a journey of learning to be good about appreciating the stuff that is working.
00:21:58
Speaker
And it can be a challenge as you're getting older, like you mentioned, Halseyin.
00:22:04
Speaker
I remember for the very first time throwing my back out a few years ago, which is just a layperson's way of talking, referring to back spasms and muscle spasms.
00:22:18
Speaker
But just getting out of my car,
00:22:20
Speaker
Bam, laid out for a week.
00:22:23
Speaker
I could barely move.
00:22:24
Speaker
And it was all just getting out of my car, just hobbled to my bed.
00:22:27
Speaker
And the only thing that really helped fix that was acupuncture as it turned out.
00:22:31
Speaker
It took me like days to get an acupuncturist friend over.
00:22:34
Speaker
And it definitely provided almost immediate relief.
00:22:37
Speaker
But that was probably six years ago.
00:22:41
Speaker
And I still feel where that happened.
00:22:43
Speaker
Like if I'm like trying to pick something up off the floor, I have got to really watch it because I can feel exactly where that happened.
00:22:49
Speaker
And it will happen again if I push it.
00:22:51
Speaker
And, you know, one of those things like, you know, our weird, you know, as we're as we grow and get older and evolve, it's like there's certain certain things like our body is just going to change and it's going to be.
00:23:03
Speaker
challenging to do the same things that we're doing that we used to do easily.
00:23:08
Speaker
So it's important to recognize that and adjust your sales, so to speak.
00:23:13
Speaker
Move with mindfulness and awareness that we are in these very precious bodies.
00:23:19
Speaker
One of the things I really get fascinated with is that that inquiry around what is this injury?
Body Messages and Emotional Connections
00:23:25
Speaker
showing me and teaching me right when we get laid up, for example, it's usually there's some kind of lesson in there.
00:23:31
Speaker
And one of the things that has always comes up for me and so many of the people that I've talked to around injury is like, you know, I was really needing to slow down.
00:23:39
Speaker
I was moving too fast or I was burning the candle at both ends or I was pushing too hard.
00:23:44
Speaker
And then the body was like, eh, you better slow down.
00:23:48
Speaker
You know, where's the balance?
00:23:50
Speaker
And so I think that there's something really important about listening to the body's messages, right?
00:23:57
Speaker
Especially when something's coming up, right?
00:23:59
Speaker
It's not, it's not when I'm talking about focusing on the good things that are happening in the body.
00:24:04
Speaker
It's not only that, but there's also some really beautiful inquiries that we can give to our bodies and check in.
00:24:11
Speaker
What is, what is my body trying to tell me right now?
00:24:14
Speaker
Right.
00:24:14
Speaker
Where is this, where's this pain coming from on a much deeper level, right?
00:24:19
Speaker
Physically, right.
00:24:21
Speaker
Is there something that happened a long time ago that might've, you know, occurred?
00:24:26
Speaker
So like one of the things I always really find fascinating too, is, um, you know, that you're talking about all of a sudden you just got out of your car and you were laid up.
00:24:35
Speaker
You didn't do anything.
00:24:37
Speaker
Right.
00:24:38
Speaker
But you must've done something at some point on your timeline and it caught up with you.
00:24:43
Speaker
You know, like there's a common knot in the shoulder that I see a lot of my clients have.
00:24:51
Speaker
And when I was working at a chiropractor many years ago, I learned about this very common knot and it being associated to a lot of times to ankle injuries from many years before.
00:25:03
Speaker
And so if we have an ankle injury that doesn't heal properly over time, the fascia tissue, fascial tissue can build up and then
00:25:12
Speaker
And then the fascial tissue wraps around the body and it can, it's finite.
00:25:17
Speaker
So it doesn't not have, you know, it doesn't replenish itself.
00:25:21
Speaker
And so if it's built up in one area, it can start to pull on another.
00:25:24
Speaker
And sometimes it can take years till you feel it.
00:25:26
Speaker
So it's like, oh, why do I have this knot that just never goes away?
00:25:29
Speaker
This pain in my shoulder, I never did anything.
00:25:32
Speaker
And there is a lot of times correlations to what's happening in the feet, what's happening in the ankles.
00:25:37
Speaker
Where did I have an injury when I was
00:25:39
Speaker
five or 12 that might be showing up now.
00:25:43
Speaker
And so I think it's really powerful to be in that space of inquiry around what's happening in my body.
00:25:50
Speaker
What is my, this injury trying to tell me, where can I find greater balance?
00:25:54
Speaker
You know, staying in that mindset, I think is really powerful rather than playing the victim because the victim can be very, very,
00:26:02
Speaker
often come up to is like, well, that's just how it is.
00:26:05
Speaker
I'm just going to have to deal with this the rest of my life.
