Phil de la Haye is an Internal Family Systems practitioner and coach with a particular interest in the mindbody connection and chronic physical symptoms. He has a degree in Psychology and a background in education. Phil has his own history of chronic pain recovery and he’s passionate about supporting others through their own process of healing. He and I have a fantastic conversation that can only happen when two people who speak the same language and share some overlaps in our experiences of chronic pain and our healing as well as how we help our clients feel better. We talk about the impacts of stress on various communities like queer + trans people and the overwhelming overlaps of pain conditions and medically unexplained symptoms that we are seeing. If you've heard of IFS but have never thought about applying it to MindBody Healing work. Phil shares how IFS can help and his three things that everyone with pain should know.
Phil de la Haye is an Internal Family Systems practitioner and coach with a particular interest in the mindbody connection and chronic physical symptoms.
Phil has his own history of chronic pain recovery and he’s passionate about supporting others through their own process of healing. He and I have a fantastic conversation that can only happen when two people who speak the same language and share some overlaps in our experiences of chronic pain and our healing as well as how we help our clients feel better. We talk about the impacts of stress on various communities like queer + trans people and the overwhelming overlaps of pain conditions and medically unexplained symptoms that we are seeing.
If you've heard of IFS but have never thought about applying it to MindBody Healing work. Phil shares how IFS can help and his three things that everyone with pain should know.
You can join Phil's facebook group here -
Phil de la Haye: IFS and Mindbody Healing
His IFS facebook page with some resources -
https://www.facebook.com/phildelahayeifs
Instagram -
https://www.instagram.com/phildelahayeifs/
Check out his website -
https://phildelahaye.com
Link to the research article about chronic pain + sexual minorities -
https://journals.lww.com/pain/fulltext/2023/09000/chronic_pain_among_u_s__sexual_minority_adults_who.8.aspx?
[00:00:00] Welcome to the curiosity cure podcast. I'm your host, Deb Malkin, master certified life coach, body worker, hypnotist trained in pain reprocessing by the pain psychology center, queer elder fat human on planet earth here to help you evoke the power of simple neuroplasticity techniques rooted in shame, free curiosity.
[00:00:29] So you can feel more better. More of the time in the body you have today and build the rich, full life that you want to live. A quick disclaimer. This podcast is not a replacement for medical care. I am here to provide insights and techniques that can compliment your healthcare journey, but always consult with your healthcare provider for personalized advice.
[00:00:58] Deb: Hello. I am here with Phil De La Haye, who's an internal family systems practitioner and a coach with a particular interest in the mind body connection and chronic physical symptoms. He has a degree in psychology and a background in education. Phil has his own history of chronic pain recovery, and he's passionate about supporting others through their own process of healing.
[00:01:24] Hello, Phil. Nice to see you again.
[00:01:28] Phil: It's good to see you too. Actually, you know. Hear your voice because I see you on Facebook a lot, but don't usually get to talk to you,
[00:01:36] Deb: right? It's this thing where I feel like being in this world for a few years with all the other incredible practitioners and educators and self healers. You're one of them and I, so I feel like I know you, I see you sometimes every day online in that way that we see each other. And then this is maybe, I think our only second, in person conversation.
[00:02:00] Phil: Yeah. Yeah. I think that's right. Cause we did, we connected. Maybe over a year ago probably, and just had a conversation and yes, it's really good to, really good to talk to you again.
[00:02:11] Deb: Yay. So one of the things I love to do with this podcast is help self healers or people who are in a mind, body healing process, whether they're working with a physician or a therapist or a coach or in a group online. I love to make what seems like, A lot of information simple, because I know for me in the beginning, I definitely was like, in a binge cycle of consuming everything, doing everything and even got called out by Alan Gordon for being very high stakes.
[00:02:44] And all of that was important for my healing process. But when I work with clients, I'm trying to make it easier for them. Sometimes I'm like, don't do what I did, even though it really worked with my personality. I'm kind of like an all in person, but at the same time, like, people don't need that to heal.
[00:03:06] You don't have to become the expert of all the things to be able to change your symptoms and feel better. So it's kind of one of my goals in this podcast.
[00:03:18] Phil: Yeah, I was laughing cause that so relatable?
[00:03:22] Deb: I think it's relatable for a lot of us. Cause we, you know, there's some of those overlapping. Um, personalities and, um, qualities that we have that kind of predispose us, I think, to mind, body, symptoms,
[00:03:37] Phil: and there is something about the irony that those of us who end up working as like coaches or therapists or educators in this area.
