I'm Tabitha MacDonald, an intuitive coach and bodyworker. I invite you to journey with me through an episode that's as personal as it is universal. When a family emergency struck right after an intuition conference, I found myself entangled in the complex dance of pain and healing. This isn't just a story; it's an exploration of using pain as a guide to deepen our intuition and harness intention in the face of life's unexpected turns. Discover how staying grounded in the present can transform our experience with pain, and learn why managing it requires attention to our physical, emotional, energetic, and mental well-being. This narrative goes beyond theory, offering practical insights into the necessity of hydration and the courage needed to navigate familial chaos.
This conversation continues with an honest look at redefining identity in the face of chronic pain, where neural graphic work, art, and meditation emerge as powerful tools for emotional and physical liberation. I'll share how detaching pain from our emotional selves helps break the cycle of addiction and suffering, and how mindset shifts lead to a reimagined pain-free identity. But the healing doesn't stop with oneself; it ripples outward. I delve into the idea that those who have experienced hurt are uniquely equipped to heal others, fostering a world where love, gratitude, and Superconsciousness pave the way for global change. So, join me for a heartfelt dialogue about the transformative power of empathy and the crucial role of worthiness in the healing journey.
New Masterclass
Moving Through the Emotional Side of Physical Pain
Tuesday, February 28, 2024
7:00pm PT
Embark on a transformative journey in our masterclass, "Moving Through the Emotional Side of Physical Pain." In this specialized session, we will unravel the intricate connection between mind and body, exploring how emotional well-being intersects with physical pain. Tabitha MacDonald, LMT, has been serving people in the wellness industry for 20 years. She has a depth of knowledge and experience at integrating Mind, Body and Heart to move through pain as fast as possible. This is going to be a powerful session.
About Tabitha Tabitha MacDonald is an intuitive transformation coach dedicated to helping people overcome their pain as fast as possible so that they can have the love, freedom and purpose they truly desire.
I'm Tabitha MacDonald, an intuitive coach and bodyworker. I invite you to journey with me through an episode that's as personal as it is universal. When a family emergency struck right after an intuition conference, I found myself entangled in the complex dance of pain and healing. This isn't just a story; it's an exploration of using pain as a guide to deepen our intuition and harness intention in the face of life's unexpected turns. Discover how staying grounded in the present can transform our experience with pain, and learn why managing it requires attention to our physical, emotional, energetic, and mental well-being. This narrative goes beyond theory, offering practical insights into the necessity of hydration and the courage needed to navigate familial chaos.
This conversation continues with an honest look at redefining identity in the face of chronic pain, where neural graphic work, art, and meditation emerge as powerful tools for emotional and physical liberation. I'll share how detaching pain from our emotional selves helps break the cycle of addiction and suffering, and how mindset shifts lead to a reimagined pain-free identity. But the healing doesn't stop with oneself; it ripples outward. I delve into the idea that those who have experienced hurt are uniquely equipped to heal others, fostering a world where love, gratitude, and Superconsciousness pave the way for global change. So, join me for a heartfelt dialogue about the transformative power of empathy and the crucial role of worthiness in the healing journey.
New Masterclass
Moving Through the Emotional Side of Physical Pain
Tuesday, February 28, 2024
7:00pm PT
Embark on a transformative journey in our masterclass, "Moving Through the Emotional Side of Physical Pain." In this specialized session, we will unravel the intricate connection between mind and body, exploring how emotional well-being intersects with physical pain. Tabitha MacDonald, LMT, has been serving people in the wellness industry for 20 years. She has a depth of knowledge and experience at integrating Mind, Body and Heart to move through pain as fast as possible. This is going to be a powerful session.
About Tabitha Tabitha MacDonald is an intuitive transformation coach dedicated to helping people overcome their pain as fast as possible so that they can have the love, freedom and purpose they truly desire.
Welcome to the Mindful Love Podcast. My name is Tabitha McDonald. I am your host and guide on this journey. Today I wanna talk about pain. I was at an intuition conference for five days in San Diego with my mentor, chris Duncan, and it was such an amazing journey of developing and harnessing the skill of intuition. And when I got home I had a phone call from my dad and he said that my stepmom was in so much pain that he was really scared. And I heard the fear in his voice.
