Episode 15: Who are you without your pain? Part 2. Are you listening to your intuition?
Hello my lovely listeners!
Welcome to Episode 15 of the Winning at Fibromyalgia podcast!
Today I continue to ponder question: Who are you without your pain? part 2
DO you listen to your intuition?
In one of the earlier episodes (episode 5) I outlined my approach to my patients and clients with chronic pain and summarized it in 5 steps:
- Be open to learning the concept of neuroplastic
- Believe you can and deserve to feel better.
- Practice sending messages of safety to your brain.
- Feel and process all of the emotions.
- Listen to your intuition and let it guide you.
Today I want to talk to you about the intuition part.
The pain reprocessing therapy focuses on sending safety messages to the brain as means of improving pain. And it does work. When I took the Pain reprocessing course of Dr. Alan Gordon (the author of the book WAY OUT) we learned to teach our patients to send safety messages to the brain. And it does seem to work for many patients with chronic pain.
But in my own practice and working with patients with fibromyalgia, it seems to me that identifying and understanding what led to the increased danger signal in the brain that triggered the pain circuitry in the first place is necessary to fully get out of it. That’s also emphasized in the Pain reprocessing course I took led by Dr. Schubiner, called “Freedom from Chronic pain” and the Whole Health Medicine Institute training I have been a part of for the past 6 months and bringing it to my clients live.
The WHMI method takes the approach of determining what is the root cause of whatever ailment that bothers the person the most. If any symptom is a message from the brain/our nervous system, what is the reason behind it?
Dr. Lissa Rankin is the founding “mother” of the WHMI and has been teaching health care providers on how to guide their patients/clients toward better health by over a decade. She is the author of the book Mind over Medicine, Fear cure and has a new book called Sacred Medicine out in April! We will talk about her book then because she agreed to be on my show around that time! So that’s super exciting!
Dr. Rankin has been perfecting her method now for over a decade. The main premise of her method is that the body is wired for healing. When there is a disruption between our inner core, inner knowing or our integrity and what we do, chronic stress is a result of this imbalance. Then a symptom, or a group of symptoms resulting in a chronic illness or pain can develop. Chronic headaches, low back pain, IBS, obesity, high blood pressure, heart disease and even cancer. She helps guide patients and providers to their healthy self through series of 6 steps.
The 6 steps of WHMI include:
- Believing you can heal; 2. Surrendering your attachment to outcome to a higher power or the inner knowing within yourself. 3. Building your healing circle. 4. Identifying the root cause; 5. Writing your own prescription and 6. Identifying any resistance to steps you need to take to heal.
Almost every one of these steps deals with trusting your intuition. And that’s what I would love to to talk to you about today.
Merriam Webster definition of Intuition: 1 : the ability to know something without having proof.
It is that little voice that lets us know what we should be doing, or not doing. It lets us know when we don’t live in alignment with our true self, our core values. Intuition is that thing you feel when you are doing something that does not feel right or event think you should not be doing it but you do it anyway. Think extra projects at work, think spending time with family members that make you feel like crap, think piling on an extra project for your friend that you then have resentment about but do it anyway.
Why am I saying all these things?
Once you start accepting of the neuroplastic pain concept, and pain being a message from the brain/nervous system, you inevitably start thinking about why. Why you are in pain, why did your brain feel overwhelmed. As we dig deeper into why, we inevitably uncover the things that may have piled up and caused an overwhelm (and as a result danger signal) in your brain. You uncover things. Things you are doing or are NOT doing that may lead to improvement.
Sometimes it may seem easy. Like a patient told me once when I explained the concept of brain pain in fibromyalgia – “of course I know why I am hurting. I don’t eat right, I don’t exercise and I am sad my sister is dying from cancer”. So if you just did all the things you would feel better right? If you ate better, and exercised better and accepted your sister’s fate, you would feel better. Except it does not work this way. The real reason behind the pain lies in what led her to not exercising, and not eating right. Being sad about your loved one dying is a normal response to a sad situation and in and of itself does not usually cause pain.
Utilizing the WHMI 6 step process I guide my clients to start the process of identifying what was the initial possible inciting event that led them to develop certain beliefs about themselves, that in turn may have led to various ailments or results of their actions.
Please know the invitation to dig deep is meant out of deep love and respect for you as my listeners, patients and clients. It is not meant to make you feel bad. It is truly an invitation to explore your inner knowing guide, your psyche, to find out what might have led to the results you are having today and where you need to go from here.
It is very often that we already know what we need to do. And we don’t do it. I know that if I want my joints to feel better in terms of my rheumatoid arthritis, I need to cut down on sugar and processed foods. And I am doing a world better since Christmas time. I am working with my faulty belief that full healing is not available for me. Because, it is.
One of my dreams is to found a brick and mortar Fibromyalgia healing center where I see patients in person, and where I will have a team of providers that help with various aspects of health including yoga teachers, massage therapists, physical therapists, psychotherapists. And I know that in order to get there I need to get more organized and keep taking action. And the reason this is SO hard is because it is better to stay invisible. More convenient. But that’s not an option for me anymore. The pain of regret is 100 times more heavier that pain of change and growth. So I keep forging forward.
I would like to know what is your intuition telling you? Are you heeding her call?
If not why not?
Can’t wait to hear from you.
Your loving expert fibromyalgia coach.
Find me on facebook under martina lenartova or on my website www.winningatfibromyalgia.com