Charis & Jess
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Jess: [00:00:00] What if it never gets better? What if this is just my fate?
Instead is, what is actually [00:00:05] happening in the moment? I have pain right now. That's the reality. It doesn't mean that it's gonna be [00:00:10] forever, right?
[00:00:15]
Charis: Welcome back to the Harness Your Health podcast. I am Charis Sederberg, and I'm here [00:00:20] today with Jess Mather. Jess, thank you so much for being here.
Jess: Thank you for having [00:00:25] me. We are in a special time right now where we are launching this [00:00:30] book soon.
Charis: We are. Yeah. It's gonna be fun. We're gonna dive into that.
[00:00:35] So Jess is also a contributing author of the Integrated Bodies book [00:00:40] that I have been promoting. So this will be the third episode, [00:00:45] podcast episode in the series, and I have quite a few more to go. So I [00:00:50] think people are in for a really lucky treat to have this time [00:00:55] with you one-on-one as an author. So we will get into it.
Why don't [00:01:00] you tell us a little bit about who you are and what you do?
Jess: So I'm a strength and rehab [00:01:05] professional. Like you, I have worked in healthcare, and I saw the gaps that were present there. [00:01:10] Healthcare is fantastic for a lot of reasons. We need it, and it's not [00:01:15] always the whole picture for a lot of people.
So just like you, I branched out. I [00:01:20] went to do more of my own thing, so I've been working for the last, over a decade [00:01:25] now... Oh my goodness, what year is it? At least over a decade now of working with people in my own [00:01:30] telehealth practice, so working virtually mostly working with people with more chronic pain, [00:01:35] sometimes also just chronic conditions like chronic fatigue, and helping them rebuild their body, [00:01:40] helping them build their strength, helping them relieve their symptoms, and trusting in their [00:01:45] body's innate resiliency again.
Charis: Wow, I love that. So if you [00:01:50] haven't listened to any of the other episodes, I would suggest you go back and start from the beginning, [00:01:55] only because we set it up pretty well with Jess Verrill, who is the woman that this is [00:02:00] her book, and we are collaborating it. She brought us all together. But really, one of the [00:02:05] lenses that we talk about that is studied throughout the book is this holistic [00:02:10] premise.
And so it's funny 'cause I told you before we started recording, I have my [00:02:15] own chronic pain story, and I think I have maybe mentioned it a few times on the [00:02:20] podcast, and we don't need to get into the details of that today. But even being a holistic [00:02:25] practitioner, when I had my chronic pain experience that lasted [00:02:30] for over a year, 14 months or so, to me, it was [00:02:35] physical.
I was so hyper-focused on the physical, and then it got to the [00:02:40] point where I knew that there was a psychological component because for me it was [00:02:45] like I was worrying so much about it. I was worrying about the things I couldn't do, it was [00:02:50] keeping me from. So can you just explain how you view pain?[00:02:55]
If someone came to you and said, "I have this pain," or, "My doctor said [00:03:00] that the only way to get out of this pain is to have surgery," or something like that, what... [00:03:05] how would you start talking to someone about that, that maybe this holistic [00:03:10] premise has just felt so foreign?
Jess: Yeah, and unfortunately, that's usually what'll happen, [00:03:15] right?
Somebody will go to an orthopedic surgeon, which again, thank goodness for [00:03:20] them. We need surgery sometimes. It's necessary. But- What's that phrase? [00:03:25] If you only have a hammer and a nail or something like that, I wanna use this hammer 'cause everything here is a nail. [00:03:30] So I feel like that's a bit of the perspective of the surgeon, right? So you walk in and they're like, "You're gonna have to [00:03:35] have surgery." They're trained to look at the imaging, this means [00:03:40] this.
They're not thinking way out of the box, or at least most of them, because they're a surgeon, that you're coming to them for [00:03:45] that thing.
I don't like to say that, surgeons are wrong, these doctors are wrong in their perspectives. In the chapter I [00:03:50] say, it's just because they've been trained in a particular lens.
But when we look a little bit broader at the [00:03:55] picture, then we start to see different options. Different things actually become available to us. [00:04:00] So when I have a client come to me and they're saying, "I'm gonna need surgery." For example, I talked [00:04:05] about this one example in the book of a woman who was only in her 30s, and she was told, "I need to have [00:04:10] surgery.
Let's do prehab," is basically what it's called. So let's do [00:04:15] some movement and some strengthening before I have to go into surgery. I didn't tell her at the time, "You're not [00:04:20] gonna need surgery." That's not my place to say, "I don't believe in your surgeon." [00:04:25] I just saying, "Let's just see what happens.
We're just going to use these methods and [00:04:30] these strategies. And if you still decide to go with surgery, you're stronger for it, you're better [00:04:35] going in."
Charis: And
Jess: if you don't, fantastic, you just saved yourself, for her it was 10K out of pocket [00:04:40] and a flight from Canada to The States.
Charis: Wow.
Jess: In Pennsylvania, because healthcare sometimes in [00:04:45] Canada it's hard to get your surgeries.
