376 | Pregnancy Pain and Back Pain During Pregnancy Solutions for Lasting Relief

[00:00:05] Welcome to the Optimal Body Podcast. I'm Dr. Jen.

[00:00:08] And I'm Dr. Dom. And we are doctors of physical therapy, bringing you the body tips and physical therapy pearls of wisdom to help you begin to understand your body, relieve your pains and restrictions, and answer your questions.

[00:00:19] Along with expert guests, our goal of the Optimal Body Podcast is really to help you discover what optimal means within your own body. Let's dive in.

[00:00:28] We have a secret coming up, but we have a brand new course that has been highly requested. Like I am talking, everyone has been asking me about this and I'm not going to say what it is just yet.

[00:00:39] If you've been asking me, you probably know because yes, we are providing what you have asked for. And I'm so excited about this. However, right now we just have a waitlist.

[00:00:49] And within this waitlist, you get access to this special code that is only going out to people who have signed up for this waitlist.

[00:00:59] So no matter what, this code is not going out anywhere else. We are launching at a presale price, so it will be cheaper next week. However, this week you can get it even cheaper when you sign up for the waitlist.

[00:01:12] So we're going to have that linked up just below, but it's just going to be docgenfit.com backslash secret.

[00:01:20] Secret, because it is a secret and I'm so excited about it. This is a full challenge that we're going to be going through together.

[00:01:27] A full course, lifetime access to this course. We're going to go detailed into some self-assessments, some workbooks, some education.

[00:01:36] And it's only going to take 10 minutes a day because, you know, I don't like to take too much of your time, but I want you to feel massive impact and change within your body.

[00:01:44] And this course is going to help to set you on the track to do just that. Plus, I'm going to show up every week live and do more education based on the topic that we're doing within the course to help you better understand how this is relating into your body and why it matters and take any of your questions along the way.

[00:02:01] We're going to have a private community chat. We're going to have prizes available. I mean, I'm so excited about this and I'm not going to say exactly what it is just yet.

[00:02:09] Those who might know might know, but I will say that this is your one opportunity to get a super special discount and get in at the lowest rate we will be offering.

[00:02:22] Again, we'll have it discounted next week, but I highly recommend signing up now to get on the waitlist.

[00:02:27] So do not wait. That is docgenfit.com backslash secret docgenfit.com backslash secret and just sign up.

[00:02:36] You're going to get that special code. If you do not get it delivered to you, make sure to reach out to us at gen at gen.health so that we make sure you get the email, you save it, and you have that discount code available for when it comes out.

[00:02:48] Again, lifetime access cheapest it will ever be if you sign up on the waitlist now.

[00:02:53] So excited for the interview today and the pair that we have talking all about the nervous system and how we can use the nervous system to heal, especially from chronic type related conditions when it has to do with pain and fatigue.

[00:03:06] We have Jennifer Mann and Carden Rabin.

[00:03:09] Jennifer Mann is a mind body practitioner, yoga instructor, and functional movement therapist and has battled severe chronic fatigue.

[00:03:16] She began researching alternative approaches to healing chronic fatigue and was able to completely recover using trauma informed mind body healing.

[00:03:25] She now leads a community of over a hundred thousand followers on Instagram and is the co-founder of chronic fatigue school, which has helped thousands of people from all over the world regulate their nervous systems.

[00:03:36] Carden Rabin is a nervous system medicine practitioner and an expert in the fields of trauma and psychophysiological disorders.

[00:03:44] Over the last 15 years, he has combined principles of body work, brain retraining, and somatic trauma therapies and helped thousands of clients across the globe heal from chronic pain and illness.

[00:03:56] Carden is co-founder of CFS School along with Jennifer Mann and a regular contributor to Bessel van der Kolk's Trauma Research Foundation.

[00:04:05] He has led programming for the Wounded Warrior Project, Kripalu Center for Yoga and Health, and Starbucks.

[00:04:10] So excited for you to hear these two individuals' stories and how they have now applied their practice to help so many people.

[00:04:19] Carden, Jen, thank you so much for being with us today.

[00:04:22] Jen and I are always excited to have people on when we're going to talk about the nervous system, and I know that is what you two are experts in.

[00:04:30] And so we're really excited to get your take on how people can take advantage of that.

[00:04:34] Thank you for having us.

[00:04:35] Yes, and healing, healing from chronic pain, healing from chronic fatigue, healing from, you know, so much of what I think a lot of people are either silently suffering with or suffering with and trying to find answers continuously.

[00:04:50] Which, you know, I'm interested in hearing your journeys toward that as well.

[00:04:55] Because before we dive into the secret language of the body, which I love the title of this book as well, like beautiful title.

[00:05:04] But really understanding, you know, what is the journey that you both went through?

[00:05:09] I know, Carden, you said that you both had chronic pain experiences.

[00:05:13] And Jennifer, I know that you have been very open that I've seen about your chronic fatigue and what happened with that.

[00:05:21] So if you guys could both just take a minute to dive into your own personal stories of your pain journeys that you have had to endure.

[00:05:31] Interrupting really quickly to talk about that chronic fatigue that we feel throughout the day and how those energy levels kind of fluctuate.

[00:05:40] And a lot of times, I mean, everything we're talking about here in this podcast is everything that we need that relates to the nervous system, right?

[00:05:47] And how that can help affect that.

[00:05:49] But it's horrible that our society as a whole generally reaches for the coffee.

[00:05:54] And if that's you, I'm not judging you.

[00:05:57] I understand.

[00:05:57] I get it.

[00:05:59] But how can we make shifts and changes that actually fuel our body and help us to make long-term change within our whole system?

[00:06:07] Rather than just reaching for the thing that's going to give us that immediate hit.

[00:06:11] And that's where element has been such a huge part of me and Dom's journey.

[00:06:17] And even my mother-in-law saying, I can tell the difference if I don't have my element, my energy levels are dropping.

[00:06:23] And what was really cool is when I noticed that I was getting any additional cramping during pregnancy, those calf cramps are something else.

[00:06:31] I wasn't adding my element in throughout the week.

[00:06:34] And as soon as I started adding it in, no more cramping, no more tension within my body.

