Episode 10: Identify our Pain Identities

Rewiring Habits: Overcoming Pain and Redefining Self

In this episode of 'Mind Your Body', Dr. Zev Nevo explores the intricate relationship between habits, pain, and self-identity. He discusses how habitual behavior patterns, particularly those related to movement and posture, can perpetuate physical pain and emotional distress. Dr. Nevo shares insights on the necessity of retraining the body and mind to break free from pain-induced limitations. He emphasizes the importance of self-worth and self-compassion in this journey and encourages listeners to actively engage in life beyond their pain, using the brain's plasticity to cultivate new, empowering narratives.

00:00 Introduction to Mind Your Body

01:08 Understanding Habits and Pain

04:11 The Impact of Posture on Wellbeing

06:28 The Emotional and Mental Effects of Pain

12:01 Redefining Your Relationship with Pain

14:31 Empowering Change and Self-Compassion

16:49 Conclusion and Community Engagement

About Dr. Nevo
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LINKS:

• Body and Mind Pain Center
• Mind Body Rehabilitation
• Substack

Transcript

Transcript

Episode 10 | Identify our Pain Identities

Hey everyone, and welcome back to Mind Your Body. I'm Dr. Nevo. If you tuned in previously, you'll recall that we explored the fundamental nature of habits, how they're formed in the brain, influencing our behaviors, thoughts, and even posture.

We touched on the brain's drive for efficiency and safety in habit formation. Today, while building on that understanding of ingrained patterns, we're shifting our focus to a particularly challenging and important area. How these patterns intertwine with the complex experience of pain and our very sense of self, and how we can begin to reshape them to create a more fulfilling and empowered life.

You know, it's easy to think of habits as purely behavioral. Those routines we consciously perform like your [00:02:00] morning coffee or evening walk, but they extend much deeper shaping how we hold our bodies, our posture, and our movements. Think about it: we develop habitual ways of standing, sitting, or moving.

These patterns can significantly impact our physical wellbeing, sometimes contributing to or perpetuating pain. A compelling example and something that I often see in my practice is how someone with chronic hip pain often develops a limp when they walk.

This altered gait pattern becomes their habitual way of navigating the world. Interestingly, even after we successfully block the pain with an anesthetic injection effectively eliminating the original cause of the limp, the limp often persists. The nervous system in its remarkable, but sometimes misguided [00:03:00] way has learned and reinforced that movement pattern driven by an unconscious anticipation of pain, even when the pain is no longer present.

This in the world of sports medicine and pain management highlights the importance of functional restoration and rehabilitation. It's not enough to simply address the source of pain. We must actively undo those learned , often unhelpful motor patterns. We need to retrain the body for more efficient, balanced, and pain-free movement.

It's about restoring optimal function and breaking free from the limitations imposed by pain. These impaired movement habits, if left unaddressed, can be detrimental, causing excessive energy expenditure leading to earlier fatigue and decreased stamina. They can also, and this is a crucial [00:04:00] point, perpetuate pain, creating a vicious cycle where the movement itself through muscle imbalances or joint stress contributes to ongoing discomfort.

A classic example of this is the upper crossed syndrome, which is characterized by a forward head posture and rounded shoulders. Think about someone who spends a lot of time hunched over a computer, a phone, or even a steering wheel. Over time, this posture can become a habit ingrained in the muscles and in the nervous system, and it can have a cascade of negative effects.

 It restricts breathing, limiting lung capacity and oxygen intake. It impairs core muscle activation, weakening the muscles that support the spine and abdomen, and it contributes to pain in the neck, shoulders, and back, creating tension and imbalance.

It's a habitual [00:05:00] way of holding the body with wide ranging physical consequences. But the influence of posture extends far beyond the physical realm alone. Remember that powerful mind body connection we explore so frequently here? Our habitual ways of holding our bodies profoundly impact our emotional and mental states.

A habit of poor posture with rounded shoulders on a forward head can actually perpetuate feelings of withdrawal, isolation, social disconnection, depression, and a pervasive lack of confidence. The very body language of a closed off posture reinforces these emotions, creating a negative feedback loop. Conversely, adopting a more open and upright posture with relaxed shoulders and a lifted chest is strongly linked to feeling calm, curious, creative, and having a greater sense of [00:06:00] nervous system regulation and overall wellbeing. It's as if the body is signaling to the brain that it's safe to engage with the world to explore, to connect. So as you can see, even something as seemingly automatic as our posture is deeply intertwined with the concept of habits, and it can have far reaching consequences for our physical and our emotional health.

But let's delve even deeper into this complex connection between habits and pain, because it's not just our movement patterns that can become habitual. The very experience of pain itself, especially chronic pain, can create its own set of deeply ingrained patterns that shape our lives in profound and often subtle ways.

Think about it: over time, we can develop ways of [00:07:00] identifying ourselves. We might start to think of ourselves primarily as a "pain patient", or we define ourselves by our specific diagnoses, or in some cases by an ever-growing list of diagnoses or by the ever-growing list of things we believe we are no longer capable of doing because of the pain These labels.

