But it also made me cry… and as a vehicle for getting in touch with my emotions, it helped me step out of an intensity spiral 🌀 that had been brewing in me for a few days — the kind of spiral that, if left unchecked, can often result in a headache for me.

Here’s a step-by-step of how I was reluctantly healed by Barbie 😅. Regardless of what you think of the doll or the movie, you might relate to parts of this story…

It started with stress… and escalated into the stress cycle

When we experience a flare-up of anxiety or any of the physical symptoms that can come with it (like pain), we often want to trace the steps back to how and why the flare-up started. “What caused it? What could I have done to avoid it?” We’re often looking for one singular thing that we did “wrong” so that we can course-correct for the future.

But most of the time, it’s not one singular thing. Stress is cumulative. And in my case on this particular occasion, I’d recently heard several heavy stories of sad news, I was (and still am) undertaking a number of home improvement projects with my partner, and a week I’d taken off for vacation wound up being subsumed in to-do’s.

These normal, everyday stresses that come with life then kicked my stress cycle into gear. For me, it looks like this: I start fixating on stress-induced thoughts. Thoughts like, “I’m not doing enough. My partner is working harder than me, so I should be doing more. I shouldn’t relax because he’s not relaxing…”

These thoughts, of course, perpetuate more stress. It becomes a cycle that escalates.

I recognized the symptoms of the stress cycle starting to brew

In the old days, I used to think self-critical thoughts were true. And I thought that I just needed to do more and be better in order to quiet those thoughts down. I still get caught up in that kind of thinking… when I’m stressed.

What I recognize now is that those thoughts themselves are a symptom of stress. And they seem very true when I’m stressed! It’s an act of will to notice them and name them as a stress symptom so that I can start making choices that will help me unwind from the stress cycle.

Another stress symptom I noticed was that it was getting harder to concentrate on work. I felt like I was pushing myself instead of feeling led by inspiration or energy. Work started to feel like a drag and I began to feel resentment towards it.

In the days before I ever experienced a migraine, I would ignore these signals that are telling me to slow down. And I still do, sometimes. But what my recovery from chronic pain has taught me is that ignoring the signals can have very unpleasant consequences — and that as hard as it is to step off the stress merry-go-round, there are immeasurable benefits to doing so before my nervous system pulls the emergency break in the form of a pain flare-up.

I didn’t do it “perfectly”

Yes, I’ve gotten much better at listening to my nervous system’s signals. But I’m not “perfect” at it! I don’t always catch the stress before it manifests in physical pain. And I did wake up with a mild headache before fully tending to the stress.

The headache — along with increasing levels of feeling jittery throughout the morning — were my nervous system’s way of sending a louder signal. One that I decided to heed.

I’d planned to spend most of the day working on my podcast. But I made an executive decision to step away from my desk, play hooky for the rest of the day… and go see the Barbie movie. I figured two hours of sparkly pink Hollywood entertainment would get my mind out of productivity overdrive and overwhelm.

Then came the guilt!

I tiptoed out of the house, feeling tremendously guilty that my husband was still glued to endless Zoom meetings for work.

I debated whether to even tell him that I was going to the movies.

I finally sent a text message to let him know… and then sat with the waves of guilt mixed with waves of relief all the way to the theater.

Lights, camera, tears

The lights went down in the movie theater, and just as I’d hoped, the magic of Hollywood glitter took my preoccupied mind into another dimension. But much to my surprise, it wasn’t just a trip to the land of distraction and fluff.

Despite my misgivings about Barbie… that dang movie got to me. And I cried! I literally wept in the theater. Funny enough, the movie touches into a lot of the themes that we talk about in chronic pain recovery: Breaking out of numbness and feeling your full range of emotions, taking off the mask of perfectionism and revealing your authentic self…

I was reluctant to be swept up in the story — but it was exactly the emotional release that I needed. And my whole mind and body felt like they were re-set and re-energized by the time the lights came up again.

Laughter and perspective

By the time I got home, all the feelings of guilt that my stress-cycle churned up had subsided. My partner was still working away when I turned the key in the door, and when he got up to greet me he said, “Where’d you go? I didn’t know you were out!”

