5 years of persistent pain (student testimonial)

Acupuncture, physical therapy, yoga, doctors visits, gym workouts. Five years of persistent shoulder pain, and nothing helped for more than a couple weeks. Not until Marissa found herself working with me on zoom. 

It’s been 4 years since we started our work together, so I sat down with her and asked her to share a bit about her story, because I think a lot of you reading this are coming from the place Marissa was at. Of our work together, she said, “My mental health is a lot better now, because I felt a little hopeless before, when I was like, ‘I’m in a lot of pain and no one seems to know what to do about it.’ Now, it feels like, ‘oh I’m uncomfortable, I know what to do.’” 

What makes this possible? After going through the ringer, she can confidently say things like:

“I’m doing a lot of things I couldn’t do before. I used to have a lot of trouble lifting my suitcase into the overhead compartment. And I can do that now! That’s a very real thing.”

“Working on a push up, pull up, hanging on a bar for a minute—a lot of things that I just thought I would never be able to do, and never considered attempting, now they’re within reach.” 

On pressing a 22 lb kettlebell with one arm overhead? 

“Yeah, I still can’t quite mentally believe I can do that… but I did do it! It’s true!” She said, laughing. 

“I hear other people talk about things like, ‘my back aches, cause I’m old.’ And I don’t think that has to be true. I try to tell them, but they don’t believe me. It’s ingrained into a lot of people’s beliefs.” 

So if doing the work is so great, I asked her, what about training with me sucks? What isn’t fun? 

There were a few things 😂. But mostly, she said, “It’s repetitive. It’s very much like a martial art. You’re doing the same things day after day. And that can get boring, especially if you’re not progressing as much as you think you should, and when you get stuck.”

Of course, at the end of the day, pushing through the moments that you’re stuck—“that can be very satisfying.” 

If her story resonates with you—a long spell of inexplicable pain with no clear answer— and you’ve had many trips to practitioners with nothing sticking, I’d encourage you to first watch this video of her speaking, so you can hear the full story straight from her:

https://youtu.be/ek6LnoFcH_M?si=Un2K7IowXnkP9Hhx

Then, set up your first session with me.