Substack Live Re-Air: The Emotional Journey to a Pain Free Life | Nicole Sachs

This week we are re-releasing a Substack Live from our Breaker community! Mayim and Jonathan are joined by Nicole Sachs, LCSW, a renowned psychotherapist, author, and speaker who has become an internationally recognized pioneer in the field of mind-body medicine. As the architect of the “JournalSpeak” method and host of The Cure for Chronic Pain podcast, Sachs has dedicated her career to treating patients suffering from chronic pain, autoimmune conditions, and fatigue by addressing the underlying emotional components of physical symptoms. Nicole explains that our brains often use physical pain as a “protective” distraction to keep us from feeling overwhelming emotions like rage, shame, or grief. Think of it like an emotional reservoir—when it gets too full, the pressure has to go somewhere, and often, it manifests as a backache, a migraine, or digestive issues. Nicole’s story is as relatable as it is miraculous. After a year of being so locked up in pain that she couldn’t even put her toddlers in their car seats, she had a spiritual and psychological breakthrough. By getting brutally honest with herself through a specific type of journaling, her chronic back pain was 80% gone by the next morning. Nicole breaks down her healing method into three simple parts that anyone can start today: - Knowledge: Understanding that your brain and body are constantly communicating. - The Work (Journal Speak): A specific, 20-minute daily practice of “unbridled rants” to get the hidden stress out of your system. - Self-Compassion: Learning to change the way you talk to yourself to help your nervous system feel safe. This approach has helped people struggling with fibromyalgia, IBS, migraines, anxiety, PTSD and addiction. As Nicole puts it, pain isn’t a “broken” part of you—it’s information. Once you learn how to listen to what your body is trying to say, the possibilities for your life are endless. Learn more about Nicole Sachs and her coaching: www.nicolesachs.com Nicole Sachs’ Book, Mind Your Body: https://www.yourbreakawake.com/book Nicole Sachs’ Podcast, The Cure for Chronic Pain: https://www.yourbreakawake.com/podcasts/the-cure-for-chronic-pain-with-nicole-sachs-lcsw-2 Nicole Sachs’ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nicolesachslcsw/ Follow us on Substack for Exclusive Bonus Content: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://bialikbreakdown.substack.com/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠BialikBreakdown.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ https://www.bialikbreakdown.com/ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠YouTube.com/mayimbialik⁠⁠⁠ https://www.youtube.com/mayimbialik%E2%81%A0 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices https://megaphone.fm/adchoices See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:04Mayim Bialik?

  Hi, I'm Mayim Bialik.

• 0:05Jonathan Cohen?

  And I'm Jonathan Cohen.

• 0:06Mayim Bialik?

  And welcome to our Breakdown. Today, we are sharing a special episode that was previously only available to our Breaker community over on our Substack page. It was a conversation that Jonathan and I had with leading mind-body expert Nicole Sachs about the emotional journey to a pain-free life. Now, Nicole Sachs is a licensed clinical social worker who started her work with the very famous Dr. John Sarno, who revolutionized the way we look at mind-body pain. She worked directly with Dr. Sarno, and she's the architect of the Journal Speak Method and the host of the Cure for Chronic Pain podcast. She has changed so many lives.

• 0:51Mayim Bialik?

  The work that she does is absolutely incredible. She treats patients suffering from chronic pain, autoimmune conditions, long COVID, things that people were told they would live with forever that literally disappear in a matter of months in many cases.

• 1:06Jonathan Cohen?

  We can't wait for you to hear this episode. Nicole talks about her personal miraculous story of healing, as well as dives deep into her healing method with many examples of the kinds of transformations that people experience.

• 1:22Mayim Bialik?

  The approach that Nicole is going to talk with us about has helped people struggling with fibromyalgia, irritable bowel syndrome, migraines, anxiety, PTSD, addiction. As Nicole says, "Pain isn't a broken part of you, it is information." And once you learn how to listen to what your body's trying to say, the possibilities for your life are really endless. It's a fantastic episode. We can't wait to share it with you.

• 1:43Jonathan Cohen?

  If you haven't already, come check us out on Substack, Mayim Bialik's Breakdown on Substack, where you can get ad-free versions of the episode, as well as bonus content you can't receive anywhere else.

• 1:54Mayim Bialik?

  We really hope you enjoy our conversation with Nicole Sachs, and we'll see you over on Substack.

• 2:02Jonathan Cohen?

  We talk a lot about extrasensory ability, how we change our perspective, how the reality that we think we're living in is malleable, how much we co-create our reality, and never is that more applicable than when we are in physical pain. Like, when we experience physical pain, I can speak for myself, that's as real as it gets. You're like, this is pain. It's objective. Our minds go to think like, how do I fix this thing? There must be something wrong because I'm getting this sensation. But the reality is actually far larger than that, that we're going to unpack today. And there is a connection to psi phenomenon, intuition, extrasensory ability,

• 2:47Jonathan Cohen?

  because it is about our perceptual system. It is about how we are calm in our bodies, how we feel safe, what we're able to perceive when we are regulated, and how pain interfaces with that. Nicole, start to help us understand this idea of mind-body connection. And I do want to get into your story, because when you and I first met and we started talking, I was just incredibly moved by your own personal transformation. But how do you like to begin?

• 3:19Speaker 02

  So much of what you guys discuss on your podcast is like hand in glove with everything that I talk about. And in fact, one of the things that has me screaming and looking like I have schizophrenia when I'm walking around with your podcast in my ears is that so many of the conversations get right up against what I'm doing. And then I want to be like, yes, and this is what's next. Yes, this is how to live in the solution. So I'm just thrilled to be in the conversation because I think that it will be impactful in terms of the mind-body connection. Because you guys, you really do talk about it all the time. You know, the mind, body, and spirit.

• 3:57Jonathan Cohen?

  What was your worst moment? What, where did you get to? And then tell us how you got there.

• 4:03Mayim Bialik?