[00:06:38] And I had another Dom's cousin when we were out in Minnesota was telling us a story about how she was having really intense cramping.

[00:06:47] And as soon as she started adding element in, nothing.

[00:06:50] It was gone.

[00:06:51] So it's really cool to be able to hear these stories.

[00:06:53] And I get to hear these stories in my DMs all the time from people of how element has really impacted their life.

[00:06:58] And adding this in has taken their energy levels and just so much more within their body to another level.

[00:07:05] And I think it's so cool to be able to see.

[00:07:07] So if you haven't tried it yet, I would highly recommend they support us within our podcast.

[00:07:14] So please use Drink Element.

[00:07:17] That is DrinkLMNT.com backslash optimal.

[00:07:23] And with every purchase that you get through this link, you get a free sample pack.

[00:07:28] So again, we're going to have that linked up.

[00:07:30] But if you want to just type it in right now, it's DrinkElementLMNT.com backslash optimal.

[00:07:35] And get your element there.

[00:07:38] Get your free sample pack so that you can try a variety of their flavors.

[00:07:41] They taste incredible.

[00:07:43] Like, so good.

[00:07:45] I'm telling you.

[00:07:46] We love it.

[00:07:47] We use it all the time.

[00:07:49] It's made such an impact within my body, within my health.

[00:07:53] And I can really tell.

[00:07:55] And being able to hear the stories from other people just really continues to validate that.

[00:07:59] And it's been so cool.

[00:08:00] So if you try it, if you notice a difference within your body, please reach out.

[00:08:04] Let us know.

[00:08:05] We'd love to hear your own journey with how including electrolytes has made a really impact in your life as well.

[00:08:13] I love talking about pain, especially my own suffering if it will help other people.

[00:08:22] You know, I actually started in this field 17 years ago.

[00:08:27] And my first entry was as a massage therapist and body worker.

[00:08:31] And I still to this day love the body.

[00:08:35] I love bottom-up approaches to the nervous system.

[00:08:37] I love somatic experiencing.

[00:08:40] But when I came in and I was loving the body, I was really devoted to the, if I can just get everything aligned correctly and moving correctly, then the pain will go away.

[00:08:53] Because that's what I was taught.

[00:08:57] And it worked sometimes.

[00:09:00] And that was great.

[00:09:02] But I don't know, Jen and I, you might be able to relate that sometimes it doesn't work.

[00:09:07] And you've got someone with really great movement patterns, really clean movement.

[00:09:13] They've got healthy, supple tissue.

[00:09:16] And they're like in so much pain.

[00:09:19] Or they're a phenomenal athlete that's crushing it, but they're like also just grinding through so much pain.

[00:09:26] And then you've got people who've got like the sloppiest movement patterns in the universe, right?

[00:09:32] They're tight everywhere.

[00:09:34] And that person has no pain at all.

[00:09:38] And when you look at it like that, and especially when you're devoted and you care, you keep practicing the way you were taught.

[00:09:44] But there's this part of it that's like, what doesn't add up here?

[00:09:48] Yeah.

[00:09:49] And I was able to live with that for a while, except over the course of 10 years, my chronic back pain became more and more excruciating and debilitating.

[00:09:59] To the point where when my back would go out, and I do that in air quotes, because we can talk about that.

[00:10:06] I would be in agony in my low back.

[00:10:09] I would have referring pain that felt like lightning in my groin.

[00:10:12] It felt like people were, then I would have pain down into my bilateral legs and calves like ice picks were being stabbed.

[00:10:22] And nothing that I was doing from my really wonderful body work, functional movement, osteopathic, chiropractic, orthopedic, just wasn't working.

[00:10:33] And it became really scary because my mom suffered from terrible back pain.

[00:10:39] And she ended up becoming addicted to opioids.

[00:10:42] And that complicated and led to an early death for her.

[00:10:46] And there had to be another way.

[00:10:48] Like I was not walking down that same path.

[00:10:52] And I wish I could say that I like worked really hard and researched to find the solution.

[00:10:57] But as fate would have it, it found me.

[00:11:01] Dr. John Sarno's healing back pain, his book just showed up on a friend's bookshelf while I was there.

[00:11:09] And with the biggest eye roll in the universe, right?

[00:11:13] And like absolute skepticism, I picked up this book.

[00:11:20] And this might be TMI, but I had my revelation while reading this book on the commode.

[00:11:26] Because like, you know, I needed to bring something with me.

[00:11:29] And rather than talking about herniated discs, right?

[00:11:33] Or torsion in the hip or, you know, ACL, like all of that.

[00:11:39] This guy says, is your personality like this?

[00:11:42] Do you tend not to feel these emotions?

[00:11:45] Do you find that your pain increases in X and Y kind of stressful or emotional situation?

[00:11:52] Um, but your pain pattern in terms of how it's physically appearing is inconsistent.

[00:11:57] And it's like, um, yes slash who are you, dude?

[00:12:01] How do you know all this stuff, right?

[00:12:03] You know me.

[00:12:04] And that was my very first entry into, um, seeing the relationships between emotions, repression,

[00:12:12] and the brain and its capacity to create pain and symptoms.

[00:12:19] And, um, besides the fact that within a week of reading that book, I had the greatest improvement

[00:12:25] in my symptoms that I'd had in 12 years.

[00:12:29] As a clinician, always just obsessed with getting to the root and helping people,

[00:12:34] I was like, there's no going back now.

[00:12:36] Like, I want to understand, like, the ghost in the machine.

[00:12:41] I realized that I've been only looking at hardware, and I need to start looking at software.

[00:12:45] Mm-hmm.

[00:12:46] And, uh, John Sarno is kind of, he's wonderful.

[00:12:49] Uh, he's passed away.

[00:12:50] God bless his souls.

[00:12:51] But his work is a little antiquated.

[00:12:52] But he was a pioneer and led to a lot of this.

[00:12:55] And so, that's how I arrived at becoming obsessed with the nervous system because it got me out

[00:13:01] of my agony.

[00:13:03] And now, um, through many teachers and a lot of innovation, learning how to bring a brain

[00:13:08] and nervous system-centered solution to people's chronic issues is how I got here.

