Latest / Giving Pain Purpose with Lyndsay Soprano / Navigating Chronic Pain with Purpose + Support

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Navigating Chronic Pain with Purpose + Support · Giving Pain Purpose with Lyndsay Soprano

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This is Your Pain Game podcast where we talk about the game of living in
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and with chronic pain and trauma get into the heart of how to heal.
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I am your host, Lindsay Soprano. On the show, I plan on
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discussing with doctors, chronic pain patients, holistic practitioners, loved ones, and
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anybody that is interested in having their voice heard in the chronic pain and trauma
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world that we live in. Last week, I did a solo episode on
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how hard confronting the exhaustion, sadness, and anger and all the things that
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come with living in and with multiple chronic diagnoses and pain. You know,
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guys, I am absolutely exhausted. I am feeling better today than I've felt
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in months. To tell you the honest truth, I am just exhausted all
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the time. My brain, my attitude, irritability, my focus, even
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my hope, which we talk about all the time on this show. Right
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we talk about how I'm leaving these episodes with the message of hope, and
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I've had to remind myself to give myself a message of hope at the end
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of all of these episodes and at the end of every day, because it's
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really hard to wake up you know, and my hope, as I said,
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is kind of has been teetering lately. And all of this because of
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pain. Right, And we talk about pain obviously on this show constantly,
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and it's not just about the physical, it's the emotional side of it's it's
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our mental health. As we're going into the Mental Health month here of May,
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right, we're in it. I really want to talk about the importance
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of it because when you live in chronic pain and it's never going away,
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that is how I wake up every day, right, And it wears on
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you. And you know, when I first heard it in the pain community,
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when I jumped aboard the pain community, which is just such a great
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thing to jump aboard in. But I did not believe the people that were
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in the community that were saying it is going to end up wearing on you.
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It is going to change you. It's going to change how you view
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the world. It's going to change how you interact with the people that you
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love, right. And I didn't think that I would ever hit that place
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and that I would struggle to have purpose, that I would struggle to have
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meaning in my life. And then I have to circle back to remind myself
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of why I'm doing this show. This is my purpose now, because that's
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what life has dished me. And I don't want to wake up dreading the
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day. And unfortunately, I would say probably seventy five percent of the mornings
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that I wake up, I dread waking up. That is not the lindsay
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that I grew up being. Right, So now I've got to live with
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this fact, and I've got to shift that mindset, that dialogue that I
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have going in my in my head, you know, I'm chronically pained.
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I'm chronically worried about my future and when my bod is going to take me
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and my sweetie along with those of the so many other people that are in
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my life that are support. And don't get me wrong, I'm not giving
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up over here, all right. I just want you guys to know that
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I am really having a hard time right now, and I have been vulnerable
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and raw and open and honest with you from day one. So I'm going
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to continue to do that. And as you guys know, my sweetie is
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here huge support, my number one cheerleader. But there is one person in
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my life and I'm going to cry during this episode, So let me grab
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my tissues. Outside of my sweetie, who is, of course my number
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one cheerleader, there is one person in my life who has turned into my
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rock, my absolute best friend, my support, my partner in my business,
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and part of this show. She presented herself in My Life on January
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eleventh of twenty twenty three, when she was a guest on this show.
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You know, I've made some wonderful friendships over the years of doing this show,
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but she certainly takes the cake. She is my sounding board and we
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talk every twenty three seconds of our lives. And outside of my Sweetie,
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she is the one I run everything, and actually I run more by her
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than I do my sweet quite frankly, and I should probably consider giving her
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a raise. I would like to introduce you to my gorgeous and spectacular Rachel
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kalmart You. Hello, darling, Thank you for doing this with me today.
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My pleasure. Oh man, We've gone through a lot together in a
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year and a half of time, and I'm so grateful for having you here.
