You're Invited:Have A Little Faith In You!

Victorious Sisterhood: We welcome you to join us every Monday at 11 am PST, where we connect and notice the cycles of our lives. Each week through checking in, we can see how we are shifting and changing over time. We hold a protective and safe space for you to be in whatever season you are without judgment or comparative energy. We celebrate all seasons and welcome each woman's experience. Please register to join us tomorrow or a Monday soon that suits you best!

Have a little Faith in You...

For the longest time, I didn't believe that self-healing was possible. I thought it was the opposite. I thought and felt that my body was out to get me. I remember my first few weeks in nutrition school, I was sharing with one of my instructors that I had stage 3 Endometriosis. I asked her if she had known anyone to reverse it to some degree, she replied yes. She nodded too with this knowing. I looked skeptical. Healing may happen for other people, I thought, but I didn't think I could be one of those people. You see when you are so used to living in chronic pain, it feels impossible for things to turn around in your favour. The pain anchors in the belief that we are broken in some way. And that we will always be broken.

At that time I was prescribed morphine for the pain and even that wouldn't cut it. It felt impossible to me at that time that my body was designed to heal. I didn't know how to hold space for the idea that my body was designed to self-heal if given the right environment.

Every month from the time I was 11, I laboured in excruciating pain. Each month would leave me with second-degree burns on my stomach from my hot water bottle, and every month I would wish for death as I moaned and breathed through the pain. I have had surgery, I have been to the emergency many times, and no amount of painkillers would help me. I would start taking painkillers days before my period to try to stay ahead of the pain, only to feel sick from taking so many. It was the only way I could keep working, although usually days one and two of my period, I could not.

It's a good thing I worked for myself or I surely would have been fired. I started telling all my clients about the pain I experienced, I told them about this disease I had, and if they were not supportive, I was busy and sot after enough that I would not take them on. If they gave me any grief, making me feel bad about needing to rebook their appointment, I would let them go. But it did take me 10 years to get to that place where I refused to be shamed for needing to take that day off. Trust me, women do not like having to rebook their hairdo appointments. But I could not physically work in that condition. I needed to honour the pain I was in and lay down.

Many women with Endo have a hard time keeping work because they can't work in that kind of pain, nor should they have to. We can barely get to the bathroom and back let alone function like we are ok. It is the kind of pain you do wish for death. I remember many many times telling the good lord that I was ready to go. If it meant I didn't have to be in that pain, I would rather be dead. Many women commit suicide because of Endometriosis. Marylin Monroe, in my opinion, is one of them.

I have been a birth coach 6 times and what I went through was very similar to birth. Imagine giving birth once a month or in my case every 21 days. And there is no payoff of a baby.

Through my experience and learning to become a Holistic Nutritionist, I came to understand that Endometriosis in many ways acts like an autoimmune disease. And although there is very little understanding about the disease, there is now a common understanding that we do see improvement in this disease if we treat it like an autoimmune disease, and so I began my journey into healing with food. I started giving my body what it needed to heal and that included eating meat after being a vegetarian for ten years. I started my bone broth protocol, and sulfur-rich veggies, and introducing helpful immune-supportive bacteria. I learned about the power of rest and did a lot of laying around when I didn't have my head in the books learning. I had already quit my job and was living as a nomad.

When I look back, my healing journey started about five years before Nutritional School. I didn't put two and two together however until food became apart of my protocol. The Nutritional aspect was huge! But there was an emotional and spiritual part of healing that I had initiated in 2012.

I started training in Kundalini Yoga. This was a profound time in my life. Long meditations, strange and beautiful breathing exercises, chanting mantras from the Sikh tradition, and very physical exercises (Kriyas) were strengthening my nervous system. This yoga also worked wonders on my Subconscious mind. It allowed me to unload painful and intense emotions from my body and mind. This is really when I started working on my Motherwound. There was so much neglect, and abuse I was processing and moving out of my body. The link between my reproductive system and my relationship with my mother could not be ignored. There was so much to uncover and heal. And healing cannot be rushed, so I worked with what came to the surface and continued to train in this yoga for many years.

It has been a long road since 2012. Much has happened. In 2016 my husband and I quit our lives and hit the road as nomads, We saw a lot of road and most of North America. So much shifted because of that decision. We started to experience the slowing down of time. We rested and explored, reconnected in our marriage, and we started to trust and have faith in the unknown. We started having faith that we would be guided where we needed to be. This was a huge shift for two workaholics who only valued the push of ambition. I heard the call of intuition to start learning about food as I was standing on the beach in P.E.I. I knew to listen. In late 2017 I started learning about food as medicine.

Now here is what I know about myself. I am a bit of a skeptic. It is my first go-to mind. The protective mind is trying its best to keep me safe from pain and heartbreak. I always have a little doubt running through me. I was terrified about learning something new and yet I know this about myself too, when it comes down to it, I believe in myself. Making that choice to quit my job and go on the road only strengthened the trust in my intuition to guide me. Even if I don't understand where I am going or why. At times it does feel like I am being divinely guided. And when I look back on my life I see just how much I have been guided towards healing and manifestation. Somewhere in me I always come back to having faith, even if I reject it for a time. This faith is connected to my intuition and the two go hand in hand. I couldn't always make that connection, but I do now.

The body is designed to heal. And so is the spirit, and the mind. So when one approaches healing there is an opportunity to hold this concept of multi-layered healing. For example, I have noticed over the years when talking to women with endometriosis or very painful periods and infertility, there is a connection to perfectionism, the Motherwound, and nutritional, and bacterial deficiencies. Put simply, a lot is going on. Healing requires a Holistic approach.

