Category: The Peak Project

Yesterday, I shot ahead of my audiobook and googled Epstein-Barr Virus. I immediately came across the blog of health coach, Elizabeth Rider and her protocols for treating EBV, based on her experience of implementing Anthony William’s treatment advice.

In another blog she describes how her childhood was marked by endless strep throat – aka/or indistinguishable from,  tonsillitis, which I had incessantly as a child, even after my tonsillectomy at 15. Elizabeth notes via Anthony Williams how strep and mono are markers of underlying EBV. Read this extract by Elizabeth – it describes me entirely, all bar my actually being diagnosed with mono (glandular fever) – which looking back on my post-tonsillectomy period of exhaustion/depression/sleeping through the evenings at age 15-17, I now realise I probably was experiencing:

“I had strep throat a lot as a kid. It started to get really bad in my early teens, and it seemed like I was in the walk-in clinic every other month being put on another round of antibiotics to clear up the strep. (The dozens of rounds of antibiotics caused an entirely different issue—an unhealthy gut bacteria balance that I’ve been able to clear up with real food, avoiding processed foods, and consuming fermented foods and probiotics, but we’ll talk about that in another post.) My mom grew weary of the cycles of strep and asked the doctors if there was anything we could do. They suggested having my tonsils out. Fifteen is old to have tonsil surgery, but after consulting with different people, my parents decided it was the right decision. I had my tonsils out, which really cleared up the strep, but I never fully recovered from the surgery. Between the hard detox off the anesthesia and the wicked case of mono I developed, I just never really felt 100% again.

Side note: Much later on, while reading The Medical Medium, he talks about strep being a co-infection to mononucleosis, which made SO much sense in this story. I had no idea that was the case 20 years ago, and neither did any doctor I had ever encountered.

Back to the mono. In the six months after the tonsillectomy, I was so tired I could barely get out of bed. It’s normal for a teenager to sleep a lot, but it was getting worse by the day. I was an active dancer and cheerleader and at a healthy weight. I ate pretty well for what we knew back then, but despite being seemingly healthy, I was exhausted all. the. time. My mom took me back to the doctor, and one test later, it was clear that I had mono. Mono is really common amongst teens, so they just told me to rest and that it would pass.”

Ok, so in other words, I’m starting to understand my own childhood backstory in light of the possible early activation of EBV in me – and ongoing reactivation through my life, especially through periods of stress, which have been immense at time. Could it be that my diagnoses of depression, anxiety, PTSD, Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, and even Autism, have their roots in this virus?!

The whole MEDS protocols I developed a couple of years ago now are quite probably my attempt at adapting to, and maximising, life with this exhausting condition. And when I’d given in to unemployment due to poor health and committed to my full MEDS-based healing, with the help of a brilliant nutritional therapist, I did actually recover considerably. But then last year, going back to work, and eating/sleeping/socialising at the pace of my wonderful new partner… all seems to have reactivated something in me – for I am constantly exhausted and in adrenal fatigue state, with my kidneys firing adrenaline, my body bloating up with cortisol weight,  and my nights awash with anxiety attacks.

Ok. So… Today I listen to the next section of the audiobook – ‘Healing from the EBV’. What advice for my day?

Your simple-heartedness…

Oh yes. Ehem…

Set your inner state to open, receptive, calm, curious. We need to receive today’s information in a moderate state, so that we don’t blow an emotional gasket at the very moment we need to think rationally and practically. 

Thank you. Yes. I agree. If I am going to need to go through a treatment plan, I know from previous experience, it’s like climbing Mount Everest – a physical and psychological roller coaster, requiring very quiet, understated, internalised resilience, faith and persistence.

I asked for Peak Experiences. My goodness, the restoration of my physical health would be such an incredible Peak Experience. Thank you.

Simple-hearted. Simple-hearted. Simple-hearted. Do your meditation and get ready to go for your walk. Stick to your MEDSAN protocols this morning. You’re going to need them in the future. 

