Empowered Ease
Welcome to Empowered Ease, hosted by Jenn Ohlinger—a holistic coach,
& founder of The Moonflower Collective. Join us each week as we delve into the transformative stories of healers, health practitioners, and everyday women like you, challenging the patriarchal framework through empowerment and holistic healing. Through engaging storytelling, our podcast highlights each woman's unique journey toward embracing their feminine gifts, trusting their body, and prioritizing their mind, body, and soul. Discover how by empowering ourselves, we can pave the way for stronger relationships and a more balanced world. Women heal in community come find yours.
Empowered Ease
Mandy Ryle: Beyond the Tissue Damage Myth: Transforming Women's Pain Experience
Hi!! I would love to hear from you!
The hidden epidemic of chronic pain affects millions, but women in midlife bear a disproportionate burden—often with inadequate support from conventional healthcare. In this episode we discuss this revolutionary understanding of pain science with expert Mandy Ryle, who combines professional expertise with personal experience navigating her own chronic pain journey.
Mandy challenges our fundamental understanding of pain, exposing the outdated "mechanistic view" of the body that originated during the Industrial Revolution. This paradigm shift reveals why tissue damage and pain are only loosely correlated—explaining why 40-50% of midlife adults have joint changes visible on MRIs yet experience zero pain.
For women navigating the complexities of perimenopause, family responsibilities, and societal pressures, chronic pain becomes a perfect storm of biological, psychological, and social factors. Estrogen's role as a natural pain modulator, the perfectionist personality traits common among chronic pain sufferers, and the validation gap many women face in medical settings all contribute to this complex experience.
Most powerfully, Mandy offers practical strategies that work—not by "fixing broken parts" but by addressing the whole person. Movement reclamation, community support, nervous system regulation, and developing interoceptive awareness become pathways to significant improvement, even when pain cannot be completely eliminated.
Whether you're personally struggling with persistent pain or supporting someone who is, this conversation provides both the science and soul of effective pain management. Discover how to move beyond simply surviving pain toward reclaiming vibrancy, agency, and joy in everyday life.
Move Beyond Pain Roadmap Ebook: https://empoweredself.me/move-beyond-pain-roadmap-ebook/
Struggling with a pain issue? Schedule a chat to learn more about holistic pain care: https://empoweredself.me/free-strategy-session/
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YouTube Movement for Healing. Free video resources for holistic pain care:
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The Yin Yoga Podcast on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/2q0Xto3mxbcv2sczyJbcvn?si=505e4ee91a5a48f7
On Itunes: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-yin-yoga-podcast/id1518403758
Moving Beyond Pain Facebook Group: A free community for those seeking holistic pain care resources and guidance.
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Hello and welcome to another episode of Empowered Ease, where we celebrate inspiring women who are making a significant impact in the lives of others. Today, I'm thrilled to announce Mandy Ryle as our next guest. She's an extraordinary individual who is transforming how we approach and manage persistent pain. Mandy's innovative and holistic program is a lifeline for individuals, particularly women in midlife, grappling with chronic pain. Her approach is a harmonious blend of nervous system re-education, mindset cultivation, nutrition, coaching and exercise. Mandy's expertise doesn't just stem from her comprehensive understanding of pain neuroscience and her professional credentials as a yoga teacher and strength and conditioning coach, but it's also deeply personal Living with a chronic pain condition herself. Mandy's journey infuses her work with compassion and authenticity, offering her clients not just relief but empowerment and renewed vitality.
Speaker 1:Beyond her transformative consulting, mandy offers a wealth of resources, including the Move Beyond Pain Roadmap ebook and her popular YouTube channel Movement for Healing. As the host of the Yin Yoga podcast, she continues to share holistic approaches to wellness with a broad audience. So join us as Mandy shares insights into her unique methods, ongoing projects and how she envisions a world where pain is managed not just physically but holistically, leading to a more vibrant and fulfilling life. Welcome, mandy, to Empowered Ease. Hello and welcome back to Empowered Ease. Our guest today is Mandy Ryle. Hello, mandy, welcome, I'm so happy you're here.
Speaker 2:Thank you for having me, Jen. I'm happy to be here.
