Don't Quit on Me

Welcome to Don’t Quit on Me - the podcast series where we consider alternative ways to manage the inevitability of stress and pain. Through speaking with a wide range of people who share their stories, strategies, and perspectives we aim to inspire hope, confidence, and belief in the fact that things can get better, no matter where you are.

Venerable Robina Courtin - The Boundless Potential of the Human Heart 05/24/2024

Venerable Robina Courtin - The Boundless Potential of the Human Heart The Transformative Journey of Venerable Robina Courtin: Insights from "Don't Quit On Me" Podcast The latest episode of "Don't Quit On Me," is an an extraordinary conversation with Venerable Robina Courtin, a Buddhist nun whose life epitomizes the boundless potential of the human heart. Her journey from a rebellious youth in Melbourne, Australia, to becoming a beacon of wisdom and compassion in the Tibetan Gelugpa tradition is nothing short of inspirational. **A Beacon of Compassion and Wisdom** Born into a conventional background, Robina's early life was characterized by a relentless quest for truth and freedom. This journey took her from contemplating a life as a Carmelite nun through the pathways of feminist activism and prisoners' rights to eventually studying martial arts. However, it was the teachings of Tibetan Buddhism, discovered somewhat serendipitously, that resonated with her spirit of service and justice, marking the beginning of a profound transformation. Since her ordination in the late 1970s, Venerable Robina has dedicated her life to teaching and working tirelessly for the Foundation for Preservation of the Mahayana Tradition. Her editorial work and her leadership at the Liberation Prison Project have left an indelible mark on the spread of Buddhist teachings in the West. **The Path to Enlightenment through Adversity** Throughout the podcast, Robina shares her engaging life story, highlighting her transition from a "radical lesbian separatist feminist" to a devoted Buddhist nun. What stands out is her emphasis on using adversity as a path for enlightenment. Robina candidly speaks about her past, filled with exploration and rebellion, tracing her steps towards a life dedicated to the Dharma. Her journey is a testament to the transformative power of Buddhist practice, proving that enlightenment is accessible to all, regardless of their past. Robina's approachable teaching style continues to inspire students around the globe, embodying the essence of turning suffering into a path for spiritual awakening. **Meditation, Compassion, and the Power of Mind** The conversation around the importance of meditation, dealing with 'crazy energy', and understanding the nature of self. Robina eloquently describes the process of becoming aware of one’s inherent 'crazy energy', learning to control one’s behavior, and eventually harnessing this energy for productive actions. The conversation delves into the concepts of self-hatred and self-cherishing and explores how these seemingly contradictory feelings coexist within us. Robina draws from Buddhism's vast well of knowledge to explain these phenomena, highlighting the Buddha's teachings as a practical guide for transforming our minds. **In Practice: A Lesson from Prison** Perhaps the most moving part of the discussion is Robina's recount of Sunny Jacobs, author of "Stolen Time", a woman wrongly placed on death row, who embodies the principles of Buddhism by mastering the art of controlling her mind under dire circumstances. Sunny’s story serves as a powerful illustration of the human capacity for resilience and transformation through the practice of mindfulness and compassion, even in the most challenging situations. Robina's reflections on the importance of compassion, both for oneself and others, and the practice of meditation offer deep insights into the path to liberation. Her life and teachings serve as a vivid reminder that the journey towards enlightenment is within reach for everyone, requiring only the willingness to embrace change and the dedication to pursue truth. **Conclusion** Venerable Robina appearance on "Don't Quit On Me" podcast offers a profound look into the life of a woman who has transformed her every trial into a step towards enlightenment. Her narrative is not just a story of personal triumph but a beacon of hope for anyone seeking to find peace, understanding, and compassion in their lives. Through her experiences, we learn that with mindfulness and determination, the path to spiritual awakening is a journey that all of us can undertake. /episode/index/show/cb7ca6e9-5515-4037-9e8d-12d394520589/id/31460322

