The Complete Way to Unload Your Pain and Expand Healing

“Because it feels like we've been here forever
Don't know how much farther or where we're going to
But it's our name printed on the doorway
Tells us where we came from and what we've gotta do.”
–The Fray

I’m learning to walk differently through the world.

In order to compensate for the chronic pain in my right foot, my gait changed over the past year.

“Oh, my!” the physical therapist exclaims after watching me “walk” across the room, my right foot turned in, my heel lifted. 

After making a note on her clipboard, she says, “We’ll need to strengthen parts of your feet, ankles, and calves that have become weak—basically teach you how to walk differently through the world.”

Using an exercise band, I pull my foot in ways it does not want to go. New directions cause discomfort, but I don’t want to limp through life in chronic pain. So, I choose to go out of my comfort zone to adapt a new posture of healing and hope.

I wish I’d addressed the pain before my body learned to compensate for it, but it’s not too late to course-correct now. 

I’m learning to walk differently through the world.

My parents’ retirement home recently opened to visitors after a year of shutdown. As my parents and I walk through the hall, I see stories, experiences, and memories on aging faces and in weathered hands that grip their walkers. 

My parents and I encounter one of their dear friends. The woman looks me straight in the eye and says, “I really needed your mom and dad over this past year since we couldn’t be with our families.”

When the conversation concludes and we start to walk on, I wait on my dad, a polio survivor whose gait forever changed when he contracted polio at age twelve. 

I wish I’d known to wait and see the effects of long-term suffering sooner, but it’s not too late to course-correct now.

I’m learning to walk differently through the world. 

I make a point to check on my friends of color. The trauma making headlines on a daily basis is not new to them; they know it; they live it, generation after generation, up close and personal. But seeing the injustice, day after day, and fearing for their lives is excruciating in ways I will never know.

“What can I do to support you right now?” I ask one of my friends. 

After a long, heavy pause, she says, “You care about me as a person. That is what feels like support right now – to be cared for and walked beside as a valued and beloved human being.” 

I listen and learn from Black, Indigenous, and Asian leaders, educators, and friends as they share their lived experience and offer specific ways allies can engage in the work. I hold Krystle Cobran’s guiding words like a lifeline: “The agony and unending realities and of racism can feel too large, but the transformation of lives, relationships, mentalities, processes, systems, and structures begins with One Choice.”

I wish I’d listened, learned, and acted sooner, but it’s not too late to course-correct now. 

I’m learning to walk differently through the world. 

Just when we thought my fourteen-year-old daughter had gotten out of the danger zone with her spine, her heart has come into question. As we entered another new medical territory this week, I remember what Avery said was the biggest source of stress around her health issues. It wasn’t so much the physical pain, but the intrusiveness, the notion that her body was not her own to govern and protect.

Before this recent appointment, I ask questions. May she wear a tank top? May we have a female technician? How exposed will she be? Can I hold her hand?

I cannot, so I hold her foot. I do all I can to provide the assurances and boundaries she requested in this situation. With heightened awareness, I speak up when things aren’t going well and sense she's nearing her breaking point. 

“Thank you for advocating for me,” my daughter says afterwards, looking spent.

I wish I’d known how to be a good advocate sooner, but it’s not too late to course-correct now.

I’m learning to walk differently through the world.

My Soul Shift course and the impact it’s having on those who have participated is attracting attention from people and places I never imagined. I am being invited to lead people through the Soul Shift journey with renowned audio publishers, like Sounds True, and in small, in-person sanctuaries like the Art of Living Retreat Center.

“When we record your teaching sessions, we want the listener to feel like they are sitting across the table from you, one on one, seen and supported,” the Sounds True producer says.

This means I must release the script and speak from the heart. This act of trust and surrender feels scary, but I know that is where my heart is leading. Offering my experiences and insights to the masses on social media, where people are so quick to judge, attack, and dismiss uncomfortable topics regarding humanity, is eroding my mental health and stifling my spirit.

I wish I’d realized sooner where my gifts could best be of service and set necessary boundaries, but it’s not too late to course-correct now.

I’m learning to walk differently through the world. 

