Living with Chronic Pain as an Asian Australian: One Session That Changed Everything

🎁 Free Resource Download your free Cultural considerations in chronic pain guide → HERE.

In this episode, Asami swaps roles to become the guest, opening up about years of living with debilitating chronic pain, the cultural values that shaped her response to it, and the surprising one-session breakthrough that changed everything. Whether you're an Asian Australian navigating your own health challenges, a mental health practitioner seeking deeper cultural understanding, or simply curious about the mind–body connection in multicultural contexts, this conversation offers insight, relatability, and hopefully, hope!

You'll learn: 

✅ How Asian cultural beliefs like grit and stoicism can shape our relationship to chronic pain and seeking help 

✅ Why recovery isn't always a straight line, and how to balance rest with building resilience 

✅ Practical mindset shifts to approach chronic pain without fear 

✅ How to find culturally competent healthcare providers who understand Asian Australian experiences

💡 Episode Highlights 

• Our senior producer Yeo takes over hosting duties 
• Asami's life in 2018, working full-time in trauma, and the onset of chronic pain
• Facing years of treatment with no improvement from various Melbourne practitioners
• The single osteopath session that changed everything
• Parallels between chronic pain, mental health, and experiencing racism in Australia
• Lessons from recovery and ongoing pain management strategies

🧠 Key Quotes: 

"The moment I realised my body wasn't broken was the moment I started to heal."

"I think a lot of us grow up being told to just push through pain, and that can make it harder to ask for help when we really need it."

"When you understand pain as your nervous system trying to protect you, it changes the way you respond to it."

🛠️ Resources & Links 

🔗 Find culturally competent practitioners on our Asian Mental Health Practitioner List: justshapesandsounds.com/asian-australian-mental-health-practitioners

🔗 Related episode: Interested in Asami's journey? Check out this episode. 

🙌 Stay connected with us 

Website: https://justshapesandsounds.com  

Instagram: https://instagram.com/justshapesandsounds

LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com.company/justshapesandsounds 

Watch the episode below or find us on Spotify or Apple Podcasts!

If this episode helped you understand chronic pain from a cultural perspective, please subscribe and share to support other Asian Australians on their healing journeys. 💛

Transcript:

MX in
[Pull quote open]

“He gave me the piece of paper and he was like oh, and I've also got an article for you. Like, you know, if you work in trauma, here's like an article about chronic pain and trauma. And then I went home and then I read it. And then, my chronic pain experience ended there, just one session and there was like no manual adjustments or anything. It was just like, he just drew me a picture and gave me an article and then I read it and then the next day the pain was gone”.

MX fade up - AMH theme

Yeo: Hey Asami, hey Asami. 

Asami: Hi-yo, hi-yo. 

Yeo: We've had a bit of a last minute reschedule because of illness. 

Asami: Everyone is sick, not us though. 

Yeo: Not us, we're the last people standing. We are touching wood. And we've made a last minute decision and I am going to do your job this episode. Yeah, today I'm gonna ask you about some challenges that you've had. 

Asami: That's good. I feel like it's… like my job is actually easier. I just have to answer your questions. You have to carry the combo. 

Yeo: Do I? 

Asami: Yeah, you do. You're the host. 

Yeo: It was funny. Yeah, actually. So it's funny, because I'm always giving you and Marcus and Oscar instructions and feedback, constructive criticism about like how to be a good host. And now I'm about to fail miserably at all of those. 

Asami: No, you're going to show how it's done and I'll be like, oh, that's how you do it. 

Yeo: Uh, but I mean, you know, it's a really great theme that we've chosen for the season. I think therapists themselves, we often see them as people with like perfect mental health, but that's, that's not really the case, is it? Cause they're just humans like all of us. 

 ou're a practitioner. 

Asami: And I just pretend I have really good mental health. We're about to dive in. 

Yeo: Dive into what, like how that's not always the case. Like I've known, I've know you for a long time. You are a qualified practitioner, even if you're not on the practitioner list for some weird reason, too busy running the business. I know, I know. But yeah, we've known each other for a long time, I want to dive into some of the dark times that you've faced. I feel like these days you're doing pretty well. You run a lot. 