[00:03:46] We are the ones who have. I've done that whole, like, right, I'm going to do a degree in mind, body healing, because I'm so passionate about it and I want to heal myself and, and, uh, yeah, that's the irony is that we're kind of then encouraging other people to slow down and pace themselves.
[00:04:03] Deb: I think it's because we've been there.
[00:04:07] Right. We've been there. Uh, I know for me, the pressure to want to help people and help people feel better. This was when I was a massage therapist, or even before when I owned a clothing store, that internal desire that that internal pain watching other people hurting, you know, was very strongly felt in my own body.
[00:04:29] That's what leads me, that's what drives me in a lot of ways, but I feel like, you know, my own process of healing is also me slowing down, right? So that whole process of finding what feels like a, a caring and loving pace.
[00:04:46] So I asked you briefly off the top of your head, what are the 3 things that people need to know about mind body healing? I would love to go over those with you. Okay. Yeah.
[00:05:02] So the first one that you said, which I think is so brilliant, which is nobody's saying you're making it up.
[00:05:10] Phil: Yeah. I think that one is so important because when you've got medically unexplained symptoms and you're chasing, you know, chasing a cure, chasing a solution.
[00:05:21] I think so many people in, in this community, you know, have. Being made to feel that they're making it up that they're just causing a fuss that they're oversensitive. Um, you know, I think that's something that happens a lot to people when doctors can't explain what's happening to you. And so I think it's really important that people understand that the symptoms are real, like what you're experiencing is real pain is real.
[00:05:50] Like all of these symptoms are created by your brain and whether or not there is an injury or tissue damage. The pain is real, just as real as if you've broken your leg.
[00:06:02] Deb: I feel like that is definitely 1, we can't say enough because sometimes the, the cure, right? Or the, the remedy is a lot of work on emotions and concepts of self and relationships to things.
[00:06:19] And so it kind of. When we're talking about, like, how to feel better, it gets a little mushy, but this is so important. Like, what you're experiencing, your physiological experiences are absolutely real. Um, what are some, whether it's, you're talking about yourself kind of healing from medically unexplained symptoms or clients that you worked with, or, or people that you've seen, like, what are some of the things that you've, that you've seen people heal from?
[00:06:53] Phil: So, I mean, my own experience is, um, kind of fibromyalgia symptoms and fatigue mainly. Um, I mean, I think I had like a whole laundry list really of mind body symptoms and I can't remember them all now, even off the top of my head, because some of them came and went like long before I even knew about the mind body work.
[00:07:14] But the main thing that kind of brought me to it was, um, yeah, just like, pain everywhere, like aching all over, tired all the time. Um, yeah, just. really feeling physically very unwell. And, um, but it was, yeah, it was not a physical problem.
[00:07:32] Symptoms are real, but it wasn't a physical problem. And yeah, in terms of clients, yes, I've, you know, that I've worked with a lot of clients who have those kinds of similar symptoms.
[00:07:41] So fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue are really, really common in this mind body space. Um, but also things like chronic migraines, IBS, facial pain. I mean, there's just so many different ways that distress can be manifested like through the body. So that's essentially what my body symptoms or TMS is it's.
[00:08:02] I very much view it as being equivalent to things like anxiety and depression. It's like. It's a, it's a mental illness, not a physical illness. It's, it's, it's psychological distress that's just being manifested through the body.
[00:08:18] Deb: Yeah. So that leads to the next question. you said that it's a psychological cure, not a physical cure.
[00:08:27] So that can be challenging for some people who, you know, the paradigm is if something hurts in your body, you go for physical cure. So what do you think is important for people to both rule out or rule in mind body, um, syndrome and kind of like, how do you help people soften, maybe some distress about this approach.
[00:08:57] Phil: Yeah, so the first thing that came to me as you read that back to me, like what I said earlier on is it does feel really important to add that disclaimer that it's complex and sometimes things manifest in our bodies that do need physical treatment. So there are certain conditions which are absolutely caused by stress, chronic stress and trauma, things like autoimmune disease, for example, but with those kind of conditions, then you usually do need to have some physical treatment to support you and to to Make sure that, you know, you're not going to damage your body. Things aren't going to get worse.
[00:09:31] So I think it's important to rule out, I mean, the, the kind of. The usual kind of things, which in all my trainings, we've been taught, you definitely want to rule out, uh, cancer fractures, infections are the three big ones, um, and then autoimmune disease would be another one in that, you know, if you suspect that you might have an autoimmune disease, it's important to get that checked out.