I had to laugh at all the angst and worry I put myself through debating whether it was okay to take time for myself while he was working.

It felt good to give him a hug and tell him about my movie escapade — and I could tell he enjoyed seeing me in such a good mood.

My takeaways from this vignette? While I might not have time to run away to the movies every day, feeling guilty about slowing down to unwind is always a signal that… it’s time to slow down and unwind. In whatever way, shape or form is available to you. Even if it starts off as a guilty pleasure, making time for pleasure will guide you back home.

➡️ If you need support with chronic pain and anxiety, take my FREE QUIZ called “Why the *bleep* am I still in pain?!” so I can help you get some clarity.

The post Reluctantly Healed By Barbie 😅 appeared first on Medika Life.

You’re working in a stressful and/or abusive environment and you feel that it would be unsafe to leave because you need the job to survive. One part of you desperately wants to stand up for yourself and set some firm boundaries, while another part of you is desperately afraid of losing the job and wants you to do whatever you need to do to keep the job.

I got a bunch of messages about this post from folks who identified with the scenario and wondered how they could possibly reduce their chronic symptoms while stuck at a stressful job.

It’s a great question! This is truly a hard situation. And unfortunately, a common one in the society we live in. To anyone who finds themselves in this kind of situation, I send my empathy.

I don’t have concrete answers and we are each so different and are navigating different circumstances. So what I will share is just a little piece of my own personal experience. And if this dilemma is one you relate to, you can see if there’s anything about my story that gives you an idea that might be useful to you.

What I have found is true for me is this:

My body reacts to stress, and stress is an unavoidable part of life. But my body reacts with a very different level of intensity if it truly feels that I am on its side.

If my body senses that I would rather make my boss like me than take care of my body, then my body feels it cannot trust me and it freaks out at me.

If my body feels I’m blaming it for the way it’s responding to external stresses at work, then my body feels betrayed by me and it freaks out at me.

If my body feels that my priority is anything other than loving and caring for it and standing up for it the best I can through stressful times — like I would for my own child if I had one — then my body feels unsafe with me and it freaks out at me.

But if my body feels that I am truly and fiercely on its side like a loving parent, then my body can weather the stresses of life much better.

Kind of like if my body was a child who was getting bullied by a teacher at school: I, as the parent, might not be able to remove the teacher or stop the teacher from bullying.

But if the child knows that I am standing beside them, acknowledging the injustice and standing up for them at home by telling them how loveable they are and undeserving of abuse, then the child will be able to weather the stress a lot better than if I said something like “well, what are you doing to make the teacher angry?”

Does that make sense? If anything here is helpful, use it — and if it doesn’t feel helpful or relevant, then toss it aside!

Whatever your circumstance or experience, I do believe this to be true: Our bodies are happier when we treat them with kindness, care and deep respect.

➡️ If you need support with chronic pain and anxiety, take my FREE QUIZ called “Why the *bleep* am I still in pain?!” so I can help you get some clarity.

The post How to Reduce Chronic Symptoms When You’re Stuck in a Stressful Situation appeared first on Medika Life.

I find this concept helpful for understanding and healing from chronic pain and other stress-related symptoms, but I want to propose an additional layer of nuance.

Fear, like pain, is something that we need for survival. Without fear, we wouldn’t run for cover when a tornado is coming. Without pain, we wouldn’t pull our hand away from the stove when we get burned.

So, it wouldn’t be accurate to say that all fear is undesirable or that all fear leads to chronic pain. And it’s certainly impossible to get rid of fear or to never feel afraid again.

But there’s one type of fear in particular that I find most often in clients who struggle with chronic symptoms, and that is the fear of social rejection. This fear can trigger self-abandoning thoughts and behaviors, and habitual self-abandonment leaves us feeling helpless and hopeless. It can put our nervous system into a state of chronic stress that manifests in chronic symptoms.

Here are some anecdotal examples:

I’ve seen folks who are afraid to sit, stand or walk because it hurts, and the more they fear these activities, the more the pain persists. But what really escalates their pain levels is the fear that they will be rejected by their family, their job, their partner and friends for not being able to “keep up.” This social fear preoccupies them so greatly that they spend most of their energy trying to please others rather than prioritizing their own feelings, needs, desires and pleasures. And this habit of self-abandonment puts them in a chronic state of stress.

