By Jenny Light
When I collapsed with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome as a busy teacher, yoga teacher, healer and mum, I thought my world had ended. However, never having been a quitter, I decided to engage with the new situation I found myself in. Freed up from all responsibilities, I had time to question, not a victim’s ‘Why me?’ but simply ‘Why?’ What did I have to learn? What was it about my previous way of living which was so obviously wrong? And how could I live better way? And so I listened into the depth of myself and found, not silence, but a clamouring noise. A disquiet. My calm exterior belied the agitation on the inside.
There is a terrible sense of loss of freedoms with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. Things that you previously could do, you now can’t. All those joyful hours planning new ventures or following pleasurable pursuits: curtailed. And now it is just tiring to think about it. One feels a mix of anger, frustration and grief. At its worst, the world narrows around you to the bed you’re occupying and the four walls around you.
It’s a major excursion to visit the toilet and navigate back to lie prone in bed, while the world spins around. The yawning gap of the stairwell as I pass seemed ready to swallow me whole if I should topple, so I tried not to look. The longer I was vertical, the more likely I was to be hit with waves of nausea and dizziness before I could make it back to the bed. So the bathroom was a bit of a hit-and–run affair to get back to lying down as quickly as possible. The length of time to return to equilibrium after this mammoth effort well exceeded the action.
So I learnt to lie still and reflect on the past. What a colourful life to have led! So many wonderful places, sights, smells and people to share your journey with, which Fortune grants the good health to enjoy. The world shines when you are healthy, with a shining spirit and a zest for life. Lying prone, there is still zest but the body doesn’t feel fit to jump and do as it was bid. In fact, even pondering my past escapades, engaged my beating heart, endorphins and adrenalin kick in and it tired my body to think! The body responds to each thought as if it were occurring in the present moment: a fear response to fight or flight or a joyful response to action. Planning an action in your head, your body responds as if it was actually doing it, instead of merely thinking about it.
So you learn to lie quiet and still your thoughts; to bring them to rest in the present moment. You learn that the longer you can lie still and quiet, the more recharged your energy levels will be. So bring your thoughts to rest on any ease of comfort in the body (even with a body in pain, there will be ease or comfort somewhere). What you focus on increases, so focus on ease or pleasure not the dis-ease. Breathe peace into your beating heart, slow the breath. Focus on the comfort of clean, smooth bedding.
Focus on the quiet around you. Noises and voices in the street may take your mind away from calm and you may start to imagine the scene outside your window. So you learn to disengage and let the sounds filter through and away without attaching thought or emotion, without engaging with the sound. And the peace increases. You can hear the blood in your own head and the intensity of the beat of your heart, perhaps strong pulsing at the solar plexus which may even be visible through clothing. Notice how your body feels with detachment. Practise detachment.
So you learn to think Peace. Think Ease. Breathe in peace through your fingertips on the solar plexus. Then you learn to go beyond the physical body to the energy body beneath and beyond. You may notice the pulsing or oscillating energy body as palpably strong. You learn that ‘smiling’ internally deepens and lengthens the oscillations or pulses, which transfers through into the physical body.
You learn that dis-ease, for I believe Chronic Fatigue Syndrome is an energetic dis ease, starts first of all in the energetic body, which maps itself overtime into the physical body. Ask yourself how far back you knew something wasn’t right, deep inside yourself, but you trundled on regardless? It’s plain to me that the dis-ease within me started a long time ago, probably ten years before I fell ill with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome but I wasn’t listening to the messages then.
Whatever you give attention to increases, so let’s come back to the peace with a meditation on the inner pulsing of your life force. Let’s create long, pure, fine emanations of light to ease the pulse within your physical frame. It’s like learning to live to the beat of a different drum. Your soul drum, not the harsh beat of the world. Your life and healing depend on turning your life around at this pivotal point. And you can learn to bring your own finely tuned life force through into this physical world through your physical body.
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Jenny Light is a motivational speaker and author on recovering from CFS (ME). In her autographical, self-help book, ‘Living Lightly: a journey through Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (ME)’, she leads her reader on a voyage of self discovery through use of positive affirmation, self-healing, meditation, a raw food diet and VegEPA, an omega supplement. Published by Ayni Books (Dec 2015). IBSN 978-1-78535-139-6