Mar 17, 2019
Thought I would document my health journey from not being able to walk for 9 months due to chronic pain, to being diagnosed with Hashimotos, an autoimmune disease, to where I am now, largely pain free and on the verge of reversing the autoimmune disease.
In this episode I share my journey and more importantly share all the things I did to try and get better. I have no idea whether one thing has had the most impact or whether it is a culmination of many things, but here's my story.
I hope if you're experiencing anything similar, my story might be helpful to you or someone you love.
This is a long video, so here are the top 10 things I did that I feel had an impact:
1. Change in diet. Switching to an anti-inflammatory lifestyle. Going dairy-free + grain-free.
2. Accepting the pain, not getting caught up in the emotion around being in pain. Allowing the as-is (Michael A Singer type thinking)
3. Meditating
4. Writing morning pages (see The Artist's Way by Julia Cameron)
5. Educating myself on Neuroplasticity (see NOIgroup, David Butler, Prof Lorimer Mosely and the book Explain Pain and the Protectometer handbook)
6. Faith. I believed I would get better or find a way to live a fulfilling life despite the debilitating pain. Faith that life is always working for me and not against me.
7. Talking to people about my health challenge, which often lead people to link me to other people who could help me.
8. Walking. Bravely walking and putting what I learned about Neuroplasticity into practise. Being brave believing pain can't hurt me, walking cam't make it worse and despite huge fear doing it anyway.
9. Listening to people talking about Neuroplasticity and great mindsets when my mindset took a dip, in order to strengthen my belief.
10. Accepting the as-is. On flare up days, no catastrophizing, just allowing and looking for the lessons or the opportunity for growth on the other side of the pain boulder!
I would add my coach Jacqueline Hurst helped me enormously on this journey by teaching me how to have a great relationship with food and therefore feel no restriction around my new inflammatory lifestyle. Feel free to hop on over to Instagram and join in the conversation with my community about this topic!