📖 Learning Through Pain: Real Stories, Radical Healing

What does it mean to love yourself when you're really sick?

Learning Through Pain is a powerful collection of personal essays by women who have lived or are living with chronic pain, people who are reclaiming their stories—and their bodies—on their own terms.

From fibromyalgia and endometriosis to autoimmune conditions, fatigue syndromes, and invisible disabilities, this book explores the emotional, physical, and social realities of living with chronic pain. Each story offers hard-won insights, self-love practices, and healing methods that go beyond mainstream narratives.

You’ll find reflections on:

• What self-love and self-care looks like when you are chronically ill

• How to build resilience when you have a long term health condition

• Navigating cultural stigma and medical gaslighting

• Alternative and accessible approaches to healing—including somatic work, creative expression, trauma-informed care, and more

With honesty, vulnerability, and strength, these writers refuse to sugar-coat their realities—but they also refuse to give up.

This book includes a chapter from chronic illness mentor and coach Shabnam Rakhiba, founder of Chronic Wellness Lounge. Drawing on her lived experience with fibromyalgia, endometriosis, and PCOS, she shares tools rooted in psychology, Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), and social justice-informed coaching to support long-term healing.

Whether you're newly diagnosed or decades into this journey, Learning Through Pain offers deep validation—and hope.

Authored by a diverse group of experts in the Health & Wellness field, each chapter offers unique insights and personal anecdotes that will empower you to change your perspective on chronic pain.

This is self-love through survival. This is healing on your terms.