Asami: Yeah, I do, yeah. 

Yeo: And you have experience as a yoga instructor, I feel like everyone perceives you as a very healthy person. 

Asami: You're a healthy person. I think I am now. I agree, I am, now. 

Yeo: I'm sure I think you handle your boundaries really well. We've always, we've always had an excellent working relationship. It hasn't always been easy. If I, if I can be honest. 

Asami: Oh, okay. No, that's true. That's very fair. 

Yeo: Um, but we always work through things and that's why I hold you in high regard. And I think you're healthy because we wouldn't be able to do that if you weren't healthy. 

Asami: That's true. 

Yeo: One thing we do share in common is that we've both experienced in our lifetimes, chronic physical pain. It's excruciating, it can, it's debilitating, like it really interrupt our lives in such a big way. Tell me about your experience with chronic pain. 

Asami: Let's go back to 2018, like a different world back then, wasn't it, when you look back, 

MX in - Rue

I was working full time at a crisis service, like really frontline acute mental health work or therapeutic work. And at the time, I would definitely have to take days off because I would have really bad back pain, lower back pain. But it wasn't just lower back pain, it was just like, you wake up in the night and all your muscles are like locked, like really painful. And it was predominantly like the back and the legs and the hips and stuff, right? But also my shoulders and like in between the shoulders and my neck so much so that like you, I could not turn my head. 

I couldn't describe it to people as well. And I think like everyone always focuses on lower back pain too, right? So that was the easiest way for me to conceptualise it and tell people. 

There was no working from home at the time. So I just like kind of kept going. You can go to work, but you're always in pain. I didn't have a standing desk as well. One day I woke up and I was just in so much pain that like I could not get out of bed. And I was like frantically looking for a remedial massage place near my house. I was, like, you know, I've heard massage is good. So let's go and get a massage, but I was in like so much pain that I couldn't even get changed, you don't and I had to put on a dress. Luckily it was summer, but like, You know, there's like a smock dress. So you just like throw it on your body. Stumble into my little Birkenstocks, because I thought they would be really helpful, and then hobbled to this massage place, which wasn't, I don't know, it wasn't like an osteo or a physio, it was just like a pure relaxation massage. And then they massaged out my back and it just didn't work at all. Or like it worked for like 15 minutes, you know, and then you get home and then you sit down and then it's all gone. 

MX out

Yeo: I mean, how long did this repeat for, do you think? 

Asami: Yeah, like, I reckon ages, like over a year. 

Yeo: Over a year. 

Asami: I would say over a year. 

Yeo: Were you going to bed dreading the next day? 

Asami: I feel like I wasn't even conscious of it, like I didn't even know the extent of how much it was impacting my life. It was just like this thing that happens and you can't predict it, it just kind of comes and goes. There was no awareness, it was just this thing I lived with. 

Yeo: And well then, so was there, was there like a moment that you were like, okay, apart from the getting a massage and stuff, was there a moment that you were like, I can't do this anymore. Massage therapist is not helping. 

Asami: Yeah, I used to do a lot of yoga and the thing with yoga is… Oh, so this is actually a really great story about how much I resist getting help for things. Like years, a long, long time of like self-managing, doing the yoga in the morning, going to Pilates, because obviously that's what you do. Drinking enough water. They always talk about drinking enough water, but never really like addressing it. And then the Pilates person at the time was like, I know a physio. You can go and see them about your back pain. So I went to a physios and I had two physios. There's one physio that's like a manual physio, so they will massage out things. And then I also had a physio that taught me all the rehab exercises. And then, I would do those rehab exercises every single day. And it costs a lot of because 

Yeo: It's so expensive. 

Asami: It's so expensive, right? So expensive, yeah. Especially because it just continues forever and ever and ever, and it didn't help. No. I was literally doing the yoga and the rehab exercises every day, and I did nothing. 

Yeo: Did you feel despair? 

Asami: I don't think it was despair, I think it's just like, oh this is like my life. 

Yeo: You'd accepted it. 

Asami: I guess so. 

