Petra Schmider, a former client now colleague of mine tells the story of her recovery from years of chronic pain and disability to living a life of her dreams and helping others do the same. Petra's bio - She was a stock broker and later financial planner before kids, now she's am a Pain Recovery Coach, Mind Body Coach, certified Rapid Transformational Therapy® Practitioner and certified Hypnotherapist. You can find Petra at https://www.painawaycoach.com/
Petra Schmider, a former client now colleague of mine tells the story of her recovery from years of chronic pain and disability to living a life of her dreams and helping others do the same.
Petra's bio - She was a stock broker and later financial planner before kids, now she's am a Pain Recovery Coach, Mind Body Coach, certified Rapid Transformational Therapy® Practitioner and certified Hypnotherapist.
You can find Petra at https://www.painawaycoach.com/
Or via email - petraschmiderllc@gmail.com
[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, feelers and healers. This is Deb. I am excited to share with you this interview with my former client, now colleague, Petra. Thanks for listening.
[00:01:12] Deb: Hi, Petra.
[00:01:15] Petra: Hi, Deb. So nice to see you.
[00:01:16] Deb: It's nice to see you, too. I'm excited that you're on the podcast because you've both been my client and are now a pain coach and I will let you describe what you do, who you work with, how you've helped people, but let's talk about me.
[00:01:37] Ha ha. Just kidding. Let's talk about, your journey, how we came to work together and what it is that you want to share with us about recovery, because I think one of the important things that kind of can't be said enough is that it is possible to feel better that it is possible to recover from chronic pain.
[00:02:02] I feel like, even though we know it and understand it in our bodies, like we get it, it's like, for the people who don't yet um, know, or haven't yet, you know, maybe they understand this intellectually, but haven't yet experienced it in their own bodies. So I always love to, you know, try to be a beacon of hope and help create that bridge of knowledge so that, you know, I mean, yes, like I would love people to hire me.
[00:02:29] I would love to work with people. There's other people out there for people to work with, but I think in, I think it is essential. To have the belief or to even begin to have the belief that this is also possible for me. Does that make sense?
[00:02:46] Petra: Absolutely. Yes.
[00:02:47] Deb: Yeah. So let's start with kind of your journey towards finding that this was possible for you.
[00:02:55] Petra: Yes. And it's actually interesting that you're saying that because I had actually given up hope. I had given up hope of recovering, of recovering, of chronic pain. I was at a place where, that was very, very hopeless. And, my journey started, um, 30 years ago. Wow. And I was for 26 years in chronic pain and I,
[00:03:23] Deb: I just have to stop you there. Cause I, I like to point that out and be like, 26 years you were in chronic pain.
[00:03:30] Petra: Yes. Yeah.
[00:03:32] Deb: Okay. That is a long time. That is older than people we know.
[00:03:38] Petra: Yes. And at some point I was in a wheelchair. I had so, I had pain everywhere. It was just terrible. And then in addition, I couldn't sleep. And then within two years, I went really from rock bottom to doing all the things that I always dreamed of doing. So now I am hiking, I'm in strenuous hike really, I'm with the weather signs so dangerous, you know, and I'm rock climbing, I'm kayaking, I'm running. I started mountain biking. I'm mountain biking now. I mean, some things that I thought would never for me be in the picture. Um, I was 22 and thought this will, it's, it's just something that I can't even dream of because it's not possible.
[00:04:33] So yes, it started, 30 years ago I had. pain, knee pain. And then I had a knee surgery bilateral on both knees. And after the surgery, the pain just did not go away. On the contrary, it got much, much worse. Okay. So I, Developed pain when sitting, standing, walking. I always had pain. For walking, I needed knee braces or standing for standing pain problem.
[00:05:14] And I also, um, develop allodynia and allodynia is when somebody touches you or something. Or you wear tight pants and then the knees hurt just because of that and it makes them the pain even much worse. So I went to countless orthopedists, pain physicians, neurologists, because my husband is a physician.
[00:05:37] And he thought, you know, I think there is something neural, you know, this direction going on and he was right, but we couldn't find really anybody who knew the right approach. And, the physicians were very well meaning, and were trying to help absolutely, prescribing pills, creams, cortisone shots, even ketamine coma, whatnot, was also an option that I was told that I should try.
