chronic pain support – SUNBEAM ACRES

Everything Hurts, Now What?

September 8, 2026 pammunkholm

There is a specific genre of complaining that I have become suspicious of. 🕵️‍♀️

Not the legitimate kind.

Not the “I have been awake since 3:17 a.m. because my nervous system is holding a fire drill” kind.

Not the “Why does getting showered and dressed feel like an Olympic event?” kind.

And definitely not the “Who designed this world without considering people who have pain?” kind.

Some things are a genuine bummer.

Chronic pain is hard. Fatigue is hard. Having a body that doesn’t always cooperate is hard. Watching other people casually do things that require me to carefully plan and then recover, can be hard.

My body doesn’t always recognize my authority. There’s a department. A committee. Tons of red tape. It’s a whole thing.

I am not talking about pretending those things aren’t hard.

I’m talking about what happens when complaining slowly becomes the neighbourhood we live in. And we didn’t even know we moved!

Because sometimes I wonder if complaining is one of the ways we get duped by the lies of this world.

Sneaky lies.

The kind that slip in wearing sensible shoes.

E.g.

Busy means productive
More is always better
Everyone else has it better than me
Your worth is measured by what you accomplish or have
You should be able to do it all
Other people should behave the way I think they should

Some lies show up more in certain arenas. In the arena of chronic pain I have narrowed down to two societal lies that are at the top of my list.

The first lie of chronic pain sufferers: Life is supposed to be easier than this.

Somewhere along the way, I absorbed the idea that if I worked hard enough, made good choices, took care of myself, tried to be positive and generally behaved like a reasonably responsible adult, life would eventually cooperate.

🤭 Cute.

I have since learned that life comes with considerably more fine print.

And chronic pain has a particularly efficient way of magnifying those terms and conditions 🔎 .

You can eat well. You can exercise within your abilities. You can rest. You can take your medication. You can go to appointments.

You can stretch and strengthen and meditate and breathe and try every reasonable suggestion known to humanity.

And then Tuesday morning shows up, completely ignoring the fact that I had a lovely little breakthrough on Monday. My body still hurts. The dust is still judging me from across the room. The laundry has continued breeding. Nothing has been resolved, healed, folded, or otherwise put right.

That doesn’t mean you failed.

It means you’re human.

The second lie of chronic pain sufferers: If I can’t have the life I wanted, I can’t have a good life.

This one is considerably more dangerous.

Because chronic pain can shrink our world.

First we stop doing something because it hurts.

Then we stop doing something because we’re afraid it will make things hurt worse.

Then we stop making plans because we don’t know how we’ll feel and we are tired of cancelling.

Then we start thinking about everything we’ve lost.

And eventually our attention becomes almost completely occupied by what isn’t possible.

The thing is, nothing has to be invented. The losses are real.

But the brain can take a real loss and turn it into a much larger story.

I can’t live like I used to becomes:

I can’t do anything.

I’m having a terrible pain day becomes:

I’m always in unmanageable pain.

I can’t make plans reliably becomes:

My life is completely out of my control.

That’s where I think complaining can become a trap.

We’re no longer simply describing our circumstances.

We’re rehearsing them.

Over and over.

And our brains are remarkably good at getting better at whatever we repeatedly practice.

But here’s where I need to be careful.

Because there is another lie that can sneak into this conversation.

“If people are tired of hearing about my pain, I should just tuck that thought back in the vault where it belongs.”

No.

Absolutely not.

I have chronic pain.

This is not a part-time hobby.

If something hurts every single day, pretending it doesn’t hurt so that everyone around me can have a more comfortable afternoon isn’t healthy either.

Sometimes I need to say:

“Today really hurts.”

Sometimes I need somebody to know that I’m struggling.

Sometimes I need to be able to say, “This is really hard, especially today,” without having to immediately follow it with something inspirational so nobody gets uncomfortable.

I don’t need a motivational quote.

I need a witness.

And sometimes the person we need to hear us is the person who is tired of hearing it.

This is one of the hardest parts of chronic pain.

Because pain doesn’t take weekends or holidays off.

It doesn’t understand that those closest to you have already heard about it yesterday. And the day before that. And the day before that. For what seems infinity.

It doesn’t care that your family has had a long day.

It doesn’t politely wait until everyone is emotionally available.

And the person who loves you may eventually reach a point where they think:

I know you’re hurting. I know. But I don’t know what else to say.

And sometimes that comes out as:

“That sucks.”

Then they go back to whatever they were doing.

Ouch 😣

Because when you’re hurting badly enough to finally say something, “That sucks” can land less like validation and more like:

Please stop talking about this 🙄 .

But there is another possibility.

Maybe they’re not saying:

Your pain doesn’t matter.

Maybe they’re saying:

I don’t know how to fix something I can’t fix 🔧.

Maybe they’re exhausted too.

Maybe they have heard about your pain so often that they have become emotionally numb. Not because they don’t love you, but because human beings aren’t particularly good at repeatedly witnessing something they can’t make better.

And here’s an inconvenient truth:

Both people can be hurting.

The person with chronic pain can need to be heard.

And the person who loves them can need a break from pain being the centre of the room.

Those two things can be true at the same time.

So how do we complain in a healthy way?

Maybe the answer isn’t don’t complain.

Maybe it’s learn how to communicate the need underneath the complaint.

Because sometimes what I’m really asking isn’t:

“Would you like to hear the latest installment of Everything That Hurts?”

Sometimes I’m asking:

“Can you please just acknowledge that this is hard?”

That’s a different request.

Instead of:

“Everything hurts today. My back is killing me, my hips are aching, I barely slept, my hands hurt, and I don’t know how I’m supposed to get anything done…”

I might try:

“I’m having a really bad pain day. I don’t need you to fix it. I just need you to hear me for a minute.”

Or:

“Can I have two minutes to complain without you trying to solve it?”

