Catherine McDonnell - Movement is Medicine

Welcome to episode eight of Your Stories

In these conversations, I talk to members of the chronic pain / TMS community, to discover what worked for them in their stress illness recovery. Watch the video above or click through to YouTube using the button below the video, to watch there if you prefer.

This week I interview Catherine McDonnell, such a brilliant and funny conversation about overcoming her various TMS pains (shoulder, hip, knee and back pain mainly) finding Dr Sarno's book Healing Back Pain in 2019 having exhausted all other mainstream medical options in France.

She has an excellent understanding of TMS, built through her own success in healing herself and studying to become a mind-body healing coach. This conversation is packed with BRILLIANT advice on self-care, self-acceptance, positive self-talk and invaluable advice for those on their TMS journey.

Sorry for the technical glitches during the live stream, my internet connection was playing up a little but it doesn't last long so hang in there! And one day I hope to stabilise the voice volumes, this is always a work in progress it seems! I hope it's not too distracting.

Catherine refused to accept her chronic pain as a life sentence

A major part of Catherine's recovery was her refusal to accept that her diagnoses were going define her and be a life sentence, her love for running propelled her through her recovery and she now runs endurance marathons and daily 10 mile stints - just for fun. The power of movement is huge in this story as it was in mine. I really hope you like this testimony, she's such a fab voice in this community and a genuinely lovely person.

The importance of addressing your triggers

Catherine also shares some key insights she learned from a course she did on mind-body work, that taught her to process and let go of troubling experiences in her life by reframing the experience in a different light. She shares some great ideas and tips on how to go about addressing your story and how to change the narrative so you don't have to carry all those hurtful pieces of it forever.

Her story is much like mine in many ways, although we all suffer differently we all seem to come to very similar conclusions with this work, conversations like this really nourish my soul, I so enjoyed this one. Thank you so much, Catherine, for sharing your story, it was such a pleasure to hear from you and I hope everyone enjoys this video as much as I did!

I've linked some of the resources we talked about below, be sure to check those out when you can. 

If you'd like to submit your story for this series, please click here, whether you're comfortable on camera or not, I would love to hear from you.

Check out my Recovery Journey Roadmap if you would like more details about exactly how I became chronic pain free. Find out more about my Yoga for TMS classes that we discussed in this episode and follow me on Facebook or Instagram for more resources and updates on everything chronic recovery.