I’ve seen folks who are afraid to go out for a night on the town for fear that it will trigger a migraine attack. And the more they fear and predict pain, the more the pain persists. But what really escalates their attacks is the fear that friends and loved ones will see them as weak or pathetic or uncool for not being able to “keep up.” And again, it’s that social pressure that triggers self-abandoning habits which in turn leads their body to feel like it can’t trust them. And when our body feels like it can’t trust us, it freaks out and pulls the emergency alarm: symptoms.

If any of this is resonating with you, you might be wondering: OK now what? Now that I’ve recognized this pattern of fear of rejection and self-abandonment that exacerbates my stress levels and symptoms, what the heck can I do about it?

And my answer might not be what you want to hear, because when we’re feeling fearful, we want quick solutions and certainty. And as far as I know, the antidote to self-abandonment is something far more complex than that: it’s the gradual journey of developing self-compassion.

Developing self-compassion is slow work. It’s gentle work. It’s asking ourse in each moment, “what is the simplest, easiest, most doable step I can take right now to be just a little bit gentler and kinder toward myself?”

We can’t develop self-compassion with harsh expectations or by pressuring ourselves to transform our self-relationship overnight. We have to give ourselves the grace to do it one baby step at a time.

So, keep it simple and ask yourself, “what is the simplest, easiest doable step I can take — from exactly where I am right now — to bring just a tiny bit more kindness and gentleness into the way I treat myself?”

I’d love to hear what you come up with!

➡️ If you need support with chronic pain and anxiety, take my FREE QUIZ called “Why the *bleep* am I still in pain?!” so I can help you get some clarity.

And follow me on Instagram for healing tips, inspiration and encouragement.

The post The Role of Fear and Self-Abandonment in Chronic Symptoms appeared first on Medika Life.

The following was excerpted with permission from Healing Honestly: The Messy and Magnificent Path to Overcoming Self-Blame and Self-Shame 2023 Berrett-Koehler Publishers www.bkconnection.com

Now I get to introduce you to a friend of mine, Anna Holtzman, LMHC, who has helped me so much on my chronic pain journey. Anna is a licensed therapist and chronic pain expert whose expertise is at the intersection of chronic pain and trauma. She is also a childhood sexual trauma survivor, and you know we love survivor-to-survivor wisdom!

A year ago, I was dealing with chronic migraines. At my request, Anna sent me information about how chronic pain works in the body, along with resources like guided imagery and journaling prompts. One of the coolest things I learned was that research shows that simply learning about how chronic pain works can in and of itself be an effective treatment for pain. So many fellow CSA survivors struggle with physical pain, like shoulder/neck/ back pain, migraines, and pelvic pain the way I have. It isn’t a coincidence, and it certainly isn’t our fault.

WITHOUT GETTING TOO PHILOSOPHICAL ON YOUR ASS, WE ARE GOING TO ASK OURSELVES, “WHAT IS PAIN?”

Anna explained to me, “Pain is nothing but a danger signal and triggered by fear. Sometimes the danger is physical, like a broken leg; sometimes the danger is emotional, like emotional abuse.” She continued, “Pain is a danger alarm created in our brains when our nervous systems feel unsafe. This is a process that doesn’t happen consciously, nor is it based on decisions we make.”

There are loads of examples of how this mind-body connection works. If we are nervous about a job interview, having a difficult conversation, or awaiting results of an important test, we may get stomach pains, nausea, loss of appetite, tightness in our neck and back. Or, if you’re me, you get the nervous bubble gut and you’re just grateful to make it through without pooping your pants. We don’t decide to get an upset stomach or back pains during these high-stress experiences; they are things that happen subconsciously.

There are these one-off stressful experiences, “but when you are dealing with chronic stress or chronic trauma, it can cause chronic pain. We can see examples around us, like having a super stressful job, which is an everyday experience, which may lead us to have headaches or back pain most days,” said Anna.

It all sounds too simple, right? Well, that’s kind of the point, she said. “This is all actually very simple. We all intuitively understand the connection between pain and trauma and our mind and body. But we’ve been conditioned to distrust our own knowledge of our own emotional and physical experience. We have been gaslit into believing our emotional feelings are not valid.”