00:26:08
Speaker
Like you were talking about Halcyon, you know, it's far too common and unfortunate that we get to that place.
00:26:16
Speaker
But I know personally for me, it's like staying curious has been really helpful to move through things.
00:26:22
Speaker
Well, and you mentioned the connection and the way this can lead to that.
00:26:27
Speaker
I mean, this experience for me has been a big mind opener into the narrative of the body's history.
00:26:35
Speaker
You know, my initial pain, you know, a couple of years ago was the same thing, but it was in my shoulder.
00:26:42
Speaker
And I thought it was from just using my mouse too much.
00:26:45
Speaker
And now through MRI and everything, I can see, oh, there's damage because of
00:26:52
Speaker
long history of things happening with the spine, which then affects the nerve, which then affects the shoulder, which then affects the arm.
00:26:58
Speaker
And then as I was working with this body worker and that they were noticing the twist in my spine that caused this to react in this way.
00:27:09
Speaker
And she said, I am going to guess that when you feel anxious in social situations, you twist slightly this direction.
00:27:21
Speaker
And
00:27:22
Speaker
Because the way that you and that that twisting is then what has been influencing the way that you overcompensate here and that this and the next time, if you can feel conscious of it, try to just face straight on when you meet somebody new and you might have some anxiety.
00:27:37
Speaker
And I am going to guess that it will feel very vulnerable for you.
00:27:41
Speaker
And it's like, holy crap.
00:27:43
Speaker
Like there's this mental stuff that had a physical soothing thing that then caused an overreaction that caused this, that caused this.
00:27:50
Speaker
And after decades, now I have this system that needs to, you know, needs a lot of work and a lot of pain.
00:27:58
Speaker
But it's not a shoulder injury.
00:28:01
Speaker
It's a body with emotional and physical roots to it.
00:28:07
Speaker
Yeah, that's that sparks in me a reminder.
00:28:11
Speaker
I'm going to I'm going to jump into the whoop pool for a second and jump right back out.
00:28:15
Speaker
The woo woo pool.
00:28:16
Speaker
The woo woo pool.
00:28:22
Speaker
Whirlpool, but you just drag it out.
00:28:25
Speaker
You can wear your crystals when you jump in though, right?
00:28:27
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:28:27
Speaker
Yes, exactly.
00:28:28
Speaker
Yeah, just use them as floaties.
00:28:30
Speaker
Use them as floaties.
00:28:33
Speaker
But there is a book titled Anatomy of the Spirit, which is by, I think the author is like a Harvard doctor slash medical intuitive who talks about how all these areas in the body are connected with areas of the spirit.
00:28:48
Speaker
And if you are doing, if you've got issues, let's say with,
00:28:53
Speaker
assertiveness or you got issues with your parents or you got issues with forgiveness, it is going to manifest in particular areas of the body.
00:29:01
Speaker
If you've got issues with your knees, it's because you are, you know, just as an example, if you've got knee issues, that means you are
00:29:10
Speaker
playing the playing the victim elsewhere in your life with your relationships with your parents or something like that.
00:29:15
Speaker
It gets very specific.
00:29:16
Speaker
And they're like, if you want to heal this part to your body, go to these areas of your life.
00:29:21
Speaker
And which is similar to what you're, what you just referred to your house.
00:29:24
Speaker
And it's like, okay, if I, if I'm going to, I need to stand and be a little less vulnerable, a little more, uh,
00:29:30
Speaker
Try to get more comfortable in social situations, which will allow you to stand a little bit differently.
00:29:34
Speaker
It's going to allow your body to eventually fix itself.
00:29:37
Speaker
But all these, it just talks about how all these areas of the body are connected to areas of your spirit, your life, your perspective, your attitude, things like that.
00:29:45
Speaker
If you heal that, you will find that your body will be on a journey of healing as well.
00:29:51
Speaker
And, uh,
00:29:53
Speaker
I know people that have experienced with that.
00:29:55
Speaker
I feel like I have some experience with that as well.
00:29:57
Speaker
Like being like, how about if I just like try to practice forgiveness and my body responded as a result, all of a sudden I'm less stressed in my shoulder, having forgiven my dad for all this stuff and immediately feeling better in my body.
00:30:13
Speaker
So I don't know, out of the pool.
00:30:16
Speaker
Yeah.
00:30:17
Speaker
That's not woo.
00:30:18
Speaker
I don't think that's woo at all.
00:30:19
Speaker
I think that's reality.
00:30:21
Speaker
I agree.
00:30:22
Speaker
Emotions store in the body, right?
00:30:24
Speaker
You think about it just on a very simple basic.
00:30:27
Speaker
It's like if you get frustrated about something, then it's likely that our breath is going to get shorter.
