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There’s a lot of fear mongering out there, designed to make us all feel afraid. Afraid of our bodies, and urgently in need of a panel of experts... (plus a cupboard of expensive elixirs) to help us feel like we even stand a chance.
Now, health and healing can be complex and mysterious at times, there's no question about that. And yet, in my humble opinion, the best doctors, guides, and coaches are the folks who can reduce the worry, calm the fear, and help educate and explain things in a way that simplifies and demystifies the whole process.
So, shall we do the latter? After nearly two decades of working with the human body in motion, I’ve had the pleasure to build up over 20,000 hours of combined experience over a variety of modalities including yoga and pilates, strength training and functional biomechanics.
I’ve also walked the path back to pain free living myself. At this point I have an injury history that’s 2 pages long and I know first hand how frustrating, time consuming, demoralizing, and well… painful it can truly be to live with chronic conditions that oscillate somewhere between an annoying thorn in the side to a throbbing inflamed wound that feels like a fire alarm.
Looking for real solutions? My signature program, Goodbye Back Pain might be just the thing you are looking for. In this 3 month pain reduction program I will teach you how to trust your body again so that you can increase your physical activity without fear, and confidently identify the exact 5-15 minute movement practice that will help you get comfortable when you’re having a pain day. Schedule a free consultation - click here!
Okay, so let’s dive into. If there’s one thing I’ve found the most helpful, it’s to have a roadmap that helps identify the different landmarks and key points of interest along the path back to pain free living. A roadmap can be incredibly helpful, it helps us feel calm even when we feel lost. That’s what I hope to give you today. Let’s go!
Step One: Curiosity, Open Mindedness, and Experimentation
There are many names for this first step, so choose the name that resonates with you the most. The energy and purpose of this first step is to transition from a place of constrictions to a place of expansion. Now, that sounds pretty vague and woo-woo, so let me explain. Constriction is anything that makes you feel small. Worry, doubt and fear all make us feel smaller. There’s also a very real physical response of constriction… muscles tend to stay tense, the breath tends to be more shallow, we tend to slump forward and slouch and our stature can literally become smaller.
So, step on is to actively work to generate a state of expansion in your body. This might look like a breathing or meditation practice, or a slow mindful walk in nature. It also might feel like a simple mindset shift to embrace a sense of curiosity and experimentation. To make the decision to break out of the constriction and seek a more expansive state.
There’s a saying that if what you’ve been doing isn’t working, then it’s time to do something different. This is such a valuable idea, that people have turned it into its own acronym. DSD. Do Something Different. And you might notice that there can be a sense of expansion, a sense of opening and curiosity in that moment when you decide to do something different. If what you’ve been doing isn’t working, then it might be time to do something different. Even if you don’t know what that thing is going to be yet, the first step is to look for the shift in focus and attention and get curious about what else might offer a better solution.
Step Two: Research, Educate Yourself and Gathering Options
This step is more straightforward at first glance. But it is also significant and worth contemplating. We tend to spend our time with likeminded people who have similar ideas as we do. This can also mean that we think we’ve learned about all the options, resources, or approaches to something, when in fact, there’s a whole wide world of possibility out there. So, step two is all about becoming a better researcher, learning where to get better information. Finding the people that are the most helpful to talk to, and then asking them where they get their information.
In many ways I feel like I am still learning this step, and it’s this step that can slow us down the most. In my experience, I feel like I spent a lot of time just traveling back and forth from step one to step two and then back to step one. (while also spending some time at step zero… which is where everything feels hopeless and we lose the energy and forward momentum for a while)
It wasn’t until I found my way into a group of people with better education and experience that I started to learn about what other options were out there, and that’s when things really started to open up for me with my own healing journey.
The thing that I’ve learned is that it takes time to research and gather options, but we also have to become very selective and intentional about where and how we go about finding out more information. This is the hardest step… how do we find trustworthy guides and experts that can genuinely offer a better solution?
