Upon taking my sabbatical leave last June, I left you and myself with this question: What do you want in the next phase of your life? (Blog: Taking a Pause to Reflect, Redirect, and Reinvent)

After posting my sabbatical blog, a wise reader from the Pain Free Athlete community wrote to me with a ver...

As discussed in my last blog, being preoccupied with pain can be all-consuming. For several of my clients, pain is the first thing on their minds in the morning. As soon as they wake, these clients actively seek out their pain, scanning their body for it and, if/when it is found, judge the intensity...

Do you continually worry about and focus on your pain? Do you put pressure on yourself to figure out how to fix your pain and become frustrated or angry when the pain doesn’t go away? Do you degrade yourself because you’re still hurting? Do you fight against the pain and fear that it may last foreve...

Pain Reprocessing Therapy (PRT) is a research-based treatment approach for healing neuroplastic pain. These techniques were found to be highly effective for chronic back pain in a 2022 study. Refer to my blog, New Research on Back Pain, for all the details. Earlier this month, I completed a certific...

4Islands MTB Croatia is the fourth cycling stage race I have completed. It all started In 2016 when my husband Ken suggested going to South Africa for a nine-day mountain bike stage race to celebrate our 20th wedding anniversary. We loved it! So we continued the tradition this year--in Croatia! This...

In January 2022 I listened to the Wellcoaches’ continuing education (CE) class–“The Urgency of Sabbaticals” by DJ DiDonna, founder of the Sabbatical Project. I recall that before I took the class, I had recently talked with an excited client about his sabbatical and was intrigued by the idea. Like m...

Two weeks ago, I developed severe right shoulder pain and stiffness. It was excruciating to move in any direction, and I couldn’t get into a comfortable position to rest. I worried that I wouldn’t be able to meet with clients, teach my class, or ride my bike.

The timing of my shoulder disability w...

A perfect storm, like chronic pain, emerges when numerous factors combine simultaneously. Merriam-Webster defines “perfect storm” as “a critical or disastrous situation created by a powerful concurrence of factors.” Let’s substitute chronic pain into this definition: chronic pain is created by a pow...

Chronic pain is a complex experience. I like to say that it is a whole person experience affecting many aspects of one's life that goes far beyond an unpleasant physical sensation. 

On my client intake form, I ask, “Do you have any ideas about what it is going to take for you to heal?” Often, I rec...

This is the second blog in a two-part series on neck pain. Read the first blog: Neck Pain and Posture. This is a collaboration with Dr. Michael L. Rothman, M.D. Dr Rothman is a former orthopedic surgeon and Advanced Exercise Therapist (AET), certified by the Egoscue Institute. 

Neck pain is ofte...

The Pain Revolution is a grassroots movement that strives to change people’s understanding of chronic pain. The genesis of this evolution in our understanding of pain is based in Australia. Specifically, the Pain Revolution started in South Australia, in the city of Adelaide at the University of Sou...

While I was recently talking with a client, she remarked, “I don’t know how to relax. And when I try, I worry that I am doing it wrong. After a few minutes (of sitting still and breathing) I get antsy and start doing something. It is uncomfortable to be still.”

Not surprisingly, my client, who I’ll...