June 24, 2025 • 19 mins
What happens when you’re already drowning in chronic pain—and then life throws drywall, sawdust, and emotional chaos on top of it? In this episode, Lyndsay Soprano gets real about the mess behind the scenes: home renovation hell, relentless exhaustion, and the kind of stress that clings to your skin.
This isn’t a glamorized version of pushing through. It’s about those moments when everything feels too loud, too heavy, too much. Lyndsay opens up about the toll that physical pain takes when you’re not numbing it, and how hard it can be to walk away from things—even when they’re clearly not serving you. She shares what it’s like to live in a body that feels like a battleground, and how something as simple as a swim can feel like coming home.
More than anything, she talks about finding purpose inside the pain. The power of community. The reminder that you are not your diagnosis. And the importance of setting boundaries that protect your peace—especially when life feels like a construction zone.
This one’s for anyone who feels like their body is breaking and their life is a little too chaotic to keep pretending everything’s fine.
Tune in if you’re craving honesty, connection, and a little more room to breathe.
Find The Pain Game Podcast Online Here:
Website: thepaingamepodcast.com
Instagram: @thepaingamepodcast
Facebook: The Pain Game Podcast
LinkedIn: Lyndsay Soprano
YouTube: The Pain Game Podcast
Episode Highlights:
(00:00) Introduction to Chronic Pain and Trauma
(02:38) Living with Chronic Pain: Personal Struggles
(10:54) Coping Mechanisms and Strategies
(16:57) Conclusion and Community Engagement
This isn’t a glamorized version of pushing through. It’s about those moments when everything feels too loud, too heavy, too much. Lyndsay opens up about the toll that physical pain takes when you’re not numbing it, and how hard it can be to walk away from things—even when they’re clearly not serving you. She shares what it’s like to live in a body that feels like a battleground, and how something as simple as a swim can feel like coming home.
More than anything, she talks about finding purpose inside the pain. The power of community. The reminder that you are not your diagnosis. And the importance of setting boundaries that protect your peace—especially when life feels like a construction zone.
This one’s for anyone who feels like their body is breaking and their life is a little too chaotic to keep pretending everything’s fine.
Tune in if you’re craving honesty, connection, and a little more room to breathe.
Find The Pain Game Podcast Online Here:
Website: thepaingamepodcast.com
Instagram: @thepaingamepodcast
Facebook: The Pain Game Podcast
LinkedIn: Lyndsay Soprano
YouTube: The Pain Game Podcast
Episode Highlights:
(00:00) Introduction to Chronic Pain and Trauma
(02:38) Living with Chronic Pain: Personal Struggles
(10:54) Coping Mechanisms and Strategies
(16:57) Conclusion and Community Engagement
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:03):
This is Your Pain Game podcast where we talk about
the game of living in and with chronic pain and trauma,
getting to the heart of how to heal. I am
your host, Lindsay Soprano. On the show, I plan on
discussing with doctors, chronic pain patients, holistic practitioners, loved ones,
and anybody that is interested in having their voice.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
Heard in the chronic pain and trauma world that we
live in.
Speaker 3 (00:38):
Oh my god, you not want to do this right now,
but at the same time I do. I have been
sitting here rocking out to all kinds of different music,
and then I.
Speaker 2 (00:47):
Zoned in on an Offspring.
Speaker 3 (00:50):
And if you're in my age bracket, you're a big
fan of Offspring, And if you're not, then you can
just tune me off and never speak to me again.
But I've been baireing, like totally rocking out to Offspring
to put this episode together, and I'm not one hundred
percent sure why, but I guess we're gonna find out.
Right my feet, I'm literally sitting here doing this episode.
My feet are in this little bag that I actually
(01:14):
get from Rooted In, which is one of the affiliates
that we work with Plug Shameless plug for sure. But anyways,
I get this bag and I sit with my feet
in it, and it's got ice ice baby, So I'm
having a physical ice bucket challenge going on with my
feet right now under my desk, and I am unsure
who is winning outside of maybe a little THHC as well,
(01:38):
because I have been living in so much pain and
you know I don't take anything for it, so here
I am. I'm beat down, guys, I am absolutely exhausted.
So I started to like do this episode in the
dark because I like to turn the lights out because.
Speaker 2 (01:57):
It helps me. I don't know why it helps you,
but it does.
Speaker 3 (02:00):
And then the lighting was so bad and I looked
really ugly, so I turned the lights back on, and
I'm not happy about it. So I'm gonna leverage this
epic studio lighting that we have here so I don't
look like a total weirdo. Anyways, I was just telling
my sweetie that I don't want to do this. I
don't want to do this episode, this episode, this one
right now that you're listening to.