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So does a quick intro about who she is outside of me crying already
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on this episode, she is Rachel is the director of social media and marketing
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for my agency. Bound by marketing. She also holds these roles in the
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Painain podcast and is also has been hired as well to support My Sweeties show
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that he is launching in the coming weeks. So she is busy, busy,
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busy, supporting us on every front, both business and personal. She
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is from Toronto and she made me say this a city famed for its captive,
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eteen winters and rich maple syrup. She is a true Kanuk and pivotal
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force within my team and within my life and outside of her professional life,
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she enjoys wandering the city with her bernadoodle, Norman, who is also my
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dog nephew, with coffee in hand. So I'm gonna roll out the red
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carpet for you, babe. I would like to start talking about and I
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know normally this is more guest driven, but I really want to hear what
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you have to say in regards to working with me when it comes to what
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is the most challenging thing that you face dealing with somebody like myself that really
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suffers with chronic pain, and how you've watched me unfold over the past year
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and a half with my ups and my downs, and how challenging that is
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for you it's a good question. Yeah, I know it is. I
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think because you're not just my boss, and like you said, you're my
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best friend and you're also my rock. I think for me it's more emotional
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because I hate witnessing the struggles that you go through on a daily But that
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being said, part of it makes me use it as a huge motivator.
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I've told you many times that you are an inspiration to me because you go
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through the ringer and you show up day in and day out no matter what.
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So I mean, I do have my days that I don't you know
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that I do, and I have to not they're far and few between,
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are few and far between. However, the saying goes and I only think
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that their messages from the universe being like just slow down, and you know
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it's it's the time where I get to focus on work that I can just
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do without having to go back and forth, and for you to just focus
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on your body and no matter what, our stuff still gets done. It
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just ends up being a little bit of a quiet day between our communication.
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Like you said, our every twenty three twenty three seconds, so we're communicating.
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So I think I think more for me it's like I'm just you know,
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I'm sad for you, and I wish that you know there is something
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more I could do to help you. But from a work perspective, you
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know, we're pretty set up where I know what to do, I know
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where I'm going with it, and it's a I think for you, you
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can just know that things are taken care of and you have the ability to
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take that day for yourself and stuff will still get done. That you know
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you've allowed me, and that I've kind of moved into that role of taking
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over and shifting away from you, which I love. I love that you
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love it, and I love that you love it. And it's so interesting
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because for those of you that have known me for as long as some of
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you have known me for basically my whole life, and there have been a
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lot of you that came in twenty years ago and some of you that came
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in a year and a half ago. Right, I have run my business
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by myself for twenty four years outside of the time that Rachel has been part
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of my company here. I do have a gal, Abby who has worked
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with me for those twenty years, but she's very specific to what she does
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within my world. She just is in development for websites. That is what
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she does. All the rest of the stuff during the day, every single
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thing I've always done, and I've tried to hire people in the past that
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has never worked out. I'm a control freak. I'm always worried about making
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sure that everything is going to be done, everything's going to be done well.
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And what was happening is I was losing my ability to focus for long
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durations of time. Where I used to be able to bang out work for
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six hours, no problem, I can like sometimes only work for twenty minutes
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at a time. And it's been an incredible challenge for me to allow somebody
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to come in and really kind of take over for me. And you've actually
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kind of turned into my boss. It is true, and honestly I want
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to raise that it has like we when you think about where we started and
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how far we've come, I also have to applaud you. You have let
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go of a lot, and actually that was really challenging at the beginning too,
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where you know, I wanted to do certain things. There was just
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that you still have that like that hold on your visions. Yeah, I
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couldn't relinquish any form of control, and you worked through that and it has
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I think been a lifesaver for you. And it's totally been really helpful for
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me to grow within the brand and really kind of also put my own kind
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of touch on the brand in its own way. I'm so grateful, honestly,
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I'm I'm so grateful. I've had so much fun kind of giving your
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brand's almost like a little rebrand with you did absolutely and you're and you're touching
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all of these little spots within my business and then within my show as well.
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And for me, you know, trust and safety issues have always been
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part of my problem. You know, we all know that that's what happens
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with trauma. But I always have wanted to control stuff because I am.
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I am an out of control person. I'm wild and I'm crazy, and
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you know, I'm the cliff I'm the cliff jumper. You know, I'm
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a skydiver. I'm the person that takes all of these risks, and a
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lot of those risks that I've taken, and a lot of those decisions I've
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made over my years, good, bad and ugly have played a part in
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my healthcare, in my health right now. So I am aware that some
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of that stuff that I did as a younger person is crept up and I'm
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I'm I'm dealing with the repercussions and the consequences of some of that behavior.
