End of Summer Newsletter

What has pain taught you?

Author

Kat Whipple
August 30, 2024

The summer was full of ups and downs for all of us on many levels. I am curious…What has been your biggest teacher? What are you still letting go of or grieving and what are you receiving into your life or celebrating? What perspectives have changed, shifted or opened up?

Check out my coaching offerings below…

Pain, as my biggest teacher

I often joke that I am like Benjamin Button. In truth, I don’t know much about the myth of him except he was the man who grew younger as he aged. I feel this way because I can do more with my body now than I could when I was younger and because I still have childlike awe for the world around me. When friends of mine say, “I am too old to do that”, I always smile and think “this is the first time I can do this”.

My magic potion has been changing my relationship to pain to one of repair - listening and turning towards physical and emotional pain as opposed to pushing through, disconnecting or avoiding it. 

For as long as I can remember, I remember being in pain.  I was told I had muscular scoliosis as a kid, which the doctors explained to me as my muscles pulling on my spine in the wrong directions. It didn’t mean anything to me except that I wanted to cry most days just from carrying my backpack. I viscerally remember the feeling of sitting on a curb waiting for my mom to pick me up from school, when I was only 8. I was carrying a book bag with tears in my eyes, looking at the other kids and wondering why their bags didn’t hurt so much.

When I was 12 my mom took me to the doctors, because I had been complaining about my feet. They told my mother I had a rare disease in my feet that 90 year olds typically get. I remember the doctor telling my mother, “she can either be in a wheelchair for a year and it might help or she can learn to deal with the pain”. My mom asked me if I wanted to be in a wheelchair and I said no, so I learned to cope with the pain. It felt like knives driving through the balls of my feet with every step and nothing helped. I was still required to play sports in school. I never was great at sports as a kid, but they helped me learn to manage the constant pain by developing a lot of pain tolerance. 

I thought pain was part of sports. When I was only 20 and had been climbing for a couple years, I had every diagnosis - frozen shoulders, arthritis, and tendonitis. I pushed through them all. Even if I had to wake up multiple times a night in pain or cry myself to sleep, I would still climb. In all fairness it hurt just as much to do nothing, so fighting the pain to do something became another way I survived the pain.

In part because of all the physical pain, I also learned to feel less emotionally. Feelings are the way our body speaks and I didn’t think I could survive any more pain by listening to it. As a result, I gave my mind the job instead. I learned to think about my feelings, instead of really feeling them. It gave me the illusion of some control over all the pain.  

I was convinced I could keep pushing past the pain and feelings, and eventually I would overcome them. Unfortunately, what happened was a lot of unfelt grief and anger stored up in my body, causing more pain. It started to feel more overwhelming to feel sadness or even frustration. Every time I experienced a loss or disappointment there was a landslide of feelings waiting to erupt. I learned breathing exercises and meditation. I did all types of stretching, mobility, and cross training. I learned and used so many different tools to navigate emotions by training to be a therapist and working with kids. It all helped. But, I still kept getting bigger and bigger lessons to refine how to listen to my body and stop pushing through the pain and past the feelings. 

Breaking my back became a pivotal point of change, because it also coincided with big losses in my family, community and in my work. I remember a friend saying, “what is it going to take for you to take a knee”. With so much pain from so many directions, I didn’t have enough tools or support. And in my reluctant surrender, it revealed I was still leaning mostly on movement, doing or pushing through to survive pain and manage feelings. I had to give in to letting go of everything that felt most important at the time and with it the fight against change. I had to be with and be in it all.

I rebuilt my body like lego pieces. While also building new emotional tools to truly listen and feel. While I did the most excruciatingly small physical exercises that were more painful than anything I have ever experienced, I also surrendered to all the feelings. I learned to scream and ball my eyes out and pound the floor or a pillow until I started feeling instead of thinking about my feelings. I, bit by bit, taught myself to feel the underneath of the underneath, instead of falling into feeling like a victim. I grieved. I raged at my pillow. I surrendered to not knowing and not being able to do it on my own.  

I begin to rebuild the support systems around me and made them more sustainable. I learned to receive, and learned to keep receiving more support from others - more than I ever had or had ever felt comfortable doing. I learned to give in new ways, where I considered what I had to generously give while still holding boundaries of self love. 

I broke my back over 7 years ago, and today I can do what my 20 year old self never could - box (which I am still in awe of), rock climb, dance and simply live without chronic pain. I also feel more held, trust more and have a greater sense of belonging than ever before. My relationship with myself and with others has transformed and continues too - I am willing to share my feelings; turn towards the tough conversations and repair; celebrate and upride successes; and both give and receive reciprocally. I am still a work in progress. I still experience really tough lessons. I am still learning to listen more and refine how to better care for myself and others. I still make mistakes. I am still paying attention and always looking for novel ways to stretch and shift old outdated patterns into new patterns. 

But, through it all, I also found that pleasure lives alongside my pain and joy lives alongside my grief. And, my willingness to surrender to change, choose vulnerability, and turn towards my grief, my anger and what I most fear, holds in it endless possibilities of love, freedom, integrity, authenticity, community, generosity and new dreams. 

Thank you for reading my journey! I would love to hear from you and learn what pain has taught you?

If you find yourself wanting some support and are curious about what I do in my coaching, reach out! We can set up a 20 minute chat, so I can learn more about what type of support you are looking for and share with you about my approaches and techniques.

Read more of my writing on my blog.

OFFERINGS

Family Coaching Groups

Drop-in Group: Parenting with Support - Wednesdays at 12pm PST. Join any Wednesday, just reach out for zoom link!  

My dream is to disrupt the isolation in parenting and prioritize thriving family nervous systems, transforming generations through support and intentional community.  This group invites parents into a container of support to have the opportunity to parent together. All with the vision that more webs of communities and connections will grow from there.  Please reach out if you are interested in joining a parenting group and please share the opportunity with parent’s who you think might be interested!

One-off sessions available this month

Whether you have worked with me before or you are curious about working with me, or you are simply just need a novel approach or perspective…sign up for a one-on-one session to get the individualized support. I typically offer packages as opposed to individual sessions, so this is your chance to just sign up for one session, if that feels like it would serve you most! Connect 

Social Entrepreneur Networking Group - Mondays at 8am PT, join any Monday, just reach out for zoom link!  

Join a growing community of entrepreneurs from underrepresented or underestimated communities who are dedicated to giving back to their communities. We meet monthly to network, collaborate and dream up the world we want to co-create. Connect

Finding Hope in Times of Despair Writing Group : Moving Beyond Survival towards Nervous System Agility…Together building a new world for ourselves and the next generations Fridays at 8am PT, Join any Friday, just reach out for zoom link!  

Join a writing group that focuses on curiosity with prompts, sharing and community support around how we can all better support our nervous systems through inevitable change to build the world we want for ourselves and the generations to come. The group’s intention is to find hope in despair as well as agency in knowing when to stretch to take risks, and when to slow down and nurture - better caring for ourselves and others. Connect

Climbing Coaching

Check out updated website. Add climbing to your coaching. www.katwhippleclimbing.com

BUSINESS CORNER 

Where are your pain points with your business and what are they teaching you? 

What is one thing you could shift that would respond to a pain point? How is the pain helping you try something new? 

FAMILY CORNER

What’s one way you could listen in a new way to yourself, your partner, your community or your children? 

Is there anything pain is teaching you or a family member, physically or emotionally? How is the pain helping you discover something new?

If you are CURIOUS…connect with me for a 20 minute chat.