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Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Sometimes pain opens a doorway instead of a dead end. Most people never even notice it. But when our guest stepped through his, it set off a chain of events he never could have predicted.

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Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Hi, and welcome to the You World Order Showcase Podcast, where we feature life, health, transformational coaches, and spiritual entrepreneurs stepping up to be the change they seek in the world. I'm your host, Jill Hart, the Coaches Alchemist, on a mission to empower coaches and entrepreneurs to amplify their voice, monetize their message, and get visible.

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Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: If you're ready to start attracting premium clients without chasing algorithms or hunting people down like a banshee on a mission, head over to Coachsalchemist.com.

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Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: and schedule your free client acquisition audit. It's the first step to building a business where your clients seek you out, rather than you having to hunt them down. Today, we are chatting with Alex Crowther. Alex is the CEO of Pain Coach Academy and a former global advertising executive whose life was upended by years of relentless chronic pain. What should have ended his career in identity instead sparked a complete transformation, leading

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Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: him into neuroscience, mind-body healing, Reiki, and shamanic work. Now he trains pain coaches worldwide to help people calm their nervous system, retrain their brains, and reclaim meaning. His upcoming book, Reframing Pain, brings this life-changing work to everyday language.

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Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Welcome to the show, Alex. It's great to have you with us.

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Alex Crowther: Thank you. Wow, that's, like, the best intro I think I've ever had.

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Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Thank you.

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Alex Crowther: I love your intro anyway. It, like, explains what the whole show is, it's awesome. Well, nice to meet you.

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Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: It's nice to meet you, too. So let me ask you the big question. What's the most significant thing, in your opinion, as individuals, we can do to make an impact on how the world is going?

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Alex Crowther: We gotta slow down. Which I still have a problem with, honestly. I was just having this conversation with someone this morning. You know, bad habits are really hard to change.

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Alex Crowther: But it's the number one thing that I still have a problem with. I still, still struggle, I've got a lot of ambition, and there's a lot of things I want to do, and I keep still wanting to go quickly.

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Alex Crowther: And, it doesn't serve me well. It doesn't serve me well, it doesn't serve many people very well, we gotta slow it down.

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Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: I… I agree, and because we're going to be talking about pain in… in our conversation, how does… how does all that relate to, how we experience pain in our bodies?

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Alex Crowther: By not slowing down.

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Alex Crowther: Yeah, look, it's a tough one, and again, it's like, the funny conversation I was having. I was actually in a group coaching session, believe it or not, earlier. I still go to group coaching, as a client, not the coach.

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Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: And.

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Alex Crowther: you know, someone said, it's permanently in your DNA, and maybe it is, I don't know. But,

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Alex Crowther: you know, I just…

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Alex Crowther: naturally, I just… I rush. I could have 3 hours at the airport. I'm still running through the airport. You know, the problem with me, and the problem with anybody that lives with complicated pain, and I use that word complicated intentionally, because it is complicated, and no two people are the same, and, you know.

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Alex Crowther: It is… it's just complicated,

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Alex Crowther: You know, the thing is, our nervous systems are activated, they're on high alert, and you know, by rushing and chasing and…

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Alex Crowther: you know, putting ourselves under these false deadlines that I do, that we all probably do, you know, all we're doing is amping up that system even more.

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Alex Crowther: So, yeah, slow it down. I mean, before I came to your show, I had 10 minutes, but I sat here, and I used it intentionally. I do… I did a, you know, very simple breathwork, just for 2 minutes before I came on the show.

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Alex Crowther: That's my definition of slowing it down. It's not going having an hour-long nap. I don't need to do that. It's just taking these moments throughout the day, these intermittent points every few hours to just take a breath.

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Alex Crowther: Explore nature. You know, that is, again, that doesn't mean going for a hike in the woods, it means step outside and, you know, smell the fresh air.

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Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Yeah, I…

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Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: I'm kind of, like, torn between two things, but I used to smoke when I was younger, and we had smoke breaks. But smoke breaks were great, because they made you go outside for a minute, and just, you know, get away from your desk, and just slow down for 10 minutes, because it takes about 10 minutes to smoke a cigarette.

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Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Not that people know that.

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Alex Crowther: And it's probably, that's probably, you know, 7 to 10 minutes is probably the ideal amount of time,

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Alex Crowther: that we need just to kind of let things reset a little bit. And the weird thing is, and again, where my conversation earlier went is, you know, the point of getting up

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Alex Crowther: And, you know, going outside, or going across the hall, or whatever it is, it seems like it's a disruption to your day.

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Alex Crowther: But the reality is, you know, just taking that few-minute break and then coming back.

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Alex Crowther: it's sort of like a little bit of a reset anyway, and when you come back, you're gonna be just that little bit more efficient anyway, and so…

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Alex Crowther: it's… it's not… it's not a false economy. It's… it's a helpful… it's a helpful action. Just like that smoke break back… back in the day, when you… when you take that 7 or 10 minutes out, you know, you come back from that, and you're, you know.