  And also seeing a lot of comments, people saying Nicole has saved my life. So it sounds like also a lot of people who have really benefited from places where sometimes traditional medicine, right? Meaning Western medicine and that sort of of model is not fitting the needs of a lot of people's descriptions of a pain that often is highly related to psychological processes, trauma, things like that.

• 4:29Speaker 02

  Okay, well, thank you for sharing that because I am not able to keep up with the comments. Okay, so my personal story, and I will truncate it because it obviously is a very long story, is that when I was 19, my back went out. So that's the best way I can describe it. I was doing something very, you know, not an extreme thing. And I bent down and I stood up and my back was so out, I actually needed to be physically brought home from college. My parents had to come, bring me home. And like any responsible parents, I underwent every test, you know, the x-rays, the MRIs, the orthopedic surgery consults. And I actually have a very, very significant structural finding. And it's called degenerative spondylolisthesis. It's a mouthful.

• 5:12Speaker 02

  And essentially what it means in layman's terms is I have a pretty severe abnormality in my lower spine that was corresponding exactly to where my pain was at the time. So it was 1990. And we certainly can't, you know, be angry at any doctor who was like, okay, you know, with with my condolences, and really, it was like a very uncomfortable moment with a teenager. This is a very, very serious situation. And you're otherwise healthy, so you'll live to 40 without spinal fusion surgery if you can. But here's how we're going to do it. Because at the time, spinal fusion surgery was a very, very extreme.

• 5:52Speaker 02

  Procedure that they didn't want to recommend and they were like, so here's the deal. No worries, just no more exercise, no more travel, no more riding in the car for more than an hour because the bouncing motion could destabilize your back. Very specific sleeping positions. And here's the kicker. The likelihood that you'll have a biological child is slim to none because it would require like seven months plus of bed rest to not really put yourself in an extreme situation. So I'm 19 and I am like, whatever's happening with me, like denial, denial, hear one word, denial, denial. My mother, who is like the quintessential Jewish mother is like this, you know, just like next to me in the surgery suite, you know, just freaking out with this, this consult.

• 6:37Speaker 02

  And essentially what I can say is that I took most of it and I took it seriously. I took the most extreme stuff and I put it on the side burner, like not having kids. You know, it was, it was too crazy to think about. And I altered my life, you know, I, I sort of lived through the lens of fear and with enough steroids and muscle relaxers and whatever they used, I was able to return to school. They gave me a little handicap thing to put on my car. My friends loved it because I could drive to class and I went to Lehigh, which is built on a hill that's like this trajectory. So I was, I was popular, but the long and the short of it is I went through life knowing that I was the girl with the severe problem, bad back. I defined my life as such.

• 7:23Speaker 02

  When I was in graduate school and I was studying to be a therapist, so obviously I was minded for this kind of conversation. My mother came across the work of Dr. John Sarno. Now I know that you guys have heard of Dr. Sarno. She called me in like a rather hysterical moment and was like, I know what's wrong with you. And I was just like, all right. And she said, You're very angry. And I was just like, all right, tell me more. Didn't really think so. And she said, get this book. It's called Healing Back Pain. So I got the book and I always admit, I was 24. I skimmed it. I read the back cover. I was like, I get it, I get it. And because I was psychologically minded and in graduate school studying to be a therapist,

• 8:07Speaker 02

  I realized this is not such a huge leap. I'm having pain and maybe if this doctor is correct, there are big emotions that can also channel as pain through the body. It was a little crazy, in my opinion, but I was like, whatever. So I decided to do a science experiment with myself, which was every time I was experiencing any sort of like a big back zing, I would pause and I would say, why am I angry? And I would start just this very, very little seed of like, one level down of more honesty with myself.

• 8:40Mayim Bialik?

  For people who have no idea who Dr. Sarno is, can you give the gist? And we've talked about Dr. Sarno and I used to do this kind of therapy, like, meaning as a, not as a practitioner, but as a client. Just for people who don't know, give us the thumbnail sketch of how Dr. Sarno kind of revolutionized the way we think about back pain.

• 9:01Speaker 02

  Okay, so I always say when I do this little speech that part of the things that I'm going to say came from what he created. And then some of it is my work because I have sort of evolved his work over many years. Because he passed away quite a while ago, but he and I were, he began as my doctor. We became, he became my mentor and then we became colleagues and we lectured together for years at NYU, where he was an attending physician for 50 years. So he is the grandfather of mind-body medicine. He was a doctor of rehabilitative medicine in the 1950s. And when he started to see that his patients weren't getting better, they weren't getting better through surgery. They, they, they might get surgery and they might have a temporary cessation of pain,

• 9:45Speaker 02

  but then for some reason it would be like in their upper back, when it had been in their lower back before. He was doing rehabilitation with people and so they would rehabilitate. From like their torn ACL. And then like two years later, they're like, why do I still have knee pain?

• 9:59Mayim Bialik?

  Sarno was also one of the first people to to identify and quantify that many people who had herniated discs, bulging discs, actually reported zero pain. So what he said is if everyone who is told you have pain because you have a herniated disc, if that is true, you should not have a significant proportion of people who have herniated and bulging discs by a scan, reporting no pain. There's something else going on. And that was what his sort of revelation was.

• 10:33Speaker 02

  Yes, and so what was sort of genius and amazing is that he took that information and he started talking to people, like revolutionary idea. He started connecting with his patients and he started finding out that people were reporting, my pain really spikes when, you know, I'm in a fight with my husband. Or my pain really spikes when I have to make a big decision and I feel like I have no voice. And so he started sort of honing these stories and this anecdotal evidence at first. You know, now the science has completely caught up, which is so exciting. And he wrote several books, Mind Over Back Pain, Healing Back Pain, The Mind Body Prescription, The Divided Mind. And so he was he was evolving it himself. And then we, as his patients, we started coming together

• 11:17Speaker 02

  and we would get these huge lecture halls together at NYU and we would sit on the stage and tell our stories. And then there'd be this robust Q and A and all this stuff. So he essentially was, he's the grandfather of the theories that I teach.

