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  • The Neuroscience of Manifestation - Live Workshop · Jul 28

The Neuroscience of Manifestation

The Hidden Forces Driving Your Stress, and the Brain Science That Sets You Free

Your brain’s first job isn’t happiness. It’s safety. And it often confuses familiar with safe — quietly recreating the pain, stress, and self-doubt it learned long ago. This is not a lecture. In this live, interactive workshop, Michael will walk you through a guided process to begin releasing and healing chronic emotional pain — and hand you practical, actionable strategies to leverage neuroscience to manifest the life of your dreams.

Reserve My Spot - $97

Live & interactive on Zoom
Recording included for everyone

  • Live guided process
  • Practical strategies
  • Peer-reviewed research
  • Doors open in
Days
Hours
Minutes
  • Research from
  • JAMA Psychiatry
  • CDC–Kaiser ACE
  • Cleveland Clinic
  • Your Reading - What You Were Never Taught

What was
learned can be unlearned.

Two kinds of pain — the distress you feel and the pain you live with — almost always trace back to one source: a nervous system that learned, long ago, to keep you safe.

Maybe you grew up in a home where money was a constant source of worry. Where nothing you did was ever quite enough. Where the adults modeled self-doubt and stress, and you absorbed them before you were old enough to question them. To a child’s developing brain, those states became familiar — and what is familiar feels safe, even when it hurts.

 

So you carried them into adulthood as beliefs that run quietly in the background. Decades of research, beginning with the landmark CDC–Kaiser ACE Study, show that childhood adversity measurably raises the risk of chronic illness, depression, and chronic pain in adulthood. These aren’t character flaws. They’re learned patterns.

  • ACE research · CDC–Kaiser · Eur. J. Psychotraumatology, 2023
  • The Hidden Connection - One Source

Everything you tapped falls
into learned two columns. — with one
shared root.

Maybe it’s not just the beliefs. Maybe you also don’t sleep well.
Your digestion is off. Maybe you live with chronic back pain, joint pain, migraines
— or you’ve been told it’s fibromyalgia or an autoimmune condition. Here’s
what almost no one connects:

  • Pain 01 · Emotional

The distress you feel

  • Persistent self-doubt that second-guesses every decision
  • Worry that never fully switches off
  • The sense you have to earn love, approval, and rest
  • Bracing for something bad — even when things are good
  • Pain 02 · Physical

The pain you live with

  • Chronic back pain, joint pain, migraines
  • Digestion that's off — stomach issues that come and go
  • Poor sleep, fatigue, brain fog
  • Diagnoses like fibromyalgia or autoimmune conditions
  • Two kinds of pain. One source: a nervous system trained, long ago, to protect you — still running the old program today.
  • Let's be clear, because this matters

Stress-induced illnesses are real physical illnesses, and the pain from them is real pain. This is not “in your head” in the dismissive sense. It’s in your nervous system — which is very real indeed.

  • The Turn

It's generated in your
brain into learned And that's the
best news you'll hear all day.

When pain is driven by chronic stress, it’s generated in the brain’s pain and
threat-detection centers. Even though it feels like it lives in your back,
your joints, your gut — it’s your brain sending a signal designed to get your
attention. To slow you down. To keep you safe. And the same centers can
generate fatigue, digestive symptoms, brain fog, and anxiety. The
mechanism is the same. Which means: what the brain has learned, the
brain can unlearn.

~85%

of chronic back pain is “primary” — no tissue damage or structural cause can be identified. The pain is generated by the brain.
  • Ashar et al. · JAMA Psychiatry · 2022

1 in 3

adults between 45 and 64 lives with chronic pain. You are not alone in this — it’s one of the most common conditions in America.
  • CDC · National Health Interview Survey

60–80%

of primary care visits are estimated to have a stress-related component. The body keeps presenting what the nervous system carries.
  • Nerurkar et al. · JAMA Internal Medicine · 2013

Your brain's pain centers are
trying to protect you. They can be
taught that you're safe now.

