Sabrina

Patient suffering from fibromyalgia

After three years of chronic sciatica and a 4-month hospitalization in a back school, I was diagnosed with fibromyalgia. Just one month after the death of my father-in-law in July, my sciatica gave way to tendonitis pain in my wrists and elbows, preventing me from working. After sessions of physiotherapy, shock waves, tecar therapy, acupuncture, and laser, I decided to revise my diet by eliminating dairy and gluten.

On a daily basis, I try to walk for an hour every day, but I no longer do yoga. I can no longer use my hands; household chores are very complicated, if not impossible. I have to ask my children and my husband for help, even with meal preparation. I read a lot of testimonials and books that might help me, and I scour the internet.

That’s when I met Lili… Very quickly, I got her two books and started reading her story “J’ai mal mais je me soigne” (“I’m in Pain but I’m Healing”). Admittedly, I don’t have a hernia, but I found many similarities with her: back school, migraines, my daughter who didn’t sleep through the night until she was 4, the bullying I experienced in my first job at the age of 21, and above all, the feeling of being isolated. No one can relieve us; this feeling of being alone in the world, alone with our pain… It took me a week to read this book, then I moved on to the second one, the MBC method.

I can’t say I was necessarily convinced after everything I had already tried, but if Lili, who is a bit younger than me, had managed to get through it with more disabling pain than mine, why not me? So I started the workshops enthusiastically, bought a beautiful notebook, and began writing sessions. I started doing watercolors a little every day, which brings me well-being, peace, and relaxation. I began Lili’s meditations, sometimes in the middle of my garden, and I slowly got back into yoga using cushions and initially favoring postures that didn’t cause me pain. Then I started somatic tracking, morning and evening. And yes, it relieved me, at first temporarily…

Then, I had to go on vacation. I was a bit haunted by the fear of ruining everything because my pain was still very present, but just the day before leaving, I reached page 171, day 22, where in a table, Lili suggests talking to our brain. So, of course, I took my book, my watercolors, and my yoga mat on vacation. When I was in the middle of the sea and pain arose, I started talking to my brain, and the pain went away. I was thus able to ride a bike despite knee pain and even attend an aquagym class.

The time came to return to work. Can I try by talking to my brain? I don’t know, I doubt it. My doctor told me to try to return, and it worked. In the morning, I work, and in the afternoon, I continue my activities: writing, watercolors, biking… I resumed adapted sports on Wednesday and Friday evenings. I started workshops with Lili in person, and I even started playing the guitar. Little by little, the pain became less and less intense, except in cases of new stress where it tends to return.

First, it returned to my wrists, then my back, then my elbows. Lili then did EFT sessions with me, and it worked. Today, my pain still tends to return with stress, but I continue my somatic tracking. Lili gave me hope of finding a pain-free life in the coming months.

This book is a true gem: it is very pleasant to read, the somatic tracking and audio meditations are really soothing and of great quality. It is truly very comprehensive. I have even started a second reading. I think no book in the future will be able to match this one. The price is really affordable compared to the quality of the book and what it brings, compared to other works.

Really, thank you Lili.

Dr Nectoux

MCU-PH Pediatric Orthopedic Surgery, Lille University Hospital

When Lili Road asked me to write the foreword for this book, I first rejoiced at

the strong testimony of the friendship that has bound us for over 10 years. A friendship that

began around art therapy, because Lili had a project to show that music could help sick children. Being a pediatric orthopedic surgeon,

my activity, made up of screws, plates, rods, flaps, and sutures, did not predispose me to help her! And yet, she managed to convince me, and the result of this collaboration showed that music significantly

reduced stress and the need for painkillers in multi-operated children. Lili

had managed to open the surgeon’s eyes: medical art had healing virtues, but Art could become its ancillary.

Then, I rejoiced at the testimony I could provide. I was the

victim of burnout a few years ago, a victim of the constant paradoxical injunctions

(do more! with less!), the pressure from families, the

complexity of the diseases I had to treat. That’s what I thought, at least. I was

lucky to meet many professionals: psychiatrists, psychologists,

support groups; through them, I heard about resilience, letting go,

heart coherence, art therapy (well, I knew a bit about that…)

but above all, I learned to know myself, to identify what created the suffering.

Not everything was the fault of patients who were too sick in a

hospital system that was itself too sick.

So I understood that I had to be a little more tolerant with myself,

that I was doing what I could and to the best of my ability. I made use of several of the techniques that are presented in this Mind-

Body Connection method. I gladly talk about them in consultations with my patients

facing chronic pain. The pains of the soul are intimately linked

to chronic pain. For many people, looking beyond the physical symptoms to identify the deep cause of their chronic pain is simply

impossible because it would awaken too many buried traumas. But

how to approach all this serenely in 15 minutes of consultation? It is no longer possible to take the time to explain the mechanisms of pain to families…

Yet I try! I sometimes try to explain that to an amputee

of the foot, we talk about phantom pain with kindness and compassion, while

another patient who feels the same pain in the foot without having been amputated

will be told that it’s in their head, that they need to see a pain doctor

and a psychologist. Yet these two patients suffer from the same mechanism of neurological

illusion. These are the famous “sine materia” pains of modern

medicine, these pains not linked to an image or a known disease.