Speaker 2 (02:22):
I'm unfocused, I'm tired.
Speaker 3 (02:25):
I have one of my dogs behind me in the
corner snacking on something. I'm lonely. I'm lonely in this
I'm lonely in this pain. I'm lonely in the exhaustion
that comes from it. And I don't want to sound
like a broken record though, right, you know, like I
(02:47):
get on the show, I'm like yeah, yeah, bah blah.
I don't want you guys to think that I talk
about the same thing every day, expecting different results. But
I do expect different results. Ooh, that is not ad lindsay.
I do expect different results than sitting here with my
feet and moving my little toutsies around in my ice
(03:07):
cold bath here.
Speaker 2 (03:09):
I expect different results from this.
Speaker 3 (03:10):
I expect different results from us as a community together
to try to give our pain more purpose.
Speaker 2 (03:17):
So we're gonna do this today, right.
Speaker 3 (03:20):
So one of the things that I struggle with my
sweetie in particular is I'm like, I don't want to
do this, and he always says, well, then don't. And
that's a powerful statement for me because it can go
both ways, right. It can mean well, fuck, yeah, don't
do that, don't do that thing, don't do that thing
(03:42):
that somebody is asking to do or begging you to do,
or guilting you to do, or shaming you into doing that.
You're like, hell, no, go with your gut. Then there
is then don't, which is like for me, it's kind
of like a it's a challenge, right, it's a big
(04:04):
challenge room.
Speaker 2 (04:05):
Then don't do it all right, walk away? Oh well
then you better believe it, buddy, I am going to
do it.
Speaker 3 (04:10):
So take a beat on the then don't thing right,
So then don't do what doesn't serve you. But this
show here serves me. So as I opened up with
I don't want to do this, I didn't today. I
did not want to do this. I just want to
be in my pjs like sucking my thumb, not talk. Honestly,
(04:32):
I don't even want to talk to anybody or do
anything or or reply to to to text messages. I
don't want to do anything because I'm trying to keep
it together. Guys here, the past couple of months have
been brutal in the pain department. So much life stuff
has been going on that's simply just not calmed down.
(04:53):
And a lot of this is going to be first
world problems that I'm complaining about, and I apologize that
I'm doing this, but all of this has turned into
these first world problems, I've turned into a lot of
stress and all this that's going on. So a little
bit of perspective here my Sweden. I bought our house
(05:15):
in December of twenty twenty three. As I'm recording this
right now, it is June of twenty twenty five, just
a year and a half of construction.
Speaker 2 (05:23):
Have we lived here the whole time? No, no, we
have not.
Speaker 3 (05:27):
But since we started construction, it's been a daily back
and forth and back and forth, going from where we
lived and going back up to la going back to
northern Orange County. I mean, it's just been like so insane.
And now that we live here full time, our dog,
my little dog, is barking in the background because he's
super pissed off about this as well. I know, Tommy,
(05:49):
I feel you, bro. But now that we live here
full time, it's incredibly hectic. So all over the place,
the entire house is covered in this like.
Speaker 2 (06:00):
Like this freaking moon dust. It's everywhere.
Speaker 3 (06:05):
Like I went to go iron and I pulled out
an iron ore iron out of where I house it
and it was covered in dust and I used it
like two days prior. So it's not like it's been
sitting there. So anyways, my whole entire life is covered
in dust. And for somebody like me who has a
(06:26):
massive amount of OCD and as a project manager by trade,
so like everything I do is like seeing things to fermition,
like to fruition, seeing things come full circle, everything like, oh,
I see all, I see the light at the end
of the tunnel. I am still waiting for the light
at the end of the tunnel. I am still looking
for my little chotchkey from my fake store in Hollywood
(06:49):
with my moon dust.
Speaker 2 (06:54):
But all of this dust is just making me sick.
Speaker 3 (06:58):
It's making me sick. It's making me sick from a
like mental health perspective, I'm coughing. My allergies are out
of control? Is it what's going on right now? Like
in my areas a bunch of stuff blooming. I feel
like it's probably moondust that's happening around here, but everything
is covered.
Speaker 2 (07:17):
I'm sick and tired of contractors everywhere.
Speaker 3 (07:20):
I'm sick and tired of like random butts sitting on
my bathroom.
Speaker 2 (07:25):
So I'm I'm cleaning every bathroom every single day of
my life.
