(5 hours) #42 Reduce pain by 2 thirds - Stress & Pain Relief (Jason Newland) (24th September 2022)

Hello and welcome to this pain relief session. Please only listen when you can safely close your eyes but also only listen or watch this video when you know the cause of the physical pain. It's very important to have a diagnosis for that.

I'll give a slight example of a reason. So for example, if someone had appendicitis, they didn't know it was appendicitis and they decided to take the pain away or to reduce the pain. That could be a very bad situation for that person.

So, you know, make sure you know the cause beforehand. Also, if you're watching because you've got any kind of pain in your chest, seek emergency medical attention straight away. Don't just turn this off and do that.

Your health and well-being is more important than, you know, the short term reducing the pain. Yeah, but make sure you know the cause first. So I realize that's a bit heavy to start recording on, but it's important.

So there you go. Now, this recording, this session, and I've done hundreds if not thousands of, well, hundreds of pain relief sessions over the years. I think thousands is a bit too much, but maybe hundreds.

And they all come into different categories. You've got distraction. You've got where you change the physical sensation from one thing to another.

So, and you've got other ones where it's basically relaxation. Because when you relax, your body relaxes, the muscles relax, and you take, you basically just, to start with, you take the edge off, you know, the edge off that physical discomfort is taken off. The more you relax, the more comfortable you feel.

And the more, not just physically, but emotionally. Because the thing is with chronic pain, and this is for chronic pain, not acute pain. For acute pain, see a doctor and get, I mean, you can use these recordings for acute pain, as long as you know the cause.

So acute pain would be like a broken bone. If you just, let's say you broke your hand yesterday, and you're going to be in a lot of pain. I mean, that's just standard.

You've got painkillers, I'm sure. The pain will reduce pretty rapidly over time. It reduces really like every day.

It's a little bit like, I don't know about your country, but where I live, yesterday was the equinox. So it was a 50%, 12 hours light, 12 hours dark. And now, every day leading into the winter, we lose about four to five minutes of light.

So a broken bone is a bit like that. It heals, although it might take six weeks, it heals very quickly, considering your bone is very valuable. But it heals and that physical discomfort that was initially there does reduce quite a lot.

I've had quite a few broken bones, so I know of which I talk. I've never had any major ones though, so I don't know, it might be a lot more different if it's a big, big bone. But I'm sure it is.

So you know, I'm generalizing, we have to generalize in these sorts of situations. We don't have to, but I choose to, yes. So really, you can listen for acute relief, because the relaxation side of things reduces the pain.

And it is another thing. And this isn't my idea, but unfortunately, I'm a little bit of a bookworm. And this is the idea from someone called Milton Erickson.

And he's long dead. He's been dead since about 1980 or something. But he was huge, huge, huge, huge name in hypnosis.

And when it came to pain relief, he said, you break it into three, three thirds. You've got remembered pain. You've got future anticipated pain.

And then you've got the current pain that you're experiencing now. Now, those three thirds make up the 100% of what you're feeling. Because we're thinking about how we felt before.

Because generally, human beings like to feel sorry for themselves. I know I do. And it's natural to sort of like think, oh, I felt this way yesterday.

So I'm going to feel this way tomorrow. And it's going to continue. And then you think about how it was before.

And, and this can be used this this technique, this idea of the three thirds, the past, the future, and now, it's the same with worrying. It's the same with stress and anxiety. And you know, where I'm going with this is kind of obvious.

Nothing you could do about the past, the past is gone. That's not relevant. As far as we can learn, you know, if you've got a problem with your hip or your leg.

And yesterday, you went and you had a delivery, a food delivery, groceries from the supermarket, they delivered the stuff, but you helped the delivery person carry the baskets upstairs to your flat, to your apartment. Now, as something that perhaps caused you a lot of pain, a lot of discomfort that you didn't need to have, because the reason you're getting a delivery is because perhaps, so you don't have to carry stuff up and down those stairs.

