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I just received this LOVELY letter (see below where it says “Julianne’s Letter”) from a client way back in a part of the USA I’ve never visited, Knoxville, Tennessee!
But first, I must introduce the story…..
I was introduced to Julianne a few months back while on a online Q&A call with White Hot Truth Diva Danielle LaPorte. Julianne had a question about her business and I scribbled her website on a piece of paper. Felt that I had to check her out. I sent her an email on June 16th. One thing led to another, we got talking about health. The troubles she’s had over a life-time. The frustration of it. I offered her some Skype sessions. I began to realize rather quickly why the cosmos had perked up when I heard her voice over the internet lines.
It turns out Julianne was suffering from a life-time of auto-immune problems, migraines, sleep disturbances (she wrote to me: I CRAVE SLEEP AND SLEEP LIKE THE DEAD, NOTHING WAKES ME UP), overall ill-health (she writes about them below in her letter), as well as a diagnosis of “narcolepsy.” (I put quotes around this as her main symptoms revolved around not being able to wake up in the morning, as well as wanting to sleep “all the time.” This doesn’t really constitute narceolpsey, but I think that probably the doc’s had to give what was going on some kind of diagnosis).
Much of what was going on with her was really a big question mark with very few, if any, answers.
No one in the medical community could figure out WHY. Nothing in her family tree would point to these things having been passed on genetically. Her relationships, self-worth, and “all that stuff from the psyche” that can cause autoimmune problems was not present in her world. To her, her symptoms and syndromes were but a mystery.
But then, upon the common questions I always ask new clients……
I found out she had a number of surgeries as an infant, between the ages of 1 and 4. I’m always awestruck by what us humans can endure at such a young age, but it seems this ‘enduring’ can come with future consequences…..
As we dove deeper into these pieces of her life that seemed so long ago, the heat and emotion that went with them was apparently still very real. It was ever-present like it was today.
Here is what is cool (and not so cool at the same time)
As serendipity would have it, I have been lucky enough to train with someone (Dr. Peter Levine, the founder of Somatic Experiencing and classic book “Waking the Tiger”) who specializes in, and has figured out a successful way of working with folk who have had incredibly awful surgical experiences, as well as near-death experiences (NDE’s) and multiple anesthesia states*. Individuals who have been subjected to these events can maintain a sense of being “anesthetized” or “deadened” after the events.
Julianne wrote in her history to me:
“MY SLEEP BEHAVIOR CAN BE STRANGE. I TALK TO PEOPLE WHO ARE NOT THERE, YELL, CRY AND ACT THINGS OUT AND SOMETIMES SLEEP WALK. I OFTEN FEEL LIKE I AM BEING ATTACKED AND THAT THERE ARE PEOPLE LURKING. I ALSO HAVE HAD SLEEP DISTURBANCES LATELY WHERE I AM ½ AWAKE AND HAVE A PARALYZING SENSE OF DOOM AND THAT THE WORLD IS NOT REAL, IT IS FADING AWAY AND I WILL CEASE TO EXIST. IT IS ALL VERY ABSTRACT, NOTHING I WOULD EVER THINK WHEN I AM AWAKE. THESE DISTRUBANCES CAUSE ME TO AWAKE WITH HEART POUNDING ADRENALINE. OFTEN I CANNOT GET BACK TO SLEEP.”
You could even go to the point of saying that individuals who are suffering from these post-surgical/anesthesia/NDE-events have their systems in a state of “limbo”, half in “freeze” and “lock-down mode” of being put under, and their metabolism never fully revs up again (hence the hypothyroid etc), and half in adrenaline “fight or flee” mode, wanting to get the heck-out-of-dodge, or more appropriately, the surgery arena and those guys in masks lurking above you.
This knowledge of the effects of surgical procedures, anesthesia and NDE’s on the human system is “interesting”. One would (at least this gal would) wonder if we should ever be ‘put under’, and if so, what might be needed to ensure the experience is tame and safe for the patient. What is “not so cool” about this is that there are very few people who are trained to work with such trauma.
