Rewiring Chronic Pain: Graded Motor Imagery

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If you’ve ever struggled with chronic pain, fatigue, or mysterious symptoms that just won’t budge, you’re not alone. At Chris and Filly Functional Medicine, we know that healing from within often means looking beyond the surface—right into the brain-body connection that drives every sensation, symptom, and setback.

In this week’s podcast, Chris and Filly open the doors to a live workshop from their signature Ending Body Burnout Method, sharing a transformative “brain rewiring” technique called Graded Motor Imagery (GMI). Whether you’re battling joint pain, gut issues, or unexplained fatigue, this evidence-based approach could be the missing link in your holistic health and wellness journey.

What Is Graded Motor Imagery (GMI)?

Graded Motor Imagery is a powerful, scientifically validated technique used by world-class athletes, chronic pain sufferers, and health professionals alike. It’s all about retraining the way your brain interprets signals from your body—effectively “rewiring” the pain and stress pathways that keep you stuck.

GMI involves a step-by-step process of mental and physical exercises designed to improve how your brain and body communicate. For people with chronic health conditions, this means you can actually change your brain’s response to triggers, reducing pain, anxiety, and even sensitivity to foods or chemicals.

At Chris and Filly Functional Medicine, we’ve seen GMI become a game-changer for clients who have tried everything else—because it addresses the root cause at the neurological level.

The Science Behind GMI: Evidence for Chronic Pain Relief

One of the best things about GMI? It’s not just “woo-woo”—it’s solid, evidence-based practice. There’s a huge amount of peer-reviewed research showing that GMI can significantly improve chronic muscle and joint pain, even in cases where standard treatments have failed.

But the benefits go beyond pain relief. Studies show that GMI can help with headaches, gut pain, dizziness, fatigue, anxiety, and abnormal stress responses. This is because the technique helps “turn down the volume” on the brain’s alarm system, making your whole body healthier and more resilient.

Why Does the Brain Get Stuck in Pain?

Chronic pain and persistent symptoms aren’t just about tissue damage or inflammation—they’re about how your brain and nervous system interpret signals. When pain or stress is ongoing, your brain can get “stuck” in a loop, continuing to send out pain signals even when the original injury has healed.

This is where GMI shines. By using visualisation, movement, and sensory retraining, you can teach your brain to stop overreacting to harmless triggers. It’s a core part of mind body medicine, healing from within, and functional nutrition—because your nervous system drives everything from digestion to energy to mood.

How GMI Works: The Step-by-Step Approach

GMI is typically broken down into three stages:

1. Left/Right Discrimination

You start by practising distinguishing left from right body parts, often using photos or apps. This helps wake up the brain’s sensory areas and begins the process of rewiring.

2. Imagined Movement

Next, you mentally rehearse moving the affected body part—without actually moving it. This strengthens the brain’s “maps” of your body, making real movement less threatening and reducing pain.

3. Mirror Therapy

Finally, you use a mirror to watch the unaffected side of your body move, tricking your brain into believing the painful side is moving freely and without discomfort. This creates powerful new neural pathways for healing naturally.

At Chris and Filly Functional Medicine, we personalise the GMI process to suit each client’s symptoms and goals, blending it with root cause medicine, integrative approaches, and holistic wellness practices.

GMI for More Than Just Pain

While GMI is best known for treating chronic pain, Chris and Filly have seen it help clients with a wide range of issues—gut pain, headaches, food and chemical sensitivities, dizziness, fatigue, anxiety, and more. Why? Because the same brain pathways that amplify pain also influence how your body responds to stress, inflammation, and even the foods you eat.

When you rewire these pathways, you can “turn off” unwanted sensations and regain control over your health. It’s functional medicine and health optimisation at its best.

Rewiring Your Response to Triggers

One of the most powerful aspects of GMI is its ability to help you change your response to triggers. Whether it’s a certain movement, a stressful situation, or a particular food, your brain can learn to interpret these signals as safe—not dangerous.

This is a core principle of the Ending Body Burnout Method: you’re not just managing symptoms, you’re changing the story your brain tells about your body. That’s true holistic health, healing from within, and the foundation of sustainable, healthy living.

A Transformative Healing Space: What Makes Chris and Filly’s Approach Unique

The live workshop featured in this episode gives you a glimpse into the supportive, transformative healing spaces Chris and Filly create for their clients. Weekly workshops are designed to complement 1:1 functional medicine consults and root-cause coaching sessions, offering real-time support as you put new tools into practice.

This community-centred approach is at the heart of Chris and Filly Functional Medicine: blending evidence-based techniques with compassion, connection, and personalised medicine for whole body health.

Ready to Rewire Your Brain & Heal Body Burnout?

If you’re feeling inspired by today’s “brain rewiring” episode, don’t miss the upcoming free 3-day event, 'Rewire Your Brain To Heal Body Burnout'. And if you’re ready for a deeper dive, doors to the Ending Body Burnout Method open next month—join the waitlist to secure exclusive bonuses worth over $500!

Want to chat about your own journey? Book a Discovery Call or connect the dots with us and discover how brain rewiring and holistic wellness can help you heal naturally.

Remember: chronic pain and persistent symptoms aren’t life sentences. With the right tools, support, and a bit of brain science, you can heal from within and get back to living your best life.

Listen to the full episode.

Chris & Filipa Bellette are the Founders of multi award-winning health practice Chris & Filly Functional Medicine, which is best known for ending body burnout (for good!) in “busy” people with energy, mood and gut issues. They have worked with over 2,000+ burned-out clients in the past combined 25+ years, with their own passion for ending body burnout coming from their own personal experience of body, mind, family & business breakdown, after a prolonged period of physical and mental stress.

Filipa is an accredited Clinical Nutritionist, Functional Medicine Practitioner, Coach & Trauma Therapist. She is also a Ph.D. Scholar, author & regularly featured the media, such as Forbes, Body+Soul and The Daily Telegraph. Chris is a Burnout Recovery Coach & an accredited Neurolinguistic Programming (NLP) Master Practitioner, with a Bachelor of Human Movement Science. He has existed in high-performance realms of the sporting (think national athlete) & business industries and knows what it takes to get out of hustle-and-grind culture to thriving. 

They were recently awarded as the Tasmanian State Winner & National Finalist for the Telstra Best of Business Awards 2022, and Winner of the Australian Women’s Small Business Champion Awards 2022.