And good evening, everybody, and it's lovely to be with you tonight. And Dawn and I were just saying it, it feels unbelievable that this has been a month and a half that we've been working on this stuff together. And I guess when you think about that, if we've developed some made some changes and kept those changes going, then my guess is, as is normal when I run this course for the NHS, a, a similar version to it anyway.
Is that when you start to make change and you sustain that change. And your brain does begin to, manage pain from a far quieter threat response, then, do you know what? An awful lot of people start to feel a bit better.
They start to feel, less intense pain. They still get pain, because that, the, the idea of the course is not to make it go away, but it's to live. Happy, meaningful lives, and people really do start to sort of take on board some of the stuff.
And I think last week when we were talking about the pacing, that really seemed to resonate around a lot of people who were recognising that, you know, a lot of you came back and, and, and were saying, . Pacing is, is, is so much of an issue within the veterinary profession. When you are struggling with pain, it can be the difference between eventually having to sort of pack in your job even, and retire early, and when we're not quite ready to it, or to cut our hours.
And we don't need to do that sometimes if we can pace and if we can be, meet ourselves with real kindness and compassion. Cause at the core of nearly everything I do, within this sort of sphere, I think that, that kindness and compassion, and at the core of that is, if we treat ourselves as though we were our own best friend, the decisions and the choices we make are so much warmer, they're better thought out, and they're better considered. And generally, they're just kinder.
And if we're living with pain, we've got to be kind to ourselves. So For those of you who may be just coming in, and some people do apparently Dawn was saying sometimes just ask just to be downloaded into one of these sessions, and if you do, then welcome to tonight as well. So This slide here, busy as it is.
Really is, I think. A psychological model. Of effective living with pain.
And what I've tried to do on this slide is condense all of our six weeks. Into a model of effective living with pain. And you may want to, I'm very happy.
I'll, what I'll do tonight is I'll send the PowerPoints over to Dawn as well. And if anybody particularly wanted to, print this one off, it might be a really good one to just have up somewhere. In your, in your room at work, somewhere where you can just go and find it and just remind yourselves of pretty much the stance that we've been advocating for this course.
And at the centre there, we, we find that warm, compassionate psychological flexibility, which essentially means that if we can. Effectively live with pain. Putting this stuff into.
Into action then. We end up living with greater psychological flexibility. And essentially what that means is we end up making choices.
And more choices. But we also recognise, end up recognising that, you know, really quite simply sometimes there is choice where of response, where before it felt like there was no choice. So From a pain context and from what we've been covering, if we start with the contact with the present moment.
The more mindful we are when we live with pain. The better we are at driving this bus of life, as I like to say, because if we are mindless. Or we are.
Solely living within our cognitive brain, problem solving all the time. If we find ourselves ahead of Where we actually are worrying about, you know, what, what, what effect would my pain have on, on me tomorrow, the next day, 3 years' time, 10 years' time. We can quite quickly activate that threat brain by getting into a worry cycle based on stuff that hasn't happened yet, you know?
And there's a lot of very new evidence, particularly coming from, The, Netherlands, actually, where they've been doing some, I think it's Uppsala University, I think that's the Netherlands. And they've been doing some really interesting work on the link with, worrying and . And, and particularly gut disease, noticing that people that worry ineffectively or worry too much, have a far more, difficult time with stuff like irritable bowel syndrome, Crohn's, etc.
Etc. And they're really beginning to realise that there is this, release of peptides that occurs when we worry too much. And so, Generally speaking, worry is something that we do ahead of where we actually are because most people who worry, worry in an anticipatory way.
They worry about what hasn't happened yet. So When we live with pain, by being mindful of making sure that we live in the present moment, we can make our judgments, we can make our decisions, we can make our choices based on what's actually happening right now, which is accurate, rather than what happened before, and rather than what happened and what will happen, possibly later on. So the number one.
Sort of stance, and we've really pushed the importance of mindfulness throughout the course. Every somatic tracking that we did was based on what you find right in this moment this evening as you connect with your pain. Every time you body scan, you're not body scanning for what you might find tomorrow.
You're body scanning for what is there right now. As part of this as well, if I jump, . Clockwise I think, if I go clockwise to values, purpose and meaning, to be honest, that that sits at the core of this course, doesn't it?