So in that case, we just [00:04:50] went to work, and we were doing movement, and we were going really at a pace that she could control. [00:04:55] Because when those people come in, there's usually out of fear, right? When you were telling me about your story, there [00:05:00] was this fear of, "I don't know what I can do. This constantly hurts me if I sit for long periods of time," for [00:05:05] example.
For her it was walking. We slowed everything [00:05:10] down, is a big piece of it is, is, you know, we wanna work at the pace of the body, work at the pace of the nervous [00:05:15] system. As we slow things down, then we can start to control those small [00:05:20] areas where there is all of that fear. It's like, It's like it ju- very gently start to go into the [00:05:25] fear.
And that starts to open up a whole New experience that we didn't even know [00:05:30] was possible.
Charis: Yeah. So you mentioned the nervous system, and I think of [00:05:35] everything through this lens of the nervous system, because I talk about that the nervous system is such a [00:05:40] priority for whatever you have going on, whether it's pain, whether it's [00:05:45] IBS, constipation, like whatever it is.
Yeah. It's literally, you [00:05:50] have to address what's going on with your nervous system, and I find that people are just very [00:05:55] disconnected with this. Yeah. But also, once they [00:06:00] experience what that means, they feel this kind of relief, [00:06:05] and it's almost I do think it, that's the connection with our mind, body, and [00:06:10] spirit.
But what do you see with people with pain when you start [00:06:15] to, when they start to... So you're scaling th- things back and- Yep ... a lot of [00:06:20] people have trouble with that. They're like- Yeah ... no, I need to do more. I need to lift more. I need [00:06:25] to..." 'Cause that's what we're told and taught. So how do you scale [00:06:30] things back, and what do you see happening?
Jess: I had this client start with me, I [00:06:35] wanna say maybe three weeks ago, and she had a lot of fear and [00:06:40] hesitation around working on her knee. Similar thing, her imaging was negative, nothing was [00:06:45] wrong with the imaging, yet she still had these symptoms, and she was so used to living with [00:06:50] them.
And she's been doing nervous system work, and she had a lot of energy to wanna move. She's like, "I know I have this [00:06:55] pain. I don't wanna have this pain, but yet I want to progress, and I wanna get stronger, and I wanna do all these things, and I'm [00:07:00] tired of feeling immobilized because of this pain." So that is a common thing, where it's like, [00:07:05] okay, but we gotta slow you down.
And sometimes it's getting a bit of a buy-in. You've gotta show [00:07:10] them the proof a little bit. It's like, hey, but look at what happens when we slow down [00:07:15] So for her, she actually recently commented on one of my Instagram posts, I wanna say a couple days ago, [00:07:20] and she's initially when you gave me these really slow exercises, it was ugh, like I gotta do [00:07:25] these, like I gotta go slower now, I gotta be more careful."
But she said, [00:07:30] "Now I understand. I feel so much stronger and stable already- ... and we're already picking up speed." So I [00:07:35] say when we move at the pace of the body, we ultimately always move faster. And if people can [00:07:40] get that and they get that buy-in, they start to experience it, then we're pretty much, we're [00:07:45] good to go.
Because otherwise, I say the, the... And they've usually experienced this in their life, if they push too [00:07:50] hard, body will, "Nope, gonna put you back where you were." And I say [00:07:55] often it's easier to get out of pain and stay out of pain, rather than [00:08:00] go too fast, get into pain, and then have to get back out of it.
If we maintain you staying Out of [00:08:05] pain, we're in a much easier place. We can go so much faster.
Charis: Yes. I [00:08:10] call this flying under the radar. Okay. And that's just my nurse the nurse in [00:08:15] me. When I was giving chemotherapy and investigational [00:08:20] medications for my job, we had a phase one team at my, at the hospital that I [00:08:25] worked at, which means first time drugs are tried on humans.
So you don't know what you're gonna [00:08:30] get. You might know a little bit based on the action of the drug, but people are unique, right? And [00:08:35] have u- unique physiology based on everything that's going on with them. And so [00:08:40] we would have the crash cart and all the rescue drugs and all the things, and nurses [00:08:45] would titrate things up really quickly, and I was always the one that was like, [00:08:50] "We're going slow.
We're going slow." "And we're staying under your symptoms. We are [00:08:55] hoping to not get anything profound happen." So I see [00:09:00] this, what you're seeing in women a lot, because I think some of it is just this [00:09:05] mentality that we have to push, push, push to get stronger. To, to [00:09:10] achieve anything, we have to do more.
But [00:09:15] I have a funny little story that you'll think, probably think is funny. So I have an [00:09:20] exercise science degree, and that was one of my first jobs, is I was a personal trainer out of college. [00:09:25] And I worked at this club and these men would come up to me and be [00:09:30] like, "I'm doing the whole stack on the weight machine.
