Gerard's story

Gerard, who shared his story in a previous blog, has now been working with me for several months. After our first few sessions he told of being able to reduce his hip pain by about “10 to 20 per cent”, after experiencing it for more than a decade.

Several months since then, he has seen huge changes in his behaviour. There are times when he doesn’t notice any pain at all. He is now able to get out digging in the garden, and to go on long walks for the first time in years. Pains still pop up in new places, but Gerard is ready for this.

He has discovered that pain has been masking his sensitivity. He has recognised that he is wary of disapproval, and has become aware of previously buried hurts which have accumulated. This previous lack of awareness was holding him back both at work and in his personal life. His resilience has markedly improved, and Gerard is finding his voice. He has also become aware that his sensitivity can be used as a ‘super-power’.

He is looking forward to doing more research on emotional intelligence and non-verbal communication, and has plans for particular areas for development which are holding him back. There is always a significant takeaway from each session and he enjoys writing up what we’ve discussed so he can mull it over later. He says he feels like he is living again, and I am confident we can open up even more possibilities.

Watch another video from Gerard here.

Yes yes yes

The clichéd advice to “do something that scares you every day” always seemed a little foolish to me. Driving on the wrong side of the road would scare me, but that doesn’t mean it’s a good idea to do it. American TV writer Shonda Rhimes came up with a better approach I think: In 2013 she decided to say “yes to everything” for one year.

Shonda, who is behind hit US TV dramas like Grey’s Anatomy, Private Practice and Scandal, was incredibly successful at work, and had three children at home. But she wasn’t happy – her sister described her as “asleep”. “You never say yes to anything,” her sister told her. And so she  challenged herself to say yes, to everything, for a year, and then wrote a book about how that challenge changed her life.

The first thing she said yes to was a speech to new graduates at her old university, Dartmouth College. As the date draws closer, Shonda’s fear of public speaking intensifies, and you can see why she would not normally have said yes to this: “I wander around feeling white-hot terror searing all creativity out of my brain,” she writes in her book, Year of Yes.

“The fires of failure are whipping around, burning down any ideas I may have had. I’m writing an apocalypse up in my imagination. I lie on the floor of my office. I drink red wine. I eat popcorn. I hug my kids. I prepare for the end of days.”

Needless to say, the speech is fine in the end. More than fine, Shonda enjoys it: “For the first time in my life, I stand on a stage and raise my voice to the public with full confidence and not an inch of panic. For the first time in my life, I speak to an audience as myself and I feel joy.”

This continues throughout the book, with her terror before public speaking arrangements, TV appearances, magazine interviews and showbiz events gradually subsiding as she becomes more used to them.

Image: Flickr

One thing that struck me is how she manages to say yes on her own terms, setting her own boundaries. The challenge is not about just blithely saying yes to everything. Shonda actually learns to say no in some cases, to friends who she realises are exerting only a negative influence on her, and to others who she realises are attempting to get closer to her only for her fame and wealth.

In other cases she says her own kind of yes. For example, she says yes to a TV appearance on the popular Jimmy Kimmel show. But while this interview is supposed to be on live TV, Shonda insists that she will only do it if it is pre-recorded. This compromise turns out well, as it reduces her stage-fright but the show is still a big success.

Reading this book, I was reminded of a visit to Ballymaloe House in Cork many years ago, a real treat. We spoke to one of the junior staff, and among other things he said how much of an inspiration Myrtle Allen had been. She had advised him to say yes to more things, he said, which had opened up huge opportunities. .

Shonda also believes her Year of Yes changed – and saved – her life. It’s a drastic step to take, but it got me thinking about all the things I often say no to, automatically, out of fear or nervousness. I wonder if I could turn any of them into a yes, challenge myself, and as Shonda Rhimes puts it, “dance in the sun”.  

Gerard's story

Gerard has had hip pain for over a decade. A “dull ache” in both his hips, it gets especially bad when he lies or sits down for long periods of time or needs to move his leg in a certain way – using the clutch pedal while driving, for example, can be really tough. He finds himself avoiding long journeys, in the car or on other modes of transport that still require sitting in one place for a long time.

The pain also comes in his hands from time to time, especially while typing at a keyboard, which Gerard has to do all day long at work. This can be particularly stressful. 

