In this episode of the PRT Podcast, therapist and host John Gasienica sits down with Vanessa Blackstone, Executive Director of the Pain Psychology Center and co-author of The Pain Reprocessing Therapy Workbook, for a candid, compassionate conversation about one of the biggest roadblocks to healing: perfectionism. They explore the real-life journey of Jaycie, a nurse and mom grappling with chronic pain, burnout, and the relentless pressure to keep it all together. Through Jaycie’s story, we learn how urgency, self-criticism, and emotional suppression fuel nervous system dysregulation—and how accessing self-compassion (the real kind, not the bubble bath kind) can begin to reverse it. Vanessa and John break down the science of freeze responses, why joy and creativity are essential for recovery, and how to start speaking to yourself the way you would speak to someone you love. Vulnerable, funny, and refreshingly honest, this episode is a must-listen for anyone stuck in cycles of pain and pressure.
Perfectionism, pressure, and the belief that we’re never “enough” are some of the most overlooked drivers of chronic pain and today’s episode digs deep into how to break that cycle.
Therapist John Gasienica and special guest Vanessa Blackstone explore the emotional patterns behind nervous system dysregulation through the story of Jaycie, a nurse and mom dealing with chronic pain and burnout. They uncover how early life messages, people-pleasing, and emotional suppression (especially around anger and rest) keep us stuck and how to begin softening those patterns with real, grounded self-compassion.
Vanessa also shares personal reflections on grief and healing, and the episode walks listeners through somatic and visualization tools to begin shifting pain from the inside out.
John Gasienica: [00:00:00] Welcome back to another episode of the PRT Podcast where we teach actual patients how to heal from chronic symptoms and break down the tools they use. My name is John Gasienica. I'm a therapist and the director of clinical research and Development at the Pain Psychology Center in Los Angeles. Perhaps you've noticed a trend in the episodes we've done so far.
Each patient reaches out for treatment because something is getting in the way of their full recovery. Today's patient is no exception, and what's keeping her stuck is one of the most pervasive barriers to getting better. The barrier I'm talking about has many names. You can call it perfectionism or having high standards or even self-critical pressure, whatever you want to call it.
This experience of never feeling settled with what you have or who you are puts the nervous system in a tremendous state of hypersensitivity. Oddly enough, you can often go decades operating under these conditions with very little ramifications. But if you push yourself hard enough and for long enough, eventually something starts to break down.
The warning [00:01:00] might start with anxiety or panic attacks or insomnia. For some, it's a slow, gradual increase in the feeling that they just can't relax, and for others, it's a sudden injury that refuses to heal. This episode is about reversing this overwhelming trend and finding a path toward a realistic, authentic no BS version of self-compassion.
Luckily, I have an amazing therapist by the name of Vanessa Blackstone. Joining me today to break it all down. As always, the PRT podcast is brought to you by the pain or processing therapy center, a training center where thousands of doctors, therapists, nurses, and coaches have learned how to treat and eliminate their patients chronic conditions.
If you'd like to become a PRT practitioner and support the podcast, use coupon code Heal 10 to get 10% off training@painreprocessingtherapy.com. Now before we get started, a brief disclaimer. This podcast is presented solely for general information and entertainment purposes and is not intended as a substitute for the advice of a physician, psychotherapist, or other professional healthcare service.[00:02:00]
If you have specific medical concerns or questions, please contact your personal healthcare provider. Now, let's meet my guest for today's show.
All right, so joining me today is Vanessa Blackstone. Vanessa is a therapist and the executive director of the Pain Psychology Center. She's also the co-author of the Pain Reprocessing Therapy Workbook and will be featured at the Annual Association for the Treatment of Neuroplastic Symptom Conference this fall in Boulder, Colorado.
Vanessa is an inspiration to be around, not only as a therapist, but a human being who has always found ways to be very successful without sacrificing authenticity, self-compassion or expression. Vanessa, thank you so much for being here today.
Vanessa Blackstone: Thank you. My God, that was so nice. I appreciate that so much.
John Gasienica: Of course. So the patient we're gonna be talking about today, she displays a thought pattern I often see in myself in so many of my patients. She has this habit of feeling like [00:03:00] she's not good enough or she's not accomplishing enough. Why do you think thought patterns like this drive so much nervous system dysregulation?
Vanessa Blackstone: Geez. Um, well, in reality, it constantly feels like we're on a treadmill. It doesn't matter what you do, how much effort you put into how much you achieve, if it never feels like enough, you are just running in the same place or else it feels like you are. Mm-hmm. Right. And oftentimes when we're talking about nervous system dysregulation, right, you, the signals that your nervous system are sending you, or that as we know that you're in danger.
If you never get to enough a k, A, you never get to that perceived safety. You are all right, always running on the treadmill of danger, right? And that's just quite simply what continues to fuel the symptoms that we feel in our body.
John Gasienica: Do you notice this? How chronic symptoms can make these thought patterns even more intense?
It can become a spiral.
Vanessa Blackstone: Yeah. I mean. The urgency that we already feel to do more in our [00:04:00] life, right? It, it fuels the urgency that we feel with our symptoms, right? If we feel like we don't have the opportunity to slow down in life, because slowing down is dangerous, it's seen as not doing enough. How the hell are we gonna slow down with symptoms that really are calling us to tend to ourselves in more of a compassionate way.
John Gasienica: Do you feel like you were able to learn how to slow yourself down through your symptoms?
Vanessa Blackstone: I mean, if I hadn't learned that I, I would not be where I am now. There's no way. Like I, I think honestly that was the hardest thing for me in my own journey, is getting to a place where it was okay to sit down and, I don't know, watch a TV show without feeling like I had to fold laundry at the same time or send an email, right?