Yeo: Interesting. Interesting. Well, look, before we go any further, I want to know, where do you think that resistance, you spoke earlier about resistance to get help. Where do you think that comes from? 

Asami: Yeah. 

Yeo: Is there any cultural angle to that or just you as a person? 

Asami: I think, I think there is, but I also think this is me. So I'm going to make some really broad, generalised statements. 

Yeo: Let's go. That's what we do here. Hahaha.

Asami: It could be, it could be just me, but I think in like, I don't even know if this is real, but like that Japanese culture of grit and stoicism: “this is what your life is. And you just ganbaru through it”. You just keep going, you know, and it's like, don't complain. But although I would, I do complain a lot, but it was like, oh, I'm just resigned to this. This is how my body is. This is how my back works. These are the symptoms that I experience and therefore I just need to kind of do all the rehab and probably the fault is that I'm not doing the rehab enough and I'm doing the right exercises enough, therefore it's not getting better. So there's a lot of like that self blame. 

And also, there's a part of me, I don't think this has anything to do with Japanese culture. Back in the day, I would have been like, there's something that I'm probably needing to work through, like emotionally, and then this pain will go away. Rather than being like, oh, here is a problem that you just need the right exercises for and the right treatment plan, and you'll get through it. And for me, that stems from a lot of experiences of like the medical world or medical engagement. And things not actually working so well, like just say eczema or asthma, having really bad side effects to asthma medication. So I think maybe things like that all play into my resistance to seeking care back in the day. 

Yeo: Wait, are those issues you've also dealt with aside from this, or you've seen other people go to get help for things and it just doesn't work? 

Asami: Oh no, no, me like once I had really bad side effects from asthma medication and it like makes you really puffy like cortisol… I think that's what it's called, but it's like cortisone and it makes your face like a moon and things like that as a child. 

Yeo: Yeah, that's going to, that going to stay with you for sure. And then, so you talk about a feeling of, is it resignation? 

Asami: Maybe, yeah. 

Yeo: So there was a point. 

Asami: And even like, I deserve this, or probably I've done something to deserve this. 

Yeo: That's rough. So how did you solve the problem? Like what did you do to… what worked? 

Asami: I'm trying to remember how this happened, but I cannot remember the how, but essentially one day I tried osteo, osteopathy instead of physio. I don't even know why, I think probably because there's an osteopath near my house. So I must have been, I must've been like, oh, I just need the next appointment somewhere. And then I went to the osteo and this is in the first session, right? He talked to me about my pain. He asked me to move around. Can you touch your toes? Can you do this? Can you bend backwards? Can turn to the side? He did all these things. And he kept saying like, do you feel the pain now? And I'd be like, oh, I think so. I think so. And then he sat me down. And then he drew me a picture. And it was just like a brain and arrows. And then he was like, do you know how pain works? And then I was like well, pain is inflammation in the body, and he was like, no, no. Do you know how the perception of pain works in your body. I was like, I think so. Like I work in trauma every day. But then he explained it to me really simply. 

MX in - City Phases

Essentially it's just like something happens, you get an external stimulus. So something on the outside happens and your nervous system picks that up. Then that signal goes up to the brain and then your brain is like, is this dangerous? Is this not dangerous? And then it goes back and then just say you're touching something hot. The brain is like, that's dangerous, and then you take your hand off. 

Yeo: It's like a relay system. 

Asami: Yeah. And then he's like, if you have experiences of like, like high stress, distress or trauma, what can happen is that signalling and that like mechanism that's going on can get really mixed up and your nervous system might be really like reactive to any kind of external stimulus or you might interpret something as like a lot of danger when it's actually not. I was like, “oh, that's interesting”. And then he gave me the piece of paper and he was like oh, and I've also got an article for you. Like, you know, if you work in trauma, here's like an article about chronic pain and trauma. And then I went home and then I read it. And then, honestly, the next day I did not have pain. And that's like the end of the story. And my chronic pain experience ended there, just one session and there was like no manual adjustments or anything. It was just like, he just drew me a picture and gave me an article and then I read it and then the next day the pain was gone. 