• 11:30Mayim Bialik?

  Yeah.

• 11:30Speaker 02

  And through this process of understanding his work, I started to feel different. I started to notice 10 minutes later, after this little science experiment I did, that when I identified the reasons that I was like really pissed that I couldn't say, I was like, what just, my back doesn't hurt as badly.

• 11:49Mayim Bialik?

  My back would go out usually on the anniversary of my father's death or right around my father's birthday. And it was like clockwork every year. And I was like, what is happening? Meaning, sure, you could say it's coincidence once, maybe twice. If this keeps happening, it means that there's some process in your mind, in your heart, that is impacting your body.

• 12:13Speaker 02

  Yes, indeed. And you know what? I know Jonathan, the part of the story that you want me to tell it. I want to tell it. But I want to say something about the neuroscience first, especially because I'm sitting here with Mayim, which is, although this is all a very relatable notion, especially in 2026 and the conversations that anyone is having who wants to watch this live. There is solid neuroscience behind why this is happening. And I want to say it really quickly and clearly because one of the things I'm most proud of is that I want to teach people themselves. Teach yourself yourself. It's so confusing being a human being. The body is doing all these things all the time. So essentially, the easiest way I can explain it is,

• 12:57Speaker 02

  what I'm teaching people, they already believe. You know, I could be lecturing to a room of 1,000 people and I could say, raise your hand if you've ever had a stressful day and been really overwhelmed and gotten a headache, right? Every single hand will go up and I get very excited and I go, okay, okay, okay. Keep your hand raised if you ran to the ER that night for a CT scan because you thought you had a brain tumor. And everybody laughs and they put their hands down. And I'm like, you see, you already believe that an emotional stimulus, stress, overwhelm, a lot of people on your freaking case, causes a headache, right? And then I'm like, you know, raise your hand if you've ever been through a breakup and you lost your appetite. Did you go for an upper GI? Did you try to find out? You have, you know, some sorts of horrible, you know, the examples go on and on.

• 13:42Speaker 02

  And the bottom line is, we all know that emotional stimuli, what happens when you're really sad or moved? Water falls out of your face, right? We are constantly in the mind-body connection. So first of all, any skepticism, any like, I don't know if I can believe that, Nicole, I invite it to sit beside you, not to leave it out in the rain. It sits beside you because that is the way we don't feel threatened by what it is that we knew or know.

• 14:09Mayim Bialik?

  My and the Alex Breakdown is supported by Quince. You know those pieces in your closet that you reach for over and over again? That sweater that somehow works with everything? The jeans you know will always fit just right? The bag you carry everywhere? Those are the pieces that earn a permanent place in your wardrobe, and that's what Quince does so well. Quince makes elevated everyday essentials using premium materials like Mongolian cashmere, organic cotton, premium stretch denim. The designs are timeless, thoughtfully crafted, and made to be worn again and again. And as the weather gets colder, Quince has everything you need to round out your wardrobe, from warm, responsibly sourced down jackets, and cozy cashmere scarves and gloves, to beautiful 14-karat gold jewelry that adds the perfect finishing touch. I'm personally obsessed with Quince's 100% European linen wide-leg pants.

• 14:54Mayim Bialik?

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• 15:38Mayim Bialik?

  It's the best way to support our show. Comments are amazing because people are like, "Oh, maybe people just have a different pain tolerance." That's not it. People are like, "What? This weird fusion." The answer, and also, this is not like a, "We're gonna tease this and then you have to pay a million dollars." This information is available. There are obviously courses and things, but we're going to talk about it. Nicole is going to talk about it. And it's literally like, it's one of these things that, once you learn it, it's unbelievable, the magic that already is contained in your body.

• 16:08Speaker 02

  Thank you. You're like the best because you're like ping-ponging it right back to me. No, this is the truth. And so, here is the most simple, relatable way I can explain it to you. You're living in a human Body and you are a victim of the human condition, which means we're big feelers. We care deeply about things. We want to connect with each other and we're our own worst critics. We're perfectionistic. We're people pleasing. We're a mess. Okay, here you are. Welcome to every single person on the planet. Now, what happens is the brain and the nervous system perceive your repressed emotional world as a greater predator to your life than your physical pain. Why? Because physical pain is protective.

• 16:51Speaker 02

  By its very nature, pain allows us to stop all the chaos, pause, slow down and attend to ourselves, right? Like, and what's amazing about the brain, I know I'm speaking to the person who knows the most, is that it can, no, I mean, I know you really understand this stuff, which is a pleasure to be able to discuss it, that the the brain can give its pain, but the brain can also taketh away. Meaning if you're running from a predator and you break your ankle, you will be able to run on that broken ankle without pain until you perceive yourself to be safe. At which point, your body is brilliant and a genius and knows, blow up that ankle with pain because now your your life is at risk if you don't pause and take care of it.

• 17:34Mayim Bialik?

  But none of us are taught to think about emotional stress, emotional trauma, intergenerational trauma, like all the things. None of us are taught to believe that those things have a cumulative weight on us and at a certain point, if it is not attended to, rage, anger, resentment, fear, anxiety, it will manifest in whatever your particular weak spot is and, as I'm sure you will talk about, it will move around. It won't make sense. Doctors will say, I don't know. It's all in your head. People will throw the word psychosomatic at you. It is undeniably unbelievable. The creativity your brain will have to say,

• 18:19Mayim Bialik?

  I'm trying to tell you there's something wrong.

• 18:23Speaker 02

  Exactly, and that brings us to a perfect place for me to talk about why I live in the solution. So I want you to picture that we each have an imagined emotional reservoir, like a clear science beaker, and it sits between your belly and your chest, and it is the container for the big ones. You mentioned some of them: rage, shame, grief, terror, despair. Like, the things like, over coffee, you might say to your friends, like, "Oh, I'm so bummed out." But you wouldn't say, "I'm drowning in grief." Or you might say, "I'm pissed off." You wouldn't say, "I'm so enraged, I'm ready to grab a weapon." Like, we don't feel safe, you know, rightfully so, really expressing these big emotions.