[00:06:08] But I was then eventually I was told, okay. You have to live with this pain and try to live as best as you can. And that was then my approach. Knee braces became my constant companion, um, and I try to be as active as possible. I walked for maybe an hour with my knee braces. I did some ballroom dancing with the knee braces, um, and lots of physical therapy, of course.
[00:06:38] And I wish I would have known at that time that there is a cure, but just was not available to me. And there were ups and downs. But then about two decades later, things got even worse. Wow. I needed a wheelchair. I just couldn't walk anymore. My, my left knee, just all the muscles went away.
[00:07:05] First it was crutches, then the wheelchair, the pain was just too bad. But my orthopedist said, you know, looking at the MRI, This should get better with physical therapy. There's nothing indicating on that MRI that, that it shouldn't. So I had for months and months and months, physical therapy and I'm an overachiever, so I physical therapied myself.
[00:07:33] Deb: It's like the worst. I want to say that is the worst combination for somebody who has mind body syndrome or TMS or this type of somatization because you are literally doing all the things with this huge intensity and Everything is fixated and focused on the problem. Like, all you're doing is paying hyper focused attention on what hurts, and then applying these PT exercises, which, if a PT doesn't have a mind body approach, they also don't know
[00:08:12] Exactly.
[00:08:13] How to like, everybody thinks more intensity and like going at it hard is, is the right way to solve a problem. And so there can be this reinforcement. And then of course it, it doesn't work.
[00:08:27] Petra: Exactly. Exactly. It didn't work. On the contrary, it made things much worse. And I mean, this, the physical therapy was very painful, but I was strong.
[00:08:37] You know, I was told this will, you know, go away with this therapy. So I, I don't care about this pain, you know, I need to go just through it. But things got worse and worse and worse. And then I actually, from the physical therapy, developed shoulder pain. I suddenly, during physical therapy, my shoulder gave out.
[00:08:59] I couldn't lift my arm anymore. And then same story again, the shoulder technically get better, same with my, one of my feet, I developed really bad pain in the foot and, same thing, the pictures didn't look that bad. But the pain did not go away and then I got, pain medication and I got a bout of really bad gastritis from the pain medication.
[00:09:33] Same thing again, the gastritis went away, but the pain didn't. And so with the gastritis, it was especially bad because any food intake, anything that I put in my mouth, once it went down, I had incredibly terrible pain. So I, I couldn't eat. We put all the food that I ate into a Vitamix, you know, one of the
[00:10:01] Oh, you had to blend it?
[00:10:03] Yeah, we blended it and it was basically vegetables, tofu and rice, something that's very bland for the stomach. And so I went back to the gastroenterologist and she did then repeated exams of the stomachs, you know, when, when they go in with them.
[00:10:22] Deb: Yeah, the endoscope.
[00:10:26] Petra: And she said, well, the gastritis is healed. I don't know why you still have the pain. And she was a fantastic gastroenterologist and she was then also hinting towards, going more in that direction. Let me think what happened then. Nothing went away. And then I developed severe insomnia on top because I was so hyper vigilant. I had so many things going on. I had been a foodie. I loved cooking. I, you know, I became severely underweight because eating hurts so much. I mean, I just didn't know what to do anymore.
[00:11:07] And then, I needed another, knee surgery because physical therapy didn't help. The orthopedist said, we got to look into the knee and see what's going on there. I had a fantastic orthopedist who really did a great job. There were actually things that needed to be done that couldn't be seen on the MRI.
[00:11:29] That was scar tissue that was up and, um, plica was very inflamed and all the tendon was put in there. But the problem was this didn't fixed my chronic pain because I had chronic pain. And that's a very different animal from regular pain, you know, that because of an injury or something. The pain didn't go away, right?
[00:11:52] Deb: The pain didn't go away. So the surgery, yeah, you healed after the surgery or like the physical tissue healed, but the pain still remained. I think that concept is, Essential for people to understand and grasp that pain, is not directly correlated to tissue health or tissue damage that things can heal and pain, can kind of echo and continue on and even grow.
[00:12:23] Yes. Separate from one's physiological health.
[00:12:30] Petra: Exactly, exactly. And then when I got home, I saw I needed to do physical therapy again after the surgery. I saw my physical therapist, and he looked at the paperwork from the orthopedist, and he said, and he said, Well, there are five orthopedic surgeries that I would not want to have and one of them is yours.
[00:12:56] And by the way, pain is no measure of anything and we have to stretch that tendon and I will give you a towel to bite on because you will cry.
