Manders Mindset
Are you feeling stuck or stagnant in your life? Do you envision yourself living differently but have no idea how to start? The answer might lie in a shift in your mindset.
Hosted by Amanda Russo, The Breathing Goddess, who is a Breathwork Detox Facilitator, Transformative Mindset Coach, and Divorce Paralegal.
Amanda's journey into mindset and empowerment began by working with children in group homes and daycares. She later transitioned to family law, helping people navigate the challenging emotions of divorce. During this time, Amanda also overcame her own weight and health challenges through strength training, meditation, yoga, reiki, and plant medicine.
Amanda interviews guests from diverse backgrounds, including entrepreneurs, athletes, artists, and wellness experts, who share their incredible journeys of conquering fears and limiting beliefs to achieve remarkable success. Hear real people tell how shifting their mindsets—and often their words—has dramatically changed their lives.
Amanda also shares her personal journey, detailing how she transformed obstacles into opportunities by adopting a healthier, holistic lifestyle.
Discover practical strategies and inspiring stories that will empower you to break free from limitations and cultivate a mindset geared towards growth and positivity.
Tune in for a fun, friendly, and empowering experience that will help you become the best version of yourself.
Manders Mindset
Fibromyalgia & Chronic Pain: Beyond the Pain with Tami Stackelhouse | 132
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Can you turn pain into power and confusion into clarity?
In this deeply personal and eye-opening episode of Manders Mindset, I sit down with fibromyalgia coach, author, and podcast host Tami Stackelhouse. As someone who’s lived with fibromyalgia for decades—and transformed her experience into hope for others—Tami shares her remarkable journey from misunderstood symptoms to creating the International Fibromyalgia Coaching Institute. This episode is especially meaningful to me because my own mother lives with fibromyalgia, and Tami's work has opened doors of understanding I didn’t even know existed.
We dive into the reality of living with a chronic illness that most doctors aren’t even trained to recognize, the emotional toll of being dismissed, and how Tami rewrote her life by becoming the coach she wished she'd had. We also discuss the myths around fibromyalgia, brain fog, nervous system dysregulation, and what true healing looks like—not from denial, but from radical self-awareness. Whether you or someone you love lives with fibromyalgia, this is a conversation filled with compassion, clarity, and actual hope.
🎙️ In this episode, listeners will learn:
🧠 Why fibromyalgia is more than "just chronic pain"—and how it's an amplifier for symptoms
💤 What brain fog really is and how to work with it instead of fighting it
🧘♀️ How nervous system regulation can help you manage flares and reclaim energy
📉 Why mindset denial can worsen symptoms—and how acceptance starts the healing
📚 The story behind Tami’s coaching institute and how she's training others to help
🩺 What to do when your doctor says, “I don’t know how to help you”
🧪 How small, mindful experiments can shift your day-to-day experience with chronic illness
🕒 Timeline Summary:
[1:47] – Tami shares how seeing silver linings shaped her identity—even during childhood illness
[6:47] – Her fibromyalgia symptoms started as a child, but diagnoses took decades
[9:11] – Dropping out of high school, learning her way, and finding nontraditional success
[13:19] – The long road to diagnosis and the limitations of the traditional healthcare system
[19:46] – Is fibromyalgia mental or physical? Unpacking misinformation and medical bias
[25:12] – The problem with "support groups" vs. coaching for actual healing
[30:29] – How she created the first fibromyalgia coaching program in the world
[39:34] – What to do when your doctor says "I don't know how to help you"
[45:56] – Why calling fibromyalgia "chronic pain" misses the bigger picture
[49:00] – Using mindfulness as a science experiment to manage symptoms
[54:18] – What is a “fibro flare” and how do you know when you’re in one?
[1:00:24] – Real-life strategies for managing brain fog and reclaiming your clarity
[1:04:57] – Understanding fibromyalgia as an amplifier—and how to turn the volume down
To Connect with Amanda:
Schedule a 1:1 Virtual Breathwork Session HERE
📸 Instagram: @thebreathinggoddess
Follow & Support the Podcast:
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👥 Join the Manders Mindset Facebook Community HERE
To Connect with Tami:
🌐 Tami’s Website & Coaching Institute: fibromyalgiacoachinginstitute.com
Welcome to the Manders Mindset Podcast. Here you'll find both monologue and interviews of entrepreneurs, coaches, healers and a variety of other people when your host, Amanda Russo, will discuss her own mindset and perspective and her guest's mindset and perspective on the world around us. Manders and her guests will help explain to you how shifting your mindset will shift your life.
Speaker 2:Welcome back to Mando's Mindset, where we explore the power of shifting your mindset to shift your life. As always, I'm your host, amanda Busso, and I am here today with Tammy Stackelhaus, who is doing all she can to help fibromyalgia patients learn more knowledge, care and gain the support that they need. She is also a fibromyalgia patient herself and she's the founder of the International Fibromyalgia Coaching Institute. She hosts the Fibromyalgia Podcast and she wrote the book Take Back your Life, which she so generously gifted to me and to my mom. And this conversation is extra special and dear to my heart because back in 2018, my mom was diagnosed with fibromyalgia. So we are going to delve down that and get some post-do expertise from Tammy today. Thank you so much for joining me, tammy.
Speaker 3:Oh, it's my pleasure. Thank you for having me.
Speaker 2:Of course I'm so glad we made this work so glad. So who would you say? Tammy is at the core, oh great question, oh goodness.
Speaker 3:So I would say I am very curious, I am very determined, I am science minded and that has served me well with my own fibromyalgia journey. But more than anything else I believe in the silver lining to everything, overlining to everything. So no matter how terrible life can be, I'm not saying that bad things are good, bad things are bad. But I think we can always find gifts in them and that is such a core part of who I am Like. I don't think I'd be Tammy without that.
Speaker 2:Oh, I love that. Has that always been a part of who you are?
Speaker 3:Yes, actually, yes, I can remember we had a tree fall on our house when I was a kid and I remember I mean I was probably grade school. Yeah, I was in grade school and I remember like hugging my little sister who was terrified and, you know, talking about all the fun we were going to have. You know, I mean when you're kids, of course, you see the adventure and a lot of things that as an adult would just be a pain. But so, yeah, I think I have always been that way.
Speaker 2:That's awesome. That's awesome. Can you take us down memory lane a little bit?
Speaker 3:Tell us about your childhood, upbringing family dynamic, however deep you want to go with that and I think that is a lot of my love of learning right, like having parents as teachers. Every moment was a learning moment and that's also where I got my love of like math and science and things like that. My dad was a math and science teacher and I remember you know lots of scribbled math stuff on placemats at restaurants and things like that, so it was again. I think that really served me well when I had to figure out the problem of fibromyalgia. But being raised, you know there's a lot of talk about adverse childhood experiences, aces scores when it comes to chronic illness, and my ACEs score is zero. I had a great childhood, a stable home. My parents are still together. My sister was my best friend. She passed away from cancer in 2016. But you know, it's yeah, thanks. But you know, I mean it was a great childhood, it was fun, we had a blast and with parents as teachers, the coolest thing about that was we were all off at the same time. So growing up and being an adult and not having three months off during the summer and two weeks at Christmas and everything else was real reality, check, check.
Speaker 3:So, yeah, I will also say the other thing about my childhood is that I was always one of those kids that was never all that well. I was continually going to the doctor. I mean, if I was a kid now, I would be diagnosed with depression. I would be diagnosed with IBS. You know all the things, probably even fibromyalgia, as a kid. But back you know, in the 70s, when I was growing up, that wasn't on the radar at all and my parents used to always joke that they would take my sister to the doctor for repair because she was a bit of a tomboy and she was the one that was crashing into things and breaking things. But they took me to the doctor for maintenance and I think that's a good way to put it Like there was always something that was being checked out, trying to figure out, like I always had a body that never quite worked right. And do you know how early you started noticing that?