Speaker 3 (07:30):
Dear Lord, do you know how much TP these people use,
and also like where is everything?
Speaker 2 (07:38):
I'm living in a.
Speaker 3 (07:40):
Construction hell and a moving house, So everything's in boxes,
Everything's covered in plastic. Every I don't need. The labels
don't even mean anything on boxes anymore, because that room
is not the same room from the house that it
went from from the last place. I am in O, C. D. L.
And when you live in pain, all of this is heightened.
(08:04):
So every conversation that I have about the house, or
I'm about a decision that we have to make about
a silly thing like a sink or a faucet, again
first world problems. All of it is adding and adding
and adding and adding and adding to this list that
I feel will never have an end. And so with
(08:28):
that comes this unbelievable amount of stress, an unbelievable amount
of emotion that I feel like I can't even explain,
Like I just want to like scream at people do
not understand how hard it is to not a peace
in your living environment. I feel like a lot of
you understand this. If you have more than one child,
(08:50):
you have hecticity in your life. I have one, he's
seventy three years old, and then I have two Weenie dogs. God,
I don't know why you guys aren't filling my email
up with how are you doing, young lady?
Speaker 2 (09:07):
How are you hanging in there? Oh?
Speaker 3 (09:11):
My god, guys, it's just absolutely nuts. And you know,
all of that stuff, all the OCB, all of the
non cleanliness that's going on around here is making my
body feel like it's under attack. And I'm kind of
an emotional puddle about it, and I'm not really sure
how to handle that puddle. I'm like, just feel like
(09:31):
I'm putting a mop into the ocean and just trying
to mop the ocean out.
Speaker 2 (09:37):
But my body's under attack.
Speaker 3 (09:39):
And with that means that exhaustion, means that sadness, means
that heaviness. Oh speaking about heaviness. Okay, So this morning
I wake up from my knees down. It felt like
somebody had poured concrete into every nerve, every muscle, every fiber,
(10:01):
everything from my knees down actually really started for my
hips done, but the most pain started when it hit
my knees and it just felt like the concrete has
been in there all day and it hasn't yet set
to dry, but it's just getting there. Those are my feet,
that's what's been happening today amongst all the other bologna
(10:23):
that happens all the time, right, And this is how
I live, This is how so many of us and
pain live. We live in a place where we cannot
describe the sensation. They tell me to use the word
sensation for pain, where the sensation is happening in our body.
How is it possible that my brain is making me
(10:45):
feel this pain right now? And the way that it's
making that pain feel, I mean, it's just it's like, well,
it's mind boggling, it's out of control. And so all
of you that are listening that sleep next to somebody
that is groaning and moaning and crying at night because
they are in so much pain, we got you. And
(11:08):
for those of you that are doing all the moaning
and crying and sobbing and pain all night, we've got you,
because that's me and my sweetie every night. This is
the place that we live in. And we have this
amazing decision that we have to make every day. Right
to go back to the cement thing that I have
(11:28):
about my legs this morning, we have a decision to
make in regards to that, to let that cement dry
or to like keep that truck ooh, you know that
truck that moves in front of you. It's keeping the
concrete moving. It's still the same matter. Keep that concrete
moving before we turn into juzzleballs, before we turn into
(11:49):
sclurre derma, which turns your body into like stone. I
have a buddy of mine, in fact, it's my sweetiest
best friend who asks slurer derma turns yourself into like
biblical stone.
Speaker 2 (12:00):
It's nuts.
Speaker 3 (12:02):
So instead of turning ourselves into stone, let's just keep
on moving, okay, because that's the only thing that we
can do, or else we're just gonna end up being
those people that you know nobody talks about on shows,
that nobody writes books about that, your family doesn't talk
about it there at your funeral. Be the person that
(12:24):
you want to be, no matter what kind of cement
is running through your body, right because I am literally
trying to squeeze in recording these episodes through the amount
of concrete that's going through my body so that I
can be here for you guys today, And I am
not guilting you into listening. I'm just saying, man, I'm here,
(12:50):
you know, I'm constantly here. I'm not the chick that's
going to show up late. I'm not the chick that's
going to like, whoops, I forgot. I don't want to
be that chick, and I don't want you to be
that chick either. I don't want you to be your disease.
I don't want you to be whatever diagnosis that's been
given to you.
Speaker 2 (13:10):
No, no, no, no no, will you be you?
