Today we’d like to introduce you to Cynthia Austin.
Hi Cynthia, so excited to have you on the platform. So before we get into questions about your work life, maybe you can bring our readers up to speed on your story and how you got to where you are today.
My journey of recovering from chronic pain led me on an incredible path that placed me in Columbus, Ohio, as a small business owner of not just one wellness business, but two, both related to helping people living with stress, anxiety, and chronic pain. I help people out of physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual pain so they can live authentically.
My Pain Coach, LLC, and Reiki Vibe Experience, LLC were both born from my struggles and the goal is to help others like myself who are living with stress, anxiety, emotional, and physical pain. I have had quite a metamorphosis myself, and now I help others move through the healing process. With both Reiki and Pain Coaching, I help the client have a conversation with themselves and their nervous system to retrain the brain’s alarm system back to normal.
In May of 2015, I was over 100lbs overweight, almost constrained to the bed and my 80-year-old mother drove me to my doctor appointments. I was in an unhealthy marriage and life was no longer enjoyable in any way for me. Every morning I awoke dreading doing it all again. Each sleepless night in pain, I would search desperately online for a way out of the debilitating chronic pain I was experiencing all over my body.
After years of searching, I found the US Pain Foundation, a tiny non-profit, at that time, working in different ways for the good of the chronic pain community. I spent many hours on their website learning about the organization because I was intrigued that the people who started it also lived in daily persistent pain. That was the beginning of a dream to help others living with chronic pain because I did not want anyone to feel the way I felt for so many years. It all started with post-its on the wall trying to find the ways I could help people living with pain for free and slowly, as I educated myself, it became a business.
Since that time, through the US Pain Foundation, I have had the opportunity to be a part of a focus group for Pfizer and Eli Lily along with other pain awareness activities, and I became a certified Legislative Advocate creating a dialogue with legislators in Washington about how chronic pain destroys the quality of life and that more research is desperately needed on understanding pain.
I began supporting others in the same situation as myself on social media too. The personal stories mirrored my own experiences: pain touches every aspect of life; nothing is left unchanged by it and it moved me to act to change the narrative for people living with pain. Also, I became certified through the US Pain Foundation to lead a USPF chronic pain support group and before the COVID pandemic shut the live group down, we had grown to 12 members meeting monthly.
When I began legislative advocacy in 2015, I began reading large volumes of clinical pain neuroscience research and slowly a picture began to emerge in my head of what might be going on in my own body and how I could help myself. I was very skeptical at even the medical research at first due to my negative experience within the health care system.
I had been in the healthcare system since I started having migraines at age seven and I’ve experienced some of the worst doctors in the system which led to feeling degraded and beaten down by my providers. Even so, I kept reading the literature and there was a very clear picture that an emotional experience can cause debilitating physical pain and things started making sense in my own pain experience. I also found that the research papers also had answers and solutions for recovering from chronic pain.
I began applying what I was learning to my pain and I saw changes immediately, but it would never last very long. I was not discouraged by that though because I realized I was finally looking in the right place and at that moment I began my pain self-management program. Armed with research and treatment ideas, I applied everything I could to my pain, and slowly the pendulum is moving closer to closer to normal.
I made the needed changes in my life and saw a dramatic decrease in my chronic pain and I lost over 100 lbs in the process. Determined to help others find solutions to their pain, I went back to school to become a pain coach and I went on to become a nationally board-certified Health & Wellness Coach. I am highly trained in the stages of change to help people move through difficult transitions of behavior change. I can help people to lose weight, get their diabetes under control, and anything else health and wellness related along with supporting people living with their persistent pain.
My Pain Coach, LLC came to life in 2021, and since then coaching people has been a great joy in my life. I love when people get the a-ha moments of connecting things and their capacity for change opens up giving them their power back. I’m not doing the work, they are. I just help them have a conversation with themselves through motivational interviewing skills. Their thoughts bring the a-ha moments and solutions, which is why it works.
I do provide education when needed. I always ask the question, “What is pain and how is it produced in your body?” and I haven’t had a client yet that understood how pain is produced in the body. It still amazes me how many people do not know the answer to that when the number one thing that motivates people to go to a doctor is pain.
Having had pain for over fifty years – I have an intimate knowledge of what it’s like to live with pain in almost every age bracket, and I bring that knowledge to my coaching sessions.
My own life has given me incredible wisdom and the insight to help others in addition to my formal education. I meet with clients via a HIPAA-compliant telehealth app, so they can stay in the comfort of their own homes. I will be in my new office very soon and can meet locally in Columbus if requested.
My other business, Reiki Vibe Experience, LLC grew from my personal experiences with Reiki. My first session was profound. I knew if my nervous system needed the harmony and balance Reiki provided my clients might need this unbelievable peace and calm feeling Reiki had given me. So, I went back to school again and became a Reiki Therapist.
