(Long Music) Pain Reprocessing Therapy (RPT) Let me bore your pain away #27 Jason Newland 24th April 2025

Hello, hello, hello, hello, hello. Welcome to Jason Newland dot com. My name is Jason Newland and this is let me bore your pain away.

Please only listen when you can safely close your eyes and also when you know the cause of the chronic pain and with the permission from your doctor. This is not a replacement for any kind of medical or therapeutic advice or help. Right, I have a Facebook group called Jason Newland's Boring Group if you'd like to join.

There's a link on my website. All my recordings are on my website so you can stream them, download them, as well as being on Apple Podcasts and all the other podcast hosts, as well as also being on YouTube at Jason Newland. So now YouTube is pretty much a podcast for me.

I upload all the latest recordings I do and you can just stream them, stream the audio on YouTube. It's just another option. I hope you're well.

I thought I'd, I thought I'd have a look. I'm always looking, always looking, always looking for different things to talk about in these particular recordings. Technically, it's not really about talking about my, you know, pain relief techniques, but that is what I'm interested in.

And I would imagine if you're listening to this recording, bearing in mind the title, you'd also be interested in that as well. So I'm just like looking through different things that we can talk about. Always looking at, you know, just improving my education and giving me more ideas for future recordings based on scientific research, as well as my imagination and my incredible creativity.

I just had some chocolates on. I'm like a little kid that's just had its first, first sip of Coke. I'm buzzing, man.

Oh, so I'm just looking, I'm just, I use chat GPT. I asked it, this is what I asked it. Please find me 10 most, I didn't do it very grammatically, 10 of the most unusual chronic pain relief techniques for a person or a postpone.

So I didn't spell that right. Can do themselves to relieve their pain. I must be done by the way they think.

Blimey. I think it's the internet that's made me, I'm just not great at typing anymore. I do a lot of talking, writing, I can't even read my own writing anymore.

And typing is, I think the worst thing, it's good and it's bad. Chat GPT understands what I'm saying, even if I don't give the right words. But it makes it a little bit harder because if you do it anywhere else, you do on Google, if you do it on Audible, looking for a book and I put in rain relief instead of pain relief, it's going to come up with books about rain.

Waterports instead of water sports is going to come up. Or if I'm putting waterports, I want to know about ports. And I put in water sport.

Yeah, anyway, you know, you've come up with different thing. I don't search for water sports on Audible. I don't.

I'm not into surfing. I tried to water ski once. It's 1987.

Or is it early 1988? Who is it? Early 1988. Yeah, I think it was. My boss took me water skiing in the evening.

It was dark. So it's in the winter. It must have been because it wasn't late at night.

It was about six, seven. Took me to this place. I don't know if he was trying to harm me.

I really don't know. But it's just like it was weird. And he puts me in, I get this water, this life jacket thing.

And it drags me under the water head first. It's like, that's not how it's supposed to work, is it? You got it on backwards, like, got it on upside down. Perhaps if you go in the water head, you know, feet first, rather than head first.

Or perhaps if you didn't push me. Anyway, that wasn't for me. So I just got out and was very cold.

That's the one and only time I ever really got involved in water skiing. And I also do not know why I'm talking about water skiing. So don't worry.

That's how these recordings go. So you got PRT, pain reprocessing therapy. See, I know, pretty much all of these things.

I can't necessarily always describe them or explain them in a scientific way. succinctly. So I might take an hour to describe this, which is kind of part of what I do this, you know, the boring part.

But it's very short and pithy. So PRT teaches individuals to reinterpret pain signals as non-threatening, helping the brain unlearn chronic pain patterns by reframing pain as a false alarm. Patients can reduce its intensity.

Clinical trials have shown significant pain reductions using this approach. So I was listening to this book the other day, an audio audio book. Can you imagine saying that 30 years ago, I was listening to this book last night.

Oh, no, he's unwell again. No audible. I like this.

I listen to books. I listen to audio books every single day. And this is where I show off about something that isn't impressive at all.

And my voice has gone croaky. It's gone really. When it does this, I have to always do the same thing.

I was born under a wandering star. I just like to see how low I can go. Oh, it's better.

It's better now, isn't it? Listening time. So let's have a look. So today, I've already listened to three hours and nine minutes, and it's two o'clock.

Daily. Yesterday, I listened to six hours and three minutes. Day before three hours, 22 minutes, two hours, 31 minutes a day before that.

46 minutes, 45 seconds a day before that. That's Friday, the 19th. So far this month, April, 84 hours and 23 minutes.

February, I listened to 140 hours and 12 minutes of audio books. So yeah, I'm quite an avid listener of audio books, I would say. I like to read, but I also like to be read to.

And what I will do, because reading is different from listening to someone reading it, to me, it feels different. I will listen to a book a couple of times, maybe three times. So I can kind of absorb what I've read.

Yeah, anyway, so I was listening to this book, it was, I'll tell you what it was, so I can actually quote, I'm not going to quote the book, because it's not in writing, is it? But it's called The Pain Habit by Drew. It's called The Pain Habit by Drew Coverdale. Discover the truth about your pain.

Okay. So I did do a recording called the false alarm or something. What's it called? I did this a few weeks back.

