Pain-Free Athlete's Podcast
Are you tired of feeling pain? Are you recovering from a surgery? Do you want to learn how to stay active and pain-free? I'll share tips and strategies that can help you stay safe and pain-free while you're working out. I'll also interview experts in the field of fitness, rehabilitation and pain management.
Pain-Free Athlete's Podcast
Transforming Chronic Pain with Rapid Transformational Therapy featuring Stella Patterson
Discover how Rapid Transformational Therapy (RTT) can help you manage chronic pain and rewire your deepest beliefs with our special guest, Stella Patterson. Stella, a renowned RTT therapist from the UK, unravels the mysteries behind this innovative approach that blends NLP, cognitive behavioral therapy, and neuroscience through hypnosis. You'll learn how even a small belief in the power of change can lead to significant transformations, as illustrated by Stella's compelling client stories. The episode also highlights Stella’s own path from a corporate career to a fulfilling role in the healing arts, offering a beacon of hope for those searching for purpose.
Contact Stella: https://stellapatterson.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/StellaPattersonTherapy
Instagram: @stellapattersontherapy
Linkedin: http://linkedin.com/in/stella-patterson-800291217
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@embracingthebutterfly
Link to Stella’s freebie:
Pain-Free Athlete Podcast special – RTT – Rapid Transformational Therapy. Stella Patterson Therapist stellapatterson.com
2024 DJFE Triathlon Race Series
Podcast Disclaimer:
The Pain-Free Podcast is presented solely for general information, education, and entertainment purposes. Any information presented in this podcast is not intended as a substitute for the advice of a physician, psychotherapist, or other qualified professional diagnosis. The use of information on this podcast or materials linked from this podcast or website is at the user’s own risk. As always, users should not disregard or delay obtaining medical advice for any medical or mental health condition that they may have and should seek the assistance of their healthcare professionals for any such conditions.
@djsfitnessevolution
Welcome to the Pain-Free Athlete Podcast. I'm your host, dana Jones. I am a certified personal trainer and I'm here to help you achieve your fitness goals without pain. In each episode, I'll share tips and strategies that will help you stay safe and pain-free while you're working out. I'll also interview experts in the field of fitness and pain management. So if you're ready to learn how to stay active and pain-free, then subscribe to the Pain-Free Athlete Podcast today. Hi everyone and welcome to the Pain-Free Athlete Podcast. I'm your host, dana Jones, and today I am joined by Stella Patterson. Welcome, stella.
Speaker 2:Hi, dana, thank you very much for inviting me.
Speaker 1:Oh, I'm excited. So Stella is a rapid transformational therapist, also known as RTT, in the UK, and can you tell us a little bit about what RTT is?
Speaker 2:Definitely yes, because RTT is something that most people have never heard of and indeed I hadn't until I stumbled across it. But it's basically a therapy that was designed by somebody called Marissa Peer. She's a psychologist and a hypnotherapist and she had sort of observed that people were going to therapy again and again and again and, as we were sort of saying a bit earlier in the preamble, you know, reliving their trauma time after time, and it was taking forever. And she sort of thought, well, if people are in pain, they want to go to a dentist and have that. You know, if they had toothache they'd go to the dentist, the tooth would be removed, that would be it, and they'd get on with their lives.
Speaker 2:So she was trying to simulate that with therapy. So it's really an amalgamation of lots of different types of therapy. So it's nlp, neurochemical programming, um, cognitive behavioral therapy, psychology, neuroscience, but it's all sort of put together in a package and delivered mainly through hypnosis and um. The really powerful thing about hypnosis is you're creating new neural pathways, and the powerful. That's why I think it works so well with pain, because obviously, as we know, sort of chronic pain is all about neural pathways. So it's the perfect modality for helping us build new neural pathways and changing the pain-related ones.
Speaker 1:That's interesting because I remember I don't even know how many probably about 20 years ago I was doing NLP and it was really hard for me to grasp right, because you know, the whole idea is like, you know, having this feeling behind you know the statements, and I just couldn't help but to think that the statements were bullshit, just like I couldn't grasp it. And so how does like hypnosis, like how does it help? Because you know, if I had this core belief, you know I don't know whatever be, like I'll have migraines forever and I'll never be able to escape this. Like, how do you reprogram somebody when you know I don't want, like me, you know 30 some odd years of, or 40 years of going through pain? Like, how do you get that going into the right direction?