[00:13:14] Beautiful.

[00:13:15] I, I mean, so many things that you said resonate, resonate really heavily with me too, because

[00:13:20] Jen and I are kind of seen as the others in the physical therapy world and to some degree,

[00:13:26] but because we focus on this stuff and, you know, physical therapists to a large degree

[00:13:31] are focused, like you said, on that hardware, on that alignment, on that.

[00:13:34] And there are so many things that you said that resonate.

[00:13:36] Oh, my hip's out of place.

[00:13:39] Oh, my pelvis is torqued.

[00:13:40] Oh, this and that.

[00:13:41] And, but then again, you talked about the people who have the most amazing movement patterns

[00:13:45] versus the people who have some of the crappier movement patterns and all the tightness and

[00:13:50] have no pain.

[00:13:51] And it's like that there didn't seem to be a lot of correlation, but it always becomes

[00:13:55] important to people.

[00:13:57] For me, I had some really bad concussions and some really bad post-concussive symptoms,

[00:14:01] some memory loss.

[00:14:02] I was 24 years old working in a neuroclinic, an outpatient neuroclinic with people who had

[00:14:08] spinal cord injuries and head injuries, and I was having memory loss.

[00:14:12] I couldn't remember their names.

[00:14:13] And I found my, my entrance was through breath work.

[00:14:17] And I noticed how I could access my nervous system, my pain, my memory again through focused

[00:14:25] breath work.

[00:14:25] And I was like, oh my God, I need to bring this to everybody.

[00:14:28] And so it's funny how, you know, funny, but not really funny how it becomes so important

[00:14:33] to us because of our own journey.

[00:14:35] And then we want to bring it to others.

[00:14:37] And so Jen, on that note, tell us a little bit about your story and then how you two start

[00:14:44] connected and started working together.

[00:14:46] Yeah.

[00:14:47] Well, thank you so much, Carden, for sharing your amazing story.

[00:14:50] And, um, yeah.

[00:14:53] And so I was a professional ballet dancer, um, from a very young age.

[00:14:58] Um, and as a ballet dancer, I was an athlete, uh, pro athlete performing 16 hours a day from

[00:15:06] a very young age.

[00:15:08] Um, I left home very early at, at 13.

[00:15:10] I was already in a ballet academy in the other side of the world from mom and family.

[00:15:16] So, you know, I was like super disciplined and I would be the person who would be up at

[00:15:21] five doing Pilates at 13 years old and Feldenkrais, like before class.

[00:15:27] And then there's 9am class, then there's point work, then there's partner work, then there's

[00:15:31] rehearsals on this.

[00:15:32] So like all of this, um, you know, uh, with a body that is under a lot of pressure and a

[00:15:40] mind that is under a lot of stress, you can have a lot of injuries, right?

[00:15:44] So I have, um, or I was diagnosed with EDS and hypermobility.

[00:15:51] Um, but I've come to understand through my own journey that EDS was not the cause of my

[00:15:58] pain.

[00:15:58] So let's go, let's go back again.

[00:16:01] Uh, so I'm a ballet dancer, lots of injuries, and I'm seeing other people around me who can

[00:16:05] also get their leg all the way up here.

[00:16:07] Like me who also have very flexible joints and not just muscle flexibility, but joint,

[00:16:15] because that's, you know, hypermobility, um, not getting injured.

[00:16:19] And I, it's just a question that was always in the back of my mind, like why me?

[00:16:24] And I was, um, from a young age because of childhood trauma, I always experienced anxiety.

[00:16:30] And so, um, you know, anxiety through the language of my nervous system was tensing.

[00:16:38] My muscles was tensing the ability of me to move in a fluid way and how my brain was telling

[00:16:45] my feet to land from a jump or, and so I just kept getting injured.

[00:16:50] Um, but I always had that question, like, is there more than just the physical?

[00:16:55] So anyway, lots of injuries, got super obsessed with like rehab science and all of this stuff.

[00:17:02] Um, I had a big ankle injury and I had to stop dancing.

[00:17:06] So I studied Pilates, Fallen Christ, yoga, PT, functional movement patterns.

[00:17:12] And then I was, I started working with clients massage and I was just like, I already like,

[00:17:18] this is not interesting for me.

[00:17:20] I kept looking for people with, oh, you have a super impossible, uh, injury that nobody can help

[00:17:26] you with.

[00:17:27] I want to help you with that.

[00:17:28] And so those were the people that I kept being drawn to.

[00:17:32] And then I decided to go back to school, to physio school in the UK.

[00:17:37] Physiotherapy is, uh, neuro pulmonary cardio and muscular skeletal.

[00:17:43] And, um, yeah, I just loved it so much.

[00:17:47] I was, um, I was like, this is it.

[00:17:49] This is so fun.

[00:17:51] So exciting.

[00:17:52] Um, but then, so at that time, my health was already beginning to show signs of like, something's

[00:17:59] not right.

[00:18:00] So I was seeing clients super fit, exercising so many times a week and, uh, but pushing myself

[00:18:07] way too hard heading towards burnout.

[00:18:09] Um, but I wasn't burnt out yet.

[00:18:12] So until you can't get out of bed, why should I stop my life to solve an issue that I can

[00:18:18] keep pushing past?

[00:18:20] Um, so yeah, I got, um, there was a few things back to back that created a, uh, like a peak

[00:18:28] of stress in my life.

[00:18:30] Um, and I wouldn't, I would say that if I didn't have the coping patterns underneath

[00:18:34] that of perfectionism, um, high achieving anxiety, um, uh, type A sort of, uh, self-criticism,

[00:18:45] the stress would have been okay.

[00:18:46] You know, like exams and moving house and pandemic, whatever.

[00:18:51] I would have been okay.

[00:18:53] Me personally, but no, no.

[00:18:56] So I was just one morning doing a very simple yoga practice that I would do every day, mainly

[00:19:02] for my mind.

[00:19:03] And I got a, uh, spasm all through my back.

[00:19:07] And I recognize that in ballet, I mean, I would get neck and back pain fairly often, especially

[00:19:15] in contemporary dance where you have to whip your neck very fast and a little bit of tension,

[00:19:23] anxiety, and then there's your back that's out.

