Living on the Hamster Wheel…

I have broken more than twenty bones in my body. Some injuries healed with casts, surgeries, time, patience, and the right care. Others left their mark in a different way: years of chronic pain, fear, frustration, and the exhausting feeling that my life had become one long loop of trying to cope.

For years, I felt trapped on a hamster wheel: pain would flare, fear would rise, my body would tense, I would do less, life would shrink, and then the pain would seem even louder. Around and around it went. I thought I was failing because I could not simply “push through” or “think positive.” What I know now is that my body was not broken beyond repair; it was trying to protect me.

Learning that changed everything. I began to understand that chronic pain is not only about what has happened in the body; it is also shaped by the nervous system, stress, fear, memory, attention, movement, rest, and the meaning we attach to pain. That does not make the pain imaginary. It makes it complex, human, and workable.

I had to stop treating my body like an enemy and start speaking to it like something I wanted to come home to. That meant slowing down enough to notice what made my pain louder and what helped my nervous system settle. It meant learning the difference between danger and discomfort, between rest and avoidance, between courage and forcing.

Sometimes healing begins with something very small: unclenching your jaw, softening your shoulders, taking one slow breath, stepping outside, asking for help, resting without guilt, or choosing not to believe every frightening thought that enters your mind.If life has taught me anything, it is that we are far more than what has happened to us.

Our bodies may carry scars, aches, memories, and limitations, but they also carry wisdom. They carry the evidence that we have survived. They carry the possibility of gentleness, trust, movement, breath, and hope.

Most of all, we can begin again. Not perfectly. Not all at once. But gently. Honestly. Bravely.