Speaker 1:Thanks for coming. So you are kind of specializing in chronic pain. So before we get into that, why don't you tell us a little bit about yourself and kind of your journey that got you to this point?
Speaker 2:Well, I would say my journey started with yoga, which started with me being a single mom of a one and three year old in my late 20s and at the time I was a professional musician. But I was really interested in some of the ways that yoga practices could help my students because I was a voice teacher help my students because I was a voice teacher. And so I really got into yoga, which was great because my I would. When my kids were napping, I would put on a video and it just kind of saved me, it helped me with my anxiety, it helped me to feel empowered. So I got into yoga, actually more than I was into music.
Speaker 2:I ended up doing a teacher training, started teaching and 2010, I opened a studio and um, it was rough. It's hard. Owning a yoga studio is really hard. I was in like a pretty horrible relationship at that point and raising two little kids and um developed a chronic pain issue around 2015. Developed a chronic pain issue around 2015, which was pretty life-changing, as I'm sure anyone will tell you who has had a chronic pain issue, and you tell yourself that you're not going to let it keep you down, you're not going to let it change you or shrink you, but despite all of your best efforts, that's exactly what it does. So spent many, many 1000s of dollars hours on all kinds of different strategies and treatments for this chronic pain issue, and it just got worse and worse and worse.
Speaker 2:In 2020, I ended up doing an advanced teacher training with a teacher called Jules Mitchell, and she is really heavily into the biomechanics of yoga, but also pain science, and so that was really my first introduction to pain science and I it was like finding my soulmate right.
Speaker 2:It's this combination of neuroscience, understanding biopsychosocial factors contributing to pain, understanding the holistic nature of pain and therefore how yoga and other lifestyle factors can contribute to feeling better, which I employed and had a pretty haphazard approach for quite some time, eventually ended up doing a pain science mentorship with my mentor, who's in Canada, neil Pearson, and that was really when I developed the strategies that I needed to get relief, and I can happily say that, even though I am someone who still has a chronic pain issue, anyone who has chronic pain will always have chronic pain.
Speaker 2:I'm someone who still has a chronic pain issue. Anyone who has chronic pain will always have chronic pain. It has not shrunk my life. I live pretty freely. I live without fear. Yes, I experience pain intermittently, I have flares, just like anybody who's had a pain issue, but I can't honestly say that I've overcome my pain issue, and so, combined with what I learned in my mentorship and my education and my own experience, I now help people to employ those exact same practices in a customized way so that they can feel better too, because there's a lot you can do.
Speaker 1:Oh, that's beautiful. That's beautiful, okay. So I have some questions that maybe you could just like break down a little bit for us. So I this is maybe my first time really hearing about like pain science, which makes me really excited, and I- love all what what you and like what it involves, all the things I love.
Speaker 1:but can you explain or maybe just break that down a little bit for those of us that are maybe a little bit newer? Like, what are some of the factors involved in like the? What are some of the bio-social factors involved in pain and you know what? Yeah, explain that a little bit more for people who may be new to that idea. Or maybe what the new, what some of the neuroscience, or? Yeah, sure, I'd love to.
Speaker 2:So I mean, obviously it's a huge topic, but let me see if I can give just kind of a primer so you have a sense of what pain neuroscience education is. So we acknowledge, at least you know, maybe in the last 40 or 50 years that at least in the scientific community not in the medical community certainly, and definitely not in the general public that the pain experience is a result of biopsychosocial factors. Most people still think that the reason that they experience pain is because they have some sort of tissue damage, mm-hmm. And when I say things like actually your pain has less to do with tissue damage than you think, your pain has less to do with tissue damage than you think, that tissue damage and pain are only very loosely correlated, people think that's crazy. Right, if I have a disordered joint, I have osteoarthritis in my knee, then I'm going to have pain, right?
Speaker 1:Is it the inflammation? Is that what the pain is?
Speaker 2:So that is still a biological factor right, okay, inflammation is still biological. What the pain is, so that is still a biological factor. Right, okay, inflammation is still biological. But we have other factors too.
