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Catherine Courtice, author of "When Life Gives You Lemons, Choose the Lime", shares her journey of overcoming chronic pain after a severe accident in 2007. She discusses feeling isolated, misunderstood, and dismissed by the medical system, and how she eventually found a path to reclaiming her life.

The Catalyst Moment

Catherine describes the pivotal moment when she realized that nothing would change unless she took action. She had to let go of the life she had before and start focusing on the life she could create within her new constraints. This "catalyst moment" was the turning point that set her on a path of healing and growth.

The AARC Framework

Catherine outlines her AARC framework - Acknowledge, Accountability, Reframe, and Choice. This process helped her shift her mindset from victimhood to empowerment, and start taking small, manageable steps to rebuild her life.

Connecting with Others

Catherine discusses the importance of communication and setting boundaries, both with loved ones and medical professionals. She emphasizes the need for understanding and empathy, and provides suggestions for how to approach conversations about chronic pain and invisible illnesses.

The Power of Words

Catherine emphasizes the profound impact that the words we use, both to ourselves and to others, can have on our physical and mental well-being. She encourages people to be mindful of the language they use and to reframe their inner dialogue in a more positive, constructive way.

Maintaining Hope

Despite the challenges, Catherine urges people with chronic conditions to hold onto hope that their situation can improve. She stresses the importance of not losing that glimmer of hope, as it is essential for fueling the motivation to keep moving forward.

Where to find Catherine:

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www.catherinecourtice.com

Hey friends, welcome back to another episode of Empower Her Wellness. I'm Shelly, your host.

And today's guest is Catherine Kordes.

It was just a really great conversation about reframing your mindset when living with chronic

pain, which is something, while I don't live with chronic pain, I am a caregiver for someone

who is in constant pain due to a chronic condition transverse myelitis.

And I really liked how she has, well she talks about her catalyst moment after her injury where

she literally takes a step backwards and her whole life changes in an instant.

I know we often overuse that word, but it's so true in Catherine's case.

And she talks about her catalyst moment when she said, I've got to get up off the couch and

I have got to start living my life.

And this has been many, many years ago.

And to look at how far she's come and where she is today is just amazing.

I've got all of her information down in the show notes.

If you want to learn more about her, get on her website.

She's also written a book, When Life Gives You Lemons, Choose the Lime, where she invites her

readers to embrace their unique healing journey and discover their limitless potential to live

a fulfilling life after a life altering diagnosis.

Okay, friends on to my conversation with Catherine.

Catherine with me today and Catherine is the author of When Life Gives You Lemons, Choose the Lime.

And I was telling her that I've started reading it and I just would love for you Catherine,

just to talk about why you wrote the book, you know, what your journey was before, during and after.

And then we'll just, we'll just go from there. How's that sound? Sure. Thank you, Shelley.

So my name's Catherine Cordes.

I wrote When Life Gives You Lemons, Choose the Lime, Embracing Life After Diagnosis.

And this book came about because I felt very isolated in my own chronic pain journey.

I'm highly educated in pain.

I'm a, I have a kinesiology degree.

My dream was to become a sports doctor since the age of 10 years old, when I had an ankle issue

that couldn't be healed until I was fully grown.

I met a sports doctor named Dr.

Johnson and he just lit me up. He understood me. He listened to me.

He wanted me to feel and feel better and move better.

And so I wanted to be able to gift that to people my whole life.

There were certain situations and issues that came into play in my life.

I ended up becoming pregnant in my fourth year of kinesiology.

So instead of heading to the New Jersey school of sports medicine, I became a mom of four children

and a school teacher because that just fit into my life of being a mama.

I had a, I had a really bad accident in 2007 and I was isolated. I was alone. I was scared.

I was being gas lit by the medical, all the medical professionals that I was dealing with.

I was being gas lit by my family, my friends.

I had no support and I didn't know how to get myself out of it.

Finally, one day my doctor leaned up against the wall and he crossed his arms and he said, Catherine,

you're never going to get better.

You go home, you're a drain on the medical system.

So this is the way you're going to be the rest of your life.

There's nothing I can do. Stop bothering me.

And so I went home with that prescription in my brain that I was never going to get better.

