September 18, 2024 • 25 mins
In this episode, Dr. David Hanscom talks with Deborah Gray, therapist and business owner. She shares her personal account of overcoming chronic neck pain and her path to achieving a pain-free state within 18 months. She discusses the various tools and techniques she employed, including stress management, sleep, and neuro-linguistic programming, as well as the role of education and stress management in maintaining her recovery. Also, she reflects on her resilience during subsequent major life stresses, including legal challenges and family health issues, and the approach she utilized to navigate through these adversities. Deborah Gray is a mother, grandmother, therapist, lifelong learner, business owner, and lover of life. She has two Master's degrees in Clinical Social Work and Mind-Body Medicine. Deborah knows that life has a way of throwing us curve balls and in the quest to transcend these difficult circumstances she has made a career out of helping others live a Life By Design. Her heart's desire now is to work from anywhere in the world using Rapid Transformational Therapy to quickly bring joy back into the lives of those who suffer. For more information, you may contact her at: dgray@lifebydesignpa.net
Please note that all XZBN radio and/or television shows are Copyright © REL-MAR McConnell Meda Company, Niagara, Ontario, Canada – www.rel-mar.com. For more Episodes of this show and all shows produced, broadcasted and syndicated from REL-MAR McConell Media Company and The 'X' Zone Broadcast Network and the 'X' Zone TV Channell, visit www.xzbn.net. For programming, distribution, and syndication inquiries, email programming@xzbn.net.
Please note that all XZBN radio and/or television shows are Copyright © REL-MAR McConnell Meda Company, Niagara, Ontario, Canada – www.rel-mar.com. For more Episodes of this show and all shows produced, broadcasted and syndicated from REL-MAR McConell Media Company and The 'X' Zone Broadcast Network and the 'X' Zone TV Channell, visit www.xzbn.net. For programming, distribution, and syndication inquiries, email programming@xzbn.net.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:04):
Hello, and welcome to Back in Control Radio with Doctor
David Hanscombe.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
Hello everybody, and welcome to another episode of Back in
Control Radio with Doctor David Hanscomb. I'm your host, Tom Masters,
and our guest today is Deborah Gray. She's a therapist
and business owner with two master's degrees in clinical social
work and mind body medicine. Having dealt with and transcended
her own difficult circumstances, she has made a career out
(00:39):
of helping others live a life by design. She is
now using rapid transformational therapy to quickly bring joy back
into the lives of her clients.
Speaker 1 (00:49):
Welcome, Thank you, Tom. I'd like to welcome deb Gray
to our podcast this morning. I've known her since two
thousand and thirteen or fourteen, and she's been through a
lot of different phases alive. She's sort of one of
the classic stories of healing that represents the concepts that
we're presenting today, and she's gone on to develop her
(01:12):
own version of it. But she is a mother and grandmother, therapist,
lifelong learner, business owner, and lover of life. As busy
as I am, I feel like I'm standing still next
to her. She has two master's degree in clinical social
work and mind body medicine. She knows that life has
a way of throwing us curve balls, and the quest
to transcend these is difficult. She has made a career
(01:34):
of helping others by living a life by Design, which
is a business she put together Sure Design Now is
to work from anywhere in the world using rapid trans
transformational therapy to quickly bring joy back into the lives
of those who suffer. So, Deb, it is nice to
see you. Welcome back to welcome back to back in
the control radio.
Speaker 3 (01:53):
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (01:55):
So I met Deb at a workshop that my wife
and I and doctor Fred Luskin put together back at
the Omega Institute in ryde Back, New York. It's a
five day workshop and Dev was friends with Fred Luskin,
and there's the first workshop we put together, and she
did the workshop and nothing really happened, and about ten
(02:17):
months later things started to happen. So before we get
into what you've learned now, which is phenomenal, I just
love to know your story because it is a very
inspirational story. But also the mount of stresses she's had
to deal with between then and now has been unbelievable
and the idea, she has the tools to deal with them,
and it's made really a remarkable progress to all this stuff.
(02:39):
So yeah, let's jump back, clear back till twenty thirteen,
where I believe you had a lot of neck pain
at the time. Is that correct?
Speaker 3 (02:47):
That is correct. So I had some chronic neck pain.
I've been in a couple of accidents, so it's probably
whiplash type relationship. And then I went to a chiropractor
who's now neck and that sent shooting nerve pain down
both my right and left arms. And from that point on,
I had about eighteen months worth of chronic pain, that
(03:09):
nervy achy joint ye pain that just radiates from the
neck down. Of course, during the day when I was busy,
it wasn't as bad. As soon as I go to bed,
it would put me in tears. It was that intense.
And so I was doing the work, and I did
the chiropractic, I went to a surgeon and had scans
(03:31):
done on my neck. I did all the allopathic ways.
I did notice and I do still notice that stress
can actually increase the pain or make it feel less flexible.
So I pay attention to that. So I did go
to your workshop, hoping to get out of the chronic pain.
(03:53):
And I saw people around me, David, as you remember
Mark and Etsy, and that they just right so and
I wasn't getting it. So I did come back and
I continued to do the work. But I did learn
some very valuable lessons from you and from that workshop
that I did put into practice, and within eighteen months
(04:13):
of the original onset, I was completely pain free and
I have not gone back. If I get even the
twinge that is coming back, I know exactly what to
do and I put all those tools back into effect.