[00:19:25] Um, so, um, yeah, basically that was the beginning of my crash.

[00:19:31] So I, my, my back spasmed and I was like, okay, recognize this.

[00:19:37] I can deal with this.

[00:19:37] This is just another, and I lay in bed and I said, you know what?

[00:19:41] I'm actually going to stay in bed for two days and just like sleep it off and rest.

[00:19:45] It was the weekend, I think.

[00:19:47] Yeah.

[00:19:48] And then on Monday I started to have a fever and a flu.

[00:19:53] My lungs were aching and I was like, oh my gosh, I'm getting a flu.

[00:19:57] That's so weird.

[00:19:57] Like, this is such a coincidence.

[00:20:00] And then that would lead me to stay in bed for over a year.

[00:20:03] So that was the beginning of my chronic fatigue crash.

[00:20:06] Um, yeah.

[00:20:09] And it was, uh, I had so many symptoms.

[00:20:12] I got diagnosed with a whole bunch of, uh, POTS, postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome.

[00:20:20] My heart was, I had ectopic beats.

[00:20:23] Um, I had like third heartbeat.

[00:20:27] It's just, my heart was really, you know, that vagal tone was so off and I was just, um,

[00:20:33] really unwell.

[00:20:34] My skin, my hormones, everything.

[00:20:37] And of course, being that I was, um, in the middle of my physio training, I was so devoted

[00:20:46] to what I was learning, right?

[00:20:47] I was like pacing and neuro rehab, right?

[00:20:51] Let's go through all the things I know.

[00:20:54] And then I had my yoga and Feldenkrais and I was aiming in all these directions.

[00:20:59] Um, but ultimately conventional medicine had no answer and I was put through physiotherapy.

[00:21:08] Um, but they put me through pacing, which for someone with chronic fatigue syndrome,

[00:21:12] pacing is asking your body to, even if it's tiny amount, it's asking for energy when you

[00:21:20] don't have any at all.

[00:21:21] So I was severely bed bound and I was being asked to do exercises, standing up with an elastic

[00:21:28] band.

[00:21:29] So it was a lot and it was the wrong approach for where I was at.

[00:21:34] Um, yeah.

[00:21:34] So then there's, I have so much more to share, but that's essentially the heart of it.

[00:21:39] And then I found brain retraining, um, after a year and a half of everyone, all the best

[00:21:46] doctors in the UK telling me, cause I had other diagnosis at that point.

[00:21:50] You're never going to recover.

[00:21:51] This is very severe.

[00:21:53] You have a poor prognosis.

[00:21:54] My mentors at uni who have multiple PhDs.

[00:21:59] I was really like, I'm like a neuro rehab lover and nerd.

[00:22:05] I thought it was going to go into work with athletes.

[00:22:07] And then I went, when I was in, I was like, wait a minute, neuro rehab is so much more fun.

[00:22:12] And I too was in a lot of neuro boards clinics.

[00:22:15] I just loved it.

[00:22:18] Um, but yeah, there was just this big mismatch of information and I was really frustrated.

[00:22:23] I felt really let down, really upset.

[00:22:26] Um, and then I couldn't help, but remember all the pain lectures that we had and the pain

[00:22:32] patients that I'd seen and what I was teaching them and what I was the, you know, in the hospital,

[00:22:38] there's said, you have 15 minutes with one person, you have to give them that.

[00:22:42] And it was just so far from what could have really helped them.

[00:22:47] And it's no one's fault.

[00:22:48] It's right.

[00:22:48] It's like, it's going to take time for the research to, uh, to get to where it needs

[00:22:54] to be to help people.

[00:22:55] But yeah, that's basically it.

[00:22:57] Then I found brain retraining in three days.

[00:23:00] I learned to switch off my fever after I'd had it for a year and a half.

[00:23:06] And, um, meaning that I had this chronic high temperature and, uh, within three minutes of

[00:23:14] this exercise, my fever would go away.

[00:23:16] My sore throat would go away.

[00:23:18] My lungs wouldn't ache when I was breathing.

[00:23:20] That was it.

[00:23:21] When I could do that, I was like, wow, wow.

[00:23:25] There's a breadth of information that people do not know exists.

[00:23:32] And that was the beginning of everything.

[00:23:34] Then I met Cardin and then here we are basically in a nutshell.

[00:23:38] Wow.

[00:23:39] I mean, you both have really incredible journeys of where you've come from and, and having so

[00:23:44] much knowledge, you know, like going through this and yet having all of this knowledge about

[00:23:50] the body and still not knowing what you can do until you found something different, which

[00:23:57] is very interesting and not the norm of what's being taught.

[00:24:00] Even when we, like when I was going through school, we had one quarter of pain science.

[00:24:06] So we touched on it and we got to see, you know, oh, here's a guy in a underdeveloped country

[00:24:13] and he had a broken, a broken arm.

[00:24:16] And you can literally, as he's moving his arm, you could see the bones and he has no

[00:24:20] pain because he's had to learn to live with that.

[00:24:23] Like if you don't have the resources, well, then your body, you teach your brain not to

[00:24:28] respond where someone else would be in excruciating pain, right?

[00:24:33] Because we have the resources to fix it and to do something.

[00:24:36] And we're always looking for that fix and that solution.

[00:24:38] And so what can you explain, Jen, a little bit about that brain retraining?

[00:24:44] Because now everyone is like, what?

[00:24:46] What did you do?

[00:24:48] Three minutes.

[00:24:49] What was that thing?

[00:24:50] Turning off your fever, that doesn't even make sense.

[00:24:53] Like, how does that happen?

[00:24:55] Trust me.

[00:24:55] It took me two months to sign up because I was like, this is a cult.

[00:25:01] No, literally the website had clouds on it.

[00:25:05] And I was like, this is so culty.

[00:25:07] I called my friend who recommended it and I was like, I can't.

[00:25:10] I'm sorry.

[00:25:11] I don't believe.

[00:25:12] Like this is, but it was freaking amazing.

