From Pain Management To Pain Free

This program is not about managing chronic pain - it is about becoming pain-free. Sound too good to be true? Stick with me. I’ll share the very same proven mind-body principles that empowered me, a chronic back pain sufferer of two years, to become pain-free and unrestricted for over a decade. I've guided numerous clients through their own struggles with back, neck, ankle, hip, knee pain, chronic fatigue, migraines, fibromyalgia, and more, helping them reclaim their lives. In this course, we'll explore six powerful mind-body concepts - what I call the ‘SAFETY Roadmap’ - with immersive guided audio exercises, powerful journaling prompts, and practical tools to help you reduce fear of your symptoms, unlock hope for a full recovery, and make a breakthrough. I’ll sprinkle in stories of my learning and those of my clients to guide you. This course is for you if you’ve been suffering from chronic pain and are sick of settling for managing it, and have been limited from the activities you love because of your symptoms. If you’re open to new ideas, ready to take healing into your own hands, and committed to the work, then let's get started.

Leçon 1: Introduction: From Pain Management To Pain Free

Welcome! This introductory lesson is designed to start to shift your perception from settling for pain management to striving for a pain-free life. You'll be introduced to the concept of neuroplasticity and how the brain can generate symptoms like pain as a danger signal. You'll also learn about the SAFETY roadmap—an innovative framework to eliminate chronic pain that we'll follow in this course. You'll hear about my personal journey of overcoming two years of chronic back pain using these principles, and a dramatic story of a client who overcame decades of pain using this approach.

Leçon 2: Education (Part 1): Structural 'Abnormalities' Can Be Normal

In this lesson, you're invited to challenge your conventional beliefs about chronic pain by exploring the surprising lack of evidence between structural abnormalities and symptoms. You'll learn about the prevalence of common abnormalities like bulging discs, osteoarthritis, and rotator cuff tears in individuals without pain, and examine the lack of effectiveness of common treatments targeting these physical issues. You're invited to consider that real, physical pain is not always caused by visible structural problems, and that emotional issues and pressure can manifest themselves in physical ways.

After completing this lesson, be sure to write down your intention for the course as well as any potential doubts you have so we can monitor them throughout the program.

Leçon 3: Education (Part 2): Pain Is A Protector

In this lesson, we'll explore how the brain generates pain as a protection mechanism based on perceived danger. Using compelling stories and research, you'll understand the pivotal role that fear plays in chronic pain, and the common personality traits of many chronic pain sufferers. You'll also be introduced to the F.I.T. Criteria - a research-validated tool to differentiate between pain caused by a structural issue and brain-generated chronic pain. By the end of this lesson, you'll view your pain not just as a symptom, but as an interaction between your body and mind, encouraging a profound shift in how you perceive and experience your symptoms.

Once you complete this lesson, be sure to listen to the Neural Circuit Testing Exercise on my Insight Timer page.

Note: This lesson will briefly mention, among other things, the impact of adverse childhood experiences and traumas on chronic pain. I strive to share this information intentionally, mindfully, and compassionately, through a lens of healing. That said, feel free to skip that section if it causes discomfort. This content is not a substitute for professional help.

Leçon 4: Your Body Is Herculean (Breaking Limited Beliefs)

Your body is much stronger than you've been conditioned to believe. In this lesson, we'll start to challenge your beliefs of what your body is capable of. You'll learn about the Nocebo Effect (the opposite of the Placebo Effect), how it causes real, physical changes in your body, and explore how you may have been unknowingly 'Nocebo-ing' yourself. You'll also be introduced to two tools to curiously shift your perspective of what your body is capable of to help you start to recognize and harness the innate strength of your body.

Once you complete this lesson, be sure to do the Affirmations For Breaking Through Chronic Pain Exercise on my Insight Timer page.

Leçon 5: Feel Safe In Your Body

Feeling safe in your body is an important aspect of healing from chronic pain, and one that can be intentionally cultivated. In this lesson, you'll learn what your nervous system has to do with chronic pain and how regulating it is critical to eliminating symptoms. You'll explore how to change the way you relate to your symptoms and sensations, and how doing so can have a profound effect on your symptoms themselves. You'll also be introduced to two powerful practices to help you feel safe in your body and reduce fear: Somatic Tracking and Resourcing.

Once you complete this lesson, be sure to do the Somatic Tracking and Resourcing Exercises found on my Insight Timer page.