Speaker 1 (04:25):
So if I remember a couple of things, because you
actually did the workshop a second time, right, I did,
because the first time you were early on campus and
were coming back and forth. But if I remember right
that when you broke out of it about ten months later, well,
first of all, didn't you do a lot of your
graduate work to get rid of your pain? If I
(04:45):
remember that right? Also, yes, I.
Speaker 3 (04:48):
Actually started a PhD program that turned into a master's.
That's another whole story. However, I was doing that and
my focus was on chronic pain, and so I was
learning a lot. And yes, I was early on and
I was out of chronic pain about a year into
that program. But what I really give credit to is
(05:13):
the things that you had recommended. The glucosamine, and I
could never do that C word it's in the Osteo
biflex stopping. I stopped physical therapy because that was actually
keeping it aggravated and inflamed. Right, And then I really
managed stress by making sure I got very good sleep.
(05:34):
Sleep was critical to my recovery.
Speaker 1 (05:37):
Right. I don't know I remember your story so well
because it was a bit of a challenge going back
and forth, but I remember that. And I will make
a comment about physical therapy is that when I do
when I was in practice doing chronic pain work, and
I actually never started with physical therapy because what I
now know, I did not know this back then. But instinctively,
the nervous system is actually on fire. Your brain cell
(05:59):
is actually inflame, is hyper sensitive, and if you start
taking tissues that are hypersensitive and start working with them manually,
you can really really flair things up. So do you
remember striving in physical therapy, which I totally agree with.
And then I believe we started the expressive writing and
then sleep was a big one for you. Then also
the anger part of it for sort of forgiveness. Anger
(06:21):
part of that Fred put out there seemed to be
a big factor for you.
Speaker 3 (06:24):
Well, yeah, I never actually had anger, So it's probably
more of a suppressed peace because I was not allowed
to be angry as a child, and I learned to
be very much a people pleaser. I don't consider myself
an angry person. I think it was more the stress
management of work and how and I changed a lot
of my language so that I was what you mean
(06:47):
by that, I had learned or somewhere around that same time,
some neuro linguistic programming and the power of language. So
if I am thinking thoughts like, oh boy, I've got
a big problem here, that would hit me emotionally. If
I think, okay, here's something that's not working, let's go
ahead and see it as a challenge to overcome, that
(07:09):
hits me differently emotionally. And so that kind of changed
also helps a lot with reducing stress and reducing chronic
pain in general.
Speaker 1 (07:20):
So what happened after you left Omega? Why you Well,
after the second round of it, you went on to
you had to go on the details of the stresses were,
but she went there's some pretty major stresses that historically
were taking you down.
Speaker 3 (07:37):
Pretty low, right, That is correct. Yes, it was actually
a few years later and I run on business like
by design, and I had a provider who left the
agency and came after me at all levels from licensing
boards to Human Rights Commission to acclaiming fraud across agencies,
(08:04):
and it was extremely stressful for over three years, and
I knew I hadn't done anything wrong, not saying that
I didn't maybe make a mistake because there was a
billing error, but there wasn't anything that was done incorrectly
except a mistake. And so anyway, it took three years
to resolve. And in that three years, using all the
(08:25):
tools that I had learned from back in Control in
our workshop, as well as the history of all the
training I've taken, I had zero illness or health issues
during that whole time, which is amazing because there was
six lawsuits at one point, and then I had two
children that had health issues, cancer and brain aneurysm, so
(08:48):
it was like one thing on top of the other.
And to go through all of that and not have
any health issues really speaks to the resiliency of those
tools that can bring.
Speaker 1 (09:02):
So what I I think what the audience like to
hear is that because obviously we all have stress, we
now know more about the physiology stress. People think stress
is a psychological issue that if you feel stressed out
to somehow, you're a wimp. Be least that's what I
used to think. And stress is to simplate your body's
response to a threat or danger. And so there's two
(09:25):
parts of healing. One of wes learned how to process adversity,
work quickly and efficiently, because adversity never stops. And people
some of the think that we should not have to
deal with adversity, Well, that's lives. Dealing with the diversity
is how you stay alive. So the chemical chemical reactions
are what we call anxiety and air are just reactions.
(09:45):
You learn how to depersonalize those. And then other particuling
is nurturing joy, good food, good wine, good friends, et cetera.
But their separate skill sets. If you're using positive experiences
to outrun the adverse and pain, it can't work. It
doesn't work. It's actually sort of a disaster. So what
I'm curious in the big picture, I think maybe twenty
(10:08):
years ago, when life was buffeting you around like the
rest of us. And this takes the five years after Omega,
and I realized it wasn't just Omega, it was a
bunch of tools in general you deal with I would
I would use the word extreme adversity. Having sick children
is a big deal. Having your livelihood threaten with lawsuits
is a big deal. I dealt with many people in
the great practice whose lives are on hold while the
(10:30):
lawsuits were taking place. So in the big picture, what
was your overall mental approach? What were some of the
tools you just particularly used and improved on to get
through all that? Because it was I always blown away with
how you got through all this stuff.
Speaker 3 (10:46):
I was too like when I look back, I'm like amazed, Well, yes,
what I'm sleepless. Sleepless Number one. I just made sure
I really had good sleep patterns, and I made sure
that I probably slept more than usual during that time period.
