BEATING FIBROMYAGLIA

"Your body has betrayed you; You have this for life."

In the last ten years, correctly diagnosing Fibromyalgia patients has increased, and it's finally being recognized as a real syndrome. In 2009, when the onset of symptoms began for me, doctors were kind of rolling their eyes behind our backs; it was a "woman's disease", some extension of bad PMS: it was incredibly insulting. And don't get me started on trying to get pain management pills. I was treated horribly, like a junkie trying to get my next "score". Please. That was added trauma in itself. Instead of listening to me, all they wanted to do was shove antidepressants down my throat, even though I told them over and over, I wasn't depressed, I WAS IN PAIN!!!!! Oh my, I can feel the anxiety creeping up into my chest just typing this.

BUT THEN

By the grace of God, I received a letter in the mail one day from my insurance company, claiming my doctor had been changed, and my new doctor just so happened to have Fibromyalgia, herself, and she helped me. Her name was Dr. Laurie McFann of Casa Grande, AZ; I'll never forget her name. She literally changed my life forever. It was her kind and knowing personality, that helped me get the medications I needed and was by my side, all the way through getting OFF all the medications once I was healed, which took another thirteen months.

I had no intention of beating Fibromyalgia,
I didn't know it was going to happen.

YOGA

It all started with a yoga class. After being bedridden for 23 hours a day for four years straight, I decided I had to do something. I was so young-- in my mid 30's, and already bedridden? This couldn't be how my story ended. I thought maybe moving around a little bit would help, so I started going to yoga once a week. I loved my teacher, and she told me about the school where she got her Yoga Teacher Training certificate. It was called Southwest Institute of Healing Arts in Tempe, AZ. It was an hour north of where I was living, but she raved about her experience, and before I knew it, I was on my way up to check it out. I fell in love with the school just as she had, and I didn't stop at the Yoga Teacher Training program, I signed up for a massive, Holistic Practitioner's diploma program! I thought I might have been crazy, but I went for it. It changed my entire life, and I have no idea where I would be if I had never made the choice to go to that yoga class. (In a bed, somewhere, probably.)

And so. . . it was August 2013, and my first three classes were Life Coaching: Friday night, all day Saturday, and all day Sunday. In the past, I had heard people speak poorly of Life Coaching, degrading it, and I remember kinda dragging my feet as I drove up there, but then, OH, AND THEN, I experienced what life coaching was truly about, and it BLEW MY MIND. I ended up taking all of the Advanced Life Coaching courses AND co-teaching Transformational Yoga Coaching with the owner of the school, KC Miller!!!!

Like I said, my first class was in August 2013; by the end of December, I was PAIN-FREE. It was less than four months! Reflecting:

One day I thought to myself, "Hey, I haven't taken my pain meds yet! I didn't even think about it yet,

because I didn't feel any pain!" I couldn't believe it. The next day, the same thing. I realized I wasn't

in pain, I was just getting withdrawals from not taking my medications. I was REALLY pain-free!

And then Dr. McFann & I embarked on the 13-month journey of getting off 100s of pills.

THE RECIPE

So how did I do it? How is it possible that multiple doctors in the western medical community got it so wrong? How is it possible that pain, which had plagued me for over 1,460 days straight just vanished? And what could this mean for modern medicine? For people just like me? All these answers eventually made their way to me over the years, but we'll start

with the first question. HOW DID I DO IT?

LIFE COACHING

Cleaning Out The Mental Garbage

Life Coaching is a beautiful modality that helps you navigate through your mind, cleaning up the old to make way for the new. It's a lot like a computer! The intense questions make you dig deeper, forcing you to go to the root of who you really are and what you really believe about yourself and the world around you. It's kinda like conducting a search on an old computer so you can delete all the old files that have been using an outdated operating system: if it isn't serving you in a beneficial way, then it's getting deleted. It allows you to get rid of all the unhealthy thinking patterns that you have been stuck in like a gutter ball in bowling, so you can replace them with new, positive ones. It's literally rewiring the brain to function in a healthier, more positive way, like improving workflow! I tell my clients that I'm "graduating Neuroplastic Surgeons". ^_^ Neuroplasticity is the brain's ability to change itself, the nervous system, and their functionality over the span of a lifetime! This is how we are able to heal after traumas, Fibromyalgia, or other mental dysfunctions Truly fascinating, isn't it?

POLARITY THERAPY

"Move The Energy, Move The Pain"

I coined this phrase because this is what I learned about Fibromyalgia.

Fibro is a full-body pain syndrome.

Had I spent any quality time processing the many, many traumas I had experienced in my 30 years?

No.

Bottoms of liquor bottles don't count?

No.

Had those traumas been painful?

You better believe it.

Is it possible that the traumas were just trapped energy, stuck in my body, masking as pain?

You betcha.

So if we start moving that energy around, casting it out, piece by piece, is it possible that one day it could all be gone?

Now you're getting it.

YOGA

They Call It "Pranayama"

Yoga, yoga, yoga, and more yoga.

Au contraire to popular belief, it isn't the poses that make yoga such a powerful healing modality.

It's the pranayama or the breathwork.

Deep belly breathing, bringing clean air into the body, and expelling stagnant, toxic air keeps the blood and the organs soooo happy. It is my 100% firm belief that yoga alone can "cure" most symptoms of any ailment. You can control blood sugar levels for diabetes, for goodness sake.

And even if you're 80 years old and disabled, you don't have to even get into the poses: you could literally sit in a chair and just breathe into your belly and see results. It makes you wonder why everyone isn't doing it, huh?