The Mind-Body Connection: Understanding Your Pain

Show Intro Announcer: 00:00:00

Your voice is your superpower.

Show Intro Announcer: 00:00:03

Use it.

Show Intro Announcer: 00:00:04

Welcome to Ignite My voice Becoming unstoppable. Powered by Ignite Voice Inc. The podcast where voice meets purpose and stories ignite change.

Deep conversations with amazing guests, storytellers, speakers and change makers.

Guest Samantha-Jane Ferris: 00:00:20

The physical body, the human body can handle so many things. We have kids, we pass a watermelon out our vagina. Like we can handle amazing levels of stress.

Co-Host Kevin Ribble: 00:00:29

On today's episode, we're diving into a conversation that is equal. Part science, story and soul.

Co-Host Kat Stewart: 00:00:36

Our guest, Samantha Jane Farris, actor and registered professional counselor, brings a powerful blend of truth telling, lived experience, and clinical insight to our chat.

Co-Host Kevin Ribble: 00:00:49

And Samantha has walked through chronic pain, trauma and a journey that took her all the way into the jungles of Peru and back to herself.

Co-Host Kat Stewart: 00:00:57

This episode is for anyone who has ever felt pain that they can't explain.

Co-Host Kevin Ribble: 00:01:02

Anyone who's ever or pushed emotions down because life demanded it.

Co-Host Kat Stewart: 00:01:07

Anyone who has survived by disconnecting from their own body.

Co-Host Kevin Ribble: 00:01:12

Samantha breaks it all open.

Co-Host Kat Stewart: 00:01:13

We talk childhood trauma, compassion for the.

Co-Host Kevin Ribble: 00:01:17

Self, neuroplasticity, affirmations, and retraining the brain.

Co-Host Kat Stewart: 00:01:22

Wow. This episode is funny, deep, honest, and so needed.

Guest Samantha-Jane Ferris: 00:01:29

I still do acting. I have a regular little acting role right now. I just finished a couple things, but now my number, my actual career, and this feels right.

And this will be till the day I die, is I'm a chronic pain therapist.

Co-Host Kat Stewart: 00:01:40

And that leap is so interesting. You've gone from radio to acting and then back record rap and back. And then now you're a chronic pain therapist. Therapist.

Co-Host Kevin Ribble: 00:01:52

Well, just before we dig into that, it's nice to hear that you don't see job as a sentence, you know? Yeah, I'm just thinking of different people. I know that they. Well, I've been in it for two years or 10 years or 20 years.

I gotta see it through until retirement or until I get my package or whatever.

Guest Samantha-Jane Ferris: 00:02:10

Yeah.

Co-Host Kevin Ribble: 00:02:11

And yeah, it's not a bad thing. You just never felt that jail sentence. You never felt trapped, I guess, huh?

Guest Samantha-Jane Ferris: 00:02:17

I didn't. But I guess when you're the person in that position, you question yourself and go, do I have no ability to stick to it? Do I?

I look at it sometimes as a negative. And when you feel insecure about yourself, I'm like. Cause I do. I look, I have a certain amount of envy for people that stuck it out.

Like the people that I went to high school with. They're retiring. People that became teachers. They're now retiring.

Co-Host Kevin Ribble: 00:02:39

Their house is paid for. Much more successful than you.

Guest Samantha-Jane Ferris: 00:02:43

And I'm still finding myself.

You know, I just started the chronic pain therapist journey at 54 and I went, am I just not meant to be in one, or am I really just looking at all of it? Or do I not have the capacity? Doesn't matter, because this has been my life and I have no regrets.

But I do wonder what it would have been like if I had taken one career and stayed with that. Could I have done it?

Co-Host Kat Stewart: 00:03:05

On the flip side, though, you're an adventurous, Right?

Guest Samantha-Jane Ferris: 00:03:09

You could call it that.

Co-Host Kat Stewart: 00:03:09

You're looking for passion and connection and purpose. And maybe in this one position over here, it doesn't match because you've grown and changed.

Guest Samantha-Jane Ferris: 00:03:21

Yeah.

Co-Host Kat Stewart: 00:03:21

So I think that's actually a really interesting aspect to your. To your personality. It takes a lot of courage to get up and change from something you're comfortable at.

Guest Samantha-Jane Ferris: 00:03:30

Again, I was lucky. I had the freedom to do that. Right. I made some great money, so I had stability. I didn't have a.

If I had children or a husband or something that tied me down. It might have been different, but I was lucky that I didn't do that. But I will say.

Co-Host Kat Stewart: 00:03:44

Or smart.

Guest Samantha-Jane Ferris: 00:03:44

You can just say, or smart or not. But I will say this, and you can hold me to this. The role I'm in now as a chronic pain therapist, I believe that everything led me up to this.

And this is actually where I'm meant to die working. This is what I'm meant to do for the rest of my days. And I've never been so sure of anything in my life. So maybe everything led to this.

Co-Host Kevin Ribble: 00:04:02

I like how she called it a role, like on Battlestar Galactic or something. My role now is this.

Yeah, well, you know, Kat and I were talking before you came, and there's a clear thread through all those bizarre different paths, isn't there? And the thread that we're seeing is that mind body connection. Right.

Breath matching and tension in an interesting way, it's in everything you've done.

Guest Samantha-Jane Ferris: 00:04:30

Yeah, it is. Oh, absolutely. That's a good point, actually. Yes. The breath for sure.

And it's funny because as I started out in radio, the breath was so incredibly important. And now as I've come full circle and the breath is so important in what I do.

In fact, when I work with my clients, one of the things that a lot of them don't do is they don't breathe. And one of the ways out of chronic pain, one of the first tools is three or four breathing exercises that I teach them.

And when I do it myself, because I still have to do it. I had chronic pain for 20 years. This is what led me to this. And when I learned about breathing properly, people don't realize how important that is.

And I had to learn that back in 19. God. Was it 91 when I started in radio? I think so, yeah. It has come full circle. But people don't realize how important that is.