Nick Propper Rest and Recovery the Keys for Long Term Success 04/05/2024

Mark McConville- Humour and Laughter as Protective Factors for Mental Health 02/23/2024

Mark McConville- Humour and Laughter as Protective Factors for Mental Health Mark McConville is a seasoned comedian and a respected lecturer in Suicidology. With over two decades of experience in the entertainment industry, he has become one of Australia’s most reliable and professional comedians. Mark’s academic journey in mental health is equally impressive; he graduated from Griffith University with a Master’s Degree in Suicidology and received the Griffith Award for Academic Excellence in 2016. His work now bridges the gap between laughter and serious discussions about mental health, emphasizing the power of humor in suicide prevention. As an Adjunct Lecturer at The Australian Institute for Suicide Research and Prevention, Mark continues to enlighten and engage audiences with his unique blend of comedy and compassion. Mental Health Resources 13 11 14 B 1300 22 46 36 - for online chat (3pm-12am AEST) or email responses within 24 hours 1300 78 99 78 1800 55 1800 13 92 76 - 24/7 for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people 1800 18 7263 1800 650 890 1300 224 636 1800 011 046 (perinatal anxiety and depression) 1300 726 306 (eating disorders) (07) 3844 6055 (eating disorders) 1800 334673 (LGBTI) 1800 184 527 1300 845 745 (support through peer groups) 1800 558 268 1300 659 467 24-hour national telephone counselling and online service for people 18 years and over 1800 55 1800 Free confidential 24-hour telephone and online counselling for young people aged 5 to 25 years 1300 22 4636 24-hour telephone support and online chat service with links to local services Online counselling for young people 12 to 25 years Website aggregates mental health resources and content from the leading health Blue Knot Helpline and Redress Support Service Supporting adult survivors of childhood trauma and adult survivors of institutional child sexual abuse around the National Redress Scheme Call 1300 657 380 [email protected] 1800 Respect Support if you, or someone you know, is experiencing sexual assault or domestic and family violence. 1800 737 732 available 24/7 - /episode/index/show/cb7ca6e9-5515-4037-9e8d-12d394520589/id/30085783

