Introduction of Host and Guest
00:00:01
Speaker
Welcome back to the Children's Health Podcast, Christian Jordonov here. I'm an author of a book on autism and children's health. I'm a certified functional diagnostic nutrition practitioner. And if you or a loved one or your child has a health issue of a chronic nature that you've not been able to get any help with or you're unsatisfied with the help you've gotten from the medical system, please use the links down below to get on my website, schedule a 15 minute free consultation with me.
00:00:30
Speaker
to see if I can help you with those. There is always answers. There's ways to improve your health. You don't have to suffer in silence. You deserve to thrive, and I can help get you there faster. So don't hesitate to book a free consultation with me.
00:00:45
Speaker
That's enough about me. Today, I am happy to introduce my guest. Her name is Lauren Rose. She has a podcast called It Hurts to Mom. And let me just welcome you on to the show, Lauren. Thank you. Thank you for having me. And I think let's just have you go into your story. It's quite touching. Let's just start there and see where it takes us.
Lauren's Journey with Chronic Pain
00:01:14
Speaker
Sure, so I live with chronic pain. I've had some form of chronic pain since I was about 15. It started as migraines. And then when I was 35 and 36, I started having debilitating spinal pain to the point where I had to stop working. It was so bad I could barely walk.
00:01:31
Speaker
And so I went on short-term disability, which is six months away from my job trying to get better. I went through physical therapy. I was getting steroid injections, but instead of getting better, my spinal pain actually spread to the rest of my body, to the rest of my joints. So now my, you know, my shoulders and my hips and my knees and my hands, everything hurt then. And then just for fun, while I was on short-term disability, I developed fibromyalgia.
00:02:00
Speaker
So not only did I have joint pain, I had nerve and muscle pain all throughout my body. So needless to say, I could never go back to work. My short-term disability expired and I couldn't go back. And I was really devastated. I loved my job. I loved what I did. And I loved having a career and a job.
00:02:23
Speaker
And so I spent about the next two years in a really deep depression. I was really grieving. I didn't realize it at the time, but I was grieving. I was grieving my loss of functionality, my loss of my health, my job. And most importantly, I was grieving what I felt was my purpose in life. I felt like now that I've got chronic pain and I can't work, what is my purpose in life? And that was really difficult. So I spent about two years just mainly in bed.
00:02:53
Speaker
I had a four slash five-year-old daughter at the time. And as long as she was in preschool, I was in bed. I mean, I was just really, really depressed. You know, breathing manifested a lot of ways. It could manifest as anger, but you know, which I was angry a little bit, but I was angry at my body. You know, I wasn't angry at the world. I was angry at my body for betraying me. And so I just really sink into that deep depression.
Mindset Shift and Community Support
00:03:20
Speaker
I remember one day when my daughter was five, I just kind of looked at her from the bed and I realized this isn't the legacy I want to leave for my daughter. I don't want her to remember mom who was always depressed and in pain and in bed all the time. That's not how I want her to remember me, so I knew I had to do something different.
00:03:40
Speaker
So, I joined a Bible study, a book club. We were reading this book called, It's Not Supposed to Be This Way. And I felt like that book title just completely described my life because it's not what I had been working for and planning and dreaming of. I didn't plan to have chronic pain and have to stop working. So, we were reading this book and two things really came out of it. One is one of the ladies in my book club
00:04:06
Speaker
She runs a nonprofit called Grateful Gratitude, and she's all about gratitude. And so she told me every single day, whether I want to or not, practice intentional daily gratitude, three things every single day. So I started that practice, which really helped change my mindset from everything I'd lost, everything I didn't have anymore, to the things that I still could do, the things I still did have. And that was huge for me.
00:04:33
Speaker
And the second thing the book club did for me was in the book, it talked about how God could take a broken life and make something new and beautiful out of it. And if God doesn't resonate with you, you can just substitute, I can make something beautiful out of my life. And so I realized my life didn't have to be over, which is kind of what I've been thinking for those two years. It was basically my life is over. I can't work. I can't take care of my family. I can't do anything.
