Diagnosis: Chronic Fatigue Syndrome
When I was a 31-year old mother, I left my marriage of 4 years and moved to a log house on 23-acres in southern Maine. The divorce was stressful; my ex-husband waffled daily for months on the agreements we made before finally signing the papers. When I arrived in Maine, I was exhausted, overwhelmed, but relieved to be on my own, to live with my son and dog in a house and on land that supported my being.
I was concurrently in a process of deep spiritual awakening and what I believed was inner healing. I didn’t realize that my practice was untethered, poorly contained. I was enamored with all I was experiencing and learning, and going at it with…dare I admit it…reckless abandon.
Let’s be clear: spiritual awakening is serious work. It is not all about love and light, rainbows and unicorns. If it is, it might be missing some essential elements, such as:
- grounded practices
- energetic and physical boundaries
- truth vs. magical thinking
- clarity of intention and purpose
I continued to work, care for my son & home, explore my spirituality, and began a new relationship, but I remained stressed and exhausted. As my symptoms increased and my energy declined, I was eventually diagnosed with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome.
My Story
I grew up in a religious home; my parents were Christian Scientists. I am not religious, however, I am grateful for the exposure to healing through spiritual practice. In spite of my family’s deep religious beliefs, anger was a staple in our home. I assumed the role of rebel, and spent a lot of time experiencing my parents anger because of real and perceived mischief and misbehaviors.
I didn’t recognize my own anger until many years later. When my marriage fell apart, I went into therapy to figure myself out, to try and clean things up, so I could live differently going forward. What a surprise it was to realize how much deeply held anger I carried, and how it governed my experience!
Now living in Maine, my whole life began to feel exhausting. My son was an active 5-year old. I had a challenging, time consuming corporate job. My new partner brought his issues with him, and they mingled with mine, impacting our relationship. I felt like it was my responsibility to hold everything and everyone together. My spiritual life was still very important to me, but I was stuffing so much rage, I was unaware of how dysregulated and out of balance I had become.
I slept long hours without feeling rested, developed food and chemical sensitivities, went through boxes of Kleenex from histamine reactions. And more. So many symptoms, so much fatigue! My partner joked that I could be counted on to shine brightly between the hours of 11am and 2pm. The rest of the time was spent getting ready to shine, or recovering from shining!
Bottom line: Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and adrenal depletion were the result of my years of living with suppressed anger and stress.
Energy Healing & Chronic Fatigue Syndrome
One day a friend responded to my complaints about my illness with her hypothesis that I had an energy problem. If I’d had more energy I would have clocked her! Are you kidding me? What could be more obvious?
She explained that she thought my chakras and aura needed regulation and clearing, that I could heal this with the right tools. That got my attention.
Tools for (r)evolution:
Chakra regulation – what a gift! I learned which chakras were too closed, which ones excessively open, and the perfect storm they were creating in their lack of balance and alignment.
Energy clearing – all the patterns I identified in therapy, the rebelling, the over-compensating, the anger and rage, the spiritual promiscuity — flitting from one spiritual practice to the next, skimming the surface instead of doing the work. My lack of grounding and boundaries, the judgment and rigidity — I went to work on all of these things.
My Intention: I am aligned, balanced, grounded, congruent, abundant and healthy.
I healed.
I didn’t get my old life back, I got a new one! One that I’ve built on ever since.
I regained my energy and vitality. The symptoms of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome disappeared. I participated in my life through grounded awareness. I let go of the anger, rigidity and rage that informed my childhood and crafted my emotional reactivity. I learned to accept, allow, let go, Be.
I anchored into a spiritual practice that has stood the test of time. I’m not a seeker on the outside, I’m a seeker on the inside!
Life happens. My practice is my constant. This work is my life. I’m here to share it with anyone who wants to do the work of arriving within themself, to actualize life from the core of their being.
Let me ask you
Do you understand that working with your energy is working at the root of whatever is happening in your life? Would having tools to get to the root of and then resolve your issues be useful to you?
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The skills and tools referenced in this post are from two online courses that EHI offers to the consciously curious. The Present of Presence is a free, 1-hour self-paced course offering two foundational skills for energy regulation and embodiment. CLEAR is a series of skills, delivered in an online, self-paced format, for energetic self-care, and for clearing and releasing patterns, themes and behaviors that inhibit authentic presence and in the moment choice.