So you've caused yourself unnecessary discomfort.

So you can learn from that. So the next week, the future, when you get that delivery, no matter how grumpy that delivery person may be, you let them be grumpy, and you let them carry the stuff upstairs, because that's what you're paying the company to do. That's why you're having the delivery, because you're physically, perhaps, not able to do that yourself.

Now, I talk about this because I have a similar situation. I have arthritis in my lower back, which causes problems. I'm physically strong enough to do stuff, but I feel it afterwards.

So if I was to lift a lot of stuff now, so I could spend 10 minutes lifting stuff and carrying up the stairs, you know, heavy bags of shopping, and then I could spend the next hour and a half in bed, in pain, lying down, wanting, you know, waiting for it to sort of recede. So it's, there's no, it's kind of learning, learning from the past, but the past is gone.

All we have is an opportunity to learn from that.

Especially, you know, let's say we're talking about pain, of course, to learn from that in the sense of, well, what can I do? What can't I do? So I like this idea of the three thirds. That's what this is, this whole recording, really. The three thirds, you get rid of the past, it's not valid anymore.

Okay, you can't experience the past, you can't experience the physical pain from the past, that's gone. The future, the anticipated physical discomfort for tomorrow, that's not valid either, because that's tomorrow, that's next week. So when you focus just on that one third, which is now, this moment now, you've already reduced your pain by two thirds.

So you're now, you got rid of 66.6.6 whatever percent of the pain. So now you've only left with 33, let's say, percent. So you're just left with now, you're not thinking about the future, you're not thinking about the past.

You're not worrying, because let's face it, we don't just worry about the future, we worry about the past as well. I know it seems like weird, but we do, I don't know about you, I do. Sometimes I forget the past has happened, and I am then worrying about it.

Worrying about how I'm going to get through a situation, because I'm thinking about what happened, and then I kind of have to remember like, that's gone. I got through that, or it was really bad, but it's over. Why am I worrying about what I'll do, when the situation's already happened? Now I might be the only person in the whole world that says this, and if I am, then fine.

Well it'd be good if I am, because it means other people aren't doing it. But if you are doing it, stop it. Stop.

And I'll stop it as well. And then that worrying about the future, and this is something worth remembering as well, the power of our mind, and the power of thinking about the future. And when you imagine, if you imagine, and we all do it at times, imagining, for example, for those with chronic pain, you imagine maybe you're going to feel, you're going to be in pain tomorrow.

That's the natural standard way of thinking. And I might imagine what it's going to feel like, and I know what it feels like, because I've had it. This is here now, and it was there yesterday, and the day before, and I can imagine.

And I could feel rubbish about it. I could feel crappy, emotionally almost drained. In fact, it can increase the physical discomfort I have now, just by imagining what it's going to be like tomorrow.

If you tip that on its head, like tip it over, that also works for nice feelings. Ah, so this isn't necessarily a bad technique. It's quite a good natural technique if you use it in a way that's helpful.

So if you imagine tomorrow, waking up and feeling relaxed, because you can remember times in the past, because you think back to the time, you know, you can remember times when you felt pretty good, when you had a good day, when you physically felt calm and relaxed, maybe happy, you had a, you know, there was a lot of nice things happening.

So we have access to that stuff from the past, and then we can look to the future, tomorrow, and say, ah, so if I think about feeling good, think about feeling happy, think and imagine myself um, really with physical sensations that are pleasant, having a good day, I will feel better now. And also there's that rehearsal.

So the more you expect to have those feelings, the more likelihood of you experiencing that and feeling that way tomorrow, because you've rehearsed it. It's like rehearsing a play, you know, and some of you might say, well, it's in your mind, how can that be rehearsing? Well, you know what, they've actually done studies with sports people, like professional sports people, golfers, tennis players, footballers, and they've done rehearsals in their mind.

So the person might, um, they might be in a situation where they might like, might be like an Olympic Games situation, where they kind of shut off, they don't have a chance to rehearse, to practice the way they would normally.

