Chronic pain can be debilitating. It can stop you from living the life you want to live. That’s what happened for me. Here is a list of some of my chronic pain conditions:

• I suffered from chronic plantar fasciitis for several decades. It stopped me from being active – I gave up running, stopped walking much, and became a couch potato.

• More recently, I suffered from terrible hip pain lasting about five years for no known structural reason.

• After breaking the wrist of my dominant hand in 2019, I struggled with complex regional pain syndrome for almost two years.

• And almost a year after I broke my wrist, I suffered incredibly from hives, for which doctors were unable to find a cause.

Thanks to a wonderful therapist, I learned about neuroplastic pain. I was provided with tools (including the Curable app) and techniques, backed by scientific research, to retrain my brain and calm my nervous system. As of 2021, I consider myself free of these chronic pain conditions. Does that mean that I never suffer from pain? No, because I’m human and humans have pain. Pain is an important message. But when it surfaces, I am able to meet it with calm, a variety of tools and techniques, and the knowledge that it will not for long.

Because I feel so strongly about this work and wanted to bring it to others, I became a certified coach specializing in chronic pain recovery. I have been reading/learning about this theory of chronic pain for several years and have attended several conferences (PPDA in fall 2021, Open Center Chronic Pain Summit in winter 2022 and SIRPA in fall 2022). I have also completed training in Pain Reprocessing Therapy (PRT) through the Pain Psychology Centre, executive directed by Alan Gordon, LCSW, who developed this technique. PRT has been shown to provide substantial and durable pain relief for people with chronic back pain (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34586357/). I’m currently doing a training program under Dr. Howard Schubiner.

In addition, I recently completed Internal Family Systems (IFS) Therapy Level 1 training through the IFS Institute and have participated in Coaching for Self Leadership, the IFS Circle Program and the IFS Continuity Program. IFS has been shown to be a useful tool for chronic pain (https://www.psychotherapynetworker.org/article/ifs-and-chronic-pain) and is listed as an effective treatment for general well-being in the National Registry for Evidence-Based Programs and Practices by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Administration (https://www.foundationifs.org/news-articles/79-ifs-an-evidence-based-practice).

By the way, my pronouns are she/her.