I would definitely be in bed nine or ten o'clock
(11:06):
instead of eleven to one, and I was getting up
between seven and eight. So I really got good slave
that I think was critical to my well being. Also,
I didn't mention a part of Omega that was really
helpful was the play we learned the cup song. I
still play with the cup song, and I showed my
grandkids how I Oh, well, I can do it and
(11:28):
it's a lot of fun. So I made sure too
to be surrounded by people who love and support me,
so good family members, I have great friends, and that
was super important to add two and taking time to
do that, which when you're working sixty seventy hours a week,
there's not a lot of energy left to do that.
And so I still made sure though that I had
(11:48):
those connections. That was really helpful. And then I used self.
I had mentioned to you that I have a lot
of affirmations that are specific fit to whatever is going on.
So if I'm feeling tired, I say things like I'm
healthy and full of energy. If I am worried about finances,
(12:10):
I say things like money comes easily, frequently and freely.
If I am feeling attacked like I was in that situation,
I was say over and over again, whenever I would
feel that anxiety, I would say, I'm surrounded by people
who love and support me. And I would use that
little bit of meditative practice to remind myself what I
do have in my life and how important and critical,
(12:32):
that is, and that's who I really care about.
Speaker 1 (12:35):
Right, did you do the expression of writing? Was that
part of your routine?
Speaker 3 (12:39):
I am not an expressive writer, per se.
Speaker 1 (12:42):
It's serious. I don't know.
Speaker 3 (12:44):
We've talked about it. I have given it as an
assignment to other people, though I will say, just because
I don't do it, it doesn't mean I don't value it.
And I have seen people benefit greatly from writing down
and tearing up and throwing away.
Speaker 1 (12:57):
Right, and quick question on this deal, because sleep is
a big deal that when I started the whole process
of healing myself and other people, we just started with sleep.
Because I remember reading a book many many years ago
written by William Dement, who is the founder of the
Stanford Sleep Lab, that only five percent of physicians actually
(13:17):
acknowledged sleep is an issue. And I go, well, I
can do that, And so I took a surgeon's approach
to sleep and said, no matter what, you're going to sleep.
I put people in pretty strong medications right from the beginning,
so it wasn't like anyway. I think one of the
things that made this process effect it was a surgeon's
approach and nonoperative care. So then six weeks with medications,
(13:38):
sleep hygiene, different things. People were sleeping, and I didn't
realize how powerful that was until later. But if you're
not sleeping, none of this works. It just doesn't.
Speaker 3 (13:48):
That makes sense to me.
Speaker 1 (13:50):
And we also know out of Israel that there's a
major study of over a four year prospective stuty. This
shows the lack of sleep actually causes chronic back pain
causes it, not the other way around, and that was
shocking to me. We also find out that lack of
sleep is a bigger predictive disability than actual sciatica, which
blew me away. Also, so and if you have if
(14:12):
you miss one night of sleep, your pay goes up
fifty percent the next day. So sleep's a big deal,
and so it's interesting that she really highlighted that. For
me at Gagause, I still highlight that as number one.
If you're not sleeping, forget about anything else you're doing.
You got to get sleep. So before we move on
to what you're doing now, quick thing. When you were
(14:32):
in the mode back then and weren't sleeping, what did
you do to start getting sleep? Or did you just
understand how important it was?
Speaker 3 (14:40):
Was the factor I prioritized it. I think that that
was probably the biggest thing I was prioritizing it. And
then I did use over the counter medication when I
if I really really couldn't sleep, I would take it then,
and not every day. Every night. I might take it
two nights, not take it again until I had an
(15:03):
episode where I couldn't sleep at all, because it only
took me two or three nights of good sleep to
be able to continue with that. Right, So I didn't
take I didn't go on any medical sleep medication per se.
I just took care of it at home over the counter.
Speaker 1 (15:18):
So let's go ahead a few years when you're going
through really the tumultuous times with your family and job
and practice and stuff again you So I will say
one thing quickly is that we know community and family
and friends are actually anti inflammatory. In other words, it
releases a medication, a peptide or hormone in the body
(15:39):
called oxytocin, which in medical school we were tell was
a lactation pregnancy drug. It actually is highly highly antiflammatory,
a very powerful social bonding drug. And so what we
did not realize until we get into this study group
mode how powerful oxytocin actually was. This an anti inflammatory.
(15:59):
So that probably So you said family and friends were
a big deal, which I was strongly suspect. So again
not psychological. Is this whole social bonding slash anti inflammatory effect.
So going back into the whole process of mental pain,
physical pain, it's all the same thing. It's all based
on chronic information, chronic metabolism. And so again, good food,
(16:20):
follow good wine, good friends, spiritual journey, all those elicit
attacim and actually change your body's chemistry. The other put
about omega. That was interesting for Babs and I and
you though I talked her for it every month, now right,
we still see that. So Fred Luskin is an author
of a book called Forgive for Good out of Stanford,
and we have become good friends. He did the workshop
(16:42):
with us initially and we have very lively debates about forgiveness,
et cetera. But when Fred's book Forgive for Good came
into the practice, people started to heal. Is unbelievable. I
mean I didn't know much about anger. The book provided
the structure to actually or to conceptualize it. And your
thing is which is interesting is that you had tremendous
(17:06):
stresses and the diversity is bad. Naw, but when you
get angry about getting angry, other words, you are angry.
Diversities there, that's where the trouble begins. That makes sense, Yes,
I can see that.
