Episode 6 - Beyond the Ache: Transforming Pain into Power

Join us in this captivating episode as we unravel the complexities of pain—physical, emotional, and psychological. Discover how our tendency to shy away from engaging with pain can either invigorate life or lead to destruction if mishandled.

Jill:  we are gonna talk about going into pain. yeah. just what everyone wants to do. uh, first of all, just want to clarify that there are different forms of pain. yes. there's physical pain. there's emotional pain. there's psychological pain. yeah. okay. whatever the pain, going into pain tends to be something as a human being that we don't love to do. nope. but going into the pain.

Kim:  pain makes you feel alive. it sounds really screwed up, but pain makes you feel alive. it makes you realize that you are still in human form. you're still meant to be doing human things. um, so

Jill:  are we supposed to be in the degree of pain we're in? no. no. no. yeah. because now we've taken humans have taken, uh, um.

Kim:  you've used it people use it as crutch

Jill:  because then they they it gets to be

Kim:  a victimized mood where then somebody's going to care for them instead of them taking responsibility for their own pain.

Jill:  uh-huh. or, also, we get validated when we're in pain and we get attention yep. in pain. yep. and distraction. we get lots of things that weirdly then make us not feel alive. yep. so pain just like everything else here in our, uh, up down, in out dual experience here. pain can either serve us or destroy

Kim:  us. correct.

Jill:  and right now most of us are on path to having pain destroy us. yeah. if it's not already. yeah. and so when you say i had i mean, the pain i had going on. yeah. alright. so then someone, you know, like, hey. dive into that pain. i'd be like, no. thank you. it's already, like, so bad that i'd like to exit earth, but i couldn't exit earth. i wasn't, like, suicidal. i just was like, it was just so bad. i was, like, i just don't wanna be doing this. and yet here i was still doing it. but then if you would've said to me at that stage, let's go deeper into the pain, i'd have been, like, excuse my language, but i'm, like, you're fucking cracked.

Kim:  yep. yep. yep. and, uh, and i'd be like, oh, you want me to feel more pain? okay then. so then you actually create you literally create that more pain. yep. to the point where then you are literally totally disconnected, but you're actually shoving, oh, shoving your spirit more into fear. so you're actually creating more fear.

Jill:  yeah.

Kim:  so it's like your whole nervous system then completely is out of whack. it's like upside down. yes. or no.

Jill:  so we're not asking people to dive into that kind of fear and to create more fear or to continue to mess up. it's actually quite honestly to learn how i guess a great word, um, two words that i think are really, really needed in our world right now. one would be appropriate or proper. yes. appropriately or properly dive into fear. yep. i'm sorry. pain. yep. pain. in what i had got wires crossed in me, and i dove in into more and more and more pain to where it was debilitating. and that's really, my life became pain. yep. everything was pain. it was either i'm going into more pain, i'm in pain, or i'm recovering from pain. and then when that was over, i would just start that cycle again. and i literally had a moment where i was like, this is insanity. everything in my life is pain. yep. but i, with the help of kim, needed to look at the pain.

Kim:  yep. for you, we end up kinda dressed the physical because you could not mentally even process anything. if i were to tell you to do some of the mental work, you could not do it. because

Jill:  there's that much pain. yep. there was no there was i literally had no more gas in the tank to look at anything else because there was that much physical pain.

Kim:  yep. so then we then the when things are at the physical level, that's when it's gone through all the other levels, and your physical body is now just done for. k? so nervous systems, a wreck. detoxification system is just shot. like, we're we're we're doing some major damage control. you have multiple band aids all over your entire body that you have placed on.

Jill:  and there was major damage control. now here's something i wanna share about this too is that you have to stay out of blame and you have to stay out of all sorts of storytelling around it. because one of the stories that i told myself that was very, very difficult for me to clear out, and it was, is i truly just did not understand why i started with the depths of pain that i started at six. i was very little. i was a kid, and i held a lot of resentment and i'd say anger and other things around that, which actually made the pain worse over time. yeah. and, the pain got so bad. i was so unwilling to drop that story and other stories that the pain got so bad that i literally had no choice but to drop it. i couldn't i didn't have any stories. all i had was pain. it was like the stories don't even matter. you have so much pain. and i'd suggest to people don't go that far. but if you have gone that far, there you are. yep. but if you can, like,

Kim:  not going through that judgment, the the anger.

