Welcome.
I created Pain Coaching to meet the needs of people experiencing chronic pain and complex health situations.
Perhaps this is you.
You want to get better but don’t know how and need help, guidance and encouragement.
Pain Coaching emerged from my trainings (nursing, rehabilitation, physiotherapy, pain neuroscience, motivational interviewing, positive psychology, compassion focused therapy), experiences and philosophy, as a way of being.
Pain Coaching has a spirit.
This spirit is grounded in compassion, science, patience, acceptance, unconditional positive regard, and understanding.
It is designed to help people discover freedom and possibility in the lives.
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Some years ago I was asked to join a team providing comprehensive care for a person (client) who was suffering the consequences of addiction.
My role was to provide exercise, training, and health coaching alongside the various therapies they were receiving.
So began my work in mental health, although in reality all my work over the past 30 years has been with people experiencing varying degrees of depression, anxiety, addiction, personality disorders, and neurodivergence.
Fortunately, early in my healthcare career I learned to see you as an individual and not a label.
How does Pain Coaching Help?
At the heart of Pain Coaching is a focus on you, your needs, and what you want to achieve: a healthy and happy life.
When I think about it, what people really want is inner peace and freedom.
They are available.
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Pain Coaching helps you be present, to accept what has happened happened and could not have happened any other way because it didn’t (words of Peter Crone), which in turn frees you to be open to the infinite possibilities.
Pain Coaching is forward looking–a focus on what you want and where you are going.
You truly know the future is uncertain and this is why possibilities exist. It’s the limiting beliefs and certainty about the future that hold you back. These are old patterns, learned early in life.
Once the old beliefs are revealed they can be updated to truths.
Now you are free to practice new skills and habits, and commit to the life you want to lead and deal with arising situations with clarity, compassion and calm.
An important caveat about the picture of success you imagines: it is a direction.
No-one knows the future. No-one has control over outcomes, only the process that you commit to.
I call it “living yourself better“.
Pain Coaching is your guide, accepting you as you are, with your strengths and capabilities, until you accept yourself and are able to continue independently with confidence.
What do we do together?
With my extensive background there are many possibilities.
There are the skills, the habits and then how to practice in your world to get the best result: freedom.
This is the essence of coaching. It is a caring collaboration.
Here are some examples of the work we do together once limiting beliefs are let go of, truths predominate, and the direction is clear:
- exercise and movement
- personalised rehabilitation and transformation of pain
- breathing
- mindfulness and meditation
- habit formation
- skills to respond to challenges
- sleep habit
- relaxation
- positive work practice
- self-care
- communication
- skills of being and living well
What does the research say?
The work we do together is backed by research, science, and sense.
It has to make sense to you. Then you will engage.
A recent article (2025) entitled, “Could not prescribing exercise for depression be psychiatric malpractice?” highlighted the following:
- exercise has an anti-depressant effects comparable to medication and psychotherapy with simultaneous benefits for health
- exercise is efficacious in preventing a range of physical co-morbidities that affect people with depression
- a potential to reduce suicidal attempts in those with depression
- exercise has been adopted as a first-line treatment in global guidelines for depression
The authors argue the strong case for prescribing exercise as one of the main ways to help a person suffering depression.
A systematic review (2025) stated that increasing physical activity and reducing sedentary behaviour can improve health outcomes and reduce rates of premature mortality for people with severe mental illness.
The opportunities that arise from being active include:
- increase confidence
- autonomy and decision-making
- body sense and connection
- increase fitness, aerobic capacity, strength, mobility, balance–all key for wellness and longevity
- sense of achievement
- improved sleep
- engagement with the environment, nature, people
- positive effects on mood
- reframing and updating beliefs
- cultivating positive experiences
- a safe space to explore movement
A meta-analysis (2025) revealed leisure time physical activity as likely to yield the greatest benefits promoting mental health and preventing mental ill-health. The approach matters.
A systematic review and meta-analysis (2023) looking at the effects of aerobic exercise on physical fitness, emotional state and mental health of drug addicts concluded could that it effectively improve the physical fitness, emotional state and mental health of drug addicts, and reduce their drug addiction.
Finally, a systematic review and meta-analysis looked at the effectiveness of exercise intervention in improving physical and mental status of patients with alcohol use disorders. They found “exercise intervention can effectively reduce alcohol dependence and significantly improve the physical and mental states of AUD patients, and exercise intervention as an adjunct to the treatment of AUD patients is significantly effective“.
Summary
Pain Coaching is multidisciplinary. It is designed to help you understand the true causes of your pain and suffering and then offer you a way forward. Your way according to the life you are committed to living.
If you need therapy or medical interventions alongside, Pain Coaching fits.
I am here to guide and encourage.
The approach is grounded in science and sense.
The focus is on you, your needs and how you live yourself better.
The methods require no tech. They are all readily available wherever you are by design.
When you let go of limiting beliefs, pure possibility exists.
Let’s tap into it. Freedom and possibility.
Inner peace.
RS🕊️