Mind Body Spirit (My Story Part 2)

I left off in my last post about the connection between the mind body and spirit. When dealing with physical dis-ease and symptoms, we often forget about the other side of it. The soul. I believe that certain illnesses are a portal for us to discover our true selves and learn about what is authentic to us. My body had been screaming at me for years with symptoms of anxiety and panic. I chose not to listen and continued to live my life in ignorance to my true self until I started to get physical symptoms. I held onto codependent patterns, feeling overwhelmed, relying on others to make my decisions, and I had a low sense of self worth. I was hyper critical and judgmental of myself. Mindfulness was a chore and I was always concerned about the next step in my life, in my career, in everything, because that is what felt safe. Control of the unknown. Well, hate to break it to myself and everyone reading: control is a façade. No one has control over what will happen in the future. That is why I’m currently focusing on learning to let go and surrender so that I can receive. That has been the absolute hardest part of my journey and still is. There are times I so heavily want to revert back to old patterns but luckily have amazing support to keep going. I have been able to surrender in several ways and am finding that I am being guided to like-minded practitioners on all planes of healing.

So many of us are living on autopilot. Even if we don’t have physical ailments, mental distress such as anxiety affects so many people. And, often that is a result of the nervous system being on overdrive. Our protective personality has taken over and is running the show to keep us safe. This sends the message to our body that we are in a state of life or death and we must find a way out now. This brings an already stressed nervous system (from daily life in our day and age) even more to the brink.

What is often missed in a quest to get “well” is the nervous system component. When we have had a large stressor, be it internal or external, come about, we can often get dysregulated. Events in our childhood and even generational patterns can also lead to unconscious models of behavior that keep us in a low vibration of existence.

These learnings have been the most inspirational add-ons to my life. After exhausting test after test, protocol after protocol, I decided to focus on another aspect of health: emotions. I started seeing coaches and intuitive who could provide more insight into my emotional state of being and how to change it. I learned about brain rewiring and how so many people have healed from that alone. Brain rewiring is similar to pattern interrupting. The premise behind it is that the limbic system is impaired and is stuck on overdrive trying to protect us. It is overreacting to the smallest of stimuli. Anyone can have limbic system impairment. Often if you have panic attacks, that is exactly what is happening. And let me remind you, nothing is broken in this case. Your brain and body are doing exactly what they should be, protecting you. But they are just stuck in overprotective mode because of a prior incident, trauma, exposure, etc. Often, those with mold toxicity, mast cell activation, lyme, etc can start to experience this issue and become hypervigilant. The most popular standard top-down brain retraining programs are The Gupta Program and DNRS.

So I tried it. If anything, I thought it could be a nice adjunct to the physical work I was doing. I chose to do the Gupta program (please Google for more info!). After a time in it, I started seeing a Gupta coach because I felt lost and that I wasn’t doing it right (queue perfectionism!). Within the first few sessions with the Gupta coach I felt I had gotten farther than 10+ years of therapy. It was amazing. However, I still had symptoms. Why wasn’t it working? Well, the “rounds” I would do everyday were great but then I’d go back into my everyday fear. I would loop on my next course of action to help heal myself. So I was still stuck in this overthinking, fearful mode. I could not let in any joy. I don’t know if I even smiled for months at a time. And my intent for the program was still to heal my physical symptoms. From there I moved on to another program created by a fellow CIRS (Chronic Inflammatory Response Syndrome) patient who also had all the problems I did (Parasites, Sibo, candida, Mast Cell Activation, Multiple Chemical Sensitivity) and she had healed. It was a group coaching program and I thought, great, they can show me how to do it and heal. I went all in, but felt like I was still not doing enough. I was still hypervigilant and detached from my body. I still looked at my body as broken rather than on my side. That kept me in fight or flight even though my entire goal was to get out of that.

(Side note- brain rewiring typically consists of “rounds” of affirmations and visualizations, as well as pattern interrupts throughout the day. It takes a lot of detective work on yourself and awareness to identify the patterns that keep you stuck. The looping if you will.)

After a few months, I decided I needed a true 1:1 coach. I enlisted the help of a coach who focuses on brain rewiring and also includes some somatics pieces. This is known as a top down plus bottom up approach when somatics are involved, She was very helpful and I got a lot of great insight in the short time I worked with her. I started calming down, but I felt I still needed more as I kept running into roadblocks.

It was then with some searching that I found a program called Primal Trust by Dr. Cathleen King. I was exhausted from “searching” and really debated having to start and learn one more program. Part of the nervous system dysregulation piece is jumping from program to program, doctor to doctor, trying to fix yourself. I was starting to recognize patterns, such as that one, that didn’t serve me and didn’t want to keep doing that. I had the awareness and the tools but couldn’t shake the need for more.  

When I joined Primal Trust I also decided to invest in working with a trauma informed coach who specializes in German New Medicine (Separate post will include all the types of tools). I dove right in to both the Primal Trust program (I can’t recommend this program enough!! It’s affordable and I am actually going through it for the second time which is taking me much deeper). I also started working with my new coach. With this combination, I started seeing shifts like I never had before and really became aware of my programming. I also had some sessions with other coaches who have different approaches and continue to help me so much in other ways. The Flip N’ Shift Program is another that I highly recommend by Julie Walz. She has a different approach but makes it so simple that I have been able to incorporate what works best for me from all of the modalities I’ve learned. Kim D’Eramo is another practitioner who’s program I have not done but she has amazing videos on Youtube. I have also listened to podcasts and read several books on the mind body connection and TMS (Google John Sarno and Nichole Sachs- especially if you deal with chronic pain!). Some books I recommend are The Energy Codes by Dr. Sue Morter (can give you some tips without having to sign up for a full program), You Can Heal your Life by Louise Hay, and Mind over Medicine by Lissa Rankin.

During this time I have also worked with practitioners in energy medicine, breathwork, plant medicine and other healing modalities to start releasing stored emotions, give more space to my nervous system, and take my power back. All of these methods combined are so important to recognize. I continue on the path of authenticity and find it so exciting. I am no longer scared of what is and now I’m looking forward to what is coming. While I still have some lingering symptoms, especially in my gut, looking back on the progress over the last six months is remarkable. I was even able to travel to Hawaii which would have been impossible for me just a year earlier (and honestly even before getting “sick” I would have needed help in the form of alcohol or sedative to be able to get on a plane and travel- that was not needed this time!!) Even though I did have a flare up while I was there, I enjoyed my time because I knew I could handle it. Flare ups can be scary but standing in my authentic, soulful self, I see that it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter because it was a win and it was beautiful.

In Hawaii with my husband for a beautiful wedding!

All of this to say a few things: brain retraining and nervous system regulation are powerful, powerful tools. Combined with energy medicine and somatics, I feel all are the real deal. I resonate so deeply with this approach and truly think everyone on the planet could benefit from deeper emotional and subconscious work. That being said, I don’t believe it’s an either or thing when you are dealing with chronic illness. If you choose to incorporate brain retraining and other methods into your journey, you don’t have to solely rely on that. Do what feels right to you. Work on developing your intuition muscle (I will have a future post touching on intuition specifically). Sometimes a multi-faceted approach is needed to experience the full transformation you are looking for and that’s OK. It’s all ok. That’s the approach I’m taking and I’m finally able to receive the healers on the physical side that will help guide me to resolve the remaining pieces of my puzzle. No matter what you are experiencing, whether you have physical symptoms or not, what you feel is valid. You are valid. Always remember that. And that you are not alone.