“Hope for Headaches” is not just a blog post title—it’s the initiation into healing a chronic cycle of pain. That first step is a shift in mood. Mood is largely invisible to us. Our moods have us rather than us having them. They can wash over us in a moment, due to one or any number of things: the weather, a casual comment, one’s hormonal state, or history with handling stress or untenable, uncomfortable situations.

Chronic headache and migraine sufferers, who typically have been trying to solve their problem for years, have largely lost hope. Why? Doctors tell them it’s a life sentence. Patients have tried a variety of therapies over years or decades, and with each re-up, they are hopeful. Then when that doesn’t work, or only works for a while then stops, the patient is back at square one, and deflates. They feel that all their work, time, trouble, suffering, and temporary elation have failed, and failed them. They’re stuck, and a failure, feeling let down and that they’re letting others down. They begin to get skeptical, because despite best efforts and most modern drug therapies or dietary restrictions, they’re back at square one.

And that is where we begin. That is, in somatic coaching terms, making the blend: listening to the story and holding a light to specifics that illuminate the way to the end of the tunnel. “Yes, and knowing that, here’s what is possible.” Somehow, in towing the line for a client’s healing, even a skeptical migraineur will take away more hope. From hearing that a headache can be stopped in the moment with a pair of skilled hands, and, based on one’s current headache narrative, that painless small steps can be learned and taken which add up to another result: relief and prevention of pain.