And it's talking about the same thing as what I've already talked about. You know, in my mind, I like to think that it was my idea, but I don't take I don't take credit for any, any ideas. Because I don't know what I've been influenced by.

That's the thing you listen, you read enough books, listen to enough lectures on YouTube, experts, whether it's psychology, whether it's chronic pain, hypnosis, you know, whatever, whatever it might be. It's kind of hard to know what's mine and what's not mine. And I'm not that bothered, really, it doesn't I don't need any kind of accolades.

I mean, I might come up with something that's original, it's possible. I think I present it in an original way. I don't think there's anyone else that presents chronic pain relief recordings like this.

However, I don't think that's necessarily a good thing. Okay, this okay, the one I did is a long time ago. So I'm going to look back, it'll be in my chronic pain library.

So there's 267 episodes. But this goes back years and years and years and years and years, years. Yeah, I'm talking, I don't have any of the years on them.

But we're talking well over a decade. So I saw one that was 2011. So in seeds of pain relief, that's 2010.

Probably. free pain relief that Yeah, so we're talking 1015 years ago, some of these. So let's have a look.

There's one to do. I'm sure it was something. It's like a faulty car alarm.

pain relief. So some of the recordings I've got back pain, chronic pain, hypnosis, free pain relief, change your pain. Some of the quality of these recordings audio wise is awful compared to now.

So the free pain relief was 51 minutes, leave the chronic pain in the other body. Magic cream, cream, magic cream, magic cream for pain relief, focus on your pain for relief. Give me your pain, feet licking dog reduces your pain.

That was surprisingly quite popular. And it's a short one hypnosis for chronic leg pain, pain relief for chronic back pain, pain anesthetic splinter, 10 minute pain relief hypnosis, relax chronic pain, relax chronic back pain. So these are a little bit longer.

Observe the pain or that pain. That's 31 minutes. pain relief hypnosis for you.

Chronic pain is not your master. That's 23 minutes. So hypnosis or chronic foot pain, pain relief, easy and simple.

Wave goodbye to your pain with hypnosis. I think that was probably in the Wow, that might have even been the late 2000s, like 2009. Possibly hypnosis for arm pain, daily pain relief, lower back pain reduction.

Sowing seeds of pain relief. Absorb, observe your chronic pain. Short hypnosis for eye pain, random chat about chronic pain.

That was like a little seed for what I do now. But that's, you know, a long, long time ago, probably 1516 years ago. hypnosis for hand pain, waves of pain relief, natural pain relief, lower back.

That was always not that long ago. February 2019. So six years ago.

Well, let's Yeah, I was just over six years ago. I normally try and have the dates on these but I lose track. Back pain relief, easy and simple.

10 minute pain relief. Long hypnosis for lower pain. That was probably Yeah, wow, it's a long time ago.

Pain relief for chronic stomach pain. Stop headache pain with hypnosis. Well, I'm just going to skip through a few of them change your pain.

Reduce pain medication with hypnosis. Pain relief for shoulder pain, finger pain, jaw pain, headache, pain, jaw pain. Another one for headache, pain, chest pain.

There was a dozen short hypnosis, pain relief courses, wave of pain relief. Then there's stomach pain, neck pain, eye pain, chronic head pain, neck pain, stomach, middle, back, headache, hand, shoulder, daily pain relief. Chronic pain is not your master.

Oh, here we go. Chronic pain is like a dodgy car alarm. I'm interested to find how long ago I did this recording just out of interest just because I'm interested.

That's why chronic pain is like a dodgy car alarm. So let's have a look at this. I found this on my, I wonder if it's going to have the original information about when it was first recorded.

According to this, 19th of May, 2018. So this is something that I said was still the same there. Yeah, 2018 is the earliest one.

Because sometimes they change depend. Yeah, so 2018. So that's seven, nearly seven years ago.

So I talked about this long before I saw it. I only sort of read it, or heard about it yesterday on this, The Pain Habit. And this book, I don't know, unless I've read this book before, it's possible.

When was it produced? When was it written? The Pain Habit. The Pain Habit. Let's have a look.

Let's see what year it was. Oh, I don't think it says it. It might say it.

Let's have a look. When was it? When was it? When, 2020. Oh, okay.

So, oh, it copied me. No, obviously not. I might have just heard it in the past.

So what it is, I could have just told you what it is rather than go on and blow my own trumpet. But if I get a chance to blow my own trumpet, I'm going to take it. Sorry, no one else is going to blow it.

So I will blow it for myself. I quite like that idea of the chronic pain is like a dodgy car alarm. Because it's it's like oversensitivity, which is kind of the point of it, oversensitivity.

I had an example of this downstairs. So in a flat downstairs, someone broke into her flat. The same flat that my friend used to have before he left.

So now there's a different person got it. Someone broke into it about two months ago, I suppose. So what she did is got a an alarm system.

So that if anyone tried to push a window in or whatever, it would set it off. Unfortunately, a butterfly just have farting in the next road sets it off. So she's had to kind of recalibrate the thing.

Because it was going off all the time. She's not here. Well, she wasn't here at that time when it was going off.

So it was like, she called me, I think she called me once said, is my alarm going? I said, I don't know. Can you go and check? So I went down and yeah, it sounds like something's going off. But I didn't really take much notice of it.