And I, I believed him. That's heartbreaking.

I mean, I hate to interrupt you, but that is heartbreaking to hear that for you.

But I think it happens more often than we realize. Exactly.

And this is the part, the reason why I wrote the book, Embracing Life After Diagnosis, because

yes, I got a diagnosis that I was never going to get better.

Many of us receive a diagnosis of a condition and we feel as though it's a death sentence.

We feel as though that is our entire existence and there's nothing outside of that anymore.

And it rips our life away from us.

And what do we do then? My life?

And I know very, very many people who have chronic pain.

I coach people with chronic pain and I've interviewed many, many doctors and therapists in the

world of chronic pain and everybody's life becomes smaller and smaller and smaller.

And the pain begins to control every moment of every day.

And it not only controls the pain of the person or the life of the person who is in the pain

or has the diagnosis, but it controls the life of the people around them.

And so how do we, how do we live a life? We're here.

God's put us on this planet for a reason.

Why, why was I put on this earth? I now know.

And that's what I teach in my book.

That's, that's really why I wanted to write this book was because I felt so alone and isolated and by myself.

And I could not figure out the path forward until I finally did.

So if you don't mind, do you, do you mind telling the listeners what happened to you, your,

your accident, if you don't mind?

So October 17th, 2007, I was a school teacher, came home, dressed in my jacket and little mini

high-heeled boots, that fancy boots and put a stake on the counter to marinade.

And it was decanting a bottle of wine.

And at that point we were putting a bathroom in our basement and the contractor had been there that day.

And I wanted to open up a box and see what we got the vanity and the sink came in.

And I wanted to see it.

My husband at the time was down in the basement and I said, I'll run up and grab a knife.

So up the stairs, I go grab a knife.

My two of my children, I have my four children were sitting in the living room.

So I gave them a quick glance and a little mom smile, took a step towards the stairs, not realizing

that I was already at the top step.

So as I stepped back, my whole body flew backwards into the staircase and I went headfirst. I flew really.

And my head hit the wall, like went right through the wall at the base of the stairs.

My arm went through the wall at the base of the stairs and it shattered.

And I actually sliced my eye with the knife.

So I was in really bad shape.

My husband at the time thought that I was dead.

He scooped me up and put me in the car, took me to the hospital.

I have no memory for 45 minutes when I finally came to, as they were trying to put a pick line

in my arm, the pain of them manipulating my arm.

Well, yeah, that changed my life in a split moment.

I have not taught since.

I was walking with a walker.

I was overstimulated and very often people who have chronic pain stimulation becomes a real issue.

So I had earplugs in my ears.

I had dark glasses on.

I could only lie at a 45 degree angle.

I was walking with a walker or a cane.

And I was going doctor to doctor, therapist to therapist, test to test 18 pills a day.

It was, it was not in existence. Yeah, I know.

Well, thank you for sharing that. Oh my gosh. Yeah.

So it's often cliched and tried to say your life changed in a second, but it literally changed in a second.

So in your book you write about how you just wallowed in that on the couch for a long time. For years.

I lost years of my life.

My youngest was five at the time of four children.

I had four and six years, so they were all quite young and rambunctious.

They were all in hockey, competitive hockey at that. Anyway, I couldn't drive. I couldn't cook. I couldn't play.

I, my life, my life ended up very, very small and I was wallowing.

I was on the couch or in bed 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

Unless I was going to a doctor's appointment. So I believed him.

I let that prescription that he gives me be my existence.

And it was a daily struggle.

I wasted so many precious moments of my life wallowing in the fact that my life had changed

and it was no longer the same.

Um, so I'm, I'm just curious as to why the doctor said what he said the way he said it.

You know, I mean with Steve's transverse myelitis, it's the same thing where there's like no cure for this.

He's going to live with it for the rest of his life and he's in pain all the time as well.

But we did not have a doctor say to us, you're drained on the system. Just go home. Don't bother me anymore.

Even though there's absolutely nothing they can do for Steve.

So I'm just curious as to why they, and you may not have the answer to this.

I'm just curious as to why they, and you're absolutely right.

It's total gaslighting of a, of a patient.

