Hope for Healing: Dr. Lara Birk's Chronic Pain Recovery Story with Dr. John Stracks
Video: Watch the full session here →https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m2aB8DLDed8
Dr. John Stracks: Good evening, and welcome to Hope for Healing. I'm your host, Dr. John Stracks, joining you from my office here in Chicago. I'm a physician who focuses on the reduction and elimination of physical symptoms using mind-body medicine methods. If you'd like to learn more about my practice, I practice telehealth, and my staff will be happy to talk with you. You'll find more information about our services at www.cormendihealth.com.
This Hope for Healing videocast series is one of many joint efforts between me and the folks at Curable. For those of you who are not yet Curable users, Curable is an amazing app that offers science-backed techniques for chronic pain recovery. We've been working together for about six years now, and we created this video series together because we want to help people in pain understand the connection between what's happening in their lives and what's happening in their bodies.
Today my guest is Dr. Lara Birk. Lara had a catastrophic medical injury when she was 16 years old and then lived with debilitating and progressive chronic pain for almost 30 years before she found mind-body healing. She knows firsthand the profound healing power of mind-body medicine, even when one's pain is a complex combination of both structural and neuroplastic. Lara has now trained in pain reprocessing therapy, emotional awareness and expressiveness therapy, and mindfulness-based stress reduction, and she is also one of the facilitators for the Curable groups. Today Lara is going to share some of her healing story, as well as how to get the most out of being part of mind-body groups. Lara, I am thrilled for you to be here. Thanks so much for joining me on Hope for Healing.
Dr. Lara Birk: I could not be happier to be here. Dr. Stracks, thank you so much for having me.
Dr. Stracks: You are welcome. I have talked to a lot of people in this format, and I've talked to a lot of people in my office over the years who've had chronic pain, and yours is actually one of the more dramatic stories that I have heard in the 12 years that I've been in practice. So let's start with you giving some of the background about what happened and what life was like for you for a long, long time.
A Sports Injury Becomes a Medical Emergency: Acute Compartment Syndrome
Dr. Lara Birk: Absolutely. This all started when I was 16 years old, out of the blue. I was a real athlete type in high school, playing soccer, lacrosse, basketball, and doing a lot of running. I was training for soccer, and I was so excited because I had just made varsity. I'd been training and training and training, and I thought I had shin splints, so I just kept training with that. I think it was the very first soccer game we played. It wasn't even official, just a scrimmage against another school. I developed what I later learned was acute exertional compartment syndrome in my right leg. While I was playing I suddenly had a dropped foot, and I was like, what is going on? Suddenly I had the most unbelievable pain I've ever known. I was carried off the field. We didn't know what it was at the time, and they thought I was overreacting. I was writhing in pain. It was just crazy.
I should back up. Even on the soccer field, I was trying to come off because I was in so much pain, and my coach was like, "You can't quit. What are you doing? You've got to stay on the field." That was the culture and the mentality. Then I went to the ER once they brought me home, and they said there were no broken bones, your pedal pulse is fine, you are being a crybaby, you've got to go home, you're taking up space in the ER. They sent me home, and we had to come back. We came back again, and they again sent me home. Then in the middle of the night, my mom was lying next to me and I was screaming, writhing in pain. It was awful. The doctor on call called my mother and said, "I think I figured out what it is." He'd been a war surgeon, and he said, "I think I know what this is. You've got to bring her back in immediately."
So they figured it out, and I had emergency surgery, but they didn't get it quite on time, and I lost a lot of the muscle in my right leg. Then there were some difficulties. With compartment syndrome, the pressure in the compartments of the leg goes up really high and doesn't come down by itself. They thought they were measuring the pressure after the surgery, for a couple of surgeries, but it turned out the pressure gauge was in the wrong place, and they didn't believe me. I was in so much pain, so much pain, and it was like no one believed me. Finally a doctor came back in and said, "Oh, it's in the wrong place." He put it in the right place and said, "Yup, emergency surgery again." So we went off to emergency surgery.