[00:25:15] So before I would say two, three years, like in the last two years, people have been saying

[00:25:23] nervous system, nervous, like literally you'll watch a movie and about like a rom-com and the

[00:25:31] main character will be like, oh, my nervous system.

[00:25:34] And you're like, what?

[00:25:35] How is this?

[00:25:36] It's so cool.

[00:25:37] I mean, it's trending, but it's amazing.

[00:25:40] Right.

[00:25:41] But then it was my body connection.

[00:25:44] It was like, how does the mind and the brain, the body and the brain communicate?

[00:25:48] So basically it was a course.

[00:25:49] It was a three day seminar on how to learn how the mind and the body communicate.

[00:25:56] And so what the brain, so there's many different types now of brain retraining, but it comes

[00:26:02] from neuro-linguistic programming.

[00:26:03] Um, and I don't know if, um, you guys have a lot, if you've talked about it on the show,

[00:26:09] but neuro-linguistic programming is a very, very fascinating way to understand the language

[00:26:16] that happens in our mind and how it reflects on our physiology.

[00:26:21] You know, all the studies on like how often you repeat the word pain or you go to like

[00:26:26] a pain clinic and I'll fill out the pain form and what's your pain score.

[00:26:32] And your brain is just like, I'm in pain, of course, pain, pain, pain.

[00:26:38] So, um, NLP has a lot of fascinating techniques to give the brain new messages, to give the body

[00:26:47] new messages.

[00:26:48] So essentially the brain retraining was, um, and what it is in short, it's a mix of, um,

[00:26:58] understanding your thoughts and communicating new thoughts back to your body just by thinking

[00:27:05] new thoughts.

[00:27:07] Um, and using your body in somatosensory and neuromotor, um, kind of, um, exercises that

[00:27:16] while you're thinking the new thoughts and by inertia, feeling new feelings, you're also

[00:27:25] triggering your brain to look at the new shiny object, which are these movements, um, that

[00:27:32] are stimulating your nerve pathways to reorganize the information that's coming up from the body.

[00:27:39] So instead of focusing on the fatigue, on the aching, which is just a chronic message like

[00:27:46] pain that is switched on because something else is not being addressed.

[00:27:53] Symptoms like a chronic fever are the same.

[00:27:56] So when you give your brain that shiny object of, um, you know, somatic, um, posture, but also

[00:28:04] using your muscles, using, um, the, the fact that we have so many nerve endings on our feet,

[00:28:11] on our hands, the vagus nerve, so that our brain, while it's practicing the new thoughts,

[00:28:18] feeling new feelings, it's also getting all of this new somatosensory neuromotor information,

[00:28:23] and it's not focused on the fear and the stress response gets interrupted.

[00:28:29] And something that blows my mind is that when the stress response is interrupted, it doesn't

[00:28:36] take months or years for a symptom to stop.

[00:28:40] So as you may have experienced, and Carden will talk so much about this with pain, someone

[00:28:47] will come to us with 10 years of pain, and in 10 minutes of an exercise working, they will

[00:28:54] experience the pain going away.

[00:28:57] And the same thing happens with inflammatory responses causing aching in your lymph nodes,

[00:29:04] aching in your lungs.

[00:29:06] It's just a response in your immune system in that inflammation.

[00:29:12] And I could keep talking about it, but you get the idea.

[00:29:16] It's just, I love it so much.

[00:29:19] Yeah.

[00:29:19] I love that.

[00:29:20] And Jen and I, I mean, when you start talking about things like this, about how you can make

[00:29:24] a difference so fast, and it doesn't take months to feel a difference in something you've

[00:29:29] been feeling for years or decades.

[00:29:31] I mean, I know Jen and I both have stories of patients that flash into our mind that have

[00:29:36] the 30 or 40 year pain journey that we get breathing differently and thinking differently

[00:29:42] on the table.

[00:29:43] And within 10 minutes, they're bawling because they're like, I don't, I don't feel anything

[00:29:47] in my back.

[00:29:48] And I get chills when I say that because it's those experiences that really just shift the

[00:29:53] whole paradigm of what we have been learning in school for the past decade to say like,

[00:29:58] there's more here.

[00:30:00] And Carden with you, I want to go back to the title of this book, which I absolutely love,

[00:30:05] The Secret Language of the Body.

[00:30:07] I want to get a better idea of where that comes from because one, I love the title because

[00:30:13] something that I say is once you learn how to speak that language, the body can't ignore

[00:30:18] it.

[00:30:20] And it's this special language that for each individual, once you learn how to access,

[00:30:25] the nervous system does what it does and it responds to things in a certain way.

[00:30:30] So I kind of set you up and Jen talked a little bit about it and what she just said, but where

[00:30:35] does this title come from and how do we know how to speak that language to each individual

[00:30:41] person?

[00:30:41] Dom, I'm sorry.

[00:30:42] I have to rewind because I have something important to say about what you and Jen just

[00:30:46] talked about in terms of the velocity with which symptoms can switch.

[00:30:49] Because I know that people have such a barrier to that.

[00:30:52] And I want to just say this for everyone listening.

[00:30:54] If you inverse it and think about how quickly you can get a fever, how quickly your belly

[00:31:02] can start hurting if you're, for example, nervous about public speaking, how quickly your

[00:31:08] body flushes or sweats when you're embarrassed, your physiological responses to your nervous

[00:31:14] system are lightning fast, y'all.

[00:31:18] Okay.

[00:31:18] And you don't notice that.

[00:31:20] But whenever you're producing a symptom, and again, flushing and sweating, these are symptoms,

[00:31:26] folks.

[00:31:26] These are instantaneous responses by the body.

[00:31:29] When your body braces before it's about to impact the ground, instantaneous.

[00:31:34] All right.

[00:31:35] When you have pollen hit your nose and within seconds you're snotting, right?

[00:31:40] Because you're having an inflammatory response.

[00:31:43] That's all instantaneous.

[00:31:45] So if you're like, I don't believe that you can instantly flip that the other way, you're

[00:31:50] not paying attention.

[00:31:52] Mm-hmm.

[00:31:52] So I just really wanted to say that.

[00:31:54] Well put.

