I know that my story is somewhat unusual and yet exciting for those of you who are just stepping your toe into the mind-body healing waters. I know that many of you wonder if you, too, can use your mind and all its healing powers. So, I’m delighted to share with you the story of a former client who has kindly written about her experience with this process. I have had many inquiries about “client success,” which always means “clients with no more pain/symptoms.” But here’s the thing: that is not my focus. I am a coach, not a healer. I am a coach, not a physician. You all have your own Inner Healer – that is not my purpose. So what I do is share mental, cognitive, and emotional techniques with my clients in the hopes that they can reshape their MENTAL and EMOTIONAL lives. That is the true goal, because that means those clients will be able to feel great RIGHT NOW. They won’t have to wait until their symptoms are gone to start living.
So here’s what I love about Katie’s story. She began living, really living, and loving her life. Like me, she made that her entire focus. She took the responsibility for the process of her own internal transformation into her own hands and worked on her own thinking. She took the time to internalize everything from coaching and put it into practice into her own life. She did it! Here it is in her own words:
It’s been a month since my life coaching with Abigail finished and now looking back over the experience, I truly feel that I have made great and lifelong changes to the way I think about not only my physical pain but also every aspect of my life. When I found Abigail I had been suffering from chronic pelvic pain for over five years.
Like most sufferers of this sort of seemingly never-ending and all-consuming pain, I experienced life under an almost constant state of anxiety and worry. My mind was cluttered with all sorts of negative thoughts about my symptoms many of which I am sure you’ll recognize.
“I’ll never get better.”
“This is the worst pain ever.”
“I’ll never be able to enjoy my life.”
However, through my coaching I was able to break down these negative thoughts and replace them with more positive and true alternatives. Where finding substitutes for these thoughts was too difficult Abigail showed me a way of removing labels from the thoughts to decrease the anxiety they produced. For example, if I was worrying about attending an event because I had decided it “would be too difficult” with my symptoms I simply removed the words “too difficult”; the statement “It will be” has become my own personal mantra as it allows me to accept situations as they come.
So maybe you’re wondering where my pain fits into all of this mind work? Well the coaching works to change the way you think about your pain which makes the pain easier to deal with. I discovered that I was constantly checking in on my pain, constantly aware of it.
“Are you there pain? How about now? And now?”
When my “check-ins” concluded that I did indeed have pain, I’d freak out which when you have a chronic pain condition means you’re spending an awful lot of time freaking out and putting everything else on hold. For me it was important to learn to accept my pain when I had it but also to accept and enjoy the time I didn’t have it! This brings me onto another point. For years and years I had been missing out on things I enjoyed and loved because I was so worried that pain would show up and ruin everything. Although it was extremely difficult for me to realize at first, Abigail showed me that it was not my pain that was causing me to miss out at all but rather it was my thoughts about my pain. Looking back now I am sure that half the time all this worry actually caused the pain! What’s more, where had I gotten this idea that I could not enjoy myself if I was in pain? Through changing my thoughts about this I made attempts to go out even if I was in pain and many times I was surprised to discover that because I was no longer checking in with my pain I was able to enjoy myself perfectly fine!
Another wonderful thing about Abigail’s coaching is that it takes into consideration everything about the person and together you work on becoming an overall happier and more peaceful being. The coaching extended above and beyond my pain and anxiety to other areas of my life which naturally are all connected at the core. My extreme worry of what people think of me, my lack of confidence in myself, my reaction to the world around me; everything area of my life that caused negativity within me were worked upon to change the way I think and soon I was learning a new meaning to the word “acceptance”.
For five long years I tried and tried to find answers and solutions to who I was and what I was going through but I know now that the most important thing is to have trust in myself, that I have everything I need to make my own recovery and that right now I am alive, strong and ready for wherever my future takes me.
It will be.
I knew Katie had truly grasped the concept of her ability to create her own life when I read her story and her accompanying email. You’ll notice that her story mentions nothing about pain reduction. The reason? That’s no longer her focus. And here’s what Katie said in her email:
Dear Abigail,
I’m sorry it’s been such a long time since i’ve been in touch. I just wanted to drop in and let you know how i’m doing. I hope you’re well, i’ve been checking your blog frequently and i’m enjoying the recordings so much, it is really great to hear your voice. Life is going wonderfully for me at the moment, i’m really happy and still incorporating everything you’ve taught me into daily life, i’m finding that i’m having less and less negative thoughts and that when I have them i’m able to turn them around much quicker and easier than before which is wonderful. My anxiety levels are at an all time low, I feel so much more confident I even spoke up in a room full of strangers at training at the weekend which is something I would never have done before. I haven’t had any pain for a few weeks.
The absolute last thing Katie mentions is her pain.
Congratulations, Katie, for all the work you have done to reshape your thinking and change your inner life. I am quite impressed, as we only worked together for two months. My hat goes off to you, and thank you for sharing your story so that other women can see that it is, indeed, quite possible to love your life, yourself, and just allow the pain/symptoms to be there and not rule your every moment. It seems counterintuitive, but allowing the pain to exist while you work to re-shape your thinking is often the very thing that allows it to finally dissipate. Taking the focus off your pain and putting it on your inner world – the well-being of your psyche – is the key.
So what’s the real measurement of success? To bring joy, happiness, and peace into your mental and emotional life. You, just like Katie, can do it.