Even the title of our course is encouraging us to, recognise that pain has the capacity in millions and millions and millions of people across the world to get in the way and to become all encompassing to the point where. We lose touch with the stuff of life that brings us purpose and meaning and in essence we stop connecting with the stuff of life that really, really matters so. Perhaps tonight is a really good night, but just stopping and just asking yourself, OK, as we come to the end of this course, how do I want to live my life with this pain?
Notice that. Not trying to get rid of it anymore, not buying into this stuff that I can't live my life where I want to live my life until the pain becomes, so much less or so much easier. The pain will get easier, and it will become more manageable if we adopt the strategies that we have done on this six-week course.
And in the meantime, what really matters is what do you want your life to be about going forward. And getting a real sense of that. And then moving over to that.
I prefer the word willingness as we've said a couple of times on this course, but that active openness to. Shifting our mindset to one where we experience pain. Without fighting not to have it, without getting into a fruitless, tiring, exhausting struggle.
To Experience other than what actually is. In that moment or Classically with professions like the veterinary profession and doctors as well are very prone to this side of stuff, which is really judging ourselves negatively. Because we have pain, and sometimes judging ourselves negatively because we are not strong enough, we are not able enough, we're not able to fight our way past that pain.
And you know there's a time for grit, there really is in life. And there's also a time when we need the real, real courage to find the honesty to just say to the people around us, I'm very sorry. But today my pain is restricting me from being able to perform.
As perhaps. You would all like me to. And do you know what, I'm fine with that and I wish you guys would be too.
And that takes for me. Guts Real guts to just be true to ourselves and be true to our experience, and to move away from this sort of false sense of, we've all got to have this ridiculous levels of grit and grit our teeth and push our way through it. Where's pacing with that scenario, you know.
And with the brain spam that we looked at, the, cognitive diffusion strategies that we've explored, just a few of them, you know, just a few of them. Sometimes just very simply waiting and hearing the thought that is pushing us or driving us and slowing it down. Slowing it down enough and saying that thought out loud and stepping away from it because You know, Thoughts are merely products of the mind.
The content of the fort remains. But if we're diffusing that thought down and seeing it as it is. Thoughts Really lose their ability to control.
Our behaviour and the choices we make going forward. Because when we think about. That transcendent.
Sense of self You know, we aren't our thoughts, our feelings, we aren't what our brain says we are. And if we're clever about this, and if we recognise, and if we get a bit curious, as we have done in the somatic tracking particularly, we can start to be a bit curious about this, and so which self. Is generating this sort of thought, you know, which, where is that?
Harsh Over critical thought, where's that coming from? Which self? Was the .
Precursor for that sort of thought and if it is critical, unpleasant, unbending. Rigid, you can be pretty sure that it's coming from that old self, the one I prefer to call our perceived self, the one where our negative beliefs sit. The I'm not good enough stuff.
Where that stuff sits. And sometimes we're, if we're really clever about this, we can go, we can actually find that and say, where, where does that thought stem from? Well, that's a perceived self-thought.
OK. So. And that, that'll be old.
And When we think mindfully about this, we don't wanna be living our lives driven by stuff that is old. We, we would do better to live our lives based on what is actual, what is present now. So then we find actual self.
And right in this actual moment, my perceived self telling me I'm useless. In my actual moment now, am I useless? No, I'm doing the very best I can with a bit of pain today.
And actually I'm still useful. I'm still valid, I'm still valued. I'm still pretty impressive.
And sometimes, as we found with the bold exercise. The most powerful. The self that we can put ourselves into deliberately and on purpose is our observing self, because if we take the time to move into that mindful observing self, we give ourselves the opportunity to look at ourselves and to chuckle sometimes and to say, well, that ain't gonna work, or to chuckle and say, now I really like that version of me.
That me, that self, you know, that cooks with gas, you know. And finally, Where we are now on this course is making that values-based decision and choice. It's a, it's, it's a real statement of intent here, guys, that, do you know what?
I've finished this six week course. I've worked really hard. I've participated, I've listened, I've.
Taken on board concepts I've explored them. I've met stuff with curiosity. And now it's time to Make a decision That I have the opportunity here to move towards the stuff of life that really matters to me.
Taking the pain. When you can Along with you for the journey. And that one slide, I think, we ought to have it blown up into poster size, shouldn't we?