It wasn't like really loud. I mean, louder downstairs, but I couldn't hear so much up here. It wasn't as loud as the smoke alarm.

That's loud. Oh, by the way, just in case you're wondering why I'm just wobbling on about stuff. That's what this is.

I will talk about specific techniques and maybe look at ways of doing it maybe, you know, a little bit different, because it's going to be looking through my eyes instead of someone else's eyes. I imagine we all interpret things in our own way. And that'd be quite good, actually thinking about it.

Having because I found that with learning the subject. I've read so many books on a subject, let's say, for example, what counselling when I was becoming a counsellor, or years before I even studied as a counsellor. So I started getting interested in reading counselling books back in 1998.

And then I started training as a counsellor in 2007. So yeah, I was like nine years studying counselling, just as a as a subject, I was interested. And I think, you know, things like person centred counselling, there's so many different ways.

There's so many people's different opinions and person centred, client centred, whatever you want to call it. And people talking about Carl Rogers and what Carl Rogers was like, and what Carl Rogers meant by what he wrote about, which is useful. It's really useful to have different perspectives.

So read lots of different books about Carl Rogers. But also to read the books that Carl Rogers wrote himself to get more of an idea. And, you know, I will not, I'm not embarrassed to say that I don't understand everything I read.

I don't. Sometimes it takes me a little while to kind of figure out what they're talking about. And what to put into context.

Or sometimes I'll just, I'll just zone out and drift away. So I'm looking at the words on the page and I'm thinking about the last time I got to hold hands with someone, or other things that happened 25 years ago. So, and I kind of think, oh, and reread it.

But then sometimes I'll read a book about something that's complicated. And then I'll read another book. And it doesn't say much about it, doesn't go as in depth, but it makes everything I've read previously make sense.

Oh, it's like a missing bit. Then the little missing connection for my brain. But then it's, I think that's sometimes all you need, isn't it? You know, when something's just really difficult.

Blimey, I'm talking about blowing trumpet and it sounds like someone's literally blowing a trumpet in the distance. Now I'm in serious, like a proper trumpet or bugle or something like that. It's more trumpet-y sound, more lower.

Bugle's a bit high, isn't it? Trumpets. That was my trumpet impression. So, I was wondering, yeah, it's, I don't really know what my point is, but I like to see things with different angles and from different perspectives.

And I also like to see things from my perspective. Because sometimes I, sometimes I don't understand something. Sometimes I do understand something.

And sometimes I understand more things than I realised I didn't understand. And sometimes I knew very little about something that I was quite positive that I did know about. So, it's, you know, constant learning, relearning, changing.

And also things change anyway, don't they? I mean, I used to have an injury in my shoulder, and it was awful for a long time. And the weird thing about it is how ridiculous it was. Because all it was, you know, it was like 2005, sitting at a table, there's a shelf to the right of me, sticking out with a nice sharp edge, lovely, wooden.

I've just moved in there. So, I'm not really into the whole dynamics of where the seats are and, you know, to avoid it. I stand up, smash my shoulder into the corner of this wooden thing, this wooden shelf, which is pretty much shoulder length, shoulder height, I suppose.

I could not believe how much pain was in my shoulder. And that was 2005. I was getting steroid injections.

I had two steroid injections. I think the last one was about 2011. So, I went for years with it and just tried physiotherapy, all kinds of stuff like just, it was ridiculous.

I mean, it was healed, must have healed, but it was causing me a lot of problems. I had steroid injections, magic. Painful to start with, but then it's just magic, like, within such a short time, nothing.

It's just like, wow, can't I just have these every time they wear off? No, you're only allowed two. What? You're only allowed two. Okay.

Now, it's weird, but what I noticed, after a while, I stopped thinking about it. And by not thinking about it, I wasn't worried about it coming back. I wasn't concerned about, you know, having discomfort in my shoulder.

It got to the point where I'd almost forgotten about it. And, you know, eventually after this first injection, it did start to become agitated, but I was doing a lot of exercise. So, obviously exercise is important, but I think I was possibly pushing my shoulder too much because I was going to boxing twice a week, and also exercising in the evenings and on the punch bag in the garden.

And, you know, it's a lot of shoulder, a lot of shoulder activity, which I hadn't really had for quite a while, actually. Yeah, it was the first like intense exercise I'd done for probably since 2004. So, this would be 2009, I think it was, or yeah, 2009, 2008, 2009, I was doing the boxing.

So, it'd been about four or five years since I'd really had any intense activity. Physical. But before that, I'd almost forgotten about it.

Isn't it weird, you know, you forget something, just like, and then you remember. Because guaranteed, you know, I've got arthritis in my lower back. And I mentioned that, it's not like I understand chronic pain because I have it in my lower back.

I'm not saying it in that way, although that is part of the reason why I told you. It's like an ongoing manageable thing, you know. But there was a time when I was expecting it to be uncomfortable.

And, you know, it's a whole thing with psychology, and especially with hypnosis, expectation is everything, really is so important. If someone expects to feel more relaxed, if you expect to feel calmer, you expect your mind to slow down, you expect your body to relax. It's more, I found, that it's more likely to happen.