Speaker 2:So, like I am 48 years old, if I look at like statistics which look at asymptomatic people in my age range between 40 and 50, what we'll see is that about 40 to 50% of us I always use this age range because it's such a nice neat number 40 to 50% of us actually have osteoarthritic changes in our knee joints. I will remind you that these are asymptomatic people. These are people who do not have knee pain or any kind of functional deficits in their knees. But when we scan them, when we give them an MRI, we find that 40 to 50% of them have these changes. So I'll come back to what I said before, which is that tissue damage and pain are only loosely correlated. What are the factors that would lead to one person having pain as a result of these joint changes and one person being totally unencumbered? Those would have to be psychosocial factors, right, yeah, following me so far.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:I'm loving this. By the way, I'm learning and you're very good at explaining this and breaking it down.
Speaker 1:So, thank you, that's what I do all day, every day. Yeah, following me so far, yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm loving this. By the way, I'm learning and you're very good at explaining this and breaking it down, so, thank you, that's what I do all day, every day. Yeah, I love it.
Speaker 2:Explain this stuff Right, but it's hard to accept because all of us grew up right with this. We have a very mechanistic view.
Speaker 1:That really challenges the narrative that everyone has believed, probably forever, forever.
Speaker 2:Yeah, forever. I mean, the current paradigm and understanding of the human body was actually developed around the same time as the Industrial Revolution, believe it or not. So at the same time as we were starting to you know, medicine was starting to become actual medicine as we know it, to become actual medicine as we know it, we were also developing systems and tools for mechanizing industry right, for building cars and doing all sorts of crazy things, right? So these two ideas sort of grew up in tandem, this mechanistic view of the body.
Speaker 2:I remember when I was in elementary school we had like it was a page in a book or maybe it was on the overhead uh projector that they used to use way back then right, maybe they still use them um, a diagram of the body, but instead of organs it was machine parts and it was explained to us that, okay, so your body is like an engine, it's like you know, and when piece, parts of it break, then you're screwed. It body is like an engine, and when parts of it break, then you're screwed. It's just like an engine, right? So my clients have this same mechanistic view of their body. They think, oh, if my knee joint wears out, I just have to get it replaced my shoulder-. Oh yeah, that's how they explain parts of the body.
Speaker 1:Your cardiac system is explained as like a plumbing system. It's like a plumbing system right. We mechanize all of that. That's so true.
Speaker 2:Believe it or not, like this system was conceptualized in tandem with the industrial revolution. I believe it, you do believe it. And just because we think it's true, that doesn't mean it's true, right? There's a lot of things that we think are true which are absolutely false about our bodies, especially no-transcript. The dharma of a biological entity is to adapt to stressors. So your heart just doesn't like pump enough times, and that's as many as you get, right, you're done pumping your heart. That couldn't be less true. The more you pump your heart, the more you work your heart, the better it adapts, the stronger it gets, the more resilient it gets.
Speaker 2:So it's the same thing with your knee. People think, oh, I have wear and tear in my knee. If you use your knee too much, you run too much or whatever, you're going to wear out that joint. You're going to need to get it replaced at some point. Except that's not true. It's just not true. Runners have less osteoarthritis. Runners have less knee pain than the general public and certainly less than sedentary individuals. So if this mechanistic view was true, then the people who do absolutely nothing, couch potatoes, would have healthier knees than marathon runners.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we need to use our. You don't what's the saying? I tell people all the time if you don't, use it you lose it at a certain age, and that is very true.
Speaker 2:You do right, because the body is adapting both to stressors which are not applied in the case of the couch potato right. So now we'll see degenerative changes just because the cells are never adapting right. Or you can see adaptation to applied stress, the right, the eustress right. Not too much, not too little. That's the sweet spot. It happens to your heart, it happens to your knees, it happens to your shoulders, it happens to your back, it happens to your connective tissues, your bones, your muscles, your brain. Right, all of your systems are adapting all the time, and so this mechanistic view is super harmful, especially for us women as we enter midlife. You're not there yet. You're too young. No, I'm 41.
Speaker 1:I'm there.
Speaker 2:Oh, you're getting there, okay. Well, you look really young.
Speaker 1:Well, thank you, I appreciate it. I like credit it to being immature. Maybe I should try a little bit more. Just kidding.
Speaker 2:But we think, oh well, the reason I'm in pain is because my joints are wearing out, I'm just getting older. This is not true. We don't just start to experience pain because we're getting older. We start to experience pain due to a lot of other biopsychosocial factors, including probably not being active enough, and I would like to talk about especially, you know, those factors for women in midlife, because that is predominantly the population that I serve.
