- We worked with, with Bao,
and I think I probably can speak for both of us,
but what we've found is that
the most important thing was to
find our own words to explain
'cause first I was sort of searching for explanations
of the things I've seen and that you had told us.
But from the moment that I started talking from my own
experience and that it was related to me,
I was listening, became very different.
And she was prepared to pay me 500 pounds a session.
(all laugh)
It was the same the other way around.
- Do you wanna say anything? - No, I think
she expressed it.
- It's just this feeling it come when it came from you
rather than, "How are we going to explain this?"
- Yeah, thank you. It's experience.
I mean, when I started doing this work 20 years ago,
I had no idea.
I had no idea. But every day I would learn.
Every day I learned from, the more you say it,
the more you change it and vary it
and become, as Eva was saying, a master. (chuckles)
And the more experiences you have, then you have,
and it's a new story every day.
What else did you find that was interesting?
Or did you hear something or you said
or your partner said that you found, "Hmm, that made sense,"
or, "I liked how they said that"
or "I understood it in that way" or whatever.
What did you find?
- We exchanged that there's kind of a hesitation to say,
yes, we can get rid of your pain
because there's this conditioning in a medical system
that you cannot provide hope
because then you can get a lawsuit.
- Yeah. - So we always say,
well, in my case, I went through lots of surgeries
and they kept telling me, just accept your condition.
Take your medication, it's not gonna get better.
So it's hard to say, yes, it will get better
'cause we are kind of conditioned into that.
- Yeah. And there's so many,
and so often in medical
and psychological fields, they often say,
"You shouldn't say anything about yourself,"
which I think is horrible.
Why would you not bring yourself into the room?
Why would you not put yourself there?
As you just said, Nicolette, when you speak from your heart,
that's when people hear, why would someone listen to me
if they don't know that I care about them?
If I'm not there with them, if I don't love them?
Love is a word in medi-
They don't teach us about love in medical school.
It's a kind of like different language, but seriously,
and why would I not tell my own experiences?
Like when I was an intern
and I've told this a million times, when I was an intern,
a young doctor, just new in the hospital,
and the first day in the hospital, all of a sudden
I have diarrhoea.
And the second day and the third day
and every day I have diarrhoea.
What happened? Well, I was scared shitless.
I was afraid. I was afraid that I would hurt somebody
or I would make a mistake or I would,
and my body, my brain was just reacting.
And there's nothing wrong with my bowel, but it was real.
Diarrhea's real. You can see it. (light laughter)
But if we can give our own experiences
and talk from our heart, really important.
What else did you find or hear
or think about that was useful or made sense
or you could, you liked or you didn't like?
- So while we were talking, we were talking about the sound
that you made on the gong.
- Yeah. - And how it affected me.
I'm very sensitive, hyperacusis.
And so things tend to be stronger for me than other people.
- Yeah. - And the question
that was asked was, by my partner was,
if I want to control my environment,
and I was still chewing now on that.
And while you were talking, it escaped me
and then it came back
'cause I was thinking, no, I don't want to control it,
I don't see myself as controlling,
but maybe I'm holding on too tight.
Maybe I'm bracing myself all the time.
And that causes kind of a audio cramp or something.
I don't know. But that's sort of the association
that I'm starting to make.
I'm not sure if any of that is true.
But if it's all by the brain, then what does the brain do?
And maybe it's scanning for danger
and just, that's a result in my case.
- Mm. What we're gonna talk about tomorrow is the stories
that we tell ourselves about ourselves.
The narrative that we have about our life.
And there's different narratives you just mentioned.
The narrative of embracing, if I'm embracing all the time,
instead of if you're bracing, instead of embracing,
for example, that's words, that's language
that might be interesting, might be useful, might help you
to look at your life in different ways that might be useful.
Maybe not.
Maybe another way of explaining it is
the neuro-circuitry just got used to
set at a more sensitive level in terms of sound.
And maybe we can just change that level.
And we have techniques for that.
And we have techniques for how to embrace versus brace.
So we can look at it in either way.
And for some people this way the neural circuit level
is really helpful.
It makes perfect sense.
It's has nothing to do with my bracing. I'm not bracing.
It has to do with my neuro circuits.
And other people might say, "Boy, that's really interesting.
Bracing or embracing. That's fascinating.
Let me see if that means something to me."
I'm not saying one is right or wrong,
but I'm saying that the stories we tell are so important
because the stories we tell determine how we are
'cause the brain determines what we feel as we said,
what we experience.