Speaker 2:one of the most crucial things with with my, the way I work, is that underneath it all, people do need to believe that, even if it's just a tiny, tiny bit of hope. I think with hypnosis that belief is, or that hope really is, important, because if people are absolutely dead against it then I wouldn't take them on as a client. I know that sounds very um, cut and dried, but I wouldn't want to waste that person's time or mine. If they do have a belief or I can help give them the belief in the discovery call that we have, then it's. The whole RTT process is about looking at where that belief comes from and how it's formed, and we do that in hypnosis.
Speaker 2:So if somebody is really in hypnosis, you don't have the conscious mind to say, oh, that's a load of rubbish. They're relaxed and they're going with it and they're going with the flow. And then you start to investigate why you have that belief, because everybody has that belief for a reason. So we'll go back in in regression and look at that belief why do you have it, how did it form? Um, and then sort of interpret it well, why rewrite it? So that is actually all part of the process of rtt, but if somebody comes into it saying I don't believe in this, it's a load of rubbish, then it's really actually very hard to get anywhere. So I think people clients have to already be in a certain place where they're open. I think that's it. They have to be open To the possibility With the possibility, because otherwise as an RTT therapist that makes my job virtually impossible.
Speaker 1:So do. Are there common themes that you see, you know, with clients that you work with? Is it, you know, like child stuff, right, Things that happened when you're, you know, five, six, seven, eight years old, or is it more recent stuff?
Speaker 2:It's generally I would say 90% of the time it's child stuff and lots of people think that it has to be big trauma. So you know some really massive life event, but actually it's quite often really small, seemingly insignificant things. If you're an adult, you know you look back at, and which is why RTT is so powerful because you you look back at an event, um, let me try and think of as an example. Okay, so I had a client recently where she just felt completely ignored, she didn't have a voice, she was overlooked for everything. And when we looked back it was because she was the youngest of four children and her mum was always busy with everybody else, all the other kids, and she always felt she came last and she wasn't important. Now that seems really insignificant and as an adult you can look back and think well, of course she's got four kids, how can she put all her attention on the youngest?
Speaker 1:Unless you're the youngest one, which I am.
Speaker 2:Yeah well, maybe you can relate to that.
Speaker 2:But somewhere along the line that formed a belief that she wasn't important, that she didn't have a voice and that she didn't matter and she wasn't enough and she wasn't lovable and all of those things. But during the process of our session we would look at that and in hypnosis and actually say, well, that's not true. That's what I mean. We investigate. Well, why does that make me feel the way I am today? Well, because I have a belief that I'm not important.
Speaker 2:So, because I believe that that's how my world pans out, because we have a belief and then we look for evidence to support it Right, and so that continues throughout. If it's a subconscious belief that's deeply planted in your subconscious mind, you will go through your life unconsciously seeking for evidence to support that, because one of the rules of the mind is it always wants to be right. So it will look for evidence that it's right. But in this, in the session, we'll go back and we'll look at well, no, I know that's not right now, because, and and we'll rewire that belief there. And then, um, and it's incredibly powerful.
Speaker 1:I love that. Um, I was just reading, uh, daniel amen, and he has a book, right, the brain is always listening, yeah, and um, you know, and I again it's like I keep hearing this and I I understand like what he's saying. Right, because it is like, well is Right. He goes back to I can't remember who, with the four questions, right, is it true, is it?
Speaker 2:Oh, Katie.
Speaker 1:Byron yeah.
Speaker 2:Byron Katie yes.
Speaker 1:And you know, so he, he runs them through that question.
Speaker 1:But again, it's like, without that hypnosis piece, right, and having somebody kind of solidify your own thoughts, right, cause it's me telling you, well, no, it's not true because they did this, or it's not true because I, you know, I don't know, had a birthday party, or they allowed me to go to you know this place, or or they bought me a car, you know, finding evidences of love, um, you know, but driving it home through the hypnosis, like I could totally see how that would work and really make people, you know, start to challenge their conscious thoughts, right, or, yeah, right, because we're always listening.
Speaker 1:So when you say something, and even like I catch myself now where, even in a text, like somebody will say something nice to me and I will try to dismiss it, and so then, thank goodness, you know, I don't hit send, so then I tap, tap back and go, oh, thank you so much. Right, like, appreciate the compliment, as opposed to, like, throwing it back at them and saying, oh, I don't deserve that, you know, or I'm just doing my job, or you know, whatever BS that I try to to do that. So you've been, how did you arrive to this work. Right, you know we all get there from some way, or you know our own pain, or whatever. How did you get here?
