Connections Part 3: Giving the body a new story
Transcript
Colleen Jorgensen 0:01
Physical pain is no different than feeling abandoned. It's no different than... our nervous system doesn't recognize emotional pain from physical pain, it's all the same. So whether you're someone who's dealing with anxiety, depression, PTSD, trauma, chronic pain, acute pain, if you can learn how to tune into your nervous system. Become aware, learn to titrate, give it what it can accept, and keep trying to give it just that little bit more and then always bring it back to the safety when it's at a point where it can't quite handle it anymore. And then go there again. It's amazing the changes that you can see.
Ericka Thomas 0:36
You're listening to The Work IN, where warriors like you can find a natural path off the battlefield of trauma. Join me as we explore natural balanced ways to work through the body to reestablish safety in the body, and find recovery for lasting resilience to all sources of stress tension and anxiety. The Work IN is brought to you by Kinetic Grace, giving you a way to shake off, stress, tension and trauma, without reliving your story. Learn trauma release exercise safely and privately online, go to elemental kinetics.com for more information and to find out if trauma release exercise is right for you.
Hi there everyone, welcome back to The Work IN. I'm your host Ericka Thomas, and we are in part three of our connection series with my guest, osteopath and pain care specialist, Colleen Jorgensen. In today's episode we are going to be talking about how we can use movement, and breath to find balance between effort and ease and give the body, a new story, a new pathway back into safety.
We talked about how we can intentionally use the breath to either activate or calm the nervous system. We discuss how we can practice moving back into stillness, or backing away from this hard driving culture of stress that we find ourselves in, in order to give the body, the space, and the grace, it needs to heal, and we talk about how important it is to bring some awareness to the language that we use around chronic pain and trauma and the connections between the body movement and the sensations that we're feeling there just to allow ourselves to become a little bit more comfortable in discomfort. So let's get back to it, here's part three of connections with Colleen Jorgensen.
I'm curious about that connection, because we haven't really talked about how we can use yoga, to find that connection with the body, and the nervous system in both of these exercises, we, we are talking about using the breath. And when we discussed, where the Vagus nerve actually comes into the body, where we feel those connections with the vagus nerve, the breath, and through the throat and finding that vibration especially with Lions breath if you're going to make a noise there. It can be very stimulating to the vagus nerve. So, we can start to kind of move into that physical side in some different ways. Through either yoga or other types of movement. I mean yoga isn't the only thing that people can do but it seems very, very useful.
Colleen Jorgensen 4:04
So, you know, as you say there are definitely other methods, aside from yoga that are wonderful, but yoga does have built into it, that it uses a lot of these systems already. We use breath often in yoga and breath is, it's not the only doorway in but it is one of the quickest doorways into that nervous system. And just very simply, you can turn absolutely any yoga posture or yoga, Pilates somatic any movement you're doing it doesn't have to have a label. You can turn it into an activation in safety response, or a calming and safety response, simply by using your breath.
Let's use that as an example. So, every inhale increases our heart rate and slightly activates our sympathetic nervous system. So I'll just repeat that every inhale increases our heart rate and slightly activates the sympathetic nervous system. So if you're in, even a very calm pose, let's say you're in Shavasana, and you're someone who is not comfortable yet. Well you can, I like Dr. Schwartz's term here where you can use dual awareness and you can straddle both your interoception and your extra reception extra reception to figure out where you feel safe enough to be in stillness.
So as an example, if you're in Shavasana eyes closed and slow breath. That's not feeling safe for you. What if you stayed in Shavasana, but you opened your eyes and brought your focus to something in the room that always brings you comfort, maybe there's a picture on the wall that you resonate with. Maybe there's a plant that makes you feel good. Maybe it's seeing the teacher in your vision that gives you that sense of safety. And you can use your breath.
So, in Shavasana we typically want to slow down our breath but if for you in this moment that's not feeling safe. You can straddle being in Shavasana which is a still position, but you're keeping your eyes open, and maybe you work on using your breath in more of a activating way where you focus more on lengthening your inhales which are going to increase heart rate increase heart rate increase the sympathetic activation. Instead of elongating the exhales which are going to bring you more into that dorsal vagal place.
Ericka Thomas 6:32
Does that make sense. Absolutely, absolutely.