I sometimes tell the classic story of the elderly couple who suffer from arthritis

all week, struggling to do their daily tasks, while on the weekend

when the grandchildren arrive, they have no trouble walking in the forest

with them, their pain having miraculously disappeared. I tell them that after having

struggled for several hours on a difficult surgery, I have less back pain than after

delivering bad news in consultation…

And that’s when, reading this book, I saw a wonderful tool that brought together many

techniques that helped me feel better psychologically, but applied to chronic pain. It put words and order

into what I was clumsily trying to convey as a message in consultations! Far from replacing evidence-based medicine, all these

techniques grouped into a single method have been validated by neuroscience studies, and are able to help those who have been suffering for a long time to get better. We are often forced to abandon ourselves to medicine when faced with illness, to

trust because we don’t know much about it: this method can allow

taking back control over healing, over pain, over morale and thus

actively participating in healing without necessarily completely depending

on a third party.

So, thank you Lili for giving your time to try to help those

who suffer from your experience! I wish great success to this method,

to this work, and that it allows many patients to realize

that they can take back control of their lives, without being overwhelmed by pain.

I hope that this will also help healthcare professionals to better understand the

painful patient in their entirety, while the conditions of practice are increasingly

difficult to be able to give all its richness to the singular colloquy

between the cared-for and the caregiver.

Dr Eric Nectoux

MCU-PH Pediatric Orthopedic Surgery, Lille University Hospital

Étienne

Patient suffering from chronic pain

When Lili asked me to write a testimony, I replied, “What are the guidelines for this testimony?” After a discussion, I concluded: freedom. So, free and unconstrained, I set out to write the unspeakable. It’s a difficult exercise, that of putting into words what I felt during the first session with Lili Road. Comfortably installed, lying on my bed and “in the bath” of these wild strawberries (cf. Lili will explain to you the “wild strawberries”), we begin the session. Lying down, Lili appears on the screen and very quickly, it’s hope and determination that erase resignation and pessimism. I quickly understood that Lili is me. It’s this battered journey that ends with non-structural chronic pain and, above all, unexplained. This is one of Lili’s aces: her journey.

During this first session, she offers me an empirical approach to things. She sees me, she recognizes me, she listens to me… and finally, I am no longer alone!! This is what I felt – more or less and perhaps too romantically – when the first session took place. It’s this feeling where loneliness dissipates because Lili arrives with determination to offer me something new: resilience. I was already a bouncing ball because living with wild strawberries is like being that reed that bends but never breaks. But Lili gave me hope.

What immediately reassured me was her concrete approach. I had already started to inform myself about neuroplastic pain types like TMS or PDP (perceived danger pain). Before starting with Lili, I had joined a video group with an American coach who specialized in this type of approach. I won’t debate here the American approach to the world and the globalization it induces, but this approach did not convince me. The mass effect, finding myself drowned among a myriad of patients, did not allow for the personalized approach that Lili offers. But it allowed me to start therapeutic education, an essential building block.

Lili built her method alone and like a spider, she wove a myriad of information to offer as exhaustive a web as possible. This new approach can sometimes seem naive. It is its anchoring in science that allows the mind-body approach to be recognized as a full-fledged pain reprocessing therapy and, above all, one that works. Thus, Lili offered me a summary of scientific studies, articles, books… in order to reassure the reptilian brain. The goal at that time was to reach the following conclusion: the pains are real but are created by the brain, and here is all the scientific evidence that demonstrates it.

In pain reprocessing therapy, it is therefore about recreating neural pathways of non-pain, and repetition is key. It’s like learning a new language! And you want to laugh? Again, Lili has aces up her sleeve. An English teacher, she has made repetition her pedagogy. Facing students or patients, you have to repeat. The brain is not acting against me but clings to these old patterns. That’s also Lili: an unshakable patient. “And Lili, we agree that it’s not structural? And but here I have pain here? And here? And here?” NO.

During my journey, new pains appeared, others reappeared. The brain does everything to keep the old world. “Show must go on,” says the brain… but you know, brain, if you want to listen to Queen, they have written other songs.” Lili will explain, but that’s the wish: that the brain ends up listening and then getting used to new music. In the old world, the jacks are pain and fear is Queen. But it takes courage to journey towards the new world. There is fear, which is one of the will-o’-the-wisps that keeps non-structural pain alive, but there is also doubt. Sometimes, repetition is not enough.

I remember this session where one day Lili told me – and I rephrase it my way -: “I am almost sure that this pain is also a pain that appears without structural cause (symptom imperative) but here we need to make sure with a doctor.” And this answer pissed me off! But that’s also Lili. It’s an expertise that is not blind, which recognizes its strengths and also knows how to lean on the shoulders of other giants. I had already had to provide documents to explain to Lili that I had done all the medical exams concerning these pains. But with the appearance of the new wild strawberry – now old – Lili again showed foresight: we make sure everything is okay and we continue.