I was in the hospital for six weeks. I couldn't move. I'd had so many surgeries, and they were trying to save my leg. They told me the only reason they did save my leg was that I was 16 and pretty healthy otherwise. It was quite traumatic, a very scary period, and to go from being an athlete to being completely disabled overnight was jarring.
Dr. Stracks: Literally overnight, right? You were playing in a soccer game, and 24 to 48 hours later you were having emergency surgery. Just for those who are listening, essentially there are times when athletes can get a condition where the pressure inside the muscles, oftentimes in the legs, goes up too high and more or less cuts off the blood flow.
Dr. Lara Birk: That's exactly it. And that's an emergency.
Medical Trauma and Not Being Believed
Dr. Stracks: One of the things you and I will hit on this evening is the role that trauma plays, and especially medical trauma. From the very beginning, literally from the very beginning, people didn't believe you.
Dr. Lara Birk: That's right.
Dr. Stracks: And that was costly in terms of how much time went by and what was going on inside your leg. It makes me mad thinking about it, and I wasn't even there. It was 30 years ago, and yet I hear versions of this story from people over and over again. How many surgeries did you have in that initial stay in the hospital?
Dr. Lara Birk: I was in the hospital for six weeks. I don't even remember, but I think it was something like four or five. Essentially, because the pressure had gotten to such a point, they kept trying to relieve it in these small ways, and in the end they just had to open it up. It was a very, very large wound, and it was open for a year because it was so large. I lost a lot of muscle in that leg.
It's funny, I remember after they told me we almost amputated, I was so shocked I couldn't make sense of it. There was a friend in the room when the doctor came in and said, "You're a lucky girl. We came within minutes of amputating, and you're just lucky that we decided not to." My friend, I'll call him my friend at the time, said, "Oh my God, I didn't know it was that serious." I remember just trying to joke around with him, because I needed comfort at that point. He said, "What did you do?" And I said, "What do you mean? I was on the soccer field. They told me it's really rare. It's like getting the lottery, but a bad lottery." He said, "No, I'm serious. What did you do? You must have done something to deserve this." He was so upset. He said, "Think, think, think." This kind of awful thing does not just happen to good people.
I was 16 and he was 17. We were young, but I almost think that went into the pain. It was social pain. It was so upsetting. He left that day. I remember the nurse came in and said, "Matt, honey, we're going to have to ask you to leave for a minute. We have to do a dressing change. She's going to be in pain, so she's going to want you to come back and talk to her afterwards. If you could just wait outside for a minute." I saw him leave, and he never came back. He never spoke to me again, and it was really upsetting.
I credit that for why I became a sociologist, because I spent so much time asking, what was that? I didn't understand it, and it took me a long time to wrap my head around it. Eventually I thought, I think he needed to believe that there was some logic to all of this, that he could avoid it, that there was a predictability: if you play your cards right and you're a good person, you can avoid stuff like this. Obviously that's not how the world works. There's so much of that out there. Even today, my daughter, who's 18, was telling me that her school had a meeting about COVID and said they weren't going to offer any kind of remote learning if you got COVID, because it was the children's responsibility to keep from getting it. It's still this idea that if people are sick or in pain, it's your fault. We spend so much time trying to combat that, and yet it's so ingrained in society that you must have done something bad to get that outcome.
Dr. Stracks: That was just the beginning, and there's a lot more to your story. That was when you were 16. Walk us through what happened from there.
From Athlete to Chronic Pain: "Who Would I Be?"
Dr. Lara Birk: I want to tell a tiny story from the hospital to set the scene for the rest. My mom and I are really, really close, and she helped me through all of this. I could not have done it without her. It was in the aftermath of one of the emergency surgeries, and it was bad news. It was always bad news. I was processing, oh my God, I still might lose my leg, and they said it could happen in the other leg too, and ultimately it did. I could lose both my legs. The hospital bed goes up and down, like a Craftmatic adjustable bed, and my mom got in next to me, and we just rode up and down on that hospital bed while I was processing. If I lose my legs, who would I be? I was an athlete a couple of weeks ago. Who am I if I lose that? I just remember really processing, who am I? I think that set the stage for all of the processing I did internally afterwards, and for the social aspects of this chronic pain experience.