And I could see where you would just go home and be like, well, he's the doctor.

You know, so often we believe every single word the doctor has to tell us. Yeah. Yeah.

Well, you know, they're the experts.

They are supposed to be the experts.

They are very constrained by the protocols, the procedures that they need to follow.

And, you know, there are different styles of doctors.

There are doctors that they think they're God.

There are doctors that actually do listen.

I did end up firing him as a doctor and I was very lucky because in Canada, you don't get to fire your doctor.

You're stuck with the doctor that you're given.

But I my children played hockey with the doctor that I ended up going to.

And I pleaded with him to take me on because I knew there was something that I could do.

I knew that there was something more and he was willing to work with me.

And, and that, you know, advocating for yourself is so important.

And it's very empowering because so often when you're getting gaslit and shoved back all the

time, you, you lose hope, you know, you think, okay, this next treatment's going to work.

This next medication is going to work.

This is going to be the, the one magic pill, so to speak, that's going to fix me.

And then you lose hope and you get shoved back down.

And it's very hard to keep that momentum going of moving forward when nothing seems to be working.

Oh, and I totally get that.

And on top of that, you're just in pain.

You know, I have a headache and I'm just like, Oh my gosh, I can't function today.

So when you've got all that on top of, you know, severe chronic pain from an injury. Yeah.

I could see where that would be totally devastating and just be like, well, I'm just going to

wallow on the couch for the rest of my life.

So you had this accident, you're being gaslit by doctors.

You're, you're on the couch with these children.

And I know in the book, you write about how you just, you just stay there.

So what, what was that moment that you decided this ain't going to be my life no more.

And I get up off the couch and do something about it.

I call it the catalyst moment.

There's a chapter in my book called the catalyst moment.

And really it comes with some work beforehand where we really need to acknowledge the spot that we're in right now.

And acknowledge how we feel about it and, and kind of the stories that we have around it and

the beliefs and, and acknowledge that our future is uncertain.

We don't know what's going to happen.

You know, and if, if you asked me when I was 21 years old, what I thought my life was going

to look like you know, I thought I was going to have that white picket fence in the 2.5 kids

and perfect marriage and all of this stuff.

And if you pull a hundred people sitting here right now, nobody's life looks the way you expected it to.

And so we need to let go of that, that there's some, there's a bit of mourning to let go of

the life that was, because I kept saying, I just want my life back.

I just want my life back.

But really if I look at what my life looked like before, I don't want that life back at all.

So here I was lying on the couch and I kept thinking, I'm hearing my children playing in the, in the backyard.

Why am I not out there?

Why can't I be out there?

There's gotta be something that I can do.

And I'm staring at the ceiling and I realized, and it was like this wash over me that nothing

is going to change unless I change.

Nothing is going to be different tomorrow unless I do something different today.

And that was the ticket for me.

That was the catalyst moment where I had to stop and look inside because I was constantly looking

outward for everybody else to fix me. Yeah. Yeah.

You know, that, that happens a lot in all aspects of life.

And I love what you said about acknowledging where you are because Steve and I talk about this a lot.

Yeah, you can, you can, you know, we had a life before we have a life now, but we obviously

don't know what's going to happen in the future because Steve's, you know, in a rare chronic

condition, but it's not terminal, but it is not curable.

I mean, you know, much like what, what you're dealing with, but we can't, we cannot, we cannot

go back to the way life was. We just cannot.

And just staying there, obviously you get stuck because you were stuck literally on the couch,

you know, thinking, I wish I had my life back.

I wish I had my life back knowing that that's not going to happen.

I think that acknowledging that that self-awareness of where you are is so important.

And then also and this may lead into your next point, but just then taking responsibility for

where you are now, even though obviously, you know, it's not your, your, your fault that you're

in the shape that you are, but you still have to take responsibility for where you are and do

something instead of like having people thinking people are going to come save you and fix you. And.

Well, I, I, I, I gained this sense of victimhood that this was how this happened to me and,

and no one was helping me and my life was the worst.

And the vocabulary that was coming out of my mouth day in and day out was almost like a self-defeating privacy.

