Chronic Pain

Nothing’s perfect, but chronic pain makes life worse.

Congratulations, my friend, because despite sometimes debilitating pain, you’ve managed to develop a fulfilling life. And you don’t take it for granted.

You adore your family and have a job that challenges your mind and feeds your soul.

There are moments of divine presence – whether it’s hiking in nature, dancing to tribal rhythms with friends, or on the yoga mat – where you can sense how you are part of something much greater than yourself.

Which is why it is all the more crushing when chronic pain takes you out.

One’s identity erodes from chronic pain.

Moments of presence are stolen. Family vacations marred. Important meetings cancelled. Someone with chronic pain erodes every aspect of a person’s life.

In your darker moments, you feel guilty when you’re functioning at reduced capacity. Responding to the world when you’re hurting and wanting to crawl into bed is taking an emotional toll.

Concern about triggering a flare, or wondering when it will strike, is a constant, subtle presence in the back of your mind. You feel isolated by managing a condition that others can’t see, and so can’t quite understand. 

These next couple of sections may contain life-changing information for you, so listen up.

Therapy can help with chronic pain.

Let me share with you why and how Pain Reprocessing therapy and somatic therapy for chronic pain can help.

Emotions can cause pain in two different ways:

• Feeling frustrated or scared of a sensation can amplify the nervous system’s reaction to sensation, registering it as pain.

• Your body may be feeling physical pain instead of emotional pain. This is very common.

So, what can we actually do about that?

In session, I guide you into a calm, centered state. Together, we navigate toward the pain and explore your reactions to it. We work through any emotional responses to the pain – anger, terror, grief, shame – so that you can meet it from a curious, empathic stance. Often, that alone results in a significant reduction in pain.

Most people have difficulty doing this on their own. They aren’t quite sure how to manage their reactions to pain effectively. They try to force their attitude into “COMPASSION!” like covering up muck with sugary frosting. But you can’t fake the funk. Your system will know and will behave accordingly.

We then get to know the pain/sensation itself. This isn’t a cognitive process. Through specific prompts and questions, I support you in an intuitive experience of connecting directly with the pain and communicating with it. You’ll learn why the pain exists and what messages it holds for you.

For pain’s part, it learns there is a confident, caring presence to help it. And it quiets down.

This technique is truly revolutionary. 

Right now, you probably feel at the mercy of the pain. What if you could communicate with it from an empowered stance, hear what it needs, and provide it so it can stop screaming at you?

The migraine medication and painkillers gather dust in your medicine cabinet. There’s no more runaround from doctors who don’t know what else to do with you aside from writing you another prescription.

You stop snapping at your kids when you’re hurting and start being able to chase them on the playground. 

And suddenly you notice you’re feeling a lot better at work. It turns out your pain was caused by frustration at your boss, or anxiety about your performance, and now you know exactly what to do with these emotions so that your body doesn’t take the hit.

Reach out. What do you have to lose?

Maybe it’s time to stop trying to figure this out on your own. Perhaps it’s time to place yourself in the hands of an experienced guide who can show you exactly how to navigate the emotional side of chronic pain. 

As a functional nutritionist, I often combine this process with addressing natural approaches to reducing inflammation, depression, and anxiety. These are areas that conventional medicine frequently ignores. 

Call me at (720) 666-1159 to set up an initial 30-minute consultation. You can share more about your unique situation, and I’ll share more about how this holistic, integrative approach can be customized to your needs. (I will also share if I don’t think it will work for you!)

This could be the most important call you make all year. I hope to hear from you soon.