Megan Heiser grew up on a farm, traveled the world, had a career, got married, had a baby. She was a perfectionist. Then things changed, dramatically.  An auto-immune disease caught hold of her and has made her take a completely different approach to life.  

Each of us wake up to a new day with some uncertainty, but we generally have a strong sense of what our day will be like.  Unfortunately, that's not true for Megan.  Her disease throws her a curve ball every day. She may wake up with pain, fatigue or a whole host of other bodily errors she'll have to deal with that day.  To cope, she's had to let go of trying to be perfect - easier said than done.  So she tries to look at what is real and what is not real.  Is there something that doesn't hurt today?  Can she use that piece to help her accomplish what she wants to do that day?  Or, does she have to realign her goals for the day to accommodate what she realistically can do.  It's a daily balancing act.

How does she stay sane?  She has a robust mindfulness meditation practice, and even teaches and runs workshops on the topic. She says this type of meditation helps her to settle herself and to learn to be self-compassionate.  Also, she learns from her students how to look at the issues and emotions that come up in class from different perspectives, something she might not have done before.  She feels all this helps her connect with her life in a new and deeper way than she ever did before.  A silver lining. 

A Note On The Life Over Pain Theme Music:Emily Bielagus graciously and generously composed the lovely theme music for the Life Over Pain podcast. Find her music at Spotify, wildyawp.com, and reach her at wildyawpband@gmail.com.

Thank you to RØDE Microphones for donating the NT-USB microphone that was used to record the intro and outro to this story. You can check it out on their website at http://www.rode.com/microphones/nt-usb. I'm looking forward to using it more completely on my next story.