Speaker 3 (17:22):
I would also say about the friendship piece. I think
this is important to choose wisely those people that are
around you as well, because that we do have those
mirror neurons. And I learned that from your workshop. And
so if I'm with someone who is negative, complaining, upset, angry, irritable,
that's going to affect me as well, and not in
(17:43):
a healthy way. So lucky for me, I do have
really warm, welcoming, enjoyable friends who enjoy humor, and so
I think that that's also very important when we're talking
about surrounding yourself with people that support you.
Speaker 1 (18:00):
Say about the workshopping, and we did not understand that
every workshop, every year at least hifty percent sometimes where
people go to pain for you during the workshop. This
is after decades of pain, and we never understood what happened,
but we realized that it was structured. We had small groups,
we had a companionshift, and then we had the what
you called the cup song, and some juggling scarves and
(18:22):
stuff like that Babs did the rhythm work. But that's
my wife, by the way, who's a professional tap dancer.
We weren't tap dancing, but we were doing the cup song.
So I never can understand why so many people are
getting so quickly in such a short period of time.
Turns out, play represents a profound chemical shift. So we
go into oxytocin, dopamine, serotonin, antiflammatory molecules. You're putting feelback
(18:49):
into the cells. Is there's a profound shift. So the
ultimate answer is to pain is play, but not to
escape the pain. In other words, if you're using the
deata also shows if you do a hedonistic lifestyle of
just seeking pleasure to outrun your pain, it's actually inflammatory.
A hedonistic lifestyle actually puts you inflammatory markers straight through
(19:14):
the roof. A life lived with connection, passion, and purpose.
Put your flymbatory markers straight down is one straight up,
one straight down. And so we had the structure, we
had companionship, and we had play and I probably use
the word playful because it was just silly and a
(19:34):
lot of people, a lot of makes feelings about that workshop,
including me. I was sort of a slow learner on
the cup song. So do you want to just talk
about that role of play in your life now, how
they're resonated with you, because that was when you go
to chronic pain workshops. Play is not usually the word
mentioned in a workshop.
Speaker 3 (19:53):
Yeah, well, I think plays really important and learning something
new is really important. And I remember what one of
the things you said was that when you start doing play,
like learning something new music language in our case the
cup song, you're using parts of the brain that are
creating new pathways, which allows the old pathways, the chronic
pain pathways to start to atrophy. That you said that
(20:16):
they don't go away, they just become less active. And
as they become less and less active and the other
pathways are opened up, that replaces per se that part
that was going to that chronic pain. That's not helpful.
And I think you mentioned about during that time when
I was really struggling, the other thing I was doing
is I had joined or it started this graduate program,
(20:38):
and for me, learning is play. So I was really
enjoying meeting new people, new students, new instructors. I love
the class work, so that was play for me. So
I think that that was another form of it. Right,
we all have to find what's playful, what's enjoyable. I
remember I having a niece and she said, I don't
even know what fun is. And I'm all, well, what's
(21:00):
fun for you? And She's like nothing. So she just
didn't have an idea. She hadn't created a vision of
what fun looks like. And I think sometimes we have
to kind of like stop, pause and say, Okay, what
is fun? What is relaxing, what what brings me joy,
what feeds my soul? And that's that's what I was doing.
So in the midst of all of that, I was
(21:22):
still feeding my soul. I was still you know, spiritually,
I have a friend that who is a mentor to me.
I was staying in touch with her. I was going
to classes, doing things that I really enjoyed, meeting new
people that were fascinating to me. And then and now
I have two grandchildren. That's my play today, right, I
just love, love, love love.
Speaker 1 (21:42):
How many grandchildre do you have?
Speaker 3 (21:44):
I have two. They're both girls. They both turned one
turn seven in August and one turn two.
Speaker 1 (21:49):
So fantastic grandparenting is fantastic for sure. So on the
second podcast, which you'll do in a few minutes, here
is we're talking about you've discovered now and we'll jump
away ahead in the story, But do you have this
one on this podcast? Be sure that we connect to
(22:11):
your resources, which we'll discuss in detail in a few minutes.
How do we get a hold of you in your
resources right now?
Speaker 3 (22:18):
I'm still working on creating a new name for myself
because I'm in the process of rebranding and I don't
have that today then, and I'm going to be putting
up a new website. I just haven't decided what to
pull myself yet in this new process, because this new
therapy model is rapid transformational therapy and it's just so
different and unique. I'm going to be doing that as
(22:40):
a consultant, a life consultant of some sort. I just
haven't got a name yet. So in the meantime, can
I give you my phone number and anyone's more than
welcome to call it?
Speaker 1 (22:51):
Absolutely?
Speaker 3 (22:52):
Okay two O seven six ' one to three six
six zero five, and absolutely if anybody has any quoestquestions
or just would like more information, I'm happy to support
and work and encourage anyone.
Speaker 1 (23:05):
We're also an email with an email work also.
Speaker 3 (23:08):
Yes, and that would be D Gray, d G r
A Y at Life by Design he is and Peter
as in Apple dot net.
Speaker 1 (23:18):
So I'm sorry, it's D dot Gray or just d.
Speaker 3 (23:21):
Gray, just D Gray, d g E r A Y.
Speaker 1 (23:25):
Gotcha, okay A Life by Design he a dot net
oh dot net. Okay, I open that up on the
show notes and so again, well into the phone shell,
into your email. She I can't begin to tell you
the transformation I've seen from the time I first met
her till now. And that's actually why we both do this.
We need to watch this and people we work with
(23:47):
all the time. So for us, we are motivated by
people doing well and we're excited about our journey. We're
scored about pass on to other people. So anyway, Dev,
thanks for this part of the podcast, and we're going
to talk about thank you're doing now that rapid you
call it rapid transformational therapy.