Speaker 3 (13:13):
You just have whatever they told you you have. You
just have it, you not are it right? So today
there are a couple of things that I did. I
called a polo. This is a new thing I might
be bringing into my show. Polo. I also like to
call my work husband. We met through friends of ours,
(13:36):
and within like twenty three seconds of meeting this dude,
he was like my bro.
Speaker 2 (13:41):
He and his gorgeous bride. We're at her wedding. So yeah,
I called a polo.
Speaker 3 (13:46):
So whenever I have something that I have a question about,
I say Marco and then here replies Polo, which is
his name. One of the things that I had to
do in regards to all this construction, because he's the
lead dude on all of our instruction, is to put
up a little bit better boundaries with the construction workers
and the time of when they arrive, because of course
(14:07):
they want to be here at the buck kraka dawn. Well,
we can't do that, and it's okay for us to
say no, to say beat it, to say, you know what,
I've got to make this work for my life and
my lifestyle, for my health. I was not doing that.
Does it mean that the project's going to take a
little longer. Maybe maybe it's not, because now I've got
(14:29):
these mofos focused on We've got three days to do
this stuff instead of fat see polo, that's what we're doing.
We're calling a polo. But it's also honoring and respecting
the fact that like, hey, a disabled human being lives
here in this house and lives in pain, and not
every morning is the same. So having those conversations with
people in your life, no matter who they are, and
(14:53):
establish some good solid boundaries is super important. But another
thing that I do is I do these positive affirmations.
And I know it sounds lame, and a lot of
you that do know that it doesn't sound lame, But
oh my god, I am on fifty five days straight
of affirmations on my phone and I love it.
Speaker 2 (15:13):
Do it.
Speaker 3 (15:14):
Figure out a way to do it. It is the
easiest thing you can do. It sounds stupid and it
feels stupid, like for the first three days, and then
after that, you guys just like jam it out. There's
another thing that I'd done that I really love, which
is batching. So for me, when it comes to pain,
I really struggle with being able to focus right. So,
(15:36):
like putting this episode together, when I said in the beginning,
I don't want to do this, a lot of the
reason why was because I was really struggling to focus.
Speaker 2 (15:43):
It was like fifty minutes, twenty minutes, thirty minutes.
Speaker 3 (15:46):
I couldn't figure out what I wanted to talk to
you guys about, and my outline wasn't working for me.
So I kept redoing it and kept redoing it. So
one of the things that I end up doing is
I end up doing this thing called batching, where I'm
just like, I'm able to sit there, I tune out
all the world, and I tell everybody that that's what
I'm doing. So you turn off your phone, you turn
off your kids. Oh my god, if only you guys
(16:07):
could turn off your kids, turn off your dogs. Nobody
wants to turn off the dogs unless they're barking. But
you know what I mean, turn off all the distractions
and batch get that stuff done. And then you don't
feel like, oh man, I only did ten minutes here
and I only got twenty minutes here. Do you never
feel really like you were accomplished during the day. And
I know moms feel that way. I know for me
in chronic pain, I certainly feel that way. And then
(16:31):
for me, man, oh man, do I in for a sana?
Speaker 2 (16:34):
I read?
Speaker 3 (16:36):
I also gave myself a gift of a day spa, right,
so I know this is not a first world thing.
Is everybody You can go pay for a twenty dollars
massage to do something for yourself. It doesn't even have
to be a massage. You can meet anything. It can
go strolling through Barnes and Nobles and just running your
fingers along the bindings of the books. It can be
(17:00):
anything you want. That day spot to be, that infrared
son to be, that reading to be, can be any
of that.
Speaker 2 (17:07):
You just have to give it to yourself.
Speaker 3 (17:09):
And if you say that you don't have thirty minutes
to do it, twenty minutes to do it. Ten minutes
to do it, you're lying to yourself, and you still
need to keep listening to the show, and of course
always sob I mean, if you're feeling like you need
to cry, let it all out. But the last thing
that I have been doing, and you guys can take
(17:31):
this literally or figuratively, I swim every morning and now
I've been swimming in the evenings as well. In fact,
I'm going to do this after I did this episode
that I did not want to do. It's more structured
than I normally do episodes, which is why I'm not
liking it. But I'm still doing it. But I go
out and I swim. It is the only place where
(17:51):
my body does not feel heavy.
Speaker 2 (17:55):
It feels at peace. It feels the light, and especially
in the evening.
Speaker 3 (18:00):
Tonight, the bubbles come out of my breath that I'm
holding in.
Speaker 2 (18:06):
And then they're colored.