Leçon 6: Self-Compassion For Chronic Pain

How self-compassionate would you say you are? Chronic pain sufferers tend to be very hard on themselves. But generating self-compassion has been proven to decrease fear and unwind the chronic pain cycle. So in this lesson, we'll cover how to cultivate self-compassion to build resilience and transform our internal and external experience with chronic pain. We'll dive into what self-compassion actually is, and what it looks like within the context of navigating chronic pain. You'll also be introduced to proven techniques to practice self-compassion in your day-to-day life.

Once you complete this lesson, be sure to do the Self-Compassion For Chronic Pain Meditation found on my Insight Timer page.

Leçon 7: Allowing Your Emotions

Allowing space to experience our emotions decreases internal pressure and reduces fear, which helps turn off the danger signal creating pain and symptoms. In this lesson you'll learn how emotional conditioning from childhood can create pain today, how adverse life experiences and not expressing emotions creates chronic pain, and be introduced to two powerful practices to start to safely allow emotions and step into a more powerful sense of self.

Once you complete this lesson, be sure to do the Pendulation Meditation For Chronic Pain found on my Insight Timer page.

Note: This lesson will cover, among other things, the impact of adverse childhood experiences and traumas on chronic pain. I strive to share this information intentionally, mindfully, and compassionately, through a lens of healing. That said, feel free to skip that section if it causes discomfort. This content is not a substitute for professional help.

Leçon 8: Transform Your Identity

Chronic pain and other symptoms give you an opportunity to re-assess your current identity, and to courageously grow and change. In this lesson you'll learn how fear-based identities, and an identity as a chronic pain sufferer can keep you trapped in a cycle of chronic pain. You'll explore the difference between doing enough and being enough, and you'll be introduced to two practices to start to challenge your existing identity and step into a new one that is aligned with a symptom-free you: The Imperfectly Safe List and a Pain-Free Visualization.

Once you complete this lesson, be sure to do the Chronic Pain-Free Visualization Meditation on my Insight Timer page.

Leçon 9: Conclusion: Your Onward Journey

Congratulations on completing this course! In this lesson, you'll reflect on how far you've come, circle back to your intention from the beginning of the course, and assess the evolution of any initial doubts of the mindbody healing process. We'll talk about how the tools you've learned can be applied throughout your life - and pay dividends for the rest of it.

I have deep gratitude for your choice to join me on this journey, and I wish you nothing but the best in your life and healing.

Reviews

Well done! On vacation and I have applied some of your wisdom to my shoulder pain. Feeling so much better.
Yes, fear can be stifling!
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This course has changed the way I think about my pain and has meaningfully reduced its impact on my life and even my experience of pain. Thank you!

This course is truly a gift, can not thank you enough for sharing your own challenges & creating such a transformative life changing course, showing the path to light to so many, with gratitude 🙏🏻💜

And excellent course that I've learned a lot from. I'm going to start it all over again because i really want to sound it down to make the parts that really resound, to become part of my habit patterns. Having read atomic habit, i recognise the importance of repetition. Thank you for this course. As well as helpful i found it very engaging

I very much enjoyed this course. It was delivered with compassion, structure and in a logical manner that made it all feel practical to apply to my daily life. It also helps that all the meditation practices are available so I can do these guided until I feel ready to do them on my own. Thanks so much 🙏

I blasted this course to LinkedIn. It’s impactful, timely, and powerful!

I’m excited to say that my mindset has a new path to venture and I’m optimistic for once in a very long time. I am all in and I’m so grateful I found this practice. I will be sharing. 🙏🏼

🔆Herculean ✅😄

Outstanding! It is the best explanation of how I am healed from ME/CFS after being bedridden. 👏

This course gave me new insights on how I saw myself. More importantly it changed my fear surrounding what pain means.

I’ve been through this course three times now and bought several of the books recommended for myself and family members with chronic pain. I know I will revisit this course in the future. Thanks!

Excellent course with practical techniques . Thank you 🙏

Deeply grateful for an amazing journey and a very well constructed course.

Wow, this course was very eye-opening. I've done some previous study & exercises from Dr. Sarno's work months ago & I'm grateful that you presented additional information & exercises that I have not been exposed to. I definitely felt a decrease in my pain by during & after the course. I plan to be consistent with the tools, embrace the practice, be patient, & give myself more compassion. I had a huge release listening to the last four minutes of the last day of this course, which totally validated the entire concept. Thank you so very much for creating this course! It was a blessing I was able to take it. 🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻

Many thanks for a brilliant course! I have been coping with a host of mystery pain symptoms for years and this course has given me hope and a starting point.