Speaker 3 (24:04):
That's correct.
Speaker 1 (24:05):
Nay, we're gonna talk about that in a few minutes.
So anyway, thank you very much.
Speaker 3 (24:08):
Oh, thank you, David. This has been wonderful.
Speaker 2 (24:11):
I'd like to thank our guest deb Gray for being
on the show today and sharing her personal account of
overcoming chronic neck pain. The tools and techniques she used
to become painfree within eighteen months, and the resilience she
developed in the face of major life stresses. I'm your host,
Tom Masters, reminding you to be back next week for
(24:33):
another episode of Back in Control Radio with Doctor David Hanscombe,
and in the meantime, being sure to visit the website
at www dot backincontrol dot com.
Speaker 1 (24:47):
Thanks for listening today and join us next week for
Back in Control Radium
Hello, and welcome to Back in Control Radio with Doctor
David Hanscombe.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
Hello everybody, and welcome to another episode of Back in
Control Radio with Doctor David Hanscomb. I'm your host, Tom Masters,
and our guest today is Deborah Gray. She's a therapist
and business owner with two master's degrees in clinical social
work and mind body medicine. Having dealt with and transcended
her own difficult circumstances, she has made a career out
(00:39):
of helping others live a life by design. She is
now using rapid transformational therapy to quickly bring joy back
into the lives of her clients.
Speaker 1 (00:49):
Welcome, Thank you, Tom. I'd like to welcome deb Gray
to our podcast this morning. I've known her since two
thousand and thirteen or fourteen, and she's been through a
lot of different phases alive. She's sort of one of
the classic stories of healing that represents the concepts that
we're presenting today, and she's gone on to develop her
(01:12):
own version of it. But she is a mother and grandmother, therapist,
lifelong learner, business owner, and lover of life. As busy
as I am, I feel like I'm standing still next
to her. She has two master's degree in clinical social
work and mind body medicine. She knows that life has
a way of throwing us curve balls, and the quest
to transcend these is difficult. She has made a career
(01:34):
of helping others by living a life by Design, which
is a business she put together Sure Design Now is
to work from anywhere in the world using rapid trans
transformational therapy to quickly bring joy back into the lives
of those who suffer. So, Deb, it is nice to
see you. Welcome back to welcome back to back in
the control radio.
Speaker 3 (01:53):
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (01:55):
So I met Deb at a workshop that my wife
and I and doctor Fred Luskin put together back at
the Omega Institute in ryde Back, New York. It's a
five day workshop and Dev was friends with Fred Luskin,
and there's the first workshop we put together, and she
did the workshop and nothing really happened, and about ten
(02:17):
months later things started to happen. So before we get
into what you've learned now, which is phenomenal, I just
love to know your story because it is a very
inspirational story. But also the mount of stresses she's had
to deal with between then and now has been unbelievable
and the idea, she has the tools to deal with them,
and it's made really a remarkable progress to all this stuff.
(02:39):
So yeah, let's jump back, clear back till twenty thirteen,
where I believe you had a lot of neck pain
at the time. Is that correct?
Speaker 3 (02:47):
That is correct. So I had some chronic neck pain.
I've been in a couple of accidents, so it's probably
whiplash type relationship. And then I went to a chiropractor
who's now neck and that sent shooting nerve pain down
both my right and left arms. And from that point on,
I had about eighteen months worth of chronic pain, that
(03:09):
nervy achy joint ye pain that just radiates from the
neck down. Of course, during the day when I was busy,
it wasn't as bad. As soon as I go to bed,
it would put me in tears. It was that intense.
And so I was doing the work, and I did
the chiropractic, I went to a surgeon and had scans
(03:31):
done on my neck. I did all the allopathic ways.
I did notice and I do still notice that stress
can actually increase the pain or make it feel less flexible.
So I pay attention to that. So I did go
to your workshop, hoping to get out of the chronic pain.
(03:53):
And I saw people around me, David, as you remember
Mark and Etsy, and that they just right so and
I wasn't getting it. So I did come back and
I continued to do the work. But I did learn
some very valuable lessons from you and from that workshop
that I did put into practice, and within eighteen months
(04:13):
of the original onset, I was completely pain free and
I have not gone back. If I get even the
twinge that is coming back, I know exactly what to
do and I put all those tools back into effect.
Speaker 1 (04:25):
So if I remember a couple of things, because you
actually did the workshop a second time, right, I did,
because the first time you were early on campus and
were coming back and forth. But if I remember right
that when you broke out of it about ten months later, well,
first of all, didn't you do a lot of your
graduate work to get rid of your pain? If I
(04:45):
remember that right? Also, yes, I.
Speaker 3 (04:48):
Actually started a PhD program that turned into a master's.
That's another whole story. However, I was doing that and
my focus was on chronic pain, and so I was
learning a lot. And yes, I was early on and
I was out of chronic pain about a year into
that program. But what I really give credit to is
(05:13):
the things that you had recommended. The glucosamine, and I
could never do that C word it's in the Osteo
biflex stopping. I stopped physical therapy because that was actually
keeping it aggravated and inflamed. Right, And then I really
managed stress by making sure I got very good sleep.
(05:34):
Sleep was critical to my recovery.