After that original emergency, it basically became chronic. I was in a wheelchair and on crutches for a year or so, and once I was up on the crutches, it happened in my other leg, because my other leg was bearing the brunt. That was terrifying. It was a lot of trauma, a lot of medical trauma, very scary stuff. From there I kept having surgeries. They'd say, "We've got to go in and deal with the compartments." It was a lot of surgeries, and it interrupted my high school experience and my college experience.
Dr. Stracks: One question about that. You talked about that experience with Matt, who never showed up again. Do you remember what the response was of the people around you? You're an athlete at 16, and then you show back up at school on crutches or in a wheelchair. My imagination is that some people probably rallied and were good about it, and other people probably disappeared, but it must have been super jarring and disorienting.
Dr. Lara Birk: It was. I went to a very small private high school. It was after the ADA had been passed, but they were not yet compliant. Since I was in a wheelchair, I basically had to be in the infirmary all the time, because they didn't have a ramp. There were stairs everywhere. I'd go through this ritual every morning with my mom where I had to literally sit and get myself up the stairs on my butt while my mom helped with my leg, and get into the infirmary. I remember these boys driving past at one point. They yelled, laughed, and drove away. That sums up a lot of what the high school experience was like. It was really tough.
Dr. Stracks: As the years went by, you still dealt with college and beyond. Keep going with the story. I want to hear more about how this evolved over time.
Chronic Illness, Chronic Fatigue, and a Body with PTSD
Dr. Lara Birk: You would think it was just my legs, but over time I always thought of it like my body had PTSD, not just me. I really felt that way, because it was one thing after another. Who gets mono for a whole year? I do, apparently. Who gets IBS, TMJ, mast cell activation disorder, exercise-induced histamine reactions, and so on? It was one thing after another, dotted throughout my college experience. I had to take a year off college because of the mono and all the illness. After that I developed chronic fatigue syndrome and a chronic pain syndrome. They didn't know what to call it at the time. It was so systemic at that point that I had to take a year off work. There were a lot of interruptions.
Thinking back to that time when I rode up and down in that hospital bed with my mom, asking who am I if I lose this or that, I think I became an observer. I became the person who tried to figure things out, the person who tried to make meaning of all of it, to figure out the story of it. There was a lot of rupture in my life. It was not a coherent timeline, like it is for a lot of people going through high school and college. It was very traumatic in that way too, because you're going along in life and then the other shoe drops, again and again. There was a lot of that for decades.
Dr. Stracks: And part of your journey is that you got through college, you went to grad school, and you got a PhD in sociology, partly, I think, because of your experience. Correct?
Dr. Lara Birk: Absolutely. I focused on the sociology of chronic pain. I thought a lot about pain as almost a somatization of alienation or marginalization. That kind of hurt, that kind of alienation, can get into your body. I was really interested in what happens when people are cut off from the social group.
Rock Bottom and Discovering Curable
Dr. Stracks: About two and a half years ago is when you first found out about mind-body medicine. That was probably close to two or three decades after the original injury. Where were you right before you made that discovery, and how did you go about learning about mind-body medicine?
Dr. Lara Birk: I was at rock bottom. I'm not going to lie. I had my 16th surgery on Christmas Eve. I always forget what year it was because it was such a blur. The surgery was in my left leg at this point, behind my knee, and it was supposed to make it better. It actually made it worse. I hear this from Curable group members all the time. You get to that place where you're so desperate you think, I'll try anything. That's when I came across Curable. I was on Facebook, and I had actually seen Curable ads before. They popped up here and there, and I didn't really register them. But at a certain point I looked at it and saw a testimonial and thought, you know what, let's try it. I'm ready. I will try anything.
