If you’re an overthinker with chronic pain, this post is for you.
I found the needle in the haystack so you don’t have to.
For the past couple of months, you haven’t heard from me. First, I’ve been furiously working with my agent on a new book proposal that is currently out with editors. I know the proposal is strong, but so far it has not resonated with editors. At first I was disappointed (I know it’s good), but I practice what I preach, so I’m using the rejections I’ve received as a chance to dig deeper.
Here’s the thing. My ever-evolving career has made me a platypus.1 And when you’re a platypus, you confuse people. For many years I struggled with that, but no longer. I now realize that just as I need the right team to do my best work building consumer tech apps, I need to find the right partners for my written work. And that is not easy. It’s like dating: the right person is out there, but finding them will take time and effort.
The other reason for my absence is that I’ve been in physical pain. Specifically, hip pain.2 This is nothing new. It started in Sept 2021, and over the past two years, it got worse and worse. When I got my annual 3-week flu in December my pain got so bad that I was crumpled over all day long. I couldn’t bend over without my right hip snapping like a sprung mousetrap. The physical therapy (my second for this issue) I’d been going to for months was not helping. My husband suggested I stay open to the idea of a hip replacement.3
I kept digging. I knew I was looking for a needle in the haystack of pain. I googled “iliopsoas tendinopathy” over and over. My obsessive traits, the ones that led me to start Beautiful Voyager for overthinkers, finally paid off.4
I bought Sarah Warren’s book The Pain Relief Secret: How to Retrain Your Nervous System, Heal Your Body, and Overcome Chronic Pain out of desperation in May of 2023, but after reading the first 10 pages, promptly ignored it for the rest of last year. Hearing the words “hip replacement” forced me to dig deeper into the Google haystack. I found myself on this page of Sarah’s website. I don’t remember signing up for her Level One course two weeks ago, but sign up I did.5 I started her methodically organized day-by-day clinical somatics exercises in the early morning alone in my house.
Sarah’s very clear step-by-step guidance provided not just the how but the why, perfect for an overthinker like me. After the first day, all I could think was “how did I not know about this before?”
By day 4 my pain was diminishing. The pain reduction is not the gamechanger, however. What I felt was new. I could feel my body moving in a new way and releasing muscle tension all day long.6
I am currently at day 14 in my clinical somatics journey. My pain is at about 50% of where it was. I’m moving differently in my body and I feel different. I cried this morning as I did my exercises and released muscle tension.7 How did I not know about this before?
Of course I want to get Sarah on my podcast, but before I do anything else I need to share this learning with all of you. If you are reading my work because you are an overthinker in pain, or you have muscle tension that is inhibiting your ability to live life, or you suspect your nervous system may be messed up,8 this email is for you.
If you want to explore clinical somatics and join me on this journey, you can start by buying Sarah’s book The Pain Relief Secret: How to Retrain Your Nervous System, Heal Your Body, and Overcome Chronic Pain, but if you’re like me, you might need to start experiential (and then get obsessed with learning the deeper concepts), in which case I recommend you sign up for Level One Clinical Somatics exercises. The one-time cost is $45 and you will have lifetime access to the exercises.
I am not paid to say this. These are not affiliate links. This is me telling you that I found something that worked for me, and if you are like me, this could help you, too. I even joined Reddit and started a Beautiful Voyager community there to talk about this because it is shockingly undercovered, even there.
If you want to help yourself reset your nervous system, start by signing up for Level One Clinical Somatics exercises.
OK, it’s time for me to go to work now, but I am not going to wait for this email to be perfect. If you try clinical somatics and it helps you, all I ask for is a comment on this post with your experience. Let’s get this needle out of the haystack and help other people find new paths. Let’s keep learning.
Love, Meredith
Old school print photo taken by Zihao Lin in November before my discovery.
My Linkedin job history may or may not reveal that I am a mammal who lays eggs, but I am. I’ve moved from book publishing to video production to product management to operations to content to chief of staffery. It’s been quote a journey.
Sari Bottom wrote this resonate Substack post about joint pain and it’s good, but I’m in my late 40s and it felt too early for me for me to connect with Oldster Mag in this way. (I’ve since come to believe that everyone’s muscle tension can be helped at whatever age).
My hysterectomy radically improved my hormones; Wegovy radically improved my weight.
Unlike many people, I do not feel that overthinking or anxiety or obsessiveness is a super power. I think it is a trait I was kinda born with and that took me a very long time to learn to work with in a productive way.
I know you may be saying to yourself “Two weeks ago? What? How can something be a gamechanger after two weeks?” And yet.
I could get into the science of why this way happening, and if you ask me about it in the comments I will, but Sarah does it much more methodically and thoroughly than I can.
Apparently this is to be expected! Page 160 of Sarah’s book “It’s totally normal if you feel strong emotions when doing the iliopsoas exercise, or any somatic exercises, because your nervous system is releasing old patterns that are linked to your emotions, stressful experiences, and basic survival instincts.” (!)
For my whole life, I’ve been saying “my hormones are messed up.” For the past ten years, I’ve been saying “my nervous system is messed up.” I now realize I was right, it was.
