Fibromyalgia Podcast®

With fibromyalgia, balancing acceptance and hope can sometimes feel a little like being stuck between a rock and a hard place.
Acceptance isn't about staying where you are. It's about embracing the unknown and allowing your body right now while being open to letting her be who she needs to be and become who she needs to become. On the other side, having hope for feeling better means that you believe life will get better, and you're open to trying different options and seeing what works.
Today, Tami is exploring how to balance the here-and-now focus of acceptance and the forward motion of hope. She's talking about her GPS analogy for understanding the balance between the acceptance of where you are and the hope of feeling better, what it looks like to aim for being accurate about your goals rather than aiming for perfection, making continuous assessments and adjustments on your journey, accepting your current reality, the moment Tami finally accepted where she was and the struggle to get there, the danger of getting stuck in acceptance, benefits, and challenges that can come with support groups, getting the proper support to help you move toward your goals, how being overly focused on feeling better can keep you stuck, giving treatments a long enough try to honestly know if they are working or not, recognizing that little bits of improvement stack up, how you can start to get unstuck, the benefits of working with a Certified Fibromyalgia Coach®, resources you can tap into if you're not ready to work with a coach, rethinking self-care, and more.
Tami's number one goal is that everyone living with fibro will feel like they are in partnership with their body. If you're not quite sure how to get there yet, this one is for you.
 
 
 
Note: This episode is not meant to be medical advice. Every person and every situation is unique. The information you learn in this episode should be shared and discussed with your own healthcare providers.
To learn more about the resources mentioned in this episode, visit the show notes.
For daily doses of hope, inspiration, and practical advice, join Tami on Facebook or Instagram.
Need a good book to read? Download Tami's books for free.
Ready to take back control of your life and health? Schedule a complimentary consultation with a Certified Fibromyalgia Coach®.

"Waiting until you feel better to start working on your health is like waiting until you're in shape to start exercising."
Have you ever wanted your life or your health to change, but at the same time, you weren't ready to change? Whether it feels like it's going to be too hard, that you need to prepare more first, or you're just not ready to give up something you enjoy, oftentimes our brain tries to protect us by putting up this resistance.
Tami has been there - and she's still there in some areas of her life! In today's episode, Tami is sharing her struggles with making necessary changes in her life and her strategies for creating a fibro life you love. She's talking about struggling with the desire to change while feeling resistance, the pivotal moment when Tami realized that waiting to feel better actually holds back your health, the flawed logic behind feeling "not that sick" or "too sick" to start making changes, starting with small steps and being willing to make mistakes, the necessity of actively engaging in health improvement, how our natural resistance to change protects us, understanding your Fibromyalgia Wellness Style℠, the conflict between wanting change and the reluctance to put in the necessary work, the stages of change model, moving through the stages of pre-contemplation, contemplation, preparation, and action, creating sustainable changes that you can maintain over time, the potential for relapse and common triggers, why we prefer to coach our clients for a full calendar year, Tami's experience with relapse and lessons learned, the difference between taking action and maintaining changes, aiming for continuous improvements in your health and well-being, starting before you're ready, immediate actions you can take, strategies for starting when you don't feel ready, recognizing feelings and habits before making changes, recognizing that building new habits takes practice and patience, how a Certified Fibromyalgia Coach® can help, and more.
You can't wait until you're well before you start to work on your health. You just have to start.
 
 
Note: This episode is not meant to be medical advice. Every person and every situation is unique. The information you learn in this episode should be shared and discussed with your own healthcare providers.
To learn more about the resources mentioned in this episode, visit the show notes.
For daily doses of hope, inspiration, and practical advice, join Tami on Facebook or Instagram.
Need a good book to read? Download Tami's books for free.
Ready to take back control of your life and health? Schedule a complimentary consultation with a Certified Fibromyalgia Coach®.

Whether we're talking about pain, fatigue, or brain fog, there's a massive difference between preventing your symptoms and trying to treat them after they've flared up. Getting your symptoms back to a manageable place in the middle of a fibro flare is like trying to catch a runaway train. Sometimes, when that happens, the only thing to do is to let the flare run its course.
Feeling helpless or out of control in a flare is not a position any of us like to be in, and that's where prevention comes in. When we take the prevention route, we develop systems and strategies ahead of time that set us up to feel our best. It means being aware of early warning signs so you can nip symptoms in the bud before they balloon into a flare.
Today, Tami is talking about how to shift your thinking from treating after you experience those symptoms to preventing those symptoms in the first place. In this episode, Tami shares what it is about fibromyalgia that makes prevention difficult, how explosive synchronization and central sensitization show up in our fibromyalgia symptoms, recognizing warning signs of an impending fibro flare, the importance of mindfulness and body awareness, what it means to write your body's owner's manual, how to start identifying your triggers and effective responses to manage your symptoms, practical strategies to switch from treatment to prevention mode, how the Pomodoro® Technique can help with balancing work and rest to prevent fatigue, how blood sugar imbalances can affect pain, modifying activities to make them more comfortable and manageable, speaking up for your needs early and clearly, increasing your self-awareness, planning ahead with strategies for preventing pain in specific situations, and more.
 