Dr. Stracks: What spoke to you about it? What made you look at it and not just throw it away and go on to something else? What made you pause and say, "I wonder if this applies to me"?
Dr. Lara Birk: It was the story I read. It was just a testimonial, a woman talking, and I resonated with what she said. At first I thought, how could that possibly work? But something about her story felt right, and I thought, let's just give it a try.
Dr. Stracks: Then what did you do? How did you give it a try, what did you learn, and how did things evolve from there?
Pain Science Education and Graded Exposure
Dr. Lara Birk: I started with the app. I downloaded it immediately, and a lot of people I hear about go through the app a little at a time, since less is more, but I was like, let me just consume it all now. It was such a turning point. Learning about the pain science, the education there, was therapeutic in itself. It resonated. I thought, oh right, I've been saying this for years, that my body has PTSD, and actually that's kind of what's happening. That makes sense. It was validating. Finally someone understands. I felt like someone out there gets what's going on with me and doesn't just think it's all in my head or that I'm making it all up. I felt validated almost immediately, just by learning about the science of it.
From there I tried graded exposure, and that was what really did it. I was unable to walk. I couldn't even get from my couch to my freezer to get more ice. I was on crutches, with 9 out of 10 pain all the time. It was like, what have I got to lose? I learned about graded exposure on the app, and I thought, if walking a little bit doesn't increase your pain, why not do that? Sign me up. So I did that, and it didn't increase my pain, so I thought, okay, I'll try a little bit more. I got to the mailbox in the building, and then I thought, maybe I can get past the mailbox next time. It kind of went on like that. Maybe I can get outside, maybe I can get to the end of this little block. It just kept progressing, and it was so empowering. That's how it started.
Dr. Stracks: A couple of things about that. Number one, it's amazing how often people need to get outside the medical system to get validation. You knew about all these things, and yet within the medical system it's hard to find somebody who can say, "Yes, of course your body has PTSD from all of this." There are so many messages within the medical system that you're not experiencing what you're experiencing. It's to your credit that you were able to hold on to that and know that it was true, even when people told you the opposite.
Dr. Lara Birk: I have to give credit to my family for that, because honestly I lost track of it sometimes. They were always by my side, and I think that's what really saved me. The medical establishment saw me as the hot potato patient, the person they didn't really believe. It was so hard to live with that, with how people see you. In sociology they call it the looking-glass self, where you see yourself as you imagine someone else sees you. Always getting that back from the medical establishment felt like I had no credibility. It felt a little like gaslighting. I was being told constantly that my reality was not actually my reality. To have my family by my side, always believing me, is what helped me get to the point where I could find Curable.
Dr. Stracks: And one of the things, in addition to trying to get this information out to patients, is that we're working hard to get it out to clinicians too. How different an experience would it be for everybody if clinicians and medical professionals were consistently supportive, encouraging, validating, and kind? That's the ultimate goal, for people to have those experiences as they're being treated and as they're learning about this.
Dr. Lara Birk: I'm sorry, I'm just going to say one thing about that. The Western medical establishment was very compartmentalizing, which is ironic, given compartment syndrome. I literally went in one time for my right leg, but my left leg was starting to go acute, and one doctor said, "But that's Dr. So-and-so's leg. I can't see that." He wouldn't see me for it, because he was my right leg doctor and not my left leg doctor. I was so beaten down by that point that I thought, okay, I guess I have to go to the other emergency room then.
Taking Health Care Outside the System
Dr. Stracks: That's an insane story. Very tangentially, one of my patients was recently diagnosed with celiac disease. I met with her and we talked about it, and I asked if she wanted a referral to the celiac disease experts here in Chicago. She said, "All my friends have it. I think I have all the information I need." Sociologically it's interesting, as people are starting to take their health care outside the system because the system has failed them. The incredible knowledge that has accumulated among people actually dealing with the diseases and the medical system isn't ready to deal with that dynamic, but that dynamic is clearly already there. What I say frequently about Curable is that it's been downloaded millions of times. Millions of people around the world are working together to figure out how to solve this. It's not the way we think of the medical system, but it is way more effective.