And we should have that, on the wall of the room that we work in. You know, To remind us that. We, we, we can, we can really adopt a better strategy for living with pain.
So As we're week 6, it feels appropriate. That Even though you've worked really hard. Even though hopefully.
You're finding your pain to be more manageable, your. Imbuing your life with strategies that are evidence based and work, there will be times when your pain flares beyond our capacity to, To manage as well as we would want to. Alison's just taking a photo on her phone, so she'll have a reminder.
That's a great idea. If anyone else has got their phones, I'll go back to that slide at the end, Alison, so other people can, cos it is a, a really important slide. Well, what we rec Recommend here is developing a flare-up plan because flare-ups are inevitable.
Part of living with pain and when flare-ups occur, what we normally do. Might not be that relevant. We may need to up our game.
We may need to make sure that we have a strategy in place, particularly for those flare-ups, because the problem with flareups is if we don't have a management plan, sometimes we panic. And when we panic, we make terrible decisions. We take too much of our medication.
We, . Make decisions, big life decisions sometimes, based on the emotional content linked to a flare up of pain. Sometimes we become pretty intolerable with the people we love that live with us, and we say dreadful things, stuff that we're almost bound to regret.
And we don't need to. React in this way to flare-ups if We can plan A really workable, workable response. So, let's have a look.
And if any of you guys are sitting there thinking that there's something that happens in your life that always proceeds. A flare up. We, one of the courses, the paying courses Iran recently, I remember someone saying, marital disharmony, look at that one, or disharmony within your relationship can sometimes proceed a, a, a, a flare up.
. Yeah. And We've just had somebody send a lovely. Message in which I will read out over these past weeks I've rediscovered belief in myself and even just accepted a new job in another practise.
Valuing myself again and weaning off the pregabalin. That's a great idea, because pregabalin's horrible stuff, isn't it? Very often, a lot of people I work with them, thank you.
Well, thank you so much for sharing that with us. And I suppose you've mentioned the medication, which really links him beautifully, because for some people, what precedes a flare up can be a bit of a panic about. Not wanting to be on a medication sometimes.
Sometimes we can, we, we, we can find ourselves worrying about running out of medication. Sometimes we can read something and, start to panic about a side effect, and, you know, as a result of that, we stop taking our medication too suddenly. And before we know it, we are living with this way over preoccupied mind.
Linked to our medication and that in itself can proceed a flare up. Ah, A is just chad. I had a flare-up this weekend and I could hardly put 1 ft.
In front of the other, and I panicked. Yeah, this is precisely why. Oh, Alison, I love this bit.
And then I thanked my brain for letting me know I'd hurt my back, and it's the first time I realised a full shopping trolley. Had caused my flare up. I did a lot of meditating to reduce my panic.
I did need to take medication to get me moving, but recovery has been quicker. Do you know, these last few texts almost make the whole of this course worthwhile for me. It, it's so rewarding for myself to hear that you guys are, and, and, and this stuff, you know, this approach, this kind, mindful approach works, and I love what you said there.
I still needed to take. Some medication to get me through this. And that's fine, of course you did.
It's absolutely fine. A lot of people, the most common reason I find in this, in, in, in, in my business is the people I see for 1 to 1 therapy around their pain, when they do have a flare up and we go curious as to what they were doing, we do find that it's, the next two, physical activity minus mindful pacing, or actually, getting a bit high on life. You know, and, forgetting to pace oneself per se, you know, eating the wrong stuff, drinking the wrong stuff, missing our sleep window, just kind of.
Just, just kind of forgetting to pace full stop. We absolutely know that the brain perceives. Anger As a form of threat.
The same parts of the brain get activated, broadly speaking. We get that same release of the CRF peptides, which, which, which caused so many problems for us as, as, as human beings. We have that, incredible surge at, at, at, at times of, anger.
And frustration when it stops us from acting mindfully. It's almost impossible to be mindful in the midst of anger and frustration, and anger and frustration very often proceed a a flare up. Without a doubt, as we looked at last time, fear, anxiety, threats.
And a tendency to over-catastrophise, as we looked at last session, are, are real predictors of flare-ups. And do you know what I've put here. Emotions And Forgetting to spot and name positive emotion.