How am I gonna go past [00:09:35] this?" And I'm like, "Oh, okay. So let me, show me what you're doing." They're not using great [00:09:40] form. They're using a lot of momentum really fast. So we slowed [00:09:45] everything down- They're doing maybe half the stack. They can't even get past [00:09:50] six or seven reps with the way that I'm asking them to do it, and then the next day they're [00:09:55] like, "I can't even move my arms, I'm so sore."
I'm so- And I'm like, "Bingo." [00:10:00] Okay. "So you need to realize that the way you were lifting was too much." So [00:10:05] this woman you explained was like, had a lot of energy and that kind of somatic, so- Yes ... [00:10:10] I think maybe some people would look at that and say she needs that [00:10:15] release that fast," whatever.
Yeah. But you slowed her down. [00:10:20] Like, how were you able to do that? She must have just really trusted you.
Jess: She was up in my DMs, [00:10:25] Which is normal too, that I'm in conversation pretty much daily, if not every other day with my clients. But there, [00:10:30] there was there's, is sometimes with some people and I have to explain it, you know, of like, [00:10:35] "This is why we're doing it this way.
Can you contain this energy as well?" Yeah. Can you [00:10:40] hold and be with the energy? And now, a couple weeks later, I was like, "Trust me, it's coming. We're gonna ramp up, [00:10:45] but we've gotta- Yeah ... pass these steps first," and now she's doing three days a week [00:10:50] of training, and we're doing overhead presses, and she's doing hinges, and her knee is [00:10:55] tolerating things I did not originally think it was gonna tolerate.
So even I get surprised that this works. Oh crap, you weren't [00:11:00] able to do that two weeks ago. Now you're doing, squats and hinges, and you're able to [00:11:05] completely kneel on your knees and all of these things. So- Yeah ... on- again, once that [00:11:10] happens, they get that payoff, they can see. Yeah. It's a lifelong skill as well.
[00:11:15] Like injury might happen again. They might do something crazy one day and then something flares. [00:11:20] Mm-hmm. And knowing that, hey, I can just slow down a little bit, I can trust my [00:11:25] body's process to heal things, right? As I said, we're not doing the healing, we're just giving the [00:11:30] environment for the body to do what it does best, is to re- Yeah
and to heal And then they have [00:11:35] that skill to be able to lean back, because a lot of time when people get into that pain is they'll keep pushing it, or they'll actually [00:11:40] keep looking for it. They'll do things to test if it's still there. And I always have to tell my clients, "Stop testing.[00:11:45]
Stop going and 'Is it still there?' Oh my God, I feel it now.'" There's this hypervigilance about [00:11:50] it, and I get it. Getting out of that hypervigilance is a thing.
Charis: Yeah. It's- It's [00:11:55] almost like that is a habit for people. I think- I think that sometimes they might not even really realize that [00:12:00] they do that so much.
And so once they're introduced to a different way, [00:12:05] and then that it's effective, I would much rather do it the, like- Yeah ... slow kind [00:12:10] of methodical way. It feels really good,
Jess: yes. Yes, and I tell them it shouldn't... [00:12:15] We're so used to, too, when we go to healthcare sometimes, it's like, "Oh, this is gonna, this is gonna [00:12:20] hurt, or you've just gotta push through."
I remember one guy when I worked in physical therapy, he had just got out [00:12:25] of a total knee replacement, and I had... I was supposed to get him more [00:12:30] into extension. I was supposed to increase his extension, and that man was crying. He was like this big [00:12:35] dude who'd been shot and d- tough dude. And I'm like, "This cannot be right."
But [00:12:40] that was how I was trained, and I understand that post-op, we're really trying to get that range. But that [00:12:45] was so memorable for me. I'm like, 22 and this just-
Charis: Yeah ...
Jess: [00:12:50] destroying this man on the mat. I'm like, "I'm so sorry." So I ju- I just don't bring that [00:12:55] method into the work that I do.
I'm like there's really- Yeah ... often no reason to make you cry, [00:13:00] make you hurt when you're doing exercise
Charis: Yeah. I wanna hear a little bit more about [00:13:05] how you got here, because in the book you talk about one of your first jobs working in a [00:13:10] skilled nursing facility or nursing home, right?
And you just [00:13:15] didn't feel like that was the way. These people were sick. They were, they [00:13:20] had pain, but then you were like, "They have all these other diagnoses, mental health [00:13:25] diagnoses in their chart,". I think we can get to a place where we recognize that, [00:13:30] but then how do you get to what you're doing now?
Like, how did that happen?
Jess: [00:13:35] I went to school knowing I didn't wanna work at a job. Yeah. I've always had an entrepreneurial [00:13:40] mindset. Yeah. I got in trouble for selling candy bars in middle school. They were like, "You're distracting." I'm like, "I'm making money," [00:13:45] so I can buy a, a... It wasn't a laptop at the time, it was a desktop computer.
I was like, "Get out of here." So I [00:13:50] always wanted to do my own thing. My dad told me, "Why don't you get a job in medical so you [00:13:55] always have job security?"
I was like, "Okay, Dad, fine." And he said, "You Can't move to Florida [00:14:00] and live with me unless you go to college as well," so I said, "Fine." Yeah. I'm glad he did that because it [00:14:05] did give me a lot more experience.
