Latest / The Everyday Awesome Project / 98: Talk to Your Pain and Make Peace With Your Body

Transcript

98: Talk to Your Pain and Make Peace With Your Body · The Everyday Awesome Project

• 0:26
  Polly Mertens: Hey, superstars, welcome back.
• 0:28
  Polly Mertens: Polly here and Sam Pruitt.
• 0:30
  Polly Mertens: What's up, beautiful humans?
• 0:32
  Samantha Pruitts: Oh, it's so good to see you.
• 0:34
  Samantha Pruitts: And you guys, this episode actually um we're calling it talking to your pain.
• 0:39
  Samantha Pruitts: And it's because my dear Samantha here is actually in level nine pain for the last three weeks.
• 0:46
  Samantha Pruitts: So this is not this is no bueno.
• 0:48
  Samantha Pruitts: This is no bueno.
• 0:49
  Samantha Pruitts: We don't like doing topics like this, but um, you are living through something to give an experience, and so you can use it as a teaching moment at the same time, right?
• 0:58
  Samantha Pruitts: Because 100%.
• 0:59
  Samantha Pruitts: You're discovering a lot from this in pain inserting itself in your life, in your body, and in your emotional system.
• 1:07
  Samantha Pruitts: So talk to us like what what is pain?
• 1:10
  Samantha Pruitts: Like, what is the source of this?
• 1:12
  Samantha Pruitts: Tell us what you want.
• 1:12
  Samantha Pruitts: I don't know if you want to tell a little bit of the backstory of what you know where your pain is, if you want to just tell people that, but like what is pain body pain?
• 1:20
  Polly Mertens: Just so they understand why this is relevant to me right now and why I feel so drawn to you know having this conversation.
• 1:29
  Polly Mertens: Of course, you and I love to have all kinds of hard conversations.
• 1:32
  Polly Mertens: It's kind of what we do.
• 1:33
  Polly Mertens: But in this instance, I wish I was not having this conversation, but nonetheless, so I am in pain because I have injured my back.
• 1:41
  Polly Mertens: So in hindsight, I can really see it was building through my Iron Man training last year, a lot of tightness, a lot of things that basically I was working through and working with.
• 1:50
  Polly Mertens: And it wasn't anything at a level that stopped me, obviously, from completing an Iron Man.
• 1:55
  Polly Mertens: So there's that.
• 1:56
  Polly Mertens: Um, but then I went into my winter training regiment that was more oriented towards crossfit and lifting and heavy things and still doing some running and whatever.
• 2:05
  Polly Mertens: So I actually injured it back in August, helping somebody move up and down stairs, up and down stairs, carrying heavy things, because I'm a strong person and I like to do those things.
• 2:16
  Polly Mertens: So that was the initial injury.
• 2:19
  Polly Mertens: And then I tipped it over the edge mid-September at CrossFit deadlifting.
• 2:25
  Polly Mertens: And you know, we pick things up off the floor all the time, but in CrossFit, you can also do things very quickly.
• 2:31
  Polly Mertens: There, this kind of the dynamic of the workouts.
• 2:33
  Polly Mertens: So I was lifting heavy things off the floor quickly, repetitively.
• 2:38
  Polly Mertens: So many, many rips.
• 2:39
  Polly Mertens: And basically, my back just went pop.
• 2:42
  Samantha Pruitts: One too many.
• 2:43
  Polly Mertens: I dropped the weight, I hit the ground, and that was it.
• 2:45
  Polly Mertens: So since that day, and that was September 30th, uh 13th, sorry, um, I've been in debilitating pain, debilitating.
• 2:53
  Polly Mertens: And basically, what has happened now that I've had x-rays and MRIs and doctor's appointments, whatever, is L4 and L5 are herniated.
• 3:02
  Polly Mertens: So what happens is the little um soft, yummy stuff in between our joints, it has actually popped and is oozing out.
• 3:12
  Polly Mertens: So that's a very high level out of five.
• 3:14
  Polly Mertens: I'm uh uh number four in terms of severity of it.
• 3:18
  Polly Mertens: And then S1 is the root where the nerve is.
• 3:23
  Polly Mertens: So this stuff is flowing out, it's hitting a particular nerve pattern down my left leg.
• 3:28
  Polly Mertens: It's called S1, it's in the sacral joint.
• 3:30
  Polly Mertens: And so that nerve is now compressed and getting rubbed and agitated and raw and all kinds of things.
• 3:36
  Polly Mertens: So it's traveling down my leg through my hamstring, through my glute, through my hamstring, into my calf, and actually down into my foot.
• 3:43
  Polly Mertens: And so it makes it really impossible to basically sit, to drive, to function at any significant level.
• 3:51
  Polly Mertens: And so I'm dealing with it, and it's been crazy.
• 3:54
  Polly Mertens: Yeah.
• 3:54
  Polly Mertens: Sleep, anything.
• 3:55
  Polly Mertens: Anything.
• 3:57
  Polly Mertens: And so today we're gonna talk about not me and my misery, but like how I have dealt with it, um, perfectly imperfect, and how I'm working through it, and how can I use this to be of service of other people that might be suffering in similar ways or in any way, shape, or form, frankly.
• 4:15
  Polly Mertens: You know, how can you talk to your pain?
• 4:17
  Polly Mertens: Is um us having a conversation about what happens in the body and how to really resource your way through it, you know.
• 4:24
  Polly Mertens: And I think that's a key phrase right there.
• 4:26
  Polly Mertens: Like, you know, we talk about self-investing, right?
• 4:30
  Polly Mertens: Like self-coaching, self-investing.
• 4:32
  Polly Mertens: Like you take responsibility, like a lot of people just hand over the responsibility of their pain and their life and their well-being to people that just don't have the vested interest that we ought to, right?
• 4:42
  Polly Mertens: And so you, so nowhere in this conversation do we by any means say not get support?
• 4:49
  Polly Mertens: Like, don't talk to a professional.
• 4:51
  Polly Mertens: You know, if you are in some pain, please seek out any, you know, Western medicine, eastern medicine, anything to relieve your pain.
• 4:57
  Polly Mertens: And what we're gonna talk about is you've been having those convers, like you were trying to get a shot yesterday and you know it didn't happen.
• 5:05
  Polly Mertens: So, like you're and you're having steps to get your appointment to see if this is a surgery route or whatnot.
• 5:11
  Polly Mertens: So take those steps, and along the way, you still are in this pain, right?
• 5:16
  Polly Mertens: Like it's not gone.
• 5:17
  Polly Mertens: So that's the point of this conversation is okay, I'm I'm in pain.
• 5:21
  Polly Mertens: I'm taking steps to relieve the pain from a medical perspective, from a you know, relief perspective, but there is still pain.
• 5:29
  Polly Mertens: Okay, so how do I function?
• 5:31
  Polly Mertens: How do I function and not let it take me down?
• 5:33
  Polly Mertens: Because, you know, as I was studying this, one of the things I saw was, you know, first you and I were like, who in the hell is living their life and not taking action on pain?
• 5:44
  Polly Mertens: Like, yeah.
• 5:45
  Polly Mertens: Why would you tell like pain management?
• 5:47
  Polly Mertens: That's just like those two don't belong together.
• 5:50
  Polly Mertens: Like pain's resolution, you know.
• 5:52
  Samantha Pruitts: Resolution, exactly.
