Nobody is coming to save you (and here’s why that’s a good thing) part 1

Spoiler alert: nobody is coming to save you.

Wouldn't it be nice if they were though? If the Disney fantasy of a prince coming to rescue the princess and taking her to her happily ever after were actually a reality?

I was having a conversation this morning with a fellow coach about chronic pain, illness and the ways we hand our power over. We were discussing the nervous system, and all the ways the body, in an attempt to protect us, can actually keep us stuck and contribute to all these mind body symptoms.

The first time I ever heard someone say this, I got really upset. And rightfully so. I would never tell another person in the middle of their pain they could heal their symptoms just by fixing their mindset. It’s an approach that lacks empathy, an integrative perspective for the whole of who we are as humans, and quite honestly isn’t exactly true.

Do mind body symptoms contribute to chronic pain? Absolutely. Does that mean we can think our way out of pain? Absolutely not.

Before we get into the no one is coming to help you, let’s break down this response a little.

Our nervous systems are designed to protect us from threat, real or perceived. My nervous system also doesn’t have the ability to distinguish between I’m actually going to die and my boss just said something mean to me at work. My nervous system response, to any threat, is going to come down to a split second decision on what I think I need to do to survive. So my nervous system, as I’m sitting in the waiting room at a doctor’s office or reading my emails or standing in a field when I see a bear, is deciding if I can outrun the threat, if I can realistically fight the threat, if I need to appease the threat and try to make it like me to diminish the possibility of terrible outcomes, or if I should just play dead. Now all of these aren’t quite so straight forward. I might not physically try and fight my boss, but maybe I feel a huge rush of anger. I might not physically run out of that waiting room but my heart starts racing and I get really jittery.

The important thing to note about these responses is my body and nervous system didn't consult me. It didn’t say “Hey Ali, here’s this situation, how should we respond?” There was no conscious decision to run away now. That would defeat the purpose of the nervous system response. If I had to think about my decision to run away from a bear, it could already be too late. I need that split second reaction. Now the issue here can be my gauge of how I need to react is based on my past experiences, my perception of the event either true or untrue, and all the signals I picked up on.

Someone didn’t smile at me in line and had a grumpy tone when they said something to me, based on my past experiences I could deem that a threat. And my nervous system can’t differentiate between a grumpy person in the checkout because they’re having a bad day and someone who might actually want to kill me.

So my nervous system is reacting to the information I picked up on, and I will continue to stay in this state until I feel in my body I am safe. If I never orient to safety, I’m going to stay in this nervous system loop.

I can think positive all I want, but until my body perceives safety I’m going to stay in that nervous system state of activation and threat. I’ve already mentioned before the body doesn’t speak through words, it speaks through sensation, and symptom. It’s going to try to get my attention. Or potential issues can manifest because the body was never meant to be in a state of activation for so long.

One thing I spoke about this morning with this friend of mine is this intersection between structural and somatic pain. She and I both have structural pain (as in something structurally changed in our bodies whether it be from surgery or scar tissue or whatever) and there isn’t really a fix for that. But how I relate to the pain, how I feel about the pain, that mind body aspect, does have the ability to diminish some of my pain. It’s a healing vs. curing mindset. I can’t cure my pain, but potentially I could make it a little more bearable by learning to work with my nervous system.

Sound crazy? Maybe it is, but maybe, just maybe, there’s something valid here. Still curious?

I shared with her the story of a meeting with a surgeon that changed my perspective on this whole mind body thing (stay tuned for part 2!)