[00:13:06] Deb: Wow. Okay. That's a lot of
[00:13:09] Petra: everything, but I'm like, I'm doing everything you tell me, you know, I just, I just want to get out of that wheelchair. I just want to get better.
[00:13:19] I've wanted to so badly get better. And then I developed tennis elbow on both elbows, really severe. And I couldn't even lift my fork to my mouth. My family had to feed me after that. And then on top of the physical therapy, I needed also to go to the occupational therapist. I still couldn't sleep. I still had the stomach pain. I still had the foot pain. I still had the, so the shoulder pain didn't, nothing went away. I just added on things. And I was thinking, this is going down, down and down.
[00:13:55] I just add on things and nothing gets resolved. Hmm. And then life took an even darker turn where I had a stint at the ICU at the hospital because from the surgery I got a stitch infection and I went right away to the orthopedist and he described me, um, antibiotics. Biotics and the antibiotics for whatever reason did not do that job.
[00:14:26] And then I ended up with sepsis in the ICU and there I suddenly developed clinical anxiety about my health. There, I thought, wow, if they can't get the sepsis under control, I could be dead in two or three days. I mean, sepsis is a really serious thing. And then my knee was blown up like a ball.
[00:14:52] I mean, it was. And everything was very stiff. And so the, physicians didn't know whether the infection got into the knee or just superficial and develop this whole chaos. And they said, you need an MRI because if this infection is in your knee, then your knee is done, so then you need a knee replacement.
[00:15:14] Deb: Wow.
[00:15:15] Petra: And so, yeah, that, that, that was, that, that really, um, got this. It's more of an anxiety going worse than it already was. I then had to go to so many physicians and I was also diagnosed for an autonomic neuropathy and genetic thing. At some point I had given up hope and I felt if I can't sleep, these things cannot get better. Mm-Hmm. , you know, the body needs sleep to recover. I felt like in a vicious cycle that I could not escape. I did not have hope at some point anymore. And I, had many moments where I felt, I don't know anymore what to do, this is no life, you know, like I can't continue like this.
[00:15:59] And then came the turning point, I found mind body medicine and suddenly from being hopeless of hope and it was just a glimmer at that point. Mm hmm. And, but that led me to really deep dive into the pain recovery science, neuroscience, those newest cutting edge methods that had really come out in the last couple of years.
[00:16:27] I mean, the research behind all this, it's really pretty new. My husband is really foremost a scientist so I was going to him with all these science papers. It's all the notebooks that were, and there's research that is really good research and there's research that is not so good and he knows all these things. He was going through things with me and he's just so loving and supporting and wonderful. Yeah. And so he was excited with me and, you know, saying, yeah, this all makes sense. This all makes sense, you know.
[00:17:03] That was one year after the surgery and at that point, my knee that had the surgery was still swelling all the time. And I had this little ice machine with me all the time on wheels. Every 30 minutes I had to ice the knee because otherwise it would swell up too much.
[00:17:20] Deb: Right.
[00:17:21] Petra: And within four weeks of starting MindBodyTherapy. Yeah. Swelling was totally gone. I mean, that was for me the sign this is the way to go. I mean, it was like magic. I couldn't believe it myself. I'm like, Oh my gosh, the swelling is gone. I mean, this is not just a coincidence, you know?
[00:17:45] Right. And then really over two years, I was delving more and more into this. And, um, then I realized, yeah, my knee isn't perfect. The physicians say my kneecap is too small. My ligaments are much, much too loose. There's cartilage loss, there's softening in the cartilage and so on, no longer distracts my life.
[00:18:13] In two years Yes. I went from the state I told you about to doing the hiking mountain biking, um, climbing and I don't care anymore whether there's something wrong in my body. It's like, yeah, that's, that's normal that people have stuff. It was a lot to learn. It was a lot of work for me
[00:18:34] Deb: Sure.
[00:18:34] Petra: Before I came.
[00:18:36] Deb: Mm-Hmm. and,
[00:18:37] Petra: um, I had you too. I mean, that was
[00:18:39] Deb: Oh, nice.
[00:18:40] Petra: Fantastic. Um,
[00:18:41] Deb: yeah. So, when you say you found MINDBODY medicine, like what was the first thing that you started to do? Was that when we started working together, I feel like we worked together after that original time.