• 5:54
  Samantha Pruitts: As best she can to be swallowed by it and basically give into it is you can't function.
• 6:00
  Samantha Pruitts: I mean, your entire life would just be consumed by this on the daily, and that's not a way to live.
• 6:07
  Samantha Pruitts: And I would say also, you started to kind of go there for a minute, is like listen to the small signals, right?
• 6:16
  Samantha Pruitts: These are messages from your body to your brain, and we'll talk about how that works, that path, those pathways.
• 6:22
  Samantha Pruitts: But um, so I should have also honored myself more initially with these subtle pains that were popping up.
• 6:31
  Samantha Pruitts: And I thought, of course, I'm training at a high volume, a high level for like an Iron Man.
• 6:35
  Samantha Pruitts: Yeah, there's gonna be some pain and discomfort.
• 6:37
  Samantha Pruitts: But there's a difference in like general soreness and fatigue from a hard workout or a challenging whatever else.
• 6:44
  Samantha Pruitts: But then there is structural pain in the body that cannot and should not be ignored.
• 6:52
  Samantha Pruitts: So if people have something that's a one, two, three, or a four now, or it exasperates and then it comes back down, please address it.
• 7:01
  Samantha Pruitts: Please get professional help and find out what is actually the root cause of that.
• 7:06
  Samantha Pruitts: Yeah, and one thing I, as you were telling me the story when it was happening, I had two other friends that I think they both had, well, one had it turned out to be a meniscus thing, and one had a calf strain or hair or something like that.
• 7:19
  Samantha Pruitts: And they too quickly got into action without doing enough like rehabilitation or you know, insurance, whatever, and re-injured, you know.
• 7:28
  Samantha Pruitts: And so, and like you're a little bit of that, like you had uh an injury, you know, or you know, overstrained it, if you will, with the moving, the lifting the boxes.
• 7:37
  Samantha Pruitts: And then maybe, well, and I mean CrossFit just has so much going on.
• 7:41
  Samantha Pruitts: So, you know, like whatever agitated it that day, too much weight, too certain, whatever.
• 7:46
  Samantha Pruitts: Um, so just noticing, like you said, listen to the body's cues.
• 7:52
  Samantha Pruitts: If it's like, I'm not ready, you know, don't be doing this.
• 7:54
  Samantha Pruitts: So but tell us how this brain, you know, so we think of the pain as in your leg, but it's actually technically not in your leg, right?
• 8:02
  Polly Mertens: No, um, it's actually technically in my lumbar spine, L4, right?
• 8:08
  Polly Mertens: And but then it's the nerve that is being attacked and how that nerve is communicating to my brain.
• 8:15
  Polly Mertens: Yeah.
• 8:15
  Polly Mertens: So it's yeah, the injury site is where it is functionally or structurally or whatever, but the pain signal communications in my brain.
• 8:24
  Polly Mertens: So let me just read this real quick and kind of give people an idea because maybe they've never had pain.
• 8:28
  Polly Mertens: And honestly, I wrote a blog about this and eventually it will make its way to Substack when I get my act together, um, about how shocked I am about this pain.
• 8:38
  Polly Mertens: Because I've had so many incidents over my lifetime of experiencing pain, either at my own will and accord and decision making, you know, ultra running and all kinds of crazy things.
• 8:48
  Polly Mertens: But even many, yeah, I've had surgeries, I've had all kinds of stuff, but I've never experienced it like this.
• 8:53
  Polly Mertens: So it's interesting for me to have this sort of shock about it.
• 8:58
  Samantha Pruitts: I don't know this whole world over here.
• 9:00
  Samantha Pruitts: Like you what the hell's going on?
• 9:02
  Samantha Pruitts: And then you, Miss Wikipedia, like, I gotta get to the root, you know, like get in up in there and you discover this whole new world that now you're the you're you're a resident expert on.
• 9:12
  Samantha Pruitts: So seriously.
• 9:13
  Polly Mertens: It's my body, it's my job to become your domain expert.
• 9:17
  Polly Mertens: Hell yeah, hell yeah.
• 9:18
  Polly Mertens: So here we go.
• 9:19
  Polly Mertens: So when the body is experiencing pain, it initiates a rapid chain reaction involving the nervous system.
• 9:25
  Polly Mertens: We'll talk about that, and other physiological responses.
• 9:29
  Polly Mertens: Specialized nerve cells called nocepters detect a stimulus which sends electrical signals through the spinal cord to the brain.
• 9:39
  Polly Mertens: The brain then interprets these signals as pain, right?
• 9:43
  Polly Mertens: So it's just a signal happening, but there's no pain yet until the brain decides it is pain.
• 9:49
  Polly Mertens: The brain interprets these signals as pain and activates a stress response, which can include increased heart rate and the release of adrenaline.
• 9:57
  Polly Mertens: Simultaneously, the body can produce its own natural painkillers called endorphins.
• 10:01
  Polly Mertens: By the way, I really wish it would do a better job of that.
• 10:04
  Polly Mertens: Right?
• 10:05
  Polly Mertens: But I can understand for me, especially like an ultra running or Iron Man or whatever, you know, I was living off of these endorphins for hundreds of miles.
• 10:13
  Samantha Pruitts: Yeah.
• 10:15
  Polly Mertens: So maybe I sort of worked through my bank.
• 10:17
  Samantha Pruitts: Well, I was gonna say, and the body's like, no, you need to address this.
• 10:20
  Samantha Pruitts: We're not just gonna soften the feeling of this, because if we do, we know what Samantha does.
• 10:25
  Samantha Pruitts: She just gets right back in the gym and like, no, heck yeah, dude.
• 10:29
  Samantha Pruitts: Don't give her those like those natural drugs.
• 10:32
  Polly Mertens: We gotta keep her going down the track to get this taken care of.
• 10:36
  Polly Mertens: Totally.
• 10:37
  Polly Mertens: So these um pain pathways, the sensory nerves that I just talked about, uh, specialized pain receptors at the site of the injury.
• 10:45
  Polly Mertens: So for me, it's in my lumbar spine and in my SI uh joint, my sacral joint.
• 10:51
  Polly Mertens: Um, detect damage from things like heat, pressure, chemicals, um, blunt injury, trauma, right?
• 10:59
  Polly Mertens: And convert the stimulus into an electrical signal.
• 11:02
  Polly Mertens: The whole body, by the way, is energy and electrical signals, people, in case you didn't get the memo.
• 11:08
  Samantha Pruitts: Yeah, we may think it's skin and bones and muscle and cells, but it's all energy at the cord.
• 11:13
  Samantha Pruitts: We are all energy in a field of energy.
• 11:16
  Samantha Pruitts: Yeah.
• 11:17
  Polly Mertens: So, of course, we're we're transmitting that energy, right?
• 11:20
  Polly Mertens: So we're transmitting the signals travel along the nerve fiber to the spinal cord.
• 11:25
  Polly Mertens: You can just envision this happening in the body.
• 11:27
  Polly Mertens: The spinal cord is the processing agent, right?
• 11:31
  Polly Mertens: The signal is relayed to the spinal cord.
• 11:33
  Polly Mertens: Here, it can be amplified or dampened before continuing to the brain.
• 11:39
  Polly Mertens: Again, it's deciding.
• 11:41
  Polly Mertens: Am I gonna amplify this because she's in danger, life-threatening, or am I gonna dampen it?
