Working on the idea that pain is protection. Pain is a threat. Every emotion has a physical representation. So if you spend a long time in an emotion that will, you know, shut down some parts of your body, maybe open up others, and that will undoubtedly be one of the things that's holding you in a pain pattern. If something's not working for you, you're the captain of the ship.

Hello and welcome. The body and the mind are one system. As you regular listeners of my show know, that's how I see things and I see that the world of coaching and human performance is fragmented. Now, when you go to someone for a pain in your shoulder, a lower back issue or a niggly knee, you might see a sports massage therapist, a physio, someone like that, and they may treat that area. But I have the fortune of working with Jamie, who's a sports therapist who treats the whole system. Now he's worked on me, so I know firsthand how. Jamie looks at things in the body and may not be the, let's say the expected view of how you work with the physical body. So if you have pain, if you have challenges, you have mental blocks today, this one's a good one for you. So we're going to get into it. Jamie, welcome to Mindset, Mood and Movement Show. It's good to have you on.

Thanks for reminding me Sal. Really looking forward to it.

Pleasure. Yeah. Pleasure. Jamie, what's, take us through, what do you, what do you do through your day when you're with people? What do you actually do?

Well, um, so in terms of the, the work that I do, it's, I think, I think the key thing is to say it's bespoke for every person. I think that's one of my, um, big drivers, my big beliefs. we, um, at the clinic, we talk about meeting people exactly where they're at. So to give you an over the top example, if someone comes in having searched out a physiotherapy type search term online, um, and, coming with a knee problem and, and there's a realization just from my experience that, um, you know, the, the, the flippant way of saying, and I've never said this to a client is it's not your knee that's the problem, it's your entire life. you don't want to hear that. Really, but it's about from that point, um, starting from a, a physical, um, start point, say this knee in case in point, and then seeing where that takes us. we always start, you know, because my qualification is a, sports therapy. I'm not trying to be a psychologist, but it's really important that we acknowledge. the, the mental aspect. Um, so we get to know, the people in the room, talk about life. it's really important, that our clients are able to be as open as they can be, sometimes it's difficult to be open with someone you've just met or, and obviously that rapport develops, through, through treatment. so we kind of gain the trust on the, on the, the physical side of things, um, using our biomechanical expertise and, as you alluded to in the introduction. piecing it all together. we might be, for a knee problem, we'd certainly be looking at what's going on the foot. At the hip, at the pelvis, um, but even all the way up to the neck. Um, and been plenty of cases whereby, we've, we've seen dramatic improvement in people's symptoms by, you know, even releasing off someone's jaw, for example, and it, it positively affects the symptoms in their knee. so yeah, that's a, that's a brief outline.

so what's super interesting about you, Jamie, is that, so I came to see you a while back and I've, uh, for, for our listeners, I've had this kind of recurrent shoulder issue for quite a long time and I've done a lot of work on it. I've done my own rehab. I've got a lot of knowledge about the body, not as much as Jamie, but a lot to kind of do myself work. I've seen other practitioners and it just hasn't, hasn't resolved. And what struck me was if you've got a chronic issue, then when I went to Jamie, when I went to Jamie, he was like, It's probably not a shoulder issue because it would have healed by now. You know, if it's going on for that long, it's not about your shoulder. And it resonated with me because when I'm in a coaching space with someone and they are wanting to change how they think and they're trying to do behavioral change, it's not about the behavior. So I'm already seeing things in these parallel views. So I might look at someone's belief pattern and, and the architecture of their mind. And Jamie, you look at people in the architecture of their body, but there is such a crossover. No one. Has a mind without a body. Everyone lives through a body. Now if, um, If you're looking at someone like you said there, the person comes in like me with a shoulder or knee issue and says, Hey, I've got this problem. Can you help? What's, what's some of the stuff that you're seeing that isn't physical? Because of course for those of us who've got the physical, we think that's the issue. But what is it you will see are patterns and trends that come in with some of your clients? that are more likely part of the pain problem or the injury problem that you're seeing.

Yeah, sure. Um, would it be okay to talk about your condition in, in more detail? So I'll just, cause I can physically see you.

Absolutely. Yeah. I'm a live case right?

