Episode 65: Strength in Pain - Lauren Rose’s Healing Story

In this episode of our podcast, "Strength in Pain: Lauren Rose's Story of Chronic Pain and Healing," we dive deep into Lauren's transformative journey of healing from chronic pain while navigating the complexities of parenthood. Lauren Rose is a disabled wife and mom living with chronic pain, depression, paralyzing anxiety, and complex PTSD. She started a podcast, blog, and women’s group in 2022 to spread positivity and support others facing similar challenges. Lauren believes that her pain has a purpose: to equip her to help others through similar situations.

Lauren shares her story of living with chronic pain for nearly 30 years. In 2017, she had to stop working due to debilitating spinal pain, leading to a profound depression. Through intentional daily gratitude and her faith, she emerged from the darkness with a renewed sense of purpose. Lauren's journey is a testament to resilience and the belief that our circumstances do not define us.

We explore strategies for balancing life's moments with physical limitations, highlighting the importance of pacing oneself and embracing self-care. Lauren offers practical advice on parenting with chronic pain and illness, emphasizing the importance of communicating with your family about your pain, enlisting help, prioritizing self-care, and being present.

Join us as we explore how to find joy amidst chronic pain and illness, with Lauren’s unique perspective and actionable advice.

To follow Lauren's journey and connect with her work, you can find her podcast on major platforms, particularly on Apple and Spotify. Visit her on Facebook at [facebook.com/ithurtstomom](https://facebook.com/ithurtstomom) and on Instagram @ithurtstomom. If you'd like to connect or be a guest on her podcast, feel free to email her at ithurtstomom@gmail.com.

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Transcript

Intro: 

“This is Episode 65”

[Music]

"Welcome to 'Wellness in Every Season,' the place where we explore the rich tapestry of motherhood and wellness in all its forms. I'm Autumn Carter, your host and guide. “

[Music]

Autumn: Hello, welcome to episode 65 of wellness in every season today I have with me Lauren, and I'm really excited to talk with her today. She is a disabled wife and mom. So some of you will resonate with this living with chronic pain, depression, paralyzing anxiety, and complex PTSD. In 2022, she started a podcast, blog, and women's group as ways for her to put good into the world and encourage others with chronic pain, mental health issues, and previous trauma.

Or previous trauma. I'm the previous trauma person right here. She believes all her pain has a purpose to equip her to help others through similar situations. That's exactly how I feel. And welcome to the show today, Lauren.

Lauren: Thank you for having me.

Autumn: Can you tell us a little bit about your journey, the parts that you want to share, and we'll go from there.

How's that sound?

Lauren: Sure. So, I have a history of abuse and assaults from my dad, a cousin, and a boyfriend. And what's interesting is, I, like you said, I also deal with chronic pain, which is a huge part of my life. And 50 to 80 percent, according to research that I've read, 50 to 80 percent of physical pain is due to unprocessed or unresolved emotional pain.

So I do wonder, like, how much of my chronic pain Is due to things that I've dealt with in my life when I started having chronic pain when I was about 15, it started out as just like almost daily headaches. Like I did. I never told my parents or anything because we didn't have a close relationship.

So the thought really never occurred to me to go tell my mom I'm having headaches like every single day. So I just dealt with it. And then when I was 22, I finally went to a doctor about it. Cause they were just like, It was so bad. It was affecting my ability to work and I was diagnosed with migraines and tension headaches, like severe tension headaches.

And I went into a, after 20 years of dealing with headaches, I went into a four week inpatient pain recovery program at a hospital. And that's where I started learning about how much of our emotional pain is related to our physical pain. And about a few, probably Three months after I got out of that, maybe even less, I went to a rheumatologist because I was having neck pain, and I found out I have autoimmune disease.

So I have rheumatoid arthritis, which is inflammatory. I have osteoarthritis, which is degenerative, and I've got degenerative disc disease in my spine, and Couple months after that, I'd taken my my daughter to the zoo and I'm not exactly sure what happened. She was running off a lot because she was three and that's what happens with a three year old at the zoo or any place.

And I was chasing after her and by the time we were done with the zoo, like my lower spine was killing me. I literally thought I'd fractured it. So I went to urgent care. I went to the ER. I went to the ER also because urgent care couldn't really help me and nothing was wrong. So over the next year, I dealt with just excruciating low back pain.

