219. How the Mind-Body Connection Can Help Heal Chronic Pain

Jeremy: [00:00:00] If you've been dealing with chronic pain like I have, literally, a pain in my ass,

then eventually a time comes when you decide, I've got to do something about this. I can't keep living this way. Okay.

Zach: pain in your ass, I can't keep living this way, I gotta leave for this show.

Jeremy: If you feel differently than Zach, stick around. We're going to tell you how, had I just questioned my beliefs sooner, I wouldn't be dealing with this literal pain in my ass.

 So I think sort of the heart of what we talk about here a lot, Zach is really just getting your shit together, right? You being sick enough of your own shit to make some sort of a change for you and I, that time has come, [00:01:00] uh, multiple times in multiple ways for multiple reasons. I had another one yesterday.

I have been dealing with this pain, literally this pain in my ass, this uh, tailbone pain since COVID literally, like when I started working from home, the, uh, ergonomic situation was not ideal. Ended up with this pain in my tailbone that just literally never went away, no matter what I did. I've been trying to go to acupuncture and physical therapy and all these different things to try and deal with it.

And I literally, my doctor, my doctor said, well, it's a tailbone. What are you going to do? I was like, there's got to be a better answer than what are you going to do? I mean, you have a medical degree, there's got to be something. So I was finally referred to a pelvic floor specialist, uh, uh, up here, we call it physio physical therapy for you Americans.

And, uh, I went and saw her yesterday and doing the full exam. And I, and I'm just like, I'm waiting for the, like, there's this tear, there's this broken piece, there's like some structural defects, something. [00:02:00] And. The thing that was super annoyed too, because I had to do all this paperwork ahead of the, Session.

And it was asking a lot about like my mental health and, you know, bowel movements, and if I'm peeing 10 times a day and all these things like, come on, my ass hurts, you don't need to know about all this stuff, but whatever. So I'm answering fully, honestly, she reads my chart, ask me what's going on. And she just goes, dude, that's stress.

That's tension. That's you didn't do anything like you literally you're carrying all of this. Stress and, and tension in your body and you're carrying it there. And she's like, are you able to even like relax that part of your body? And I was like, huh, I mean, I'm just, I'm just me. What do you mean? And so when she sort of walked me through the process of like actually fully relaxing my body all the way through, I had not realized that every minute of every day, I, you know, I'm essentially shoulders to the ears guy, right?

Like I don't do it there, but I do it in the rest of my body. And when I was able to finally like relax [00:03:00] that part of my body, like it, just this flood of like tears to my eyes got super emotional, like this letting go of something I didn't even realize that I hold on to all day, every day was, was pretty overwhelming.

Um, and so she was just like, yeah, dummy more of that. So here's some yoga poses you can do now, like go to yoga. It would be really helpful for you. All these things that I know, and, and I, you know, let me save you the effort here that I told you. So, cause you always tell me to go do yoga. I know, right. I know these things, , but I think many people will resonate with this where I have to choose, take care of me, take care of work, take care of podcast, take care of kids, take care of family, and I know I got to fill the cup first, but there, there hasn't been enough of a motivation.

There hasn't been enough of a reason to take action to do something different. For me, I finally hit the point of, I don't want to live with this pain anymore. What will it take?

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And learning that I now know. And so it's on my [00:04:00] list. I'm, I'm researching where to start going to yoga, but it's just, it 

just was another one of those points in my life where it's like a rock bottom to some degree of just like, this pain is now too much.

I don't want to do this anymore. Time to make a 

Zach: Yeah. . And I would never tell you, I told you so. I mean, that's just not who I am. But to anyone listening, I told him so,

Jeremy: You have a 

long history. You have a long history of, of telling me things and then me learning from somebody else that I should do those things and coming to you and going, Hey, guess what I got to do now? And you go, huh? How about that deal? Mm. Mm. Mm.

Zach: And I could have even told you a little bit about this one too, because there is a fantastic book that helped me out, a bit. 'cause you're not alone. Like people literally hold stress in their pelvic region.

There's a book called, uh, A Headache in the Pelvis it talks about. All of the connected bits and pieces in your pelvis, and I mean, it's a sensitive topic, But all the bits and pieces down there that impact the rest of your body [00:05:00] and it's a big book. but I just remember like going, oh my God, and I have that too. Oh, and I can relax my pelvic floor and get rid of that, and I can get rid of this, the headache and the neck pain and the blah blah. All of that shit

like comes from there.

or can come from there, right? Like it, there's, there's multitudes of things that can cause all of those things. But that book a Headache in the Pelvis, uh, I think it's by David Wise. Fantastic. Read

you like, wanna explore like releasing tension down in that region.

, 'cause man, all of us hold it there,

Jeremy: Yeah. Well, and 

we'll, 

Zach: spot where we all put

Jeremy: we'll link that book in the show notes, but yeah, the, , education she gave me on how basically it like, that's where your autonomic nervous system, like everything meets there. And so all of the fight or flight, all of the tension, all of the stress, all of the stuff you carry, you know, a lot of us walk around with our shoulders up around our ears all the time, thinking that that's it.

But like, when you realize there's a part of your body that is just tense and tight and stressed out all the time, and you don't even [00:06:00] know it. And for me, anyways, letting go for just that moment, I was just like, I felt like a fool. I'm like, I'm in a physical therapist office and I'm like crying here. And she's like, Oh no, I totally get it.

