When Life Gives you Lemons, Don't Make Lemonade with Catherine Courtice

00:00 - Dr. Andrea Moore (Host)
Welcome. Welcome, catherine. I'm so excited to have you on here. 

00:03 - Catherine Courtice (Guest)
Thank you, Andrea. It's a pleasure to be working with you again. 

00:08 - Dr. Andrea Moore (Host)
Yes, yes, we got to connect over this amazing summit that you hosted for those with chronic pain, and I'm excited to get to dive in deeper because I got to talk to you a little bit. But I feel like we had so many overlaps in our work and I love hearing different people's perspectives on it because, as you know, it can be so helpful to hear similar things but in different ways, and I thought you had a really beautiful approach. So why don't you tell people a little bit about what you do and how you got to where you are? 

00:41 - Catherine Courtice (Guest)
Okay, so I'm a chronic pain and mobility coach. They don't always correlate or combine in my work. I really do work with people in the realm that they need work with, so, but chronic pain is definitely my specialty. I have a program that I work with people one-on-one there's a group component to that which is really, really effective, and I also work with people in person through mobility work, so I kind of combine all of that. 

01:15
My background is kinesiology and from the age of grade four, so how old are you? When you're grade four, I had a dream of becoming a sports doctor. That was. That was my dream. Everything that I did was taking me towards that goal. Uh, went all through high school doing all the sciences and everything that I needed, went through university, got my kinesiology degree and then in my fourth year my final I found out I was pregnant with my first child, who is at the moment has a little one year old and is going to be giving me baby number two in a couple of weeks. So that's really exciting. 

01:56
So, but what happened was life took a turn at that point, at that very point, that I found out I was pregnant. Life took a turn at that point, at that very point that I found out I was pregnant. My dream of becoming a sports doctor just vanished. It was impossible for me to go to the New Jersey School of Sports Medicine, which is where I was headed, but and I so I pivoted. I ended up having four children and I pivoted into teaching school. So I taught grade school for a number of years, until a day in October of 2007, where I was, I just gotten home from work my my dress jacket on and my boots and threw a steak to marinate on the counter and decantered a really nice bottle of wine to have, and I ended up needing to go down into the basement to open a box. So I grabbed a knife and went to the stairs, had a look back at my children who were sitting in the living room, and I took a step back, thinking I wasn't quite at the stairs yet, and I took a step right into the staircase which tumbled me backwards down the stairs, ended up putting my head through the landing at the wall and my arm through the wall, and I actually slit my eyelid with that knife. 

03:26
But my life in that very moment yet again changed. The entire trajectory of my life changed. I was walking with a walker um, I was um, I couldn't drive, couldn't read, couldn't watch TV ended up with a traumatic brain injury, and so my life started becoming smaller and smaller and smaller and smaller, and the pain that I was enduring and the symptoms that I was enduring took over everything. So that's why I'm here today, so we can dive a little bit into that. But, as I say now, life gave me lemons. And and what do we do with those lemons? What do we do when something arises in our life, like, like my daughter coming along when I had this dream of becoming a sports doctor what do we do with that? When we have an accident or a diagnosis, or some symptoms that all of a sudden creep up into our life, what do we do with that? And so that's what my entire practice is focused on is choosing the line. 

04:41
So I have just published a book. Actually, life gives you lemons. Choose the Lyme. I love that Life after diagnosis. So that's been out. It came out December 1st of 2023. And currently I just checked before we got on the podcast and it's sitting at fifth on the bestseller list. So it's it's still bubbling and sitting up top there, so that's really nice. 

05:08 - Dr. Andrea Moore (Host)
Oh, that's. I just want to say congratulations. That's amazing. I know that is no easy feat to write a book so amazing. And, wow, I had. No, I did not know that part of your story at all. So wow, wow, wow and I love this. Oh, this is like it's just such a juicy, juicy topic of, like, what do you do when life gives you lemon. So I would love to hear, like, what is your then definition of a line? 

05:33 - Catherine Courtice (Guest)
Okay, well, um. So basically what I learned in my own story and I, as I was saying, my life is getting smaller and smaller my life was centered around appointments and treatments and my entire schedule. It was like I had a full-time job, going from here to there doing this, doing that, 18 pills a day, and eventually my family doctor. I went to him because I'm like there's got to be something we can do, like let's try this and let's try this, and finally he kind of just took his arms and he leaned up against the wall and he said Do you know what, catherine? You're never going to get better. You need to go home. You need to realize that this is the way you're going to be the rest of your life and just accept it. 

06:25
Wow, and that was the biggest lemon of them all, because I had four little kids. My youngest was five years old when I had this accident. My oldest was eight years older. So I didn't have the ability to just not have a life. I didn't have the ability to just stop. 