I was wearing a back brace every day to work. I was working from home almost all the time. I could barely walk because it hurt so badly. And eventually when I was, that was when I was 36, but four days after I turned 37, I had to stop working altogether. I went on short term disability. Which is six months away from your job.

And and while I was on short term disability, my pain actually started spreading. So it wasn't just in my low back anymore, it was in my wrists and my knees and my shoulders and my fingers and my ankles. And it was pretty much all of my joints. And then, just because I didn't have enough pain with the migraines and the joint pain already, I somehow developed fibromyalgia.

So, My six months of short term disability where I was going to physical therapy, I went to two different kinds. I actually applied for another job, another position at my company because I was. I had every intention on going back to work. I loved my job, I loved my company, and I loved the people that I worked with so much.

But after six months, I could not go back. And after my six months were over, they eliminated my position. So I lost my job. And that put me into just a really deep depression for about two years, because not only had I lost my job and my career, things that I loved, I'd lost My ability to function properly, in my opinion, I lost my big part of my identity with not having a job anymore in a career, and I lost what I felt was my purpose in life.

I tried telling myself my purpose was to take care of my family, but my pain was so bad, I couldn't even do that very well. I was in a really deep depression, and one day, about, A year and a half, two years into it. I don't know. I was I was lying down a lot because that's the most comfortable position for me even now.

And I looked at my daughter, she was five, and I was just thinking she's seeing me in bed or on the couch lying down all the time, depressed and in pain. And that is not how I want her to remember me when she grows up. It's not the legacy that I want to leave for her. So I didn't know what I was going to do, but I knew I had to do something different.

So I ended up joining a book club at my church where they happened to be reading this book That was perfect for me at the time. I think it was just one of those things just meant for me It's called it's not supposed to be this way, which was exactly how I felt about my life This is not what i'd planned for this is not what i'd been working towards I had no intention of stopping work and basically doing nothing all day And what?

What really helped me was, one, there was a lady in the group who runs a non profit called Grateful Gratitude, and she encouraged me to practice intentional daily gratitude every single day, whether I felt like it or not, and I started doing that. And what that helped do is change my perspective because, our brains are neuroplastic.

So the more we think about positive things, the more we're going to automatically think positively. And the more we focus on what we still have and what we still can do. Instead of focusing on what we don't have and what we can't do, which was what I was doing for two years, the more we're going to see the good in life and all the things that we do have.

So that really changed my perspective a lot. And in my brain, Just changed my brain, which was amazing. But the other thing that really helped me was the book helped me realize that like my life didn't have to be over. And that's how I was feeling. I can't do hardly anything. My life is over.

I am useless. I have no purpose. I am inadequate as a mother, as a wife, as a friend, as a daughter, as a human being. And that wasn't the case. Like my life could become something new and beautiful. It didn't have to look the same, but it could still be. It could still be beautiful. So what I ended up doing was I started a blog and then pretty soon after that, I started a podcast, which is really out of the box for me because I'm an introvert.

So talking to people and being on audio and video is not very comfortable for me, but I've actually really loved it. Cause I've learned so much and met some really cool people. And pretty soon after that, I started a women's group for women with chronic pain. What that has helped me do is find community, for one, with other people who can really understand, because having chronic pain is one of the loneliest journeys that I've ever been through, because we don't really talk about it, which is interesting because one out of five people has chronic pain, which is 20 percent of the world's population.

That's a lot of people, so I'm not alone. It just felt like I was alone for so long, but it's also helped me feel like I have new purpose in life. And that's what I've decided. Like my pain is not going to be purposeless. I'm going to make 

something good out of it. And that's what I feel like I'm doing now.

Autumn: We don't even begin with this. So can you explain in your words? Not a science fact, just your words, what neuroplasticity is for people who it might be their first time, it might be their 50th, but they can't really wrap their head around what this is.

Lauren: Basically, it means our brains are changeable. Our brains are malleable.

So we have Neural pathways that form when we do certain things, like when we learn to read. Our brains are forming neural pathways that help us remember the words and the sounds and things like that. And as far as perspective goes, the more that we're focusing on negative things, the more we're automatically going to notice the negative and think about the negative.

But we can change that because our brains are completely changeable, which I think is amazing and really cool. 

Autumn: And what I really like in thinking about forming habits is our brain likes to be lazy, and so it's forming these pathways and it's trying to find the shortcut to doing it, right? Which is why our children learn sight words.