[00:09:54] But really like aside from those things. You know, and especially if you go and they do scans and they just can't find anything, they do blood tests, they can't find anything, then it's pretty safe to treat it as a mind body issue.
[00:10:08] Deb: And I would even say there are parts of mind body treatment that apply for anything that are so useful, right?
[00:10:15] Cause we're really talking about how you deal with stress. And I say this because I worked with a number of people, like after they've had surgery now, obviously there's pain after surgery. Right. So what I helped people work with is like, how do we not have this pain continue on long after healing process is over?
[00:10:37] And just some people, their brain just learns pain really well. Right. It. It changes the place in the brain and the relationship to pain and distress and stress, plays a role in that.
[00:10:50] Tell me more about internal family systems. And how you came to want to study that as a part of being a mind body healing practitioner.
[00:11:04] Phil: Yeah. Okay. So, yeah. So internal family systems is a model of therapy, but it's also a model of understanding human personality. It's a really, really neat model for understanding human personality. Once you learn IFS and if you have IFS therapy or if you, you know, read and learn about the model, it almost always becomes just a way of working with your own system.
[00:11:26] It kind of becomes a way of life, a way of thinking about yourself, a way of relating to yourself. Um, And I can't even remember how I found out about it. Somebody mentioned it to me and said, Oh, you should look into this. This sounds like something you'd be interested in. And they were right. Because as soon as I started reading about it, it just made perfect sense.
[00:11:44] It was just like piece of the puzzle slotting into place. Like, yeah, of course, this is how human personality works. Of course, this is how I work. And it's just really, really helped. Um, so just briefly, cause There's kind of a lot to explain about it, and I don't want to spend too much time on it, but just as a kind of a Internal Family Systems 101, the main concept of Internal Family Systems is that we don't feel one way about anything.
[00:12:15] There are lots of different parts of our personality. It kind of feeds into the personality traits of, mind, body, work. So we have parts that are protective, parts that are trying to keep us safe, parts that work really hard, managing how we show up in the world or, you know, trying to make us feel better if we're feeling upset about things.
[00:12:36] And then we have parts that are protected. So we have parts that hold vulnerability. Parts that holds big, difficult emotions and the protective parts are usually working quite hard to keep that out of our awareness so that we can function.
[00:12:53] Deb: I love how, as we continue on investigating the complexity of being human. I can see how this framework of internal family systems kind of blows out this diagnosing and pathologizing approach. Like we're not labeling people as a thing, but it leads you into more self inquiry and curiosity and the name of this podcast is the curiosity cure because I feel like one of the things that helps us heal is that instead of turning away from and trying to keep things down and suppressed in a way and hidden and and smushed down and especially like even our relationship to pain.
[00:13:44] You know, we just mostly don't want to feel it. And all the, the basis of pain recovery work is turning towards. Right, somatic, somatic tracking, you know, in and of itself is a pausing the running away and turning towards and, and being able to get curious.
[00:14:05] Phil: Yeah,
[00:14:06] it's kind of like the process of using IFS. With yourself, whether you do that with a therapist or a practitioner or whether you, you know, you can do it yourself, you know, you can start to get to know the different parts of you yourself. Um, I love that you said curiosity because, because the other really important thing about IFS, which I probably should have said right at the beginning that I talked about parts, but as well as parts.
[00:14:33] We also have ourself and like ourself is like, you know, it's the you who's not a part. And. That is the source of kind of curiosity and compassion and, and it also overlaps with somatic tracking because just like with somatic tracking, the goal of somatic tracking is to be able to notice sensation in your body from that place of kind of calm curiosity, rather than from fear or anger or a desperate desire to fix it.
[00:15:01] And self is very much that place of calm curiosity where we can go like, huh. So there's a part of me that's really angry about what just happened. Like, you know, using something like road rage as an example, someone pats us up at a junction, you know, and we have that reaction, you know, being able to notice in that moment of like, wow, there's a part of me that wants to kill that guy.
[00:15:23] But you know, that's not all of me, but I had that reaction and it was really strong. And in that, being able to notice and be curious. about that reaction, just gives you that little bit of separation, and then you can start to get curious about, you know, whatever, about that part that's just reacted so strongly to something, right?
[00:15:43] Whether it's anger, or whether it's a part that's been hurt, a part that's been offended, a part that felt it was like dismissed by somebody, or You know, not heard by somebody
[00:15:56] Deb: That just led me deeper into thinking about how we're not really encouraged or, or taught how to experience anger and in a healthy way, or even feel entitled to feeling angry and how that.