Like that is a completely normal response based on everything that I see in your chart and everything you just told me , you're dealing with a lot and it,

it all adds up. Right.

Zach: , I don't use this phrase often because, eh, it's not, it, it's not exactly appropriate. But there's those moments where you have, uh, your butthole, clinches.

You're like, you so scared or something happened, like you had a butthole clenching moment from an emotional reaction is because your pelvic floor literally engaged.

So like you say it as a joke, but that shit is real.

Jeremy: Yeah. It's literally a pain in the ass. Like I've been walking around thinking that I broke something. I damaged it somehow. And it turns out, no, just living through the last few years of my life has created this physical pain. And you know, I mean, how many times have we talked about the body keeps the score?

Literally that's what's going on is all this pain is manifesting in literally a pain in my ass.

Zach: [00:07:00] It is so funny that you have a pain in your ass. You are a pain in the ass, and we're talking about a pain in the ass.

Jeremy: We're nothing if 

not consistent. .

Zach: but yeah, I've been telling you to do yoga for all of your, ailments a long time now.

Jeremy: Yeah. And, and I know, like, again, for me, it's one of those things. Like we talk about how physical fitness, like working out, going to the gym, all those things, good for mental health. For me, yoga has always been more of a spiritual thing. I don't necessarily go to get stronger, to improve my balance, to tone up or any of that.

I go for it because of like the spiritual release. And honestly, there's times when that just feels self indulgent where it's just like, that's not important enough. To neglect time from my family, to neglect time from my job, to neglect whatever other, , response, like real responsibilities I have, you know, big air quotes.

So it 

doesn't feel like enough, but now when you start talking about physical pain and you start looking down the road of, do I want to be [00:08:00] 60 still feeling this way? Do I want to deal with this pain when I'm 70? When, you know, when other things are falling apart, do I also want to deal with this? That's, that was really kind of the catalyst for me to go like, I don't want to be, I don't want to spend the second half of my life in pain all the time.

I need to do something differently. And again, it comes down to a physical therapist giving me the advice, 

Zach: But you gotta break it down like I'm with you. Yoga is a spiritual experience for me, and the stretching is an added benefit. I don't go to yoga for those things. So you gotta, you gotta break it apart. There's yoga for spirituality, but then there's just street mobility work

where you're not working on the spiritual part. It involves. A lot of the same aspects where whatever pose or movement you've gotta get yourself into to, to hit whatever you're trying to hit, you know, taking deep breaths and being mindful about those breaths are really important. But in my head, I have to break it apart [00:09:00] into two different things.

There's yoga for spirituality, more meditation, mindfulness, and then there's mobility I'm working on a specific part of my body.

Jeremy: And that's awesome. That's very intentional. I think in my case, it's every move sort of starts that way, especially when I haven't done it and I'm trying to get back into it. When you feel the physical resistance of like, bend the leg this way, hold this pose, that initial physical resistance. I feel like I'm doing the same thing.

I'm like, okay, I need to, I need to work on this. This needs to loosen up. I need to be able to do this better. And once I'm finally able to relax into it and release. That tension, that stress, whatever, that's when like the emotional part of it kicks in. So it is, it's, for me, it's like move to move. It is writing that wave of, Oh, that hurts.

That feels better. Oh, now I'm crying.

Zach: Which is so much different than my day. 'cause like I wake up, I get out of bed, oh, now I'm crying. And that's just how it always starts.

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But to bring this full circle, I mean we talked about, , mobility, [00:10:00] yoga, right? But this is really all about is. You hit a mini rock bottom right, there's rock bottoms in our lives where we need to make massive change and like you hit the rock bottom, you've gotta do everything different. But there's also a whole bunch of little mini rock bottoms where you just had enough and it's just enough to go do something about it, right? , I wish that I could go take a lot of proactive activities. . before hitting that mini rock bottom. But a lot of times that's really what it is. But once you do hit it, like you just gotta get off your ass and go do it. Whether it hurts or not, 

Jeremy: and I think for me, the, the other big lesson that I'm trying to learn from this, and I'm sure I'll have to learn over and over and over again for the rest of my life, is to let go of my attachment to, that's too self-indulgent. Like it's one thing to be selfish and only do things for yourself and only prioritize your own desires, needs, wants, whatever.[00:11:00] 

But most of the time when I hit these many rock bottoms, it's because I've neglected something that felt too self indulgent when in reality it was probably basic self care that I just needed to do from the beginning. 

So it's, it's that idea that we talk about over and over again, question what you believe.

I believed this level of self care was too self indulgent and I was wrong. And now I'm paying for it with physical pain that I have to now back my way out of.

Ass first.

Zach: Hang shit, and there's no pain. Quite like as pain.

I mean, it, hits .It hits different, 

Jeremy: all right, well, that's my latest mini rock bottom. I would be curious to hear what yours is. What are some things that have happened to you that made you have to make either small or big changes to somehow improve your life, deal with pain, whatever. I'd love to hear about that in the Facebook group. You can join that through our website and the show notes for this episode.

That's at the fit mess. com. And that's where you'll find another new episode of this show in just a few [00:12:00] days. Thanks so much for listening. We'll talk to you soon.

Zach: See everyone.

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