• 11:48
  Polly Mertens: Oh, she's just running an ultra and she only has 20 more miles to go.
• 11:51
  Polly Mertens: Chill out, suck it up.
• 11:53
  Polly Mertens: Yeah, I mean, it's kind of interesting, right?
• 11:55
  Samantha Pruitts: Right.
• 11:56
  Samantha Pruitts: Yeah, we can we can take this kind of pain, it's not gonna kill her, you know.
• 11:59
  Samantha Pruitts: Yeah, yeah.
• 12:00
  Samantha Pruitts: But she's in danger if she goes too far, she goes from a four to a five, and what you're talking about, like game over, like no legs, can't feel those legs anymore.
• 12:08
  Samantha Pruitts: Like, how about that?
• 12:09
  Polly Mertens: Yeah, there's a thing in the brain called the central governor, which is basically that's the tipping point of is she is this life or death, or is she fine?
• 12:19
  Polly Mertens: And so we play with the central governor a lot in endurance and in sports and races and whatever, because we are pushing the boundaries of some very uncomfortable things, and we have to be telling ourselves, hey, we have to assess what is real, but then tell ourselves, okay, you you're fine, you're safe.
• 12:34
  Polly Mertens: Yeah, this freaking hurts like hell, but it's gonna go away.
• 12:37
  Polly Mertens: It will pass.
• 12:37
  Polly Mertens: You are fine.
• 12:38
  Polly Mertens: It's not gonna kill you.
• 12:39
  Polly Mertens: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 12:39
  Polly Mertens: It's not gonna kill you.
• 12:41
  Samantha Pruitts: Um, there's acute pain, but what is it when it's like life-threatening?
• 12:44
  Samantha Pruitts: Like fatal.
• 12:45
  Samantha Pruitts: This isn't fatal.
• 12:46
  Polly Mertens: This is not fatal.
• 12:47
  Polly Mertens: Yeah.
• 12:47
  Polly Mertens: So the brain interprets all these signals, right?
• 12:49
  Polly Mertens: When they reach the brain where it's processed, they interpret as a conscious, subjective experience of pain.
• 12:55
  Polly Mertens: So the brain will be deciding for you, people, what is all going on.
• 13:00
  Polly Mertens: Okay.
• 13:01
  Samantha Pruitts: Yeah.
• 13:02
  Polly Mertens: Uh, there's a physical and mental response, of course, the stress response.
• 13:05
  Polly Mertens: The brain triggers the stress response, which does redo lead to all these physiological changes in the body, your breathing rate, your blood pressure, your heart rate, um, your body's ability to even deal with whatever the injury is.
• 13:18
  Polly Mertens: Adrenaline is released, right?
• 13:21
  Polly Mertens: There's an increased demand of oxygen.
• 13:23
  Polly Mertens: So, for example, because I've been fighting pain now for weeks and weeks and weeks, I'm exhausted.
• 13:28
  Samantha Pruitts: Yeah.
• 13:28
  Polly Mertens: Like I'm physically exhausted.
• 13:30
  Polly Mertens: Yeah, like compared to your output, right?
• 13:34
  Samantha Pruitts: Yeah.
• 13:34
  Polly Mertens: Yeah, totally, totally.
• 13:36
  Polly Mertens: Um, reflexes, of course, uh, in immediate, severe cases, a reflex action may occur before the brain has even fully processed the pain, such as pulling your hand away or you know, getting away from the um situation that's causing the pain.
• 13:52
  Polly Mertens: And then there's of course this inflammatory response.
• 13:54
  Polly Mertens: So that's what's going on with my nerve now.
• 13:57
  Polly Mertens: It's so inflamed.
• 13:59
  Polly Mertens: And all my movement or activity is creating more inflammation, right?
• 14:05
  Polly Mertens: Damaged tissue releases chemicals that cause inflammation, swelling, the influx of immune cells, hallelujah, which is a key part to the healing process.
• 14:14
  Polly Mertens: That's another reason why your immune system is so critical.
• 14:18
  Polly Mertens: Okay.
• 14:19
  Samantha Pruitts: Yes.
• 14:19
  Samantha Pruitts: So key.
• 14:20
  Samantha Pruitts: But and something that's so like you've tipped it so far over here, immune is not gonna, you know, like there's structural things that um, you know, like you said, some people, I know someone who I don't know what level of herniated disc, you're at a four, right?
• 14:35
  Samantha Pruitts: But they had a herniated, and it went back, you know, like healed itself, you might say.
• 14:40
  Samantha Pruitts: Right.
• 14:40
  Polly Mertens: It can.
• 14:41
  Polly Mertens: If you're level one and two and the actual fibers don't break, so the little cushion doesn't break, it just sort of pops out, you know.
• 14:51
  Polly Mertens: Yeah, it can pop back in.
• 14:52
  Polly Mertens: You can actually literally get it to pop back in and then move on about your business.
• 14:56
  Polly Mertens: And actually, a lot of people live that way a lot.
• 14:59
  Polly Mertens: Yeah, um, it doesn't mean you don't have to change what the hell you're doing because it popped out for a reason.
• 15:04
  Polly Mertens: Yeah, okay.
• 15:05
  Samantha Pruitts: So then you have to go, whoa, don't do that move and I'm an expert in that now.
• 15:11
  Polly Mertens: I've watched a hundred physical therapy and neurosurgeon videos, all these things.
• 15:16
  Polly Mertens: Uh so hey, you got that.
• 15:17
  Polly Mertens: You should just call me.
• 15:18
  Polly Mertens: I'll tell you what to do.
• 15:19
  Polly Mertens: Go on YouTube.
• 15:21
  Polly Mertens: Um, okay, and then this is really interesting cognitive and emotional factors.
• 15:26
  Polly Mertens: This is where the wheels fall off the freaking bus, dude.
• 15:28
  Polly Mertens: If you let it, yeah.
• 15:30
  Samantha Pruitts: If you let it be.
• 15:31
  Samantha Pruitts: You and if you don't recognize what is happening.
• 15:34
  Samantha Pruitts: Yeah, this is you where your consciousness can intervene.
• 15:37
  Samantha Pruitts: The rest of it is subconscious, right?
• 15:39
  Samantha Pruitts: The body is doing, the brain is doing all this stuff.
• 15:43
  Samantha Pruitts: Like the brain, like we don't heal our, like, I don't look at my hand and go, heal that wound, heal that wound.
• 15:47
  Samantha Pruitts: Okay, close that up, right?
• 15:48
  Samantha Pruitts: I don't do that.
• 15:49
  Samantha Pruitts: That's all at the subconscious level.
• 15:51
  Samantha Pruitts: It's managed by lots of other things, right?
• 15:53
  Samantha Pruitts: But what you're about to talk about, I just want to insert this is where our consciousness, you listening, can this is where you get involved.
• 16:01
  Polly Mertens: Yeah, yeah.
• 16:02
  Polly Mertens: It kind of reminds me of the um in parenting when your kid falls trips or does whatever, and you're like, Hey, do I see blood?
• 16:09
  Polly Mertens: Do I see a bloke broken bone?
• 16:10
  Polly Mertens: No, okay, yeah, we're good, moving on, right?
• 16:13
  Polly Mertens: Or we go, Oh my god, are you okay?
• 16:16
  Polly Mertens: And we do this whole drama, and then the kid is crying and hysterical and all these things, right?