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And so that's for a whole an other show. But it really is amazing
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that I found somebody outside of my spouse that I can trust with literally every
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single conversation and every single thought that I have in my brain. And you're
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the same, and you giving me your twenty three seconds, your every twenty
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three seconds, and vice versa. It's like in the morning when we wake
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up because we're three hours up. She's three hours ahead, so she's already
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gotten going, she's had her coffee, and I'm like, I'm dead,
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but I'm up so early because of my Sweeties show. Anyways, But if
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the first person I think of and I have to respond to you in the
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morning, I don't check anything before I check what's up? That's it.
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We need to know how did we sleep, how are the dogs, what's
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going on? We get a full run down. I wake up to let's
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say, if I've missed a text for you, or if I've already gone
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to sleep and you've updated me on something, So it's very much the same.
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But I will, like I will say too in you kind of dealing
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with your own struggles and me dealing with my own chronic I guess we could
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say chronic disease struggles. Yes, I sleep been through my fair share of
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chronic pain. I am dealing with, you know, similar to you chronic
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lime and all these different weird symptoms that creep up. I think it works
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out for us because we both are in the understanding that sometimes we're not going
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to have the best day or sometimes we're not going to have the best hour,
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and that means going to lie down for a little bit of time.
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And I'm so grateful for the understanding because you're like, go take your break,
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Go take your time, go, you know, go for a walk,
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go cry, go like, go do whatever it is that you have
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to go. Ball your maths, scare off women exactly so that you can,
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you know, feel better, feel at release, come back, you
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know, but take your time. And there's no real pressure on that,
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but the fact that I feel and know that I'm understood, so in moments
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where I'm having some off time, because you know, it has happened and
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it does happen, and it's not every day, but there are periods of
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time that I have my stick. You've got plenty of mischi gas going on,
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that's for sure, my little one exactly. And so I think like
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going both ways where we kind of both are very understanding of the struggle,
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and therefore the time that we need to sometimes take for ourselves is mutually beneficial
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without ad and we tend to be we tend to be the voice of reason
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for each other sometimes too, where I unwind in a darker way than you
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do, like I, because the CRPS is a very very scary disease.
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It fucks with your noodle man, I mean it, It takes you to
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places that I never thought I would go, and you go to those places
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with me and you pull me out. And I wanted to make sure that
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today I think you're going to make me for that, because you seriously have
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added such an incredible like piece to my pie that I don't I've never had
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a partner. I've never had you know, I've just I've never had somebody
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to that could really truly understand me and all of my own mischi goths.
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Right, and we're speaking Yiddish to those people that don't understand what we're using
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these terminologies. But you know, the things that we talk about, I
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mean sometimes they're pretty dark and twisty, and you kind of throw a little
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bit of bright colored paint at me, you know, you paintball gun me.
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I definitely, you know, and you're brutally honest, which is something
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that is very rare to find in friendships. I mean, guys, this
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girl is going to be in our wedding for crying out loud right, like,
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this is how important this woman is. She's on his side, which
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is even funnier. You know, I love it because she's become part of
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our family. It's not just she works with us, she works with my
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Sweedie and I too, So I mean, she's just such an incredible person.
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So I want to get into a little bit about the health challenges that
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you have faced, because that's how we initially started chit chatting with each other,
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and how we met was through potting about our health and our gut and
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why it is so incredibly important because that is still part of you and your
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life. And I think that you have a lot to add to this conversation.
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I appreciate that. Yeah, I mean, as you had mentioned,
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we connected because I, in my previous life had a business that was focused
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on gut health, pain management, you know, chronic illness. But I
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was I was finding that, you know, dealing with clients was a little
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bit too stressful for everything I had been going through at the moment and needed
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a pivot. And I I feel like it's still relevant. I'm still able
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to support you in certain ways while you're also working with your practitioners, and
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you know, we can talk about these things and go back and forth about
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what do you think about this supplement that I just got, and you're like,
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oh, that's interesting. Yeah, it definitely plays an important part.
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I have gone through the ringer with my health for honestly, my mom has
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photos of me sitting on the toilet as like a little girl being like she
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was like, you have always had stomach issues your literal whole life. I
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want to say. I got into university and the chronic pain got really bad.