Speaker 2:Hmm, and do you know how early you started noticing that?
Speaker 3:Oh gosh, I mean I didn't notice this, but even from as a baby I had to have surgery to have my tear ducts opened. When I was not even a year old, I had issues with diapers and sandy poop that would sandpaper my butt. So, yeah, I had issues from day zero.
Speaker 2:Wow, even as a baby. Okay, yeah, wow, okay. So maintenance versus repair, that's an interesting comparison, would you say. Fibromyalgia is like more so maintaining it.
Speaker 3:Oh yeah, for sure. I mean don't get me wrong there are things that have had to be repaired, things that needed to be fixed over the years. But I think for a lot of us with chronic health conditions, it's more this low level of like something little always falling apart, that needs to be like. That's kind of the idea with the maintenance right, like you're always fixing all these little things. It's not. You know, I have this big illness where then I need to recover or break a bone and then need to recover it's. It's like that, it's just like little things all the time I gotcha. I will say that that has changed as I have learned how to, you know, manage my fibromyalgia and address some of those things.
Speaker 2:But oh yeah, Okay, so now both your parents were teachers, so you did a lot more learning. Now did you go to college, post high school?
Speaker 3:Great question. I don't talk about this often, but I actually dropped out of high school. I took the GED. I was one of those gifted kids who grew up in a small town and they're just weren't like. I was bored out of my mind so left high school early, went to college. The first time lasted about six weeks. I just my my body, my nervous system, was not made to live in a dorm. I felt like I never got to leave school, like I was at school 24-7. I mean I was, but I didn't have that, which now, knowing I have fibromyalgia and all that means for the nervous system, I understand a lot more. But not being able to turn that off was really hard. So I came back home the next year I tried again and I lasted, I think, a year and a half before I dropped out of college. I love learning and I'm super smart, but school is not like, that's not my environment, and I think a lot of people can relate to that.
Speaker 2:No, definitely, definitely so. How did your parents feel about you dropping out of school and getting a TV?
Speaker 3:Oh, my goodness, yeah, so high school was tough.
Speaker 3:I mean, think about it, right, I've got parents as teachers and I'm dropping out of high school.
Speaker 3:You know, I think, when I was a teenager, I think I made my mom cry every day Mothers and daughters, right, some of it, but it just and I remember this having this conversation with my parents about, you know, learning from other people's mistakes and me saying I need to learn from my own mistakes, not somebody else's, right, like I need to have that experience, I need to have that experience, I need to, I need to.
Speaker 3:I just, I guess I always knew that the way I was going to learn and do things isn't the way everybody else does it, and so learning from somebody else's experience wasn't necessarily relevant, right, and again, I think that served me well when it came to fibromyalgia, because there have been a lot of things that I've figured out about how to manage myself that if I just listened to everything everybody else said, I wouldn't have necessarily figured out, right, yeah, so, yeah, so it was. It was tough, but I will say, you know, it's not where you start, it's where you finish, right, and with everything that I've accomplished, I don't think my parents really care anymore. They're super proud of me. They tell me that all the time and you know it's just a blip on the radar Right, radar right.
Speaker 2:I get it. So you did a year and a half in college. You didn't stick with that.
Speaker 3:Then what Then? Where'd you go from there? So then I just started working. I didn't really know what I wanted to do with my life. So I think my first main job after leaving college I worked for Hollywood Video. So you know I was the person that rented out movies back in the day. You know that's not anything that even exists anymore, but yeah, I did that for a long time, worked at a TV repair shop for a while I became a Mary Kay lady. I was a Mary Kay consultant for 17 years actually, and I learned a lot about business that I use every single day doing that. And then the big thing after that was I worked for a software company and I actually managed. I became the assistant, the customer service manager, if that was my title, and I managed the call center. So you know all the people calling in for support, emailing in for support. I managed that department.
Speaker 2:Okay, wow, fascinating. And it's so intriguing to me that you say a Mary Kay consultant. And it's so intriguing to me that you say a Mary Kay consultant. You know, I don't think I've ever mentioned this on the podcast, but I was a center gents. I don't know if you've heard of that. Oh yeah, yep, similar like makeup line and it helped me so much, even with public speaking, because I used to go live like on Facebook doing my makeup. You know like and and it gets, it gets you out there. That first like little intro way.
Speaker 3:Right, right, exactly, just just learning how to talk to people, even right, starting a conversation. What we're doing here, you know, the more, the more you do it, the better you get. And then being entrepreneurs as well, like just all the little things about having a business. The business isn't just about the thing that you deliver, right? So I'm a coach. It's not just about coaching. It's also about marketing and advertising and sales and money management and all the things, right, yes, completely, completely.
Speaker 2:So I'm curious. I want to transition to Chad. Can you take us down your fibromyalgia journey a little bit? When did you get diagnosed? Did it take a process?
Speaker 3:Oh, yes, it did. So I started suspecting for myself that, like I mentioned, I was one of those people who always had health issues right. So even in high school I really started looking at what the heck is wrong with me. You know, my first chronic pain diagnosis was actually chronic daily headaches when I was in high school and I remember having a conversation with the neurologist and he said there's nothing wrong with you, you just have headaches. And I remember at the time thinking how dumb that was, because isn't having headaches every day something wrong? Now I realized, you know, as I got older, that he was probably saying you don't have a brain tumor or anything, you just have headaches. But the way he chose to say it just thinking what that doesn't make any sense. So I started that's when I really started getting into health stuff and really started researching things. But it wasn't until I was in my mid-30s that I was finally diagnosed so another whole lifetime after high school and I really started to suspect that that was what was wrong.
Speaker 3:As I was doing my research, it was all the things that fit. I would ask my doctors and say could I possibly have something like this? And I had a naturopath that I saw that said yeah, you're probably heading down that road. I don't know if I diagnose you with that yet, but I can see where it's coming. My regular doctor, when I had messaged them, could I have something like this? The nurse that responded to me said I don't know what that is, but come in and we'll see if we can help you, which of course I didn't do, because I'm like if you don't know what that is, then how are you going to help me? Now, this was way back in the early 2000s. This is before there was any medications for fibromyalgia. The diagnostic criteria for fibromyalgia wasn't published until 1990. So it's not too surprising that they didn't know, but also like you're not going to get a whole lot of help if they don't even know. So yeah, so yes, it took a while, lots of doctor visits, lots of asking questions, and it wasn't until I got married and got onto my husband's insurance and got to go see other doctors that I finally got my diagnosis.
Speaker 3:Before I got married, I was part of an HMO I won't mention any names, but you all would recognize the name and HMOs are great for, like normal, things that go wrong. I had been diagnosed with TMJ disorder and they had a fantastic class that they put me through. Tmj, yeah, tmj. So TMJ, your temporomandibular joint, that's what TMJ stands for and then it not working right, so popping, clicking, pain, those kinds of things, yeah, so they. I mean, it's a pretty common thing. They had a class they put me through. I learned a bunch, but when it came to fibromyalgia, when it came to some of those more unusual things, they really don't know what to do with you. So it wasn't until I got married and got under my husband's insurance and could really go to any doctor right that took my insurance that I finally got my diagnosis, and that was in 2007.
Speaker 2:Wow, that's so unfortunate, you know like no, it just sucks the insurance healthcare system. I'm sorry, but it just it sucks that until you had a different insurance you weren't able to see certain doctors Like it. That just sucks, I'm sorry.