So I went into healthcare and I started working in [00:14:10] rehab. I really just wanted to do personal training and help people get strong. Yeah. But I fell in love with the rehab [00:14:15] piece of it. I fell in love with being a therapist, and then I started incorporating that into my own work. [00:14:20] So it was always the goal to do my own thing.
During that time in skilled nursing, it [00:14:25] gave me the flexibility to still work on my business while I was working in skilled nursing. [00:14:30] But it was such a, I guess you could call it a gift of what they taught me of all of the [00:14:35] traumas and the stress that they were holding, the mental health, because that's real [00:14:40] life.
I was in a nursing facility, but that's also in the broader world. Then my clients were coming to me with [00:14:45] trauma and chronic stress, and the fact that I dealt with that level of pain [00:14:50] and suffering was so helpful to me be able to help people in my [00:14:55] practice.
Charis: Absolutely. I can totally see.
And I think, it's so fun to hear d- [00:15:00] people's stories about how they get to these different points in their career, and [00:15:05] you had that as your goal. Yeah. So that was really cool. But you didn't quite know how it was [00:15:10] gonna get there, right? No. So the... It's fun to see that play out and [00:15:15] not not orchestrate it, if you will.
Jess: And I actually lived in Colorado. You live in Colorado now. [00:15:20] Every time I hear someone lives in Colorado, I'm like, "Oh, I miss the mountains so much." I'm in Florida, but that was [00:15:25] my first job moving back to Florida. So I was just trying to get any job I could. So they [00:15:30] hired me pretty quickly, the benefit of being in healthcare.
I- I was just starting my business as I moved to [00:15:35] Florida, so I was like, "I need a healthcare job," and that's what I got. Skilled nursing is usually very [00:15:40] easy to get. Wasn't my first choice, but again, the, what I learned [00:15:45] there in the I mean, I was so young in my 20s to see people in those [00:15:50] states, I just didn't know.
I just didn't have the perspective.
It was so [00:15:55] beneficial to just see that and to work with people who aren't as complex as those clients, I'm like, [00:16:00] I- give me anybody at this point. Yeah. Working in healthcare you see every which way of [00:16:05] everything, and you're just- Yeah ... I did PRN, so I was thrown in there.
I was like, " Here's your patients of the [00:16:10] day. Here's their chart. Figure it out. Okay." Yeah. "Here we go." Yeah.
Charis: Yeah. And what, [00:16:15] that's such a beautiful thing to learn how to do too, is to jump into that.
Jess: It wa- it was a [00:16:20] good skill to learn and to be able to work with people, and that's where I was really seeing [00:16:25] these people...
A- again, 'cause I wasn't in the full-time role where I was [00:16:30] so just da, da, da, trying to get through my day, right? I was PRN. I was able to come into those [00:16:35] facilities and see things in a different way than a full-time employee might. I was out of the politics and [00:16:40] things like that. And it was like, man, this is just, does not seem like it's working.
These people do not [00:16:45] seem happy. They don't seem like they're really getting healthy. It w- it [00:16:50] was really hard to see working in healthcare. I I honestly I couldn't handle it in a way at the time, [00:16:55] as I wrote the book. Yeah. I was like, "Nope." It's- I can't see all the suffering ... [00:17:00]
Charis: I think a lot of people who work in healthcare are drawn to helping people in that way, [00:17:05] are empaths, and so they want to help people so bad, but then they [00:17:10] feel so much of what other people feel. Yeah. Even if you haven't experienced that, [00:17:15] you can just empathize with someone. And my first job was bone marrow [00:17:20] transplant, so it was the same. Like super, super sick. Sickest of the sickest- Yeah
[00:17:25] people. A lot of healthcare practitioners will say bone marrow transplant patients are the sickest people. They're like a [00:17:30] dust store. And y- they get any sort of infection, it's like [00:17:35] very serious, and it's a scary place. But I think I, I can definitely [00:17:40] appreciate what you're saying about taking care of those people definitely gives you a perspective [00:17:45] on differing things, and we just learn those different things as we go along in our [00:17:50] career.
you said something, or I pulled something out of the book I just wanna read, and then I would [00:17:55] love to chat about this. You said, "What if pain wasn't simply a sign of [00:18:00] damage or dysfunction?" Which I think a lot of people think, right? "What if it was, at least in [00:18:05] part, a protective response that could be understood, influenced, and ultimately [00:18:10] changed?"
"If that were true, many of the assumptions we've made about pain would deserve a second look." [00:18:15] So you've talked about how you bring in a new client, you get them [00:18:20] to slow down, which is s- partially supporting their nervous system, giving their [00:18:25] body a little bit of relief. W- at what point does the rest of this [00:18:30] kind of holistic part come in?
Are you t- then talking to them about the [00:18:35] psychology of the pain? Or is it just coming up and are they sharing things [00:18:40] with you? Does, how does this happen?