00:05:00
Speaker
So I didn't know what I was going to do, but I knew I was going to do something. So just to get some community in my life, I started joining forums, Facebook groups and apps for people with chronic pain. And I started just connecting with them, encouraging other people with chronic pain and depression, anxiety and trauma, other things that I deal with. And I felt joy in
00:05:27
Speaker
helping them feel like they aren't alone. Because chronic pain can be a very lonely journey it has been for me.
00:05:34
Speaker
Cause we put on a happy face cause we don't want to look like we're complaining. So it's, it's just very lonely and I just felt a lot of joy in, in encouraging people. So I started a blog and then pretty soon after that I started my podcast and I now just feel like my purpose in life is to encourage other people with chronic pain parents, especially because you know, parenting adds a whole other layer, you know,
00:06:03
Speaker
to my situation. Yeah, yeah. So you have just the one daughter? Yeah, she's 10. She's 10, yeah. Yeah, I mean, we actually both myself and my wife, we have sort of back problems for various reasons. So last year, early last year, actually, I kind of pulled the ligament really badly in my lower back, putting my daughter in the car.
00:06:32
Speaker
And I still haven't healed. So I'm actually like, I can resonate, I guess, not to that level, but just what the horrible, horrible quality of life that it has been dealing with the pain. Even today, like I.
00:06:49
Speaker
whatever i do playing with my daughter doing other stuff for sitting on the computer i'm actually taking aspirin now it's rather kind of experimental purposes and stuff like that but aspirin really helps me to help me to realize first of all how much pain i'm actually in and how
00:07:07
Speaker
much of a better mood. I mean, when I'm not in pain because of pain killer, you know what I mean? So yeah, it's the challenge of raising kids on top of that. Again, not to a great degree, but to a degree, we definitely resonate with that with my wife.
00:07:24
Speaker
Yeah, and statistically one out of five people has some kind of chronic pain in the world. So 20% of the world's population, apparently including you, has some kind of chronic pain. So there are a lot of us out there, and yet it can feel so lonely at times, and that's what I'm trying to change. So we'll talk about the parenting aspect, but how are you with it now? Have you actually found anything that's helped you over the years with the pain?
Reframing Pain and Treatment Challenges
00:07:54
Speaker
I'm working on it. Doctors can only do so much is what I've realized. And I tried a lot of things and not much of it helps except for painkillers. And that's just temporary. So what I do now is I try to reframe my thoughts about my pain. So instead of
00:08:14
Speaker
saying, Oh, I have a stabbing pain into my hip. Because if I'm saying a stabbing, and I'm saying the word pain, I'm judging the discomfort. So instead, I try to just say, Oh, there's a discomfort in my hip, or it's not as comfortable as I'd like it to be. And that's really hard. It doesn't work all the time. But sometimes it can just help not make it worse to just feel the sensation without judgment and without calling it pain, if that makes sense.
00:08:44
Speaker
Sure, sure. Yeah, which I've tried many things well. Aspirin seems to really help. But what about, have you ever considered cannabis? I know some people get help from that.
00:08:59
Speaker
Well, it's not, I guess medically it might be legal in my state. I'm not sure if it is. I definitely can't smoke. I have a bad lung. I had lung surgery when I was 23. So that's not something I could smoke. But right now I'm in pain management. And so I can't even have CBD that has THC in it. Oh, wow.
00:09:22
Speaker
I get in trouble because I tried it and I got in trouble for that with pain management. So I definitely couldn't couldn't try that while I'm seeing that kind of doctor. Yeah, that sucks, man. So what are some of the tell us about some of the challenges as a parent with with this sort of, I would venture to say almost debilitating at times pain. Yeah.