MX out

Yeo: Overnight? 

Asami: Essentially, you know, cause like you don't think about it all of a, I just kind of realised like, oh wow, my back isn't sore. How wild is that? 

Yeo: That's really wild. I mean, it's, it it's miraculous, like

Asami: I think it was like knowing that it is, there's not something bad that's happening all the time, but actually your brain is like on like overdrive. It's like scared. And you're just so heightened. And then you're scared because you're heightened. And so then the muscles cramp up. And then that's the part that's causing pain. 

Yeo: It's scary how much of a monopoly our brain has on our consciousness. And I can't help think about; if the brain is so involved in our physical pain, it has everything to do with our mental health as well. 

Asami: For sure, yeah. 

Yeo: I'm curious, what was your mental health like during that time? 

Asami: Yeah, it was awful. It was poor, like super-duper poor, and that had a lot to do with the work that I was doing at the time. 

Yeo: Tell me about that.

Asami: It was too much on the nervous system. So working in crisis (support) five days a week is hard work. All the people that do it, you are incredible and you are so strong. And I think being around distress and crisis and people's anguish, so much of the week. So what's that? Like 40 hours. Yeah. Is it? 

Yeo: Yeah, yeah, yeah. 

Asami: I think it really changes your perception of the world, like I honestly did not feel safe walking around the city, you know, I used to work in the city so it's like I didn't feel safe anymore in the world like, because you just, your perception changes about the safety of the world. 

Yeo: Can you describe for our listeners the kind of people you were working with? 

Asami: So people, young people who were homeless at the time, and like for a human to become homeless, like so many things have gone wrong in their lives, right? And that can often look like violence, intimate partner violence, violence from their family, assault, sexual assault. The worst things that could happen to a human, and yet these people, I'm gonna say young people, which makes me sound old, but you know. Have somehow miraculously survived, right? And they might be sleeping rough on the street or they might be going from house to house: like zero stability in their lives. And then of course that translates into really poor mental health. And 

Yeo: You're steeped in that 40 hours a week. You see them more than you see your family. 

Asami: Oh my God. Yeah. Yeah, you know, and eventually I left that workplace. I think it was all around the back time and the pain going away. Like everything was, I can't even remember the timeline, but I left, right? 

Yeo: Yeah, life seems to, problems seem to come in a snowball and then leave in a snowball. I don't know what that analogy is there, but yeah, yeah. When it rains, it pours. 

Asami: Yeah. Oh yeah. I also had shingles many times during this time. You know how you're supposed to only get shingled once in your life, apparently? I don't know. I had it multiple times. Yeah. So that's like a real nervous system thing, right? So then I left. When I handed in my resignation letter, I was like, this job has affected me so poorly. You must pay for 10 sessions of psychology. Um, and they did, that was good. Um, And I found like a trauma psychologist again in the city. Um, we've spoken about it a lot on the podcast, but she does EMDR, eye movement desensitisation… something something… 

Yeo: Um, we'll, we will, we… we'll get to that. Yeah. 

Asami: Anyway, it's the one that everyone talks about and you like, you follow a cue that does bilateral stimulation. So you're stimulating both sides of the body anyway. And I went, but that was a bad experience of therapy too.

Yeo: A lot of people might get the impression from what they see in social media, especially now that therapy is an immediate answer to your problems. It's not that simple. So I would love to hear your experience of it not being that simple. 

Asami: Yeah. And often you might've seen on the internet of like “EMDR will solve your trauma” or like you know or, “EMDR is really effective for trauma work”. Right? So then I went in being like, “I'm ready for EMDR, give me EMDR”. But the thing about EMDR is the therapist and the client, they have to build a really safe and supportive relationship first. Because you're going like, you're like messing with the nervous system. So you need to feel really comfortable and really safe. 

But me being like, “don't worry. I've worked in trauma. Don't worry, don't worry. I just need you to just do the EMDR and fix it”, essentially, like I was in a rush, you know? And I don't, I don't think the practitioner did a very good job. I think she herself was very burnt out. I could tell. And I don't think she really kind of supported a slowing down first. Like, okay, let's just like, just pause. I know you want the EMDR. Let's just take our time and get through it. 