Jill:  the blame, the victimization, pick it. it can play out a whole lot of ways. it's just kinda, most of us have already gone into that.

Kim:  yep. we have. and part of it is our our medical world in the united states, i'm gonna pick on them, has a lot to do with this because they give you these diagnoses. they give this stuff, but they really don't teach you on how to manage it. their management is go to this therapist. go to do this type of exercise. take this pill to stop the pain receptor so then you don't feel the pain. but the pain is still there. it's still gotta heal.

Jill:  it's it it's a system that in its time it worked. it was very fragmented and it still is that today. i specialize in this. and if i can't help you, then i'll send you to that. yeah. and i'll send you in. but now there's just too much sending to the next, to the next, to the next.

Kim:  and there's no communication then. yeah. so we're as, like, we've talked about urgent care, trauma, we're great in the united states for that. you break a bone, you have a heart attack, like, we're amazing for that. that is a different type of pain that we're we're talking about. we're looking at more your chronic long term type pain. or or can't get answers.

Jill:  yes. yep. i, you know, um, recently, someone was dealing with, uh, would i call? it was almost like autoimmune type stuff. it wasn't autoimmune, but it was that same kind of stuff. like, she knew there was something wrong with her. but for decades, she was being told there's nothing wrong with you. there's nothing wrong with you. so she was starting to interpret that she was crazy. yep. until she finally talked to someone, i. e. kim yeah. who was like, i can see that. i see your pain. i see what's going on. i see you validated for her. and all of a sudden, that sense of relief that she had

Kim:  yeah.

Jill:  and then, like, hey. and that's exactly the process i had when i came to you.

Kim:  yep. because when you exactly. the validation. so when people have had chronic pain and they're looking for validation, that that you can use it in a good way or you can use it in a bad way. um, so everything is good and bad. everything is literally has a positive and a negative to it. here where we are, it's

Jill:  it's a cause and effect. it's up down. it's, uh, there's two sides. yep.

Kim:  when somebody validates your pain, you feel then a sense of worthiness. you feel like you're being heard. um, but then it's like, okay. cool. yeah. you know i'm in pain. okay. but then what do i do with that then? like, you're you get the a relief, but then you don't know where to go with that relief. and then you're like, i might feel a little bit better, but the pain is still there. it's not going away. so then people then start digging more because they got a little bit of a relief. so then they're now their story is like, i felt a little better when somebody validated me. so then you keep going to the next. you keep going to the next person because you're constantly looking for that validation. whereas now you finally get it. you get to a point where you're like, holy cup. this person really got it. they really understand me, and they're truly feeling it on a subconscious level that is deep inside.

Jill:  i think most people, would look at their pain, want their pain to be physical.

Kim:  yeah.

Jill:  they don't even necessarily realize that, but part of why they don't won't look at it is because when you look at your pain, you start to see most of the pain is not physical. right. most of it is elsewhere.

Kim:  it's subconscious. it's stored in the body. it is an energetic disruption. it is literally your emotions

Jill:  yep. it could be a few other things too. don't wanna go into right now because that's a little deeper than what we wanna go in this conversation. it's interesting because okay. i'm gonna use my story and emily because it's an example. i don't necessarily need to talk about myself. i just think it's a good example. six years old, having headaches, having physical pain

Kim:  yeah.

Jill:  with lots of loving people around me who didn't know what to do about the physical pain the six year old was having. they tried yep. doctoring and all sorts of stuff, and they tried. and in the end, they didn't really know what to do. but part of it was, i think, the pain i was having wasn't physical, and they didn't know how to deal with that. no blame. no nothing. the point of the story, though, really is to say that a six year old version of jill learned to carry that pain. mhmm. and also you get attention and caring from people when you have pain. yep. and then fast forward all these years later, that finally hit a tipping point. i never really i wouldn't say that i ever really enjoyed having pain. no. k.

Kim:  but seen her when she walked in. she did not enjoy it. i didn't.

Jill:  but it was there, and so i tried to work with it. and i now can look back and see that very unconsciously. i used pain as a way to get attention. yeah. and over time, it grew out of control, and and then it was like, eventually, i just had to sit and look and go. you can get attention, jill, without needing to be in pain

Kim:  and then and then people go into their their fear of what well, how do i do that? because i haven't done this. like, i don't i don't know what that even looks like. i don't know where to make that.

