My Story
I have been working in this field for the past twenty years and seen such enormous changes. It’s becoming relatively ‘normal’ now to talk about our mental health and also for people and some doctors to join up the mental with the physical, as we all learn how profoundly our emotions and feelings, our thoughts and conditioning and experiences can have an affect our physiological state too. This has been known for many decades but brain imaging and other research now shows us so much that we need to see to start understanding how people can become very sick, when the balance is lost.
I was one of those unknowing, hardworking humans balancing my career (artist illustrating children’s books) with building a house (some with my bare hands!) with raising my son. I started having the shivers and sweats for a few days, like flu, but it didn’t develop. Then one day at the building site, I just sat down at the end of the day and didn’t feel I could get up. I had bronchitis. It developed in pneumonia. I got through the life threatening stage but nine months later, with little improvement, my doctor mentioned Chronic Fatigue and M.E.
This was pre interweb (!) so I went and found a book and discovered it was not a diagnosis with a ‘cure’ apparently, and lots of similar sufferers had very poor outcomes. Very depressing. So after pulling myself back from the brink, I read another book called The Alchemy of Illness and started my journey to recovery. I had several ‘helpers’ along the way and learned that many different therapy things didn’t make me well again! But over several years, I improved from being severely bedbound with all the pain of fibromyalgia, hallucinations, exhaustion and feeling like I was poisoned and existing in some awful living death, to being able to get up most days, make one meal, occasionally get my son to school or potter around with a friend or in the garden. It was arduous and confusing as I couldn’t seem to pinpoint why some days or weeks were better than others. The symptoms seemed random. And as many fellow sufferers know, you face a lot of misunderstanding, receive little or no medical support and it can be very isolating losing your job, your purpose, some friends, self-confidence, to name just a few.
After a while, I was well enough to try a little visit to family and surprisingly seemed less ill, less tired than I was at home. But I soon crashed into symptoms again when I returned. It happened a few times and I started joining the dots, a bit. I realised that my stress at home was a factor and worked on more relaxing, enjoyable things and tried focussing on better sleep. I got help having therapy sessions too. I made a bigger leap forward with the Lightning Process, then in it’s infancy and pretty basic, but it highlighted how much I had to learn to notice my thought patterns. That was a huge revelation. Then I was asked to work for Amir, my LP practitioner, and started helping him with a sudden influx of enquiries after the LP was on Radio 2. I wasn’t qualified in anything other than recovery from CFS/ME but it became obvious that lots of people called wanting extra help, getting stuck with LP techniques and I really enjoyed helping them.
So about a year after my own recovery, I began my diploma training and became a fully fledged, middle aged therapist. That was with Phil Parker of the LP and then I added workshop days with Dr Joe Dispenza to learn about neuroscience and the nervous system, and Dr Bruce Lipton to learn more about biology and epigenetics, and Dr David Hamilton to learn more about how our mind and body connect and learn from either experience or memory of experiences. I have also spent hundreds of hours in online retreats and attended talks with Eckhart Tolle who is continually teaching me so much more. Last but absolutely not least is my biggest teacher, the suffering itself.
All the times I was ill, I had to dig deep and discover things that were harmful to me. I had to try so many different ways to help myself. I had to feel the frustrations and fears it would never work or I would always be ‘too sensitive’ or on some days, a complete failure at life. It may have been past experiences of abuse, or current relationships with unhealthy people, or conditioning from school or family neglect. I could go on and won’t here but if you want to know more, I am always happy to answer any questions. Nothing is off limits and if it helps, it’s okay. I think it’s enough to suggest that we all have some issues but as that doesn’t make everyone ill, I still had to discover, why me?
Which led me to Elaine N. Aron’s work researching the HSP (Highly Sensitive Person) and understanding that some of us think a lot, feel a lot, process a lot and maybe don’t have enough information to know how to understand our own needs, let alone allow ourselves to try and do what we need to thrive. I had to face my fears, deal with some panic and anxieties, change some out of date patterns of behaviour and let go of some unhelpful relationships to keep my recovery from stalling. When we learn about ourselves and understand the triggers that make us unhappy or fearful or get a better understanding of our automatic unconscious patterns that keep us pleasing others a bit too much or working too hard or ignoring our intuition, we become more able to take care of ourselves in the rush-rush, high pressure world we inhabit. But if we are confused and unaware, caught in our own blind spots, then burn out, chronic fatigue, pain syndrome or many other illness options become our worst nightmares.
Over time, without us realising, the immune system can become compromised and then a virus illness or exam or period of grief can be the last straw and we fall into the ME/CFS/Fibro/Long Covid/anxiety abyss. So then we need help to recover which might be on many of the programmes that now exist that deal with stress and trauma, brain training, rewiring, nervous system regulation and similar ideas. We can learn techniques and strategies to regulate our nervous system which then allows our body to regulate itself (as it is designed to do automatically) and recovery can happen. I have put my programme together from all the above learning and experiences and tried to make it as simple as possible. It’s not a formula and I have long ago understood that one-size-does-not-fit-all. So it’s more of a structure on which to hang all the different and sometimes complex needs every unique client brings. I really enjoy passing on everything I know and seeing others recover more quickly than I did. It’s not always easy but it is doable and even if there are difficulties at times, with help and support, we grow stronger with life skills we would never have had, that apply many times in different areas as we travel onwards on our journey through life.
Before, during and since Covid, I have worked online and will generally work with each person one-to-one, in weekly sessions. But after recent requests, I will probably restart the small group work or one-to-one sessions in person here in Suffolk, if you are local or wish to travel here. I don’t offer the residential option, but if a group of people wanted to share a holiday home, or book into a retreat, I would be more than happy to consider that option again too.
When not working, I love my little village life here in beautiful Suffolk, UK and enjoy walking the nature reserves and the coast. I live a simple country life with friends, family, animals and nature. I am still addicted to renovating and doing up my little house, love gardening and crafting and always have more projects on the go than time allows…but have learned to not to mind when things get done and just enjoy the process more nowadays. You can see more on my Facebook page here
Apart from becoming an expert in being ill, then an expert in recovery (if that doesn’t sound too big-headed), my other qualifications are a BA (Hons) degree in art, then later the Diploma in Clinical Hypnotherapy, Neuro Linguistic Programming and Life Coaching. I have also worked with disorderly eating, mental emotional, financial and sexual abuse, recovery from narcissistic relationships and ADHD. If you want any more info, please just ask me and I can explain how I work in practice.