I’ve been loving my daily dose of MEDSAN. I created reminder prompts on my phone, along with the associated time:

I’ve been so grateful for a new morning timetable in my life – after years of having my children’s school run as the default timetable, it’s been difficult finding my own morning routine. Also, this week, I’ve actually been going up to bed at 9pm, having an epsom salt bath/shower and turning my light off by 10pm. (G joins me later, and I barely notice him coming in he’s so quiet.) That way, if I wake up at 5 or 6am (as my anxiety/adrenal activity tends to make me do), I’ve had the sleep I need (ideally 7h). It’s amazing.

So this is my current MEDS + MEDSAN pattern:

• 7 – Med & QT
• 8 – Exercise (walk or cycle)
• 9 – Diet (hearty breakfast) and Shower
• 10 – Admin/Emails
• 11 – Networking (marketing) or Nap
• 12 – 5 – Client work and Case work – ideally remotely / at home, to preserve beans
• 5 – 9 – Housework, Supper (veg + protein), Rest with G / Going out for music practice
• 9 – 5+ – Sleep… (the crucial S of MEDS)

You have made substantial progress. The pattern is truly healing and revolutionary. You are setting yourself up for success in your chosen mission. 

Thank you. Ok. Deep breath. Simple-hearted. Time for my meditation and walk.

I am still simple-hearted

PS. Other resources on EBV:

https://avivaromm.com/ebv-thyroid-connection/

 

Yesterday, you missed out a key outcome of following your Higher Self’s Path (HS Path):

• I get helped, inspired and taught by my clients

It’s true! Yes! That’s why I’d often do 1:1 client work for free or cheap, because I end up learning my best lessons from my clients! It’s a privilege.

So there is a key marker for you: I know I’m on my HS Path when I learn as much from the client as they might do from me.

Yes. And on the other hand in my training for large groups, I’m often so focussed on getting through the material, I don’t get the full benefit of learning. (Though I could shift my training to be more facilitative. Tbh, it’s always hard to balance people’s expectations of being taught and being heard in training.)

When you were in an unwell state we helped alleviate your suffering, first by helping you:

• Bolster your flagging Spirit (will, lifeforce)
• Heal your broken Heart
• Recover your fractured Soul

This is the work of the HS Path: the alleviation of suffering at an essential level.

To participate in this work takes maturity, patience, commitment and faithful trust that you are a channel for something far more skilled and perfect than you.

You are invited to participate.

I beg for my ready ‘Yes!’ to be accepted, and for full mentoring, guidance and education to be provided.

Settling into the work of the alleviation of suffering takes the constant peeling away of egoic thinking.

I can work with that.

Furthermore, it involves getting really calm, receptive, attuned, attentive and intuitive.

Yes.

But most of all, it requires you to cease seeking personal gain, approbation and acclaim. Instead, your goal becomes that of checking in with the client as to whether the work is done – and seeking an assured affirmative. That is the goal. It is not self-focussed.

It is self-less? Person-centred?

It is mere physics. It is an equation. Enough of the right work => the work is done. That is all.

I see.

So for today?

Settle in to pondering the question of the alleviation of suffering. What is it?

I am asking myself ‘what is the alleviation of suffering?’

I reckon my ego hates stillness.

Your ego is always seeking safety for you. Your ego is doubtful that stillness is a route to safety. 

Is stillness a route to safety?

Ask the ninja warriors. 

I guess they would say that mastering stillness makes one better able to protect one’s safety when fast self-defence is needed. How are my self-defence skills? Or better put, how could my self-defence skills be improved?

By mastering stillness. 

Ha! And how might I do that?

By letting nature be your guide. See how still and rooted is the tree. See how patiently the flower waits. See how little need has the bird for task execution. 

I can almost imagine settling in to the rhythm of nature, as its student and disciple. What would I learn?

You would learn how to hear the messages of the wind in the trees, how to interpret the sun’s rays upon the rocks, how to commune with the birds and the insects. And what of all of this? You would develop the ability to attune your frequency to the harmonics of the ages. You would open your heart to the landscapes of the cosmos. 

A little fly has come to have a fidget around on my laptop. What is it teaching me?

That life is fleeting. Make good of the time at hand. 