Dr. Lara Birk: Absolutely. I think that was one of the things that was so healing to me. I had spent so many years feeling like nobody believed me, nobody got it, nobody understood, nobody wanted to listen, nobody validated anything about it. I spent a lot of time imagining what I looked like, because at a certain point the disability was invisible, and when it's invisible people are more likely to say, "Well, you look fine. Why can't you do this thing?" I would try to rise to the occasion of what it looked like I could do. To come to a community where not only was the science there to validate, but there were loads of people, and I thought, really, there are other people out there? This is amazing. Of course I signed up for Curable groups, because I wanted to meet these other people.
Curable Groups: Healing Through Community
Dr. Stracks: You did the Curable groups as a participant. That's where you and I first crossed paths. What was that experience like, being in the group and hearing me and some other clinicians talk? How did that help propel you forward?
Dr. Lara Birk: It was amazing. We call ourselves the Pit Crew, my original Curable group. We still meet all the time, we're really good friends, and we support one another. When I met all of them, it was like, wow, I don't have to describe or explain or justify myself. I can just be. I can listen to people's stories, and they can be there for me. It was really powerful. In groups you're like a mirror for one another. We could mirror for each other the insights that a person can't necessarily see themselves, or the growth. People reflect back, "Do you hear how differently you're approaching this thing? That is amazing." And you think, oh my gosh, you're right, I didn't think of that. There's something profoundly healing about that, because for me the experience of chronic pain was so deeply isolating and alienating. There were so few words and so little community. Suddenly there's this group that understands, and you don't have to explain. There's something very healing about that, about that fundamental alienation of the pain. It was incredible.
Dr. Stracks: I want to speak to what you said. You can get into a group of people where you can say you've got an injury in your right leg and somehow it's in your jaw, and nobody says, "Well, that's impossible." Everybody has had versions of those experiences. As part of Curable groups, I'm oftentimes there answering questions at one point during the 12 weeks, and that's where you and I crossed paths. At that point, you were still wondering: you've had a clear medical injury and 16 surgeries, and you're working on this in a non-physical way. I think you asked me a version of "Am I in the right place? Can this be helpful for me, since I've had these physical issues?" I probably gave you the answer I generally give when somebody asks that question, which is that there are always physical components to pain, and psychological and emotional components. Until we learn differently, we assume that the physical component is the whole story, that it's 100 percent physical. Once we learn there are other aspects, we don't know whether it's a third, a third, a third, or 2 percent and 98 percent. What I probably said was, say it's 50-50. If you could be 50 percent better than you are, would that be worth it? Once people start working in that direction, it often turns out to be much more than 50 percent that's non-physical. So get going, and don't put limits on how far you think you can go. When we talked about it afterwards, I think you really took that to heart.
Structural vs. Neuroplastic Pain: Setting the Question Aside
Dr. Lara Birk: That was the turning point, because I was so stuck on that question of structural versus non-structural, thinking it's going to work for everyone but me. As you said, I asked a version of the question you hear all the time, and your answer really opened the door for me. You were modeling curiosity and compassion, and you were saying, do the work, see how far you can get, you never know. I thought, good point. Maybe I should just do the work and see how far I can get. That's what I did. I felt like a dog with a bone. I didn't want to let go of that question, and once you said that, I realized I didn't have to wrestle with it. I could put it down, do the work, and see what happens.
Dr. Stracks: It's totally my pleasure. What happened from there? That was probably a couple of years ago. What have you learned, done, and experienced since then?