And so I have this exercise that I take people through, and this is kind of where the lemons come from as well. There's two parts.

Life gives us lemons, right?

We have things, we have a diagnosis, we have an accident, we have the loss of a partner or a

parent or a child, you know, all of these things severely affect us.

We may be in a job that we hate.

We may lose a job that we loved.

You know, we may, I use a flat tire often in analogies.

We may get a flat tire or our luggage gets lost. We get lemons.

Lemons happen in our life all the time, but what do we do with those lemons?

Can we, do we sit there and I say, you know, a truckload of lemons got dumped in the middle of your living room.

So what do you do with that?

Do you sit there and wallow with the lemons?

And that's what I was doing day in and day out was wallowing with those lemons and focusing

on those instead of focusing on the lime is what I say is the fact that my children needed a

mom, even whether I was sitting on the back porch with a tea, talking to them as they're playing.

But I was sitting on the couch wallowing in the fact that I couldn't go and play with them.

And so changing that mindset, I had to mourn.

I had to mourn the life that I had and start talking to myself in what I do have.

You and your husband, Shelly, have these moments together and living in the moment of what you

have in how your husband is feeling at any given day. That's the gift. That's the lime.

Some days it's not as much.

Some days it's better than others.

What do we do with that?

We get curious about that.

We start living within the constraints that we've been given within the lemon that we've been

given, finding those precious moments, finding those things to find, have joy about, have connection about, have conversation about.

And your husband is very lucky to have you by his side, willing to support him. I didn't have that.

So I was just going to say, yeah, I was just going to say that, you know, you, everything that

you've just said and, you know, getting mustering up the, what you needed to get up off that

couch, literally and figuratively while you were, you just, you had no support. No.

So that's, that's got to be super, super tough.

And, you know, you talk about your catalyst moment and it, and I, you know, I, I imagine you

like jumping up off the couch, being like, oh, I I'm cured of my terrible mindset now, or whatever

you want to call it, my defeating mindset now.

But how long did it take you to like really get into the groove of, of where you are today? And.

Yeah, it, it took a while.

So our brain is plastic.

I don't know if you've heard that there's a neuroplasticity world out there now.

And I advise anyone who is listening to this to dive into and learn about neuroplasticity, because

even though we're 50 years old and we think that we know everything, we are constantly learning.

And we've been doing things the same way our whole life.

We, we have practiced and practiced and practiced, and this is just the way we do things.

But now that things have changed the things that we used to do don't work anymore.

And so it's, it's finding new neural pathways, creating new pathways, practicing, and it's a

practice and it takes the small actions. It takes mindset.

It takes reframing a different perspective, taking a brave step outside the box that we've created,

because we think that we need to be wrapped in bubble wrap when we have chronic pain.

And it's the worst thing that we could do is sit on a couch and wait for ourselves to get better

because that lack of oxygen, lack of mobility, um, lack of sunshine, um, lack of, um, purpose,

all of those things that life I was saying about getting smaller and smaller, we then lose that neuroplasticity.

We lose that, lose those pathways.

And so we lose our passion. We lose that.

We lose the reason to put our feet on the floor in the morning. Yeah. Yeah.

I, this is what I do now.

Like I put my feet on the floor every morning, excited to help people with chronic pain, help

people to get their lives back because there is a life inside having a diagnosis, having a condition. Oh my gosh.

I love that so much.

I love that so much.

And first of all, I hope that the listeners are taking a couple of things from this one being it's a process.

It's not, you know, like you hear on Instagram or see on Instagram or here on YouTube, you know,

you just don't go from here to here in two hours.

So it's a process and you have to give yourself permission.

You have to give yourself grace.

You have to give yourself time.

You have to find that support, however you can get that, that done.

And then secondly, I talk about this all the time, Catherine.

So I'm so glad you brought it up is that you have got to find something that lights you up.

You know, when Steve came home and I'd lost my job in a field I'd been in for 25 years, I just

sort of like stumbled around and thought, am I just going to be a caregiver for the rest of my life?

And that's when I thought, I told Steve, like, I'm going to start podcasts, you know, because

I'm, you know, you, we, regardless of your situation, Catherine or Steve's situation, or anyone

who's listening, who's had a TBI or chronic, rare condition or pain or whatever, you've got

strengths and passions inside you that you can, you can do no matter where you are. I truly believe that.