All these little subtle ways in which I go a million miles a minute, or just fueling my nervous system's belief that I have to operate at this capacity. Like I, I really believed it. I believed that [00:05:00] if I didn't, that I wasn't going to do enough. But the more that I operated that way, the more that I was reinforcing that message and the more that I'm reinforcing that message, the harder of a time that I was going to have in approaching my symptoms in any different way.
John Gasienica: I'm so excited to have you here today 'cause I think a lot of people struggle with this issue and just to learn from you of how you come out the other end and how it can affect your pain journey. I'm really excited to show you this clip of a patient I worked with named JC and she's dealing with these issues that you've, you've been speaking about.
So let's take a listen.
I know in our console call we talked about, I think there was. Pain in the hips while you're sleeping? What are some of those sharp pains that you feel?
Jaycie: Yeah, the hip pain, that was sort of at the beginning. Now it's more like just around my low back. Um, very, like something is like squeezing knee tight pain
John Gasienica: and tell me what, what was going on in your life.
Stress wise when, [00:06:00] when this pain started.
Jaycie: Um, so yeah, it's been almost two years. I'm a nurse. I'd worked at, um, a home health agency for quite a while. They ended up closing that home health agency. Mm-hmm. Which is a big bummer. I'd had plans to start nurse practitioner school. Um, and so it really just sort of.
Took up a lot of my plans and I started a new job. I was really like going to the gym super early and then coming home and, you know, not taking the time to stretch or anything after intense workouts, getting in the car, going to work, um, and living that life. So there was a lot of just like upheaval, I would say.
John Gasienica: What are those workouts? What do they look like?
Jaycie: Um, at that time I was doing, um, CrossFit, I mean, on the. Lower end of the intensity. Just don't think I'm some like amazing weightlifter. But you know, that in itself is sort of a stressful workout. You know, like, oh yeah, you definitely like pushing yourself.
John Gasienica: Did you like it? Did you enjoy doing it?
Jaycie: Um, [00:07:00] that's a great question. Yes and no. I mean, I definitely was dragging myself there. Like it was hard to get up early, which is something I used to do all the time. Um. Uh, no, to be honest, I mean, I did like it. I love the people. I love how I felt when I was done, but it felt stressful and sort of as I was doing it, I was sort of like, uh, I don't know if this is right for you right now.
For whatever reason, I felt like I needed to force myself to keep
John Gasienica: doing it. What do you think was the reason that you kept doing it?
Jaycie: Well, I mean, it is a great way to get in shape. It's like you just go in and you do it and you're done. I think I was feeling like I needed to get back ahead of the eight ball As far as like my fitness, you know, I, I like those intense workouts.
I think that I had done those previously. I just think that the timing may not have been right and I really wasn't listening to myself.
John Gasienica: What was work like at this time.
Jaycie: Work was, let's see, I was a school nurse at this point, so [00:08:00] I was just trying to get my head around this job change. Um, so, um, I was sort of bitter to be honest.
Yeah. You know, there was a lot of great things about it, but I was just, you know, I've worked like a nursing schedule for a long time, which is not five days a week, so I was working five days a week and I was sort of bitter about that. Yeah. I was having a hard time adjusting.
John Gasienica: Gosh, this sounds like a difficult period.
You have this bitterness at work. You're waking up at 5:00 AM and kind of forcing yourself to do something you're not really loving.
Jaycie: Mm-hmm.
John Gasienica: What was fun in your life at that time?
Jaycie: Another great question. Um, you know, it sort of that, like that period started to be sort of a dark period for me. You know, it's interesting.
I had my schedule where I had time to, you know, ride my bike, walk my dogs do just like very simple, lovely pleasures I've had for a long time. And I didn't have that anymore. Um, so I, I mean, I have fun just, you know, [00:09:00] fooling around with my kids and things like that. But yeah, there was, I wouldn't say I was having a lot of fun.
John Gasienica: Mm-hmm. And it sounds like you were also grappling with this decision of, do I go back to school?
Jaycie: Yeah.
John Gasienica: That was putting a lot of pressure on you. This period just seems really heavy. It just seems like there wasn't too much, uh, joy or lightness coming through. It seems like a lot of things were kind of just piling on top.
Is that a fair assessment?
Jaycie: It is. It is. Yeah. It is fair. Mm-hmm.
John Gasienica: What's your initial reaction when you hear a patient, uh, talk about a period like this? Oh
Vanessa Blackstone: my gosh. Well, first of all, it's relatable. It's so relatable. She's going through such a stressful time, and what we often do is we default to the same urgency that we are experiencing, the same urgency that we've always experienced, maybe from the people that raised us, maybe from just the way that we've lived our life and been rewarded for.
We just transfer it from one thing to the next over and over and over again. [00:10:00] And when we're in a stressful period, we usually don't take that as a time to gauge. Um, what we need and where we are at. And take a step back. We just slammed down the gas pedal, right? So when I heard her. Talking about what she's gone through.
I mean, even the exercise that she's defaulting to that, something in her is saying, Ugh, I don't really wanna do this. She's doing it. Why? Because urgency, right? The only way that we know to respond to life sometimes
John Gasienica: it's funny, whenever I hear a, a patient talk about CrossFit, my alarm bells go like a little off of not, not that it's a bad thing, I know plenty of people love it, but it's just an instance of something that people tend to push at.
When they don't need to be pushing. I know during COVI had this mindset of like, well, I'm not having the fun I want to be having, so I might as well just make everything a self-improvement project and just buckle down on productivity and it never works for me. Uh, what are some of the alarm bells you get when you're pushing yourself too hard?