Speaker 2:I suppose I got here, um, as, as as an RTT therapist. I got here because I had a fairly minor car accident in 2012. And I ruptured a disc in my spine and so that sort of sparked off a whole load of pain, and then I went through the traditional medical route and a year later I had a spinal fusion. Oh and after the spinal fusion, I was in so much pain and it wasn't the pain that I had before, um, and it, you know and that just spiraled into this, this chronic pain how much fear did you you have with that whole idea of going?
Speaker 1:I mean, because spinal fusion surgery is not for the timid. That's some pretty frightening kind of stuff. What was your mindset?
Speaker 2:Well, I was quite nervous, but I wanted to get rid of the pain and I was just told, you know, I'd had a year of physio, which was just hell, to be honest, because it just hurt, and then I was told that this spinal fusion would sort everything out.
Speaker 2:So I had this. I just had this complete naive belief in traditional medical surgery and just thought, you know, I'd have this operation and life would get back to normal, um, and but of course it didn't. And then I had about four years probably, where I was pretty much housebound. I could barely walk. I was on the maximum dose of tramadol, oral morphine, you know all the gabapentin.
Speaker 2:You know, I literally took it all and I'm just, I was just fighting this daily. I saw it as I was fighting this battle just to get through every single day and I'm sure lots of people who have chronic pain can relate to that and I was trying all sorts of different things. I tried various different, because once the traditional medical stuff doesn't work, you then start looking elsewhere, don't you? So I started looking at different alternative therapies and some worked for a little while and then they stopped and I was having hypnosis, just traditional hypnosis, um where and she was brilliant, fantastic therapist, but she was, you know, I was concentrating on changing the feeling.
Speaker 2:She taught me how to change the feelings, the sensations in um through hypnotherapy, and that worked really well and even to this day I can sit here because my pain is is predominantly in my ankles, although the damaged nerves in my spine and my ankles really really burn if I sit here just for less than a minute. I can now change that to a cool feeling, because I've I've practiced doing that so often, but it still wasn't quite enough. And she advised me to look up somebody on the internet, and I can't even remember who it was. Now, and as I did it, I came across RTT. I just stumbled across it, I thought oh, that sounds interesting. And I did one RTT session and it absolutely changed everything for me. So I ended up training in it.
Speaker 1:That's awesome. So when you found RTT, what year was that?
Speaker 2:That would have been 2016, and then I trained in 2017.
Speaker 1:Okay, so that's four solid years of pain. And did you have any pain before 2012, before the car accident? Like, have you reflected back and go? Oh, yeah, I saw that. Like you know, like we can go back and go, yeah, yeah, okay yeah, yeah, lots of I, um, how can I put this?
Speaker 2:I've had so many different experiences and I know now you know it's so easy when you look back and you know now, I mean I had very I'll be kind very emotionally unavailable parents. Unavailable parents, um, I, I was. And I, looking back now, I think my way of getting attention subconsciously, as you know, not consciously was by by being ill. I mean, I had everything wrong with faith. Oh, okay, um, you know, I had malaria as an adult. I've had meningitis twice, holy moly, then I've ended up. You, I've had meningitis twice, holy moly, then I've ended up.
Speaker 2:You know, I've had so many difficult experiences. I've ended up with two abusive marriages, emotional, physical, sexual. So all of those things. You realise, um, that they're all part of this tapestry that brings you to the place that you are now. And I think that I was then, um, just before my car accident. I was, I had a job where my boss really, really bullied me and I complained about my boss. Know, I found the courage to complain about it. I started to get really bad headaches and things like that at work and I found the courage to complain about my boss and then I wasn't really believed, I think because I was female in a male environment, all of these things, and then that fairly minor accident resulted in this chronic pain. So, looking back, all of those things just build up and build up, and build up, don't they? And then suddenly your body just goes no way, right?
Speaker 1:Well, the accident is the savior right Is that this injury gets you out of that environment? Right, it takes you out of that work environment for however long. And there's a protection there because you know, whether you perceive it or not, right, we're broken and so nobody wants to touch me, nobody wants to yell at me, nobody wants to do anything, right, because you're in this cocoon of pain. And you know, I think sometimes we forget about that, like you know, especially me, because I talk about, like, the joy of being out of pain and how I can suddenly live my life. But there is this, this safety net of being so, you know, pain ridden, that you are protecting yourself from all the things until you're able to deal with them. And you know, so I could see how hypnotherapy would work for you, because it sounds like you have a very significant, you know, amount of trauma in your life and you know. So now you're choosing to help people.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And overcome the same thing all along, when I was going through those traumatic experiences, one of my comforts to myself was that One day I'm going to use this to help other people. I always knew that, but I just didn't really know how, because I was in a corporate, you know, I ended up just falling into a corporate job and you know, completely meaningless corporate job. And, um, you know, now I'm, I know that I'm doing what I was meant to do and it's given a lot of sense and meaning to, to, to all of that as well, you know so you're a healer brilliant, definitely yeah, yeah, you're.