00:30:32
Speaker
It's like, oh,
00:30:35
Speaker
Right.
00:30:35
Speaker
And then we kind of like, kind of squeeze our bodies a bit.
00:30:39
Speaker
Right.
00:30:39
Speaker
We get like tight.
00:30:40
Speaker
And then what happens when we feel tight, there's not room for blood flow.
00:30:45
Speaker
Right.
00:30:46
Speaker
Our muscles start to constrict.
00:30:48
Speaker
And then we like, you know, or same thing with like a grudge, you're holding a grudge towards someone or something tight, tight in my body and tighten my organs.
00:31:00
Speaker
And then over, you know,
00:31:03
Speaker
weeks, months, years, decades of holding onto, even if it's subtle grudge, subtle resentment, subtle emotions, right?
00:31:10
Speaker
It does store up into the body dis-ease, right?
00:31:13
Speaker
It is a dis-ease in the body.
00:31:16
Speaker
And so there's so much research now that shows this is like so far beyond the woopool.
00:31:20
Speaker
And, you know, on the reference of books, there's a really powerful read that's called Healing Through Back Pain or Healing Back Pain by John Sarna.
00:31:31
Speaker
that one changed my life in a huge way and i know it's changed a lot of people's lives and it talks a lot about the mind-body connection psychosomatic connection and i highly highly recommend it helped me when i was healing through an si joint injury many years ago so si joint is in the lower back and the hips and i was really going through a process of
00:31:56
Speaker
of feeling really frustrated because it was just this pain that was not going away.
00:32:01
Speaker
And I started to read that book and it started to show me some things about how I was expecting a certain outcome from doing movements.
00:32:09
Speaker
There's a lot of things in that book, but one of the things that I got out of it was recognizing how when I was in the process of having that chronic pain, I was expecting it to hurt when I would do certain things.
00:32:22
Speaker
And then that was perpetuating it.
00:32:24
Speaker
And so then I started to play with that and change and notice where I was having that expectation and like start to change it.
00:32:31
Speaker
So I'll give you an example.
00:32:34
Speaker
It would hurt when I sneeze.
00:32:35
Speaker
If I would sneeze, then my low back, the injury would, would flare up and I was like, oh, and so I braced myself every time I would start to feel sneeze coming.
00:32:43
Speaker
I was like, oh God, I don't want to, and then it would hurt.
00:32:46
Speaker
Right.
00:32:47
Speaker
And so then I started to understand that concept.
00:32:50
Speaker
I would start to
00:32:51
Speaker
feel a sneeze coming on and I go, okay, I'm just going to intentionally relax.
00:32:54
Speaker
It's not, I can just move through it.
00:32:57
Speaker
It's not going to hurt.
00:32:58
Speaker
And I'll let go of that expectation.
00:32:59
Speaker
Sure enough, what would happen?
00:33:01
Speaker
I sneezed, didn't hurt.
00:33:03
Speaker
And then all of a sudden it was like a light bulb.
00:33:05
Speaker
I was like, oh, wow.
00:33:07
Speaker
Okay.
00:33:08
Speaker
There's actually something here.
00:33:10
Speaker
And so then over some time I started to have some healing results.
00:33:14
Speaker
I would, you know, I was getting acupuncture and some different modalities that really helped it.
00:33:19
Speaker
And then also there's another part in that book that I'll just touch on briefly is around how sometimes when emotions can be so difficult to face, such as grief, then it can be much simpler or easier for our bodies to process it.
00:33:39
Speaker
And so it's like I can understand what physical body pain is.
00:33:44
Speaker
And so I'll just process that emotional pain in my body rather than having to face it mentally.
00:33:49
Speaker
Right.
00:33:50
Speaker
Grieving someone, for example, can be so intensely overwhelming that we just, you know, go like, I can't face that.
00:33:56
Speaker
I'm not going to look at it.
00:33:57
Speaker
It's just too much.
00:33:59
Speaker
And so then the body's like, I'll process it for you.
00:34:01
Speaker
Mm-hmm.
00:34:02
Speaker
You know, and so that was really powerful to get that download from that book as well.
00:34:07
Speaker
The Healing Back Pain by John Sarna.
00:34:10
Speaker
That was mentioned by a number of people in a long thread when people were trying to give me advice and suggestions.
00:34:17
Speaker
It's a game changer.
00:34:18
Speaker
Along those lines, also that...
00:34:23
Speaker
Many, many different modalities were mentioned as people were making suggestions.
00:34:28
Speaker
And I think that the truth is that many different things work for many different people.
00:34:35
Speaker
And that's also helpful to remember when something doesn't work.
00:34:40
Speaker
It's really easy for me to...
00:34:43
Speaker
to get really crushed when I don't get relief from something.