Jill:  right. and when someone says, how do you do that? and that's what i did. i was like, i looked at the pain one day. well, i kinda was forced to look at it. yep. uh, i i laugh about that because, hey, you know, i'm looking back. i go, geez. jill, i wish could've looked at that pain sooner. and quite honestly, i had tried many times. so there you go. but, anyway, i realized i needed someone's help in getting an understanding of this pain and how to manage it and diminish it and overcome it. and, and then ultimately, i would say that the help that i needed from someone else then got replaced by that i needed to help myself. yes. and it started with i needed to help myself, but i was so buried in it. i couldn't see my way where i needed help from you, kim. and then and you were so wonderful in that you won't do things for people. you will help, but you wouldn't do them. so, like, my ultimate thing was, well, then i have to figure this out, which is what we're wanting to help others yep. do that process. hopefully, before you are in extreme excruciating pain. but if you're in extreme excruciating pain, we can help with that though too.

Kim:  absolutely. um, i i like to think of when we initially have pain. what do our hands do? they go right to the spot of the pain, and we are designed to self heal. so when you put your say you bumped your knee and see you have a scrape on it, your hands go right there. when you send that energy, so we, um, we create well, not create, but we can send energy through your hands into areas. you can direct it into an area. so if, say, your head is hurting, you put your hands there, you're directing healing energy right at that moment. when you do healing energy, you're actually helping to, heal up any emotional trauma that you might be experiencing from it. uh, the physical pain is still gonna be there, but the physical body can heal a lot faster when you release or you move the emotional pain.

Jill:  and psychological pain. yes. because there's psychological pain too. that is, your mind, your thoughts, your reactions,

Kim:  so when people put their hand on you, when you're like, man, i have a headache and say you are six years old, your mom's putting your hand on your head, it might actually feel very comforting. you don't understand if you're like, man, just keep your head your hand there. it just feels so nice because they're sending you healing energy that's removing some of that emotional psychological pain so then you can have the time so you can process the physical pain. we haven't been taught on how to then go into that physical pain,

Jill:  which is what we love to teach people, show them, help them learn and practice on how to do that process so that you can

Kim:  go into then the real situation, the real pain.

Jill:  then you can really look at the pain. yes. it's kinda like what the pain the roots of it. like, what is the root of this pain? where is this coming from?

Kim:  so and i've had people say with headaches and you're like, okay. well, you have a, um, disbalance in your in your spinal cord. like, sometimes i can literally feel it and, like, the muscle in there. and they're just like, well, i've tried chiropractors. i'm like, well, how many times have you gone? or i've tried massage. i went once, and it helped a little

Jill:  bit, but then it didn't

Kim:  and then, like, couple days later, it was back. i'm like, oh my goodness. like, practice. we talk a lot about practice. it's not just one thing. you can't just do one thing and expect a miracle to happen. this has been coming on for years, and so you get a daily practice.

Jill:  yeah. and eventually, you can get to, uh, balance and wellness and peace, and yet you will still have to practice daily.

Kim:  mhmm.

Jill:  you just have to find a practice that you love, and we'd like to help people find a practice that they love. yep. and the dailies. starts with the dailies, and then we go deeper into that. but, yeah, yeah. you've gotta be able to look at pain. i i'll share one last thing about pain in that. a couple weeks ago, i woke up with a headache, and i even hesitate to call it a headache because it was so not a headache compared to what i was having, but it was a headache. the physical pain was the smallest part of the experience.

Kim:  yeah.

Jill:  the bigger part was the, the panic, the psychological. i could feel the working up, internal working up, which was amping up the pain. it was intense, and yet i saw it, and i played with that energy to the best of my abilities. and, eventually, i just started asking what can i do what can i do, and i got a really interesting answer of what i could do? it, it was definitely an option. it was to take a shower.

Kim:  yeah.

Jill:  but it i'd already done a shower. but what could i do is, like, my to calm myself, i gave myself permission to literally stand in the shower all day long if i needed to. there you go. and just that, kim, ticked down all those other things so much that the pain also ticked down. and i didn't have to spend the day in the shower because i really didn't wanna spend the day in the shower.

Kim:  but if you had to do it, you were okay with it. you meant you were in control then.

Jill:  but i was talking myself out of options. i was saying there's nothing that's working. there's nothing that's working. there's nothing that's working. and finally, i stopped i said, yes. alright. i will go and stand in the shower all day if i need to. yep. and it was the openness and the willingness to look at it. yeah. and trust. and trust and be with it and experience it

Kim:  so how how often do people get that ability to do that? um, so let's say you're at work.

