Breaking Free from Chronic Illness: My Journey to Healing
Discover the Six Essential Steps to Overcoming Chronic Conditions and Reclaiming Your Health
I have suffered from Chronic Illness for most of my life; Bipolar, Major Depression, Fibromyalgia, Lyme Disease, Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, IBS, SIBO and Allergies. For two decades I made it my mission to heal myself of these disorders and heal others with the information I have learned. Below are the 6 most important contributors to my freedom from chronic illness.
1. Healing the Leaky Gut with The Body Ecology Diet and The GAPS Diet.
In 2002, I started a journey to healing and it began with an understanding that there was an imbalance in my Microbiome. At the time the topic of wellness was not all over the news and there was very little discussion about the gut/brain connection. I was having terrible bloating, gas, nausea, constipation and the most debilitating exhaustion I could even comprehend. I was depressed and of course my food cravings were out of control. I was literally obsessed with food, it was a huge addiction for me. I even began binging and purging because I was constantly hungry and would feel extreme shame that I couldn’t have the discipline to stop eating and obsessing. It was then I learned about Candida Albicans; a naturally occurring Yeast in the body that can grow out of control if the conditions permit. Candida begins to thrive when the body has been pushed out of balance with antibiotics, sugar, birth control, alcohol, stress and overall unhealthy eating habits. However there are lots of other microbes that can take advantage of your ecology and start to create conditions to favor them instead of you,
I highly recommend looking into starting The Body Ecology Diet or The GAPS Diet. Yes, at first they may seem restrictive but as someone who has had their life force completely taken from them in the throws of major illness – I assure you that this is the most important thing you can do. I recommend following at least 3 months or more for people with chronic illness, for others who just want to kick start their digestive processes it can be less. This will be the best change you have ever made for your health. I cannot stress enough that your daily diet is the most important aspect for overall wellness. Also incorporating seasonal foods that address the Vikriti (imbalance) in your body. (more on Ayurveda in section 3). You cannot have a healthy and balanced mind while eating low vibrational (low energy) food. That is why I recommend eating a plant based diet, 80% plants (or more) and no more than 20% animal products. And I recommend that the animal products be Medicinal, and used when the body needs them for healing or extra energy. For example, the GAPS diet suggests eating Bone Broth & Meat Broths because high fiber containing foods can be too irritating for some people with leaky gut while its in the initial healing stages. For some, they need the nourishing broths to help heal the lining of the gut and repair the mucosa. This is what I call ‘Medicinal Meat’, when you are eating meat or animal products for the healing aspects. Sardines are another highly medicinal meat that I recommend in many challenging health situations. And lets not forget the remarkable benefits of Ghee, which is rich in Butyric acid, a compound that supports the healing of intestinal mucosa and strengthens the immune system in our gut.
As a highly sensitive person, I am very aware of how consuming animal products, which carry energies of torture, stress and disease will contribute to those aspects within the body. Energy does not die, it merely transfers, that is why when I eat bone broth, ghee or meat, it is always for medicinal purposes. I make sure I am getting it from a small farm where the animal lived its life in the most humane & historically accurate way possible. This does not mean I trust large grocery stores and their “Green Washing” tactics, I do my own research and buy directly from a farm or co-op that assures me i am getting the highest quality product where the animal was respected for its life.
2. Eliminating Dairy & Gluten
I can’t stress this enough. Dairy and Wheat are extremely problematic, and for some people even toxic! It causes so much inflammation that many health issues could be solved just by simply eliminating it. You can absolutely eat them sparingly if they don’t cause you too many issues, but you will only know if they are a culprit in your health woes if you eliminate them for at least 90 days and then slowly reintroduce, one food at a time. In this modern day we have so many fabulous nut based alternatives to milk and cheese that you can satisfy those cravings easily. Also watch this short, Dairy is Scary video, to give you extra motivation to quit dairy now. Another big bummer, is the elimination of our beloved gluten, yes I know. But if you knew the amount of research on the negative effects of modern wheat you would be floored. Unfortunately modernization of wheat includes hybridization, and the Wheat we have today has been altered from its original genetic structure that our body just doesn’t comprehend this substance. Not only that but most wheat cultivation uses ‘Glyphosate’ the key ingredient in ‘Round Up’ , which the residue of this pesticide is consumed along with the Wheat causing leaky gut, inflammation, reduction in the production of neurotransmitters, enzymes, and endogenous detoxification compounds. For more information on this subject I highly recommend reading or listening to interviews with Dr Tom O’Bryan, Stephanie Sennef or Dr David Perlmutter. If you have done the work and remediated your gut, you can begin to experiment with ancient grains (grains that have not been hybridized, like Einkorn Wheat, Kamut, Spelt). However many sensitive types should be wary of grains in general and only use them if they are Organic, Non-GMO and Sprouted.
3. Living Ayurveda and Practicing Yoga
“Ayurveda is primarily a science of Self-healing aimed at relieving diseases of body and mind. Ayurveda as ‘Self-healing’ is concerned with restoring wholeness, with our inner Self as its ultimate goal, which is spiritual healing.” - David Frawley. Ayurveda is a 5,000 year old system of holistic medicine which covers all aspects of health and well-being, physical, emotional, mental and spiritual. It includes methods of healing from diet, herbs, exercise and lifestyle practices, yogic practices and meditation. Once I learned the foundational principles of Ayurveda it gave me a platform from which i can understand how my body may be out of balance and what foods, herbs and lifestyle practices I can incorporate to put me back into balance. This is a system that if everyone learned in school we would be a healthier society! I can’t believe we were never taught how to care for ourselves and how to get back to homeostasis when life has thrown us off. For more information about how to incorporate Ayurveda into your own life visit the “offerings” page, and click on the “Create a new Habit” path.