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Alex Crowther: You know, you're rejuvenated, and…

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Alex Crowther: I don't know, it's a good little healthy break. Well, it wasn't, not smoking, but it was a good break.

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Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: But the idea is still the same, to just…

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Alex Crowther: Absolutely.

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Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: change… Change your environment, change your… your focus, let your… let your mind reset.

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Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Do some intentional breathing these days, you know, maybe we take breath breaks instead of smoking breaks.

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Alex Crowther: There we go.

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Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: we… just practice breathing. I have… I have a saying, it came from Braveheart, but, you know, everyone takes in air, but few truly breathe, because…

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Alex Crowther: That's right.

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Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: we, like, suck in air, but it's really shallow, and it's not really helpful, and I think…

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Alex Crowther: Yeah.

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Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: If we intentionally, like, fill our lungs and stretch our arms out to allow for more capacity for oxygen, you know, we're already living in a world where the oxygen levels are much lower than they were even 40 years ago.

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Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: It's just really important that we take time and do things intentionally.

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Alex Crowther: Yeah, my hope is that, you know, you hear about some of these new practices in schools where they're teaching some kids these mindfulness practices. My hope is that

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Alex Crowther: You know, that the understanding shifts enough that…

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Alex Crowther: You know, it's not just recess, it's described in a really intentional way as this mental health, or whatever sort of, like, reset break, so that, you know, again, if we build habits.

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Alex Crowther: Habits is what it's all about, and I'm gonna try and teach myself a new habit. I know for me that a habit takes about 40 days.

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Alex Crowther: So, if I do something consistently for 40 days, I'm gonna try and get into the habit of grabbing my dog, and putting it on the leash, and taking it for a little walk. Now, I… my… we've got a nice big yard here, and my dog can be outside running around, doesn't really need to go on a leash walk.

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Alex Crowther: But, my issue is, when I want to take her downtown.

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Alex Crowther: She doesn't want to be on the leash, so…

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Alex Crowther: I figured that by me… I've got a problem, which is I need to take these little breaks.

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Alex Crowther: And if I do this 40 days of practice, I'm gonna get my dog used to going out for a little 20-minute walk on the leash, and she's gonna come and bother me. So I'm gonna get this forced, kind of, like, break. So, again, I'm just… we've all got to just try and figure out little things that we can do to get… because I'll sit in this chair for 12 hours.

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Alex Crowther: And often, you know, I forget to pee, I'll get so in the zone, I won't even remember to get up and go to the bathroom.

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Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Then you're like, I've had to go for an hour and a half.

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Alex Crowther: At least, yeah, it's not good. It's just not good. Just one more thing.

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Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Be careful, you create a monster when you start walking your dog.

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Alex Crowther: I know.

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Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: experienced.

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Alex Crowther: Maybe that's not what it'll do, I don't know yet, but that's what I was thinking.

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Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: I love walking my dog. We leave our phones at home. My husband and I do it every day.

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Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: It's a two and a half mile walk, and, you know, everybody in the community knows who we are. Those old people walking down the street with their dog.

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Alex Crowther: Yeah, no, it's awesome. It's a good thing.

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Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: We know all the dogs in the neighborhood.

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Alex Crowther: Cool.

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Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: We name them something else.

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Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: When it comes to pain, how does all of this stuff kind of work together, and what kind of pain are we talking about when you talk about chronic pain?

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Alex Crowther: Let me…

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Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: experience now.

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Alex Crowther: Should I tell you my little story? Should I tell you my story.

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Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Tell me your story.

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Alex Crowther: Alright, and I haven't told you my story.

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Alex Crowther: So, it'll be new for you. So,

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Alex Crowther: If I go back to 2012 as my birthday, so May of 2012, I was, I was actually living in Singapore at the time, and I came back, I had a house here in Michigan.

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Alex Crowther: And I came back, and I was interviewing, actually. I was gonna be interviewing the next day in New York for a job, a big job running General Motors' advertising business.

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Alex Crowther: And so I went to the mall to buy myself a pair of shoes on my birthday, a little present for myself, and I'm driving home, up a… up a, you know, normal-ish sort of, like, B road, and the highway actually comes off of, off, onto this road, in a rather quick way.

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Alex Crowther: lady comes off the highway, I-75, great big, big, big highway, and

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Alex Crowther: She doesn't know the intersection, she's not local, and ends up running right through the lights at about 50 to 55 miles an hour, and hits me side-on.

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Alex Crowther: So I'm just literally going through the traffic lights, minding my own business. I was in a great mood, too. I remember just being happy as can be. It was a beautiful, sunny spring day, and I was in a really good mood… I think I was singing on the radio, and da-da-da-da-da, life was good.

