I’ve been an athlete since my teenage years.  First I was a competitive runner, then a road cyclist.  And athletes get hurt, true.  But other than a broken arm from skiing into a tree, I don’t think I’ve ever had an injury that the doctors could definitively diagnose and treat.  I’ve had exploratory surgery.  I’ve tried every kind of physical treatment I could find - I even flew to a different country for several weeks to try “the latest” healing treatment.  Nothing ever seemed to work and my “injuries” would eventually just go away as mysteriously as they came on.  I was told I should stop running.  I was told I heal “slowly”.  I grew to not trust my body to do the activities I loved to do.  

 

I kept persevering through episodes of pain when a knee surgery in my 30s completely halted my life.  The doctors said the surgery was a success and my scans looked great.  But I couldn’t walk.  I was in excruciating pain.  I went on disability leave.  I was scared to leave my house because I didn’t trust my leg to know what to do if someone bumped into me at the supermarket.  I hit rock bottom.  

 

It wasn’t until I met a number of practitioners who understood the science of pain and how fear and other emotions can impact how your brain interprets signals from the body that I finally started to slowly dig myself out of my hole.  Once I started to realize that I needed to treat my symptoms psychologically and not physically, I started to slowly improve.  For most people, me included, retraining the brain takes time, just like learning any new skill takes time.  

 

But I have my active lifestyle back!  I can do all my favorite activities again: trail running, cycling, swimming ... and traveling the world with my daughter and husband.  That’s me, in the photo, hiking in Nepal, after years of thinking I’d never pick up a backpack again.  I worked with many practitioners who helped me get here and I’m so grateful to them for everything they taught me that I decided to get trained as a Pain Reprocessing coach myself so I can help others in the same way.  I have a long background in corporate team building and have been trained in mindfulness and meditation but I truly believe that there’s no better way to help someone conquer chronic pain than to have gone through it yourself.  I look forward to hearing from you and helping you on your journey to recovery.