Speaker 1:You know right. Little Stella knew you were a healer.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but it's interesting going back to what you were saying about pain being a protector, because in hypnosis one of the things that one of the tools that we have in RTT is we call it role, function, intention and purpose. So what's the role of the pain, the function of the pain in purpose and the intention, or whichever order we want to do it. And it's always you know it a lot of people say because obviously this is under hypnosis, so they're not consciously thinking, it's their subconscious just letting out. But it's more than often protect. Occasionally it's punish, but most of the time it's to protect.
Speaker 2:And if you can get a client into hypnosis and see because that's what I realized when I had the RTT session that mine was protecting me, once you realize that it's protecting you, that takes away the fight because you, you, you really have that visceral feeling through the hypnosis that actually this is on my side, and then obviously we work through it in the session. But once you get that protection, then there's that acceptance. And I think once you get the acceptance, this is not something I'm fighting, this is something to help me, but now I'm ready to move forward. I think that's just is a complete game changer.
Speaker 1:Yeah Right, what resist persists.
Speaker 1:And you know, when you say that cause, I could think about, you know, the two o'clock in the morning. You know, fights of not wanting to feel this way. Or you know I've declared war against my body, you know, and I would use that language, right, and you, you know. So it was like permeating through all layers of me of this. I'm going to fight this right, because this is what we see. Right, this is, you know, when you go to a movie, it's the you know, the hero that fights back, right, it's not the hero that has acceptance, right, and it is until you get to a place of acceptance where you know, but it's also very, I don't know, shocking to know that you like I guess the weird way of saying is like you participated in it that you know you and the pain were in cahoots to protect yourself. Right, is the easiest way of saying it. It's like you know.
Speaker 1:Now, when I look back on it and I think of, like, all the things you know, I quote unquote couldn't do, you know, speak in front of groups and you know, there's things that I had to do. So I powered through them and you know, and it was funny because the pain was neither more or less after the event. But there was a lot of things I didn't do as a result of pain. Right, it got me out of a lot of uncomfortable decisions. It got me out of a lot of uncomfortable circumstances. Um, it got me out of a lot of uncomfortable, you know, discussions, right, if there's like a very personal um, you know, um, I guess, whether it's with a child or whoever you know, a friend that you're having a disagreement with and me asserting any kind of, I guess, my own opinion, that pain got me out of that, right, oh, we can, you know, I can't do it today, you know, and then, fingers crossed, you forget, and then I don't have to have that discussion later, right, so it was a beautiful avoidance technique.
Speaker 1:You know that no longer served me, and you know, eventually people get tired. And you know that no longer served me. And you know, eventually people get tired, and you know, so you help them out of that. And so what do you do? So you say you have a discovery session, right, so if I'm a client of yours, like, how, what would the process be?
Speaker 2:Well, first of all, we'd have a discovery call and just, you know, I'd answer any questions that you might have. It's completely free, but I think that's really important because, as I said earlier, there needs to be an element of belief or hope that that this process is going to work. So we'd have that first, and once we both realize that it's, we both realize that it's um, you know, we want, we want to move forward and that we can work together, because I I see my role as empowering you to heal yourself. I show you the way I'm. I'm not healing you, I'm just showing you the, the path, as it were. So we do, we'd have that and then we have. I'd get you to fill in, um, you know, a form that just tells me a bit about yourself, and then we would have and then what I would call an initial consultation, and in that consultation I ask you about the symptoms, the triggers that you have, anything that triggers it, because that all tells us a lot.
Speaker 2:Um, and any habits that you, you may have formed, because quite often we form a habit around our pain, um, and and beliefs often come up, like often people believe that if they do something, they're going to pay for it later and that kind of thing. So we sort of investigate that. I do ask a little bit about childhood because I think you know that's relevant Often. You know how are other people in your family? Because there's a lot of belief that things are genetic when nowadays with epigenetics we know that's not entire neuroscience, we know that's not entirely true.
Speaker 2:But it's just about fine, getting into people's beliefs. But then where I sort of divert slightly from the sort of standard rtt route is I also bring in some. You know I start asking a bit more about the physical pain, um, and from that, from that initial session, I also really try and dig into what people want, because ultimately that's what I'm here to do is help you be who you want to be. You know so who try and find out who that person is without the pain. So I sort of say, if I could wave a magic wand and give you one wish, what would it be? And we try and work on people envisaging their future life without the pain.