The tension in and around people is palpable right now. In the book Burnout, authors and sisters Amelia and Emily Nagoski reveal how common it is for humans today to exist in a constant state of stress. The authors explain that like all biological processes, the stress response cycle has a beginning, middle, and end. But due to the modern age, many people don’t have an end. These incomplete loops of stress build-up, making it hard to sleep, focus, be patient, and compromise our ability to manage the next stressful event. This physical overload can lead to anxiety, depression, and stress-related illnesses.

The authors go on to share something I wish the whole world could know: 

“With a few dedicated minutes each day, we can break the vicious cycle of stress by completing the stress response cycle.” 

I encourage you to delve into their well-researched collection of stress-cycle completers, but the four that jumped out at me were: Physical activity, deep breathing, comfort from a trusted friend or loved one, and creative expression. 

When I read that section in the book, I realized why the midday drives Avery and I took during her virtual-schooling period were so restorative; they completed her stress cycle.

Avery is back at school in-person now, yet she still wants to take daily drives.

We often leave our phones at home; those are the times she extends her hands through the open window, harmonizing to whatever song comes on the radio. 

“How do you do that?” I marvel as she effortlessly finds the beautiful pockets of harmony.

“You can learn, Mom. Just listen and jump in.”

I sing along, being mindful to pull the air up from my diaphragm so my tension releases.

“Completing the stress cycle is an active process,” Amelia and Emily Nagoski emphasize in Burnout. “Wellness is not a state of being, it is a state of action: the freedom to oscillate through the cycles of being human.” 

In other words, it’s not enough to tell ourselves, “it’s going be ok;” we have to show our bodies we are safe – and we must do the work to ensure safe spaces and self-care is accessible to every human being.

I wish I realized earlier the damaging state in which so many people exist, but it’s not too late to correct-course now.

I’m learning to walk differently through the world. 

On the final day of my visit to my parents’ retirement home, I venture out to butterfly garden, as my dad suggested. 

There are no butterflies. I feel concerned, so I wait.

That’s when a wind chime above my head rings softly. The sound soothes me. I look up, and there is a tiny but determined ladybug crawling up the musical bar.

I marvel at her presence and wonder how much she has endured. 

I am delighted when as she scrambles inside the golden chime, her place of refuge.

The resilient ladybug and I share a moment of solidarity as I shuffle away, mindful of proper foot posture for healing.

I’m learning to walk differently through the world now.

It’s not too late to course-correct—
Let us leave no one behind.

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My friends, for an undetermined amount of time, I will be sharing less content on Facebook as I prepare to bring my teachings, inspired by my Soul Shift journey, to new spaces and communities while continuing vital anti-racism work. Please consider joining me in the mountains of North Carolina this November for the Soul Shift Weekend Workshop at the Art of Living Retreat Center (AOLRC). There is something truly restorative about connecting to the forgotten and neglected parts of ourselves while in the loving presence of those on a similar journey. AOLRC is committed to a diverse audience of participants who could not attend without financial support from the AOLRC Foundation. Please message me if interested in this scholarship. Click here for all event details.

In the meantime, I will continue to share my sacred thoughts and experiences in my monthly newsletter (sign up here) and with my small Instagram community. 

My fourth book, LIVE LOVE NOW, turns one year old next week! I’m deeply grateful to know it continues to offer healing guidance and practical tips for connection to ourselves and to our children and teens. Here is an affirmation I recently received: 

“‘I lost that part of myself for a while' … Rachel Macy Stafford, how do you speak to my heart so directly? I have devoured Live Love Now since I opened it last night, and I'm pretty sure the inside is as blue as the cover with all I've highlighted. But it was that line that hit me so amazingly. It acknowledges so much of the hurt, the longing, and the hope I feel. This loss of me is temporary, the me I once was is still there; I just need to give her space to shine again, love again, laugh again, have fun again, just BE in all her imperfect beauty.

Although my kids are still young, I feel this book is giving me invaluable tools to set our family up for success starting now. I know I'll refer back to it countless times in the years to come. Your book is truly a masterpiece.”
-K.H.