[00:18:54] I don't remember. We talked a lot about your hands and wrists and mountain biking and we did talk about hiking and
[00:19:02] Petra: yeah, when I met you, the, the, the arms were still a big problem. Yes. So in the beginning, what I first did was really, I was fascinated by all the research, all the books. I found, so that was very, very helpful knowing about pain science. Right. Really is so important because then I could understand why many of those mind body therapies or elements that are being employed, why they work. Right. Once you know, understand why this makes really sense and you know, how your nervous system is working. Then it suddenly everything makes sense.
[00:19:42] So for me, definitely having this background knowledge was very important. And then, Hypnotherapy definitely helped a lot for me.
[00:19:53] Deb: That's awesome.
[00:19:54] Petra: I had a, Vision board.
[00:19:57] Deb: Okay,
[00:19:59] Petra: photos on with people hiking, biking, doing the things that I always had dreamt of running. I couldn't, I was 22 and I couldn't run.
[00:20:09] And so I did, and then later when I became a certified hypnotherapist, I also did my own recordings, but I did hypnosis on this. It was always envisioning being able to do these things and know that is a really good therapy. And what also was really important for me was, was pacing was, Oh my gosh, I love that learning how to pace the right way.
[00:20:35] Okay. Because in the beginning, I couldn't walk at all without pain. And so five minutes of walking were really, really strenuous and, very difficult. And then really to slowly listen to my nervous system. system and to go from five minutes to 10 minutes very slowly 15 minutes, just, just learning how to pace myself. So that was definitely, very important too.
[00:21:05] Deb: I want to ask you a question about pacing. Cause I think there's a right way and a wrong way to do pacing. I think the wrong way to do pacing is to be very regimented and fixed and basically taking the cue of pain as a indicator to stop. What I'm hearing you say is you were building that relationship with your nervous system, not using the pain as the green, yellow, red, but more of the, inner conversation with the nervous system and being less reactive to the pain.
[00:21:39] Petra: Exactly. That's what was one of the methods that I learned. And so with this whole process, whoever does MindBody Therapy, we learn how to talk to ourselves.
[00:21:51] Deb: Right.
[00:21:51] Petra: And at the beginning, it feels a little weird and you're like, I don't tell anybody that I talk to myself. Totally.
[00:22:02] Deb: I think that's why I like it because I really have permission to be so weird, but
[00:22:10] Petra: it's really an important therapy element to talk to, to, to myself.
[00:22:15] And so when, when I was walking or hiking. And you know, sometimes there's more pain and sometimes there's less. And then I just having this conversation with myself and basically saying, Hey, nervous system, I know that you right now are upset and, or there's sensations coming up.
[00:22:37] But we are okay, you know, this, this is, this is okay and I can do this and I'm fine and everything health wise is good and I'm not going to stop right now because I'm enjoying this and I'm going to look at the flowers and at the bushes and I'm, you know, concentrating on that and we're okay.
[00:22:57] Yeah. And, and, and just. Going, going back to that, um, yeah. So important. Yeah. And to teach, to retrain your brain, your nervous system. Mm-Hmm. to retrain it and to say to, to let it know this just is okay. Yeah. And with the time, the pain just gets better and that's ups and downs. Right. And there were times where I could hike for two hours and didn't have any pain, and the next day I would hike and think, what the heck is going on?
[00:23:26] You know? I have so much pain today, but it's okay, you know?
[00:23:32] Deb: Yeah. And sometimes I like to pair these concepts. So like the vision board is a form of graded motor imagery. Right. It's like the starting to envision, starting to use your visualization skills, like directing your mind's attention towards the thing that you want to have, but in a positive way, rather than like the despairing, Oh, I won't be able to do this.
[00:23:58] Just holding open the frame that this is possible for my future. Maybe I don't, know exactly how I'm going to get there, but just holding that vision of what it is that you are doing all this work for, like what you're doing it towards.
[00:24:14] Petra: Yes, exactly. And all the things that I did hypnosis on, gradually I was able to introduce all of them.
[00:24:22] I mean, kayaking with the elbows for me. It was tough in the beginning. And I needed to pace myself and, but I mean, rock climbing is hard on your elbows and
[00:24:35] Deb: That's amazing. So it sounds like that was work that you did on your own. You had the support of your husband, you know, like having people on our side, and also having that validation of somebody with a medical background and having that expertise and being able to read and validate your understanding, because I do think sometimes people who start to do this work or believe in this work actually don't have people who are supportive, who are used to the person in pain. And they're kind of reinforcing the narratives. Even if they think that's being supportive, um,
[00:25:14] Petra: yeah, yeah, that absolutely. I mean, my husband and also our children believing in me, the support that I got from them was just amazing and believing that the things that I'm doing are right and celebrating with me for the little wins.