Speaker 2:But I want to give you a chance to kind of like break that up if you need to. I know I just talked a bunch for a while.
Speaker 1:No, I loved it, I thought it was so great. And I think now where I kind of want to go with this, because, like that was beautifully broken down, is kind of what some of those factors can be, or that you see quite often, because you know I can tell you, as you're talking about this, I'm thinking about a few different things. I'm thinking about one sometimes, the way, like as a critical care nurse, the way pain is relieved is, it's it's different for everyone and sometimes it's distraction and sometimes it's. You know what I mean. Like you know, so it's not always related to, like, relieving the physical symptoms for pain relief. So I'm thinking of that, but I'm also thinking of, like my chronic pain.
Speaker 1:People are people who stuff their emotions. They're people who have haven't maybe had a lot of ability or situation to be able to express themselves freely. You know, there's a lot of common um factors I see involved that are common for a lot of women and we're the, we're the brunt of this population with chronic pain, with chronic illnesses, with all of that. So I'm just wondering your perspective on that. Um, yeah, yeah, so yeah, it's true.
Speaker 2:So women experience chronic pain more than men. The women in midlife experience chronic pain more than other women.
Speaker 1:Sorry to interrupt. I want to add one part. Is any of this related to our like hormone changes in this stage of life too?
Speaker 2:There are hormone, there is a component of the hormone changes. So estrogen is a pain modulator. Estrogen works with the other neurochemicals which can either turn down or amplify pain. So estrogen is known to have a little bit of a turning down capacity in our system. So we have less estrogen and you know even progesterone, right? Progesterone sort of keeps us calm. When we get ramped up, those pain chemicals also are increased. Also, estrogen helps to protect our bones, protects our joints, right. So we often see that women are experiencing more joint changes, joint pain, especially as one of the primary complaints of perimenopause. And some of this is biological, right, those are biological factors. The other factor that you brought up previously was inflammation. I think that a lot of us women are experiencing neuroinflammatory, neuroimmune inflammation issues, gut issues, at this age. Obviously, autoimmune disorders tend to accelerate as we get to this age range. So those are all biological factors. However, inflammation is also modulated by emotional stress.
Speaker 2:Emotional stress is probably one of the primary drivers of inflammation for most of us and, by the the way, it's modifiable emotional stress, right. Nutrition, how much we move. Those are the main things that we can do to modulate inflammation in our bodies. But I also wanted to touch on something else you said is that those of us and I'm including myself here, right, I know this very, very well, I live this those of us with chronic pain do have a bit of a type, a personality type. We tend to be people pleasers, we tend to be highly, highly conscientious individuals. We tend to be perfectionists. We're very, very hard on ourselves. You know, we do know that early life trauma significantly increases the chances that we'll experience chronic pain in our lifetime. So there are personality factors which can increase not only the likelihood that we will develop a chronic pain issue, but make it a lot harder for us to overcome it. And then, so that's kind of sort of one of the sort of psychological factors. But let me just touch a little bit on the social factors and that's something you just brought up, the sort of psychological factors. But let me just touch a little bit on the social factors and that's something you just brought up.
Speaker 2:I mean, I already mentioned I'm 48 years old, right. So I I like many of women my age are in this sandwich generation right. We've got our kids, who are just leaving home and they have their unique sets of challenges, and we have these relationship challenges and dynamics that we're trying to navigate at a like a really transitional point in life. I became an empty nester last year myself. It's fabulous. I highly recommend it. But also we've got we've got our parents right now.
Speaker 2:We're dealing with the stresses of our parents, so that causes a significant amount of stress that we can't really do a lot about. Most of us, you know, at this age range are in relationships, especially heterosexual. Only heterosexual women are in relationships with men who were raised in the eighties.
Speaker 1:I just rolled my eyes so hard.
Speaker 2:Or you know previous generations, like they were even more disadvantaged, right. So like we're feeling sort of like overloaded in the home. We're feeling like our voices often being silenced, right, because a lot of these relationships I know especially I am currently going through a divorce right, like we don't have a voice, right, and so then this just continues to exacerbate this feeling that we are powerless.
