John is joined by Daniel Lyman, therapist and Executive Director of Mind Body Therapy Center, for a powerful session with June, a patient navigating the ups and downs of chronic migraines and emotional repression. This episode dives deeper into the emotional roots of neuroplastic pain, exploring fear, anger, and sadness using exposure-based techniques. June opens up about the inner conflicts fueling her symptoms, and John guides her through processing emotions in real time, helping her shift from suppression to empowerment—a must-listen for anyone hitting a healing plateau.
In this episode, we continue our deep dive with Daniel Lyman as we analyze a session with June, a filmmaker who’s made major strides in her chronic pain recovery but finds herself stuck. Together, we unpack the fear, anger, and sadness that have been underlying her migraines—and how reframing these emotions as protective allies can create powerful breakthroughs.
Daniel shares insights from his OCD and pain reprocessing background, and John uses emotional exposure and paradoxical agenda setting to help June see emotions as mature, trustworthy parts of herself.
🔹 How to make journaling more effective
🔹 What to do when recovery plateaus
🔹 Why fear of emotions keeps the nervous system stuck
🔹 How to turn fear and anger into strengths
🔹 Why feeling emotions in the moment creates change
John: [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. I have a feeling this episode might strike a chord with a lot of listeners.
I have a brilliant clinician by the name of Daniel Lyman. Joining me today to break down a session I did with a patient named June, who's made a lot of progress with her mind body tools like journaling, but she finds herself stalled in a recovery. Now, whenever somebody hits a plateau like this, we always wanna ask the question, what's keeping the nervous system so sensitized?
The good news is that the answer is always fear. The bad news is that it's not always so obvious where the fear is coming from. Sometimes it's a fear of the pain. Other times it's a fear that you're broken. Maybe it's a small trickle of fear that causes persistent anxiety and tension. As you'll see with June, fear can even hide a little deeper in the unconscious.
If there's an emotion that you've [00:01:00] never learned to express or cope with your brain's fear of this emotion can very subtly keep your system dysregulated and your chronic symptoms going. Now, there's been a lot of tools created to decrease these type of fears, and one of the more popular ones is journaling.
Journaling can be really effective for some people, but so far the results and research on journaling are what's called emotional disclosure in the clinical trials has been pretty underwhelming. Luckily, over the past 15 years, a lot of really talented clinicians have figured out what elements of journaling are effective and what needs to be added to your strategy when journaling isn't quite getting you over the hump.
As always, the PRT podcast is brought to you by the pain Road processing therapy Center, a training center where thousands of doctors, therapists, nurses, and coaches have learned how to treat and eliminate their patient's 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 [00:02:00] 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.
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 Daniel Lyman. Daniel is a therapist and executive director of the MINDBODY Therapy Center, which is based in Oregon, but he sees clients around the world. He's been featured in media outlets such as Psychology Today, and authored a chapter in the preeminent text for MINDBODY practitioners called Psychophysiological Disorders.
In a world full of stuffy, verbose therapists, Daniel has the unique ability to take the inaccessible and make it fun and accessible. I always enjoy speaking with him, whether it's leading the training or picking his brain on some complex clients. Daniel, it's great to have you today. Welcome.
Daniel: Thank you very much, John. Those are very kind words. I appreciate it. Thank you for [00:03:00] having me. I'm excited to do this.
John: So with your background in OCD treatment, one thing I've heard you talk about is the importance of. People facing their fears rather than running for them. Why do you think that's such an important concept in pain work as well?
Daniel: Yeah. You know, speaking specifically about pain reprocessing therapy, um, so much of the emphasis is about finding safety, which can be really beneficial, especially when we aren't sure how to find it. So we want to have those tools and ideas and whatever practices we have to help us find safety. But the world isn't a hundred percent safe, and our lives are not a hundred percent safe.
You and I could finish this recording, one of us go get hit by a bus, right? It could happen. It's possible. There's no guarantees of safety. And so we have to train our brain in order to accept a certain amount of danger. And what happens, especially with OCD, is that our brain says any amount of danger is bad, and I want to get rid of that.
Mm-hmm. And that's not possible. It's not possible to be alive with zero danger. Uh, even doing the most mundane things can be [00:04:00] dangerous. So it's important for our brains to learn that, you know what? I can live with 90% safety and 10% danger. I. That's still pretty good.
John: Speaking of this concept of facing danger and facing fear, I remember when I was an intern at the Pain psychology center and I had to record a therapy session to be reviewed by so stressful my supervisors and just like having these horrible nightmares about what it was gonna be like and
Daniel: Totally.
John: But it was just eventually an amazing experience and yeah, and we do it so often now that it, it doesn't really move the needle totally. But I know that this is something you do at your therapy center. You have your therapist record their sessions, and you have this really comprehensive. Assessment of what they're doing and how they can improve.
This is something that's really rare in our industry and I think it's incredibly helpful and important. Can you just speak about why you do it and what are, what are some of the things you've learned from it?
Daniel: Yeah. Thanks for asking that. I'm actually very proud of this with clients permission, of course.
When a therapist that I'm working with that works for me when they are having. Um, you know, some trouble with a particular client or there's one moment in a [00:05:00] session that they're like, I really need some clarification on this. We'll go back. We watch the tape and we really analyze bit by bit what's going on.
It's such a, a invaluable learning experience, but to your point, it's really rare actually for therapists to get this much oversight. It's kind of, it's one of those jobs, it's like teaching and that you can go a long time and not have anyone see your work. And I think it's really important for us all to be in that vulnerable state of, here's my work.
Like how can I be better?
John: In that vein, I. Here's my work, and I'd like you to, to take a look at this client.
Daniel: This should be reversed. You should be critiquing my work here, John.
John: Well, I'm really excited you take this real scientific, analytical approach to, quite honestly, a not very scientific industry. Um, yeah, and I'm really excited to just have you kind of pick this apart and, and gimme some tips today.
So, uh, let's get into the first session.
Can you catch me up on what your migraines are like in an average month now?
