From Chronic Pain to Passion
helping passionate creatives heal from chronic pain
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What’s the Point of “Feeling Your Feelings?”
Tips from a chronic pain recovery therapist A question I get often is: “What’s the purpose of feeling my feelings, when bringing them to the surface just makes me feel worse?” Great question! We feel our feelings for two reasons: First, to release the pressure that gets built up when we suppress emotions. Second, to […]
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Mindset Hacks for Chronic Pain Flare-Ups
Stress flare-ups are a normal and inevitable part of life. And since stress can trigger symptoms like pain, symptom flare-ups are also a normal and inevitable part of life. The good news is: We can change the way that we respond to flare-ups. And if we do so consistently, it can have a very significant […]
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What To Do When You Feel Afraid
Tips from a chronic pain recovery therapist Healing is simply this: Meeting your fear with acknowledgment, empathy and love. Suffering happens when our protective mechanisms become chronic. Protective mechanisms like: Hyper-vigilance, anxiety, physical pain… These are all “danger” alarms that our nervous system sets into motion to protect us. But when our protective mechanisms become […]
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Belief Is Key to Healing — But Not How You Might Think
Tips from a chronic pain recovery therapist A lot of folks think that if you just believe enough in… …that you’ll be rewarded for your belief by magically healing.But that’s not how it works, in my opinion.Healing is about believing in yourself — your capability and your worthiness.When you believe in yourself, you don’t see flare-ups as […]
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This Is How Emotional Invalidation Can Lead to Chronic Pain — And How To Heal
When our emotional wounds aren’t acknowledged and tended to with care so that they can heal, our nervous system produces armor to protect us from further harm. Armor can look like… The armor is designed to protect us from harm. And in the short term, it can do just that. But armor doesn’t heal our […]
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You Don’t Have to Quit Your Passion to Heal From Chronic Pain
Symptom flare-ups often happen during periods of big expansion in your life: Stepping into a new leadership role, becoming a parent, gaining recognition for your art, starting a business, falling in love. But it’s not the expansion that causes the symptoms. It’s the tension that happens when fear rushes in to constrict the expansion. Because […]
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Beliefs That Block Recovery From Chronic Pain
Tips from a chronic pain recovery therapist One of the most common blocks to chronic pain recovery is the culturally reinforced habit of invalidating our own emotional wounds. Pain is a danger signal that’s created by the nervous system when it feels unsafe. Sometimes the danger is a physical wound, like a broken arm. But […]
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The 4 Stages of Emotional Release
Tips from a chronic pain recovery therapist If you’ve been on the path of mind-body healing for a while, you’ve undoubtedly heard over and over again that it’s important to process and release your emotions. But how? Emotions are so taboo in patriarchal culture that most of us don’t learn anything about emotional hygiene growing […]
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An Honest Account of My Relationship With Painkillers
Diary of a chronic pain recovery therapist Disclaimer: My story about painkillers is not a prescription. It’s simply an honest account of my story. What I hope to model is not a step-by-step how-to, because the steps that I’ve chosen may not necessarily be the steps that you choose. Instead, I hope to model self-trust. […]
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How To Choose the Right Path for Chronic Pain Recovery
This is for those who worry about whether or not they’re pursuing the “right” treatment plan for chronic pain. The truth is, there is no single method or treatment that has worked for every single person who’s tried it. That’s the truth. So what path would you follow if you KNEW that the outcome was […]