Speaker 1:So how many sessions does it take? You know so, if you ran into me, right, which is, like you know, I'm 55 now, so I had pain from whatever from the age of like six or seven to 51 ish. Like does it take? I mean, obviously, right, it took 40, some odd years for me to to really dig in those pain patterns and and make decisions about who I was and what the pain meant and what I meant and all that stuff. Like so does it take, I don't know, a year to dig through and excavate all the stuff?
Speaker 2:and you know, no, I mean every everyone is is different. I think can I if I just finish explaining, sure, how it worked, and then I'll go back and answer that question. So we do that initial session. Then I would start, um, just planting the seed, telling you how, giving you some education on how the mind works, because that's really important, and then also about how pain works. So in other words, that you know chronic pain is created in your mind, you know in your, in your mind, but you know obviously that we know you have to do that very gently, but it's just starting to educate the client on on how your mind works, pain-wise and emotionally. And then we would have the RTT session about a week later, where we start to go into the emotion, really, really, that's about going into the emotional side of it, and from that I would create a personal transformation, which is a hypnosis recording. I teach you how to self-hypnotize so that you can then have your hypnosis session and then for at least 21 days after that I would be coaching you on just whatever coaching you need. So that is a month's process and so that's what I would call an RTT treatment. So that's one treatment. So to go back and answer your question.
Speaker 2:The majority of my clients only need one treatment, so one month. Some need more. I mean, everyone's different, but that's one of the challenges as an rtt therapist, or what I do, is that most clients I just do one treatment and then they're off. I'm not they're completely healed, but they have all the tools that they need to. Either they're either fine or they they're strong enough to then go on and manage themselves. So it's that's why it's called rapid transformational therapy, because it's generally one to three treatments, so one to three months okay, that's insane, that is incredible work that you do, um, and what a gift right To not have it.
Speaker 1:you know, because you think about when someone throws pills at you, right, they're like, well, you got to give it, you know, one to three months before you can start feeling the effects of the medication, and then we'll, you know, dial in the dosage or you know whatever. So sometimes it could take six months for medication to work, and the idea that that, um, you know, doing this deep dive and reprogramming your brain to, um, you know, have different thoughts and not constantly be in a state of fight and flight, is not a bad thing. So, um, you've done this work and so what was probably one of your more um, I guess you know, uh, I guess like exciting, you know type cases that you've had, um, I.
Speaker 2:I thought you'd ask me this question so I'll have prepared one, but what I really want to say first I will talk about one particular client, but actually every client is exciting because to have somebody come to you, because most people, most people, only come to hypnotherapy because they're desperate Always, because there's quite a lot of controversy about hypnotherapy. People don't really trust it because of the you know. Know it's so frustrating as a hypnotherapist how many people believe the stage hypnosis that they see and that they don't have control and all of these things. So you've got all of that to get over. So when people come to you, they are generally pretty desperate.
Speaker 2:Um, so the fact that they come to you, they go through the process and it's not, you know, it's not the sort of therapy where you just sit back and relax and you know someone makes you feel better. It does involve work, you know. People have to be committed to the process and they have to do the work. So for that month they have to listen to their recording every day. They they have to look at in the session. They look at uncomfortable emotions, that's, you know, that's what it's all about, right? So when somebody you know, when I speak to somebody at the end of the month and they say I'm feeling great, I have, you know, I've hardly got any pain. I'm back to doing what I love doing and all of these things to me, you know, every single one of those is is amazing and and that's why I just love doing it. But I had one particular lady who was in her early 40s. She had I do a lot with autoimmune as well so she had, um, she had rheumatoid arthritis.
Speaker 2:so constant hands and feet. And it was actually her um, one of her parents, that contacted me and just said my daughter's at her wits end, is there anything you can do? And then you know my head. I just thought this is never good because it the client needs to want to do it right. But I spoke to her and she was absolutely committed from the word go and she put in all the work and more and um of two, three weeks in. She actually sent me a after the transformation. So after the sorry, after the RTT treatment, she sent me.
Speaker 2:I sort of said, you know, sent her message and said, oh, you know how are you feeling. And she sent me back and she said it's insane, I'm almost too scared to say it, but I'm in no pain at all, but I'm scared to jinx it and that's so often. I mean, I was like that as well and I know you were from your podcast. You start feeling better and you think I dare and say anything. But you know she could barely walk. She was um, I don't want to give too much away.