While the world outside of us tells us that physical and emotional pain are completely different things, one being considered “real” and provable and the other constantly invalidated and dismissed, they are interwoven inside of us.

Anna explained, “Physical pain and emotional pain are created in very similar parts of the brain, so the two are inextricably connected. They are coordinated aspects of stress response, so we cannot divorce one from the other, not ever. Even if you have pain from a bone, there’s an emotional response to that from the physical sensation of the broken bone.” I can personally attest to that as someone who, as a kid, all on separate occasions, broke her leg, three toes, one finger, and an arm (from literally, I shit you not, napping on the couch while watching Baywatch reruns and slowly rolling over onto the floor, landing on my arm. Yes, it was just a regular couch.)

Anna continued, “Chronic pain is a result of the chronic tension between the part of us that wants to fight back and the part of us that has learned to be afraid to fight back, probably for good reasons, at least in childhood or before you had allies to support you.”

To illustrate the point, she offered us this prompt:

• First, let’s imagine lots of angry energy inside of you, the kind of fury of fighting back against all that is wrong. Tap into the anger and fury that is a part of each of us.
• Now that you’ve tapped into that feeling of righteous anger, try suppressing all that fighting energy with all of your might.
• What does your body feel like when you try to suppress your anger and fighting energy? It may feel pretty tense and tight in your body. If each of us sustained that for a while, we might start to feel some pain.
• Now that this little experiment is over, give your limbs a light shake or do some deep exhalations to release all that tension and discomfort, because that isn’t a pleasant feeling!

Presumably, if we continued to suppress and silence the natural fight response in us for long periods of time, say our whole childhood, we can see how some pain would start to develop. So this prompt is helping us understand a little better how chronic pain comes from this tension of suppressing our healthy natural emotional selves. Whether the prompt was illuminating to you or not, that’s okay; we have more to learn together!

COMMON SURVIVAL BEHAVIORS THAT CAN PERPETUATE CHRONIC PAIN (NONE OF WHICH ARE ANYTHING FOR US TO FEEL ASHAMED OF!)

In further exploring the chronic pain and CSA survivor relationship, Anna explained to me that there are some common survival behaviors that we survivors engage in that can perpetuate chronic pain.

1. Vigilance and preparing for the threat of danger.
   Many survivors experience hypervigilance as a part of their trauma. I feel I am often on high alert, playing worst-case scenarios in my head as a way to anticipate danger and prepare for ways to deal with the fallout. Do you observe yourself being constantly on high alert? No shame if you do! This was developed for good reasons!
   
   “The habit of vigilance perpetuates chronic pain because it keeps our danger alarm on high alert all the time. Pain is a danger signal, so when we fear we are in danger, our body sends us pain as a message, Anna explained. If we spend a lot of time with our danger alarms going off, this can continue our cycles of pain.
2. People pleasing and suppressing anger.
   Many of us can relate to being conditioned to suppress anger, because if we tried expressing it when we were younger, we may have received explicit or implicit signals that it wasn’t safe for us to be angry. Have you observed any people-pleasing/appeasing tendencies within yourself? Again, no shame if you have! This was developed for good reasons! (Yes, I will repeat this again because it is worthy of repetition!)
   
   “The people-pleasing/appeasing/suppressing anger survival behaviors perpetuate chronic pain in a few ways, including that when we have the urge to fight back but have to suppress it, it is as though our internal gas pedal and brake pedal are being slammed on simultaneously, which causes physical tension,” Anna explained.
3. Perfectionism and self-criticism (I am the best at this one!)
   My therapist says I am the best at criticizing myself for things that aren’t my fault — which also fulfills my perfectionist tendencies, so take that. We can be so hard on ourselves in hopes that it prevents us from “inviting” (we never actually invite abuse from someone, hence the quotation marks) abuse from someone else. Do you join me in having a lot of perfectionism and self-criticism tendencies too?
   
   When I asked Anna how this survival behavior contributes to chronic pain, she explained, “When we are perfectionists and intense self-critics, we are terrorizing ourselves all day long, and that turns on our danger alarms and sends signals of pain within us.” I did a true, honest-to-God spit-take when she said this last one, because it was so real to me that my only option was to hysterically laugh.