Or even:

“I need a little reassurance right now. Can you tell me you understand that this is hard?”

That gives the other person a job they can actually do.

They don’t have to cure chronic pain.

They don’t even have to have the perfect response.

They just have to be present.

And I think we can give them permission to tell us when their tank is empty.

This one is tricky.

Because if someone says, “I can’t listen to this right now,” it can feel devastating.

Especially when you already feel like your pain is an inconvenience.

But perhaps we can build a different language around it.

“I love you. I believe you. I just don’t have the capacity to talk about pain right now. Can we come back to this later?”

(Hold them to talking about it later, or they are just avoiding the issue)

That is very different from:

“I’m sick of hearing you complain.”

One establishes a boundary.

The other makes the person feel like the problem.

And research on chronic pain couples backs up the importance of this distinction. Validation communicates that the person’s experience is real and understood, while invalidation can interfere with emotional and pain regulation. At the same time, studies also suggest that very frequent pain-related disclosure can wear down supportive responses. (PubMed)

So perhaps healthy communication lives somewhere in the middle.

Tell the truth.

Don’t catastrophize the truth.

Ask for what you actually need.

Give the other person permission to have limits.

And don’t make one person your entire emotional support system.

Because that’s a lot to ask of one human being.

Even if that human being is married to you.

Your brain is listening to you.

Our brains don’t simply receive information from our bodies like a receptionist taking messages.

They’re constantly interpreting what is happening.

Attention, emotion, memory, expectation and perceived threat can all influence the experience of pain.

Chronic pain isn’t simply a matter of damaged tissue sending an identical pain signal over and over again. The nervous system can become sensitized and change the way sensations are processed.

And repetitive negative thinking (ruminating about pain, what it means, what might happen, how unfair it is) can add another layer of distress.

In very simple terms:

What we repeatedly pay attention to gets easier for the brain to notice.

That does NOT mean chronic pain is imaginary.

It does NOT mean positive thinking cures illness.

And it absolutely does NOT mean that if you’re still hurting, you just aren’t trying hard enough.

Puh-lease. ✋

I have enough on my plate without wondering whether I’m handling my suffering correctly.

But it does mean there may be a difference between:

“This hurts.”

and

“This hurts, this always happens, this is never going to change, I can’t do anything, my life is terrible, nobody understands, and why does everyone else get to have a normal body?”

The first is information.

The second is a story.

And stories can either help us carry reality or make reality heavier.

Validation isn’t the same thing as agreement.

This is an important distinction.

If I say:

“I’m scared this pain will never get better.”

You don’t have to get in the pit with me and say:

“Yes. The dumpster fires persist but so do we.”

You can say:

“I can understand why you’re scared. You’ve been dealing with this for a long time.”

That’s validation.

You’re not agreeing with the prediction. You are not forecasting something different.

You’re acknowledging the experience.

Researchers studying chronic pain couples have found that empathic and validating responses are generally associated with better emotional and relationship outcomes, while invalidating responses tend to be associated with worse outcomes. A 2025 systematic review of chronic pain couples reached a similar overall conclusion. ((PMC)PubMed Central)

And interestingly, even brief training in validation has been shown to improve validating responses from spouses and reduce negative affect in partners living with chronic pain. (PubMed)

Which means perhaps we don’t need our loved ones to become pain experts.

Maybe we just need to teach each other a few life-saving sentences.

🛟 “I believe you.”

🛟 “That sounds really hard.”

🛟 “I’m sorry you’re hurting.”

🛟 “Do you want me to listen, help, or give you some space?”

Sometimes I need help.

Sometimes I need someone to sit beside me while I have spectacular pity party.

And sometimes I need everyone to leave me alone.

Which brings me to the forest.

The forest is a third party in the conversation.

One of the reasons I love forest therapy is that it gives me somewhere else to take my pain.

Not to hide it. Not to deny it. Just to put it down for a little while.

The forest doesn’t say:

“Again with the pain?”

It doesn’t say:

“You’ve already told me this.”

It doesn’t say:

“That sucks.”

It simply gives me something else to notice.

The sound of wind moving through branches.

The texture of bark.

Birdsong.

The smell of damp earth.

Bosky
Covered with bushes, shrubs, and small trees, or having a woody and shady appearance. (Dictionary.com)

Light moving through leaves.

My feet touching the ground.

My breath silent as I watch the deer across the ravine and she watches me.

And suddenly my attention isn’t completely occupied with the running commentary in my head.

Nature exposure has been associated with reduced stress, and research on forest therapy has found changes in measures such as cortisol, heart rate and parasympathetic activity.

The evidence isn’t perfect, and the forest isn’t a cure for chronic pain. But it can offer the nervous system a different kind of input. Slower, safer, less demanding.

Sometimes that is enough to interrupt the loop.

Try this the next time you catch yourself complaining.

Don’t shame yourself.

That’s just complaining about your complaining. You’ve now created a sequel nobody asked for 🤦‍♀️.

Instead, pause.

Ask:

What am I actually needing right now?

Am I needing to be heard? practical help? reassurance? rest? Am I feeling lonely? frightened? angry?

Am I simply needing someone to say:

“That really sucks.”

Because sometimes that is enough.

Then ask yourself:

Who is the right person to give me that support right now?

Maybe it’s your spouse.

Maybe it’s a friend who understands.

Maybe it’s a support group.

Maybe it’s a therapist.

Maybe it’s a journal.

Maybe it’s the forest.

And maybe sometimes it’s you.

I’m not trying to become a person who never complains.

Frankly, that sounds exhausting.

I still complain.

But I’m trying to notice when complaining stops being a way of expressing something and starts becoming a way of seeing everything.

And I’m also trying to remember that needing to talk about my pain doesn’t make me a burden.

I can tell the truth about what hurts. I can ask to be seen. I can let someone say, “I love you, but I don’t have the capacity for this conversation right now.”

I can find more than one place to put my pain.