Vanessa Blackstone: Gosh. Um, well first of all, [00:11:00] when JC was talking, there is this subtle urgency that she is experiencing and if I can feel it in my body as she's talking, I can't even imagine what she must be feeling in hers. Right. So, uh, again, I relate to it in so many ways, right? And that sense of urgency is just. What we feel on a foundational level, right?
Um, my own alarm bells, like I just panic, right? I get headaches, I get vertigo symptoms, I get really hot. That's my tall tale sign of like feeling like a really big alarm bell. So it shows up as these symptoms. But it also shows up as like an urgency to fix. Mm. An urgency to keep doing more again, to do like two or three, or sometimes even four things at once.
Right? I start to get really forgetful. I will drop things, so I, I will have all different ways in which my alarm bells start to fire off and just had to work to be really familiar with those over time. So here we are.
John Gasienica: I feel the same way myself is, you don't have to change your personality [00:12:00] completely.
You just gotta get maybe 10, 15% better at noticing the signs and Totally. And adjusting properly. I think I have a lot of patients who come in and think like I have to essentially be like the Dalai Lama to get outta pain. Yeah. And it's just not. True, not true. And take that from from two pretty neurotic type A people talking right now.
Vanessa Blackstone: Absolutely. You can do this. I remember the story that you told me, and I used this with my clients about that one time that you were out there in the water surfing and your shoulder was bugging you and you kept just paddling through and paddling through and kept falling and got back up and paddled through, and eventually you were like, what am I doing?
You just stopped. You were like, I had to just. Stop and it's so hard, right? Mm-hmm. To get yourself off of that treadmill. Yeah. You want to keep running and I get it like continuing to run feels like you're doing something. Stopping entirely and taking a pause feels like you're doing nothing, which does what?
It reinforces that we're not doing enough, that there's something wrong with us, but [00:13:00] language is everything. And I'll totally talk more about flipping that script of language. 'cause the language that we use is so powerful and it shapes the way in which we see that urgency.
John Gasienica: So we know now that JC has a tendency to put pressure on herself, but it can be really helpful to specifically see what's causing that pressure.
And one other thing I wanted to check on you, you'd mentioned, I think you used the terminology like being behind the eight ball is one of the reasons you were doing CrossFit. Tell me about that.
Jaycie: There's so many ways to live life, right? I mean. I think that I, um, have my kids, I have my husband, you know, I've always worked and done.
I had my career, but it hasn't really been the forefront of, of my life. And so I think I was kind of feeling like, okay, I'm like 40. I old, I was 42. Like feeling for the first time [00:14:00] the span of my life, right? I mean, that you don't, you can't explain it when you're younger. And I know 42 is still very young, but.
For the first time, I kind of felt like, gosh, like this could get away from me and maybe I won't do all the things that I want to do, which what even are those things?
John Gasienica: I can feel the weight of that. Even when you said that.
Jaycie: Mm-hmm.
John Gasienica: And I know in our consult call the idea of perimenopause has come up. How does that come into this idea of wanting to get the things you want to get done in your life?
Jaycie: I mean, again, you hear people talk about it and you really to, you think maybe you won't feel like that way when it's your turn and then it is your turn and it is so powerful. I mean, it's just been, yeah, it has been an interesting process to kind of like come to terms with my. The path I've lived and then just like seeing kind of where I want to go.
I can feel the changes like viscerally.
John Gasienica: And how does that get in [00:15:00] the way of what you wanna do or what you still wanna do with your life or accomplish
Jaycie: for these last couple years, I've been sort of stuck, is the best way I can describe it. I mean, I just feel like, what am I doing? Where am I going? Like, this doesn't feel great, but like what do I wanna do?
Like what am I willing to give up? Um, where should I be? You know, like all of those things. So I think that the, the stuckness is what sort of gets in in the way. Totally.
John Gasienica: So many times people describe. Their pain experience as a frozen experience. If you think of this in the, in the polyvagal lens, you kind of have your baseline setting.
Then the next row down is your fight or flight. Mm-hmm. And then below that is a freeze mode. And what we find is that often when people are in this fight or flight state, and it doesn't have to be this big trauma, it can just be consistently in that fight or flight state. Eventually the body just.
Defaults down one level, [00:16:00] down to that frozen state. And it sounds like that might have been the pattern. Does it feel like you were in a fight or flight state for quite a while?
Jaycie: Uh, yeah, I think so. I mean, I think just modern life feels a little bit fight or flight, you know? Yeah. And then I am a freezer, I'm a ruminator and a freezer.
And so it would sort of make sense that that's like where my body would go. I mean, it's like been the ultimate freeze, right?
John Gasienica: So this is something I see a lot lately with clients. This sense of like, I'm stuck, but I don't really know what I want to be doing. Almost like this undefinable sense that. You're falling behind, but you don't really know where to catch up. Why do you think that's so common in today's world?
Vanessa Blackstone: I wish I had a sim card in my brain so that I could like take it out and play back all the sessions that I've had with my client so that you can hear her story in [00:17:00] the same way over and over again.
Because I'm listening to her, I'm like, oh, I feel like I hear this and feel this every single day. And I wish we could show our clients that so that they know like you're not. Alone. I know it sucks, but you're not alone. At least, you know, um, we are not incentivized to take care of ourselves. I'll ask a client like, what were you taught, um, when you needed a break or felt overwhelmed?
What were you taught when you felt anxious? Or what were you, how were you responded to when you fell down as a kid? I was taught though, like, you're fine. You're okay. You're fine. Come on, get up. Right. It was kind of like this. Oh my. Oh, okay. I feel pain, but I, I'm fine. Okay. And you're seeming anxious, but I'm okay.