And the literature says the same thing, it's expectation is powerful. What we expect is, it's an old joke, isn't it? It's a really old joke, and it's about expectations. It's, what was it? Oh, yeah.

So this lady, she said, oh, the lady, yeah, ladies, she wanted to borrow her friend's vibrating machine. It was like one of those massage vibrators, quite long, and it's good. You can vibrate, I mean, I think I could use it on my lower back, and that's what they use it for.

My girlfriend used to have one of them. She didn't have any chronic pain, though. I don't know.

Anyway, so she was going to go to a next door neighbor. Her name was Doris, and everyone's name was Pat. Names aren't that relevant, but they are if you're friends with someone, especially if you want to gossip about them.

You can't gossip about someone if you don't know their name. Oh, anyway, this isn't about gossiping. So Doris went around to Pat's house, she's walking around, and this is an old joke, it's not my joke, it's an old joke, but it's basically about this subject.

And she's thinking, I wonder if she'll let me borrow her vibrating muscle relaxer machine. I wonder if she will. Mind you, she didn't, yeah, she didn't return my, that lubricant that she borrowed to lubricate the wheels on her wheelbarrow.

No, she didn't, did she? She didn't return that to me. So maybe she won't return this to me. Mind you, I'm borrowing, I'm borrowing off her, so it wouldn't really matter because I'm the one returning.

But maybe she's, I don't know, maybe she's got the up with me. And then she's thinking, yeah, but if I borrow that, will she, what if she accuses me of using it for something other than just massaging my muscles in my back, or my thigh, or in my shoulder? What if she accuses me of doing something weird with it? Like mixing bread batter, or, you know, sort of making pancakes and mixing a batter, or sword fighting with my husband, or whatever. And it, you know, because he's got a massage as well for his feet.

And she's like, oh, I don't like the idea of being accused of stuff like that. And she starts thinking more things. And what she says, no, what she says, no, what she says, I don't want to lend it to you.

I want you to have my therapeutic muscle relaxing, vibrating machine, because I need it. Because her husband's away for the weekend. And I don't know why she would need it for that.

Maybe, maybe she gets, she needs more relaxation. And I don't know. And she always has her curtains drawn when he's away.

It's weird. Anyway. Yeah, maybe she won't want me to have it.

And I just feel bad because I've lent her loads of stuff. I never asked for that. Remember, I lent her that egg.

She came around, she needed an egg. And that time when she asked, she needed some tea bags, and I gave her three tea bags. I never asked for them back.

That toilet roll, when I gave her some toilet roll, one roll, I never ever got that one back. I didn't want that one back. But you know, I never got a replacement back.

So she's walking up to her friend's, her neighbour's door. He's all angry now, thinking they're these things. Her neighbour answers the door.

And she says, and Doris says to Pat, who answers the door, I'll keep your therapeutic vibrating therapeutic machine massager for your muscles, and walks off. That was a version of one, I think the actual original one is about a wheelbarrow, or about a lawnmower. But I thought this would be a bit more memorable.

It's weird, though, because you know, when you think you're doing a good thing, you're doing a nice thing. And I actually got one of those, I got one of those massage things for my auntie. And she was like, everyone was laughing.

Because she was with us at Christmas, everyone was laughing. Like, it's a nice present. It's like, just because I'm into sort of healing and alternative therapies and things like that.

Everyone else is like, ha ha ha, look what you got auntie. Ha ha ha. And she seemed embarrassed.

I said, Look, she said, Well, I can't believe you bought that. I can't believe you gave that to me in front of everyone. I said, Well, I'll take it back if you don't want it.

She said, No, no, that's okay. I'll keep it. I said, Good.

Well, perhaps I can, I can use it with you. I can help you use it. And she ran off.

I haven't seen her since. I mean, I was just like, you're trying to help someone out. Because I knew that she had some problems with her back.

I thought if I could try to get some of those knots out of her back, because at the time, I was studying massage. And they did use some machines for the massage. And it's, it's a little bit more advanced now, though.

Some of the stuff I see on YouTube is raw, it leaves their back red. But, you know, because I did, I used to practice massage on quite a few civilians, as well as like my other people I was at college with. This is 2003.

And one bloke, I did it with both his him and his girlfriend separately. And he was a bodybuilder. So he's huge, his back was massive.

And nothing I did. I mean, that's why I probably wouldn't need needed some kind of vibrating, therapeutic muscle, long muscle thing to get into those crevices. Because nothing I did really, I mean, he said he liked it, but he was saying harder, harder, stick it in me.

And I'm like, What? He said, No, just harder, but use your elbow. He said, Okay, if you're gonna put it there, that's fine. Like, nothing I did was enough.

I honestly, I think I could have like walked up and down his back. And it still wouldn't have been enough. Which is weird when you consider how heavy I am.

But there you go. I didn't try. I didn't try and walk up and down his back.

That's something that'd be weird. Although I did have someone do that to me once. It was kind of like a first date, went really well.

I watched boxing and she watched it with me here. And then we went to bed. So I was like, Wow, this is the best day ever.

And then in the morning, or probably late morning, I was having a lay down, getting some sleep, getting a bit of rest. And she started walking up and down my back. I said, What are you doing? She said, I'm just trying to relax you.