It’s no wonder so many of us deal with chronic pain! Look at all the coping strategies we had to develop just to try to stay safe and function in the world as survivors. Those same things can cause us pain. Thinking about all this together fills me up with a deep feeling of compassion for all of us.

HOW PAIN CAN SHOW UP DELAYED FOR US, LIKE A FUN SURPRISE FROM HELL!

A really important aspect of pain for us CSA survivors is that sometimes danger is a present-time threat, like touching a hot stove, but other times danger can be a conditioned response that reminds us of past danger or abuse. We can be going about our days and then get a headache or back pain and not know why, but it could be because we smelled or heard or saw something that subconsciously reminded us of our abuse. Anna explained that this can be a confusing part of pain, especially if we are trying to explain it to people who don’t know what it’s like to have trauma and experience triggers.

“An example I like to use is that when we get near a flame, our body automatically recoils from it because we know It’s dangerous. How do we know it’s dangerous? We aren’t consciously thinking about how fire is dangerous, so we must move our hand. We aren’t thinking about the first time we learned fire is dangerous. We may not consciously remember how and when we learned fire was dangerous, but our nervous system remembers fire is dangerous to touch, so our nervous system is recoiling our hand from the flame,” Anna said.

For some of us, we experienced chronic pain throughout our childhood. For others, we didn’t experience it until adulthood. Sometimes people ask, “Why now?!” to their pain who didn’t experience pain in their childhood.

“Often with chronic pain, we experience the pain when our bodies are safe enough to relax our survival mechanisms a bit and we determine, in a subconscious place, that it’s safe enough for us to fully feel the pain connected to the stress,” Anna explained.

WE CALL BULLSHIT ON THE NOTION THAT OUR EMOTIONS ARE “TOO BIG” TO FEEL

I’ve heard some people imply that we have chronic pain because our emotions are too big, or too hard, for our minds to process, so our bodies store them. When I asked Anna about this, she told me that every one of her trauma teachers has said that people suppress their feelings because they are too overwhelming, and that’s what leads to chronic pain.

“In my opinion, that is bullshit,” I was surprised to hear her say. “I don’t think we are unable to handle big feelings. Or that there are feelings too big for our nervous systems to handle. But rather, it’s that we can’t handle big feelings in isolation. We need companionship in order to safely process our feelings.”

We weren’t born suppressing our emotions. We learned to suppress our emotions because we learned from the people around us that we were not going to receive empathy and companionship with our feelings. Expressions of our feelings were met with silence, criticism, denial, and even punishment. Bad f — -ing things. At the same time, we learned that our physical pain would be taken seriously and met with some sympathy and support. So our bodies brilliantly channeled all our pain and emotions into the parts of us that would receive care and support when hurt. Fancy, smart moves from our bodies.

“We feel physical pain because it has a greater chance of being socially validated than emotional pain, and we stuff emotional pain down because we know we aren’t going to get empathy for it and the world around us has shown us it isn’t safe to process it,” Anna shared. Are there ways you’ve seen your physical pain garner more support and empathy than your emotional pain throughout your life?

The good news is that, as adults, we can seek out empathetic witnesses to our pain, like a trusted friend or a good therapist, who can offer us companionship that allows us to safely express our big feelings.

“Feeling our feelings without the presence of compassion makes our nervous system freak the f — – out because it feels exposed and vulnerable to potential threats. But feeling our feelings in the presence of compassion makes our nervous system feel safe,” Anna told me.

What is most important is for each of us to know we aren’t alone in our pain. “You are not crazy, and none of this is your fault. It is possible for you to find relief, and while you can never prevent all pain, it absolutely can get better,” Anna offered.

I know that was a lot of information about chronic pain and trauma! What kinds of emotions, including potentially unpleasant ones, does all of this bring up for you? However you feel, it is totally normal.

Want to read more? Grab a copy of the book, Healing Honestly: The Messy and Magnificent Path to Overcoming Self-Blame and Self-Shame!

The post Overcoming Self-Blame and Self-Shame appeared first on Medika Life.