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Alex Crowther: Anyway, she T-bones me. I was in a little… I was in a Jeep Wrangler, so, you know, they sit a little bit higher up, and thank God.

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Alex Crowther: The hood of her car, was a little bit lower, and it clipped at the bottom of my door.

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Alex Crowther: Thank goodness, instead of going into the door, and that's what saved me.

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Alex Crowther: It ended up flipping my car up into the air. I went airborne, apparently, and then rolled 3 times and hit the utility pole.

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Alex Crowther: And the EMS was called to, a presumed fatality because I was laying there, not moving upside down in the car.

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Alex Crowther: Ems got there. I was only about 3 or 4 minutes from, the Troy Fire, rescue place, and, they came out, they got me. I kind of came to as they were getting into the car.

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Alex Crowther: And, they extracted me pretty, like, it was easy. Got me out the car, no problem. And,

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Alex Crowther: I was sort of, like, dazed, and dazed as you would expect, and

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Alex Crowther: you know, they were sort of brushing me off, and they determined, because I was already moving around, that I didn't have a neck injury or anything else like that, so I was ending up sitting on the grass, and my thumbs were both out of their joints. They were both… because of the way I was holding the steering wheel, and the way I hit…

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Alex Crowther: whatever else, my thumbs were both, like, completely jacked up, and my hands looked… my hands looked weird, just because my thumbs were, like, going the wrong way. Anyway, we're going to the hospital, and

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Alex Crowther: I don't really remember a whole lot of what happened. I do remember them putting my thumbs back in the joint, which was not a terribly pleasant experience. And then.

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Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: I can imagine.

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Alex Crowther: I saw some kind of hand doctor, and he, he said I was going to need surgery, an arthroplasty, because both of my thumb joints had collapsed.

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Alex Crowther: But other than that, I mean, other than it being kind of, like, uncomfortable, I was let go, went home, went to my job interview the next day, and got the job, and and came back.

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Alex Crowther: Did the surgery,

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Alex Crowther: And everything was fine, except for the fact, you know, a few days after I had the cast on, my hand just kept swelling, and the cast was really, you know, they make sure there's room for swelling in the cast, but my hand was pressing against the cast, so they redid that.

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Alex Crowther: Then I ended up with an infection in the pins, and so they had to take the pins out and redo that, and then…

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Alex Crowther: the incision would not heal, and it wouldn't heal, and I just felt like I kept going back to this doctor every few days. I was always back.

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Alex Crowther: you know, that everything almost heals up, and then I keep going back, complaining. I'm like, this still really hurts. Like, I was in a lot of pain.

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Alex Crowther: And they did the, you know, did all the imaging, and this, that, and the other, and he's like, there's nothing wrong. Like, what is your problem, you big baby?

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Alex Crowther: you know, eventually I'll have to keep going back, and I'm talking about going back to the same guy, like, 15 times. He's like, I don't know if I can help you anymore, I'm gonna give you a referral to, another hand specialist, who sends me to someone else, she does all the same workups, she looks at it, she's like, I don't see anything wrong.

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Alex Crowther: At which point, I'm thinking I'm a lunatic, that, that I'm, you know, this is the point at which people start saying things like, it must be in your head, or you're seeking medication, or any one of these things, right?

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Alex Crowther: So, thereon kind of begins about 10 years worth of, literally 10 years of me seeking treatments, for figuring out why my hands hurt. But during this course of time.

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Alex Crowther: it goes from my left hand being really painful to my right hand being really painful. And the kind of pain I'm talking about is, if you imagine, like, smacking your hand in a door,

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Alex Crowther: and then that residual pain that you get, like, you know, that once the stunned shock is, like, worn off, that throbbing pain that you have, you know, a few seconds later, that's the sort of pain I'm talking about.

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Alex Crowther: And so, one hand to the next hand, then it… then… and it's about every 18 months, another part of my body started to hurt. So it went from left hand, right hand, left shoulder, right shoulder, and on, you know, various parts of my body. And,

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Alex Crowther: you know, I was always seeking things out, trying to figure out what the hell to do. I went at one point a couple of years without doing anything. I'm like, I just have to… I just have to ignore this thing, except I can't, I'm miserable, I'm… I'm, like, a deeply unhappy person at that point, depressed, and…

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Alex Crowther: whatever. You know, just… just not a good, a good time at all.

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Alex Crowther: Then, I eventually got to a point where I…

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Alex Crowther: I just… I couldn't… I couldn't really deal with it, and

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Alex Crowther: I was complaining to someone who

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Alex Crowther: had a relationship with the CEO of a big hospital group. And,

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Alex Crowther: Now, it's really unfortunate this is how it had to work, but I ended up getting an appointment very quickly with the head of the, pain management clinic of that hospital, a pretty well-known hospital.