And I can learn the difference between telling the truth and allowing the pain to tell me the story of my entire life.

So many views from one sit spot. Depending on where I point the lens.

Because maybe that’s one of the great tricks of this life:

The lie isn’t always that our circumstances aren’t difficult.

Sometimes the lie is that our circumstances are all there is.

Pain is part of my life. It isn’t the whole of it.

Fatigue is part of my life. It isn’t the whole of it.

The things I can’t do are part of my life. They aren’t the whole of it.

And when I walk into the forest, I get reminded of something my occasional complaining brain conveniently forgets:

There is still a world happening outside my symptoms.

There is still beauty. There is still laughter. There are still surprises.

Maybe I don’t have to fight my life into becoming the one I thought I was promised.

Maybe I can stop complaining about the moment long enough to find a life well-lived.

Even if it hurts. Especially then.

Caught in a Battle Between Conventional and Holistic Medicine- A Chronic Sufferer’s Experience

June 9, 2026 pammunkholm

The longer I live with chronic pain, the more convinced I am that modern medicine is excellent at saving lives and often terrible at helping people live them.

That is not an attack on medicine.

I am deeply grateful for surgeons, emergency rooms, diagnostics, imaging, specialists, antibiotics, and every medical professional who dedicates their life to helping people heal. If my arm bone is hanging on by hope and duct tape, I am not reaching for turmeric and positive affirmations. I want a surgeon. Immediately.

My mom shattered her foot in multiple places in a car accident. Her toe was essentially powder. No longer a toe. She needed surgery, pins, screws, and acute medical care. No amount of herbal tea or breath work was going to fix those bones.

Conventional medicine is extraordinary in moments like that.

But chronic illness and chronic pain are often different beasts entirely.

My body failed to coordinate its symptoms in a way convenient for modern medicine.

This is where many patients begin discovering the enormous disconnect between conventional medicine and a more holistic approach to healing.

And by holistic, I do not mean anti-science wellness influencers waving potions around while trying to sell bottled mountain air and enlightenment in the same online bundle.

There is a fine line between integrative medicine and someone trying to sell you powdered optimism for $89.99.

I mean looking at the body as an interconnected system instead of isolated symptoms.

I mean considering nutrition, supplementation, nervous system regulation, sleep, movement, physical therapies, mindfulness, environmental stressors, and individualized treatment options alongside conventional care.

Not instead of medicine.
Alongside it.

Because pain doesn’t stay politely inside one department.

The body cannot always be divided into neat specialties simply because the healthcare system is.

I recently listened to a podcast episode from Untangle: Exploring What it Takes to Be Pain Free featuring Stacey Roberts, and so much of the conversation echoed what I’ve experienced navigating chronic pain myself.

One point especially stood out to me. Roberts referenced pain scientist Lorimer Moseley from the University of Adelaide, discussing how conventional medicine often compartmentalizes the body into isolated systems. The gut, the brain, the joints. When chronic pain rarely behaves that neatly.

Pain spills into everything.

Your nervous system changes.
Your sleep changes.
Your digestion changes.
Your stress response changes.
Your sense of safety changes.

The nervous system remembers suffering long after scans stop showing it.

Pain is real, even when the cause is unclear.

–Lorimer Moseley

For years I was bounced between specialists who all told me some variation of, “Everything looks normal.” 👍 👍

Which was excellent news except for the small detail that I was getting worse.

There’s an exhaustion that comes from hearing “everything looks normal” while actively deteriorating.

Every appointment felt a bit like medical speed dating except nobody wanted a second date with my file.

I was essentially told to go back to physio. This wasn’t really a medical issue anymore.

I believe in physiotherapy. Deeply. It has helped me tremendously. But there comes a point where patients stop needing another treatment and start needing someone to ask bigger questions.

Nothing discourages a person quite like enthusiastically trying a stretch or strengthening exercise that immediately makes things worse.

Every specialist confidently searches for answers inside their own department like medical-themed escape rooms.

Somewhere between “try yoga” and “have you considered drinking more water?” I began expanding my own research.

And I’ve lost count of the books and podcasts that begin with the exact same storyline:

“I was trained in conventional medicine. I trusted the system completely… until I became the patient.”

At first, these doctors often dismiss holistic approaches entirely. Patients mention supplements, meditation, dietary changes, nervous system work, or alternative therapies, and the response is cautious at best and dismissive at worst.

Snake oil.
Pseudoscience.
Non-compliance.

But then something shifts.

The doctor develops chronic pain.
An autoimmune condition.
A lingering injury.
Burnout.
A nervous system disorder.

And suddenly certainty cracks open into curiosity.

Chronic pain turns you into a part-time researcher, part-time philosopher, and full-time reluctant detective.

I have spent an unreasonable amount of my adult life trying to determine whether I am injured, inflamed, overtired, under-rested, dehydrated, stressed, or simply existing incorrectly.

Living with chronic pain means constantly performing the world’s least fun science experiment on yourself.

By year three of unexplained symptoms, I could practically earn honorary medical credits.

To be fair, holistic spaces are not immune to problems either. There is misinformation, exploitation, fearmongering, and an endless supply of expensive miracle cures marketed toward vulnerable people desperate to feel better.

Pain makes people easy to manipulate.
Both systems can fail people in different ways.

That’s why I don’t believe the answer is abandoning conventional medicine for holistic healing.

I believe the answer is integration.

An actual partnership.

Healing is bigger than symptom management.

Patients do not need doctors to be omniscient. We need them to be curious.

Surgeons are trained to operate.
Doctors are trained to diagnose and prescribe.
Specialists are trained to identify patterns within their specialty.

We need practitioners who understand both the power and the limitations of their training. And openly work with other practitioners, conventional and holistic, to find a root cause and treatment plan.

This matters enormously to a patient just trying to survive.

The shoe that fits one person pinches another.