[00:16:16] Relates to mind body symptoms, and I'm thinking particularly fibromyalgia. I feel like I've heard and experienced a lot of conversations about how fibro really is predominantly women or people socializes women are the ones that are holding fibromyalgia. And I think that there is a correlation between kind of socially acceptable emotions. And how there's a level of social control, that goes into why some people get some diseases. I have a hard time talking about fibromyalgia as a disease, but there's a whole label. So I'm going to just go with that as a, as a disease or a collection of symptoms and unacceptable emotions, such as anger.
[00:17:05] So that's my hot take on it. Obviously, it's just an opinion. So I would love to hear for you, either how in your own healing of fibromyalgia, how strong emotions like anger played a role or as the practitioner, how do you work with anger in, with IFS?
[00:17:28] Phil: There's kind of a more than one question that, um,
[00:17:31] Deb: there is welcome to talking to me.
[00:17:34] There's always more than one question in there. I think that's my invitation for you to choose whichever journey you want to go on.
[00:17:43] Phil: I was going to start with the last question, which is how do you work with anger and IFS, which is, you know, I mean, noticing it, noticing that it's a part of you, not all of you, because where there's anger, there's almost always.
[00:17:57] Also other parts that are judging the anger that are saying you're not allowed to feel that way or parts that are shaming you for being angry or parts that are afraid of the anger that are, you know, afraid you might do something bad or, you know, get yourself into trouble by being angry. So noticing immediately that there's.
[00:18:14] a cluster of parts around any part that's angry. There's other stuff going on. Noticing that is great. And then with IFS, it's about, um, kind of trying to go inside like with semantic tracking, you know, you kind of close your eyes, you focus inside and you find that sensation in your body. And sometimes You need to get permission to do that with IFS because there might be other parts that don't want you to focus on the anger.
[00:18:41] Anger is an emotion that's often very much shut away in the system as you, as you're saying, like suppressed anger is, you know, according to Dr. Sarno, that was what it was all about. And so anger is, Although it's a protective response, so in some ways it is kind of a protective part, often anger is a very young protective part because you think about when anger starts to show up.
[00:19:05] You know, it's usually when you're 18 months old, two years old, when kids start to like say no to things. And so usually that protective anger is often coming from a really, really young place. And if As children, we are not allowed to express the hunger to our caregivers. We're not allowed, if that is You know, shunned or punished or turned away from then very, very early on other parts of us learn to shut that down, learn to, you know, we're not going to feel that we're not going to show that we feel that, um, because there's a risk to our relationship.
[00:19:46] There's a risk of rupture in relationship to our caregivers. And so that anger is often shut down really, really early. And in IFS we'll be trying to. see if we can get permission from the parks that are scared of the anger or that see it as a threat or that judge it or criticize it. And we see if we can get permission to connect with it and get to know it.
[00:20:07] And when we do, it's amazing how often anger is like a three year old.
[00:20:12] Deb: Hmm.
[00:20:13] Phil: 3-year-old that is full of rage.
[00:20:15] Deb: Yeah. I love this concept of asking for permission. It's missing in some of the kind of pain processing work, there's this assumption that we're kind of like all parts of us are all in.
[00:20:29] Um, I mean obviously anybody gets trained in it comes from different modalities, so. Some people are therapists and doing this work. And sometimes I've run into that problem with clients, which, like, there's a part of them. That's all in. And then there's a part of them that feels inaccessible. I love just the simplicity of consent. And then what is it like when some, when somebody's parts. Protective parts are saying, no, like, no, we don't, you can't, can't come here.
[00:21:03] Phil: Yeah. So then, you know, the, the protocol and IFS is that then you get to know that part, you get to know the gatekeepers, you get to know the ones that are saying, ah, there's no way we're going to the angry part.
[00:21:14] And you find out why you get curious about that. You know, you're like, okay. So I really get that. You don't want us to go and connect with the anger. Tell me about that. What's going on with that, what are you afraid would happen if we did and then usually those protective parts will be, you know, I might get into trouble or someone will be mad with me or you're good you're going to think badly of me like if it's in therapy, they will often think that therapist is going to disapprove of the anger like there's, there's, there's There's fear of shame then being felt if the anger is seen, so there's usually these complicated kind of dynamics between angry parts, parts that are really afraid of the anger and afraid of being judged for it.
[00:21:56] And then beneath that, there's usually parts that are holding like hurt or shame or, you know, which actually the anger is protecting that too. You often get this kind of like triangle of like different protectors, and then ones that don't like each other. So the angry part that just wants to be heard and then kind of people pleasing parts that just want to like smooth everything over and just keep everybody happy and not cause a fuss.