And Losing that ability to smile and say, oh this is pleasure. And this is pleasure in the presence of some pain. So what does that tell me?
So meeting emotion with curiosity, but also when there's difficult emotion about, we know this just merely by stopping. Connecting with the difficult emotion, be it sadness, frustration, pain, loss, grief, fear, anger, and actually stopping just for a moment or two. Collecting our attention and quietly labelling the emotion that's shown up, this is fear.
This is sadness, this is regret. By just labelling that stuff, we get a very slight but important dampening down in that frontal cortex. And as that frontal cortex just dampens down a bit, it allows in our capacity as human beings to use our superpower of curiosity, as you did with that shopping trolley.
You know, Alison. Do you know what, what, what is this about? Why am I the the shopping trolley is full.
And it, it would. Be wise in the future to have a half shopping trolley or to get somebody from the supermarket to take the trolley to the car. Well, when I, I used to when I, had my accident, broke my neck and my back and that, and I was able to get out, but, because you were walking around in a back brace and a neck brace.
Whenever I went to the supermarket, there would be, somebody would come and, excuse me, sir, would, would you mind if I ask, could I help you take that to the car? I got really used to it. I loved it.
But when people can't see, because you can't see people's pain, can you, most of the time, unless we're wincing continuously. When people can't see our pain, they don't offer the support that perhaps we would. And so maybe that's about us being treating ourselves as best friends and saying excuse me, I wonder, I'm really struggling with chronic pain, would you mind just helping me out, wheeling this?
People will never mind. Nevers too much. People will rarely mind, and to be honest, it'll give them a break from the mundanity of their normal job sometimes, or it will just give them an opportunity to chat to someone rather lovely, you, whilst they help you.
Everyone wins. So what we do with a mindful values based. Flare-up plan.
Is we just sit down and we work out. Individually, idiosyncratically, what is it? That causes flare-ups or precedes flare-ups in my life.
And you may want to use this slide just as as a sort of guide. And then on the right hand side, notice my language, what do I do? No, no, no.
Let's let's go with curiosity. What might help me? And what can I do that just might help me?
Now if we use this language, we, we approach the stuff that might help using our superpower of curiosity. And Alison's just shared, it's being in the moment to realise how you can help yourself. Absolutely, so back to my slide two, being in the moment, being pretty crucial.
If I have a pair up. A a pain flare up. I will do this for the next few hours.
So we just write that at the top, and then we might choose to rest. We might choose to meditate as I think some of you guys are now. I may choose to do a body scan, a a a somatic tracking exercise.
I might just choose to be rather kind to myself. I might choose to bequeath myself. The time to do a relax.
I might actually reach out to the people around me, even my healthcare. Support team and say, do you know what, I've done a right flare up, I need a bit of help. We might turn to those members of our family that are actually going to be.
Pretty useful for us. Or we might actually just make real use of our proper friends. And I might actually Chat with colleagues and just say, in the middle of a bit of a flare up, if there's some, there's a, there's a bit of stuff you guys could do just to help me ease my way through this, so that it, it, it's over quickly and I can get back to where I want to be.
And once we've worked out what our plan is going to be. That's when we say right. Commitment time if I have a flare up of my pain.
Not Anything other than quite unequivocal here, I will do what I've planned here on my, on, on, on my flare up chart for the next few days. For example, I'll cut back my activity. And I'll choose not to stop.
If that works for you. Guys, would you just give me one second, I've got the The heater on in here and it's beginning to swelter, just one second. It's been one of those really beautiful sunny days, hasn't it?
But the evenings are so cold, so I . I think I overcompensated. You'll see on my slide, in blue there is the light stream.
And the light stream is the, one of the exercises that I just love. And I've saved this for a bit of a treat for, our final session tonight. And I'm going to record the, the light stream tonight.
And let me tell you a bit about it. So the light stream is an EMDR. Pain technique and it's remarkably similar.
To somatic tracking, and I've got to say I've no evidence for this, but it precedes somatic tracking by about 15 years. And It is different. And I do believe that.
At some place, you know, psychology is like, mental health psychology, this sort of stuff. We borrow and steal and manipulate and change, and, redevelop and reinvent stuff all the time. And, the light stream was one of a kind, and we use it when we're, using eye movement desensitisation.
And reprocessing with people who have suffered psychological trauma. Which is at the. Causal level, very significant for the pain that they live with.