06:46
Life was going on around me and for a long time I believed his diagnosis to me, saying that I was never going to get better. For a long time. That was the prescription that was given to me that I put faith in. And so what does the lie mean when you have a truckload of lemons dumped in the middle of your living room and it's all you can see? And so to me, it's not about when life gives you lemons, make lemonade. It's not about just kind of trying to slap on a smile and pretend that the lemons don't exist, because they do. You have something going on. 

07:30
I had so many things going on in my body that were affecting me, that were taking all of my attention, that were taking my ability to engage in life the way that I wanted to, but also took parts of my life away that were never going to be present ever again, just like having my daughter. 

07:52
You know, I was never going to be that sports doctor. So how do you deal with that, that loss, that that inability to do something in your life that you've always enjoyed or dreamed about? This isn't the way I thought my life was going to look like, and so you can focus on the lemons all the time, and life gets really difficult because the lemons are so hard and they're there, and I don't want to ever diminish that, because we have a diagnosis, we have those symptoms, we have those issues and we don't want them. But if we allow our mind to focus on the lemons all the time, that's all we have, it's all we talk about, it's all we have to communicate with other people. But also the lemons get bigger and bigger and bigger as we focus on them. 

08:44 - Dr. Andrea Moore (Host)
Yes. 

08:45 - Catherine Courtice (Guest)
And so my, my concept about choose the lime is there may be one small thing that you can focus on that can bring you a little bit of joy, spark a little bit of excitement, bring back some passion into your life, because for me, my life got so small. I couldn't see the the like. I couldn't even see the brightness of the beauty of a rainbow. I honestly could see the dark side of a rainbow. I didn't even want to acknowledge that anything was going well in my life, that anything was good in my life, that this cup of tea and the warmth that it was giving me and the and you know, the comfort it was giving me was was a positive thing, because I didn't want to acknowledge anything positive, because my life sucked. And so having that cup of tea and just sitting there and acknowledging that, yes, this is giving me some semblance of joy. That's the line Choosing something else to put your focus on instead of just focusing on the lemon. 

09:52 - Dr. Andrea Moore (Host)
Yes, oh, my goodness, there's just, there's so much just powerfulness here, because I think you speak so beautifully about this, which is why I was really drawn to your work and things like that, because I feel like you know what it's like to know you should be focusing on something else, but it's like I don't. I don't want to and I feel like I was the same way. I did not have as dramatic of an accident, but I had a car accident that changed my life in like that moment as well, put me out of work for six months and was also told you know, like you're never going to get better. May as well, just give up and learn to accept it, kind of thing. So I relate and it's it's so hard when you're feeling so down and to use your words surrounded by lemons to, even if there is, I have like such envisioning. It's just this giant pile of like lemons, just like you know, smothering you. Even if there is one lime to be like, I don't even want to look at it, I don't care that it's there, and learning how to shift and look at that line is what will set you free and expand your life back out again. 

11:09
I yeah this. I love the verbiage you're saying, because it's like that's what I talk about. It's like your life shrinks due to pain and it's like how can we expand it back out again? And so I'm so curious to hear for you what allowed you to make that shift. Right, because I think there are people out there who speak about making that shift from a way that I know irritated the heck out of me when I was in that low place, because they're like you just focus on it, just yeah, feel the warmth, and I just want to be like well, fuck you, like no, it made me so angry, it almost made me dig my heels more into the darkness and yeah, so yeah, what? What allowed you to make that shift? 

11:54 - Catherine Courtice (Guest)
that's a loaded question. 

11:56
I know uh so we have resistance to change as humans it's our, it's our human makeup we have a resistance to change, and sometimes change is made for us and we have no choice, and then so we hang on tightly to the things that we don't want to let go, and so that creates even more resistance, because I kept saying I miss my life, I want my old life back. I was hanging on to things that were never going to be attainable, and they were. That was holding me back. It was like chains on my back, and and I realized that I really had to mourn the fact that things were different and acknowledge it, it was like mourning the loss of a person. 

12:46
You know, I really did lose the old Catherine and the life that she was leading and the things that lit me up Because I couldn't do those things anymore. And so I really had to start to become curious as to what I can do, because if I was focusing on the things that I can't do, that's the lemons getting bigger and bigger and bigger. All those things you can't do, that I can't do that anymore. I still have a traumatic brain injury. I still could be laying on the couch at a 45 degree angle with dark glasses on and earplugs in, with no sound or stimulation around me, not engaging with my family. 

13:34 - Dr. Andrea Moore (Host)
Yeah. 

13:35 - Catherine Courtice (Guest)
If I had kept hanging on to those pieces. But I remember laying on the couch and I call it the catalyst moment laying and staring at the ceiling and saying this cannot be the reason why God put me on this earth. This cannot be it for me, being under a blanket all day long and watching the world happen around me. There's a reason that I didn't die in this situation, right, and so what can I do became my mantra. What can I do in this situation? I'm feeling this, my body's feeling this. I don't have a whole lot of energy, but what can I do? And so, interestingly, the very first thing I started doing was I started knitting little squares, because I could move my hands and I knew how to knit before. 