Speaker 1 (05:37):
Right. I don't know I remember your story so well
because it was a bit of a challenge going back
and forth, but I remember that. And I will make
a comment about physical therapy is that when I do
when I was in practice doing chronic pain work, and
I actually never started with physical therapy because what I
now know, I did not know this back then. But instinctively,
the nervous system is actually on fire. Your brain cell
(05:59):
is actually inflame, is hyper sensitive, and if you start
taking tissues that are hypersensitive and start working with them manually,
you can really really flair things up. So do you
remember striving in physical therapy, which I totally agree with.
And then I believe we started the expressive writing and
then sleep was a big one for you. Then also
the anger part of it for sort of forgiveness. Anger
(06:21):
part of that Fred put out there seemed to be
a big factor for you.
Speaker 3 (06:24):
Well, yeah, I never actually had anger, So it's probably
more of a suppressed peace because I was not allowed
to be angry as a child, and I learned to
be very much a people pleaser. I don't consider myself
an angry person. I think it was more the stress
management of work and how and I changed a lot
of my language so that I was what you mean
(06:47):
by that, I had learned or somewhere around that same time,
some neuro linguistic programming and the power of language. So
if I am thinking thoughts like, oh boy, I've got
a big problem here, that would hit me emotionally. If
I think, okay, here's something that's not working, let's go
ahead and see it as a challenge to overcome, that
(07:09):
hits me differently emotionally. And so that kind of changed
also helps a lot with reducing stress and reducing chronic
pain in general.
Speaker 1 (07:20):
So what happened after you left Omega? Why you Well,
after the second round of it, you went on to
you had to go on the details of the stresses were,
but she went there's some pretty major stresses that historically
were taking you down.
Speaker 3 (07:37):
Pretty low, right, That is correct. Yes, it was actually
a few years later and I run on business like
by design, and I had a provider who left the
agency and came after me at all levels from licensing
boards to Human Rights Commission to acclaiming fraud across agencies,
(08:04):
and it was extremely stressful for over three years, and
I knew I hadn't done anything wrong, not saying that
I didn't maybe make a mistake because there was a
billing error, but there wasn't anything that was done incorrectly
except a mistake. And so anyway, it took three years
to resolve. And in that three years, using all the
(08:25):
tools that I had learned from back in Control in
our workshop, as well as the history of all the
training I've taken, I had zero illness or health issues
during that whole time, which is amazing because there was
six lawsuits at one point, and then I had two
children that had health issues, cancer and brain aneurysm, so
(08:48):
it was like one thing on top of the other.
And to go through all of that and not have
any health issues really speaks to the resiliency of those
tools that can bring.
Speaker 1 (09:02):
So what I I think what the audience like to
hear is that because obviously we all have stress, we
now know more about the physiology stress. People think stress
is a psychological issue that if you feel stressed out
to somehow, you're a wimp. Be least that's what I
used to think. And stress is to simplate your body's
response to a threat or danger. And so there's two
(09:25):
parts of healing. One of wes learned how to process adversity,
work quickly and efficiently, because adversity never stops. And people
some of the think that we should not have to
deal with adversity, Well, that's lives. Dealing with the diversity
is how you stay alive. So the chemical chemical reactions
are what we call anxiety and air are just reactions.
(09:45):
You learn how to depersonalize those. And then other particuling
is nurturing joy, good food, good wine, good friends, et cetera.
But their separate skill sets. If you're using positive experiences
to outrun the adverse and pain, it can't work. It
doesn't work. It's actually sort of a disaster. So what
I'm curious in the big picture, I think maybe twenty
(10:08):
years ago, when life was buffeting you around like the
rest of us. And this takes the five years after Omega,
and I realized it wasn't just Omega, it was a
bunch of tools in general you deal with I would
I would use the word extreme adversity. Having sick children
is a big deal. Having your livelihood threaten with lawsuits
is a big deal. I dealt with many people in
the great practice whose lives are on hold while the
(10:30):
lawsuits were taking place. So in the big picture, what
was your overall mental approach? What were some of the
tools you just particularly used and improved on to get
through all that? Because it was I always blown away with
how you got through all this stuff.
Speaker 3 (10:46):
I was too like when I look back, I'm like amazed, Well, yes,
what I'm sleepless. Sleepless Number one. I just made sure
I really had good sleep patterns, and I made sure
that I probably slept more than usual during that time period.
I would definitely be in bed nine or ten o'clock
(11:06):
instead of eleven to one, and I was getting up
between seven and eight. So I really got good slave
that I think was critical to my well being. Also,
I didn't mention a part of Omega that was really
helpful was the play we learned the cup song. I
still play with the cup song, and I showed my
grandkids how I Oh, well, I can do it and
(11:28):
it's a lot of fun. So I made sure too
to be surrounded by people who love and support me,
so good family members, I have great friends, and that
was super important to add two and taking time to
do that, which when you're working sixty seventy hours a week,
there's not a lot of energy left to do that.
And so I still made sure though that I had
(11:48):
those connections. That was really helpful. And then I used self.
I had mentioned to you that I have a lot
of affirmations that are specific fit to whatever is going on.
So if I'm feeling tired, I say things like I'm
healthy and full of energy. If I am worried about finances,
(12:10):
I say things like money comes easily, frequently and freely.
If I am feeling attacked like I was in that situation,
I was say over and over again, whenever I would
feel that anxiety, I would say, I'm surrounded by people
who love and support me. And I would use that
little bit of meditative practice to remind myself what I
do have in my life and how important and critical,
(12:32):
that is, and that's who I really care about.
