Jennifer Aniston's boyfriend Jim Curtis candidly discussed his health struggles with the Friends star during a conversation at the 92nd Street Y in New York City Sept. 2.
Jim Curtis isn’t afraid to share his struggles with Jennifer Aniston.
In fact, the hypnotist shared insight into his health journey during an onstage conversation with the Friends star at the 92nd Street Y in New York City Sept. 2 to celebrate the release of his new book, The Book of Possibility. During their talk, Curtis shared with Aniston how difficult it was for him when doctors found lesions on his spinal cord in his 20s that led to partial paralysis and chronic nerve damage.
“I’m not saying here that if the doctor tells you to do something, you should get up and leave,” Curtis told Aniston and the audience, according to Us Weekly. “What I’m saying is you don’t have to live as the victim. You don’t have to live in your suffering. It can become your power.”
While he noted the key to moving beyond a health challenge is to “accept it and love it,” acceptance was difficult for the 50-year-old, who admitted that he wasn’t always open with those who asked him why he walks with a limp.
“I would say I got into a motorcycle accident,” Curtis said. “I was so shameful that I had a medical condition. [I thought] I was broken in some way. I thought the motorcycle accident was at least a little macho.”
Thankfully, Curtis was able to “overcome” those feelings through “self-acceptance and self-love,” although it was certainly “a long journey in which I realized I could have done it quicker.”
“There are people who are just suffering because they don’t know what the next step is or they need a little bit of inspiration,” he explained. “That was an easy choice for me.”
Bouncing off that, Aniston asked Curtis what advice he might give to someone who was “stuck” in the “rat race of life.”
“I’m not a proponent for ‘drop everything and leave,'” he noted. “That [acceptance] was 25 years in the making for me.”
“There’s a reality of life too. You have rent to pay and medical bills to pay and kids to feed, all of your stuff,” he continued. “But I will say this: you don’t have to let fear stop you from living your dream. You can manifest at any time by placing your focus on the outcomes that you want.”
And certainly for Aniston and Curtis, their outcome has been a relationship that’s spanned over a year, with the author recently offering rare insight into his romance with the Emmy winner.
“It’s going really well,” Curtis raved on the Aug. 31 episode of The Jamie Kern Lima Show. “My experience of her is so grounded and so open and caring and kind and loving.”
He emphasized, “I feel blessed to be in a relationship with someone that is so open-hearted and kind and loving.”
For more stars who have been open about their own health struggles, keep reading.