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Alex Crowther: I get in there, on the kind of… by… by slipping through the net kind of thing, and, I ended up meeting with this head, because the… because the big boss had kind of, like, got me in, I got this…

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Alex Crowther: super treatment.

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Alex Crowther: And…

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Alex Crowther: You know, so the pain clinic guy comes in, along with two other doctors, and they ran a bunch of tests on me over the course of a few hours, came back in and said, you have absolute classic complex regional pain syndrome, and

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Alex Crowther: you know, it's, like, definitive. There's no two ways about it when they looked at the criteria. Now, I'd suspected this several years earlier. I knew I fit all of the criteria, but I couldn't find anybody that would spend the time to listen to me.

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Alex Crowther: Anyway, the problem with that diagnosis is, I get the diagnosis, but there's not really, apart from feeling somewhat validated, that I now know what this is.

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Alex Crowther: you know, the flip side of that conversation is, and it may get worse, and there's nothing we can do. You know, we can try, you know, we can try this, or we can try that. The problem with most medical doctors is the solution is, one, either a surgery, or two, you know.

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Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: difficult.

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Alex Crowther: An opiate of some sort, right?

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Alex Crowther: And I didn't know… I knew enough about, you know, I knew enough about opiates to know, how well they work for chronic pain, and, you know, that wasn't really a great thing, but look, I kind of did what I was told, for the most part.

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Alex Crowther: But then, and very deliberately, you can see that chair in the corner behind me, right? I spent a lot of time in this sort of corner armchair, basically wrapped up in a blanket, shivering. I had… my nervous system was so messed up that

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Alex Crowther: I can be out in 90, 100 degree weather and have the goosebumps. I can be here… I can be outside in minus 10 degrees with no shirt on, I'll be sweating. You know, my nervous system is just so confused and, like, fundamentally broken that it doesn't know what's what.

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Alex Crowther: And, you know, I lost all of my hobbies. Nothing I enjoyed doing, I could keep doing. I never wanted to go out. I became basically a recluse. You know, I just heard all the time, loud noises.

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Alex Crowther: were a trigger to me. Strong smells were a trigger to me. Being touched, my… my… literally my skin on my arms.

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Alex Crowther: Is painful.

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Alex Crowther: And so, you know, someone brushing up against me, so I never wanted to go out, and I basically became, you know, this miserable hermit in a chair, with no life. And I'd worked really hard for many, many years to build a… build a good career and, you know.

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Alex Crowther: by all definition, you know, build success, what we believe success looks like, what we're sort of taught to believe success looks like. Anyway…

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Alex Crowther: And, I got to a point, Jill, honestly, where I just wanted to be done. I was ready, and I don't want to be kind of, like.

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Alex Crowther: talking too much about, you know, really dark things, but I was at a point where…

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Alex Crowther: there was no value for me to be kind of on this earthly plane, so far as I was concerned, and I was ready, you know, I was ready to be just done.

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Alex Crowther: And I decided that what I would do, instead of just swallowing a bottle of methadone or something, was I wanted to talk to

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Alex Crowther: a counselor of some sort who could help me kind of figure this path out, where I could get my affairs in order, and not leave, kind of.

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Alex Crowther: trauma and devastation kind of in my wake.

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Alex Crowther: And so I… that very next morning, I got up, and I did a Google search for… I think the search was, pain counselor, something pretty vanilla. And, I just knew that I needed somebody that understood enough about, like, really deep pain.

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Alex Crowther: to not try and convince me that they would know enough that they would help me. Anyway, that was my logical thinking at the time, and it wasn't very logical, I know.

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Alex Crowther: So…

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Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: It could be logical when you're in pain.

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Alex Crowther: Yeah, it was really… it was really, really hard, and actually, you can see me fidgeting, just, like, thinking about this whole experience, kind of, like, gets me… gets… gets me moving. Anyway, I… through that search, the very first… it was like this… these words jumped off the screen at me, so, like, this thing, like, the Google search comes up, and it's…

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Alex Crowther: I… these words, paint coach, kind of, like, almost jump off the… it's like they… they… they kind of, like, come off the screen at me. I'm like, paint coach?

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Alex Crowther: what the hell's a pain coach? I've had this thing for 10 years, I've never heard these two words together, pain and coach. I'm like, what the hell is that? Never heard of this.

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Alex Crowther: And, I'm like, well, that, that clearly, that is speaking to me, so I… and I think it's, like, 6.40 in the morning.

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Alex Crowther: I called the number, and I thought I would leave a message, was my plan, at 6.40 in the morning, but somebody answered. A woman called Jenny. This lady, Jenny, answers, and I explain what's going on, and…

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Alex Crowther: she has… she's the CEO of this company, this digital health company.

