I'm back from my trip to The Galapagos Islands and had a experience of knee pain that I couldn't wait to share with you! I guess that's an upside to being a pain coach, everything is content? Well I'm sharing with you Part 1 - Navigating Disappointment. Have a listen! There will be more coming next week.
I'm back from my trip to The Galapagos Islands and had a experience of knee pain that I couldn't wait to share with you!
I guess that's an upside to being a pain coach, everything is content?
Well I'm sharing with you Part 1 - Navigating Disappointment.
Have a listen!
There will be more coming next week.
Here's the breakdown of our trip
https://www.whoatravel.com/whoa-plus-galapagos#breakdown
Video to follow along of me teaching the backwards spin exercise
https://youtu.be/cM0xuZkhZRQ?si=YzYD6ZwgC9GyfDzh
[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.
[00:00:56] Hello, my feelers and healers. This is Deb with the Curiosity Cure podcast, and this episode is called Navigating Disappointment. Isn't that just fun? Such a fun topic. So in the themes I'm going to be discussing, and this is a personal to me experience that I've just had, I'm talking about aging and fatness and lipedema and connective tissue and all the ways that I feel like my body is disappointing me.
[00:01:28] And when I'm not paying attention, I'm slowly feeling that I become the disappointment because it's very hard to separate my body from myself and also separate all of the messages that we've been given by society about larger bodies and about aging bodies and about bodies that have a variety of abilities.
[00:01:54] But I know that I am not a disappointment. I am just a human being who has experienced something. So I want to share with you some of my story and my strategies for navigating physical discomfort and disappointment on my trip.
[00:02:09] I've been away on a fabulous plus size adventure excursion to the Galapagos Islands. And when I got there, I did some sightseeing in Quito and I went to the equator and that was super fun. I did some pre travel stuff, I mean before our group trip officially started. And this is my third excursion with this group. It's called WHOA, which is an acronym for Women High on Adventure, and it was the group that I did the plus size excursion to Kilimanjaro with, there's a documentary made about it called Kili Big.
[00:02:44] You can go watch it. You can see me crying on it. Uh, especially after we got into camp on the first day and from that trip, what emerged was a division of this women's adventure travel group that is specializing in plus size trips. So I went with them on a trip to Iceland and then this is the trip to Galapagos.
[00:03:07] And a lot of people who are on this trip have become friends and it's so amazing to find a supportive. Group to travel with who are like bodied. And even in that likeness, even in that sameness, there's variation. So there's variation in ages, there's variation in ability. There's variation in activity levels.
[00:03:32] But in general, these are organized as very active trips. Like we do a lot, we cover a lot of activities in one day, and it's like a successive series of adventures. So, unlike Kilimanjaro, these adventures, you can opt out on things and, but as I love to do stuff. I want to do all the things. If I'm going all the way to the Galapagos Islands, I want to do all the things.
[00:04:00] So. I got there early, which also is really good when you go someplace that is higher in altitude to go early to adjust your expectations of your body. So when you're at a higher altitude, if you're not used to that, that might mean you move slower. It might mean that breathing is more difficult. Because there's less oxygen.
[00:04:21] So sometimes people get really startled at the changes that are happening in their body. And I knew what to expect, maybe a headache, maybe some harder breathing. I gave myself time to adjust and I did some amazing sightseeing and it was a really special way to start off the trip. So then we launched in our first day and we flew from Quito to the Galapagos.
[00:04:42] And we started at the Island of San Cristobal. And I'm going to try not to just read you our whole itinerary, maybe I'll, I'll link to it so you can go see all the cool things. But this is not a travel podcast. This is a podcast about chronic pain. We saw some blue footed boobies and frigates and pelicans and sea lions.
[00:05:05] There's so many sea lions and we did kayaking and we went to a ceviche class. We did a lot of really fun things. And the next day we went snorkeling at this beautiful place called Kicker Rock, which is one of the Galapagos's most iconic spots. And we saw sharks and amazing fish and some rays.
[00:05:25] Some people saw a hammerhead shark. I did not see that, but I saw a picture of it, which is really, really cool and very beautiful. And the boat rides were really fun. fun and like lovely and relaxing. My whole body was like, yes, yes. I would like more of this being on a boat and snorkeling. It was such a good experience. So relaxing, such a relaxing feeling to have.