Speaker 1:Oh and it's cultural too, with, like the whole, just the patriarchy in general.
Speaker 2:It's kind of ingrained in our culture from for a very, very long time to take women's voice away to take our voice away and then like you're only being a good woman if you are subjugating your needs in favor of everyone else in your life. And how does this show up for my clients? I mean, it shows up in that you know, oh, I can't, I can't exercise, I have to take the kids to practice, or, you know, my, my husband, is always traveling, so I can't do this with because I have the kids or I have my parents or whatever, so I can't exercise, I'm inactive. Inactivity is highly correlated with the development of chronic pain, as well as increased inflammation, as well as poor outcomes in aging Right, so it's no wonder that we're experiencing all of these like a tsunami. And this is just when it comes to not moving enough. What about diet? I don't have time to take care of my diet.
Speaker 1:I can't go to the grocery store and meal prep, or X, y, z, yeah so, and these are just like the physical factors right, yeah, and I feel like our needs are changing a little bit dietary at this point in our age too that we're probably lacking in as well, just from the understudied of what like understudied of what this does to our bodies, like this perimenopause stage hasn't been studied very well, and we're finding a lot of things going on that can help.
Speaker 1:So it's kind of crazy. I love this, though, because I think there's so many more women living with this stuff than we even know about. Because of that, we push ourself under the rug where people please their well, you know, and especially for people that are, because I think a lot of women have a touch of this and it's a spectrum. And then I love how you're saying there's like a personality type to it, because, as you're describing some of those traits I'm envisioning my clients with, I'm like, oh, you know what? Yeah, that would, she would fit in that mold a little bit thinking about that. So I think I just can't imagine how empowering this is for some women to hear, you know that, like hey, so if a woman is listening to this and she's like, okay, you're hitting that, that's me, that's me what, what kind of advice would you give them or where would you direct them or what do they need to know at this point?
Speaker 2:wow, it's such a journey. Right, it's such a journey, and I know this from my own personal experience because, um, I'm like a go-getter, a very motivated person. Nobody needs to ask me to, you know, I am on it. So when I sort of started learning about pain neuroscience, and then I just was so hungry, I was constantly reading research. I was reading books and getting more language and ideas about this, and I was excited to apply them to my own pain issue, it at times made it worse. You know, oh, I was barking up the wrong tree with that. Let me try this strategy, let me try that strategy right.
Speaker 2:So a lot of times we're really discouraged because we tried. We tried to get to the gym, right. We felt like we got re-injured, we tried to change our diet, except it was just really, really hard, so we gave up. So, having somebody to stand by your side and hold your hand right and not only figure out like what strategies are going to work specifically in your life, but also what are sustainable for you, what are things that you can do on a regular basis that are also really, really effective, and when we discover something that isn't working, can we pivot before we waste too much more time and more pain, right. So it's difficult. This is a difficult, a difficult thing to manage on your own. I will say that, right, I'm not going to blow smoke and say, oh, you got this right. However, there are lots of resources. I have lots of resources for people who want a holistic perspective on their pain and holistic strategies for their pain. So one of the things I would recommend is my ebook, just because it gives you a roadmap. It's literally a roadmap to starting to get moving with chronic pain, which, as a 20 year movement professional, is probably the number one thing.
Speaker 2:Because what is it that pain usually keeps us from doing? Moving? Right, we stop doing exercise, certainly right, and then maybe you stop taking care of your yard. That's too much. All that bending over is difficult for me. Okay, that's another thing I've eliminated from my life. I have clients who stop socializing because sitting in the chair or, you know, getting to here or there, the family, you know, the friends and family want to go to this event and I can't swim and I can't walk to the park, right. So now the lack of movement is also impacting your social life and we know that loneliness and social isolation increase pain and also other illness. And then what about? Okay? Well, driving has become really difficult for me. I have clients who can't drive anymore because of their pain, so it becomes even more isolating, even more debilitating. So movement is the number one thing that we have to reclaim. Without the ability to move, we're missing out on all of these other important things that can actually turn down your pain, even in the presence of tissue damage, even in the presence of tissue damage.