Speaker 3:It does.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, it definitely does. And you know, the more I work with fibromyalgia, the more I work with doctors, the more I do what I do, the more I learn that you know you kind of follow it all back. The doctors in your local office don't know what's happening because they're not taught in medical school, right, and they're not taught in medical school because there isn't a lot of really good research where they can say here's what's you know, here's what's wrong, here's how we fix it. And there isn't good research because there isn't funding for research. And so we follow all of that back to really a lack of funding. And you know it is more women diagnosed than men and unfortunately, I think that is a huge reason for a lack of funding because it is still seen like you will still hear people today talk about it being a mental health issue and about it being hysterical women, never mind all the you know piles of research that show that this is an actual physical illness with real things going wrong in your body.
Speaker 2:Yeah, Wow. So people are thinking it's more of a mental. Some people think it's like a mental health thing.
Speaker 3:Yes, I just taught class this morning and one of my students went to the Fibromyalgia Congress that was held in Vienna, austria, earlier this week and one of the talks that was given was about it being a mental, more of a mental health issue. Now I will say I'll give a little asterisk to that and say that of course our brains are powerful. How we think about our illness, our mindset, all of these things do play a factor. And trauma, past trauma, history that also can play a factor. But there are real things going wrong in our bodies and it's not just you know, crazy, crazy lady over there who thinks she's sick when she's not really.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, but I I agree about what you said. Like our brains, our brains are powerful. I I've got a unique question for you. I've I've spoken to someone not on the podcast, but about being on the podcast who has fibromyalgia, and she was telling me how she believes she cured her fibromyalgia by saying she doesn't have it anymore. Do you believe that's possible?
Speaker 3:Hmm. So, to answer the question, do I believe that's possible? I would have to say yes because, like, you hear about crazy things happening all the time, right, like people being cured of cancer. And like, like, possible, yes, likely. No, you know, she could, she could be one of those rare exceptions.
Speaker 3:But your average fibromyalgia patient out there, thinking and acting like you don't have fibromyalgia if you really do, is just going to make things worse. That's just living in denial, right. That's allowing your body to go farther down the road of illness, right, the road of illness, right? I mean, you could imagine if you had diabetes and you couldn't just talk yourself out of having diabetes. Right, like, there's things you have to do. Could you do the things that you needed to do? Like, maybe you're just eating healthy and you know, fixing what's wrong with your body and then you're fine.
Speaker 3:Sure, but also, if you don't treat it and you just keep living your life as if you don't have it, there's a lot of other things that are going to go wrong too.
Speaker 3:Right, like it's not, it's not going to resolve itself on its own, and so when I hear stories like what you just said, there is always that small percentage of people that, for whatever reason, they've learned how to harvest the power of their brains and they've been able to do it. I'm not saying it's not possible, but it does make me wonder if fibromyalgia was the accurate diagnosis, because fibromyalgia symptoms overlap with so many other things, right, widespread body pain, fatigue, brain fog, poor sleep. You could end up with all of those symptoms just by not getting a good night's sleep. There have been studies that have shown if you just don't get into deep sleep, you basically develop fibromyalgia symptoms. So if you have someone that, for whatever reason, isn't getting into deep sleep and as they work on their thinking right, they might be also changing their stress levels, their quality of sleep, a lot of other things, and then not have symptoms anymore. So yeah, Okay, okay.
Speaker 2:Do you think identifying with it more so could have an effect on, like, the pain level you experience?
Speaker 3:So there is. There's a balance that we have to find, because I do believe that when we live in denial, we don't live the way we need to live. I mean, it's like what I said about diabetes, right? If you're just like in denial and continue to eat cake, you're still going to have issues. So, with fibromyalgia, if you're in denial and you still keep pushing yourself and you don't give yourself the rest that you need and all of these other things, right, then it's just going to get worse. At the same time, if we just say, oh, I have fibromyalgia, I'm just going to relax here on my couch and never do anything again for the rest of my life, that will also make things worse, right? So we have to find this balance between accepting the reality of our situation and also trying for something better, and not just so I have people ask me all the time about I work with fibromyalgia patients.
Speaker 3:This is my job, right? So it's like fibromyalgia 24-7, in a way. And so I have people ask me you know, how do you handle that? Isn't that really negative? And the difference is my focus is not on what you can't do. My focus is on what can you do right. Our focus is on getting better, right, and so that difference between your world revolving around your illness and all those things that you can't do I can't do this because of my fibromyalgia, can't do this because I'm in pain, I can't do this because I have fatigue versus your world revolving around your healing, right, like I'm choosing not to do this so that maybe I'll feel better tomorrow, that is very different, and I think if we don't accept our diagnosis, we don't accept the reality of what fibromyalgia is and what that means, then we can't move towards our healing, because we haven't even acknowledged that there's something wrong, right?
Speaker 2:yeah, no, that's that you know. I like how you mentioned focusing on what you can do and not what you can't. You know, and I'll use my mom as a personal example, but she's in these different Facebook groups that are like fibromyalgia support groups, and she's shown me some of them and I know her intention behind it was like to talk to other people who have fibromyalgia Because, like I, prior to meeting and discovering you, I did not understand even slightly what she was going through. But I feel like it's almost more so like focusing on the can't as opposed to the positives of you can do this. So here's the it's. It almost seems more like complaining and I'm not trying to mean that in a negative way, but like even my mom's, like oh my God, this poor woman and it's like this law and it's like a bad thing. It's never like I was able to do this. She's never told me a positive post that she's had.
Speaker 3:And I'm like.
Speaker 2:Is this helping you?
Speaker 3:Right. I think there's a time and a place for all of it. Right, if you are somebody who has fibromyalgia and you are really struggling just to be understood. Right, if you are somebody who has fibromyalgia and you are really struggling just to be understood. Right, if you're feeling really isolated and you feel like there's nobody who understands you, joining a group like that is a step up. Right, because now you do have a community, you do have people who you can relate to, who understand you. But we also don't want to be stuck there, right? We want to then take the next step, which is what am I going to do about it? How am I going to change things? And that's where I think coaching is so different from a support group.
Speaker 3:Now, there are some really great support groups that are focused on education and helping patients with the what am I going to do about it? Part of things, but a lot of support groups exist to help you feel better about having fibromyalgia, to help you feel like you're not alone and feel better about having this diagnosis that is so isolating. With coaching, yes, we help you feel less alone, but our whole goal is to help you feel better. Period, full stop. Yes, you have fibromyalgia but, yes, you can also feel better, and I think the biggest problem that we're facing right now is that there are no stories out there of patients who got better.
Speaker 3:Like it's not even a possibility in the mind of most fibromyalgia patients that getting better is something they could work towards. I mean, their doctors are telling them we've done all that we can do for you. I don't know what else to do for you. Get used to your new normal right. We're told those sorts of things. Instead of let's you know, let's get you better. Here's some things we can try. Like it's not even being held up as a possibility, and that's one of my big missions is just to be that lighthouse of hope that there is something better that's possible, right, that.
Speaker 2:No, it really like it makes a lot of sense. But you know, like, even if that the support group is like that first step, you know, because prior to meeting you I didn't even know a fibromyalgia coach existed. You know, yeah, and like something I say all the time if you don't know what you don't know, you know and like my mom didn't know that fibromyalgia coaches existed either. So like that support group can be that first step. You know what I mean. Like you type in fibromyalgia on Facebook, this is what comes up. So, yeah, to talking to your daughter, who doesn't get it at all, you know.
Speaker 3:Right right, and it can be the bridge to other things. I mean, I led a support group for many years, co-led a group in Portland, oregon, and our focus with the group was really on bringing in education to help them maybe learn a little, something that might make a difference in their lives. That was sort of our, our focus there. I don't know how helpful just like the talk therapy type support groups are, but again, if somebody has no support in their life, nobody who understands them, there is a benefit to that. We just don't want to get stuck there Like. That's not the end, that's the first step.
