Tag: stress

Revolution from the inside out

Before experiencing Resonance Repatterning in 2000 my inner compass was set to terror, rage, grief, self hatred, shame and worthlessness. Life felt pointless with the odd moment of relief. Now it’s the opposite and however challenging my outer circumstances are, my inner state is one of calm joy, along with a deep appreciation of being alive. I still have the odd moment when I forget I have a choice but I’ve almost forgotten how desperate I used to feel. It is not an exaggeration to say I believe it has saved my life.

To put it simply, I just feel better. Better than I thought possible. As it is for so many of us, my life began with trauma. I was taken from my mother immediately after birth. I spent most of the first two months of my life alone. I was adopted and then experienced years of violence and abuse on all levels. When I was at my most helpless I felt severely let down. I didn’t know what it was like to feel relaxed, held by life or welcomed. I had received a clear message that I was unloveable and was here to be punished. I lived this reality long after the external abuse had stopped. I moulded myself to be liked by others because it felt like a matter of life and death. When I was a baby and a small child, it was. Mostly that meant keeping quiet, making myself as small and invisible as possible. I used to numb myself with a whole array of addictions. Those early experiences, especially the first two months of life and certainly the first four years set the scene and the patterns formed then keep on repeating, for better or worse, unless we choose to interrupt them.

Thanks to Resonance Repatterning I’ve gradually switched my focus to self acceptance and self love. Some people like me, some don’t, either way I’m ok, it’s no longer a matter of survival. I survived. You survived too if you’re reading this. These ways of being kept us alive and are now simply outdated. Now we are free to create a sense of safety so we can welcome back younger parts of ourselves that shut down or split off. We’re now free to be who we are at our core and to do what truly makes our hearts sing. Because I resonated with these patterns, that is what I experienced. Even when I met people who did love me, I wasn’t able to receive the love. I know now how treasured by life I am, how much we all are and it feels gorgeous. I now have an inner mother and father who nurture my child aspect and it finally feels safe enough to land in my body.

What has made the difference is the support to be with painful feelings and access the courage to breathe into them, feel and release them, move with them as they naturally transform; along with lots of shaking to release trauma stored in the body. The first year or so was intense transformation then it became more gradual, with lots of stops and starts until I finally let go and decided to trust life. It wasn’t a linear process. More like a spiral. When I choose to use these tools they work.

Being an active participant with the RPA this past year has brought so much more confidence and I’ve learnt so much about how to effectively share what I have to offer. I’ve experienced the joy of being part of a team with a united goal. By sharing what we each have to offer, we all benefit.

Viktor Frankl, an Auschwitz survivor, used to ask the people he worked with why they hadn’t killed themselves. He wanted to discover what they were most passionate about, what mattered enough to them to keep them alive and to encourage them to focus on that. I used to want to be dead but a deeply buried part of me was curious enough to stick around and I’m so glad I did. To be taking steps, however tiny, towards creating my dream brings such fulfilment.  Are you curious about why you’re here and what you have to give? Everyone has a part to play and we’re all equally important. Imagine being free of the need to cover up the pain of self rejection. Addictive patterns and behaviours are an attempt to fill the emptiness that a disconnection from your heart and your wild Nature causes. You can choose to reconnect.

You can’t change the past, but with Resonance Repatterning you can change the impact of the past in your present. You can bring health to every area of your life. It’s possible for you to feel better and more alive than you can probably even imagine right now. It’s entirely possible to change how your brain responds to stress and relax naturally, free of addictions. You can repattern the part of your brain that makes you crave things you know aren’t good for you and to find healthier ways to get that boost or high. It’s even possible to repattern your experience from as early as being in the womb. Some really simple ways are being out in full spectrum light, listening to music, dancing, connecting your breath with your movement and using your voice in a group. It can be great fun to be part of a group and there’s no need to worry about what others think of you as they’re probably too busy worrying about what you think of them.

I’m so inspired by how Resonance Repatterning can be used in so many settings such as hospitals, addiction centres, prisons, schools, refugee camps and old peoples’ homes. It can bring more freedom, hope and joy into places of struggle, despair and darkness.

I’d be delighted to offer you a session so you can experience it for yourself and I also offer ongoing groups with peer support, to integrate changes smoothly over time. Greater transformation is possible in groups with ongoing support. It is priceless to know you are connected and welcome as you are.

With love to you all,

Tabitha.

”Somebody once told me the definition of hell:

“On your last day on earth, the person you became will meet the person you could have become.”

— Anonymous

 

“Giving yourself is a miracle.

Your care and energy are gifts that change the world.

The dreams that you share

Are the soil out of which anything can happen.

And together, with full hearts and willing hands

We can weave a future that looks back smiling,

Reminding us about who we chose to become.”