 
 
Note: This episode is not meant to be medical advice. Every person and every situation is unique. The information you learn in this episode should be shared and discussed with your own healthcare providers.
To learn more about the resources mentioned in this episode, visit the show notes.
For daily doses of hope, inspiration, and practical advice, join Tami on Facebook or Instagram.
Need a good book to read? Download Tami's books for free.
Ready to take back control of your life and health? Schedule a complimentary consultation with a Certified Fibromyalgia Coach®.

Whether we're talking about pain, fatigue, or brain fog, there's a massive difference between preventing your symptoms and trying to treat them after they've flared up. Getting your symptoms back to a manageable place in the middle of a fibro flare is like trying to catch a runaway train. Sometimes, when that happens, the only thing to do is to let the flare run its course.
Feeling helpless or out of control in a flare is not a position any of us like to be in, and that's where prevention comes in. When we take the prevention route, we develop systems and strategies ahead of time that set us up to feel our best. It means being aware of early warning signs so you can nip symptoms in the bud before they balloon into a flare.
Today, Tami is talking about how to shift your thinking from treating after you experience those symptoms to preventing those symptoms in the first place. In this episode, Tami shares what it is about fibromyalgia that makes prevention difficult, how explosive synchronization and central sensitization show up in our fibromyalgia symptoms, recognizing warning signs of an impending fibro flare, the importance of mindfulness and body awareness, what it means to write your body's owner's manual, how to start identifying your triggers and effective responses to manage your symptoms, practical strategies to switch from treatment to prevention mode, how the Pomodoro® Technique can help with balancing work and rest to prevent fatigue, how blood sugar imbalances can affect pain, modifying activities to make them more comfortable and manageable, speaking up for your needs early and clearly, increasing your self-awareness, planning ahead with strategies for preventing pain in specific situations, and more.
 
 
 
Note: This episode is not meant to be medical advice. Every person and every situation is unique. The information you learn in this episode should be shared and discussed with your own healthcare providers.
To learn more about the resources mentioned in this episode, visit the show notes.
For daily doses of hope, inspiration, and practical advice, join Tami on Facebook or Instagram.
Need a good book to read? Download Tami's books for free.
Ready to take back control of your life and health? Schedule a complimentary consultation with a Certified Fibromyalgia Coach®.

"Listening to your body is one of the key things you need to do to make everything else work."
Over the past ten years of teaching people about fibromyalgia, Tami has seen certain issues repeatedly come up that get in the way of the healing journey. Last week, during our Certified Fibromyalgia Coach® training class, a student raised an important question about how we identify these issues when we have a client who isn't improving as we would like them to.
The more you learn about fibromyalgia, the more aware you are of tools that could help you and why your symptoms may not be improving. At the same time, some less obvious issues often go unnoticed but must be addressed to make progress. Things like working with a doctor who doesn't quite know what to do with us, being in a season of life that doesn't allow us to prioritize ourselves, or unconscious trauma responses that block us from making the changes we need to.
In today's episode, Tami is sharing the top three hidden reasons why your fibromyalgia symptoms might not be improving. She discusses why not listening to your body can block healing (whether or not it's unintentional), the key difference between consciously ignoring your body and being unaware of what it needs, the benefits of writing your body's owner's manual, how trauma can make it harder to manage your symptoms, acknowledging that rest and awareness are essential for healing, how undiagnosed or undertreated health conditions can get in the way of your healing journey, underlying conditions that Tami had to address as a part of her fibro journey, advocating for yourself and finding medical professionals who listen, how fibromyalgia amplifies other sources of pain, the importance of being realistic and managing expectations, why some people may not be ready, willing, or able to do the work required for improvement, when it's okay not to do the work, support for those facing financial or geographic limitations, and more.
 
 
Note: This episode is not meant to be medical advice. Every person and every situation is unique. The information you learn in this episode should be shared and discussed with your own healthcare providers.
To learn more about the resources mentioned in this episode, visit the show notes.
For daily doses of hope, inspiration, and practical advice, join Tami on Facebook or Instagram.
Need a good book to read? Download Tami's books for free.
Ready to take back control of your life and health? Schedule a complimentary consultation with a Certified Fibromyalgia Coach®.