Speaker 2:So that roadmap to moving beyond pain, I think is a really, really great resource. I think also, having a supportive community of peers can be really helpful, especially for us women, can be really helpful, especially for us women. I know that a lot of us are really feeling marginalized and misunderstood at this stage in our lives. It's very bewildering a lot of the changes that we're experiencing. So having peers that you can look to for advice, but also just support, or even sometimes commiseration, can be really really helpful. So, yeah, a coach, movement, a community nutrition is really important, developing personal resources, all of it. That's why it's holistic, it's all the things. That's what I would say.
Speaker 1:Powerful, powerful stuff. So I was, as you were talking, I was wondering how? Like so, I love the movement piece, like so, but how do we, how do you? Um? So one thing I'm hearing a lot too from a lot of other people that come on, and you know, I think it's really important for women of our ages to allow ourselves to rest when our bodies are telling us to rest too. So I'm wondering how well? I think the rest is also essential to keep moving sometimes. So I'm just wondering how you help women find balance, or maybe, yeah, with the rest versus the movement at this age, like allowing ourselves time, because I feel like part of that, like people pleasing and being like a really good self motivator is sometimes that's. You almost can wear yourself out at times too. You know, trying to and maybe they're not physical things, you know what I mean we're wearing ourselves out in other ways, trying to get it all done and make everybody happy. So how do you find that balance?
Speaker 2:That is really hard, because pushing through pain is probably the number one strategy for my clients just pushing through. But we know that when we're consistently ignoring our pain and pushing through it, it tends to get worse. It doesn't get better, right. So for a lot of my clients, you know they they actually need to engage in some sort of programming with some sort of fitness, right or strength or movement.
Speaker 2:I do somatics a lot with people, which is a beautiful way of moving that is really restful, which encourages us to start to listen to our bodies. So for me, the first step for almost every client is interoceptive awareness, is starting to develop that internal sense of number one what am I feeling, what am I experiencing? Instead of ignoring it, because that's what we do, we ignore our feelings. Having feelings is a huge liability for a woman. We can't put up with it, don't be difficult and bring that stuff up.
Speaker 2:Better not to have feelings. It's so much easier for everyone, right? So for most people, it's learning that to actually pay attention to your body again, and the best way for me to do that is through somatic education learning how it moves, to feel your shoulder joint in this range of motion and then learning how do I feel about how it feels no-transcript over at least stimulated state.
Speaker 1:a lot, absolutely.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I mean, there's no one prescription for when to rest. What we have to do first is get in touch with how we're actually feeling, so that we can make an informed decision about.
Speaker 1:Well, I also want to go back to what you said about community too, because it is not a small thing. I think that's a huge piece of a lot of women's struggles and, like one of the points of this podcast and something that comes up constantly, is, like you know, women really need a community to heal that can not just hear them but understand. You need someone who can, who kind of, who can validate you a little bit, who has, who need someone who can validate you a little bit. If I bring my nursing stresses home to family members or friends who aren't nurses, it's not as validating to share with them because they don't really understand. However, if I go and I commiserate with another ICU nurse who knows what my stress is about, it feels more relieving.
Speaker 1:And this is true of trauma, this is true of grief. You know this is these are very powerful times that we really need other people who have gone through something similar enough to understand. We need to hear them tell their stories. We need to to hear be in a safe place with them to be able to tell our own. And it's powerful on so many levels because I think that experience allows us to see other women fighting through things that allows us to see other women letting themselves rest and in hearing those stories we validate those things for ourselves. That maybe as people pleasers, as perfectionists, we're just pushing that under the rug a little bit. Oh, that's fine, that's not really me. And then when you hear another person say it you're like, oh, maybe that is affecting me, maybe that, maybe I should let that out of the, out of my little wherever I shoved it for a minute and look at it a little more no-transcript.
Speaker 2:You know, we know that we just mentioned this women experience chronic pain more than men, and women in midlife experience it more than other women.