So thank you so much for, for bringing, bringing those two points up. That's really great. I love that. Thank you. Yeah.

So you've got acknowledge where you are taking accountability for where you are turning your

don't sit in the lemons, take the lime instead.

What other things can, what other steps do you have that can help people, people out?

So I call it the arc framework.

So AARC, we covered acknowledge and accountability.

The third one is reframe, which I really did.

I did touch on it. It's reframing.

It's, it's finding that neuroplasticity it's doing the practices.

It's, it's taking that brain brave step and trying something that's different that feels so

overwhelming and hard, but breaking it down into a step that you can do that you want to do

today, because that's where the motivation comes from.

So for me, I started knitting little tiny squares, like face cloths, because I couldn't read. I couldn't watch TV. I couldn't drive.

I could only sit at a 45 degree angle.

So I started knitting little squares, but it gave me something new to talk about.

It gave me something else to focus on.

And so that reframing started to happen.

Those new neural pathways, I got excited when I finished one, I got so excited that I wanted to do another one.

And then it just kind of starts to roll from there.

And that's where that reframe starts to happen.

That, those new pathways that you get to create and, and then you're lit up.

And then I started to volunteer at the local food bank for an hour and a half a month. And that was it.

But I went outside of myself.

I went outside of my comfort zone.

I had to get a drive to go there, but, you know, and I accommodated the symptoms that I had

and I met new people that I actually am still friends with today.

And this is, this is a long, long time ago now that I met these people, but it, it's amazing

how your life starts to open up when you do reframe what it is that you're doing.

When you do mourn the life that is no longer present, no longer there and say, okay, I'm still living.

I still have a life, but what's it supposed to look like?

What do I want it to look like? Yeah.

Take a blank sheet of paper and draw a bunch of little rooms and, and put family, put relationships,

put work, if you still want to work or can work, put, you know, faith, put everything, hobbies

and start filling those rooms up because the rooms look different.

And so for a long time, my rooms were empty and I had no clue what I wanted to do.

I had no clue what I could do or what I even liked.

And so as you fill up those rooms, the pathway starts to create itself.

Well, I got super excited when you were talking about knitting squares.

I was like, oh my gosh, I'm so excited for Catherine, but seriously, that is, yeah, that's such

a, and it's, it's one thing that led to another.

You're like, I can knit squares and I can go volunteer.

And then to where, to where you are today, actually helping people who are in, in chronic pain.

And it all comes down to my last one, which is the C in ARC and that's choice.

We get to choose and sometimes not acting or actually all the times not acting as a choice as well. Yeah.

And that's a hard pill to swallow because it takes some time to look in the mirror and ask,

I had to ask myself, what's my role in this? Yeah.

Because before it happened to me, before the doctors weren't doing anything for me, right. It was all exterior.

My, my partner, my husband at the time was not what I needed him to be doing. Yeah. Right.

But I wasn't doing it for me.

And so my choices were keeping me in that, keeping me stuck. Good point. Good point.

There is just so much stigmatism around chronic pain because we expect people to look a certain

way to act a certain way while you're not in a wheelchair, you know, you don't have a broken arm or whatever.

So what, what would you want to say to people about the understanding of people with chronic

pain, what we can't see?

So three out of five people, this statistic has just been revamped and three out of five people have chronic pain.

Chronic pain is something, some sort of condition or pain or sensation that lasts longer than

three months, less longer than the, the time that a normal condition or an acute issue like

breaking the arm three months, you should be back to, to your old self.

Chronic pain is something that just never really goes away, or it may fluctuate, or it may switch areas.

You may have it in one shoulder and then another day and then another and you end up with a

whole slew, a whole list of, of symptoms.

I, you would never know that I live with chronic pain.

I have learned to find the balance and learn to understand what my body is trying to say to

me before it starts to have, I call it a tantrum.

Like it's speaking to me, it's, it's whispering to me, it's telling me things.

And so it took a long time for me to learn that balance where, how can I still function in the

real world and do work and, and enjoy life and help other people and manage my chronic pain.