• 16:22
  Polly Mertens: You can do the same thing for yourself, totally for yourself, you know, cognitive and emotional factors, your perception of pain is influenced by many factors such as your past experience, your mental state, your environment.
• 16:40
  Polly Mertens: Oh, dude.
• 16:43
  Samantha Pruitts: I'm just like picturing all the ways that this like goes out into the world.
• 16:47
  Polly Mertens: Like, wow.
• 16:48
  Polly Mertens: And then long-term pain.
• 16:49
  Polly Mertens: So currently, I'm you know, down that path and I'm gonna get a handle on this as quickly as possible, but nonetheless, it's moving slower than I'd like.
• 16:57
  Polly Mertens: If pain is severe and prolonged, it can change how the nervous system processes pain signals, potentially leading to other conditions.
• 17:06
  Polly Mertens: You don't want that, in other words, it can get away from you.
• 17:09
  Polly Mertens: Don't want that, yes.
• 17:10
  Polly Mertens: Right.
• 17:11
  Polly Mertens: As really as a form of um pain PTSD, because your body will be easily triggered by all these other things.
• 17:17
  Polly Mertens: So you insert yourself.
• 17:18
  Polly Mertens: Yep.
• 17:18
  Polly Mertens: You go, oh no, not going down that road.
• 17:20
  Polly Mertens: No.
• 17:20
  Polly Mertens: That's right.
• 17:21
  Polly Mertens: Persistent pain can cause the nervous system to become more hypersensitive, which is a survival mechanism that can lead to abnormality over time.
• 17:30
  Polly Mertens: Hail to the no, yo, hail to the no.
• 17:34
  Polly Mertens: So I did run around and talk to anybody and everybody that I know that's ever had a back thing, right?
• 17:40
  Polly Mertens: When I was um trying to figure out what was going on mine.
• 17:42
  Polly Mertens: So I initially self-diagnosed that I had something different, and that's part of why I kept going and going to CrossFit.
• 17:50
  Polly Mertens: I thought I had a um piriformis syndrome from running an Iron Man.
• 17:54
  Polly Mertens: So anyway, I'm not excusing my shenanigans, but I talked to a lot of people with back stuff, and even recently after I got my MRI results, and many, many people, and this just blew my mind, were like, yeah, that I've had that or I have that, and I'm just living with it because I'm afraid of surgery, or this is I'm afraid of that, or this or that, or whatever, and all the stories, right?
• 18:17
  Polly Mertens: And I was like, but wait, what's the quality of your life now?
• 18:20
  Polly Mertens: Because they have repeatedly re-injured, re-injured, re-injured.
• 18:25
  Polly Mertens: Because if it's at this level, it does require some actual assistance, surgery or whatever the process is you're all going to go through.
• 18:32
  Polly Mertens: It's your own decision.
• 18:34
  Polly Mertens: Um, and then the quality of their life deteriorated, and now they're functioning at 50%.
• 18:38
  Polly Mertens: So even for me, it's been whatever it's been now, six weeks-ish.
• 18:44
  Polly Mertens: Um, you know, I'm losing cardiovascular fitness, I'm losing muscle, I'm losing overall health and wellness just in that short period of time.
• 18:53
  Polly Mertens: Yes, right.
• 18:56
  Polly Mertens: So that's not okay.
• 18:58
  Polly Mertens: It's not okay to say, hey, suck it up and just live with it.
• 19:05
  Polly Mertens: So I really want people to mostly feel empowered that irrelevant of what the thing is, it can be dealed with this dealt with.
• 19:12
  Polly Mertens: This is the year 2025.
• 19:14
  Polly Mertens: There is so much available knowledge, wisdom, resources out there, and we can get into that.
• 19:19
  Polly Mertens: But you have a couple points that you want to make before we move on.
• 19:22
  Samantha Pruitts: Well, I just wanted to like reinforce what you're pointing to, which is like this is where you insert yourself in your own well-being, right?
• 19:30
  Samantha Pruitts: You know, I think there was a a period or a phase pre-internet, you know, whatnot, where medicine looked like there were schools and places where people went to learn about the body and get medicine dialed in, and they became the subject matter experts.
• 19:47
  Samantha Pruitts: They wore white coats and then they had people come to see them when things didn't work right.
• 19:51
  Samantha Pruitts: And you go in and whatever.
• 19:52
  Samantha Pruitts: Well, that's not where we're living today, right?
• 19:54
  Samantha Pruitts: Like all that information is widely available.
• 19:57
  Samantha Pruitts: Um, and a lot of that actually is probably antiquate compared to the things that people self-develop and you know, learn and study because people aren't stuck in just that mode.
• 20:07
  Samantha Pruitts: So just knowing that you have so much information, just as you're doing right now, at your fingertips and video and talking to people and conversations and whatnot, you know, it's like take this into your own hands.
• 20:18
  Samantha Pruitts: You and I have a phrase that we say all the time is how your life feels, right?
• 20:22
  Samantha Pruitts: So this is like how your life feels has something to do with how your body's feeling, right?
• 20:26
  Samantha Pruitts: It's oh yeah, your body is like, I ain't doing good over here.
• 20:30
  Samantha Pruitts: Like, so I have a little tickle in my throat this week, you know, not not feeling 100% energized, right?
• 20:36
  Samantha Pruitts: So I am adjusting, you know, I'm taking some things differently to manage my well-being, manage how this physical state is.
• 20:43
  Samantha Pruitts: Because I I have studied, I learned, I talk to people.
• 20:46
  Samantha Pruitts: I'm like, hey, you know, what what can I do?
• 20:48
  Samantha Pruitts: Because I know you know, I've discovered, like you, like this is what immunity gives us.
• 20:52
  Samantha Pruitts: This is how this helps, you know, when you have good sleep, this is what it offers you.
• 20:56
  Samantha Pruitts: And so everything that we're pointing to here is on a conscious level, insert yourself into taking your life back, right?
• 21:06
  Polly Mertens: Like exactly, right?
• 21:07
  Polly Mertens: Exactly.
• 21:08
  Polly Mertens: I mean, obviously, you and I stand for empowerment, and in in in empowerment is education, it's resources.
• 21:15
  Polly Mertens: Resource yourself to be empowered.
• 21:18
  Polly Mertens: I'm not saying I haven't utilized Western medicine.
• 21:20
  Polly Mertens: There's a time and place for that, right?
• 21:22
  Polly Mertens: Of course, a thousand percent yes.
• 21:24
  Polly Mertens: But when you go into those systems, and boy, have I had a lot of experience with that lately.
• 21:31
  Polly Mertens: Um, not just myself, but my brother is in a cancer babble, and I have uh other loved ones with some health issues.
• 21:38
  Polly Mertens: So it's been a bit of a crazy train.
• 21:40
  Polly Mertens: And so I've been really watching and paying attention and trying to be to the best of my ability an advocate for any and all other people around me, including myself.
• 21:50
  Polly Mertens: So you go into those source of it, you know.
• 21:53
  Polly Mertens: Yeah.
• 21:53
  Polly Mertens: Well, and if you decide to go traditional and go into any of these places where those white coats live, be educated when you walk in.
• 22:02
  Polly Mertens: I literally go in with a notepad.
• 22:04
  Polly Mertens: I have about 20 things, if not more.
• 22:07
  Polly Mertens: I make notes in my phone, whatever, I do research, and then I go in, I go, so anyway, X, Y, Z, and here's what I want to accomplish today.
