A life without pain would be a life with __________?

Fill in the blank.

Instead of trying to imagine your life, or a day of your life WITHOUT pain, what kind of presence would you want to experience?

Maybe you can imagine waking up in the morning feeling energized, ready, and light in your body.

Your mind is clear. Your joints and muscles feel supple, soft and mobile. You are excited about your day!

You can focus on your work, family, projects, hobbies, and there are endless possibilities and opportunities because you aren't spending all of your time and energy trying to manage the way you feel.

​Imagine and visualize the you that is well, happy, and empowered.

Now here is my proposition to you: Be that person NOW.

Even if you are struggling with chronic pain and you feel depressed and anxious, what are you orienting your compass toward? Can you hold that in your mind's eye?

Can you imagine what the well version of you would feel like? How would you embody your own presence and vitality?

What comes up for you as you think about this? Are there limiting beliefs, or even just a complete blank? Are there very real lived experiences you have or have had that make this possibility seem out of reach?

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​If you want to reduce your symptoms, this is where your work is.

It's easy to get lost in suffering and just trying to manage your suffering, especially when you have chronic pain. It can be easy to forget that healing is possible, and lose the compass entirely.

I'm not asking you to bypass the real physical and emotional pain that's present. That doesn't work, and it only makes things worse.

Can you be present with how you are feeling now, and also welcome in just a tiny seed of intention for how you want to feel? Can you invite both to be in the room with each other?

There are so many inequalities that make healing more accessible or inaccessible depending on your privilege or lack thereof, and I don't want to ignore or bypass the reality that many people don't have basic needs met, and it can be extremely hard to get out of survival mode.

And, where can you take your power back? Even if it's just a tiny bit? What's within your wheel house of possibility?

What if you could inhabit your body with curiosity, trust your intuition, and know how to listen to the inherent wisdom of your body even when it’s hurting?

One of the keys to reducing chronic symptoms is learning how to change our relationship to those symptoms.

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I'll be sharing more on how to do this in the coming weeks.

For now, I invite you to practice two things:

1. Imagine and embody the you that is well, happy, whole, and excited about life.

2. Turn toward your pain, and step into the seat of the witness. Notice your automatic relationship to your symptoms. Nothing to do here but just be present with what you're noticing.

Can you allow your present experience and the possibility of feeling well exist together?

Stay tuned as I share more pain science education to support you to understand how chronic pain works, and what you can do to take some control back over your life.

If you struggle with chronic pain, healing is possible for you.

This mind/body approach can be supportive for anyone, even if your symptoms are indeed partially rooted in a physical or physiological cause such as autoimmune disorders, pain from a previous injury, viral or bacterial infection such as long Covid or Lyme, cancer pain, and other similar conditions.

This approach will likely help, and certainly will not harm.

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