[00:05:56] And then the next day we went and there's a lot of like getting on and off speed boats and going from one Island to another Island. And to get on and off the boats, you have to Take a water taxi to the larger boat, and we were also taking a lot of buses were taking buses to different places.
[00:06:14] We went to Santa Cruz and we saw giant tortoises, and that was so cool. My legs were kind of sore from the snorkeling the day before, because I snorkel like I scuba dive, which is, I don't really use my arms. Cause that makes a lot of bubbles. It also is a lot of extraneous movement. But then that meant my legs were really sore. And we walked around for a while and we saw these big, giant tortoises, which is so cool. And did you know that only in English do we have a different word for turtle versus tortoise? I believe in other languages they say like land turtle or sea turtle, but I guess we say tortoise?
[00:07:00] for the land turtle. And then we have turtles, which are more like sea turtles. So I could be getting that wrong, but not everybody says tortoises. And sometimes I should Google things before I talk about them. But that was something our guide told us.
[00:07:17] So at some point on that day, when we went to Santa Cruz, I kind of knelt funny on the bus, it's this little innocuous kind of experience where, you know, you're just trying to move around on the bus and you just kneel down to turn your position around and there was something that just felt a little weird.
[00:07:34] And so I took note of that and I was like, okay, that's not great. I'm not excited about this experience, but you know, I'm just going to relax because I've dealt with knee things before and I'm just going to see what happens. And the next day we went to Tortuga Bay and some people went surfing. I actually walked down the beach.
[00:07:52] It was a really long walk to the surfing area. And then I was there and it was very hot. And I noticed as I was walking, my knee was not feeling the best. And I thought, well It's really not great. And I don't think that surfing is going to be my thing because, you know, you, you have to paddle on your stomach, but then you get up on your knees and then maybe you hop up onto the surfboard.
[00:08:17] And while I didn't expect to hop up onto the board, onto my feet, I also thought, well, I'm not really going to feel comfortable surfing on my knees. And so maybe it doesn't feel like it was something that I should do. So I walked down the beach and I walked back The other way, and there were some people who had opted out of surfing and they were floating around this very gentle part of the bay.
[00:08:40] And I mean, that was such a beautiful day. Like floating around and swimming, there were a bunch of fish and little sharks hanging out with people, enjoying a beautiful day by the beach. And so I, and I was feeling hopeful that my knee pain was getting better. Like I could squat and bend, at least in the water.
[00:09:05] And so the next day we were going to be hiking the Sierra Negra volcano and doing a loop around the western rim and going to see the bottom of the giant caldera. And I was intending to go and I had all my gear on and I started hiking up the hill and my body told me no. First off, it was very, very hot.
[00:09:25] So there was this sense of like, this is already going to be hard because it is so hot, but also my knee was hurting. And I was like, you know, what I really want is to be able to do the other activities. So I'm going to opt out on this hike. I have hiked volcanoes before, and while I was sad to miss out, I just listened to my knee and I hung out with another group person who had also opted out and, you know, we got to sit in the shade.
[00:09:53] So that was kind of great. And we had a beautiful view and I also was processing a lot of disappointment. I just thought my knee was going to Take me where I wanted to go. And at the same time, part of my brain was like, yes, disappointment, but okay, let's make it pretty. And I really just got to be there.
[00:10:19] Anytime I noticed my brain wanted to ruminate or go into a blaming mode, I would just sit and notice my seat and look up and see where I was. And I could notice the ocean. And I can notice this beautiful greenery. And I really enjoyed being where I was and hanging out with my new friend. We had time to get to know one another. That was really cool. And that was a hint of things to come. And I allowed the disappointment, but you know, being able to opt out or pace oneself or to say no to activity is really important. It's really essential to be able to say no, because what we want to actually honor is what is a yes.
[00:11:07] We need to have both options or a variety of options. So after that we went to a tortoise reserve and we had a great lunch and the next thing that was going to happen was we were going to hang out there and then we were going to camp and I knew Um, and I didn't think I could kneel on the ground to get in and out of the tent and also sleep with a tent mate and be comfortable.
[00:11:33] And the next day there was an option to ride bikes from the reserve back into town, which I knew I was most likely not going to be doing either. So with those two series of activities, knowing that those were things that were not going to be a net positive for my knee, I decided to go back into town when the guide was leaving.
