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Posts tagged with “chronic”

What Helps Me When I Feel Down About My Chronic Illness

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“Faith is taking the first step even when you don’t see the whole staircase.” ~Martin Luther King Jr.

A few months back, before the pandemic upended life for all of us, I went through one of those times when I could do nothing but sit at home and rest for my health’s sake.

I’d recently had another one of my surgeries; I was born with a genetic condition called vascular malformation, which grew and spread quite rapidly on my left cheek and into the mouth during my childhood. It’s the reason I’ve been paying visits to operation theaters for all …

How Expressing Myself Helped Me Release Chronic Pain

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“Live life as if everything is rigged in your favor.” ~ Rumi

It can be frightening to experience physical or mental pain. It’s not something anyone wants to deal with; nobody wants to race against the clock hoping that some future experience will take away their pain. Nobody wants to question the purpose of anything, like seeing a friend or even traveling, just because they feel their pain will ruin it.

During my freshman year at college, I woke up one day with horrific nerve pain in my legs and in my pelvic area. What was this? My instinct told …

Healing Chronic Pain Is an Inside Job

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“Time is not a cure for chronic pain, but it can be crucial for improvement. It takes time to change, to recover, and to make progress.” ~Mel Pohl

Let’s face it, living with any kind of physical pain is a challenge. I understand that completely. In the fall of 2007, I contracted an extremely painful and debilitating condition, Thoracic Outlet Syndrome, a structural collapse that compresses the muscles, nerves, and arteries that run between the collarbones and first ribs.

Yet, as most of us do, I believed my condition would, naturally, clear up soon and the pain would leave. …

How Dealing with Our Emotions Can Help us Heal Chronic Pain

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“The part can never be well unless the whole is well.” ~Plato

Our bodies are clever. They constantly send us messages that something isn’t right. It’s our job to tune in, listen, and act on these messages.

That headache, tight shoulders, and backache are all trying to tell us something. But sometimes the physical symptoms we experience are actually tied up in a deeper emotional pain that needs to be dealt with first.

How do I know this? It was a message I needed to learn, one that I now teach to others.

Six years ago my life fell apart…

Managing Chronic Pain: 5 Lessons from Being Hit by a Truck

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“Pain can change you, but that doesn’t mean it has to be a bad change. Take that pain and turn it into wisdom.” ~Unknown

You know how people say, “It was like being hit by a truck”?

I know what they mean.

But the impact took over ten years.

It was a cold, snowy January, and I was in my car, singing along to the radio.

I was doing a steady, careful sixty miles per hour, in the middle lane of a busy British highway. I was on my way to deliver my first solo course for the company I’d …