So there are words that are super easy, it, and they know that word just by sight. That's what that word is. And I am learning to play the piano over here as an adult. So it's an interesting concept, but as I get out of my own way and I let my brain do more of the work, it's coming up with shortcuts and, okay, this is where my hands need to go.

These are what these keys are. And that is why forming habits can be hard. We have to really, as my piano teacher has said, while we were talking about it and my trauma was coming up during it is that. We need those grooves in our brain to get deeper, right? So it becomes that habit. Like I know exactly how to place my fingers correctly.

I'm just using piano as an example because it's behind me, but there's many examples in life of knowing how, let's say learning how to drive, knowing which side of the lane to be on, things like that. So I love that you talked about it and you gave it in a very real world way of explaining it because there are so many times that we hear about it and it's more scientists talking about it and it's okay, we still can't grasp that, so thank you.

And one thought is I've never studied this. So this is a wonderment is with fibromyalgias, how much of that is And doctors will say it's all in your head and it's hard to hear it that way, right? But how much of it is our trapped emotions, things that we haven't processed? that are sticking around, they're finding a place to land, and they ended up in your joints.

Maybe that is what fibromyalgia is for a lot of people. So that was really interesting. And I've wondered that before. So now I have a real case study to wonder it on. And. So you have your group for moms. You have a newsletter. Tell us about what your group is your woman's group.

Lauren: So we, we were meeting every week, but that ended up being really difficult for me just with migraines and chronic pain.

And so we meet every other week now and we do different studies. So what right now we're doing one on We've done one on anxiety. We're we've done one on, we just finished one on gratitude, which was really cool. Because I happen to mention that gratitude helped me get out of my depression. So my ladies were like let's do a study on gratitude because that's really interesting.

And so what we do, we meet for an hour and a half and for the first 20 to 30 minutes, we just talk about how we've been doing, because one thing that I've that people with chronic pain generally don't do is be completely forthcoming with their spouses and their family and their friends about how they're actually feeling.

Because most of us don't want to be a burden. I don't want to be the person that's always bringing the room down. So when my husband asks me how I'm doing, I'm usually like, I'm pretty much doing okay, or something like that. And sometimes he'll say, Really? How are you really doing? And then I'll say something else, but I don't want to always be so negative.

I just don't want to focus on the pain So if somebody asks me how i'm doing and i'm in a lot of pain, I don't want to focus on that So a lot of us just say that we're, you know doing fine when we're actually not so we get in these groups and we actually talk about how much pain we've been in or If we've had a lot of anxiety if we've been having panic attacks if we've been really depressed You Any of those kinds of things.

And it's just been a real blessing for  all of us to meet in a group with people who can completely understand. It's like, I thought I was rare as someone with anxiety and panic attacks, but according to the people in my group, I'm really not because several other people have the same problem. So that's been really comforting actually.

It's partially support group, partially, book study, we kinda do both. At first, my church wasn't sure where to put my group when I, it took them months because they were like, do we put you as a support group or do we put you as just a regular small group that's doing studies? And finally, I'm just like, look, I'm starting a group.

And we're, we'll put it under the small group category, but I'm going to do a little bit of support group in there, and if somebody needs support that I can't provide because I'm not a professional, then I will direct them to the appropriate resources, but I've got to get this thing started, and I did, and it's been really cool.

Autumn: And is this in person or Zoom? How do you do this? If anybody is interested and do they have to be a member of your church, tell us those details.

Lauren: Yeah, so we  do Zoom because just with the nature of chronic pain, being somewhere every other week isn't feasible. I've got two or three people who are actually out of state and two of them don't even attend my church, or actually three of them don't even attend my church.

So just feel free to contact me if you're interested. We meet every other Tuesday from 6. 30 to 8 central time. Perfect.

Autumn: P. M. Not A. M. P. M. P. M. Yes. Just want to make sure. You never know. Let's see. What else do we want to talk about? I will edit that sentence out.

This is the thing about not having an outline. Where do you want

Lauren: to go next? I don't know, you want to talk about my four tips for living with chronic pain and illness? Yes. Let's do it. I don't know about those for a while. So I have four tips and there are probably a lot more I could have done, but I tried to narrow it down to like my big top four for living with chronic pain and illness.