Usually people, I think they say they do, they might do like six sessions before the actual EMDR begins. But I think by session three, I was already doing like hardcore. Eye-movement like this. I'm just doing this to you. 

Yeo: Was she waving a pen? Is that what she was doing? 

Asami: No, like you wave a stick. 

Yeo: Yeah, yeah. And just for our listeners, I just pulled it up. Eye movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing. And it's a psychotherapy treatment designed to alleviate the distress associated with traumatic memories. So it gets deep. 

Asami: It goes in there, right? 

Yeo: Goes in there. And so yeah, it makes sense why you wouldn't want to like, you can't just go from zero to a hundred. Yeah. But, but you were like, not my first rodeo. Let's go. 

Asami: Don't worry, I'm a therapist. 

Yeo: Yeah. Yeah. And then she's just like, I'm burnt out. So let's do it. 

Asami: Whatever. Whatever you want. Just whatever you want, let’s go. 

Asami: This isn't the case for all EMDR work at all. This was just one thing that this person did, but it was like you pick your emotion, looking at an emotion wheel, and you rate the intensity before you do the eye movement stuff, and then you rate that intensity of that emotion after, right? So then you can kind of see the difference. But I remember looking at this emotion wheel and being like, Oh, the word that I want is not on this wheel because the feeling that I feel is a Japanese word. And so I was like, I mean, I can't even remember what the word is, but there is no English translation. Sure. And then I just remember this person, she got so frazzled. She was so like, “well, just make up the translation then. Oh, it can be anything. Like similar is fine”. 

Yeo: Was it white therapist? 

Asami: Oh yeah. I forgot to say that. That's okay. 

Yeo: That's okay. That's all right. 

Asami: Cause she was so frazzled, like I guess no one has ever brought that in a session ever. This is all pre-shaped and sounds by the way. So then it's moments like this where you're like, Oh, hang on. Like, why am I changing myself to fit some kind of a mould that you feel comfortable working with? I don't mind if she said. Actually, we got to use an English word. I don't actually mind, but it was like that reaction of how she did it. And she was like, like, she was, like so like shocked and like, Oh my God, like what? Other languages exist? Like that kind of feeling. And it made me feel so like othered. Yeah. 

MX in - Common Language

Anyway, so then I would just, I just made up a word. Yeah. Okay. But that was the kind of lack of safety that was present within that therapeutic relationship. So no wonder the EMDR, it did nothing. In fact, I got shingles again and I got really, really sick again, but I actually think that that was COVID. Okay. Like that was, by then it was 2019. So I feel like it was like a very early COVID strain, but that's a whole nother conspiracy theory. 

MX out

[BREAK]

Yeo: What did you do next? 

Asami: I quit my job, I went overseas for a while, I travelled and I came back and I started Shapes and Sounds. So it's like a true trauma story. 

Yeo: So then did you pour yourself into Shapes and Sounds and that helped the mental side catch up to your physical well side? 

Asami: Hmm 

Yeo: Would you say that? 

Asami: But do you know what? Where it gets all confusing is then we went into lockdown. So again, everything changed. And a whole new range of kind of imagined or real threats emerged. So everyone's lives changed and then I got a dog. You know, Hugo came along. So it's like so much happened between 2019 and 2020. 

Last year, I did EMDR and it was great. It was like very effective. And I worked with like a therapist that was amazing. 

Yeo: Well, what's the big thing that you learnt from having and then overcoming both chronic pain and then the mental unhealthiness that came with that? What, what did you learn from that whole arc? Cause it's a big one. 

Asami: I think there's two things that I learned. The first learning is a lot of good things can come out of pain, which I don't know if that's a good thing, you know? All these crazy bad things happened, and how amazing is it that for some reason I funnelled that into beginning Shapes and Sounds and it really, and that early pain, that like emotional pain that I was expressing, like that really resonated with people and that helped to bring people together. And then we built Shapes and Sound. So it's like pain, out of pain emerges goodness. I feel like that's a real kind of Asian thing. Or you must burn to thrive. 