Step Three: Get to work, invest, and focus.
It’s very common to travel between all 4 of these steps (plus step zero) without really getting the results from any one step before moving onto the next. So, this is a helpful thing to clarify for yourself. There is a time to research and gather options, and then there is a time to make a decision and invest your time, energy and resources into focused work and committed effort.
The skills related to this step include habit change, staying consistent, putting in the steady and consistent work and basically, sort of that energy of keeping your head down and digging in. This might look like setting better boundaries, it might look like investing the resources to hire a personal trainer or go to acupuncture every week for a certain period of time.
The other key skill associated with this step is risk taking. It can feel like a big risk to make a decision to invest your time and energy into hiring a trainer, or paying the joining fees at a fitness club, or whatever the case may be. A valuable mindset here is, “don’t short yourself”. You won’t know if this path is offering real results, unless you really commit and do the work to follow through and give it a real go.
Step Four: Reflect, Re-evaluate and Keep Track
The last step in the process of pain free living is a little more vague than steps two and three. With that said, I think the more specific we can get here the better.
If done wrong step four can look like having one foot in and one foot out the whole time, or making a spontaneous decision to try something else as soon as the going gets hard with step three.
This is also where the value of specific coaching programs comes in. For example, with my 3 month goodbye back pain program, you know that you are making a commitment for 3 months. And at the end of that 3 month period there will be a natural time to re-evaluate and consider what comes next. When it comes to health and healing, 3 months is a baseline for me, in terms of commitment level. You can’t expect to try a new diet for one day and then see results immediately, and it also takes a little while to adjust lifestyles, schedules, and habits to accommodate a new endeavor. For these reasons, I tend to think of 3 months as a healthy baseline. You might need 6, 9 or 12 months to really start to see the results that you are striving for, but 3 months is a good starting point.
You get to choose the length of time here, but step four is all about creating intentional time to reflect. That might look like a weekly journaling session on Sunday evenings when you look back on how your previous week went in terms of showing up for yourself and your goals. It might look like seeking out a friend or buddy who’s working with similar goals, and scheduling a monthly social event that includes checking in about the progress you’ve both made.
And finally, the hardest part about step four is making a firm and decisive choice about what comes next. Are you recommitting and refocusing your efforts to stay the course and return fully into step three? Or is it time to do something different? If it’s time to do something different, then it’s also time to do the hard and challenging work of admitting to all parties involved that it’s time for a change. I think this can be another place where we get stuck and waste a lot of time. We find ourselves no longer fully invested in step 3, but we sit on the fence of inaction, afraid to let go but afraid to move forward fully into something new. So… step 4 is all about acknowledging the work that needs to be done in order to get off the fence and either recommit your focus and energy, or return to step one and look for a better option.
There You Have It! 4 Steps to Pain Free Living
Wow! This was a super fun blog to write. I look forward to hearing how this resonates for you, so please don't hesitate to reach out and share something that sticks with you.
Interested to know more?
Getting back to a place of pain free living can take courage, patience, and hard work. As a trainer and coach I help clients navigate these this complex journey with both ease and grace. Coaching can help you reduce the stress and frustration of dealing with chronic pain, while also making the process of getting back to a stronger and more resilient version of yourself easier and faster.
If this sounds like the type of thing you're looking for, then I encourage you to consider my signature 3 month program, Goodbye Back Pain. This is a therapeutic pain reduction program based on 4 Step Pain Relief System. It is designed to help you regain suppleness in your back and hips, while decreasing your pain symptoms. (even if you feel like you've tried everything or think you are a lost cause)
* Learn how to trust your body again so that you can increase your physical activity without fear
* Confidently identify the exact 5-15 minute movement practice that will help you get comfortable when you’re having a pain day
* Discover the unique home exercise program that is specific to your needs and easy to fit into your schedule so that you can age like a total badass!
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