• 22:15
  Polly Mertens: So I go in literally with an agenda into these meetings.
• 22:19
  Polly Mertens: Yeah.
• 22:20
  Samantha Pruitts: So being curious and collaborative is how I look at those opportunities, right?
• 22:25
  Samantha Pruitts: So they have a perspective and they have some information.
• 22:28
  Samantha Pruitts: You're ultimately the one making decisions about your body.
• 22:31
  Samantha Pruitts: And if you're not, then take that back.
• 22:33
  Samantha Pruitts: Don't be doing that, you know.
• 22:34
  Samantha Pruitts: Like, I mean, I see people all the time taking prescriptions from well-meaning doctors that you know what, if they really study this thing, and I mean, I've seen with my own mom, I think part of her heart attacks this year were, you know, what do you call it when two medicines collide or something like that?
• 22:52
  Samantha Pruitts: Like, I think that's what had her have a heart attack, you know, and it's like a well-meaning doctor gave her one and another one, and you know, and so you have these anyway.
• 23:01
  Samantha Pruitts: So I think most of the people who listen to us are doing this.
• 23:05
  Samantha Pruitts: So we are just gonna move ahead and think that like you're you're already doing this, and what we want to help you with, I think is the most rich part of this conversation is you're about to get to, or we'll get to here in a moment, which is like, how are you navigating?
• 23:17
  Samantha Pruitts: Like, so one thing I just wanted to bring up, which is I'm so glad you're a Buddhist now because helping you in so many ways.
• 23:24
  Samantha Pruitts: Like, I'm and I'm it's rubbing off on me virtually also.
• 23:26
  Samantha Pruitts: So two of my dear friends, which are friends of yours also, Terry and Linda, both earlier this year for different, totally different reasons.
• 23:34
  Samantha Pruitts: Linda was mold, and Terry's, I can't remember what it is, have an itch histamine response in their body that they have been, quote, living with.
• 23:42
  Samantha Pruitts: So Linda had mold in her house, got into her lungs, whatever.
• 23:45
  Samantha Pruitts: And so she's like detoxing, and she left the house and you know, went up to the mountains trying to clear that air and you know, cleaned all her clothes, you know, fixed the house, all that stuff.
• 23:54
  Samantha Pruitts: But there's this um perpetual itch that she's got on her skin in various places.
• 24:00
  Samantha Pruitts: I don't know how much, whatever.
• 24:01
  Samantha Pruitts: It's it's getting better, that she's managing, whatever.
• 24:03
  Samantha Pruitts: And then Terry as well.
• 24:04
  Samantha Pruitts: So they've both got this like itch.
• 24:06
  Samantha Pruitts: And I meet with them and I'm just like, how do you do it?
• 24:10
  Samantha Pruitts: Like, how do you, you know, and Linda probably the most evolved of all three of us is um she's like, I'm I'm working through the phases, right, to get to gratitude, as any Buddhist like you would do, right?
• 24:24
  Samantha Pruitts: And it's like, she's like, I'm not there, you know, but she's gone through, you know, it's like the phases of grief or the phases, you know, whatever, you know, the pissed off at it, that shouldn't be happening.
• 24:34
  Samantha Pruitts: The like exactly what do I do about it, you know, get into action, the you know, acceptance, resignation, whatever.
• 24:40
  Samantha Pruitts: And now she's like getting leaning over into the gratitude, if you're not there, like I said, but um, I brought this into my body to teach me like ultimate gratitude for all suffering, all things that come in this and transform it, right?
• 24:55
  Samantha Pruitts: And transform it.
• 24:56
  Polly Mertens: So totally, totally.
• 24:58
  Polly Mertens: And you can do that in phases, and I'm sure she has.
• 25:00
  Polly Mertens: So, like just using a quick example of yesterday.
• 25:04
  Polly Mertens: So I drive all the way two and a half hours to the coast.
• 25:07
  Polly Mertens: I spend the night at my stepdaughter's.
• 25:09
  Polly Mertens: I drive another two hours in traffic.
• 25:12
  Polly Mertens: I'm in excruciating pain, laying down in the car.
• 25:14
  Polly Mertens: So technically my husband's driving me to get to a doctor's appointment to see an expert.
• 25:18
  Polly Mertens: Um, and there's no appointment.
• 25:21
  Polly Mertens: So a mistake was made along the way there that basically that appointment wasn't mine to be had.
• 25:27
  Polly Mertens: So now I'm standing in this office, literally feeling like, you know, somebody just took a baseball bat to me and get this news.
• 25:35
  Polly Mertens: So I at that moment, of course, I was shocked and devastated, but I had a choice to make about how I was going to respond.
• 25:44
  Polly Mertens: Right.
• 25:45
  Polly Mertens: So, of course, there was nothing this person could do.
• 25:48
  Polly Mertens: The doctor wasn't even in for the day, they were in surgery or whatever.
• 25:51
  Polly Mertens: So I did accept a later appointment, but I immediately went back to the car, regulated my nervous system for 15 minutes in the car, and got my wits about me.
• 26:02
  Polly Mertens: Okay, and then dug into my toolbox about okay, I need to just accept what just happened and move forward to the best of my ability with plan B, and then maybe plan C and so on.
• 26:15
  Polly Mertens: So made a few phone calls, made another strategy to, again, a couple of days from now go to a different doctor, et cetera, et cetera.
• 26:22
  Polly Mertens: So I I kept the power within me to move past this rather than just allowing it to consume me and feeling desperate at that point and you know, powerless.
• 26:34
  Polly Mertens: I I didn't, I took action.
• 26:36
  Polly Mertens: And everybody can do that, right?
• 26:38
  Polly Mertens: So I didn't solve to the pain immediately.
• 26:41
  Polly Mertens: That's a longer process, but I can solve to a lot of things along this journey that I do have power and control over.
• 26:48
  Samantha Pruitts: And the thing I just want to point to is um some people think that the response that you had when you heard no appointment should not happen.
• 26:57
  Samantha Pruitts: Like you shouldn't be shocked, like, oh, I should just go jump right into, oh, everything's fine, right?
• 27:03
  Samantha Pruitts: No, like the brain doesn't work that way.
• 27:06
  Samantha Pruitts: So just know that like that that little arc that it's gonna have of like, holy crap, this is, you know, and you just dive into like the abyss, yeah, some sort of emotional swamp, if you will, and you're like, oh, this is never gonna get solved.
• 27:20
  Samantha Pruitts: I've been dealing with, you know, whatever shows up.
• 27:23
  Samantha Pruitts: Give it some space, right?
• 27:25
  Samantha Pruitts: Give it some space.
• 27:26
  Samantha Pruitts: And then you brought your toolkit out and you're like, let me work on me so that I'm not just hanging out in the swamp and feeling bad emotionally, physically, you know, spiritually, all that stuff to the best of my ability, you know, get get the tie, get the boat, you know, rebalanced, if you will, in an emotional level.
• 27:46
  Samantha Pruitts: So yeah.
• 27:48
  Polly Mertens: Yeah.
• 27:48
  Polly Mertens: And then we quickly pick something to distract ourselves because now we had to drive three hours home, right?
• 27:53
  Polly Mertens: So then it would have just been more pain, all these things.
• 27:55
  Polly Mertens: It was like, okay, we're gonna go literally walk around IKEA for an hour and look at random ass things or whatever.