Gerard tried functional training and physiotherapy, hoping to try and strengthen and stretch the areas which were giving him pain. He had some short-term results, but no real success long or even medium term.

Since he began Resolving Chronic Pain sessions with me, Gerard has begun to think about pain differently. He had previously been under the impression that he would simply have to ‘manage’ his pain. It has been a welcome revelation that the way he thinks about his pain makes a difference. “It’s not something that you just cope with, it's the idea that when I detect pain to think of it as a signal that your body is trying to tell you something,” he now says.

Thinking in this way, after just three sessions, has allowed Gerard to reduce his pain overall by about “10 to 20 per cent”. During the first session and in subsequent sessions Gerard has noticed a reduction in hip pain while we are talking, and this now continues to be the case between sessions. We’ll continue working together to reduce the pain – Gerard has so far found the approach both “interesting and profound” and says he is looking forward to more sessions. So am I!

You can see Gerard telling his story in his own words here.

Take a break!

I have to apologise, as the Resolving Chronic Pain blog didn’t come out last week. I would like to say it was pre-planned, but when it came down to it, I just needed a break.

We all do sometimes, and while it may not be possible to make a habit of it, it’s good to have an idea of which tasks absolutely have to get done and which you can be a little bit more flexible about. We’re all only human after all.

The blog will be back next week as usual – some wonderful people have agreed to share their stories as case studies and a few of them will be included in posts over the next few weeks.

For now though I would urge you to take a break if you need one, even if just for five minutes, even if just to not be so hard on yourself in one particular area.

Meanwhile, I’m going to sit back, relax for a moment, and pretend I’m on the beach in this picture. We may not be allowed to go anywhere just now, but we can still dream! And the local beauty spots aren’t bad either.

On top of the world

One morning this week I went in the sea.

It wasn’t planned, I just woke up earlier than I needed to, with various sources of stress on my mind. The sun was shining, it was a warm (ish!) morning, and on a whim I decided this was it. Off I went down to the beach.

I felt my nerve slipping away a little on the journey down – I hadn’t been in yet this year, it was a bit of a mad last-minute idea, I was on my own, and wouldn’t it be colder early in the morning? But when I got to the beach I steeled myself, I’d done the hardest bit and got myself out of bed and down to the sea already, I couldn’t give up at that point.

So I went in. And it was freezing. Punch-the-breath-out-of-you ice cold. ‘Why on earth am I doing this?’ I thought as I struggled to wade further out, eventually just plunging into the water to get it over with. But as I had known, as everyone who ever ventures into our icy waters knows, that age-old wisdom is true: It’s lovely once you’re in.

I splashed around, gasping for breath, laughing in spite of myself as the salt stung my eyes and the weak morning sun shone down. I could see early morning dog walkers waving at me, and I grinned at them, not quite able to master the coordination needed to wave back.

Getting out was absolutely the worst bit, as it always is. But fighting underneath my towel to get myself dressed again on a breezy beach in the early morning, I realised I had made the best possible decision in going for a spontaneous swim. Sometimes even in times of stress - however big or small - there are little pockets of joy out there for the taking, and a mad morning whim can make you feel on top of the world.

Old friends

I wrote recently about my daughter reaching out to friends, and funnily enough just a couple of weeks later an old friend reached out to me. I hadn’t seen Fionnuala in more than 10 years: We had a very strong bond in the past, but had fallen out of touch. We first met at a mother and baby class decades ago, when I was pregnant with my first child. I didn’t really have any clue what to expect, but she had a daughter already and helped to reassure and guide me. At first we lived very near to each other, and soon our children were often playing together. But as with many long-term friendships, life got in the way.

Fionnuala and her husband emigrated to Canada for work, when their four children had grown a little. We wrote letters at first, but these became less and less frequent. After a few years Fionnuala wrote to say that she and her husband had been unhappy for some time, and that they had decided to part ways. I wrote back offering support, and we continued to keep in touch, but were nowhere near as close as we had been.

Several years ago, Fionnuala came back from Canada. I suggested we meet, but it didn’t happen and I wondered if as an old friend I reminded her too much of her former life in an unhappy marriage. I did see her son, who had been my godson. I loved seeing him grown up, and wrote to Fionnuala about these meetings, wishing I could have shared them with her as well.