–Carl Jung

Chronic illness does not always fit neatly inside textbook timelines and diagnostic boxes.

Medicine’s symbol speaks of healing being available. Yet many people with chronic illness spend years moving through appointments feeling like fragmented symptoms instead of whole human beings.

Stacey Roberts described asking chronic pain patients to remember a time before they lived with pain. Then she asks them to imagine themselves in the future doing something that currently hurts. Picking up grandchildren. Bending over. Any repetitive movement, without pain.

And many people simply cannot picture it.

Their bodies have become so conditioned toward pain and protection that even imagining safety feels impossible.

This is your forest therapy practice for this week. Find a quiet place in nature and practice this visualization.

Chronic pain doesn’t only affect muscles and joints. It reshapes expectation. Identity. Fear. Hope.

Roberts discussed using visualization, breathing, mindfulness, and repetition to help retrain the nervous system’s response to pain.

That idea connects to what I’ve experienced through forest therapy and time in nature.

Regulation comes while standing beneath trees while wind moves through their branches overhead. The nervous system seems to recognize something there before the mind does. The movement. The rhythm. The reminder that not everything in the world is bracing for impact.

Healing and pain elimination are not always the same thing.

Chronic pain teaches your nervous system to scan constantly for danger. Nature quietly teaches it another language.

No performance. No productivity. No pressure to fix yourself.

Just space to exist in a body that has spent far too long preparing for the next flare.

You can read more about that experience in my post about forest therapy and nervous system regulation. 🌲 Activating Your Vagus Nerve With Forest Therapy 🌲

I appreciated many of the points Stacey Roberts made in the podcast. But I struggled with the title of her book, The Pain-Free Formula.

Not because I don’t believe improvement is possible. I do.

I absolutely believe there are things we can do to reduce pain, improve quality of life, calm the nervous system, support healing, and function better in our bodies.

But chronic illness eventually teaches many of us something medicine rarely does:

Sometimes the greatest medical harm is making patients feel invisible.

At some point I stopped obsessing over becoming pain free and started focusing on becoming supported.

I decided healing would come in time.
And if not, I would still be okay.

Not because I had given up.
But because I finally realized I had the tools, support, and guidance I needed to endure whatever my condition threw at me.

Ironically, that mindset shift brought me more peace than years spent desperately chasing the next solution.

Sometimes acceptance is more freeing than the absence of pain we searched for so desperately.

I hope Stacey Roberts never fully understands that distinction.

Because for her to truly understand it, she may have to suffer at a depth I would not wish on anyone.

At the end of the podcast, the host asked how she would redesign the healthcare system for chronic pain patients. Roberts discussed the need for more investment into preventative health, nutrition research, nervous system regulation, and understanding why certain non-pharmaceutical interventions help people heal.

And honestly, I think she raised important questions.

Because if someone improves through movement, nutrition, mindfulness, supplementation, therapy, nervous system regulation, or lifestyle change, why should that healing be dismissed simply because it did not originate from a prescription pad?

People in pain do not need to be fixed before they are worthy of compassion.

I do think our healthcare system needs to evolve.

Not because doctors are evil.
Not because science has failed.
Not because medicine lacks value.

Oliver Sacks suggests,

To restore the human subject at the center. The suffering, afflicted, fighting human subject. We must deepen a case history to a narrative.

Patients with chronic illness need practitioners who are comfortable saying:
“I don’t know.”
“Tell me more.”
“I believe you.”
“Let’s keep looking.”

Rachel Naomi Remen said,

The most basic and powerful way to cconnect to another person is to listen.

And William Osler advised:

Listen to your patient; he is telling you the diagnosis.

Listen. Not just for the keywords that trigger familiar treatment pathways. But for the whole story.

For the grief patients carry. For the exhaustion. For the devastation of losing trust in your own body. And for the courage it takes to keep asking for help after years of disappointment.

Healing should never have become a battle between conventional and holistic medicine.

People in pain deserve both.

And if you’ve ever had to redefine what healing or success looks like inside a difficult body, I wrote more about that here as well. You Are a Success Story

You Are a Success Story

May 26, 2026May 26, 2026 pammunkholm

My physiotherapist, “J,” has been with me through it all.

She has seen me on some of my best days over the past 15 years of working with her.

The day I told her I was finally pregnant with the baby I had tried nearly a decade to conceive.
The day I said, “I’m running again.” After years of pain making even the thought of it feel impossible. My body has approached physical activity like a suspicious cat approaches a cucumber in the past.
She heard me process the long, exhausting teenage years of push and pull with my oldest child. And then my second. Followed by my third. The painful years that felt like emotional whiplash and then she celebrated with me when they all graduated. She understood firmly the mentality of, We did it! On each occasion.
She walked alongside me through buying and selling homes.
When Kenzie got engaged. Jamie transitioned. Riley moved in with his girlfriend.
When all three times I found out I was going to be a grandma, she was one of the first people to know.
When I started a forest therapy business and dared to believe healing could become something I offered others.

She has witnessed joy. Growth. Milestones.

We have laughed together as I walked around in a body that behaved like it’s been assembled from spare parts with vague instructions and one missing screw.

Proof that life can still bloom in hard soil.

And she has also sat with me on some of my worst days.

The day I fell off a boat and we both knew recovery would not be quick.
The years I fought to be taken seriously by medical professionals before finally getting the MRI that revealed my bone spur. Disappointing specialist appointments. Medical gaslighting.
Family job losses.
Kids in car crashes.
The miscarriage of the baby I had fought so hard to conceive. She cried with me that day. And the day I told her I was going ahead with the hysterectomy that closed that door entirely. We were so hopeful that would help my overall health.
Surgeries that did not go well.
The passing of dear friends.
The painful decision to close my business and then Brent’s and eventually to stop working.
Leaving the farm and grieving all that move represented. She understood, she’s a farm girl.
And the appointment Christmas Eve where she examined me and realized something was deeply wrong. I had almost no muscle mass. I was so weak and felt so broken, useless, a waste of skin.