Colleen Jorgensen 6:34
We can play with that with every single pose, or movement that you're doing in life, you can straddle those two states. You know, always try to figure out, well what can I do in this thing that's making me either feel anxious and making me want to fight or run away. Or if it's making you want to collapse and freeze and disappear. Can you stay with it, can you be with that uncomfortable place for a little bit, and then play with different parameters so we talked about the breath as one.
Another one that you can play with is your muscular tension. One of the ways the body tries to protect us is it primes us to run away in flea. So it contracts all of our bigger muscles like the legs, the hamstrings, the psoas, that kind of thing. So what if you brought your awareness to that.
Let's say you're in maybe we're in a warrior 2 right now as an example. And it's feeling too activating. Okay now let's focus on slowing down the exhales which is going to slow down the heart rate and trigger parasympathetic activation. And what if we brought our awareness and did kind of like an informal body scan. And anywhere that's contracting that's not serving you right now invite it to not help so much. And say thank you very much, but I've got this. I don't really need you right now kicking in to help me, I can do it without you,
And then figure out how can I still be in this pose, without so much effort. And we talk so much about that in yoga, that balance between sthira and sukha, that balance between effort and ease. That's something that we should bring into every moment of our lives not just when we're in a class setting, not just when we're in a group setting but every moment of our lives you want to find that balance between effort and ease.
Ericka Thomas 8:27
Yes, and that's where we take our practice off the mat right? So it is really challenging I think for people in the beginning, whether they are coming to yoga for ways to calm themselves or whether they're coming to yoga for physical practice and they're looking for the workout. I think a challenging, one of the most challenging things about that is to allow or encourage them to find that mindful awareness of what exactly is going on with the body. Because we can be so frozen in the idea of effort, right. Like, it has to be the hardest thing in order to get some kind of benefit out of the exercise. But this sort of flips that whole idea on its head, where it's not about the physical effort but really a lot of mental effort that has to come into play here. About what we recognize as work, and for so many people that work is in our head to get to pull back from that driving force, right, in some kind of physical practice.
Colleen Jorgensen 9:49
So many people who are used to, you know, that no pain no gain attitude that it has to be effortful for it to be useful. A lot of those people are trying, they're not trying it's I don't mean to make it sound that they're consciously trying it's not that. It's a preconscious thing, their system is not comfortable in stillness. And so for them it's actually a lot easier to be in that effortful place where all they're feeling is that muscle burn that they know is just associated with hard work and exercise and that feels safe. And what doesn't feel safe for a lot of those people is to be in stillness and be hearing your thoughts and be and be hearing the sound of your breath and hearing your heart, heartbeat, that's a lot harder for some people, than to feel the muscle burn in your quads, for example.
Ericka Thomas 10:37
Absolutely I was, I was one of those people, so I hear exactly what you're saying. And it was, it was interesting to me because I saw often other instructors and other fitness instructors would never show up to a yoga class for that reason, because they could not be still. And they would say that to me, they would say that I cannot be still and they would leave before final relaxation.
Colleen Jorgensen 11:08
I did it for years.
Ericka Thomas 11:12
I know, I know it's hard.
Colleen Jorgensen 11:14
It's so funny how we change to know that we can evolve. Now it's my favorite part because that's where all the work is happening, that's where the hardest work is happening.
That's when we're allowing our body to do the good work and that's something that I, I try to tell people who are living in chronic pain.
Rest is like a swear word for first for North Americans were so driven to do, do, do, do, do, and if we stop it's looked at as being weak or not being ambitious or not striving not not working hard enough. And I had a moment myself because I was that mindset 100% I was total Go go go go and I'm always working on the next 12 projects before I finished the first one.
But when I found myself in a position where I could not move and had no choice but to be with nothing but my thoughts and my breath. I felt so lazy for so much of it and I thought oh my god I'm being so unproductive and what most people think of me and all of that.
And then I had this moment where instead of thinking as the patient living it. I was thinking of the osteopath observing it. And I don't know if you watch that show,The Good Doctor, where he's an autistic doctor and he sees the anatomy when he's thinking about it.
Ericka Tomas
I haven't seen it, but I will now.
Colleen Jorgensen
some of your listeners will I think. It’s called The Good Doctor and I function that way when I'm when I'm working in a clinic. I do visualize the anatomy, like I'm watching a movie.