I guess I'm, I guess I'm fine. And just keep going. Just go play. Right. That, that was my messaging, right. The pressure to just get through it and anxious response of you are fine. And just keep going. Right. And so those early messages get ingrained, right? We are just not incentivized to take care of ourselves.
We get more [00:18:00] out of powering through. We literally, we get more at our, in our work, right? Get, we get rewarded more. We get seen and labeled as, you're so strong and you're so resilient. Wow. All of these things we're like, oh, okay. Like I'm, why would, why would I do the opposite? Like, I'm not doing anything different because I get called strong for this.
But then inside we're like, ah. I'm, I feel like I'm crumbling, but it's not matching what people are telling me. It's not matching the way in which I'm being rewarded. It's not even matching the way in which my body is looking 'cause it's looking great. This CrossFit and the things that I'm doing, like I'm seeing the results.
Why would I stop? We are not incentivized to pull over this metaphorical car as it's overheating. And to tend to it on the side of the road. 'cause we see people whizzing on by. But the thing is, is those people have to stop too. They might not be stopping where you're stopping, but I promise you those people that we see and put on a pedestal, they have to stop too.[00:19:00]
We all do. We just, we're not incentivized to do that. And we don't see other people stopping along the way because we're so preoccupied with our own urgency.
John Gasienica: So we know now that JC is feeling this. Pressure to break out of the stuck feeling. One of the better ways to break this pattern of not just pain, but also anxiety and depression, is to start engaging in things you like to do.
So I wanna see what's getting in the way of JC engaging in protective activities
at that period. What would it have meant to just, instead of waking up at five in the morning to go do CrossFit, do something you like to do, or maybe get some sleep, what would've gotten in the way of. Of you doing that?
Jaycie: I think that in a way, like the getting up early and going to work out, like it's all part of like creating a, a persona in a way, or creating, you know, this person that I think sort of.
I was that person, but I think that person might've sort [00:20:00] of left. I was really trying to sort of bring that back. Yeah. And
John Gasienica: what, what is that per that idealized person that you're chasing? Who, who does she look like? How does she act? What's her vibe?
Jaycie: So, yeah, like going back right when I was Earl in my twenties, I had an eating disorder.
You know, I don't have any of those behaviors anymore, but I think that like there is still. There's like just body image things, right? Like you want to be a certain way or, um, look a certain way, and I don't know, it's a little bit of an armor, I think, to have like all the, all of that sort of figured out, you know?
John Gasienica: Totally. Yeah. Tell me about that armor. What does that mean for you?
Jaycie: I think that, um, if you're a freezer, if you're a person who like keeps to themself, I don't really like to show my underbelly, and so part of. Keeping that closed is all of these sort of, um, how do I describe it? Like hard exterior [00:21:00] things.
So I think that, you know, the more you, the outside looks okay, then you know, maybe that will translate to the inside, but. I think it's an inside job, actually. I think you're
John Gasienica: right.
Jaycie: Right.
John Gasienica: So yeah, if I'm hearing you correctly like this, going CrossFit or, or being in incredible shape and being this person who wakes up at five 30, you know, almost like the CEO type, uh, schedule.
You give the appearance, like you have it figured out. You kind of put more of an armor on. People don't question what you're doing. Where did you learn to create this armor? What were you protecting yourself from?
Jaycie: I think that I somehow just had a hard time being in the world and being myself, you know?
Of course there were things when I was young, like nothing crazy. But, um, I think that I just had a hard time showing up and dropping that armor and just being,
John Gasienica: I could imagine it's felt daunting if you said, like you kind of always felt like this. You have [00:22:00] a hard time showing up in the world. And what's some of the feedback you've gotten from other people that.
Reinforces this feeling like you need to keep your armor up.
Jaycie: Um, I don't know if I have a great answer for that. I mean, I feel like, right, I mean, the world always rewards like thin, beautiful people, so, or like, you know, people that have a certain, like togetherness, people always kind of complimented for that.
But I don't know if it's something that the world is asking of me or it's just something I created for myself, you know?
John Gasienica: Yeah. Well, luckily you don't have to be this, um, super idealized person to get out of pain. You don't have to be super open. You don't have to get rid of all of these shields. But I think for your case, this is probably the most important thing to focus on, is feeling more at ease and more relaxed and just more stable in the idea of like, I'm in this current moment.
I'm perfectly fine as I am right now. I see you shaking your head. What, what comes across [00:23:00] when I say that?
Jaycie: It's just, um. Yeah, it's really beautiful and it's totally true, and I think that, I mean, I've sort of known this whole time that no matter what was causing this pain, even though it's been like really hard, it also feels like it's for a reason.
You know? Like something needs to be known. Something needs to shift.
John Gasienica: So, Vanessa, when you're not feeling so great about yourself, who's the idealized person you imagine being? Or you want to be?
Vanessa Blackstone: I think, I imagine being somebody that never has to stop, like as if that's possible. As I said before, like everybody has their stopping point down the road. We all do, but I picture this person that's actually like not real, this way of functioning that's not real, and I know that cognitively, but sometimes it doesn't click for us emotionally.
Right? First of all, when JC said that it's an inside job. I was giggling so much because [00:24:00] sometimes I'll tell myself in the most compassionate way, like, girl, the call is coming from inside the house. Okay, it's you. Right? It's, it's inside. It's inside this home. And I know that we want it to be something or someone else, but it's happening in here and we have to work to recognize that this is a part of the way in which we operate for better or for worse.
And my grandfather just died. And, um, you know. Death is such a, a hard thing to navigate in general, just as a human being. But I find it to be really tricky when you're somebody that just wants to power through so badly, and that's what I found myself doing. The moment that it happened, I found myself so badly just wanting to be okay.
