As a past athlete, I cringe every time I hear the phrase, “no pain, no gain”.

And have you noticed what happens to the connection and trust you have with your body when you “push through”?

Here is why this approach backfires, especially if you want to heal chronic pain and migraines…

Energy reserves and energy expenditure is the name of the game while navigating chronic pain and migraines. Some days we might have a full stockpile of energy, many spoons to draw upon, and other days we can feel like brushing our teeth uses our precious energy when it is in limited supply.

Living with chronic pain and migraines day in and day out uses your energy in a very different way. It is a precious resource that we are keenly aware of and why it is important to be conscious of your energy management.

How we tend to our body directly impacts how we feel in our body, especially if you have chronic pain or migraines.

My time at Harvard was filled with research based evidence for reducing the risk of chronic conditions, especially the top 3 - heart disease, cancer, and diabetes. It was a deep dive exploration into behavioral causes of disease and the impact Lifestyle Medicine can have in prevention, treatment, and in some cases reversing illness.

My excitement grew as I quickly learned how Lifestyle Medicine principles can also be applied to support chronic pain and migraine prevention. When we uncover our migraine and inflammatory triggers, we decrease our chronic pain and migraines, while transforming our health in the process.

Here are a few highlights of the 6 pillars of Lifestyle Medicine for optimal health and how they relate to unlocking fewer migraines and easing your chronic pain  -

How to break free from chronic pain siphons down to the three body truths. The delicate dance between our physical body wanting strength and stability while our nervous system craves safety so that you can create ease and freedom in your body and life.

I took a moment in the quiet, on this rainy Sunday morning, reflecting on the fact that it had been over 3 months since I had hiked following my most recent two back procedures.The word that came to me was resilience.I smiled, as I breathed in the smell of evergreens looking over these beautiful mountains, thrilled to be back in my 4-wheel drive trail shoes.

When navigating chronic pain and migraines, I believe there are key factors to resilience - awareness, mindset, self care, support, and the ability to see that chronic pain and migraines are not fixed or permanent.

“Off to the races”, the nurse said, as he started wheeling me down the cold hallway towards the surgery room.

I chuckled thinking out loud, “that’s what got me here”, as that familiar feeling of excitement and strength flooded back into my body.

If you are navigating chronic pain and migraines, this is what I want to shout from the rooftops…

You are not “broken”.

Often times, it is really easy to be hyper critical of our body, especially when it feels like it is out of our control. I get it. Migraines and chronic pain impacts our lives from our friendships, at work, and even how we show up as a parent - is all impacted.

But what happens to our mindset when we refer to our body as “broken”?

Here it is, the BIG question I get asked…

“Why is it called BodyMind Coaching not MindBody?”

I love this question.

You know how you can get caught up in all the busyness of life and all the “doing”? We have our To-Do lists, schedules, meetings, projects due, kids to Uber around, deadlines, and on and on. Our mind is on overdrive with the juggle and our bodies are caught in constant fight or flight, turning on our Sympathetic Nervous System response to keep up.

Over time, we get used to the juggle, high stress, swirly thoughts, the overwhelm, and it becomes our “normal”. We then undergo mental hoops in effort to “figure it all out”. This process perpetuates the mental loop and keeps us in our head, disconnected from our body and our whole self.

As I sat warming up the car, I watched how literally backpacks, a clarinet, percussion mallets, lunchboxes, and water bottles were thrown into the car. Followed by two kids throwing themselves into the car and landing in a heap on the seat. It had been a rough morning.

The energy was palpable and I paused for a moment before putting the car in gear and thought, how can I best serve my kids in this moment?

Invincible. That is how I felt as a jockey. I was crazy fit pushing my body physically, senses heightened, and completely one with a 1,200 pound animal, my perfect trifecta.

On the day that I found myself flying through the air head first, while entangled with a Thoroughbred racehorse, I had no idea how that exact moment in time would shape the rest of my life.

The juggle. We all have had to juggle differently this past year, making some shifts and changes with life. As we go through our day, stress lands on us. Our body takes in that stress and then expresses it in some way, good or bad. Stress can build, layer by layer, until we reach our max threshold.

But what would it look like if we were so connected with ourself that we could pick up on the subtle changes before things get swirly out of control like a lighted up runway for the perfect set up for a migraine? 

I wanted to share something close to my heart, the topic of self care. Over these last few weeks, I have been reminded of the importance of self care and reflected on the ways I support myself, holistically.

Pause and ask yourself, what does self care mean to me holistically?

The word self care has become a buzzword lately. A pedicure, a luxurious day at the spa, a glass of wine, the self care checklist, and the focus is normally on something exterior or outside of yourself. It has become a quick fix, a band aid for the discomfort and disconnect we feel from ourselves. We have lost sight of the true meaning of self care somehow along the way.

Self care is an inside job, especially if you want to decrease your chronic pain and migraines.