Speaker 2:She was an artist, a very particular type of art. Well, she was a tattoo artist, so she really needed to concentrate and she had severe anxiety as well and couldn't really, you know it really affected her because she used to shake and get anxious and, um, you know, within she wasn't back at work full time straight away, but she was back working within within six weeks. That's lovely, just amazing. But she put in a lot of work and she was an amazing client to deal with. She was just an absolute joy, you know, and they just say, yes, please tell me more.
Speaker 1:I know, and that's something the autoimmune aspect of you know the rheumatoid arthritis, the what's?
Speaker 1:the other one that's common, where they have the whole body pain, fibromyalgia yeah, the fibromyalgia like whenever I talk to anybody about tms around that kind of thing, there's like a wall that gets dropped right. Nobody wants to hear what I'm going to say and, um, it's sad to me because I mean, you're having a doctor tell you, I have no idea where this is coming from and I can't do anything about it. And I'm like, hey, have you thought about whatever? And I don't get anybody, you know, to bite on it. They're just like, no, this is it.
Speaker 1:And I have a friend who's going to get surgery on her foot, you know, because she has arthritis and they told her the surgery is the best thing for her and I just I have to go. Okay, good, you know, good luck with that, you know kind of thing. And this is somebody who has surgery for everything. Like you know, she's had so many different types of surgeries that I've I feel terrible for her, but this is something that you know. She's like deep into the medical model. And again, like you said, if you don't have the belief, then there's really no work to be done by anybody right until that person, you know, because the desperation is real, um, you know, and it's palpable, you know, it's like anybody who knows, like, and it's so weird because, you know, we all know each other, right, we all know that, and it's like, you know, as you were talking about, it's like, oh, yeah, I get, you know, I get that like.
Speaker 1:You know anything like, oh, if, if I could do this, you know, if I take this vitamin, this is going to cure everything.
Speaker 1:And you know, I'm totally going to be fine, all right, I'm going to do this. You know, it's just, and people get people around you gets incredibly frustrated because they're like, oh, you're trying another thing again. And it's like, yeah, because I'm freaking desperate, you know, and it's, it's hard when you're not, when you've never been that desperate, to understand you know that feeling and so I, you know, I believe that you come from an incredible place and being in this position to be able to heal these people and not necessarily you healing them, but you giving them the tools for them to heal themselves and I don't know if anybody else could do this work and have that type of investment in that, and you have a special skill is basically what I'm trying to say, and I'm sure your clients appreciate your, your skill set and your ability to kind of hold space for them yeah, and, and you know what, thank you very much, a really kind word.
Speaker 2:But you know what's also amazing? I don't know if you find this I'm sure you do actually but I also learn things from my clients, and every single client that I deal with I learn either something that I can pass on to others how you, your pain, your anxiety meds are a bit of a clutch or um, here, while you gather that thought, I'll give the background because nobody was listening, it's okay.
Speaker 1:So, um, as some of you know, I have this intense fear of flying and I guess when my pain became the highest is when that anxiety really shot through the roof and I had a panic attack I want to say 20, I think it was 2018 or so on a plane and, you know, got to the point where, literally, I wanted to get up out of my chair and rip open the door and get out because I felt I've never felt so trapped before in my life. Um, and I've been in trapped situations and that was, you know, kind of weird. And so my therapist and I have been working on it and we've been doing, um, our, you know, the, the rapid eye stuff, which I'm sure has a formal name that I can't think of right now. But anyway, I've been doing a lot of work, and one of the things that we had discussed was that for me to get anxiety medication to help take the edge off so that my brain can slow down enough to hear all the things that I was doing.
Speaker 1:So I was using the DARE technique of kind of walking myself through the process, and then I was also using hypnosis for, right from the app, the hypno box, because just getting you know myself into the state of actually well, like calm and confidence, is a good way of putting it, of going through it. But I still have the medication and sometimes what I was telling Stella before is that you know, having like I'm getting, I know I'm getting better because I'm taking less of the anxiety medication getting on the flight. I just got back from Memphis last week and so that makes me, you know, confident that eventually that I won't need the anxiety medication any longer to to get on the pain. But there is a comfort of having the pill in the pocket and so now you can go.
Speaker 2:Yeah, thank you. So, um, so my my client said to me I'm doing really really well, to me I'm doing really really well. She um had some kind of actually, I've just really I don't. I don't want to break her confidentiality, so I'm gonna. Can we go?