Speaker 3 (18:07):
With the lights in my in my pool, which just
makes it all the more glorious. And it's the only
place that I pray. We're all struggling. Obviously I am,
but the only thing that I know that I have
in this life is you. So thank you for showing
up for me here right now today to listen to
this because this was a hard episode for me to do,
(18:30):
only because I didn't want to do it.
Speaker 2 (18:32):
I just didn't. I'm pooped.
Speaker 3 (18:35):
It's not my best work. I'm okay, and that's okay
for you too. So before we jam out of here,
I have a new thing called the Pain Game. Pain bites.
Actually I'm not even doing my whole spiel, that's how
tired I am. Go to the Instagram easy link in
our bio tells you everything that you need to do
(18:55):
and speak out loud.
Speaker 2 (18:56):
Talk about your pain.
Speaker 3 (18:58):
Talk to me about what's going on with you, and
I'm happy to talk about it on our pain baits
on Fridays. So you guys are exclusively invited to share
this under construction, absolutely exhausted vip pain journey together.
Speaker 2 (19:14):
Let's get to the heart.
Speaker 3 (19:16):
Of how to heal with you by my side. Please
follow the Pain Game Podcast wherever you digest your podcast content,
we will be there. Visit us at the Pain gamepodcast
dot com and follow us on all the socials.
Speaker 2 (19:30):
Thanks for listening to my little VIPs.
Speaker 3 (19:32):
Catch you on the other side of a nap that
your host most definitely Mats
This is Your Pain Game podcast where we talk about
the game of living in and with chronic pain and trauma,
getting to the heart of how to heal. I am
your host, Lindsay Soprano. On the show, I plan on
discussing with doctors, chronic pain patients, holistic practitioners, loved ones,
and anybody that is interested in having their voice.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
Heard in the chronic pain and trauma world that we
live in.
Speaker 3 (00:38):
Oh my god, you not want to do this right now,
but at the same time I do. I have been
sitting here rocking out to all kinds of different music,
and then I.
Speaker 2 (00:47):
Zoned in on an Offspring.
Speaker 3 (00:50):
And if you're in my age bracket, you're a big
fan of Offspring, And if you're not, then you can
just tune me off and never speak to me again.
But I've been baireing, like totally rocking out to Offspring
to put this episode together, and I'm not one hundred
percent sure why, but I guess we're gonna find out.
Right my feet, I'm literally sitting here doing this episode.
My feet are in this little bag that I actually
(01:14):
get from Rooted In, which is one of the affiliates
that we work with Plug Shameless plug for sure. But anyways,
I get this bag and I sit with my feet
in it, and it's got ice ice baby, So I'm
having a physical ice bucket challenge going on with my
feet right now under my desk, and I am unsure
who is winning outside of maybe a little THHC as well,
(01:38):
because I have been living in so much pain and
you know I don't take anything for it, so here
I am. I'm beat down, guys, I am absolutely exhausted.
So I started to like do this episode in the
dark because I like to turn the lights out because.
Speaker 2 (01:57):
It helps me. I don't know why it helps you,
but it does.
Speaker 3 (02:00):
And then the lighting was so bad and I looked
really ugly, so I turned the lights back on, and
I'm not happy about it. So I'm gonna leverage this
epic studio lighting that we have here so I don't
look like a total weirdo. Anyways, I was just telling
my sweetie that I don't want to do this. I
don't want to do this episode, this episode, this one
right now that you're listening to.
Speaker 2 (02:22):
I'm unfocused, I'm tired.
Speaker 3 (02:25):
I have one of my dogs behind me in the
corner snacking on something. I'm lonely. I'm lonely in this
I'm lonely in this pain. I'm lonely in the exhaustion
that comes from it. And I don't want to sound
like a broken record though, right, you know, like I
(02:47):
get on the show, I'm like yeah, yeah, bah blah.
I don't want you guys to think that I talk
about the same thing every day, expecting different results. But
I do expect different results. Ooh, that is not ad lindsay.
I do expect different results than sitting here with my
feet and moving my little toutsies around in my ice
(03:07):
cold bath here.
Speaker 2 (03:09):
I expect different results from this.
Speaker 3 (03:10):
I expect different results from us as a community together
to try to give our pain more purpose.
Speaker 2 (03:17):
So we're gonna do this today, right.
Speaker 3 (03:20):
So one of the things that I struggle with my
sweetie in particular is I'm like, I don't want to
do this, and he always says, well, then don't. And
that's a powerful statement for me because it can go
both ways, right. It can mean well, fuck, yeah, don't
do that, don't do that thing, don't do that thing
(03:42):
that somebody is asking to do or begging you to do,
or guilting you to do, or shaming you into doing that.