So this applies, I think if you've got physical pain, if you've got any,  diabetes, if you've got any kind of, lupus, any kind of real chronic illness or chronic pain, even depression, anxiety, I think. I think they could apply. So my first tip is to talk to you.

Autumn: What's chronic? Tell us what chronic pain is.

Explain that in a very normal non doctor way.

Lauren: So chronic pain is the opposite of acute pain. So acute pain is like when you break your ankle and it hurts for six weeks and then it goes away. Chronic pain is when you have an injury or some kind of Other sometimes it's idiopathic meaning there just doesn't seem to be a reason for it But generally chronic pain is pain that lasts for more than three months and doesn't go away

Autumn: Perfect now keep going.

Lauren: Okay so my first tip for Parenting or even just living with chronic pain and chronic illness is talking to your kids and your family about your pain or illness I think it's really important. First of all do your research There's a great day a great book if you have physical pain called a day without  pain by mel pol p o h l You And I think it's really interesting because it explains how pain signals are created in the brain, so it talks about the science of it, which was way over my head.

So if it's over your head, don't feel bad because I didn't fully understand it, but it also talks about the different factors that make the pain worse and offers multiple strategies for managing and improving the pain. As far as if you have really young kids, I started my daughter when she was three because that's when I started having not just migraines, but the body pain too.

She was three. So I bought this book called, Why Does Mommy Hurt? By Elizabeth M. Christie. And it's specifically about fibromyalgia. But when I was reading it to her, I would, cause I had arthritis too. I would read it as if it said fibromyalgia and arthritis, but you can change that to be anxiety or depression or whatever your illness is really.

And it's just a really cute book that just explains why, mommy needs to rest sometimes, why she can't always do everything. And I think this is a, an often conversation,  not a one time conversation. I talk about my pain quite a bit when it comes to my daughter. If she wants to play with me, I'll say, okay I can probably play for about 20 minutes and then we'll go in, we'll play.

And then when I start getting too bad that I need to get up and stop and go rest, I'll say, okay, mommy's hip is hurting really badly. I need to. And what I think this is done for my daughter Is number one shows her that I'm going to take care of myself when I need to. And I'm going to rest when I need to, but I'm also going to do what I can for her, but it's also caused her to be a very nurturing and loving child.

She's 11 now, but even when she was five and six and even older, if I'm. Lying on the couch. I need to get up. She will come over and give me her hand and help me up and she will walk me to the bathroom or the bed or wherever I need to go. And she thinks she's being a big physical help. But really, she's just being a big emotional help.

And she's so nurturing and she loves to take  care of me and I just think it's made her a really sweet, empathetic girl. Obviously when you're talking, you need to keep it age appropriate. Don't get too scientific with your young kids. And, I believe in answering questions honestly. So if you're dealing with maybe cancer, for instance, answer honestly.

But you don't have to go into too much detail. So just definitely keep it age appropriate. My second big tip is to enlist help. If you've got a baby, this is a great time to enlist help because everybody's saying, if there's anything I can do for you, let me know. If you need anything, just call me or text me.

And we don't do it very often. We just, raise our babies alone because we don't want to bother people. We don't think they really mean it, but if you can just have somebody come over for an hour while you take a nap or take a shower or go to Target, that's incredibly helpful. Your partner, your kids, older siblings, especially can help out around the house.

If you need to get a housekeeper, I've done that a few times in my life with chronic pain. When we could afford it, even just  like once a month is incredibly helpful. Or if you just want the housekeeper to like do the laundry because that's too much with kids and with, illness and things like that.

Kids love being independent, which I think is really cool. So like my daughter is 11. She's learning how to do her own laundry. Now she loves some help because she doesn't have it all down yet, but she loves, cleaning her room by herself and making things look nice for mommy, which is really sweet.

My third big tip is take care of yourself. And yes, do things that you love, but I also mean stopping the negative self talk for one. Like I think we can acknowledge that we feel like bad moms sometimes, but we also need to acknowledge that we're doing the best we can. And we're probably doing a pretty darn good job, whether we think we are or not.

My daughter tells me all the time that I'm the best mom, that I'm a great mom, that I'm so wonderful, and I'm just so grateful. And it makes me feel so good because sometimes I tell her, I don't feel like a great mom. Cause I can only play with you for 15 minutes today. And she tells me that I'm the best mom  that there is.