Speaker 1:okay, no, we'll just skip over it, it's okay, so anyway.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so this person was challenged and so one of one of the things with rtt is that, um, your, your mind listens to the words you say to yourself and the things, the pictures you have in your head. And so she said to me well, I'm, I'm almost better, but I'm, I'm still. I still have my crutch. So I'm, by having my crutch, am I telling my mind that I'm not okay? Oh, good question. Oh, that's a really interesting question. I've never been asked that before. So I, I just went down the route well, look, if that's what's coming up for you, I think that's you, you know it's telling you something. So that's really good, it's really positive sign. So I want you to why don't you just start, maybe, going on a really short journey without your crutch, or, and then just build up time gradually and gradually? But I think this has come up for you for a reason, so I think you should listen to it and give it a go. So she said, right.
Speaker 2:But then I was thinking, I mean, I have IBS and I, um, I have this magical stuff that I've been I got in France that I have to take every day, but I've been fine for ages. So I just, you know, I just thought, gosh, my clients asked me that, but I'm taking this stuff every day. Do I really need it? So I just decided to stop and I stopped taking it about three weeks ago, four weeks ago. I've been absolutely fine, so that's something that I you know. My client asked me that question and I'd never thought of that before. But it just, you just learn something all the time. Every client teaches me at least one thing, and you know so. It's a two way street which is really, really rewarding.
Speaker 1:I feel called out.
Speaker 2:No, but it's just. It's just interesting because our minds is so clever and it's. You know, one of the things that I really teach people is to listen to the words that we say to ourself, or even the thoughts that we say to ourself. You know like it's so easy to say you know this pain is killing me, right, so that you know that invokes the fear in our mind, doesn't it? Because our mind goes oh my god, this pain's killing her, I need to protect her even more, whereas you know that's like when we're saying that your pain, pain is uncomfortable, it's causing you discomfort and dialing it down. So it's all about just retraining the way we talk to ourselves and the way we think and the crutches we give ourselves. Do we really need them? But sometimes we do. You know I'm not saying throw everything away, it's just.
Speaker 2:I knew for me when I heard that from my client hang on a minute, do I really need this? Right, I've been taking stuff for years and my life revolves around having this first thing in the morning, but do I need it? You know, maybe I'll go back, maybe I'll need to go back to it because I think you know we're all, especially tms. Um, people with tms often respond, are quite sensitive to the stress and I think, oh for sure, there are times. You know I was having this conversation the other day. You know, recovery is not a finish line.
Speaker 1:I wish it was.
Speaker 2:We think we'll go over that line and that's it, but it isn't yeah, it isn't no.
Speaker 1:It's funny because I'm about, as I told you, I'm about to return to school. As I told you, I'm about to return to school and school is a stressful, is a stressor for me, um, as a, as an instructor and um internship coordinator, and I wish it wasn't, you know, I wish I can say, oh, I'm running back to this work and I feel like I'm, you know, like fueled by it and it's, you know, there's a lot of uncertainty and it's not with the children. The children are always a wild card, so sometimes it's easier walking in knowing like, oh, this is going to be a shit show, and then you're like yay, and then you work yourself out. But it's always the adults and the finances and the you know, the structure of the organization that's always quite challenging. The organization that's always quite challenging.
Speaker 1:And I've noticed that I've had this little niggling of soreness in my head and you know, obviously I need to probably journal about that and kind of work through some stuff.
Speaker 1:But it's, you know, it started a few days ago and and I remember the distinct feeling that I had a few days ago and I was sitting there and I was just kind of watching the Olympics and I felt my stomach drop and I went oh shit, I have to go back to school. And I immediately texted my little friend group and was like I have to go back. And they're like no, we don't want to go back. You know, like we're all having, you know, we're all making each other feel better with our whole disdain of not one, of not wanting to go back, and it's just, it's sad because I, you know, would want to be joyful about going back and feeling, but it's really, you know, so it's starting to stress on me because there's a lot of unknowns too, and I, you know, we don't do well with unknowns and um unknowns too, and I, you know, we don't do well with unknowns and um. So I'm having to work through this process of like, um, you know, are you gonna die? No, or you know, is it that bad.
Speaker 1:no right, you know, but there's. I had pretty good pain, you know, I'd say whenever I realized and the only thing I could concentrate on was that my earlobes didn't hurt. That's what I wrote through the day with. It's like my earlobes, like everything else, feels like crap, but, man, my earlobes feel fantastic right now, just like, you know, touch them a little bit and make myself feel better. You know, did some somatic stuff and you know whatever, but it was just like that was all I had to hold on to for the day. Was that, you know, cause that's all I could do, cause I just didn't have the energy for anything else.