yeah, exactly. Yeah. So it's the one that I can see right now. I haven't got my notes in front of me, so it will be from memory. Um, but on a purely physical level, um, I think the, the, I've made a career out of treating what looks most wonky. Um, uh, very technical. You see it in all the textbooks, but, now, now, for example, In your case, as I remember it, we've, we've obviously, we have a right shoulder issue. Um, and I'm, I'm less interested in giving things labels. I'm more interested about what we can do about things. I think, a critique of, I've got some textbooks on my, on my, on my books, on my shelves up there. And the pages and pages of these labels that don't actually mean anything. Um, I mean, to. To use your, um, case as an example, we, we could have labeled them, if we wish, a, a tendinopathy or something like that, which if you translate the Latin just means there's something wrong with the tendon. now we don't know that. And we're just gonna label and labels can be very negative. I think, um, you know, you've got something to say. I've there's something wrong with me. and I, and I don't think that that is helpful. Um, also, I mean, to turn up is a really good example. Um, they, um, It used to be called tendinitis. You might have heard of that, was inflammation of the tendon and they showed, well, actually there's no inflammation. So that was wrong. Um, then they showed that it was tendinosis, which is suggested, degeneration of the tendon, which isn't necessarily the case either. Um, so you can have degeneration of the tendon and no pain and that's very, very common in all of us. Um, and so that's why they came up with the label tendinopathy. There's something wrong with the tendon. But is there? Um, and this is the way you start getting into the pain science, uh, of it as well. You can have, you know, what we would consider, physical issues in the tissues is, is the, is the phrase that we use, but actually no pain at all. Um, but equally you can have no issues in the tissues and pain as well. So to bring it back to you, um, your point, the first thing I picked up with yourself through that, right side, we knew where the, where the, um, where the issue was, we knew that there was some, um, pain on some movements. I can't remember the abs one, some rotator cuff, most likely, I think some press ups as well. so that gave us a clue as to the actual muscles that were involved in the pain mechanism, if you like. And then I, then we had a look at you and then we had a look at how you were lining up and the key things, the two things that I noticed was I'm, I'm overly obsessed with people's armpits. I'm a bit special like that. so, um, we had a look at your, we took a little picture of you from the back and we got the ruler, the iPhone feature, very useful for me. And we saw that the right shoulder I think was lower than the left shoulder. So something's pulled down on the right side. And with yourself, which is a really, really common, double whammy is we saw that on the, on that same right side, the pelvis was elevated. Um, so again, same, you can use the ruler as well. You can do it by eye as well. I like to take pictures. with client's consent, of course, just they're involved in the process as well, so they can see what's going on. Um, and we could see that it was, if you like, on the side of everybody, it was, the shoulder was down and the pelvis was up. So we had some short tissues here, and then I used my biomechanical, okay, what muscles are bridging that gap, what muscles could be pulling you into that position, um, uh, and kind of, we then go from there. With yourself, Sal, this wasn't the case, but it can be the case with many people. It is, cause I know you're, super open to it based on your own past experience, but it, one of the things, and again, if I speak to, more conventional therapists, they're all going back, um, uh, the view, people say, Oh, what does, I'm a big believer in the hands on work. And, um, many people say, well, you can't change anything. And. Well, they're probably right from a pure physiological. If you've got a tandem with degeneration, can I change that? Well, no, not really, not certainly not there. And then maybe we can over time if things improve. But, um, what you can do certainly is say you have a belief, um, and a belief that, is, unhelpful or, or, or, or negative. If you believe that your pain is due to a damaged tendon, then, um, we need to address that belief. Now, the way, my style, the way of doing that would be to say, okay, well, as much as we did with you, just kind of reinforce that message. Physiological healing time is six weeks. So if you had damaged it, and we talk about the original, mechanism of injury, did anything go twang, snap or pop? Now, if anything doesn't go twang, snap or pop, we can be reasonably sure, um, that nothing was wrong with it, really. Um, it was, you know, the pain started at some point. The actual tissues were probably very similar the day before. and at the point where they, they felt pain, there might've been an increased load. And key thing is there might've been an increase, we call it increased stress, maybe might've been a nicer way of framing it. because increased stress suggests increased physical stress, which absolutely can be a factor, but increased emotional stress as well. And that can be a factor. Um, so yeah, correcting those. those beliefs that aren't, helpful. Um, and it's all good and well saying that and me coming out with my spiel and stuff that I believe based on pain science experience and biomechanics. But then the hands on work for me is invaluable in that if I release, and you might intellectually, and you were on the same page straight away Sal, of course, but intellectually you get what I'm saying, but if I can use my hands, use the techniques that I've got to then make you feel a difference there and then. then you start to believe. And what we've done there is we've effect a mental change and that change happens there and then. And I think that's the most kind of powerful way to work.

Yeah. That's just so interesting. And thanks for elaborating that. So, uh, just for a bit of extra context for, for our listener. Um, I've had this ongoing shoulder pain for more than a year now. I train a lot. As you listen regularly, you'll know, I do a lot of training, weight training, and I'm in reasonably good condition. And it just one day was just fried. The shoulder just did not want to work and, and the things that never healed. And I did loads of. dedicated rehab work, micro movements on the rotator cuffs, um, and when I spoke to Jamie, as he's alluded to, you know, it's, it's not quote unquote attendant problem. This is something else in the system. And of course, peaks my interest because when I look at systemic change in people, like, Oh yes, that's, of course, I see this in the mental side of things. Um, but yeah, I think one of the experiences you led to there, and I want to name is the distinction between beliefs and experience. I know for a fact that it's really hard to challenge beliefs. It's what I do on a daily basis. I've challenged people's beliefs to help them change, but we believe what we believe, and they're sticky. They're really sticky beliefs, and the way our predictive brain works, it needs to have, trust and, uh, evidence in, in quite good measure to update that belief. So if you don't really trust the person you're telling, who's saying, Hey, you haven't got any pain in the shoulder, really. It's probably something else. If you don't trust them, you're not going to buy it. But if you don't have an experience, a valid experiential, whether you feel different, you see different, whatever it is, then again, that doesn't shift the belief. And I think that's so interesting what you said. the experiential change by your hands on work, the naming of the potential, like is this a belief issue as well? And I've seen other people with these, quote, problems and they don't ever get resolved. And of course I'm scratching my head thinking, well, is that an emotional pattern for you? And just to note, I used to do a bit more of the therapeutic side of my work rather than only the coaching. And I had a physio friend back in the day and he sometimes referred people to me who he could not treat. They kept coming back with, Oh, I still got a hip problem. Um, my hip flexors, you know, firing badly or something like that. And he was smart enough to know that, yeah, this is probably an emotional pattern. And then I would have the conversation around it. What's been going on with you? What's in your backstory? Well, what, you know, tell me something in confidence and I'd hear something about an echo from trauma, um, a difficult time, something that's happened to this individual. and quote unquote, it was expressing through the body. So I think if you're listening now and you've got some physical stuff, be curious, be curious. Is this more than just a niggly knee or tricky back? Is there something else going on? So now we've uncovered that, Jamie. What else? So pain really interests me because pain is fascinating. It's subjective. It's in the nervous system. Um, it's, it's, it's very complex and you understand it very well. But what is pain? Let's understand what is pain. So those of us who experience headaches, backaches, whatever it is, what are we experiencing?