But you know what was so beautiful about the experience is that this person meant so much to me that. I knew trying to be okay [00:25:00] was not actually going to be in service of how much it hurt that he was now gone. And it was almost like showing up for myself was a way to like honor him as painful as it is, and even doing it now, being aware of just how warm my hands are and how shaky my breath feels and how high I am sitting up and maybe that I need to drop my belly and my shoulders just a little bit more.
Is the best way that I, or we can show up for ourselves in these moments when you just wanna be able to get through, but there's something in you saying like, I can't, Hmm. And I need you to take a breath and pause and pull your car over and to know that it's totally okay. If you do that, you're not missing anything.
You're absolutely not helping yourself in the way that you think you are. And when I hear JC talk, I'm like, gosh, she's literally so strong. Like I feel it. And I'm so like amazed by her and her insight in so many [00:26:00] ways. I almost just wanna like give her a hug and. Tell this like beautiful younger self of her, that she is so incredible and that she gives so much to others and she's so cool and she's smart and she's beautiful, and I just wonder if she can give that to herself.
Hmm. Like we encourage all of our clients to do. And honestly, like I'm trying to give to myself right now, like I'm just trying to show up for this like little girl who's really sad that her grandpa died and just be okay with taking care of that and knowing. This will help us tend to this overheating vehicle so that we can keep going forward, and we have to change the script on that so that we know it's okay to show up.
John Gasienica: Why do you think it's so easy to think about it for other people and so much harder to give it to ourselves?
Vanessa Blackstone: Hmm. Well. Because I think that's, again saying it, we understand it cognitively, and when we see people outside of ourselves, we see their sweet and vulnerable and powerful [00:27:00] sides so clearly. But to flip that around for ourselves is so challenging because oftentimes, again, we're not taught to do that.
There's not a class for this in school, but there's a class for everything else that you won't freaking use. You know, we are not taught this stuff, so we cannot be expected to know it. That's where the compassion comes in, like, give yourself a freaking break. You cannot be expected to know how to do this unless.
I don't know. Unless your parents were these like incredibly skilled therapists and even then statistically, I think therapist parents are not like the best parents. I don't know it, I I heard that. I might be wrong. Don't quote me, but I,
John Gasienica: I believe it. Yeah. Right.
Vanessa Blackstone: Like that they were almost like. Too analytical about all the emotion stuff that it's annoying and their kids are like, Ugh, get away from me.
John Gasienica: Yeah, enough, yeah.
Vanessa Blackstone: But I, I just think that like, we are just human. That's why. And it's so hard to flip the script and to turn it towards ourselves. And it's, and it's okay.
John Gasienica: [00:28:00] So in that last clip, I heard some emotion coming up in jc, so I wanted to take advantage of this window where it seems like her shields are coming down a bit and just see what we can find underneath.
This is often where we can start finding some of the answers that are hidden in that unconscious of why the client feels so stuck. So let's take a listen.
Let's take advantage of this, a little emotion poking through right now. I want you to just close your eyes if it feels comfortable, and I want you to just notice where you feel that sadness coming up right now in your body.
Jaycie: It's just like right here in my chest and my throat. Good.
John Gasienica: Let's see if we can work with that.
Part of letting your shield down is letting your brain know that whatever's underneath it is totally okay, and I want you to push that sensation you feel in your chest and your throat out in front of you a little bit. Not to get rid of it, but just to get a little distance from it. [00:29:00] This is just a piece of you
and I want you to ask her, what are you upset about? What are you feeling sad about right now?
Jaycie: I was just talking with one of my best friends this morning and we have these great conversations and she was telling me what her therapist says to her sometimes is like, who cares? And that's like what kept coming up for me is just like, who cares?
Like, what is this dog paddling you're doing? You know?
John Gasienica: See if you can ask that piece of you. Why are you paddling so hard and not in a judgmental way.
Jaycie: I mean, I think I am just afraid to be seen.
John Gasienica: I tell that piece of you, of course you're afraid to be seen. It's okay. There's nothing that you said that is wrong.
The world does celebrate thin, powerful, wealthy, whatever you want to call it, [00:30:00] people. You have every right to feel nervous and just let this piece of, you know, you're with her on this one and give that piece of you the respect it deserves. Of course you feel scared. And how does that feel? Feels really good.
Jaycie: It just sort of, um, take the pressure off of like.
Not trying to feel anything or do anything or change anything.
John Gasienica: You know, I think for a long time there's been this almost battle in your brain between this piece of U that's very sensitive and this other piece of U that has almost like this unstoppable force of trying to manipulate the external world or fix things.
They've almost been at odds. This PC that's like, I'm, I'm very, very afraid right now. So the pc, this is no, get up at five o'clock, go to CrossFit. And that internal conflict is [00:31:00] what causes so much distress. 'cause neither of them win in that moment.
Jaycie: It's almost more scary, honestly, to take the like softer way.
What fears come up with that? I guess just that I wouldn't, I didn't like do enough or didn't, you know, like live up to my potential or.
John Gasienica: I want you to close your eyes and I want you to focus on any of that little sadness that's still there, any of that heaviness
and visualize this piece of you. This is your emotional brain, and I want you to ask that part of you, how does it feel when I tell you that you haven't lived up to your potential? You're not doing enough that you're gonna look back on this experience and say, we didn't put enough effort in. How does that piece of you feel when you say that?
Jaycie: It's just not, it's not true. You know? There's just so much. I mean, yeah, you get to choose where you put [00:32:00] your effort, you know? It doesn't have to be like grueling, taken out.
John Gasienica: Vanessa, why do you think when JC. Provides herself with a little compassion, a little bit of empathy. She's able to start seeing the flaws in her self-criticism.
