I have always loved to move and from the young age of 3, I started dancing. It was my passion all through my childhood years and into early adulthood. I went on to study a Bachelor of Arts in Dance. Unfortunately, I was plagued with injuries. As a late teenager (this was the period I had really intensified my ballet training) I developed knee pain. I tried all sorts of treatments, physiotherapy, Bowen therapy, massage, podiatrist. With no real relief. I ended up having knee surgery right before I left my hometown to go interstate to start my bachelor’s degree in dance. The knees were improving. However, I then developed some neck and lower back pain. Followed by ankle pain. As you can imagine this made doing my dance degree very difficult. I struggled through and managed to complete the degree. All the while seeking answers as to all the different pains I was experiencing.

After finishing my dance degree, I went on to complete a post-graduate certificate in the Pilates method (which I proceeded to upgrade to a diploma in Pilates based movement therapy). I had mostly stopped dancing in a full-time capacity at this point. After completing my training, I went on to work as a Pilates based movement therapist and continue to do so to this day.

Over the years I have struggled with knee pain, ankle pain, neck pain, back pain, shoulder pain, pelvic pain, coccyx pain, insomnia, headaches, tummy issues, small bouts of vertigo, and ringing in the ears. One problem would surface and then that would slowly resolve, and then another problem would arise. Sometimes the old problem would pop up again. I was having pain and issues ping-ponging around my body. I was getting hopeless. I had great fear that I was never going to be free of some sort of issue. I was meant to be a fit healthy Pilates Instructor and I felt so broken.

I was always at such a loss. I worked hard on keeping my body fit and healthy and strong. I would see people in my studio who had terrible alignment, but no back or neck pain. Then I would see people who looked beautifully aligned and moved well and who suffered with terrible pain. I would have people respond well to getting moving and their pain would subside and then others who were diligent about exercising and who seemed to move well and yet they still suffered with terrible pain. It really didn’t make sense to me and my own journey of trying to find answers for my pain and problems.

After 23 years of pain, suffering, struggle and despair, it was at the beginning of 2020 I came across the Curable app https://www.curablehealth.com/clara . I had always understood that stress could make pain more difficult, but I had never been told that stress and a hypersensitive nervous could create pain and all sorts of problems in the body. This is not to say that the pain and problems are not real. They are 100% REAL. However, they are driven by an overactive threat response in the brain. I never thought I was particularly under stress, but looking back I realise that I was constantly on high alert and that’s how I had learnt to function in life. I was a perfectionist, put a lot of pressure on myself and had a driven personality.  All these factors contributed to keeping my nervous system stuck in a threat response.  I didn’t understand the science of pain and how pain functions in the body.  All pain is real, but all pain is generated in the brain. Pain for me had become a learned habit (neural pathway).

I dived into the Curable app and started to learn about the nervous system and its role in pain. I proceeded from here to do all sorts of research. I found Dr John Sarno and his understanding of pain and his description of Tension Myositis Syndrome. I read extensively about his work and books. I found Dr Howard Schubiner, Dr John Stracks, Dr Dave Clarke, Alan Gordon, Nicole Sachs, Jim Prussack, Tanner Murtagh, Dan Buglio, Jen Johnson, Georgie Oldfield, and many more of the great leaders in the Mind Body world.

I couldn’t believe that I had never come across the idea that the brain can create very real pain and symptoms in the body with absolutely no structural cause. I had never been told that pain can become a learnt neural pathway, and the pain signals can get stuck in an “On” position. No doctor had ever mentioned that pain may come from an original injury, but keep persisting long after the injury has healed. Or that pain can be activated with no structural or physiological changes in the body.

I went on to study under Georgie Oldfield and complete her Stress Illness Recovery Program (SIRPA). I have also studied Pain Reprocessing Therapy through Alan Gordon and I am a certified Holistic life coach.

It is my passion to help as many people as I can and get the message out, that chronic pain and symptoms are often a result of an overactive nervous system. That you are not broken. This is not your fault and there is hope for a life beyond pain.