Co-Host Kat Stewart: 00:05:13

Foundational.

Co-Host Kevin Ribble: 00:05:14

You're talking our talk.

Guest Samantha-Jane Ferris: 00:05:15

We're here.

Co-Host Kevin Ribble: 00:05:15

Sam should work with us.

I mean, that's one of the first things we get across, working with people, right, Is how critical breath is in everything you do in vocal anatomy, but in life, right.

Co-Host Kat Stewart: 00:05:27

And it's a nervous system reset.

Guest Samantha-Jane Ferris: 00:05:29

It absolutely is. Yep.

And if you look that up, if you look up breathing exercise, I'll send my clients who are struggling, I'll say, look here, I can send you stuff, but look up. Go to YouTube and go look up exercises to reset the nervous system or vagus nerve exercises or whatever.

There are always three or four very serious breath exercises. And people go, yeah, yeah, whatever.

Co-Host Kat Stewart: 00:05:51

It's too simple, too easy.

Guest Samantha-Jane Ferris: 00:05:52

There's no way. And then you. You know, if you went and read about why it works, then it makes sense, but nobody's got the time or the interest to do that now.

Everything's online. Everything's simple.

But if you went and read about why breath work works and what it does for your system, all that oxygen going in and then the whole. And it's just so incredibly imperative to every part of our mental and physical state.

Co-Host Kevin Ribble: 00:06:13

Oh, yeah. All of our work is holistic. All of our work is that integration that we just.

In the modern world, we forget about our bodies or we pretend they don't exist or the avatar matters more or something. Huh? We are real beings, right? Why don't we teach this stuff to our children?

Guest Samantha-Jane Ferris: 00:06:29

Why isn't it taught in school? Yeah, maybe it will be, though, one day. Maybe one day they'll go, because, you know, we learned trigonometry.

What the f. Did I ever do with trigonometry? Which I failed, by the way. You know what I mean? Like, I think, well, you failed it, so that's why I did.

But, you know, it's that stuff that they're learning. I think it's outdated. And in Asia, kids, way more stable in many ways. They're teaching them that. They're teaching them financial stability.

They're teaching them things early and they're meditating. They're doing breathing. They're doing.

They're starting with physical exercises in the morning with their teachers, and that involves breath that's okay.

Co-Host Kevin Ribble: 00:07:03

You know what? We're gonna ruin that culture with social media. You know, it'll come and take over and it'll wreck all those good things. Yeah.

It seems in our modern Western culture, we're moving actually away from it. We're not gonna find that magic.

Co-Host Kat Stewart: 00:07:16

No connection.

Guest Samantha-Jane Ferris: 00:07:18

But maybe we gotta crash before we rise up. And I hate to say I don't mean that in a political way. There's so much garbage going on in the world. Maybe that's where everything's headed.

But maybe some people say that the world goes through this every hundred years or something. We crash and then there's a rebuild.

Is the phoenix from the ashes is that, you know, we come out of that much stronger, but we have to crash in order to go there. So maybe that's it.

Co-Host Kevin Ribble: 00:07:44

That's a positive way to look at tech industries dominating everything. They're gonna kill it, and then we're gonna come back stronger.

Guest Samantha-Jane Ferris: 00:07:49

Doesn't everything come back? Yeah, we're playing LPs again. You know what I mean? I know that's a minor example of that, but we are. People are living off the land.

I get the algorithm on my phone is. All of a sudden these homesteading videos come up, and I'm like, this looks fabulous. And people are doing it all over.

Co-Host Kevin Ribble: 00:08:08

Raw milk is not the answer to everything.

Guest Samantha-Jane Ferris: 00:08:11

This guy was. No, he was a new age. He was still like, no, he wasn't that guy. He's still electricity, the whole nine yards, and blah, blah, blah.

But he's just saying, let's bring life back to simple. Like he's, you know, you can grow your own vegetables. Exactly. Grow your own vegetables. You know that there's nothing on.

You're not putting all that stuff. He's got no. He's got a T shirt that says ACDC on it. He's got a ball cap with Budweiser. Like, he's. He's the new age homesteader guy.

But him and his family, he said, here, you can. You can even go to his page and he'll show you all the things about starting your own this and starting your own that and your own eggs.

And it's more for health. And I don't know if it's about doomsday, like, let's prepare for doomsday. I hope that's not where he's going with that, but it was very motivating.

And I'm like, I think there are a lot of people that are headed there.

Co-Host Kat Stewart: 00:09:04

How did you get to this point.

Guest Samantha-Jane Ferris: 00:09:06

th of: 2004

I won't go too far. But I felt like I had a bladder infection.

And I was like, I just come back from pilot season in la, which I didn't realize just drove my nervous system into the ground. And I didn't know realize this till later. It was. It's. Hollywood is horrible, L.A. and I mean that in quotes. Is horrible.

The acting industry is horrible.

Co-Host Kat Stewart: 00:09:34

Be Grinder.

Guest Samantha-Jane Ferris: 00:09:35

Oh, it's absolutely.

Co-Host Kevin Ribble: 00:09:36

You spit people out is what you kind of.

Guest Samantha-Jane Ferris: 00:09:37

It does. It doesn't care. It's soulless. And I'm glad I'm out of it.

I didn't know this at the time, but I felt like I had a bladder infection, went through all this stuff. Within a year I was suicidal. And I don't mean that I just wanted out. I just. The doctors, I'd seen everybody, I went to every doctor.

I even went to the bigwigs in the States. I went to Peru and did ayahuasca in the jungles of Peru, up the Amazon River. We could not figure out what was going on.

Co-Host Kevin Ribble: 00:10:02

And it was pain. Was it?

Guest Samantha-Jane Ferris: 00:10:03

Wow. It was pain. It was urgency. It was. It's apparently very normal. I read it now and I have a lot of clients with it.

Urgency, frequency, pain, glass in your bladder. Like it just. It was insane and nobody, nobody could figure it out. And finally somebody gave me a book by a guy named Dr. John Cerno.