Speaker 2:We also know that when we go to our doctors or medical professionals for help with our pain, we are most likely to walk out of the visit with a prescription for an antidepressant and I don't want to dog on this too much, right, we do know that some antidepressants can have a beneficial effect on chronic pain, right, so there is a good clinical reason for that. But also, it's tremendously unvalidating to be told oh, you have shoulder pain, let's just work on your anxiety. Can you do some breathing exercises? Maybe try to relax more, try a bubble bath, right, that's crushing, it's crushing. Or even worse, like, well, when you lose 25 pounds, come back and talk to me about your shoulder. So, yeah, we, we need other people who are going through these experiences to validate us so that we're not crazy. Because feeling like you're crazy and feeling like you have no power and feeling like no one understands you is really, really amplifying for pain sensitivity. This is known, this is science, right? So just feeling understood can actually turn down our sensitivity.
Speaker 1:Oh, I love that. That's such a key thing. And you know I yeah I don't, I I knock on the medical system a lot cause I'm in it. But I'll say one thing I think that is lacking is the education about preventing or like really healing things. We do really just treat symptoms and I feel like that's getting worse and worse.
Speaker 1:But then when we talk about something like this that maybe isn't that well studied or maybe is like a new, I don't know, wouldn't even say it's new. It's just not really been accepted by the modern medical system and it's starting to we're starting to, in our culture, really accept this. Well, parts of us are starting to really accept that this stuff is real. These holistic practices are really healing people. It's just not something you're going to find in your doctor's office, unless you're seeking out someone who's like more into functional medicine or, you know, into the more holistic practices.
Speaker 1:So you know, I just want to encourage people to look around for maybe some things outside that system, not to replace but to supplement your care. Because, again, I'm not saying avoid the medical system, I'm saying there are a lot of supplements, supplemental holistic, functional practices out there that help, and this is one of those areas that, like people are going back. You know the chronic, the way they they. Well, maybe you can speak to this, because how we treat chronic pain in the medical system when you go to the doctor, you know I know you said antidepressants, but I'll pass that as well what are the other treatments you know like?
Speaker 2:It's really. You know, I I have, over the years I've had as clients many physicians and you know, when I'm out in the world and I'm chatting with physicians and I tell them what I do, they're always like, oh, thank God someone is doing that Because, honestly, like first of all, physicians don't really love chronic pain right.
Speaker 2:They don't have a lot of options for chronic pain, and they'll be the first to admit it. I can give you a medication or I can do a procedure, right, the problem is pain is not biological only, it is biopsychosocial, right? So how often do we do that procedure? And yet the person is in just as much pain, or more, post-procedure right, it's because there are other factors contributing to pain, the other part of that which is, I think, really harmful, and this comes back to the paradigm of how we understand the body, and this is really unique to Western medicine, which is unique to Western philosophy, right. So, like to compare, we can look at the Eastern philosophies, like Ayurveda or Chinese traditional medicine, right, those philosophies consider patterns, right? So you go to an acupuncturist and they're going to talk about your diet and you talk about your sleep and your relationships, and you're going to look at your tongue and your blood pressure and your eyes and your hair, right, they're going to look at this whole pattern, this whole constellation of self, and they're going to try to come up with, hopefully although, again, we might have some sequestering of treatments also, like, for example, in acupuncture or herbalism right, so the constellation of factors is considered when we have some sort of malady right In Western philosophy, ie Western medicine, we look for an origin, not a pattern.
Speaker 2:We need to find that one thing, that one joint, that one muscle, that one cell, that one XYZ that's causing all of this. We need an origin right and this is unique to Western philosophy right and it has a lot to do also with our Judeo-Christian philosophy as well the origin right. We got this one guy. So the problem with looking for an origin is that we miss 99% of what's going on in the self. So I always tell my clients pain doesn't happen in a body part, it happens in a unified self which means that we can tug on this string or this string or this string or this string.
Speaker 1:Any string we pull on is going to make an impact on your pain. We just need to find the ones that are going to sustainably work in your life. That holistic, patient-centered approach is where it's at. It's where it's at for a lot of things and less acute conditions, but for the most part, anything preventative, any of that. It's all about this big picture all the factors in your life, lifestyle, genetics, all of it. So I love that, because that's where it's at, where the real healing's at.
Speaker 2:And it's not that we can't do these things in tandem with medicine, right? I mean, most of my clients are also seeing a physician. Maybe they're also seeing a physical therapist, Maybe they're doing different kinds of treatments or getting regular checkups with their surgeon for their pain issues. Right, these things are not mutually exclusive. They can work together. Right, these things are not mutually exclusive. They can work together right.