And so there are, I, I have symptoms that come up and I listen to them right away.

And my family knows I'm going to go take a break.

I need to three days. Yeah.

And, and so, but three out of five people are living like that, where the pain is the world,

the pain is all the time.

They have it when they go to the grocery store, but they still need to eat.

They've got to get to the grocery store.

They still need to pay their bills.

So they need to go to work, but they're in pain all the time. And so they're snappy.

They're, you know, they, they may be in a bad mood.

They still have to go in and get their clothing and look after their children and, and everything

is piling up on them.

And they've got a new symptom all of a sudden, and they had a bad doctor's appointment where

the doctor just wanted to throw a prescription at them and not listen to what they had to say.

These, there are so many things about being in chronic pain that the majority of the world don't understand.

My father-in-law at the time wanted to have me put into palliative care.

Oh, I was such a drain on the family.

I'm like, do you even know what that is?

I mean, I've never said that in public before.

So, but those are the kinds of things that are said to you that my worth had diminished so much

within my family because I couldn't drive that I wasn't a worthwhile member of the family.

Oh, that makes me so sad to hear that.

That makes me so sad.

And flabbergasted, something you did your, did he even know what palliative care was?

Just wanted me to be in a home.

So I wasn't in the way.

Well, I'm so sorry to hear that.

Thank you for sharing that.

That's, that's a tough, that's a tough pill to swallow right there for sure.

Well, these are the things, these are kind of things that, you know, the things that are said

to us on a, on a constant basis, or it can't be that bad.

At least you don't have cancer. You don't look sick. Yeah. Right.

You know, you should be better by now.

Why are you not better by now? Have you tried yoga? You know,

and you're being bombarded, bombarded constantly with these, and they feel as though they're judgments. Yeah.

But if, if I really look at the people who were speaking to me saying, have you tried this? Have you done this?

I read this article about this.

My immediate response was, you have no idea what I've tried.

You have no idea all the things that I do every day to get myself literally out of bed.

Like how dare you throw an article about yoga at me.

But if I take a step back and look at what they're truly saying, they're saying, I love you,

and I just want you to feel better. Right. Right.

And so it's a, it's a two way street.

Many times, it gets frustrating because people are always, it's like when you're being, when

you're pregnant, everyone's coming up to you, touching your belly and asking you and giving

you advice, unsolicited advice about how to deliver your baby. Yeah.

You know, you don't want it, but they're doing it because they care and they feel as though

they have something in common to talk to you about.

So we really need to have an understanding on both sides, you know, when you do approach somebody

who has an invisible diagnosis or symptom or condition we don't understand, you know, but we

can go to them and we can say, what do you experience? What's the worst part?

How can I help you?

And everyone's always going to say, you can't do anything.

But if you say, can I bring you lunch and have a visit with you for half an hour on Thursday?

Because it was impossible for me to make lunch.

It was impossible for me to make a meal.

So I was grabbing insured drinks all the time. Yeah. Yeah. Because it was easy.

And I love that advice because, you know, one of the things I've talked about, I had Cynthia Lam on my podcast.

And one of the things I talked about to her was don't ask, you know, just do, especially if

you're a good friend or family. Very simple thing.

I had a friend call and I used to work with her and she said, Hey, I'm going to bring you a caramel macchiato.

I'm sure you're tired of bad hospital coffee.

And she didn't ask me if I wanted it.

She didn't say if it's okay.

She's just like, I'm on my way.

We're going to stop by and here's your caramel macchiato.

So, you know, about, you know, I just read this.

How do you, how do you respond to that?

Like you said, you take a step back and see where they're coming from.

How do you respond to them in a really positive way that says, you know, thanks for the advice. However.

Well, have you read the article yet? Okay.

Do you already say that there's nothing that can be done because that was in my mind, nothing can be done. Nothing's going to work.

I've tried everything that was not true. I hadn't tried everything. Yeah.

I didn't, if you don't read the article and you already have a judgment to them, how dare you give me an article? What are you doing? Yeah. Yeah.

You know, we need to open our mind and think there may be something else.

Where's the line in this article?