[00:22:21] Deb: Oh, my God. I'm just, I'm laughing because I'm like, well, that, that whole part just sounds like me. It's not true. I also like to ruffle feathers. As I'm listening to you and as I'm watching you, like I can sense inside my body, there's this settling feeling that's happening.
[00:22:39] There's this kind of Yeah feeling held and understood and certainly not judged by you as I'm just sitting here and kind of receiving your knowledge and the way you're explaining this, um, which probably makes you a really wonderful practitioner and what is coming up for me is both like, that this process is so loving, even if it brings us into contact with distress. Right. So those two things I really, I think are a big part of healing.
[00:23:16] And then you said the third thing that people need to know about mind body healing is self compassion.
[00:23:22] Phil: Yeah. Maybe I should have been the first thing actually...
[00:23:26] Deb: I actually think it's terrible to start with self compassion because people do not want to, they want their symptoms to go away.
[00:23:38] They're not interested in becoming a self compassionate person, but I, I kind of think like in the end, it's like kind of what infuses the whole thing and it comes from the practitioner, like the practitioner holds the seat of self compassion and then like feeds it in in these moments. And it sounds like IFS is kind of, you know, in inseparable from self compassion, but self compassion, I don't think on its own without the pain science education or the, the conceptualization of symptoms as being psychological and not physical. I don't think self compassion alone will help people get rid of their symptoms. Per se.
[00:24:25] Phil: Yeah. I totally agree with you that you need to understand the, the pain science.
[00:24:30] You need to buy in at least enough. I don't think you need a hundred percent belief. Yeah, I don't like preaching that because I think that really actually causes problems for people who are like, Oh my God, but I don't believe it a hundred percent. Does that mean I'm never going to get better? No, you just need to be open to the possibility.
[00:24:48] And that's enough. Um, I'll get off that soapbox now. Um,
[00:24:53] Deb: I love that soapbox so much. It's such a great soapbox because it's about learning. You don't show up to things being like a hundred percent.
[00:25:03] Phil: Yeah, exactly. You need some skepticism. And that's a protective part as well. You know, we work with that. I work with that in IFS.
[00:25:10] I work with the parts that don't want to believe that mind body healing is real. And those parts are usually protecting people from disappointment with good reason, because they've usually been disappointed multiple times before trying to find a solution. So. That was a, that was a tangent, but I'm just going to come back to self compassion because that's such a good question.
[00:25:31] And I totally agree with you that you need to understand, you know, you do need the psychoeducation. You need to buy into that enough to do the work. And I also agree that if you lead with self compassion as a practitioner to some people, that's just impossible. And you know, it's a surefire way to lose some clients as well, because, as we know, a lot of people who have mind body symptoms have some really rough experiences, you know, a lot of people have had quite a lot of trauma or a huge amount of stress in their lives. And most of the people that I work with have parts that are very resistant to self compassion. You know, we talk about the inner critic a lot, you know, I've never met anyone who doesn't have an inner critic and inner critics do not like self compassion.
[00:26:21] So, you know, you need to get permission from those parts too. Be able to have compassion for other parts, and actually a great place to start is getting into relationship with your inner critic and then starting to understand that part and why it's doing what it's doing. But, yeah, I mean self compassion is the reason I picked it as number three and in some ways I think it's number one because I think it is.
[00:26:44] So important, like in a way, but it's really the goal rather than a route to healing, right? Self compassion is what we're kind of moving towards is that being able to just be loving and curious with whatever we're experiencing and whatever we're feeling and not judging ourselves for it. But in order to do that, we need to work with the parts that judge and fear and disapprove and criticize.
[00:27:12] Deb: I definitely can feel even when I think of like, judging it's like how much, um, shame and regret and like how much I judge myself for judging and, You know, I want to be a good person, whatever that means. And it's so interesting to just watch, my inner critic is very well muscled. How many layers, you know, of that. Is so available to me. It's like when I start, turn around and start to look at it, I'm like, Oh my God. Yes. There is so much of me that's like afraid of being judged and judging even that part of me that is afraid of being judged.
[00:27:55] I have a mental health educator that I love following on the internet as we do these days. His name is Mark Freeman and he really helped me. See, beyond like, compulsive thinking, he's a OCD, coach and so he talks about judgment is the 1st compulsion and, whether or not compulsion is a, is a useful framework for people, but I was like, yeah, there's so much judgment. I'm going to tie this into mind, body healing, because I feel like that judge, when we think of it as a protector part, it's even the part of us that's judging what is safe to do physically.