Dr. Lara Birk: I was really open to the work at that point. I was tentatively trying it at first, and then after that I thought, you know what, I'm diving in. One of the biggest things was graded exposure and outcome independence. Those were some of the biggest tools I took. But it was also the sense of empowerment. The whole thing was so empowering. Even in terrible pain, and I remember one time in this horrible pain flare, which happens, right? It's non-linear. I was on the bathroom floor in so much pain, and I thought, you know what, my bathroom cupboard is so disordered right now, and I'm on the floor anyway, I might as well clean my cupboard. So I did, and it made me feel so much better. I still had the pain, but now it looked orderly. I'd been meaning to do that for a while. To me that encapsulated something Curable gave me, which was agency, taking my power back and finding joy in things and being present. Along with all of that, self-compassion was a huge piece for me, because oh my gosh, we can be so mean to ourselves. Honestly, that's probably the biggest thing: becoming a friend to oneself rather than an internal enemy, which is definitely what I was, without even realizing it. That's a skill you can work on, and I'm still working on it, believe me. But it has really, really changed my life.
Life After Chronic Pain: "Better Off Healed Than I Ever Was Unbroken"
Dr. Stracks: What are things like for you now, a couple of years into this? How have things changed since three years ago? What's your life like these days?
Dr. Lara Birk: It's amazing. I can do so many things. I've been jogging. They told me I'd never walk normally again, and I can jog. It's not without pain. I have some, because there is some structural stuff there, a baseline. But compared to what it was, it's remarkable to me. I not only have my life back, I have my life back far better than I ever could have imagined. I feel like I have become who I really am through this work, and getting myself back, and then some, has been extraordinary. We can get caught up on questions of structural versus not structural, or how much pain, but this has transformed my entire focus. I don't focus on pain anymore. My focus is on joy and meaning and helping others.
Dr. Stracks: Just to be clear, we've been talking about 16 surgeries and an almost-amputated leg, so clearly there are structural issues there. Despite that, this work has been life-changing.
Dr. Lara Birk: Completely and fundamentally life-changing. I can't even put words on it. There's something very empowering about it. It gives you a sense of peace, because life is always going to throw us lots of things. That's just what life does, and this gives you tools for handling that. It made me feel, okay, I'm not a victim. Whatever happens, I have some choices, I have some tools, I can handle it. That has been a fundamental shift for me, to have that agency and empowerment back.
Dr. Stracks: And I don't think you would say, if I asked, "Are you 100 percent cured? Do you have no pain?" that the answer would be yes.
Dr. Lara Birk: Correct. I still have some pain. It's nothing like it was, and I can do all kinds of things in spite of everything. It's not 100 percent gone, but I feel like I am 100 percent healed. I don't know if that makes sense. I think sometimes about the Japanese tradition of kintsugi, of repairing broken bowls with gold, that suturing of broken places with gold. I feel like that process has healed me. To me that's more important.
Dr. Stracks: To connect the various edges of the story: when it first happened, the question was, you were an athlete, that was who you were, and you weren't anymore after you were injured. So who are you now? What you just said is that the answer did not turn out to be "you are pain" or "you are somebody with pain who deals with pain." The answer has become very different.
Dr. Lara Birk: Absolutely.
Advice for People with Structural Issues and Ongoing Symptoms
Dr. Stracks: Lots of people listening have structural issues, or have been struggling and feel like they're on the right track but still have things that hold them back. Do you have any direct thoughts for people who clearly have structural issues and yet are listening to us right now?
Dr. Lara Birk: You can get stuck on that question of "is this structural or not," thinking in a binary way. I would just say what you said to me, Dr. Stracks: do the work, get curious, see what happens. You never know. It's oftentimes far more neuroplastic than we ever would have imagined. So why not set that question aside and give yourself the gift of trying? You'll be surprised how far you can get.
Dr. Stracks: And for people who feel like they're making progress but there's still pain or still symptoms, any thoughts about how to leave behind this idea that we're either 100 percent better or we're not better?
Dr. Lara Birk: I really feel there's a way you can become a friend to yourself. There are opportunities in flares, and in whatever comes up, to show yourself, I can handle this differently now. I can respond to this differently. Having that agency, empowerment, and those tools can help people shift their focus from questions of pain and structural versus not, to what I want out of my life. What brings me joy? What gives me a sense of giving back to the world? What is my purpose? Sometimes giving up those other questions enables you to go into a new way of living, because if the focus for such a long time was on the pain, it was always how do I get rid of this, what do I do about it, what needs to happen next.