Speaker 1:But sometimes they don't need them more as much medical when they start working.
Speaker 2:Most, I mean I. I I have to my clients. I have zero opinion on what they're doing with their doctor, because that's not my role. I will say that most of them find over time that they need to spend less time at the chiropractor and they need to do less, you know, like tests and stuff with their doctor because they're feeling better.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I love that. That's so powerful. Well, man, I have really appreciated this. I feel like you are very, very articulate at communicating these ideas and I appreciate it. I feel like you are very, very articulate at communicating these ideas and I appreciate it. I feel like my listeners will appreciate it too. So what if someone is listening to this and they're like man, I really want to. I want to talk to you, I want to work with Mandy. Where would you send them first?
Speaker 2:So yeah, I I know you'll have a link for the ebook.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'm going to. All of Mandy's links will be in the show notes.
Speaker 2:There's a bunch, so yeah you'll have a link for the ebook I would. That's going to be probably the best way to sort of enter my ecosystem, because I have a lot that I can offer once you're in the ecosystem. So once you request that ebook, you'll get a link for it, but also you'll be on my email list so I can tell you about all of the other cool things I'm doing. Another option would be to just look at my YouTube channel, movement for healing. I have lots and lots of movement resources on there. I do a webinar once every few months, which is pain specific. The last one that I did was about the role of fear and chronic pain. The one before that was specifically travel tips for people.
Speaker 2:We're always doing cool stuff. The next one is actually specifically about the menopause and perimenopause experience and chronic pain. Oh, powerful right now, yeah, and that one's coming up in um, I think, at the end of August. So if you request that ebook, then you'll get on that list and I'll tell you when I have cool resources coming up, all of which are free. Um, if you're like, okay, I think this is for me, I really need to talk to her individually about my specific pain problem. I think I've also provided you a link to schedule a 25 minute free call with me so we can discuss if working together would be a good idea for you. If I can help you. I also run group programs, which I sort of love the most because it adds that community aspect. So the next group program is specifically regarding women in the perimenopause experience and chronic pain. So, yeah, that's all my resources.
Speaker 1:I love that. I'm so excited I'm going to after this, I'm going to talk to you about some of the other nonprofits I work with around this. I feel like there's just so many people out there that if they just need to know you exist, you know what I mean.
Speaker 2:So thank you for having me on so I can talk to people, because I don't think people know how many options they have. I don't know how much power they have and maybe is it going to eliminate your pain 100%. No, there's no treatment that's going to eliminate it 100%. But I know in the worst days of my pain experience I would have taken a 15 or 20% improvement. Right Anything to help you. Yeah, and certainly we can do much, much better than that. Oh, I love that.
Speaker 1:So one thing I ask all my guests, I want to ask you before I go, is so what is your go-to? My gosh, I don't want to butcher it. I always used to say self-care, but now I say self. Oh, my gosh, dr Lori Law corrected me and she told me to call it. Oh man, I'm going to have to look it up for the next one.
Speaker 2:Anyway, she's like don't say self-care anymore.
Speaker 1:Say self and now I can't remember it. So sorry, dr Lori Laws, I will find out. I will look it up. I'm blanking today because I'm tired, but what's your go-to self-care when things are getting overwhelming, the way that you bring you back to you?
Speaker 2:It's for me. I am in love with heavy resistance training, and that's something that I think a lot of women avoid Obviously, we know that but especially women with chronic pain, and I used to too. But what I discovered when I started strength training, heavy resistance training about four years ago was that it actually helps my pain issue. I'm in significantly less pain significantly less pain having a regular strength training regimen. I work out in the gym five days a week. I do cardio every day, and for me, it's what makes me feel empowered, it's what makes me feel like myself. It helps to regulate my nervous system. It helps to turn down the sensitivity on my pain. It's everything. It's everything. I love that.
Speaker 1:That's a new one too, like that's not one when someone said before. So I think how powerful and how related to your message so well. Thank you so much for coming on and sharing your knowledge. Like I really appreciate it. I feel like this is one of those, those topics that just needs more light, needs more attention for people to know what's out there and that they don't have to accept the way things are right now. They do have options, there's changes possible. So I think this is so powerful. Thank you so much. That was very well said, thank you, thank you.