👉 Do I banish a loved one who has hurt me, so that they can’t keep hurting me… but then suffer the loss of the relationship?⁠⁠

👉 Or do I keep the relationship with my loved one… but then suffer as they continue to hurt me over and over again?⁠⁠

This is a dilemma between choosing the pain of healing and grieving, or the pain of ongoing injury.⁠⁠

And you may find that there really is no third option that works for you — that choosing to heal means ending the relationship, as painful as that may be.⁠⁠

Or you may find that the path to healing that works best for you is a third option: To keep the relationship, but set a firm boundary on behaviors that injure you, physically or emotionally.

This may be very difficult, but if it’s what you truly want — and if it actually feels possible — then it might be the path that you choose.⁠⁠

Whatever your situation, needs or preference, one thing is consistently true:⁠ We cannot heal an injury when we continue to be re-injured. It just doesn’t work.⁠⁠

Whether we end the relationship or keep it, we need to put a stop to the injurious behavior if we want our nervous system to feel safe enough to heal — emotionally and physically.⁠

This is easier said than done, and it’s important to consider your own safety first when setting boundaries. Start with small, doable steps. Maybe the first step is confiding in a trusted and supportive friend. You don’t have to do this all at once. You can take one step at a time.

The post Do Your Relationships Need To Change in Order for You To Heal? appeared first on Medika Life.

At work, you may have been taught to always say “yes” to your boss — even when your inner self wants to say “no.”⁠ ⁠

In relationships, you may have been taught to always say “yes” to your partner — even when your inner self wants to say “no.”⁠ ⁠ We all need social connection.

And if we’re only rewarded by others for saying “yes” and disapproved of for saying “no,” we may become habituated to ignoring our inner voice.⁠

The body doesn’t like that. The body may feel betrayed when you ignore your inner voice. The body may do things to defend your inner voice:⁠ ⁠

🔸 Like getting a migraine so you don’t have to attend that event you said “yes” to but really wanted to say “no” to.⁠

🔸Or getting back pain so that you don’t have to sit at that desk job you took because you thought you “should” even though you really wanted to follow your passion.⁠

🔸Or getting a stomach ache so that you don’t have to spend time with that person who disrespects your boundaries.⁠ ⁠

If we are conditioned to always say “yes,” we may find ourselves in conflict with our body when it says “no.”⁠ ⁠

🌸 BUT just like with couples therapy, conflict resolution is possible between mind and body. ✨⁠ ⁠

The first step to conflict resolution is: Each party needs to have their side of the story heard and acknowledged.⁠

👉 Here’s something you can try:⁠

Ask your mind, with pen and paper 📝:

Dear part that always says “yes,” what are you feeling? What would you like me to know? What are you trying to protect me from?⁠ ⁠

And see what flows out onto the page 📄.⁠ ⁠

Then, ask your body 📝:⁠

Dear part that says “no,” what are you feeling? What would you like me to know? What are you trying to protect me from?⁠

You may find that the mind and body have similar goals — just different ideas about how to get there.⁠

If you need support with chronic pain and anxiety, take my FREE QUIZ called “Why the *bleep* am I still in pain?!” so I can help you get some clarity.

The post If You Don’t Set Boundaries, a Symptom Flare-Up Might Step In and Do It For You appeared first on Medika Life.

Sometimes, the danger is physical — like a broken bone.

But when pain is chronic, it’s likely that the danger signal has been triggered by emotional stress.

Below is a list of 7 types of emotional stress that can trigger chronic pain — and how to use these triggers as opportunities for healing.

1. Fear of Pain Itself

To de-escalate this fear, read up on the science of neuroplastic pain and practice somatic tracking as described in the book The Way Out by Alan Gordon.

MORE RESOURCES:

👉 the book Unlearn Your Pain by Howard Schubiner is a great read on neuroplastic pain⁠

⁠ 👉 the Curable app teaches you about neuroplastic pain and somatic tracking as well.⁠

⁠ 👉here’s a handy flip-through infographic with some tips for reducing fear of pain.

2. Conditioned Association

When the nervous system codes something benign (like sitting or rainy weather) as “dangerous,” it becomes a pain trigger. We need to reassure our nervous system that sitting and rain are not dangerous.