I said, A cup of tea and some biscuits would have been enough. And I need to walk up and down my back. It's very strange.

It's weird, because you're not standing up. Ah, dancing on a CD. Clinical strike.

Okay, so this idea of the false alarm. I like that idea. I've just I've totally forgotten about my neighbor downstairs.

Thing. Also had a there was a car over in the garage door, the parking bit over the back. Constantly going off.

It's the slightest bit of wind. Really? So isn't it weird? Because a car like that, whether you put a leaf dropped a leaf on its bonnet, or you hit the back window with a baseball bat, same sound. Crazy.

But they got it sorted anyway, in the end. So you got other things. So reinterpreting, realizing, and I've talked about this before.

I very much class, what a technique, a thing, a thought pattern, a thinking and exercise, whatever you want to call it, to reduce physical discomfort, can also reduce stress and anxiety. Because they both are connected. Like, you know, when someone when you become relaxed, when you feel more relaxed, you feel more comfort.

It's just one of those things. It's not, it's not an opinion. It's just a fact.

You feel more relaxed, you feel more comfortable. And because you feel more comfortable, you feel more relaxed. And it's, it's like your body relaxes, your mind slowed down.

And because your mind's slowed down, your body relaxes. It's like a continuous wave of comfort. And I had this weird event, when I was going through a lot of anxiety back in 2002, two, three, four, five, six, whatever.

But 2004, this happened. And I was so oversensitive to my body. And every single like feeling could trigger me to like, Oh, what's that? What's that? And my alarm, my basic my phone went off, but it vibrated.

And yeah, a lot of vibration in this, this recording. So I removed it from my pocket. So it was on vibrate, not ring.

But to start with, I didn't know. I just thought, Oh God, it's this weird feeling in my bum. What's going on? And I went into panic attack, really full on, instantly.

And I realized it was my phone. So I took my phone out. And straight away, I felt calm.

It was in my back pocket, by the way, just in case, yeah, had a weird visual. I felt calm straight away. And that was strange, because it made me realize that that's what the false alarm kind of comes in.

Because I've experienced it in a big way. Another one, this is not my, my story. But there was a man, I've heard different.

I've heard different versions of this story. Lots of different versions. But one version is this, he was on a building site.

A long time ago. Well, maybe I don't know how long ago. And he had his boots on, you know, all the stuff that builders have.

And he stepped on a big nail, really sharp, long now went through his boot. From the bottom all the way up to the top. He's screaming, screaming in agony.

They have to cut so paramedics are called because he's stuck. He's stuck to this board. So they have to remove the board, cut parts of the board off so they can take him into hospital.

And they have to cut the boot off. And they've given him medication, nothing's helping. He's, well you can imagine there's like so much so much pain.

And none of none of the medication is taking the edge off of it. Screaming, screaming the place down. I mean, there's even the other parts of the hospital, where women giving birth were shouting, shut up, shut this hour moment.

We want to scream, not you, what are you screaming for? Which is a little bit rude. I mean, I think there's enough room for everyone to scream. And so they had to remove the shoe because of the way the nail was in it.

They had to remove the boot, like cut the boot off. And they're hard, so it's like really quite difficult to do it. Don't know if they got the fire service to help do that or whatever.

When they managed to get the shoe off, I was going to say the foot off, when they managed to get the shoe off the foot, it turned out the nail had just gone between the toes. No injury at all. Nothing had gone between the big toe and the first toe, and kind of bent so it looked like it had gone through the foot.

Instantly, no pain, gone. Because there was no injury. It was a danger signal sent to his brain, and he looked at it and he backed the signal up, said, yep, it's definitely a danger signal, because I can see it is.

But as soon as the foot is taken, the shoe's taken off rather, the boot, and he saw that there's no injury, not even a scratch. Gone, completely gone. So it shows that, I think, in a way, the pain reprocessing therapy, which I could, I might go in a little bit more into this, just have a look.

Tell me more about one with some exercises you can do. So I'm just going to just tell me more about one with some exercises my listeners can do, because I do know about this a little bit, but I'm not an expert on anything. So pain reprocessing therapy, RPT, is an innovative, evidence-based approach that helps individuals retrain their brains to interpret pain signals as non-threatening, thereby reducing or chronic pain.

Central to PRT is the concept that chronic pain often results from the brain misinterpreting safe signals from the body as dangerous. So by altering these perceptions, PRT aims to break the cycle of chronic pain. A key technique within PRT is somatic tracking.

So I have done a recording on somatic tracking. I've done a lot of these recordings over the years. Let's have a look.

Where is it? Somatic, somatic, somatic. Yes, it is stress and pain relief, number 38. 38 minutes and 28 seconds long.

Somatic tracking exercise. Oh, when did I do that then? Anyone? Anyone know? I don't know. I want to find out though.

When did I do the tracking? Somatic tracking exercise. Somatic tracking exercise. Let's have a look.

And properties, 19th of August, 2022. According to, no, I've actually got the exact date because I've got the date next to it. 24th of September, 2021.

Oh, 21. So that's like five years ago, nearly. Blimey.

So yeah, so I did that. I couldn't tell you what's on it. It was about somatic tracking, but it's an exercise.