And I try to remember that. And my husband's really good too. Like I can easily come down on myself for not getting the dishes done, not getting the laundry done while he was out working. And my daughter was at school, but some days I just can't do it. And my husband's been really good about being Very, what's the word, just sensitive to my need to rest and my inability to do things sometimes.

He never makes me feel guilty. I'm the one that makes myself feel guilty and ashamed for things that I can't do. As far as taking care of yourself, I also think therapy is a great opportunity to talk about what things that have gone on with you in your past, things that are going on with you now, and even if needed, medications.

Long term short term. I don't think there's any shame in that. Like my daughter hates taking medicines. I don't love taking all my medicines, but I tell her our medicines are helping us be the best version of ourselves that we can be, and that's what we want.  And even like natural supplements, there's plenty of things that can help with, with inflammation and with, physical pain and with anxiety and depression.

So it doesn't have to be medications, but I think that. At times, we all need some kind of supplementation with medications or supplements. And my fourth and most important, in my opinion, tip is just be present. I can't necessarily get on the floor and play Barbies with my daughter. But I can lie on her bed, even if I'm in a lot of pain, and do the voices.

While she's moving the characters around and we do that and if she wants to play a board game I can lie on the couch and she can You know roll the die or spin the wheel and move all the little pieces around the board And all I have to do is lie there and be present and she is perfectly happy All she wants is the attention and to spend time with me And I had to realize that over time because at first I just felt really bad oh I can't get on the floor with her.

I can't sit at the table and play a board  game You But she honestly doesn't care. She just wants me to be there for her and be giving her the time and attention and the feeling the love. So, and I think that's the case, not just with your kids, but with your spouse and with your family. Like we have a lot of game nights in our family and there are times that just sitting at that, Dining chair causes my back to get worse.

So I will take some medicine, go lie down for half an hour. They'll deal me out for, those several rounds until I come back and then I'll come back and play some more. I just, I do my best and nobody ever complains that I'm not sitting there for the entire five hours playing poker. They just care that I'm doing my best and I'm giving them attention and love.

Autumn: Wow, you're teaching your daughter poker already? Is she gonna be in the championships? No, not at all

Lauren: that's not where we're planning on going

Autumn: at all.

Lauren: No, she smiles all the time, so she does not have a poker face, my, tip to her was, you smile no matter what you get, so just keep doing it, that way they'll never know if you're bluffing or not, cause you're always smiling.

Autumn: There you go, I,  yeah, I can't. It's all over my face. I know. We do. Yeah. People are like, tell me how you really feel. I'm like, my face is doing it. Do I need to tell it? It sounds like you have a very empathetic husband and you've raised a very empathetic daughter. That's amazing. Yeah. The other thought that came to me while you were talking is.

How much you have the intention and intention matters and there are so many parents out there that are physically able But emotionally checked out for whatever reason usually trauma So the fact that you are trying so hard to be present when your body is fighting against you It matters for you and for anybody else listening struggling with the same thing and we are the first ones to push that guilt button.

It's not anybody else. And maybe there's practicing that same empathy for ourselves. And that's me looking in the mirror saying that  I'm big eye roll at myself. We all struggle with it. And I think it is definitely a societal thing, right? It's hard. What other tips and. What else do you want to share with us about chronic pain and your journey and what you would like to share with others?

Lauren: Another big tip I have, which would probably fall under taking care of yourself, is listening to your body, which is, I've kind of danced around that a little bit as we've been talking, when I talk about how I'll stop when I'm feeling worse or I'll go lie down if I need to.

But we really have to listen to our bodies and not only listen to it and understand what it's telling us, but also. Honor what it's telling us. So thank you. I don't think that generally we should push through the pain. There are times that we don't have a choice. If we need to feed our children dinner, we don't have a choice, but we can feed them McDonald's.

We can feed them frozen chicken nuggets. I do it all the time and it doesn't have to be a home cooked meal. And it's okay if the dishes wait till  tomorrow, if our bodies need to rest. What I do is pace myself. That's a big self care tip for me. I do a little bit of work and then whether I'm, I've gotten worse or not, Because I know from past experience that if I do too much, I will overdo it and I will be in bed for two to three days.

Now there have been times where I know that's going to happen and I push through anyway. There's a field trip I wanted to go on really badly in January. Just, Because my daughter's still at that age where she wants to be there, so I wanted to be there. So I I went to this museum with her class, and it caused me a lot of pain, but I was prepared for that.