  • The Proof

This isn't wishful thinking. It's
a randomized controlled trial.

In a landmark study published in JAMA Psychiatry, researchers at
the University of Colorado Boulder tested Pain Reprocessing Therapy
— retraining the brain to reinterpret pain signals as safe rather than
threatening.

The results were remarkable: 66% of participants were pain-free or nearly pain-free after just four weeks — compared to 20% with placebo and 10% with usual care.


And those results held at one-year follow-up.


Brain scans confirmed it wasn’t placebo: activity in the brain’s pain-generating regions had measurably changed. The brain had, quite literally, been retrained.


These are the same evidence-based methods you’ll experience in this workshop — not just explained, but guided live by two practitioners who have spent their entire careers treating pain.

Pain-free / nearly pain-free · 4 weeks
Pain Reprocessing Therapy 0%
Placebo 0%
Usual care 0%
RCT · n=151 · maintained at 1 year · Ashar et al. · JAMA Psychiatry · 2022

The body keeps
the score. It can also learn a
new one.

  • Not A Lecture — A Working Session

You won't just learn this live.
You'll do it live.

This workshop is fully live and interactive. Michael walks you through
the work in real time — you’ll experience the process in your own body,
ask your questions, and leave with strategies you can use the very same
day.

  • Part 01 · Understand

The science, made simple

Michael walks you through the published, peer-reviewed neuroscience of how the brain keeps chronic physical and emotional pain alive — in plain language, so it clicks.
  • Part 02 · Release

A live, guided healing process

The heart of the workshop. Michael guides you, step by step, through a process to begin releasing and healing chronic emotional pain — experienced together, in real time, in your own body.
  • Part 03 · Build

Practical strategies to manifest

You leave with practical, actionable strategies for leveraging neuroscience to manifest the life of your dreams — a daily toolkit, not just inspiration.
  • ✦ Guided process in real time
  • ✦ Bring your questions — live Q&A
  • ✦ Group format, together
  • The Bridge To Your Best Life

To create the life of your
dreams, you first have to loosen
pain's grip on it.

You have to get some distance from pain — clear it — so there’s room
for something new. That’s the sequence this workshop walks you
through:

  • Step 01

Pain relief

The front door. We start where you actually hurt — the physical and emotional pain patterns you live with every day.
  • Step 02

Nervous system rewiring

The mechanism. Your brain learned these patterns to protect you. What was learned can be retrained.
  • Step 03

Evidence-based methods

The method. Pain Reprocessing Therapy, parts work, and embodied practice — working together to teach your system safety.
  • Step 04

The life you desire

The result. When the body feels safe — attention, energy, desire, and possibility open. You can imagine, choose, ask, receive, and build again.
Manifestation was always about the nervous
system. Now we start where you actually hurt.
  • Why Learn This From Us

Two careers. One subject: pain

You get both sides of the equation — the clinical experience of treating
pain in the body, and deep, practiced expertise in retraining the brain that
generates it.

Image of Micheal Hunter
Michael Hunter, L.Ac.
  • Creator of The UpSpiral Method™

Michael is a licensed acupuncturist with 25+ years of practice working at the intersection of Eastern medicine, the Western nervous system, and transformational psychology.

He developed the UpSpiral Method after two and a half decades of watching brilliant, self-aware people stay stuck — not because they lacked knowledge, but because their nervous systems were running patterns no amount of information could override.

His work draws on Taoism, Qigong, Parts Work™, neuroscience, and manifestation science — not as separate disciplines, but as one integrated framework for how humans actually change.