June: My migraines have greatly improved, but they're about four or [00:06:00] five a month, um, at the moment. And the longest they'll last is about three days, which, um, maybe sounds bad, but as compared to where I was, is actually night and day. 'Cause I was averaging before about 16 a month, and the longest was 12 days.
John: Oh my gosh. A 12 day migraine. Yeah. Torture. It's the worst. What were some of the stressors that you were feeling during that period, aside from the pain itself?
June: Um, usually stress around work. So I'm a filmmaker, I'm a writer, director.
It's very much my love of my life. It is very much who I am, um, my heart and soul. So either there was a stress in regards to a project almost. Going and then not getting the green light, which means you don't get the funding. Or, or also back then, to be honest, before my career was as not wanna use the word stable, but a bit more set than what, what it is now.
Um, I would get so anxious because I was a freelancer and I come from. A blue collar family where everyone has a steady [00:07:00] job. And I have never had that. I've always been self-employed. And so there's this fear towards the end of a project. Mm-hmm. Well, now I need to go back out there and find work and what happens if I am poor and I can't eat and I'm starved to death, like on the streets of New York.
And then everyone will say, you move to New York and you should have stayed in Australia, and all these things. And so it was, those kind of thoughts would come up and every single time it worked out. So you would think I would learn. Every single time I did the hard work and I found another job and I was able to make my life a happy and joyous one.
But, um, the stress of that and the compounding pressure of knowing I was about to be out there on my own again and, um, not, not being certain about what the future held.
John: So june's this like incredibly charismatic, fun person to talk to. She, she sure is outwardly, she seems so healthy, but then you hear her story and she has a tremendous amount of [00:08:00] pain underneath when you get a client who presents so healthy and vital and light. Outwardly, but has so much pain. What are some of the hints this gives you about their case?
Daniel: Yeah, you know, there's always defenses that people have up that keep us from, uh, feeling our authentic feelings. Um, and oftentimes, I. I, I have a similar defense that June does too, quite honestly. Like I will show up when I'm having a, in a dark time, I will show up in like a goofy, silly manner sometimes.
Now, oftentimes, authentically, that's who I am, but it's my go-to to show up that same way to mask what I'm feeling underneath. Uh, because, you know, we all have this idea that like no one wants to be around the bummer person, or no one wants to be around, you know, Debbie Downer. So we put on this. Face of like, no, things are great.
Things are wonderful. I've had a migraine for 12 days. So what it would lead me to do is I'd want to kind of challenge her to sit with the feelings that she has about how she's physically feeling. How about her migraines
John: in our conversation together, she's made this great progress with her [00:09:00] migraines.
Daniel: She's down from, yeah, congrats a lot.
John: During the month to a little, and I think it's been about 18 months she's been at this. It's amazing. But she's at this period now where for several months now, she's kind of been stuck in her momentum. It's the same amount of migraines every month. She doesn't feel like she's improving.
What do you usually look for when a client gets stuck like this or they plateau?
Daniel: I'm always asking the question, especially through a PA pain reprocessing therapy lens. I'm always asking the question. Where are we not feeling safe or what in our lives is not making us or helping us to feel safe? So sometimes we make a lot of progress because we learn, okay, these symptoms are not because I've got a tumor in my brain.
Used to have migraines and that's what I thought for a little bit. I. It's like, it's not a tumor in my brain, so I'm not gonna die if I get a migraine. That's a good sign. Uh, and so that reduces that anxiety around the symptom in and of itself, and therefore the symptom comes down a bit. So let's say we plateau there and we're like, well, I feel better, but why am I still getting migraines?
Well, in my case, it was also, I was working a job. This was 20 [00:10:00] years ago. I was working a job that I really didn't like. It was very, very stressful. Mm-hmm. Um, yeah, even just thinking about it makes me stressed out and that was a lot of the cause I wasn't feeling safe in my job. Every time I would drive into work, my heart would start racing.
I'd start sweating 'cause I was anxious about going to work. So that was an a like a clue for me that okay, I'm not feeling very safe in my day to day life here, and that's going to increase these physical manifestations of the lack of safety. So I'm always asking that question, where are we not feeling safe? Or why are we not feeling fully safe?
John: This gets me really excited and it's something that I, I, I truly believe in is figuring out these different avenues of finding safety. Yeah. And I'm, I'm always weary, there's so many personalities in this industry where they're teaching, you can get outta pain the way I got out of pain.
Daniel: Yeah, totally.
John: And sometimes it misses these different avenues of danger. Yes. Different places of safety that people aren't used to looking for. Yeah. In this next section. I kind of put my investigator hat on and I'm just asking a few more questions [00:11:00] on it. Where, where is this coming from? Yeah, where, where are some of these danger pockets happening?
So let's take a listen.
Tell me about this other side of you. Like we have this one side that gets really scared about certainty and gets really scared about. Financial stability. Tell me about this other piece of you that was like, no, I'm going to be a freelancer. I'm gonna pursue what I wanna pursue. It does feel like two humans inside of me.
June: Um, there is part of me that, you know, I slept in the back of a car for nine months and drove around the North America and filmed a documentary of wonderful people I met. Um, there is that vitamin and there's this part that really craves control and stability and security. Um. I don't know where it comes from.
When I was 12 years old, I watched Braveheart and decided to become a filmmaker. Like it's that absurd. And I've never wavered from it. Um, and no one in my family is like this, but I do believe that it has. Now that I've done more of [00:12:00] this work and more of this, you know, therapy, uh, I had a pretty bad father.
Uh, he was abusive, he was, um, an alcoholic. He's still alive, but I do not speak to him. And his constant turbulence of being in and outta my life, constant re abandonment. Of me and my three siblings and my mother, um. It was really hard to grapple with and really, uh, you know, it was turbulent. And so part of me, the craving of control, I think they're very much that child.
Um, but I think my natural self actually wants to be a bit more free spirited and a little bit more go with the flow. And they're constantly battling with each other.