00:34:47
Speaker
You know, it's like, well, you know, there's lots of different ways that bodies respond and lots of different things.
00:34:53
Speaker
And
00:34:55
Speaker
And also important to remember that when you're talking with other people about it, it can be, it's almost like faith or politics.
00:35:01
Speaker
You know, when you have an absolute belief about something, it's fine for yourself.
00:35:06
Speaker
If you have absolute conviction that a certain healing will work for you, that's great.
00:35:11
Speaker
That's actually placebo wise.
00:35:13
Speaker
You want to believe 100%, 120% that this is going to work.
00:35:18
Speaker
But it's not a healthy way to be in relationship with others to, to,
00:35:24
Speaker
Expect or ask people to accept your healing as their own.
00:35:30
Speaker
Indeed.
00:35:31
Speaker
Indeed.
00:35:31
Speaker
It reminds me that this might be me dipping my toe back into the pool briefly, but this is my experience.
00:35:39
Speaker
And it's something that I've been able to carry with me forward into my life.
00:35:42
Speaker
There was.
00:35:44
Speaker
A time I was hanging out with some friends at a camp out and we had taken mushrooms.
00:35:49
Speaker
A lot of us had taken mushrooms.
00:35:50
Speaker
I had taken a lot of mushrooms and was still very much in that space when somebody offered some tea, some hot tea.
00:35:57
Speaker
And so I'm holding my tea mug and they're boiling water into my mug, but they got jostled and this hot water went all the way up my arm, up to my elbow, like boiling hot water.
Transformation Through Psychedelic and Meditation Practices
00:36:09
Speaker
But there was a moment on the mushrooms where...
00:36:13
Speaker
this water just kind of hung in mid air for a nanosecond.
00:36:15
Speaker
And during that second, I was like, Oh, I get to like the mushrooms are speaking to me.
00:36:19
Speaker
And it's like, Oh, I get to choose what happens next.
00:36:21
Speaker
It's like, Oh, okay.
00:36:23
Speaker
Well I choose not to be burned, but I choose not to experience pain by this.
00:36:27
Speaker
And the mushrooms are like, this is a choice.
00:36:29
Speaker
It's a choice you get to make.
00:36:31
Speaker
And so that's the choice I made.
00:36:33
Speaker
Water hits my arm.
00:36:35
Speaker
Like a number of people saw it like, Oh my gosh, Oh my gosh.
00:36:37
Speaker
I'm like, no, it's actually fine.
00:36:39
Speaker
And yeah,
00:36:41
Speaker
I had no reaction.
00:36:42
Speaker
There was no burn, no blistering, no nothing from boiling hot water on my arm.
00:36:46
Speaker
And it was fine.
00:36:46
Speaker
And one of my friends later pulled me aside and was like, what was that?
00:36:50
Speaker
What just happened?
00:36:51
Speaker
I'm like, I don't know.
00:36:51
Speaker
The mushroom just kind of told me I get to choose what happens.
00:36:54
Speaker
And that was in a, you know, a
00:36:58
Speaker
wow, crazy weekend.
00:36:59
Speaker
But I've been able to take that forward into my life, you know, a deck more than a decade later.
00:37:04
Speaker
And when I like really stub my toe or slam something or injured or something, I just wake up with a sore ankle or knee.
00:37:12
Speaker
I'm able to kind of flip it in my head and be like, okay, what can I, what can I choose here?
00:37:17
Speaker
And,
00:37:18
Speaker
More often than not, I'm able to kind of just reframe things and that pain, that experience goes away.
00:37:23
Speaker
Sometimes it doesn't and I've got to deal with it for a while.
00:37:26
Speaker
But I've got a chronic shoulder thing myself that's been with me and will likely be with me for the rest of my days.
00:37:32
Speaker
But certain things like that, I'm able to make a choice and my experience of pain reduces as a result of that.
00:37:41
Speaker
So powerful.
00:37:43
Speaker
Yeah, you know, that sparks some...
00:37:46
Speaker
Inspiration for me around the power of observation when it comes to pain.
00:37:54
Speaker
I have done a couple of Vipassana meditations, which is, you know, using the power of observation of the breath and sensations in the body to find equanimity.
00:38:05
Speaker
And the body is the framework.
00:38:09
Speaker
Right.
00:38:09
Speaker
And so it's a training to teach you how to view your body through that lens.
00:38:15
Speaker
Right.
00:38:15
Speaker
And so the meditation practice is to go through your entire body and track the sensations in your physical body, whether that's pain or pleasure, and come to a place of equanimity.
00:38:28
Speaker
So if you are scanning your body and you get to a place, say, in your shoulder that has pain, then the
00:38:36
Speaker
the teachings of the Buddha say to be witness to the pain and be witness from a place of recognizing that this too will pass, this too will change, everything is impermanent and then move on and keep scanning the body.