Speaker 1:And now, as I peeled myself back from it and and less in the trauma of like, oh no, now I'm like oh well, I'm going to clearly have to work on this, right, like I have to work on my stress, I have to work on my attitude toward it. You know, have to work on my stress, I have to work on my attitude toward it. You know different things, but, yeah, our work is never done. It's like times I feel like I could see the finish line and then, all of a sudden, you know, something gets thrown at me and then I'm like, oh, and I run away from the finish line and then I do it and it's, you know, when they show that that little cartoon where you know my process, and it's like one big squiggly line of like looking like a ball of yarn and that's totally like how it is. And I think in the beginning I really did think like I was just going to have my forehead touched by Jesus and I was going to be healed and I was never going to feel another pain. But the pain is also a good indicator too, and I think that's something that I've lost or not lost.
Speaker 1:But I didn't know in my recovery, right, like you know, in the beginning, like when you were talking about when you work with your clients and you're like, hey, visualize, you know what, what would it be like, right, if I can tap you with a magic wand, you know what would your life be like. And for me, you know, instantaneously, I thought of like, oh. And for me, you know, instantaneously, I thought of like, oh, you know, waking up without being in pain, right, that was always my goal of being able to wake up and not wish that, oh, or you know, dread that I'm still here you know kind of feeling. And then of course there's that realization of the pain is necessary, right, you know everybody has to.
Speaker 1:If we didn't have pain we wouldn't live. Right, what's the longest person you know? I think they barely made it to 25 or something like that for somebody who doesn't completely feel pain, because you know pain keeps us safe in so many circumstances. Right, you know from you know fingers on stoves to you know the temperature being too hot for your body, right, like all those sensations are interpreted as discomfort, are also part of the pain receptors in our body. So there there is a sense that we need it. But digging into the deep stuff is what frees us from inflicting it on ourselves.
Speaker 1:I guess, it's probably the biggest lesson, right Is that?
Speaker 1:you know, we can have the outside sensations, right, oh, it's too hot and I feel like I need to go inside, or I'm thirsty, right, cause that's also a pain response, right All those things. But for me to generate pain responses is probably not ideal, right, Like I shouldn't be in charge of myself, it's like I got to let my brain do some of the work. Anyway, all right, so I digress. So how do we reach you what you? You know what are the things that you're doing next, like you know, because you're doing really good work and I'm sure people want to know more.
Speaker 2:And so how do we? Um what's coming next? Um, I am from a, from a, so personal point of view. I am hoping to do um alan gordon's pain, pain, pain reprocessing therapy yay, of course, in the next few months. I know he's got one in september, so maybe then, if not the one after, because I think that would be a really nice sort of add-on to the, to the work that I'm doing, especially for this pain education side of things. So, um, I'm I'm hoping to do that.
Speaker 2:I'm doing a lot of work on my website, which is definitely not my forte, um, but more importantly so there'll be some changes on that soon, hopefully. But more importantly, I'm working on a. It's like an interactive journal, um, it's it. It's a sort of journal stroke workbook, I suppose, and alongside that I'm planning to do a course. So I'm not sure whether I'll release them together or separately, but what I really want to try and do is get some of these techniques out to as many people as possible, and, and whilst I can't, rtt has to really be a one-to-one thing, but there are a lot of the techniques and the theories behind it that um people couldn't do on their own with a bit of guidance. So I'm I'm working on on that. So, um, as as we sort of discussed, I've managed to. I've managed to put the first sort of exercise really into a pdf which I would love to give anyone that's listening who'd be be interested fantastic.
Speaker 1:Do you have a mailing list?
Speaker 2:I do. Yes, again, you go onto my website and I'm also planning to sort of. One of the things I'm also doing is building up a WhatsApp list so I can communicate with people on WhatsApp, and one of the good things about that is that's how I send all my recordings to clients. So if anybody would like the recording that goes alongside the first little section of my workbook, then I can send that to them on WhatsApp as well, if they give me their number. So it's not quite an RTT recording because it's not hypnosis, but it will give people an idea of what it's like.
Speaker 1:Fantastic, all right. It will give people an idea of of what it's like fantastic, all right, and I'm going to put all that in the show notes so that they don't have to try to remember too much. Um, you know, stella, thank you so much for doing this. I appreciate you. Um, I had no idea. You know the depth of your story and you know where you're coming from, and um, it's been lovely getting to know you and I appreciate your time.
Speaker 2:Well, you too, thank you, and thank you for everything you do. I've I've thoroughly enjoyed your podcast, and I know that it helps lots of people. It's helped me and I'm sure it helps everyone that listens to it. So thank you, too, because I know how much time and effort it takes to put something like this together.
Speaker 1:Thank you, I appreciate that. All right, that is it for now and we'll catch you later.