• 19:05Speaker 02

  And your nervous system hears you. They say, "Hmm, it seems to be that I get a whisper that these big feelings are dangerous." They are da- if you were to feel all of your rage, or all of your shame, you might shut down so completely that you're not gonna care for your young. You're not gonna be able to go out and, you know, hunt and gather, and like, grab what you need for your, for your life. And so what happens is, and we all know about the defense mechanism repression, you know, Freud might have been a lot of things, but defense mechanisms are actually very good, because they protect us. So we repress unconsciously. You feel a tiny bit. You feel like the tip of the iceberg of your feelings. The rest of it goes into the reservoir. So here's what happens.

• 19:49Mayim Bialik?

  And I put, I put cake on top of it. I put cake and French fries. I put all the things on top to keep it all down.

• 19:56Jonathan Cohen?

  I wanna touch on this, because I, I think, for men especially, and I'm sure for others as well, most of us are like, "I'm not fucking angry, you're angry."

• 20:06Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 20:08Jonathan Cohen?

  And we, we truly have compartmentalized to a point where we do not understand the emotions that we're sitting on. And I think you knew what I was wanting you to tell about was that moment where you were in the doctor's office, and you were confronted with that, because for me, that is the moment where-

• 20:29Jonathan Cohen?

  If you can't even access because you've created such amazing defense mechanisms, you've compartmentalized so well, we can't find the emotion that we now, what you're describing, the mechanism that's harming us.

• 20:42Speaker 02

  It's not harming us. It's trying to speak to us. Pain is not inherently negative. Pain is information and strong stimulation. We are the people that determine whether something is positive or negative. Think about if you ever go skiing and the next day you're like really sore, but it's like the good hurt, you know? But if you didn't do anything and you woke up and you couldn't walk, you'd be like, this is a problem, right? And so our perception is our reality. And if we see ourselves as safe, our nervous systems regulate and we're safe. But when we're confused and out of control, we stay stuck in fight or flight. And that is when all of these pain signals are mistakenly fired out of this confused dance between the mind and the body.

• 21:23Mayim Bialik?

  Okay, wait, so get back to the container that I put all the cake and the french fries on top of.

• 21:27Speaker 02

  Yes, okay. And the cake and the french fries are also very important because you're using the cake and the french fries to not feel your feelings. And also they're making you feel worse. Not that there isn't a space for cake and french fries, because two of my faves. But I totally get it. So here's what happens. The reservoir, and by the way, this is not for people in chronic pain. This is not for anybody except if you're a human being and you live and breathe. The reservoir starts bubbling up. And here's what happens. It knocks on the door of consciousness because the reservoir is all unconscious. And it threatens to tell you, the walking around, Mayim and Jonathan, I'm going to tell you how angry you are. You're so angry at your mother that if she says one more thing at the family gathering on Sunday,

• 22:10Speaker 02

  you're going to lose your mind and throw something across the table and all of the family is going to hate you, okay? So this is what-

• 22:16Mayim Bialik?

  I've done that. I've done it.

• 22:19Speaker 02

  This is what's happening. It's knocking. Now here's what happens on Sunday when you're getting ready to go to your mother's where the family is going to be. You get a sense and you're like, I think I have a migraine coming on. And then you're on the bathroom and now you're throwing up and all the lights are off and all the shades are closed. And you have to cancel. But guess what? Whose fault is it? No one's fault because you're sick. And who could blame you? Your mom can't blame you. I mean, she could blame you behind your back, but you're not going to get that much shit because you're sick. Now, you're not making it up. It's not in your head. You're not hysterical. You're not oversensitive. I'm going to tell you what you are. You are being protected as if a lion had walked onto the savanna and you were at the watering hole.

• 23:03Speaker 02

  There is a fight or flight response that happens when this reservoir starts to overflow. It's knocking at the door of consciousness. Your brain hears it and what it says is danger, danger, danger. Okay, what do we do to protect this human? We send pain because what pain does is it allows them to calm down, get quiet and take care of themselves. It is avoiding the predator of your mother at the dinner party.

• 23:27Mayim Bialik?

  And also what Western medicine tells us to do is take a pill and go anyway. We're going to come up with the best pharmaceuticals so that you never have to feel.

• 23:38Speaker 02

  Feel anything.

• 23:40Mayim Bialik?

  You don't have to feel anything. You can still go and you can have a smile on your face. And you know what? The stronger the drugs, the more you can endure, right? Like, how much do I have to take, right? To be able to take what the world is giving me?

• 23:54Jonathan Cohen?

  I'm going to play devil's advocate here because I agree with absolutely everything. And I think there is a scenario whereby someone who is in chronic pain of some kind for long enough is in a cycle whereby they're experiencing an onset and they're like, I actually really want to go to the thing, but I can't. Right?

• 24:13Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 24:13Jonathan Cohen?

  It's no longer about these immediate triggers that are protective. Now you're just in a cycle of that reservoir not being metabolized so much that you don't see the cause and effect anymore.

• 24:26Speaker 02

  So I'm going to be devil's advocate right back at you. So our devils are going to go like this, okay? Here's the thing. You do want to go. You always want to go, in a sense. First of all, nobody wants to be sick and in their room with their shades drawn. I call it safe in the unsafest way. But here's another thing. The scenario that I just described, you don't have full consciousness of it. You have the tiniest tip of the iceberg. So you might be saying to your partner or your kids, no, I can't wait for the dinner at grandma's. And you actually can't. That's the thing. Your nervous system. So here's another thing that I think is important to say. Our nervous systems as human beings protect us without our permission and without asking our opinion. Why? Because if they didn't, we'd all be dead. We do not respond quickly enough to stimulus in order to protect ourselves.

