Reflections & Resources

How do we learn to open up to pain? To fear? It seems so contrary to lean into it. We protect it and fight against it. Avoid it, and push through it until we can't. Pain is an inevitable and necessary part of life for almost every living thing. It is unique in how we feel it, but the experience is the same. Moving with the pain is the only way to learn to feel what our bodies are trying to tell us. Especially when it comes to chronic pain. When we learn to work with what is,

When I was first diagnosed with fibro, I had no idea what it was. Nor did anyone else. Any attempts at beginning to explain it would just leave people uttering their usual words of sympathy. Even though they were sincere, I deeply longed to be understood, for my pain and suffering to be felt and empathized. But unfortunately, pain and fatigue aren't outwardly noticeable, and I felt ashamed of my lack of visual evidence of suffering. I kept a few friends close and would share

As I sit here on 09/13, it’s hard not to ignore the achy feeling in my calves. (Yes, four days later!) When I stand up and walk, each step reminds me of the 2,200 odd steps I completed a couple of nights ago at the Memorial Stair Climb in honor of the firefighters who sacrificed their lives on 9/11. Each twinge of pain makes me smile. First, I smile because I remember when 2,200 stairs would have cost me a week in bed of reduced activity, pain, fog, and isolation. A day or so

We all have an inner critic—the voice of doubt. The voice persistently, loudly, and glaringly directs our attention and processing toward what we do wrong. To problems, faults, deficiencies, deficits, and inadequacies. Sticky, shameful areas. Those of us with chronic pain, fatigue, and other invisible idiopathic disorders, syndromes, and diseases, are in danger of developing a destructive inner critic. Our body responds to our inner critic by withdrawing. Shoulders round in,

If you are like most Spoonies, your fibromyalgia diagnosis came after a litany of tests all came back normal. Blood work, imaging, nerve testing, and medication trials failed to identify the culprit and left your medical provider without proof, so fibro it is. The rollercoaster of emotions of getting your hopes up that each test will hold the answer, only to be told everything looks normal. You want to be glad it's not something degenerative, but loss of quality of life and p

Pain and stress are intimately connected. Living with fibromyalgia requires one to become aware of stressors that contribute to symptoms.