So they rehearse in their minds, you know, using a psychologist and maybe hypnotist, hit the therapist. High success rate, high success rate may surprise you, but you know, how we think affects how we feel. You know that, you don't need me, you don't need some weird man with glasses balding on a YouTube video or on a podcast to tell you that, you know that already.

We all know that really. You know, I think when we're younger and we learn it for the first time, it's not even new, it's like, oh yeah, I knew that. It's like being reminded of something that we already knew, because it's so obvious, it's just ridiculously obvious.

So this idea of the past is gone. So you've got this cake, you take two thirds away and you've got a third left. Now, that's a lot less to deal with.

And it might be a cake, it might be one of those smelly cakes that you don't really want to eat. It's not a horrible cake, but it's, it might, let's say you've got a niece or nephew or something and, and you know that they're bringing it home from school and it's, it's probably not the most hygienic cake that's ever been cooked. And this is terrible, isn't it?

It's like, but instead of having to eat the whole, the whole cookie, the whole cupcake, you only have to eat one third of it.

And you could probably crumble it enough enough so that at least another two thirds of it crumbles onto the floor. So you've only got to have a little bit. See, it's a lot less than the whole thing.

So how does that feel though, when you think about it, when you like really think about it, only one third to deal with. Past is gone, future ain't happened yet. We know that.

You don't need me to tell you that. What? The future hasn't happened. But we act as if we know what's going to happen.

We know what we're going to feel. Oh, I'm going to feel this way. Well, if that's the case, and you're going to rehearse how you feel tomorrow, and you're going to practice in your mind, feeling physically and emotionally reacting to that feeling now.

Why not rehearse feeling good, feeling wonderful, feeling energetic, feeling happy. Because it's all made up. It hasn't happened yet.

It hasn't happened. So whatever you imagine right now about tomorrow is made up. It's all fantasy.

But the physical result, the physical and emotional feelings that you experience feel real. And then there's the past. I mean, it makes sense.

There's a logic to it. Like, well, this happened yesterday. So therefore, it's probably going to happen today.

And if it happens today and yesterday, there's probably, you know, it's obviously it's going to happen tomorrow. There are certain aspects of life that are, you know, you're going to breathe, you breathed yesterday, you're going to breathe today, you're going to breathe tomorrow. You're breathing today, you're going to, you know, you had to eat yesterday.

You're going to have to eat today if you haven't already. And tomorrow you're going to have to eat. So there's certain aspects of life that, yeah, that is true.

You needed to go to the toilet yesterday. Maybe you're in the toilet now, you know, and tomorrow you're going to have to do a poo at some point. Or a wee.

A wee! Yesterday you farted, today you farted, tomorrow you're going to have an even better fart. It's just normal, that's normal stuff. It doesn't mean that, you know, ooh, I tripped over a, I tripped over and nearly fell in a hole yesterday.

It doesn't mean that's going to happen today. Because you learn from it. You're like, well, I'm going to go a different way.

I'm going to avoid that bit of paving that's loose. Or, maybe I'll tell someone so they fix it, you know. So it doesn't mean it's going to happen today, it doesn't mean it's going to happen tomorrow.

A physical feeling, an emotional feeling, especially with something like chronic pain. It happened yesterday. It doesn't mean that you're going to have the same level today.

And whatever level of comfort or discomfort you have today, doesn't mean you're going to have that tomorrow. Because all you need to deal with today is today. The only thing you need to deal with is now.

In fact, it's not even today, it's now. You can start breaking that 33% up into 24 hours. Now my mathematics and fractions will not allow my brain to do that without something going wrong.

There will be smoke coming out of my ears if I try to figure that one out. 33.3% divided by 24, nope, not going to happen. So you only deal, and that's an hour.

So an hour is made up of minutes. So 60 minutes, then you've got 60 seconds in each minute. Now, I am very aware at the moment of how many seconds are in a minute, because I've just, I was on a long flight recently.

