Podcast Show Notes: Episode 1

The Number One Best-Kept Secret for Healing Your Back Pain at Home

Listen on Spotify and Apple Podcasts!

Hiiii! Ahh I am SO excited to be recording my FIRST podcast episode today. I’ve been helping women get rid of their back pain in my practice for almost a decade and I’ve been wanting to create a podcast for so long because I really believe that when we get down to it, most of us share a lot of the same problems. Our problems may look a little different to each of us but deep down I think we’re all in the same boat when it comes to wanting to live without dealing with chronic pain.

So yay! Here we are. I’m SO glad you’re here with me. I want to start this podcast off with a bang. So today we’re going to talk about the Number One Best-Kept Secret for Healing Your Back Pain at Home.

First of all, this secret should NOT be a secret. People need to know that there is soooo much more to healing back pain than boring stretches and buying Tylenol in bulk at Costco. By the end of this episode, I want you to realize two VERY important things:

Number one is that you are not alone.

And number two is that you already have what you need to start feeling better right away.

So, let’s do this!

I think we all agree that yes, dealing with a stiff and achy back sucks. Research tells us that most adults will actually deal with it at some point. But I want to get real with you for a second…

There is no magical solution. 

The truth is that change is ALWAYS possible with our bodies and we can ALWAYS take action to feel better.

This is a cold, hard fact. I’ve seen it for years in my practice. Generally speaking, the more energy you’re willing to put towards something, the better it will get. It’s like the age-old saying, “energy follows energy”. 

So when it comes to having an achy or sore back, I have found that my clients who are ready and willing to do the work - which, keep in mind will look a little different for each person, which you’ll learn on this podcast - are the ones who can get rid of it. My clients who are waiting for a magical solution where they snap their fingers and pop a pill always end up disappointed because while yes, pain medication can be amazing at helping us in our hardest moments (me included!), expecting them to heal your body isn’t realistic. That’s not their job. Their job is usually to block pain receptors in your body and sometimes lessen inflammation short-term. But the key phrase here is short-term. 

To actually fix the problem, it takes more.

Keep in mind, though, that “more” doesn’t mean complicated. Or intense. Or hours and hours of your day dedicated to it. I definitely don’t do that and I wouldn’t recommend that you do either. 

“More” means committing to learning the best, most effective and time-efficient ways to fix what’s causing your chronic back pain. And for most of my clients, this means an easy 30-minute daily routine combined with making a few changes to how they move through their day.

Here’s your good news for the day: the most common causes of back pain are preventable! This means that how you treat your body each day will either help your back pain or make it worse.

But before we dive into the Number One Best-Kept Secret for Healing Your Back Pain at Home, I also want you to know this: I already know that you are an incredibly strong person. People who don’t live with chronic pain or even just some mild discomforts have no idea what it’s like. They’ll never understand how hard it is to put on a smile and power through every day at work, school, the gym, out with friends…wherever you go. 

So, bottle up that strength that I know you already have and pour yourself into this new way of approaching self-care.

It’s so funny that I just said self-care because if you’re like me, you might cringe when you hear the phrase “self-care”. It reminds me of perfectly put-together women on Instagram telling us to prioritize our self-care or we won’t be as successful or sexy as they are and that we should be spending hours every day doing face masks and crunches so we can finally be happy.

Uhhh, no thank you.

So let’s just make peace with the fact that those Reels kind of suck because they usually make us feel bad about ourselves after watching them. Or maybe it’s just me…but I have a feeling I’m not alone.

To me, self-care shouldn’t be complicated. We ALL do self-care, no matter what we call it. We brush our teeth, we take showers, we exercise once in a while…you get the idea.

I have found through both personal experience after having three kids and through my professional experience, that the easier the self-care routine is, the more likely it will work for us. 

Ok, back to today’s topic!

The Number One Best-Kept Secret for Healing Your Back Pain at Home is…

The more aligned our daily self-care routine is to ourselves, the more effective it is.

If you’re like “whatttt the heck are you talking about… uh-oh she’s going to start with some woo-woo shit”…hold on because I think you’re going to like this. 

What if I told you this: 

Here’s how you’re going to start feeling better: Go to the gym every day at 5am, lift weights for 22 minutes, run on the treadmill for 30, and finish up with a 16 minute stretch. Then, go home and make a wheatgrass and kale smoothie. After you take a long, hot shower filled with expensive products, spend an hour meditating while you sit on your hard floor. Once that’s done, spend another hour journaling. Make sure you cut out ALL carbs, alcohol, and fat. Oh, and don’t forget to go for a 4-mile walk after dinner every night. 

How would you feel?

My head is literally spinning just thinking about it. There’s absolutely NO WAY I would commit to a plan like that. BUT, think about it. If you did exactly what I described above, do you think you would start feeling better?

Of course! No doubt. 

But me just telling you what you should do doesn’t work! People have been trying to do this since the start of time and it’s part of the reason most fitness or weight-loss or get-healthier programs fail. We might stick with it for a little while and even get some of the results we wanted, but there is always a time when something just doesn’t feel right and we give up. 

And let me be clear about this: there is nothing wrong with giving up! 

What IS wrong is that we wasted so much time, energy, and money on something that was never meant for us.