Speaker 1:
And I do body work. I treat pain for a living. I'm quite good at it. It's how I got into coaching, because I noticed the difference between emotional pain and physical pain. I just saw a tremendous gap in care there, being able to address both. And when he called he was so scared and I had just gone from like 10 days and the last thing I wanted to do was go to Washington because it was a five hour drive. But I stepped into my heart and I asked myself I said would you regret not going? You know the answer is always yes, because I, like, one of my top values is family. And then I asked myself another question. I said are you going because you want love and approval from your family, or are you going because you want to? It was immediately. I'm choosing to go because of how I will feel. I love to be of service. I love to help people out of pain, and I would love to help my stepmom, who I love very much, out of pain, because I know I have the skills to help her.
Speaker 1:
I got in the car the next morning and as I was driving up there, I listened to William White Cloud's book, and I've never listened to William White Cloud, but he came in at the end of our conference and he really spoke about the three levels of consciousness, and the way he spoke about it resonated with me in a different way than I have heard before, and so I thought this would be great. I can listen to William White Cloud's book on the way up, and it's all about the structure of our reality, and changing the structure that we live in is a secret sauce. So when I got up there, I got hotel because I do online coaching, so I had some calls that I had to do before I went over there, and so then I went over to my dad's house and I just kept grounding in my own energy and saying like what's my intention, what's the end result of what I want to accomplish here? And I just kept thinking like I just want to show up as myself and maybe authentic, and I want to help my stepmom out of pain into a body that feels good, like it was, like I really want to help her step into a body that feels good. And so often we think I want to get rid of pain.
Speaker 1:
But pain is there as a messenger. It's our fear of the pain that makes the pain so loud. The hard thing is that not enough people understand that, so we keep treating for pain. One of the major switches that I did with my body work clients years ago was switching them into what do you want to do with your body when it doesn't hurt? It was so hard to get people to even consider that, and that's when I really started looking for tools to help people shift their identity of pain, because it's being trapped in the loop of pain, the identity of pain that keeps people stuck and you just can't see outside of it. It's like a giant prison. The pain is so loud and so overwhelming and once we have the identity of pain, it doesn't matter if we switch it to physical pain, emotional pain or energetic pain or mental pain, it's going to find a new way to present itself until we stick ourselves in entirely new structure.
Speaker 1:
And so when I got to my parents' house, there was a lot of chaos energy, because excessive pain and codependency has just massive chaos energy around it. And so I just kept grounding and centering and trying to clear my mind and assess the situation and tap into my intuition. But her pain was so loud and I can just feel pain and I can hear it, and I was like, okay, what's the first step? And then my dad, because he loves his wife so much, kept asking like, what's the process? Can you fix this? Can you fix this? And I was just feeling the pressure of their fear and it took a tremendous amount of energy for me just to ground and center into my own space and not come at it from a place of fear Just to stay in the end result. I would like her to feel good in her body.
Speaker 1:
When I tapped in and I was like, what's the first step? I just thought it's hydration, like that's the first step. And so I said, okay, I'm just going to give her some electrolytes because she's so dehydrated Her body is shutting down. And she said what most of my clients say she likes tons of water. I don't know why you would say that and I'm like you're not retaining it, it's just fleshing out of you. And so I gave her electrolytes immediately and I noticed the shift immediately.
Speaker 1:
And then, as I'm doing this, I keep getting these questions of when is this going to be over? What's the next step, what's all the steps? And I was laughing inside because I think, wow, I bet this is how the universe feels when it's working with me, because I try to control the end result. I always try to control the process. I just kept hearing like let go, let go, let go. And I was laughing internally because I'm watching my dad try to control the situation. He wants all the steps and he wants all the information. And I just kept grouting back inside and I kept going let me just do one thing at a time, because I have to see if this creates the shift I need so I can move on to the next thing, because the pain is so loud I can't identify the origin of it yet. And so I was just laughing internally because I really was like, oh my gosh, the universe is literally up there laughing at me going this is the lesson you needed to learn here.
Speaker 1:
As I'm walking her through how to get through the pain, I was like, okay, we need to get you some magnesium. So I found some calm powder in the cabinet and so I gave her some calm and then, as we're getting her hydrated and we're getting her nervous system to settle down, I decided to try to find the origin of the pain by putting my hands in, doing some palpation, and the tissue was so irritated I couldn't even palpate it. And so I was like, okay, that's not the right step today. And so I just quieted my mind and I listened and I just thought, okay, I'm going to put her into some agoskew positions. The way I saw her pain was like this thick cloud of smoke that was just taking over her entire system. When I see it like that, I realize like this is so much bigger than like a rib head being out or just an emotional response. You know it was bigger.