14:36
So I started knitting, like little washcloth pieces of a knit of knitting and and it started giving me something to do outside of thinking about my pain and my symptoms. It started giving me a different sort of mindset, but it also started giving me other things to talk about with my friends and family, who were sick and tired of hearing about my symptoms. Yes, it was the same thing day in and day out, and so, finally, I could sit at the Easter table and say here's a square for you and you and you and you, and this is what I've been doing. It was, it was tiny, but it was so meaningful for me because I began to reframe what I was doing in my day. Besides focusing on my lemons, I started to reframe and say, okay, what can I do today? Because so often we think that it's going to be just one day. We're going to wake up and just be better. Yes, and that doesn't happen. 

15:48
It's these small, incremental baby steps of doing something different that that helps us to grow. I'm watching my grand, my grandson, learn how to walk right now. Right now, he's taking maybe four steps and then he drops down. But we're not reprimanding him when he drops down, we're not reprimanding him if he falls on his bum, and we're so, so hard on ourselves. When we have to take just a tiny little baby step. We think it's not important. But that baby step is what helps us to that neuroplasticity which I know you talk about. Neuroplasticity which I know you talk about. You know, neuroplasticity retrains our brain. It helps us grow, it helps us reach. 

16:38 - Dr. Andrea Moore (Host)
I call it the Viktor. 

16:39 - Catherine Courtice (Guest)
Frankl reach, but the I don't know if you know Viktor Frankl. Yes, yeah, man's Search of Meaning is such a powerful, powerful book, but if we don't have a purpose, if we don't have a sense of meaning and it's very hard when we're in the midst of dealing with diagnosis of chronic pain to have any source of meaning, because our pain is our meaning, it's high. I'm Catherine Cordes, I have chronic pain. Yep, but you know we might as well have a sticker on our forehead, yep. But now I was able to say I'm Catherine Cordes, I like to knit little squares and it's bringing me some joy. 

17:17 - Dr. Andrea Moore (Host)
Oh, that is, I love it. It's like when you were talking about just handing out the little square, like I was like you were like, oh, it's so tiny. I was like, no, it's so massive, like it's so massive and and yet it can feel so tiny and it's exactly what? Oh, what is what is needed? And you're so right on how hard we are with ourselves. 

17:41
I think this is something that I know a lot of people listening in myself struggle with is the perfectionism around this. It's like, well, if I can't do what I used to be able to do, or I can't do X, y, z, then like, why even bother? And it's like, cause, this is your life. That's why and it's so hard to sometimes celebrate your own little baby steps and see them for what they are. And I know, even for myself I'm someone who I feel is very good at. 

18:16
Even just when you were talking about this, I was like I want to cry, like I want to explode, I want to give you a hug, for like, oh my gosh, like that is so amazing, right, I see the bigness and I know, even for myself though I struggle to see it in myself I just want to be like I understand how hard it can be for anyone listening to sometimes celebrate these little moments and they're so huge and it's amazing, I think, sometimes how fast they build on each other too. Like it might feel like a long time and it's like in the scheme of our life it's often not that long. Six months from now, if you did one tiny little thing, you will, without a doubt, be a completely different person. 

18:57 - Catherine Courtice (Guest)
I think we really need some patience for ourselves and give ourselves some grace. You know, every day isn't going to be that big rolling ball. That's just in the momentum. Some days we're going to have to roll the ball, that's just in the momentum. Some days we're going to have to roll the ball back a little bit and go okay and learn from from what we're doing, and then go, okay, I can roll a little bit further. 

19:22
Oh, that's not quite right, and go a different direction and and so it it. It's creating a relationship with ourselves and kind of going outside of what our comfort zone is, which is very difficult. But when we take ourselves outside that comfort because our brain, like I was saying earlier, our brain is wired in a way to keep that resistance going. But have you ever noticed? You wake up in the morning, you're lying in bed and you're saying, okay, today I'm going to do blank, I'm going to do this today, and then within five seconds, our brain is saying, starts saying oh well, it's really cold, I can't go do that or I'll have to bend down and do up my shoes and that's really difficult for me, so I won't do that today. Our brain all of a sudden creates this resistance inside of ourselves to keep us safe. Safe, but safe doesn't always mean that's where we're meant to be safe. Maybe, like I used to say, I'm sitting in a pile of shit. What am I going to do? It's warm, yep, right. It's cozy, right, I fit right in there. 

20:38
But boy, oh boy, it stinks, it's horrible, but it's going to be work. To get myself out, I've got to get the shovel and put that behind me, that piece behind me, and, and you know, as we get that momentum and that growth happening, things start getting better gradually. But that resistance we need to fight that resistance when, when our brain starts to tell us, no, you want to be comfortable. 

21:08 - Dr. Andrea Moore (Host)
Yes. 

21:09 - Catherine Courtice (Guest)
It's not always the best place to stay. 

