How the words we use can limit our ability to heal
We are the story we tell ourselves. I’m not sure where I heard that but it really rung true for me. We are the story we tell ourselves, we are the words we use to describe ourselves, our lives. So why...
View ArticleThe power of language in chronic pain; “it’s all in your head”
Forgive me if this post is pretty similar to the last one (and a bit of a rant) but I’m all fired up right now after seeing another headline on social media that read “Pain: It’s all in your head”....
View ArticlePain doesn’t always equal injury: Thoughts on acute and chronic pain
There are a number of things I’ve been wanting to write about but I always have trouble knowing where to start (I have a tendency to want to give you guys EVERYTHING ALL AT ONCE). So I’m going to start...
View ArticleIt’s ok to talk about chronic pain
After my flare at the end of last year (which I talk about a bit here), and the months of getting through it, I started reading a book on pain called Pain: The Science of Suffering, by Patrick Wall,...
View ArticleFocusing on the whole of us, not just our pain: initial thoughts from the San...
This past weekend I attended the first annual San Diego Pain Summit and I can’t even begin to put into a cohesive string of words all that I am thinking, nor can I come close to formulating into a...
View ArticlePermission to exit the holding pattern of pain and uncertainty
My brother was out for the past week with his girlfriend, it was a wonderful trip, as it always is when I get to see my bro (that’s him in the pic with me), but he said something to me that really got...
View ArticleShifts in the way I think about movement and pain, part 1: Right and Wrong
My thinking on movement and it’s relation to pain has shifted pretty dramatically over the past couple of years. Before I got hurt, before my surgery and my pain issues, I was a gym rat who loved...
View ArticleShifts in the way I think about movement and pain, part 2: Just Move
In the first part of this post on movement and pain I talked a bit about how I didn’t think about movement and posture much outside of the gym and lifting heavy things during training; how after I got...
View ArticleIn pursuit of what matters
As many of you know, I have had my share of struggles over the past few years, trying to successfully navigate a few changes of direction along my life’s course, in particular injury, medical...
View ArticleFear of movement and persistent pain
I recently wrote about how my thoughts on movement have changed over the past couple of years (part 1 and 2), and I thought I’d delve a bit more into the evolution of those thoughts and why I posted...
View ArticleAcceptance: It doesn’t mean giving up or giving in
At some point along the way in writing this blog and trying to figure out this whole chronic pain thing, I went from learning about and understanding more about the science of pain to actually living...
View ArticleA run, a rant, and a few more thoughts on fear and movement
I ran today. Well, I went for a jog today. Well, a joggish walk may describe it more aptly. Like a 2-minute joggish walk. Two 2-minute joggish walks to be precise. But I’ll stick with ‘I went for a run...
View ArticleExpanding our world and our movement repertoire when we have pain: Part 1
When we have chronic pain our world can become very, very small and when our world becomes very, very small, it becomes less populated, less interesting, less motivating, less engaging, less...
View ArticleExpanding our world and our movement repertoire when we’re in pain: Part 2
In part 1 of this series, I talked about how when we have chronic musculoskeletal pain, our world’s can become pretty small and how in those smaller worlds, we don’t move in the ways we used to or move...
View ArticleGetting real, changing pain: how my ego held me back
Wow, weeks can fly by! I had started the first two parts of my movement repertoire series with the intention of getting parts 3 and 4 out the following week. That obviously didn’t happen. And this...
View ArticleMovement Variability and Changing Pain
This post is both stand-alone as well as a part 3 from my ‘Expanding Our World, Expanding Our Movement’ series (Interested? Here’s part 1 and part 2). It revisits and reinforces some of what has been...
View ArticleNudging Pain: Movement Variability and Expanding our World
In my last post I talked about movement variability and how important it is for folks trying to change their pain, or just live more healthfully and resiliently in general, and in this post, I want to...
View ArticleChanging pain: reaching out to patients, healthcare providers, and pain...
I have had a lot of interactions with folks over the past couple of weeks about the changes that need to take place, and that are taking place, in the treatment and management of chronic pain and I’m...
View ArticleConfidence when coming back from injury or while in pain
This post is a sort of intermediary between my last post, where I shared some of my discussion with Simon Roost Kirkegaard, a Danish physiotherapist and awesome human being, which led me to a new...
View ArticleUnderstanding Social Isolation, Part 1 (guest blog by the Injured Athlete’s...
This is a guest post (my first ever!) by my friend Heidi Armstrong of the Injured Athlete’s Toolbox. Heidi and I met on the interwebs, for which I am incredibly grateful. She has become a great friend...
View ArticleAmeliorating Social Isolation, Part 2 (guest post by the Injured Athlete’s...
Hello folks! This is part two of my good friend Heidi’s blog post on how being injured or in pain can lead to social isolation and how we can better handle it. I consider myself lucky to call Heidi my...
View ArticleTrail running: imperfect steps to getting back at it
I started this post about trail running just over a year ago. I thought I was on track to being back at it. I thought trail running was going to be a regular part of my life again. It wasn’t. I didn’t...
View ArticleTrying to get better while having to prove we’re in pain
How do we get better if we have to constantly prove we’re in pain? And does that constant need to prove we’re in pain prevent us from getting better? In recent posts I wrote about the shame I felt...
View ArticleRelax! Running, pain and my CFT experience
In the last week I’ve gone on 2 runs. This is a big deal for me! I love running. Running has been one of the things I’ve missed most these last 7 years. I’ve given it a go a few times, and was quite...
View ArticleWhere I’m coming from when I talk about pain…
So where the heck am I coming from? Part of why I write this blog is to bridge the gap between the science of pain and the experience of pain and between clinicians’ and patients’ understanding of...
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