Dr. Stracks: And what you're saying is that even when the pain is there these days, it's not the focus. It's a clue, a little whisper, a guide, but you don't focus on pain as the problem.
Dr. Lara Birk: Right. I remember going through groups, and I think it's in the Curable app as well, there was something about being grateful for your pain. At the time I thought, oh my God, I am not grateful for this. But it's weird. I am now. I truly, genuinely, honestly am grateful. There's a quote I love. I haven't actually read the book, I should say, but one of my Curable group members shared it, and I love it: "I am better off healed than I ever was unbroken."
Dr. Stracks: Beth Moore, I believe. Say it again.
Dr. Lara Birk: "I am better off healed than I ever was unbroken."
Dr. Stracks: Which is amazing.
Healing Medical Trauma Through Mind-Body Groups
Dr. Stracks: A quick question about the trauma of all of this. Lots of people listening have had traumatic events happen to them over the course of their lives. A lot of yours was medical trauma, starting from the very first day: "Don't come out of the game, get back out there." Was there anything in particular you felt you needed to do to heal that aspect of not being believed, and all the times people have cut into you for surgeries and everything else?
Dr. Lara Birk: Honestly, I think it was the groups. As I said, it was so alienating. I felt like I had no voice. I felt like even if I tried to use my voice, no one believed me, and that was probably the deepest trauma of all. Groups heal that fundamental trauma for me. It now goes beyond groups, because now I lead groups, which is amazing, because you can see people through the journey that I have gone through as well. It's different for everyone, of course, but I learn something every time from all of the people going through it. There's something profoundly healing about sharing that, being a witness to others, and being part of this. It makes me feel whole. It sounds cheesy, but I spent so much time on the outskirts of life, on the margins of groups and others. Now I feel like I've found a place where I can heal that fundamental wound and begin to give back, and move on.
Dr. Stracks: When I worked in the hospital system here in Chicago, I got to do a little teaching of medical students. I taught a course on healing for a number of years, five weeks, two and a half hours each week, and we spent two of those weeks on what grieving is. We would have the students tell a story themselves about something they had lost. It could be anything from a backpack to a person and anywhere in between. I taught them that grieving is about how we heal loss, and we do it in community, by telling stories to others who will listen. Groups give people the chance to tell the story and be in a community of people who can hear it and offer support, and there just aren't that many places these days where that is possible.
Dr. Lara Birk: Absolutely. And there's something really beautiful about seeing people be mirrors for one another in the group setting, but also being models of compassion, because it's so hard. We are not taught compassion or self-compassion. It's something you have to see and learn and practice and internalize. One thing groups give people is that everyone else in the group can give a person compassion, and then over time I see people internalize that and think, oh my gosh, they would tell me this, and I can now hear that in my own self when I'm going about my day. You see the power of people modeling those things for each other.
Dr. Stracks: And so substantially in contrast with the outside world, where there are so many opportunities to criticize ourselves, whether we're comparing ourselves to people on social media or getting lousy feedback in our workplace. There are so many areas where it's so easy to pile on. The contrast of hearing other people, and then ultimately ourselves, give us encouragement and kindness and patience.
Dr. Lara Birk: Absolutely.
How to Get the Most Out of Mind-Body Groups
Dr. Stracks: You've done the groups both as a participant and now as a leader. For people who are thinking about joining a group, or are in groups, any thoughts about what helps people get the most out of the experience?
Dr. Lara Birk: I would go back to your words again. More recently you said something that I had written down because I love it so much. People get caught up on how much they need to believe, or whether, if they have doubt, maybe they can't do it. I would encourage people to set that question aside too, because you can be a little like a dog with a bone with it. Something you said in a recent group was, "It's not about belief. It's science. Do the work and see how far you can get." I would encourage everybody to set aside those places where you can get stuck and really open yourself to the experience. Embody curiosity and compassion, see how far you can get, and let yourself go as far as you can go. I think people will be surprised.