21:12 - Dr. Andrea Moore (Host)
Not at all, and I always look at it and what I say is like your brain just wants to do what it's been doing, because so far that's kept you alive and that's all your brain cares about, it's like, but living in chronic pain, staying in bed all day. You're alive, though. Don't mess with it. It's what's working and it cannot see what it's doing, though, to you in other ways or what that. The implications of that are long term all it knows is this is working because you're alive. 

21:40
So it actually doesn't really matter what you're doing or how harmful it is. Your brain's like this is working, you're alive. Great, keep doing it. Just keep doing what we know, and it just just does not have. I feel like we give our brains too much credit sometimes, like you can be, the most I have my clients are so fricking smart and intellectual and you know PhDs and doctorates and top coaches and it's like, yeah, no, our brains just aren't with certain things, our brains are not that smart. They're just like keep you alive, keep you alive. That is a survival part. And you said two really important points that I want to speak to. You mentioned the baby walking, and I think what I want to even bring into that analogy further, because it's such a great one, is we don't criticize a baby who falls on his little bum. We're like you're so cute, right? First of all, we love on them. 

22:34
Yes, exactly, and I think even in that scenario we get really focused on like I know my son, for instance it's like he went from taking his first couple wobbly steps to full-on walking within a couple days, right. 

22:52
So it's like, oh, but, but they do it so quick and it's like, no, the amount, like he was later to try it even it's like the amount of building strength through crawling through, pulling up through you know uh, I can't remember what it's called when they're like walking with furniture, right, all of that, like every moment from the moment they were born was building up to that moment, and these tiny steps, and it's like it's so easy to lose sight of all of that that it took to get to those moments where they're taking their first steps and walking, because it all was so needed to build that strength. 

23:31
And so, like, when you're talking about the ball, like sometimes moving backwards, it's like, yeah, obviously we're going to have days where it's just like, okay, this is just one of those days. And also there's so many days where, like last week, I was like sick, right, so I, you know, wasn't working out as much and I was just recovering and taking it easier, and I don't even look at that anymore as as going backwards it's like no, I'm doing exactly what I need to move forwards, because if I didn't rest, if I kept working out, I would actually just make myself sicker and I would go more backwards. 

24:03
Right, it's like by resting, by sleeping in, even though I have committed to waking up early, by not doing that, I'm actually moving, my I know I'm moving myself forward because it's all recovering so I can get back to being you know, allow my body to fight off whatever I had for who knows what my son picked up at school, right, and then just get back to living life. 

24:27 - Catherine Courtice (Guest)
I, I. One of the things that I coach a lot on is that listening to the body. And you know, andrea, last week when you were sick, you had to listen to your body, knowing that if you pushed through you were going to make yourself worse. The duration of the sickness would have been longer if you had to just push through. You knew okay, my body is telling me, I need to rest. And for myself, I still have a traumatic brain injury. I still have symptoms. 

24:59
I still have things that I don't even want to say hold me back but that are not desirable right. 

25:11
Yeah, same. So what do I do with that? So now I have this, this moving piece of of between my actions during my day and listening to my body, and I know that if I stop listening to my body, I, my actions, are going to be depleted. And so I've got to constantly and I've had to learn to check in with myself. So we're in, we're in communion, we're doing this beautiful little dance all the time and I'll stop my family at a certain point and I'll say hey guys, you're on your own for a little while. I've got to go take care of myself, because if I don't, then I'm down for the count. And so, listening to those subtle cues I call them whispers from the body, like my body is whispering to me and telling me a few things and saying things. But we're so busy, our minds are so busy, our lives are so busy that we just it's like not checking the light on a car. The light comes on to tell us there's something wrong, yet we keep driving. 

26:26 - Dr. Andrea Moore (Host)
Yep. 

26:26 - Catherine Courtice (Guest)
Right Yep. 

26:28 - Dr. Andrea Moore (Host)
We keep driving, we keep driving. 

26:29 - Catherine Courtice (Guest)
And then all of a sudden, the car breaks down and we're like what's going on? 

26:32
Why are you breaking down? And the car is trying to say, well, well, I told you a long time ago. And so our body is whispering to us and I always say listen to the whispers before your body starts to have that tantrum, because it's going to whisper, then it's going to talk, then it's going to scream yep, and then it's going to have a full-blown tantrum. And so I I just have like this little whispering talk with my body all the time, and that really has given me my life back, that I know I can put my feet on the floor every morning and go and do the list of things that I have to do every day, because that's part of my day too day too, yes, and I think this concept can be really challenging for people with chronic pain who just haven't had that connection yet with their bodies to understand what's a whisper and what is fear taking over right, because I think a lot of times when I'm talking to someone is they're like. 