Maggie O'Shea - Is Self Compassion The Antidote To Burnout 01/23/2024

Amber Lea Starfire - How Journaling Can Help To Relieve Stress 12/25/2023

Dr Rick Hanson - Compassion - Good Medicine For Difficult Times 12/02/2023

When The Pain Sets In - The Role of Meditation in Chronic Pain 10/29/2023

When The Pain Sets In - The Role of Meditation in Chronic Pain “ … it's really fascinating actually like the human, at the biological level at the psychological level, we are built to tolerate pain, and we're built to grow stronger from enduring difficulty, we're actually made for it. That's like how it works. Joy matters too - don't get me wrong, you know, but the difficult stuff is always there. So, we might as well get good at utilizing that end of the spectrum as well.” Ralph De La Rosa Music with kind permission from Krishna Das Gathering in the light-Om-Narayani. Krishna Das. What is this and why read or listen? What follows is an exploration of my journey of living with chronic pain and accompanying mental health challenges. I now understand, the experience of mental ill health has contributed to the degree and severity with which I have felt this pain. I started collating my thoughts around the idea of exploring chronic physical pain, and how meditation might help as an intervention to assist people living with these conditions, to experience less suffering. As we will discuss in a bit, pain, whether is physical, emotional, or social, is experienced in similar parts of the brain. So is you know someone who experiences any of these challenges, there may be something in here that might help. So primarily, we will look at how using a meditative practice might help to reduce suffering, reclaim access to moments of joy and openness and foster the ability to be able to pursue a life worth living, in the presence of pain. Someone once sent me a post on social media with a picture and a quote saying “Life is not about waiting for the storm to pass. It’s about learning to dance in the rain.” I was near vomiting with a migraine at the time, so there was no dancing to be done and the message was not received with the love it was sent with. I think it's important to mention that there is no part of my life that living with chronic pain has not affected. I remember sitting in a psychologist’s office on the North Side of Brisbane, and I was quiet for quite a while, trying to curate the thoughts so that I could adequately relay how desperate I felt, but not so much so that I have a short involuntary time in hospital. The words that came out of my mouth spoke to the total sense of loss that I felt as a result of living with chronic pain and the ‘things’ that I was not able to do or participate in as a result – “Am I even lovable?” I choked out, in tears. I am not sure what my psychologist answered. In mental health circles they often talk about the biopsychosocial contributors to understanding mental ill health, and that a clear understanding of these can be the bedrock to solid recovery. It's fair to say and not at all dramatic to say that living with chronic pain for the last 14 years has nearly cost me my life, my marriage, and my grip on sanity. So, the fact that I am writing this, and that this episode is being produced is testament to the fact that recovery is definitely possible. Recovery as I've come to understand it is a concept which is defined by each person as to how they might like to live despite the challenges they face, be they mental health, chronic physical health or other challenge. Having a living experience of chronic and persistent pain, has also come with many gifts. This is one of the reasons for this episode - I would like to be able to pass these gifts forward so that hopefully, wherever you are on your journey, whether it's living with chronic pain, mental health or other challenge, that you may find a point of resonance here and maybe a tool that you can add to your toolkit. The second reason is that this forms part of an assessment for an advanced diploma in meditation. Having skin in the game as it were, I feel like I may have a bit of an advantage, by way of lived experience. However this works meets you, may you be well, play be happy may you be safe and may you live at ease of heart with whatever comes to you in life. “What counts in battle is what you do when the pain sets in.” John Short The quote above comes from a book that I read about 14 years ago from Dean Karnases called Ultra Marathon Man. In the book Dean talks about nearing the end of one of the ultra marathons, that he ran, with several injuries and nothing left in the tank. Dean’s dad offers some advice and empathy, but as he's about to walk away he says “what counts in battle is what you do when the pain sets in”. This has become somewhat of a guidepost for me, as I explored the terrain chronic physical and emotional pain. Towards the end, I will include a selection of resources and links. In hosting the Don’t Quit on Me podcast, I have spoken with a variety of subject matter experts, in an effort to understand ways to navigate intense stress and pain, in the most intelligently, i.e with the least amount of suffering possible. A key point from the show comes to mind, talked about by Dr Dan Harvey and Insight Meditation teacher Sebene Selassie, about the experience of emotional, social pain and physical pain being processed in similar parts of the brain. In my very limited understanding, this means that tools that help to reduce suffering for physical pain, may also be useful for the experience of social and emotional pain. Skin in the Game “It is indeed a radical act of love just to sit down and be quiet for a time by yourself”. Jon Kabat-Zinn It’s just after 4am and the birds are starting to sing. First one … then another… during the dawn chorus their songs seem louder, livelier and more urgent than during the day. Maybe they seize this space to sing, before the noise of the day can interrupt their beautiful, melodic songs that call each day in to being. I am awake at this time most mornings. This morning a sequence of experiences; a conjoined blur - pain from a decent tension headache that has been hanging around for days, coupled with pain from fibromyalgia, panic and it’s cousin a dense cognitive fog – the residue of a nightmare – I still sense, something dark, very close, too close to see, temporarily I can’t move. As consciousness returns, and with-it, limited movement, I go through the morning ritual, an attempt to ease the pain and fog, and see how much I am able to function and extract from the day. Off to the loo, two bottles of water and then