So in this moment I was seeing my own anatomy and it hit me. Oh my goodness. It's finally while I'm in stillness or what looks like stillness from the outside, that my physiology is finally able to heal and do the repair work, which it has not been able to do while I'm going going going going going going going because it's so busy getting me through all those things.
It's doing a little bit of that repair work, but when I'm finally dropping down into stillness there is so much effort going on under the surface. And no, your person who's living with you can't see that and it might look to them like you're doing nothing. And it might feel to you like you're doing nothing but I promise you that in those moments. There is so much work going on under the surface and you should be proud of that work and honor that work and have a lot of kindness again and self compassion, about how necessary that stillness is so that that work can happen.
Ericka Thomas 13:44
It's so interesting coming from a body working side because that should be an easy concept to understand, when you are when you are, let's say, if you're a bodybuilder, you know that the muscle, does the work to, to build itself up in the lifting, not in that hardcore workout.
You have to give your body time to rebuild, that's how we get stronger. And when we're talking about the nervous system. If we want,if our goal is resilience, if our goal is to be able to rise to a challenge, and then return to our baseline state of calm easily and efficiently. We need to allow it to return to a baseline state of calm at some point, we have to practice that. And so, yeah, so it just, it makes sense when you look at it like that but in the moment, I think, again, we go back to that, that we are socialized out of that in this culture, that is, is it glorifies stress and just overwork and overwhelm, I mean it really glorifies that state of being. So we think it’s normal and it's, it's not, it's really not.
Colleen Jorgensen 15:19
I'm hoping Ericka This is the optimist in me that I really hope, and I think it will I think that's something positive that's going to come out of COVID that people finally you know so many people who really firmly believed that they could not stop that the world would come to an end if they weren't doing all those things that they were doing. And now they've not been able to do those things and oh my god it's not only okay but I kind of like it. I'm really really hoping that people remember that when the world opens up again and we're allowed to do everything again. Yes enjoy doing all the things, but remember how nice it was to do a little bit of nothing.
Ericka Thomas 15:57
Yeah, well, I don't know, but I did a lot of nothing. I'd like to do a little more of something. So,
Colleen Jorgensen 16:06
It's always about balance and balance.
Can I just bring up two more quick points in terms of how to manage yoga or any style of movements just to, to help with that neuroscientific concept?
Ericka Thomas
Absolutely.
Colleen Jorgensen
So I think I had mentioned, the hard break that if you're in that sympathetic activation, we can have that hard break come in, which is the dorsal vagal system that quickly wants to bring you out of that stress response, but it brings you right down into that collapse response. But we also have the ability to use what Porges called a soft brake. And this is where this is where the gravy is and this is where the good stuff is.
It’s that if you're in, whether it's a dorsal vagal collapse response or a sympathetic to activated response. If you bring in your social engagement system that's like putting on a soft break on either one of those extremes. So you can sort of, I'm not sure if it's him or if it's Dr. Schwartz who uses the term, you can titrate your exposure to what you're uncomfortable with or what does not feel safe for you. You don't need to face the whole thing all at once, that's too much, that will trigger those extremes of nervous system responses.
But what if you titrate, and just give yourself a little bit of exposure into that discomfort, let yourself be with it a little bit straddle what you need to straddle to sort of bring in what you can handle and not not accept what you can't handle yet. And then work with your physiology, your breath, your thoughts, your muscle tension, your energetic state and your emotions. It's almost like an internal checklist. In yoga we would call it the Koshas, right, that you want to go through all of those sheaths and see how are each of those sheaths responding moment to moment. And then give it what it needs to help it be in that moment a little better.
And in some moments that's going to mean, you need to activate. In other moments, it's going to mean you need to calm. And it's constantly changing, so it's learning how to tune in. So you can use, we're using Swadhyaya where we're using that self study of tuning in, you want to use Satya truthfulness where trust what you're feeling is true. And then you want to use Ahimsa, non harming. Now that you see what's happening. Choose the choice that is going to serve you best.
Be kind, no judgment. Use compassion and give your body, your system, your mind, all of it what it needs in that moment. And then keep paying attention, because it's going to change a few moments later. And so you need to adapt as it changes.