Jess: Yeah, that's a good question. It really depends. [00:18:45] So I wrote actually several case studies in the book. I didn't mean to put that many in, but as I was writing it, I kept [00:18:50] thinking about all these clients that popped up in my head.
So one, for example, I wrote about a man [00:18:55] who wanted to go skiing with his kids, and he was really limited by his [00:19:00] knee. He's been working with the best professionals, and he, when I was doing movement [00:19:05] assessments with him, he was passing with flying colors. He was... I was like, "Okay, you worked with some really [00:19:10] good movement professionals.
You move beautifully." So the physical way that he was being [00:19:15] was not really something he needed to work on. For him, it was the, the stress [00:19:20] of having this condition and not being able to work and provide for his family. Holy [00:19:25] cow what a stressor. He's got four children and a wife, and his job was more hard labor, and he [00:19:30] wasn't able to do his job.
That's a lot of pressure. He wasn't able to spend time with his children. [00:19:35] So there's a lot of- I wouldn't even, maybe even call it guilt, but there was a lot of emotional [00:19:40] weight there. So in that case, we ended up spending most of our sessions talking about the [00:19:45] psycho- psychological element of pain, is that when we're in that stressed [00:19:50] state and we have this hypervigilance, we're so focused on the pain, we're so focused on the [00:19:55] problem that creates even more attention to that area.
It can actually increase pain [00:20:00] sensitivity. And i- it's interesting, there's a lot of different research on pain. [00:20:05] There's different theories. I mention a few of them in the book, just in case people wanted to explore, like gate control [00:20:10] theory, the biopsychosocial model of pain, the neuromatrix theory of pain, where we talk [00:20:15] about in those theories, it's not just that, oh, you have an [00:20:20] MRI and it looks like this, and therefore you have pain.
It is not that simplistic. And we are still learning [00:20:25] about pain. We don't know everything we know about it.
So it's a bigger picture here. So for him, it was more of the [00:20:30] psychological element. For some of the clients, it's more that physiological element of, okay, we need to work [00:20:35] with the nervous system.
They kinda go hand in hand, right? It all kinda weaves together. But we need to slow things down. [00:20:40] We need to decrease stress. And he had profound results even in his two sessions from [00:20:45] just- Being lighter on himself and realizing that, oh, just like we talked about [00:20:50] in your case, there could be a psychological element here.
Charis: Yeah, I shared that with you that, it [00:20:55] got to the point where I was so worried about how I was gonna get through my [00:21:00] day. I, if something came up where I knew I had to drive for longer than 30 minutes, I was [00:21:05] like, "I can't do this." I put my kids on the light rail at one point to get them somewhere.
Oh. [00:21:10] Because I'm like, "I can't drive you an hour away", so there was so much worry and [00:21:15] anxiety and every- and it was just a cyclical thing, and it definitely made a [00:21:20] difference for me. And, I had a lot of people telling me a lot of [00:21:25] different things. I told you I had a massage therapist that was like really it's just all in your head."
Not [00:21:30] meaning that you don't have the physical that you're not feeling something, but that basically [00:21:35] I'm making this-
Jess: Yeah ...
Charis: what it is. And I'm sure she was right on some [00:21:40] level, but when I was in pain, I didn't really wanna hear that. It's hard to [00:21:45] know what to do, and you talk a little bit in the book about [00:21:50] the changing the way that you talk about it, and changing the way that you talk to yourself.
And [00:21:55] really, that was one of the biggest things I had to do, because I was also at the point [00:22:00] where like, is this what it's gonna be for the rest of my life? Like- Yeah ... as you get older, people are like things [00:22:05] start to break down and change and, whatever." And I was like, " [00:22:10] No." "I'm not living for another 30 or 40 years like this."
Bumped heads. And I [00:22:15] had to really get to that point where I realized that the way I [00:22:20] was talking to myself was just so much out of fear. But I don't think that people always [00:22:25] realize that, 'cause I definitely didn't. Yeah. It took me months to really figure it out.
Jess: It's [00:22:30] our belief systems, right?
So when we have a belief about something, it doesn't even have to be about pain, but we [00:22:35] believe, relationships are a great example, 'cause you have the gender wars or whatever, at least we see on social media, and it's [00:22:40] oh, men are bad or women are bad. It's like, if you subscribe to a certain belief [00:22:45] that this is true, you're gonna see more evidence of that.
That's the way that our brain is wired. So [00:22:50] if you can shift that belief and shift the story it's really CBT, cognitive [00:22:55] behavioral therapy, right? It's like you're really sh- starting to shift those narratives, makes a profound difference.
Charis: [00:23:00] It really does. It's really... And you know, someone was like where did it [00:23:05] start?"