12 hour flight. Now you get to know how long a minute is, when you're stuck on a plane in the middle of two people. And you can't really move for 12 hours.

You get very intimately in touch with that every minute, but not every minute. But there's times when you literally do notice that a minute lasts for quite a long time. Because there's that time distortion connected with if you're doing something perhaps you're not enjoying.

So that's the weird thing about my videos, they go so quickly. But then sometimes if you go on YouTube, you watch a video only lasts for four minutes, and it seems to go on forever. Although you might find that mine goes on forever as well.

I don't know. No idea. I can't tell.

So you're only dealing with not only you only dealing with 33% of the physical feelings feelings today is broken up. So you're only dealing with a tiny percentage in any one moment. I'd like you to absorb that idea.

And so and this is real, this is reality. This isn't made up stuff. This is just standard.

You can't really argue with it. I mean, you could argue with it, but I'm not going to listen. And what's the point in arguing? When's argue never got you anywhere, apart from when when it has.

So notice how you feel right now. Notice how you feel in this moment. And just spend more time getting in touch with how you feel just in the moment.

Without thinking about the past or thinking about the future. Think about how you did feel or how you will feel. Just focusing on how you feel now.

Just being aware. And remembering some of the things I've said, you know, the fact that if we rehearse feeling a certain way, we rehearse in our minds, then we can choose how we not only how we feel tomorrow, but we can choose how we feel now. Because if you're rehearsing feeling good and feeling relaxed and feeling calm, feeling positive, you feel better, you feel more relaxed and more positive and more calmer and more relaxed and more able to realize and maybe have more of a sense of of an ability to make changes within yourself that perhaps you weren't weren't totally aware of.

You may have been, you may have known, you might have thought about it, but you might not have really believed that you really can make a change to how you feel within yourself quite easily. And I know that listening to someone like me waffling on can at times be useful, hopefully, because that's why I'm doing it. And you might think that I've waffled on and where am I going with this?

And you're talking about the past and you talk about the future.

But as you've been focusing on my voice and as you've been focusing on some of the words I've said, maybe you've given a lot of attention to what I've said. There's the conscious learning and there's the unconscious learning. There's suggestions within this and really it's about how useful it is for you to benefit.

How much do you benefit? How much more relaxed do you feel? That's the bottom line. And you can do a little body scan and scan your mind, close your eyes if they're not closed already. Just get in touch with how you feel and notice perhaps how you feel different to the way you felt before you decided to listen to my voice.

And that gives you more of a grounding, more of a sense of how you can make changes within yourself so that you can feel more comfort, so that you can feel more relaxed more of the time, not just physically but emotionally. Because when you physically feel more relaxed, you emotionally feel more relaxed. And then when you emotionally feel more relaxed, yep, you physically feel more relaxed.

And it's a continuous thing. It goes the other way as well. So when you focus on feeling more comfort, then that's what you're going to get more of.

You're going to get more relaxation, more of a sense of peacefulness within your mind. And that trickles down into your body through your nervous system, relaxes your muscles, and allows you to have a more positive outlook on your life. So it gives you a break, you know, it gives you a little bit of space where you start to think differently and notice that you're not just one thing.

It's more to you. You're a creative human being with so many skills so many things to offer the world, your friends and yourself. So many wonderful qualities that maybe sometimes you forget.

And it's worth remembering. In fact, I would say it's imperative that you remember. Now I don't normally use words like imperative.

I don't normally, I don't like to use words I can't spell. So I use important. I think I can spell that one.

Yeah. Remember to get in touch with what an amazing person you are. Now you might think, why am I saying that? I don't know who you are.

You don't know me. Well, everybody has helped others. Everybody watching this video, listening to this podcast has helped other people.

Everybody. We've all made a difference to other people's lives. Sometimes, obviously, you know, in a way that you can like say, well, yeah, I saved that person's life or I helped them out financially or whatever, gave them a job, gave them somewhere to live, gave them food.