Teach me how better to make good of the time at hand – in a way I can understand and respond to, long term.

Learn to recognise certain decision types which are ‘forks in the road’. One way is the ego’s path, the other is the higher self’s path. Learn to sense the difference between the two. Learn to recognise the feeling underfoot of each path, and to distinguish the air, the landscape, the ‘flavour’ of each path. Neither path is ‘wrong’ or ‘harmful’, but one path is circular, and the other is directional. 

This is what I know of the Ego’s Path:

• It always feels great to start off with – fresh, fine, true, sensible, wise, promising
• I generally secretly expect it to bring me good things – money, success, recognition – though I might not say aloud that’s what I’m wanting out of the venture.
• Often, the crucial factor of success depends on A.N.Other person in whom I have put my confidence. I have impressed them, and they have promised me good things, implicitly or explicitly. I believe we have an understanding.
• Sooner or later, it turns out that my hopes were rather too high, and unfounded…
• The person or offer or opportunity turns out to be less than I’d hoped for
• I’m soon losing energy, feeling drained, starting to doubt myself and resent the tasks at hand.
• I wish I hadn’t started on the path, and I start complaining, procrastinating and retreating.
• Eventually, I make a break for it and cut my (often substantial) losses, letting go of the relationships involved as I run…

Argh! Awful. Now that is a karmic cycle and a half.

And what do you know about the path of the higher self?

This is what I know of the Higher Self’s Path:

• It is virtually always modest, understated, under-the-radar
• It tastes ‘sweet’, it sounds ‘quiet’, it feels ‘private’ – no one’s congratulating me or clapping at the end of it (!)
• It’s small scale – generally 1:1
• Generally, someone actually gets helped – by me
• The financial returns are low… and therefore I doubt whether I’m actually doing the right thing because ‘surely my duty is to earn enough to support myself and ultimately create some savings so I can be self-sufficient…’

And so then you stop doing the HS Path and return to the Ego’s Path (‘for the money’) and take a loop round the hamster wheel, and then come back to the HS Path… til you stop yourself again (because, ‘where’s my cash?’) and hop back on the hamster wheel… 

What might happen if you were to steel your nerve and stay on the HS Path?

I guessssssss, something could actually grow out of it, which would be soul-satisfying and eventually economically viable – if I stayed with it.

Given that life is fleeting, and getting better at choosing the Higher Self path at ‘forks in the road’ is a key skill, what can you do to harness the knowing you shared above? 

Maybe I could assess some of my projects. I would just need to work with this formula:

• Who gets helped in this project? 
  • • Me => Ego Path project
    • Others => Higher Self Path project

How do I resolve my concerns about money then?

By asking for the money you need, for the work you are meant to do. 

What work am I meant to do?

Casework: by this is meant, the healing work of your profession, directly not just ‘indirectly by teaching the skills to others’. You long to help others and for now you are seeking to do so by training others in your professional skills, but in doing so you are left uncertain as to whether your teaching actually has the least impact on those who need it. It does, but you have absolutely no way of knowing this because you never see your trainees again, so you are left with a data vacuum which ultimately stops you getting the ‘satisfaction’ of service to others. 

That makes sense. The thing I like about casework is that I need to get into a very centred state to be able to undertake it. It’s a state that nourishes my being. I feel very connected to the person. With my training, on the other hand, I often feel I am performing, jazz-handing and impressing… It exhausts me as I make my impression by chucking louche at the trainees… 🙁

Softly, dear soul… Softly. Your thinking about casework is all that was needed for today. As for your remembrance of the ‘very centred state’ you harness for casework – know that that same state is the state of nature that we described earlier. When you commune 1:1 with your client, you are the tree in the forest, the flower in the garden, the bird on the telegraph pole. That is all. Settle into a focus on casework. That is all. That is your Higher Self Path. Let the Higher Self work out the finances in due course. Your role? To stay on the path when the money doubts creep in. We’ve got you. Cleave to the path which leads forward.

So, settle into the Higher Self Path work – casework. I can do that. And I can finally market it as well. I know I can. I must be brave and trust.