[00:31:54] When you start working with the brain and the nervous system, the thing that's turning

[00:31:59] on, let's say, these negative protective inflammatory pain responses directly, just as you've done

[00:32:07] with your folks on the table, as we do with our clients from around the world, that stuff

[00:32:12] turns off right away.

[00:32:13] And just because it's been on for 30 years does not mean it can't be turned off in three

[00:32:18] minutes with the right approach, y'all.

[00:32:21] Mm-hmm.

[00:32:21] So thanks for letting me just say that.

[00:32:24] Yeah.

[00:32:24] It's a good way of putting it.

[00:32:26] Very well put.

[00:32:26] I like that.

[00:32:27] Holla.

[00:32:28] All right.

[00:32:28] Good.

[00:32:30] Back to the beautiful setup you gave me, Dom, about the secret language of the body.

[00:32:35] I was thinking about Jen's story and even your story with the concussion, with having

[00:32:40] all of this knowledge, having all of this skill, like Jen talking about Pilates, Feldenkrais,

[00:32:46] yoga, like clearly an expert and someone experienced at all these practices.

[00:32:52] But there's an interesting thing.

[00:32:55] For example, when you tend to be a mover, a professional mover, body worker, anything,

[00:33:01] you tend to be proprioceptively aware of your body, but you're usually totally deaf, dumb,

[00:33:07] and blind to its emotional messages, to its other messages of maybe anxiety, vibration,

[00:33:15] of its polyvagal messages of whether I'm in a freeze response or a fight or flight.

[00:33:19] So yeah, you have a sense of like, ooh, this hurts or that's not moving right, or it doesn't

[00:33:23] feel like it's where it's supposed to be.

[00:33:25] But that's just one little segment of this overall language that's happening in your body

[00:33:34] and your nervous system all of the time.

[00:33:37] And it's kind of like if you were a band and you were trying to play music and you were the

[00:33:43] percussionist, but all you knew how to do was hear drums and you couldn't hear guitar or

[00:33:48] flute or the vocals, you'd have no way of actually creating beautiful music or even playing the

[00:33:55] drums in a way that helps what you're trying to do as a band.

[00:34:00] So the secret language of the body is about immersing people completely in these various

[00:34:07] channels of information that your brain and body are conducting all the time.

[00:34:12] Sensational information, proprioceptive information, in my opinion, most importantly,

[00:34:17] emotional information.

[00:34:19] But as Jen just pointed out, the critical nature of your thought, word, mental information,

[00:34:24] and the way that is interacting with your primary survival responses of fight, flight,

[00:34:31] freeze, fawn, et cetera.

[00:34:35] And how it's by learning how to listen to all these different languages that you can finally

[00:34:41] be like, oh my God, I've been playing the drums the whole time.

[00:34:44] It's the guitar that's totally out of tune and this repressed emotion I haven't felt.

[00:34:48] Holy crap, I just made that feel better.

[00:34:50] My polyvagal system just got stuck, moved out of a freeze response and I'm not in pain anymore.

[00:34:56] So that is what Jen and I have tried to bring into the world.

[00:35:01] Not just another set of tools and practices that happen to work with this system, but you

[00:35:08] become the composer of the system.

[00:35:10] Mm-hmm.

[00:35:11] And is it something that, you know, once people learn how to take in all these different systems,

[00:35:18] is it something we just now, it's gone, we never have to worry about it anymore?

[00:35:23] Or is it something we're always playing with?

[00:35:25] Is it something we're always working with to re-regulate the nervous system?

[00:35:31] Like, is there ever a time when we're like, regulated, I'm good?

[00:35:37] No.

[00:35:39] So I'm going to say yes.

[00:35:42] So I could talk about so many, you know, of our clients, but I'll talk about myself again

[00:35:48] because I'm going to return back.

[00:35:52] Previously, when I would get emotionally triggered, speaking of emotions, I would get whiplash,

[00:35:59] I would get pain in my shoulder blades, my hips, my calf muscles.

[00:36:05] I would get a tummy ache.

[00:36:07] And I was just like, did I move today?

[00:36:09] Did I hydrate?

[00:36:11] Did I, you know, I was just like going through the movement stuff.

[00:36:14] Did I stretch?

[00:36:15] Whatever.

[00:36:16] Playing the drums.

[00:36:17] What?

[00:36:18] Sorry?

[00:36:19] I said, just over there playing the drums.

[00:36:21] Exactly.

[00:36:22] Just playing the drums.

[00:36:24] Exactly.

[00:36:26] And then actually, sorry, I lost my train of thought now.

[00:36:30] I'm sorry to interrupt.

[00:36:32] That's my fault.

[00:36:36] What was I saying?

[00:36:38] So you're identifying, okay, I'm feeling this way within my body.

[00:36:43] Yeah.

[00:36:43] And then you would start feeling the pain.

[00:36:45] Yes, I remember.

[00:36:46] I remember.

[00:36:47] Thank you so much.

[00:36:49] So basically, previously, if I would be emotionally triggered, I would get a physical symptom.

[00:36:54] Whereas now that I've done the work and I'm aware, when I feel the emotion, it doesn't shut down.

[00:37:00] I don't go in a freeze response.

[00:37:02] I don't go in a fight or flight response, creating even more stress and cortisol and adrenaline in my body.

[00:37:09] Instead, I'm aware, oh, okay, I'm a bit afraid right now.

[00:37:15] Or I'm really angry.

[00:37:17] And I hold space for that emotion and I let it.

[00:37:20] And so essentially, the byproduct of the trigger now isn't anymore a physical symptom.

[00:37:26] But it's like, oh, that really hurt my feelings.

[00:37:29] Or, you know, I want to cry.

[00:37:32] Or like, I'm really angry and like, I need to go for a run because I need my body to get this emotion out.

[00:37:40] So I think that's the biggest difference.

[00:37:43] And then it's so interesting.

[00:37:45] So with our work, as Cardin was saying, it's not just, you know, exercises, which anyway are super helpful.

[00:37:53] The ones that we teach, we teach you how to become aware of the messages coming from your body and how they connect to the messages in your mind.

[00:38:02] So you become aware.

[00:38:04] So that's the biggest thing, I think.

