Finding Your Path Out of Chronic Pain
- Janet Huehls
- May 5
- 3 min read
Chronic pain is an invisible source of limitation for millions of people. If you are one of them you know all to well how living with pain limits your ability to do what you love with those you love.
In my work, I have met many people living with chronic pain. It prompted me to dive into the growing research on the causes and treatments for chronic pain. This is why Cynthia Austins posts on Linked in caught my eye.
She is a National Board Certified Health Coach specializing in working with people living with chronic pain. She is qualified to do this not only because of her training but because she lives. it. When she reached out to me for coaching with exercise, I was honored.
Read Cynthias story below and check out the most recent episode of The Be Well Now Method Podcast where Cynthia shares her method and why it work for finding your path out of chronic pain.
My Pain Experience by Cynthia Austin, NBC-HWC
As a child, I forced myself to lie perfectly still in my bed, hoping stillness would make the suffering stop.
Migraine pain, the waves of nausea & sensory overload, along with other alarming symptoms, trained my nervous system that movement was dangerous.
In 1975, as a 7-year old, I didn’t understand what was happening in my body.
The symptoms were terrifying.
Sometimes the entire right or left side of my body would go numb, and I couldn’t communicate my thoughts or the wrong words would come out.
Not knowing what was happening made everything more frightening and that confusion allowed fear to make itself at home in the wiring of my brain.
Stillness became my survival strategy, but it wasn’t peaceful.
It was a stillness rooted in fear. With every migraine, every muscle held tension, as if staying quiet and perfectly still might make the pain pass me by.
This "freezing" pattern stayed with me for many decades wiring the pain experience deeper and deeper.
Fast-forward to present day, I am migraine-free. I have been since 2019, but even with all of my personal work & professional training, all the progress I’ve made, & a deep belief in the science of movement and reducing pain, I still didn't always enjoy moving my body.
I knew movement was necessary for a healthy brain that doesn’t default to the chronic pain experience, but this fear had been embedded through both early medical trauma & later other traumatic experiences.
I needed to find the disconnect between the mind and body.
Janet Huehls, MS, ACSM-CEP, NBC-HWC posts caught my attention.
She spoke about movement in a way that felt different.
She mentioned pacing, self-compassion, & nervous system care right alongside exercise.
It was exactly the kind of integration I knew was essential, and I thought, maybe she could help me unwind this tangled web of fear.
That’s when I reached out to Janet.
I didn’t need someone to tell me what to do. I needed someone who could help me unravel the layers. Someone who understood both movement and the nervous system.
Janet, with her accreditations and whole-body, trauma-informed approach, was the perfect fit.
She helped me reframe my movement experience, rebuild trust, & embody the enjoyment I had been working so hard to create.
Her coaching helped me create practical, sustainable changes, not just in how I moved, but in how I experienced safety in my body when I moved.
That embodiment of safety was key.
The deeper understanding of the complexities of chronic pain, safety and movement is exactly what we explored together recently on her latest Be Well Now Method podcast.
We discuss the layers of chronic pain and how we can begin to change our relationship with movement & exercise.
Check out the podcast here:
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