Reiki is a Japanese modality of utilizing evidence-based healing touch. It works within the nervous system and brings deep relaxation by putting the body in the optimal state for rest, regeneration, and healing. I gently rest my hands in specific areas of the body in a safe way. My touch entrains the client’s nervous system back to the parasympathetic side of the nervous system allowing their bodies to deeply relax and be anchored in safety. Only in this state can our bodies begin to heal from stress.
I meet with people locally at the office in Columbus. The feedback from my Reiki clients has been amazing. They experience a deep sense of safety and peace during the Reiki session. It’s truly a meaningful experience for both the client and me. I think what sets me apart is that I bring my coaching skills to the Reiki room. This brings faster transformation of mind, body & soul for the client.
Both businesses are my deepest passions because I still remember what it felt like to have lost all my power while living in a mere existence of anxiety and pain. I would lie in a bed staring at the ceiling wishing I wasn’t alive, or I was in a recliner eating my feelings away due to the emotional and physical pain. To change the narrative for others, I have dedicated my life to learning everything I can about stress, anxiety, and pain so that I can help others have a better quality of life.
In my own experience, no one addressed the emotional issues, even when I told them about the stressors. It’s time for chronic pain patients to have a voice and I help them find it again which leads them to a happier more joyful existence. We are located in the Elevate Office Suites at 670 Meridian Way in the Polaris area of Columbus and are excited to announce an expansion of hours beginning in November for our Reiki sessions and we will begin seeing coaching clients in person too at this location.
If you would like to find out more about pain coaching or Reiki, don’t hesitate to contact me. I love helping people understand what I do. I have free telehealth consultations for pain coaching that you can book on my website to learn more about how a pain coach might help you. For Reiki questions, please call/text and leave a message so I can return your call.
We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
My story illustrates many of the challenges I faced along the way. People could see the physical pain outwardly when I walked with a cane, but some pain is very intimate and invisible. These experiences have led me to be a very Trauma-Informed pain coach and Reiki Therapist. I have a second chance at life now, but I had to reinvent myself completely due to what I lived through.
I became incredibly sick spiritually, physically, mentally, and emotionally due to all the collective abuse I experience over my lifetime. I’ve been in many unhealthy relationships due to childhood sexual trauma and how it shaped me emotionally and mentally. It created invisible scars that were left untreated. These experiences led me to not value myself and led me down a winding past of allowing others to treat me the same way I treated myself.
The physical and psychological abuse in my two marriages left more invisible scars that I hid for years until it became obvious my emotional and mental struggles were beginning to physically affect me with severe illness and disease. The research papers for advocacy work I began reading in 2015 helped me make the connection between the stress and anxiety I was experiencing and my physical pain.
Each negative event in my life built on top of the other and created a perfect storm of illness in my body and one by one I had to address everything in my life: nutrition, relationships, and boundaries, sleep, mindfulness, creating calm, and especially, grit/determination and self-compassion. I had to look at everything about myself. I had to explore the things that happened to me, but I also had to examine my responses to what had happened to me to help the healing process.
Everyone has a point that they reach when they say, enough is enough: “I’m done with anxiety and pain and I am taking my life back.” I reached that point in 2019 and I haven’t looked back. The hard part of changing behaviors, especially in the beginning, was getting back up when something wasn’t going as planned. I wanted all the changes I needed to make embodied overnight, but I learned it would take many attempts and many failing to make it to the finish line.
This process was difficult, and I tattooed “Still I Rise” on my inner wrist so I would not forget to keep getting back up. I’ve argued a lot with my tattoo, but I’ve always gotten back up and now I have two start-up businesses in Columbus, Ohio. You do not know how strong you are until that’s all you have left.
My advice to those living with pain: do not stop until you find feel heard and believed by all your healthcare team members. Your pain is real! You deserve to understand what is happening in your body when pain takes over. You deserve better solutions to the problems pain creates in your life. As a chronic pain coach or a Reiki therapist, I can help you find both the understanding and the solutions to unlocking your pain recovery path.
Is there any advice you’d like to share with our readers who might just be starting?
For any business owner just starting, I would suggest you network as much as you can and just ask for help. You will be amazed at how many people say, “Yes!” when approached with a request for help once what you want to accomplish. Also, partner with other new like-minded businesses and develop your own “think tank” for ideas and solutions to problems. I began my new life and businesses by placing post-its with actionable steps on my wall as inspiration to help keep my vision fresh and my motivation high but my business ideas blossomed with the helpful wisdom from other women entrepreneurs.
If you are being physically abused or if you are being psychologically abused, leave sooner rather than later if it is safe for you to do in your situation. Reach out to the domestic violence shelters near you for guidance to help you make a solid plan. Don’t try to do it alone and don’t be ashamed to reach out to any and every organization that can help you be successful in leaving the unhealthy relationship and starting over.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.MyPainCoachLLC.com and www.ReikiVibeExperience.com
- Instagram: www.instagram.com/mypaincoachLLC and www.instagram.com/reikivibeexperience
- Facebook: www.facebook.com/mypaincoach and www.facebook.com/reikivibeexperience