But, you know, sometimes it's on a smaller level that can grow. So how do you know someone might be walking into a petrol station and they're literally is they're feeling like it's the worst day of their life and they really don't know what to do next and they're feeling a very bad way. And you might open the door for them or say hello to them, or they might have dropped their wallet and you pick the wallet out and say you dropped your wallet.

So, you know, something just really simple. And these kind of things do happen. There's something like that, a small gesture to you might feel like nothing, but to them, it may actually be the difference that makes the difference.

I'm just going to leave it at that. It might really make a huge difference to their life because they needed some kindness, some human interaction, some human kindness, something to move them away from perhaps the direction they were going, either physically or mentally or emotionally. So we have all helped other people in and we're never going to know how much.

We're never going to know. So that's why I say that you deserve to be happy and you deserve to give yourself time and to remember that you've helped lots of people. So I don't just say it for sake of it.

I thought I actually thought this through. I genuinely have. I can talk for an hour about this.

And I have. And my stomach's rumbling, which means it's probably time for food. Yay.

I'm going to have some scones. I live a very full life. So.

Although this has been chatty, it's been very chatty. I've not necessarily given you a technique per se of what you call me per se. I've not said do this, do this, do this, do this, think this, blah, blah.

But I have given you some ideas. And some of that stuff, because you know what? It only takes one idea to transform your entire life. And I'm not saying that I've got that idea.

It's not necessarily going to come from me. It might come from reading a book. It might it might come from watching a television program.

It might come from hearing a small child talk to their smaller sibling. You know, it just could be a small, a tiny little bit of kindness can have a huge effect. On us, you know.

I remember this is not really necessarily relative, but. In 1994. I was sitting in my living room with my friend, Andre, who I later named my ferret, my little boy, Andre.

But anyway, excuse my best friend at the time. And we were. Andre was going and buying and getting toast and he was bringing toast into the living room and I was eating some of it, but the dog, we had a dog, was wanting some of the toast.

So I had half and I gave half to the dog. And it dawned on me that that's the most natural thing in the world to do. The dog wants some toast.

So if someone's hungry, we feed them. Now, I know this isn't a breakthrough idea. This isn't going to change the world.

But. It changed a bit of my thinking, a bit of my selfishness, a bit of it opened up my mind a bit more towards helping others and not because for any gain, but. Because that's what we should do.

Not everybody. Now, I'm not here to tell anyone what to do. But it's just helping other people is.

And animals as well, you know, is the most. Kind of important thing that I think we can do in the world. That's just my perspective.

That's just my. And that's why I do this. In case you're wondering.

Plus, I like boring people. It makes me chuckle inside the idea that someone watches me, listens to me for, you know, half an hour or an hour and probably falls asleep. Because I do the Let Me Bore You To Sleep podcasts.

And I'm not sure if I'm the most boring person in the world, but I'm probably top 10. A couple of those are probably politicians. So thank you for listening.

And just allow some of those ideas to absorb. But then you don't have to give permission for the for what your mind takes in because it will take what it needs. And sometimes I find that I read something or hear something and it keeps replaying.

Because it means something to me. Something that's useful. I can't give you an example of that because there was there was one a while ago.

Can't remember what it is now. But there was one years ago and it was someone sent me a card and it says you got two choices in life. You can be right or you can be happy.

Can't be both. You can choose to be right or choose to be happy. And that stayed with me for years.

This still is with me, I guess. And this is from like 12 years ago. Anyway, thank you for listening.

Remember to be kind to yourself because you deserve to be happy. And there are more of these pain relief recordings coming. And there will be techniques, there will be all kinds of things.

But I also do ramble on. And that is my way of doing things. So not for everyone.

It's not gonna be for everyone. But it's what I do. So if you if you like this way of doing things, then I'm the person for you.

It's not I'm trying to sell myself here. Come buy me, please buy me. No, don't buy me.

Take care. Lots of love. Bye.