Hey everybody, good morning, well it's morning for me, good whenever, good whenever you're listening to this, it's Nicole.

Welcome to the cure for chronic pain. Hi guys, here we are another week.

I will be honest with you, today is our 20th episode and sometimes I wonder am I repeating myself a lot?

My message, by its very nature, is a little bit repetitive and so sometimes I'm worried that I'm telling you guys the same stuff again and again.

So all I'll say is anything that is true to the letter bears repeating because our brains sometimes need a lot of repetition to have it sink in and create an idea that begins I like to say in the crown of our heads, grows root into our brains and eventually, eventually, grows roots down into our heart.

And that's when we really feel something, understand something deeply and start to integrate it into our lives in a way that is seamless.

So that is something I really hope is happening for you as you listen to this and I apologize in advance if I end up telling you the same story more than once or the same concept.

But today, I'm going to talk a little bit about the symptom imperative and if you don't know what that is, we will talk about it in detail.

But the best way to describe it is if the point of your nervous system is to protect you from the feelings, which are seen as the repressed feelings, which are seen as a greater predator than the pain, then any way that you will believe that you will buy into any physical ailment that it is in the form of a physical ailment.

So that is the most important thing that it can give you in order to distract you is going to be good enough.

So we're going to talk about what happens when you start this work and your symptoms start to move around.

And even though your initial problem was irritable bowel, all of a sudden your stomach is just fine and your shoulder is frozen and you're like, what the hell just happened?

And we're going to also talk about how sometimes it's not that quick in terms of its cycling and that you could experience pain cessation and just get on with life in a really profound way and then maybe a couple months later have something totally different crop up and have you believe that, oh wow, now I have a real problem.

And you know, if you know me at all, my super big problem with the word real because everything is real.

Your pain is as real as if you were being stabbed with a knife, your pain is real.

There is nothing perceived about it. There's nothing you're making up. There's nothing that's in your head. There's nothing that you're creating.

But when we use the word real in our mental vernacular, we say something is more uncontrollable, more important, more profound, then maybe something else that we've tackled in the past and that is a trap that I don't want you to fall into.

So we're going to talk about that today. Really quick housekeeping. If you're new to the podcast, please check out my work on the care for chronic pain.com.

The resources tab on my website has links to everything that I offer my YouTube channel, my Omega retreat, which we'll talk about a second.

My journal speak page on Facebook, it's a closed group. So you just go to Facebook, you type in journal speak with Nicole Sachs, LCSW, and you will be directed to ask to join the group.

And then I will approve you and you could be part of our closed conversation. It is private in so much as it's not published on your newsfeed and it's a great supportive community.

And my course freedom from chronic pain is available on the website as well.

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