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Alex Crowther: she talks me through what pain coaching is, and, you know, really what it is, how it works, and all that kind of stuff, and I'm like, oh, this is really interesting, okay, that sounds good, sounds hopeful, hopeful.

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Alex Crowther: Was what I thought, and I think it was either the next… I don't remember if it was that very same day, or very quickly the next day, that I met with this lady, Jareen, who… who was and still is my… my pain coach.

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Alex Crowther: Jareen I credit with saving my life. She's a great friend. I happen to be able to work with her now, which is a really weird turn of events. But, yeah, Jareen was just, like, this rock star who saved me, but what was crazy about this is…

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Alex Crowther: My first appointment, which went on for about an hour, might have been even an extended appointment, but for at least 59 minutes of an hour session.

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Alex Crowther: she asked me what was going on, and I just talked. I told him my whole story from the car accident to really all of the detail in between of what had happened, and, you know, this… this sort of, like,

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Alex Crowther: not gaslighting, but kind of minimizing what was going on with me, and all the stuff. And…

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Alex Crowther: I got off that call, and I was like, holy shit, excuse me, sorry, sway my language here, but… but it was the first time I'm thinking.

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Alex Crowther: It's the first time someone's actually listened to me. It was the first time I was actually able to explain what was going on, that I was being seen and heard and understood, and…

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Alex Crowther: you know, just by the way that you're nodding your head, you know, Jareen was actively engaged, and she was writing, and she was nodding, and she was…

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Alex Crowther: having expressions, and, like, I knew that she was in.

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Alex Crowther: And so I felt deeply, sort of, like, connected and seen at that point. Then, I was seeing her 3 times a week. I mean, that's how bad I… bad things were for me at that point, to begin with. And then, next appointment.

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Alex Crowther: she says to me, do you know what pain is? I'm like, well, of course I know what pain is. Like, I live with it every day. Of course I know what pain is. She's like, do you really… do you really understand what

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Alex Crowther: pain is. I said, well, I think so. I think I understand what pain is. It's a, you know, I touch the stove, and it's hot, and, you know, my brain says that's hot, and…

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Alex Crowther: She's like, well, yeah, kind of, but then she breaks it down, and she really starts to explain, kind of, the mechanics of pain, what we call, in pain coaching, pain neuroscience education, P&E.

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Alex Crowther: And, I think over the course of one session, I went from, like, not really understanding pain to understanding, kind of like, okay, now I have a pretty good grasp of how pain works. Now, there's studies, Jill.

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Alex Crowther: That show that, if you have two people, and you show one… if you explain to one person

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Alex Crowther: pain neuroscience, and you don't the other, one person's pain experience will drop by at least one point, maybe sometimes two. One to two points, just by understanding what the experience is and how it's working.

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Alex Crowther: And there's lots of reasons for that. So that's… that was, you know, that was my second session.

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Alex Crowther: Then I go into sessions 3, 4, 5, and 100, and I'm learning many, many skills and tools. You know.

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Alex Crowther: I learned to meditate during this point of time. I was given hope.

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Alex Crowther: Which was the single greatest thing, and the greatest gift you can give anybody that's living with a chronic illness is hope, and…

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Alex Crowther: you know, she sort of committed to me that we were going to be able to get me to a point where I was going to be able to get up and out of that chair, and, like, not to give up, and da-da-da-da-da, and all the great stuff.

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Alex Crowther: But I learn incrementally, you know, these tools, and none of them are very… like, no one tool is that sophisticated, whether it's…

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Alex Crowther: you know,

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Alex Crowther: you know, cutting out the negative self-talk, or, you know, breathing, or… and you know, you know the sorts of tools, right?

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Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: tabbing. It's like…

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Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: That should not work. You're just, you know, tapping on your body parts. But it works so well.

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Alex Crowther: Yeah, so it's all of these things, right? So it's… so effectively, you're building this…

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Alex Crowther: tool belt or toolbox full of skills.

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Alex Crowther: annual learning, and, you know, I'm a pretty vicarious reader, and so Jereen would always be giving me new books to read, or sending me poems, or, you know, just things that would inspire me.

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Alex Crowther: And so, look, over this course of probably about 6 months of fairly… fairly intense, both one-on-one coaching, but… but group coaching as well, and that was really key for me, was by being in group coaching sessions, I was able to see that this wasn't me alone on an island.

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Alex Crowther: This was me and, you know, 7 or 8 other people who… no two people had the same…

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Alex Crowther: illness, necessarily, although I think one did, but but we all… we all had something different, and we all had different issues, you know, someone's losing their house, someone's lost their job.

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Alex Crowther: Someone's lost a spouse. You know, we've all, like, everybody's got lost and whatever. We've got these shared experiences, but what unites us is complicated pain.

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Alex Crowther: And by listening to other people's stories of, you know, loss or success.