[00:28:36] So when we're even thinking about asking people to step back into movements that they have felt were unsafe, or they believe are part of why they're experiencing symptoms. There is that judge that's like, I don't know, right? The part of them that's pausing and not quite ready to take that step.
[00:28:57] And it could be literally that step to do that graded exposure or do that kind of exposure work where your brain is rewiring this predictive code in terms of safety. So I like, I like bringing judgment into the frame rather than just being this kind of nuisance.
[00:29:15] Phil: Yeah. So I guess I suppose I would see that as more of a fear around movement, but then there will probably also be parts that are judging or criticizing the person for being scared.
[00:29:28] You know, there'll be, there'll be that internal criticism or judgment towards the fear, you know, in those, in IFS we call that polarizations where you've got parts that hate other parts or parts that are being mean to other parts and really noticing those polarizations and working with those is really helpful because that internal conflict just causes more stress, just causes more stress to our system.
[00:29:54] So where you've got a part that's afraid of say, you know, going back to the gym or something or going for a walk and a part that's afraid of doing that. And then you've got another part that's Criticizing and shaming and saying, you're so pathetic. You know, you're never going to get better if you don't do this.
[00:30:12] And, you know, and that is just going to be making other parts in the system feel worse because somewhere there'll be a part in the system that will hear that, you know, you're pathetic and there'll be a part that will believe it and go, yeah, I am pathetic. And that shame, that criticism lands in a really vulnerable place.
[00:30:29] Deb: I know you and I have had conversations about working with people who are in marginalized communities. And let's just call them targeted communities, in terms of having people, whether it's around gender or sexuality, who are experiencing threat from a system. Because when I talk about mind body healing and the nervous system, and it's part of our threat detection system and it's right. So we're always talking about trying to keep us safe. So there's that external sense of safety and this internal sense of safety and when we think of physiologically, what's happening in the body, there's a lot of things that happen under the hood that are about assessing threat and keeping ourselves safe. Like that's our brain's only job is to keep us safe. And so there are people for whom there is a lot of threat from the external world. And I'm wondering how that relates to physical symptoms for you as a practitioner, how do you see that?
[00:31:36] Phil: Yeah. Well, it's something that I've been interested in, not just as a practitioner, but on a personal level. For quite some time, like, it's, I'm transgender and when I first came out as trans and started getting involved in online communities, of other trans folk, especially trans masculine people. One of the things that I noticed immediately was just, and this was long before I started doing mind body work and any of my own healing, but I remember just being really struck by how many people in those spaces not only we're suffering from like a lot of mental health problems and distress, but also so many of them seem to have chronic illnesses and chronic pain. Like there seemed to be extremely high rates of things like fibromyalgia and autoimmune disease among often quite young populations as well of like transmasculine people.
[00:32:31] And I was interested by that even before I started learning about mind body stuff and as soon as I started doing my own kind of healing and learning about my body and training. Um, you know, of course, it then made perfect sense to me because of course, you know, in kind of like a marginalized communities, there's just an extra layer of stress.
[00:32:51] I mean, we talk a lot about the ACE study, the adverse childhood experiences study and the things that they looked at the factors that they looked at in there. As far as I recall, they actually looked at things more like abuse or incarceration or like divorce, and they actually didn't take into account social factors like poverty or race or growing up queer or, you know, being trans, but actually like all of those things, all of those kind of differences, growing up queer.
[00:33:23] Um, marginalized or different in some way. So again, like neurodivergence is another really good example of this, that just the constant stress that you're under if you're growing up and you're not understood or you're different and people don't understand your difference or you're not supported in your difference or your difference is somehow potentially a threat to your wellbeing, you know, growing up as a queer kid and being afraid that you'll be rejected or kicked out by your parents or growing up as trans and not really understanding, which was my experience of not knowing that I was trans because I grew up in the 1970s and 80s and there wasn't the language or the understanding then for me to even be able to communicate my experience.
[00:34:11] And actually, you know, that, that is a trauma growing up. Not being able to articulate your experience, or even if you do understand your own experience, being afraid of communicating that to other people, not to mention, again, sticking with trans as an example, because that's close to my heart and lived experience.
[00:34:30] Um, you know, even if you do come out, even if you do tell people, even if your family is supportive, then certainly here in the UK, and I'm sure in some parts of the US, I think it varies, you know, you have to jump through an inordinate amount of hoops to actually get access to trans affirming healthcare.
[00:34:48] So the stress and the pressure of that, no wonder there are Higher rates of chronic illness in those populations. And there is now some research that's starting to show that because it was always like a thing that I just noticed and thought, well, it's probably true. But I did a dive recently on Google Scholar and found that there does seem to be some research now to back that up.