John: It's so funny you say that, 'cause that that's the next thing I was gonna say is that this is often what causes the sensitization of your nervous system is this setup where two parts of your brain are at war.
There's a part of you that really wants stability, and then there's another part that just wants to be free and pursue what you want [00:13:00] to pursue, and be your own person. I think a lot of the work we'll do today is figuring out how to get those pieces of you integrated and working together and 'cause once that happens, I.
You don't have this constant nervous system activation, this inner war going on that causes all of the sensitization, all of the cortisol or all of the hypervigilance doesn't need to be there. Because if you think about it, when you were getting off some of these sets, you would finish a project and now you wouldn't have anything in the pipeline.
That's a stressor in itself, but you already have this internal conflict going on. Putting your baseline at such a high level that. Not to say that that situation wasn't stressful, but it certainly amplified it in your brain because you were starting from already a very, very kind of scary place, if that makes sense.
June: Yeah. It feels like life would, life or death. Yeah, I can imagine. But, uh, you know, going, um, and it, and it's hard not to catastrophize, especially in my industry where it's, it's a really difficult [00:14:00] one. It's such a gamble with your life. So there's external pressures, but there's also this internal. Like you said, this war battle going on, and I could imagine that war gets even more intense when you're having symptoms or when you're worried about skiing that symptoms on a project.
John: Tell me about a little bit about the stress that that causes in your life. That's what I'm finding the most difficult to completely overcome this idea of the, um, being neutral towards these sensations, even though I've been doing this work for 18 months. It's very difficult for me to feel like, oh, I feel, you know, even if it's deeply subconscious at the start.
June: Yeah. I feel the sensation. I get curious about it. I, you know, think it through. Um, but there is still this little voice like now, not this week. You cannot, I. Screw this up this week. Um, and even as much as I try to say, Hey, you know, that's okay, I understand that you're scared. Um, uh, I know you're trying to protect me.
As much as I try to do that, that little fear bubble is just like, okay, cool, cool. [00:15:00] Thanks for your message of trying to calm me down. I am terrified. Um, and it's hard to like pretend I'm not, or maybe the idea isn't pretending, but it's like even as much as I reassure that. Fear, or even if I just let it be for a while, you know, that fear little inner child that, um, it still can sometimes spiral.
Um, and now I've gotten to the point where I'm talking myself into migraines, which is absurd. For instance, my partner, I was having posting a birthday party for my partner recently, and I was like, now would be a really bad time to get a migraine. And then I was like, oh yeah, you scared about that. Well, you're gonna be fine.
And lo and behold, I got one.
John: So daniel, as, as somebody who climbs mountains in the inhospitable parts of the Pacific Northwest, I had a feeling you might relate to the free-spirited part of June. Can you relate to this experience of having this kind of free part of you in this, also, this control seeking part of you that don't see eye to eye.
Daniel: For sure. And [00:16:00] oftentimes they're in response to each other. Um, yeah, I I very much relate to June. I also used to work in the film industry, so there's, there's a lot of, uh, there's a lot of similarities here.
John: Was there a movie like June's Braveheart that, that made you wanna work in the movies?
Daniel: Uh. Um, I don't know why I'm embarrassed to say this, but uh, throughout my teenage years I watched Jurassic Park so much that I broke the VHSI had to go buy another.
John: I just love that movie. I was really thought it was just like the most exciting movie. Amazing. Yeah. Yeah. So we have this hint now that June is having a hard time processing the emotion of fear, which I think is incredibly Yeah. Relatable. Do you find that with your patients that fear is one of the hardest ones to process and relate to?
Daniel: Absolutely, it can become such a vicious cycle. 'cause we respond to fear. You know, we don't think about an emotional response to other feelings. It's usually people just experience happiness. They don't have an emotional response to happiness. But when it comes to fear, people feel the fear and then have an emotional response to fear sometimes of more fear.[00:17:00]
So yeah, it becomes a slippery slope.
John: So we know June is having a hard time processing the emotion of fear and potentially some other emotions which keep the chronic pain cycle going. So I usually like to check in with the client to see what they've tried so far in terms of strategies and see if there's any holes in what they're doing.
Tell me about some of the things you've used to get better. Like what do you attribute your improvement to?
June: So when I first found curable, it was, I mean, I did the obsessive thing that I hear everybody does on these podcasts where I listened to the whole thing and I read everything and I was like, this is it.
This is it. This is what I have. Um, I read every John Sano book. I, um, you know, went, had. Six different therapists did EMDI did IFS. I was doing all of it. You know, I've now realized that this was a problem, but it also did help, like, you know, so that first little bit I was, I improved quite [00:18:00] quickly. Um, uh, I was so excited about it.
And I, so I was doing the, I was doing somatic tracking. I was doing journaling, kind of emotional journal speak, journaling. Mm-hmm. And I was like, wow, I'm onto something. And that positivity generated. And then at some point, maybe about eight, nine months ago, it just plateaued. Um, and I've tried multiple different things since then.
You know, sticking to a daily meditation, a daily journaling practice, a daily whatever it is, and I haven't seen it really move much.
John: When you're doing your journaling, what happens when you journal and you, and you get on, on an emotion, like when you're maybe journaling, but your dad and anger comes up, how does that experience go for you?
June: So i'd say rage is probably something that I feel pretty deeply towards my industry and sadness is what I feel towards my debt. Mm-hmm. So those are the two repressed. Feelings that I have the most. Um, so what happens sometimes that can feel cathartic after journaling for 10, 20 minutes about this, but then sometimes that can feel really low.
Yeah, I just, [00:19:00] um, you know, so maybe one outta five times it feels cathartic and I'm actually able to like, wow, that was a good cry on with my day. And then most of the time I just feel depressed and sad and just weighted by these thoughts. Um, and then part of me wonders, should I be suppressing those thoughts?
Should I be allowing them to come to the surface? I. It feels a bit too much sometimes, like I'm harboring them or, or, or, or giving them too much weight. Mm-hmm.
John: Um, yeah. What about the, the rage you feel towards your industry when you're writing about that? What is that experience like?