And so, again, Dr Arielle Schwartz is a beautiful person to, I think every Saturday, she has an online vagal tone yoga class, and she's brilliant at doing a full, you know one hour 90 minute class of bringing you through all the different states.
So that you teach your system we can go into those danger responses and then we can come back down to safety and then we can go to danger again and we can always come back down to safety. Teaching that to our system that we can go in and out we can dance fluidically between all of those responses, is the best gift you can give yourself.
I talk about it in terms of chronic pain but I think it's as much as there is no recipe for fixing chronic pain. I think it is the best tool that we have. But it's all the same, you know physical pain is no different than feeling abandoned. It's no different that our nervous system doesn't recognize emotional pain from physical pain, it's all the same. So whether you're someone who's dealing with anxiety, depression, PTSD trauma, chronic pain acute pain. If you can learn how to tune into your nervous system. Become aware, learn to titrate, give it what it can accept, and keep trying to give it just that little bit more and then always bring it back to safety when it's at a point where it can't quite handle it anymore. And then go there again. It's amazing the changes that you can see,
Ericka Thomas 20:26
Talk a little bit about titration a little bit more because when we, when we bring titration into movement, for example, in a yoga class, the way we do that is by giving students and ourselves permission to change a pose. Right? So, a lot of times, I've seen it often and in certain yoga classes, certainly not all, but people have an idea of what a pose is supposed to look like. You know, because they saw a picture of it in a magazine or something. And if their variation of their version of that pose isn't like that somehow that's wrong when in reality we are looking to change the pose to fit where our body is. And then if we are using that concept of titration,it’s as simple as allowing yourself a way out, and a way back in
Colleen Jorgensen 21:29
I like that. That's great. That's great. Yes, I have quite a few things to say to that actually. So yes, it's a huge challenge that I think we as teachers have to be very aware of how much people come into class, wanting to do the most advanced version of the pose, regardless of what level they're at or what their body can handle. Everybody wants to do the fancy version. In their heart of hearts everybody wants to be able to do that.
So, when we as teachers, even just in the way that we presented if we teach a posture and say this is the beginner variation. This is the intermediate This is the advanced. There are going to be many in the class who right away are going to start with the advanced because they won't allow themselves to be a beginner, right. So right there we can change the way we teach and don't even let people know what the ultimate pose might be. Start with a very simple version and monitor your class and only bring people to where you think people can go and the people who are advanced are going to know how to get there on their own anyways right. so that's one thing.
The second thing that Neil Pearson, and his wife Lisa are working on right now they've developed a program called Pain Care Aware that is to teach yoga teachers how to use pain care aware language. Because the language that we've been using for decades and myself included, has unconsciously been instilling fear in people who are in pain. And whether we want them in our classes or not, there are people there's so many people in the world living with chronic pain that you've got one in your class whether you know it or not. They may not be talking about it, but you've likely got at least one.
So when we say things for example, which I have said for years. When we say things for example like okay here is, whatever pose. If you have any pain or discomfort. You just modify it and if, when you modify it, you still have pain or discomfort. Just don't do that pose. these are the other poses you can do instead. By saying that what we're reinforcing in their nervous system is that pain or discomfort means danger that you should never stay with that pain or discomfort.
So that's not what we're trying to teach people but that is what has been happening, is what we're understanding now. So what if instead, we get people into a pose and we say, if you have any pain or discomfort. Can you stay with it for a little bit, rather than immediately trying to modify this posture? What if you stayed with this discomfort, even if it's pain and see if it will shift, if while you stay here. Can you play with other parameters like your breath? Can you soften your breath and does that change that discomfort or pain a little bit? Can you pay attention to, Are there muscles working here that are not serving you and if you allow them to not participate, does that change the pain or discomfort? And what about your thoughts as you're in the pose? Is your mind creating a whole story around this pose because the pain you're feeling reminds you of a time when you ended up on your couch for three weeks? And if that's happening, can you offer a different story?
And what about your emotions as you're in this pose Do you feel your throat tightening up or your solar plexus, are you clenching your hands or your jaw. And what about your energetic state, how is it responding to being with the discomfort. And then if after doing all of those check ins and you would take more time than I just did in this moment. If after all of those check ins, there is still the pain and discomfort, okay well now let's go ahead and try to modify it a little bit.