And he was a rehabilitation doctor at the Rusk Institute in New York, full on md but he. And he was old school, wore a bow tie, he's this big.

He was 90 years old, but he noticed that all of his people for back rehab that he was bringing in, they weren't getting better with the rehab that they were doing. But he did notice that they all had something in common. And they all had one of five things in common.

Childhood trauma, repressed emotions, something that they weren't letting address that wasn't even that. I hate my sister in law, I hate my brother in law, I hate my marriage, I hate my job.

Something they're pushing down daily stressors, personality traits or the way that we treat ourselves. And he found over the years and for an MD trained like him, it was very big for him to say this is not a physical thing.

So he started down this very lonely path because every doctor laughed at him till the day he died. Like in the 90s. They still laughed at him. But he started what we now know back then. He called it tms, Tension Myositis Syndrome.

We now have many names for it. I call it Mind Body Syndrome, mbs. Some people call it neuroplastic pain, Central sensitization. There are many names for it.

But what it means is what he basically was saying is, in the mind and the body are not only connected, you can't disconnect them. They are 100% connected.

Co-Host Kat Stewart: 00:11:46

That makes sense.

Guest Samantha-Jane Ferris: 00:11:47

It's getting better.

And it's funny because we all know, like, you blush when you're around somebody you like, your hands sweat and your heart beats when you go to give a speech. We all know that. But the second you say you have back pain because of stress in your family, people automatically dismiss that.

They're like, you don't understand. This is real pain.

So when somebody gave me a Sarno book that said the Mind Body Prescription, that was all about that, I did what everybody else did, and I threw the book across the wall and I said, my clients all do this. This is real pain. You don't understand. This is not some woo thing in my head.

And what it took me another 10 years to realize is it's not in your head. The pain's real. If they put little nodes on you, they would find the pain. But the solution is not in your body. It's up here.

It's in your emotional states. It's in your relationship to yourself. It's in how you manage stress. It's in your childhood stuff. And so the world is only just starting.

It's a very pioneering field. I just went to a HU conference about this in said I would never go to the States again, but I had to go Boulder, Colorado.

I had to take my Facebook off because there are many things there. Yeah, not pro Trump. I thought, they're gonna arrest me and throw me into jail in El Salvador. They didn't cross my fingers. Next time, thank goodness.

Yeah, next time, don't go back. But there's, you know, there used to be 35 doctors. Now there are 400 practitioners there.

So the word is getting out, and the medical community is starting to recognize that the body and the mind are connected. But it's so slow. And it's people like me that are finally taking people and saying, here's a few things that you can do.

And when they say, my sciatica, I've had it for 20 years. It's never gone away. I just did what you told me, and I peed standing up for the first time in 15 years. They cry. They can't believe that it's.

And it's like it really is that simple. You guys, you've got to believe in the mind body connection.

Co-Host Kat Stewart: 00:13:39

Was that about neuroplasticity, the one that you went to? What was it called?

Guest Samantha-Jane Ferris: 00:13:43

What's called the ATNs. So it's an organization that's really moving forward, which is the association for the Treatment of Neuroplastic Symptoms.

A guy named Dr. David Clark and all of the bigwigs in the world that have all studied somewhat under Sarno, they were all there a guy. I could give you some names, but it wouldn't matter. But all the big wheels in this industry were there.

Co-Host Kevin Ribble: 00:14:07

It just ties into neuroscience really from everything I know. The brain developed along with the body and mind from a very primal stage. It's natural. They're absolutely integrated.

But that's maybe never skipped from neuroscience to the greater medical community fully.

Guest Samantha-Jane Ferris: 00:14:27

Well, that's the problem.

And it's really kind of not doctors faults, old school doctors because they're taught when you have something wrong with your body, it's physical, something wrong with your brain. Go see a psychologist or get some meds. They were not taught that the two are connected. They're slowly starting.

And it has to start with doctors because they have to be able to say to a client, I know why you have back pain. When you know you have to go through all that, you got to make sure that it is. But 90 to 95% of chronic pain and symptoms is mind body related.

90 to 95%.

Co-Host Kat Stewart: 00:15:09

I'm just interested about the vagus.

Guest Samantha-Jane Ferris: 00:15:12

Vagus Nerve.

Co-Host Kat Stewart: 00:15:13

Nerve. How does that factor in to neuroplasticity and how our bodies connect to our minds?

Guest Samantha-Jane Ferris: 00:15:21

Well, my body, I'll call it mind body syndrome, but it's neuroplastic pain. Whatever it is, it's all the same thing. It's tied to your autonomic nervous system.

So what happens is when you're so I'll give you the cleanest explanation of mind body syndrome that I can. Our brain and nervous system is always. Your nervous system's number one job is to protect you. That's its only job, is to protect you.

That's why you cut your hand. Whatever it is, anything that's near a dangerous area will give you pain because it's warning you, careful, you're gonna hurt yourself.

I'm just here to help you survive. That's all the nervous system does. And it works with the brain. So the brain and the Nervous system.

Back here in the primitive part of our brain, when it says danger coming, it will warn you and it will send you a signal. You put your hand on a hot stove, you will pull it away quickly because you're to hurt yourself.

But what we've learned is back here, the amygdala, that whole system back here, it's so archaic. It is one of the first areas built because it had to protect us. It doesn't know the difference between an emotional danger and a physical danger.

Now, back in the old days, we didn't have emotional dangers. It was, oh, you know, can I eat it? Can I screw it? Can I kill it? It was all very. Not to be gross, but caveman days was very simple. Life is tough now.

Like life, we have emotional triggers all the time. We wake up. We grew up with parents that mean well, but screw us up. So what happens over time is we develop intellectually.

This part of the brain didn't develop. So it sees an emotional danger as the same thing as a physical danger. It's going to send you pain, and it's the nervous system responding.

Your nervous system goes into fight flight when it sees whether it's a lion running at you or an emotional trigger from your childhood that you buried a long time ago. That's a very Freudian explanation. It can be many things. It can be, I hate my effing job, but I need this and I need to bury that.