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It kind of spread all over my body and I was going from doctor
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to doctor. I was getting nerve block injections, I was on pain medication,
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and I actually got this likelihood diagnosis of chronic fatigue immune dysfunction, and
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they were like, to me, you know what, the next half the
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year, we have a trial that you can be part of. And I
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said, heck no. I was like, this is not for me.
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There has got to be a better way. And that is really when I
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started my career in holistic health. I found certain diets, I found certain
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protocols, certain practitioners, and it just skyrocketed that aspect of my life.
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I did parasite cleanses, I did all the things, and it turned out
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I found out was it maybe February of twenty twenty or February of twenty twenty
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one. I did find out that it was lime that I had been struggling
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with, and a lot of different infections, you know, herbies and herpes
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HSB one, Herbe simplex virus one, HSB seven line. I have every
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HSB one through two hundred and twenty one, all of that, but not
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like I think what most people don't understand too is you know, you have
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line, but with lime comes certain co infections that are, if not as
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hard, harder to kill than lime. So you kind of learn these things.
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You find the practitioners that work for you. I have many, and
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they all kind of serve a different purpose some from functional to energetic is the
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right man, and I do feel that they all play an important role in
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healing, like you've spoken about on the show, holistic health, mind,
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body, soul, it's all, it's all, you know, it's all
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so relevant. And I've never understood the connection to energetics more than I do
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now because I've dabbled in that world with a great friend of mine, someone
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who you've now been introduced to. Yeah, she's an episode with us,
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Jordana, Yeah she is. She's fantastic. So, you know, as
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I've gone through the struggles, I feel like, in a way, it's
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kind of a blessing in disguise because I get the opportunity to share my knowledge
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with other people privately, because I don't do it as a business anymore.
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I do believe there's a purpose to it, one of them being. We
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connected so well because of that, and I am forever grateful the way You're
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forever grateful for me. I am forever grateful for you. I'm forever grateful
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for your sweetie. You know. It's you guys have changed my life in
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so many ways. And the fact that we also I get to contribute to
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this podcast and help other people navigate their journeys with chronic illness, pain,
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and trauma, recovery. Whatever it is that they are trying to work through
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is something that I am beyond incredibly grateful for. Well, it's rewarding and
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I and all of the stuff that you see, like in our social media
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for the show and all of that, that is all Rachel. That is
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not me. She shows me what she's doing and I say yeah, yeah,
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yeah, and big picture, like I don't even check her work or
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anything. But in the beginning, like she said, hold me talk about
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how hard it was for me to relinquish control. And now I'm like,
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oh my god, my episode's going out tomorrow. Like I totally forget because
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she is taking care of like everything for me, which is insane because I
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have a full time job running my Sweeties World and with his shows, because
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he's got a lot of stuff going on. You guys are going to officially
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meet him and get his name actually on Hunt with episodes, so you guys
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have a couple more episodes. He's finally coming on and doing a show with
20:07
me or an episode with me, so you guys get to finally meet this
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crazy ass lunatic that I'm marrying March twentieth of twenty twenty five. But we
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But you know, one of the things that you know that's so great about
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our relationship too, is you're You're an old soul, which is incredibly important
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for somebody like me. You have wisdom far beyond your years that you have
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been able to like implant into my daily Whenever I'm like starting a spiral,
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you come in with some stupid saying that just ends up changing my day and
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I'm like, well, that's my wisdom, girl, Like, You're so
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incredible in that regard, and I just wanted to point that out to you,
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to that old soul part of you is so important to me on my
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daily I do lean on your wisdom in so many different areas in my life.
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Anyways, it's a little bit of fan fair here today with you the
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day for it actually it is it is. I mean, we are so
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close. We actually take pictures selfies of each other when we're pooping, because
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that is how amazing we are. Because we literally are always dealing with our
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tummies and so we have to put up with a lot of stuff together.