27:33 - Dr. Andrea Moore (Host)
But I have been listening to Maddie, I have been avoiding all these things and my life keeps getting smaller. I'm not getting better and it's different. It's not the same thing, because often what we're listening to is is like the fear and the brain wanting to keep you safe, which is different from the whispers of your authentic wisdom coming through, and it can be tough to differentiate and sometimes it is a little bit of like as you're learning. It's like especially like with being sick. I think it's a great example as someone who had a mom who's like I'm going to go see patients while I'm throwing up in between patients with food poisoning because I won't take off work. Like that was what I grew up with. Okay. Like super hardcore. Like you don't take time off if you're sick. Like absolutely not, that's weak, okay. So it's like I've had to learn what is adequate time off right what is. 

28:29
You know what is my body? I think what I, what I notice about myself, is when I take rest. It is a fine line between okay, that's the rest I need, and now I really do need to like get some momentum and push myself back into action or else I fall into like an endless fatigue. 

28:47
A lot of the things that I dealt with after my concussion was like a chronic fatigue piece and it's like that will set in if I actually don't get myself back moving again and it does. It takes got to get up and just work out today. 

29:00
But, but that's taken time to understand, it's taken trial and error, it's taken going back too soon or waiting too long to start figuring it out. And you know, even last week, or even like when I went to work out again after taking some days off, I was like I think I'm good, I'm not quite sure I'm going to go work out and I will know if I shouldn't have Right, and that's okay, and then I'll rest again for a couple of days. I was fine, right. It's like I've really learned that over time. So it takes this willingness to like get it wrong, to accidentally push too far or to take too much rest right. It takes like be like what is the whisper and then evaluate okay, if I listen to this piece, does this expand my life back out again or does this shrink me more? And that's a lot of what I you know I'm teaching people to do is how to listen to what's that whisper. 

29:52 - Catherine Courtice (Guest)
So I love that I think you touched on two really great pieces there. You know you talking about how your mom would push through and not ever go down, never allow herself. She didn't listen up. Those old stories and those old beliefs, those systems that were put into our minds, sometimes by other people, sometimes just in survival mode, throughout our lives, but those old ideas that we have, that, that if this, then this, and they're black and white and, and sometimes we need to take a step back and have a look at what it is that belief is and is that really a truth? 

30:44 - Dr. Andrea Moore (Host)
Yes. 

30:45 - Catherine Courtice (Guest)
And that can create those fears that you were talking about, and those fears can really hold us back, or those beliefs, those old belief systems that really don't serve us any longer, may still have a pull on us and holding us back. And and I really had to do that kind of reframe my a new perspective, a new way of doing that dance through my life, because I always thought I had to be busy. I never, I I never had dust on my coffee tables. I was cleaning my my floors twice a day with four kids. You know I was push, push, push, push, push. You know I was trying to maintain all of that Even after my accident. 

31:26
I was cooking meals with my cast and putting the knife in my cast and not stopping. You know I, and then my body just shoved me down. Wow, yeah, and and so. But those were old stories for me that I had to always be in action, always be doing, always be doing for others, and and and it was just making me worse and worse and worse. And so I really think, looking at those old beliefs, those old patterns, stories that we tell ourselves in our heads, that really don't have any validity anymore, changing those patterns, creating new patterns, is really profound in our journey of healing. 

32:15 - Dr. Andrea Moore (Host)
It is. It's one of the big things I teach in my Pain to Power program is how to evaluate beliefs. So I think you said something so crucial that I really want to highlight is that it's not serving me any longer, because I think so often we have these patterns like chances are that go, go, go, push, push, push probably served you really well at certain periods of your life, and so I think so often, sometimes some of the not wanting to let go is that we have seen where it has served us and where it's worked, and so it's like we cling, we're like but it, but it worked then. And it's like for my mom, for example, it's like that go, go go has served her very well. Like she's an immigrant who came with nothing right. It's like she got to where she was because of that and I'm like thankful every single day that she had that Cause I grew up, you know, like a beautiful life because of that, whereas like she had to build it all from scratch and now she's got the safety to rest and she's slowly getting better of it, now that she's like 74 years old. 

33:14
I mean slowly, as in you know, maybe she works six days a week now instead of seven. But she's working on it, that's okay. She's taking more vacations at least, but anyways, right. But it's like that pattern did serve her, it truly served her. And then it gets to a point where it's like it just doesn't serve us anymore. 

33:32
Or maybe it might not even serve you for a period of time, and then maybe you go back to it, and so we have to constantly believe or reevaluate. What belief are we working off of? 

33:45 - Catherine Courtice (Guest)
So yeah, beautifully, beautifully said yeah, I totally agree. 

33:49 - Dr. Andrea Moore (Host)
I wanted to go back to actually something that you said. I made a note. This is maybe slightly switching topics, but I think it's one that doesn't get talked about enough and maybe it might feel slightly controversial to people. But you made a comment about when you were in the throes of your symptoms. 