[00:11:55] So I just thought, you know, go with her. I went back to the hotel and I knew from My experience, Kaila Manjaro and my Iceland adventure, that getting enough sleep was really important for any kind of mental and emotional well being and also any kind of tissue healing, because at this point, I didn't really know what was going on.
[00:12:19] Some of it felt similar to how I had felt when I tore my meniscus on my left knee. And that was also something I had done when kneeling. So I was in a hotel on Isabella Island, which is pretty small. And I limped around the island and I felt lonely. But I also couldn't lay in bed anymore. It was around dinnertime and I walked slowly along the beach, which was only like two blocks from the hotel, looking at different restaurants and shops, and it's a pretty sleepy town.
[00:12:51] I walked to a place that was recommended for dinner to see that it was on the second floor and I decided that wasn't where I wanted to spend my spoons, or spend my knee spoons. Which is an idea called Spoon Theory, which is a metaphor describing the amount of physical or mental energy that a person has available for daily activities and tasks, and how it can become limited.
[00:13:14] This term was coined in a 2003 essay by American Writer. Christine Miserandino. I hope I'm saying her last name correctly. In this essay, she describes her experience with chronic illness using a handful of spoons as a metaphor for units of energy available to perform everyday actions. The metaphor has since been used to describe a wide range of disabilities, mental health issues, forms of marginalization, and other factors that might place unseen burdens on individuals.
[00:13:48] I don't always like spoon theory. especially around mind body healing, because it can rely on a fixed sense of the outcome of a particular set of activities, which can create self imposed limitations, which then gets reinforced through predictive coding with our brain. So I'm kind of a yes and but person with spoon theory, but at the same time, it's a very handy metaphor.
[00:14:16] And my knee pain was not neuroplastic in the sense that It did have an immediate physical source, the overuse injury that I was experiencing, or at least that was the way my experience of it seemed like an overuse injury. And since pain is a part of our protection system, and that's something that I know and deeply understand, I didn't think that my pain necessarily meant that I hurt something, even though it was possible.
[00:14:45] Because, again, that was similar to the meniscus injury feeling that I had had on my left knee. But I knew that this pain was some kind of communication. My body was telling me something important, whether that was to slow down or to be gentle. So I took myself for a delicious dinner on the beach. I decided that even though I was sad and I really wanted to hide.
[00:15:09] That I didn't need to feel like I was being punished, no matter what was happening. I could choose to be really sweet and loving to myself. And in a lot of ways, that was its own remedy for my past experiences when I would feel a lot of shame for being fat or not being able to do certain activities or for having pain.
[00:15:29] There's something really affirming by going on this trip with a group of plus size people because it interrupts my narrative that it's only because of my body size. Because there were people on this trip larger than me who were doing all of the activities. So one part of my historical othering of self and self pity was at least remedied.
[00:15:51] And so I had many moments of gratitude. Also for being a pain coach. While it wasn't thrilling or exciting to be in pain, I also wasn't afraid. I know that bodies heal. I have been through a lot of experiences with my knees and my legs over the last few years, and I do feel good more often than not. And I trusted my ability to find the help that I need.
[00:16:19] So here I was on the beach in the Galapagos watching the sunset in front of me, to quote Unlikely Hikers founder Jenny Bruso, my body took me here. It was a poignant and tender evening, and I didn't try to make it otherwise. There are times when life is tender and poignant. I think in the past I would have just stayed in, really feeling bound by this deep, unending sense of self pity. And I really celebrated that this feeling is so different that I can just be with me and choose to be as loving and caring and thoughtful to myself as possible.
[00:17:00] On the following day, I decided to stay back from the next trip because of the pain that I was having in my knee when bending and walking. We were snorkeling at Los Tuneles. Which is a very cool underground lava formation. The previous times that we were getting on boats for transportation or fun involved the water taxi and then a transfer to the larger boat.
[00:17:21] And then sometimes we were doing that with all of our luggage. Which was very exciting. And by exciting, I mean dramatic and sometimes scary. There was a lot of just trusting. Trusting that these water taxi guys do this every single day. And trusting that I was going to be able to get on and off and on and off and on and off all the boats.
[00:17:44] And, you know, we did it, but on this trip, I was concerned about getting out of the water. If I went in snorkeling, like getting out of the water back onto the boat, because we didn't have a good picture of the ladder to get back in. And I was concerned about the water taxi and all the extraneous movement that I would be doing. And I wasn't sure if I had injured myself in a way that I could have made worse if I did more things.
