- So we were talking at just now about how, you know,
we tell the stories of how you read the book,
it gets better.
You find this, you get better.
A couple weeks, couple months, you get better.
Sometimes people don't get better
and sometimes people don't understand this and don't get it,
and we'll talk later in the week about barriers
to why things don't work,
and they don't always work,
and sometimes it's hard.
And I just wanna show you an example
of a situation that's hard.
And this is a woman who I just met about a month ago.
She took a class that we teach.
We teach a whole class in emotional awareness
and expression therapy
that we're gonna talk about on Thursday and Friday morning.
And this is a woman who in 20 16, 7 years ago,
she said, "I was 100 pounds overweight.
I could only be in my bed or my recliner.
To get to my doctor's appointment,
I had to have my 80-year-old mother drive me.
I even had trouble walking with a cane.
I was so sick.
I was in my second unhealthy marriage.
I started getting migraine at age seven.
Sexual abuse in childhood and teenage years.
Heavy religious upbringing
with very strong religion in my marriage,
meaning lots of psychosomatic illnesses over my lifetime.
Low back pain in my 40s.
Pain management didn't know how to help me.
I never had violence in my second marriage,
because my first marriage was so violent
that the second husband only had to look at me
and I would comply.
Even my mom,
I was not allowed to have emotions in my childhood.
Everything I wanted to express was pushed down.
Even my exciting dreams,
the rest of my family never even saw me.
How did I come to realise that I needed to change?
I saw a picture of myself, and it startled me.
Is that really me?
I didn't recognise myself.
I thought maybe I should lose weight.
I was 100 pounds overweight.
So I went to a clinic
where they do surgery for weight loss."
It's called bariatric surgery, right?
"And they said, yes, you can have the surgery,
but first you have to have a psychological evaluation."
Everyone has to have a psychological evaluation
before having gastric bypass surgery
or whatever kind of surgery.
And she said, "I flunked the psychological evaluation."
Surprising.
So they said, "You can have the surgery,
but first you have to see a psychologist.
So I said, okay."
So she goes to see this psychologist
and she started to lose weight a little bit.
And she said, "My therapist gave me the right to breathe.
And she gave me the right to feel my feelings
and feel my emotions.
And so I started to change my diet,
and I started losing some weight.
But even that, changing my diet caused problems in my home,
making that change.
I began to learn to express my feeling
or express my opinion about something
that caused more problems in my home.
And I started working online and finding other people,
looking in support groups,
finding other people who had chronic pain,
other people who had domestic violence.
Three years of therapy.
And I started working
with my own domestic violence in a sense,
and learning about it and understanding it.
And even just doing that, my migraine started to get better,
and I decided that I had to leave.
I left my home, I left my marriage,
my migraines went away right away.
I found Howard's work and our work in 2019.
I started doing all these things.
This is Pain Neuroscience Education,
changed my relationship with myself,
changed my emotions, behaviours, thoughts,
relate skillfully to others."
All the things we're gonna talk about
in the next couple of days.
I learned I could get angry.
I could say things out loud.
I was driving down the interstate,
screaming at the top of my lungs at one point.
I had a huge shift in my belief in myself.
I was fighting for my right to exist.
I coached myself.
I went through steps.
I ended up losing 100 pounds.
I left an abusive marriage.
I moved 700 miles away.
I started over from nothing."
What courage, what amazing courage this woman had.
"I changed my relationship with my parents.
I made peace with my father, my mom,
I'm working on it.
My brothers, they don't like me anymore.
They don't like my new self really,
but that's the way it goes.
I grew the grit and determination to survive my situation.
I went back to school, I sat for boards,
I found purpose in my life
working to change the narrative
for people living in chronic pain,
all because I accidentally met a mental health therapist.
I accidentally met somebody who listened to me,
who believed in me, who talked to me,
who helped me in my life."
And what does she now, what profession, what boards,
what profession does she have?
She's a coach.
Just a coach.
Anybody can be a coach.
It's very low bar to be a coach.
But if you do it with integrity and a honesty, and beauty,
and love, and she's a coach, it's amazing.