4. Eliminating Parasites and Detoxifying Drainage Pathways in the body. I have so much to say on this topic as the removal of pathogenic organisms was a crucial part of my healing process. When I was diagnosed with Lyme Disease in 2017 I began reading and listening to any information I could get my hands on about this strange and “incurable” illness. Most western medical doctors believe that this bacteria, Borrelia Burgdorferi, is transmitted through tick bites, but I do not believe that this the only way to transmit this disease, in fact, I believe we are not being told about the full truth of how these spirochetes transfer to humans. Many of these types of organisms are so highly evolved that they have multiple ways of evading your immune system. These organisms are called “pleomorphic”, aka shape shifter. Pleomorphism is the ability of some micro-organisms to alter their structure, biological functions, or reproductive modes in response to environmental conditions. Meaning they can turn into different forms to hide from your immune system or outsmart pharmaceutical drugs or herbal remedies. That is why you hear so many stories of people never getting well, because they do not understand this aspect of these highly evolved microbes. Not only are these bugs hard to kill but they have the ability to change your ecology to suite their needs. They will begin to steal your nutrients to feed themselves, even your stress chemicals and neurotransmitter chemicals they will use to proliferate, create more colonies and set up shop inside of you. These bugs don’t just live in your microbiome either, they hide within soft tissue, like joints, or take up shop within your cells, organs or tissue. For more info on this subject I highly recommend learning from Dr Dietrich Klinghardt, Dr Jay Davidson, Scott Forsgren “the better health guy”. After learning so much, I applied many different therapies to eliminate my body of these microbes. I did medicinal herb & plant medicine protocols, Ozone therapy, PEMF therapy, Ketamine treatments, and Peptide therapy. All of which have been extremely valuable in my journey to experiencing true freedom from chronic illness.
5. Plant Medicine
For many the path of working with psychoactive plants or fungi may seem scary or daunting. I understand how our culture has created so much fear around this kind of medicine, and I am incredibly grateful at the revolution we are experiencing right now to create awareness around the medicinal benefits of these substances. As someone who suffered profoundly from depression for most of my life I can attest that these Entheogens work to give relief from debilitating emotional turmoil. However I did not experience lasting change and freedom from depression until I did Ayahuasca in 2018. I had begun my experimentation with psychedelics in high school with Magic Mushrooms (Psyllocibin) and over the last 20 years I have used LSD, Ketamine, MDMA and its naturally derived analogues from plants, as well as DMT containing plants. I would typically use one of these types of medicine at least quarterly to help me feel less depressed and bring back my vitality for life. However I never had lasting relief, the feelings of depression, exhaustion, apathy and procrastination would come back and my same negative habits would emerge. However in 2018 I participated in an Ayahuasca ceremony and everything changed. After two ceremonies of Ayahuasca I had lasting relief from depression and negative patterns for almost 8 months. I had not experienced more than 2 months depression free ever in my life, let alone 8 months! At the same time I was learning about antimicrobials because I was doing different herbal therapies to eliminate the Lyme disease and thats when I learned about , Banisteriopsis Caapi (one of the plants used in “Ayahuasca”) is full of an alkaloid called Harmine. Harmine is one of the most powerful antimicrobial compounds on the planet and will quickly eradicate colonies of these opportunistic organisms creating havoc in the body. Imagine my excitement, I felt like I had made an incredible discovery - these parasites were causing so much of my imbalance that once they were eliminated, I felt like a new person. Not only was I witnessing my own transformation but I was watching people completely recover from severe drug & alcohol addiction and after using these medicines they felt free from the clutches of their addiction. I couldn’t help but start to explore how the antimicrobial aspects of these medicines were contributing to my feeling of freedom from negative thought patterns and emotional distress. And not only that, I began to have levels of motivation and clarity I had never experienced previously. I was finally able to utilize this brain God had given me and achieve the results in my life that I knew were possible, but I had always felt like something was holding me back, something I couldn’t just meditate or positively think my way out of. I know that the medicine works in multiple ways to heal brain functioning and i am aware that the trauma releasing aspects of this medicine is also a significant contributor to my new found freedom.
6. Trauma Releasing
In 2015, I began doing trauma release work with an EMDR therapist. A very close friend of mine is a pain psychologist, Dr Jeni Huggins, and she had become certified in this therapy and educated me on its profound ability to release trauma and reprocess the event so that one does not keep experiencing negative habits or thought patterns associated with the event. EMDR stands for Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing, a form of psychotherapy developed by Francine Shapiro, using bilateral sensory input, like side to side eye movements or hand tapping to access traumatic or triggering experiences. The bilateral stimulation is used to stimulate the way past events are inaccurately stored in the brain so that these experiences can be adaptively “digested” leading to the resolution of negative emotions, beliefs and bodily sensations. My experience with EMDR has helped alleviate many different stressors that were limiting my ability to relax and focus. I have done about 14 sessions of EMDR and I found it particularly helpful for post traumatic stress.
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