It's basically just tracking how you feel, noticing how you feel. And like a lot of things, the acceptance therapy, like actually accepting how you feel. A lot, meditation can be like that as well.

Mindfulness, accepting how you feel, but not trying to push it away, not trying to hold onto it, just letting it be, letting it flow. And there's a lot to be said for, you know, lots of different ways. I mean, somatic tracking could be called lots of different things.

But in this case, it's called, this one's called guided somatic tracking exercise. So get yourself comfortable, focus on the sensation. So the place where you were feeling, I mean, to be fair, after listening to me boggling on about blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, for the last 17 hours, maybe you've just let go a little bit and you might have even fallen asleep.

That is possible. I don't understand it, because I think I'm particularly a very exciting and invigorating speaker, but not everybody seems to agree. So then what you do is you describe what the sensation is like.

Is it sharp, dull, throbbing? Is it constant? Or does it fluctuate? Does it have a shape, size or color? And then what you do is you remind yourself that according to PRT, which is what was it called again? PRT, pain reprocessing therapy. So according to PRT, this physical sensation is a result of the brain's misinterpretation and you can internally affirm that the sensation is not harmful. If it's chronic pain, it's not necessary, you don't need it.

Acute pain is a different thing. But me having the arthritis in my lower back, it's not necessary to have it be bad or anything, just a few twinges. In the past, it's been pretty awful.

A few years ago, really, really pretty awful. But now, as I gave a bit of my attention, maybe gave it less of my attention in some ways as well, and realizing the sensation's not harmful, I think it also helped to have the diagnosis as well, knowing that it's just arthritis. You know, I'm not the only person in their 50s with a bit of arthritis, there's quite a few of us.

Also remembering that your body's safe, and it's just a misfire in the signals. You don't need to be reminded of something every two minutes. You know, it's like, I don't need to be reminded that I've got arthritis in my lower back.

Why do I need to be reminded? I know it's there. I don't need, you know, it reminds me a little bit when I was on the way to Bulgaria. One of my traveling companions thought it was hilarious to wake me up every time I fell asleep on the plane, to wake me up and tell me that we weren't there yet.

So I got my own back when we got to the, well, it was a skiing holiday, so I was pushing down the mountain. And he got eaten by bears, so I think it was fair. He didn't, blindly, just scratched a bit.

He managed to get help. Introduce positive imagery. Visualize the pain sensation as something benign, or even pleasant.

For instance, imagine it as a warm, glowing light, or a gentle wave. This can help reduce the threat perception associated with that physical sensation. Because it's very difficult to be, I'd say almost impossible, to be positive and negative at the same time.

About the same thing. Either, and that's where, I suppose, black and white thinking is kind of useful. I don't know why my voice went up so high when I said that.

It's kind of useful, it is. It's either relaxed, or it's not relaxed. It's either safe, or it's not safe.

It could be neutral. But then if it's neutral, it's not a physical issue. Like, it's not causing you problems.

It's not going to be discomfort, because if it's neutral, you're going to feel okay. If you feel fine, you're going to feel okay. If you feel relaxed, you're going to feel okay.

Even if you're wondering to yourself, what am I doing? Listen to this weird man from England, you're going to be okay. You know, at the end of this recording, you might think like, okay, so fair enough, the physical sensation has reduced. I don't know why that is.

It's nice, it's nice that it's reduced. A little bit unsure why that is, it doesn't make sense considering what I've just listened to. I'm never going to get that time back.

I've listened to that man for 73 hours now. I don't know how long the recording has gone on for. And some may argue, some may say that I don't always make sense.

I would half disagree, half disagree with you on that. But I don't know. It's about changing your perception, changing how you feel.

And there's lots of different ways to change how you feel. You can change how you feel just by moving your body, just by looking at something different, by remembering a joke, by thinking of someone that you care about. There's so many different things.

Changing your physiology is easy. It's instant. And you can change how you think about something.

And sometimes the idea of, like I said, the faulty car alarm, the misinterpreting signals, even if it doesn't resonate straight away, it might be one of those slow burners. You start to think about it a bit more, and you realize, oh, I mean, there's a, this is weird. There's actually a thing in, so I do study pain science, like chronic pain science, in the sense of listening to lectures, reading books.

I'm not qualified, and I'm not an expert on anything. But apart from growing toenails a bit too long, I'm pretty good at that. I need to cut them.

I even need to cut my toenails, or get larger shoes, one of them or the other. I'll be walking around in clown shoes soon. So I was thinking, as I try and remember what I was talking about before I decided to talk about toenails for some reason.

Yeah, so people that sometimes get a back x-ray, and find out that there's back issues. Quite often end up with more physical pain than they had before. And sometimes they had no physical pain before.

Maybe the back x-ray was due to slouching, or due to something else, some other reason. Maybe they were just getting their lower back looked at, and then it's noticed, oh, your upper back is whatever. And there were studies done years ago, where they did thousands of back x-rays.

They looked at back x-rays on people, and they realized that everybody has wear and tear on their back. It's natural. Even age 20, so like 33% of the population in their 20s will have back injuries or back wearage, let's say.

But be fine, be absolutely fine. And it increases as you get older, but still the person will still be absolutely fine. By the way, that statistic might not be right, it might only be 5%, but I'm just saying as an example.