I hate it because I gotta go to it every day. When you bury that causes fight flight in your system, triggers the autonomic nervous system.

Co-Host Kevin Ribble: 00:17:21

I'm in a marriage I hate, but I can't financially leave. So I'll bury it.

Guest Samantha-Jane Ferris: 00:17:26

I'll bury it. But here's the great thing is you don't have to leave that marriage. You don't have to quit that job.

You just have to be really aware of how you feel about something. And that's what I show my clients.

Co-Host Kevin Ribble: 00:17:36

Don't bury it is what you're telling.

Guest Samantha-Jane Ferris: 00:17:38

Don't bury it. Feel that s. Feel that shit.

Co-Host Kat Stewart: 00:17:40

Allow it.

Guest Samantha-Jane Ferris: 00:17:41

Excuse my language, but you gotta. I see with my clients all the time, and a journaling exercise is one of the first things I tell them.

And you should see 200 pound men that are like, I'm not gonna journal. And I'm like, look, this is what you're gonna do. I said, do you want out of pain or do you want. And they'll do it eventually.

And they find amazing things. And I had a guy from Victoria, he was. Long story, very Very educated man that was struggling with huge back pain his whole life.

And he was one of my first clients, actually. And I saw him every week and da, da, da, da. And, you know, we were a couple weeks in, and I finally said, oh, by the way, so let's work on the pain.

He goes, oh, the pain went away on the second week. And I went, what?

Co-Host Kevin Ribble: 00:18:21

You didn't tell me?

Guest Samantha-Jane Ferris: 00:18:22

And I'm like, you didn't tell me? And he goes, oh, I don't know. He goes, I just thought it was. And I said, what did you do? And he said, I just did the journaling.

And I said, did stuff come up? He said, oh, stuff came up. And I said, why didn't you tell me this? And he said, I don't know. I guess I didn't really think about it.

And I was like, oh, my God. Anyway, to take us back to the vagus nerve. Vagus nerve is the longest nerve in our body, and it is very wired to our nervous system.

So nervous system sends off danger, danger, danger. So when you put. When you calm that nervous system down, you calm the vagus nerve down.

So when you calm the vagus nerve down, and you can do it many different ways. You can do it through the breathing we were talking about. That's the best way. You can do it through something called a dive reflex.

You put your face in cold water. What it does is it brings you into the parasympathetic. I don't want to get too technical about this.

Sympathetic nervous system amps you up, takes you into nervous system fight, flight. Parasympathetic nervous system calms you down.

So when you do vagus nerve exercises, it brings you into the parasympathetic, and it brings you out of that fight, flight.

Co-Host Kevin Ribble: 00:19:24

No. I take it that the nervous system is acting on the muscles. The muscles react to what the nervous system is telling them.

Guest Samantha-Jane Ferris: 00:19:34

The whole body responds.

Co-Host Kat Stewart: 00:19:35

So there's even your internal organs, correct?

Guest Samantha-Jane Ferris: 00:19:37

Absolutely. Well, there's two things that. There's two reasons that we get pain.

One of them is to distract you from an emotion that your nervous system thinks is gonna kill you. Hate my mother, you know, didn't deal with certain stuff, hate my job. Personality traits that beat us up.

Like when people have a really hard voice in their head, that critical voice, that critical voice that you can get from many different things. Your nervous system also reads that as a danger.

So we get pain as it's trying to distract us from an emotion that's trying to rise, or it's just warning you so there's two things and both of them are tied to the nervous system.

Co-Host Kevin Ribble: 00:20:12

And that pain could come out anywhere, I guess.

Guest Samantha-Jane Ferris: 00:20:14

Yeah, it can come absolutely anywhere. And all it is is a message from your nervous system saying, and it'll pick anywhere.

Mine was bladder, yours could be back, yours could be toe pain, teeth pain. You should see the symptoms I've seen over the years. It's absolutely insane. It's what's going to get your attention.

And that intention is either to warn you like the hand on the hot stove, danger here to take your hand away or she can't, he can't handle that fill in the blank emotion from their childhood memory, from something that they don't want to look at. And it's so simple to address it. You just have to bring it up and allow your system to see it. And it goes.

Because your system goes, she can't handle that emotion or that memory. And then when you see journal about it and when your nervous system goes, oh, it's just a memory, pain starts to go away.

Co-Host Kevin Ribble: 00:21:02

Because it's interesting. Pain is a distraction. I mean I'm just listening, thinking about I'm in the gym every other day and I'll do some kind of injury.

My nervous system will kick in to protect that muscle and I'll feel other muscles doing the work and having that muscle hide. And so I see that nervous system reaction and I feel it in the gym and I gotta do things to, to get around that.

Guest Samantha-Jane Ferris: 00:21:27

But it's the same idea.

Co-Host Kevin Ribble: 00:21:28

Yeah, it's the first time I've heard it. It's a distraction, protection.

Guest Samantha-Jane Ferris: 00:21:32

So it's the two things for a lot of people. And people don't believe it's distraction. So sometimes I have to start with a client, you know.

Cause that's too woo woo for a lot of people to handle. It's like I don't have repressed emotions. My childhood was great, blah blah, blah blah blah. And then.

Co-Host Kevin Ribble: 00:21:45

Yeah. Cause it's suppressed.

Guest Samantha-Jane Ferris: 00:21:46

Yeah, exactly.

Co-Host Kevin Ribble: 00:21:47

You're not seeing it.

Guest Samantha-Jane Ferris: 00:21:49

Of course they don't, they don't want to deal with. None of us do. I'll start on the. Okay, well it's just the, you know, it's a false alarm because that's what it is. It's just an alarm.

You know, hand on the hot stove, you're nervous back here, that part of your brain again that doesn't know the difference, it's pulling away from something. So I'll tell them, oh, it's just the hand on the hot stove. And then over Time. I will say, how was your childhood? Fine. Would you ever want anybody.