These limitations, these narratives of illness and incapacity repeated day in and day out can shape our self-perception and restrict our sense of possibility. We internalize a story of being someone who is always in pain, someone who is fragile and weak. Someone who is limited.[00:08:00]

Even our well-intentioned pain management routines. Those necessary but often time consuming efforts to alleviate our suffering can become habits that dominate our lives, crowding out other possibilities for experiences and interests. We can get caught in a seemingly endless cycle of doctor's appointments, physical therapy appointments, ordering supplements, scheduling therapies, taking medications, performing specific exercises, all in a relentless effort to avoid pain.

And that avoidance itself becomes the driving force, the central organizing principle of our daily existence. We might find ourselves going for a walk not to mindfully enjoy the beauty of nature, to feel the sun on our skin [00:09:00] and the wind in our hair to experience the simple joy of movement, but solely as a prescribed exercise to prevent a flare up of pain.

It becomes another task on the ever-expanding pain management to-do list another chore to be checked off, devoid of pleasure and spontaneity. And this constant focus on pain and its management can gradually pervade so much of our identity that we begin to forget who we are outside of it. Our world shrinks.

Our horizons narrow and we lose touch with the vibrant, multifaceted individuals we were before pain took center stage. We lose sight of our passions, our hobbies, our interests, our [00:10:00] relationships, the very things that once gave our lives so much meaning and purpose. And here's a challenging but crucial truth to acknowledge something that often requires deep self-reflection, sometimes, dare I say, we can even develop a subtle but powerful fear of a life without pain. Because pain as unwelcome and debilitating as it is, has become our familiar companion in life. It's how we define ourselves. It's what we know, and in some complex and often unconscious ways, it might even fulfill certain needs in our lives.

Pain, unfortunately can sometimes serve as a convenient way to create boundaries with others, [00:11:00] providing a socially acceptable reason to decline invitations, to avoid uncomfortable social situations or to withdraw from responsibilities that we're feeling overwhelmed by, it can offer a seemingly valid excuse to limit our interactions with the world, and let's be honest with ourselves:

Pain can also be a powerful way to elicit attention and nurturing from others. When we are suffering, we often receive compassion, support, and care from loved ones or from strangers. And then a very insidious fear can creep in. The fear of losing that attention if we were to get better. The fear that we are somehow not worthy of love and care unless we are in pain, unless we are perceived as vulnerable and in [00:12:00] need.

But here's the core message I want to impart today: The fundamental truth that I want you to internalize, you are inherently worthy of love. You are inherently worthy of attention, and you are inherently worthy of nurturing simply because you are alive. Because you are a human being. That's your birthright.

Your fundamental entitlement, it's not only the sick you or the you in pain that deserves compassion and care. It's the whole you, the healthy you, the you with all of your quirks, your strengths, your vulnerabilities, your dreams, and imperfections, always and unconditionally. And this profound realization, this deep internal knowing of [00:13:00] your own inherent worthiness begins with believing it yourself.

It starts with learning to love yourself, to accept yourself fully, to recognize that you are enough just as you are right here and right now. You don't need to think, act, behave, or look a certain way to be deserving of love, respect, and belonging. And here's where actionable neuroscience comes in. The brain's plasticity, its remarkable ability to change and adapt is key here. Just as neural pathways strengthen with repeated action, they can also weaken with disuse.

By consistently choosing new thought patterns and behaviors, we can gradually reshape our self-perception and our experience. This process requires a shift in perspective. [00:14:00] Instead of seeing ourselves as passive victims of pain, we can cultivate agency, recognizing our capacity to influence our experience, and rewrite the narrative.

It's about consciously choosing to engage with life beyond the limitations that your pain has imposed. You have the power to redefine your reality, to become the author of your own story, to reclaim your life from the grip of pain. This isn't about denying the reality of pain , but about expanding our identity beyond it.

It's about rediscovering passions, cultivating new interests and nurturing relationships in ways that aren't defined by pain. It's about actively creating a life that is rich with meaning and purpose, a life that reflects your true self and your deepest values. [00:15:00] And this. And this, as many empowering voices emphasize, requires challenging the stories we tell ourselves about our pain and our limitations.

Are they stories of resilience and growth, or stories of limitation and despair? We have the power to consciously rewrite these narratives, focus on our strengths, our progress, and our inherent hope and optimism for a brighter future. So let's stop waiting for the pain to go away before we start living.

Let's start living now and let the pain become a less defining part of our story. And finally, and perhaps most importantly. Let's practice self-compassion throughout this journey. You know, change takes time and effort and setbacks are inevitable. [00:16:00] Treating ourselves with kindness, understanding, and unwavering support is essential for sustainable progress,

something that we emphasize a lot here at The Body and Mind Pain Center. So to summarize, habits extend far beyond simple routines. They shape our physical experience. Our self-perception and our interactions with the world. By recognizing the habitual patterns that pain can create, and by consciously cultivating new ones, we can reclaim our lives and move towards a future that is defined by possibility and resilience rather than limitation and despair.

Thank you so much.