June: I will say it's usually a little bit more of the catia.
I'd say 50 50, but then sometimes I was stew in it, like sometimes it puts me in like a really angry mood, just a rageful. Vengeful, you know, nasty lack of positivity, mood after I've journaled. It doesn't go. It doesn't dissipate. This is what I want to touch on today. 'cause I think, you know, the way Journaling's often [00:20:00] taught, sometimes there's a gap where you get stuck in it like you are right now, where it's like, I'm journaling, but I don't necessarily come out of it.
John: In this positive light, you said like one times outta five when sadness comes out, you feel positive and maybe 50 50 with anger. We wanna figure out a way, one, how to get your rational brain back in control. And then two, once your rational brain's back in control, how to celebrate this emotional piece of you.
How to celebrate this intuitive piece of you in a way that makes it feel heard and understood and celebrated and not suppressed.
There's a ton of feel, your feelings, narratives in therapy. It might be like the the heaviest therapy motif. Yes. But when patients expose themselves to negative emotions through something like journaling and they walk away from the experience feeling worse or kind of stuck in that emotion, is that beneficial?
Is, is that helpful?
Daniel: I. That's, I, I'm glad glad you asked this question 'cause that's what was really sticking with me is, you know, June talks [00:21:00] about one in five times feeling better after this, and then the rest she actually feels worse. Uh, there's a couple things that I'd want to, to look for there. There's the first thing that comes to mind for me is, okay, she actually might just be living in the defense because it's fascinating to me that she says she gets sad about her father and angry about the industry.
Um, when she had no choice over her father, but she did have a choice over her industry. So it would make more sense to me that she'd be angry with her father and sad about the industry, um, because she's still choosing to be part of the industry, but she had no choice when it comes to, uh, who is her father and.
So often, and this is like a little bit of a therapy cliche, but anger at our parents is like very easy thing to suppress and to not pay attention to. So it was interesting to me that she pointed out those two feelings. And the journaling is a wonderful, wonderful tool, but sometimes the downside is we end up staying in a defensive emotion.
So sometimes with journaling we stay in the defensive emotion and by giving. Oxygen to the defense. It actually just makes the defense longer. I'd want to [00:22:00] explore that with her is okay, these feelings associated with these two things you seem pretty locked into, but actually they're not really giving you the catharsis that you want.
John: So something's off here we're avoiding, we're avoiding something or we're not set. We're not finding the right feeling here, if that makes sense. It makes absolute sense, and this is really a pet peeve of mine, of when. Emotional expression therapies are taught as express the emotion and then you'll automatically feel some sort of catharsis from it.
Daniel: Right, right, exactly. And there is some nuance in here and it's not that complicated or difficult, but there are some little things we wanna, uh, manipulate in the journaling experience to make sure that the person's actually getting a corrective experience out of it.
Totally. And to that end, I also would just say, and this is. You know, one in five a feeling better is, those aren't the great percentages that I would like, but it's also not a terrible thing to be journaling and not feel great afterwards. That's kind of part of the process is building tolerance for those feelings we don't like. So she, you know, sometimes people will be like, [00:23:00] well, I journaled about what I'm angry about and I'm still angry.
It's like, well, yeah, great. You're building more tolerance for anger and that's a positive thing. So there is that to it as well.
John: Totally, totally. It's, I, it that is an in. Important nuance to say is that it, it can be uncomfortable as you go, but if you're kind of stuck in the uncomfort, that's where we get a little worried.
Daniel: Well said. And I think if, if it, if it's never uncomfortable, you're probably not. Do you know, I, I liken therapy to like going to the gym. I. Like if you are sitting on the upright bicycle reading a magazine and doing that for five minutes and barely moving and being like, wow, I worked out, and you're never actually pushing yourself.
You're not really working out. Like you should walk away from the gym being like sweating and feeling tired and maybe even a little bit irritated that your body hurts a bit.
John: Wow. I, I feel personally attacked.
Daniel: I just want you to get off the bike so I can have my turn, John.
John: Okay. I'll wipe it down too.
So as Daniel and I were discussing, if a patient has such a scary view of their emotions or they have such a common [00:24:00] experience of getting stuck in an emotion, their brain's gonna be on high alert trying to avoid or suppress these emotions.
It's just getting this. Example over and over again that this is something to be avoided. This causes a tremendous amount of unconscious and conscious stress to live in a, a brain that is constantly on guard for these emotions to come up. 'cause these emotions are gonna come up. This is where a lot of June sensitizations coming from.
In this model of constant stress, migraines are just a trigger away. So what I wanna do with the patient is show them how to actually have corrective experiences or more corrective experiences with their emotions so that the brain can decrease its fear and doesn't feel the need to be on high alert all the time.
I want you to just close your eyes and I want you to think of some sort of triggering event or some kind of stressor in your life that you're worried about having a migraine because of so that I have a big pitch.
June: For a [00:25:00] TV network and, um, yeah, that the fear of it not going well and or the fear of me stuffing up or of me just not getting the job for whatever reason. Um, and then the other sensations kind of bubble up.
John: Good. And what comes up when you think about that?
June: Even just saying that I made it feel very heavy. Yeah. Um, my shoulders feel heavy. I feel tightness in my throat and chest and yeah, like a, a stiffness, like a, almost like I'm getting armored up.
John: Good. This is the first important piece, which is I want you to just imagine pushing these sensations in front of you, almost like they're a cloud.
You're not gonna be able to get rid of them. And we do this to just feel like you're creating a little bit of separation between you and the sensation. This is a piece of you. This is not all of you, [00:26:00] and it doesn't mean it's not an important piece, or we should even treat it like a child. In fact, it wants to be treated like an adult.
But the only important thing I want you to remember right now is that this is just a piece of me.
And just watch that heaviness that you feel in your chest and your throat, that stiffness, and we'll start with fear. We'll label it fear for now. There's probably a few components to it. I want you to think back to times in your life where fear has benefited you. Where you've noticed something awry and you've avoided trouble, you said no to something.
