When most individuals consider continual ache, they envision an unrelenting, all-consuming expertise. At 19 years previous, psychotherapist and licensed medical social employee (LCSW) Nicole Sachs was confronted with this harsh actuality. Identified with a degenerative spinal illness, she was instructed her situation would considerably restrict her life. Following a number of years together with her illness, her ache shifted from acute to continual. When her medical doctors really useful spinal fusion surgical procedure—with none assure of full ache reduction—she discovered herself asking a profound query: “Why precisely do individuals endure [from chronic pain]?”
The query led Sachs to discover the character of continual ache and search a path to therapeutic her personal. Sachs found the work of Dr. John Sarno, who was treating sufferers with continual sicknesses utilizing a holistic mind-body method. She turned his affected person and discovered that the debilitating sensation of ache is brought on by mind indicators that disrupt the nervous system. The answer got here within the type of an expressive writing method known as JournalSpeak, which makes use of journaling to course of feelings and repressed wounds.
The holistic method was life-changing for Sachs, enabling her to resolve her continual ache with out surgical procedure or medical injections. “I understood the mind science behind continual ache, and I understood that, sure, the ache is completely actual. It’s not in your head. You’re not making it up, however the resolution isn’t in altering your bodily physique,” Sachs says.
Her discovery turned the muse of her future work, serving to different sufferers with continual ache. Collaborating with Sarno, she helped unfold the attention of continual ache administration via the mind-body method, emphasizing that the ache is rooted in mind science. Whereas the speculation would possibly sound unconventional, the observe has change into a treatment for tons of of 1000’s of people that take part in JournalSpeak.
The three-step method
In her latest launch, Thoughts Your Physique, Sachs simplifies the method into three steps. “Thoughts, physique, drugs is a paradigm, and the holistic method is to know that… [yes,] certainly, the ache isn’t in your head, however it’s being expressed via your physique and generated by your mind,” she explains.
Step one is perception. She stresses it’s not a religious or a magical state of affairs—the ache is actual and contains numerous situations like long-term COVID-19, continual ailments and bowel issues. Most significantly, the ache is detachable. The second step is to know the mind science behind the ache. Lastly, the third step is to take part in JournalSpeak to launch the ache.
“After we spend all our time self-loathing, it truly places our nervous system right into a state of hazard. We really feel that we’re being attacked, however we don’t notice that we’re attacking ourselves. And so I train individuals this three-pronged method, and so they get higher in, you realize, actually phenomenal style,” Sachs explains.
After gathering 20 years’ value of practices and numerous human tales, Sachs believes Thoughts Your Physique is the most effective of all the things she has taught. The e-book covers the most recent science-backed analysis—from a Harvard Examine to MRI research on ache processing, neural pathway adjustments and nervous system regulation—together with particular person tales from individuals of all genders, cultures and financial teams. It gives readers a complete overview of self-help and a toolkit to resolving continual ache.
Spreading consciousness
Sachs has change into a distinguished voice for continual ache victims. “I wished to take this message out of the 4 partitions of my psychotherapy workplace … I wished it to be on this planet.” Increasing her attain, she self-published her first e-book, The That means of Reality: embrace your reality. create your life in 2016 and launched her YouTube channel in 2017. Her podcast, which started throughout the early COVID period, shortly gained a big following. “It’s a fairly beautiful expertise to listen to each particular person say time and again, ‘My goodness, this work modified my life.’ It’s actually wonderful for me as a result of I simply love that.”
Along with her digital platforms, Sachs teaches a weeklong retreat on the Omega Institute in upstate New York each June. The transformative expertise admits tons of of continual ache victims. A day on the retreat begins with Sachs instructing the foundational ideas, mind science, methods for journaling and meditating. The ground is then opened for attendees to share their tales. “It’s like going to an grownup summer time camp,” Sachs says. “You realize, it’s simply an immersive week.”
Nonetheless, Sach’s message extends to well being care professionals, too. Sachs says, “Persons are at all times asking me, ‘How do I clarify this to my therapist?’ You realize, ‘How do I get you an individual who’s now not in personal observe and doesn’t have time to have particular person conversations?’” In collaboration with Christina Sarno, a psychotherapist and daughter of John Sarno, and her associate, Lisa Eisenpresser, Sachs co-launched a practitioner coaching program to coach well being care professionals and group leaders concerning the mind-body method to continual ache.
The why behind all of it
Sachs has heard numerous success tales from sufferers who’ve embraced the mind-body drugs method. One among them being Michael Porter Jr., ahead for the Denver Nuggets, who had been experiencing extreme again ache since he was drafted at 19. After a number of surgical procedures and frequent flare-ups, he was identified with degenerative disc illness. He approached Sachs after ruling out one other surgical procedure and utilized the strategies and ideas of mind-body drugs. Since finishing his therapy, he has not missed a single sport prior to now two seasons and is now pain-free.
Porter’s story is simply one of many many shared on her podcast, The Treatment for Persistent Ache with Nicole Sachs, LCSW. With tons of of listens and quite a few constructive evaluations, Sachs believes her e-book is laying the groundwork for one thing highly effective. “Tens of millions of individuals world wide are altering their lives and carrying the message,” she says.
Editor’s Word: Think about consulting together with your well being care supplier earlier than making any main adjustments.
This text initially appeared within the July/August 2025 subject of SUCCESS journal. Picture courtesy of Nichole Sachs.