Then one day, out of the blue, Fionnuala got in touch. Would I like to meet for lunch in a few weeks’ time? I was completely delighted and hugely looked forward to seeing her, but as the day in question drew closer I began to feel some trepidation. We had agreed to meet an equal distance from both our homes, which meant a drive of a couple hours for both of us. I became increasingly nervous during the long drive, wondering why Fionnuala had been so reluctant to meet before then, and why she had suddenly suggested lunch.

I arrived at our meeting place, stepped out of the car and in one swoop was engulfed in an almighty hug – with Fionnuala saying excitedly that she had been given two doses of vaccine. She blurted out: “I’m so pleased you came, I was so worried about meeting you, I’ve hardly slept for days.” Over the next few hours, during lunch and a 14km walk, we caught up on 10 years of absence from each other’s lives. I told Fionnuala how nervous I had been to see her, and she told me how difficult she had found it to reach out to me. I’m so glad that she did, and I hope this will be the first of many regular meetings – we have already arranged our next one!

Mixing it up

We are creatures of routine. Routine makes us feel safe – there’s a reason why children love to hear the same stories over and over (and over) again, and there’s nothing like a routine to help you get through difficult chores or build time into your day for the important things. But routine has its limits, and too much of it can leave you feeling stifled. I didn’t realise how much of a routine I had fallen into until my husband unintentionally managed to break it. 

It started with a leaflet for a subscription food box which was posted through our door.  You sign up, and each week a box of food is delivered, portioned out to make a few recipes, with instructions included. We had heard of this kind of thing before, as they have become increasingly popular. But we had always thought it a bit of a faff as you could just buy the same ingredients from your local supermarket. However, when a hard-to-resist introductory offer came through the letterbox we decided to give it a go.

The next week a box duly arrived and we set to work whipping up the recipe we’d chosen. It turns out we were right – it is a bit of a faff, and you could just buy the same ingredients from the supermarket. But what we hadn’t realised was the great potential for variety in these boxes. They are marketed as a solution to make cooking “easier” – which may be true for some, but we found the meals take longer to prepare than simpler recipes we are more used to. However, the boxes contain recipes we just wouldn’t have made otherwise. When faced with a choice of what to make for dinner – hungry, tired and just having finished work – we more often than not would have resorted to a simple, familiar dish.

It’s great to find a habit that works, especially if it makes cooking less stressful, but I hadn’t realised how much of a routine we had slipped into, with the same few meals on constant rotation. We still do this most days as it does make things a lot easier, keeping the food box subscription on a monthly, rather than weekly basis. But our unexpected foray into subscription boxes has provided something to look forward to, and shown that even if a routine works very well, it can be a good idea to mix it up every now and again.   

Taking a stand

My daughter told me about a wonderful phone call she had with a friend last weekend, and it reminded me of a period a few years ago when she decided to ‘take a stand’. She was sick and tired of always being the one to initiate activities with friends. Invariably it was she who invited them for coffee, who sent the first ‘hi, how are you’ after a few months, or who suggested a phone call. She was a teenager at the time and very ah, decisive.. and she decided she had had enough! So she sat tight and waited for them to come to her.

And guess what happened? Some weeks later, she was complaining of being lonely after having had very few calls or activities with friends. No one had got in touch off their own bat, and the situation hadn’t improved after a few weeks. She was definitely taking a stand, but she had realised that the only person it was hurting was her.

In the end she gave in, sent out a stream of messages and calls, and what do you know everyone was delighted! She hadn’t suddenly become extremely unpopular, it was just that nobody had thought to initiate a plan. I don’t think it was just because they were used to her doing it either, as she told me this even applied to new friends who had not been used to her reaching out.

Talking to her about this recently, my daughter said she is now resigned to more often than not being the person who asks for a catch-up. There are some exceptions of course, but it is still usually her, and she no longer feels any resentment about it. We had an interesting discussion about boundaries though, as within the family she has noticed that I deliberately avoid organising all our family calls and events, which everyone usually expects will fall to me. My three children are all adults now, and I expect them to do some of the organising as well. The difference is that these are regular calls, so it's a matter of confirming a time each week rather than suggesting the call in the first place. As an equivalent, my daughter finds herself being the one to suggest catch-ups with friends, but then asking them to choose a time and place as a way of sharing the task of organisation.

