Just got this question via E-mail from a woman who has had ME since 1986 and thought I’d share my answer with you all:
Knowing how hard it is to be disciplined when one is exhausted, would you recommend Gupta, Dynamic NRS or something else?
My short answer is to focus your energy on getting the life that you want, rather than on recovery from ME per-se. That said: (more…)
I just want to say a big “Thank you!” to everyone who participated in helping me get my Life Coaching qualification with Beyond Success, the company that I did my Emotional Intelligence-based coach training with.
Getting qualified was the final step in my Life Coach training; something that I had been putting off for about 3 years because I couldn’t imagine anyone wanting a sick, depressed life coach. However, one of the things that I learned from Mickel Therapy was to complete the things that we’ve been putting off since they all contribute to our sense of powerlessness and unconscious stress.
One of the principles that I learnt during my brief experience of Mickel Therapy a few years back was that it is important to stay on top of things in order to avoid feeling any more overwhelmed than we already do by being ill. Having an accumulation of small unresolved life stressors can add up to create stress and tension in our nervous systems. That’s why it’s helpful to make a judicious list of “outstanding issues” that we want to address and whittle it down over time.
I say “judicious” because most people with CFS tend to take on too much, and and up feeling overwhelmed with the familiar feeling that there is “not enough time”. We don’t really trust in the process of life and have bought into the idea that the more we do, the more stuff we can have and the happier we will be.
The truth is that time is indeed limited and we need to choose what to focus on in our lives generally. But when I got sick a whole bunch of things that were actually important to me started to fall by the way side.
Now that I’ve whittled my “outstanding issues list” down to virtually nothing, it’s important to stay on top of things to prevent that feeling of overwhelm from coming back.
A relatively new friend who I told that I’m now coaching people with CFS just pointed me to this interview with Harvard neuroscientist Dr. Michael Van Elzakker, who hypothesises that CFS might be caused by an infection of the vagus nerve. Listening to the interview, it sounds like a pretty compelling theory. Read more…
I just had a question via email about where I’m at with the Amygdala Retraining Program, which is what motivated me to kick off this blog in the first place. The truth is, I no longer look at it, although I do still apply some of it’s principles. But I Read more…
I recently took up Tai Chi as part of the never-ending quest for better health. Tai Chi seems like the perfect exercise for someone with CFS, because it doesn’t feel like exercise. It’s just a series of slow graceful movements that don’t exactly get your heart racing. Initially, I started Read more…
It’s been quite a while since I last posted here, as my continued recovery means I have more time and energy to engage in the life that I want, and less desire to talk about how hard recovering from CFS can be. But I get occasional emails from people who have been following this blog asking how I’m doing, so I thought it was time for an update.
My physical symptoms now resemble a fairly mild cold, and the occasional cough. I no longer push myself into stressful situations that make the cough worse, so it doesn’t bug me so much. I still feel a weird sort of tiredness with a background sense of anxiety that varies from mild to moderate. It’s kind of like the tiredness and the anxiety are playing some kind of dance. It might feel like I need a lie down, but going for a leisurely walk along the beach can work just as well. Other times, I really need the lie down and so I take it.
The other weird symptom I have is a tense feeling in my head, which moves around. Right now it’s in my upper jaw and temples. It’s not exactly painful; sometimes it’s just unpleasant, and other times I can be so engrossed in something I’m doing that I don’t notice it. Perhaps it’s boredom and truly disappears when I’m thoughtfully and physically engaged in some task. It seems to get stronger when I’m feeling angry, and turns into a debilitating headache when I’ve been overdoing things… which I take pains now not to do.
One of my most influential mentors, Nicholas de Castella suffered from CFS way back before it was a household name. He attributes his recovery to developing emotional intelligence and learning to express in a healthy manner the feelings that he had previously repressed. I know this is a little controversial Read more…
It’s my birthday today, and I’ve decided it’s time to make a few changes in my life. Principally, I’m quitting my mostly-full-time job of working on recovering from Chronic Fatigue Syndrome so I can focus on other things; like having a great life!
My symptoms are relatively mild now: anxiety, tension in my head, runny nose and tiredness mostly in the afternoons. But they’re not so incapacitating now. Having an afternoon siesta a few days a week seems to work for me now; perhaps I should move to Spain or something? I haven’t had one of those killer headaches in a while, touch wood, and so long as I get a decent sleep at night and don’t go out more than 4 or so nights in the week, I can keep them at bay.
I [intlink id=”532″ type=”post”]had a go at Mickel Therapy[/intlink] a couple of years ago, but gave up because: I had difficulty identifying the onset of any particular symptom, which is key to the process. My symptoms remained pretty much constant, aside from an intense tiredness hitting in the afternoon. None Read more…