You are held. 

I am settling into a focus on 1:1 casework.

I am recognising the Ego’s Path is always circular.

I am following the path of my higher self which feels under-the-radar, but could actually progress if I stayed on it.

I am focussing on my Higher Self’s Path

 

This commitment to a sustainable work pattern… In terms of ‘peak experiences’, I know subconsciously that this simple, ‘one jam flavour’ pattern won’t be as stimulating and exciting as my current ‘multi-flavour jam, finger-in-the-socket’ pattern.

You are right. What a relief because if your nervous system gets any more stimulation or excitement it might well…

…Blow a gasket again. Adrenal fatigue. I know, I’m there again. Ok. Thank you. Good reminder. Teach me about settling into non-burnout lifestyle. How do I learn to love and trust simplicity as a way of life, not just something I crave when I’ve overcooked myself?

Remind yourself of your beautiful, unique system. Your wiring. Your sensing brain. Your Aspie gifts of empathy and knowing.

Well to be frank, since you mention my brain, I was contemplating how I probably get super hopped-up as a way to counter ongoing anhedonia. [Inability to feel pleasure at normal things…] I honestly think I broke my joy sensors along the way, as the things other people get excited about, and anticipate, often leave me unmoved.

Ah, beautifully put. Ok. Perfect. Hear this: You are trying to grow your new joy sensors. You felt them emerging on your weekend away, didn’t you? Your new joy sensors are based on tapping into immense stillness.

Really?! Then how am I meant to earn a living in this noisy world and feel joy then?!?! There’s no ‘immense stillness’ in the outside world!!

How about the idea of interacting with the world, on a 1:1 basis, 2h a day..?

Aha, and then using the rest of the time to tap into immense stillness? I get it. I hear you. I’m hearing you. I’m getting it. Ty. May I absorb this knowing! May I learn to develop my new joy sensors by tapping into immense stillness. I’ll start by going off and doing my meditation… All is well. All is still… Thank you.

Start by tapping into stillness. The immensity and joy will take care of itself. You are deeply loved.

I am tapping into stillness

Listening… Meditating…. Praying for your intervention…

It is the time in your life when veils can start to fall away. 

You know I want that more than anything.

Be mindful of your purpose on Earth. 

Unity.

Be curious about your practice of it. 

Avoid arms’ length unity?

Consider the degree to which you do indeed reach out and enjoy 1:1 communication with individuals, without agenda attached. 

It’s like I haven’t got time… Or, it’s only ‘worth my time’ if money will arise from it… It’s hustle, then zone out – and repeat.

This is it. You’ve got it. So, imagine a world in which you communed with one person at a time. 

The idea is so tender and sweet it makes me want to cry… and then, heavens, shrink away and retreat… “What about all the Things To Do?!” says the voice inside. It’s this sense of my moving so fast, and also sometimes of others moving too slowly for me to know if they’re onboard with me (for work for example), so the only answer is to spin the plates of lots of ‘other people projects’ at once. I guess, I’m seeing myself as rather over-accelerated…

What happens when we travel too fast? 

We miss the views. We arrive in a frazzle.

You are surrounded by potential teachers: your elderly neighbour, your sick relative, your newly returned to the UK friend, your frailing aunts and cousins. But life is travelling too fast for you to be able to be with them. 

And I’m missing the learning? I used to be able to spend time with people. What happened?

You selected a professional pattern which would dominate your days. 

And it was a choice wasn’t it? I didn’t feel the light-touch method of a 2 hour session a day would work… I didn’t feel it would pay the bills. Probably because nor did I feel I could charge what it was worth. And so now I am offering up all the hours people want, and not having enough time for daily self-care (though the Daily Dose of MEDSAN is a good start if I can keep it going) and generally running out of steam. I know, I think that super-busy is super-successful. It’s not, is it? Can I be more modest and just go for the daily 2-4pm 2h appointment (remote/local) slot? “I offer one 2h appointment slot a day, at 2pm, either remotely or locally.” One flavour of jam only. (This refers to G’s anecdote of the woman who couldn’t shift her 12 types of jams at fetes and sales, but when she took the advice to sell one flavour of jam only, saw them flying off her stall.)

