Welcome to the True For You podcast. This is your host, Renee Cupples, and this is a bonus episode. I recorded this episode earlier this year in April of 2026 when I was recovering from spinal surgery. And I felt a little bit vulnerable about posting this episode but I think it's important to share something even if you feel vulnerable about it. One of the lessons that I leaned into after being in pain was not resisting , like fully embracing the pain. Because in being in pain, I was also in a lot of fear, and it was really hard living in that much fear for so long. I'm grateful to be out of it. I'm grateful for the people that helped walk me through it. And thank you for listening.
The theme that has been coming up for me a lot in this season in my life is allowing. I spent over six months in pain from a bulging disc in my low lumbar spine, and as soon as I started experiencing the pain, I knew that it was different from normal pain. I've injured my back before and usually rest, ice, chiropractic, physical therapy and medication help it help ease the symptoms, and in this case, nothing was easing the symptoms. And when the pain began, only certain movements and sitting were causing the pain and the only comfortable position would be laying down.
And it was really interesting having to advocate for myself and I knew what was happening, but I couldn't get the treatment necessary in order to treat. So my insurance wouldn't approve an MRI unless I did physical therapy. So I did physical therapy, but each session was really, really painful and difficult. And, I finally was able to get an MRI, and they confirmed that I had a bulging disc, and that was likely the source of pain. I had shooting pain down my left leg and my foot was going numb, so I was working with an orthopedic surgeon to try to figure out what my next steps were, and one of the steps you can take is to get a spinal epidural shot at the site of where the disc is bulging, and sometimes that can help reduce inflammation and calm the disc down, so hopefully you stop experiencing pain. So I had that procedure done and it did not ease the pain.
So I ended up scheduling surgery to have a discectomy, which cuts off just the edge of the disc that's sticking out and, and wreaking havoc with nerves. And I was so calm going into the surgery. I had never had surgery before, but knowing that on the other side was gonna be no pain. I truly believed that. So I woke up in the recovery room and the only pain was the surgical incision. And I knew that was the only pain because medicine would treat it. When I took pain medication, the wound pain would lessen, but no more shooting pain, no more numbness and I could actually walk on my leg.
The recovery for the surgery that I had was four to six weeks. And I noticed that my biggest struggle post-surgery was not wanting to reinjure myself. So being afraid to do any of the movements that could potentially cause me to reinjure it 'cause reinjury is pretty common after spinal surgeries. So I didn't want, or I was told not to bend over, lift anything and to limit sitting, which I had to do when I was in pain anyway. But I noticed that I felt better and I could physically do those things, but I was absolutely terrified to do them because I didn't wanna re-experience the pain. Also, when I would get startled, that's something that would really cause me a lot of pain previously, so I noticed that would kind of trigger me. Anytime I would get startled, I'd be afraid. I was like afraid of falling. And it was just really interesting to kind of witness that. I knew I had the capacity to do it, but I was afraid. The doctor said, don't do too much too soon. And I said, you don't have to worry about me. I don't want to do anything 'cause I don't want to injure myself.
But I knew I had to, for my mental health, start doing some stuff to be able to feel confident in moving again. But it wasn't until week five that I felt like, okay, maybe I could like do some light yoga again or, you know, try to see how my body feels and , how it might adapt to, some movement after recovery.
So the theme is around allowing in that you can't always control the circumstances or I would say very rarely, right? Obviously you can make plans and there's gonna be things that get in the way and things that make life difficult and what would happen if we were to allow them to happen, right? Instead of it's not allowing your focus to be on them, but just allowing instead of, why is this happening to me? Just this is happening. Right, not to me. Take the personal out of it. And obviously things that happen to your physical body, in your family, with your loved ones, in your work life, all of these different things feel very personal. Even something that's happening to somebody else can feel really personal, right? If you have empathy for them and you're trying to hold space for them, but allowing things to be more neutral as opposed to there has to be a reason for everything.
A lot of times I think that I want to justify there being a reason for something when it's mostly that I'm kind of just mad that it's happening and it feels uncomfortable and I want it to go away, or I feel some resistance to it. I certainly have a lot of empathy for anybody who's experienced chronic pain. It really wears you down and it kind of consumes you and it's hard to see the other side. But now being on the other side, I think that maybe like the vibration of pain and of fear, kind of a similar vibration, just in survival. And just trying to get by the best you can, you know?
So what I wanna share today is just how can you allow? Even if it's something that is absolutely horrible and you don't want to accept it, how can you just allow it to be in order to move forward? So that's the season that I'm in. We're gonna be exploring some different themes in season three about maybe how to adjust your lens and look at things differently than how you've always been programmed to look at them. Wherever you are, sending you so much love. Take care.
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