Wow. okay. the book's written on this cell, so thank you. Thank you for that. Thank you for that question. Um, so what is pain? so There's lots of, different, uh, Theories, I guess, on what pain is, really, and you'd think there'd be an absolute answer and there really isn't. Um, so, obviously, you've got the pain where you've just, you know, walked into the drawers at home and banged your shin, which is pretty damn painful. Um, and it's a And that, that's a very physical, uh, stimulus and I think probably to cut a lot of kind of pain science, neuroscience short, and, and summarize a lot of the theories and, and a lot of the, um, um, books that I read. there's a few, pain definitions that I use and I haven't got them right in front of me at the moment, but, um, I'll kind of summarize them. And we're really working on the idea that, pain, is protection. Pain is a threat. Um, so it's, it, you know, there's, um, uh, fascinating, the work of, Louis Gifford, any, listeners interested in following this further, I'd recommend his work highly. Um, And he works on it. One of his ideas of pain is the material organisms model, which is basically that if you look at a single cell and a single cell, if there's a noxious stimulus to a single cell, it knows to go in the opposite direction. Equally, if it's a stimulus that it likes, it knows to go towards that. and this is, again another book that I'm reading at the moment, The Biology of Belief by Bruce Lipton, another fabulous book, which is a microbiologist and goes into a little bit more detail. And so somehow, um, without going into detail, microbiology detail, um, these cells know what's good for them and they know what's bad for them. Now, Louis Gifford's work on the, um, mature organisms, model, as in, in a much bigger organisms than single cellular, which I think, we, very much, qualify in that category, um, it's the same thing. Pain is, is, is trying to tell us something. It's trying to tell us to, to move away from something. Now, in the, in the, in the, you know, the drawers, walking into the drawers, it's telling you stop walking into drawers. It's a very, very simple mechanism. Um, you, you know, you, you, you fall off, you step off a curb and you, and you, and you roll your ankle and the pain is there to tell you stop it. It's, it's a mechanism to, to try and jerk that back. And hopefully the pain is there as protection as designed to get you to stop doing anything silly. Now, sometimes you go too far and, and you know, maybe you're off balance. You can't correct that. That's when you're sprained ankle, you'll get the inflammation. Now, that's easy if you've just broken your leg and all these kind of examples that I'm giving. I think, I think the definition still holds true for that as in, stop breaking your leg. You know, that's that immediate response. There's also the, the, the role that pain plays in terms of if there is damaged tissues, which we've alluded to previously, then there's a response. for healing straight away. then we get into the kind of chronic pain, um, uh, bracket, which is actually being re rebranded at the moment to persistent pain, which sounds just a little bit nicer. Um, and that's categorization is anything longer than six weeks. And this is where we started getting into the, the more tricky, uh, elements of pain. and in, in its case of what, what is there, what is, what is pain? It's just telling us something in our life needs to change. Now, if we take your shoulder as an example, Sal, which is a really interesting one, it, perhaps, you know, we're going to go slightly off tangent here, um, if that's okay, Sal, but it's always the case of what, what was, what was the, what was going on for you when, when that, when that pain started? Um, had you just purely increased the load in your training? Um, yeah. Were you a little bit run down at the time, which can be a factor. Had you been ill, for example, there's a massive correlation between your immune system and pain as well. or was there something in life that had been, um, you know, stressing you out, something on your mind a little bit. And these things are, they can be conscious as the example, but they can be subconscious as well. and that's where we go to the kind of the more kind of hidden stuff, which goes into, um, stuff from our past. And, we, we don't hold ourselves tense. intentionally. We don't necessarily hold ourselves tense, um, uh, in, in certain areas on purpose. Um, but we do, and there are reasons for that. That can be physical trauma, can be emotional trauma, emotional stress. You know, I'm always intrigued as to, where does PTSD, for example, post traumatic stress disorder, where's that crossover between stress and trauma? Um, I know trauma theoretically is, is held in, in, in different space in, in, I think the frontal lobe or whatever it's called. So it feels very real and very current. but all of these things are reflected in our body over time. Um, and to give you a really, present current example, I, I, um, I started a new gym a couple of days ago. So I'm feeling the effects. I'm pretty sore today. Um, and I've just been doing classes for a little while. So it's nice to, um, just take control back and just work on my own things, for a few months now. And I was really preaching the gym I was working at previously didn't have mirrors and I completely get the reasons for that. Um, and that's great, but this one does have mirrors. I thought, you know, you can imagine me. I'm a very much a form geek, much like yourself, self style when we're, when we're training. And I was just doing my shoulder press in the mirror and just. you know, that childlike curiosity that I have about everything. And I was just looking at how my ribcage was expanding as I was doing the shoulder press. And on the left side, it was really opening nicely, possibly too much. Um, and on the right side, it was really kind of locked down. I'm like, Ooh, Oh, I didn't know that, where's that come from? And me being me, I was like, Oh, is that from a previous injury? Or is that from, some old stuff or the et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. So, um, I appreciate I've just gone off on a tangent there a little bit, but hopefully that, uh, goes, uh, in some way to answering your original question.