You treated somebody differently 'cause you could tell they were in a bad mood. How has fear helped you in the past? Can you think of a couple examples?
June: Yeah, absolutely. Staying out of staying outta my father's way, even being safe, just physically safe in certain circumstances [00:27:00] is what's coming to mind.
John: Yeah. What's an example? Like where have you avoided physical danger because of fear?
June: I feel like in walking home late at night in New York City. Yeah. And, um, crossing the road, just being hypervigilant about my surroundings when I see someone coming towards me that looks maybe a little threatening.
John: And even with your father, right?
Avoiding him, escaping, appeasing him.
June: Yeah. Definitely knew when to go to my room and read a book.
John: And what would've, what would've happened if you didn't escape, if you didn't have this intuition?
June: Like the yelling is, was the most prominent thing. Mm-hmm. Swearing, yelling, calling me terrible names that I'm a bad daughter, things like that.
Um, he would sometimes get physical as well, so yeah, it was pretty dangerous if I stuck around.
John: Good. I want you to feel that sensation of fear. And I want you to thank it. [00:28:00] Let it know. I'm so glad you've been with me my entire life. I'm only here because you're here. This isn't treating it like a little child that you have to appease.
This is treating it like an equal and saying, you are such an important piece of me. And of course, I'm glad you're scared that I'm gonna get a migraine at this thing. That would suck. That'd be awful. You've been trying to protect me my entire life. And I want you to feel this union with this emotion. And how does that feel?
June: It feels so much nicer than being scared of the fear. Yeah. Um, it feels like I'm almost holding it in a way or we're together on this path. Beautiful. Instead of me just constantly running away from it.
John: Yeah. And to hold it. And feel that sensation of being taken care of. You've literally had a protector your entire life, [00:29:00] and the only reason that it ruminates and gets intense is because of the resistance.
I want you to just feel it right now of just being in union with this piece of you, this incredible piece of, you treat it like an equal and it's, and I say it's saying all these. Things that are quite scary. Good. Do it. Yeah.
June: That it's scared of happening. Do I just let it, what is it saying? It's saying, well if, you know, if you f this up, you know, that could, that could be your next gig.
You could, you could fail. You're gonna fail at this. Um, you know, I'm trying to take care of you. I'm trying to protect you from that failure. This could, you could have no money, you couldn't feed yourself. Like it's really getting quite dramatic. I.
John: Good. So just listen to it. Okay? And with that failures coming up, think of it.
Let it know you're gonna help me in the room. When I'm with that studio [00:30:00] executive and I see that little look in his face where I can tell that he wants me to talk about something else, you are gonna be the piece that lets me read that scenario. I'm gonna invite you in the room with me and God forbid this doesn't go well and we don't get this project.
You're gonna be the piece of me that helps me find the next thing to keep me fed. You don't have to deny these fears. View it as an ally as you go along the way.
So why is it that going toward an emotion like fear and even facing the worst case scenario can actually help the brain feel safer? It sounds pretty counterintuitive.
Daniel: I actually love doing this kind of work because maybe it's a little bit of the mastic in me, but we have to put ourselves in these uncomfortable situations in order to be able to overcome them.
I mean, what you're essentially doing in that clip very beautifully by the way, is. Emotional exposure work we call it, or imaginal exposure. Imagining a scenario that feels really [00:31:00] scary and it could be a scenario that feels scary or one that provokes anger or one that provokes sadness, what have you, and just putting yourself into that and getting a little bit more comfortable with the emotion than we would be otherwise.
You know, I liken it to when I was a kid, I was afraid of spiders. And, uh, if I were to go through like a treatment program for that, we would first have me imagine what a spider looks like, and then maybe look at a picture of a spider, and then maybe there'd be a spider across the room. And then we get closer and closer and closer to it until finally I'm holding the spider in my hand and I'd be like, okay, I'm not afraid of the spider.
And that would take time, of course. And. That's just what we're doing with emotions as well. We are imagining the emotion. We're then conjuring the emotion, bringing the emotion out in our body, and getting a little bit more comfortable with it each time we do that, until finally we can feel fear. I mean, she even said herself like, it's so nice to have the fear without the fear on top of it.
Mm-hmm. So not being afraid of the fear so she can just feel that fear, which is a healthy response to stressful situations.
John: And this is where these little tricks come in of. Yeah, making yourself [00:32:00] 5% less afraid of fear or 10% less afraid of fear. Totally. Anything that you can introduce into the exposure that gives you a little bit of an edge.
Daniel: It really turns it from a a negative experience to a corrective experience. Totally. And sometimes with some clients, it's 1% each time you do it, and that's great because you just keep doing it and eventually it gets less and less fearful. A lot of times people ask, am I doing this right? Am I doing emotional exposure?
Right. Am I journaling Right. And the simple answer to it really is have you walked away from it a tiny bit less scared Yes. Than when you walked into it. Like if you, uh, another way of putting it maybe like, do you feel even slightly more empowered than this time than before? So I usually like to start with fear 'cause it's often the thing that clients have access to really easily.
John: Totally. Uh, particularly with chronic pain. Fear is something that just comes up right away. And at this point we've shown June. Okay. She has a few skills now, a few tools, whether it be compassion or empowerment to help her go toward her fear that makes her feel safer. Now we wanna push her a little bit [00:33:00] farther and go towards some of the other emotions that aren't easily accessible.
Daniel: Love that. Let's take a listen
John: and you might have some other emotions pop up, like even when I was talking about dealing with the studio executive, do you feel any anger at this idea that you have to go pitch and be judged and that you might not get this even though you, you want it so badly?
June: Oh yeah. There's always like, I think a little.
Under current of rage that I have to constantly prove myself. I have to constantly fight for the morsels and, um, these people sit in their cushy offices and they're so far from the truth of humanity, you know?
John: So feel that right now the same way you were feeling the fear, where do you feel that rage in your body?
June: In my stomach.