I have been wanting to write a review for this course for quite some time now, but found it overwhelmingly difficult to put into words the impact it, and Alec, has had on my life over such a brief period of time.

I came to this course, perhaps unlike others, very much aware and already steeped in the literature around neuroplastic pain. This, and other modalities, have taken me from bed-couch-home-wheelchair bound to hiking, traveling, attending cultural events, getting back into the yoga studio re-engaging in rigorous physical-emotional-spiritual practices, and most importantly, interacting with others out in the world again after 7 long, arduous years of painful isolation.

And yet, there were, and still are debilitating symptoms that ebb and flow, sometimes to excruciating levels, leaving me confused, bereft, alone and deeply misunderstood. The worst part was, again, I started to lose hope that a full recovery would ever be possible. The dangerous voices of the medical model loomed over my head and circled through my brain… I thought… maybe they were right. Who am I to think I am any different from all the others living with chronic illness. Then slowly, almost imperceptibly, suicidal thoughts starting to creep back in. After about 18 months of slowly regaining mobility - challenging the toxic medical model that told me I would have to live this way for the rest of my life - was not enough to keep going.

Coming from big T and little t trauma, sexual abuse from a doctor and other men in my adult life, as well as complex trauma in my family of origin. I thought maybe other people can get fully well, but not me. The damage runs too deep. I am too broken. This is probably the best I can hope for. I should be grateful for how far I have come and just learn to suffer with these symptoms. I thought perhaps it was an opportunity for deeper surrender and some kind of spiritual growth or kharmic fulfillment.

Then I saw this course. I knew I had to get back in the game and begin the fight again. On some unconscious level, I believed there was a way through but I just didn’t know how. I hit an obstacle I could not see my way around…

Alec, not only gave me a bucket of new practical tools and critical scientific knowledge to rewire my beliefs, but he offered a surprisingly supportive, compassionate and skilled presence in the course classroom. The way he answered my questions and the questions of others made it crystal clear to me that he has lived this himself. He showed me that it is possible. He gave the the undying support and reinvigorated me to keep going… no matter what. He had keen, insightful, knowledgeable replies. And most of all, the message in each of his in depth audio replies were so incredibly well thought out, I knew he really cared. That when he repeatedly said he believed in my ability to get well and not to give up right before the breakthrough comes… I knew he meant what he said. I trusted him unequivocally in a few short weeks.

Now as a woman of 53 years who has come through severe trauma and various modalities of trauma therapy for, literally, decades - it is far from easy for me to trust any teachers, therapists, psychiatrists, medical professionals, spiritual healers, coaches what-have-you - I trusted him. I cannot fully explain why in this limited space to reflect and write to you. I just knew in my bones that he was a trustworthy guide who knew how to stay in his lane within the parameters of his expertise. I knew that when he told me that he believed if I just kept doing these practices and turning over every stone, I would eventuallly get there.

My symptoms have not resolved… not even close. The difference is I do know I will get there. And this hope, knowledge, newborn belief is all I need to keep going for as long as it takes. I know I will get there because as long as I am alive I have more to contribute and more to give, I just needed someone in my corner to nudge and support me with one more push.

I cannot thank Alec enough, truly, and Insight Timer for providing resources like this to those of us still fighting, still growing, still evolving and still living in spite of the odds.

Thank you is such an ineffective and limited word in the scope of something like this, but for now, that is the word I have to say. Thank you.

Amy

Thank you for offering this course. Lots of scientific facts, information, quotes and stories but to be honest it didn’t resonate with me or help my pain in any way or seem to offer any real life methods to cope with chronic pain. Hopefully it helps others and I do appreciate you putting this course together. 🙏

Fantastic course, one of the best on Insight Timer. There are so many people experiencing chronic pain that would benefit from listening to this. I discovered TMS or the mindbody concept about 6 months ago after almost two years of chronic pain and I started reading as much information as I could find to help me work my way out of pain. This course came right on time, an outstanding summary of all I have learned and much easier to absorb than a stack of books. Thank you for all the time and effort you obviously put into this course. 🙏🏻

Full of pain science but delivered in a friendly, relatable and practical way. Lots of great opportunities for reflection. Thanks!