you. Yes. And it's such a huge field. We don't, uh, we respect the fact that we're sort of giving the entry level sound, you know, sort of just, just understanding around pain. If you want to go deeper. Yes, we can leave some links in the show notes to Louis Gifford. But, um, but pain is interesting. You're absolutely right, isn't it? It's information in many ways. It's a signal, it's a frequency, and it's an intense frequency that one would hear, and, you know, there's a lot of, there's a, I think a cliché term that if you don't listen to the whispers in your body, you'll hear it when it screams, and in some ways that's quite true. I see these cases with people, yeah, you probably see it, I see it with burnout cases, where people are working so hard and pushing so hard. And I might be coaching this individual and I'm like, okay, so you know where this pathway is going, don't you? And I'll, I'll name him, but the pain, uh, can be superseded. Our brain is very, very capable of superseding physical and emotional pain if we perceive it's important. And I think this is one I want to talk to you about. I don't know if this is in your space, but The meaning we make out of things, and I'm very interested in this field of semiotics, which is the blend of looking at emotions, affects, you know, how we think and feel about something. Uh, what they mean, because meaning is everything to humans. We, we are meaning creatures. So if it means something to us, like, do we love someone or do we care about, it matters. So the meaning pain has for an individual, which is whether it's psychological or physical. And if we stay with physical for your experiences, what does it mean? I think that's a really intriguing question that we can get into because if it's a, as you say, persistent pain, like my shoulders, persistent pain, what does it mean? So I'm going to be honest here. What does it mean? I'm going to just say this straight off the cuff. Uh, it's holding me back. Uh, it's stopping me from training. It's annoying me. So I'm actually very resistant to this. Now, if I put my sort of, let's say Eastern understanding filter on, I'm really, and I've said this a million times, resistance is suffering. Whatever we resist, it is suffering. So I'm resisting what's going on. And hence, uh, there's probably a tightness in my architecture of my body. There's a tenseness in my thinking, thinking as well. Um, And you alluded to already about if we're holding ourselves a particular way and we don't know, that's, that's really intriguing. So what meaning are you seeing the, uh, whether it's me or with other people, what meaning do you see come out of like, what does pay mean for this individual? What, what kind of themes are you seeing in it with your clients?

Yeah, sure. I mean, I think, um, and again, that goes back to a point I mentioned earlier and it being completely unique for every individual. I think if we, maybe expand on your one, Sal, and then, and then maybe move into some other examples that, uh, just crop up for me as we're chatting. Um, I think in your case, I love your honesty and the frustration and resilience that, you know, the resistance and that's, uh, very classic. And I'm sure that will resonate with, with the listeners. Um, but for you, the bigger picture is the, you, you, you love training and it is, it's the fear of what you're missing out on and, and, kind of on a, on a deeper level. from our conversations and I'm sure you've, you, you, you've spoken about this before, it's important to your mental wellbeing as well. Um, you know, it might, it might even be important to your social wellbeing, you know, um, when you, um, when you go training, you might meet friends at the gym or, you know, you might have. coffee with someone afterwards. So it becomes a big part of your life and going back to our previous, discussion on, what pain is, um, you know, that threat and that protection, if there's a threat that, Oh my God, let's take a runner's cause I know runners get, a lot from this and the catastrophization, which I'm sure you've spoken about on previous, podcasts. But you know, the brain will quickly go to, Oh, this Achilles problem. Am I going to be able to do my race? I'm going to be able to run a PB. Um, am I, am I, uh, and then I'm not, what happens if I can't run? And if I, and if I can't run, um, I'm not going to be seeing my running friends. And if I don't, what am I going to do with myself? And, and, and running is really important for my mental mental health. And, and then I'm just going to go insane. And, you know, I intentionally picked up my pace in my, in my voice there to just, you know, try and give a sense of what happens in our brains. And we all do it. Um, it's just kind of catching yourself doing it and noticing that you're doing it. and then just taking that, that, that step back, I think, I think is, is, is really important. So. Yeah, I think, I think I pretty much covered a lot of the bases there, really, just in one example and projecting on there.

