Tag Archives: chronic pain

The Drama of the Upside-Down Plate: What I Learned About Emotions as a Child

For many years, I thought I was just “too emotional.” I hadn’t learned to allow and to express my feelings. They felt too big because they were stuck inside, and because of what I had been taught was normal.

My feelings often felt too intense, too easily triggered. Everyone else seemed to have it together while I was a mess inside. It never occurred to me that other people might be having the same feelings—they just weren’t showing them. I was comparing my insides to other people’s outsides.

It also didn’t occur to me that burying my emotions might make me sick.

Keep reading…

How I Learned Not To Abandon Myself

(and What a Mispronounced Name Taught Me)

My body had been speaking what I refused to acknowledge: I was abandoning myself to take care of everyone else, and my nervous system wasn’t having it anymore.

While postpartum with my second child, I was hospitalized for severe depression and anxiety after suffering months of chronic dizziness and nausea. I was released from the hospital after twelve days of inpatient treatment. During those days, I kept solid food down for the first time in months, started to have an appetite, and was just beginning to be able to sleep through the night. I was seeing a light at the end of the tunnel.

When I got home and was back in the stressful environment I had left, I immediately felt like no recovery had occurred at all. My husband expected me to be back to 100% right aw…ay, and every stressful moment, even the sound of my son’s voice (needing something from me!), caused a wave of dread, dizziness and nausea to come right back. Clearly, I hadn’t fully recovered yet. So I got put in a full-day intensive outpatient program for six weeks, so I could ease back into “life on the outside.”

The People-Pleaser’s Guide to Chronic Pain

How I Learned About the Mind-Body Connection

I was 28 years old, sleeping with a mouth guard, walking around in orthopedic shoes, and wearing a wrist splint to work and to bed. My body was falling apart—or so I thought.

This newsletter is a bit longer than usual—I want to share my own journey with chronic pain and introduce you briefly to the principles of mind-body healing that changed my life. If you’re a parent dealing with unexplained symptoms that doctors can’t figure out, this story might sound familiar.

Video Explaining Basics of Neuroplastic Pain & Symptoms

Your Brain Can Unlearn Pain – Explained

A video generated by Notebook LM summarizing the basics about neuroplastic chronic pain and symptoms, and the revolutionary treatments that can help people overcome suffering and disability

Pain Science Paradigm Shift for Chronic Symptoms

Video from the Association for the Treatment of Neuroplastic Symptoms.

Pain Psychotherapy Bay Area

Empowering clients to overcome chronic pain & symptoms