[00:25:32] Deb: Yeah,
[00:25:33] Petra: that I had. That was huge. It was huge. Yes.
[00:25:37] Deb: Did that require, I am going to take this little side tangent because I think this is a great kind of question to ask is, did they have to change their behavior? Did they have to do something different? So sometimes when somebody is in pain, it's like other people, they're, they're helping them all the time, which is amazing. But when we think about the brain and predictive coding. Part of what helps us change is breaking the pain behaviors, right? It's changing things. So I'm wondering if your family needed to change or do things differently with you or for you.
[00:26:14] Petra: I think it developed more automatically. Because they were doing a lot of things for me.
[00:26:19] I mean, there were times my husband, he traveled a lot for work. And often, our son, our daughter was already out of the house and our son was, alone with me. And I mean, on top of his schoolwork, he, I mean he getting my lunch ready in the morning, I couldn't do it myself and when he was coming home, taking care of me, you know, yeah, that was absolutely amazing.
[00:26:43] But they then automatically backed away when they realized, whatever I then could do, they, at some point they didn't need to feed me anymore, but then that all went more automatically.
[00:26:56] Deb: Okay, cool. Yeah. So then we met at Lin Health, which is a digital health platform, for pain recovery. How did you find out about Lin?
[00:27:08] Petra: A friend told me. I had done a curable bootcamp, and she was also in that bootcamp and she's a physician and she heard about Lin and she told me about it.
[00:27:23] Deb: Oh cool,
[00:27:24] Petra: very grateful to her because we are, we're still very much in contact and she's wonderful. We were supporting each other. And she told me about Lin and, I thought, wow, that sounds really, really good. I'm going to try this out. And lucky for me, I had you as a coach and, that was just very important to have a coach. And I, you know, yes, I did the Curable and it was a great program. And I was reading all those books and the research papers. But having, you as a one on one coach, it made such a difference because these, also the, all these elements and, therapies, they can get very confusing. You know, you learn, okay, I need to feel my feelings. That's very important.
[00:28:17] But I also need to calm down my nervous system, but right now I'm really, really anxious but then there's also outcome independence. So what, what, what actually should I do right now in this moment?
[00:28:30] Deb: Right. And for somebody who's like, I'm going to solve this and bringing that kind of intensity and perfectionism and, you know, and for your own benefit, right? It's like all of this power and passion and desire and, ability, but yeah, when you go like a hundred percent at this process, you do tend to, one there's a lot of information and two, you kind of forget what it's all for, right. To be able to enjoy life.
[00:29:00] Petra: And
[00:29:02] Deb: And also, yeah, it's helpful to have somebody else to bounce things off of. We talked about some family dynamics. Yes. Yeah. Talked about that stuff and kind of the emotional load of that. And you can go into more depth if you want to. And then we, we planned ahead thinking about certain activities that you were going to do and kind of the approach that we're going to take.
[00:29:26] I have this memory of you telling me about mountain biking and just like really normalizing the feelings that you're having in your hands and your wrists and being like, yeah, when, when you're like bumping down the mountain, you're going to feel stuff in your wrists. And we were really able to like de catastrophize and de escalate the kind of intensity.
[00:29:52] And I love that because it was a collaboration, right? It was a very much like. How are you going to talk to yourself while you're doing this activity that you really love and enjoy?
[00:30:04] Petra: Yes, exactly. Exactly. And yeah, you were mentioning, we were not only talking about pain issues. We were also talking about other things that, you know, it's called mind body therapy for a reason.
[00:30:17] Because you want to heal the body and the mind and, because there's a lot of factors playing a role, there's very often anxiety involved, or often repressive feelings, or, you know. So there is much more to it than just the pain. So that was extremely helpful, you really put all those puzzle pieces then together for me and made it so that I had this.
[00:30:44] Yeah, I remember in the beginning with Lin, it was a lot per text message that we had conversations. And in the beginning, I was bombarding you with text messages. And then, after a couple of months, I think it became gradually, automatically less and less. Right. Because I didn't need it then. I was basically at this end stage where I was fine.
