We do a lot of waiting when we have chronic fatigue syndrome. We get told that if we hang in there it will go away. But what happens when it doesn’t go away?
For almost 2 year I had waited, impatiently, for my CFS to go away. I’d done what I could based on what modern medicine had in its arsenal, but at best I was 65% of the person I wanted to be. It was time to start looking outside the box, because I had a wedding coming up, my wedding, and I wanted that to be a joyous day that wouldn’t leave me exhausted.
But if I’m going to be honest, I was also reluctant. Everything out there that wasn’t modern medicine seemed so crazy. It’s that stuff you read in those cheap magazines you see in the newsagent, the ones filled with conspiracy theories and alternate medicine. The ones that modern science has discredited, because it doesn’t sit with their view of how medicine should be conducted.
Then one day, my soon to be wife, told me about her bosses boss, who’d had chronic fatigue syndrome many years ago when she lived in England. She told me how this person had been in a similar situation to me and she had sough out a whole bunch of different remedies. Finally she tried something called The Lightning Process, and it changed her life.
I listened to my soon to be wife and couldn’t believe what I was hearing. There was no way that The Lightning Process could have done what she was telling me. It sounded like it belonged in one of those cheap newsagent magazines. So I dismissed it, but to her credit, soon to be wife kept at it. She would email me articles and bring it up, just often enough that I began to be curious. Finally, I decided that the only thing to do was to see if soon to be wife's bosses boss would sit down with me over a milkshake and explain it all. She agreed and a week later I found myself listening to her experience.
Twenty minutes later I’d changed my opinion and was willing to give it a crack. The concept still seemed far fetched, but the person in front of me was so grounded, so ‘normal,’ that part of me felt that maybe this Lightning Process thing might just be worth investigating.
I went home a looked for practitioners in Australia; there weren’t a lot. But one name popped up a few times, Ian Cleary. I found his website, which I spent an hour or so on, and came to the conclusion that he was the best person in Australia to contact regarding The Lightning Process.
I thought it would be a simple thing to get myself enrolled in his 3 day seminar, that he would take anyone who applied, but I was wrong. As Ian explained to me on the phone, he only took people who were ready for the concepts and techniques that The Lightning Process taught. After an hour on the phone he decided that I was a viable candidate, and accepted me.
Now, Ian travels around Australia conducting these seminars, and he does them in Sydney, where I live, but I chose to go to Melbourne to do my training. My theory was that I would be in a fresh environment where CFS wasn’t part of who I’d become. And it worked.
By the end of the first day I had gone from 65% to 80%. And by the end of the 3 days I was 90-95% of the person I wanted to be.
I know what you’re thinking, there’s no way that’s possible, and if it hadn’t happened to me I wouldn’t believe it either, but it did.
For years I was a bad sleeper. I’d toss and turn at night, think about work stuff, life stuff, any kind of stuff really. Eventually I’d pass out, but I wouldn’t wake up rested the following day.
The accommodation I’d booked in Melbourne was above a pub/hotel/bar, and on the evening of my second night in The Lightning Process there was a band playing, and they were loud, and they were keeping me awake. I lay in my bed tossing and turning, cursing myself for not booking somewhere else, cursing the band for playing so loud, and worried about not getting enough rest. This went on for hours, then I realised this was a great time to try out the things I was learning with Ian. Five minutes later I was asleep. And the following morning I felt more refreshed than I had in years.
When I realised that there was nothing I could do about the music I began to listen to it, and I realised that the band was playing music that I kind of liked, then they played a song I really liked, and I started singing it to myself. I never made it to the end.
What The Lightning Process taught me was that I was duing a whole bunch of things that weren’t making my life better.
Lying there I realised that worrying about the loud music wasn’t going to help me to fall asleep. The music wouldn’t be stopping anytime soon either, so ultimately there was nothing I could do about it. As soon as I accepted the situation for what it was all the stress disappeared and I relaxed.
I realise that for many people out there The Lightning Process is a controversial topic, and I understand why. Not everyone is ready for it, it’s not a miracle cure, in fact it’s not a cure at all. All it is, is a series of tools that allow me stop and question if my current actions are making my life better. If the answer is no, then what’s the point in duing them?
What I realised during my 3 days with Ian, was that I was duing a whole bunch of things that were having a negative impact on my life, and the scary thing, I wasn’t even aware of half of them. I didn’t know I was an anxious person, but I was. I didn’t realise how I reacted under stressful situations, and how that reaction was damaging my health. It opened my eyes to the real me and gave me the tools to be the person I wanted to be.
I would say that I still ask myself that question, is this making my life better, at least 5−10 per week. But here’s the thing, I don’t have Chronic Fatigue Syndrome anymore, and I’ve changed my life to do the things that make me happy, life is better than it was before I got CFS. I’m still a work in progress, and I always will be, and that’s OK.