into a portable infrared sauna, to warm up the heaviness living in the muscles and connective tissue, and with any luck subdue the constant companion. Infrared Sauna is also starting to be looked at as a tool for living with chronic pain conditions. (Tsagkaris et al., 2022) I have a living experience with chronic migraines, tension headaches and fibromyalgia, something that has been around for roughly the last 14 years. Each day is a balancing act between the pain, the anxiety caused by the pain, my energy levels, and as I am beginning to understand and will touch on later, any sense of imminent danger that I may perceive. Each day, an attempt to balance accomplishment without overtaxing a system in survival mode, so much that I pay for it for the coming days. There are a couple of reasons why the pain may have become such a permanent fixture in my life, and I'll explore them briefly, but one thing I have noticed, is that focusing on why is nowhere near as helpful as what now. If I look back for a point of origin with the physical pain several things happened around the time it started; my mom's passed away, I also trained for a marathon, before which I came down with a respiratory virus. Post race I had blood work done which showed Ross River virus and another virus had been present in my system but were not currently active. I am also a survivor childhood trauma which in and of itself heightens someone's baseline perception of threat and as we'll explore can accentuate and amplify the body's attempt to report pain signals. There is also a strong correlation between trauma survivors and chronic pain sufferers (Asmundson, PTSD and the experience of pain: Research and clinical implications of shared vulnerability and mutual maintenance models). In 1994 Dr Paul brand wrote the book Pain the Gift That Nobody Wants, describing his work with leprosy patients in India, and the essential role that pain has in keeping us safe. Without , he argues, we would be exposed to an unacceptable level of danger, leaving us devoid of mechanisms to warn us of impending threat. If I think about my own experience, this is certainly a truism - pain by its very nature, and the way we experience it, is deeply unpleasant, very real, and is designed to get our attention and cause us to recoil. It is a message for us to act, to protect ourselves from the perceived threat. What happens through, when these signals fall out of calibration, when they report pain too loudly or for too long - when there is no longer a present threat that requires us to act, or the message we are receiving is disproportionate to the threat? This is something I have sat with and worked through for many years, leading to this exploration of how the practice of meditation may be helpful to those, like me, who live with chronic pain. As I said earlier, through hosting the Don’t Quit on Me podcast I have had the opportunity to ask many people for their insights about the nature of pain, and why creating mental space around the experience of pain can reduce suffering. I have also looked at the links between how we experience physical pain and emotional pain, and how they are felt in similar parts of the brain. Can meditation really help with pain? An article published in May 2023 on Healthline.com, looked at exactly this, Meditation for Chronic Pain Management and, spoiler alert, they found, amongst other things, the following three key points: “A of meditation, mindfulness, and the brain suggested that in the long term, meditation can change the structure of your brain. The resulting change in cortical thickness in some brain areas makes you less pain-sensitive. The neural mechanisms meditation uses to modify pain are different from those used by other techniques. For example, a determined that meditation promoted cognitive disengagement and an increased sensory processing of the actual pain. Meditation also induces the body’s own opioid system. A very small, randomized, double-blind used the opioid blocker or a placebo and studied pain reduction with meditation. The group with the placebo experienced significantly less pain than the group that had the opioid blocker. Research is ongoing to look at the exact physiological mechanisms involved with meditation.” (Hecht, 2020) That Sounds Painful What is Pain? Dr Dan Harvey is a Lecturer in Musculoskeletal Physiotherapy and a pain scientist at the University of South Australia. Along with Dr Lorimer Moseley, Dan is an author of the book 'Pain and The Nature of Perception: A New Way to Look at Pain' which uses visual illusions to describe features of perception that are relevant to understanding and treating pain. Dan holds a Masters of Musculoskeletal and Sports Physiotherapy, a chronic pain focussed PhD, and serves on the education committees for the Australian Pain Society and Pain Revolution. Below is and excerpt from my interview with Dan (Coriat, Dr Daniel Harvey - The path through pain 2022): I asked Dan about his preferred definition for pain. Dan said “ the official definition from the international association for the study of pain, “Pain is an unpleasant, sensory and emotional experience associated with actual or potential tissue damage.”” He went on to say: “... I prefer a simpler definition, which is just something that's unpleasant that has a location to it. The location part is what distinguishes pain from other unpleasant experiences. I guess anxiety for example is very unpleasant, but you can't point to it. You know, you could simplify my definition even further … It's (pain) something unpleasant you can point to. Because it's certainly unpleasant, but it's unique from other unpleasant experiences, in that it actually has a location, usually in the body, but obviously the exception to that is something like phantom limb pain. You can still point to the pain, but you are effectively pointing in mid air. Because you're experiencing it in a location of the body which no longer exists.” The Mental and Psychological Experience of Pain I asked Dan about the similarities between psychological and physical pain. “There's a lot of overlap. … one of the early discoveries when we started using imaging techniques to see what was happening in the brain of people in pain, was that we discovered that there is no one pain area, but rather it's many different areas that seem to be active. And there's something about that combination of brain areas that gives rise to the experience. Many of those areas that are active overlap with areas associated with anxiety and fear and other unpleasant experiences. And I guess that's one reason why we might