Speaker 1:
And so, once I got her into the Agassu position on the floor, I played the O'Ponopono meditation for her, which is this beautiful Hawaiian prayer that's designed to, I believe and I might maybe not be getting this correctly, but I believe it is helpful and just this spelling of negative energy from the field. And so she was laying there in her position and I was just playing the O'Ponopono and I was like, okay, let's just do some gentle breathing and I started down regulating her nervous system with her and getting her nervous system to regulate through breath and through positioning and meditation. And so as she was laying there doing that and I was just kind of like scanning her body with my mind, it just occurred to me that it wasn't about the pain, it was about the addiction to pain meds, and I could see it so clearly Like it was like I'll use it just an analogy it's like you have this kind of like other entity living inside of your head We'll just call him George for now and George was inside of her mind and he wanted the pain medication and he was like a little child and he knew that if he amplified her pain enough that she would keep feeding him more of the pain meds. And so she had had this medical device put into her body and it didn't have any impact on the pain. And I said, yeah, because George is in charge, like he wants more pain meds. So it doesn't matter what you do, as long as this addiction entity is in the brain, it's just going to keep upping your pain levels, no matter what you do, so it can get the drug that it likes. I believe it was Oxycodone.
Speaker 1:
I got really frustrated with the entire medical industry and the drug industry at that moment, but then I stepped back into my authority and empowerment and I thought what can I do right now? And so I started explaining to her. I said you know, it's like the addiction has a mind of its own and I'm like I never talk about addiction with shame because it's like not anybody's fault who got addicted to pain meds? It was a system, you know, that has its own energy that just got out of control and abused. But I just had to keep explaining and like the addiction without shame, judgment or anything like that has its own mind and basically it doesn't matter what we do to get you out of pain, it's going to keep upping your pain so that it can get more of the drug and what we really need to do is have an understanding of this because it's driving your pain right now. So it doesn't matter if I put the rib head back in or if we, you know, work with the medical device that you think is faulty or any of it. As long as that addiction knows that your pain will give it more of the drug that you want, then this is really the crux of the issue.
Speaker 1:
As soon as I said that, I kind of saw her starting to shift, like she knew what I was talking about, and I think playing the opponent on the background kind of helped settle all of the chaos energy down as well, so she could hear me and so my dad's in the back row going what do we do with this? What do we do with this? How do we shift this? How do we fix this? And I was like, okay, I love you, dad, but I need you to just let me think, because I just need one step at a time. And so I thought like tonight there's not a lot we can do other than get your nervous system to settle down enough so that tomorrow I can come and touch your body and see what's really going on. And so we did some like neural graphic work, which is a way of drawing out pain. It was interesting cuz I said just write down the words that you associate with pain.
Speaker 1:
It was really hard for her, because she was so dissociated From the pain she didn't even understand it anymore, like it was this thing that she couldn't even connect with, and I thought, okay, well, this is the problem. It's the fear of the pain that's on one corner, and then we have george or little Addiction in the other corner and everybody has different agendas. It's like, you know, sitting in a political rally with everybody coming in with their own agendas and nobody was agreeing on anything. It was just creating complete chaos in her nervous system. So let's give you some more vitamin b.
Speaker 1:
You know, once I got her up off the floor, out of the agascus position, she was like I am starting to feel better and she could start talking to me, and so I was like, okay, great, now let's start with the drawing, and I'm just going to draw what your pain looks like. And so we just started tapping into all of the senses. And it was Really interesting cuz then, when she started connecting with the pain through art, then we could start talking about the pain and then we could start rewiring some of the emotional impact in the fear of my pain, and then she started getting really tired and then she goes okay, I think the pain medicine will work. Now I'm like, yeah, okay, cuz we did, we Detached the addiction from the pain and then the pain pill worked. Because now we kind of like redirected the pain medicine to the pain instead of to the addiction and Let her go to sleep and I, I left and I just said to my family I'm gonna be back tomorrow and we'll see what happens tomorrow and I'll know.