00:38:51
Speaker
And what can happen is then the pain from that place of equanimity and observation
00:38:58
Speaker
can begin to transform.
00:39:00
Speaker
It's when we have this aversion to the pain or a craving, as they call it, aversion and craving.
00:39:07
Speaker
It's like essentially the teaching is that those are the two things that are the pathways to suffering.
00:39:14
Speaker
And so I learned a lot from doing this meditation practices to be an observer of the sensations in the body, pain or pleasure from that place of equanimity and then trusting that this too will change.
00:39:26
Speaker
It's been so incredibly powerful and impactful.
00:39:30
Speaker
So I'll give an example.
00:39:31
Speaker
I had...
00:39:33
Speaker
a pretty gnarly moment where I stuck my finger inside of a sewing machine on accident.
00:39:39
Speaker
I was sewing, I was moving too fast and my middle finger went underneath the needle.
00:39:45
Speaker
And right when it happened, I kind of had a moment of shock like, oh wow, I just saw the needle go through my fingernail.
00:39:53
Speaker
And I grabbed it and I held it and I went outside, put my feet on the earth
00:39:57
Speaker
Um, and I just chose to be in that practice of observing the sensation, not freaking out.
00:40:05
Speaker
I was watching the tendency that my nervous system was going to like buzz and be in the like, ah, freak out moment.
00:40:13
Speaker
And I chose to just observe the sensation of pain as if it is any sensation, right?
00:40:19
Speaker
Instead of like just going so deep down a
00:40:22
Speaker
fear portal.
00:40:23
Speaker
I just breathed with it, held it, observed it, noticed it maybe four or five minutes.
00:40:30
Speaker
And then I took my hand, I just put the pressure and then I took my hand off and there was no blood.
00:40:36
Speaker
It was okay.
00:40:37
Speaker
It healed quickly.
00:40:39
Speaker
And I feel like that contributed to my body's ability to be able to process it much more gracefully.
00:40:46
Speaker
Whereas if my adrenaline went up and I freaked out and I was running all around, then that might have made it bleed more, made it much more difficult to process that.
00:40:58
Speaker
So, and my mind is spinning right now because a lot of people, including my partner, have been trying to help me with the ideas you're talking about, like try to be present with it, try to observe.
00:41:11
Speaker
And it's a very similar thing to emotional pain and suffering where it's like,
00:41:17
Speaker
I don't want to feel it, you know?
00:41:19
Speaker
And in the immediate moments of if I go to the pain, it increases.
00:41:26
Speaker
My awareness of it, it gets more intense and the unpleasantness is greater.
00:41:33
Speaker
And it's really hard for me to intentionally go into the pain.
00:41:39
Speaker
You know, I would much rather put on Netflix and try to get to a place where I'm distracted enough that I can, you know, be okay.
00:41:48
Speaker
And I think the same is true with any sort of pain in our lives where it's the right now version of your ego says the best idea is avoid this as much as possible.
00:42:00
Speaker
And so it's really good to hear the benefits of trying to observe it and actually not to...
00:42:09
Speaker
jump on the psychedelic pain train, but I did have an experience being bit by a centipede while deep in an ayahuasca journey and a big old jungle centipede.
00:42:22
Speaker
And it was really intense.
00:42:26
Speaker
That's the worst pain I've ever experienced is a centipede bite.
00:42:30
Speaker
Oh, yeah.
00:42:31
Speaker
Luckily, activated on ayahuasca.
00:42:33
Speaker
Luckily, someone who is a local said, you're going to be OK.
00:42:38
Speaker
It's going to be terrible for two, three hours, but you're going to be OK.
00:42:42
Speaker
Because I immediately was like, oh, I need to go to the hospital.
00:42:45
Speaker
Like, I'm going to lose my leg.
00:42:47
Speaker
Like I was shuddering.
00:42:48
Speaker
Like my body was convulsing.
00:42:51
Speaker
But once I knew I was going to be okay, I went back into the ceremonial space and I sat and shuddered when the waves would come and was able to observe what to me was this is the expanded edge of sensation that I'm experiencing.
00:43:09
Speaker
This is a human experience at its limit.
00:43:12
Speaker
Now, it was helpful because I knew someone had told me too, it's two, three hours.
00:43:15
Speaker
So I knew it had an end to it.
00:43:18
Speaker
If I didn't have that safety valve, I don't think I could handle it.
00:43:21
Speaker
But maybe I just need to channel my inner spirit centipede and have the courage of Vipassana and try to... What is the symbology of a centipede?
00:43:34
Speaker
Well, let's dive all the way into the woo pool.