How would you feel if your child had your childhood? And immediately people, I don't want that. Yeah, their face will drain. I saw a man cry and he's like.

But it takes them a while to go, maybe it wasn't that great. It's not just, I hate my job. It's. I'll give you an example. Well, I hate my job, but that's not what it is.

But let's say this person was taught by their parents, you don't ever give up on a job. You have to support your family. Like, there's something underneath that.

And when I show them that, and it's usually through journaling or breathing exercises where they have, you know, they learn through the nervous system. Wow, I had a day without pain. What did you do? Well, I breathed and I. You talk to your brain and your nervous system.

First thing I did, I had to write out cue cards. There's nothing wrong here. There's nothing. And you have to actually talk to your brain and nervous system to get it to start to believe you.

Co-Host Kat Stewart: 00:23:05

Isn't that an affirmation that we call affirmations? Or would you call it something different?

Guest Samantha-Jane Ferris: 00:23:11

Affirmations scare the people that are anti. And I put this in air quotes. Woo, woo, woo. So I won't call it an affirmation because they're like, don't give me that.

I will say it's talking to your brain and your nervous system. So there are two ways that we address the chronic symptoms.

And it is to deal with emotional stuff and the stress in your life, whether it be past or present. Hate my job, stuff from your childhood. And then we are retraining the brain so that's where neuroplasticity comes in. The brain has gotten used to.

Often some people have chronic pain just because that loop is now going. They got a pain, the problem ended, but the fear pain loop kept going. And once it gets going, it can run on its own.

So people that have long since dealt with whatever it is, now they're scared of the pain. It's called the six Fs. I never remember all six. Fear fight, figure it out. Frustration. Now I've got to four. But there are six Fs.

If you go to my website, you can find the six Fs. So what happens is it becomes a learned neural pathway. Just like, you know, a river, you cut a river.

If there's a river going this way and you fork it off and make it go that way. Thoughts do the same thing. We compare thoughts.

Co-Host Kevin Ribble: 00:24:15

A habit.

Guest Samantha-Jane Ferris: 00:24:15

Yeah, totally. That's all it is, is habit. So when somebody starts to get afraid of, let's say it's a back pain now, they're like, oh my God, here it comes again.

How bad is it gonna be? When will it go away? They get those six Fs. And when you get into that, it just runs on its own. And you're into fear.

So when you talk to your brain and your nervous system, that's neuroplasticity. We retrain the brain and this is where people have the hardest time. Cause they're like, there's no way talking to my brain and nervous system's gonn.

It does. Over time, it does.

Co-Host Kevin Ribble: 00:24:41

Oh, burn a new Dendrite. Right?

Guest Samantha-Jane Ferris: 00:24:42

That's exactly it. But they don't get that.

Co-Host Kat Stewart: 00:24:44

It's a new road.

Guest Samantha-Jane Ferris: 00:24:45

It is a new road. And I use the river and I use so many different things. And it's. Sometimes people just aren't ready.

I have a client right now who will remain nameless. She's not even in this country. She just won't wrap her head around it. And it's frustrating to see some people take a year.

It took me a year and a half. She got a big block and she's doing all this stuff, but she doesn't believe. And she's. That hurt. Fear. Her fear.

Co-Host Kat Stewart: 00:25:12

That's the fear?

Guest Samantha-Jane Ferris: 00:25:12

Yeah, her fear. Frustration. Fix it. Figure it out. And I said, you have to let go. And it's. The irony of it is you have to let go to move forward. And she just.

She can't do it. And I get it. Cause I couldn't either.

Co-Host Kat Stewart: 00:25:23

It's gonna take her some time.

Co-Host Kevin Ribble: 00:25:24

I can make the leap politically now. You ready for this, Sam?

Guest Samantha-Jane Ferris: 00:25:27

Yes, I'm ready for it.

Co-Host Kevin Ribble: 00:25:28

Uh.

Co-Host Kat Stewart: 00:25:28

Oh, I'm not.

Guest Samantha-Jane Ferris: 00:25:30

What are you saying?

Co-Host Kevin Ribble: 00:25:31

Well, you know, I'm thinking belief system is something else we teach to policy, things like that and the tie into how we structure our society. I'm listening to you thinking that our technological society and our bubble society, algorithm driven, AI driven, there's a big problem coming.

And I'm tying it into what you're suggesting. That habits playing a role.

And if we believe something politically really strong and we demonize the other side and become afraid of it, we tend to have an emotional reaction very similar to what I hear you talking about in terms of emotional pain in the body. And I don't know, there's an easy way out.

So, you know, as we look in the south of Us, we have, you know, two distinct camps that hate each other and won't talk. Now I'm starting to think it's almost embedded in the body like you're talking.

Co-Host Kat Stewart: 00:26:48

You're stuck.

Co-Host Kevin Ribble: 00:26:49

That it's gonna be difficult to break that habit, to get out of it. We need some almost neural rewiring.

Guest Samantha-Jane Ferris: 00:26:57

Yeah, you need those. I call them cue cards. I say them.

I send them to my clients, and I say, I want you to print this out on cue cards and read them out loud ten times a day. And it's creating that new neural pathway. It's. You know, it's so you've got to want to change. And that's where what's going on in the south is.

I don't know that they want to change. I don't know that they're in enough.

Co-Host Kat Stewart: 00:27:17

Pain, hasn't got enough.

Co-Host Kevin Ribble: 00:27:19

Fix the world for us.

Guest Samantha-Jane Ferris: 00:27:20

Yes, exactly.

Co-Host Kevin Ribble: 00:27:21

Please help me out. Help me out. Okay, so they don't want to change. What do we do?

Guest Samantha-Jane Ferris: 00:27:26

That. Well, that's the $64,000 question, isn't it? What? Nicole Sachs. And I learned so much from her. She's really the queen of this.

She was a student under Dr. John Sarno, and she is now taking it forward. She's brilliant. She's got YouTube. She's got everything, if anybody wants to look her up. And she's fun. She's like me.