00:09:43
Speaker
It is. And when it's debilitating, there's not much I can do. And I'm very blessed to have a daughter who's very loving and nurturing and understanding. So she likes to take care of me when I'm having really bad pain. But if it's not debilitating and it's just medium to bad, I do my best to spend time with her. And she just wants some quality time with me.
00:10:08
Speaker
So it doesn't matter if I'm lying on the couch playing a board game with her. If I'm lying on her bed playing Barbies, she just wants 20 minutes of my time and then she's good. So that's what I've learned is just a little bit of quality time here and there is all she needs and she's, she's good. Then she can go on and entertain herself, but she just wants to see that I love her and she's really good about seeing that I really do try my best to spend time with her. Yeah. That's awesome. Yeah.
00:10:35
Speaker
So how would you, if someone out there has some type of chronic pain, what advice would you give them knowing what you know over the years, what you've learned?
Framework for Living with Chronic Pain
00:10:45
Speaker
So I kind of have a four-point framework for living with chronic pain. The first tip I have is to talk to your family and friends about it, not just once, but have a continual conversation. I do that with my daughter, and so she's very understanding when I can't do something for her.
00:11:04
Speaker
and keep it age appropriate, but I've had chronic pain her entire life, so I've been talking to her about this since she was three years old. And they've got a book called, Why Does Mommy Have to Hurt? And it's specifically about fibromyalgia, but when I was reading it, I would just insert my own illnesses in there. I would just say arthritis and fibromyalgia. And it really just helps kids see on a kid level that mommy's trying her best, or daddy, you can make it whatever you need.
00:11:32
Speaker
My second tip is to enlist help. So whether that's with your partner or your kids, kids love being independent. They love doing things on their own. So they can do a lot of things that we don't have to do for them. I also believe in supplies like back braces or earplugs if you've got migraines and you've got a crying baby, that was really helpful for me.
00:11:57
Speaker
My third tip is just practice self care and I don't like the word self care because it's just so overused and people think you have to go to the spa or go get a massage or take a bubble bath. But it's things like just making sure you're getting enough sleep and doing something that you love every day.
00:12:15
Speaker
And I've got like a little calm down box and it's got something for each of the five senses in it. So when I'm feeling anxious or I need some comfort, I go in there and I just eat the chocolate that's in there or listen to the songs. Another, you know, element of self care is stopping the negative self talk.
00:12:35
Speaker
I feel like I can acknowledge that I might feel like a bad mom, but I have to remember that I'm doing the best I can. So I need to acknowledge both of those things. Self-care can also include therapy, it can include medications, it can include supplements, natural remedies, anything you have to do to be the best version of yourself, I think is part of self-care.
00:12:59
Speaker
And the last part of self-care is listening to your body. So allow yourself grace. If you need to stop an activity because it hurts too badly, definitely stop. Pace yourself. Don't try to do everything at once because you'll end up paying for it. I know if I'm having a decent day, I try to do everything and then I'm in bed for the next three days and it's not worth it.
00:13:22
Speaker
And I've also learned to modify my tasks, so it hurts me to stand. So I do all of my chores sitting down. I mean, I can do dishes, I can cook, I can clean the bathroom, I can mop and sweep all sitting down in my house, and I do all of that.
00:13:40
Speaker
And my fourth tip we've kind of already touched on is just be present. Your kids don't care if you're only spending 20 minutes here and there. They just need to know that they're loved. And for a lot of kids, getting that attention is the way that they see that they're loved. Yeah, yeah. So put the phone away.
00:14:04
Speaker
Yeah, the phone is not going to show your kids that they're loved and all kids need attention. So it's really important. Yeah, that's something I need to be better with. I tried to, but you know, like today I spent the whole morning with my daughter and I just need to, I need to be checking emails once in a while. So she doesn't look like offended or anything, but I'm also like, I have to stop this. Like when you work from home kind of thing, it gets hard. So it's, Oh yeah.