But they're absolutely fine. And they did a study where they basically looked at all these different x-rays of people's backs, and they looked at what the wear and tear was, and what the state of their back is, you know, with the spine and stuff. And there was more people with spinal injury that had no pain than had pain.

And there was a lot of people that had no physical injury in their back at all, that had problems with their back, but there was no physical injury, no physical problems at all. So, it's one of those things, isn't it? It's like it's not saying, oh, it's all in your brain. I mean, technically, it is.

It's not all in your mind, but it is all in your brain, because that's where all the feelings, all the sensations come from. You know, ironically, there are no sensations in the brain itself. Did you know that? That blows my mind.

Every time I think about it, it just blows my mind. It's one of those things that just doesn't make sense. So, the brain is responsible for physical sensations, pleasure, when you feel, touch, everything.

Any kind of physical sensation is produced by the brain. But surgeons, neurosurgeons, brain surgeons, can, you know, open up their head, look inside, and they can play around with the brain while the person's awake, and they have no, they can't feel it. There's no physical senses inside the brain.

They have a local anesthetic for the top of the head, you know, before they unscrew it. I don't know if there's some kind of safety valve or whatever, I don't know. But there's no physical sensations inside the brain.

Yet the brain is responsible for physical feelings. Well, it's responsible for everything, isn't it? Everything we feel, everything we do, every automatic function in the body is all controlled by the brain. Amazing stuff, really.

Absolutely amazing. So, the next thing you do is, I mean, you say the sensation is not harmful. I mean, you can ask yourself to start with, say, is it harmful? Just ask yourself the question.

So, I say, is the lower back stuff in my lower back, is it harmful? Is what's going on in my lower back harmful? It's not. So, I don't need to be reminded. I mean, I know it sounds weird, there's no one breaking into my back.

There's no, you know, it's not like if it was a car or a flat downstairs. There's no one breaking in. The alarm's gone off because the caterpillar and blew on it, blew on the building, or whatever.

You know, it's just, that's it. I was going to say a caterpillar clapped his hands, but can caterpillar, I mean, they've got a lot of hands, don't they, caterpillars? So, that potentially could just set off a car alarm or an alarm in a building, maybe. Reminds me when I was a security guard.

1997, this was. And this is long before I had any kind of anxiety issues. I didn't know what it was back then.

But yes, a long time before that, really. And I was there all night. And we talk about danger signals, right? Okay.

I was there all night on my own. And it was a printing firm. But not, they didn't do the printing.

But they, it was where all they did, edited the magazines. And it was basically a publisher's. So, they did the printing.

The company was something printers. But, you know, it's where they edited. They did, was it Kerang and some other like magazines and stuff.

So, it was probably three, maybe four stories in that building. It was a basement as well. Maybe three stories in a basement.

So, I was there on my own. I'd start working about 3.30 till, or three till about seven, or four till about seven the next day. So, four in the afternoon till seven the next morning, or eight the next morning, whatever.

So, it's quite long hours. Everyone would generally be gone by about eight or nine in the evening. I mean, most of the staff would be gone by six.

But some of the, I don't know, I guess they had freelancers and, you know, they'd got deadlines to hit. So, they'd be around till maybe eight or nine. But by 10, gone, everyone's gone.

And no one came back till about six. That's when the cleaners came to do their job. Now, they accused me of blocking one of the toilets.

This is true, it's not really relevant to the story, but I'm still annoyed about it. They accused me of blocking one of the toilets. Seriously, it was not me.

It wasn't me. It wasn't. I mean, I actually got sacked for that.

It wasn't, it wasn't me. So, they, they must have gone in because it flooded. See, that's what happened.

So, they, sometimes the staff, they didn't always get around to doing the bathroom, the toilet downstairs. They'd start at the top of the building. So, in the meantime, staff would be coming in.

They'd be working from six till eight and doing the cleaning. So, they probably came down about half seven, maybe eight, whatever, to do the toilet downstairs. Now, it was flooded.

But other people, members of staff were coming up from downstairs using the toilet. I didn't take notice of them. I was busy because the front door was open.

So, I had to keep an eye on the door and I didn't leave the desk from six onwards. Well, I went to sleep during the night, of course, if I could. And so, someone must have done, chucked a big huge log down the toilet.

And I got the blame, or maybe they stuck my name, put a label of my name on it or something. Wrote on the wall, Jason was here. He did this.

The security guard did this. I don't know. Put my phone number, call me.

No, weird. So, I was there one night on my own, as I always was, really. The whole place was completely alarmed up.

I used to turn the alarm off when I went upstairs. So, if I did a patrol of one of the floors, I would turn the alarm off for the floor. I knew the code.

So, I'd do that. And then I'd just check the windows and check the fire escape and all that stuff. Well, one night the alarm went off.

I had cameras downstairs that showed me upstairs. Like, it showed me the floors, so I could see the cameras on the screen. And it was quite high tech, really.

But this was in the city, so I guess they were quite advanced. And it freaked me out. It really did.

And all I had was my little vibrating machine thing that I used to do, because my back and my neck used to really need to be relaxed. So, I used to just massage my back and neck with this vibrator machine, therapeutic one. That's all I had to defend myself.