Speaker 1:
After she gets a good night sleep, I'm back in the morning and it was so much better, the pain was so improved, and I said, great, like this is a great start. So now what we're gonna start with is meditation. And it's funny cuz my clients and I and I tell them that's the place that we need to start, they get annoyed cuz they just want me to go and fix it for them and I'm like, yeah, but I can't. Like we have A dysregulated nervous system. It doesn't matter what I do, as long as your nervous system completely dysregulated, it's gonna be really hard for me to do anything productive for you except causing more pain. So I just amazing lamp called the rock see the lamp, and I set it up and they're living room and back in the house position and I played it. I played these wonderful sounds, these I forget the frequency, but some frequencies and in the light and the house position I just had her start doing some breath, like into her brain, to start bringing the oxygen back up into her brain.
Speaker 1:
She was there for a while. When she came out she was like why I feel better, like her whole demeanor completely changed and it was amazing to me because then I could like start touching the body and I was like okay, so we really don't have anything that feels like out of place or alignment. I mean, I can tell that there's a nerve that's like Really loud and we want to down regulate the nerve a little bit. But like even just going anywhere near it was too much. So I said right now we just have to focus on Shifting your identity. I said because what's happening is you had this long standing identity of pain. Yeah, right, we do. Then say good bye everyone. May you gotta go back home this next morning and may you remember that �았어요, because you live in the house of pain. Literally you live in this house of pain known as your body. As long as you live in this house of pain, you're going to find another way to create pain, so this one will lead to another one, because your structure of reality is I live in a house of pain. And so what we need to do is create a whole new structure for your identity to move into, which is I have a body that I feel safe in, or I have a body that I feel good in. And once we move you to the new identity, then it'll be easier for us to take aligned action to keep you there.
Speaker 1:
And so we did some alignment work to get her over into the new identity. And it was like what do you want to do? You want to go shopping. And it was like it was that simple. It was like, yeah, I want to go shopping, and it was so much fun to be able to walk around and go shopping in a body that feels good. I'm like great, let's anchor in on that. And we're going to talk about that emotion. And now we're changing the internal state of the body in alignment with the emotion of the end result, which is the work that we do in coaching, as we align the person with the emotion of the end result. And it was like freedom, ease of movement, joy, fun, all of those really positive experiences that we crave as a human being.
Speaker 1:
And so in that house, pain doesn't exist, because if we focus on pain, pain has to be there and it's going to be loud and the fear of pain makes it even louder. And it's really that we don't have a lot of widespread tools to get people out of pain, and it doesn't matter if it's physical pain, emotional pain, mental pain, energetic pain, like. A lot of people are looking for tools and they get confused because they don't understand that if their structure is one of solving for pain, they'll always have to have pain to solve for. But if we can shift their structure to, I have a body I feel good in to, I have relationships that I love to, I'm living a life that I love, full of joy and fun and doing things I enjoy, or I have a life that's meaningful and has purpose and I'm the predominant creative force in my life, meaning I get to choose what's next. I get to choose, I get to create my new reality.
Speaker 1:
And once we feel more empowered, then the solutions become more clear. A lot of the time they're not logical, like they're just not logical, and that's because logic isn't in this structure. All of the time it's an emotional reaction, especially when we're dealing with pain, because pain is one of those things that will take away everything that you love, because the louder the pain is, the less you get to enjoy your life. And now we become so addicted to solving for pain that that becomes the identity. It's literally how I got into coaching, because I would have these people come in and they would have been in pain for a long time and I know how to do the structural stuff and the soft tissue stuff. It was so frustrating to me and that's when I really started understanding the body and how it traps emotions.
Speaker 1:
And then I really started understanding the identity and needing to shift our identity away from someone who lives in chronic pain, because you can get stuck in it and then you can be out of pain but really not know how to stay there, because in some way, either the pain was giving you something or the fear of listening to the pain was keeping you trapped in it. It was like a prison cell, like Rumi's quote. Why would you stay in prison when the door is wide open? And it's like because it's clouded by pain, like pain is literally clouding the door and you can't see your way out. So what is the solution? It's creating a new structure for yourself.