00:14:35
Speaker
That balance is tough. So let me see now what else to talk about. So you gave us some good tips there.
Support and Communication in Relationships
00:14:49
Speaker
What about in terms of your partner, in terms of the support, is there anything you wish you would have known earlier on in terms of the communication aspect, in terms of getting that support that you need?
00:15:05
Speaker
I'm really lucky. I have a very supportive husband. I judge myself a lot if I can't get the dishes done during the day and I just have to stay in bed all day. He's very good at not judging me and reminding me to give myself grace and not judge myself.
00:15:23
Speaker
Um, so in terms of something I wish I had known I guess I wish I I Would be a little bit more honest with him about how badly i'm doing he'll ask You know, how's your pain and i'll say oh it's not too bad or it's just a normal level of pain when actually it's like a little bit worse than i'm Really letting him know just because I don't want to sound like i'm complaining all the time. Yeah, so I I kind of
00:15:49
Speaker
undercut how much pain I'm in sometimes just so that he doesn't feel bad for me or so that I don't feel like I'm complaining.
00:15:59
Speaker
And I don't want to sound like I have an axe to grind with the medical system, but what would be your level of satisfaction with the help and support you received from them over the years? It's terrible. Absolutely terrible. It took 20 years for me to get a good handle on my migraines.
00:16:19
Speaker
And I'd seen every kind of doctor, I'd seen herbalists, I've seen acupuncturists, and none of them were able to take care of my migraines for 20 years. And as far as my body pain, my rheumatologist, nothing that she's tried has worked, so she's not doing anything for me right now. And my pain management doctor is just giving me pain medications and
00:16:49
Speaker
steroid injections. And the insurance company is even worse because they're denying steroid injections that I need. They like to deny things. So I feel like there's only so much doctors know. There's only so much they can do. And with chronic pain, they're just not good at it.
Critique of Medical System and Self-Advocacy
00:17:14
Speaker
They're not good at getting to the root cause of things and I'm definitely not satisfied. I feel like there's something I need to be doing on my own separate from what they're doing or in addition to what they're doing. I just haven't quite figured out what that is yet.
00:17:33
Speaker
Well, if you want, we can talk after I actually have some ideas. In fact, there's evidence that certain gut bacteria are a causal factor in rheumatoid arthritis. I don't know what kind of arthritis you have, but I can bounce some ideas off you in case you feel like it's worth researching further yourself so we can talk about that after. Sure.
00:18:00
Speaker
Yeah, because this is one thing that really annoys me is that after all the hundreds of billions spent tax money in all the research, NIH and all this stuff, people, yes, if you break a leg and everything else or have a car accident, they'll stitch you up and save you. But most people are just suffering from chronic
00:18:23
Speaker
conditions for decades and they're getting zero. In fact, more often than not, they're getting made worse by the medical system. These steroids, they're immunosuppressive, so in the long term, they're detrimental to the immune system.
00:18:46
Speaker
It's kind of, I don't even know. I mean, on my other podcast, we bash the medical system much more. But I tried to be a little bit more balanced because parents are coming for, for tips and advice. But that is one tip is to, to really try to take, take matters into your own hands and start, you know, researching things for yourself because you are likely to, to be a better doctor for yourself than your own doctor.
00:19:14
Speaker
Yeah, I agree. If it's an acute problem, like you said, like you've got a cold or you've got a broken leg, I think the medical system is fine. But when you have chronic issues, it's just not cutting it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So what are some other lessons that you've learned along the journey and with your pain? Well, one of them I just mentioned that, you know, doctors are only human.
00:19:37
Speaker
They don't know everything. Sometimes they're wrong. I've also learned to listen to my body. If my body is in pain, there's a reason. It's trying to communicate something with me. Maybe it's trying to communicate that I've got inflammation or maybe that I, you know,
00:19:55
Speaker
work too hard yesterday. But it's trying to communicate something with me. And another lesson I've learned, which was a big one for me, is that nobody's going to take care of me except for me. If I don't go out and try to advocate for myself, nobody else is going to do it. I remember I had a really bad migraine one time.