But the second thing is you have to take care of your health. And if I look back, I used to drink so much back when I was doing all of this trauma work. How else do people switch off, right, in such intensity and your nervous system is so rattled so you feel like you need to downregulate. I would also never eat breakfast and I would call it intermittent fasting, as many people do. And I would have black coffee and then not have breakfast and then be like, oh, why do I feel so anxious? It's like, because... You haven't had any food? 

Yeo: Preaching to the choir. I went through the same thing, I used to skip breakfast and just drink coffee. 

Asami: And drink coffee. And smoke cigarettes. 

Yeo: Breakfast was coffee and a cigarette, like the most Melbourne thing ever. 

Asami: Yeah. Disgusting. The breakfast of champions. 

Yeo: Yeah. 

Asami: Um, and then obviously that means your sleep is affected, et cetera, et cetera, and the cycle continues. But now it's like, I spend so much of my life and my energy taking care of my physical health, and that is the backbone to any kind of other health that I have and that I experience, I have to sleep well. I drink a lot of water and I do, yeah, I do a lot of training, but I think you need to spend a lot of time doing recovery as well, which is like essentially sleeping is very important. 

Yeo: Yep. So would you say that you have to take care of all of it? It's a consistent effort to upkeep all of it. And then it feeds into itself as well. So if one is lacking, it can easily tip the balance and affect the other thing. 

Asami: Mmm 

Yeo: Like mental and physical I'm talking about. 

Asami: Yeah. And I should say that that chronic pain stuff, it still exists within the body. I know because it happens every now and then. 

MX in - Rue

Last year, I was like training for long distance running, right? Like I would sign up for a race, like the Asics race or whatever. And then the night before would be so, like I will be in so much pain that I cannot sleep, like literally like one hour of sleep. And my whole body is in so pain and it's like, oh my God, what am I gonna do? 

Yeo: Do you have flashbacks of the time when you were also? 

Asami: Yeah, or like maybe not like visual flashbacks, but like your body is like, I remember this, I remember pain, I'm here again. And then like the next day I would wake up and everything would be painful because you haven't slept, but then you just kind of move through the motions and then by the time you're on the starting line, like I don't have the pain anymore. How weird is that? So I guess my third learning is, a long time ago it was like, If you felt the pain, then you must stop. You must stop what you're doing, and you must pull out of everything. But now it's like, even if you feel the pain sometimes, there's nothing wrong with you. You can keep going and actually you'll surprise yourself. But I don't know how to say that in a way that doesn't sound unhealthy. 

MX out

Yeo: It's interesting. Isn't it? That is so nuanced because we need to push beyond maybe the signals that our brain is sending us. This is like screaming at us to stop. Yep. Sometimes those signals are true. Like you need to actually stop and rest before you do some like long-term damage, but then yeah, I, well, I mean, it kind of circles back to what I was saying before. It's like, if you get used to those messages all the time, then they kind of keep coming even when the threat is gone. 

Asami: It's confusing too, isn't it? Like, how do you work out that difference? Yeah. What about your experience? Like, I feel like we had bad back pain at the same time. 

Yeo: Yeah. Well, I remember. So the first time I did my back was playing futsal. And yeah, I just got knocked over because I'm a small person and I landed right on my ass like it hurt. And I played out the game, I guess shock and adrenaline carried me through. But then the next day I couldn't walk. Um, I think I, I went and saw an osteo for a long time as well. Strangely, I moved away from the osteo, whereas that was the thing that fixed you. Um, ended up seeing a physio, but I do, I do resonate with the, like cycling through different, like types of therapy, right? Like you, you, like, you just want an answer really. You're so desperate. Um, and eventually I found a physiotherapist, it was kind of maybe my third or fourth. 