I could write pages about what J and I have discussed over the years. At some point, she became more than someone treating my body. She became someone quietly witnessing my life story unfold.

The size of my kids when I started seeing J

And then one ordinary appointment changed how I saw myself.

It started like any other. I explained where the pain was. What had shifted in my workouts. What stress was doing to my body. What daily life had looked like since we last met.

She examined me, worked through familiar areas of tension, and after a moment of silence she said something I think applies to all my chronic comrades:

“You’re a success story. Do you know that?”

My first instinct is always to deflect a compliment.

I think you have me confused with someone whose joints aren’t held together by determination and prayer alone.

But it felt true. It felt like the most true diagnosis I’d ever been given.

She continued, (and I want you to see yourself in this,)

When you look at where you’ve been on your lowest days and where you are now. This is a success story.

You could have closed the doors on life. Stayed in bed. Turned inward. Leaned into fear of the future. You could choose to live frustrated and depressed. White-knuckling your way through existence.

But instead, you keep rebuilding. You keep getting stronger. No matter what knocks you down, you come back.

Like one of those punching balloons from childhood. The ones you smack into the floor and somehow they pop right back up, mildly annoying and aggressively optimistic.

I have a core memory of my cousin’s party. They had one of those balloons in the backyard. As I played with it I wondered what was inside that made it keep popping up.

If resilience had a mascot, I might nominate a half-inflated punching balloon and a woman with heating pads.

J was right though. That’s me. That’s you.

What is it that’s inside us that keeps us popping up, time after time?

Not graceful. Not elegant. Occasionally leaking air. But still coming back up.

Again. And again. And again.

J encouraged me to start writing it down. My story. To let others read it. And that is where this blog began.

A success story, heavily disguised as a challenging life story.

Chronic Pain Does Not Stay in One Box

If you live with chronic pain, you understand this. Pain does not politely stay in your shoulder. Or your spine. Or your hips. Or your joints.

It leaks. It spreads.

It enters your sleep, your patience, your relationships, your finances, your confidence, your work, your parenting, and your identity.

It is never just physical.

The dis-ease spreads just like disease. Not because we are weak. But because pain is invasive.

Scars are not signs of weakness, they are signs of survival.

Yet many people living with chronic pain quietly continue. They raise children. Show up to work. Try to exercise. Cook supper. Pay bills. Care for aging parents. Smile through appointments (and cry after.) Fold laundry while wondering why their body feels like it was assembled by a distracted Ikea employee.

And still… they continue.

That is not failure. That is resilience. That is success.

Rock bottom became the solid foundation on which I rebuilt my life.

–JK Rowling

The Exhaustion of Not Being Believed

One of the hardest parts of chronic pain is not always the pain itself. Sometimes it is the disbelief. Unfortunately, this can include close family members. Friends. Employers.

And yes, medical professionals.

When symptoms are invisible, people often assume they are exaggerated. If scans are unclear, they question your tolerance. If you “look fine,” they assume you must be fine.

And so many of us become defenders. Explainers. Evidence gatherers.

Trying desperately to prove that our pain is real. Trying to earn validation. Trying to convince others that suffering exists even when they cannot see it.

But constant defense is exhausting.

As Dallin H. Oaks said:

When attacked by error, truth is better served by silence than by a bad argument.

That quote hit me.

We do not need to defend ourselves from every misunderstanding. Not every person deserves access to our explanations. Not every accusation needs a rebuttal. Not every skeptical glance deserves our emotional energy.

There is a time to inform. And there is a time to walk away.

Never wrestle with pigs. You both get dirty and the pig likes it.

–George Bernard Shaw

Silence is not surrender. Sometimes silence is strength. Sometimes it is peace. Sometimes it is refusing to spend precious energy proving your pain to people committed to misunderstanding it.

Do not explain. Your friends do not need it, and your enemies will not believe you.

–Elbert Hubbard

You Are a Success Story Too

If you live with chronic pain and still carry on…

You are a success story.

If you’ve had to explain your pain as a weird hip or angry neck. Here is your medal in interpretive medicine 🏅…

And you are a success story.

If, like my friend described it, you have been blindsided at a medical appointment and you keep seeking your answers…

You are a success story.

If you got out of bed today and every day, despite exhaustion…

You are a success story.

If you parent through pain…

You are a success story.

If you grieve what your body once was while still learning to care for the body you have now…

You are a success story.

If you feel misunderstood. Lesser. Frustrated. Invisible. You are still a success story.

Do not let anyone take that from you.

You never know how strong you are until being strong is your only choice.

–Bob Marley

A Forest Therapy Practice: Seeing Yourself in the Landscape

One of the most grounding practices I return to comes from forest therapy.

Take a small mirror with you into nature.

Stand among trees.

Or beneath open sky.

Hold the mirror so your reflection appears framed by branches, clouds, leaves, or light.

Look at yourself. Really look. See your face inside the larger landscape. Notice how you are not separate from nature. You belong here too.

Then ask yourself:

Where was I a year ago?

What have I survived?

How far have I come?

What strength still exists in me?

Appreciate where you are now. Not because healing is complete. But because progress deserves to be witnessed. And because you still have what it takes to continue.

Rivers don’t apologize for moving slowly at some points on their path.

Seasons do not shame themselves for resting.

Maybe we shouldn’t either.

My Success Story Is Still Being Written

I used to think success had to look polished. Strong. Linear. Easy to explain. Now I know better.

Sometimes success looks like rebuilding muscle. Sometimes it looks like surviving grief. Sometimes it looks like asking for help. Sometimes it looks like walking instead of running. Sometimes it looks like closing one chapter when life forces your hand. Sometimes it looks like bouncing back up like an emotionally exhausted inflatable clown with stubborn determination.

I have bounced back like a plastic bag caught in a prairie wind.

