finding the wisdom inside what hurts
There is something wrong with you, Laura.
You are broken, Laura. You are not enough.
The answers are inside, Laura.
You need to fix yourself, Laura.
Don't do this, Laura. You will break, Laura.
You need me to survive, Laura.
I know pain well. Physical, emotional, intellectual — I have lived it in almost every form it takes. Panic attacks. Night terrors. Intrusive thoughts. Insomnia. A body that spoke in chronic back pain, IBS, sinus and chest infections, and premenstrual syndrome. A mind that pushed me towards perfectionism, control, overachievement, self-criticism, and — when nothing else worked — isolation.
It was in the movement of it that I first caught sight of it.
After recovering from yet another period of burnout, I turned to self-care. Surely this was the missing piece. There couldn't be anything wrong with self-care, could there? If I just did enough of it, I would finally stop burning out. But before long, I was trying to be perfect at looking after myself — journaling, meditation, visualisation, two litres of water, a morning walk, 120g of protein, massage, yoga. And if I missed even one, I became stressed. That is what our wounding does, it changes shape.
I tried. But every time I thought I'd found it, something else took its place. What was driving it all stayed exactly where it was. I was exhausted — sick of living this way — and I needed to know what was underneath. Why am I living as if the world is about to collapse at every
moment? I had a good family, a good job, a nice home, a steady income. That made it more confusing, not less. I had nothing tangible to point to and blame.
That’s when I started to think differently.
What would happen if I followed the pain instead? Could it be trying to help me, rather than hurt me?
Still, I felt a flicker of courage.
I could have listened. I nearly always had. But this time, I chose to turn toward the pain instead of away from it.
A whisper this time, so gentle I barely registered it at first.
I lay on the floor with a blanket, alone. The only way I felt truly safe at that time. I registered how tense and frozen my body felt — I had spent so long disconnected from it. At first, very little happened. I waited. Then, slowly, my body began to answer back.
My back held the weight of betrayal. My hips were locked tight around hurt and sadness. My heart space burned with rage at a world that had caused me such pain. And my throat – tight, insistent – was asking me to be authentic, to let my softness and gentleness finally be seen. It was letting go of the old, and in the same breath, telling me exactly how I wanted to live.
It wasn't easy. Old patterns pulled hard, again and again, trying to convince me to turn back. But every time I dug a little deeper.
The chronic pain started to disappear, the IBS settled, the PMS eased. The chest infections and sinus infections that had plagued me stopped coming. I started sleeping properly for the first time in years, and I moved through my days with more ease. A passion for living life to the fullest began to emerge.
My body had known the way out all along. It spoke to me in the only language available to it – pain – carrying what I couldn’t say out loud, remembering what my mind couldn’t put into words. I was in awe of what it had been capable of, this whole time, without me even realising.
What happened in my body wasn’t unique to me. There is wisdom in all our pain, if we’re willing to turn toward it. Our nervous system is always trying to bring us back to balance – it just needs enough safety to do the work.
On reflection, what I needed most was someone present beside me – holding space while I found my way through. I didn’t have that. And not having it taught me, deeply, why it matters – why the presence of another person, their care, their attention, their willingness to simply be there, can change everything about our capacity to explore what’s underneath our pain.
It’s why, now, I care so deeply about being that same anchor for others – about building an environment where another person feels held enough to start exploring their pain and find the wisdom within it.
Every time I sit with a client, I am in awe of what their body already knows. Even in defence, even in fight, flight, or freeze, there is wisdom – their nervous system doing exactly what it learned to do to keep them safe. And underneath that, their unique somatic patterns, beliefs, and memories have the capacity to heal and to move toward what they truly want to express and become in this world.
It is my privilege to walk that path beside them, offering them a framework to navigate by, and the grounded presence of someone who has walked their own path through the dark.
Watching them come home to themselves. This is where my passion lives.