She's ballsy and bawdy and swears and from New York. And she says it straight, like it is, but love it. She said the world is.

Co-Host Kevin Ribble: 00:27:56

How does she.

Guest Samantha-Jane Ferris: 00:27:57

I got a word the way she does. Life is a choice between what hurts and what hurts worse. Everything hurts, right? Everything's hard. But you will choose what hurts less. Yeah.

You'll choose what hurts until that's not where it is anymore. So as much as I hate to say it, until it becomes that bad, they're not gonna change things. Now, that's one thing.

But the political system, like, we've also got horrible people. We're not gonna get into politics here. That's not what this conversation's about. But I don't know if dt.

If he had a back pain, he would even try to address it. He's not that deep. He's not that interested. You know what I mean? Like his folk, I don't think are.

They don't care about what hurts worse or they want what hurts worse?

Co-Host Kat Stewart: 00:28:46

Well, they want the easy route, I think.

Co-Host Kevin Ribble: 00:28:48

Right? They don't care about pain on others.

Co-Host Kat Stewart: 00:28:52

How they gonna make it easier for themselves?

Guest Samantha-Jane Ferris: 00:28:55

And I think they just shut down. I think you have to have a conscience too.

And I hate to say this, I don't mean to be harsh about it, but I think there's a lack of a conscience there. I think these people are one sided and they've just got their head pointed in one direction and they're not gonna see anything else.

There's something called a negativity bias. And it's. If you, whatever you expect around you, if you expect the worst, you're gonna see the worst.

And I think they may be lost, but I don't know that we're lost in that way. Like you were saying, belief systems and mantras and all that stuff, they all do matter.

And the more videos I see and the algorithm works because mine is all self help stuff. Mine are all really good until I get.

Co-Host Kevin Ribble: 00:29:36

It's a good bubble.

Guest Samantha-Jane Ferris: 00:29:37

It is a good bubble. And unless you go to the negative, mine stays in that place.

And I see so many great videos that are all about, and I'm trying to teach this to my clients right now is you have to find joy in your life. You have to go out and do things that give you pleasure.

You have to look in the mirror and say, I'm a good person and I deserve good things and I love myself. And I forget like this is all woo woo stuff, but woo woo works like it's a thing because it works.

Co-Host Kat Stewart: 00:30:03

Been there for a reason.

Guest Samantha-Jane Ferris: 00:30:04

Yeah.

Co-Host Kevin Ribble: 00:30:05

And Sam, I challenge you a little bit. Woo woo. I mean, what does woo woo mean here? Wokeism in there. I hear stuff.

Guest Samantha-Jane Ferris: 00:30:11

No, not wokeism. I don't like your connection.

Co-Host Kevin Ribble: 00:30:14

Woo woo is just the way the brain works. It's emotional, it's integration, it's not negative. Right.

Guest Samantha-Jane Ferris: 00:30:19

I think it's an old term and I should stop using that because it is a negative term. And I don't mean it. What I mean is when people used to say, oh, that's very fairy dismissive. And it's not based in science.

If you can't prove it on paper and you just say it's up in the clouds. But the thing about what I'm talking about, you can now prove it on paper. So it's not woo woo.

It's when I talk to clients that have a wall up and I know that they're using. I think woke is something different. Woke has turned into a, you know, it's a negative thing. And I hate that it's that.

Cause some of what I see as woke, even I'm not even. I look at it and Think sometimes the word woke is weaponized. Yeah, it's definitely weaponized.

Cause I saw a skit on, I don't know if it was Saturday Night Live, and I went, wow, is that really wokeism or have we taken the word woke too?

Co-Host Kat Stewart: 00:31:23

Where does empathy fit into this? Does empathy fall into a category that is prescriptive to help internally and externally?

Guest Samantha-Jane Ferris: 00:31:35

That's a good question. I think empathy to self is one of the. There are five areas where chronic pain and symptoms come from.

And one of them, the last one, which is so important that one of the things that you have to address is compassion to the self. So it's not necessarily empathy to others. Because I think that will come with everything else if you find empathy.

People don't often have empathy for themselves. We don't talk about it. We think that's. There's woo, woo. There's people that go, oh, empathy, whatever. Empathy, shmempathy. But again, what hurts?

Difference between what hurts and what hurts worse. If you're going to get better, you're gonna have to find another way to integrate, interact with yourself.

And sometimes that's the last step that people will fight to the end of time, but they'll do it and go, that was the last piece. And they'll go, and I make them stick. I have it on my mirror. I'm a good person. I love myself. I'm a good person. I deserve good things.

I make people say that in the mirror to their own eyes ten times. And a lot of people say, yeah, yeah, I do it.

And then I'm like, you know, a while in, they'll go, can I tell you, I never did that until I finally, you know, And I'm like, I know. A lot of people don't. It feels stupid. Try it. Don't forget you also have a voice that comes back at you.

And you learn a lot by how you speak to yourself. We just don't listen. We don't listen to that inner voice. Nobody does. We bury it with booze, drugs, sex, music, all the things that we just. I do it.

My phone. My phone is. I'm never more than a foot from my phone. I take it from room to room. My mother doesn't have a cell phone. She sees my brother and I do it.

And she is. It is Planet Meatball to her. She doesn't get the cell phone addiction.

Co-Host Kevin Ribble: 00:33:10

Well, addiction, you just nailed it.

Guest Samantha-Jane Ferris: 00:33:12

Oh, it did.

Co-Host Kevin Ribble: 00:33:12

Everything just described was an addiction.

Guest Samantha-Jane Ferris: 00:33:14

But addiction is all about, don't look at why the addiction, look at why the pain. Like we have addiction for a reason. Gabor Matig.

Co-Host Kevin Ribble: 00:33:21

Oh, Gabor is all over that, right? And he's talking about trauma, youth trauma. And a lot of us don't want to face the trauma.

Guest Samantha-Jane Ferris: 00:33:29

Huge people don't want to. That's why you medicate.

Co-Host Kat Stewart: 00:33:32

Self medicate.