And I think it was one day I was in the hot tub, 'cause I did get a lot of relief from the [00:23:10] hot tub. I just told myself in the hot tub, "I can figure this [00:23:15] out." Yep. "And I'm gonna figure this out, and I'm gonna be okay, and I'm not gonna live like this for the [00:23:20] rest of my life." Yeah. Even though I had no idea how that was gonna happen, [00:23:25] like-
Jess: Vision
Charis: I j- and the type of person I am, I like to know [00:23:30] the plan, and I like to know the resources and that kind of thing. And so saying that to [00:23:35] myself was going out on a huge limb, but I did. I felt it in my [00:23:40] core "This is not the way it's meant to be." Yeah. And so putting it [00:23:45] out there and then believing it is, was what changed everything for [00:23:50] me.
Jess: Your perspective widens. It's the conviction energy is what one of my friends said, and not, [00:23:55] he wasn't even talking about it in the context of pain. But like, when you want something to happen-
Charis: Yeah ...
Jess: [00:24:00] make the decision, and then be open to the options because again, like the [00:24:05] surgeon looking at the imaging, they're looking at it through that one lens.
They decided you're gonna need [00:24:10] surgery. They didn't decide to look at it from a broader picture, and w- we have that option. Right. Like, [00:24:15] how else are we going to see this problem?
Charis: Yeah. So obviously we each wrote our [00:24:20] chapter from a very specific perspective or about a specific thing, but I [00:24:25] think there's so much to each of, each person's chapter that just [00:24:30] anybody could relate to, I think once this book comes out, I really feel like [00:24:35] it would be such an excellent book to just have as a resource, Yep ... [00:24:40] forever. Because as you mentioned things happen, things change. You can have w- a [00:24:45] wonderful habits and routines to take care of yourself, be very healthy, and then you [00:24:50] have some huge stressor.
It could be a person in your family that Has a big [00:24:55] medical thing happen, or a death in your family or something happens, right? We don't always [00:25:00] know what's gonna happen, and so we need the resources and the way to come [00:25:05] back from something that feels good to us so that we can help [00:25:10] ourselves.
Jess: And have those resources for friends and family. 'Cause, we're in the healthcare, we're geeks about it. [00:25:15] But a lot of things just happen in their... If they feel completely lost I don't know who to go to. Yep. So to have a [00:25:20] resource of a book, that's- Hey, I know 'cause that's usually what happens is referrals. Yeah. Hey, I know so-and-so, they helped [00:25:25] me. But a lot of people don't have those connections. They don't have those [00:25:30] resources. And even with social media, as big as it is, it's still really hard to discern [00:25:35] who should I listen to? Then you lose their contact info.
So it's amazing, this [00:25:40] book, hey, here's all their information. You've got it in hard copy or it's saved on your [00:25:45] computer.
Charis: Yeah, exactly. I think if you're listening to this in real time, you will see [00:25:50] all the promotion, like we are all promoting on social media, through our email lists, and the different [00:25:55] ways that we promote things.
But I would just say, too, like if you have a [00:26:00] question and you wanna know more details about the book, you can DM either one of us- ... at any time, [00:26:05] and we're happy to share it with you. The book, the e-book version will be coming out on [00:26:10] October 1st of this book, and then the paperback version will be coming out a little bit [00:26:15] later in October of 2026.
And then it'll be available forever, [00:26:20] obviously. Do you wanna talk a little bit about the PPP method? You [00:26:25] wrote about it in your book a little bit. We were just laughing because when we were talking about it earlier, I [00:26:30] said, "I have teenage boys. They would be giggling right now."
Jess: Now I can't unsee it 'cause
Charis: I was- I [00:26:35] know.
Jess: I have teenage boys, but now I can't unsee it, the PPP method.
Charis: Yeah. So I [00:26:40] would love to hear you talk about that, and talk about h- also how you work with [00:26:45] people online because I have heard from lots of different people that's not really a [00:26:50] thing when you're talking about, like exercise or movement practice.
And I personally have [00:26:55] had an experience with a different practitioner where I worked with someone online and it helped me [00:27:00] greatly, so I would love to hear about that, too.
Jess: So the PPP method, or maybe we call it the [00:27:05] triple P method now ... is stands for psychological, physiological, and [00:27:10] physical factors that influence the experience of pain.
And again, those are based off of [00:27:15] decades of research on the neuroscience of pain, on stress physiology, on trauma. So if you [00:27:20] wanna geek out like I did, there's many rabbit holes. I teach continuing ed courses to [00:27:25] nurses and doctors and therapists now on it, because it is so fascinating to learn about all [00:27:30] these factors that influence pain.
So very briefly on the PPP method, the [00:27:35] psychological factors like we talked about is fear, the worry, your beliefs, the [00:27:40] stories that you tell yourself, the stories that you're telling other people. "I can never get better. This isn't gonna [00:27:45] improve," right? So we work on shifting those narratives and creating language that isn't [00:27:50] dismissive to your experience.
This isn't about saying positive affirmations like, "I'm doing great. I have no pain." [00:27:55] We're not bullshitting ourselves. We're just shifting the narrative to, I call it in the book I write about the [00:28:00] what is practice instead of what if.
What if it never gets better? What if this is just my [00:28:05] fate?
