Welcome to the Cure for Chronic Pain Podcast with me, Nicole Sachs.

You are here.

Hello, my loves.

Happy everything.

Right smack in the middle of the holiday season.

Nearly there, guys.

You've made it.

You're doing it.

We're getting through it.

And I am here to bring you a little reminder about something that we all do.

I can't imagine that I know many people who don't do this.

And the topic today is on pre-greening, catastrophizing, making meaning of that which has not yet happened.

It's such a human dilemma and it is a best of a podcast I recorded just about one year ago.

So when you listen to the bulk of this podcast, you will hear references to the pandemic, the vaccine, blue dog, my precious baby boy, who passed away since, and some stuff going on with my daughter's college that has since been completely resolved.

The reason I picked this episode for today is because when I'm traveling and when I've got things like holidays and things where I'm going to not be near the microphone and I want to pick a best of, I'm really thoughtful about which one I pick because I want there to be a lesson in it that's more than just replaying something that was once recorded in the past.

And to me, the lesson of revisiting this topic in this episode is when I look back at the things I was going through at the time.

And of course, I was being really mindful as best I could to not pre-greve.

And I think the message that this podcast carried then is even more salient now and more powerful in the retelling is that I lived through at least of the things I reference in this podcast to major events.

As I sit here with you today, three, if you count the deep fear and space I was occupying at that point in the pandemic and then of course the death of my beloved blue dog and the way that my daughter's college experience ended up shaking out.

I can sit here today, nearly a year later in reflection and say, wow, how fucking psyched am I that I didn't allow my pre-greving potential at the time to steal my moments with my dog, with my daughter, with myself, with whatever was going on at the time because I was able to be present and nothing has swallowed me.

I at the time when I recorded this last February did not know that my dog was going to get sick with cancer, did not know how sudden it would be, how young he would be, did not know anything related to it.

I dealt with it with such grace and I know that everything that happens to us, the path that we live through and we walk through has been laid before us with the intentions we've set prior and the fact that I intended not to pre-greve intended to be present with him when I could and then ended up losing him really unexpectedly.

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