Day 42 The End

It's hard to believe the end is here. I started this program back in late October and now it's finished. What a freaking journey it has been. This time last year everything was changing was for me and I had no idea just how bad I was about to start feeling. But a lot can change in a year. I went from constant pain, severe anxiety, and at times depression to now being full of hope knowing that I can handle whatever comes way. 2022 was one of the hardest years of my life but it was a year of great growth. I don't know if I could have said this prior to this experience, but I'm proud of who I am and where I'm at in life.

The journey wasn't easy. To be honest, it sucked. But I learned a lot about myself and I'm now mentally stronger than I was back then. I read a lot about how people would look back at things and be grateful for the pain/the experience and I guess I am now one of those people. I still have symptoms that come and go but nothing is like it was and it continues to improve everyday. Seven months ago my whole body hurt and I thought I'd have to give up running and other activities I love. Two days ago I ran eight miles and today I did five. It brings me great joy to stop and think about that.....just how far I've come. Times can still be challenging and I have my moments, but I now know I have the skill set to deal with it.

I wish I could lay out a road map for everyone to follow. I know that's what I was looking for when I started. Tell me to do A,B, and C on these days and X,Y, and Z on these days and I'll do it - whatever it takes to not feel like this. Unfortunately it doesn't like work that. I probably did everything that everyone else has tried: binged the Tell Me About Your Pain Podcast, read Alan Gordon's book, read multiple Sarno books, watched a million YouTube videos of Schubiner and most of Dan Buglio's videos, found The Mind and Fitness Podcast, found Nicole Sachs, mediation, inner child work, started going to therapy and the list goes on and on. I just kept learning and finding things that I thought worked for me. I think the biggest piece of advice I can give is to not lose hope and to know that you'll have some really good times and start to experience success only to have that all come crashing down at some point. But that's the time to really do the work and keep your hope. Once I could learn to respond positively to those moments, everything changed. I knew it was a temporary low that would pass. I would remind myself that this is not my fault and it didn't happen because I wasn't doing enough (I knew I should have listened to five more podcast episodes and finished Healing Back Pain last night!).

Hands down the best thing I did was finally decide to go to therapy. I had a really chaotic childhood and I knew that I would benefit from therapy but I didn't know I would benefit as much as I am. I had (have) a lot of repressed emotions and I never knew how anxious and on edge I always was. People always complimented me that I never appear to be stressed - I guess I had bought into that because I didn't think I stressed either. Little did I know I was just used to always being stressed. I always needed to stay busy so I didn't have to sit and be with myself. And no matter how much I did, it would never be enough to satisfy my inner critic. I recently started some inner child work and what a trip that has been. So I'm working through a lot of that and it's been awesome to see the progress I've made.

So here we are. The one year mark from when the bottom feel out. I never thought I'd say it, but overall, this has been a positive experience. While it's the one year mark since things got really bad, doing this program helped me see how I had been hurting on and off for years: low back pain, tension headaches, fatigue, etc. When I realized that, I knew this wasn't something that would just go away after doing a few rounds of breathwork and incorporating a daily mediation. This was building for 34 years and it's going to take a while to heal completely. But I know what's going on and I know I can handle it. If I can do this, anyone can do it. Utilize the resources and groups that are out there. Keep the faith and never give up. I wish you all the best of the luck on your healing journey.