• 25:11Speaker 02

  So if you put your hand on the hot stove and you were like, huh, wait, I'm not so sure. Wait, I'm distracted. What did you say, honey? Your skin would melt off. That's why we have these cat-like reflexes where immediately you're off the stove. And the same thing happens whenever a predator is afoot. I would say my work has three facets, like three legs of a stool. And all three have to be on the ground for the stool to stand. The first I call believe, but it's really not the best word for it. It's really knowledge, education, understanding. Like, believe just means listen with openness. Replace your skepticism and your fear and your resistance with just curiosity. I don't want you to believe me. I want you to say, hmm.

• 25:54Speaker 02

  I want you to say, I wonder, because this is interesting to me, even if it's making you feel defensive. So that's the first thing. Believe. Open yourself to a paradigm shift because most likely you're sick and tired of being sick and tired. Right? Like, whatever you were doing isn't working. Okay. The next leg of the stool I call do the work. So let me talk a little bit about how we unearth these emotions so you get to be in control of your body. To the extent that any of us have control of anything, we have control of ourselves to the extent that we do. So this is where the story comes in Jonathan, that I know you and I connected with, which is my recovery story, if we're gonna call it that, comes in two distinct chapters.

• 26:38Speaker 02

  The first chapter is that I was this kid. I was brought home from college. I had this crazy diagnosis. I lived in fear and pain. And then I discovered Dr. Sarno's work. And through the mindset change of being willing to even accept that there's a mind-body connection, my back pain went away completely. I had two of the three of my children. I exercised till the day they were born. And I am married. I'm living in West Chester County. I'm like having this life that I, you know, thought I wanted. And

• 27:10Speaker 02

  Mayim, I love you. You're a great audience.

• 27:13Mayim Bialik?

  We all want the life in West Chester. We all do at some point.

• 27:17Speaker 02

  Yeah, until you live it. Anyway, no, not no shit. No, no shame, no hate, no shame. I love, I love West Chester. I love it. It's just, I was in a spot. So my son, who is now 21, was 10 months and he was toddling around in his little baby walker. And I didn't want him to go over like the little two steps that went from the deck to the driveway. So I lean over the walker and I pick it up.

• 27:38Mayim Bialik?

  No.

• 27:38Speaker 02

  But I should be able to, but I couldn't because my reservoir was up to here. Did not know it, did not know it. All unconscious. It feels like there is a hot knife dragging through my back. It feels electric. It takes my breath away. I almost vomit. I go into the house in the shape of an L. And this begins the worst year of my life. I am in physical therapy three days a week, electric stim treatments on my back, opioids now, they add opioids into the mix, muscle relaxers, steroids, everything you can think of I am doing. And I am depressed. I can't take proper care of my children. I'm definitely like in a very, very low place. One day, I am at a deli. I am paying for our meal. I've got the diaper bag over my shoulder.

• 28:23Speaker 02

  I have two toddlers. One just started to walk and one is two and a half. And they are doing what toddlers love to do in the impulse buy section when you're paying, which is picking up the gummy worms and the chocolate covered pretzels.

• 28:38Jonathan Cohen?

  Mayim, every time we go to a checkout counter.

• 28:41Speaker 02

  Well, you know, the cake and the bread. So. I am standing there and I am feeling my back start to lock up. And I am now with the diaper bag and two toddlers. And I can't just stand there and I think to myself, if I make a run for it and get to the car, maybe I can like, deal with myself, whatever. I start walking to the car. And the kid, and it's a very active parking lot, so I have them by the wrists. And we get to the car. And I am now so locked up and in such screaming pain. I cannot get my children into the car. I cannot let go of either of their wrists in an active parking lot.

• 29:23Speaker 02

  And there's no one to help me. I can't get my phone. I can't get my keys. So now I'm standing there. And I have this moment where I just lean my head up on the window of the driver's side of my car and I just started to cry. And like my kids, even though they had just been so rambunctious, are like, go limp. Like, it's like when the kid has that sort of telepathic, like, this is not good.

• 29:46Mayim Bialik?

  Mommy's crying and leaning against the car.

• 29:49Speaker 02

  Mommy's having a nervous breakdown, like, you know, not good. And I don't know how long I stood there. I really don't to this day, but somehow, by the grace of all there is, I was able to get them in the car and get them home. And when I got them to bed, I had this incredibly powerful spiritual moment where I sat on my bed and I kind of looked out onto the stars and the trees and I surrendered. And I said, I don't know if Dr. Sarno's right with all this things, stuff that feels like woo woo bullshit. Because that's where I was at that time. I threw all of it out the window. And I went into such a shame spiral, which is, you did this to yourself. You should, you're weak, you're, you're weak.

• 30:30Mayim Bialik?

  You're not gonna be fixed. You're broken.

• 30:33Speaker 02

  A, you're broken and B, it's totally your fault because a doctor told you when you were 19 not to have these kids. And now not only are you the reason for your own pain, you've ruined two other people's lives.

• 30:43Mayim Bialik?

  You're convincing me, Nicole. You gotta turn this car around.

• 30:47Speaker 02

  All right, you just wait. That's what makes this story so good.

• 30:50Speaker 03

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• 31:20Speaker 02

  So I go, I call my mother. My mother, she's really, she probably is watching. Mom, are you watching? She's a real thread through this. And I said, I think I need to go to New York City and see this Dr. Sarno. I need to see this man in person. I need to say to him, explain this to me. And he was very expensive. And at the time, I didn't have the money. And she said, I'll pay for it. Go. So, thank you, Mommy. So, I go to Dr. Sarno. I write, oh, my, you're gonna relate to this. I write a freaking novel, okay? I have a stack like this of every time. I move this, I move this way. When I eat this, when I do this.

• 31:54Mayim Bialik?

  Well, you're in, we become an expert in our pains. Like, we have a PhD in our own symptomology. When you do this, if I pray this way, if I wear the color green. We know every angle of our pain.