Asami: Hmm 

Yeo: He was like, from the get-go, he was like you need to be patient with yourself and with me and we just have to work through this, for a long time. So he sketched this graph, and if you imagine on the X axis is recovery, so like how well you're doing, and on the Y axis, it's time. And he was like, everyone thinks recovery looks like this. And he just drew a straight diagonal line, just like that, from left to right. And then he's like, what recovery actually looks like is this. And then, he just drove this real garbage, squiggly line all over the page. And he's like, it's not a straight line. There's so many setbacks. You have to expect them. And he did that at a time when I'd been doing my exercises religiously for like six months. And I was like, when can I run again? When can I play soccer again? And when can play, you know, when can go back to touring? So I had to stop work. Yeah, I had like stop. I was touring a lot as a session muso. 

Asami: What do you think you would have done in those times if someone was like actually, I think it's all in your head 

Yeo: My physio said that to me. He said, he was like, I think your brain is telling you that you're in trouble when you're not. Yeah. And so, yeah, he taught me to kind of test the waters by pushing a little bit. And he's like, if it hurts at the time, that's fine. If it hurts for the next week after that, it's not fine. 

Asami: Yeah, same. Yep. And it's like, if, if you're doing something and you feel the pain, then tell yourself, I'm using the muscle, not I'm in danger. 

Yeo: That is really interesting. Right? 

Asami: And then it's like, and then you monitor after. And so now that's how I operate now. But it took a very long time to actually understand that. 

MX in - Common Language

Yeo: How do you balance listening to your nervous system with discipline? Cause if you're training for a big event or like, you know, and it's like, I'm tired. You still got to do your physio exercises or like you still need to do your recovery run or, you know, is it easy for you? 

Asami: Now it is, but it's taken a long time to build this relationship. So it's been at least a year and a half of really trying to navigate that. And like, when, when is the time to not run and when is it time to run? And now I've really gotten to a place where I understand that to make something better, like you have a bit of a niggle, not an injury, but a niggle. You must train that and do. Like activation and exercises for that to actually get better. Like resting, unfortunately doesn't actually help the body, right? And if I, and that, that visceral understanding of that has translated into like real life as well about like, if something feels hard, unfortunately, the only way that I'll get better at it is if I actually do the thing. Um, if I avoid doing a task because it's a difficult task, then I never ever improve and that task will always be difficult. It's like if I have like a niggle in my leg, it's never going to go away unless I do the exercises. 

MX out

Yeo: Well, after all of this chat about overcoming physical pain and how linked it is with our brains and how our brains work, how do you think that it relates to us and our experience in a cultural sense? 

Asami: Yeah, yeah. I think let's talk about just say racism, experiences of racism, like, especially for Asian Australian kids, like kids that grew up here. And like these early childhood experiences, maybe you experienced racism, and you had to understand that through a child's brain, so a brain that hasn't yet developed. I think it's similar to this kind of chronic pain experience being like, then, as you get older, another experience occurs, then your brain is already alert and hypervigilant, right? It could just be like a look, someone looks at you funny or differently, but your brain immediately is like. That's racism, right? And then you come back and then you have like a bodily response. Um, so similar to that experience of pain and chronic pain, right. It's just like the message. It's not messed up, that's not the right word, but it's like, something happens along that chain and keeps you in a state of threat and fear. 

And I think what is so challenging to do, it's what we're talking about, exactly like the pain, like how do you know when to keep going, when to stop, but how do we have all of these experiences and also understand that racism is very, very real and it occurs and microaggressions are really occurring, but yet also approaching every situation being like, okay, my brain is kind of like wired in this way, so how can I kind of keep myself calm and approach each situation in a way like it’s not a racist attack on me, right? And it's so nuanced, right, because it's like racism really exists, so you can't be like, oh, it's my brain, therefore it's not happening. But the way I've interpreted it and the way that I've made sense of all of that is like, you've got to work to your own advantage. So if every day I go out into the world being like, I'm hypervigilant, racism exists everywhere, especially microaggressions towards Asians. If I'm always thinking in that way, then that doesn't serve me. That doesn't give me a good life. So then I will take... I will really try to work on calming myself, soothing my own system to try and not flip into that fear mode all the time. 

Yeo: A lot of those techniques of setting ourselves up so that we don't go into every situation ready to react or whatever. It comes from learning about ourselves. We have to look for our signs as to when we are in a reactive mood. Let me simplify it even further. 