You're like, hell, no, go with your gut. Then there
is then don't, which is like for me, it's kind
of like a it's a challenge, right, it's a big
(04:04):
challenge room.
Speaker 2 (04:05):
Then don't do it all right, walk away? Oh well
then you better believe it, buddy, I am going to
do it.
Speaker 3 (04:10):
So take a beat on the then don't thing right,
So then don't do what doesn't serve you. But this
show here serves me. So as I opened up with
I don't want to do this, I didn't today. I
did not want to do this. I just want to
be in my pjs like sucking my thumb, not talk. Honestly,
(04:32):
I don't even want to talk to anybody or do
anything or or reply to to to text messages. I
don't want to do anything because I'm trying to keep
it together. Guys here, the past couple of months have
been brutal in the pain department. So much life stuff
has been going on that's simply just not calmed down.
(04:53):
And a lot of this is going to be first
world problems that I'm complaining about, and I apologize that
I'm doing this, but all of this has turned into
these first world problems, I've turned into a lot of
stress and all this that's going on. So a little
bit of perspective here my Sweden. I bought our house
(05:15):
in December of twenty twenty three. As I'm recording this
right now, it is June of twenty twenty five, just
a year and a half of construction.
Speaker 2 (05:23):
Have we lived here the whole time? No, no, we
have not.
Speaker 3 (05:27):
But since we started construction, it's been a daily back
and forth and back and forth, going from where we
lived and going back up to la going back to
northern Orange County. I mean, it's just been like so insane.
And now that we live here full time, our dog,
my little dog, is barking in the background because he's
super pissed off about this as well. I know, Tommy,
(05:49):
I feel you, bro. But now that we live here
full time, it's incredibly hectic. So all over the place,
the entire house is covered in this like.
Speaker 2 (06:00):
Like this freaking moon dust. It's everywhere.
Speaker 3 (06:05):
Like I went to go iron and I pulled out
an iron ore iron out of where I house it
and it was covered in dust and I used it
like two days prior. So it's not like it's been
sitting there. So anyways, my whole entire life is covered
in dust. And for somebody like me who has a
(06:26):
massive amount of OCD and as a project manager by trade,
so like everything I do is like seeing things to fermition,
like to fruition, seeing things come full circle, everything like, oh,
I see all, I see the light at the end
of the tunnel. I am still waiting for the light
at the end of the tunnel. I am still looking
for my little chotchkey from my fake store in Hollywood
(06:49):
with my moon dust.
Speaker 2 (06:54):
But all of this dust is just making me sick.
Speaker 3 (06:58):
It's making me sick. It's making me sick from a
like mental health perspective, I'm coughing. My allergies are out
of control? Is it what's going on right now? Like
in my areas a bunch of stuff blooming. I feel
like it's probably moondust that's happening around here, but everything
is covered.
Speaker 2 (07:17):
I'm sick and tired of contractors everywhere.
Speaker 3 (07:20):
I'm sick and tired of like random butts sitting on
my bathroom.
Speaker 2 (07:25):
So I'm I'm cleaning every bathroom every single day of
my life.
Speaker 3 (07:30):
Dear Lord, do you know how much TP these people use,
and also like where is everything?
Speaker 2 (07:38):
I'm living in a.
Speaker 3 (07:40):
Construction hell and a moving house, So everything's in boxes,
Everything's covered in plastic. Every I don't need. The labels
don't even mean anything on boxes anymore, because that room
is not the same room from the house that it
went from from the last place. I am in O, C. D. L.
And when you live in pain, all of this is heightened.
(08:04):
So every conversation that I have about the house, or
I'm about a decision that we have to make about
a silly thing like a sink or a faucet, again
first world problems. All of it is adding and adding
and adding and adding and adding to this list that
I feel will never have an end. And so with
(08:28):
that comes this unbelievable amount of stress, an unbelievable amount
of emotion that I feel like I can't even explain,
Like I just want to like scream at people do
not understand how hard it is to not a peace
in your living environment. I feel like a lot of
you understand this. If you have more than one child,
(08:50):
you have hecticity in your life. I have one, he's
seventy three years old, and then I have two Weenie dogs. God,
I don't know why you guys aren't filling my email
up with how are you doing, young lady?
Speaker 2 (09:07):
How are you hanging in there? Oh?