Vanessa Blackstone: Well, the armor is down, right? I mean, she was able to kind of take it off, set it down. She doesn't have to throw it away. She can just set it next to her and say, just in this moment.
I'm just gonna set this down so that I can really look at what's happening here. Right. And that's what she did. And it reminded me of when I was graduating from grad school, from from USC and I. I was so miserable at graduation because I was preparing to start the PhD program, and all I wanted to do was just get through the graduations that I could get to the next thing that I felt like was finally [00:33:00] enough.
And in that moment I was like navigating a post semester cold. I got sick like many of us do after every single semester. Anytime you have a break, you get sick, right? Um, I had a crazy migraine, really bad pelvic floor and IBS symptoms and my neck was on fire and all I wanted to do was just get this over with so that I could get to the next thing because then I will have like done it.
And there was something like deep within my soul that knew this is not good. Like I don't, I don't think this is good, and I love that I was able to kind of take care of my sensations and emotions just just earlier here with you, because I can almost say this and feel proud of it, like I'm holding the grief differently.
But my grandfather was the one that I told this is happening and I don't know if I can start the program like this. And he said, please don't. Do not start a PhD program already feeling this way. You need to pause. And then I found this work, [00:34:00] and now we're here talking about this stuff on a podcast. And, um, I see again, like so much of myself and so many of my clients in jcs story where when you take a moment to just take the armor off and put it down, you do not have to like donate it or throw it away or destroy it.
Just set it down. Take a look at what you're experiencing through a lens that allows you to understand and get to know why we feel the way that we feel, where it's coming from, where we learned it, and just to try to give ourselves a little bit more grace than we usually might. We. Can astound ourselves in what we find.
And I know that was me in my journey, and I know that's for every client that I see. And something that I thought was so interesting that JC said, and this is just a play on words, but this is where my brain goes sometimes is she said that it's scarier to take the softer way. I, I always think it's so interesting to hear that like being nicer or gentler [00:35:00] or more compassionate towards yourself is called softer.
It insinuates the opposite of strong. Language is everything, and I just, mm-hmm. I always find it so fascinating that the words that we use to describe our change in behavior can sometimes send a scary message, which I think why we perpetuate that belief that like I. I'm not doing enough. And it's like, but no, this is the strong way.
Dammit. I'm doing it the strongest way. Like I am tending to myself in the most authentic way, and this is strong. And we have to start flipping the script for ourselves and for our clients so that we can see that on the other side of always having to be resilient is, and strong is somebody who's just like exhausted and just wants to put it down and that's what she's done.
John Gasienica: I love that. If it's soft, why is it the scariest option? Exactly. Like there's something doesn't make sense there and I love that, that you've pointed that out and, and really reframed that. Usually when I have a client who identifies as a freezer, [00:36:00] anger is often the hardest emotion for them to access. So I wanna see if accessing anger helps give the patient any more insight than she already has.
I want you to just notice you feel any anger right now. You feel any frustration? That piece of you that's also feeling sad? Is she angry about anything? Ask her. Are you upset?
Jaycie: No, that's a hard one. I probably have a harder time like accessing and I don't like anger, not face. I tend to go easily. Um,
John Gasienica: this might help.
I want you to think back to when you were doing the five days a week.
Jaycie: Mm-hmm.
John Gasienica: And you were feeling annoyed about that. Just picture that woman going through her day to day.
Jaycie: Um, that's so interesting. Like I am frustrated that I don't have more like joy in my life. I mean, I have, I am [00:37:00] joyful. My family is joyful.
We are joyful people, but it's sort of become a lot of dishes and cooking, which is part of life, of course. But, um. I don't know if it's the phones or the what it is, but it's like, in a way I feel like I've sort of around that time like sort of just forgot how to live, you know? And it feels like, yeah, frustrating.
It does.
John Gasienica: Where do you feel that in your body right now? We, why don't I just get you used to finding these sensations and going toward them.
Jaycie: It's like, it's
John Gasienica: the chest. It's always kind of the chest good. Push that sensation in front of you. This time visualize this angry piece of you and just ask her the simple question, what are you frustrated about?
And just let her go. And no matter what she says, it's completely appropriate no matter what she does.
Jaycie: I think she's angry that she's not like
John Gasienica: creating more good,
Jaycie: if
John Gasienica: [00:38:00] that makes sense. What does she mean by that?
Jaycie: Um. Like I said, it's become a lot of, um, consuming, I feel like, um, buying things and I feel like there's a piece of me that is like more creative, that has more to sort of, you know, like I used to, when I was younger, I told I wanted to be a writer. I wanted to, to do that, and it's something I just, I never do anymore.
You know, and there's like, there is like a missing piece of. Creation. I guess. I don't know how all that came up right now, but, but it, it feels like the truth.
John Gasienica: This is what starts to bubble up when you start to pick the shields down a little bit, is even your capacity for creativity. There's this [00:39:00] concept of cold searching and hot searching.
Cold searching is when our brain has a problem, and it looks only in the places that it's found solutions before. Doesn't look through all the brain. That's why it's called cold searching. It doesn't use a lot of energy when we're in a frozen state. This is what our brain does. Conserve energy, creativity comes from the hot searching.
It's when your brain looks for solutions and all the places of the brain takes more energy, and the brain doesn't feel comfortable doing that. If it feels like. You need to protect yourself like you're in constant danger.
Vanessa, why do you think when JC accesses just a little bit of anger, she gets this intel on what she's been missing in her life?
Vanessa Blackstone: Anger means honoring how you're feeling. Anger can mean advocating for yourself. Anger can mean recognizing that we have boundaries that we need to set. A question that I often ask my own clients is, what were you taught about saying no to things?