Messy. Crooked. Still rising. Still trying.

And maybe that is enough.

Actually

Maybe that is extraordinary.

You are a success story.

If pain has tried to rewrite your life and you still continue…

🫵 You are a success story.

And don’t you forget it. 😉

Why Winter Trails are Terrifying For the Hypermobile: Through Pain and Pines

March 10, 2026 pammunkholm

Many trails in Saskatchewan are shimmering. Beautifully. Treacherously.

I’m pretty sure they are trying to kill me.

Sparkling snow is magical. Sparkling frost is beautiful.

But sparkling ice on a forest trail?

That’s a different category entirely. “Be gone foul thing!”

When you live with hypermobility, ice is less of a winter decoration and more of a full-contact sport.

For most people, a slip on an icy trail means a flail of the arms, a laugh, and maybe a comment. “Watch out for the icy patch!”.

For someone with hypermobility, that same moment can mean:

a rib that determines it would rather live somewhere other than its intended slot
a shoulder that doth protest too much (because the shoulder blade is sliding down your back)
muscles that grip like overprotective bodyguards
and a new entry in the ever-growing logbook titled “Well… that escalated quickly.”

A small jolt or an awkward catch. And suddenly a split second wobble becomes three months of physiotherapy, muscle protecting and pain with every movement.

Winter walking becomes less like a casual stroll and more like a strategic mission.

Our hypermobile bodies clearly have a different set of rules.

Living with hypermobility also means developing a surprisingly intimate relationship with your physiotherapist.

Years ago I realized I owned an entire library of tiny resistance bands in colours that sounded deceptively cheerful.

Coral. Mint. Lavender. Suggesting relaxation and beach vacations.

In reality they represented fifteen very specific exercises. Each designed to convince my shoulder, hip, or rib that staying in place is actually an excellent idea.

In more recent years, overall strengthening through running has become my greatest hope against hope.

Thankfully those resistance bands are now packed away. They were the bane of my existence for years. Strengthen the shoulder, put out the elbow, wrist, and fingers. Strengthen the hip, put out the knee, ankle and toes.

If you live with chronic pain, you also know the strange pleasure of telling people:

“Yes, I injured myself sneezing.”

And then watching them try to politely hide their confusion. 😕

Enigmatic Equations Await

People with chronic pain develop a special kind of mental math.

Before leaving the house, the brain quietly runs a checklist:

How icy is it?
How far is the trail?
What muscles are already staging a coup today?
What are the odds I’ll slip, twist, or do the world’s slowest accidental yoga pose?

Slipping into something a little more comfortable (psychosis)

These calculations happen constantly.

Because when joints are extra flexible, the body relies heavily on muscles to hold everything together.

If those muscles get surprised by a sudden slip on ice, they react like overcaffeinated security guards.

We don’t even have to experience a crash landing. A slight “whoop”. Everything tightens. Followed shortly by, everything hurts. Sometimes for a very long time.

And yet… Staying inside is not the answer.

Inside Out: The Hidden Dangers of Staying Indoors

My soul was not designed for indefinite indoor storage.

After a few days of being cooped up, something starts to happen.

First a restlessness.

Then a longing.

Then a slightly dramatic moment standing at the window staring outside like a Victorian character under quarantine.

Because the body may be complicated. But the soul is surprisingly clear about what it needs.

Trees. Sky. Fresh air. The quiet company of chickadees who seem perpetually delighted with life.

Naturalist John Burroughs once wrote:

I go to nature to be soothed and healed, and to have my senses put in order.

And when chronic pain is part of your life, your nervous system spends a lot of time: out of order.

Pain keeps the brain alert. Guarded. Scanning.

But the forest gently invites something else.

A slower rhythm. A softer focus.

Don’t let perfect get in the way of good enough.

“Break!!”- Dancing Through the Meadow

Hypermobility changes the way you move through the world.

Especially in winter.

Walking on icy trails becomes a very particular style of locomotion that could best be described as:

“Cautious woodland creature.”

Short steps.

Careful weight shifts.

Occasional pauses to test the ground.

One wrong move and suddenly you find yourself soft launching a new form of dance.

Anyone watching from a distance might assume you were practicing some form of extreme slow-motion flamenco 💃 .

But really, you’re simply trying to avoid becoming an accidental case study in sidewalk face implants.

Oddly enough, this cautious way of walking mirrors a core forest therapy practice. Slow walking.

Forest therapy guides often invite people to slow down enough to truly notice the forest.

Hypermobility just… adds extra motivation.

A Little Winter Guiding Advice

I have learned a few things from my winter days on the trail this year.

Boots with ICE FX technology soles are the way to go. I started using them this year. I had two slips in the first couple weeks of winter. I got the boots and I haven’t had a slip since. They are like winter tires. I still have to be careful but they have saved me.
Hiking poles are this girl’s best friend. I am learning when to use them and when to leave them in the car. Days I can’t see the trail under the snow or when the trail is glistening with ice, they are essential. Days the trail is packed with snow and my balance feels good they can stay back.
Some days you just have to stay home. The boots and poles open your world. There are still times when staying home is the safest and best option. It is not worth the risk of a fall. Or a tweak. Walking in a mall or other large indoor space can meet some of your physical movement needs. As the snow melts, you can extend outdoor Earthing sessions in a safe, seated position until the ice is gone.

Nervous Systems: A Unified Network

There is another layer to chronic pain that people don’t see.

The nervous system becomes watchful.

When pain appears often enough, the brain begins to scan constantly for the next signal. Muscles tighten sooner. Reflexes fire faster. The body becomes protective.

It’s not weakness. It’s survival.

But a nervous system that spends too much time in protection mode eventually forgets how to settle.

This is one of the quiet gifts of time in nature. Not just for enjoyment but for nervous system survival.

As Japanese physician Yoshifumi Miyazaki, one of the pioneers of forest bathing research, observed:

The forest environment allows the nervous system to shift from vigilance to restoration.