And this exercise here is just a really lovely thing to do if you've had a flare up. Now with no apologies, there's a, there's a tad, it's a tad spiritual, actually, which really surprised me because it comes from the great Shapiro who invented EMDR. It's one of her exercises, and Shapiro is a, you know.
Hard-nosed scientist, you know, a real, super scientist, a woman driven by logic and evidence. And right in the middle of our training, when I was training to be an EMDR therapist, we sat down and did a light stream and it completely knocked me out. I thought, God, this is wonderful.
And the one we're going to do, this evening is, a light stream. Version that's been designed for working with traumatic pain. So my hope is that you'll find it as, useful as, so many of my, my clients do.
And you can do it . Independent of being in the middle of an, an, an EMDR. Treatment So If we can make ourselves comfortable.
Actually, I'm just looking at the date here. because I like to use Shapiro's script, which I am going to record for us tonight, and I'll send the recording to Dawn, this evening, so that, Dawn can send it out with. Or make it available for you guys to access after today.
So I'm looking at a script and it, it, it was first used in 2001. So, you know, this, this really does proceed, so much of Alan Gordon's work, etc. Around.
Somatic tracking It it it it it it's old but it's seminal, brilliant stuff. So let's give it a real go. So I suppose, as always, what we want to do is think about our posture before we start.
So if we're going to be doing something like this, we do not want to fall asleep. We want to be, awake enough to actually participate in the exercise itself. So With no more ado.
Let's just have a go at the light stream. So We start by just centering. Our attention by Gently our mind that notice of function of our brain.
Outside Of the room that we're sitting in. And getting a sense of the temperature out there. And listening using that.
That listening skill that we have using our ears, using our senses. Maybe just getting a sense of the noise outside the room. That we're meditating in And Also Then gentling our attention in And listening and sensing the temperature and the sound.
And the textures within the room that you're Working in right now. And then gentling your attention and finding the very, very core of you. And maybe be placing a hand just there.
On your tummy And just feeling the warmth of your hand just resting there. And feeling the rise and fall. Of your tummy As you just breathe naturally.
And normally. And similarly to the way that we've been working with somatic tracking. I'm just gonna ask you to Escort your attention lovingly.
Gently, kindly. With curiosity And see if you can find. Where Your pain is sitting.
Right now And When you find your pain. Just see if you can connect with the way that this pain. Has the capacity.
To disturb you. That's right, we're using the word. Disturb Because pain does.
As you sit with the pain. Just notice how your pain can Disturb your day. Can disturb your relationships.
Can disturb your sense of self. So I very gently just ask you to go find that pain and to sit with it. And once you've found.
The pain I'd like you to really concentrate on the bodily sensations. That Accompany that pain. Is there tension alongside the pain.
Is there withdrawal? Is there a flinch? Just getting a real sense of sitting and allowing ourselves just to stay.
With the pain itself. As we do We just remind ourselves that we're engaging in. An imaginable exercise now.
We're using the power of. Imagination, which is we believe probably something that. May well be unique.
To Certain creatures on the earth, we're certainly one of them. And because of that there are no right answers. And there are no wrong answers.
And so just concentrate on wherever you feel that disturbance and that pain. Concentrate on that feeling. Of the pain And get a sense of if the feeling of the pain had a shape.
Well, what would it be? Would it be round? Would it be angular?
Would it be square? Would it be oblong? And If you Disturbance your pain had a sighs.
Would it be like a great. Or a plum or an apple or would it be a larger mass of disturbance? Would it be like a watermelon or possibly even bigger.
And If you Payne had a colour. What colour is your pain right now? And if it had a texture, you could reach in and stroke it.
Would it be soft or would it be gnarly? Would it be spiky? And if your pain had a temperature.
Would it be hot? Would it be cool Would it be warm? And if your pain Made a sound.
Simply would it be high pitched? On now As we move forward. I just want to ask you to consider when you think of healing.
Healing What colour do you associate with healing? Allow that to percolate around your mind. If we had a light.
There was a healing light. What colour would that light be? Just notice that.
And as long as the light that you find that heals. Is a different colour to that which Is imbued within your pain. Then we can use that.
So right now Hold where the pain is. And what I want you to do is to imagine that this favourite coloured light, this healing coloured light. Is actually Coming right in through the top of your head.