I Yeah. I was going to have one more layer to that. So yeah, absolutely. There are these implications of what, what does it mean? And it means I can't do this. Can't do that. Maybe see friends, uh, let's say, and I know runners and they put a lot of work in to get to their race. And then suddenly if there's a, you know, an Achilles or a problem, ah, What I also notice is, let's go another level deeper, particularly this is my lens of work, is it's about your identity, who you are as a person. So I identify with training like, trying training like an athlete, and that's how I identify. So if I cannot do that, that's, that's, uh, potentially taking away a piece of my identity, which I care very much about. because we, we hold our identity close. So I wonder, and of course this sort of slips into the realm of different archetypal patterns or what we call parts in psychology. Uh, inner family systems is another model, but the aspects of self, you know, one self wants to be training, one self is feeling a bit sore, wants to hide away. And I think this is where I see the disconnection. And this is why I'm interested to talk to you about another layer about this disconnection between mind and body. or between the parts of ourself and it seems to be for some of us we can get an injury because we're disconnected from our body like forcing the body to do something when perhaps it doesn't want to or the other way is not giving your body the conditions of say exercise and activity and it's becoming redundant so that disconnection I see is a problem what what is there anything you're seeing with disconnection in people's bodies and their in their thinking self their feeling self that that presents in a problem

Yeah, I think, oh gosh, this is another big one, Sal. And, uh, so, uh, if I get too detailed, do, uh, do pull me out. Um, I think there's, there's, there's two things that immediately spring to mind. I'll, I'll start on, on, on the first one. I'm fascinated by, um, the, the catastrophization example I just gave. would be more on a, an anxious spectrum. so someone who more associates with anxiety, um, we talk about, um, uh, body, body anxiety as, as, as a thing, um, you know, that fear of what they've done to themselves and, and that, and that kind of thing, there's also, kind of like a bodily disassociation as well, that can happen. And, that is, I think, where I say, I think, because I really don't know. Um and obviously it's unique for everyone, but it's kind of like, you have the mental capacity, and going back to you probably because it's important for your self worth and your overall, this is who I am that you alluded to, but you have that ability to push through anything. Um, and we're talking pain here and, and we all have that. if you've just run a 26 mile marathon, you're absolutely on your knees. Um, and a lion leaps out at you, what are you going to do? You're going to run faster than you've ever run in your life. Um, you know, there's that, I forget the name, it was 127 hours, something like that movie where a guy got trapped in the outback in Australia and he, he sawed his own arm off with a rusty pen knife because that was any sort, he said it felt a bit weird, but he didn't feel pain because his brain had decided that in order to keep him alive, it was more important that he didn't feel pain. So, uh, absolutely fascinating. Now going back to the disassociation. I think, um, and I put, um, a lot of Olympic athletes in this bracket. I'd also put them in a lot of them in the anxiety bracket as well. it varies from person to person, but you can go through things to a point. and I've seen a lot of people over time where they have that ability, their overall goal for whatever that might be, Olympic gold, self worth, mental health, even, you know, trying to, um, you know, personally, if I've got any mental health issues, I'm prone to over training myself. Um, I've been, been there, got the t shirt many, many, many times. Um, so, but what you find with that disassociation is when the pain does start creeping in, when you don't, when you don't seem able to zone out from it anymore, then there's quite a big kind of drop off. and actually a lot of people I've seen who've previously done that then turn in the other way and become very anxious all of a sudden because they're like, I can't control this anymore. You know, my usual strategies aren't working. And, and, uh, Um, so yes, in quite a few interesting cases, like that over the years, and it's almost, you've got to rebuild that confidence in the body, and, and in, and in the, in the self and, and in sometimes you, you do have to address the underlying, okay, why were they doing that in the first place? and that, self worth, I keep referring to the big one for myself and, and, and a lot of us, I think. Um, And so sometimes getting people like yourself on board, I have a, uh, you know, um, uh, I have some very clever friends as well. If, if in the physical work, we do pick out something a little bit more, emotional, mental, then I have people that I can refer to as well. Hmm.

I mean a caveat for me and I'll be really, uh, vulnerable and honest here, but one of the reasons I train is originally it's, it's kind of less lessons it's charged now, but originally was because I hated feeling weak and it's a really, uh, revealing statement about sort of my psyche. But. The feeling of weakness, uh, and I have an autoimmune condition, which sometimes, uh, will pull me down and crush me. The, the feeling of weakness is abhorrent for me. It's been a challenge. I've done loads of therapy on it and it's a lot of work. It's a lot better for sure. And I'm in a lot better place, but that's the truth of it. And if anyone has Bernie Brown, the very well famous, uh, shame researcher, you know, a lot of her work and other people's too, would point out to, particularly for a man, weakness equals shame. So it can be that as a, certainly if you're a man and you're training really hard and are you training to get away from that? Now, of course, the flip of it as well, just to be on the positive, that I train for fun because there's a playful side in me and I love to move and play because. Hell, I feel like a kid again. It's brilliant. Certainly a north of 50. It's lovely to be able to feel childlike and youthful and vigorous. So it's about seeing these sides. And I think that's the work I do a lot of self work for sure. And I see it with my clients, but Look at the shadow and look at the light because both of them are probably part of the, uh, driving mechanisms behind why you might overtrain, why you might push through something, um, or why you might be stuck. And if you don't look at that, that psychological architecture, it's like it's driving the bus, as the old expression goes. Now I want to touch on something here that you mentioned about, perhaps like, athletes who may have had a difficulty and they've slid down into maybe more of an anxiety type response. If we think of the four Fs, flow, fight, flight, and freeze, you know, the two sides of the nervous system, fight and flight, sympathetic, flow and freeze, parasympathetic. What I often see is that there's a, um, it's like a navigation point. We're, we're neurologically somewhere in that response and they're all healthy. If we are appropriately responding to, stimulus. But if you've been in fight response a lot, like pushing towards something, working really hard, so there's forward motion and you have an injury or you have an autoimmune condition like I do, and like suddenly you can't train, it can slide you down into that anxiety place. Or for me, sometimes it's a shutdown. Like it's a retractionism, what the word, people use the word depression, but I would call it shutdown. It's the shutdown state. And, and I think that's because I've my nervous system is responding to the experience and the meaning I'm giving it. Do you work with polyvagal theory in your work to some degree?