34:08
Friends and family were kind of sick of hearing about your symptoms and I think more and more on social media and like in the mental health world and seeing almost more of an emphasis of like people need to respect what everyone else needs to say and hey, if people won't listen to you, then you should cut them out. Like they're toxic, right? It's like you need to find a safe space. Like they're toxic, right, it's like you need to find a safe space. And I think what you've said is really important, because the reality is it's like yes, of course we all need someplace we can be safe and we can vent and we can just have a temper tantrum. We all deserve that place in our life and we're all people who are running their own lives. Every person has their own issues they're dealing with, with their own hardships, and people don't want to hear it over and over. 

35:03
And and it's like there's. There's gotta be a balance there, and I think this is just a reality People don't really want to maybe talk about so much. It's like, yeah, people don't want to hear your shit all the time. Like it's, it is what it is. 

35:17 - Catherine Courtice (Guest)
So do you want me to go? Yeah, go for it, Okay. Um, I became very negative. Now people in my life think I'm the most positive person in the whole world, but it's because I'm choosing to focus on the lines. I still have lemons, right, my baggage. I just got home from a trip in California and my baggage got lost. I could have allowed that to ruin my entire trip, but I didn't. I embraced it, I enjoyed, I made it work. 

35:50
Things don't bug me the same way as they used to. I used, if something would go wrong, I it just used to just take me over and and. Now because I have this, it's been a practice of choosing to find, to see the lines. It doesn't mean that I don't acknowledge or take care of this the lemons in my life I do. But what happened was is that every time I saw a friend, all I would do is talk about what was me. My husband doesn't understand, Nobody understands. You don't know how hard I have it. Yeah, but this is the worst thing in the world. 

36:28
Now I have this symptom. Now this is happening. This doctor won't do this. All I need is this treatment and I'll be better, but blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah blah. Then I see them again in two weeks. Same thing, same story. But what I noticed after looking back is I was not taking the steps to change me. I was waiting, I was looking outside for somebody to come in and sprinkle that fairy dust on me and make me better. And then, all of a sudden, tomorrow morning I was going to wake up and I was going to be better. And I just get up and be normal again Totally. 

37:07 - Dr. Andrea Moore (Host)
Oh, my gosh Same. I feel that so hard, yes. 

37:11 - Catherine Courtice (Guest)
And so it's really difficult to talk to someone who has chronic pain, because all they're saying to you is, yeah, but, yeah, but you don't know. Yeah, but I have this. Yeah, but this is what I'm feeling. Yeah, but, but, but, but, but and so when you are trying to help someone and hear them and listen to them and nurture them and have compassion for them, and they're like you say something to them, and they're like you say something to them, and then they're like, yeah, but it invalidates everything that you're trying to do to help them. It's very hard to understand what a person who's got these issues. It's hard to understand what they're going through on a day-to-day basis. Right, and, and so you know. Often I hear well, you just need to explain your situation to people. People cannot and will not ever understand what you're going through. They want to hear a little bit about your experience, and then you need to move on and talk about your knitting squares. 

38:21 - Dr. Andrea Moore (Host)
Yes. 

38:23 - Catherine Courtice (Guest)
It's not saying that that your symptoms and your issues aren't there. 

38:29
But if your friend came over every time and started talking about her horrible marriage every time and you're like, okay, well, why don't you try this, and why don't you try this, and why don't you try that? And she's like, yeah, but you don't know what I'm going through. You don't know this, yeah, but. And then two weeks later she comes back and says all the same issues without making any thing, like without. I think that introspection is really, really important, because I was the one who was going to get myself out of chronic pain, and the chronic, I think, is in here. The pain, yes, it's still here, it still goes on in my body, but I found that relationship and people may hate me for saying all of this stuff, but when we're focusing on the pain, the pain gets bigger. 

39:25 - Dr. Andrea Moore (Host)
It does, it really does. 

39:28 - Catherine Courtice (Guest)
So if we can focus on other things and talk about other things to people. Listen to a podcast. I couldn't read. I couldn't. I couldn't read, I couldn't watch tv. I couldn't go in the car because the stimulation was way too much. I was literally sitting with my eyes closed every day, my life. I had nothing to talk about. So what do you talk about with your friends? You talk about your pain and, and people just got tired of listening to me. And I get it. I would get tired of listening to me too. I got tired of listening to me, yeah. So I had to broaden my life a little bit and, you know, I realized that no one was going to take me out of my pain but me, and I think that that's one of the biggest things it is, it really is, and oh no, it's so beautifully said and I really do think this is a point that needs to be acknowledged more. 

40:23 - Dr. Andrea Moore (Host)
It's something that I talk about a lot with my clients who have partners who don't understand, and it's you said it so beautifully of like they, they aren't ever going to understand, right, there's this like need of like I need them to understand and and a lot of what I work on them with is actually letting go of that need Like they aren't, they aren't going to, and there's obviously I'm talking in the context of healthy relationships here Like I always like to make that clear of partners who are they're, they're trying their best and you have four, you have four children Like it's like kids stuff still needs to be done, house things still need to be done. 

