Finding the Right Medicine
If you don’t know this about me already, I have what I call the “trifecta of neurodivergence.” Not that I believe in labels, but I have been labeled with Autism, ADHD, and complex PTSD, and these came as a late diagnosis at the age of 40. These are both a result of my genetics and lived experiences of being in a state of fight or flight for prolonged periods of time. My nervous system, prior to energy work, felt like it was deep fried. I was swimming in adrenaline and cortisol. Always on guard, hypervigilent, and acutely aware of everything external to me, the energy of my past traumas was stored deep in my body and I was unknowingly living in survival mode because of it. That made me a very anxious person, and very burnt out. My anxiety manifested as perfectionism and people pleasing, and I coped with it all by drinking. It was a constant cycle of energy depletion.
I started to seriously heal from my past traumas in 2018, and I did it the typical way with talk therapy and medications first. That didn't help in the long term, so next I worked with a trauma therapist who practiced a technique for trauma called EMDR. That helped (and still does!) immensely, but it wasn’t until I incorporated somatic and alternative therapies like yoga and energy work, that I developed the ability to connect to my body and really heal.
In 2022 I was already well on my path to healing from my traumas, but I was frustrated with the long term options for healing….there really were none. I had read about energy work as a therapy for PTSD and so I tried a Reiki and Vibrational Sound Therapy session. The experience changed the entire trajectory of my life. I was experiencing extreme stress and burnout in my life, and was wanting something to calm and ground me. I found my healer on Facebook Events of all places…she was offering a sound bath in a yurt in her backyard and I really wanted to go but I couldn't, so I booked an appointment for an individual session instead. I had been using binaural beats and certain frequencies already to help me regulate my nervous system, but I wanted to try a sound healing to treat my PTSD symptoms. I went into it not knowing what to expect, but maintained an open mind. My intention was to get centered, gain clarity, and I was secretly hoping she’d be able to gong the depression and anxiety right out of my body.
Prior to my session, the practitioner did a general intake but I did not tell her much about my real struggles. I told her I was stressed and had trauma but I didn’t go into it. I didn’t tell her how I battled suicidal thoughts and how exhausted I was from the war. During my session, the practitioner used her hands, tuning forks, and crystals on my body, chakra centers, and meridians. There was no pain or discomfort, just deep relaxation and peace. At the end of the session she gave me a drum bath over my body and I had never felt more grounded or present in my body before. It was like my intuition was awakened and the fire that had gone out was relit. I was not as dead as I felt on the inside. I was alive and had an inner knowing, a certainty, that everything would work out for me. And I trusted it.
Afterwards, my life went through more intense shifts. Lower vibrational energies just did not agree with me any longer. I made changes to my boundaries, my health, and my routines. I got sober. I reclaimed the control and power I had once thought I lost, and once I started to choose me, the universe seemed to choose me too. Life was happening for me, not to me, and it started to unfold magically and in the most beautiful ways.
Four months later, I embarked on my journey to learn Reiki from the same woman who gave me my first healing session. By the following year I got my Usui Reiki Master Teacher Certification and also became a Certified Vibrational Sound Practitioner. Practicing energy work on myself has helped me to dive deep into my own trauma and heal my overstimulated and stressed nervous system. It has been so effective for me that not only did I make it part of my daily routine, but I decided to do it for a living so I could keep maintaining it as part of my daily life. My practice helps regulate me and that helps me regulate others. It’s symbiotic, and it brings me peace and joy. It’s more than just a way to pay the bills, it’s a way of life. If it has the ability to calm my monkey mind and relax my over tense muscles, then I like to imagine it has the capacity to help others in the same way!
I am a big supporter and advocate for self-care. We need to mandate rest! The body NEEDS it. Through my personal healing, I’ve learned how much my body just wants to be loved and appreciated. Our bodies work incredibly hard to keep us alive and we are often quite hard on them for not looking or feeling a certain way. But the truth is many of us are simply unaware that we can have a different connection to our bodies because we are disconnected. We are so busy working and running on autopilot that we’re not attuned to our own physical needs. Energy work is one way to reconnect from acute and chronic dissociation and bring us back to center. Restoring the mind-heart coherence allows us to heal on many levels and dimensions. It’s not just focused on the physical. Physical symptoms can sometimes be the last thing to manifest in a dis-ease process. Energy work is focused on restoring that balance to the mind, body, and spirit so that the entire being is able to heal. It can be a beautiful way to show love to yourself!