Speaker 1 (12:35):
Right, did you do the expression of writing? Was that
part of your routine?
Speaker 3 (12:39):
I am not an expressive writer, per se.
Speaker 1 (12:42):
It's serious. I don't know.
Speaker 3 (12:44):
We've talked about it. I have given it as an
assignment to other people, though I will say, just because
I don't do it, it doesn't mean I don't value it.
And I have seen people benefit greatly from writing down
and tearing up and throwing away.
Speaker 1 (12:57):
Right, and quick question on this deal, because sleep is
a big deal that when I started the whole process
of healing myself and other people, we just started with sleep.
Because I remember reading a book many many years ago
written by William Dement, who is the founder of the
Stanford Sleep Lab, that only five percent of physicians actually
(13:17):
acknowledged sleep is an issue. And I go, well, I
can do that, And so I took a surgeon's approach
to sleep and said, no matter what, you're going to sleep.
I put people in pretty strong medications right from the beginning,
so it wasn't like anyway. I think one of the
things that made this process effect it was a surgeon's
approach and nonoperative care. So then six weeks with medications,
(13:38):
sleep hygiene, different things. People were sleeping, and I didn't
realize how powerful that was until later. But if you're
not sleeping, none of this works. It just doesn't.
Speaker 3 (13:48):
That makes sense to me.
Speaker 1 (13:50):
And we also know out of Israel that there's a
major study of over a four year prospective stuty. This
shows the lack of sleep actually causes chronic back pain
causes it, not the other way around, and that was
shocking to me. We also find out that lack of
sleep is a bigger predictive disability than actual sciatica, which
blew me away. Also, so and if you have if
(14:12):
you miss one night of sleep, your pay goes up
fifty percent the next day. So sleep's a big deal,
and so it's interesting that she really highlighted that. For
me at Gagause, I still highlight that as number one.
If you're not sleeping, forget about anything else you're doing.
You got to get sleep. So before we move on
to what you're doing now, quick thing. When you were
(14:32):
in the mode back then and weren't sleeping, what did
you do to start getting sleep? Or did you just
understand how important it was?
Speaker 3 (14:40):
Was the factor I prioritized it. I think that that
was probably the biggest thing I was prioritizing it. And
then I did use over the counter medication when I
if I really really couldn't sleep, I would take it then,
and not every day. Every night. I might take it
two nights, not take it again until I had an
(15:03):
episode where I couldn't sleep at all, because it only
took me two or three nights of good sleep to
be able to continue with that. Right, So I didn't
take I didn't go on any medical sleep medication per se.
I just took care of it at home over the counter.
Speaker 1 (15:18):
So let's go ahead a few years when you're going
through really the tumultuous times with your family and job
and practice and stuff again you So I will say
one thing quickly is that we know community and family
and friends are actually anti inflammatory. In other words, it
releases a medication, a peptide or hormone in the body
(15:39):
called oxytocin, which in medical school we were tell was
a lactation pregnancy drug. It actually is highly highly antiflammatory,
a very powerful social bonding drug. And so what we
did not realize until we get into this study group
mode how powerful oxytocin actually was. This an anti inflammatory.
(15:59):
So that probably So you said family and friends were
a big deal, which I was strongly suspect. So again
not psychological. Is this whole social bonding slash anti inflammatory effect.
So going back into the whole process of mental pain,
physical pain, it's all the same thing. It's all based
on chronic information, chronic metabolism. And so again, good food,
(16:20):
follow good wine, good friends, spiritual journey, all those elicit
attacim and actually change your body's chemistry. The other put
about omega. That was interesting for Babs and I and
you though I talked her for it every month, now right,
we still see that. So Fred Luskin is an author
of a book called Forgive for Good out of Stanford,
and we have become good friends. He did the workshop
(16:42):
with us initially and we have very lively debates about forgiveness,
et cetera. But when Fred's book Forgive for Good came
into the practice, people started to heal. Is unbelievable. I
mean I didn't know much about anger. The book provided
the structure to actually or to conceptualize it. And your
thing is which is interesting is that you had tremendous
(17:06):
stresses and the diversity is bad. Naw, but when you
get angry about getting angry, other words, you are angry.
Diversities there, that's where the trouble begins. That makes sense, Yes,
I can see that.
Speaker 3 (17:22):
I would also say about the friendship piece. I think
this is important to choose wisely those people that are
around you as well, because that we do have those
mirror neurons. And I learned that from your workshop. And
so if I'm with someone who is negative, complaining, upset, angry, irritable,
that's going to affect me as well, and not in
(17:43):
a healthy way. So lucky for me, I do have
really warm, welcoming, enjoyable friends who enjoy humor, and so
I think that that's also very important when we're talking
about surrounding yourself with people that support you.
Speaker 1 (18:00):
Say about the workshopping, and we did not understand that
every workshop, every year at least hifty percent sometimes where
people go to pain for you during the workshop. This
is after decades of pain, and we never understood what happened,
but we realized that it was structured. We had small groups,
we had a companionshift, and then we had the what
you called the cup song, and some juggling scarves and
(18:22):
stuff like that Babs did the rhythm work. But that's
my wife, by the way, who's a professional tap dancer.
We weren't tap dancing, but we were doing the cup song.
So I never can understand why so many people are
getting so quickly in such a short period of time.