I was prepared that for the next, day or two, I was going to be Pretty much bedridden, but I wouldn't have changed that for anything. And a few years ago I was adopted, so I met my birth mom at a wedding in New Jersey. I live in Texas. So we took a two day car ride to New Jersey.

We stayed there for four days. We took a  two day car ride back. I had the most fun I've probably ever had in my life, the size at my own wedding. And, but I knew I was gonna overdo it and I was in bed for six days. But I wouldn't have changed a thing because that's one of those once in a lifetime opportunities.

But in general, in our day to day tasks, in our day to day life, I think that we need to really listen to and honor our bodies. And if we're starting to get physical pain, like a headache, for instance, is something that a lot of people can relate to, just a general headache. Are we hungry? Did we get enough sleep?

Did we get too much sleep? Are we angry at somebody and we haven't addressed it yet? There are so many things. Pain is a communication tool and that's what I realized when I was, that's another thing I realized when I was in that four week pain recovery program. We were doing this guided meditation.

Where, I don't know if you've ever done something like this, but you have to give your, in this case pain, but it could be like your depression or your anxiety, or you're feeling a  shape and a color and a texture and my, we were doing our pain and my pain was this black figure. It was round, but it had spikes all over it.

It was really pointy and it had an angry face and it just looks so mean. And I said to my pain, why are you trying to hurt me? Cause that's what I thought it was trying to do. And my brain came back in a really sad voice. And my pain said back to me, I'm not trying to hurt you. I'm trying to tell you something.

And that completely changed my perspective because, it seemed like a silly exercise to me. I felt dumb doing it, but when my brain came back and said that, just trying to communicate with me, completely changed how I saw my pain. So now, when I'm, getting a migraine, I do think about those things.

Are there emotions I haven't processed? I still haven't processed all of my trauma. Do I need to eat? Did I get too much sleep? Am I tired? Am I frustrated about  something? Am I stressed about something? There's all these things that that our bodies might be telling us that we need to pay attention to.

And a lot of it might be manifesting in some kind of physical pain, whether that's a headache or joint pain or, backache. There's so many things.

Autumn: So if somebody was trying to do this practice on their own, what do you recommend?

Lauren: It seems kind of silly to be doing it, but really just get in a really quiet place and be open.

And once you have once you have given your, whatever it is, your pain or your anxiety a shape and a color and a texture and maybe a face, just start talking to it and see what your brain comes up with. Because I know that for me, it felt, it just felt, it felt dumb to be doing this.

Like, why am I going to be talking to my pain? But what I got out of it was priceless. 

Autumn: It's very interesting that we have been, I don't know, conditioned. And I think more so if we have trauma, so, I definitely connect in that way where there's parts of our bodies that we just aren't connected with.

And that's actually why I am now seeing a somatics coach is to help me get back in tune with my body because there, there are spots where yes, I have pain and I have dead spots too, where it's like, I don't feel anything there. So it's very interesting. And I'm also in trauma therapy because Trauma in my past, because people can be awful.

And afterwards we are so used to it that then we can be awful to ourselves and our thinking and things like that. And even if you don't have any of the things that she has gone through and that she's talking about, there is something so powerful and just sitting with yourself and letting the different parts of yourself speak and having that meditative practice, because.

Therapy and  science tell us that we do have different parts that make up the whole of us and that we need to give voice to those things or those things will start screaming and they come out in very different ways and you don't want to get to a point where you're older and your body's falling apart and you're like, what the heck?

You need to start doing this work as soon as you can. So I really like that you're saying that.

Lauren: Yeah, if you've ever read, The Body Keeps the Score by Vessel van der Kolk, it explains, I'm still working my way through it, but it explains that basically with trauma, our mind body connection is severed.

And what's interesting, the one thing that I've learned in doing all my podcasts, I've done 94 episodes so far. Every single person without exception who has healed themselves from chronic pain has done it through mind body methods. Every single one of them.

Autumn: Tell me more about that.

Lauren: So There are also books called, there's one  book called Get Out of Back Pain, and there's one book called The Way Out, and they're both about healing chronic pain. But they're, they do it by connecting, reconnecting the mind body connection. And there are, how do I put this?