Speaker 3 (09:11):
My god, guys, it's just absolutely nuts. And you know,
all of that stuff, all the OCB, all of the
non cleanliness that's going on around here is making my
body feel like it's under attack. And I'm kind of
an emotional puddle about it, and I'm not really sure
how to handle that puddle. I'm like, just feel like
(09:31):
I'm putting a mop into the ocean and just trying
to mop the ocean out.
Speaker 2 (09:37):
But my body's under attack.
Speaker 3 (09:39):
And with that means that exhaustion, means that sadness, means
that heaviness. Oh speaking about heaviness. Okay, So this morning
I wake up from my knees down. It felt like
somebody had poured concrete into every nerve, every muscle, every fiber,
(10:01):
everything from my knees down actually really started for my
hips done, but the most pain started when it hit
my knees and it just felt like the concrete has
been in there all day and it hasn't yet set
to dry, but it's just getting there. Those are my feet,
that's what's been happening today amongst all the other bologna
(10:23):
that happens all the time, right, And this is how
I live, This is how so many of us and
pain live. We live in a place where we cannot
describe the sensation. They tell me to use the word
sensation for pain, where the sensation is happening in our body.
How is it possible that my brain is making me
(10:45):
feel this pain right now? And the way that it's
making that pain feel, I mean, it's just it's like, well,
it's mind boggling, it's out of control. And so all
of you that are listening that sleep next to somebody
that is groaning and moaning and crying at night because
they are in so much pain, we got you. And
(11:08):
for those of you that are doing all the moaning
and crying and sobbing and pain all night, we've got you,
because that's me and my sweetie every night. This is
the place that we live in. And we have this
amazing decision that we have to make every day. Right
to go back to the cement thing that I have
(11:28):
about my legs this morning, we have a decision to
make in regards to that, to let that cement dry
or to like keep that truck ooh, you know that
truck that moves in front of you. It's keeping the
concrete moving. It's still the same matter. Keep that concrete
moving before we turn into juzzleballs, before we turn into
(11:49):
sclurre derma, which turns your body into like stone. I
have a buddy of mine, in fact, it's my sweetiest
best friend who asks slurer derma turns yourself into like
biblical stone.
Speaker 2 (12:00):
It's nuts.
Speaker 3 (12:02):
So instead of turning ourselves into stone, let's just keep
on moving, okay, because that's the only thing that we
can do, or else we're just gonna end up being
those people that you know nobody talks about on shows,
that nobody writes books about that, your family doesn't talk
about it there at your funeral. Be the person that
(12:24):
you want to be, no matter what kind of cement
is running through your body, right because I am literally
trying to squeeze in recording these episodes through the amount
of concrete that's going through my body so that I
can be here for you guys today, And I am
not guilting you into listening. I'm just saying, man, I'm here,
(12:50):
you know, I'm constantly here. I'm not the chick that's
going to show up late. I'm not the chick that's
going to like, whoops, I forgot. I don't want to
be that chick, and I don't want you to be
that chick either. I don't want you to be your disease.
I don't want you to be whatever diagnosis that's been
given to you.
Speaker 2 (13:10):
No, no, no, no no, will you be you?
Speaker 3 (13:13):
You just have whatever they told you you have. You
just have it, you not are it right? So today
there are a couple of things that I did. I
called a polo. This is a new thing I might
be bringing into my show. Polo. I also like to
call my work husband. We met through friends of ours,
(13:36):
and within like twenty three seconds of meeting this dude,
he was like my bro.
Speaker 2 (13:41):
He and his gorgeous bride. We're at her wedding. So yeah,
I called a polo.
Speaker 3 (13:46):
So whenever I have something that I have a question about,
I say Marco and then here replies Polo, which is
his name. One of the things that I had to
do in regards to all this construction, because he's the
lead dude on all of our instruction, is to put
up a little bit better boundaries with the construction workers
and the time of when they arrive, because of course
(14:07):
they want to be here at the buck kraka dawn. Well,
we can't do that, and it's okay for us to
say no, to say beat it, to say, you know what,
I've got to make this work for my life and
my lifestyle, for my health. I was not doing that.
Does it mean that the project's going to take a
little longer. Maybe maybe it's not, because now I've got
(14:29):
these mofos focused on We've got three days to do
this stuff instead of fat see polo, that's what we're doing.
We're calling a polo. But it's also honoring and respecting
the fact that like, hey, a disabled human being lives
here in this house and lives in pain, and not
every morning is the same. So having those conversations with
people in your life, no matter who they are, and
(14:53):
establish some good solid boundaries is super important. But another
thing that I do is I do these positive affirmations.