Very much so, Sal. My head had already gone there as you, as you were chatting. Yeah.

Great. So if we use this lens, and I really love this lens because it's super easy to get. We've got flow state when we're feeling socially engaged, we feel confident, we're really, you know, life's just frictionless, it's lovely. Fight state is in, it's not act, not, not aggression. We're talking about moving towards problems, you know, solving problems, going towards the issue. Heavyweight training, boxing, CrossFit, you know, that's often fight state. All good. Flight state is generally moving away from the problem. So on the positive, it's like, yeah, I need to, to put the weights down now. I need to go home now. Or flight state negative is like, I don't want to deal with it. Ah, you know, anxiety chasing you down the road. And of course, Um, freeze state and it's, and it's more, it's positive realm. It's like you need to quiet down, like put the weights down, go have a, go have a massage, go home, read a book, be quiet, rest. And that's the sort of more positive quality of it. It's darker quality is, is more of a depression quality, which you've already suggested you've been down that road. Uh, I know that it's worst state is, is trauma, you know, when there's other qualities to it. So what are you seeing when people come into your, into your, into your space and they've got some stuff going on? Do you see them mapping through one of these neurological spaces?

Yeah. Yeah. And I, and I think, um, you know, I've been, doing this, for, it's going to be 20 years, in August for me. so when you've, um, been lucky enough to, um, spend time with, I don't know, people. 3, 4, 5, 000 people, in, in, in close proximity. you have a unique insight, into, into the human condition. And, I think it got to a point probably about five years ago where I meet the person for the first time in the, in, in the reception area. And I take one look at them and I kind of know where they're at. I'm sure other professionals in my line of work and particularly, obviously even more so in, in, in the psychotherapy realm, we'll have the similar experience. Now that's our initial judgment. And we, which is useful and it's, it's instinctive for people like us. but we've also got to be, wise that that's our initial, um, indication. I think it's usually pretty accurate. But that's our judgment and we have to remember that is, that is a judgment. Um, and then we need to modify that as we go. Um, but I think I, you know, the, the, the reason I, I love Parley Vagel theory is, is because it, it talks about our nervous system is just one nervous system, at the end of the day. And. all aspects of those flight, flight free social, engagement are active at any one time. Um, and, and, and, and the, the, the best example I always use is, um, sex. Um, and it was the example that was, given to me when I was first introduced to the concept. And it's, you know, there's, there's aspects of all parts of the nervous system in there. There's the obvious kind of, arousal, which, is that kind of, excitement, that fight or flight kind of, sorry, the, the fight, I guess, really, in terms of what, what's going on, you're coming up. Um, then, um, you also need that kind of, Clearly social engagement as you, look longingly into your partner's eyes. but also there's that slight, the rep reptilian part of polyvagal theory that we talk about, the passiveness, which again, in is extreme form is depression, in that you are, you are letting someone in your, your being passive, um, and allowing someone to share your body as well. And that's just a really nice example of how. just in one example of life that all parts of our nervous system are working together. Um, and obviously the, you know, that's in different states at any one time, but going back to your original question. And then that initial, uh, kind of judgment as we, we, we, we were kind of accurately saying on the person is you, you, you make a judgment in terms of where they're more dominant on any given, um, uh, position. So, you know, if, if I meet someone and like, yeah, I'm absolutely fine, Jamie, there's no problem. That stress is absolutely fine. I've got no issues at all. You kind of know that they're a little bit, they're a little bit flighty, uh, at the moment and if, if their demeanor, and again, this probably comes across on the, on the video version, not so much so, and I'll try and do the voice as well for the people just listening on audio. But if, oh yeah, I'm, yeah, I, yeah, I'm here. So I'm sorry. From existence, I've got this problem. Sorry to trouble you, sorry for the, sorry, sorry, sorry. that, you know, they're more on a, on a, on a depressive end, end of the scale there. And, and so you immediately pick up on, on, on those nuances. And then once we sit down and chat to 'em, get to know them, we get to know a little bit more about the detail, possibly the reasons why. Um, get to understand them, get to understand, um, how. Um, how they are right now, maybe that was just an initial, coyness or a little kind of anxiety and meeting someone, or if there's some more kind of, um, uh, underlying, underlying work. And of course, from, from my perspective, um, how that, how that shows up in their body. Um, because every, every emotion has a physical representation. So if you spend a long time in an emotion, that will, you know, shut down some parts of your body, maybe open up others. And, that will, undoubtedly, be one of the things that's holding you in a, pain pattern from, from my work.

