{"id":24661,"date":"2025-06-16T15:45:21","date_gmt":"2025-06-16T19:45:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sparkvisionnow.com\/?p=24661"},"modified":"2025-06-16T15:45:21","modified_gmt":"2025-06-16T19:45:21","slug":"from-painkillers-to-peace-my-daily-practice","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sunneez.com\/sparkvision\/from-painkillers-to-peace-my-daily-practice\/","title":{"rendered":"From Painkillers to Peace: My Daily Practice"},"content":{"rendered":"

How a Spinal Injury Taught Me the Power of a Daily Practice<\/h1>\n

Picture this: It’s Friday night, and I’m playing lacrosse for fun after my college D1 career ended. As I go to catch the ball, I stretch a little too far and hear a pop. I catch the ball, shoot and score but know that something isn\u2019t right.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

There is a deep pain in my back. I go to the sidelines and sit the rest of the game out. When I go home, I take some painkillers and go to bed, thinking that everything will be fine in the morning.<\/p>\n

Boy, was I wrong\u2026<\/p>\n

I try to go to the bathroom, but immediately collapse on the floor.<\/p>\n

MaryBeth gasps!<\/em><\/h5>\n

I was crooked. The top half and lower half of my spine are literally in two separate positions. It felt like someone was stabbing me in my spine with an icepick.<\/p>\n

Every few steps, I fell to the ground in pain. MaryBeth rushed me to the ER.<\/p>\n

They checked to make sure I didn\u2019t have internal bleeding, gave me some prescription pain killers, muscle relaxers, and sent me on my way.<\/p>\n

When MaryBeth begged them to tell me lacrosse was unsafe for me, the doctors laughed and said I was young and in good shape, so I would be fine in a few days.<\/p>\n

Something with that didn\u2019t sit right with me, so I went to a specialist. After tests, the doctor diagnosed me with spinal stenosis and degenerative disc disease.<\/p>\n

He said the X-ray looked like I had the spine of a 70-year-old with this disease (I was in my late 20s). And that I should expect multiple surgeries, a list of prescriptions, and potentially life in a wheelchair.<\/p>\n

Well, that was a wake-up call\u2026<\/h5>\n

<\/p>\n

I knew that wasn’t for me, and my heart knew that there had to be another way.<\/p>\n

You see, when I was a kid growing up, I watched my grandmother slowly deteriorate and die in the hospital in pain after breaking her hip.<\/p>\n

I can still vividly remember going to physical therapy with her and her screaming and yelling that she didn\u2019t want me to see her that way.<\/p>\n

That was one of the milestone moments that instilled my value of Health. I did not want the \u201csickcare\u201d system in the US to be the one in charge of my healing. I never wanted to end up in a hospital if I could help it.<\/p>\n

So, I went into deep research mode to find out how I could heal without having to have a bunch of back surgeries. Including what some of the richest people in the world did with this disease, where money wasn\u2019t an object.<\/p>\n

What I found was a wealth of holistic methods, daily practices and lifestyle changes that were scientifically proven to work.<\/p>\n

One of the surprising top recommendations? Meditation. It was proven to restore tissue around the spine. \ud83e\udd2f<\/p>\n

I was a frequent listener to Tim Ferriss\u2019 podcast, where he would interview high performers, and something like 80% of them cited meditation as a key factor in reaching their greatest potential.<\/p>\n

I thought that \u201cshould\u201d be something I do to increase my productivity. But I never realized that it could also support my physical healing\u2026<\/p>\n

Research shows that meditation can have a positive impact on both the physiological and psychological aspects of healing, such as:<\/strong><\/h3>\n