Healing Isn't Linear — It's Relational: Finding Connection Across Chronic Illness, Trauma, and Surf Therapy
Healing is Not a Straight Line
When we talk about healing in the medical world, we usually imagine it as a straight line:
Diagnosis ➔ Treatment ➔ Recovery.
But anyone who’s lived it — really lived it — knows better.
Healing isn’t a line.
It’s a web.
It’s a network of moments and people, doctors’ appointments, procedures, ER visits, tests, images, missteps and discoveries, grief and unexpected joy.
And sometimes, the most important part of healing isn't a medicine or a surgery — it’s the connections we find along the way.
Discovering Surf Synergy, A trip delayed and an injury
By early March, I was still recovering from a difficult year: an endometriosis excision surgery in August, followed by an emergency appendectomy in January. The healing was ongoing — slow, complicated, exhausting. Not just from surgery. Not just from chronic illness. But from the layers of medical trauma that accumulate over years of being unseen, unheard, and exacerbated by the medical system.
Surf Synergy was a by-product of a trip forced to be rescheduled — the trip to Costa Rica was originally intended to include my daughter and father-in-law. Delays from my unexpected surgery and recovery changed everything. In the end, it was just me and my husband. I was quietly grieving the changes that led to my daughter not being able to go with me.
Without her, I had nobody to surf with.
I had called up Surf Synergy, a small, surf-focused wellness retreat center. I had found them on the internet. I told them my predicament: my body weakened by recent surgery, my surf-buddy unable to join me, a break I didn’t know. A “Sure”, said Rich Naha, the owner. “We don’t do lessons per se, but we offer retreats. Call us when you make it down.”
Natalie Small and Surf Therapy: Healing Through the Body
Years ago, I crossed paths with Natalie Small, LMFT — a gifted therapist, the founder of Groundswell Community Project, and a pioneer in surf therapy for trauma recovery.
Natalie’s work — blending movement, ocean, community, and story — resonated instantly.
It wasn’t about fixing what was broken.
It was about reconnecting to what had always been whole underneath.
And challenging myself.
For the first time after years of chronic pain and illness, I felt supported enough to try to travel on my own to an adventure with Surf with Amigas and Groundswell Community Project. I didn’t think I had it in me. I traveled alone to Peru for a week before joining the retreat, where I rode waves that I would have never thought I could.
It was a defining moment in my life, a big “I CAN”, after years of I can’t. It led to a few more retreats, Costa Rica, and Nicaragua, until my health had swung down again.
So, I had seen the power of retreats, long before I crossed paths with Surf Synergy.
I called when I got down to Jaco and was settled into my friend’s condo. Rich invited me up to check out the whole Surf Synergy experience. With their instructors, I surfed. At the retreat, I joined in for gourmet, healthy meals prepared by their award-winning chef. I took their breath class, participated in a yoga session. I sat, watching the sunset, meeting new people and having great conversations, the kind borne out of people at a retreat – real conversations, laughter at the fun waves of the day. Exciting plans for the next day’s surf.
I soaked in the ocean. I tried to reconnect to the parts of myself that had gotten buried under medical appointments and hospital walls. I thought I was on the mend.
When the Body Whispers
But back home, my body was unraveling in ways that felt all too familiar. Chronic illness has a way of creating chaos while making simple explanations easy to miss. The pain, the fatigue, the relentless pressure — all of it felt like just another layer to the ongoing story of my body betraying me.
My body was whispering at first, and yelling by the time I received the treatment I needed for what was to be a life-threatening event. I didn’t know it quite yet, but I was about to experience another profound medical trauma. One of multiple ER visits, dismissal and invalidation. A bruised rib hid an underlying problem.
When the simplest explanation — pain due to gallstones — was finally acknowledged, and I was admitted for emergency surgery after weeks of suffering, it felt both validating and infuriating.
That Last Visit — A Life-Threatening Crisis and the Truth Revealed
I had woken up at 4am in extreme pain, I didn’t want to wake up my husband again. We had been to the ER three times the week before, only to be sent home, despite alarming high blood pressures.
I sat on the bed, waiting for him to open his eyes on his own. He did.
Go get ready, he said.
We were scared. Not that I would need to be admitted to the hospital, but that they would send me home, again
Despite me repeating “I have never felt like this before, even with my complicated history”.
Despite telling multiple providers something is very wrong. I can feel it.
Despite saying, my blood pressure has never been this high. That’s just due to pain, they had said “I have high blood pressure”, one male doctor said. I don’t care about your blood pressure, I thought, I care that mine has never ever been this high.
