Discovery - sadly (or maybe not) there isn't a pill

If there had been a pill for this disease, I would have taken it, I'm not masochistic enough to enjoy being ill, there was too much life to live and I was only 34 when I got ill. Looking back, however, I am quietly pleased that there wasn't a pill, a drug. This disease has taught me so much, it has, in all truth, been a gift. I am surprised to be writing that. Many years a go, someone told me I would be grateful for it, in the end, and indeed, I am.

To arrive at this conclusion took a paradigm shift. It may seem bizarre but I believe that really , there is nothing wrong with us, our bodies and minds are just trying to show us unresolved issues of which we are currently unaware.

Something happens, some trauma, some conflict, some event that we are not resourceful enough to deal with at the time. The event, the emotions and feelings threaten to overwhelm us so, as a safety mechanism, we resist feeling these feelings. We block, we armour ourselves against them. We add resistance to the experience. If, later, we can revisit and dissect the feelings, (not so much the event) or simply breathe through the feelings, give ourselves resources so that we could, if we had had those resources at the time, deal with the events, remove the conflict, we will free up the energy blocked by our initial resistance and free ourselves of the problem, the symptom, the dis-ease.

To help myself, I would examine exactly what I was feeling. I may not be able to name the feeling, it may just be sensations in my body. In fact some people believe it's important to name the feeling and others don't, so go with what works for you. In Brandon Bays "The Journey" she always asks you to name the feeling whereas Dr Sue Morter in "The Energy Codes,"works more with the underlying energy that gives rise to the feeling. As I said, see which approach works best for you and be prepared to be flexible, sometimes one approach may be better and at others, the other.

e.g. Fear: but with the second approach it would be tension, butterflies, dry mouth etc.

I am aware there is muscular tension. Where in my body? In my arms and across my upper chest. If I go deeper I become aware that I am trying to protect myself from a frontal assault.

The tension has moved and is now in my gut region. Does it have a colour? Grey. How big is it? The size of a football. How else can I describe it. It's round and hard.

What other emotions are here?

Anger (a frequent accompaniment with fear). The tension now feels better as I can feel the power that is contained in the anger, I am feeling that I can defend myself. I'm moving out of victimhood into agency.

Through doing "The Journey" (Brandon Bays) or "The Work" (Byron Katy) processes, I discovered that emotions and feelings were layered. For example fear may move into anger, followed by hurt, and so on. If I could feel all these feelings fully, I always ended up in love or happiness and at peace with what was and what is.

If I was at home and started to feel (more) unwell I would remind myself that, in this precise moment I am safe, that this is probably "old stuff" coming up, my body/mind trying to get me to become aware of what I have repressed so if I co-operate, things will change and ultimately for the better. I would ask myself if this was "old stuff" and if my body responded in the affirmative (it relaxed a bit, felt positive), I would then go on to asking myself what was I actually feeling? Where in my body? When had I felt like this before and so on.

I didn't know I needed to do this, I wasn't taught this by anyone. It was just one of many discoveries. I didn't know that we suppressed stuff either, or that if we don't or can't deal with it, it still affects us years and decades later. I didn't understand that if not dealt with, it is still as if it's current, happening now but the way it appears may not resemble the original event. it will have similarities, but unlikely to be identical. That's why we get so confused by it, why we deny the fact that our history, stored in our bodies and minds affects us.

My healing process had a mind of its own. If I got out the way, it would just continue. As one issue resolved, another would come along, like skimming fat off the gravy or peeling layers from an onion.

When I describe the sensations, I find that the emotion begins to move, it loses it's ability to frighten me, it is just a load of curious sensations that I am feeling in my body. And as an aside, who is this "I" that is feeling these feelings?

"When have I felt like this before?" This question frequently led to an insight. In my case I would get a mini vignette and I would see what the initial trauma had been. Very often it would be of minimal consequence to me at my current age, but to the child, maybe completely overwhelming.

As a girl, I grew up with the impression that "nice girls don't get angry" so I suppressed these feelings and it takes an awful lot of energy to suppress anger.

If I had taken a pill for my anxiety, I would never have realised how angry I was and I would never have been able to resolve and integrate that anger and all the energy it contained.

Another problem with taking a pill to, basically, remove a symptom, is that a symptom is not a disease though it is treated as such. At one time I was diagnosed with Hyperventilation Syndrome. This was just a symptom of being completely stressed out, stuck in hyper vigilance. As soon as I was discharged, or the medication stopped I was back at square one as the root causes were still there. It's rather like giving someone an aspirin for a headache but not telling them to stop banging their head on the wall.

Don't get me wrong, if I had an acute issue, appendicitis, accident, heart attack I go to the hospital (and meditate later to find out the root cause)!

And maybe our symptoms are telling us something. In fact the German New Medicine, Meta-Health and Lifestyle Prescriptions have mapped the body and the type of traumatic events that arise in the various regions. For example muscle skeletal problems are caused by self-devaluation conflicts. Digestive problems are caused by being unable to assimilate an experience.

Recovery

There are many ways to access a root cause, the original issue underlying the current symptoms. And also ways to just contact and release the blocked energy without having to examine the root cause at all.

Meditation - I started with Holosync which, for me helped me gain huge insights into my issues. I'm also basically lazy and listening to brain entrainment technology meant I could just lie back and let the track meditate me!

Using sound tracks with binaural beats helps to bring to the surface what may be buried in our unconscious minds and memories so that we can become aware of them. Awareness is healing.

“Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate.”Carl Jung

Now I use iAwake tracks as I find theyre gentler on my system and cause less upheaval. There's enough going on without putting pressure on the processing.

I also discovered that I might have to change my methods. If they worked once, it didn't mean they would work again or maybe they would. At different times, different things worked and at others the same thing didn't. If nothing has changed after a week, try something else.

“The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, but expecting different results.” Albert Einstein

Resources

The Energy Codes - Dr Sue Morter

The Journey - Brandon Bays

Loving What Is - Byron Katy

iAwake Technology

EFT

Lifestyle Prescriptions

Meta-Health

German New Medicine

Neurofeedback

Acupuncture

MFR

Anything you come across that gets you in touch with you, your body, your spirit. Self investigation may seem very self indulgent but the more you know yourself, the more you can forget yourself.

As a sort of P.S. although there isn't a drug, I did find supplements beneficial especially a high quality probiotic and I also take MitoQ

Next - why progressive exercise therapy doesn't work