[00:38:06] So instead of moving through life with, oh my gosh, which tool, which exercise?

[00:38:12] Oh, you now have this evergreen awareness.

[00:38:19] And it's so powerful because it makes you take radical responsibility over your traumas, over your actions, over your feelings, over growth.

[00:38:30] Like your personal growth is just limitless.

[00:38:33] Because when you take personal responsibility for your triggers, for your emotions, for your actions, it's just so powerful.

[00:38:41] Your body and your brain are just aligned.

[00:38:44] There's less fear.

[00:38:45] There's less people pleasing.

[00:38:47] There's less perfectionism.

[00:38:49] It's just you aware of what's happening and, you know, where it came from too.

[00:38:54] I hope that gives a clear picture of, but essentially healing does not mean eliminating stress and being calm.

[00:39:05] Healing is increasing the capacity for stress.

[00:39:10] And essentially learning how to feel safe, the presence of safety in your body.

[00:39:16] And stress will be there always, right?

[00:39:18] So increasing that capacity and learning the language of your body, basically.

[00:39:24] I love that.

[00:39:25] I mean, we talk about it all the time.

[00:39:26] Awareness is key.

[00:39:28] That is how we get access into our body.

[00:39:32] And I remember, you know, there's specific times that I can remember where I had a huge amount of stress.

[00:39:37] I like had found out someone had cheated on me.

[00:39:40] And my body immediately went into this like stress mode.

[00:39:44] And I was like, hey, Jen, you know how to deal with this.

[00:39:47] Like snap out of it.

[00:39:49] Like breathe.

[00:39:49] We're good.

[00:39:50] We got this.

[00:39:51] And immediately I was able to take that.

[00:39:54] I've never felt like a panic type of anxiety come on me, but I was able to like switch it.

[00:40:00] And it was so cool to have those tools to know what to do and how to respond to my body.

[00:40:07] You know, and that's where it's like become so powerful what you guys are doing and how you're helping people to be able to achieve that.

[00:40:15] To be able to achieve that level of awareness.

[00:40:17] Yeah.

[00:40:47] And you talked about how our world is so full of constant stressors.

[00:40:53] And it made me think of this line that I saw one of you had written out somewhere that it had something to do with how our ancestral nervous system that we have inherited is failing us.

[00:41:07] And it is not equipped for the world we live in today.

[00:41:11] Carden, can you explain a little bit about why we've kind of been set up for failure by the lack of or the slow speed of evolution of our nervous system?

[00:41:23] Totally.

[00:41:24] You know, we have the most remarkably evolved stone age nervous system trying to take on a world that moves at the speed of light.

[00:41:36] Literally.

[00:41:36] Yes.

[00:41:37] Literally.

[00:41:38] Exactly.

[00:41:38] Right.

[00:41:38] Stone versus the speed of light.

[00:41:41] Yeah.

[00:41:42] And it's just phenomenally incongruent.

[00:41:47] And your nervous system, again, we go back to that stone age or if you look at, forget it.

[00:41:54] Let's take ourselves out of it.

[00:41:55] Let's just, one of my favorite things is to just imagine, you guys choose deer or leopard?

[00:42:02] Leopard.

[00:42:03] Okay.

[00:42:04] Leopard.

[00:42:05] I'm glad you chose that.

[00:42:06] If you look at all big cats, have you ever seen an animal capable of being more sweetly lazy and liquid and supple when they're not doing something?

[00:42:18] That's true.

[00:42:19] Right.

[00:42:19] That leopard sleeping on the tree branch.

[00:42:21] Yeah.

[00:42:21] They are never using energy, being stressed or tightening their muscles until there is a really good reason to do it.

[00:42:32] Yeah.

[00:42:32] And that reason, there's only a couple of them.

[00:42:35] They're hunting.

[00:42:36] They're not using that.

[00:42:37] They're not using that.

[00:42:37] They go from that wonderful, supple liquidness into just flowing liquid steel, right?

[00:42:43] And they look amazing.

[00:42:45] Yeah.

[00:42:46] The moment they take down that antelope, they are not being like, hmm, where's my next DM that I have to respond to, right?

[00:42:53] They go into like eat, chill, rest and digest mode.

[00:42:56] And they maximize their absorption of calories from that animal they've killed.

[00:43:00] Furthermore, where are the other times they're getting activated?

[00:43:02] Probably mating, territorial stuff, or if a hunter's coming along.

[00:43:08] But outside of those incidences, their survival system, their fight, flight, freeze, vaughn, all that stuff is not on because it wasn't designed to be on.

[00:43:22] In the same way that like your smoke alarms and sprinkler system in your building are really only there in case of emergency.

[00:43:29] And unfortunately, the contemporary world that we live in, which is a combination of light speed, constant communications, constant, I mean, what do they call it now?

[00:43:40] An attention economy.

[00:43:41] Have you guys heard that expression?

[00:43:43] I don't know if I have.

[00:43:44] We live in an attention economy.

[00:43:46] All of social media.

[00:43:47] All of marketing.

[00:43:49] It's exclusively all of news.

[00:43:52] They make their money off seizing your attention to either make money by showing you something, the ad, right?

[00:44:00] Or by seizing your attention long enough to convince you to buy something.

[00:44:04] Now, we're not going to solve the social economic issues of the planet today.

[00:44:09] But they seize your attention by activating your stress response to keep you engaged.

[00:44:16] And that's just marketing.

[00:44:18] That's not the emails from your boss.

[00:44:20] That's not you reading about some horrible thing like a mudslide killing 5,000 people in another country that you were never supposed to know about, right?

[00:44:28] That's not hustle culture telling you that you suck if you're not achieving, right?

[00:44:32] That doesn't even include Jen's brutal and cruel Eastern block ballet teachers making sure that she was worthless unless she could do whatever.

[00:44:44] So, when you look at that – oh, and by the way, we didn't mention intergenerational trauma.

[00:44:49] I'm sorry.

[00:44:49] I'm painting a really rough picture here.

[00:44:51] But when you look at all of that and you're like, I'm supposed to be like a leopard on the savannah, sort of chilling most of the time until I don't have to.