But for most people for many people, when they go through that whole process they find a way to actually stay with it and now you've taught the nervous system. Oh you know what this pose is not so scary. It's not so dangerous. I can do this. And then every time you have success with that posture. The nervous system will protect you less until eventually, you go to do that posture, and you don't even have to think about it. It's a process, it takes time.
One of the things that Dr. Area Schwartz talks about that I really like is that every time we learn a new behavior, we create a new neural pathway. This is the part that I find super interesting. Every time we repeat the behavior, we strengthen that pathway by creating more myelination around that nerve. That's huge. That's really important. So it's not going to happen the first time that you have success.If you've had seven years of pain when you did that pose, it's not going to be the first time that you did it without pain that your nervous system is going to go okay I'll never protect you again. You have to work together with it. And as we say titrate it go into it and go deeper over time, and allow it to exactly as you say give it away in and give it away out, know that there's always a position or an attitude of safety that you can come back to if it feels like it's too much. And then you come back and again when you're ready.
Ericka Thomas 26:36
That is that is really a brilliant kind of shift in intention, not just from the perspective of the person who is coming into a class that has that pain, but also from an instructor perspective as well,
Colleen Jorgensen 26:54
a huge step for the instructor. Yeah, and it's a tough one for us, because we added that language for a very long time. Right,
Ericka Thomas 27:00
right. And it, and it actually, when you were talking about that it really reminded me of the way we shift into trauma informed yoga as well because that's very much a shift in language, and something that most instructors, no matter what their modality is, really don't think about. I mean people who come into a class, they do it for all different kinds of reasons but I guarantee you every single person in that class has experienced some kind of trauma, at some point in their life because that's the human condition. And if we are not aware of that. As an instructor in front of the class, we can do a lot of damage by accident, certainly not intentionally but.
Colleen Jorgensen 27:47
Exactly, exactly. It's not intentional as teachers have the best of intentions but becoming aware of what our language... working with Neil Pearson has made me so aware of the use of language and even in my clinic.
So this is a great example. How many times have you had someone come into your yoga class and they tell you that whatever their insert whatever chiropractor physio osteo whatever told them that they had one hip higher than the other. That's something that happens to all of us constantly, our bones are off, always shifting into and out of the optimal position.
But when. So we know that as a practitioner, and I did this for years I would tell people, things like that. What I didn't realize is that they now wear that label for the rest of their lives. They miss the part that it's like this in this moment. And they've attached that label to their system forever. And they've attached whatever story comes along with that label which, you know, who knows what that means to them it's different for everyone.
They don't have the anatomical knowledge that we do to understand well that's a perfectly normal thing. So unless we've normalized it for them, it really affects so many of their choices and I become hyper aware of that and it's amazing how many people are living with those labels that we have as practitioners or teachers have inadvertently put on them. Even something as benign as when you're watching someone and you tell them. Oh, you've got one shoulder higher than the other. We all have one shoulder higher than the other because we're one handed, we're dominant on one hand. But some people will take that as, a serious issue and they will wear that label, and it will inform so many of their choices forever.
So we have to become aware as teachers. That's a whole different thing but Neil Pearson's upcoming Pain Care Aware course is a great one to take as a teacher to help with that.
Ericka Thomas 29:43
Yeah, and it's, it's really stunning actually how when someone tells you one thing about your body that labeling it can actually... I mean we create so much of our own reality based on, you know, what people have said to us throughout our life in general. I mean if a doctor tells you something it's gonna affect all of your choices, going forward, and it's not necessarily in a good way. You know, I mean, when I was, I was diagnosed with scoliosis as a 12 year old. And because I didn't really understand what that was, I ignored it. And, you know, there's plenty of people who would have said there's no way I should have been able to do all of the physical things that I've been able to accomplish in my life. Had I listened to that person, and embodied that diagnosis, it might have changed everything. I wouldn't be sitting here with you today.
Colleen Jorgensen 30:42
Absolutely.
Ericka Thomas 30:44
Colleen is such a wealth of information and compassion. I loved our conversation, and we're not done yet. We have one more part to go through and we're going to wrap up our discussion. So if you don't want to miss that. Please be sure that you like and subscribe to The Work IN. Be sure to check the show notes for links to all the resources that Colleen mentioned, as well as ways that you can reach out and work with her. Thank you again and I will see you next time on The Work IN.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
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