Lu Lu Padmore - pelvic pain and the power of self compassion

Welcome to episode eleven 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.

Lu Lu Padmore (aka The Pelvic Warrior)

(Trigger Warning: suicide + sexual assault are discussed in this episode.)

This week I interviewed a beautiful soul - Lu Lu Padmore - joining me from Australia. Lu Lu's story is one of immense courage and strength as she's worked through various complex traumas in her life, experiencing different symptoms - mainly chronic pelvic pain.

Firstly, sorry about the technical hitch I had at the end, where my earpiece stopped working and I couldn't hear what Lu Lu was saying, so we had to cut it off there. A true test of the recovering perfectionist in me, I decided to leave it as is. So, to finish her story... she was telling us about an experience she recently had, here's the lowdown: "I was going to talk about a channelling session I had with Lynette Cenee (now @iame11even on insta) The technique I learned from her was what I call “mirror talk”. So staring close into your eyes in the mirror and saying “I am ...., I am ....., I am....” whatever your messages need to be to yourself. It’s not a new technique but it changes you on a neuroplastic level."

I didn't want to leave you hanging on what that part of the story was about as it ended so abruptly! My apologies for the inconvenience there. Funnily enough, this part was so in sync with what I was teaching last week in my Nourishing Nidra class, we did a mirror meditation where we spoke kindly to our reflection in the mirror, creating our own self-compassion affirmations.

Lu Lu's Recovery Recipe

With a combination of Psychotherapy, meditation, mindset work, manifestation, music therapy, mindful makeup therapy (her own creation!) and sheer determination that her symptoms would NOT be a life sentence for her, she's now experiencing long stints without her symptoms. If she does experience pain flares, she's now able to deal with them with incredible grace and indifference - the KEY to unravelling the fear - pain cycle in TMS recovery.

Once she took her power back from the traditional medical model that basically told her she would suffer forever and tuned into her inner voice, she managed to teach herself to feel safe and stop catastrophising over her health, which has turned her into a beacon of positive light and mentor for many people in this community.

Follow Lu Lu on Instagram here: @thepelvicwarrior - below you will find some direct links to the content we discussed in this episode.

If you are into YouTube and want to subscribe to this series, you can find all my videos over there also.

As promised, here is Lu Lu's magnificent brain diagram:

Share Your Story

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.