40:56
They're probably working full time. They're probably taking on a lot more because of your situation, and it's like we also need to understand what they're going through, because they're going through a lot. They're going through a grieving Like you have completely changed, and that means you've completely changed for them as well, and I think we can get so and there's no judgment of this, I mean, cause I'm this was me too right. It's like we can get so self-centered and only see it through our own lens and we forget what it's like for the people we love who now have also had this massive change in their lives. 

41:36 - Catherine Courtice (Guest)
Yeah, there's a mourning for them as well, a mourning of the relationship that you once had. My children now say they have a different mother. My marriage disintegrated, it did not, it did not thrive or or make make it. Uh, we just couldn't. We couldn't do it. Yeah, and and so there are. 

42:01
There are going to be changes in life, you know, some aspects of our life has seasons. Some seasons are shorter than others and and um, you know there are going to be losses because of scenarios and situations in your life. Mm-hmm, my life looks completely different than before my accident. 

42:26 - Dr. Andrea Moore (Host)
Yeah. 

42:28 - Catherine Courtice (Guest)
Completely. It's not. Nothing's the same. I still have four children, but our relationships are even different. Yeah, our relationships are even different. Yeah, and there needs to be an honoring of that. 

42:37 - Dr. Andrea Moore (Host)
Yes. 

42:38 - Catherine Courtice (Guest)
And a respect of that. But where are you going to live? Where are you going to put your energy? Are you going to put your energy in the losses and focus on the losses? Or are you going to say, okay, that is no longer, I'm really going to miss these pieces. I'm going to take the really good pieces of that and I'm going to gather them with me and I'm going to pivot and I'm going to say, okay, now what can I do? What do I have control over? What purpose do I have to put my feet on the morning or on the floor every morning? That lights me up because it's all different now. But I'll tell you that little girl in grade four who wanted to be a sports doctor is doing exactly what she wanted to do with people. Now it's just, I'm not a sports doctor, I'm a mobility and chronic pain therapist. But I am still doing exactly what I envisioned of myself, and actually it's way better. 

43:48 - Dr. Andrea Moore (Host)
Yes, I love that. 

43:50 - Catherine Courtice (Guest)
And so that's the pieces of my life that I brought with me and I pivoted and I'm like okay, now what? What purpose? You know what purpose am I here for? And I know without a doubt it is to help other people who are laying on that couch thinking that there's nothing else in life but pain, who has lost all hope of having any joy again, who don't even want to hope because it's too hurtful to hope, because nothing's going to change. It's not going to be the next pill, it's not going to be the next treatment, it's not going to be the next doctor's appointment. They may assist, but it's going to be working with someone like Andrea or me or others who are out there, who can take you by the hand and take you through a process to the other side, to unpack those things that are holding you back, where your mind is focusing on all the time, those lemons and changing that neuroplasticity, the amazingness of the brain and the mind. Where are you focusing? I no longer focus on my symptoms and my pain. They're there, but they are not my focus. I'm focusing on how can I help other people, not focus on theirs, because I didn't have anyone to help me. 

45:24
I had to pull my straps up and figure it out and thank God that I had my kinesiology degree to back myself up. And so I sunk into and dove into okay, what can I do? What's in my control, what can I learn? And I was just like a sponge. I started, I started, I started along with listening to my body. 

45:43
But life isn't over because you get a diagnosis. It just changes. And we have changed all through our lives. We have changed when we go from primary school to secondary school and then on to university and then we get married and then you know the loss of a parent, with changes all through our lives, different jobs, and you know that resiliency that you have used throughout your life through all those changes. You can do it. It's just tapping into how you can find that resiliency in these hard times to move you and pro and and and transform you into the person you need to be right now, today, to get you to that other side, to find that joy again and that purpose and that, that thing that lights you up every day. And it's personal for each person and that's what's so cool about the coaching world is that it's not a one size fits all. It really is a personal thing for everybody. 

46:51 - Dr. Andrea Moore (Host)
Yes, it's so, so beautifully said, and I want to touch on something that can sometimes feel paradoxical to people. It's like you talked about how it is only you who can bring yourself out of chronic pain, and I 100% agree, and you don't have to do it alone, and in fact I don't recommend doing it alone at all. 

47:11
And it's so interesting to hear it's like you. It sounds like you did it alone a lot, but it's like you had that kinesiology background and same here I. I was already working with chronic pain when I had my accident. 

47:24 - Catherine Courtice (Guest)
Wow. 

47:26 - Dr. Andrea Moore (Host)
So it's like I already had all of this experience. I mean, I had my own chronic pain issues already before then I had the bad, the bad car accident. But it's like I had all of this stuff fall back on and I still got help with it. I still, you know, hired a coach who could help me through. I mean, it took me probably longer than it needed to to actually get that help, but, you know, because I kept hoping, I was like, oh, this should just go away. Right, it was like there was an accident. It was like it just you know, a concussion. It's like, well, it might just go away. 