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And we understand that you know today is not my day, and she's like,
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I got you, and then vice versa. I'm literally gonna melt down
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right now because of my dog Lindy. And then I'm like, you go
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just try it out, do your thing with Norm Okay. I mean we
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just we have such a good balance between the two of us, and it's
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refreshing. And it's good for people to know that do struggle with chronic pain,
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or that do work with people in chronic pain, or both of you
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live in this kind of world, that there are people out there that you
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can trust to help support you in your day to day. I mean,
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they are out there. Did it take me twenty four years to find her,
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Yes, it did, but it was well worth the way. But
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I just want to offer that hope because on my loneliest of days, because
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it's very lonely when you're in pain, you know, you can only say
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what you can say about how it feels, you know, Like I've always
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said, it always feels like I'm walking on legos and gravel and hot lava
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rocks and I've got hot lava worms running through my veins and whatever. I
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can only say so much. But when you do find somebody that has experienced
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the same sort of things in your world. It doesn't make you feel so
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alone. It doesn't make you feel like you're on this island, you know,
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because it can get so so so secluded where you're just like, what
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does it even matter if I'm alive? And those are some scary thoughts,
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and those are some things suicidal ideations that comes with chronic pain we hear about
22:49
all the time. I've lost a ton of people to suicide over the years
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of being somebody in this in this pain community. And it's very, very
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sad, some of which I've known, some of which I've just heard through
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the grain fine of being in the community. So it's a scary place in
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there. So for those of you that do work with people in chronic pain
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or do work with me, thank you for understanding that. I definitely do
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have more hard days lately than I normally do, but I'm pushing through it.
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And the number one reason that I'm able to get through it on my
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daily is because of my guest today, Rachel. That means a lot.
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She didn't cry because she cried before the episode. Is this actually well,
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thank you so much, Rach, I mean honest to God, I didn't
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know that it was going to be as much of a love story today as
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it ended up turning out to be. But it's totally true. It's totally
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Do you have any thank you babe? Do you have anything you want to
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leave our least listeners with before we hit the dusty trail? Honestly, I
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think if I can leave your listeners with one thing, it's that if you're
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struggling with any type of symptom and you have been told it's on your head
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to keep digging. If you have this gut feeling that there's something more going
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on, keep digging. There are a lot of practitioners out there who will
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do the digging for you. I think Lindsay and I can both speak to
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that and finding someone that works for us to find out the root cause,
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because at the end of the day, you can take as many drugs as
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you want, but finding out the root cause of what's causing your symptoms is
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going to be the only way to overcome them for the most part. So
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I think if I can leave you with one thing, it would be to
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follow your instinct, keep digging, and you will get through it one day
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at a time. If not one day, one hour, if not one
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hour, one minute, and that's what I would have to say. Thank
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you, thanks for being here with me today. And guys, if you
24:55
are fans of burn A Doodles, she literally I send all of my Instagram
25:02
reels because you know, it's girls. All we do is communicate and reels
25:04
now, back and forth. I've got my top, my my five besties,
25:07
and we all are sending each other our reels all day. That's how
25:08
we're communicating that we're alive. And okay, you can follow Norman her Berna
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Doodle at Norman the Berna Dude, Norman the b E r n E d
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o O dee. This dog is huge. We call him the hippo now.
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And but you also get to get a taste of Rachel as well and
25:33
how loving and caring and awesome. And it's that's who I That's who I
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talk to is Norman the Berna Doodle. I don't even talk to her on
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social media. It is ridiculous. Thanks again for spending time with us today
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here, rach I really appreciate it. You are exclusively invited to share this
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friendship through pain Berna Doodle Extravaganza vip pain journey together, Let's get to the
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heart of how to heal with you by my side. Do you know somebody
26:03
who needs to hear this conversation today? Do you need to hear it?
26:07
Are you living in a place where you don't have somebody that you can do
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every twenty three seconds with, Well, you've got me and you've got Rachel.
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We might have to do like every twenty six seconds because we've got to
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fill you in. If there's someone that you love that is struggling in any
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of these departments that we've talked about, or you're just feeling alone and on
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an island in your own pain, whatever that might be physical or emotional,
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it's all pain is pain is pain right. Welcome to the Pain Game Podcast.
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Let's connect and hear your stories. Reach out to us if you need
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anything at all. We are here to hear and share your powerfully amazing stories,
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no matter how sad or how happy they are. We're here to offer
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hope to everybody that listens to this show. Please follow the Pain Game Podcast
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wherever you digest your podcast content, we will be there. Visit us at
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the paingamepodcast dot com and follow us on all the socials, the ones that
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Rachel is putting up. Thanks for listening my little VIPs. Catch you on
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the other side.