Yeah, so interesting, isn't it? And I think that's something, uh, which I'm, I'm hoping as, uh, as a listener, we can take away because something as simple as what's the shape of your body? How are you carrying yourself right now? So if you're sitting, are you collapsed at your shoulders? Is your ribcage depressed? You know, is your chin tucked down? What does that feel like? And if we think about technology use, particularly a phone, most phone use invokes an anxiety slash depression like response. It's quite timid, it's collapsed in the chest. There's, there's a lot of sort of inwardness to it. And of course, using a phone is a very abstract thing rather than experiential thing that's around you. So the shape of your body, your body language, and it's a space I've worked with quite a few people, like to change their body language in a way that's going to change how they present in the world and actually often present in front of people is just as important as the psychology. In fact, in often in many times more so because it's embodied, right? It's an embodied cognitive state. So what I find interesting is that we can get very familiar with these states. I've seen it in my practice. It sounds like you're seeing it. We get identified with, and we often say it, don't we? You know, I'm an anxious person or I have anxiety or I have depression. And I'm not going to say that's not true. That's not what I'm saying. But I'm saying if we overly identify, it becomes quite a familiar place. Whether we want that or not, it becomes a familiar and we have to be very careful of the homeostatic Gravity of the human system, we, we gravitate to homeostasis and sometimes if it's been misaligned because of life, life's been tough to you, your upbringing's been tough, your, your gravity point might be a depressed quality because of the circumstances of your life or an anxious because you've been around threats all of your life, so we're not saying that it's wrong, you're not having it, but if you're overly biased into that space, It does suggest there's opportunity to step into this other, let's say, neurological, emotional states of, and hands up, so another absolute raw example, you know, I, I, when I grew up, I, I hated fighting and there was problems at school when I was young, uh, difficulties in my upbringing. In more recent years, in fact last year, I started boxing. which is hilarious because I'm like, I'm going to hit someone, I'm going to hit things. And I am not, not that far down the road yet, but there is permission to be aggressive. There's permission for the fight state. And I think as a, as a modality growing of certainly my system, taking an anxious person and giving them a fight state in safe, controlled environment is a very healthy thing. Because if you've always had to back down, if you've always been at threat, You need to turn the tables somehow. So we're not saying go and punch people. That's not what I'm saying at all. I'm saying go get a safe way to understand fight for someone else's weight training. A heavyweight movement invokes you have to be aggressive with it, you have to really go for it. But if you're going through it with a conscious state, what I find is you're giving yourself permission to change state. And perhaps the person who's got a bit too much aggression because of their, again, their life story is taken that way. Then how can we help you back off a little bit? How can we help you find a bit more safety without having to, you know, uh, be overly fight statey? So, balance is seemingly the need. We need to be able to go reflexively into these states as appropriate, hopefully come out of them when they're not appropriate. And, um, yeah, it's a big, it's a big thing that I love to work with because I've been through, uh, years of, uh, being in an anxious space and then going to the flow state in yoga, just been totally zenned out state. And now I actually am okay. I mean, it was, it was the more heavy training disciplines. and the psychological work which I've done has helped me like, yeah, stand up for yourself. It's okay. You can do that. And then there's that real, ah, I feel more balanced now.

Yeah, I think it's, um, oh, very much so. Everything you said. Um, and I think, adaptability, um, is the, is the key. Having the ability to, move in and around all of those nervous system states that we were, we were talking about. Yeah, I often talk about in this very room here, where you are on a theoretical, the floors kind of like. And the, you know, that massive, we're all on a sliding scale somewhere in there. We don't know exactly where it is. It's a theoretical scale. Um, but when we're up here or down there, we get stuck and actually, um, we. Um, we, you know, we, getting into the gab or matte stuff, we are, all of our decisions are, um, based, based on keeping our nervous system in the same way that it's because it is accustomed to, you know, our, our, our choice of our jobs, the choice of our partners, the choice, these, these choices we make, which we think are active, conscious, uh, choices, but, and they are, but they, they, managed to keep us. in, in the way to which we've become accustomed from a nervous system perspective. So, coming to change, it's about spending more time in those different states that you alluded to, uh, Sal, and, and, and just to bring it back to my field in terms of the, um, the, the, the tissue side, the physical side, and it's that, Uh, adaptability of the tissues. Can the tissues adapt? Yeah, you can slump, and then you go, you know, up in the air, um, but can you be everywhere in between that at the appropriate time? I think that's the, that's the really important, really, really important work. And I think also, um, We've kind of mentioned around this already, but the, and then this doesn't happen for, for, for all of my client by, by any stretch, but, um, the number of times I've, I've seen people when I've done some physical work, where we're working on something that's a little bit sticky, the, the, the evokes a specific emotion I've had people say, Oh, Jamie, that's my anxiety right there, or, Oh, um, that reminds me of this memory. Oh, that's making me feel a bit, a bit funny in the tummy, my, my, my adrenal glands going, and you can even trace that in, in certain people, if, if their, their minds work that way, um, to very specific events. Um, now, obviously, if we've more traumatized people, you have to be careful, not to re traumatize them, which, which is possible. but, uh, as I've got more experience with that, what I've, what I've realized is that. actually, if I'm in tune and listening to what they and their body are telling me, I'm watching for the signs. I'm feeling with my hands, my fingers, um, then nothing comes out that isn't ready to, to come out. which is really lovely, place that, for me, to be able to say that, it's taken a lot of effort and a lot of hard work and, to, to

Well,

that.