• 28:02
  Polly Mertens: But it was literally just to like be distracted and allow these things to kind of move through the body too, yeah, yeah, right?
• 28:09
  Polly Mertens: Because all of those feelings were in the body, that's an energy I was carrying, and I needed to mush move that through before I could move on with my day.
• 28:17
  Polly Mertens: So good.
• 28:18
  Polly Mertens: So that's basically number one on the list is whatever the circumstance is, but we're talking about pain specifically, you have to look at it head on.
• 28:29
  Polly Mertens: You have to really you have to be honest about what it is.
• 28:32
  Polly Mertens: You can't reject it or be in denial about it.
• 28:34
  Polly Mertens: That will not be helpful.
• 28:36
  Polly Mertens: It will continue to cascade.
• 28:39
  Polly Mertens: Okay, so even if it's band-aided, and of course, they immediately wanted to put me on opioids and medicate me at, and I I didn't accept that that was not going to be a choice that I personally made, no judgment, people, but I that's not the right choice for me.
• 28:54
  Polly Mertens: I needed to work with this and work through this and really understand it, right?
• 28:58
  Polly Mertens: That is a salve also.
• 29:00
  Polly Mertens: That is a way to calm a wound or a pain, also, is to be empowered with knowledge.
• 29:06
  Polly Mertens: So look at things head on, don't reject them, accept them and then work with them.
• 29:11
  Polly Mertens: Okay.
• 29:11
  Polly Mertens: Um, understanding what's really happening.
• 29:13
  Polly Mertens: Knowledge is so damn important.
• 29:15
  Polly Mertens: I need to understand in my body what in the hell does L4 and five do?
• 29:20
  Polly Mertens: What is the S1 nerve root?
• 29:22
  Polly Mertens: Where is it going?
• 29:23
  Polly Mertens: How does it work?
• 29:24
  Polly Mertens: Like those things I needed to have that knowledge and wisdom so I could understand.
• 29:29
  Polly Mertens: Um, then processing the emotions, like we just discussed, not allowing the emotions to get trapped, not ignoring them.
• 29:37
  Polly Mertens: Yes, I was pissed off at myself, and then I was very sad, and you know, I was all these things.
• 29:43
  Polly Mertens: I have races and I had work projects I had to cancel.
• 29:48
  Polly Mertens: I have all these things called life that I was not going to be able to do.
• 29:53
  Polly Mertens: I'm still in that, right?
• 29:55
  Polly Mertens: So that's real emotions around all of that.
• 29:58
  Polly Mertens: But allowing myself to have those emotions and move through them to comprehend and move through those.
• 30:04
  Polly Mertens: Again, you know, using my tools of resiliency to understand and look at it from a perspective and allowing myself to process those emotions rather than reject them.
• 30:13
  Samantha Pruitts: And processing them, you know, could be talking about them, some of it, like you said, like walking, like movement can just.
• 30:19
  Samantha Pruitts: Help them move through the body so it you know gets the energy that's trapped from those emotions.
• 30:24
  Samantha Pruitts: It can be journaling, it can be uh cognitive, whatever it can be screaming, like you said.
• 30:30
  Samantha Pruitts: Like there's times where you're crying or upset or you know, just tourette's or whatever it is, like yeah, totally get that out, get that out.
• 30:40
  Polly Mertens: Totally.
• 30:40
  Polly Mertens: I'm gonna be really interested tomorrow when I go for this epidural.
• 30:43
  Polly Mertens: This is a pain management person, and they are the only able to administer this epidural.
• 30:47
  Polly Mertens: So, anyway, um, if they also have psychological or talk therapy or some other way to help people, yeah, yes, because that's imperative.
• 30:58
  Polly Mertens: Yeah, like I have these resources, people like you in my life, right?
• 31:03
  Polly Mertens: I can create these dynamics myself, but many people don't have that, and it is a required element of the healing process.
• 31:11
  Polly Mertens: And of course, if they don't have it, I will be telling them they need to add this to their repertoire, and we'll have a conversation about that.
• 31:18
  Polly Mertens: Good, good.
• 31:19
  Polly Mertens: All right, so becoming empowered, not powerless.
• 31:21
  Polly Mertens: We talked about that, right?
• 31:22
  Polly Mertens: Yeah, uh building an A team.
• 31:24
  Samantha Pruitts: Well, I just want to say one, I just want to say one thing about that.
• 31:27
  Samantha Pruitts: So that is, you know, that serenity.
• 31:29
  Samantha Pruitts: So what did how what's the line?
• 31:31
  Polly Mertens: Oh, the serenity prayer?
• 31:32
  Samantha Pruitts: Yeah, right.
• 31:32
  Samantha Pruitts: So what's the line though that you just said?
• 31:34
  Samantha Pruitts: Like uh becoming empowered, not yeah, becoming empowered.
• 31:39
  Samantha Pruitts: So not powerless.
• 31:40
  Samantha Pruitts: Yeah, a phrase that aligns with that is what you know, except except the things I cannot change.
• 31:46
  Samantha Pruitts: Yeah, change the things that I can.
• 31:49
  Samantha Pruitts: Like, where can I what's outside?
• 31:51
  Samantha Pruitts: So this pay this appointment didn't happen.
• 31:54
  Samantha Pruitts: I can't make the doctor come here, right?
• 31:56
  Samantha Pruitts: Okay, you get into like what is in my control?
• 31:58
  Samantha Pruitts: Like, what do I have choice about, right?
• 32:00
  Samantha Pruitts: Some of that's inside.
• 32:02
  Samantha Pruitts: You went out to the car and you took some choice.
• 32:04
  Samantha Pruitts: And you know what?
• 32:05
  Samantha Pruitts: Give me a hot second here to like I'm gonna choose to take back my power and how I feel.
• 32:11
  Samantha Pruitts: I'm not gonna let myself wallow in this and spill this all over day.
• 32:15
  Samantha Pruitts: I mean, you know, sure, you were talking about it, whatever, but like I'm not gonna ruin everybody's day around me because this is is painful.
• 32:22
  Samantha Pruitts: I'm gonna get it out, I'm gonna process it, I can take some actions, make some phone calls, maybe I can learn a little bit more and whatever, get support.
• 32:29
  Samantha Pruitts: So that's what I mean, what I hear, you know, like don't be disempowered, be empowered.
• 32:34
  Samantha Pruitts: It's like, what can I affect right now?
• 32:37
  Polly Mertens: So yeah, and this one that I just started to mention about building an A team, um, besides practitioners to help you deal with the pain, depending on what it is, it is relationships, right?
• 32:46
  Polly Mertens: It's relationships like you and I have.
• 32:47
  Polly Mertens: I have a relationship with my partner, right?
• 32:49
  Polly Mertens: Like you can talk to people, and you really want to have the right people to talk to.
• 32:55
  Polly Mertens: So, for example, you could be in a family unit or in a workspace or whatever, where they're gonna actually pour gasoline on this.
• 33:02
  Polly Mertens: Oh my God, they're gonna catastrophize, they're gonna do this whole thing, and they're gonna feed you the opposite of the nutrition that you need.
• 33:11
  Polly Mertens: Right?
• 33:11
  Polly Mertens: You need people to stay calm, to be intelligent and help you find resources, whether that's information or otherwise.
• 33:18
  Polly Mertens: You and I do this all day long for other people.