• 32:10Speaker 02

  Anything, I would do anything. Which is really funny, because when people come to me and they say I do anything, I'm like, will you feel your feelings? Like, will you even do that? But, so anyway, I'm in, I'm in his office. I very solemnly slide this novel over. And he takes it, and I freaking love this man. And he doesn't lose my gaze. And he throws it in the garbage, which was this metal garbage can in like the like NYU building, you know? And it went, goes boom. So I think it had like one of those big clippy things on it. And he goes, let's go and let me examine you. I mean, he's a full medical doctor. So I am like in the gown. And he does all, he's got my MRI, my x-rays on the thing. And he looks at me and he goes, you could go to Mayo Clinic. You can go to Hopkins.

• 32:55Speaker 02

  You can go to Harvard. Nobody is gonna tell you. This is a gnarly abnormality. Nobody is gonna tell you that the way you describe your pain, up your leg, down your butt, into your shoulders, left side, right side. He said, nobody is going to tell you that it is possible for this structural abnormality. He's like, get dressed, come back to my office. We sit down and he says, You are in this process where, you know, everything we're talking about today and he says, "We need to get your feelings out of that reservoir." And I said, "All right." I really was, I love it when your scorecard reads zero. I just love it. I love it when you're like, "Help me." Actually, I shouldn't say you. I'll speak for myself.

• 33:38Speaker 02

  I love it when I'm like that because the moment I can say, "I don't know," the world of possibilities opens up. There is something that I don't know. I'm freaking thrilled. So I said to him, "Okay, what do I do?" And then he says, "Well, a really good way to learn about your feelings is to journal." Now, here's where I was, a total asshole in my mind, where I was like, "Buddy, I don't think that you understand that I can't lift my kids. I can't put them in the crib. You want me to journal?" And he, I said it probably not that rudely, but I said, "Huh?" And he said, "It's a really good way to get the feelings out." And he gave me sort of like a way that he thought I should do it. And here's what happened.

• 34:20Speaker 02

  I sat down and I made my lists of the things that were triggering me. And I started to journal about them and it felt like a whole lot of nothing. I was playing my tapes, all my Nicole blah, blah, blah, sad childhood moment, my dad, my dad, my dad, you know, all this stuff. And I didn't feel like it wasn't significant. I just felt like it was nothing new. And I was looking through my daily list, daily life checklist, and I put "motherhood" at the top of the page. And I start writing, "I'm very tired. I'm overwhelmed. Two kids in diapers, two kids in cribs. This wasn't the plan. I wasn't going to have them so soon, close together." And then I had what I would say is my second

• 35:02Speaker 02

  very significant spiritual experience of this, which is a voice. You guys were just talking about Claire Audience on the podcast this week. A voice, and I didn't actually hear it, just letting you guys know. But it occurred to me. And what the voice said was, "You're lying." And I kind of looked up at the voice and I was like, "No, I'm not. I have these two kids and then two, and then I'm tired." And it said, "This isn't it. This isn't the thing that is going..." The darkness in there, whatever it is that's causing your nervous system to be in such fight or flight that it's protecting you with your, for your life, it's not this. And it's like I felt it rising. I say it's like you gotta throw up and you don't wanna

• 35:44Speaker 02

  throw up and you feel, you know, I felt it rising. And you know what, guys? And this is about anything. This is not just about chronic pain, or even what we're talking about now. My, my unsolicited advice to every single person who will hear this is when you get an opportunity to just say, LFG, let's go, let's do something differently, I invite you to take it. Because something happened to me in that moment, and I said, alright, I'm gonna do it. And I wrote on that paper, the first line of journal speak ever penned, which was, I hate being a mother. I hate this. I'm terrible at it. I'm failing. I'm ruining it. I don't like my children. They're not the ones I ordered. They're, they don't

• 36:28Speaker 02

  smile enough, you know? My daughter doesn't look like me. Like, I started to go so ham on this situation. And I was like, alright. The gates came down, the gloves came off, and I started writing in the most unacceptable, awful way about everything in my life. And what happened, which was really amazing, is it transformed. So it began with all of this, I hate, I hate, I hate outward. And then I went, sorry, mom, right over to my parents, which is like, you know, F these two. They made so many horrible choices. And now I'm stuck with all this trauma, and all this blah, blah, blah, and the generational this and that. So I start really, you know, going, going off on them. Then, my goodness,

• 37:13Speaker 02

  and I don't know how long I did this, by the way, so just, I have no idea how long I sat in this deli with my yellow legal pad. The lens turned on to me. And it was like, actually, yeah, those are babies. So, do you really hate your babies? And I'm like, no, no, that doesn't feel right. Do you really hate your parents? And I'm like, ah, they made mistakes. But you know, I, I get, I understand what they were going through. It's you. You're a complete loser, failure. Everyone can be a parent. You can't do this? You can't do this? What's wrong with you? And what happened to me on that day was something that you could have put, you could have given me a lie detector test, truth serum, and my hand on a stack of bibles, and I wouldn't have been able to tell you the following. Which came to me after all of this dumping, which was when I was about 11 years

• 37:58Speaker 02

  old, I made a very sacred solemn promise to myself. It was very subtle, not like a childhood memory that you would remember, but something that really came in strong, which was, one day I will have my own family and one day I will be a mother and all of this pain and all of this suffering that has been imposed upon me by decisions I didn't make, by things I didn't ask for, will be in my control and it's going to be beautiful. In that moment, I thought that it would heal the wounds of my childhood when I got there, when it was finally my turn. And oh my God, you guys, I was flooded with such compassion

• 38:40Speaker 02

  for myself, like toddlers are not the recipe for healing the wounds of your childhood. But I didn't know that. I didn't know any of this was going on. It was so deep. It was so buried. And what came to me was just not only compassion for myself and like this burst of love for my beautiful babies who are just being themselves. It was understanding of my parents. It was understanding of all things and a closer connection to quite frankly, every human being who is just suffering. This is the part that I want everybody to understand. It's not everybody's story, but it's mine. I woke up the next morning and

• 39:18Speaker 02

  my back pain was 80% gone, never to return. And then I said, I'm onto something. And I called Dr. Sarno and I said, you're never going to believe it. And he said, try me. And I said, I did that journaling thing, but I kind of did it differently. I kind of did it my own, my own way. And I'm like, really a lot better. And he goes, yeah, that's how it works.