RESOURCES:

👉 the resources listed above are great for this too.⁠

3. Stressful Situation

To de-escalate this fear, address the stress! Assert healthy boundaries with people, places and things that create stress in your life.

RESOURCES:

👉 the book Nonviolent Communication by Marshall Rosenberg offers helpful strategies to effectively navigate conflict and set boundaries.⁠

4. Past Trauma

When present day triggers bring up body memories of past stress and trauma, we need to uncouple the present from the past. Therapy can be helpful!

RESOURCES:

👉 check out the book The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel van der Kolk and consider enlisting the support of a therapist.⁠

5. Emotional Invalidation

When our stresses and traumas are not acknowledged and empathized with by our community, we need to seek out people or groups that can and will acknowledge and empathize.

RESOURCES:

👉 support groups and books that reflect your own experience can offer wonderful opportunities for healing.⁠

👉here’s a handy flip-through infographic on understanding and healing from emotional invalidation.

6. Negative Self-Talk

Self-criticism puts our nervous system on edge. Replace self-rejection with loving self-talk. Louise Hay’s book You Can Heal Your Life offers how-to guidance.

RESOURCES:

👉 the book The Six Pillars of Self-Esteem by Nathaniel Branden⁠

👉 the book You Can Heal Your Life by Louise Hay⁠

👉here’s a handy flip-through infographic on the effects of negative self-talk and its antidote, self-love.

7. Bottled-Up Emotions

Our nervous system gets overwhelmed by bottled-up emotions. We need to let them out regularly, like going to the bathroom! Emotionally expressive journaling is one great way to do this.

RESOURCES:

👉 My online course, Writing to Release Chronic Pain, will show you how to release tension and pain from your body and reconnect with your authentic self through expressive writing.⁠

👉 Nicole Sachs, who created the JournalSpeak method of expressive writing, has many wonderful resources on her website⁠.

👉 here’s a handy infographic on the relationship between bottled-up emotions and chronic pain.

🌟EXTRA TIP

👉 When I get a twinge or a flare, I ask myself which of these 7 triggers might be at play (here’s a flip-through infographic to remind you) and what I can do to ease my fear.

👉If I can’t figure it out right away, I STOP trying to figure it out. And I ask myself this instead: “What’s the kindest thing I can do for my body right now?” Almost always, the answer is: “slow down.” 💖

Sending warmth, support and encouragement your way,

Anna

The post Chronic Pain Triggers Are Opportunities For Healing appeared first on Medika Life.

While this is great news, it can also make choosing a coach or online program overwhelming and confusing. Especially because one of the ingredients that contribute to chronic pain is a lack of self-trust and a belief that someone other than you has “the” magic solution to your recovery.

The truth is that we are each unique beings, and finding your unique path to healing is a bit like discovering your purpose in life:

• Your path isn’t going to be the same as everybody else’s, because it’s your path!
• Mentors and education can be a helpful and even life-transforming vehicle for exploring your path, but they can’t define your path for you.
• Finding your path is not about finding the “right” set of rules to follow, it’s about learning how to trust your intuition — and seeking out the supportive people, places and resources that reflect your intuition back to you, helping you strengthen your self-trust.

So, if there isn’t a singular coach, mentor, doctor, therapist or program that’s right for every single person, how do you find a coach or program that’s a good fit for you?

Here’s what I suggest: Explore a bunch of different options and do a “vibe check.”

Contrary to popular myth, therapists, doctors and coaches are not omniscient, objective beings — they’re people with value systems, beliefs and viewpoints. Ideally, a pain recovery practitioner will be your ally in healing and growth. And when choosing an ally — like with choosing a friend — it’s important to discern whether or not you have enough shared values around the issues that are important to you.

A good starting point for assessing a practitioner’s values is to take a look at their website, social media, blog, podcast etc. and notice how their point of view feels to you.

For example, if you read my weekly emails or blog or follow me on Instagram, you’ll probably pick up on some characteristics that are specific to my personal style as a therapist and coach. Such as:

1️⃣ I talk about how the hierarchical culture we’re living in (otherwise known as patriarchy, white supremacy, capitalism, etc) creates our social social conditioning, and how this social conditioning (in the form of emotional suppression and self-harshness) feeds into chronic pain. I also talk about how we can unlearn our social conditioning and reclaim emotional freedom and self-kindness, both individually and collectively. In my view, this work isn’t just about healing from chronic pain, it’s about healing in a much broader sense.