Jill:  get the ability or get the opportunity?

Kim:  opportunity. gotcha. yep. so say you're at work and you're like

Jill:  you have the ability.

Kim:  yes.

Jill:  you have the opportunity to do it. right?

Kim:  yep. so you're sitting at work and you're like, man, like, how can i what will help this headache release? how can i help myself with this headache? and you're getting a shower and you're like, man, i can't shower here. and then you start creating a story like, i can't. i can't. i can't. i can't. you're like, okay. thank you. for the meantime, until i'm able to get to the shower, is there another process i can use until i'm able to get the shower? so you're still honoring the showers going to be there. yep. but then we just ask, okay. so i will get in the shower at this time. is there something else i can do prior to that?

Jill:  yeah. and you just need to keep yep. being with it until you find the way that you can see yep. and follow. yep. and i think what i had done in all that pain is i had shut that down. there's no way. there's no way out. there's no way out, which incidentally is also what someone is saying when they come to you, kim, and say, i've seen all these other people. yeah. there's been no way out that they've liked. yep. exactly. and one of the ways out that they're actually oftentimes looking for when they've seen person after person after person after person is that they're looking for the, um, fantasy story of a pill that'll solve it. and life is telling you there isn't a pill that'll solve it for you. that's why person after person after person can't give it to you. and that's, like, life's gentle nudge to say, you need to look at this. yeah. if you can't find the solution outside of you from person to person, it's because it's that process of what we just described of. let's look at the pain. yep. and what goes through my head every single time i say let's look at the pain? hell no. that's the first thing that goes through my head, and then i go, okay. but we're still gonna look at it. yep.

Kim:  i have just briefly, i have broken some, like, well, basically one bone. we'll say that one. and i was snowmobiling. i was actually having fun. i was probably going a little too fast. whatever. but i was actually having fun. and, um, when i crashed my sled, i made sure the sled was fine, but i threw myself off to protect the sled. funny how we do weird things like that.

Jill:  wow. yeah.

Kim:  alright. so i will damage myself versus damaging something else. k. anyway, so i'm rolling in the snow, whatever. um, i get up and, uh, my husband comes up and he's like, hey.

Jill:  are you okay? i'm like, oh, yep.

Kim:  i didn't let when you were in, um, what do we call fight or flight? there's a lot of times our emotions will disconnect. and when you have all this adrenaline rushing, you you can actually think super clear. it's pretty amazing. and i literally just stopped it, and i asked my body, okay. what's off? what's going on? so i used the energy, the essence that i had in that moment in a really good way, and i said, okay. i think i broke my wrist. i bruised my knee. and he snapped. he's like, wait. what? because i was super calm in that moment. and i said, yeah. he's like, okay. i'm like, well, you better like, let's get me somewhere before this, uh, this adrenaline, like, wears off because then i will actually feel the pain. but in this moment, i had the opportunity to just sit and be with it and, like, literally check my whole entire body over. so why i'm saying this is a lot of times, we have been put into a lot of situations in our life of this fight, flight, and freeze. so our adrenaline's been rushing and rushing and rushing and rushing and rushing. now we haven't had the ability to actually know when to stop and really listen and use that power, the adrenaline, um, versus getting caught up in it and, like, overwhelming ourself. like, we get caught up in, like, oh my gosh. i just crushed my sled. oh my gosh. like, is the sled okay? oh my gosh. like, i can't and then i start thinking about all the other things that it may affect. it may affect my job. it may affect my, okay. how am i gonna handle my kids? like, i didn't do that. i was literally, you stay in the moment. okay. what do i need to do? sure. and and i and i whatever we got up, husband's bringing me to the er. and by that time, it's like the adrenaline was wearing off and all the thoughts of everything else in the world started coming in like, oh, crap, kim. like, you you dumped this. like, what did you do? so then i started doing the blame on myself because i was driving too fast. i knew it. yep. i created the problem. and then i'm like, okay. how am i gonna work? how are we gonna pay the bills? like, how are we gonna do all that story? and it's funny how much the pain started creeping in to that wrist in that time frame. this is

Jill:  what we do. so we have more to talk about with pain. yes. but not today. for now, we'll just take that and, uh, play with those ideas. take that in and play with it. yeah. rolling around in your head and your body, your emotions. right? there's a lot there to unpack. very cool. k.