For example, I had a client a few years ago whose best friend was obsessed with her Peloton. Her friend had lost a ton of weight with it and no longer had lower back pain every night. So, of course she’s super excited and convinces my client to buy one. Now, there’s nothing wrong with Peloton, of course. They’re an amazing way to work out…for some people. Not for my client. She ended up buying one and forced herself on it every day for a few months and hated every second. She spent thousands on it and her back felt worse. Her friend spent thousands on it and her back felt better. What’s the difference? Her friend chose Peloton because it excited her and the idea of what it could offer inspired her. My client chose Peloton because she thought she should. 

So what’s the solution?

We have to learn about our options then find a way to connect to our deeper selves and create our daily self-care routine in this way. I call this intuitive decision-making.

The ticket to creating lasting change is this thing called intuitive decision-making. This just means that you’ll learn to use only the pain-relieving tools and techniques that feel right to you. You can call it whatever you want: your higher self, gut feeling, intuition, inner wisdom, spirit, soul… whatever. I prefer intuition, but it really doesn’t matter. What does matter is that you realize that it’s there and that you can use it to your benefit. Connecting to your gut will help you select the perfect solutions for you and only you. This means you’ll feel better faster and the pain won’t come right back. 

Have you heard of the term Intuitive Exercise before?

Intuitive exercise goes along with this idea. It just means that you’ll choose which exercises to do based on how they make you feel when you think about them. This is important for you because our bodies are continually changing so an exercise that feels great right now might not feel so great in 6 months. Listening to your body allows you to find ways to exercise for your benefit while also enjoying it. We all know that if we hate our exercise routine, we won’t stick with it. I want you to look forward to your routine and trust in it because you know it’s exactly what your body needs.

So how the heck do we connect to our gut feelings? It’s not as hard as it sounds. We’ll dive into this more later but for now, start practicing by using your breath. 

What if, instead, my client from before was happy for her friend but instead of shrugging her shoulders and buying it because it seemed like a pretty good idea at the time, she went home, sat down for a second, closed her eyes and took a few deep breaths. She connected to her gut and made her decision about what the best way to exercise was for her…with or without the Peloton.

So when you think about how you want to exercise today, close your eyes and take three deep breaths. Then you’re going to think about your options and pay attention to how they make you feel. You’ve already decided that you’re going to move your body in some way so now it’s time to use your intuition to decide what type of movement would be the absolute BEST thing for you today.

Ok, side note - if you’re Type A like me and you’re thinking “ummm I’m going to need more direction than this” then you’ll probably like having a bit of a game plan. So for those of you like me, aim for 15 minutes of active exercise each day combined with about 10 minutes of stretching. 

So let’s practice this.

Take a moment and close your eyes. 

Take one deep breath in through your nose, and let it out through your mouth. Keeping your eyes shut, think about your day up to this point. Have you been running around a lot today or has today been pretty mellow so far? Maybe you slept like crap last night and it’s been crazy stressful at work and your back is freaking killing you right now. 

Take another deep breath in, and out. Keeping your eyes shut, place one hand on your heart and the other on your stomach. I’m going to list a few exercise options and I want you to really zone in and pay attention to how they make you feel as you hear them. If one gives you like an “ick” feeling, then that one is definitely not for you today. On the other hand, if one sounds relaxing, fun, or even exciting then there’s your answer.

So take another deep breath in, and out and listen to the following options.

Does going for a walk feel good? Or maybe a 20-minute yoga video from YouTube. Maybe today you’re pumped up and a 15-minute dance cardio video sounds perfect. Does going to the gym sound like the perfect way to spend some alone time? Or does it feel overwhelming. Do you want to pull out your bike and ride downtown? Or you could try one of the on-demand workouts you bought before. Or maybe your lawn needs to be raked and you’re ready to get your heart rate up that way. 

Okay. Open your eyes. 

Did any of them feel like “absolutely no way” to you? How about the opposite - which one or ones sounded like they’d feel good today?

This is how I take care of myself. 

My to-do list is always crazy long and my kids are always needing something. I don’t have the time or energy to stick with a rigid self-care routine. Plus, I don’t want to have to force myself every single day to do things that I hate. I lived like that when I was in my twenties and yes, I had very little cellulite and very little aches and pains…BUT oh my god it SUCKED holding myself to such a high standard and always trying to keep up. 

So I lowered my standards, learned how to connect to my intuition, and haven’t looked back. And yes, I might have a little bit more cellulite than before, but I have literally NO body pain and I feel more energetic than I did in my 20’s.

Okay let’s talk about how to make this work for you. Remember: imperfect action is better than no action at all. So your action step this week is to take out a piece of paper and list 3 to 5 types of exercise that you like. 

For example, my list would include: walk through my neighborhood, Yoga with Adrienne video on YouTube, Zumba class at the gym, and a Denise Austin workout online (for those of you who have followed me for awhile, you know how I love me some retro Denise Austin workouts). 

Now, the second part of this action step is this: the next time you’re ready to exercise, practice taking three deep breaths like we did today and read your list. Pay attention to how each one makes you feel that day and practice your new intuitive-decision making skill. 

Later on, I’ll teach you how you’re going to use this intuitive decision-making skill to create your own treatment plan at home for your back pain. But for now, just start moving; shoot for 15 minutes per day with 10 minutes of stretching, based on how it makes you feel. 

I KNOW you can do this. I believe in you and I admire your strength and power to take control of your wellness by learning this new technique. Just remember: imperfect action is better than no action at all and applying even just a little bit of this intuitive decision-making skill to your life will create some awesome changes. 

I can’t freaking wait to share more with you next time!

Until then, find me over on Instagram and let me know how this worked for you. And as always, DM me with any questions. I’d absolutely LOVE to help.