Long COVID, Rest, and Seeing the Body as an Ally
Dr. Stracks: I'm part of an email network among practitioners in this field, and we were talking about long-haul COVID. I've seen a number of patients with long-haul COVID and explored it from this aspect. Somebody quoted Deepak Chopra saying something to the effect of "illness is the West's way of meditating," which I really like. We live in a society that says go, go, go, go, go, when as human beings we need opportunities to take a step back, to reflect, to learn. If we don't, ultimately our bodies will ask us to do it for us. There's so much pressure of "what did you do to deserve this?" What do we all need that we're not getting, and at what point does our body say, "Hey, I'm going to make you sit down and take a look"? It's a little like, okay, everybody needs a timeout.
Dr. Lara Birk: Absolutely. I think of the analogy of fields that need to lie fallow in order to thrive again. We do need rest, and sometimes rest is almost anti-capitalist. It's resistance to the whole system. I think it's scary for people to enter that space, and it helps when there are others there with them to say it's okay, this is actually part of being human, this rest and reflection.
Dr. Stracks: And that big pivot that people start to make as they spend time in this world, from looking at their body as the enemy ("I have been betrayed, I have been let down, my body is keeping me from where I need to go") to looking at our bodies as our allies, that speak up for us and stick up for us and know what's best for us in ways that sometimes, even if our brain says, "No, no, I know what's best," our brains just don't. As we learn to listen to our bodies, be curious, slow down, and understand that maybe we don't know the whole picture, that's when people really start to heal.
Dr. Lara Birk: Absolutely. It's really incredible.
Closing Thoughts
Dr. Stracks: We've come to the end of our time for this evening. Anything else you'd like to share with people who are listening, whether they're struggling, in process, or just getting started?
Dr. Lara Birk: I would just say, give it a try. It is worth everything. It's a mindset shift, and if you can just go with it and allow yourself to see how far you can get, you really can be surprised. I also want to give gratitude. I have so much gratitude for Curable, and for you, Dr. Stracks, for the role you played in that turning point for me. My Pit Crew, and all of my groups, I feel like I have learned so much, and I am so grateful to be able to continue learning all the time from people who are being so courageous. I would say to people, allow yourself to step out of that old identity and see how courageous you can be.
Dr. Stracks: Thank you so much for being here, and for sharing your experience and being open and sharing your knowledge and your wisdom. I know how helpful it is, and you know how helpful it is, to hear from other people who have been walking through that journey when you're just starting. Thank you for being here with us this evening, and thank you to everybody else who's been listening. Each time we do this, I'm reminded how lucky I am to be part of this brave and creative community of people who are going about healing in what is often a countercultural way.
As I said earlier, in our practice we've been able to expand our telehealth options during the COVID-19 pandemic. People who are interested in meeting with me or my staff can request information through our website at www.cormendihealth.com, and our staff will get back to you with all the details you need to know. If you enjoyed this presentation, you can hear the recording of this and all previous episodes on the Curable Hope for Healing landing page at www.curablehealth.com/hope-for-healing. You can also sign up for our office newsletter and get updates about next episodes and everything else going on in our practice.
With that, we'll sign off for the evening. I wish everybody a happy and healthy new year, and we will be back in 2022. Until then, I hope everybody stays safe and healthy and has a great holiday season. Thank you so much.
Dr. Lara Birk: Thank you so much, Dr. Stracks.
Dr. Stracks: Thank you, Lara. It's great to see you and great to share this with you.
Dr. Lara Birk: Thank you.
Dr. Stracks: And with that, we will say good night.
Dr. John Stracks practices mind-body medicine via telehealth nationally and internationally. To learn more about working with Dr. Stracks or the Cormendi Health team, visit cormendihealth.com. You can find more interviews on the Cormendi Health YouTube page.