00:20:14
Speaker
And I was trying to leave work early and my boss said no, and it was excruciating. I didn't know if I could handle it. And he was, he just, he just said, no, you can't leave. You have to stay in work. And I remember after that, I realized nobody's going to help me except for myself. So if, if I need to call in sick, which I never used to do for my migraines, but if I need to stay home and take care of myself, I need to do it because nobody's going to, going to help me besides myself. Yeah.
00:20:44
Speaker
Yeah, that's it's kind of shocking to see that. I mean, I know in the States that I've heard some moms would give birth and two weeks later they're back in work. And like the level of sympathy is pretty much non-existent when it comes to employers and their kind of their employees having issues.
00:21:03
Speaker
Yeah, luckily, I didn't have that problem. But I remember I had a boss and he was so proud that his wife was was back at work a couple of days after having her baby. And like, that's not something to be proud of, you know, moms and babies need that bonding time. And, you know, a lot of moms just, they just go back to work so soon and they don't get that. And I think that's detrimental to their babies.
00:21:30
Speaker
Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah.
Resources and Advice from 'It Hurts to Mom'
00:21:33
Speaker
So tell us about your podcast. It hurts to mom, which to be honest, honestly, I think you should be cold. Feel free to reject this, uh, this working title. It hurts to mom and it hurts to dad. I'm sure a lot of dads out there in a lot of pain as well. Oh, absolutely. It hurts to parent. Um, so my podcast is for parents or anyone struggling with chronic pain.
00:22:00
Speaker
And I have medical doctors, I have functional medicine doctors, I have people with chronic pain, I have parenting experts. We talk about parenting, we talk about chronic pain and illness, we talk about random life things. But every episode ends with some kind of advice because the same advice isn't gonna work for everybody. So I try to get as many perspectives in as possible so that maybe something will help the people that are listening.
00:22:28
Speaker
Awesome. So it's, it hurts to mom. I'm going to have the links for the, for the listeners to check it out. Do you do any consultations or things like that? I saw you have a shop on your website. What, what other, do you have any services or products you offer?
00:22:44
Speaker
So I have a freebie on my website, which is 30 ways to relieve pain without taking a pill. And I also just released a workbook called exploring how your emotions relate to your chronic pain. And it goes through, and that's because 50 to 80% of physical pain can be from emotional pain. And so it goes through trauma, suppressed emotions, grief, and forgiveness.
00:23:10
Speaker
And just to have the reader, the listener kind of explore and journal about each of those four topics to see if there's anything stuck inside of their body that hasn't been released yet that might be causing their physical pain.
00:23:25
Speaker
You know, that's something I kind of was afraid to bring up, but you know, I didn't want to be intrusive or anything. But since you kind of brought it up, have you considered that maybe the source of your pain could be some type of trauma or suppressed emotions or unprocessed grief?
00:23:45
Speaker
Absolutely. When I was 35, I went into a four week inpatient pain recovery program in a hospital. And so I was there for 28 straight days, day and night. And that's where I learned that a lot of physical pain is from emotional pain.
00:24:02
Speaker
I had a significant amount of trauma in my late teens and early 20s that I didn't process at the time because once it was over, I thought, okay, what's over? It's not going to affect me anymore. I'm just going to live my life. I stuffed it all in and I'd already been used to stuffing my emotions and because when I was growing up, my dad didn't let us have emotions. We were just supposed to keep them all to yourself. Unless you were happy, that was fine.
00:24:30
Speaker
but you couldn't be embarrassed or sad or angry or anything like that. So I'd been used to my whole life stuffing everything down. So it was really easy for me to just not process my trauma. And so the last couple of years I've actually been in trauma therapy and I've started working through that. I'm also working through forgiveness. I think lack of forgiveness is a huge, could be a huge part of physical pain.