And I know it sounds lame, and a lot of
you that do know that it doesn't sound lame, But
oh my god, I am on fifty five days straight
of affirmations on my phone and I love it.
Speaker 2 (15:13):
Do it.
Speaker 3 (15:14):
Figure out a way to do it. It is the
easiest thing you can do. It sounds stupid and it
feels stupid, like for the first three days, and then
after that, you guys just like jam it out. There's
another thing that I'd done that I really love, which
is batching. So for me, when it comes to pain,
I really struggle with being able to focus right. So,
(15:36):
like putting this episode together, when I said in the beginning,
I don't want to do this, a lot of the
reason why was because I was really struggling to focus.
Speaker 2 (15:43):
It was like fifty minutes, twenty minutes, thirty minutes.
Speaker 3 (15:46):
I couldn't figure out what I wanted to talk to
you guys about, and my outline wasn't working for me.
So I kept redoing it and kept redoing it. So
one of the things that I end up doing is
I end up doing this thing called batching, where I'm
just like, I'm able to sit there, I tune out
all the world, and I tell everybody that that's what
I'm doing. So you turn off your phone, you turn
off your kids. Oh my god, if only you guys
(16:07):
could turn off your kids, turn off your dogs. Nobody
wants to turn off the dogs unless they're barking. But
you know what I mean, turn off all the distractions
and batch get that stuff done. And then you don't
feel like, oh man, I only did ten minutes here
and I only got twenty minutes here. Do you never
feel really like you were accomplished during the day. And
I know moms feel that way. I know for me
in chronic pain, I certainly feel that way. And then
(16:31):
for me, man, oh man, do I in for a sana?
Speaker 2 (16:34):
I read?
Speaker 3 (16:36):
I also gave myself a gift of a day spa, right,
so I know this is not a first world thing.
Is everybody You can go pay for a twenty dollars
massage to do something for yourself. It doesn't even have
to be a massage. You can meet anything. It can
go strolling through Barnes and Nobles and just running your
fingers along the bindings of the books. It can be
(17:00):
anything you want. That day spot to be, that infrared
son to be, that reading to be, can be any
of that.
Speaker 2 (17:07):
You just have to give it to yourself.
Speaker 3 (17:09):
And if you say that you don't have thirty minutes
to do it, twenty minutes to do it. Ten minutes
to do it, you're lying to yourself, and you still
need to keep listening to the show, and of course
always sob I mean, if you're feeling like you need
to cry, let it all out. But the last thing
that I have been doing, and you guys can take
(17:31):
this literally or figuratively, I swim every morning and now
I've been swimming in the evenings as well. In fact,
I'm going to do this after I did this episode
that I did not want to do. It's more structured
than I normally do episodes, which is why I'm not
liking it. But I'm still doing it. But I go
out and I swim. It is the only place where
(17:51):
my body does not feel heavy.
Speaker 2 (17:55):
It feels at peace. It feels the light, and especially
in the evening.
Speaker 3 (18:00):
Tonight, the bubbles come out of my breath that I'm
holding in.
Speaker 2 (18:06):
And then they're colored.
Speaker 3 (18:07):
With the lights in my in my pool, which just
makes it all the more glorious. And it's the only
place that I pray. We're all struggling. Obviously I am,
but the only thing that I know that I have
in this life is you. So thank you for showing
up for me here right now today to listen to
this because this was a hard episode for me to do,
(18:30):
only because I didn't want to do it.
Speaker 2 (18:32):
I just didn't. I'm pooped.
Speaker 3 (18:35):
It's not my best work. I'm okay, and that's okay
for you too. So before we jam out of here,
I have a new thing called the Pain Game. Pain bites.
Actually I'm not even doing my whole spiel, that's how
tired I am. Go to the Instagram easy link in
our bio tells you everything that you need to do
(18:55):
and speak out loud.
Speaker 2 (18:56):
Talk about your pain.
Speaker 3 (18:58):
Talk to me about what's going on with you, and
I'm happy to talk about it on our pain baits
on Fridays. So you guys are exclusively invited to share
this under construction, absolutely exhausted vip pain journey together.
Speaker 2 (19:14):
Let's get to the heart.
Speaker 3 (19:16):
Of how to heal with you by my side. Please
follow the Pain Game Podcast wherever you digest your podcast content,
we will be there. Visit us at the Pain gamepodcast
dot com and follow us on all the socials.
Speaker 2 (19:30):
Thanks for listening to my little VIPs.
Speaker 3 (19:32):
Catch you on the other side of a nap that
your host most definitely Mats
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