see a higher prevalence of persistent pain problems in people who tend to be higher in trait, anxiety and depression, and maybe even have clinical levels of anxiety and depression. We think there's some sense in which brain areas that are active, and resulting in anxiety, facilitate the networks associated with pain and sort of have this facilitating effect. On this point, when I spoke with much loved Insight Meditation teacher Sebene Selassie, I asked her the following question (Coriat, Dr Daniel Harvey - The path through pain 2022): Nick: “I've heard you say in an interview. You were talking about the pain you experienced during cancer, and how it started to become a predictive response, you would feel some pain and you would assume that that would continue, and it would be without break. However, when you deepened your practice, you discovered that you could find spaces between the pain. Could you talk about this. And also, I think if there's a link to how many of us are experiencing pain, and when we do feel pain, obviously there's an instinctual response to assume it's going to be ongoing and be to kind of self-medicate...” Sebene: “I could talk about physical pain, and just to name that this is true for social pain as well, because actually, our brains process them in the same way. So physical pain and social pain are processed in the same parts of the brain. So, you know, our perceptions of them are really similar and so predicated on what's happened in the past. You know, we build kind of our perceptual reality based on what we've seen before. So, you know, I have a mic in front of me, if I've never seen a mic before, you know, but then I learned what it is every time I see something shaped like this, I'm going to assume it's a mic, and I don't have to kind of go through the relearning process to figure it out. Our brain kind of builds up that knowing something, and that's useful for a lot of things, but it's not very useful in kind of a moment-to-moment sensory experience of a sensation or emotion, or, other people's emotions or speech or relationship with us. And so again, whether it's physical pain or social pain, like our interactions with others, we really want to develop, through this capacity of mindfulness, of embodied awareness of what's happening, the capacity to sense what's happening moment to moment. Instead of, you know, I see Nick and the last time Nick and I met, you know, we had a little bit of a misunderstanding, and now I'm going to interpret every different look of his as some kind of critique of me. Rather than meeting you fresh and deciding, you know, Nick has bad days too, and I'm gonna see what today brings rather than the assumption of, you know, what my experience has been in the past. And that's what I experienced with physical pain that I went through some periods of really, really painful surgeries or treatments or emergency conditions that emerged in my body and even lying in the hospital or at home experiencing this pain, I could kind of predictably assume, oh, there's that sensation in my belly. I know what that's going to lead to. And so, start to kind of almost anticipate and tense and create more tension and pain and not really have a moment to moment kind of intimate experience of what was happening. And when I could slow down, actually connect to this embodied awareness, feel the sensation in my belly, I could see that, Oh yeah, it's this throbbing strong pain, but now it's actually dissipated. When I breathe really deeply, actually it creates some space there and now my foot's going numb. I actually don't even really feel this pain in my belly right now. So, rather than having kind of this fixated fear, tense attention to things there internally our own physical or emotional experience, or externally what's going on with someone, we kind of create more spaciousness, create kind of more awareness, bring some relaxation and ease to what's happening, and that can often change everything for us.” The Mechanisms of Pain Back to the chat with Dan, I asked him if there was a simple way to understand the mechanisms that drive or report the experience of pain. “I'm not sure if there's a simple way, but a way we like to break it down in the physio program is thinking about inputs, processing and outputs. So, what this does is just let you think about the different components that might be happening in the background that lead to an experience of pain. The input is (comprises) the information that arrives at the brain, so some of that information comes through nerves in the body. Some of it also comes through our eyes and ears, because our brain is always gathering data, about what's happening in our bodies and what's happening in the world. So, we can refer to those things as inputs. Of course, information from the body is really important, particularly in acute pain. But the other inputs are also really important. I could give an example there. A paper cut might hurt extraordinarily, but someone could actually fracture a bone in their foot, in a football game and not notice it. So, there's something about the totality of data, not just the information itself from the body, but what it's combined with at a given time. So that's the inputs. The processing is about what's happening in the brain. So, how is the brain interpreting that data, and how's it making sense of it. In order to make sense of it, the brain considers not just the inputs, but also, what those inputs mean with respect to information that's already stored in the brain, from past experience, from knowledge, from what the doctor told you, from what you read on a scan, all of these things are also influential, when the brain is interpreting what's happening in the body. So, all of those things can potentially have an influence as well. So that's inputs and processing. Then we can think about outputs. And these days we actually think about pain as an output because anatomical textbooks used to describe pain as an input from the body in the quote unquote pain nerves, which we now call nociceptors or danger detectors. But the pain isn’t pain until we experience it. And so, because of that fact, we tend to think of it as an output. My physio students always say an output to where though? And I think that the best way to phrase that is it's an output from our brains into our conscious awareness - and that's much more philosophical than it is scientific, but I think we know so little about the brain that sometimes philosophy is the best way to explain and articulate these... /episode/index/show/cb7ca6e9-5515-4037-9e8d-12d394520589/id/28456115

