Just like you, I've had issues with back pain. I had back pain off and on for about 20 years. You'd think that because I'm a physical therapist, it would be pretty easy for me to get myself healthy and do the "right" things for my back so that I had no pain, right?

Wrong. That wasn't how things went for me.

The First Signs of Trouble

Growing up in Australia - a wonderful country, by the way - I was an active kid. We played cricket, swam, skied, high jumped, and played women's netball. I attended physiotherapy school in Sydney and graduated in the mid ‘70s.

After a few years, I came to the US to fulfill my dream of being a ski bum. I gave up physiotherapy for a while so I could ski full time in the winter. I also became a fitness trainer.

Anyway, things started to go awry when I was at a "haying party” in 1982.

This was a new thing for me and bore no resemblance to the beach parties I'd attended back in Oz.

For one thing, I was actually expected to work.

We drove out to the hay field in a pickup truck and loaded a bunch of hay bales in the back, then drove back to the barn where we stacked the bales up.

After a couple of well-deserved beers, someone decided it would be a good idea to go riding - a fine idea if you've grown up ranching and know your way around a horse.

Although I’d done some riding as a kid, I didn't know enough. Without a thought, I climbed onto the nastiest horse in the bunch and rode out like Annie Oakley.

Sensing an inexperienced rider, the horse went charging for a barbed wire fence. Because of my limited riding skills and questionable judgment, I assumed he was getting ready to jump, so I bailed out at full gallop. Needless to say, the horse pulled up short of the fence, and I landed painfully and very inelegantly on my bum.

I swear to you that you have never seen a bruise the size of the one I wore on my left hindquarter for the next two weeks. The color was something! I looked like I'd been sitting in blueberry juice. My left butt cheek was literally three times its normal size. I had to wear men's boxer shorts under a skirt for two weeks because shorts, pants, and jeans wouldn't fit. Plus I hurt like heck.

Twenty-five years later, I still have scar tissue in my left buttock. If you ever saw me naked (not that you will) you'd think I had a two-story bum on the left side.

There’s No Fix

Maybe you can relate to the accident scenario and you can remember it as if it were yesterday. Or perhaps you can't really pinpoint a specific incident - you just woke up one day and your back was hurting. Or you did something simple, like bend over to pick up a box off the floor, and your back locked up. Either way, I know what it's like to be where you are right now.

If you don't have a "story" to tell about your back pain, you've probably spent a lot of time wondering why. You probably kind of wish you did have a story.

Here's the truth about back pain: The "how" you hurt your back isn't really important. What is important is the fact that after it was hurt, it didn't fully recover.

We ALL have a back-story, but some stories have a different beginning. However it started, if you've suffered with back pain for a long time, your story has become a drama, not a comedy.

Even though I knew what I was supposed to do to heal it, I couldn't completely get rid of the pain. Despite the efforts of other medical professionals to treat me, they couldn't fix it, either. Despite being a "good" patient and doing my exercises, the pain wouldn't stay away.

I couldn't fix my own back pain. And neither could anyone else.

Most of the time the pain didn't completely stop me. But over the years, there were episodes of pain that would put me out of commission for a while. I didn't know when the pain was going to hit - it seemed completely random.

I couldn't do anything to fix my own back pain, and I was treating patients in a clinic and telling THEM what to do for THEIR back pain. I felt like a hypocrite.

The fact that I had scoliosis became part of the story. I blamed my pain on this weird curvature I had in my spine. It gave me a good excuse for my pain, but it also limited me, because I believed that there was nothing I could do about it. I was “born that way.” Or it had "happened" to me. I felt powerless.

Things Get Worse

There were a lot of years and a lot of lessons between my horseback episode and today. Things got a lot worse before they got better. Not just physically, but mentally, emotionally, and spiritually as well. I'd divorced, remarried, and had two kids. I was definitely NOT living "my best life," as Oprah would say.

I blamed everything on "my pain.”

My “pain” was an excuse to avoid participating in life. It gave me an excuse to have a few extra glasses of wine at night because “I needed it.”

I stopped enjoying all the things that used to bring me joy. I felt so sorry for myself most of the time that there was no room for anyone or anything else.

There was no passion, purpose, value to my life. Instead of colors, I saw gray. What had happened to me? Somewhere along the way, I'd turned into someone else. I didn't recognize her. And I certainly didn't LIKE her.

There was no difference between my physical, emotional, mental and spiritual pain.

The Solution

One day I'd just had enough. I was thoroughly sick of myself. I can't tell you what made that particular day any different from the months and years before it, but something changed.

Maybe I realized that I wasn't going anywhere and that I'd better learn to live differently. Maybe I was finally so consumed with guilt about the way I was abusing the gift of this life I’d been given that I was ready to take positive action.

So I embarked on a journey of discovery that continues to this day. I've learned a lot, and the more I learn, the more I realize how much there is that I don't know - about myself, my body, and this amazing world we live in.

Today, I understand more pieces of this back pain puzzle, and I'm here to teach you everything I've learned about it. I’ll share with you how I figured out the solution to my own back pain.

Here’s the secret: It's not WHAT you do for your back that counts, it's HOW you do it.

That's it.

Sounds simple, right? Well it is - and it isn't. It's simple, but it's not easy. Which is why most people never solve their back pain - they just learn to live with it somehow. And feel miserable much of the time.

A few years ago, I learned about Pilates. I got so excited about the possibilities this method offered that I quit traditional physical therapy practice. I opened my own center, where we combine physical therapy, Pilates, imagery techniques and other hands-on therapies to help people recover from pain and injuries.

I haven't figured everything out and I don't expect to, because change is a constant part of life and information is always evolving. What I can tell you is that I've put together a system that I know will help you if you implement it.

What I have learned is this: You can change your life in an instant - just by changing one thought. You can let go of old habits if they're not working for you. That’s what the MASTER System is about—how to make the changes you need so that you can live the life that you want.

Your Final Solution to Back Pain
The MASTER System™