[00:35:10] But just in the last couple of years, people are starting to look at rates of chronic illness and chronic pain in, um. LGBT communities, but also in neurodivergent communities. And of course, there's a big overlap with neurodivergence and queer identities.
[00:35:28] Deb: I live in that overlap. I, um, I love everything you're saying.
[00:35:36] And, and I know that a lot of people find each other online and bond together around chronic illness. And around their pain being chronic. Belonging and support is so essential for our human survival. People are in communities around symptoms we're building community that's so essential. Yeah. And when it's around something that then becomes an identity to get rid of your symptoms means you also lose that identity and that relationship, or the threat of losing it anyway.
[00:36:12] Sometimes I see this, as a body worker, I grew up in the 70s and 80s, and It was in the height of the AIDS crisis. So there was certainly a lot of like intense death and medical stuff going on, but I didn't see the same kind of chronic symptoms or chronic pain going on with young people that I do now.
[00:36:36] And when I was a body worker, and I was in my 40s. Some of my clients were so young, they were just like so young and hurting in their late teens and early twenties. And it just, there was a part of it that made no sense to me because I was like the world that I lived in when I was in my twenties we didn't have the same physical things going on.
[00:37:01] Then when I thought about like mind, body healing, mind, body symptoms. It started to make more sense, but I don't know, I'm not sure where I'm going with this. I'm still trying to come up with this quality of like, how do we help people feel better?
[00:37:19] And honor whatever kind of identities are connected to chronic symptoms and also help people feel better and get rid of their, I don't know if get rid of their chronic pain is the right language for it, but I'm going to turn this over to you because I would love to hear what you have to say about that hot mess of a journey.
[00:37:42] Phil: So, I really hear what you're saying about how for some people, the illness, the symptoms do become part of their identity. And for some people that can be really hard to let go of, or there can be a lot of resistance to letting go of that. And that can be a fear, I think, for people of, you know, what would I be without?
[00:38:03] migraines or without fibromyalgia or without, you know, whatever it is they've been living with, especially if it's a long time. And as you say, there can also be community created around that, especially online communities. Um, but I think, I think the danger of those kind of communities for people who are engaged in mind body healing is that usually those I think it's interesting that a lot of people in those types of communities are not very open to mind body healing, and they usually misunderstand my body healing as you're making it up.
[00:38:33] And, and, and often, then people are understandably if that's if that's what they're taking that to mean people are then very angry and very defensive and very offended when people come in with a suggestion of actually maybe psychological cure and psycho education might help you because People who are very invested in no, this is a physical thing just because doctors can't explain it yet doesn't mean it isn't physical and understandably there's a huge amount of resistance.
[00:39:00] So I think the risk for people who have discovered the mind body approach, who are open to the mind body approach, I think there is almost a need for them to be able to move away from that, to be able to separate themselves from that identity, but that in itself can be really delicate work. And then there can be a process of finding new identity and new connection.
[00:39:22] Fortunately the mind body community itself offers opportunities for that connection. You know, there are many groups where people can find that, but I think there is a really, really delicate exploration quite often to be done with people around. Um, I know what's often called secondary gain as well, like how is this identity of chronic illness serving me?
[00:39:45] And also how are the symptoms serving me? Because so often the symptoms are protecting us from doing things that are scary or from showing up in life in certain ways. You know, the symptoms are often keeping us small, keeping us trapped, stopping us from doing things that some parts of us might want to do.
[00:40:05] But I think, yeah, I think it's really, really sensitive and one that needs to be approached carefully when it's someone's identity.
[00:40:16] Deb: And I, I just want to add when we're talking about things like secondary gain, that they're subconscious.
[00:40:23] Phil: Yeah.
[00:40:25] Deb: It's until we notice them until we notice them. So, but it's sub perceptual. And anything that's kind of keeping us safe has a, has a positive benefit. And so it's like that tension between wanting to do something, feeling the fear and, and the symptoms almost are easier than fear.
[00:40:47] Phil: I mean, the symptoms are so often us, our bodies saying no to things, aren't they? I mean, so many symptoms are setting a boundary.
[00:40:55] They're forcing us to rest. They're forcing us to say no to things that Other parts of us wouldn't say no to, and as you said, it's all subconscious. I look back to myself and I used to spend the weekend in bed because I'd just be utterly fatigued when I had young children. And I kind of keep going during the week and end of the weekend I just crash and I would be exhausted and I would feel like kind of flu like I was maybe coming down with something.