John: Good. And again, the first step, we wanna push that in front of us. This is not you. You are not rage. There's a great, beautiful piece of rage inside of you. [00:34:00] But be the awareness that directs these emotions. Don't be the emotions themselves. And I want you to look at that rage, and I want you to think of, well, how are the ways that rage has served you in your life?
June: Perhaps a negative one, but, uh, it helps me avoid getting too emotional. Okay? And by emotional, I mean sad. Yeah, so anger being more of an accepted default than sadness, especially in this industry.
John: And has that been helpful to not be so sad and overwhelmed by sadness?
June: Yeah. Mm-hmm. It's made me strong. I think people perceive me as being, I mean, I don't let out this rage very much, but I think people perceive me as a strong, confident human.
I think that this anger is part of that.
John: Good. So I want you to feel that sensation of anger right now and let it in. And if it has angry thoughts, say beautiful. Think all [00:35:00] the angry thoughts you have. If there's angry actions, think of it smashing things or hitting people. I don't care. And just say, thank you so much.
June: There's no way I'd be where I am right now without you. And see if you can feel it as an asset. Another piece of you that's helping you. And the old new reason that rage gets too much sometimes is that it's not taken care of in the way that it needs to. It's been ignored. It's not been allowed to be expressed, and just feel that anger.
John: The exposure is only beneficial if you have a positive experience with it. And to see if you can convince yourself to watch that anger is something that's helped you. I am sorry because the fear side is like very much saying you don't wanna get too bitter now.
June: Totally. Yeah. So they're now having a little chat with each other.
But, um, no, I think, yeah, anger [00:36:00] is definitely something for rage that I think serves me and I, I, I'm letting it know that feels very natural. Um, I think there is a bit of a fear that it will overtake me. There's two fears that always come up in this. One is that it's gonna be so explosive. You do something awful.
John: And two is that you're not gonna be able to shut the door. You're just gonna become this nasty, rageful person. And as your fear brain's saying that right now, let it know. Thank you. I know you're gonna be there to keep me in check enough, so that doesn't happen. I can't be antisocial with this rage, but I can also value it and love it and vent it in very, very productive ways.
And what's fear saying now?
June: It's a little hesitant that it, um, it's like, all right, and that's okay. I think that's the difficult thing with emotional processing is that the more you have a relationship with these emotions in a really, really [00:37:00] collaborative way, the more they trust you.
All right. So you see in this clip, June was going toward anger and then then fear came up and had a, a few comments to make and had some, had some defenses to come up.
Daniel: Yeah.
John: Have you coach clients through going toward emotions when other emotions are popping up and trying to block them? Oh man. Uh, I follow your lead, John, so you do it beautifully.
Daniel: Um. You know, it's providing a safe enough space for people to recognize as you did there, like I recognize some of the fear that comes up. Be okay, be at peace with it. It's not like trying to ignore it and then still move beyond it. Um, then there's also an educational piece that's important, and June has a lot of insight, which is great.
She's able to really quickly be like, Hey, this is what's going on, and kudos to her. I. There have been many times in my life where I haven't had that much insight. Um, but sometimes, so I say there's an educational piece, and then we wanna talk to our clients about like, Hey, here's what I notice is happening.
Does this feel true to [00:38:00] you? And sometimes it doesn't feel true, but then we notice the pattern three, four or five times we think, oh yeah, okay, this is what I'm doing. I am avoiding this feeling or fear is keeping me from expressing it right now. Um, so that, that, that piece, and then again providing that safe space and then just gently applying, applying pressure towards the feeling.
You, you did that, you know what, with the anger about, uh, what does that anger want to do something physical or say, or what have you. Just gently applying pressure to see if we're able to let that out. I also just wanna say, I thought it was great that June even said, she was like, well, anger's more acceptable in this industry.
So that's again speaking to a little bit of the defensive feeling that she might be feeling there as well. Not that it's entirely that, but it could be that, okay, well I'll just channel the sadness into anger because people will accept it more.
John: This is really what I wanted to ask next is, you know, we started with fear 'cause that's pretty accessible to her.
And then anger toward the industry is acce accessible as well, but maybe not as much. We're gonna go towards sadness next, but why do you work your [00:39:00] way up this hierarchy? I know in OCD, there's fear hierarchies where you go from the least fearful thing up to the the most feared thing. Why does that help a client acclimate?
Daniel: I. It is an empowerment model, so we want to empower the client. We wanna start off by doing it like small wins, essentially. Like let's do the things that are a little bit more accessible. So let's go back to my spider analogy here. If you, uh, cover me in Tarula by trying to get me over my fear of spiders, it's not gonna work.
Whereas if you show me like an itty bitty little tiny thing that doesn't do, doesn't move or anything, then I'm gonna feel like, yeah. I got this. So in June's case, that small spider is, uh, as you did in this hierarchy, here is fear in and of itself. And she's able to sit with it and kind of, and not have her scare her too much.
And then some of the fear around fear goes down. Then you go to the medium sized spider, which is anger here, and she's able to sit with it and not get too overwhelmed. And then we go to the the tarantula that she's gonna hold in her hand, which is like terrifying. But she's already built up enough confidence in herself from the previous things.
It'll maybe be less terrifying than if we just, you know, threw that torrential at her.
John: What you [00:40:00] said there, uh, this empowerment model, and you may even mentioned confidence,
I. A lot of times those two things are the things that separate a, an emotional experience from being negative to corrective. Mm-hmm.
Is just the vibes. Totally. Being empowered, feeling confident. Yep. If you're having a hard time even viewing these emotions as a positive thing, simply taking this empowered approach of I'm going toward this. Yes. And that's a hard thing. And I feel good about doing hard things.
Daniel: Yes, exactly. Challenging myself is a positive thing here.
John: And if you wanna take it one step further, the technique I'm using is actually taken from a CBT therapist named David Burns, who came up with this idea of paradoxical agenda setting. Mm-hmm. Where you actually find the positives and the thing that you're resisting. And when you find the positives and you actually buy into them, it helps soothe the resistance your brain is giving.
