\n<\/p>\n
Several years ago, I experienced what I didn’t realize at the time was the beginning of a life-changing chronic illness journey. <\/p>\n
It started with feeling short of breath when I bent down to pick something up from the floor and quickly turned into a ball of snow. It felt as if I had stepped into an alternate reality, where I had transformed from a healthy person whose life was surrounded by hiking, dancing, and traveling, into a person whose body would no longer cooperate with life. At worst, my heart rate increased throughout the day and night to levels that would prompt healthy friends to run to the ER. I was tired and at times too weak to walk.<\/p>\n
\nAlready a Buddhist meditation teacher and hypnotherapist, I found myself on a crash course in learning how to treat a complex medical condition and live a meaningful life inside a body that had fundamentally changed.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n
This was the beginning of a complex condition involving almost every system in my body, which ultimately dates back to my time when I lived in a small cottage that unknowingly housed an uninvited tenant: black mold. At the time, I could not have imagined how profoundly this experience would change my body, my life, and my work.<\/p>\n
Already a Buddhist meditation teacher and hypnotherapist, I found myself on a crash course in learning how to treat a complex medical condition and live a meaningful life inside a body that had fundamentally changed. <\/p>\n
In the years that followed, I worked to create spaces of healing, resilience, and happiness, rebuilding a life that in many ways felt happier and more free than the life I had lost. I also found myself helping more and more clients deal with complex illnesses. Time and again, I see how mindfulness and hypnosis can help people feel a new sense of hope, agency, and ability to connect with their lives and bodies differently.<\/p>\n
a nervous system activated against danger
<\/h2>\nWhen we live with chronic illness or pain, it can often feel like we’re on high alert \u2014 and with good reason. The body is designed to detect danger and take immediate action against the threat. It is because of this finely honed system that we have survived through generations of human evolution. It’s an incredible gift \u2013 until it isn’t.<\/p>\n
Pain, stress, illness and other problems can send signals throughout our body that something is very wrong. It’s our system’s way of saying, “Hey! Stop! Please take care of me.” <\/p>\n
\n“maladaptive neuroplasticity<\/em>“This is when the body and mind begin to reorganize to deal with an ongoing threat. Unfortunately, we don’t always reorganize in a way that helps us long-term or makes us feel particularly good. For our brain and body, it’s about one thing and one thing only: our survival. <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n
But in chronic conditions that occur over time, this repeated activation can make our nervous system extra sensitive to danger. Our body’s alert systems fire up again and again, reacting to even small changes in posture, environment or life situations as if they were a five-alarm fire. This is part of hypnosis and meditation is shown<\/a> When used in supplement form with proper medical care, it is extremely helpful for chronic disease and pain.<\/p>\n
You’ve probably heard the term “neurons that fire together wire together,” which means that when we repeat Anything<\/em> Over and over again, we create strong neural pathways that operate automatically. This trait is brilliant in many situations: we intuitively remember how to drive a car, we see the face of someone we love and a feeling of warmth wash over us, we get up and move to our attention cushion because it’s a habitual part of our daily routine.<\/p>\n
Our brain is incredibly efficient. They want to save energy, so they create shortcuts to do so. This is often helpful, but when it comes to chronic pain and disease, it can result in increased sensitivity, and this is what some researchers call maladaptive neuroplasticity<\/em>. <\/p>\n
What does that mean for us? Essentially, the body and mind begin to reorganize to deal with the ongoing threat. Unfortunately, we don’t always reorganize in a way that helps us long-term or makes us feel particularly good. For our brains and bodies, it’s about only one thing: our survival.<\/p>\n
Over time, an internal algorithm is formed in the brain, body and nervous system: we are exposed to a trigger or feel the onset of a symptom and automatically, a cascade of chemical, physical and emotional reactions are triggered within a fraction of a second. Emotions run high, thought cycles begin to spin, anxiety increases, and neural pathways connecting things like fear, sadness, despair, frustration, and physical symptoms strengthen. <\/p>\n
\nThe amazing thing about neuroplasticity is that you have more power over this process than you might think, especially when it comes to dealing with habitual thoughts and reactions, distress and stress.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n
Neuroplasticity means you have more power than you know<\/h2>\n
It’s understandable that these processes can become large, automated, and beyond our control, but that’s not the whole picture. The amazing thing about neuroplasticity is that you have more power over this process than you might think, especially when it comes to dealing with habitual thoughts and reactions, distress and stress.<\/p>\n
This is where mindfulness and hypnosis can provide real help. Both practices help you notice when alarm bells start ringing, so you can interrupt the cascade of reactivity and learn to take it in a different direction. Through relaxation, breathing, focused attention, visualization and active work with the subconscious mind, you can begin to support the nervous system and create a space where triggers, symptoms and recurring thoughts and thoughts can be met and worked with. <\/p>\n
The more you practice developing and relaxing qualities like safety, compassion, kindness and relaxation, the more ingrained and automatic they become. Just as you have strengthened the muscles of stress and tension, you can strengthen the muscles of relaxation, trust, and permission to rest and take care of yourself.<\/p>\n
One of my clients described this process as being able to access her “her own little sanctuary” \u2013 a place where even in the midst of years of complex illness, she is able to relax, remember her wholeness, and feel relieved. In addition, her hopefulness, personal strength and overall sense of well-being, as well as her sleep, have improved significantly.<\/p>\n
addressing the whole person<\/h2>\n
Of course, this doesn’t mean thinking that we can “care away” from a condition that requires treatment. These practices are best done in conjunction with medical care, as they allow us to navigate the full spectrum of our experience \u2013 from stress around doctor’s appointments and treatment protocols, to changes in our relationships and careers, to celebrating wins and progress. Living with pain and illness affects our bodies, but also our identity, spirituality, and perspective on the world. These practices can allow us to display all parts of it. <\/p>\n
\nAdding meditation and hypnosis to our chronic illness care regimen may reveal that we have more power than we think: the ability to disrupt familiar thought cycles, the ability to create moments of relief and inner safety, and even the ability to reshape the emotions, beliefs, and patterns that can make life with chronic illness more difficult than ever.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n
Adding meditation and hypnosis to our chronic illness care regimen may reveal that we have more power than we think: the ability to disrupt familiar thought cycles, the ability to create moments of relief and inner safety, and even the ability to reshape the emotions, beliefs, and patterns that can make life with chronic illness more difficult than ever.<\/p>\n
It is so powerful because in the states of mind available through meditation and hypnosis, the mind becomes more flexible, creative and adaptive. really, quickly Research<\/a> suggests that mind-body practices such as meditation and hypnosis can influence brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF), a molecule associated with neuroplasticity, learning, pain modulation, and the ability of the nervous system to adapt in response to stress. <\/p>\n
When we add these practices to our toolbox, we are partnering with the subconscious mind to reframe our relationship with illness from the inside out.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n