[00:18:09] So, because we didn't have a picture of the ladder and I saw some pictures of the boat and it looked like to have a seat, I would have had to sit like on the ground there weren't really a lot of seats and I wasn't going to be, feel comfortable getting up and down off the floor. It wasn't really feeling available to me. So these are a lot of the calculations that people in larger bodies or disabled bodies do all the time. Things like wondering, will I fit in this seat?
[00:18:38] Can I walk this far? What our X accommodations like? If you've never had to think about all the myriad of access needs, I'm letting you know that many people are having to consider safety in ways that you may never have to think about. So if you're traveling with other people, you know, you might want to check in and ask somebody, what is it that you need to feel safe?
[00:19:03] Or even if you're noticing for yourself, a hesitation on certain activities. Ask yourself, what is it that I need to feel safe, or what do I need to know to trust that I can meet this kind of activity with a lesser sense of fear? And once you start to name and identify those things, you can begin to solve them.
[00:19:25] Some of them can be solved with some information or some planning. For our trip, we were asked to bring our own life vests because we could not be assured that the boats would have ones that fit us. And we also told the airlines ahead of time to bring extra seatbelt extenders just in case we were in need of them because we were going to be a large group of large people traveling together.
[00:19:48] Most flights have a certain number of seatbelt extenders, but we wanted to make sure that everybody who needed a seatbelt extender could have one. And for me, a seatbelt extender, it's always variable. Sometimes I need them. Sometimes I don't. Um, I also learned that like not all seatbelts are the same size, that like when the seatbelt starts to fray, they cut it and reattach the metal part.
[00:20:12] So seatbelts can change size. They're not a standard size. They, they start out a standard size, but maybe you're sitting in a seat that has a shorter seatbelt. Isn't that weird? I didn't know that. So it's really nice to be a part of a trip that understands that these are normal questions for our travel needs.
[00:20:34] These are normal considerations to be made in planning a trip and taking action and going and doing things. So if you are noticing a certain kind of trepidation or worry or concern, it's really useful to ask yourself this question. What am I worried about? What am I nervous about? What is it that can be resolved ahead of time?
[00:20:58] Because we can have an emotion. relating to that concern. But that emotion, it's not to say that the emotion isn't real, or we should bypass it, but the emotion is pointing us to something, to a worry, to an action that maybe we need to take. a way of advocating for yourself so that your needs are going to be met as well.
[00:21:23] So that's what I like about these trips. We are all a group of people working together to create that as well as the people that we are paying to organize this trip. It's not just an individual level. We're working on this as a group, but all of these factors, the water taxi, the boat, the ladder, and not just The pain and discomfort, but also the pain and discomfort all went into me deciding that I wasn't going to go and I wasn't the only one that ended up not going.
[00:21:54] So we were a group of five who stayed back and I took them to my beach restaurant area and we enjoyed a relaxing brunch on the beach, uh, outside of the sun. As our lovely concession prize, and that was so sweet. We just enjoyed each other's company, looking at the beach, having a lovely lunch. And in that moment, we all felt like we were making the absolutely right decision for ourselves at the time.
[00:22:26] This is a very important part of the story to remember. So after lunch, I went back and decided to get more sleep and relax my leg. I did a series of somatic tracking exercises and watched as the sensations changed. I put on some self hypnosis recordings and imagined my body healing from the inside out as I put myself in a blissful and relaxed state.
[00:22:52] And as big emotions rolled through, I cried, I let them release and move through me because what do emotions need, they need to be in motion. So I was disappointed. I had worked hard to get stronger and more mobile. I had been lifting weights and walking more and feeling really, really good. But nothing can be perfect.
[00:23:16] And there is no inoculation from any potential outcome happening. That's just not possible with having a human body. I thought how I would talk to a client who is having a pain flare or dealing with an injury. I would validate their experience while also holding open the space for positive change and always working on quieting and calming the fear.
[00:23:40] So this was my time to give my today bodies. So much love and compassion and trust that healing would be happening and that no matter what I would be okay. Just like on Kilimanjaro, I did made the decision to turn around on the summit night because I was not able to trust that I could descend the mountain safely without being carried.
[00:24:02] Had I kept going and made it to the summit. I don't, not even sure how far I made it, made it a fair way, but I decided unless I could locomote to where it was more safe to be transported by a vehicle, I was not going to push it. That was my agreement with myself. And I knew on this trip, I had a series of activities for the next few days.