'cause it's saying, okay, I'm being listened to. I love that. But even if you can't get to that point where you find these positives, even this idea of going towards something hard, but feeling empowered during it [00:41:00] can be the difference.
Daniel: I think that's why I climb mountains to bring it back. All right, so we've made peace with fear and anger.
We found some positives in them. Let's see if we can get a win with sadness.
John: The last thing I want you to see, and I know you said this is difficult, is just see if you feel any sadness, how difficult this journey's been for you. How tough this relationship with fear and anger's been. Where do you notice that sadness coming up? Not in my throat. Good. So just feel it. Go toward it.
And this is the harder one for a lot of people. Can you think of how this sadness has aided you in your life?
June: Making me a more empathetic person. Mm-hmm. I understand humans bit better.
John: Yeah. What about your [00:42:00] relationships?
June: Yeah, allowing me to connect with humans and to reach them where they're at and love them the way they are and. Empathize with what they're going through. Is that worth it? Oh yeah.
John: Mm-hmm. And so feel that sadness bubble up in your throat. And for this one, I think it needs a little bit more nudging. Just ask it. What are you sad about right now?
June: That it's not coming easier. Everything. Yeah. That life isn't coming easier.
John: And just feel that. And again, remember, this is just a piece of you feel that pain of, of course, it's been painful, it hasn't come easier. Feel the pain of all the disappointment, the slowed timelines, the expectations, the daily struggle, and just allow that sadness to come up and as it does, [00:43:00] see if you can actually just appreciate it for giving you the richness of life, the connection with other people.
I. The talent. You have to make art that's based on emotion.
And if that fear thought comes in of saying, oh, this is too overwhelming, this is too much, just keep on reminding yourself. The only reason it becomes overwhelming is if we resist it and just feel that companionship of the sadness. It's been so many times in my life where it's kind of snapped me out of.
Being a workaholic or overproductive and reminded me what's important in my life, grounded me to what I actually want. How does that feel to be held by this feeling and to hold it?
June: It feels so much more brave than constantly fighting against it. Yeah.
And also to see them as mature beings. [00:44:00] Yeah. I think I've always seen these three fear, rage, uh, sadness as these immature, I mean, infantalize them a little bit.
Totally. But they're actually quite smart. They're more of the adult sometimes than maybe I'm
John: a hundred percent
Daniel, there's so much talk about inner child work and mm-hmm. Parenting your inner child. Why do you think it's helpful for the client there to actually view these emotions not as children or dependence, but equals and, uh, mature adults?
Daniel: Yeah. I love the way she phrased that too, just how she used to infantalize them, but now they're, she gives them more respect.
I. I actually, I'm gonna steal that language, so thank you, June. Thank you, John. Um, it's so important because what she's, what I think she's getting at here is just seeing them as less as feelings, as lesser than means we're already in a state of suppression, potentially, therefore leading to repression. So minimizing and thinking like, oh, that's so [00:45:00] silly.
Or those feelings are so dumb, or those are not useful, or they are so childish is a way of looking down on the feelings and not giving, give them full respect. And that's, you know, feelings are what? Are, they're so important to us being alive as humans. We're not just computers thinking, we are feeling beings that are driven by our emotions.
And if we don't listen to our emotions, we get into a lot of trouble. Um, so I, I really appreciate the way that was phrased and, uh, I, I wish everyone had that same respect for feelings. That world would be a healthier place.
John: And you can see, and this is kind of the magic behind some of this. Paradoxical work is that once she starts noticing the value of these emotions, yeah, they become more accessible.
So if you're having a hard time accessing your emotions, trying to put this spin on actually valuing them for what they do for you Yes. Will help them come out a little more.
Daniel: I love feelings. I really do.
John: Well, so tell me, you know, this client's now gone toward these uncomfortable feelings. Mm-hmm. And [00:46:00] she feels more at ease for having done so.
But let's tie this back to the pain work. Why is that valuable? Why is that helping us?
Daniel: Yeah. And so important to tie back into the pain work because we're not gonna be motivated to do this kind of emotional work if we don't understand why it can be helpful to us. Our body responds to danger somatically, so when we experience danger, even acute danger, we're gonna, like, if you see.
A tiger running at you, you're gonna start sweating. You're gonna feel terrible. You're gonna, you're gonna have a somatic response, a response in your body. Now, if we are constantly feeling a certain amount of danger, whether it be because of we're anxious about being living in New York and the streets not feeling safe, let's say we're always just terrified of being on the streets, then we're gonna have this.
Chronic somatic response. Now, it could be as small as just, oh, every time we're on the street we're sweating a lot or we're shaking, or it can be as big as we get migraines. And sometimes it's not always directly tied to it. There's kind of a, you know, we'll walk out on the street and be okay, but then we, as soon as we get inside, we get a migraine or something like that.
So I share that because emotions are the same thing. If we have this constant fear of [00:47:00] emotions, we're going to have a somatic response. The brain understands danger and expresses it somatically. So if we are afraid of. Sadness, and we are kind of always afraid of sadness in all capacities. Every time we would naturally feel sadness, our brain is gonna be scared and produce something somatically.
And oftentimes this happens unconsciously, we're not even aware of it. So it's so important to learn that all feelings are equal, and we should give them the respect they deserve, treat 'em like adults and not infantalize 'em.
John: So in this final section, we'll hear June synthesize what she's learned about her recovery, and I'll help her form a plan of how to keep these. Insights and this momentum going.
June: I do feel like with my progress that it. It's like I got over a big hurdle at the start because I first started to acknowledge all the connections between these emotions and these fear, but then I still think I'm the boss. Like I, you know, so like at [00:48:00] the end of the day I'm like, well, I am the one taming you guys like, but I think, um, I do think that sometimes they just, they just want to literally be heard, which is wild because you would never think that leaning into the fear is gonna help the fear subside.
John: Totally.
June: It feels so counterintuitive.
John: It does. Yeah.
