Episode 8: My Breakthroughs on my own fibromyalgia journey
Hello Hello Hello!
I am excited to be back for an episode # 8 of Winning At Fibromyalgia podcast!
Title of today’s episode is: “How I reached breakthroughs on my own fibromyalgia journey”
I shared during an earlier episode on the podcast that I have fibromyalgia back pain. It is mostly in my upper and mid back. I have had it since 2010 or so. It has been really frustrating at times to figure out what works. I have been to PT, massages and even had a trigger injection by one of my Orthopedic colleagues. It helped for about 2-3 months then the pain returned.
I did not have my Winning at Fibromyalgia method when I experienced my first breakthrough with my own pain. I did somatic tracking, WHILE ON MY LUNCH break, and my pain went away. It came back the next day but went away during meditation in the evening. And it has happened several times since then, my pain comes back but is less severe and one day I think it will stop coming back.
So it was AFTER my breakthroughs that I mapped out the 5 step WAF method. I introduced the 5 steps in the last episode. They don’t have to be in the sequence I presented and here I share how they came to me.
- Hope that I could feel better and the role of our past traumas play in our daily behavior.
Months before I started researching the neuroplastic pain concept in detail I signed up for the Whole health Medicine institute course for physicians organized by Dr. Lissa Rankin. It was organized online for the first time which made it immediately attractive to me. For a brief overview, Dr. Lissa Rankin is a leader in approaching health issues by digging in to find the root cause. I like her approach because she is NOT an anti-science or anti-medicine. Quite the contrary, she personifies the approach that I love – which si to combine the best of the best approaches – the best of the western medicine and everything else including harnessing the power of our brains and inner healing energy.
The first online retreat happened in 7/2021 and Dr. Rankin introduced the concept of IFS (internal family system) approach to healing. It basically says we as humans have many parts within us, frozen in time, living inside our minds/hearts or memories. Like when you say “part of me wants to go (to a party but another part just wants to sit home and study… (or something similar). We have our responsible, reckless, fun loving, sad, angry parts. Any time our beliefs were formed in childhood or feelings hurt or anytime our worldview was shaped, our memory has an imprint of that part. Those that have been there since childhood are part of our subconscious mind. Richard Schwartz is the founder of this healing therapy method, and he has been perfecting it for over 30 years now. There are schools and courses to get trained at this and demand is super high.
I realized that I had so much sorrow and pain hidden in my past that was connected how I acted and behaved in my daily life, years after my adverse childhood experiences and traumas. And when I say traumas I don’t mean anything super vicious like abuse. Adverse childhood experience is anything that does not allow a child to feel safe. You can put literally anything from verbal to physical to sexual abuse. But it does not have to be physical. Bullying is a good example. For the first time ever, truly ever, I knew I could “heal” my soul, all the past wrongs, and traumas. It was truly transformational. And from that experience came my everlasting hope for my own healing.
- Deeper understanding of the neuroplastic pain concept.
As a Rheumatologist I have been trained to view the fibromyalgia pain as central pain volume problem – that the pain is augmented in the brain or spinal cord due to various possibly even genetic factors. Factors that are out of our control. Meaning you can’t do anything about them.
And That is not entirely true. Fibromyalgia pain is linked to emotions and chronically activate stress reaction, basically representing a chronic/perpetual body mind syndrome. And because of that (the link to emotions and chronic stress reaction, chronic activation of the sympathetic nervous system), WE CAN do something about it, if we CHOOSE.
It took me a while to fully sink in – that my emotions – past and present, and stress (again past and present) could be causing my back pain. I was telling myself – the back trigger injection worked so it MUST be coming from my back at least to some degree right?!
When you look at all the research, literature showcasing how emotions can bring on painful sensations, it is clear that the factors that affect pain are mostly WITHIN our control.
And this is NOT to say that humans who have fibromyalgia are somehow personally responsible. NO! Not at all. All it means is that the pain is the message from the brain that it is not feeling safe.
As soon as I did, and that would have been September 2021, amazing things started happening.
- Somatic tracking and other messages of safety to the brain:
When I did somatic tracking the first time, I actually did not know it was called somatic tracking, or what the purpose was – my former coach told me to just basically “check in” with my body and check for any body sensations or emotions, and bring on a feeling of a warm light filling up my body, as if from the “Source”. It made me feel safe, and really cozy (the point of falling asleep). I do not remember whether it affected my pain at that time so I assume I did not have much pain around the time when I first did (January 2021). The method how this feeling of safety is brought on is different for different people, many people feel this way during a prayer. But the universal message this state of the mind and body it creates is the message of safety for the brain.
The purpose of somatic tracking is to focus on breathing, and ANY physical sensations one has in the body, including pain, and just observe it, without judgement and communicate a message of safety to the brain. Something like this: ”Brain I know what you are doing, I know you are sending this physical sensation of pain to me, and I know my body is ok, my body is healthy, and I want you to know I am safe”. You need to FEEL safe inside, you don’t have to say these things aloud, just to feel it and let the brain know that you know.
I do somatic tracking daily, usually in the morning and at bed time, and also during my midday walk. Especially the midday walk time is special because I take a half an hour off after my morning clinic, I walk outside, and actively bring on relaxation response. It has now happened numerous times that even if I feel any tension in my jaw or my neck or upper back, it goes away during the walk.
- I now view pain as an invitation to investigate/invitation to curiosity.
When my back pain first came back after disappearing during the meditation, I realized I needed to look “within”, find out what was going on that set my brain on high alert. It has now happened several times that I am able to make my pain go away with meditation and soothing messages, and it comes back. And instead of freaking out, or being annoyed or frustrated, I feel curiosity and start “investigation” of what is happening inside me that causes this “high alert” mode in my brain sending the pain message to me in form of back pain.
My back pain comes on during driving. I just don’t like driving on highways between Cape Cod and Boston. Especially in the evening. I feel like I have to be on high alert. So I slow down. I feel better then. I also should mention that my back pain is less severe now when it comes back than it used to be even just 3 months ago. It is really incredible.
5. I welcome my emotions.
I want to make it clear that I do not like feeling angry, or sad or frustrated. But I am so much better at mastering the awareness of them, which then allows me to respond rather than react to them – which makes me behave more calmly.
I have not mastered the entire range of my emotions and that’s why I think my pain comes back. However, the main message of this last point is that being aware of my emotions and breathing through them/my reactions to my circumstances has been one of the most pivotal parts of my healing journey.
I will dedicate more time to the topic of emotions in the future episodes.
Connect with me via facebook at my fb name martina lenartova or on my website: https://www.martinaziegenbeinmdcoaching.com