Speaker 2:No, I get it. I get it. That's definitely the first step, so I'd love to dive down a little bit how you developed this coaching and this institution Like that is so, so fascinating to me. Yes.
Speaker 3:So the reason people haven't heard of fibromyalgia coaching is that it's something I made up and you know, everybody's got to start somewhere. So what ended up happening there is I hit a point in my own life where, like I had done everything I knew how to do, I had been getting help from my doctor, but I knew it just wasn't enough. And I had one of those split second moments where I was like, had this picture of my future and it was not what I wanted. And so I went back to my doctor and said, okay, how do we avoid this future that I just had a glimpse of? And she said well, you know, we've got this health coach in our office. You should try talking with her. And so I hired a health coach. I'm a coach because that first coach helped me and it was pretty dramatic.
Speaker 3:Like within six months, I was in such a different place with my own fibromyalgia. Now, the coach I was working with did not understand fibromyalgia at all, but she was somebody that I could bounce ideas off of, I could strategize with, I could say, oh gosh, the doctor wants me to do X, y, z, how am I going to do it Right? And I would have her support. It was also somebody to hold me accountable for doing the things that would move me forward, right. So she wasn't able to provide me the fibromyalgia education like I can do with my clients, but she was still a support person, still that cheerleader, the strategizer, the you know, the accountability partner, and so, like I said, six months later I was in such a different place and I really felt like I had been given my health back and I wanted to share that. Right, I didn't want to be the only person with the secret, and so that's when I became a coach, and that was in July 2009. Yeah, july 2009 was when I became a coach and for the first you know, six years or so, I was doing one-on-one coaching.
Speaker 3:I pretty much focused on helping people with fibromyalgia from day one, because it was the thing I knew the best, right, and I had found a few of my own answers that I could share with other people. But as it started to progress, like I knew there was no way I could help everybody, right, like there's only so much of me to go around, and I knew I had to figure out a way to duplicate myself. Basically, I needed to make more little Tammies to go out there and help more people. And that's when I wrote my first book was to actually be the curriculum for a training program teaching people how to do the work that I do. So that's how the Institute was founded. That's how the training program started. Was just me finding some success in helping people and realizing the world needs a whole lot more people? I'm not going to be able to help the millions of people with fibromyalgia.
Speaker 2:I love that and I love how you mentioned in your book as well about wanting to give that education to people. You know like, even if somebody can't afford coaching, whether it's with you or one of your coaches you know like this is a way to get some sort of belief. You know, and I love that you created fibromyalgia coaching. Like there is coaching for everything, whether it's health, business, you name it, there's a coach for it. Like there's a coach for everything. So why was there not already one for fibromyalgia? You know, yep.
Speaker 3:Yep, exactly, fibromyalgia is not something that's taught in medical school. There's this gap of knowledge that as coaches specifically as a certified fibromyalgia coach we can kind of build that bridge right. We can't diagnose, we can't treat, we can't prescribe you medications, but we can teach you, and sometimes even your providers, about the research that's been done on fibromyalgia and what the options are and, you know, give you talk to you about labs that you can then have your, your doctor run. And we can. We can fill that gap between what there is available and what your doctor knows, which is a little bit different than maybe a lot of coaches, because there is this education component that isn't necessarily there for a lot of people.
Speaker 3:But yeah, and then the other part of it that's super fun is all of our certified fibromyalgia coaches have fibromyalgia themselves. So when you're talking to somebody, you're talking to somebody who actually gets it right. So when you say, oh, i'm'm having a flare, I'm having a bad day, we know what that means. You know, and we know the difference between, oh, you were just being lazy and oh, you had a fibro flare, you couldn't do it right. And that also makes such a big difference for people that that, that level of understanding that you just don't get Like, as much as you now are starting to understand about your mom's fibro. It's you still aren't living with it, right, and that's much different.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, I've said those exact things to her. Yeah, no, I've said those exact things to her, like, even if it's not fibromyalgia, even if it's diabetes, like any, you only understand it so much, like you don't experience it. You know, right, right, that's. That's so amazing, though I love, I love all that you're doing with that, because there's such a lack of information. You know it's so. It's wild to me that like people can be diagnosed with something that doctors don't load in school, like yeah, it just blows my mind, like even the thought of that is like mind-blowing I get. Like there's not a lot of research, but it's just like doctors go to medical school to be able to Right.
Speaker 3:And you know, having having been part of you know, I actually get to go speak at Oregon Health and Science University a couple of times a year to their medical students, which is fun, and sometimes, you know, the roundtable discussion that I'm part of is really the first discussion that they're having about fibromyalgia and really realizing how much they have to learn. Like your regular primary care physicians are learning like this much about a lot of things, right, so it's that inch deep and a mile wide, but we don't really have fibromyalgia specialists that can provide that deeper understanding. Like there's a few out there, but it's not like just going to see a rheumatologist or just going to see a neurologist for your headaches or, you know, whatever it is. It's not something that's readily available, and so, as patients, there is a lot more pressure on us to do our own research and learn for ourselves so that we can better steer our care, because there isn't an expert that's going to do that for you not a doctor, most likely.
Speaker 3:So so you okay, no specialist okay nope, technically speaking, fibromyalgia does fall under the american college of rheumatology, but I have very rarely found rheumatologists to be that helpful, because the more we learn about fibromyalgia, the more it seems like a nervous system issue, although there are some things that are pointing more towards autoimmune. We don't know enough yet, but neurologists aren't taught about it either. So I kind of think of fibromyalgia as sort of the condition without a home and it's just yeah. There's so many times where I'll talk to somebody who maybe a rheumatologist or a neurologist diagnosed them and then, immediately after diagnosing them, said but I don't really treat that, so you'll need to find somebody else to manage that for you. Then what? Now, what do I do?
Speaker 2:Oh, so what would you suggest they do in that situation? What would you suggest they do in that?
Speaker 3:situation. Yeah, so learn all you can as a patient. It means, unfortunately, if you want to get better, you're going to need to educate yourself, right? So, fortunately, I've got a lot of really good resources for you for that and the fibromyalgia podcast, books, free book downloads, all those things. Educate yourself as much as possible and if you can get a coach, that is 100% your fastest way to getting better, because we do have that knowledge, we do have that training and we've also got the day-to-day life experience right. Like even if you had a fibromyalgia specialist unless they also had fibromyalgia some of the simple things like here's an easier way to clean your counter. Here's some tips for going grocery shopping. Here's some tips for cleaning your house. Here's how to better manage your fibromyalgia when you feel like this, like this, like there's things that we know from literally living it out day after day that even medical experts aren't going to be able to share with you. So if you can get a coach, but start with educating yourself as much as possible.
Speaker 2:Okay, no, that makes that makes a lot of sense. So now, if the rheumatologist isn't going to help them and the primary care isn't going to like, who are they Like? What do we do? Yeah, basically yes yes, exactly.
Speaker 3:So the best thing that you can do from a provider perspective is find a doctor who is willing to go on the journey with you. Whether they actually know all the information or not, the information is out there. And if they're willing to partner with you to I mean, it's the little things right, Like just believing you when you say you're in pain, treating you the way a decent human being should be treated you know those kinds of things and if they're willing to be, if they're open to you bringing information to them, there's things that you can bring, like my book. There's a bunch of like other books written by doctors with like actual therapies and things like that written down in there. And you can take these resources to your doctor and say, what about trying this? And even if they don't know, if they're just willing to try with you, you can actually do pretty well.