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Alex Crowther: you know, and the love for those people builds so quickly and strongly, too. But even that… so that experience kind of comes into the fold, and whatever, but over this course of about 6 months, you know, incrementally, I start to just feel a little bit better.

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Alex Crowther: And it was sort of, like, the first time that I realized that healing wasn't about being pain-free.

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Alex Crowther: it just isn't. I'm not pain-free. In fact, I've had a few days of pretty high pain, but…

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Alex Crowther: But I know how to manage, I know how to bring pain down to a level that I can, you know, ultimately thrive in the world.

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Alex Crowther: And so that's what kind of coaching gave me, but I did have, like, this aha moment that, that, you'd kind of mentioned earlier, and that was…

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Alex Crowther: I discovered at one point that when I was doing something.

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Alex Crowther: when I was working in some way that was either doing something to do with pain?

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Alex Crowther: Or being in service of others, My pain level would go…

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Alex Crowther: to the, you know, almost so low as that I didn't even notice it anymore. So, I think at the time, the first time I realized that, I was writing… I was writing a blog of some sort about pain.

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Alex Crowther: And I… I remember being done with it, and I'm like, holy crap, like, I've just had an hour where I didn't feel pain.

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Alex Crowther: And so, it became this, like, little experiment of, like, running back to the computer, and I think I was right back here, and I did something else. I'm like, I've just had another hour of doing something that I can control all by myself that doesn't include any pain.

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Alex Crowther: And so that led me to… I gotta find out more about this pen coaching thing. I don't know what I need to know, but I'm gonna go find it out. So I spoke to Jirena, I asked her, you know.

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Alex Crowther: all sorts of questions, and who does the training, and this, that, and the other, and she put me in touch with the folks, Pain Coach Academy folks, who, do this… do this sort of training. So I meet with… I meet with Paul from Pain Coach Academy.

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Alex Crowther: And, you know, Paul and Becky, who are the founders of this business, the original founders,

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Alex Crowther: are great. Their skill sets are in coaching.

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Alex Crowther: they're not necessarily these great marketeers and business people, and so I have skills that they need, and they have something that I need. And so, there's this thing called coaching, and so…

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Alex Crowther: I find myself supporting Paul and Becky and helping them a little bit on this thing, and that thing and the other thing, and I'm doing it because actually it makes me feel a bit better, and then all of a sudden we have this conversation, which is, well, why don't we sort of formalize this?

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Alex Crowther: We need someone that can run the business so that we can do the things that light us up. So here I am today, kind of leading Pain Coach Academy, and never be, you know, I've never been more satisfied in my life. I found true alignment. I found my meaning and my purpose. I always said that

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Alex Crowther: you know, I…

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Alex Crowther: I always said that there has to be meaning to me having this pain. There has to… I have to give it meaning somehow.

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Alex Crowther: And so, I've done that, but…

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Alex Crowther: What's really remarkable now, when I start to look back, is…

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Alex Crowther: I've never really been in flow.

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Alex Crowther: You know, I jumped the ladder in my career because I worked really, really hard, but it was work, it was hard work to climb the ladder.

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Alex Crowther: Whereas now, I can sit here, and my work just flows. It, like, falls out of me, and it's easy, and it's enjoyable, and…

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Alex Crowther: I never knew what that… you know, I'd heard people explaining this, this sort of thing, and I didn't really understand it, but now I'm like, oh my gosh, I get it, I completely get it.

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Alex Crowther: And so, look, my mission now is, you know, we've got to get this out to the masses, because we all do what we're told, you know, when we're unwell, which is we go to… we trot off to the doctor. You know, the problem with the system is we're treating

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Alex Crowther: This… this thing called pain, which sits in the brain, as… as an experience.

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Alex Crowther: as something that we can treat the same way we've treated it for 100 years, which is through surgeries and medicine. And, you know, in the last 20-plus years, we've learned so much. We've learned that, you know, experiences of safety and all these wonderful things, that we know we now can do.

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Alex Crowther: Don't reside in the doctor's office.

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Alex Crowther: And we, like…

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Alex Crowther: we know that we can help people living with chronic pain. And so, yeah, that's the goal. I mean, we're having… we're having conversations with, you know, the insurance carriers, and I think Medicare is going to get a code for pain coaching soon enough, which is, which is really…

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Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Fantastic.

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Alex Crowther: Yeah, that's a step in the right direction. It's been a real slog, but that's honestly… that's why I'm getting on these podcasts, and I'm making a lot of noise about, pain coaching. Look, if you're living with complicated chronic pain, you name it.

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Alex Crowther: You know, find a coach. Really, you don't have a whole lot, you've got a lot to gain and very little to lose. Have a few sessions with a pain coach, and see. You, you, like, for me, it is the difference, you know, if you can bring your pain down 2, 3, 4 points, it's… it's enough.