00:25:00
Speaker
which is really hard because there are people that I don't think deserve to be forgiven, but I need to forgive them anyway. So I definitely think that, I mean, I do have biological, physiological reasons for my pain. I have inflammation, I have degeneration, but I think the emotional aspect of it might be making it all worse.
00:25:23
Speaker
Oh, yeah, for sure. It can't make it better. I mean, it can it can make it better if it's positive emotions. Sure. But if it's negative stuff for sure, it can be helping because we have a whole sort of branch now of medicine, psycho neuro immunology.
00:25:42
Speaker
and you can crowbar and the chronology in there, psychoneuro and the endocrine immunology or something like that where the mind and the body we know now are inextricably linked. So something in the mind will manifest in the body and likewise if you're in pain physically it will
00:26:05
Speaker
it will kind of ruin your day as I have figured out. I would be short with my wife or people around me, I'd be snappy, I'd be cranky, would just not have joy as much as... And honestly, now I'm doing this sort of self-experiment. I'm kind of a big supplement geek, so I'm doing a lot of constant experiments with stuff, but this aspirin experiment has really shown me
00:26:33
Speaker
what it's like to forget having pain for a few hours. It's been like that for like three years now since I wrote my book. Basically, when I wrote my book, I spent eight, nine months at the computer like 14 hour days, destroyed my neck. Now, when I sit at the computer, even for half an hour, my whole neck spasms up. I have a range of motion is messed up. My chiropractor will snap it back in place.
00:27:01
Speaker
But then even like the next day if I spend the day at the computer it goes back So it's it's it's a literally an occupational hazard to use a computer and to be sitting down So yeah, just taking an aspirin or a couple of aspirants just gives you this
00:27:20
Speaker
I know it's numbing the pain. The worst part is that I am actually more prone to sit with bad posture and injure myself more. So then the next day when it wears off, I'm like in pain more like today. God damn it, why do I do that? I have to be more disciplined about it, you know? But yeah, definitely just having
00:27:43
Speaker
Having a physical thing will affect the mind. Having a mind thing will affect the physical. It's just they're two sides of the same coin. Absolutely. You're absolutely right. And have you have you ever experimented with emotional freedom technique, by the way? A little bit. I'm just now starting to the EFT. I learned a little bit about it in in trauma therapy. So I'm just starting to.
00:28:14
Speaker
Yeah, I've looked at the research and it literally helps people with pain, physical pain, depression, PTSD, and they've done quite a lot of research now over the last 10 years or so. So I actually recommend this to all of my clients, mostly, to be honest, mostly females, they seem to
00:28:33
Speaker
resonate more with it, but I recommend it to all my female clients. And the ones that have tried it definitely are reporting benefits, usually more for psychological stuff, anxiety and stuff. But it's quite amazing that it will literally... They've done some research where
00:28:53
Speaker
It literally improved biomarkers like blood pressure heart rate variability cortisol was reduced i remember in the follow up and that was after a four day workshop on the ft that the study participants did.
00:29:09
Speaker
That's really impressive. I love natural techniques. And I had a lady on my podcast who healed herself of 12 years of debilitating back pain through things like EFT and yoga and inner child work and mindfulness. So I absolutely believe that those things are helpful. But speaking of sort of inner child work, have you ever heard of a guy called Mark Wolin?
00:29:34
Speaker
I don't think so. So he wrote a great book called It Didn't Start With You, right? And basically, Jesus, it's probably three or four years, four years since I read the book. But basically,
00:29:53
Speaker
It's also an audiobook. Basically, a lot of his work is around people that basically carry generational trauma. And sometimes, like let's say you're 29 and you get a weird, like your right arm gets paralyzed. Forget the actual stories.