I've been on the table mate, so I can testify. Which is so cool. So there's so much in this space. Um, of course we, we don't have all the time in the world to share this, but we do. You know, for me, and obviously Jamie, when you and I have spoken, you know, outside of this, this conversation and today, it feels like if we can see the connections between our psychological architecture, who we think we are, beliefs, all those things, our emotional experience, how do we feel, our neurological state, like Where am I? Do I feel safe? Do I feel like I'm going to move towards the problem? Do I want to get out of here? Do I want to just shut down? This self awareness grows and expresses physiologically in the muscles, in the tissues, in the fascia, in the movement patterns that we see. And. If my dear listener, you are in pain, struggling, you know, you've got some physical stuff going on or you're, you know, sort of tapping on my door and you think it's more psychological, you need to go to both doors. You need to see Jamie, you need to see someone like me because actually when we work on the whole system, and I'll cycle back, this is one of my big hopes for the, for the sharing of this education. We are systemic creatures. We do not work in isolation. Thoughts affect the physiology and the physiology affects the thoughts. And it's one ecosystem of impact and influence. So if you're having issues, make sure you're speaking to someone who understands this. more nuanced and integrated approach because it's likely to be happening for you as it was for me as it is for many of us. Jamie, I'd like to summarize for, for this conversation. What are the final thoughts you might share about how one might think about their dealing with their physical self and their, you know, their psychological self that you see? What's, what's some of the things you'd like to finish on a sharing point for us?

Yeah, I think I'd like to finish on a message of hope, really. and again, I'm, I'm, I'm sure I know we've both been there. So, and, and, in, in those hopeless situations and, and, and it's driven, what we've done and, people get into this stuff for purely self interest. Let's be honest. but, yeah, it's, it's, if something's not working for you, you're the captain of the ship. And, um, we've all had tough things that have gone on in our lives and some more than others. and I've been relatively lucky in my life and, obviously a lot of people have shared a lot of things with me on the treatment couch just over there. so I've got a, an array of, uh, an idea of, of what, you know, the world looks like, out there. So It's just, trying different things and if you're not happy with where you are right now, do something different. the, you alluded to, yeah, see both of us, obviously. and if it doesn't work with either of us, see someone else. there's, there's always, different options out there. myself and Sal, we, we love what we do and we're always, continually learning. There's always more stuff out there. Um, But it's fascinating that sometimes the, um, the emphasis might need to be more emotional, and psychological. And sometimes the emphasis might need to be more, more physical. sometimes I've had people say, People who've done a whole raft of, psychological work on themselves. And, I just do a few, a few of my party tricks and all of a sudden they're reborn and it's almost like it's too easy.

Yeah,

And then, you know, the flip side is that, you know, maybe I, the person I alluded to earlier where, it's not their knee, it's the whole life that's the problem. And I'm, I'm beavering away. I'm doing my usual things, looking at the whole body, trying to address the biomechanics and their body's just not. releasing in the way that I want to despite my my best intentions and and and for those people, you know something They need to do something, differently, they, they need to, address the, the, the, the psychological aspect as a way in, um, and then, you know, everything in between where if you can work in parallel with the psychological and the physical, um, at the same time, and one, might open up another, which is, uh, is, is, is the truth as, as, as far as I see it. Um, in terms of, um, you know, uh, what, what can we do? Um, what would be my, my tip from a physical level? And you're going to love this song. That song hasn't paid me for this, by the way, listeners. I, I breath work. is, is, is, is, is not the answer to everything. but even from a biomechanical perspective, it is very much at the source of everything. I won't bore you with details. If you want to look at the work of the Anatomy Trains guys, I suggest you do that online. there's a little bit of art on our website as well. So it kind of, for me, it works on nervous system level as well. Um, like I say, biomechanically, continued diaphragms, continues with the hip flexors, uh, and ramifications, onwards. really holding myself back on detail there. So yeah, so certainly, that would be, a take on that message of hope, um, the message of the connectedness of the physicality and, and the, that emotional, Ability, uh, of the, the, the body to physically store those, those, those emotions. and then breath work as a, as a way, as a way of, as a nice all rounder, for all of us. we all have to breathe. when we breathe slower, we, when breathe out more than we breathe in, it calms us down. When we breathe that in more than we breathe out, it perks us up. There's a fundamental, there's a fundamentality about that.

yeah. Thank you, Jamie. Yeah, really nice. So many points. Yes, we are coming to the end of our show. Breathwork is an entire other subject. Bray and Jamie, maybe you'll come back on and we'll talk biomechanics. Um, yes, I'm trained as a Breathwork, teacher. It is

there you go.

tool. Yeah, so, um, and actually I'll be putting some content on my website soon, so if you're listening to this, have a quick peep at the website, there's probably likely to be something on there, uh, around the Breathwork piece, which you can hopefully dig into, so yeah, just go to the website, look at the show notes, the details will be in there. Dear listener, as always, I say this every time and I'll say it again, if something in this has piqued your interest, caught your attention, rewind, write it down, use AI, don't make how you do it, but capture the knowledge. and use it. It is yours to implement. I hope it changes something in your world and I hope it changes something in, uh, in your thinking and your feeling as well. So Jamie, thank you for coming on and sharing your utter brilliant wisdom today. We basically need an entire day to unpack your mind, probably more, but it's, it's probably the start point for, for our listener. Um, thank you so much, dear listener. Take care until the next one. I'll see you soon.