A big thing I’ve had to work on during my healing journey is how to develop patience and acceptance for where I’m at. This is a continual work in progress. I often find myself striving for more and getting too fixated on where I want to be, rather than appreciating where I am right now. This has great parallels for life in general, learning to be a human ‘being’ and not a human doing is a more beautiful way of living life. Despite having an intellectual understanding of the pros of being mindful and present, it’s only recently I’ve been able to tap into actually feeling it.

The past few weeks I have been sharing a bit more on social media about my experience healing Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and Chronic Lyme using brain retraining and in particular the DNRS program. Because of this, I’ve had a few people reach out asking about my recovery. The most common question I get asked is, “how long did it take you to see improvements?” I totally understand this pattern of thinking because it was the first thing I used to ask as well! When you have a long term chronic illness there is a desperation to be better ASAP, and to search for treatments that are going to work quickly. With chronic illness you also start to lose hope that treatments will work for you, and typically you’ve been suffering a very, long time, it’s a totally normal response to wonder when you can expect to see improvements.

Part of my recovery has come from detaching from giving my healing a timeline and accepting that things will unfold as they will. Almost ironically, I feel that the more I have stopped grasping and wanting everything over as soon as possible, the more my nervous system is allowed to relax, and the greater healing I experience. I didn’t realise, but prior to this I felt like I was running towards an invisible finish line where I thought happiness, joy and everything good was waiting for me. I’m learning now that place exists in the here and now and I have the choice to tap into it or not.

I remember prior to commencing DNRS I was in Europe for medical treatment and we booked a trip to the Amalfi Coast. I recall swimming in the water, with all this beauty around me and feeling miserable. I had been bed and housebound for about 6 years prior to this, I remember thinking I SHOULD be feeling present, grateful and happy, but I knew I didn’t feel that way at all. I was focused on all the symptoms I still had, and I was preoccupied with where I wanted to be.

It reminds me of the Sylvia Plath quote,“Wherever I sat—on the deck of a ship or at a street café in Paris or Bangkok—I would be sitting under the same glass bell jar, stewing in my own sour air.” That’s exactly how I felt, illness was my bell jar. “When I’m better, I’ll be happy,” I’d say to myself, “When I’m completely healthy again, I wont have this problem”. I remember thinking back then that if I could learn to move towards a less reactive state around my health, and could learn to feel happiness and joy despite the pain I was in, then surely once my health improved I’d be wildly joyful and free! I just didn’t know HOW to get myself to feel that way. Learning to regulate my nervous system with DNRS has given me a framework for this.

One of the early changes I made was changing my association to illness. I noticed that I was always thinking of my life as having two stages, everything “pre-illness”, then the dark, horrible period of “illness”. If any of my memories were in the “illness” period of my life they were tarnished. I had a lot of self-limiting thoughts that revolved around, “oh, but that happened when I was sick”, “oh wow, I’ve been sick for almost a third of my life”, “oh, am I going to need ANOTHER two years for this to be over?!”. These thoughts weren’t promoting healing, and were putting me into a victim consciousness. They also gave power to illness and almost made it part of my identity. I had to change this programming in my brain.

The truth is, that time of my life wasn’t all miserable, it had been years, of course there were beautiful moments during that time! In my mind fun memories from that time automatically had a darkness attached to them, as though I saw all of them through murky, clouded glass (or perhaps a foggy, dirty bell jar?). In my mind I’d always think, “yeah that was fun, BUT that’s when I was sick”. I had to work to remove this subconscious association. My godson was born in this time, my dog was a constant source of love and affection, I was a bridesmaid at a best friend’s wedding, I watched some of my cousin’s children grow up in this time and spent lots of time laughing and enjoying their company. All of these memories are beautiful and deserve to be seen in a joyful and untarnished light.

The first step to creating change is always awareness, once noticing this association, I tried to stay aware and change these thoughts as I saw them popping up, focusing only on the beauty and joy in these memories instead of thinking about any symptoms that accompanied them.

Another way I changed my association with illness was not framing everything as “when I get better, THEN I’ll do this”. Again, it was as though I was running towards an invisible finish line, the “post-illness” era. According to this way of thinking I could only be truly happy once I was in this period, and it also reminds me of the second most common question I get asked, “are you 100% healed?”. I used to tell myself stories such as “I can’t start my blog or share my story until I’m fully healthy” and many other things I believed I couldn’t do until I was thriving, glowing, 100% symptom free and in this imagined perfect “post-illness” era. But with chronic illness at what point does that become true anyway? It’s a gradual process of improving, and I had to train myself to move away from this black and white way of thinking. I started to seriously question myself when I’d claim, “I can’t do that because I’m sick”. Oftentimes these were just self-limiting beliefs. I was like a flea that is put in a jar and learns to jump to the height of the lid. When the lid is removed it continues jumping to the same height, limiting itself. If I thought illness was my bell jar, maybe in fact it was a self-imposed one? Could I change my mindset and relationship to my current symptoms, and learn to be free and happy despite them?

My focus on having to get to the “post-illness” era has parallels to life in general. We think “once I get a new job”, “when I move”, “once X happens”, THEN I’ll be happy. We get too focused on achieving and this constant striving is giving power to things outside of us, but I’m learning that true joy and peace always comes from being present and connecting to the inner essence within.

Another mindset shift that helped me recently was a conversation I had with a friend. She mentioned a moment she had with plant medicine where she said she felt the desire to get up and dance, but also felt happy sitting as she was. Despite the inherent conflict in those wants she felt a sense of contentment staying seated. I loved this simple description, and it made me think of places in my life where sitting in the present is okay and exactly what I need.

Of course I have goals that I am working towards and at times I feel frustration that my physical capabilities aren’t quite there yet. I still have symptoms, but I have learnt to change my relationship to them. I’ve learnt to be non-reactive when they pop up, and live with peace, joy and gratitude despite them. When symptoms used to pop up I gave them power and would end up in spirals because of them. I have learnt to be “at peace with my pace” (a DNRS friend taught me that great line).

Learning to surrender and trust is something that takes practice. Obviously as I have already experienced significant improvements, it’s easier to trust that more is coming. It also helps to remind myself, the more I am able to surrender, the safer my nervous system will feel and the more my healing will continue.

I have also noticed the more I surrender in different areas of my life, the ‘surrender muscle’ in my brain seems to be getting stronger and it gets a little easier. I am less and less bothered by external circumstances that I can’t change. I suppose that’s just neuroplasticity in action, I’m creating new neural pathways for trust & surrender, and with time they’re strengthening.

Recently I was chatting to one of my health practitioners about what was going on in my life and she said, “I want your life!” My initial reaction was to think, “no you don’t, look at all the symptoms I still have”, before I realised it’s all about that choice of perspective. I’m creating a really beautiful life and have many blessings. I am making the choice to keep consciously choosing to focus on them and I do believe her, my life is great! All my vision boards and old wishes are coming true, and I am ensuring I spend more time basking in the present and appreciating it.

So, when people ask me ‘how long did it take you to improve’, should I link to this blog post? The true answer is a few months, but I also want to share that you will know true healing is on the way when you don’t have an attachment to my answer. Changing my association with time, healing and learning to tap into the present moment has been incredibly helpful for me. I’m always reminding myself to surrender and accept, then surrender and accept even more.

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