As though we had a tiny opening right in the very centre of our skull and this light was Shining right in through that tiny aperture there. And It's directing itself. Right into your body.
And it's finding. Wherever that shape. Wherever that entity, wherever your pain is.
The size of it, the colour of it. The shape, the texture, this light is seeking it. And it's finding it.
And The source of this light is. Possibly the cosmos. And the more you see of this light, the more you have available.
And I want you to use this wonderful power of imagination that we have as humans to allow ourselves to. Direct the light. Right at where your pain sits right now.
Allowing that light to penetrate. And to permeate. Wherever the pain sits.
Allowing this light to resonate. Maybe even vibrate in and around wherever your pain is. And as we sit bathing.
Wherever we found this discomfort, this disturbance in our bodies, bathing it with this light. Just get a sense of. What happens to the shape.
To the sizes To the colour To the texture of. Your disturbing difficult pain. And as we work now.
We just start to choose. To Allow that light To come in Not just to wherever the pain is, but allow the light to come in and gently fill. Easily Just envelope and ease its way into your head.
Through your neck into your shoulders. Soothing and softening. Down your arms into your hands.
Your fingertips. Allowing it to come Through your neck and into the trunk of your body. Easing its way gently through you.
Allowing this descending light to come all the way through our body. Streaming down both legs. Gently suffusing and emanating its way down.
Until eventually our body is just filled. But this Gentle, soothing, healing colour of light. And we sit with that just for a few moments.
And we Allow ourselves to Just thank ourselves for having taken the time to try something different. To meet our pain. Differently To use our imaginative muscle.
To bathe our whole body in a sense of peace. And tranquilly. And healing And when we're ready Very gently.
Find that smile and come back to the room. Well done guys. You see what I mean, a, a very different.
A very different. Exercise and weirdly similar. And Yeah.
Something that we use in a therapy approach, EMDR, which has more of a robust, randomised control trial, evidence base than just, well, than anything else. That we use to treat trauma. And paying together.
Interesting. So, for our final slide tonight, I want to share with you where you may choose to get a little bit more support going forward. So what I've obviously done with these is, explored them, spoken to them.
Gone online, looked at them, and the neuropathy trust is excellent. So if your pain is peripheral neuropathy or any form of neuropathic pain, the neurocentre.com website is absolutely fabulous, and you can access real support there.
Similarly, I would really recommend anybody, whether you have arthritis or not, to, have a look at the arthritis research you got, because they have these wonderful information booklets. One is living with long term pain, a self-management one. And also, they really are one of the best sources of good information about fibromyalgia.
As well And you may not have been aware that if you're in the middle of a flare-up that's going on too long, or you're panicking about your pain, or you're feeling very alone in your experience with your pain. You also can choose. To use the pain concern, telephone number, or to go in and listen to the airing Pa online radio show, which, recently had the, you hear me bang on about Alan, the great and wonderful Alan Gordon, made an appearance on the Airing Pain radio show, which, of course, I listened to.
And they also have the Pa Matters magazine. Which is useful. The next organisation Curable, works almost identically using the same.
Philosophical stance as I do. The mindful acceptance. Compassion focused approach to living better with pain.
And you get loads of support from curable, and they're very expensive. And it tends to be you join a curable group, and you work together, using the curable resources to further manage your pain. And over the last few years, a number of people that have done my course have gone on then to take it a step further with, curable.
At the very bottom, I, if you've enjoyed the experience of some of the meditative work that we've done over these six weeks, the Pallus Mindfulness.com. You can access a free, recorded whole of the mindfulness based stress reduction course there.
However, I should remind you that. My own mindfulness courses are available via the webinar that I am told at a very reasonable price. That doesn't come to me, by the way, .
So I'm not banging my own drum there to make any money for myself. I, I, I, I don't think I could do that. But they are good courses, and they were designed around vets.
So if you've enjoyed mindfulness, you may wish to have a look at one of the ones that the, that the webinar vet has as well. I'm going to finish by. This part of the course.
This is not the final slide, it wouldn't be a good final slide. Just to tell you that there is finally. A device out there on the market that is showing and has.
I would say a really. Excellent evidence base. And it's the Alpha-Stim M machine, which, as it says, works very differently to a TENS machine and works with alpha waves as the main, technology, and uses these two probes that we actually place, on the site of our pain.