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Alex Crowther: It's enough calming that nervous system. What's really cool about it is, once you calm the nervous system down.

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Alex Crowther: It may just be enough to get you out in the world, for one, but for two, once you've calmed that nervous system down, and then you go to the doctor.

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Alex Crowther: Then what's really interesting is the doctor can look at you, and look at those underlying things that are going on, and be much more, you know, much more, like, clear about what's actually going on.

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Alex Crowther: And so… You know, this… this isn't the… it's not like this is the instead of.

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Alex Crowther: This just completes the process that already exists.

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Alex Crowther: And it just needs to get further upstream. We've got to get this further upstream in the process where it becomes the standard of care, because, again, if we can bring that… if we can bring the levels down, maybe that's enough.

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Alex Crowther: Maybe we don't need to be putting people then on opioids that we know are actually only gonna make things worse.

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Alex Crowther: You know, or, you know, spinal cord stimulator failure is huge. And I was just looking at actually what the… I was approved for a spinal cord stimulator.

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Alex Crowther: which I know wouldn't have worked long time, long term, and I was looking at… I was being told about pain pumps as well, same thing. A spinal cord stimulator, when you look at all of the costs of the device, and the testing, and the visits, and everything else, is somewhere between $58,000 and $90,000 as a procedure cost.

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Alex Crowther: what does pain coaching cost? What do you… I mean, you have a very good sense of what coaching costs are. I mean, you could do 2 years worth of very intense pain coaching for probably under $20,000, and so…

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Alex Crowther: it would definitely benefit the insurers to get this way upstream, and that's the goal. That's the message. So anybody that's living with, if you're living with, you know, chronic, complicated pain.

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Alex Crowther: Come to Pain Coach Academy, and I've got a resource on there, which is Find a Pain Coach.

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Alex Crowther: And so we'll help. My goal is literally just to help anybody not be in the same chair as I was in. We'll try and link you up with a coach.

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Alex Crowther: But what, you know, what I think is just, like, so incredibly cool is this kind of career of pain coaching now, because

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Alex Crowther: you know, you… I've always wanted a job with purpose and, like, meaning and feeling like I'm doing something amazing in this world, and the incredible thing is, in a relatively short period of time.

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Alex Crowther: You know, the coach is the guy, the person that holds your hand and takes you on this journey, and works, you know, right there with you, as good coaches do.

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Alex Crowther: to be able to see somebody fundamentally change their life, and you're at the center of that, like, oh my god, like, that's huge. And I'm now surrounded by these coaches that do this with people all day long, and the stories are incredible, and they're really enriching and amazing. And so…

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Alex Crowther: One of the things that we figured out, is, you know, obviously somebody that's had a pain experience.

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Alex Crowther: I mean, pain changes you. I am so not the person I was…

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Alex Crowther: I don't know, 10 years ago, make sure…

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Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Question your sanity.

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Alex Crowther: Yeah.

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Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Especially when you get told over and over that there's nothing wrong with you.

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Alex Crowther: Yeah.

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Alex Crowther: But, so one of the things we figured out is, like, people that have had

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Alex Crowther: have complicated pain, who now can manage it through having been through a process like this, make the most incredible coaches themselves. You know, they come with deep empathy, and we can train the skills, the skills that they need, the knowledge and the learning that they need, we can teach. And what's also really cool is, look.

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Alex Crowther: me going into an office now with a, you know, 40-hour week in an office and stuff would be incredibly difficult, whereas, you know.

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Alex Crowther: A job as a coach allows you to, you know, go outside.

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Alex Crowther: to lay down when you need, to meditate for the afternoon, if that's what you need. And so, you know, what we're on a bit of a do is to see if we train

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Alex Crowther: the experts like that need the flexibility and the ability to be home, while at the same time earning a nice living. And so it's, you know, it's just something that we're trying to do.

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Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: So, Alex, let me ask you this, because you're a little bit…

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Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: I think we're back. When it… when it comes to how you help people, it… it sounds like it's twofold. On the one side, you help coaches, or people that are… have… maybe they've gone through a pain experience, or they're currently…

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Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: You know, on the other side of it.

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Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: to… who maybe want to reach out to the people that are behind them in pain and looking for solutions, you help train them to become pain coaches, that's one… one silo. And then the other silo is if you're listening today and you're in pain, chronic pain, and you're thinking, you know, I've just got to live with this, that's not true. You can just go to pain.

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Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: coachacademy.com, and there's a free e-book over there that's called Reframing Pain, and people can go and download that, and you will hook them up with a pain coach to help them

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Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: At whatever level you're at, you know, you mentioned $20,000 over a couple years.