This person cared enough about me to hand, to read an article and think it may help for me.

Maybe there's something in it, but I need to be open and curious with my mindset in a different

perspective, looking at the line, seeing if I can find it instead of closed thinking that this

is the way it's always going to be because it's not, you may not be able to get rid of your condition.

I cannot get rid of my traumatic brain injury. Yeah. I can't. Yeah.

But I can still live my life. I'm driving. Oh, well, congratulations. Yeah.

Like I, I am going to the grocery store.

I had to learn and I had to create a new pathway where the, the, the sensations of the light

and the noise and the movement of the cars.

I stopped focusing on it.

And that's where, that's where that happens. Like that overstimulation.

So many people with chronic pain have, which are focusing on it. It's a lemon. Yeah. Yeah. That's a great point. I love that.

You know, you just have such a great perspective and outlook.

I know it's taken you a while to get there and I'm sure you still have days, but it's just such a great perspective.

And I absolutely love it.

And I'm sitting here thinking, Oh my gosh, I have so much work to do myself when I, when I listened

to you, but it's just, that just so fantastic.

So you, you, you work with people now that you take them through this process.

And so do you want to talk a little bit about how you help others process like you've gone through? Sure.

People can find me on my website, Catherine Cordes.com.

I work with people one-on-one.

I take, I take people through some steps.

Oftentimes we think our chronic pain is just the body.

And there's so much more to chronic pain than just the body.

There's a reason why our body has created the symptoms, the condition.

Our bodies, it's come into our body for a reason.

And so we step into how to deal with the symptoms, how to, um, change the beliefs about the

symptoms and the uncertainty about the future.

We, you know, we go through the things, the loss and, and the, you know, how the life is going to now look different.

And very often we get to that space and we're like, I don't know what I want.

I don't know what I want it to look like.

I don't know how to move forward.

You know, my life has changed.

Shelley, your life has changed.

Not, you know, not just your husband's life.

And so, you know, coming together with your partner and learning how to communicate, in an effective

manner where there's no blame, there's no pull there, you know, very often we feel, um, badly.

Like I felt so badly for what my condition was inflicting on my family.

And now I, I honestly look at my accident as a gift because I'm living this incredible life

now where I can help people, but taking them, taking my clients through a process.

There's also a group component in my program.

Um, so we meet weekly in a group.

Um, I have certain groups where I position people learning or sitting with other people who

are dealing with the same and similar issues that you are the same and similar emotions that

you are working through finding what those small steps are, finding what, you know, you know,

finding what the dream is of what we want the outcome to look like and, and reining it back. So it's not overwhelming.

And so everyone's cheering each other on and it's become like such a beautiful family because

you don't feel so isolated, but you can also talk you're anonymous.

You know, you're not living in the same area.

You're not at social gatherings together or family members.

You can actually talk about things that you wouldn't normally be able to talk about and discuss.

And, um, I, I love the group settings.

People learn exponentially because you learn through each each other.

And, and so I love that.

Well, I will put all that information down in the show notes for anyone who's interested in,

in looking it up and reading the book.

I highly recommend the book.

I've not got all the way through it yet, but I'm working, I'm trying to book reading books and

then something happens, but, um, you know, it's communication is really key.

And, and I, um, I'm lucky with Steve and that we are able to, to talk.

Like one of the first things we talked about beyond, you know, this is our life now, what are we going to do?

Uh, was I, I had trauma just from um, and so he knows that my trauma does not negate his trauma.

I can come to him and say like yesterday was a perfect example.

I went to pick up dinner. I forgot my phone. I forgot my phone.

I never leave without my phone.

Uh, I was only five minutes away, but I had to wait for dinner because it wasn't ready when I got there.

Now Steve's got people he can call that are here in the apartment complex that can get to him quicker than I could.

But I, and I was parked in a 10 minute tow zone and I, I could just feel my anxiety just, and

some people were looking at me.

So I don't know if I had a look.

He said, this lay is about to blow.

Um, so I get home, I get in the apartment and I just break down.

I just break down in tears. I forgot my phone.

I can't believe I forgot my phone. Of course he's fine.