It is delicate work. It is slow. It requires patience. It requires repeat sessions.
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I’m glad I was introduced to Julianne over the techie waves of our computers and linked by a diva who neither of us have met. I think that is so very cool.
Thanks to Danielle for having that call (which BTW all went to charity). Thanks Julianne for asking a question and being OPEN to some very different answers. And thanks to my teacher, Dr. Levine, for uncovering a big piece of our medical mysteries.
Irene.
(*Just a note that this triad of NDE’s, going ‘under’ for surgery, and anesthesia states, for these purposes can be seen as all the same.)
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Julianne’s Letter
“A simple conversation with Irene turned into an opportunity to become human again.
Irene brings a quiet confidence and generosity of spirit to each moment. That is what caught my attention and pulled me out of the chaotic noise of my life rushing by. Irene offered to work with me, just to see if she could help me.
I do not understand Irene’s work.
I do not need to understand it to feel the ripples that flow out of me and cycle back to me enlivening my senses.
Long ago I lost sense of my physical self.
I started to get sick before I started high school. It was nothing major, just the distracting symptoms of undiagnosed Hashimoto’s thyroid condition. At the time I did not know my auto-immune system was at war. I noticed that my body did not respond to exercise, sleep, food and stress as I expected it too. I told myself to push harder, work later, exercise more, eat less, eat less of toxic foods and to not listen to the part of me that whined, “I don’t feel good.”
That was seventeen years ago.
Since then I’ve struggled more each year with exhaustion, weight, fatigue, migraines, digestive disorders, female cycle issues.
Life goes on.
I had three children and never once thought that being pregnant was wonderful – I do love my kids.
I also became Vice President of an international fashion company, consulted for other brands, and started my own sustainable fashion company. The whole time, I have been exhausted, sick and tired. I ignored it.
I ignored that I had a body since it did not help me with my goals.
I always seem to be dragging my vessel around. It is not a huge grotesque vessel, although my writing might make it sound that way. I am a very average American woman, and like most average American women,
I want more for myself. I want to be well.
I have been diagnosed and treated for hypothyroidism, migraines, gluten intolerance, and something like narcolepsy.
I have made changes many people think they could never manage. I obsess about wellness but lament that there is so little I can do about it with the little time I have for myself after being a mom, supporting my husband on the completion of his PhD and running my own start-up business.
I am sick, but I am not at deaths door.
I function but I am not engaged or energized. I am aware enough to realize the tragedy of being a creative force but nor having the energy to light up my visions, and about being a life force to my family but sleeping on the job. I am trapped in this body. Putting these thoughts out there makes it sound so debilitating. It is not. I really do not think about it. I put it aside everyday as I stumble awake and trudge through my murky energy field.
This is where Irene found me.
Because I am on the East Coast I could not sign up for one of Irene’s many workshops, or work with her one-on-one. Irene offered to work with me via Skype. Maybe it is better this way. In our Skype sessions, I have Irene’s complete attention.
We are working on keystone pieces of my nervous system that were altered when I underwent multiple surgeries as a baby.
These are deep memories that flare with emotions because that is all my childlike mind was able to process at this time.
Irene is very present in these sessions, observing and nodding across the continent.
She notices physical ticks (movements) that I repeat and calms them;
making me repeat them as a slow wavelike motion. Everything becomes waves as it is slowed down.
I have been so tired. I never thought I needed to slow down.
I have been working with Irene for nearly two months.
I am still tired but I am aware.
I open my eyes and see myself as part of my environment. I listen and look.
I cultivate physical sensations instead of tuning them out like static on the radio.
I understand that my human form is like a water turbine.
Energy needs to come in and cycle out.
My senses are the energy receptors.
If I turn off reception the flow of energy becomes slow and irregular. It becomes fleeting, there and then gone, needed and missed.
It is a delicate balance. If I become too engaged my tired system will flood.
I see why Irene started with small core experiences and how awakening them changes the system.
Parts of me are now quietly humming and listening.
Parts of me are alive.
I feel human, and that is no small thing.”
Julianne Applegate
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