— Clare Dubois (founder of TreeSisters)

My Journey with Adrenal Insufficiency

I grew up in an alcoholic home which affected me more than I realized.  I was in a constant state of fear and unhappiness, always looking for a way to make myself feel better.  I assumed that it was only emotional, but found out differently later on.  My search led me to many different healing disciplines:  counseling, birth control pills (hormones), anti-depressants (which made me suicidal), astrology, Lifespring, hypnotherapy, biofeedback, meditation (very unsuccessful – I couldn’t sit still for long), self help books.  Exercise was the best thing I found to help me when things got really bad.  I found Reasonance Repatterning in the 90’s and it really appealed to me because of the idea that one thing does not work for everyone.  It offered one stop shopping for many disciplines with explanations on how they work, in addition to muscle testing, which allows you to determine what you need.

In 2004, after several years of major life changing events (death of sister and mother, ending of long term relationship, job change and pay cut, purchase of 1st house with husband to be, going through decades of accumulated stuff), I was physically worn down and stressed out.  I had a chronic ear infection and my doctor gave me a 12 day pack of prednisone after the usual antibiotics and ear drops did not work.  I didn’t know at the time that steroids will reduce adrenal function for up to a year and I also didn’t know that my adrenals were already shot, so those steroids basically finished me off.  I became very weak. I had no energy at all, like I had been unplugged.  My blood sugar was extremely unstable, putting me on a roller coaster of being weak and shaky from low blood sugar or feeling ill and crashing from high blood sugar.  I felt horrible every minute of every day.  My adrenals would run out of gas about every three weeks, putting me in bed for a day or so (the only way to recharge your adrenals is sleep).  This also put me in menopause.  I would have hot flashes so severe they would make me nauseous.  I was in fight or flight most of the time.  The smallest things would trigger it and I would feel shaky and scared for a long time afterwards.  Normally, your body releases chemicals to turn off the fight or flight response, but mine didn’t work.

It took me about a year to figure out what was actually wrong with me (adrenal insufficiency brought on by steroids) and even then, traditional medicine didn’t have much to offer me in the way of help.  Luckily I have a good medical doctor who put me on Neuroscience targeted amino acid therapy which changes your brain chemistry to bring it back to normal levels (instead of fight or flight). I also have the trio of my acupuncturist, my chiropractor and my massage therapist (I get reflexology).  They give me information about what is going on with my body and they support and verify my perceptions.  While trying to figure out how to cope with my chronic health issue, I realized that I had been stuck in fight or flight most of my life.  By growing up in a high stress environment, my neurotransmitters had become stuck at this high stress setting.  I also realized that this causes a victim mentality.  When your body is in fight or flight, your brain looks for the threat and tries to decide to flee or fight.  However, if you are stuck in fight or flight, you have not really been threatened.  Your brain is still looking for the thing that turned on your fight or flight response.  You blame your job, your boss, your friends, your family, your city/location, etc, anything but yourself because your brain expects it to be external.  When I finally realized that it was my body that was stuck, that there was no outside threat, it was a huge relief.  I realized that my fear was a physical thing and that it was fixable.  So, one of the worst things that has ever happened to me also brought the gift of curing my constant fear and unhappiness that I have lived with for most of my life.  I believe that this is a rampant malady these days because I see this behavior in people all around me in varying degrees.  Most people are very functional, like I was before my bout with prednisone.  It’s very hard to describe to someone else how differently I experience life these days, now that I am not in constant fear.

However, this didn’t happen overnight and I am still healing.  I’ve had to learn ways to cope when my body is out of balance.  This is where the healing modalities became invaluable to me.  I do RR sessions on myself when I feel really stuck, but the most helpful thing is having something that I can do in the moment, wherever I am.  I use Jin Shin Jyutsu, holding my fingers in meetings when I am feeling bad or having a hard time paying attention.  I do zip-ups walking down the hall (one day a co-worker asked me if I was cussing someone out in Italian!).  I set intentions and do a healing modality when I am having trouble concentrating or to get myself back on track at work.  When something happens that puts me in fight or flight, I thump my thymus.  It calms me down immediately.  I have a routine of modalities that I do in the morning – I can tell it makes a difference because I tend to skip it on the weekend and I definitely feel better during the week!  I am very Thankful to Chloe for sharing this information with us and making it so accessible.  I have a wonderful tool box to pick from whenever I need it.

I am in my seventh year of taking the Neuroscience supplements and my neurotransmitters are almost normal.  The trick is to wean myself off of the supplements and keep my brain chemistry at the new baseline.  I’m not 100% fixed and might not ever be, but I feel more like an adult and can make decisions based on clear reasoning, not just safety and survival.  I very rarely crash these days but I do still have to watch what I eat to keep my blood sugar stable.  I have tools that I can use every day to help myself cope with whatever I am dealing with at the moment, physically or mentally.  I believe that health is a constantly changing state of balance and that we can help ourselves by being aware of what we need in the moment and staying conscious of our daily choices concerning food and activities.  Health care professionals are an important source of information, but I know my body best and I am ultimately responsible for its daily care.  The body will tell us what it needs if we only listen.  I share my story with the hope that I can help others help themselves with these simple and wonderful tools.

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