I know for me, I was taught that it's [00:40:00] defiant. It's bad, it's selfish. You're closing the door on opportunity and you're not being helpful. Right? And understanding why is it difficult to say no to people? Why is it difficult to stand up for ourselves by saying no to helping or doing for others? You start helping and doing for yourself.
We start being able to access these parts of ourself that has energy to actually have fun. And I love that you guys talked about that because isn't it interesting how important fun is, but how quickly we take fun things away when we're in pain to only feel more isolated in our pain and then further away from things that actually make us happy, all because we wanna fix our pain.
Like it makes sense on a cognitive level, but we can see where it keeps us stuck. We have to see fun as, just as important as slamming down the gas pedal. Right. And I feel like when she accessed this anger and these boundaries and this like desire to say no to things that weren't serving her, realizing, oh my gosh, like I've been missing out on [00:41:00] these joyful things.
John Gasienica: So many of my clients have this experience and, and I felt it too, where it's like these fun things when you're in pain, you're like, well, I don't wanna. Take a hike or I don't wanna hang out with friends when I'm in pain. So you eventually start eliminating all these fun things because they're not as fun as they used to be, and it's not a nice to have to get them back in your life.
For a lot of people, it's in, it's a necessity. How do you encourage your patients to get back into doing these things?
Vanessa Blackstone: Well, first off, we start prioritizing real authentic messages of safety, right? I tell my own clients, Hey. I know that we want to make that message work. You're safe. You're safe, you're safe.
But I know for myself, like life didn't feel safe for a really long time. Things were actually frustrating and unsafe or people were unsafe, or environments were just really charged. And like a lot of times, like we do actually have to power through and it sucks. Like it really does. But [00:42:00] maybe we are not as fragile as we fear we are.
Maybe it's really important to slowly integrate back into spaces that we can take care of ourselves in around good people or on our own, if we're not quite sure how we feel navigating that around others, right? Slowly working your way back to activities that can feel like they're gearing you towards your ultimate goal of getting back on the board, right?
Like being in the water or just being around it is enough and starting there. Just slowly engaging in things that you know are your kind of pathway to joy and to happiness and to fun, to start seeing yourself creating space for these things in your life in an authentic way. Right? And that's how we show up for ourselves, steady with grace and with a pace that we feel like we can manage.
Um, I know that that was a really big thing for me is just. Being done with that PhD program trajectory and just taking a pause. I actually didn't know what my hobbies were. I [00:43:00] hated when people said like, oh, like, what do you like to do? I don't know. I just work and I go to school at the time. Right? And I had no idea what the answer to that question was.
And I realized like, that's a problem. Not because I'm at fault, but because I'm, I'm realizing like, no wonder I feel so bad, everything in my life is either pain or fueled by urgency.
John Gasienica: And if you're listening at home and this seems like unbelievably woo woo to you, I want you to just think of the concept of neuroplasticity.
We're trying to teach our brain these new pathways, and if you're not giving it the needs that it requires, you just don't have the neuroplasticity to learn these new things. Your brain is like a, a brick. We need to increase this enjoyment, fun, even just a break to give you that malleability. So that your brain can actually learn these new lessons that you're safe and that you don't need to be in pain.
So now we know some of the unmet needs of J C's brain. Next, I wanna show her how her body will feel when she starts [00:44:00] providing her brain, even a small portion of these needs.
I want you to close your eyes and I want you to just visualize the time. In your life where you did feel like you were at play, could be really young, maybe a time you were being creative, anything that pops into your brain, what comes up for you?
Jaycie: I was thinking of just like swimming in the lake when I was young.
John Gasienica: I want you to just visualize that. I want you to visualize the colors of the lake, some of the sounds of the water. Maybe it's summertime, and those smells of. The plants and the trees being all overgrown, maybe the sounds splashing, and just picture what the light looked like and just notice how your body feels when you're back in this more free place.
And what I want you to do is just lean into that [00:45:00] sensation. Whatever you feel in your body right now,
just feel it. And what do you notice? How do you feel?
Jaycie: I mean, I just feel that, um, freedom and ease in my body, which is I think the sensation I think I've missed the most.
John Gasienica: Yeah. Yeah. That is gonna keep you very, very young, that feeling. If you have this sense of freedom and sense of ease and relaxation, your brain's gonna interpret what's changing in your body through this lens of safety, and it's not gonna amplify it.
And so we don't deny that there's changes going on. All we're telling the brain is, Hey, these changes are safe. We're okay, and I don't have to tighten the thumb screws to make sure that aging doesn't happen or that I make sure I feel productive enough. All I have to do is just put my brain in the right place so that I can interpret these things through nice [00:46:00] labs.
You think you can do that?
Jaycie: Easy.
I do. I think, um, it's like a realignment of goals, you know?
John Gasienica: Yeah. It does force you into a position where you have to figure out what is the change I need to make? And the change that I figured out I needed to make was the way in which I'm viewing reality is just too hard on my system.
Jaycie: Yes. It's so beautifully put.
John Gasienica: Does that feel true to you?
Jaycie: Yes, a hundred percent. Like I am just, my life is too good. I'm working way too hard to feel this. Like, I mean, just kind of kooky. Yes,
John Gasienica: and it's no, it's no fault of your own. These are patterns that have been around for a while. You know, eating disorders, the way in which you're viewing reality is almost impossible on the brain, right?
That eating disorder has just switched topics. Now it's your career or maybe raising [00:47:00] your children, um, or just your day-to-day life. It's like the distortion there is making it so difficult on your brain to view anything through a lens of safety. Does that feel true? Does
Jaycie: feels like, um, the most true thing I've heard in a really long time.