Speaker 3:Ok, yeah, so the information is out there. So first you have to have a provider that's willing to, like I said, go on the journey with you, experiment with you, and then you as a patient need to be responsible for doing your own research and finding the things that you want to try. And, again, there's tons of resources out there for that. If you just know where to look and since I'm here, the best place I would say to start is with the Fibromyalgia Podcast, and you can find us at fibromyalgiapodcastcom. Just look for the Fibromyalgia Podcast in your favorite podcast app and there's tons of resources from there that you can find other providers, books and all kinds of other things awesome, awesome, and I will link that in the show notes as well.
Speaker 2:Wow, that that makes a lot of sense, though, a a provider that's willing to go on the journey and not one that's going to tell you that you don't have pain, or deny it or like, basically like okay, no, that makes a lot of sense, cause I was like the coach can't provide, like the medication, so like, okay, yeah, because you know, if, let's say, I was working with your mom and I noticed some things, and I might say, hey, you know, have you ever had your thyroid tested?
Speaker 3:Have you ever had a full thyroid panel? Here's what to ask your doctor for. And if you have a doctor who's open, who's willing to go on that journey with you, you can go to your provider and say, hey, I was just talking with my coach and she suggested I get a full thyroid panel to check for these things. Would you order that for me? Right? And the right doctor is going to say yes and support you through that, even if they didn't have the original first idea, right?
Speaker 3:Another good example of this is the incidence of sleep apnea in fibromyalgia is so much higher than the regular population. It's almost half of all fibromyalgia patients. It's 45%, where the normal population is like in the single digits, right? So 2%, 5%, 7%. Most doctors don't know that this is so high in fibromyalgia, so they're not sending you to go get a sleep study done. But once you learn that, so anybody who's listening to this who has fibromyalgia go to your doctor and say, hey, I just learned that almost half of all fibromyalgia patients have sleep apnea. Can I get a sleep? Study Right, study Right. But not all doctors are open to their patients bringing in things and saying, hey, what about this? Or can I try this medication, or you know whatever. So you got to have the right doctor. But again, we're mostly looking for someone who is going to treat you like a decent human being, believe you when you say you're in pain and what your experience is, and then being open to the additional information that you bring in.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. Now in the book you mentioned a few times how it's easy to call fibromyalgia chronic pain, and I have heard that a lot. Even my mom like years ago, when I first like asked her. She's like oh, it's just chronic pain and I'm like I don't know what that means. Like what, and why do you think so many people like say that?
Speaker 3:Because it is the easiest way to explain.
Speaker 3:I think we all have been in pain at some point or another, right? Whether it's a headache, or you're achy because of the flu, or you slammed your finger in the door, whatever it is right, we've all experienced pain, and chronic just means it's pain that doesn't go away. So it's a simple way to say that. The other reason I think we often do that is because we actually don't know what causes fibromyalgia, like there's a lot of people saying that they know, but when you look at the actual hard science on it, we don't know exactly the disease mechanism. We don't know what triggers that in the body. We know that genetics has a component, but what is the thing that happens that sets it off and then what are all the processes that happen in the body? We don't actually know that. And so to be able to like you know when your mom was diagnosed and maybe you're hearing the F word for the first time you hear fibromyalgia for the first time somebody like your mom would not be Now in the book.
Speaker 2:you talked about mindfulness and meditation and regulating your nervous system and that helping like fibromyalgia. How did you discover that?
Speaker 3:Oh gosh, how did I discover that? There is a lot of research and a lot of people talking about the fact that with fibromyalgia, our nervous systems get sort of stuck in fight or flight. We don't get into deep sleep largely because we are like part of our brains are still awake and running. We have something called alpha delta sleep, which is where we have alpha awake brain waves intruding into what should be delta, slow wave deep sleep, and so it's kind of like that dolphin that is sleeping with part of their brain awake so that they don't drown, dolphin that is sleeping with part of their brain awake so that they don't drown right. Or, as Dr Ginevra Lipton talks about it, sleeping with one eye open looking for saber-toothed tigers right, like there's part of our brains that are still awake, and so I guess it just made sense to me that if this is one of the problems, then doing all we can to calm that down is probably going to help right.
Speaker 3:So that's the more nervous system regulation part of things. But mindfulness for me is a very practical day-to-day strategy. And I'm not talking about mindfulness. That is meditation. I'm talking about mindfulness.
Speaker 3:Jon Kabat-Zinn talks about it being paying attention in the present moment, non-judgmentally, sometimes, he says, as if your life depended on it. And that's the kind of mindfulness I'm talking about. As I'm walking through my life, I'm paying attention to if I do this, how do I feel If I do that? How do I feel If I feel like this and then I do that, does it make things better or worse? And again, that's where that sort of science mindedness I think was such a benefit to me, because, because I kind of approached it all as a big science experiment Right, I'm taking everything that I do and then I'm trying something and then I'm paying attention to the results of that, so that then I can do the next experiment.
Speaker 3:And when you can really walk through life that way and be so in tune with your body, what your body's needs are, what she's saying to you, then you can adjust in any particular moment. You know you can do more of the things that make you feel better, do less of the things that don't make you feel better and little bit by little bit, we just move the trend line up right, like we're not doing it all at once, but every day. If I just do a little bit better and we just keep stacking those together, eventually you get there. So for me, when I think of mindfulness, that's what I'm thinking about. Is that literally being mindful of how do I feel and how do the various things around me, what I do, how I think, what I eat, therapies, medications, supplements how does that affect what I feel?
Speaker 2:Now you mentioned you're like almost always in fight or flight. Why?
Speaker 3:is that that's part of what we don't know totally about fibromyalgia, the way that it feels in my body. My fibromyalgia is actually in remission, so I am not quite as much in that as I used to be. But even now, let's say I go get a massage, which generally can be good for fibromyalgia, but let's say she is maybe using a little bit too much pressure. It starts to feel like I'm one of those pressure cookers where the pressure is just rising and if it just keeps rising it's going to blow up, right, and that's how that fight or flight feels to me from a fibromyalgia perspective. To me from a fibromyalgia perspective, is that all the things that we do it could be the bright lights I'm sitting under right now, it could be noises, it could be smells, it could be stress, it could be you know, name the thing. It could be too much sugar in your diet, it could be a lot of things that pressure gauge just sort of keeps rising and if we don't do something to bring it back down, eventually we, it goes off, the end right, and we end up in a fibro flare. But if we can do something about it. So, going back to my massage analogy, if I'm able to speak up and say, ah, it's a little bit too much pressure, and she can back off. Then the pressure gauge comes back down right.
Speaker 3:But it takes again that mindfulness of knowing what it feels like in your body when these things are happening. Sometimes it's knowing what it feels like in your brain too, right, when we start to get over stimulated. We might not necessarily feel it in our bodies yet, but maybe we're starting to get a little extra agitated. All of those kinds of things play a factor. So it's, it's this idea of things adding up over time and we need to be able to empty that back down so that we can calm back down.
Speaker 3:And that could look like meditation. It could look like being in a calm, cool, dark room for a while. It could mean listening to calming music or all the other nervous system regulation tools that there are out there. There's a whole bunch of them, you know, deep breathing, all this stuff and purposefully bringing that back down and not doing the things that are going to add to it, right? So if I'm already feeling like it's kind of ramping up, I'm not going to go, I'm going to turn that light off as soon as we're done. You know what I mean. Like I'm not just going to sit here and work under the bright lights if I know I'm already. My pressure is already increasing.
Speaker 2:Okay Now you mentioned a few times a fibro flare. Yes, can you explain that a little bit?
Speaker 3:Yeah. So the simplest explanation is just it's a worsening of your symptoms. So if on a normal day-to-day basis maybe, your fatigue is at a six and your pain is at a seven, all of a sudden your pain and your fatigue is like at an eight or nine, that's a flare. So it's just symptoms, worse than they are, and that could be being more tired than usual, that could be higher pain levels than usual, it could be worse sleep than usual, it could be more brain fog. It could look like a lot of things, but it's just simply your symptoms being worse than your normal baseline. Gotcha, Okay, wow.