00:43:36
Speaker
Yes, but do not do a Google dive into centipede bites.
00:43:41
Speaker
Do not do a Google image search for centipede bites.
00:43:44
Speaker
Okay, do centipede symbolism.
00:43:46
Speaker
Yes.
00:43:46
Speaker
Centipede symbolism.
00:43:47
Speaker
What is the superpower that comes if you get bitten by a centipede?
00:43:54
Speaker
You grow 98 more legs.
00:43:56
Speaker
You're able to move much more gracefully.
00:43:59
Speaker
Yeah.
00:44:00
Speaker
Wow.
00:44:00
Speaker
Yeah.
00:44:02
Speaker
And that reminds me of what you guys are talking about is having a modality to deal with pain when it comes up.
00:44:09
Speaker
I think so many of us, we want to just...
00:44:13
Speaker
like numb ourselves.
00:44:14
Speaker
We want to distract ourselves from, from what's, what's happening.
00:44:19
Speaker
But agreeing with, agreeing with Betsy, it's like, no, you actually want to face it, kind of die, not dive into it, but just in engage with it.
00:44:29
Speaker
And that's going to provide, I think the better results, which is, you know, kind of true with like all sorts of pain in life.
00:44:36
Speaker
Like we can distract ourselves from it, but until we turn around and face it and,
00:44:42
Speaker
deal with it, engage with it.
00:44:44
Speaker
Until we do that, we're going to keep dealing with the same thing.
00:44:46
Speaker
So like, which is that, that might entail like finally going to the doctor to like deal with some like chronic pain or trying to, you know,
00:44:55
Speaker
get to you know get to a way there's there's a meditation guy a guy i knew who was very into who taught meditation was very into it and his way of dealing with migraines i was complaining to him about a headache i wasn't a wasn't a migraine but i was complaining about a headache and he said what you want to do all pain radiates from a pinpoint like a pinpoint size point in your body whether it's headaches broken bones
00:45:22
Speaker
Whatever kind of soreness or pain is, it is emanating from a tiny little pinpoint area.
00:45:28
Speaker
So you want to dive into that, focus on that, and just put your awareness into that.
00:45:33
Speaker
And we kind of go past the radiation and go to the source and find like just mentally experience that pinpoint area, whether it's a headache or whatever in your
Meditation Techniques for Pain Relief
00:45:43
Speaker
body.
00:45:43
Speaker
And when you see that, recognize it, acknowledge it, and then blow it away.
00:45:52
Speaker
Talked me through this in a headache and it went away immediately.
00:45:55
Speaker
And he was like, now he's like, this is a practice.
00:45:58
Speaker
So the deeper the pain, the more you have to do that.
00:46:00
Speaker
He's all, but it works.
00:46:02
Speaker
And I had been able to do that with various successes based on, you know, like I mentioned before, like really slamming your toe into something or, you know, hurt, just banging something.
00:46:12
Speaker
And that immediate pain radiation, I'm able to kind of stop and get like, like that's what you're talking about, like putting a needle through your finger.
00:46:18
Speaker
I did this with a two inch fiberglass splinter that went into my head all the way into my hand.
00:46:23
Speaker
So I've seen this tiny black nub like picking out and it took me almost an hour to slowly pull this thing out and then it would catch up like,
00:46:33
Speaker
But I wouldn't just shock myself.
00:46:34
Speaker
I would kind of just stay focused on it.
00:46:36
Speaker
It took me like an hour to pull this two-inch splinter out of the palm of my hand.
00:46:40
Speaker
But focusing on it and that point of like that radiating point of pain allowed me to just process it and just deal with it.
00:46:47
Speaker
And it was over because I was fully present with it.
00:46:50
Speaker
So it's a powerful, powerful practice if we can get ourselves to do that.
00:46:55
Speaker
Yeah.
00:46:56
Speaker
And the spark that I'm receiving from that is the power of meditation.
00:47:00
Speaker
I feel like, you know, the commitment to meditation on a regular basis then can support those moments when we need to focus, right?
00:47:09
Speaker
Because if you're having an experience of needing to focus so clearly and in such a refined way to have a certain outcome, it can be really helpful to have that meditation muscle pumped.
00:47:23
Speaker
So even if it's just one to five minutes a day, some people will meditate for an hour a day, many hours a day.
00:47:29
Speaker
I think it's a really valuable tool and gift that we can give ourselves to support our process of navigating the world that we live in, in these physical bodies that experience pain and sensation.
00:47:42
Speaker
It is a part of our lives and it is a part of our world.
00:47:45
Speaker
How do we face pain?
00:47:47
Speaker
The pain, that's one saying, pain is inevitable, suffering is optional.
00:47:53
Speaker
And I always keep coming back to that.
00:47:55
Speaker
Yeah, agreed.