For someone managing chronic pain, that shift is not small. It is validating.

Research into forest environments has shown that simply being among trees can lower cortisol, calm heart rate, and shift the nervous system out of constant vigilance.

In other words, the forest gently persuades the body:

You are safe enough to soften.

And for someone living with chronic pain, that reminder can be profoundly healing.

Frosty Therapy: Nature’s Icy Embrace for the Soul

If winter trails feel risky but your spirit still needs the forest, try this gentle practice.

Practice: Borrowing Stability

Find a tree nearby and place one hand against the trunk.
Feel the firmness of the bark under your palm. Trees have been practicing stability for a very long time.
Take three slow breaths.
Notice your feet inside your boots.
Notice the ground supporting you.
Then take three very slow steps. With each step, quietly ask: What does stability feel like right now?

You might be surprised how much calmer the nervous system becomes when movement slows down.

Winter walking with hypermobility includes both beauty and risk. Moments of deep solace among the trees and occasional grievances to file with a body that requires extra grit.

The poet Rainer Maria Rilke once wrote,

Let everything happen to you: beauty and terror. Just keep going. No feeling is final.

Perhaps winter forest walks teach that same wisdom.

Conscientious step by conscientious step.

The Whispers of Accord

Living with chronic pain sometimes feels like a negotiation between the body and the soul.

The body says: Please be wary.

The soul says: Please go outside.

The forest, thankfully, doesn’t insist on perfect joints or pain-free muscles.

It simply offers a place to breathe.

Scottish nature writer Nan Shepherd wrote about being in the mountains:

The thing to be known grows with the knowing.

Perhaps the same is true of our bodies.

The more we learn their quirks and their quiet wisdom, the more gently we can move through the world. Even when the trail shimmers with ice and every step requires a little forethought.

Because sometimes healing isn’t about conquering the path. Sometimes it’s simply about finding a way to keep walking among the trees.

So yes, SK winter trails sometimes feel like obstacle courses designed specifically for people with hypermobile joints to fail.

And yes, the body occasionally protests the whole arrangement. Of having any movement at all. Yet consider another quote by Nan Shepherd that leads us back to what matters,

It is a grand thing to get leave to live.

Perhaps that is what these mindful winter walks really are.

A quiet permission to keep living fully, even if the steps are slow and deliberate.

Careful steps. Even slightly wobbly steps.

Keep walking when and where you can. Surrender when called for. We are so close Prairies friends! We have almost made it to Spring! We’ve got this.

Forest Bathing: Breaking the Pain Cycle

January 13, 2026 pammunkholm

What if the goal isn’t to eliminate pain? But to change your relationship with it.

Not by forcing positivity. Not by chasing the next miracle cure. But by learning how to stand in a forest, breathe, and gently step outside the storm long enough to see it clearly.

That’s where mindfulness in the forest becomes powerful. Not as an escape from pain, but as a way to interrupt the pain cycle itself.

Benefits don’t emerge from merely experiencing mindfulness as a state. Instead they happen when we cultivate mindfulness as a personal trait.

–@brilliantlegalmind

Breaking the Chains of the Pain Cycle

Chronic pain is never only physical. It is neurological, emotional, and deeply shaped by our stress response.

This is not to say that you don’t experience actual, real, physical, deep pain. Only that our pain experience can be altered according to how we choose to interpret it. Which is especially important in chronic pain when so often there are no answers or treatments.

Pain feeds on:

Fear of what’s coming next
Hyper-vigilance in the body
Frustration over what we’ve lost
The endless search for a fix

This creates a familiar loop.

Pain → tension → fear → more pain.

Mindfulness, especially when practiced in nature, doesn’t deny this cycle.

It teaches us how to step out of it.

Don’t stress the ‘could haves’, if it should have, it would have.

MINDFULNESS (n):

“The practice of being aware of your body, mind and feelings in your present moment, thought to create a feeling of calm.”

Finding Harmony: In Nature’s Whispering Wisdom

Mindfulness anywhere can help.

Mindfulness in a forest does something more.

Natural environments gently regulate the nervous system without any concentrated effort on our part:

Heart rate slows
Breathing deepens
Muscles soften
The brain shifts from threat mode to restoration mode

Research on shinrin-yoku (forest bathing) shows that time in forests lowers cortisol, reduces blood pressure, and increases parasympathetic nervous system activity (the part of us responsible for rest, repair, and emotional balance.)

In other words, the forest doesn’t erase pain.

It loosens pain’s grip.

Captaining the Currents of Our Existence

Mindfulness helps us understand the waters in which we are swimming.

If you live with chronic pain, the pain is not you.

It is the water around you.

Some days you can float on your back.

Some days you need the survival position.

Some days you just enjoy swimming. (But those days are few and far between.)

Some days you simply tread water and keep breathing.

Mindfulness helps us step just far enough back to see,

This is the water. This is not my identity.

That small shift changes everything.

Untangling Hope: Innovative Lessons for a Brighter Tomorrow

In the podcast Untangle: What Does it Mean to Live a Good, Meaningful Life? Despite the (really) Hard Stuff, philosopher Kieran Setiya reflects on living with chronic pain and the trap many of us fall into. Hoping only for a cure. His story resonates with me. Because it is also my story. Is it yours too?

For years, he moved from doctor to doctor thinking, maybe this one will fix it. When he stopped, something unexpected happened. He felt freedom. Less frustrated. More grounded in how he would actually live his life.

At first, he thought he had rejected hope.

Later, he realized he had simply changed what he hoped for.

Not hope for a magic solution.

Hope for a life that would still feel meaningful. Even if pain remained in the background.

He describes the exhausting seesaw many of us live on:

hope → despair → hope → despair.

And suggests something radical. Getting off the seesaw altogether! That doesn’t mean stop seeing doctors or looking for answers. What it does mean is this.

