In the context of chronic back pain, she says we should be mindful of our environment, and aware of how it affects us in mind, body and spirit.

We should ask ourselves

“What are we feeding our mind? What are we watching? What are we listening to? Who are we spending time with? What are we putting into our bodies?”

Is the environment that we create for ourselves in line with the goal of a happy pain-free life?

For example, as we talked about last time, plenty of us find driving stressful. So the idea is not to give up driving and avoid stress completely. Rather to acknowledge the stress and implement the most effective ways we can to reduce this negative emotion, as well as to cope with the stress that inevitably arises.

We also hear about the healing power of dogs.

Abby tells us how her work is really about helping people to find better 'tracks' so that they can get out of the trauma loop of chronic pain. She has a canine partner to help her do this.

“I have a dog that's trained to actually track a body along with me”

These same healing techniques that help human beings can also be applied to our 4-legged friends. As well as dogs, Abby treats horses, cats and other animals.