Deon Bird - Playing Above The Line 10/15/2023

Dr James Kirby - Choosing Compassion 10/04/2023

Edwina Kempe - Walking a Path Through Trauma 08/21/2023

Kelly Boys - The Deepest Sorrow & the Deepest Joy 07/05/2023

Dr Jakqui Barnfield - Courage & Compassion in Crisis 05/06/2023

Dr Jakqui Barnfield - Courage & Compassion in Crisis Dr Jakqui Barnfield FACMHN, MACN - Director of Clinical Services As a registered nurse, focusing her career in the area of mental health, Jakqui has held various roles in the tertiary public health sector and is a passionate advocate for mental health and suicide prevention. She is committed to holistic care, ensuring services strive to meet the needs of consumers, their families and our community. With over ten years’ experience as a Director of Nursing and Operations, she specialises in innovation, strategy implementation and supervision with a strong focus on quality and safety. She is an avid reader of texts that blend scholarship and praxis with content and context that ranges from leadership to clinical practice to research and innovation. Her PhD study focused on experiences of both nurses and consumers when faced with caring for or being the recipient of hospital admission following a suicide attempt. Jakqui has been involved in the education and curricula content development of undergraduate and postgraduate nurses and delivered workplace and community education and training. As the Director of Clinical Services at On the Line Australia, Jakqui is responsible for the clinical delivery of national mental health helplines, Mensline Australia and Suicide Call Back Service, as well as counselling services for state-based programs and Primary Health Networks in Victoria, NSW and SA. She is a Fellow of the Australian College of Mental Health Nurses and a Member of the Australian College of Nursing. Resources Suicide Call Back Service - Call 1300 659 467 Suicide Call Back Service - Suicide Call Back Service FB - Suicide Call Back Service Twitter - Safety Plan - RUOK - Australia - Lifeline Australia - Brene Brown International Resouces Page - Mentioned in the Conversation Making Space for You - Ralph De La Rosa - The Heart of Compassion - The Third Space - The Forever Decision Dr Paul Quinett - /episode/index/show/cb7ca6e9-5515-4037-9e8d-12d394520589/id/26360742