• 39:41Mayim Bialik?

  This work that Nicole is talking about, this work can be applied to things that you think it cannot apply to. Everyone who has suffered from chronic pain, from autoimmune stuff, from gastro stuff, everyone wants to believe that we are the exception to Nicole's

• 40:03Mayim Bialik?

  We want to think, well, you don't understand my genetics. You don't understand what my doctor said. You don't understand what runs in my family, right? But fibromyalgia, irritable bowel syndrome. Yes. Even features of things like Cohen's, right? Features of those kinds of things that we are told there's one way to treat it. We know best. Here's the medication. This is your life forever. Those kinds of things. You can use these methods that Nicole teaches and that, you know, this school of mind-body syndrome understanding. You can use this for depression. You can use it for anxiety. You can use it for PTSD. You can use it for addiction. You think you're getting migraines because, and look, people get migraines because of hormones.

• 40:48Mayim Bialik?

  It's a thing. However, things like that, that you think there's only one solution to, this field of mind-body syndrome is mind-blowing. And as Dr. Sarno talked about with his original research, how much money do we spend in this country for people to have back surgery? Right? My father had back surgery. He had all of the symptomology that you are describing. This was my dad, always throwing his back out, always on a heating pad. It was always after a stressful day at work or after the union was striking or whatever it was. And he ended up being given the diagnosis many are given, right? And we have to fuse your spine. Guess what? It didn't really help. And for some people it does, but you know what?

• 41:33Mayim Bialik?

  If they drill a hole in your skull and tell you they're implanting some deep brain stimulation and they don't, placebo also works. Like you see incredible things that happen with placebo and with nocebo. So I just want to mention this, and obviously I want people to go to all the places to learn, and also the way you teach is very, very particular, speaks to so many of us. But I just want people to understand this is not just for back pain. It is for a No. Wide range of conditions that we think are incurable or you don't understand, or my doctor said it's different. I'm not a medical doctor. So I'm also not saying, like, go to your doctor. That's the number one thing they tell you with this kind of work. Rule everything Always. First. Always. You have to rule, that's why Dr. Sarno said, let me do an exam.

• 42:18Mayim Bialik?

  You have to rule out anything else. When Jonathan needed his hip replaced, I was like, it's in your head. Sure enough, the man needed a hip replacement.

• 42:28Jonathan Cohen?

  Nicole, can you give us a bit of an introduction to journal speak? How do people start this process if they're in a place where they're like, how do I get this reservoir? How do I access it? How do I start to find the way to drain it?

• 42:43Speaker 02

  It really is a three-legged stool. So yes, journal speak, but also yes, education. And the third leg of the stool is self-compassion. And this is something that I've actually come to very late in life, but I've been incorporating it deeply into my work because doing any healing work without understanding the imperative of a self-compassion practice is like bailing out a boat with a hole in the bottom. It is so unreal. Once we slow down and realize how we talk to ourselves and that like Michael Singer voice that is always in our head, always telling us, you know, it's the constant narrator. We need to slow down and realize that that is something that can absolutely be altered. So, I mean, that's just wanting to just make sure I say it is a three-legged stool.

• 43:26Speaker 02

  In terms of journal speak, in terms of learning how to enter into this work, here's what I'll say. The first thing you need to do is any, any curiosity that is in the form of defensiveness, resistance, anger, you know, oh, my God, what is Nicole thinking? You don't, she's, you know, she's saying she doesn't understand me. All the things that Mayim just said, okay? Take all of them. Hold them with true love and compassion and strap them into the back of the car. You know, I love how Elizabeth Gilbert says, how do we talk to fear? She always says, fear gets to come because if you leave fear on the side, you're just going to be plagued, plagued, plagued by it constantly. It gets to come, but it's not driving the car. It's not mapping the route and it's not picking the snacks.

• 44:10Speaker 02

  Okay, so any big, any big feeling you have and you hear this where you're like, that offends me. Please, give yourself the gift of being curious and just bring it, but bring it and strap it into the car. So that's the first thing I want to say because, because when you start to learn, basically when you start to hear me and the way I talk about my own life and then the thousands and thousands, I mean, I have a podcast with hundreds of episodes of people all around the world and I promise you, you will relate to at least fifty of them. Like, it's just, there's so many, so many symptomologies. So, okay, the first thing is, take your skepticism, replace it with curiosity and come sit with us. And I'm a love bucket.

• 44:51Speaker 02

  I mean, there's nothing I'm gonna do except for to invite you in. That's the first. The second is, if you want to learn to journal speak, journal speak is not regular journaling at all, at all. In fact, in the rearview, I kind of regret putting journal in the name because I think it really confuses people, but such is life and it's been twenty years, so I have to keep it. But the point is that it is a very specific practice and the key aspects of it are, it's a twenty minute practice followed by a ten minute grounding meditation of your choice. So it's thirty minutes a day. I know you're busy. I know you're busy. Everyone has thirty minutes a day to save your own life. And it is characterized by, picture a child who wants a

• 45:33Speaker 02

  cookie before dinner and they're four years old. And you say no, they're gonna tell you everything that they think about you, everything they think about everything, and they know they're right. The voice of journal speak is an unbridled rant. It is, you can be as angry as you want, as pathetic as you want, as needy as you want. All the things you hide from other people, this is the place for it. And after the twenty minutes, you select all and you delete. You rip it up into a public garbage can. This is like blowing your nose in a tissue. You're getting something out. You do not need to look at it again. It's not, if you, you know, and people ask me all the time, well, what if I have a crazy epiphany that I want to remember? Fantastic. Select that line I type,

• 46:15Speaker 02

  or, or write it into, you know, put it in your notes app. You want to remember this. You want to have this, this epiphany you had. Other than that, it's a whole lot of blah, blah, blah. If you go to my website, there is a button at the top that says, learn to journal speak. It is totally free. Click on it and it, the instructions will be like laid out. So, so, and, and plus, if you go to my podcast, the second ever episode of my podcast, The Cure for Chronic Pain, is called, Meet Journal Speak Your New Best Friend. So the first episode is my story, which is gonna be what we talked about today, but long form, and then you can go and learn.