Speaker 2:It's a lot. It's a lot.
Speaker 3:And you know we've been sitting here talking now almost an hour and just to use that as an example. Of course we've talked about other things besides fibromyalgia, but the most I ever really hear about doctors being taught in medical school is maybe a one-hour class, and you can tell just in the amount of time we've been talking how that is nowhere near enough no, I still have so many questions like and and that's mind-blowing to me an hour class of like in medical school, like, oh my god to and and to compare that our certified fibromyalgia coaches when they graduate.
Speaker 3:They have over 300 hours of fibromyalgia training and experience when they graduate. So it's like so much more than most of the doctors out there will have, and we cannot replace your doctor. I want to be super, super clear on that we cannot replace your doctor, but we can fill in the holes with what they don't know and haven't been taught. It's not your doctor's fault. No, that's true, yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, that's true. They didn't invent medical school. They just went to it. Yep, went to it, Yep. Oh gosh, Now I want to. I want to transition a tad. You mentioned something in the book and I love the term that you used for this. This is probably the official term, but in in my sassy days I've told my mom that she forgets everything. But you used the term brain fog. And do they know why this is such a thing in fibromyalgia?
Speaker 3:Yeah, so when I'm teaching class on this, there's a lot of things, I think, that go into that. So there are the physiologic things that are going on in our bodies, but also things like pain. Pain is exhausting, right. If even pain that is at a low level so think about a low level of noise, right, like maybe the neighbor is running their leaf blower. If it goes on too long it starts to hurt, right? You start to get tired, you start to not be able to think as well. All of that Pain is like that.
Speaker 3:Not getting good sleep will affect your cognitive function. More accidents, traffic accidents, things like that happening the day after daylight savings time. So we turn our clock back here on Sunday as we record this, in a couple days we're turning the clock back there will be more accidents the very next day because people are getting less sleep. So, again, fibromyalgia, you're not getting good sleep. So that's part of the problem in good sleep. So that's part of the problem.
Speaker 3:There's just so many factors that like compound to make it worse. And I think brain fog is something that you can see that in a lot of other conditions Diabetes, we've talked about a bunch, you know that can cause brain fog. There's a lot of things that cause brain fog, but the thing with fibromyalgia is that it's an amplifier. It takes whatever you're experiencing and cranks the volume up. So, whether that's your brain fog or your fatigue or your pain levels, it's just going to turn it up and that's part of this nervous system issue, right. The other thing, speaking of nervous system, right, amygdala hijack. When you are in a stressful situation, your body is flooded with cortisol. Literally, your thinking brain goes offline, and so it happens with fibromyalgia as well. So we've got to like calm down that nervous system. We've got to start getting better sleep. There's nutritional support, all kinds of other things.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and this right here is what makes fibromyalgia so hard to treat, because we don't have the answers to, like, the actual disease mechanism, like the root of all of this. We can't treat the root. We're just trying to treat all these things that are out here on the peripheral, and every person has different things. Maybe you're getting halfway decent sleep, but have really high pain levels. Maybe you have low pain levels but terrible, terrible sleep. Like we're going to approach all of these differently and it can be hard for even if even for the doctors who know what's going on? It can be hard to figure out each individual patient.
Speaker 2:No, that that makes sense. You mentioned even in the book that like it's different patient to patient Yep. You mentioned even in the book that it's different patient to patient Yep. Is there any tips or suggestions for the brain fog?
Speaker 3:Oh, there's lots. Okay, if I could sum it all up, I would say that the biggest tip for managing brain fog, whether you have fibromyalgia or something else, is to set up your life in such a way so that it doesn't matter. So that is things like using a to-do list, setting alarms, using your GPS, even if you're going somewhere you've been before, because then it doesn't matter if you're foggy or not. You've got all these external tools that are helping you remember. Things like creating habits so that you can run that habit like a computer program you don't even have to think about. Things like putting your keys in the same place whenever you come home. You can't lose them because they're always in the same place, right, doing things the same way every time, building those routines, those, like I said, habits, those can really really help with brain fog on a just a like, a practical level.
Speaker 3:That said, there are also things that we can do to improve how your brain functions. Things like making sure you're getting good oxygen to your brain, which often will mean moving a bit more, which is something that's tough for fibro people, but it doesn't even have to be a lot. You can walk around your coffee table for 60 seconds and that will help get the blood flowing to your brain. You can do deep breathing exercises, which will increase the oxygen level in your blood, getting more oxygen to your brain. There's supplements that can help with brain function. Fat and protein are two big things that can help with brain fog.
Speaker 3:There's a lot out there. There's a whole chapter in my book, but yeah, there's a lot of things and again, it kind of depends on the individual person, right? If you were coming to me as a client and you were getting really terrible sleep, I would actually start with sleep, because if you're not getting good sleep, of course your brain isn't going to work. Well, if you are getting good sleep, I'm going to start somewhere else. Right? So it is pretty individualized, but those are some sort of general tips.
Speaker 2:Water is good, like the removing the friction so that you don't have to like any issues, the alarm, the GPS. That makes a lot of sense. Like it seems basic, but just so you don't have to worry about, even if you forget mid-drive. Know that that makes a lot of sense.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and I think this goes back to what we were saying at the beginning about being in denial about it. I think as soon as we are able to say I have fibromyalgia, I'm living with fibromyalgia and I need to live my life accordingly, then that kind of gives us permission to utilize maybe some of these tools that, if we're trying to be a normal person, we think we don't need Right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, now, you've mentioned a few times how it's an amplifier. Is there a way to make it not amplify things?
Speaker 3:part of when I say my fibromyalgia is in remission, that does mean I haven't felt any fibropain or any fatigue since I don't know 2018, I think. But also sometimes I'll have clients where they are still going to have pain, like maybe they've got a bad back, they were in a car accident, they've got degenerative disc disease, they've got fused vertebrae, whatever it is right, they're going to have some pain and may never get to a point where they're 100% pain-free. But we still can get fibromyalgia into remission. And that's that amplification part of things there's a lot of.
Speaker 3:There isn't just a simple answer to that. It means things like improving your sleep, getting good sleep. It means learning how to live within your energy budget right. So pacing is what people call this. It also means correcting any of the other things that are going wrong in your body, so like sleep apnea. If you have sleep apnea, thyroid issues, adrenal issues, nutritional deficiencies all of these kinds of things will also need to be addressed. Changing how you talk to yourself, how you treat yourself, like All of these things are factors that we can use to bring our nervous systems down, to help heal the things that are going wrong and start to approach life in a fibro-friendly way that can help put our fibromyalgia in remission, whether or not you have other chronic pain, and that's turning down that amplifier. There are some medications that can be helpful with that. There's supplements that can be helpful with that. There's, you know, therapies and just things you can do on your own. There's lots of ways to go about it, but that's the goal there. It, but that's the goal there.
Speaker 2:Wow, that's amazing. Okay, so that's how it's in remission because it's not amplified.
Speaker 3:Yes, yes, and when I'm talking to somebody who does not have that amplification part of things, that's where I kind of wonder if it's really fibromyalgia or if it's something else that maybe just hasn't been uncovered yet, because that amplification is something that is kind of unique to fibromyalgia. Lots of things have pain, fatigue, brain fog, bad sleep, but they don't usually have this amplification. So a good example is maybe you've got arthritis in your knee or, like I said, that somebody who's maybe been in a car accident has a bad back. There is a certain amount of pain that comes with that, but that pain is localized just in your back, just in your knee, just, you know, in the joint with arthritis, but with fibromyalgia that spreads, joint with arthritis, but with fibromyalgia that spreads, everything now hurts and it hurts worse than maybe if you were to look on an x-ray, you might say it shouldn't hurt this bad, but the fibromyalgia has turned it up.
