Welcome to the Gathering Pod, the audio version of my weekly gathering room broadcast.

I'm Martha Beck.

You guys, pain is at the center of my thoughts these days, as it so often has been in my

life.

And here's why.

I've had a lot of chronic pain in my life.

Now, I don't know, raise your hand wherever

you are in your room. If you also have had chronic pain, it sucks. And I've also had chronic

emotional pain, even spiritual pain. So I've had all the kinds of pain and they've all been

chronic, very disabling in many, many ways. And fighting my

way through pain of all sorts has been the eternal wellspring of ideas for self-help that has

become my career, not to mention the reason I'm yammering at you guys every Sunday. So it's very

exciting because I had foot surgery and

it's still not completely healed, but I've been doing special therapies with it. And at the same time,

I've been reading this new book. It's not that new, but it's new to me. And it's awesome. It's

called The Way Out, Revolutionary Scientifically Proven

Approach to Healing Chronic Pain by Alan Gordon. And it's really, really good, you guys. It's short,

it's easy. It's even funny and it's really exciting. I'm actually excited out of my mind because

I feel, I used to believe because my people are

very long lived.

My grandmother died at 105.

My father died at 95.

...