[00:45:01] That's why this is such a hard world to navigate, folks.

[00:45:05] Mm-hmm.

[00:45:06] So, being able to jump right in.

[00:45:10] I just want to add, and all of the things you said reminds me of how incredibly resilient we are.

[00:45:19] Because we're supposed to be the leopard sleeping, but all of this crazy stuff is happening that our nervous system is not yet equipped for.

[00:45:29] And we somehow manage to have relationships, have children, work, make money, eat, drink, move, and the list goes on and on.

[00:45:41] I think humans are incredible.

[00:45:45] Yeah.

[00:45:46] Yeah.

[00:45:46] I was going to get to a hopeful note there, which is she's absolutely right.

[00:45:49] We're resilient and we're capable and somehow we're still upright.

[00:45:53] And when you can combine learning the secret language of your body and really, in general, applying practices that help that nervous system stay in a place where it's not constantly feeling in survival mode.

[00:46:07] With doing everything you can within reason to reorganize your life so that it's more suitable to your biology.

[00:46:15] Simply so that work fits into your life instead of your life fitting into work.

[00:46:19] That you have better boundaries with technology.

[00:46:22] That you have better boundaries with news media.

[00:46:25] That all these, it doesn't take a lot.

[00:46:27] We're so resilient.

[00:46:28] All you have to do is lessen the pressure a bit and increase your skill with your body a bit to go out of survival mode and into thriving mode.

[00:46:37] We are designed to achieve just not relentlessly and under endless pressure.

[00:46:43] And you just being able to say that takes pressure off of people.

[00:46:47] Like, I mean, even yesterday when I was, you know, my son was taking a nap and I was supposed to be doing a little more work before a friend came over to work out.

[00:46:57] And I had to text her and I'm like, I am so exhausted in my body right now.

[00:47:01] I cannot work out today.

[00:47:04] I'm so sorry.

[00:47:05] And I napped.

[00:47:06] But I felt guilty for taking, I'm pregnant and still feel guilty for taking a nap while my son naps.

[00:47:14] But it's.

[00:47:15] I will say, I do my best to tell her.

[00:47:17] Yeah, he does.

[00:47:18] It's okay.

[00:47:18] Take the nap.

[00:47:19] You need it.

[00:47:20] You're growing a human.

[00:47:22] I love it.

[00:47:23] I mean.

[00:47:23] Get your rest.

[00:47:25] I'm a boy mom as well.

[00:47:28] And he's one and nine months.

[00:47:31] And I will take all the naps I can get because he is a ball of fire.

[00:47:38] Oh, yeah.

[00:47:38] And I'm not pregnant.

[00:47:41] I know.

[00:47:42] It's a lot.

[00:47:42] And it's hard to shift that mindset of not feeling guilty about it.

[00:47:47] And allowing that instinctual feeling to be and have that be okay.

[00:47:53] Let the leopard come out.

[00:47:54] Yeah.

[00:47:56] And listen to the body in that way.

[00:47:58] So I appreciate the message because I think that allows her so much grace for what people are experiencing within their body.

[00:48:05] And giving them permission to be able to listen to that and receive it within their bodies.

[00:48:11] I think is so beautiful.

[00:48:12] And I cannot wait to get my hands on your book and dive into the magic that you guys have created for so many people.

[00:48:20] But where can people go to learn more about you?

[00:48:23] We're going to have all the links, obviously, for both of you guys and your book and how you really help people.

[00:48:30] So just a little overview.

[00:48:33] So on social media, you can find our company, Somia International.

[00:48:39] And that has our program, our book.

[00:48:41] And then Carden and I are on Instagram.

[00:48:44] I am Jen Mann and Carden is Carden Raven.

[00:48:48] And then our website, somiainternational.com.

[00:48:51] And that will have everything about the book, our program, and all that we offer.

[00:48:56] Yeah.

[00:48:57] Beautiful.

[00:48:57] Well, thank you guys so much.

[00:48:59] I mean, I feel like this is one of the points where I wish we had one of those podcasts that we would just go for three hours and nobody would end up listening by the end.

[00:49:08] But I would love every minute of it because I know that we could just riff on these different conversations forever.

[00:49:16] I know.

[00:49:17] Because there's endless things that we can talk about and endless value that people can gain from the wisdom that you two have.

[00:49:22] So I would encourage everyone to go check out your book, check out your flagship program where you're really helping so many people come through stories not too dissimilar to what you two went through.

[00:49:33] The people that have found no solutions from all the endless providers that they have gone to and the traditional medical systems that they've been spun through.

[00:49:43] I really appreciate the work that you two do.

[00:49:45] And thank you for your time coming on here.

[00:49:47] Thank you so much for having us.

[00:49:49] It was a pleasure.

[00:49:49] We must geek out again.

[00:49:51] And maybe we can like have a dinner party and live stream it and people can watch if they want or not.

[00:49:55] If they don't.

[00:49:56] Oh, that's fine.

[00:49:56] I like that idea.

[00:49:58] 100%.

[00:49:59] With all the babies too.

[00:50:01] Yeah.

[00:50:01] My babies, your babies, your babies.

[00:50:03] Babies included.

[00:50:04] Show them the true blue reality of body wellness geek nerd parents trying to do anything.

[00:50:10] Nervous systems in live action.

[00:50:12] There we go.

[00:50:14] All right.

[00:50:15] Thank you guys.

[00:50:16] See ya.

[00:50:17] I really hope you enjoyed that conversation because we feel like we could have gone so much longer.

[00:50:22] There's so much more to dive into.

[00:50:23] So please check the links below to get their book and to just learn more from them.

[00:50:28] This is really healing work when we understand how to work with our body and with our nervous system.

[00:50:34] And like they said, gain that awareness.

[00:50:35] So please pass this episode along to anyone you know who may be suffering from chronic pain, chronic fatigue, or looking for answers within their body and just not finding the relief.

[00:50:46] Please pass this episode along.

[00:50:48] This is how we get it out to more people.

[00:50:50] We spread the message and we help everyone heal ourselves and the people around us.

[00:50:55] So I hope you enjoyed that and we'll see you back next time on the Optimal Body Podcast.