Instead is, what is actually happening in the moment? I have pain right now. [00:28:10] That's the reality. It doesn't mean that it's gonna be forever, right? We project into the future. So that's the [00:28:15] psychological element, is really looking at those narratives. The physiological element is looking at the [00:28:20] nervous system, the, the stress states that we're in.
Usually people with a lot of chronic pain are in a more [00:28:25] sympathetic, dominant state. They hold a lot of tension in their bodies. [00:28:30] And the physiological pillar, there's different somatic practices, breath practices, vagus nerve [00:28:35] practices. Lots of rabbit holes there to work on the nervous system. Everybody responds a little bit [00:28:40] different, so that's why there are a lot of practices to work on the nervous system [00:28:45] state.
I say that reducing pain and pain care is really more like just like healthcare, [00:28:50] self-care. It's not just we're treating the pain, it's we're treating the person who has the [00:28:55] pain. That's what we're doing.
Charis: As a human. And...
Jess: Yeah, as a human.
Charis: Yeah.
Jess: [00:29:00] The third pillar is the physical pillar, which maybe is my personal favorite as a movement professional.
So that's [00:29:05] where a lot of the sessions are done more on a movement-based online, where I'm watching somebody [00:29:10] move, we're slowing things down, we're breaking patterns down into d- very [00:29:15] fine movements where they're able to actually control those phases where they were usually painful. [00:29:20] So for example, that client who thought she was gonna have to have surgery, extension for her [00:29:25] was really problematic.
So we went so slow in a particular position where we were [00:29:30] working on that extension where she could actually control it without symptoms and be able to soothe [00:29:35] herself in that moment, that this experience is safe, soothe her body- And [00:29:40] there we go, the range was unlocked, right? So it's not always that straightforward, but in a lot of ways we're just [00:29:45] working on those little pieces.
There's fear. It's making me think of inner child work, right? Where you're [00:29:50] like, "Okay, the inner child is okay." It's similar and you're-
Charis: Yeah ...
Jess: asking for consent from [00:29:55] the body every step of the way in that physical realm. It's not pushing through like we talked about. [00:30:00] It's, " Can I go here? Can we go a little further there?"
And it's not-
Charis: What would happen if [00:30:05] I did this?
Jess: Yeah, it's a curiosity as well, is a really important piece of this work. [00:30:10] Instead of "I'm going in and I'm fixing and I've gotta solve this problem now," we're just gonna explore. We're gonna be [00:30:15] curious. We're gonna slow down. We're gonna examine things.
We're gonna bring a lightness [00:30:20] into this instead of this like, "I gotta figure it out." So the virtual component [00:30:25] was something that I ran into more before 2020.
As you can imagine, [00:30:30] because in 2020, I said everybody came into my living room now because ... everybody had to [00:30:35] come online for telehealth. So 2020 made things easier because [00:30:40] people had to experience virtual movement-based stuff.
Pe- gyms were shutting [00:30:45] down. People started working out at home. Some physical therapy clinics shifted to online [00:30:50] because they had to survive. Their business had to run. It took me a while to learn how to do it [00:30:55] well. What I did in the beginning was I tested my theories, is that I would have [00:31:00] somebody...
I would see the same person online, and I would then see them in person. I would coach the same [00:31:05] exact things, and then I would coach them online first, get that movement looking the way I wanted it to, [00:31:10] and then I would see them in person and see if there were any gaps or discrepancies. So I kept [00:31:15] testing this over and over again. Can I pick up everything I want in person that I pick up online? [00:31:20] And I noticed it was the same. I have people that come in person, and then they, I see them also online, and [00:31:25] it's... And sometimes they prefer online, 'cause they don't wanna drive.
Charis: Yeah.
Jess: I get it.
Charis: [00:31:30] Totally. And I think you can't beat the convenience of online, and people [00:31:35] do self-select for that quite a bit.
Yeah. I personally love seeing [00:31:40] people in person, because I think, m- and I don't know if it's my personality or just when you [00:31:45] work as a nurse, you work with hundreds of people every day. And so sometimes that can be way too [00:31:50] over-stimulating, but a lotta times too you get good energy from that.
So [00:31:55] sometimes- Yeah ... that in-person piece is nice too.
Jess: It's nice. I was s- I was saying to my [00:32:00] husband, I'm like, "I think I'm gonna pause drum lessons for a little bit. I've done it for a year. I got stuff to work [00:32:05] on." He's like, "I really think you should have drum lessons to see someone in person."
I'm like, "Oh, okay." 'Cause [00:32:10] otherwise I'm just in the woods, and he's the one person I see physically every day.
Charis: Like- [00:32:15] That's so funny.
Jess: Yeah, so he's, "I think you should keep those drum lessons. I think you should go into [00:32:20] town." Okay.
Charis: That's awesome. I love it.
Jess: So there, there is- So- ... an element of that, for sure, but...[00:32:25]
Charis: Yeah. Totally. So you, so we will obviously put [00:32:30] into the show notes your Instagram handle. You have a six-week [00:32:35] program that you mentioned to me. I would love to hear you talk about that. You also have a TEDx [00:32:40] Talk, so we can put the link for that in there too. Pretty fun. So what is [00:32:45] the six-week program?