Speaker 2:Okay, you gave an example of like stubbing your toe, yes, and like the whole body is like lights up like a Christmas tree, right?
Speaker 3:Exactly. There's a term that they use in technology called explosive synchronization, excuse me. So explosive synchronization is the those two words explosive things are happening all of a sudden and synchronization they're happening together and it is really a good term, a good model to use for explaining what happens with fibromyalgia pain. So a normal person might stub their toe, their toe hurts. A little while later their toe doesn't hurt anymore and we're back to normal. Somebody with fibromyalgia stubs their toe. We have this explosive synchronization where now everything hurts everywhere and we might even be in a fibro flare and have this increased amount of symptoms for days, weeks.
Speaker 3:Problem and not just like. It's not in the bones, it's not just in the muscles, it's not. You know, there's something going on with literally how we process pain, and there have been functional MRIs that show different areas of the brain lighting up when someone with fibromyalgia experiences pain. We have a heightened pain response. There's inflammation in the brain that you would not see in somebody who doesn't have fibromyalgia. So there's definitely something going on there, but we haven't figured it all out yet.
Speaker 2:Now I get it.
Speaker 3:Wow, that's unfortunate, though that it more isn't, is it known, but you know you mentioned you didn't mention in the book that we've discovered like more stuff since your first edition oh, yes, there, there is still research being done, we are still learning things, but most, if you think about it, most of the money comes from treatments, which the fastest way to a treatment is does this help? Does this help? How does this help? Right, we're trying things and then studying how they work. The longer path to a treatment is figuring out that disease state there's, there's, there's no, like, if I figure out what is actually happening with fibromyalgia, I've got to figure that out first and then I can start to figure out treatment options. That's where the money is right. Instead, you know, people are oh, okay, so there's inflammation in the brain. What are medications that might help with inflammation? What are other things that might help with inflammation? Okay, let's try that, and we still never get down to the root of it all. Oh, gosh.
Speaker 3:That said, I mean I mentioned my fibromyalgia is in remission. I can do that without knowing the root cause. Yes, we need the root cause, eventually, eventually. But that doesn't mean that if you're listening to this and you have fibromyalgia, there's no hope for you. We can absolutely find ways to help you feel better, little bit by little bit, until we get you there. But ultimately we are going to be playing catch up with stuff until that research is done, and it's just not going to be efficient until that research is done. And it's just not going to be efficient until that research is done.
Speaker 2:Now I gotcha. Oh gosh, Wow Well, thank you so much, Tammy. This was amazing. I loved, loved, loved, loved getting to speak with you about all of this.
Speaker 3:Oh, my pleasure, my pleasure. I love talking about this stuff and, as I mentioned earlier, we've got lots of resources out there. So if you're listening to this and you've got fibromyalgia, please go check out fibromyalgiapodcastcom or look it up. We've got there's books, there's our fibromyalgia wellness style quiz. There's all kinds of stuff out there that you can utilize on your own to get started and, of course, if you want one-on-one help, that's available as well.
Speaker 2:Now this wellness, the wellness style quiz. I'm so intrigued Like what? What type of quiz is this? What type of quiz is this? What is it going?
Speaker 3:to tell people yes, so this is based on your personality. So we used something called the five-factor model of personality, two of the five factors we used to create this wellness style quiz, and it's the two factors that are most tied to health outcomes, and they are conscientiousness, which is just what you think it is right, like doing what your doctor told you to do, and following through and doing all of the things, your level of conscientiousness, and then the other one I wish they'd call it something else, but it's called neuroticism, and it's basically how driven you are by fear. And they have found an association with both of those and health outcomes. And if you think about it, it makes sense, right? Conscientiousness, if you go to physical therapy or rehabbing your knee, if you're the kind of person who is going to do all the things your physical therapist tells you to do, you're going to have a better health outcome than if you don't. And that's what conscientiousness measures. The same thing with neuroticism. It makes sense because the more stressed you are, the more motivated you are by fear. I mean, it just stressed us so many unhappy things in our bodies, right? Low levels of stress, low levels of neuroticism. People tend to be calmer, happier.
Speaker 3:The other thing about it is that a lot of times, people who have high levels of neuroticism will wait because they're afraid of the answers that they're going to get. So when you start experiencing something, instead of going to the doctor right away, you wait because you're afraid you're going to be told you have a brain tumor. Instead of just you have migraines and here's some medication, right? So, mapping those two things together, we came up with four different fibromyalgia wellness styles. We have the playmaker, which is me. It's all about fun. We have no problem doing the things that are fun or interesting, but we have a really hard time doing the things that are not fun or interesting.
Speaker 3:There is the prevailer, which is just like it sounds. It's the person who is going to easily keep doing the things that they need to do. The downside for the prevailer is they oftentimes don't know when to stop doing things because they just they prevail. They just keep going Right, and it's hard for them sometimes to stop and reevaluate Is this working or not, or am I just doing it to do it Right? We have the perfectionist Exactly what you think it is, and the perfectionist, again, is really great about doing all the things they need to do, except they want to do them perfectly. And so, with our perfectionists, a lot of what we need to do is help them learn how to. Maybe you can't do everything at a hundred percent, maybe you can do everything at like, 80%, or maybe you can do one or two things at a hundred percent, but you know adjusting those expectations.
Speaker 3:And then we have our ponderers, which are the people that I was mentioning earlier, that that it just takes longer for them to sometimes make a decision. There's good I'm married to a ponderer. There's good in the ponderers too. They are our early warning lights, right? Like he balances out my playmaker, I'm, you know, happy-go-lucky when sometimes I should be worried about things, and so he balances that out. So our fibromyalgia wellness style quiz you take the little quiz, it gives you your answer, and if you sign up for the advanced profile, I actually send you like five emails I think it is with tips on how to better manage your fibromyalgia based on your wellness style, because we all need to approach things just a little bit different based on who we are. Right, I love that.
Speaker 2:No it's so true. You know what? No matter what it is, we're all individual beings, absolutely.
Speaker 3:Absolutely. There's different things happening in our bodies and there's different things happening in our brains. You know, for me as a playmaker, if you want me to do all the things, I have to figure out how to make it fun or interesting, so that could look like gold stars on a chart or that could look like I can only watch my favorite TV show when I'm walking on the treadmill, you know. So there's those kinds of things, and the way that a coach can help a person is also dependent on their wellness style. A perfectionist does not need help with accountability. They're going to do all the things anyway. They more often need help not doing things. All the things anyway. They more often need help not doing things. So if you want to take the quiz, it's just fibroquizcom and you can get your fibromyalgia wellness stuff.
Speaker 2:Awesome, and I will put that link in the show notes as well. Now question have you heard of a man named Jay Shetty? Yes, I have. So he's got a podcast called On Purpose and he ends his podcast with two segments and I stole them and started incorporating it into mine. I love it. The first segment is the many sides to us. There's five questions and they need to be answered in one word each. Okay, what is one word someone who was meeting you for the first time would use to describe you as Happy?
Speaker 3:What is one word that someone who knows you extremely well, would use to describe you as Probably the same word happy. What is one word you'd use to describe yourself? Just so I'm not saying the same word every time I'm actually going to say analytic?
Speaker 2:Okay, what is one word that, if someone didn't like you or agree with your mindset, would you use to describe you as bossy? You knew that quickly. You knew that so quick? Yep, what is one word you're trying to embody right now? Intuition.
Speaker 3:What is one word you're trying to embody right now?