2️⃣ I’ll never tell you that you need to trust my process in order to heal from chronic pain. My aim as a therapist and coach is to support you in learning how to trust your process by developing healthy communication between your mind and body. And I’ve got plenty of tools and resources to help you explore and discover your process!

3️⃣ I’m not just a licensed therapist and chronic pain recovery coach. I’m also a creative and an entrepreneur — I’m a lifelong writer and I had a career in television before becoming a therapist. I’m intimately familiar with all the particular ups and downs, strengths and challenges that come with the passionate creative’s recovery process!

To get a sense of what some other practitioners’ styles are like, you can use this resource list to start your exploration.

Bottom line: Go with your gut. Trust what feels right and what doesn’t. By doing so, you’re already engaging in the process of healing!

With love, encouragement and limitless faith in you,

💖 Anna

The post How to Choose a Chronic Pain Recovery Coach appeared first on Medika Life.

And I’ll start by saying that the life I live today is not a life of being perfectly pain-free or happy or balanced 100% of the time.

Instead, it’s something so much more fulfilling and rewarding to me than a life that’s centered around being “pain-free.”

My current life is one that’s fashioned around doing the things that bring me a sense of purpose, meaning and joy. And for me, that means living a creative life!

It’s a life in which symptoms are no longer the headline, but rather a footnote. They pop up, they come and go, but they no longer escalate to the point of taking over my time and stopping me from doing the things that I love.

The big shift that fueled my recovery:

There were many steps that fueled my recovery. Educating myself about the science of chronic pain was the first step that began to bring down the frequency and intensity of my headaches. Learning how to regularly and safely process and release emotions then brought my healing to a whole new level. And shifting my self-talk from critical to loving unlocked another level of healing yet again.

Then, my recovery plateaued for a while. Until I discovered the next shift that I needed:

Ever since I’d started my healing journey, I’d been focused on getting away from something: Namely, the pain. And initially, that focus was essential for my healing process, because it’s the thing that got me into all this healing work to begin with.

But once my healing trajectory was in motion, I began to realize something: Keeping my focus on something that I did not want (pain) was also keeping me in a protective posture of contraction — which is a core ingredient of the chronic pain pattern. And holding onto that posture will keep the chronic pain pattern going.

What I needed to do at that point, I discovered, was to shift my focus onto the things that I actually do want in life. And keep inviting my focus back to those things over and over and over again. Doing this brings me into a posture of opening up and moving forward, towards the things that I actively choose. And this not only sends messages of empowerment and goodness to my nervous system, furthering my healing day by day, but it’s also the whole entire point of healing!

With tons of encouragement and love,

Anna

The post If You Don’t Want Chronic Pain, Focus on What You DO Want. appeared first on Medika Life.

In my opinion, this confusion often stems from a false binary that is unhelpful to our recovery: The notion that mind-body healing and “medical issues” are two entirely different and separate things. And that taking one route seriously means excluding the other.

This all-one-or-the-other mindset can add to the nervous system stress that is already ramping up symptoms. So I want to offer you another perspective here:

For some types of chronic pain, releasing your fear of the pain can actually resolve your symptoms completely, it’s true.⁠ But this is not the case for all stress-related conditions.⁠

Chronic stress, anxiety and fear can lead to complications — like bacterial infections, inflammation, chemical sensitivities, ADHD, codependency, IBS, recurring injuries, etc., etc., etc.⁠

And often these complications require other tools to support their unraveling — from behavioral interventions to postural adjustments to antibiotics — on top of the self-love, emotional expression and fear reduction that is needed to address the underlying issue of nervous system stress.⁠

This integrative approach doesn’t negate the validity of either top-down medicine or bottom-up healing. This isn’t an either/or situation. Rather, an integrated approach uses top-down medicine to complement and support bottom-up mind-body healing, and vice vesa.

Is this perspective helpful to you? Let me know!

With encouragement and love,

💖 Anna

The post Untangling the False Binary of “Medical vs. Mind-Body” appeared first on Medika Life.