The real question isn’t:

Should I hope or despair?

It’s,

What is realistic to hope for right now?

Mindfulness in the forest supports exactly this shift. Grounding hope in lived possibility instead of fantasy cures.

Choosing Joy in a Body That Hurts

It’s been said that one person’s joy ride is another person’s panic.

I love riding on the back of my husband’s motorcycle. Joy.

I love sitting at the front of a sailboat as it bounces across the water. Joy.

Someone else might question my sanity.

I don’t like roller coasters that go upside down. Panic.

I have no desire to drive an F1 car. Panic.

I question the sanity of people who enjoy those things. Which made me wonder.

What influences our desires? Our thoughts? Our emotions?

Are we just born joyful or grouchy? And that is how we have to live out our days?

Or do we choose? Can we choose our thoughts, our desires and thereby influence our emotions?

What if, even in a tangled mess of pain, emotions, relationships, and loss, we are allowed to choose joy?

Not reckless joy.

Not denial.

But brave joy.

The kind that says:

I will still step into wonder.

I will still feel exhilaration.

I will still live.

That is what mindfulness in the forest has given me.

I get to decide.

And honestly?

There’s no need for recreational anxiety around here. There’s enough regular anxiety to go around.

Inward Insights: The Wisdom Within

Look within. Within is the fountain of good, and it will ever bubble up, if thou wilt ever dig.

-Marcus Aurelius

The forest helps us dig. Quietly, gently, without force.

Mindfulness reduces activity in brain networks that amplify pain through rumination and emotional reactivity, lowering perceived suffering even when pain remains.

Attention is the rarest and purest form of generosity.

-Simone Weil

When we give attention to our own experience. Without judgment. We change how pain lives in us.

Nature’s Cradle: A Forest Therapy Practice

Interrupting the Pain Cycle (7 minutes)

You can do this in a forest, park, or anywhere you can sense the natural world.

1. Arrive (1 minute)

Stand or sit comfortably. Let your eyes soften. Notice three natural textures. Bark, stone, leaf, snow, or water.

2. External Anchor Practice (2 minutes)

Choose one steady element in the landscape. A tree trunk, rock, horizon line, or patch of ground.

Let your attention rest there. Softly.

When your mind drifts toward pain or worry, gently return your awareness to that anchor.

This shifts the nervous system from internal threat scanning to external safety awareness. Especially helpful if breath-focused practices feel uncomfortable.

3. Name the Water (2 minutes)

Silently say:

This is pain. This is not me.

Notice sensation as experience, not identity.

4. Choose Your Stroke (2 minutes)

Ask yourself:

Do I need to float, swim, or rest today?

Let your body answer.

Mindfully Brave

For a long time, I thought mindfulness meant becoming calmer.

What I didn’t expect was that it would make me braver. Braver about feeling, braver about choosing joy, braver about living fully even when my body hurts.

The forest didn’t take away my pain.

It gave me back my choice.

Key Takeaways

Mindfulness in the forest teaches us:

Pain is real. Suffering is optional. Hope doesn’t have to live on a seesaw.

We can step out of the waters long enough to see them clearly. And then choose how to move within them.

Or as one forest therapy guide once said quietly on a trail,

We don’t come to the woods to escape life. We come to remember how to live it.

Trek Into the Frosty Adventure

If this spoke to you, you may also enjoy my post on finding connection through group forest therapy walks, where I explore how shared presence in nature reduces isolation and builds resilience for people living with pain and fatigue.

Faeloria (n):

The beauty that comes from the wounds you thought would destroy you.

Research at a Glance: Why This Works

Bottom line.

Mindfulness in the forest doesn’t cure pain. But it interrupts the feedback loop that keeps pain amplified by fear, stress, and resistance.

For those interested in the research, check out the following links. Let me know what you think in the comments.

1️⃣ Forest environments reduce stress hormones and activate relaxation responses

The 2010 Shinrin-yoku studies show forests lower cortisol, pulse rate, blood pressure, and increase parasympathetic nervous system activity (relaxation response).

👉 “The Physiological Effects of Shinrin-yoku…” — Environmental Health and Preventive Medicine (Park et al.)

Also see:

👉 Forest bathing reduces cortisol and stress — systematic review on cortisol as a stress biomarker

2️⃣ Forest bathing supports psychological well-being, mood, and anxiety reduction

Systematic reviews and meta-analyses show forest exposure reduces anxiety, depression, and improves emotional well-being.

👉 The effects of forest bathing on psychological well-being

Additional evidence on emotional and stress benefits of forest settings:

👉 Forest bathing: effects on mood and stress recovery

3️⃣ Forest immersion reduces negative affect and enhances mindfulness & introspection

A recent systematic review shows forest bathing decreases negative effects and enhances mindfulness and introspection. Key components of emotional regulation and pain resilience.

👉 Effects on self-criticism, self-compassion & mindfulness

4️⃣ Mindfulness and Pain Research : Neuroscience & Catastrophizing

✔ Mindfulness meditation alters how the brain processes pain

Studies show mindfulness meditation changes pain-related brain activity. Indicating real nervous system engagement, not just placebo.

👉 Mindfulness meditation helps reduce pain through distinct neural mechanisms

✔ Mindfulness is associated with lower pain catastrophizing

Research suggests higher mindfulness traits correlate with lower pain catastrophizing and greater ability to cope with pain.

👉 Trait mindfulness linked to higher pain thresholds & reduced catastrophizing

5️⃣ Mindfulness meditation itself has measurable effects on pain perception

Comprehensive reviews of mindfulness meditation include clinical and experimental insights into how it reduces pain intensity and unpleasantness across conditions:

👉 Mindfulness meditation–based pain relief review

January for the 5 senses:

Sight: late morning and early evening light on bright, blue clear days
Sound: shushing of steps in the snow
Taste: hot teas with honey
Smell: evergreen trees
Feel: the touch of cold noses and toes