• 33:21
  Polly Mertens: So it's really interesting when it's us doing it for ourselves or other people sending it.
• 33:26
  Polly Mertens: And I have some people I lean on, like, hey, I they're trying to give me this drug for nerve pain.
• 33:31
  Polly Mertens: I know who to talk to about that drug, I know how to research that drug, whatever.
• 33:35
  Polly Mertens: So, again, those resources are available.
• 33:38
  Polly Mertens: But when you build your A team, you really need to not just say, Hey, this one doctor is now in charge of my life and my healing.
• 33:45
  Polly Mertens: So, whatever they say, right?
• 33:47
  Polly Mertens: Because then I would just be on opioids right now, laying in bed for the last six weeks.
• 33:52
  Samantha Pruitts: If anybody's had any kind of experience with interacting with a doctor or getting a procedure or something, it doesn't happen like in days, it happens in weeks and months, right?
• 34:01
  Samantha Pruitts: So whatever you're experiencing will prolong it if you just turn it over, you know, it's like, well, we got an appointment with the so-and-so in three months.
• 34:10
  Samantha Pruitts: And it's like, and in the meantime, and in the meantime, get up to stuff.
• 34:15
  Samantha Pruitts: Yeah, like if you, you know, look at what's to get up to, yeah, talk to people, have conversations, so that that, like you said, you go in there informed, you're collaborating, you're curious, whatnot.
• 34:25
  Samantha Pruitts: Maybe they have some information to add to it, or they are the source of like for you, um, either pain relief that only a writing prescription physician, epidural kind of thing, or a specialist, surgeon, could deliver.
• 34:39
  Samantha Pruitts: Otherwise, what else is out there?
• 34:42
  Samantha Pruitts: You know, like what else is out there?
• 34:44
  Polly Mertens: Yeah, if I had done that technique, I basically would be laying in bed on opioids right now.
• 34:49
  Polly Mertens: And the other one of the other persons I saw um basically said, no activity.
• 34:55
  Polly Mertens: The only thing that feels good for me right now, and this has been for six weeks, is to actually walk at a low intensity and mobilize my tissues and my structural systems because it brings blood flow there, which brings oxygen.
• 35:11
  Polly Mertens: And by the way, the way the spine works, just like the lymphatic system, there's no pump.
• 35:17
  Polly Mertens: Okay, so we are the pump.
• 35:20
  Polly Mertens: The pump is the movement of our body to bring oxygenated blood and ideally healing elements into the spine and the pelvis and the joints and the tissues.
• 35:32
  Polly Mertens: So if I were just doing zero, A, I'd be incredibly depressed.
• 35:36
  Polly Mertens: Yeah.
• 35:37
  Samantha Pruitts: I was just gonna say the empowerment.
• 35:38
  Polly Mertens: We have another problem.
• 35:39
  Samantha Pruitts: Yeah, yeah.
• 35:39
  Samantha Pruitts: Because you'll add to it the mental cognitive of oh my god, I'm so helpless.
• 35:44
  Samantha Pruitts: I can't do it, you know.
• 35:45
  Samantha Pruitts: Instead, you're like, I'm gonna do what I can do.
• 35:47
  Samantha Pruitts: Oh, look at me walking.
• 35:48
  Samantha Pruitts: Oh, I actually feel better walking.
• 35:50
  Samantha Pruitts: I'm taking care of myself.
• 35:51
  Samantha Pruitts: Look at how good I'm being to me.
• 35:52
  Samantha Pruitts: You know, like all of that can show up, right?
• 35:54
  Samantha Pruitts: Exactly.
• 35:56
  Polly Mertens: Exactly.
• 35:57
  Polly Mertens: Yeah.
• 35:58
  Polly Mertens: Okay, so also plan the time out.
• 36:01
  Polly Mertens: So one of the things I did very quickly, literally the day of my diagnosis, I probably told you about this, but I signed up for an online course I've been wanting to take for almost three years with Dr.
• 36:10
  Polly Mertens: Stacey Sims, who I just freaking love.
• 36:13
  Polly Mertens: And I was like, oh, I'm gonna have all this extra time because I cancel work projects and I can't do this and blah, blah, whatever.
• 36:21
  Polly Mertens: So I can get some education that I'm fired up about.
• 36:26
  Polly Mertens: So I did that and I cleared the decks.
• 36:29
  Polly Mertens: Nothing else was gonna be important for this period of time except for my healing modalities, whatever that was gonna look like.
• 36:37
  Polly Mertens: So I had to clear the decks.
• 36:39
  Samantha Pruitts: And that may require a team.
• 36:41
  Samantha Pruitts: Like you're you have um, you know, some people have a lot of responsibilities, whatever that looks like, you know.
• 36:47
  Samantha Pruitts: And so calling in a team to support you, like this isn't forever, or maybe it is, you know, the thing that you're dealing with maybe ongoing.
• 36:55
  Samantha Pruitts: So look at your team with that lens, but find a team to support you in, you know what, I'm not gonna be able to do this anymore.
• 37:02
  Samantha Pruitts: Oh, I need some help over here, or can you do this for me?
• 37:05
  Samantha Pruitts: Or what does that start to look like, right?
• 37:07
  Samantha Pruitts: You really went kind of inward.
• 37:09
  Samantha Pruitts: It's like, you know what?
• 37:10
  Samantha Pruitts: Because you do a lot out in the world, and you're like, I'm gonna do a lot of me for a while, which is beautiful.
• 37:14
  Samantha Pruitts: You're giving yourself that gift because I know on the other side of that, it's all gonna come out and be shared and offered, and you know, the world is gonna, you know, wreak the fruits of what you're you're studying.
• 37:24
  Polly Mertens: So so good.
• 37:26
  Polly Mertens: But even funny things like I can't literally put my shoes on, so I haven't put my shoes on for six weeks.
• 37:33
  Polly Mertens: So currently my husband is putting my shoes on.
• 37:36
  Polly Mertens: Okay, that's kind of hilarious and comical, but also beautiful and lovely.
• 37:41
  Polly Mertens: Like, why not?
• 37:42
  Polly Mertens: Why not have people in your life be part of this process?
• 37:46
  Polly Mertens: And rather than, oh damn it, I gotta do it or whatever, like making angst around it, making drama around it, you know.
• 37:53
  Samantha Pruitts: Yeah, and it's team and caregiving.
• 37:55
  Samantha Pruitts: Like I remember when my stepdad he had Parkinson's and could no longer button his shirts, you know, and it's like, and we'll never be able to button, you know, he's passed away now, but like for years, couldn't button a shirt.
• 38:07
  Samantha Pruitts: So he never, you know.
• 38:08
  Samantha Pruitts: So my mom was always putting it there to put his clothes on with him, you know, or whatever the things are, you know, those things.
• 38:14
  Samantha Pruitts: So I mean, there's gonna be a time where we're all gonna need some help, right?
• 38:18
  Samantha Pruitts: Totally, whether it's short-term, temporary, in the middle of a 50 years old, 60 years old, or whatever, or a little bit longer at the end of our life, right?
• 38:26
  Samantha Pruitts: Whatever that looks like.
• 38:27
  Samantha Pruitts: Be as short as possible, any you know, things, but uh it's great to rely on people, like you know, totally.
• 38:34
  Polly Mertens: I'm laughing because you know, my brother's in cancer treatment and he's got neuropathy and all these things.