00:30:15
Speaker
in the book or like you start experiencing horrible debilitating illness at a specific age then when when they do sort of the historical background checks of your family history they can sometimes it correlates with let's say a parent like for it could be like a
00:30:35
Speaker
uh like a parent or a grandparent that got injured let's say in the war for example or someone had an accident uh so it it in some people the the cause the traumatic cause of whatever illness or condition is sometimes it's not
00:30:58
Speaker
from this sort of life, but it could be something from a path. So that's kind of, I suppose if you've exhausted many other avenues, that's one thing to definitely look into. I think his book is a really good list and I think I listened to the book and I have actually, I have the book. It was so good, the audio book that I bought the physical book as well. It's that good, that book.
00:31:20
Speaker
Yeah, Mark Wolin. I actually invited him on my other podcast. It was three years ago. And his assistant said something like he was just writing another book. So emailed us later, she said, and then I forgot to email them. And then it's like, I'm on to other things now. But yeah, Mark Wolin, it's for anyone listening if you're interested in the generation of trauma. Because what's interesting is that when you are pregnant with your daughter,
00:31:50
Speaker
I think around the fourth or the fifth, somewhere around there, that time is when the baby, the fetus starts developing the eggs. So there, one of those eggs will be potentially one of her daughters. So that daughter has a connection to her mother,
00:32:18
Speaker
and her grandmother at that point. So whatever imprinting happens, whether it's genetic, epigenetic, or morphogenetic, we don't know, but it's definitely a thing. That's why it's important for us to resolve the issues in the current lifetime, because it's very likely that our children will inherit some of them. In fact, that's when I was reading that book,
00:32:44
Speaker
was basically two, three months before we got pregnant, well, before my wife got pregnant with her daughter. And we were trying to like work out some, you know, just stuff trauma, everybody has trauma. So we're trying to do that before we got sort of pregnant.
00:33:02
Speaker
By the way, I'm kind of throwing this out there and I'm not even joking here because I've read some books on the power of ayahuasca to heal. Have you ever considered ayahuasca? Some people have amazing recoveries just from ayahuasca.
00:33:21
Speaker
No, I have no idea if that's even legal in Texas. No, I think the book I read, he was a medical doctor, and he studied with the shamans in South America, forget where, I think in Peru. And he was a medical doctor in the States, but I think he was from Peru originally, or one of those countries, I forget which, maybe Uruguay. But anyway, now currently he's organizing
00:33:46
Speaker
trips for people to go so in that book is where he was talking about psycho neuro immunology so if you is something in the psyche changes literally the neural the nervous system
00:34:00
Speaker
The immune system and endocrine or hormonal system can have positive effects. I forget some of the stories in the book again because I read that three or four years ago as well.
00:34:16
Speaker
They were just like the most incredible healing experiences were documented in that book. And a lot of people have had that, but I just threw it out there in case because in this life, you just never know who you're going to meet, that they're going to put a plant, a seed that may lead to you finding somebody that could then help you, you know? Absolutely. Yeah.
00:34:43
Speaker
All right, so this was a pleasure, Lauren. Is there any parting words of wisdom you can give to any folks out there that are suffering and have kids?
00:34:51
Speaker
Sure. I don't believe that our circumstances control our attitudes or our destiny. We do. So we may have to live with chronic pain or another difficult circumstance, but we don't have to actually suffer from it. Suffering is a choice that we make. So just keep that in mind that we are in control of our attitudes and we're in control of where we take our lives. Love that. Yes. Suffering is a choice. I really like that pain.
00:35:20
Speaker
Probably we cannot escape forever, but suffering is created by our thoughts really at the end of the day, isn't it? Yeah, so Instagram it hurts to mom YouTube it hurts to mom Facebook it hurts to mom and you have the podcast it hurts to mom yeah available on all
00:35:43
Speaker
all podcast platforms. So we'll have those links in the description folks in case you want to connect with Lauren. And yeah, Lauren, thank you so much for coming on the Children's Health Podcast. This was a pleasure. Thank you. I've enjoyed it. Bye.