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The Chronic Pain Club - A Nervous System & Somatic Approach To Pain

With Freebird Meditations

Welcome to The Chronic Pain Club. This course is for anyone living with chronic or persistent pain, chronic illness, fibromyalgia, nerve pain, headaches, fatigue, or ongoing discomfort related to injury, illness, or stress. Through ten short lessons, you will explore a gentle approach to pain management informed by somatic practice, mindfulness, and nervous system education. You will learn simple tools to build body awareness, ease tension, respond to flare-ups with less bracing, and better understand the many ways persistent pain can affect daily life. This course is not about pushing through, forcing change, or promising a cure. It is about developing greater capacity, finding moments of support and ease, and building a kinder relationship with your body and your experience. You are not alone in this. I am so glad you are here. Let’s learn to live well, even when we hurt. Katie

A nervous system informed & mindfulness-based course for chronic pain

10 Days

105 students

5.0 stars

20 min / day

English

About this course

Meet your Teacher

Freebird Meditations

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Boerne, TX, USA

Katie Fleming Thomas is a licensed therapist and certified mindfulness teacher whose work brings together mindfulness, somatic awareness, and nervous system regulation. Her own experience living with chronic pain after a back injury deeply shapes this work. In her therapy practice, she has also supported people navigating chronic pain, illness, injury, medical trauma, and complex health conditions. Katie created The Chronic Pain Club because pain can be profoundly isolating. The course offers practical tools, compassionate support, and a community learning to live well, even when they hurt.

View Profile

10 Days

105 students

5.0 stars

20 min / day

English

Lesson 1

When The Pain Alarm Keeps Ringing

Many of us were never told what chronic pain actually is, and that missing piece matters. This lesson looks at why pain persists, what central sensitization means in plain language, and why the nervous system sometimes stays stuck in protection mode. We also introduce somatic and nervous system tracking, not just the pain, but the good stuff too, a core somatic skill you will use throughout the entire course.

Lesson 2

The Cost Of Fighting

Resistance to pain is completely natural. It is also exhausting and further taxes our already overworked nervous systems. This lesson explores what happens in the body and nervous system when we expend energy fighting something that won't go away, and what a different approach might feel like. We introduce the boom-and-bust cycle, the cost of constant bracing, and a more sustainable way of being with pain.

Lesson 3

Nervous System Safety Changes Everything

In somatic work, safety does not mean the absence of pain. It means having enough internal ground to stay present with your experience. This lesson introduces the relaxation response and the idea of resourcing: finding people, places, sensations, and memories that help your nervous system settle. You will build your own personal safety menu to use on the hard days.

Lesson 4

The Changing Shape Of Things

Pain has a way of narrowing our entire world down to the place that hurts. This lesson gently widens that field. We introduce interoception, the skill of sensing the body from the inside (which you have already been practicing), and explore the practice of pendulation, moving attention between discomfort and neutral ground. Pain is often less fixed than it feels, and this lesson helps you begin to experience that directly.

Lesson 5

The Way You Talk To Yourself Matters

The voice in your head during a flare matters more than most of us realize. This lesson looks at the pain vortex, the spiral of thoughts, fears, and stories that cluster around chronic pain, and the counter vortex that can pull us back toward resource and ease. We explore self-compassion not as a soft idea, but as a genuine nervous system regulator that changes how the body holds pain.

Lesson 6

Moving With What Is Possible

Chronic pain often creates a complicated relationship with movement, including fear, avoidance, loss of confidence, or the memory of pushing too hard and paying for it later. This lesson reframes movement entirely as a relationship, one that we can nurture. We introduce physiological discharge, the nervous system's natural way of releasing stored stress through gentle movement, and explore what is available in the body today, however small.

Lesson 7

Living Within Your Capacity

Capacity is not a fixed thing. It shifts day to day depending on pain levels, sleep, stress, and everything the nervous system is already holding. This lesson explores titration in the context of doing things in small, manageable steps to avoid overwhelm and crash, alongside the capacity check-in, a daily tool for honest self-assessment. Honoring what you have is self-advocacy, and it is what we learn to do in this club.

Lesson 8

Grief, Hope, And What Remains

Chronic pain brings real losses, activities, roles, and the future you imagined, and those losses deserve to be acknowledged. This lesson makes room for grief without being consumed by it. Drawing on the mindfulness concept of impermanence and the somatic principles of titration and pendulation, we learn to touch what is painful in small doses, so it has a way to move, while staying connected to support. Pain can be a beautiful teacher, and this lesson explores what it has to offer alongside what it feels like it has taken from us.

Lesson 9

We Are More Than Pain

Pain is part of your story, and it is not the whole story. This lesson invites you to reconnect with who you are beyond the pain, your values, what still pleases you, and the small threads of aliveness that exist even on difficult days. We practice positive resource: letting good sensation actually land in the body, which is its own form of nervous system regulation.

Lesson 10

Building A Good Life Alongside Pain

The final lesson is about integration, taking everything you have learned, letting it really seep into the soil of your being, and finding a way to carry it forward. We talk honestly about flare-ups, setbacks, and what it means to return to these practices rather than start over. For this closing practice, you might want to grab a pillow before you start. As you conclude this course, remember that you just have to keep coming back to the practices. You know them now, and that makes you a true honorary and active member of the Chronic Pain Club. :) Thank you for being here. On those hard days, know that you are not alone. As I lay on the floor with my ice pack doing the carpet dance, I will be sending you ease, comfort, and maybe a little fun and joy along the way. Be well, friend. This life, even with all it carries, even pain, is still a beautiful one. With care, Katie "The wound is the place where the Light enters you." - Rumi