So I've cut coffee almost out. 

Asami: Me too. How sad is that? I'm such an old person. Oh my God. I know. This is the worst podcast episode ever. 

Yeo: But like, well, I found that I was drinking coffee and feeling so anxious and hyped up and cutting it out helped. Like it really just calmed me down. Who would have thought, right? And I wouldn't have a crash at 2 PM like, and then need another coffee and stuff. So like I get it, you know, I still love coffee. I love the taste of it. And I want, I always want one. And I do understand that some people, they kind of just need it to live to function. I get it. I was that person once, but I just tried it one day. I just try a week of not having it and my life smoothed the hell out. Like it was just so much easier to get through the day without my brain telling me lies about what someone was thinking. 

Asami: Interesting. See, you only know because you tried it. 

Yeo: Had a crack. 

Asami: That's the only way to do anything in life, to take action. 

Yeo: So I mean, what are we trying to say here? 

Asami: Yeah, see, it's so nuanced because I don't want people to hear this and be like, I've got pain, it must be in my head. 

Yeo: No, that's not what we're saying. That is absolutely not what... 

Asami: Uh, racism doesn't exist. It's just in my head. That's definitely not what we're saying at all. 

Yeo: They're not saying that. 

Asami: But I think maybe what we're trying to say is that relationship is really complicated, you know, and, um, pain, whether that's physical pain, emotional pain, it's really nuanced. And if you have a difficult relationship with pain, It's not something that you actually have to live with forever. That's something I think you and I would have liked to have heard. 

Yeo: Yeah, we were just like, oh yeah. No one actually sat us down and said that to us. Yeah, no one, hey. We just believed that we were stuck with, this was our lot in life. 

Asami: There are people who can support as well. There's actually one practitioner on our Shapes and Sounds Practitioner List who is like, um, a pain specialist, maybe not a pain specialist, like who works with chronic pain and you can find Ray Chen, um in New South Wales. So shout out to Ray. Hi, Ray. Awesome. But I just thought his work was really interesting. We haven't had a chronic pain, like person that specialises in that on our practitioner list. So I think like you're not alone. Um, it's not forever. There are people that have like lots and lots of experience working with kind of chronic conditions and chronic pain. They exist on our practitioners. That's good. It's an ongoing journey, isn't it? Like right now, I feel so strong and so healthy. 

Yeo: You have a routine though. 

Asami: I have an amazing routine. Yeah. 

Yeo: Yep. So why my routine is a mess, but I do what I can fit it in where it's there. Yeah. And I'm able to play sport, like, I'm able to run and I feel so different to that person that I was when I was hobbling around every morning. 

Asami: 2018 for you too. 

Yeo: Uh, even earlier than that, I think it was a few years before. 

Asami: Oh my goodness, okay. 

Yeo: But like, I did it multiple times. I like slipped a disc maybe three times. 

Asami: Oh 

Yeo: And it was awful. So I've dealt with it many times, but it's been years. It's been like a really long time. It's the longest time ever since a back injury. You know, I'm like lifting more than I ever have. My body's just changed. Yeah, I've gone up a few clothing sizes as well. Just comes in age. So, yeah, some of its muscle, some of its not muscle, whatever, I'll just hold. That's fine. Don't listen to this episode. 

MX in - AMH Theme

I think that's a great place to wrap it up. What do you think? Yeah, sounds good. You can find Ray Chen, you can find us on Instagram and on LinkedIn @JustShapesandSounds. Please subscribe to us, to our pod. Leave us a review on your favourite podcast app. It really helps other people find us. Download this episode for offline listening. It might just give you some cushioning. Around your life if you're feeling or dealing with chronic pain. And most importantly, share this episode with your friends because word of mouth really helps to de-stigmatise mental health within Asian communities. Asami, thank you so much for sharing your chronic pain story with us. 

Asami: Thanks for hosting. Well done.

Keywords: chronic pain, Asian Australian health, cultural competency healthcare, mind-body connection, chronic pain management, Asian cultural values, Melbourne practitioners, multicultural health, pain and mental health