Speaker 1:
So if you're someone who's really struggling with chronic pain, I would say that I've decided I'm going to go ahead and start recording a series of meditations and hopefully, by the time I publish this podcast, they'll be ready. That's my intention and my goal, because it really is something I'm quite passionate about, because I've used my motto, literally on my when I opened my massage clinic, was I want to rid the world of pain. And I was wrong in that statement, because what I really want is for people to not be afraid of their pain, to be able to sit with and listen to their pain, because on the other side of their pain is their power, it's their genius. But there's this bravery and this courage that's required to really sit with your pain, and it doesn't matter if it's physical pain, emotional pain, mental pain or energetic pain. When we're brave enough to listen to it and I'm not saying people who are in pain are not brave that is a courageous act.
Speaker 1:
To live with pain I mean I've been working with it for a long time. I mean it takes a different kind of resonance of knowing that you're strong enough and resilient enough to listen to the pain long enough to get to the other side of it to hear what it wants to tell you and to hear the genius of your own light on the other side of it. And sometimes that takes somebody holding your hand, like me going up with my stepmom holding her hand through it and knowing that she was supported and loved and cared for and that she felt that validation of her pain. Like I always validate it. I'm like your experience of pain is absolutely real because it's yours, because we don't validate it. If we tell them that it's not valid and they're making it up or it's in their head, the pain gets louder because now the pain wants validation and the pain will get louder and louder until it will get its validation. That's not what we want to do to people. We want to sit with them long enough and hold their hand so they feel supported, so they can hear their pain, so they can go.
Speaker 1:
Okay, what is the pain trying to tell me? Because we have to experience pain, like if you put your hand on a hot stove. You want to experience the pain of the burn, otherwise you won't know that you're being burned. If you're in a relationship that doesn't serve you, you need the pain to know that this is not right. You need to know that pain so that you don't get stuck there. Pain is a messenger and it's very misunderstood. A lot of the time we feel like we're being attacked by pain and really pain is simply there to show us the shadow that we can't see, and when we sit with it and we learn to listen to it, we get the answer on how to create what we want. But we also have to sit in that creative structure of knowing what you want.
Speaker 1:
What do you want when you're out of pain? If you're in emotional pain because of a heartbreak, what do you want on the other side of it? You want love, you want belonging, you want affection, you want to be adored. And the other side of career pain. I want to have a career with purpose. I want to have meaning in my life. If we're looking at physical pain, I want to be able to move my body with ease. I want to feel strong. I want to feel good inside because I want to have adventure. I want to play with my kids All of those reasons and we can look at any kind of pain and create the same new structure and it's just about what do you want?
Speaker 1:
What do you really want when the pain's not there and we can't just keep focusing on and want the pain to go away, because then the pain gets louder and it looks for a way to make itself more known. So we really have to think about what do I really want? So, if you're someone who's struggling with pain, I want you to know that there's so many other resources out there and our healthcare system is so taxed. It's so taxed from this opioid crisis, and even my dad was expressing his frustration with the emergency room when I said, dad, if we look at it from all perspectives, they're as frustrated as you are because they have this opioid epidemic that they don't have the tools or resources to handle and the system is just caving under the pressure of it. Everyone is so in the problem, they can't see the solution and everybody's pointing fingers. We have to start empowering each other to take the responsibility over the part that we can. That's where making sure we're properly hydrated, that we're doing our breath work, that we're doing the pain-free exercises that are available that if it's heartbreak, that we're addressing the root of the heartbreak, is it an attachment-style issue?
Speaker 1:
I always hear this quote. It's hurt people, hurt people, and it's 100% true and it's not necessarily intentional. It's just that they're acting from a primal place of pain and people who are in that state of love and gratitude and cohesion healed people, heal people. And if we look at the like kind of global epidemic of self-entitlement that is plaguing a lot of areas in our world right now, if we step into love, if we step out and we step into a state of super consciousness and we look at it from the bigger picture, we can see what's happening, pull down the information of the next obvious action step and each one of us can make a very meaningful impact on the planet.
Speaker 1:
And it's just doing one thing at a time and allowing yourself to feel worthy enough to help everyone around you and to really lead with love and compassion instead of fear, anger and regret or shame, and I just feel like shame fuels pain. I hope that you learned something today. If you're interested in learning more about working with me, you can visit my website, mindfullovelove, and hopefully soon I will have the meditation pack up for download and it's on my to-do list my never ending to-do list but it is on the priority to-do list. So thank you so much for taking time to listen today. My name is Tabitha McDonald and I'm very grateful for your time and energy. Thank you.