47:58
A lot of my symptoms were all very, I mean, like in my head, literally in my head, like brain-based, like stimulation-based, right, like you, it's like I really struggled with a lot of sounds and lights and things like that, and brain fog and memory issues and all that stuff. And so it was this hopeless, false hope of like, oh, just the next day, maybe, maybe next week will be better, maybe this supplement will take it away, maybe, right, it was this constant. And then finally it got to the point where it's like this isn't changing, it has now plateaued and anyway. 

48:32
So it's like you get to have help on this journey because we really can't do it alone, and I think a lot of times, especially when things are feeling hopeless and you aren't able to see the brightness of the rainbow, like you said at the beginning but you want to. You want to be able to do that and you know you just can't. It often takes another nervous system to be able to hold that and you know you just can't. It often takes another nervous system to be able to hold it and see it for you. Yeah, that allows you to take those next steps, just like you know, a baby needs the the thing to hold on to at first. 

49:04
It's like we need that scaffolding, just like a building needs a scaffolding while it's being built, and then it gets to be released right. That's like what someone like Catherine or myself does. It's like we act as a scaffolding for your nervous system and are helping you build up your own internal strength and resiliency so that way you can go off and live life in whatever way it gets to now be for you which brings you joy well said yeah, with that I feel like I can. 

49:36
We can wrap up. I'm like I could talk to you for so long. I love the way you speak about things. You really have a beautiful way of saying things. Where, where can people find you? 

49:45 - Catherine Courtice (Guest)
oh uh. Well, I do have a website. It's katherinecorduscom. Super easy and actually if you go to my website, there's a sign up or a subscribe portion at the top that will pop up and if you put your email in there it'll take you to a prompt where you can receive a free download. That is from resistance to possibility, which is very much what we were talking about today. It's kind of taking you through a little bit of a process. It's a little workbook, so you're welcome to go get that free resource and um, you can see my um. There's a little blurb about my book on there, so you can find my book on amazon right now and it's on. Um, you can find my book on Amazon right now and it's on. 

50:34
You can get the Kindle or digital copy or you can get the actual hard copy and there's a workbook coming out soon that's going to correlate and go alongside with it and take you a little bit deeper through each concept that goes on. There's 52 chapters, so it's going to be a year-long workbook where you spend a week going through each concept. So really, really, really looking forward to that. So also, I have a private Facebook group, which I love having it private because people can be anonymous in there. Their friends and families and colleagues and coworkers don't know that they're in there and so they can open up and talk about their issues or ask questions, and that's called overcome chronic pain. So that's the name of my business overcome chronic pain. 

51:27
Dr Andrea Moore and I did an interview a little while ago and I did. I've actually done two summits overcome chronic pain interview series where I interviewed 28 top doctors and therapists that work in the field of chronic pain. So if you're interested in seeing those summits, you can just reach out to me and I can hook you up with access to that too. There are so many free, beautiful resources in that, but so profound. 

52:06
There are a lot of people who are struggling out there. Three, you know three to five people have chronic pain now and, uh, the list just seems to um be getting longer and longer, especially since covid um, it just seems to really be increasing. And you don't have to do it alone. You don't have to feel so isolated. Get involved in some sort of coaching or group work so that you can learn through other people as well. You learn faster when you're engaging with other people who have the same issues as you, so don't feel like you're out there alone. I felt like I was the only one in the world who had what was going on and I really wasn't, but I didn't know that there were other people out there. 

52:55 - Dr. Andrea Moore (Host)
Yeah, absolutely. Oh, it's so important and just like highlighting anytime someone talks about groups, I love to highlight the like find a group that works for you, because there are, unfortunately, a lot of groups out there that I was actually in some of them. Like I got in some Facebook groups and I was like wow, these are like the most depressing groups ever. Like it's, it's like a commissary group. So when you feel like that or you have been a part of a group and you're really hesitant to join one because of a bad experience Cause I hear this all the time from people and I've seen it firsthand Like there are supportive, beautiful, uplifting groups that hold space for your struggle, for what you're moving through, and help you move? 

53:37
forward and and you get to find the one that works for you and you know instantly in your body what kind of group it is. 

53:43 - Catherine Courtice (Guest)
So that is so important Help you move forward, because there are groups out there and they're just focused on the lemon, yep and and that will keep you focusing on your lemon as well. You really deserve to find a supportive group that is going to help move you through transition, through reframe and and find that hope. So, yeah, thank you for bringing that up, andrea. 

54:16 - Dr. Andrea Moore (Host)
Absolutely. Thank you so much for all of your insight today. It was really beautiful. I appreciate you being on here. 

54:23 - Catherine Courtice (Guest)
It was my pleasure. I really enjoyed it. Thank you so much. 

54:26 - Dr. Andrea Moore (Host)
Absolutely.