We have been taught to think of healing as on dimensional, and it is not. When we go on our healing journey we must approach it holistically. You can't heal the body without healing your emotional body. You can't heal your emotional body without giving the body the nutrients it needs to support mental and emotional balance. And you need one other very important thing...FAITH!

What we believe creates our perspective and our perspective is how we take in the world around us. Our perspective is the filter we use to see ourselves as well.

Believing is not easy for those who have been through years of trauma and chronic pain. Especially if your primary caregivers were not emotionally and physically available, and worse, if they hurt you. The protective mind becomes very strong and the positive mind becomes less familiar. We keep waiting for the other shoe to drop. And there has been so much evidence to support that theory. Bad things do happen.

Strengthening the positive mind can however be an interesting experiment. For instance, you could take a similar approach that I have, which is to treat yourself like you are your very own case study. What would happen if you decided to have a little faith in yourself, your body, your spirit, your intuition, seek out the support you need; knowing that healing work was never meant to be done alone.

Here's where it gets interesting. Your healing journey may require you to not only have faith that a different way of living is possible, but it may require just that; A different way of being in the world.

Healing for me meant quitting the job I had been doing for 16 years. Being a busy hairdresser, I was on my feet for 12 hours a day, breathing in toxic fumes, and absorbing these chemicals through my hands. This environment was not conducive to healing. Our healing journey may ask us to change our entire life. Mine did. I think that was the most terrifying thought at the beginning. My whole world had to change for me to get better. I had to have faith that there was a different life, a healthy life waiting to be born. I had to trust the road to get there.

I had been a busy business owner, perfectionist, busting my ass every day and pushing to make something of myself. It wasn't until 2013 I heard my intuition say, "Let go of all ambition." I remember telling a friend of mine that I was told by my intuition to let go of ambition, that letting go of the push would be the teaching for that year; turns out maybe forever! She looked at me like I had two heads. She knew me to be always doing something.

On top of working in my salon, I was teaching yoga up to three times a week and I had also started volunteering for hospice. I was always talking about the other businesses I wanted to start and around this time almost signed a lease, setting my sights on opening aromatherapy, natural soaps, and homemade incense business which included a space for me to teach the yoga I loved so much. Thankfully I listen to my intuition as my life would take a different turn, a turn towards self-healing.

Healing for many may ask us to slow down hugely. This may feel impossible depending on our circumstances, however, I have come to learn from talking to hundreds and hundreds of women over my hairdressing career, teaching, and now in my role as a holistic healer, that there is always an opportunity to slow down. There is a choice to release the push and embrace intuition, faith, and self-healing. It is usually the resistance to change that keeps us stuck and not moving forward. No doubt it is a risk. But either way, there is a risk. And we have to ask ourselves if we are committed to healing or committed to chronic pain.

If we are committed to healing, even to a small degree those degrees add up over time. Just believing, can open doors we can not yet see. Taking on the belief that we can heal, opens a whole new world of learning. It is worth the risk to open the door to healing, even if that means walking into the unknown.

My life changed drastically, and for the better. It wasn't easy however, my priorities had to change. Healing and faith were the roads I had to follow, and although I still consider myself a skeptic, I continue to make myself my own case study.

"What would happen if I did A, B, and C? What If I believed I could? What If I took action towards faith and self-healing?"

These are still the questions I ask myself. And ask yourself, what would happen if you did nothing? Does believing you can't heal help you in any way?

Since leaving my hairdressing job, selling our home, living like a nomad for 2 years, seeing most of North America like a gypsy, learning to be a Holistic Nutritionist, learning all about the Subconscious mind and becoming a Clinical Hypnotherapist, buying a small property on Vancouver Island and learning to grow my own food...everything has changed. I am not only in my purpose as a Holistic Healer but I am expanding the possibilities for my life, daily. All because my healing journey required my full participation and faith. And it led me to me.

I prioritize my healing now, not perfectly all the time, but I am learning the language of healing more and more each day. I now believe that I can reverse my autoimmune condition. I have decreased my level of pain dramatically. I prioritize rest over pushing. If I have pain, I use mostly natural remedies, or one to two Advil instead of 20 Advil, or morphine. I am learning to grow my food, whereas before I couldn't even keep a house plant alive. I self parent now, supporting my inner child, she can trust me to take care of her. I have healed my Motherwound to the point now, where I have healthy boundaries, a neutral mind, and compassion for others without being codependent. I have let go of finding my worth through perfection.

Since having faith in my self-healing journey, I trust now that I am divinely guided, and I learn to get out of the way. Healing is a choice in many aspects. It is not an easy choice because it asks up to look at all our pain, our suffering, our hidden agendas, our trauma, all in a multilevel holistic way. People have much better outcomes with autoimmune conditions if they have a strong belief that they can heal. I have come to learn that first hand through choosing to love myself deeply, and having faith that I can heal myself.

I still deal with pain, fatigue, infertility, hormone imbalance, and flashbacks from past trauma; I don't want to paint the picture that it is all roses now. It is however 70 percent better. And I believe it will only get better from here.

Hypnotherapy, Holistic Nutrition, Kundalini Yoga have played a massive role in my healing, which is why I combine all three of these modalities when working with clients. If you are wanting to move forward on your self-healing journey, reach out. Message me. Email me. Initiate yourself by taking the first step which is asking for the help you need and believing that you can move closer to healing each day.

In healing,

Patricia MacNeill

R.H.N, C.CHT

Victorious Sisterhood: We welcome you to join us every Monday at 11 am PST, where we connect and notice the cycles of our lives. Each week through checking in, we can see how we are shifting and changing over time. We hold a protective and safe space for you to be in whatever season you are without judgment or comparative energy. We celebrate all seasons and welcome each woman's experience. Please register to join us tomorrow or a Monday soon that suits you best!