Sometimes standing your ground is absolutely the right thing, but sometimes the only person you’re harming is yourself. My daughter had a lovely call with an old friend she hadn’t spoken to in several years at the weekend. Guess who organised it?

Making it work

Sometimes you can’t help giving in to a giggle at a funny video doing the rounds on social media. This week it was the fabulous clip of Michael D Higgins giving a speech to RTE while being completely distracted by his puppy Misneach. The statement was quite serious – paying respects to the actor Tom Hickey after his death – and the president continued talking completely seriously with no break in his composure. But throughout the clip the seven-month-old dog is desperately vying for his attention, licking his hand just off camera.

We’ve all had plenty of practice at being at home while working by now, and it’s fair to say the initial novelty has worn off. But the lovely Misneach reminded me of the “blooper” clips which came out at the beginning of the pandemic, of parents valiantly trying to continue their serious work call while children burst in, or other working-from-home related disasters unfolded.

Now that we’re all a bit more used to the situation it’s become easier to adapt, and to gain confidence in those measures which were once so strange to many of us. As my work has been home based for many years by choice, I saw a limited impact of the lockdowns on my working arrangement – apart from the ban on seeing people in person.

But I remember first adapting to working from home, learning to feel comfortable and taking control of my own timetable. Working from home can allow you to be flexible, whether that means starting slightly later, taking a conveniently-timed break to do something else or balancing certain chores alongside work. There is no room for guilt in adapting the “new normal” to however best it suits you. I used to feel guilty for not beginning and ending my work day at the same time every day, as office workers would, until I realised I could work better and be happier if I allowed myself a bit of flexibility.

I haven’t quite managed to bring an adorable puppy to any of my sessions so far, but many of you will remember our cat Norbert trying to join classes in the studio through an open window! It has now been many months since Norbert left us, and much-loved as he was it might be time to move on. We are on the lookout for a new kitten, so I’m hopeful there may be a furry friend to gate-crash my own calls soon enough.

Up for a challenge

When my friend and collaborator Siobhan Guthrie asked me if I would teach a group of 30 of her Kinesiology students a course on chronic pain, I wasn’t phased by the number of people – in another life I was a lecturer after all. But I did find the prospect of teaching such a large group during a pandemic a little daunting – how on earth to go about engaging a big group of students over Zoom? And what’s more, the sessions Siobhan was proposing would be regular – twice a week – and long – two hours each. Torture for the students!

 As it happens, I have just finished teaching the four-week course. I loved it, and I have a feeling the students did too – many of them have told me so at least. One even compared it to something like the opposite of torture – I can’t think of higher praise for a teacher!

 The students were in various stages of Kinesiology training with Siobhan, who runs the Academy of Systematic Kinesiology in Westport. We first met in 2014 at a course run by Lissa Rankin in San Francisco – Siobhan and I were the only Irish course members, and we immediately found each other! We have collaborated on a number of projects through the years since.

 The objective of this course was to give the group of 30 students an understanding of Psychophysiologic Disorders (PPD) and help them recognise when their clients might need some extra support. In practical terms this may be to suggest some gentle exercises, journaling, reading material  or support from a PPD practitioner.

 I was really struck by the students’ enthusiasm and eagerness to learn about how chronic pain can manifest itself. Over the weeks we grew a little community, and I already find myself missing the sessions. Some of the students have said the same, in their very generous feedback. Here’s a snapshot:

 “I have thoroughly enjoyed your course.  I did a work related course in Feb, also two mornings a week three hours each, and it was a form of torture to be honest, and every morning dragged.  However, your course has flown by, and I loved every minute.  I’m looking forward to reading the book, which I have ordered.” Janette W

 “I just want to Thank you! You explain everything so clearly. First the fact that your mind plays such a large role in chronic pain and that suppressed anger can manifest in pain. I also liked the explanation of our Autonomic Nervous System and how both are needed and how important it is for our bodies that their "switches" work so they can turn on and off when we need them too. Also, the part about self healing and how to present that to clients. To get them to realize their triggers and what is their unconscious mind doing and why?”  Therese A