• 46:47Mayim Bialik?

  I want you to tell us from the heart, why do you do what you do? Because this is not, oh, I came up with this clever thing and now I get to make a lot of money. That's not what we're talking about, right? I want you to explain what you feel your pain and your journey have allowed you to communicate to people. Like, why do you get on this live with us? Why do you make this your life mission? How much is it worth it, not just for you, but for what you've been placed here to do?

• 47:20Speaker 02

  Thank you. You're the first person who has ever asked me that. And I have been interviewed by a lot of people. So really, thank you for asking me that. And I'm just gonna like, you know, like when you empty and just like allow it to not be something I think about because it's so important to me? Through my own, let's call it suffering, I have been given a gift that is not in the package I thought it was gonna come and not something that made sense at the time. And in looking back, the enormity of that and its effect on my life is just the beginning. And I have to say,

• 48:03Speaker 02

  it's embarrassing to ever transmit any grandiosity. So please, just what I'm about to say, please put it through the lens of that because I really do struggle. My issue, not yours. You say, oh, people in the comments, they're writing, Nicole, you saved my life. I have gotten those emails 100 times a week for the last 10 years. And those are only the people I hear from. And so there is a combination of urgency and panic and enormous gratitude that kind of come together in this stew that make me a person that spends pretty much every breathing moment alongside my partner, Lisa. So I have a Jonathan.

• 48:48Speaker 02

  I have my partner, Lisa Asimpressi, who's in it with me. And we take it out to the world. Because here's the thing. I also get another kind of email. Okay, and it's triggering, but I need to say it because it's important. And the email is, I figured to myself that if I wasn't feeling better by Christmas, I was going to take my life because I cannot continue to go on like this. And Nicole, I'm writing you because at 3:00 in the morning, on a deep dive in Google, I found an interview you gave. And because of that, I did your work and I'm writing to tell you, I'm having a second baby, I'm back to work full time, I'm getting married, I'm in a new career, or I'm going back to school to be a therapist. I'm going back, I, you know,

• 49:31Speaker 02

  and the last line of the email is always the same. I can't believe I didn't know this work was an option for me. Because as we are all acknowledging, and as you guys acknowledge every week on your podcast, not everybody is going to pick up what I'm putting down. But I want them to know it's an option. Because it has created my life. It has brought three full humans into this world who never would have been here, and God knows what they're going to do. It's, it's all so huge. So, thank you for asking me that because it gives me the privilege of saying, there is nothing in this life like being given a reason to be on your knees in desperation and then find something that changes you so profoundly that you spend every minute of the rest of your life trying to share it. And there I am.

• 50:15Mayim Bialik?

  Just learning that this exists, this mind-body connection, just learning it, and even doing nothing more than learning it and understanding it, already helps. I, I can't remember what the stats are. It's like upwards of 75% of people or something.

• 50:35Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 50:35Mayim Bialik?

  Are, are literally changed. Their relationship with how they think about their body has changed. It changes for that many people. There are those of us who need a little more work. And that's what, um, you can, actually, I'd love for you to tell us, where can people find you? You obviously brought with you an army of people. Um, but where can people find you? Obviously, you're on Substack, but what's the best place for people to go to find out about your book and all of the incredible work you do?

• 51:03Speaker 02

  My website is just nicole sacks.com.

• 51:06Mayim Bialik?

  And you're sacks with a C?

• 51:08Speaker 02

  C-H.

• 51:09Mayim Bialik?

  H, yes.

• 51:09Speaker 02

  Yeah, so it's N-I-C-O-L-E. S A C H S dot com, Nicole Sachs dot com. And everything is on the website at Instagram. I'm at Nicole Sachs L C S W here on Substack, the same. My book is called Mind Your Body. I will say it's a little pitch for the book. And trust me, it's not like it's making me any money, but it will help you. It's the instruction manual of how to do this. And so it's a great place to start. And it just came out this past year. We have membership communities global all over the world where people are doing this with me. I do meet live with one, one section of our community every month. I answer questions. I spend time with everybody. We have coaches. We have people who are walking through this work.

• 51:54Speaker 02

  We have done everything and Lisa and I continue to think creatively about ideas to get it out there that just want you to come. It's kind of like the original Statue of Liberty, right? Like bring your huddled masses yearning to be pain free. Like, like come and sit here. We will hold you and we will take you through this because it's scary. It's confusing. It's not a straight line, but it can be done and the results can be really amazing.

• 52:23Mayim Bialik?

  Incredible. And people are asking all sorts of questions, which I'm sure you can take to Nicole. Like, is there a Facebook page? Like you can find everything you need.

• 52:31Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 52:31Mayim Bialik?

  Nicole just told you, but also, you know, people are asking like, can I text it? The, the concept is more important than sort of us answering, answering individual practical questions here. So learn about it from Nicole. Go to the source. You can understand the purpose. This is not something to shortcut. If you've been living with pain, if you have chronic pain, if you have pain that moves from limb to limb and is moving around your body and like sometimes it's a shoulder and sometimes it's this, you need to go to Nicole. So Nicole, thank you so, so much. Thank you for picking your head up off that window in the parking lot. And we're so grateful to you and can't wait to do more with you because I think people really need to keep hearing about this and finding new applications.

• 53:15Mayim Bialik?

  So we'd love to talk to you more and just thank you so much.

• 53:18Speaker 02

  Thank you both. It's been so fun.