[00:24:25] And unless I wanted to be transported home early, I needed to do my best to take care of me. Later, I'll talk about asking for and accepting help, which was also an important piece of this journey. So all was well until the folks came back from snorkeling and told us that it was the highlight of the trip.
[00:24:47] And also that they didn't have to do the water taxi transfer. They will, were able to get on the boat from the dock. Oh my God. Was my regret button pushed at that moment? You betcha. It was really hard to not both fall into a sense of despair and anger towards my body, but also with myself about, quote, making the wrong decision, close quote.
[00:25:16] They had an epic adventure seeing sea turtles, sharks, penguins, golden rays, they have really wonderful videos and pictures, and, and, and, and. Immediately that evening I was Googling snorkeling with sea turtles. I didn't want to feel like I had missed out on something. I also had to remind myself, Hey, Deb, you know what, you have already snorkeled with sea turtles, you know, on other trips.
[00:25:45] It really didn't matter. I didn't snorkel with these sea turtles, with these people on this trip. I didn't want to be feeling like I missed out on something, but I did. I did. I missed it. That was my decision. It was the best decision that I could make at the time with the information that I had. And it still sucked.
[00:26:13] There is no time machine that I could get into, which would have stopped me from kneeling on the bus in the way that it had started the ball rolling on this journey. Would I have gone back to that moment or gone back to another moment where I did like some weird long jumping for this movement training that I was in?
[00:26:32] Because that also caused a soft tissue damage in my right knee. If I had a time machine, what would I do differently? It's so hard to say. This time machine question, it's like the most ridiculous perfectionist fantasy. I was talking to a friend once about this, about that kind of regret.
[00:26:56] And there's so many Star Trek episodes about this, right? So there's the year from hell, which is a two parter from Star Trek Voyager. And if you want to really get such a great cinematic or television example of what can go wrong when you try to mess with time and fix it and make it better. It'll be in that episode.
[00:27:21] And that episode really like it sticks in my mind and it really, it really helps me because it is so tempting to want to go back in time and change things. And so, you know, knowing what I know now, what would I do differently? Would I go back in time and have gotten more involved in weightlifting and muscle building when I was young?
[00:27:43] Would I have fought harder to love my body and make space for me at all my sizes to be involved in a healthy way with movement? But like, that wasn't the legacy that I was handed. And that's still a perfectionist fantasy because it's not an inoculation from injury or pain. All human beings are susceptible to injury and pain.
[00:28:07] It is so tempting to launch into regret time travel instead of sitting with disappointment. It is so much more satisfying to try to come up with solutions to avoid future disappointment. But I guarantee there will be future disappointments. Maybe it won't be this thing, but it will be something else.
[00:28:31] And the very best way to avoid the intense pain of disappointment is to create a welcome space for disappointment. It's like disappointment means not getting something that was important. But it's also a feeling. It's not a fixed state of being. I am not at disappointment.
[00:28:53] I feel disappointed. I felt sad. I felt lonely. I felt angry at my body. I felt angry at my knee. If you remember my story and my conversations with my knee, there are times where my knee has been angry with me. I felt angry at all the things that are built for tall people because short people like me have to overreach and overload our muscles to be able to like step down from things.
[00:29:19] I cannot tell you the number of times that stepping down from a tall step feels like the thing that's going to break me. My trip down a mountain in Iceland had me cursing all the Vikings with long legs who cut the steps into the side of the mountain and having to take those steps down one by one going sideways because it is too deep for me to feel like I can step down safely going forward. Is a variable load like yes I'm a bigger person but I'm a bigger person with short legs... It's going to to feel like I can step down safely going forward. And there is a variable load like yes I'm a a bigger person but I'm a bigger person with short legs. So bigger people with short legs are going to have a different experience than bigger people with longer legs.
[00:29:57] And you know when we're talking about, like, the physiological mechanism and tissue load capacity, pain is a protection. The body is always trying to protect you from injury. So pain is going to be there to protect you and say, Hey, I think that maybe you're overloading this tissue. I'll get into the Twin Peaks model of pain because when we talk about pain as a protection, there's this idea that we can become sensitized based on past experience, but can you even notice how I don't really even want to talk about disappointment?