The downside of the Alpha Stim M is that it's about 900 pounds to purchase an Alpha Stim M. However, you can rent an Alpha Stim M, I believe, from a site called Microcurrent. As I've put in, in there, and the Alpha Stim M, I have had a number of clients who have used it with really very good effect, otherwise I wouldn't be sharing this with you.
The other side of it is the alpha sim also has a brilliant evidence base for insomnia. It's a dual machine. It it it what the when you have the When you use the, probes as they are, we use it as a pain machine, and we have the other function where we can use it, and it has a very good evidence base, including some National Institute for Clinical Excellence reports, as an adjunct to help us manage anxiety, low mood, and, And insomnia.
So I share that, and in doing so I still strongly believe that the way forward. Given the evidence base of where we are. Is this?
So as I promised, I thought I'd put this slide up, even though I will send the slides to Dawn and Dawn's very welcome to stick the slides up on the webinar there. So people can access the slides as well as my course. But if you like this slide, you think this might be a useful one to get blown up and stick somewhere appropriate, then, I'll give you a few more moments while I look at, there's been a couple of things coming in.
Has the Alpha Stim M been used in animals? Do you know, Gregg, I have no idea. My guess would be.
My guess would be probably. At some point in the early research stage. I, I really don't know.
I'm pretty sure that would be something that would be, . Masses of research into the development of the Alpha DMM. So we might, we, we, we, we, we might.
We might get an answer there. And Dawn's put a link to all of my courses, isn't she fab? So That leaves me with Ooh, this final slide, look at that, finger happy as usual.
Sometimes what helps. Is to just use this last little bit of time while we're together to just have a think. So what have I really take, what can I take from this six weeks that's gonna help me move forward?
What did I relearn, what did I learn? What did I discover? What did I learn that I already knew?
But has just been reiterated. My guess is gonna be knowing bets as I do, that the biggest block obstacle to continuing and building upon what we've already done is going to be. The occupation of being, of working in the veterinary profession itself because you're busy.
And all I would say to that is. Do stop with this 3rd bullet and maybe. Find that sense of commitment that you know what?
I am gonna continue on this journey because This is where the evidence lies. This is where Pain management is most effective and because I like myself enough I'm gonna stay on this journey. I may even choose to ask someone to buy me Alan Gordon's book The Way Out.
Which is absolutely fabulous. To understand even deeper and further, this scientific stance towards managing pain. But above all Amidst all of that good luck.
And above all, treat yourselves as though you're your own best friends. And if you stick by that adage, the way you treat yourself, even when you're struggling with difficult pain, will be kind, thoughtful. Measured Well thought out, compassionate and warm.
And that Will help us manage pain better. I love this course and it's been great doing it with you guys and I've been asked to speak at a conference, thanks Sophie. I asked to speak at a conference in Sweden and .
I think . I'm gonna, they've asked me to speak on what else other than medication can we use to improve our mental health. And I think I'm gonna really push somatic tracking.
Not just for pain but also for anxiety and low mood because this. Approaching difficulty stances is. Is working and has masses of potential.
So Thank you so much, . And, yeah, you know, Alison's just shared that she fell asleep a couple of times in the 1st 3 sessions, because I, I guess, Alison, you were just so tired, but hopefully you're sleeping better now. And she says, recently, I haven't felt so tired, but she's going to revisit each webinar again.
Great idea. And isn't that just the joy of the way the webinar vet does this? You have access to the, to the webinars that we've already done.
Have lovely evenings. Look after yourselves and thank you so much. And if anybody has any questions for me outside, oh, Catherine's just shared, I love this seeking out the pain, smiling at it and saying thank you to my brain for looking out for me, keeping myself.
My son thought I was mad when I said it aloud in front of him the other day, but in a funny way. I love that. And I, do you know what I did say, didn't I?
I will say to my clients, you know, share out loud is so much more powerful. Thank you guy. Get it out there, you know, never be afraid of just saying this stuff out there.
Thank you, Greg. And, hope to see you all again at some point within our journey together. Thank you, guys.
And, as always, a massive thank you to the webinar there, and particularly the wonderful Dawn, because she, she, She makes this really happen, really. So thank you to Dawn and good night.