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The Overexamined Life
The Cure for Chronic Pain with Nicole Sachs
Season 1, Ep. 6
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My guest today is the wonderful Nicole Sachs. She’s a writer, psychotherapist, and retreat leader, and has helped free hundreds of thousands of people from chronic pain, anxiety, and many other mental and physical conditions through her books, her retreats, and her podcast The Cure for Chronic Pain. She’s worked and lectured extensively with Dr. John Sarno to unpack ideas about the mind-body connection for pain sufferers all over the world.
At a personal level, I found Nicole’s work toward the end of my own chronic pain journey, and I truly wish I had found it sooner. Nicole is so fantastic at not only breaking down the science of chronic pain but also at really tapping into the emotional suffering that people with debilitating conditions experience. There’s something about her ability to tie together theory with deep, undeniable empathy that makes the science far easier to digest. There’s no distance, the way it sometimes feels like there’s a gap between patient and doctor.
I think that may be partly because of Nicole’s own remarkable story of recovery, which we touch on briefly in the interview. We also talk about the science of chronic pain and the nervous system, the role of identity in pain, insomnia, perfectionism, how to meditate in pain and for pain, and much more.
Find more of Nicole's work at https://www.yourbreakawake.com/ or The Cure for Chronic Pain Podcast.
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Email Jonah Primo at overexamined@jonahprimo.com
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