[00:41:19] And, um, I would just kind of go to bed for the weekend and leave my husband to look after the kids. And at the time I thought I was coming down with something, you know, I didn't know, but now I look back and I can see, yeah, we know that was my body just making it possible for me to rest in a way that wouldn't have happened without physical symptoms.
[00:41:40] Deb: And maybe in some way, whether it's true or not for your relationship, kind of like evening the score of, of labor around child care, yeah, it's a lot, when we look at socially programmed, gender roles and who's responsible for what kind of work and what kind of work is valued and what kind of work is not valued and, uh, there's just a lot.
[00:42:02] There's a lot to say. So I'm just going to leave that 1 for maybe some other time other conversation.
[00:42:09] I love your thoughtfulness. And I really appreciate, who you are. And how you show up in this space and you have a Facebook group. And then I know that you're participating in other online communities and part of I, I wish I had the capacity to run an online community because I would love to make kind of a more queer specific.
[00:42:36] 1, but I also know that I will have a pain flare. Like, I would do not have the capacity to run and manage a Facebook group. I'm not saying that you should either, but I love, but you are already very present in some of them. So maybe you can share like, where people can.
[00:42:56] Join and follow you either work with you as a clinician, but also just kind of like be in community with you.
[00:43:04] Phil: Yeah. So, um, I do have a Facebook group, which I, I'll send you the link so you can put it in the show notes because I don't think I put it on your form and I'm also on Instagram. I have a Facebook page.
[00:43:16] So will my content get posted in those 3 places? And, um. You know, I try to engage, especially in my group, as much as I can. And in terms of working with me, unfortunately, I don't have any availability. So I have to say that up front, if anyone's listening and thinking, Oh, I want to work with Phil, I'm really sorry, but I'm full at the moment.
[00:43:36] And for the foreseeable, I'm not adding to a waiting list either, so I need to clone myself. I wish I could.
[00:43:43] Deb: Please don't clone yourself. I think, right? Like that's such a TMS statement. You're like, there needs to be more of me.
[00:43:51] Phil: That's my people pleasing part. That's my people pleasing part. I really, really hate turning people away. Like I, that's one of the things that's the hardest about being full. Cause in other ways, obviously it's a good problem to have. But at some point in the future, I'm hoping that I might start doing kind of workshops, for people who want to incorporate some IFS principles into things like journaling and, their own mind, body process.
[00:44:16] So I guess it's a case of like, watch this space. Cause that is something I have an intention to do, but I don't quite got it together to do it yet.
[00:44:24] Deb: I think there's so much in here, which is like really respecting your pace. Respecting your process. I just know it's emerging. So I love to share you with my listeners. When you have something new to offer that people can say yes to. Make sure that people know about it, but like, also we all need to, yeah, it's, it, it's almost also a nice challenge for self healers and people to not just wait for somebody else to like, give us something, the next thing to consume, but just start to imagine what would Phil say in this moment and even just sit from this conversation and imagine touching into that self compassion. Can it even just imagining? Okay. There's some parts of me. You don't have to even have the language. Perfect. To just start to create that space, be like, okay, well, this is what I kind of know about somatic tracking.
[00:45:27] This is a little bit what I know, like, oh, there's a protector part. I don't have to know their name, but I just have to like, feel that there's a part of me. That's protecting me. And if I can just hear a little bit of Phil's voice in my head and just, you know, or maybe be on your Facebook page, right. And just like, start to practice on your own and just take that brave step.
[00:45:48] That's what I always want. People, it's like, you can't fail at this, right? So be willing to try is such a powerful and empowering experience.
[00:45:59] Phil: And in my Facebook group, I have got a page of resources. Um, Which has got like various mind, body resources on. And there's also some links to like IFS kind of books and podcasts and things that are helpful if people want to start incorporating some of those principles into their own self healing.
[00:46:17] Deb: Thank you. I love this conversation. Is there any thing that I didn't bring up that you want to say or share?
[00:46:27] Phil: I don't think so. I'll probably think of something as soon as we've ended the call, of course. Right now, you know, that feels, that feels like a good place to finish. And yeah, I really appreciate you having me on the podcast.
[00:46:38] Thank you. It's been really great to talk to you again.
[00:46:41] Deb: You're welcome. It's really great to see you and talk to you. I really feel a lot of this is like receiving. I'm very embodied like somatic person. So I feel like when I hear something, I actually receive it in these different parts of my body.
[00:46:56] So this I really received all of this loving and sharing and hopeful content that you have discussed. So thank you.