[00:30:32] Like I'm so much more happy to talk about pain and muscles and tissues and neuroplastic pain and how pain happens. I don't even want to talk about disappointment But that's what the theme of this podcast is. So there were times I put a hand on my heart and a hand on my belly And I just breathed into both of them a soothing caring breath.
[00:30:57] Tending to the hurt me also affirming that I'm alive And on a great adventure. I spoke kindly and lovingly to my body, to my today body versus ruminating about the body I used to have or the body I wished I had.
[00:31:14] And it's easy for me to talk about allowing feelings of discomfort. Like it's easy to talk about it on this podcast. It's easier to talk about allowing feelings of disappointment than to allow feelings of disappointment. Still not the same thing. So just notice what that feels like for you. When you feel disappointment, where do you notice that feeling in your body?
[00:31:39] What are the thoughts that bubble up to the surface when you sit with that feeling? Are you afraid that feeling will never end? Are you afraid those thoughts are true? What is it that comes to the surface?
[00:31:52] Some other things I did was doing my anti anxiety neuroplasticity exercises to decrease the sense of emotional distress, because there are times when we are feeling big feelings that those big feelings can feel like they spin out of control. So doing this activity, the backwards spin helped me step out of that kind of downward spiral type feeling.
[00:32:17] We want our emotions to be there and flow through us. There's also ways to mediate the intensity and make more room for things to flow. And as I did this backwards spin, I was feeling a lot less distress. And so when I feel less distress, I have a lot more ability to think. And in those moments, it's not just enough to think about ourselves and our lives in only the most ideal situations.
[00:32:46] Because we don't only live in only ideal situations. So I thought, who do I want to be when I am hurting? How do I want to be with myself and other people? I imagine the feelings flowing through me and out of me, through my feet and into the ground. I imagine wrapping my leg in the most comforting fabric, in the most soothing colors.
[00:33:12] I imagine feeling held by the universe, by the healing force that lives inside us all. By the invisible systems working behind the scenes and under the hood, maintaining our body systems. I spent some time leaning into positive sensations and noticing what was not pain. I enjoyed some open focus practice.
[00:33:34] I was using tools not to get rid of the pain, but to support me, the me that had been feeling that pain. And when I noticed my brain wanting to future cast catastrophe, I would gently redirect myself back to the present moment. And as I moved and felt different things, I would really make sure to notice the strength or moments of not pain when they arrived. Because when I directed my brain to notice moments of strength and not pain, I noticed that I had more of them.
[00:34:08] I would give myself an A for rolling with my disappointment. I also let myself be happy for the people who had a great time. I dropped into that quality of compersion that we talk about in circles of polyamory. The word compersion refers to a form of joy in the joy of others. In the world of consensual, non monogamy relationships, It more specifically relates to the happiness someone finds in their partner seeking out and enjoying sexual and romantic intimacy with other people.
[00:34:42] In this case, I was enjoying my friend's joy of their experience. Because I know how special it is to have these adventures in the bodies that we live in. I'm wondering how you navigate disappointment. Do you allow yourself to feel the feelings and experience the sensations that come with that feeling?
[00:35:09] Or do you go into fixing mode to prevent future disappointment or even ruminate about past experiences? They're all normal activities. But if I can vote for making room for feelings, making friends with unpleasant feelings, I would definitely recommend that. It's not easy to do. It's not easy to do when other people are having fun around you.
[00:35:35] I cried in the arms of my roommate at one point, and that felt really hard and vulnerable to do, but also such a gift to be witnessed and cared for. This story is going to have at least one more part, maybe two. I will tell the rest of the story about my trip, how walking and self massage were important pieces of feeling better.
[00:35:57] I'll explain in more detail about the Twin Peaks model of pain and how our pain system can become sensitized to be more hypervigilant. And I did visit with an orthopedist when I got home and I'm beginning with PT. I have no idea how that will go. I'm definitely nervous, but also hopeful. I know so much more than I did about pain and tissues and joints and then when I went to PT before and after my left knee surgery in 2010.
[00:36:30] This story will continue. I imagine it will continue as long as I have knees. If persistent pain. Or fear about pain is something that you deal with and find that you would like help navigating these experiences. Please book a curiosity call with me.
[00:36:48] I'm here to help you get back to adventuring in your today body with all the tools to help you navigate with whatever arises. Thank you so much for listening and stay tuned for more next week.