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Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: that's not a hard, fast thing, and I'm sure that you guys work with people in every level, and you already are talking about the fact that you're helping people in terms of,

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Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: getting Medicare to accept… be accepted, and insurance companies getting that little number that you need, the magic number to get them to help offset some of these expenses.

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Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: So, it's… it's really more…

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Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: you're, you're, like, you're in it almost from three angles. One angle is for those in pain, one is for those who want to help those in pain, and the third leg of this is getting into the medical community itself.

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Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Up… when you talk about upstream, it's like talking to the doctors. When the doctor is faced with somebody, like, that comes in like you have come in, instead of saying, it's all in your head, they can say, hey.

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Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: There's pain coaching out there.

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Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Because a lot of those doctors just don't know.

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Alex Crowther: No, they have no idea. So, first of all, my $20,000 throwaway number was a map, like, I threw a big number out there, as a silly example to the fact of what a great saving this would be for an insurer.

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Alex Crowther: Like, that cost isn't even close to what pain coaching costs. I mean, we're talking about, you know, pancoaching is equivalent to taking yourself out for a steak.

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Alex Crowther: You know, this is not… this is not an expensive thing. You know, coaching is, you know, certainly less than $100 for a session, and soon enough, insurance will be picking that up.

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Alex Crowther: And so, yeah, don't… please don't take my throwaway words. I was… I was sort of miss… misspeaking there. So yes, absolutely, you know, serving all three of those communities, and a big push, like you said, is

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Alex Crowther: really, my own primary care doctor had no idea what pain coaching was, not a clue. So the book that I wrote, the Reframing Pain that you've mentioned, what it does, and please go and grab that,

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Alex Crowther: You know, it's about 120-odd pages, I think.

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Alex Crowther: And it… it breaks… the book's broken into three parts. The first part is explaining that whole notion of what pain is. It's a little bit of the pain neuroscience education, and I've written… it says everyday terms. I've written it so ideally, a 13-year-old can read it. I want… I want young people

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Alex Crowther: to read it, or somebody, honestly, who is in the fog of pain to be able to read it. And there's a lot of deliberate repetition in that, not because anybody's, you know, not good at reading, it's repetition because we know repetition with pain helps the brain understand what's going on. So we explain… I explain, first of all, what is going on in the brain with pain.

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Alex Crowther: The second, third of the book is really some of those tools and things that we can do, the menu of things that we can do to help bring the pain experience down. And I've got things on there, like trigger response plans. So when you go into a pain flare, instead of going, oh my gosh, what can I do?

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Alex Crowther: we already have a plan. We have a plan of… we know that one, two, and three things work, and it's gonna be taped up inside the kitchen cabinet, or it's gonna be in your phone.

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Alex Crowther: as the first photograph you look at, or whatever it is, and you're gonna have a plan, and all you need to do is to know you're gonna look in the cabinet, and there it is. So we have resources, like a trigger response plan.

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Alex Crowther: And then the last third of the book is a combination of resources, but it also explains what is pain coaching. So I explain, you know, what is coaching, what does a session look like?

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Alex Crowther: you know, how do you find a coach, those sorts of things, and then there's a sliver in the book at the back which talks about how to become a pain coach, for those people that might be interested. So, yeah, I try and cover it all.

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Alex Crowther: And really, I tried to write something that, when I was sort of newly diagnosed, I found that there were two types of books. One that was, like, so dumped down.

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Alex Crowther: That it wasn't really very helpful at all, or it was so far at the other extreme that it was so, sort of, medical scientific that it was hard to read.

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Alex Crowther: So I tried to create something that sort of explains what's going on, but then gives me some practical tools in a really easy and digestible sort of way, and I just wanted to give it away. So I'm not… I'm no author, but it's sort of like the collection of things that I figured out, and very easy to use.

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Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: I love that, I love that. And you're talking over on Substack these days.

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Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: You know, talk a little bit about what your plans are over there?

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Alex Crowther: Yeah, so I'm going to, you know, all the resources that I find, I'm gonna be… I'm gonna be sticking everything I can find on Substack, all of the resources, and all the episodes, and all the recordings, and all the blogs, and all the writing, I'm gonna put everything over on Substack, yeah.

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Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Awesome. And that, you can find at alexcrowther.substack.com.

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Alex Crowther: Yep. Thank you so much for joining me, Alex. This has been an amazing conversation.

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Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: I love your story, and I love your mission.

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Alex Crowther: Likewise, thank you for having me.

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Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: To learn more about Alex, and to find his free guide to reframing pain, visit paincoachingacademy.com, and I want to thank you all for joining us today. If you're ready to amplify your voice, monetize your mission, and start attracting premium clients.

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Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Your next step is simple. Head to coachsalchemist.com and schedule your free client acquisition audit. Be sure to join us for our next episode, where we share what others are doing to raise the global frequency. And remember, change begins with you. You have all the power to change the world. Start today, and get visible.