I haven't read those two books yet, but people have talked about them so much. People have healed themselves through like inner child work, through EFT or tapping, through EMDR, through somatic practices, like you just mentioned. And I think, I just think it's absolutely fascinating. One lady, healed herself of 40 years of chronic pain.

One lady healed herself of 12 years of chronic pain. And it's something that I'm just starting to do myself. There's this app called curable. If you have chronic pain and they've got a free version, there's also a yearly paid version, but they have, meditation, they have education, they have brain retraining exercises, which I think are really interesting.

So instead of, Calling your pain,  "pain", which has a negative connotation, you call it a sensation. Instead of saying, Oh, my. My elbow is burning, you say, my elbow isn't as cool as I'd like it to be. Things like that. So instead of judging your physical sensations as pain, which is negative, you just label them in, you just notice them and label them in a completely neutral way.

So Curable is a great app and it's based on these books of They've got journaling exercises, they've got all sorts of things, and I've learned a lot through Mind Body Connection, the little bit that I've done through EMDR which is eye movement desensitization and reprocessing therapy.

Which is really hard to explain what it is, but it's a fascinating modality. And I just think it's so interesting that nobody has been on my podcast to tell me, my doctors healed me of my chronic pain. I'm on medication and now I don't have chronic pain anymore. I got steroid  injections or I got surgery and I don't have chronic pain anymore.

It's all been the mind, different by my body methods.

Autumn: I do EMDR and I love it. So you are reprocessing your brain. So you're thinking one thought. And you're letting that thought, I feel it like wiggle free for my brain. And then you are, what do you want to replace that thought with? So with sexual abuse, it's I'm so dirty.

And then no, actually they are the ones that did it to me. So it's reprocessing that the ways that you feel about yourself or some of the really ugly, scary memories that you have reprocessing those so that it's more of a neutral feeling because. Sometimes you can be very self aware and know I am making these choices because of this past experience and sometimes you're making negative Choices because of past experiences without realizing them So if you can really get to the root of those things and reprocess that it's  amazing highly recommend it So I love that you talked about so many different things I wrote down curable so I can link it so I can find it and link it Is there anything else that you want to share?

Lauren: I think one of my biggest pieces of advice is that we are not victims of our circumstances or our past. We are in control of what we do now. So, like, with my, previous trauma and my, my physical pain There were times when they were in control of my life, but I've decided I don't want them to be anymore.

I think that we can take our circumstances and actually do something good with them. And so I don't want anybody to think that our circumstances control us or determine our destiny. Because they don't have to. And some people left them their whole lives and you know what? They're generally really miserable people.

And I don't want to be a miserable person. I want to control my own destiny and my own attitude. And that's what I try to do.

Autumn: This reminds me, it's written up here, so hopefully you can still hear me while I read it. I came up with this while doing an EMDR session with my therapist, and she said, Don't copyright it, because I'm going to use it, because I love it.

It is. I am the author of my boundaries. And, It just came through so powerfully and felt so it's still just, have you ever had something that rings so true that it's just like one of those ting, where you just, your body it resonates in your body? That happens for me, even right now, saying it.

And some of our past traumas, and the reason why we can have pain is because we were not the author of our boundaries. That is, especially as children, we were victims and now are survivors. And right now we are the author of those boundaries. We are adults. We have choices. And even if you are stuck in a situation right now, you will find the way out.

Even if it's one tiny step at a time. And sometimes it has to be small steps for your safety. But. You can be the author of your own boundaries and that is so important. If we want to continue following your work, how do we find you? How do we follow it? What is the best way? You gave me a bunch of different links which will be in the description, but what is the best way?

Lauren: I'm at, it hurts to Mom anywhere. So my website is, it Hurts to mom.com and that's my email in Gmail and that's all of my social media. So, email me if you wanna, be on my podcast or you wanna join my group, or if you just wanna, talk or have a question, it's just, it hurts to mom@gmail.com.

Autumn: Thank you so much for being on. It really resonated when we connected that the name of what you do and the reason why, and so much passion came through when we were chatting that I was like, yes, I want you on my podcast. So thank you so much for doing this.

Lauren: Thank you. It's been an honor and it's been really fun.

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Outro: 

Autumn: “Thanks for tuning in to this week's episode. I'm Autumn Carter, guiding you through motherhood's seasons. I hope today's discussion inspired you and offered valuable insights.

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