Mm-hmm. I mean, I think you can, there's so many ways that you can justify the things you're doing or the way you're living, right? Like you have to have money. We have to be secure, like, you know, we have to da, da, da, da. But it's like in the end. I think like the, yeah, the sense of peace and ease is what counts, you know, and the lens through which you, you accomplish all of your, you know, goals.
I think there can still be goals, but Yeah, like with what lens are we, are we looking at those and with what energy are we like bringing to, to our lives? You know?
John Gasienica: Totally. How do you feel right now? Just to check in? [00:48:00]
Jaycie: I just, I do, I feel. I feel like that hour just like hit the nail on the head, you know, in a way where it's just like, it is, it's like a distortion.
And that's, that's what I've been sensing, you know, reading and all that stuff. But like to have it like put in those words is just, I don't know, it somehow really brought it home. So I just really appreciate it and it feels like a really good jumping off one.
John Gasienica: Good. And how do you feel physically?
Jaycie: I feel good.
I feel just kind of relaxed and, yeah.
John Gasienica: Good. This is what we want your baseline to be going forward.
So the good news in this is patients can start seeing their distortions when they start providing compassion to themselves and start giving their brain some breaks and take the pressure off. The bad news about this is that you can lose that clarity so quickly. You can fall right back into the [00:49:00] distortions, and this really is kind of like a day-to-day process.
If you do keep it up though, you can provide your brain with the neuroplasticity it needs and the safety it needs to get out of pain, but it is a constant process. And I'm, I'm curious, how do you make this a practice for yourself?
Vanessa Blackstone: I had to stop seeing this as a bad thing. I had to stop seeing this as a, as a roadblock to getting me to my ultimate goal.
I had to desperately start interpreting it as my temperature gauge and listening to that, and again, going back to that analogy of like pulling my car over, not to stop and give up the trip entirely, but just to take a beat. To do something that I enjoy, to get out of the car and stretch around to do something.
Right. Anything other than continuing at this pace, right? I had to work on getting to know what I was experiencing before I rushed to the urgency to make it go away. [00:50:00] I. The experiences that I had in childhood were, were not great. Um, childhood was very dangerous and very scary and very unsafe and unsettling and everything that you could imagine that would really make somebody feel like they just don't have a stable foundation to stand on outside of my grandparents.
Um, but. What I do know is that even though as an adult, I was out of those experiences at the age of 17 and was able to sufficiently provide for myself from, from that point on. And so what we do is when we learn to disconnect from our body in that way, we take that urgency and just apply it in a new way in our life.
And I really thought, I really thought. That doing everything that I was doing in school and in my career to try to be the best possible. I thought logically that that was more productive, that that was the [00:51:00] best way that I could undo this past that I had experienced. But all that I was doing is just recycling those behaviors and transitioning to something else.
Kind of essentially telling my nervous system that we are in the same danger that we experienced growing up. Mm-hmm. Or that we experienced when, you know, JC was struggling with an eating disorder and the behaviors that come with it. Right? All we're doing is sending that message to our nervous system.
Your nervous system doesn't know how to compute, uh, different messages and different ways. Oh, this is that kind of danger, but this is like this kind of danger. It goes all or nothing when we transition that same urgency into other areas of our life. It's the same thing. It's like reliving the same traumatic childhood that there is always something that we have to just get away from or else I had to, I had to put that down.
I had to tend to myself, like this lost child, like as if I come across a child. In a public place. I don't know if you've ever been [00:52:00] lost. I got lost in an aquarium once. It was terrifying. Um, but you know, it's like, what would you do if you came across that kid? Would you stand over them, them and be like, what's wrong with you?
Why are you lost? Get unlost dummy. What are you doing? We would never do that. Ever. Maybe some people, but like I, we wouldn't, right? We would, we would lower our body. We would talk in this, um, what I like to call low and slow way. Right. We would, we would, we would lower our gaze, we would lower our body. We would lower our tone.
We would say nice things. We would be super gentle. Right? Not because we're trying to be like mushy gushy, but because that's how you talk to somebody when they're scared. Right? And, and that's what we're trying to do for ourselves, right? Is talk to us in this gentle way so that we know. All we can do to navigate through this is understand what we're experiencing first.
And the more that you do that, the funny thing is, is like the more that you can make that go away in this moment or feel stronger because of it, that's what I had to do. And it, it's worked for me and it's worked for the [00:53:00] clients that I see.
John Gasienica: I so appreciate you being here today. Is there any final thoughts you wanted to share with people who are listening at home?
Vanessa Blackstone: Yeah, I, I really like to encourage folks to lean into those anchoring moments. You guided JC and into leaning into that feeling of like the memories of swimming on the lake, right? Even though we might not be swimming in the lake in this exact moment, right? Are there things that we can recall that anchor us, right, so that we can remember ourselves, that there are times in our life where we feel really grounded or safe?
And self-compassion is not just about self-care and meditating. It's not about just taking a hot bath, right? It's about the way that we speak to ourselves. It's understanding why we feel, why we think, and why we respond the way that we do. Knowing that we aren't malfunctioning, but we are working so well that we're working too well.
Your nervous system is so dialed up and all we are trying to do is just dial it back down so that it feels like we don't have to operate at that velocity all the time. [00:54:00]
John Gasienica: Thanks so much, Vanessa. I appreciate you being here.
Vanessa Blackstone: Thank you.
John Gasienica: Thank you for listening to the PRT Podcast, brought to you by the Pain Processing Therapy Center. I wanna thank our guest, Vanessa Blackstone for joining me today. You can find her on Instagram at that therapist. Finally, I wanna give a special thank you to JC for allowing us to broadcast a piece of your journey.
If you'd like to partake in a session for the podcast. Message me on Instagram @JohngTherapy where I answer questions and provide information on the tools we cover in each episode. Thanks again for listening.