10 Challenges That Stop People From Healing Chronic Pain (And How to Move Through Them)

If you’ve ever tried to heal your chronic pain using a mind-body or TMS (Tension Myositis Syndrome) approach, you’ve probably hit some pretty frustrating roadblocks. You might even be wondering if you're doing it wrong or if it even works at all.

You're not alone. These 10 challenges are incredibly common when starting this process — and thankfully, so are the antidotes.

This is why I created a supportive pain relief community — to guide people through each of these steps, with real tools, group support, and lived experience. More on that below.

Let’s dive into the list! How many of them do you recognise in yourself?

1. Doubting the Process

This is one of the biggest blocks to starting. When someone tells you that repressed emotions or nervous system dysregulation could be causing your back pain, migraines, or IBS, it’s natural to be skeptical. It goes against so much of what we've been taught about pain being purely physical.

The TMS model can sound a bit out there, especially if you’ve spent years being told your pain is structural. So, many people delay starting for years because it just doesn’t feel real.

Antidote: Doubt is just another emotion. You don't need to be 100% convinced to begin. In fact, allowing doubt to exist in your system without trying to get rid of it is part of the work. The process is about learning to feel all emotions safely, including doubt.

2. Not Knowing How to Use the Tools

Meditation, journaling, self-talk — they sound good in theory, but most people don’t really know how to do them, especially in a way that helps with chronic pain. There's uncertainty around how to start, what "counts," and whether it's working.

Antidote: Get support and guidance. These are learnable skills. No one is born knowing how to meditate or journal through deep emotional patterns. That’s why I created the course and community — to help people learn the tools, get feedback, and not have to figure it all out alone.

3. Struggling to Build Habits

Even once you know what to do, it can be hard to keep doing it consistently. Life gets busy. Kids, work, health flare-ups — it all makes it tough to keep showing up. Plus, these practices often don’t bring instant results, which makes it tempting to stop.

Antidote: Focus on building habits in small, achievable ways. Use habit stacking, track your progress, and have accountability — whether that’s a buddy, a coach, or a group. Consistency beats intensity. Start small and grow from there.

4. The Healing Crisis

This one catches a lot of people off guard. When you finally start welcoming emotions that you've pushed down for years, the nervous system can freak out. This can feel like you're going backwards, or that the process is making you worse.

Antidote: Understand that this is normal. It's called a "healing crisis" for a reason. The nervous system is learning to tolerate more emotion and sensation than before. Like lifting a heavy weight for the first time, it’s uncomfortable but necessary. The discomfort means you're actually building capacity.

5. Setbacks and Relapses

You can be months in, feeling better, and then suddenly experience a flare-up of symptoms or a tough emotional day. This can trigger the fear that you’ve gone backwards or that nothing's working.

Antidote: Expect these days. Setbacks are part of healing. Healing is not a straight line — it’s a spiral. Each difficult day is a chance to deepen your resilience. This is where it helps to have people around you who've been through it and can remind you: you're still healing.

6. Relearning How to Feel

Most of us were never taught how to sit with our emotions. In fact, we were often taught the opposite: distract, fix, numb, or power through. So when you're told to sit and feel something like anger or fear, it can feel completely foreign.

Antidote: You're learning a new skill — emotional tolerance. And like any skill, it takes time. Be gentle with yourself. Use meditation and journaling to begin feeling little by little. And lean on support systems that help normalize the process.

7. Wanting Fast Results

After years of trying everything, most people are exhausted. They want something to finally work. And when they don’t feel relief quickly, they assume the process isn’t working.

Antidote: Shift your focus from results to the process. The irony is that healing often comes when you stop chasing it. When you begin to build a life that welcomes your whole experience — not just symptom relief — the nervous system starts to relax. That’s when change begins.

8. Perfectionism

Many people dealing with chronic pain have strong perfectionistic parts. And guess what? Those parts often show up in the healing process too. "Am I doing this right? Should I be healing faster?"

Antidote: Perfectionism doesn’t help you heal. Let go of the idea that you need to journal the "right way" or meditate perfectly. Let yourself be messy, inconsistent, emotional. That’s where the real healing happens.

9. Resistance to Slowing Down

For high achievers and go-getters, slowing down can feel unsafe or even threatening. Chronic pain often forces us to stop, and that can bring up feelings of failure or fear.

Antidote: Learn to reframe rest. Slowing down isn’t lazy — it’s powerful. It gives your nervous system space to heal. Start with small pauses in your day. Take breaks without guilt. This shift alone can be deeply healing.

10. Fear of Feeling Emotions

Many people are afraid that if they feel something intense — fear, shame, rage, sadness — they’ll be consumed by it. They’re scared the pain will get worse, or they’ll spiral into depression.

Antidote: You don’t have to feel everything at once. Titrate. Let emotions rise and fall. They will pass faster than you think. Resistance keeps them stuck. Allowing them moves them through.

Final Thoughts

If you’re struggling with chronic pain and feel stuck, these 10 challenges are not signs that you’re failing. They’re part of the journey. Every single person I’ve worked with has hit at least a few of these.

That’s why I created my pain relief community. It’s a space where you can:

• Learn how to use the tools properly

• Be held through healing crises

• Normalize setbacks

• And get consistent support as you build a new way of being

You don’t have to do this alone.

Ready to start healing ? Click here to join!