What would it take for me to commit to laying down that (sustainable) 2 hours at 2pm pattern?

The realisation that simplifying your offer in this way could allow you to: 

• cover all your bills
• get a satisfying caseload on the go 
• allow you to put fitness and self-care first
• make your business sustainable
• leave you time and headspace for friends
• allow you to commune 1:1 or 1:2 successfully
• open the doors to ongoing remote working from anywhere in the world 
• still do the occasional training day

Yeah, ok, I’m in.

What about parents with children to collect at 3pm?

Let’s let everyone look after themselves for now. You look after yourself. With zeal. 

Ok. I am shifting to selling one jam only. I am making the shift now, so that in 2020, this “2@2” (2h at 2pm ‘clinic’) protocol will be my main source of income. I will be able to say, I only work 2-4pm, knowing that the rest of my day is well-used in covering case prep, admin, marketing, invoicing and self-care. I know I will have time and headspace to spend 1:1 time with friends and family I care about. Others will know my normal flow of the day. This is my strategy for a sustainable, self-caring business. Anything else I need to know?

Glamour. This is not the most glamorous way of working, because it’s largely unseen, and you are not working with a crowd (as with teaching). It’s casework. Are you ready for that?  

I am! And also, some days, I can use 2-4pm for running training workshops, can’t I?

We want you to focus on working with people. Not at people. Can you hear them? Can you work with their needs? Can you be receptive to their stories? 

Yes. I hear you. Thank you.

I am committed to a sustainable work pattern (2@2)

 

 

The wonderful restorative weekend away, and my proclaiming internally, the recognition of my healed state, was powerful. I started hearing a different type of internal monologue altogether: light, observant, curious, encouraging, reflective, chatty even! All things started to feel possible, even, and especially somehow, if there was discomfort on the way. What I’m trying to share here is that ‘hurting’ shifted to something different… The hurting receded as I rested and as I settled into the wonder of considering myself ‘healed’… and then instead when ‘discomfort’ arose in aiming to execute some action, I could throw myself into it and burn through it. An example: we went wild swimming in a mountain river. The discomfort was the doorway to a greater feeling state. I wasn’t shrinking from discomfort as if it might exhaust or finish me off.

I was left thinking of the possibilities at hand if I could really embrace discomfort. Imagine… I could even get physically fit again. I could reorientate my business. I could say no when needed. I could get stuff done.

Your thoughts, dear voice of my wisdom?

Sometimes it can be hard to discern what is discomfort and what is the egg cracking. The ‘egg cracking’ is the cocoon analogy, or any analogy which points to breakdown as a route to breakthrough. 

Or the seed opening in the soil so the shoot can poke through.

Exactly. Our advice to you is to note the breakdown as having occurred. See the egg shells behind you, the cocoon on the ground, the shoot as having broken through the soil. 

Aha, I get stuck on this notion of being on a cusp, don’t I?

Exactly. The more you can identify with having left the cusp, or the breakdown/breakthrough moment, behind you, the sooner you can embrace the idea that all is moving smoothly forward. And as thought makes thing, this is an affirming idea. 

What about this discomfort though?

The discomfort is gold dust! Yes! Discomfort is the feeling of growth, expansion, development. 

I recoiled from discomfort, as a protective / coping mechanism, because of old fears. I can work with it though, can’t I?

Indeed! Why not equate your feelings of discomfort with notions of attaining mastery?

Well, yes. I like that. If I’m feeling discomfort it’s because I am mastering something. Like a ninja in training. Or a yogi on the mat. Or an athlete on the track.

Can I merge two concepts: embracing discomfort and attaining mastery?

Of course! 

Ok. Ty. Blessed be my endeavours. Blessed be all our endeavours on this planet at this time of acute challenge and immense possibility. May we all embrace discomfort and attain mastery – of ourselves, of our free wills, of our kindness, of our selflessness, of our purposes, of our missions, of our care for each other.

Amen. 

I am embracing discomfort and attaining mastery