This time I went to a different ER. My endo surgeon had told me Go to Sharp Memorial, Scripps has failed you. This ER doctor was calm and methodical, ordering a repeat ultrasound, pain meds, and nausea meds. Unlike the other doctors, she was concerned about my blood pressure. I could see it on the nurses faces when they checked. They’d leave quietly and come back with more morphine.
Hours later, the ultrasound confirmed what had been missed — the simple explanation, stones in my gallbladder. 'Your gallbladder is the likely source of the pain,' she said. 'We need to admit you for surgery.'
When the Pain is the Emergency
But it wasn’t just about the stones. I was experiencing “accelerated hypertension — HVN”. This was noted in my ER report, which I read in the patient portal few days later.
'Accelerated HVN — threat to life or body.'
Those words matched exactly what I had been feeling, the sensation of my body exploding from the inside, the relentless pounding in my head, the crushing tightness in my chest.
My body had been screaming for help all along. There was something to fix. I wasn’t imagining it.
Years of being dismissed
How many times had I said, 'I feel ill,' only to be told it was just another part of my complicated medical history? How often had I doubted myself because the signs were missed, the simple answers dismissed?
How many times have I written about missing simple explanations in the complex landscape of chronic illness? How many times have symptoms been chalked up to 'just stress,' 'just anxiety,' 'just chronic pain'?
Chronic illness doesn’t erase the possibility of new, simpler problems — but it can make them harder to hear.
The real work, sometimes, is not just treating the illnesses
It’s learning to trust your body again — even when it speaks softly.
Especially when it speaks softly.
Reflection: How Surfing Saved Me
Honestly, it all feels like a miracle. The thing is, I didn’t see any of this coming. I didn’t foresee surfing in Peru on a wave, surrounded by women encouraging me, keeping me safe. I have surfed for years, yet never quite understanding how therapeutic the ocean is. These retreats brought me to the next level.
Now, in April 2026, I’ll be co-hosting a trauma-informed wellness retreat at Surf Synergy with my longtime colleague and partner, Natalie Small, LMFT of Groundswell Community Project.
I thought I discovered Surf Synergy by accident. But now I know it wasn’t. It was the culmination of years of connections. It turns out to be the place where everything I had been weaving — surf therapy, somatic healing, trauma-informed care, patient advocacy — could come together in one living, breathing space. It was a reminder that even when healing feels chaotic, even when the original plans fall apart, something beautiful can still find you.
The day I bruised my ribs back in late March, I had been desperate to get in the water. I was back from Costa Rica. I was \\, feeling like I was exploding, like I was overly full, with abdominal spasms, in pain. Cold water. Engage the core. This would help, I was sure, given the promising results of the study “Surf therapy for Chronic pain” (Project Stoke) , a collaborative study with Pain Trauma Institte, Groundswell Community Project and USC.
As we sat in circle at surf therapy, I kept stealing looks at the ocean. I wasn’t listening fully to everyone. It looked really calm past the break. The whole time we were in circle. I was impatient, wanting to get out
I rushed in, paddled out, confident since Costa Rica.
The tide shifted. One of the participants needed to be rescued. I was pummeled.
Mother Ocean let me know I needed to attend to this gall bladder, that had been whispering, gnawing over the past year.
For that I am grateful.
Healing Isn't a Line — It's a Web
None of these connections happened on a schedule.
None were "planned" in the traditional sense.
Healing isn’t perfect.
But it’s possible.
And sometimes, that’s enough.
Join Us in Costa Rica: A Healing Retreat
In April 2026, I’ll be co-hosting a week-long Surf Therapy Retreat at Surf Synergy in Costa Rica, alongside my longtime friend and collaborator Natalie Small, LMFT, founder of Groundswell Community Project.
This retreat is the first of its kind offered by Surf Synergy, and it’s designed specifically for individuals navigating chronic illness, trauma, and the complex journey of healing. Whether it’s your first time surfing or your 50th, this space is for you.
Together, we’ll dive into surf therapy grounded in trauma-informed care, community connection, and body-based healing. You’ll receive five private surf lessons with video analysis, plus opportunities to join yoga, breathwork, bodywork, and ice bath therapy.
And it’s not just about what happens in the water. You’ll also be nourished with gourmet meals, thoughtful conversation, and the chance to reconnect with yourself in a space that centers presence, rest, and healing.
Natalie and I have been dreaming this into being for years, and we can’t wait to welcome you into this circle.