Hi friends,
After last week’s airport-floor fiasco, this week felt… suspiciously calm.
No puking.
No mystery rashes.
No late-night “is this an emergency or just island life?” debates.
We slipped back into a nice rhythm of homeschool, work, and seeing friends — and I could practically hear my nervous system whisper, “Ahhh yes. This. We like this.”
Client-wise, though?
Chaos. Just in a different form.
Apparently, it is Back Pain Season™.
Which is unfortunate… because I am a card-carrying, deeply qualified member of the “My Back Has Betrayed Me” club.
If you’ve ever heard my origin story, you’ll remember my herniated disc era. The short version: it was a perfect storm of
• extreme stress
• extreme flexion
• and an overpriced workshop with an extremely confident “master” yoga teacher who thought my spine was… twistier than it was.
This was 2015, during performance prep with my dance company. The move that finally ended me? Slow-motion, core-controlled backward rolls across the length of the stage.
Very artistic.
Very controlled.
Very much a mistake.
I made it halfway before calmly announcing,
“Um… guys… I can’t move.”
Friend, I thought I had paralyzed myself.
The pain was instant — from my low back, down my sciatic nerve, all the way to my foot. My company members helped me crawl into a cab, where I laid flat across the back seat like a dramatic Victorian child on my way to the chiropractor.
What followed was a month of:
• Percocet
• muscle relaxers
• and the wildly vague advice to “walk as much as possible”
The pain lasted over a month and — bold claim — it was almost as bad as 72 hours of labor.
Almost.
The silver lining? That experience is the reason I do what I do now.
I was furious that no one could explain how to actually heal back pain. So I did what I do best (search the internet for random oddities) and found corrective exercise.
Which is why when clients come to me with back pain, I don’t panic — I shift straight into calm, grounded, we’re-not-doing-anything-stupid mode.
Is it fast?
Oh, goodness, no.
Is it sustainable?
Yes. Very much so.
I currently have a client who hasn’t been able to sit — not to eat, not to drive, not to watch TV — for two months.
Do you know what we do twice a week?
We breathe.
That’s it. That’s the headline.
We calm HIS nervous system. (I have 2 male clients at the moment with extreme back pain.)
We reconnect his diaphragm.
We rebuild his body from the floor up, one very unglamorous muscle at a time.
Most coaches aren’t willing to slow down enough to do this work.
And honestly? Most people don’t want to slow down either.
They want the stretch.
The crack.
The magic exercise they can do for three days before going right back to chaos.
That’s probably why I attract the “I’ve tried everything” crowd — and why I always wish I could meet them two years earlier.
Healing back pain isn’t about finding the perfect fix. You didn’t wake up broken one day. You arrived here by repeating the same patterns over and over — usually while being stressed, busy, and holding your breath.
Unless you were hit by a car or fell off a horse, most back pain needs a whole-body, foundational reset.
It’s slow.
It’s humbling.
It’s annoying.
But one day, you’ll move without fear and think,
“Wait… when did that stop hurting?”
These days, my back only whispers at me when I’m stressed — like a tiny smoke alarm reminding me to stop doing dumb things.
And when that happens, I don’t sprint to stretch my hamstrings or beg a chiropractor to fix me (both useful tools, just not first).
I lie down.
I breathe.
I rest.
I take care of my mental health.
I slow the heck down.
The world feels loud right now. Whether you’re doom-scrolling or pretending everything is fine, your body knows.
So your homework for the week:
Lie down.
Breathe.
(Do this back pain workout with me)
And if you want a coach who understands this work — someone who won’t rush you, scare you, or gaslight your nervous system — message me at [email protected] I’ve got you.
Sending big love,
Coach Joanie đź’›
I went back into my photo archives and found this: a birthday “gift” from a friend that year — Advil, arnica, rum and a back-pain patch. Nothing says celebration like pain management.
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