Thank you.
Other comments or ideas or thoughts from this?
From this exercise?
I had a patient sitting, a teenager sitting in my office
a couple years ago and she had low back pain.
And it occurred one year in the month of May.
And then it lasted for three months.
And then the next May it came back again
and it lasted for six months.
And the next May it came back again.
And now it was still there a year later.
And she was sitting in my office, her, like 16-year-old,
and her dad, her father.
And I said, it's interesting
that you had this pain in May and then you had it in May
and then you had it in May again.
Did anything happen in May?
Anything happen in the month of May? It's just striking.
And the young woman said, "No, not really."
And the father said, "No, not really."
And so I waited, the reason I'm telling you this story
is that I'm good at waiting.
And then a tear trickled down her cheek
and then a tear trickled down the father's cheek.
And it turned out her sister had died the year before
all of this in the month of May.
And it was amazing that now we have a story,
now we have an understanding, now we have meaning,
now we have context.
This has nothing to do with her back, it has to do
with her life.
And how her brain, 'cause she wasn't aware that it was May,
she wasn't thinking about May or whatever,
but her brain thought about it and remembered it.
But I am good at waiting. So anyone else? (chuckles)
- Talking about being more personal, being a good thing.
- Yeah. - If I've not had
the experience of chronic pain,
will I not be as good at being able to, let's say,
whether I want to call it doing some of this work
or really being able to talk to somebody
because I've not had that experience myself.
- Well, you can take any of my stories,
you can take any stories from people you talk to here.
You can take any stories from what you read online.
There's a million stories out there.
If you look at the TMSwiki.org
or the PPDassociation.org
or my website UnlearnYourPain.com
or if you watch the huh?
- Isn't it different if you've experienced it
in your own body, in your own way.
That's different.
- Yeah. But as you do this work, you'll see people,
you'll know people who have done this work.
Like this woman I was saying yesterday,
who got pain when she was nine,
and then you had until she was 23.
I just met her two days ago.
But I know her, I know her story
and it's personal to me.
So I mean, I don't want you to make things up
and pretend, I don't want you to be inauthentic.
You wouldn't wanna do that.
- Well, that has been really interesting
to follow the given paper and instructions.
For me, it rises really the point, how to manage the story
in a certain way because it touches my heart so deeply.
So I have, it's kind of walking
on the thing of the knife here
and saying how much lead I come it into my perception
or what kind of image can I create for myself in order
to be comfortable there?
Because I'm doing this kind of stuff for myself.
So if I think about the knife, that is really awful.
So maybe I think about going on a skateboard
or a wave or for me riding, would be perfect.
If I would be on a horse, I would really feel safe.
For example, it's managing the story
for me is really the most difficult thing to do
because it gets in touch with my emotions
and I might have had similar experiences.
So how can I manage this and help the person?
The person brings the story and I have to manage it.
And I say, "Oh, wow."
- Yeah. - And I have to be able
to get in action.
This is the point.
How can I maintain my capacity of being present,
compassionate and handle it.
- Yeah, it's a great, great comment. It's a great question.
We're always in this balance between feeling
and thinking between feeling and going inward
and going outward.
And one of the things I was saying
before about self-disclosure, talking about ourselves,
talking about our own story, crosses a line
that some people say, you should be way over here.
If you go way over here, then kind of what you're doing is
you're saying to the person you're working with,
"Oh, I've got these problems. Can you help me?"
So that's a little too far,
if I'm asking them to help me, that's probably more.
If I'm,
crying inconsolably and breaking down,
then that's probably too far
and it's probably not being effective.
But if I shed a tear, is that okay?
Sure. Absolutely.
When I think about that girl
with the tear rolling down her cheek, it makes me,
makes me want to have a tear rolling down my cheek.
That's mirror neurons.
That's human being, that's human connection.
My patients are always crying, not always,
but I mean, well they are.
Not always,
but there'll be a point
in our conversation where they will start to cry
or tear up a little bit and they will usually apologise.
They'll say, "I'm sorry."
And I'll say, "Well, if you don't cry,
then I'm not doing my job."
That's what we're here for, is to connect
and to allow emotions to come out.
As I'll show you on Thursday,
having an emotion emerge in the context of an interview
or an interaction is the most powerful predictor
of a good outcome.
How about that? (laughs)
That's really, it's amazing.
That's a scientific fact. That's amazing.