June: But yet when we do these exercises, we see that that is the case. So you've got, I think it's about, for me, storing up all that evidence. Yeah. I have faith. I have faith that eventually it'll all work out. Good.
John: Any thoughts? Any questions?
June: I was wondering, do you still feel like, in terms of the journaling, why do you think that wasn't quite working as much as saying, just sitting with my. Emotions and allowing them to come up.
John: The, the whole purpose of journaling is to go toward an emotion that your brain thinks is scary. Mm-hmm. And to teach your brain that that emotion is not scary. That's like the entire intention of journaling. But as you were saying, like you'd go toward them and you wouldn't walk away from [00:49:00] journaling.
Often feeling better than you went into it. Mm-hmm. And so you kind of hit this plateau where there weren't these corrective experiences coming one after another. 'cause it just felt like, gosh, now I'm exhausted. I'm sad. I'm kind of wrapped up in this. Or now I'm like, I can't get unstuck from this rage that I feel about this person.
And so your brain wasn't learning that that was safer. You were just kind of treading water. Right. And so a thing that will get you over the top is as you start cheating these emotions more as equal counterparts and as you actually start thinking about how much they've served you in your life and appreciating them while you have the emotion come up mm-hmm.
Your hit rate of when you walk away from those emotions, feeling better is gonna go much, much higher. Perfect. Does that make sense? So you do think there is something to, to be said for the instantaneous of it? Like because journaling is reflected, like you're reflecting back on, you know, the past or something like that, you think?
June: In the moment. I mean, obviously I [00:50:00] can't do it while I'm in the middle of a meeting or something like that, but like quickly after or sometimes after the, that probably that, uh, instant kind of feedback is probably what my brain needs a bit more. Yeah. Like let's say, God forbid you don't get this next project.
John: Mm-hmm. You're driving home, you're gonna be feeling emotion driving home. In that instance, I want you to say, okay, this is my opportunity to have a really, really powerful exposure. Okay. 'cause if I wait for tonight when I'm asleep. This stuff's gonna come out even though I don't want it to, and it's gonna freak my brain out, right?
So I gotta deal with this now. I can't wait until Saturday to journal about this 'cause my brain's gonna deal with it.
June: Yeah. 'Cause I think I do tend to, I was like, okay, I know I've gotta deal with that, but I'll deal with it at a more convenient time. Exactly. And then I get a migraine and then I never deal with it because I have a migraine.
So that takes my focus. Yeah. Um, right. Okay. Right. All right. This is super helpful, John. I appreciate you so much.
John: I'm so glad it was helpful.[00:51:00]
Daniel, what emotion do you put off dealing with?
Daniel: Oh, we're getting personal. Um, I, I've worked on this quite a bit, so I'm proud that I don't nearly put it off as much as, or I, I don't avoid it, you know, as much as I used to. But anger is for me, the emotion that I. Uh, for, and there are many reasons for this, which I won't get into here on this podcast, but yeah, anger is the motion that I have, uh, avoided historically, which has led me to not being able to stand up for myself or put up appropriate boundaries.
I understood that intellectually before, but it was hard for me to really get how effective it would be once I got more comfortable anger. Now my life is. Much healthier. Uh, I'm able to put up boundaries where I should put up boundaries and not feel taken advantage of or used or what have you. So, uh, something I'm still working on, but it's anger for me is the one I love crying.
So I'm, I'm not the kind of guy that avoids sadness.
John: How does that feel now that you can be assertive and it doesn't take a lot of mental power to be so it's just [00:52:00] like it comes natural to you.
Daniel: It's just, as I said, it makes everything so much easier and I just feel so much healthier. Yeah. It used to really scare me when I have to, I.
Uh, recognize that something would make me angry and then do something on behalf of it. Sometimes I'd recognize that there was anger there and I would rationalize it away or, or do a really good job of being like, it doesn't matter. Don't be angry. No one likes an angry person, which, uh, was great short term, but very dangerous long term.
So, yeah, it just feels a lot better. I, I'm constant work in progress, of course, but as we all are, but it feels, uh, a lot healthier.
John: Gosh. Well, this has, this has been so fantastic having you, uh. If you have a message to people who are listening, who are going through their own journey, do you have any kind of final parting words for people?
Daniel: Uh, yeah. Thank you so much for having me, John. This is super fun. And, uh, I love that session. That was really fun to listen to. That's really cool. Um, I guess, uh, you know, in short, I would just remind people to be patient. Um, it's, as I said, we're all works in progress and it, it really, this work does take time.
Now that said, you can feel [00:53:00] better relatively quickly, you can, that isn't, isn't always the case for people. But it does take time to learn these different things and to be a healthier person. Uh, I remember when I first started going to the gym. And I like basically looked at some guy and I was like, I wanna look like that.
And my friend was like, okay, yeah, you will in six years. And I was like, six years. Like, what? No, that's insane. Like, I don't wanna wait that long. And now therapy doesn't need to take six years. But, uh, he was right. My friend was right. Like I needed to keep going, to keep doing the work. Uh, so just be patient with yourself as we, as we all learn to get healthier.
It takes time.
John: And get off the, uh, the stationary bike. Yeah.
Daniel: Yeah. 'cause I wanna use it. I apologize to, if you're listening to this podcast while you're on a stationary bike, it's Okay. Good for you for showing up at the gym because that's what matters.
John: Thanks so much for coming today, Daniel. Yeah.
Daniel: Thank you so much, John. This is a lot of fun.[00:54:00]
John: Thank you for listening to the PRT Podcast, brought to you by the Pain Reprocessing Therapy Center. I wanna thank our guest, Daniel Lyman for joining me today. You can find his therapy center@mindbodytherapycenter.org, or on Instagram at the MINDBODY Therapy Center. Finally, I wanna give a special thank you to June for allowing us to broadcast a piece of your journey.
If you like the show, please be sure to subscribe and if you'd like to partake in a session for the podcast, message me on Instagram at John g Therapy where I answer questions and provide information on the tools we covered in the episodes. Thanks again for listening.