  • Licensed Acupuncturist (L.Ac.) — 25+ years in practice
  • Trained in Pain Reprocessing Therapy
  • Author of "Power Moves to Elevate You"
  • First staff acupuncturist, Cleveland Clinic Pain Mgmt
  • Parts Work™, Taoism, Qigong & neuroscience
  • Creator of The UpSpiral Method™
Leela Hunter
Leela Hunter
  • Clinical Director, UpSpiral
Leela is a licensed psychotherapist with twenty years of experience. For eight years, she ran pain reprocessing groups at a San Francisco pain clinic — using the same brain-training techniques behind the landmark JAMA Psychiatry study, and guiding people through this work together, in groups. Which is exactly the format of this workshop.
  • "Between us, we've spent our entire careers treating pain —
    emotional and physical. We can't wait to do this work with
    you"     .
  • By The End Of The Workshop

What you'll walk away with

The peer-reviewed neuroscience of how the brain keeps chronic physical and emotional pain alive

Why your brain confuses familiar with safe — and how childhood patterns became adult pain

A live, guided process — led by Michael in real time — to begin releasing and healing chronic emotional pain

How to begin releasing the limiting beliefs wired in alongside the pain

Practical, actionable strategies for leveraging neuroscience to manifest the life of your dreams

A daily toolkit you can start using the same day — not just inspiration

  • Reserve Your Spot

The Neuroscience of
Manifestation

Join Michael and Leela live. Learn the science. Experience the
guided process. Walk away with practical strategies — and a
nervous system that’s begun learning safety again.

  • What's included
  • Tuesday, July 28 · 1:00pm ET · Live & interactive via Zoom
  • Live workshop with Michael Hunter & Leela
  • The published neuroscience of chronic pain & manifestation
  • Guided live process to release & heal chronic emotional pain
  • Practical, actionable neuroscience-based strategies to manifest
  • Live Q&A — bring your questions
  • Recording access after the event
  • One-time investment

$97

The science, the data, and the
evidence-based methods — live,
together.

Reserve My Spot - $97
Secure checkout · Recording sent to all registrants · Can’t make it live? It’s yours to keep.

Ready to go deeper? The workshop introduces the frame. The full UpSpiral program is where the complete nervous-system repatterning happens. Explore the programs →

  • Common Questions

Everything you need to know

No — and this distinction matters. Stress-induced illnesses are real physical illnesses, and the pain from them is real pain. It’s not “in your head” in the dismissive sense. It’s in your nervous system — which is very real indeed. What the research shows is that when pain is generated by the brain’s threat-detection centers, it can be retrained.
No. This work addresses chronic physical and emotional pain patterns — the limiting beliefs, worry, self-doubt, and stress wired in from earlier in life live in the same nervous system as physical pain. If your body doesn’t feel safe, this workshop is for you, whether the pain shows up in your back or in your thoughts.
No. This is an educational and experiential workshop, not medical treatment, therapy, or a substitute for either. We never dismiss injury, illness, or the need for medical care — please continue working with your healthcare providers. What we teach is how learned brain and nervous system patterns contribute to suffering, and what the research says about retraining them.
The methods discussed are grounded in published, peer-reviewed research — including a randomized controlled trial in JAMA Psychiatry in which 66% of participants were pain-free or nearly pain-free after four weeks of Pain Reprocessing Therapy, with results maintained at one year and confirmed by brain imaging. We’ll walk through the data together in the workshop.
Michael guides the whole group through the process together in real time, and you’re warmly invited to bring your questions to the live Q&A — but participation is always your choice. You can keep your camera off and simply follow along in the privacy of your own space. The work happens inside you either way.
Every registrant receives the recording. Because this is a guided, interactive process, it lands most powerfully in real time — but the recording gives you full access to the teaching, the guided process, and the strategies, so you can walk through it on your own schedule.
Every registrant receives the recording. Because this is a guided, interactive process, it lands most powerfully in real time — but the recording gives you full access to the teaching, the guided process, and the strategies, so you can walk through it on your own schedule.
  • The Doorway

To create the life of your
dreams, first loosen pain's
grip on it.

Join Michael live for a guided process to release and heal
chronic emotional pain — and leave with practical, actionable
strategies to leverage neuroscience and manifest the life
you desire. Not a lecture. A working session — and there’s
finally room for something new.

Reserve My Spot - $97
Live & interactive · Limited seats · Recording included · Secure checkout