I thought, well, it's not a truncheon, but it's, you know. And it's so weird because that was my job, but I didn't know what to do. I had no preparation for that eventuality.

So, I'm creeping around, I'm turning the alarm off, but I'm thinking, well, if I turn the alarm off, they're going to know I'm here, whoever it is. I'm listening, can't hear nothing. So, I'm kind of creeping around, can't see nothing.

Come back downstairs, the alarm goes off again. I'm looking, alarm goes off again. I'm like, what's going on? I'm looking at the camera, thinking I'm going to stare at these cameras.

I will see anything. I've got to see it because if there's someone up there, I'm going to see it. Because I was looking everywhere, looking in the toilets.

Well, actually, I had a little look on the floor, then I ran off. But, you know, I was technically supposed to look around. It turned out it was a false alarm.

Basically, the air conditioner was coming on and they had a celebration, a birthday party, and there was balloons in there. So, the air conditioner was coming on, the balloon was moving around. It was like a big blow-up human.

I think it was a stag night or something, like a stag party that they'd gone to. So, it was a blow-up human. So, it was quite nice.

And it was moving around, like waving to me. I thought it was actually a person, to be fair, because it was all dressed up. So, when I got up there, I took all the clothes off because I thought, no, I'm not going to be... well, that sounds wrong.

I'm not going to be fooled by that, because it was dressed up. I thought it was actually a person up there. It had a hat on and a bask.

It was very strange. No, I left the bask on, actually. But it was dressed up like a wedding dress.

It's very strange. And I just thought, okay, no. The thing is, I think it was stuck to the ceiling or it was like underneath a desk.

And then it kind of made itself free somehow. And it escaped. And the air conditioner blew across the room.

And suddenly, I'm seeing this thing waving at me and smiling. I had to call up my security, the office and tell them it was a false alarm. And they said, well, call the police as well.

Tell them as well. I said, okay, I will. I was scared.

But that was a false alarm. As soon as I realised it was just a lovely, friendly doll. And as soon as I took the clothes off, just because it no longer looked like a human on the camera, I thought I better just take it downstairs with me and put it in the toilet and that.

And just, maybe that's what blocked the toilet. Anyway, I was relaxed again, like instantly. It's weird, isn't it? So you can introduce positive imagery.

Once you realise that it's just, your brain is just firing signals that aren't necessarily necessary. That works. So you can visualise those physical sensations as something almost like that.

Or even pleasant. That's the pleasant sound. For instance, imagining... I mean, some people like to imagine warm things or cold things, a glowing light, gentle wave, or maybe snow falling on you.

And it helps in reducing the false threat perception in your brain that was associated with that physical sensation. It just reduces it. Another thing it says here is engage with your curiosity.

But isn't that something we would do anyway at the start? You know, if you have a feeling that maybe you've not had before, or maybe you've not had it for a while. It's like curious, like, oh, I wonder what that is. Oh, that's an unusual feeling.

I mean, I had a burger the other day, which I haven't had for a while. And the next day, I got this feeling in my tummy. And it just didn't feel familiar to me.

There's a real weird sort of feeling. I realised I needed a burger poo. It's like a real meaty, like the meat, I don't eat much meat, hardly ever.

And I was like, wow. And I actually did block the toilet. But it's not really about that.

I mean, it's the first time. It's not the first time I've ever done that. But I didn't block the toilet at that job.

I didn't do a jobby at that job. So you can think of it curious in the sense of an interesting experience your body's presenting. And not something to have any kind of negativity about.

It's just a feeling. And when you know that feeling, you don't need to have any kind of specific sensations in connection with that part of your body. Not really.

And it's something you can do. You can do this in a kind of a meditational way. I mean, there is that recording if you search for it.

It's number 38, somatic tracking exercise, stress and pain relief, Jason Newland. Is it on? I wonder if it's on YouTube? It might be. You never know.

Somatic? Yes, it is. It's also on my YouTube channel as well. So 38 minutes, 30 seconds long.

And there's no waffling on like I do here. It's a very serious, very, very serious. And so, yeah, it's, I guess, changing how you feel.

But allowing that change to happen, to occur naturally in its own time without trying to force it, without anything really, just allowing yourself to experience. Because you remember, I mean, it's worth remembering. It's true as well.

We're always feeling different. The way we feel changes all the time. It may not be obvious.

It may not be very gradual. It may be very, very minute changes. But, you know, the way I'm feeling now, compared to the way I'd feel if I heard someone shout my name in the garden, I'd feel different.

I don't know, I might feel excited, probably not. But there'd be a different feeling. My mind would be distracted from doing this for an instant, or maybe it might even be a few minutes.

I'd forget all about this. While I was sticking my head out the window shouting, What do you want? I'm busy. Come down.

No, I don't want to come down. You come up. I don't want to come up.

You come down. And you know, that kind of conversation, interesting kind of conversation that I like to have. And it'd be, I don't want to come down.

I got chocolate. Okay, I'm coming down. So it's worth remembering that the way we feel changes all the time.

It's quite a good thing, I think. So that's the end of this recording. Thank you for listening.

Remember to be kind to yourself, because you do deserve to be happy. Be gentle with yourself. You deserve to feel safe.

Lots of love. Bye.