00:47:57
Speaker
But the mind is super powerful tools, like the Swiss army knife of our emotions and our energetics and getting some mental mastery, some level of mental mastery can be applied in so many areas of our life, including dealing with and processing pain.
00:48:18
Speaker
Yeah.
00:48:19
Speaker
But I, I, I, before we get into telling our worst injuries ever stories and having to have a trigger warning on this episode, how about some closing sparks?
00:48:30
Speaker
I'll start off.
00:48:32
Speaker
I, I'm just so aware of the, the gift of gratitude that pain can give us and that, you know, it can easy to be fall into a headspace of, you know,
00:48:47
Speaker
I wasn't productive today.
00:48:49
Speaker
I didn't do this.
00:48:49
Speaker
You know, we get caught up in our, I need to do all this stuff to be okay.
Reflection on Gratitude and Compassion for Those in Pain
00:48:55
Speaker
And I tell you, you know, being in pain has recalibrated me so dramatically to disenfranchised.
00:49:03
Speaker
Nothing is wonderful.
00:49:05
Speaker
If I am not hurting, that is a good moment.
00:49:08
Speaker
That is a good day.
00:49:10
Speaker
So I'm super grateful for that gift of pain.
00:49:13
Speaker
And the other closing spark is this shifting of perception of so many people in the world that are living with pain and that due to injury and pain, there can be an outward effect.
00:49:28
Speaker
appearance of frailty or weakness and at this but on the inside there is this warrior courageous battle that is being won just to be in the world and so i have this this renewed appreciation and respect for for humans on this planet
00:49:49
Speaker
Yes.
00:49:50
Speaker
So beautiful.
00:49:51
Speaker
Thank you for that.
00:49:53
Speaker
And I'll actually piggyback on that from my closing spark is compassion and curiosity.
00:49:59
Speaker
You know, having compassion for others that might be going through pain, you know, especially if somebody is acting out or, you know, shut down or being rude or whatever, they might be experiencing profound levels of pain.
00:50:13
Speaker
So we can have compassion for them and for ourselves, right?
00:50:17
Speaker
When we go through
00:50:18
Speaker
these physical challenges to have compassion for ourselves and to be patient in the process of healing.
00:50:23
Speaker
And then the curiosity part is my biggest spark, because when we stay curious as to what is the body trying to tell me right now, then we can learn so much.
00:50:34
Speaker
you know, and I'll just also close it out with one of my favorite practices is writing a letter to different parts of my body.
00:50:42
Speaker
Um, especially when something is, is talking.
00:50:46
Speaker
So like writing a letter, I did that to my SI joint that I mentioned dear SI joint.
00:50:52
Speaker
I hear you.
00:50:53
Speaker
I hear you trying to tell me something.
00:50:54
Speaker
I appreciate you.
00:50:56
Speaker
And what are you trying to tell me right now?
00:50:58
Speaker
And then practicing some automatic writing and getting in touch with these different parts of myself.
00:51:03
Speaker
has been a very powerful practice to start to clarify what it is that I might need.
00:51:08
Speaker
What are the more intuitive messages that the body is trying to offer and really listening.
00:51:16
Speaker
yeah so that's powerful powerful bits thank you um i'm what comes up for me uh is just a reminder it's one of the first things we recognize on our once we like really begin our our journeys as spiritual beings is that the first lesson that we get is i am not my body like we identify with our bodies like oh my you know um
00:51:41
Speaker
you know, God, I'm
Pain as a Catalyst for Life Assessment and Change
00:51:42
Speaker
really in pain.
00:51:42
Speaker
It's like, no, my shoulder is in pain.
00:51:45
Speaker
My body is in pain.
00:51:47
Speaker
And when you frame it initially with that, when you kind of lose that identity with my body, the body is something that you have.
00:51:55
Speaker
It's a possession.
00:51:56
Speaker
It gets hurt.
00:51:58
Speaker
It's important to keep that frame, that mental framework in place.
00:52:02
Speaker
It allows you to deal with it a lot better.
00:52:04
Speaker
And for me, pain is easy to recognize it.
00:52:08
Speaker
It's easy to interpret it as a negative, but it's also important that we view it as an opportunity.
00:52:14
Speaker
There is an opportunity here for us to reset, recalibrate, go into, like you're saying, really dive into what we're feeling and
00:52:26
Speaker
And examine how we came to this place.
00:52:29
Speaker
Like what has brought us to this place?
00:52:32
Speaker
And is that process, was that process serving us?
00:52:36
Speaker
And we can really start to look at our lives through the avenue of pain, through the portal of pain to make some positive changes.
00:52:44
Speaker
And on the other end of that, we might find our lives have greatly improved as a result, which we would not have gotten to had we not experienced this pain.