Jess: The six-week program is just a shorter version of my [00:32:50] one-on-one, 'cause normally clients just see me on a month-to-month basis.
Just like they're not tied into anything. They don't wanna see me [00:32:55] anymore, you can say bye, but most clients stay for six months or longer. We get them out of pain [00:33:00] typically in the first six weeks, so that's why I start people with six weeks, that's it.[00:33:05]
The first two to four weeks we'll see that reduction in symptoms, just like that client I was talking [00:33:10] about earlier, where she wanted to go really fast. I said, "Trust me, I move as fast as I [00:33:15] possibly can with my clients, but I've learned at this point there's a limit. I'm still [00:33:20] conservative, and then we go so much faster."
So by the time we're done, she came in with [00:33:25] pain in her knee, even walking, and by the end of the six weeks she'll... I'm gonna train [00:33:30] her on some kettlebell swings and some- Yeah ... loaded squats. So in that six-week period, [00:33:35] it's not uncommon for people to go from, " Walking bothers me. I'm afraid to lift weights.
[00:33:40] Now I'm doing kettlebell swings, and presses, and all sorts of things," and I can keep moving on [00:33:45] your own with weightlifting. So after those six weeks I make sure if you don't wanna continue, you n- [00:33:50] you have exercises you can do, and you know how to progress them, where you know you're not gonna flare. 'Cause the [00:33:55] biggest thing here is making sure that these folks know movement really is for [00:34:00] everybody.
Strength is for everybody. It's just about finding the right exercises, doing it the right way, [00:34:05] and building your confidence. I don't want people to be dependent on me. I want people to build their own [00:34:10] self-sufficiency and understand how to use their own body, move around, and get strong without having to [00:34:15] depend on a professional
Charis: Right, and you're always there.
Jess: It might take a year away, and then they're [00:34:20] like, "Hey." One client, she... We got her good, and then she's "Hey, my dog knocked [00:34:25] me over and I had to get surgery, and now I'm like- ... half physical therapist. I wanna come back." So sometimes [00:34:30] that'll happen, so yeah, I'm always available. The TEDx talk is a little bit different. That I [00:34:35] had the option to talk about what we talked about today, about complex pain. And then I had the option [00:34:40] to talk about women syncing their weightlifting to their menstrual cycle. And [00:34:45] interestingly enough, the, there was two men that were mostly selecting people for [00:34:50] the TEDx talk, and they both thought that was more interesting.
Oh. Than talking about complex chronic pain. So I [00:34:55] said, "All right, I'll talk about periods and barbells."
Charis: So- That's awesome ...
Jess: the TED- the TEDx talk, [00:35:00] though, has similar roots in what we talked about, is pacing the body, [00:35:05] listening to the body, not pushing through for the sake of it. Progression can look like many different things [00:35:10] instead of just adding more load on the bar or doing more workouts every week.
Just like your story [00:35:15] with the dudes in the gym at your first job, right? There's different ways to progress that- ... can be more [00:35:20] meaningful and significant than just, "I just gotta push more. I just gotta add more load. How many more, [00:35:25] barbell or weight plates can I put on the rack?"
Charis: Yep, definitely. Yeah, no, [00:35:30] I just felt like I'm bringing it up because it is pretty different than what we talked about and what your [00:35:35] book chapter is about, but it is similar, like you said, but a different element to [00:35:40] women's health- Yes ... that is really talked about a lot right now. A lot of [00:35:45] different people online talking about, syncing your activity and even your [00:35:50] nutrition with your cycle.
And just wanted to bring it up 'cause I felt like it was, It's
Jess: important ... cool. And I [00:35:55] wish I had known about that a long time ago, and I look back and I'm like, "Why was I so mad that one time dr- [00:36:00] oh."
Charis: Yeah. "
Jess: I, it's a PMS week." Even my drumming schedule, I'm like, "Oh, I should [00:36:05] sync my drum practice," 'cause-
Charis: That's so smart
Jess: different ebbs and flows of our [00:36:10] motivation, our energy. So it's if I could front-load my practice during follicular phase, [00:36:15] and then I, give myself a break here. You know what I'm saying? It's just- Yeah,
Charis: totally. That's [00:36:20] awesome. I love that. Thank you again, Jess, for being here.
Please check [00:36:25] out the, in the show notes all the links about Jess and her work. And then of course, [00:36:30] when the book comes out, grab your copy and you can read the, her chapter for [00:36:35] yourself. So thank you so much.
Jess: There's so many great professionals. So thank you for having me, and I [00:36:40] know we will continue to stay in touch.
Charis: Definitely.
The information shared on this [00:36:45] podcast is for educational and informational purposes only and should not be considered [00:36:50] medical advice. I am not a medical doctor, and this content is not [00:36:55] intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease. Please consult with a [00:37:00] qualified healthcare professional before making any decisions related to your health, [00:37:05] especially if you have a medical condition or are taking medications
