The Chronic Pain Club - Living A Good Life Even When You Hurt - by Freebird Meditations

COURSE

The Chronic Pain Club - Living A Good Life Even When You Hurt

With Freebird Meditations

Welcome to the club, the one nobody asked to join, but here we are. This course is for anyone living with chronic pain, persistent pain, chronic illness, fibromyalgia, back pain, nerve pain, chronic fatigue, or long-term physical discomfort due to injury or illness. Know that I live with daily pain too, and I'm truly glad you're here. Across ten lessons you'll learn, practice, and reflect, drawing from principles of Somatic Experiencing, nervous system regulation, mindfulness, and self-compassion. All of these matter deeply when the body is holding so much due to pain. We'll work with central sensitization, the stress-pain connection, somatic tracking, the pain vortex and counter vortex, pendulation, titration, resourcing, self-compassion, gentle movement, emotions like grief and loss, and finding aliveness alongside pain. You may notice some practices feel familiar as you go. That is intentional. In somatic work we return to the same skills repeatedly, because that is how the nervous system learns and builds. Each time you come back to a practice, it lands a little deeper. I can't promise this course will cure your pain. But it will help you build more capacity, more ease, and a kinder relationship with your body and your life. And sometimes that creates a little more space in the experience of physical pain itself. You are not alone. There are so many of us navigating the many facets of pain. So let's learn how to live well and enjoy this life we still have, even when we hurt.

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Meet your Teacher

Freebird Meditations
Boerne, TX, USA

Katie Fleming Thomas is a licensed therapist, certified mindfulness teacher, and somatic practitioner trained in Somatic Experiencing. Her work sits at the intersection of chronic pain, nervous system regulation, mindfulness, somatic awareness, and the lived reality of living in a body that also holds injury and chronic pain. After a back injury led to ongoing spinal problems, and she has lived with chronic pain for years, learning over time how to build a meaningful life alongside persistent pain rather than waiting for life to begin once the pain is gone. That journey led her to learning Somatic Experiencing, nervous system informed practices, and eventually to teaching them to others. In her therapy work, Katie has supported many people living with chronic pain, chronic illness, injuries from accidents, and other conditions such as fibromyalgia, dysautonomia, multiple sclerosis (MS), autoimmune disorders and other persistent health conditions and well as medical-related trauma. She has seen firsthand how isolating pain can be, and how often nervous system dysregulation becomes part of the experience. She also knows how important it is to have practical tools that help people reconnect with their bodies in a safe and accessible way, support their nervous systems, and navigate difficult days with a little more steadiness and self-compassion. She created The Chronic Pain Club because too many people are carrying pain alone. This course offers a community of people learning how to keep living a good life, even when they hurt. Because while pain may be part of the story, it does not have to become the whole story.

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10 Days

0 students

No ratings

20 min / day

Pain

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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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

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