Guest Samantha-Jane Ferris: 00:33:33

And empathy. I think empathy and vulnerability go hand in hand. And I know this for. Cause I know it for myself.

Vulnerability is probably the scariest emotion for me. And it would be the scariest emotion for most people. Vulnerability, being vulnerable.

Co-Host Kevin Ribble: 00:33:51

Yes.

Co-Host Kat Stewart: 00:33:52

And then you're seen.

Guest Samantha-Jane Ferris: 00:33:52

It was dangerous when we were kids. Like, look at those jackasses in the States. You know, they. Vulnerability, that is the last thing they will ever show.

Co-Host Kat Stewart: 00:34:02

Can never be wrong.

Guest Samantha-Jane Ferris: 00:34:03

Does that come from their childhood? Probably someone.

Co-Host Kevin Ribble: 00:34:06

Yeah. And that, you know, that helps me, Sam. That helps me provide a bit of empathy towards them from me, because I realized, you know what?

It's probably trauma in their childhood, 100% that has them behaving the way they are. They're not animals. They're not assholes.

Guest Samantha-Jane Ferris: 00:34:23

They're hurt people. They're hurt little kids. They are hurting people.

Co-Host Kat Stewart: 00:34:26

Hurting people.

Guest Samantha-Jane Ferris: 00:34:26

And see how that empathy came. We look at vulnerability and you just found empathy for that. Like, they're all tied together. But it's. How much pain are you willing to admit to?

And I think to go into politics, just like car sales and, you know, you've gotta be able to put all that aside and go, what we do is we bury emotions. I learned this from my. Chronic pain is. Just because you don't feel it doesn't mean it's there. You gotta find it sometimes.

Sometimes it's right under the skin. Sometimes it's way down in there. I had to do breathing exercises. I had to do heavy breathing.

If you've ever done 9D or Vitality, that takes breath work, that's like you start to hallucinate. It's some breathing stuff that you can get online. It's not expensive.

I had people that have massive trauma that went and did those and changed their lives. Totally different thing. But what we do as kids is when we have parents, a lot of them mem. Well, but they screwed us up.

Co-Host Kevin Ribble: 00:35:25

Oh, yeah.

Guest Samantha-Jane Ferris: 00:35:26

And, you know, they. Empathy therapy didn't mean well. And what happened is when kids are not safe, we need. Kids need four things, right?

They need to be safe, seen, soothed and heard. And when they don't have those things, when there's lack of safety. When you're a kid, you bury that stuff. When you're.

It's not safe to be sad, to be angry too, when you're not allowed to express your emotions. A kid doesn't know what to do.

They don't know what to do with that when they can't go to their mom and say, I'm scared or you're hurting me or whatever. When they can't do that, two things happen. They bury it because they don't know how it becomes overwhelming. And they also blame themselves.

Kids need, we're wired to need our caregivers. This goes back to caveman days.

So what happens is when a kid, when a parent does something not wrong but hurts a child, the child only knows to blame themselves because they know they need that parent to survive. So what their system does is goes, it's my fault. I did this wrong. Let's bury that. We're gonna call, let's make it into shame.

We'll let that come up when they're 30. But we need to survive. We need the.

Co-Host Kat Stewart: 00:36:27

We need mom and dad.

Guest Samantha-Jane Ferris: 00:36:29

We need the tribe to embrace us. So a lot of things happens for kids. So when an adult goes, no, my childhood was fine. I have a client who's also a very good friend of mine.

I don't know that he'll ever be out of. He's got tinnitus, which is the ringing in the ears. That's 100% mind body. He will not accept it because he won't look at certain.

Co-Host Kevin Ribble: 00:36:51

You're doing a wonderful description of attachment theory. Really?

Guest Samantha-Jane Ferris: 00:36:54

Yes.

Co-Host Kevin Ribble: 00:36:55

And it's great. And we've talked about it on this podcast before.

I come from a background with a drug addicted mother who did lots of things that you shouldn't do to a child. And so I relate totally to that lack of attachment and the things you do because of it. Yeah, that's fascinating.

Co-Host Kat Stewart: 00:37:14

And I came from a family where I wasn't allowed to express emotions.

Guest Samantha-Jane Ferris: 00:37:17

Yes.

Co-Host Kat Stewart: 00:37:18

I had to be the good girl.

Guest Samantha-Jane Ferris: 00:37:19

Right. And so between the three of us, we've covered off three of them right there. And that's just us. You know what I mean?

Co-Host Kevin Ribble: 00:37:26

It's been a great conversation. But before we run out of time, you come from this unique background. I'm dying to ask this question.

Guest Samantha-Jane Ferris: 00:37:32

Don't do it.

Co-Host Kevin Ribble: 00:37:33

And that is tying in your acting background and working with scripts and what you've described with us for the last half hour and breath and body integration. I'm thinking about how breath matches intention and tying that into acting. And you're doing this interesting approach to it all.

So if I said to you when you Work with a script. Can you tell me about that? Breath matching intention to bring a script so you actually own the words?

Guest Samantha-Jane Ferris: 00:38:11

Yes, but probably not in the way you think when you look at stage. Stage and film acting are completely different because stage are taught how to breathe.

That's the first thing that stage actors are taught is how to breathe. They don't even act before they can breathe because there has to be projection and there has to be, you know. Yeah, breath is so important.

What we have gotten lazy about in film and TV is I don't think a lot of people handle their breath. And I think that has more to do with the emotion than the. You can whisper and be an actor, but breath.

Co-Host Kat Stewart: 00:38:47

Lots do.

Guest Samantha-Jane Ferris: 00:38:48

Yeah, and lots do. But I would think breath and an acting with a script more than anything would connect you with your emotions more than give you your voice.

I think it's lost that people that do film and TV don't do breathing exercises because it's not about projection. It's about connecting. Also fear when actors are scared. I was terrified a lot of my acting career.

And one of the things that gets you out of fear is your breathing. If people are taught how to breathe, it will get them more into the role.