[00:31:10] Yeah. And that, that was just wonderful. And then at some point you said to me, you know what, Petra, I think you're ready to graduate. Yes, she's right. I'm done.
[00:31:26] Deb: Yeah. What's interesting is that there is this point in which we don't have to keep learning. Like, there is a point in which we've internalized and metabolized the information.
[00:31:40] We don't always need as much reinforcement or validation, and yet we're always going to have a mind and a body, right? So it's not like we graduate and fly off to the land of never feeling things. We're just in the living part of life. Now we're living. We don't have to be learning or working on. And I think they are stages.
[00:32:04] Yes, the goal is to graduate.
[00:32:08] Yes.
[00:32:08] The goal is not to stay in this kind of process all the time. Sometimes you come back and revisit it, but there's this way in which, yeah, you're fundamentally different. Because you've gone through this experience and it's so exciting to graduate somebody, you know, because I know what you've been through.
[00:32:31] I mean, 20 plus years of pain that went all the way from knee pain through whole body pain and not being able to walk and all of that. I remember always being amazed at you.
[00:32:46] Petra: Oh, thank you.
[00:32:47] Deb: And just being like, you have this passion for life. One of the things that we talked about is like, What do you want, right?
[00:32:56] You want to travel with your husband in your RV. What is the vision of your life that you want to be having? Right? Always holding that, getting out of pain is not really a good enough goal. And I don't, good enough is a, I don't mean it in that way, I don't mean it as a judgment, but it's not a guiding light. To not feel something because it always then reflects this idea, then when you feel something, you immediately feel like you've failed. So it's a very demotivating kind of goal. You had a very clear vision and I think it is helpful that you had such loving support from your family and you had this kind of sense of an active lifestyle that you wanted to be doing more of.
[00:33:44] So all of that is, is fantastic and people can get there. But you kind of came into it with it. And also you had already had some experience when we started working together.
[00:33:55] Petra: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's true. Yeah. You were just talking about the, visions. I totally forgot to tell about the traveling.
[00:34:05] Yeah. I, I love to travel. And of course traveling was out of the picture. Yeah. My, my husband is very clever. So as a vision, basically he came up with the idea, you know, what, why don't we plan on traveling in an RV, you know, and US and Canada. And he did this already when I kind of was hopeless. He said to me, you know, and, and, and even if it's in a wheelchair, there's wheelchair accessible RVs, you love to travel, you know, and, um, we, we will make this work and, you know, and, and there's kitchen for wheelchairs. And, no matter what's happening, we will find a way. Yeah, I was thinking like, gosh, that would be so cool. But you know, at the state that I was, it really wasn't at that point possible, but you put it out there that in the future, you know, this is what we could do. And I was then also making pictures of us sitting in a motor home or a 5th wheeler or whatever.
[00:34:59] It was also in my hypnosis, this picture of us being happy together, cruising the US and Canada. And we made this happen. So now we travel half of the year and he works out of that motor home. And I do too, because we both started coaching online and the other half of the year, we live here in Arizona and when it's, It's cold out there here it's nice and warm. So yeah, hiking and biking and doing, lots of activities and yeah, traveling.
[00:35:35] Deb: That's amazing. So now I only found this out recently that now you are a coach and a hypnotist. Funny. I am a coach and a hypnotist. But I saw your name on this mind body group and I was like, what, maybe there's another Petra, but maybe this is my Petra I do feel like you're kind of my Petra. It's so delightful to now see you in this role as a colleague. So tell me about that journey.
[00:36:09] Petra: So, yeah, the whole journey was so miraculous. It sounds like a miracle, but it was hard work.
[00:36:17] Deb: Yeah.
[00:36:18] Petra: Eventually at some point I felt, I know so much about this now. I mean, this is incredible the knowledge that I have. And I'm so passionate about it. So although I'm healed, I constantly love to listen to podcasts, listen, still read books and constantly in this. So I thought, you know what, it would be wonderful to help other people and to get them realize their dreams and to relieve the pain or eliminate the pain, you know, whatever is possible, but to really to help others. And then I dive deep in it and I can't tell you how much joy it is when clients have progress, when they relieve their pain, when they eliminate their pain, it's like yes, it makes me so happy too. It's just so, so wonderful. I said, I just have to do this.
