Thursday, March 1, 2012

A Glimpse of Normal



On the Feast of the Epiphany, I began treatment with a new healer.  By the end of last year, after slogging from doctor to doctor to doctor for my bleeding and other health issues, I was incredibly frustrated, exhausted, and desperate.  The dysfunctional bleeding finally stopped on Christmas Eve after my having bled for about 70 of the previous 95 days. After lots of testing, not very much listening, and quite a bit of passing responsibility to other practitioners, the best the medical profession could diagnose me with was pre-menopausal hormone disruption and being “as good as diabetic”.  Neither of which could begin to account fully for my last four and a half years of chronic fatigue, pain, and cognitive dysfunction.  I was grasping at straws, including paying good money for some online, unlicensed and barely legal naturopath who suggested about ten different diagnoses and told me that if I’d lose a hundred pounds (going to a fat farm if necessary), all my health problems would get better.  Note:  I do NOT carry a hundred pounds of excess weight on my body!

Over the holidays, which were horrible and mostly spent in bed, I stopped in at a nearby gluten-free store and found a single business card for a guy who practices acupuncture, applied kinesiology, and NAET.  I thought, “what the hell, I’ve been to everyone else, maybe this guy will think more like I do; he certainly has the credentials for Weird.”  He works out of his living room, sets up his schedule from his cell phone, and was willing to let me grill him on his philosophy of healing for twenty minutes before even making an appointment!  My kind of practitioner.  My first visit was on the Epiphany, which I thought apropos for beginning new directions in healing wisdom.

He let me talk for an hour and a half, telling my story, letting me say for myself what was wrong with me.  That in itself was worth his fee!  I came home feeling very much like I’d hired a team player rather than submitted myself to yet another person’s expert opinions.  That first visit I got nothing more than a formula of Bach flower remedies from the healer and I myself changed the delivery system of my homeopathic remedy but for the first time in over six months I didn’t have to spend most of my waking hours in bed (or desperately wishing I were). 

I was able to do all our grocery shopping by myself, a full restocking of the kitchen since my husband has been trying to keep things running for the last several months, not his forte.  I hadn’t been able to shop unaccompanied in years.  Before I had quit altogether, I’d had to take a kid and use the motorized wheelchair carts and now suddenly I had the physical stamina and mental clarity to plan and execute a shopping trip to three stores, put it all away, and then start cooking up a storm.  I cooked for that whole first weekend!  I hadn’t so much as made a complete meal for myself in months, much less whole family dinners and prep-ahead meals for the freezer. 

I lost another fifteen pounds in addition to the twenty I’d already lost by going mostly grain-free and low-carb.  My clothes are falling off me, I have to wear my wedding ring on another finger, I even had to go back to an old pair of glasses because the prescription for my visual acuity changed.  I was able to take my daughter to an open house at the technical school she hopes to attend and the same day go with my other daughter to her music competition, unthinkable even a few weeks before.  I attended swim meets, went to a movie with the family, and I’ve even gone clothes shopping for my ever-taller teens.  I felt normal, healthy, and capable of living the life I expected of myself for the first time in five years. 

And then the honeymoon ended.  The healer and I have begun a course of treatments designed to realign that nexus between the physiological autonomic nervous system and the spirit/psyche, to cause it to function harmoniously as one whole rather than acrimoniously as two separate aspects of Being.  The treatments reset unconscious beliefs that cause adverse physiological or psychological reactions.  The treatments themselves are innocuous—some holding of tiny vials of liquid, some thumping along the spine, and a little acupuncture—but the changes that occur afterwards are enormous.  The healing is deep and requires a lot of forebearance as issues come to consciousness to be released.  I am again tired and quickly fatigue, often lose my temper, and am forgetful or foggy.  But it is the tiredness of healing rather than the weariness of disease. 

That brief interlude of glorious health, that glimpse of normal, was a splash of grace.  Having experienced that two weeks, I can eagerly accept the challenge now of this healing work.  It was a foretaste of vibrancy that was sorely needed after these long years of increasing despondency and resignation, a reminder of what I can be, the impetus I needed to do the work remaining, allowing these treatments to dig deeply into the foundations of my Being and to rebuild my whole self from the very inmost soul-depths.

4 comments:

  1. How wonderful! I am in a similar place. Learning to trust and believe that I can (and will ) be well again.
    Focusing on being congruent, on being compatible with the real me, which is healthy and strong. These diseases and weaknesses we have . . . we don't need them anymore.
    I want to become whole . . . become my true self . . .or uncover my true self. A challenge.

    Have you benefited from NAET? I know many people do. I'm not sure if I got much from it. I got more from acupuncture.

    Wishing you all the best on your journey.

    love, peace and the strength of the true you shining out!

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    1. Most practitioners and recipients of NAET consider the therapy to be primarily for relief from environmental or ingestible allergens--overcoming sensitivities to wheat or pollens, etc. My healer considers that the treatments for the various substances not only reset the immune system to accept the substance as benign but also that they work to reset the psyche to all the metaphorical implications that substance might represent for the recipient. So, for example, the treatment for eggs (eggs, chickens, feathers) is not merely about eggs, chickens, and feathers but about fertility, fundamental beginnings, sexuality, and so on. If someone has issues in those or related ideas, those issues will also be given an energetic shake-up and an opportunity for healing.

      It is in these psycho-spiritual relationships that I have found the most benefit so far from NAET. Although I've been seeing this healer for two months, we have only progressed to the second of the fifteen fundamental areas in the treatment protocol. Done well, NAET is a intensive and lengthy commitment. Consequently, most practitioners and patients don't utilize the therapy fully and often don't see great benefit. It is also not an insurance-covered expense so it is a pricey therapy when paying out-of-pocket. Another reason it is not often fully practiced and haphazard results are found.

      But for me, the $300/mo I am paying is worth it. Before this, I was spending between $100-200 monthly on remedies and supplements that barely worked (and worked less well the longer I took them) and now I don't take any supplements at all AND I am functional enough to participate in my family's life AND I can see that I am able to work through many of the deadly beliefs that locked me into unconscious patterns of reacting to my world.

      I can't say that I think NAET is going to solve all my health problems but it is the only thing in four years of illness that has even come close to making a sustainable difference (the other being homeopathy). Like all modalities of therapy, it comes down to finding an excellent practitioner. Mine rocks!

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  2. May that "glimpse of normal" become prolonged stares at healthy!

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  3. O my gosh, Sandra!!!! How absolutely wonderful and amazing!!

    Healing and continued restoration to you...xo

    Amy

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