So I think more than actual projection, I think that to learn to breathe as a film and TV actor, you would just get a better performance and you would get a better connection because it connects you with your emotional source. It connects you right down to your. Yeah, you feel it.

And we're not taught that film and TV actors, you're not taught anything about your breathing unless you come from. We get a lot of people that come from stage and they, you know, it takes them a while to sort of understand what film and TV are doing.

Because you're sitting in the green room eating a sandwich, getting your makeup done. It's all very Hollywood. People are not taught to learn a script with. But when people.

A lot of the good actors that come from stage, they'll know to go through the body and to go through the breath, and it makes them a better actor. But film and stage are very. They're lacy.

Co-Host Kevin Ribble: 00:40:08

Sometimes I'll like to turn the volume down on a monologue where I can see an actor really working something and just watch the breath. And if I see breath attached to the words, then I know that's a good actor. And so that person is.

The words are coming up from within instead of memorizing a script, Right?

Guest Samantha-Jane Ferris: 00:40:30

Yeah.

Co-Host Kevin Ribble: 00:40:30

We would say that's putting words back in the body and that's a huge difference. And you can see it with the breath, right?

Guest Samantha-Jane Ferris: 00:40:35

And that's the difference between. I shouldn't say a good and a bad, because you can have a bad actor that is just using the words, but they're somehow pulling it off.

But I would say you will get realism when you have somebody that breathes into their body, because you have to be able to. As you're saying, you have to be able to relate to the words.

If you're gonna deliver a real, solid, believable and connectable performance and character, you have to be able to connect with them physically. And you can't do that by shallow breathing. You have to be able to breathe.

You know, people I teach my clients breathe with the diaphragm and the chest go. You know, pull the stomach out, then the chest, and then put the chest and then the stomach back within and out. And some people are like, oh, my God.

I've never done that before in my life. It feels weird. The same thing with an actor.

If you want to get a really good performance out of somebody, they have to breathe it all the way down to their feet. But not a lot of actors do that.

Co-Host Kevin Ribble: 00:41:28

Oh, it's hard to lie.

Guest Samantha-Jane Ferris: 00:41:29

It's so true. You know what? The whole world, again, we were talking about this kids. And there are kids in the world that are.

They wake up in the morning, and they do Asian countries, for sure. They do calisthenics. They do certain things, and they teach them breath.

And I have a 108-year-old neighbor that is in our garden more than anybody else, and they still do that. You see people walking down the street, swinging their arms, doing certain things. They're not doing it for fun.

They're doing it because they recognize that breath and physical expression are incredibly important. And they're 120 years old.

Co-Host Kat Stewart: 00:42:04

You know, it's funny talking about breath and talking about theater and TV and film. I'm gonna be in a play come after. I haven't been in a play in two years. Yeah, that reaction right there.

Guest Samantha-Jane Ferris: 00:42:13

I'm breathing, girl. I'm like, oh, no. What if I don't remember my lines?

Co-Host Kat Stewart: 00:42:17

And what if I can't breathe?

Guest Samantha-Jane Ferris: 00:42:18

So that's where breath comes in. Because when we go to fear, we go to shallow breathing, and they just did it. But you have to pay attention to it. You have to go.

Then you'll also know the feeling. You'll start to feel clammy. You will start to feel uncomfortable. And the first thing you do is say, what's my breathing? Doing.

And you go, oh, interesting. So you either do a box breath, four in hold, four out hold. And you've got to make sure that you. Chest. I put that in my book. Yeah.

And the 4, 7, 8 breath. Dr. Wheal, if you can find. He's the guy that came up with it. It's. It's bloody brilliant. And I see everybody using it now.

In for four, and it's chest and diaphragm hold for seven and out for eight. And the eight is.

Co-Host Kevin Ribble: 00:42:54

Sh.

Guest Samantha-Jane Ferris: 00:42:55

Is through your pursed lips. And you can find him. He looks like Captain Neptune or Santa Claus. You can find him.

He's a doctor and he looks like a hippie, but he's a real doctor and a good one. You find him on YouTube. Look up Dr. Weel. I think it's W E I L478 breath. It is one of the most important breaths that you can use.

He'll even say, only do it four times in a row and don't do it often. Get used to it. Very powerful. Also something called the physiological sigh. So it's in as far as you can, and then you think it's all there.

Another sip, hold, and then out through lips. So it's. And make sure that your exhale is always longer than your inhale. People, they change their lives with that stuff.

So now you know that's the stuff that you do before you go on stage. And you will ground yourself and you will take yourself back to who you are.

Co-Host Kat Stewart: 00:43:47

Back to breath.

Co-Host Kevin Ribble: 00:43:48

Well, not only in acting. We're gonna save the world by promoting this, right?

Guest Samantha-Jane Ferris: 00:43:54

You know what?

Co-Host Kevin Ribble: 00:43:54

Breath is the answer, isn't it?

Co-Host Kat Stewart: 00:43:56

What? A conversation. Samantha reminded us that pain, whether emotional or physical, isn't a flaw.

It's a signal, a message, an invitation to listen to what we're finally strong enough to feel.

Co-Host Kevin Ribble: 00:44:11

From the mind, body, connection to the vagus nerve to the ways childhood scripts shape our adult reactions. Samantha brought clarity to something so many people silently battle.

Co-Host Kat Stewart: 00:44:22

And she brought compassion. The kind we rarely extend to ourselves. If there's one thing to take from today's episode, it's this.

Co-Host Kevin Ribble: 00:44:30

Your body isn't betraying you. It's protecting you. And with awareness, breath and gentleness, you.

Co-Host Kat Stewart: 00:44:37

Can retrain your neighbor nervous system and reclaim your life. And you can express yourself more fully, speak your truth, and live more authentically.

Co-Host Kevin Ribble: 00:44:48

Until next time, breathe deeply, speak honestly.

Show Intro Announcer: 00:44:52

And ignite your voice. Ignite my voice? Becoming unstoppable. Your voice is your superpower.

Show Intro Announcer: 00:45:03

Use it.