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I chose to share my healing journey here, in hopes that it will inspire anyone in a similar situation not to give up. There is ALWAYS HOPE!
In the fall of 2010, I was in my first semester of grad school, physical therapy program in Indianapolis, Indiana. I had never felt so stressed and overwhelmed as I dealt with studying for grad school with newly diagnosed adult ADHD. I required time and a half for all exams, which felt incredibly shameful. I had recently moved back in with my parents in desperation after calling off my wedding the previous summer. Living with my parents was a worst case scenario for my mental health. My depression and anxiety had never been so severe, and to top it off I had recently lost a dear family friend who was like a brother to me. I had been dealing with unusual signs and symptoms seemingly in every joint, every body part and with every organ system since 2007. I had seen THIRTEEN specialists by this time, searching for answers, thinking all I wanted was a diagnosis. And now, I had one. I was diagnosed with some obscure autoimmune disease, which according to Western medicine, would cause me to slowly and painfully die over the next 5-10 years as my organ systems shut down one by one.
WHAT?!
I was given 2 prescription drugs with horrific-sounding side effects that would at best slow the disease process, but were nothing close to a cure. One of the reported side effects of one of the meds? Blindness.
Expecting the diagnosis would provide relief and a reason for hope, I was instead completely devastated by this news. Though I want to tell you I decided to fight, the truth is I went into a deep depression and gave up all hope almost immediately. I discussed my diagnosis with multiple physical therapy professors, and all but one agreed I should drop out of school, as my body wouldn’t be able to handle the physical demands of the job, they said.
I felt defeated. Angry! Hopeless. Lost. Shocked. I prepared to drop out of school. I admit I lost all desire to live. The future I was prescribed was terrifying.
It was then that my mom heard about a local Reiki therapist, and repeatedly encouraged me to see her. “Reiki? What’s reiki?? Sounds stupid.” I read the pamphlet and was immediately both cynical. “Channeling universal energy?? This sounds like a hoax”, I remember thinking. But Mom bought me a session, and eventually I went. That first session, I was basically just going through the motions. Expecting nothing. The Reiki therapist said, “Sit up slowly, you might feel a little dizzy”, and in my mind I thought Yeah, sure. But…I DID feel dizzy. She said “You might want to sit in the car for a few minutes to make sure you’re okay to drive”, and again I thought Yeah, yeah. But when I got in the car I felt so out of it, so exhausted, that I considered sleeping in the car. Instead I waited a few minutes and then drove home.
At home, I fell asleep immediately and slept heavily for 2 or 3 hours. When I woke up…well, it’s hard to describe, but I felt like a different person. I had a dream in which I was told not to give up, not to quit school, and to continue on this path. It was one of those life-changing moments I had heard people like Oprah talk about, but honestly didn’t believe in. I recorded a message making a promise to myself that I would stay the course, that I would heal myself, and that I would be okay. (Recently I found that message on my laptop, and I got emotional hearing it again, as I realized that all the promises I made back then I have ACTUALLY kept).
Reiki was my unexpected yet beautiful and gentle introduction to the world of alternative healing. Since then I have tried dozens upon dozens (upon dozens!) of therapies, treatments, and courses both online and in person. I’ve read hundreds of books on healing my body, mind, and spirit. I’ve experimented with every resource I could get my hands on to heal myself.
The majority of what I did to heal is considered holistic, integrative, or alternative. However, a huge part of the mental and emotional healing came from years of regular counseling. A good counselor can forever change your mind, your heart, and your life for the better. In addition to all of the above, I continued to give Western medicine a chance—with its tests and proposed diagnoses and exploratory surgeries and studies and prescriptions—until the beginning of 2018. They were unable to give me the healing I sought, though interestingly, they confirmed that I no longer qualify for a single autoimmune diagnosis by that time.
At the end of 2017, I was diagnosed via biopsy with thyroid cancer. As many people with a cancer diagnosis do, I began to panic. I planned my life like someone who may or may not survive. Everything was uncertain. And terrifying. A surgery was scheduled to remove the left half of my thyroid. Stubborn as I am, I still wanted a chance to heal myself first. Thanks to a friend’s advice, I took a course called “Radical Remission” based on a book of the same title, (both of which I could not recommend more highly). At the end of the course, I had a vision.
Now, I want to stop here and tell you that I am someone who, if you ask me to close my eyes and visualize an elephant, has to squint hard and kind of draw the elephant with my mind. I don’t get clear pictures and I’ve always struggled with guided visualization meditations. So when I use the term “vision”, I mean it, as I have no other way to describe what happened.
So I was making my bed, not thinking about anything in particular, not even my cancer. Walking across the bedroom, I suddenly “saw” in my mind’s eye a very clear image of my hand reaching into my throat and pulling out a black substance which I immediately understood to be the cancer. And then the floor opened up in front of me and I threw the black substance down into the magma of the earth’s mantle and watched it disappear. Instantly, the thought “My cancer’s gone!” flitted across my mind. But the next instant, my ego doubt took over and began to second-guess everything I had just seen.
The “message” I had been getting over and over for years, was “TRUST YOURSELF!” Sadly, I didn’t. I just didn’t…couldn’t…believe what I had seen. So the surgery went on as scheduled. They removed the nodule from my thyroid and sent it away to pathology. The results? The nodule was benign.
I returned to the physician that had diagnosed me, absolutely furious. Self-righteously demanding that she stop telling patients they have cancer if she wasn’t sure. Unwavering, she turned her laptop toward me and showed me the original pathology results, confident they were accurate. I left the office thinking they should’ve done more biopsies or I should’ve gotten a second opinion. But the truth is this: I KNOW I had cancer. I felt it. When we know, we know. And that moment after the vision, I knew it was gone. And it was. It wasn’t a mistaken diagnosis, there were no “should haves” that applied. I had healed my cancer.
And I sincerely mean it when I say SO CAN YOU! You are capable of healing literally anything “wrong” with your body. Am I telling you to ignore Western medicine? Absolutely not. Especially if you believe Western Medicine is what will help or cure you. But when it comes to certain things like autoimmune disease, chronic pain and illness, cancer…the truth is that Western Medicine does NOT have all the answers.
When you choose to embark on your healing journey, I encourage you to think of the work as a team approach, with you as team leader. Keep taking any prescription medicines your physician has you on. Keep seeing your counselor, your acupuncturist, your massage therapist, and any other team members you appoint. Healing can and should be a group effort. That being said, you are not a victim or a passive bystander. You are not even a “patient”, you are an expert. This is your body and no one knows it as well as you do. What do you call someone who knows something better than anyone else? An expert! You are the most qualified person in the field of your body! Part of our work may involve helping you improve your body awareness, your intuition, and your insight. But no one feels what you feel, and no one knows your emotional, physical and spiritual history the way you do. This gives you the upper hand when it comes to figuring out what is really going on and why you are suffering. You are the expert on you!
Choose healing. Choose hope. Choose Love. Choose YOURSELF!
YOU’VE GOT THIS!