I am someone who is empirical, and the pragmatic approach proposed by Lili reassures. And come on, another dose of smiles? She also trained in art therapy. So science, therapeutic approach, and whatnot, she knows. Then another of Lili’s assets is her journey to train as a pain reprocessing therapist. It’s not just training with Alan Gordon or Dr. Howard Schubiner, no!! Lili directly cooperated with them to establish her own method and, above all, to write her books. Because yes… She also wrote books. Lili is everywhere! It’s also her desire to continue training, to attend scientific conferences, to read, to resume studies, and then to popularize them for her patients. It’s a real chance to have Lili as a therapist because she often brings new scientific information!

Scientific but not only. Lili is also this outstretched hand and human touch that knows how to share powerful and “intimate” anecdotes from her journey while maintaining the necessary distance. This testimony goes in all directions. And at the same time, maybe that’s its meaning. Neither forbidden nor forced meaning, simply free of meaning. Lili is also a financially outstretched hand. Not currently working, I was lucky to benefit from very advantageous financial rates. It was important for me to commit financially. A patient who does not commit financially to their therapy is like a psychology through a sieve! And Lili allowed me to commit financially within my means. Because in this world of mind-body, therapists are very expensive.

Thanks to my level of English, I was able to start informing myself beyond our borders. And in America, mind-body quickly becomes a business: suffer, heal, and… sell your healing journey to help others. Lili is different. Of course, she has to pay her bills, but she is not there for profit. That’s how I felt it, at least. She is there to help!! She doesn’t do it for any kind of notoriety. She does it to help patients. And above all, she is available! How many times has Lili accepted to take me in “emergency”. Storm under a skull or in a body and Lili arrives. But don’t be mistaken. Lili is like an iron glove in a silk hand. There is an expression like that, I think.

What I appreciated about Lili is her non-tearful compassionate approach. It was up to me, and it’s up to me to move my ass if I want to heal! Also, if Lili is available, don’t expect her to coddle you in your old patterns. Our therapeutic alliance, patient-therapist with Lili, allowed for great trust. This sometimes resulted in frank but benevolent language. And that’s also Lili… If there is a need to say things, to dot the i’s or encourage a little more sportingly, she is there… Or Lili and her punchlines too… “But Étienne, by the way, do you really want to heal?”

If this testimony is bubbling, my sessions with Lili are too. I have never understood how Lili does it. She with her methodology, she with her background framework and her organization, facing the disorder of my words. I never grasped how Lili managed each time to leave me free in my sessions while ensuring a certain structure. If I want to get up, change the subject, move in all positions, sing or recite poems: here it’s your home! Facing me was Lili, anchored, who knew where she was going in my most complete fog. That’s also Lili. An organization tested by everything.

What I also appreciated about Lili is that she started each session with the small victories of the week. Because yes!! The small details make the big events. And celebrating each moment is climbing the staircase of non-pain step by step. At the end of each session, I also received the session summaries that allowed me to reread my words, to find the exercises to do, to reread the studies with a dose of positivity. “And what is your final word?” the little final word that I found at the end of each session summary?”. I also note the successful and dynamic layout of these summaries that “make you want to read”: not very French, but the idea is there.

“And now what will I do with all the time that will be my life?” sang Gilbert Bécaud. And now, some are surely asking the question. But, where is this patient in terms of his pain? To remember is that in December 2023, I could barely walk 10-20 minutes with a cane and now I sometimes walk 8 kilometers! That’s what needs to be remembered.

I still have what I would call residual pain. As I write this testimony, my fingers hurt or sitting is really painful for me. I like the term “sitting”. No, really, a little seriousness… Thanks to Lili and thanks to me, I have traveled a steep, dizzying path of which I am very proud. I didn’t know that one day I would be able to return to the cinema, walk, go hiking, or gradually resume sports. For those who have experienced chronic pain that immobilizes, we know there are no words to describe this state! Now, I am back on the road of my life and I no longer have vertigo.

I understood with Lili that it was not about healing from these wild strawberries. The goal is greater. For me, it’s the opportunity to take back the wheel of my life and get out of this victim or fragile thing scheme. I leave you with Lili who will explain journaling to you: I told you, Lili is a toolbox all by herself.

I know… I still have many challenges. I haven’t returned to work and it scares me. I still have pain and I am not totally free from it. The wild strawberries sometimes still weigh on my daily life. But I am no longer the same. I have gained in maturity and strength. I know that Lili will remain my therapist if I need her and I am not ready to journey totally alone. Sometimes, I still dream of the moment when I will no longer have any pain… Sometimes, I tell myself that it doesn’t matter if these wild strawberries really disappear, as long as they no longer prevent me from fulfilling myself.

I am both so far and so close to my dreams. To Lili: with all my gratitude. To Étienne: little child become adult. Written in February 2025.