00:52:52
Speaker
So there's an opportunity here.
00:52:55
Speaker
Amen.
00:52:55
Speaker
Got to tell you nothing more motivating than trying to avoid exceptional pain.
00:53:04
Speaker
Or to rise above it.
00:53:05
Speaker
Yeah.
00:53:07
Speaker
To rise above it.
00:53:08
Speaker
I like that phrasing instead of avoid, right?
00:53:11
Speaker
Let's rise above the pain.
00:53:12
Speaker
Yeah.
00:53:13
Speaker
Beautiful guys.
00:53:14
Speaker
Thank you so much for this conversation.
00:53:15
Speaker
A lot of inspiration here and love to, um, just give our listeners out there an opportunity to learn more about who we are and how you might be able to, uh,
00:53:25
Speaker
be accessed to some of our offerings in the world.
00:53:28
Speaker
So John Halcyon, would you like to share first how people can find your work in the world?
00:53:33
Speaker
Yes, absolutely.
00:53:34
Speaker
You can find me at johnstyn.com, J-O-H-N-S-T-Y-N.
00:53:40
Speaker
And there are daily gratitude circles.
00:53:43
Speaker
There's a morning...
00:53:45
Speaker
Love broadcast where we can set our sails to be good people in the world.
00:53:49
Speaker
And there's t-shirts to adorn our beautiful pain-free bodies with messages of love and hope.
00:53:57
Speaker
Awesome.
00:53:58
Speaker
Fantastic.
00:54:00
Speaker
I can be found at...
00:54:03
Speaker
New World Nutritionals dot com.
00:54:05
Speaker
More to the point, my nutritional supplements can be found there.
00:54:08
Speaker
We have a number of products designed to help elevate your improve your state of mind like what we've been talking about today can help you deal with symptom alleviating symptoms of anxiety, depression, ADHD, even PTSD, other forms of dementia, anything neurological.
00:54:23
Speaker
This product, our products are quite
00:54:26
Speaker
quite good at giving you relief, shall we say.
00:54:29
Speaker
So you can find us at newworldnutritionals.com spelled N-U world nutritionals.
00:54:35
Speaker
And you can use the code SPARKED for 10% off of all of our products.
00:54:40
Speaker
Amazing.
00:54:42
Speaker
You guys can find me on poweraffirmation.com or finkelwho.com, which is my last name.
00:54:48
Speaker
So I love helping people to move through physical pain with the body work that I offer.
00:54:54
Speaker
It's an integrative therapeutic style here in Southern California and occasionally other places in the world.
00:55:02
Speaker
And power affirmation is really about getting into a healthy relationship with your inner dialogue.
00:55:08
Speaker
So using journaling, meditation, movement practices, and all through embodied affirmation.
00:55:16
Speaker
So you can find a really powerful affirmation for healing.
00:55:21
Speaker
Actually, it's called miraculous healing.
00:55:24
Speaker
It's on insight timer.
00:55:25
Speaker
We'll put the link in the show notes.
00:55:27
Speaker
to support you and getting into a healthy mindset in the process of recovering from any kind of illness or physical pain.
00:55:36
Speaker
So you can check that out.
00:55:37
Speaker
Feel free to reach out and say hello.
00:55:39
Speaker
Always love hearing from you.
00:55:42
Speaker
And love to close it out with an affirmation.
00:55:45
Speaker
Yes, please.
00:55:47
Speaker
Awesome.
00:55:47
Speaker
So
00:55:49
Speaker
If you like, you're welcome to close your eyes and tune into this inner focus inward reflection on an affirmation to support this conversation.
00:56:01
Speaker
Knowing that everything is changing.
00:56:05
Speaker
My body is resilient.
00:56:07
Speaker
My body is resilient.
00:56:09
Speaker
So just repeating internally in your mind, my body is resilient.
00:56:12
Speaker
My body is resilient.
00:56:14
Speaker
My body is intelligent and has miraculous abilities to heal and transform.
00:56:21
Speaker
My body is intelligent and has miraculous abilities to heal and transform.
00:56:28
Speaker
I believe that my body has the abilities to heal and transform.
00:56:32
Speaker
I believe that my body has the abilities to heal and transform, remembering that
00:56:38
Speaker
the more that we can have that inner sense of conviction and belief in our body's ability to transform and heal that gives the body that empowering energy to truly transform.
00:56:51
Speaker
So wishing all of you out there, miraculous healing and recovery, navigating this physical body with grace and ease.
00:57:01
Speaker
Thank you, Halcyon and Giannis for this beautiful conversation.
00:57:06
Speaker
Thank you all for listening.
00:57:08
Speaker
Thank you, Betsy.
00:57:09
Speaker
Stay smart, people.