_{Pictured above: Hiking recently in Austria. Amazing when you think for years I could barely leave the house. All of my achievements started with belief!}

One of the key parts of healing my Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and Chronic Lyme Disease using brain retraining and nervous system regulation has come from actually believing that I could heal. This is incredibly difficult when you have spent years and years trying different treatments to no avail. You start to feel like you’re some tricky exception, that others can heal but you can’t. You think of excuses why you’re worse than others you’ve seen heal, and why healing is out of reach for you. You also stop letting yourself get your hopes up in order to protect yourself.

For me I always had hope I would recover, but it wasn’t a strong, unwavering belief. There was a light shining at the end of the metaphorical tunnel I found myself in, and at times that light was seriously dim. I also thought I’d improve but didn’t really believe I could be 100% again, and I had resigned myself to believing that I’d live a life of limitations. I didn’t realise until I started brain retraining with DNRS that parts of my subconscious also had ingrained beliefs I would stay sick forever. Many parts of myself questioned the mind-body connection and if healing my nervous system would really bring symptom relief. Here are some ways I started to build belief in a full, vibrant recovery:

• When I couldn’t imagine myself healthy, I imagined what it would be like if I did believe, and what that might look like. Having it as an imagination brought me one step closer to being able to truly believe it for myself. For example, I’d ask myself, what would my day look like if I was fully free from illness? What would I do? How would my body feel? I didn’t put pressure on myself to believe these things, but it started to plant the seed of what believing in healing might feel like.
• A huge help for me was reading all the success stories on the DNRS Community Forum, I would tell myself if they can heal, so can I. I also loved rewatching some of the progress stories that appear throughout the program as well as on their website. The recovery story of Linda (you can watch it here) who is a DNRS coach particularly struck home for me and had me in tears. I realised that her story was similar to mine and if she could heal then why couldn’t I? I also realised I was a lot younger than Linda so it gave me a deeper belief in my healing (you have to take any excuse to believe you can heal even if it’s not super kind, sorry Linda!)
• I focused on celebrating all the small wins along the way. I would tell myself if I can come this far and have gone from bed bound to housebound, then why can’t I go all the way to 100%?
• I had to remind myself that my brain has a negativity bias, every negative thought I’d have about not healing I would try to overcompensate with 10 positive ones. Also this ingrained negativity bias is why my brain had a tendency to not believe in a full recovery.
• I have realised when I’m working through limiting core beliefs that if I repeat them to myself long enough, my brain is neuroplastic and it will change and start to believe it. This can feel like I’m gaslighting myself initially (I’ve written about that here) but when I know it’s a belief I need to have I push through that feeling of inauthenticity until it sticks and feels real.
• I learnt that our brain doesn’t want to change. It wants to stay in the same thought patterns that have kept us sick. It sees change as a “threat” and it feels safer staying put. It will think of creative ways and reasons that you can’t heal and why nervous system regulation won’t work in order to try and keep you “safe” and stuck in the same patterns. I had to learn to recognise this, and when a self-limiting thought would come up, I’d recognise what my brain was doing and not give that thought power.
• Further to this when you have limbic system impairment and nervous system dysregulation you have to learn that not all thoughts are real. Your brain is seeing the world through the lens of threat. Become the curious observer and don’t get caught up in looping thoughts that will tell you that you can’t heal.
• I would spend a lot of time doing visualisations of myself symptom free. If there was a little voice in the back of my mind doubting my ability to achieve whatever I was visualising then I would keep repeating that same visualisation until that voice quietened down.
• Listening to podcasts of others who have healed helped me a lot. My favourite podcast for this is Our Power is Within. It is full of inspiring interviews with people who have recovered using nervous system regulation tools. Whenever I had negative thoughts patterns that doubted my healing pop up, then I’d turn this podcast on and it would inspire me to continue with my practice.
• Learning more about the brain helped me to understand that it has no choice but to change and heal. Some of my favourite books that have inspired me are: ‘The Brain that Changes Itself’ by Normal Doidge, “Becoming Supernatural” and “Breaking the Habit of Being Yourself” by Joe Dispenza
• Speaking of Joe Dispenza, his documentary Source is an incredible source of inspiration (pun intended), and presents more scientific evidence of the mind-body connection. Seeing evidence really helps to motivate me. The documentary also has some incredibly inspiring recovery stories. (Does anyone want to join me on a Joe Dispenza retreat? It’s become a goal of mine since watching Source a few times)
• Learning about the science of how our thoughts have a physiological impact on our bodies helped motivate me to keep my thoughts pro healing (I think I need to write a blog post all about this & the science and power of our thoughts). Knowing intellectually that I had to believe in my healing gave me more impetus to try and surrender to that feeling of believing in a FULL and vibrant recovery.
• Following people who have healed using nervous system regulation on social media, some I love are @ribeyerach, @bekahperlman, @healwithalex @healwithlizc @juliewithjoy. You can also follow yours truly, my instagram is @alexmeekawellness

I hope these tips help. Remember it takes time to change beliefs and be gentle with yourself as you steer your thoughts into the right direction. I had to tell myself, I’ve had these ingrained beliefs for years and that of course it was going to take time to change them. After my own experiences healing and witnessing others healing with mind-body work I truly believe that you CAN and WILL heal, you have everything within you to make it happen.

If you have any other strategies that helped you to BELIEVE in your healing, I’d love for you to share it in the comments below. I have loved hearing from my blog readers, don’t hesitate to reach out and say hello.

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