June 18, 2025

Breathing Through It

reflecting on usefulness and chronic pan

Quick Announcements

I’m running Get Unstuck & Move Forward: A Project Reset Workshop on Sunday the 29th. Recorded for those who can’t attend live.

This workshop is designed for anyone who wants to move past stuckness on a meaningful project. Together, we’ll explore why projects stall and use guided reflection and planning exercises to gain clarity on what moves your work forward. You’ll leave with practical strategies for breaking inertia and choosing your best next steps with intention. Learn more and sign up here.

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As I sit down to write this week’s newsletter, I’m thinking two things: one, my neck hurts, and two, I do not want my being in pain to obscure the usefulness of my writing to you. I suppose there’s a three, also: I know many of you also live with chronic health conditions, so perhaps you relate to this feeling of how much do I share/how much do I mask when I’m talking to people I want to respect and like me?

My since-October wrist and arm pain has extended now into my neck, which suggests a pinched nerve, and appointments have been scheduled with the spine doctor to further investigate. This is not my first rodeo of seeking diagnoses and relief for chronic pain, though it never gets easier to enter a doctor’s office and cross my fingers that I will be believed, or that the solutions offered will be helpful.

I find myself thinking well, of course I must persist. I must practice patience when my dog needs me to throw her stuffed turtle over and over to work out her energy when it’s too rainy to take her on a walk. I must take breaks when the laughably large head of farmer’s market lettuce needs to be rinsed of dirt, which requires looking down for many minutes, a current trigger for my neck pain. I persist, I wake up at 7:00am to feed the cats and put two breakfast cookies in a bowl for me and two in a bowl for Kris while they make our pour over coffees, theirs with milk and sugar and mine black. I do sudoku puzzles on my iPad in bed propped up with pillows, I put in my mouthguard and ear plugs and slip on my eye mask, I sleep, I wake up, I persist.

I find that my pain is soothed most when I truly slow down—which, of course, most things are. Counting 1 and breathing in, 2 and breathing out, 3 in, 4 out and so forth, starting over at 1 when I catch my mind wandering. My pain lessens its grip when Kris hugs me, or when I fall asleep on the couch with my cat Sam as the little spoon. My pain soothes when my beloved yoga teacher talks me through breathing into the clenched up parts of my neck, relearning how to move using my core instead. These slow moments of care and relief may be fleeting, but they help me persist and show up with kindness, because being kind is something I love about myself. Bodies are so weird, and mine is trying its best. I love my bent-out-of-shape body for giving life a go every day so I can do wonderful things like help people, cook good food, listen to jazz, and smooch my animals on their little foreheads.

Thanks for reading the update on my unruly neck, which I’m sharing because it’s honest and again, many of you are likely nodding your heads thinking, yep, me too. I’ll close by sharing a little list here of things that are offering me moments of respite right now while I figure out the neck pain. I hope this puts some smiles on your face during your own challenging times, as writing the list made me chuckle and smile, too…

• All of my amazing coaching clients are trying hard on their projects and I am honored to witness their strides, big and small.

• My cat Sam had to have almost all of his teeth removed (he recovered great and has a much better quality of life now without tooth pain) and when he open-mouth meows he looks like kermit the frog. Sometimes his tongue hangs out and it’s super cute:

  

• I love making my podcast and I’m going to start releasing two episodes per month in July! I’m blown away anytime anyone sends me word that they listened and liked it, and the podcast recently hit 500 downloads!

• The new video game Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is amazing and has some of my favorite things in a game: a party of characters, witty dialogue, robot bad guys, cute magical creatures, and turn-based fighting.

• I can work outside on our back porch and listen to the birds in the trees and watch the rabbits in the yard (it’s baby bunny season).

• The ice cream truck that drives by on our street plays music and a recording of a woman saying “hello?” that is so funny. Kris and I keep saying “hello?” to each other throughout the day in the ice cream truck voice and it’s a nice reset when we’re feeling too serious.

If you’re also navigating health stuff right now, I’m sending you all my love. And for all of us who are persisting with our days while holding heartbreak and rage over the cruelty of genocide, over the authoritarianism and ICE kidnappings in Los Angeles and throughout the United States, I’m here in solidarity with you, too.

Take good care, everyone. Talk again at the start of July!

Dr. Kate

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