Turns out, play represents a profound chemical shift. So we
go into oxytocin, dopamine, serotonin, antiflammatory molecules. You're putting feelback
(18:49):
into the cells. Is there's a profound shift. So the
ultimate answer is to pain is play, but not to
escape the pain. In other words, if you're using the
deata also shows if you do a hedonistic lifestyle of
just seeking pleasure to outrun your pain, it's actually inflammatory.
A hedonistic lifestyle actually puts you inflammatory markers straight through
(19:14):
the roof. A life lived with connection, passion, and purpose.
Put your flymbatory markers straight down is one straight up,
one straight down. And so we had the structure, we
had companionship, and we had play and I probably use
the word playful because it was just silly and a
(19:34):
lot of people, a lot of makes feelings about that workshop,
including me. I was sort of a slow learner on
the cup song. So do you want to just talk
about that role of play in your life now, how
they're resonated with you, because that was when you go
to chronic pain workshops. Play is not usually the word
mentioned in a workshop.
Speaker 3 (19:53):
Yeah, well, I think plays really important and learning something
new is really important. And I remember what one of
the things you said was that when you start doing play,
like learning something new music language in our case the
cup song, you're using parts of the brain that are
creating new pathways, which allows the old pathways, the chronic
pain pathways to start to atrophy. That you said that
(20:16):
they don't go away, they just become less active. And
as they become less and less active and the other
pathways are opened up, that replaces per se that part
that was going to that chronic pain. That's not helpful.
And I think you mentioned about during that time when
I was really struggling, the other thing I was doing
is I had joined or it started this graduate program,
(20:38):
and for me, learning is play. So I was really
enjoying meeting new people, new students, new instructors. I love
the class work, so that was play for me. So
I think that that was another form of it. Right,
we all have to find what's playful, what's enjoyable. I
remember I having a niece and she said, I don't
even know what fun is. And I'm all, well, what's
(21:00):
fun for you? And She's like nothing. So she just
didn't have an idea. She hadn't created a vision of
what fun looks like. And I think sometimes we have
to kind of like stop, pause and say, Okay, what
is fun? What is relaxing, what what brings me joy,
what feeds my soul? And that's that's what I was doing.
So in the midst of all of that, I was
(21:22):
still feeding my soul. I was still you know, spiritually,
I have a friend that who is a mentor to me.
I was staying in touch with her. I was going
to classes, doing things that I really enjoyed, meeting new
people that were fascinating to me. And then and now
I have two grandchildren. That's my play today, right, I
just love, love, love love.
Speaker 1 (21:42):
How many grandchildre do you have?
Speaker 3 (21:44):
I have two. They're both girls. They both turned one
turn seven in August and one turn two.
Speaker 1 (21:49):
So fantastic grandparenting is fantastic for sure. So on the
second podcast, which you'll do in a few minutes, here
is we're talking about you've discovered now and we'll jump
away ahead in the story, But do you have this
one on this podcast? Be sure that we connect to
(22:11):
your resources, which we'll discuss in detail in a few minutes.
How do we get a hold of you in your
resources right now?
Speaker 3 (22:18):
I'm still working on creating a new name for myself
because I'm in the process of rebranding and I don't
have that today then, and I'm going to be putting
up a new website. I just haven't decided what to
pull myself yet in this new process, because this new
therapy model is rapid transformational therapy and it's just so
different and unique. I'm going to be doing that as
(22:40):
a consultant, a life consultant of some sort. I just
haven't got a name yet. So in the meantime, can
I give you my phone number and anyone's more than
welcome to call it?
Speaker 1 (22:51):
Absolutely?
Speaker 3 (22:52):
Okay two O seven six ' one to three six
six zero five, and absolutely if anybody has any quoestquestions
or just would like more information, I'm happy to support
and work and encourage anyone.
Speaker 1 (23:05):
We're also an email with an email work also.
Speaker 3 (23:08):
Yes, and that would be D Gray, d G r
A Y at Life by Design he is and Peter
as in Apple dot net.
Speaker 1 (23:18):
So I'm sorry, it's D dot Gray or just d.
Speaker 3 (23:21):
Gray, just D Gray, d g E r A Y.
Speaker 1 (23:25):
Gotcha, okay A Life by Design he a dot net
oh dot net. Okay, I open that up on the
show notes and so again, well into the phone shell,
into your email. She I can't begin to tell you
the transformation I've seen from the time I first met
her till now. And that's actually why we both do this.
We need to watch this and people we work with
(23:47):
all the time. So for us, we are motivated by
people doing well and we're excited about our journey. We're
scored about pass on to other people. So anyway, Dev,
thanks for this part of the podcast, and we're going
to talk about thank you're doing now that rapid you
call it rapid transformational therapy.
Speaker 3 (24:04):
That's correct.
Speaker 1 (24:05):
Nay, we're gonna talk about that in a few minutes.
So anyway, thank you very much.
Speaker 3 (24:08):
Oh, thank you, David. This has been wonderful.
Speaker 2 (24:11):
I'd like to thank our guest deb Gray for being
on the show today and sharing her personal account of
overcoming chronic neck pain. The tools and techniques she used
to become painfree within eighteen months, and the resilience she
developed in the face of major life stresses. I'm your host,
Tom Masters, reminding you to be back next week for
(24:33):
another episode of Back in Control Radio with Doctor David Hanscombe,
and in the meantime, being sure to visit the website
at www dot backincontrol dot com.
Speaker 1 (24:47):
Thanks for listening today and join us next week for
Back in Control Radium
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