[00:37:15] Deb: I love that. Your personal story is pretty amazing evidence.
[00:37:21] Petra: Oh, thank you.
[00:37:23] Deb: Yeah. So what do you want people to know if they're really coming at this from the beginning?
[00:37:31] Petra: Not to lose hope, not to lose hope because for me, it took two years until I was totally fine. And doing then really all the things that I wanted to do. But honestly, if I would only be able to do half of the things, I would still be fine. Yeah. I'm very fortunate that I got farther than I ever had hoped. But really not to give up hope. There are better days, there are worse days.
[00:38:03] Did I have days where I wanted to throw all my mind body books in the corner? Yes. Where I had doubt over, you know, yes, yes, yes. Yeah. Keep going with this. Keep implementing these things. Keep talking to yourself.
[00:38:17] Deb: Yeah.
[00:38:18] Petra: Do all these things and get a coach. I mean, that's really what I needed to put everything together.
[00:38:27] Deb: Yeah. Was there something in the work that we did since after we worked together, you graduated. Of course, I'm not taking credit for that. But I know I learn little tidbits, I can't tell you the number of times on this podcast that I talk about the one sentence conversation that I had with Alan Gordon, where he told me I was very high stakes, that changed so much. So I love highlighting those moments. So was there something in the work that we did that really either made something clear for you, reinforce something, gave you some validation or support, if you remember.
[00:39:10] Petra: There were lots of those moments of a lot of aha moments, I don't remember the actual details, but I remember that there were so often where I was like, Oh my gosh, thanks goodness, yeah, this makes total sense, or I need to see it this way.
[00:39:29] And I remember that you helped me a lot with my anxiety. Because I had developed this intense anxiety. And I just remember that was really still so strong about every little, change. And I was getting about pain still very, very fast, very anxious. And I knew that it was irrational anxiety. I knew that. But I still couldn't really handle it or I didn't know how to get out of this.
[00:40:01] Deb: Yeah.
[00:40:02] Petra: Remember that you were really helping me with that amazingly. That was really, really good. You just were mentioning this before, and just telling me, yeah, you know if you hike 20 miles, you no wonder that your knees hurt. And then I asked my husband and said, did your knees hurt too? And he was like, yeah, of course.
[00:40:29] Deb: It's like we forget, we're trying to get out of pain so much that we forget that just bodies feel things when we do stuff and like, yeah, it's kind of like, Then what happens the next day? How are you feeling? How are you recovering? Let me ask you this. What helped you sleep? Like, how is your sleep?
[00:40:52] Cause that's something I also work with people on and really believe is foundational.
[00:40:56] Petra: My sleep is very good. I sleep like a baby.
[00:41:02] Deb: Okay, I think that's funny because I think babies don't sleep great. Not all babies, some babies, right? But I love that that's a saying, but I was like, I don't know. I've never had a baby, but I hear my friends complain about their children.
[00:41:18] But I love it. Sorry, I just am a goofball. So yeah, so you sleep.
[00:41:22] Petra: I sleep really, really well. Once in a while I have a little hiccup, what is normal, where I get a little bit anxiety about sleep and, but it doesn't affect me. And I sleep long, I sleep eight to nine hours, usually. So what is great, I feel very rested. The more I calmed down my nervous system, then also my sleep got better. So the better I got, the better the sleep got. Mm-Hmm. when I got sick and would get so, so sick, suddenly the sleep got worse and worse and worse and worse.
[00:41:58] My nervous system was much more hypervigilant and more hypervigilant and got more wound up. And it's like this wind up and so the sleep did the same and got worse and getting better the sleep really got better too.
[00:42:16] Deb: Amazing. I'm glad to hear that. Do you have any parting thoughts? Things that you want to share? Please share like how people can find you and I'll make sure to put that on the show notes as well.
[00:42:28] Petra: Soon you will be able to find me under pain away coach.com.
[00:42:56] Deb: Great. I'm so glad to be in this universe with you and you have so much information and wisdom and enthusiasm and heart that you get to share with people. So thank you.
[00:43:10] Petra: And thank you. This was wonderful. And yeah, I'm so happy I met you and you helped me so much. I mean, that journey was amazing. Absolutely amazing with you. And you are so much in it. I mean, you know it all and you know your stuff. Your support is just incredible.
[00:43:27] Deb: Thank you. I am totally blushing now so thank you. Thank you. I'm going to stop the recording.