But, um, then we had conversation about, I, I'm going to have these anxious moments, but it

does not take away from anything that is anxious moments.

So I, I think having, you know, I'm, I'm so lucky Catherine and I brag on Steve all the time.

I'm so lucky that I am.

We can have these conversations about what's going on and no one blames anybody.

No one feels like, you know, like I'm trying to get one up on Steve or he's trying to get one

up on me or anything like that.

So I think that that is super, super crucial.

Do you talk to any of your, um, people you work with about communicating with other people? Okay.

Yeah, it, uh, it's a huge, you see, people think that they come to me to heal their chronic

pain and it really is, um, the way that we can heal our chronic pain is by approaching all of these different elements.

So communication boundaries, uh, boundaries with ourselves, boundaries with other people.

It, it all, it, it all is a big web and they all impact the way we feel on a daily basis.

Have you ever noticed if you have a really, really stressful day, let's say you get in a or

somebody yells at you the next day. How do you feel? Yeah. Your mood is low.

You may have a migraine.

You may get a cold, your body reacts to the emotional aspects of what happened.

And so for me and my situation, not having a supportive marriage, having four children, having

a lot of the weight put onto me, I was hiring people to drive my children everywhere.

I was hiring people to help my kids with homework.

I was hiring people to make the meals.

You know, I was still the one who had to manage a home.

What was that doing to my mental capacity, but what was that doing to my body and my, my body's ability to heal? Exactly.

And so in coaching and you don't realize people come in and they start talking about what the

doctor's done and, and, you know, what the symptoms are doing and what the medication's doing and this and that.

And then very quickly, do we start to transition into the other things of life that affect and

that impact why our body is reacting the way it is.

And that's where this, this balance comes in.

And I'm, I'm very, very adept at finding and helping people find that dance that needs to happen.

And that's the way that I am able to be here on this podcast.

That's the way I'm able to help clients and write a book and do all of these things was this.

And, and it it's, it's, it's a learning pattern.

Well, thank you so much, Catherine.

I have just had such a great time talking to you about all of this before we wrap up.

Is there anything else you'd like to say?

Anything you want to say to people with chronic conditions or perhaps caregivers who is a large

part of my audience listening to this, you got any parting words of wisdom for us? Well, two things.

One thing that I miss saying, I started to say it and I went to something else was the power of the lemon.

I was saying the lemon has two parts, lemon and the lime, but the power of the lemon, I, the

words that we speak, the words that we speak to each other, the words that we speak to ourselves

have such a higher amount of impact than we ever realize.

If I was always saying, my body is against me.

My body is against me every day. My body hates me.

So if a partner was saying that to you, I hate you. You're against me.

You don't want to, you don't want me to get better.

Those words are very impactful and it wouldn't take a partner very long to feel depleted and dismissed and unheard.

And so the power of the lemon, if I ask you right now, Shelly, to, and the audience to imagine

that I'm handing you a big piece of lemon and you are going to take a big bite of it.

So imagine that you're taking a great big bite of this lemon.

The juice spills into your mouth and it's tart.

You can taste the tartness on the side.

So just in that split moment, guaranteed you had to swallow you, your mouth filled up with saliva. It did. Yeah.

And so that's the power that our mind has on our body.

Our mind has so much power that it can change the physical reaction of our body.

It can change the cells.

And so if we're to ourselves in that way, our body doesn't know the difference between a metaphor and reality.

It doesn't know the difference between a joke and reality.

Our body listens to the words and the thoughts that we have, and it acts accordingly.

So my body is not against me.

My body wants to work with me. It's trying to communicate.

And so remembering how powerful that lemon is and what we say, what we say to each other, what

we say to ourselves is so, so powerful.

So that was one thing I miss saying.

So I'm happy to be able to bring that up.

And the second thing is hold on to that hope that things can change and shift and that you can live a life again.

Losing that hope really does diminish your ability to find the arc, to go into acknowledgement

and accountability and reframe and choice.

And so hang on to that hope that something can be different tomorrow, but it's going to be a little bit of work.

Well, those are excellent words to end this conversation on.

So thank you so much, Katherine.

I really appreciate you taking time talking to me and our audience. Good. Thank you. It was a pleasure.