• 38:40
  Polly Mertens: So last time I was there, you know, I cut his toenails, I shaved his face, I did all these things that I would never have done for my brother.
• 38:49
  Polly Mertens: It was wonderful, it was kind of hilarious.
• 38:51
  Polly Mertens: Yeah, and but it was like it needs to be done, and it's yeah, exactly.
• 38:56
  Polly Mertens: Yeah, it's very sweet.
• 38:58
  Polly Mertens: It's cool, it's cool.
• 38:59
  Polly Mertens: We were laughing about it.
• 39:00
  Polly Mertens: I wanted to paint his toenails.
• 39:01
  Polly Mertens: He didn't get on board for that, by the way.
• 39:03
  Polly Mertens: Um, so plan timeout, clear the deck, stay engaged, and then find simple pleasures.
• 39:09
  Polly Mertens: So I mentioned to you, and you're not surprised in the very least, but I can't barely get in the car and drive.
• 39:15
  Polly Mertens: It's excruciating.
• 39:17
  Polly Mertens: So, for very small amounts of time, and I have ice everywhere and all these things, it's so ridiculous.
• 39:22
  Polly Mertens: But you have to be finding comedy in it.
• 39:26
  Polly Mertens: Literally.
• 39:27
  Polly Mertens: And when I get in and out of the car, literally it takes uh enormous amounts of time.
• 39:32
  Polly Mertens: But anyway, I still go for my morning latte to my favorite coffee shop because it a, it's a treat for me, it's a simple pleasure, but then also it allows me to be engaged with the world.
• 39:43
  Polly Mertens: Yeah, yeah.
• 39:44
  Polly Mertens: Yes, these are my people.
• 39:45
  Polly Mertens: This is my life, is still normal.
• 39:47
  Polly Mertens: I still do these things, even though I can't do all these other things.
• 39:50
  Polly Mertens: I'm doing things that really are bringing me joy, simple pleasures, yeah, go so far.
• 39:57
  Polly Mertens: It's incredible.
• 39:58
  Polly Mertens: And this can be, you know, for anybody, it can be music, it can be whatever the thing is.
• 40:02
  Polly Mertens: Like, don't give up everything because this one piece of your life is impacted by this pain.
• 40:08
  Polly Mertens: You know, again, don't let it swallow you whole.
• 40:11
  Polly Mertens: You're still a normal person.
• 40:14
  Samantha Pruitts: And I want to and just encourage, you know, there's so much that people lean on the internet slash social media for, you know, to distract and stuff like that.
• 40:23
  Samantha Pruitts: And I I would just want to insert and say, use if this is something you're facing or someone you know is facing, to open up a doorway to something else.
• 40:31
  Samantha Pruitts: Like what else?
• 40:32
  Samantha Pruitts: Like use to, like you said, your pleasure is connecting with people and the joy of the coffee and all of that and stuff.
• 40:38
  Samantha Pruitts: You know, maybe you take up painting, you take up, you know, just enjoying music, you sit out on your porch or whatever you can do, like don't go to that default, like, oh, I'll just distract over here, right?
• 40:49
  Samantha Pruitts: Like there are other things that are probably very close, wanting to be experienced by you.
• 40:55
  Samantha Pruitts: And if you just look around a little bit, um, there's simple pleasures in lots of domains everywhere, right?
• 41:02
  Polly Mertens: Yeah.
• 41:02
  Polly Mertens: Yeah, just being outdoors and sitting on the porch or whatever, listening to the birds, like all of the little things that maybe you were too busy before to do.
• 41:11
  Polly Mertens: How about guess what?
• 41:12
  Polly Mertens: Now you have this great gift.
• 41:14
  Samantha Pruitts: I'd be doing that.
• 41:15
  Samantha Pruitts: I'm sitting here and in my outside my office, the window, there is this one plant that grows uh in my garden, and it's this giant, like green, like it looks like a um, I don't know, um, dandelion or something.
• 41:27
  Samantha Pruitts: So it's got all these green things, and it grows big and it grows big and it's like almost to the size, the height of the house, and then it puts out these little tiny yellow flowers, and I'm like, all of that work, these little little flowers at the top.
• 41:39
  Samantha Pruitts: I'm like, that's kind of like a massive effort.
• 41:41
  Samantha Pruitts: Those must be really important flowers to whoever needs those bees or whatever needs them or whatever.
• 41:47
  Samantha Pruitts: But just taking in that joy and the wonderment of there's so much around us.
• 41:52
  Samantha Pruitts: Our natural world is just amazing.
• 41:54
  Samantha Pruitts: Amazing.
• 41:55
  Samantha Pruitts: So it is amazing.
• 41:56
  Samantha Pruitts: I love it.
• 41:57
  Samantha Pruitts: Well, I am so appreciative, and I know our listeners are that you took this time, while you are not feeling well, to transmute, you know, what you're going through and all that suffering into contribution.
• 42:08
  Samantha Pruitts: And, you know, hopefully someone was touched by this and got something that they're putting into their life.
• 42:12
  Samantha Pruitts: They're having a reframe, they're gonna take a different action, they're gonna pull something out of this that is a gift for them that gets their power back into their body and their domain, and they feel better, they feel more inspired and encouraged to, yeah, be more like Samantha.
• 42:28
  Samantha Pruitts: Look at her, she's over there in level nine pain, but she's not just letting it take her down.
• 42:33
  Polly Mertens: So that's no, I mean, I have my moments.
• 42:35
  Polly Mertens: I gotta be honest.
• 42:35
  Polly Mertens: You know, there's moments that are pretty horrific, and I just work through them.
• 42:40
  Polly Mertens: Like for me, the number one takeaway for the audience would be understanding that again, and we've talked about it in prior episodes.
• 42:47
  Polly Mertens: Your nervous system is the key.
• 42:49
  Polly Mertens: The key, key, key to handling and managing this conversation with pain.
• 42:55
  Polly Mertens: So you need to understand how your nervous system works, and you need to work with it and support it, help to regulate it, right?
• 43:02
  Polly Mertens: Because otherwise it will become so dysregulated through these pain pathways, and it'll get away from you.
• 43:08
  Polly Mertens: And that's not necessary.
• 43:10
  Polly Mertens: You can definitely have agency over that.
• 43:13
  Samantha Pruitts: So good.
• 43:14
  Samantha Pruitts: So good.
• 43:14
  Samantha Pruitts: Well, I'm so glad that you're getting your shot tomorrow.
• 43:18
  Samantha Pruitts: May that bring you delicious relief, and you know, whatever this journey looks like, we're all here for you.
• 43:24
  Samantha Pruitts: I'm here for you.
• 43:25
  Samantha Pruitts: You have a team, you have all the love.
• 43:27
  Samantha Pruitts: Um, so glad you're taking really good care of yourself.
• 43:29
  Samantha Pruitts: It means so much to see you as well as you are.
• 43:33
  Samantha Pruitts: I know you're not you're 100%, but as well as you are.
• 43:36
  Polly Mertens: So thanks, lady.
• 43:37
  Polly Mertens: Thanks.
• 43:38
  Polly Mertens: Yeah, yeah.
• 43:38
  Polly Mertens: Well, remember people.
• 43:40
  Polly Mertens: Remember people.
• 43:42
  Polly Mertens: How your life feels is more important than how it looks.
• 43:46
  Samantha Pruitts: Yeah, and every day is your opportunity to find you're awesome.