
When I first spoke to Valentina, she was exhausted.
Not just from her pain—but from the cycle of chasing relief and always ending up back where she started.
She was 38, an accountant, and her pain would come and go—but when it came, it took over her life.
“It always started in the same spot,” she told me. “Deep in my lower right back and glute. Like a burning knot I couldn’t stretch or rub out.”
She tried everything: massage, chiropractic, yoga, even sitting on a tennis ball. Sometimes it helped a little. But never for long.
What struck me most about Valentina was her curiosity. She had started noticing something strange.
She was training for a marathon—and during her long runs, sometimes two or three hours, she felt fine. No pain at all. But when she got home, showered, and sat down to relax?
“It would hit me out of nowhere.
Like the moment I stopped moving, it seized up.”
That was her first crack in the logic she’d always believed: that pain had a purely physical cause. And then she noticed something else.
Valentina wasn’t being dramatic. She adores her mother. But their relationship is… complicated.
Her mom is loving. But also judgmental. Overbearing. Intense. Valentina felt constant pressure to both care for her and win her approval. And the more we talked, the more she began to see the pattern:
“Every time she books a trip.
Every time she says she’s coming.
That’s when it starts.”
It was like clockwork.
Once she saw that emotional connection—once we talked through how the nervous system stores and expresses tension—something clicked.
Valentina didn’t stretch harder. She didn’t fix her posture. She didn’t find a magic chiropractor.
What she did was face something she’d never fully allowed herself to believe:
That her pain might not be mechanical.
It might be emotional.
It might be a protective mechanism—a way her brain was expressing stress it didn’t know how to process. And once she saw that fully, something remarkable happened.
“I haven’t had a flare-up since. That was six months ago.”
When I followed up recently, Valentina told me she’s still pain-free. She still runs. Still works full-time. Still sees her mom (but with healthier boundaries).
She didn’t suppress her pain—she unlocked it.
And all it took was the courage to look in a different direction.

Harvard researchers found that most spinal changes seen on MRI scans—disc bulges, degeneration —appear just as often in people without pain. These are normal signs of aging, not proof of damage. The true driver is often the brain’s over-protective alarm system.

Sometimes the pain isn’t coming from your body, but from the child within you who never felt safe to express anger or sadness. When we finally listen to that voice with compassion, the body no longer needs to carry the message as pain.

One day, you bend down to pick up a sock and your back goes out. You’re in agony. You miss work. You can’t sit, can’t sleep, can barely explain it. A doctor orders imaging. You hear vague language about a bulging disc or “degeneration.” Maybe you get a shot. Or pills. You’re told to rest.
You’ve fought hard and tried it all, but the burden was never yours to carry forever. Your brain is ready to reset, your body to feel safe again. Pain is not who you are - it’s time to reclaim your life.