Speaker 2:Intuition. The second segment is the final five, and these can be answered in up to a sentence what is the best advice you've heard or received Any advice, all advice, yep.
Speaker 3:If you know who you are, you'll know what to do. Why is that the best advice? Because I think it really is the answer. I mean, there's so many things you could do, right, whether you're talking about, like what my career should be, or even just like an individual decision, but if you know who you are like at your core, what your beliefs are, your purposes, your personality like we were just talking about the fibromyalgia wellness style If you know who you are, you'll know what to do.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 3:What is the worst advice you've heard or received? World, I kind of M1, but it kind of goes back to my first answer, right, like just doing what somebody else has done just because it worked for them doesn't mean it's going to work for you. Why is that the worst? Because I think it keeps us from finding out our own way, right? I see so many people, whether it's with their fibromyalgia or, more often, even in their businesses, doing other people's best practices and it's so totally at odds with who they are and what they should be doing and it's never going to work for them. But this is what so-and-so says you should do, right, yeah?
Speaker 2:What is something that you used to value that you no longer value?
Speaker 3:That is a good question. I'm not sure I have an exact word for it, but when I was young and in my 20s, I put a lot of weight on who I was in terms of what I was doing. And now I think my emphasis is more on the change that I make in other people's lives and less on my actual actions, if that makes sense. Okay, so like when I was younger, you know, customer service manager, like the title, the position, the whatever, and now it's more about like I see my value in the results I get from my clients.
Speaker 2:Okay, no, that makes sense. If you could describe what you would want your legacy to be, as if someone was reading it, what would you want it to?
Speaker 3:say I want to change what happens when somebody is diagnosed with fibromyalgia. Instead of being told that there's not much we can do, you have to get used to your new life I want people to be told here's what we do. You can get better. I want coaching to be more of a mainstream part of people's treatment options and I want there to be a coach for everyone who wants one. Not just number of coaches, but a coach who understands your language, your culture, your life situation. There we we need so many more coaches because there are so many languages I don't speak. There are so many countries I don't live in, cultures that are different. You know transgender, lgbtq, you know black colored like they're men, right, we need so many more coaches and, at the end of the day, if somebody can look at what I've accomplished and it's made a dent in that, it was worth it.
Speaker 2:I love that. If you could create one law in the world that everyone had to follow, what would it be? And I want to know why.
Speaker 3:Oh, my goodness, one law that everybody had to follow. He had to follow. Well, some things, I think, are hard to legislate. Like it would be easy to say something like you know, doctors have fibromyalgia education, but like laws don't really control that. I think it would be great if basic things like health care were not dependent upon having the right insurance and living in the right country and you know all of the things. That said, I have lots of clients who live in countries like Canada, uk, where there is universal health care, and they actually have a harder time getting the help they need than we do here in the US. So I don't think that system necessarily works either.
Speaker 3:What I would like to see is like a base level of health care that covers like people shouldn't have to say, oh, I'm not going to go to the doctor because I can't afford it, because this leg is broken. I mean like there should be a basic level of being that you get taken care of because you're a human being. There also needs to be some freedom for people to be able to take care of themselves the way that they want to take care of themselves. Right, we need to have more options, not just medications but supplements, alternative therapies, all of these things, and I don't know what that law would look like. Therapies, all of these things, and I don't know what that law would look like. But if I could change one thing and fix it, that's the thing that I think we need to have fixed.
Speaker 3:I like that answer a lot. Our health care system is so broken, and not just here in the US, but in lots and lots of places it's broken. I don't think anybody's found a perfect answer yet, but it's definitely something that needs to be fixed. You know the as we progress, as human beings.
Speaker 2:You know, with all the technology and everything else that we have, I feel like our health care should be better than it is. You know, yeah, no, definitely Like, even like you mentioned not going to the doctor for something because you can't afford it. I know so many people in my life who have experienced that at least once. You know, probably more than once Like, and that's crazy, that's, it's just insane to me. I could talk to you for a whole nother hour about. We sure could. But I really, really appreciate you speaking with me and I will link the podcast, I will link the book and the quiz and everything in the show notes, but before we close out, I do like to always give it back to the guest Any final words of wisdom you want to share, absolutely.
Speaker 3:So if you have fibromyalgia, or you know somebody who has fibromyalgia, if you could leave today with one thought, it is that feeling better is possible. There is so much that can be done to improve fibromyalgia, and I see it every single day. I'm not a unicorn. We've got several unicorns. You can be a unicorn too. There are so many things that can be done, and so if you are feeling frustrated, lost, hopeless, if your doctor isn't giving you answers, then it's time for you to go find them. It might mean that you have to be more proactive, maybe, than you have been. Maybe you need to educate yourself a whole lot more, but there is so much out there, and feeling better is absolutely possible.
Speaker 2:I love that. I love that. Well, thank you so so much, tammy. I really appreciate this. Oh, you're so welcome, and thank you guys for tuning in to another episode of Mander's Mindset. If you enjoyed the show, I'd really appreciate it if you left a rating, left a review and share this episode with anyone you think would benefit from hearing it and learning more about fibromyalgia. Thanks guys, until next time. Hi guys, thank you so much for tuning in to another episode of Mander's Mindset. I hope you enjoyed and were able to take away as much knowledge and insight as I was. Tammy is such a wonderful woman with so much insight on fibromyalgia and on the world and on coaching in general.
Speaker 2:Tammy emphasized and mentioned how fibromyalgia is an amplifier. As Tammy shared, it takes everyday discomfort and enhances it, turning minor pain or overstimulation into full body flares. If you have fibromyalgia, it's not in your head and it's not laziness. It's real, physical and often invisible Brain. Next, tammy and I talked about brain fog, and brain fog is more than just forgetfulness and it might not just be something you experience if you have fibromyalgia. Tammy explained how it can stem from poor sleep, stress, pain, inflammation or other chronic conditions, whether it's fibromyalgia, burnout, hormonal imbalance or something else. If your mind feels foggy, it's a sign to pause, to pay attention and to do what you can to support your nervous system, even in small ways, whether that be setting it alone using your GPS. Even if you're going somewhere you've been a bunch of times Acceptance isn't giving up. Tammy said this clearly. Clearly, denial keeps you stuck. The toning point comes when you stop pretending that your body is fine and start loading how to work with it and not against it. And if you're listening to me, and even if you don't have fibromyalgia, if you have any sort of pain, working with your body is key.
Speaker 2:Next, tammy emphasized how you have to become your own expert. The doctors might not know what's going on, especially if it's fibromyalgia, because they weren't taught that in medical school. If something feels off in your body, trust yourself, ask questions, keep digging, do your own research. You do not need to wait for permission to start healing. Tammy also emphasized that support is essential, but healing takes more. Tammy broke down the difference between support groups and coaching, the difference between support groups and coaching. One helps you feel understood and coaching helps you get better. And yes, coaching for chronic illness exists and it can change everything Tammy also emphasized.
Speaker 2:Tammy's journey is also proof that remission and relief are possible. Whether it's fibromyalgia or another chronic illness that you are struggling with. Your current symptoms do not have to be forever. Little changes, stacked consistently, can shift your baseline and give you your life back, one intentional choice at a time. Thank you, guys, for tuning in to another episode of Mander's Mindset. I'd really appreciate it if you left me a rating, left a review and shared this episode with anyone you think needs to hear it. Share this episode with someone you know that is struggling with some sort of chronic pain.
Speaker 4:It might just help them shift that pain a little bit. Thanks guys, until next time. Thanks guys, until next time. A five-star rating, leave a review and share it with anyone you think would benefit from this. And don't forget you are only one mindset. Shift away from shifting your life. Thanks guys, until next time.
