Author: Polina Chernomordik
Beginnings
I got a great job on my return, I had amazing colleagues, a great salary and an interesting project to work on. But it was still hard for me to find my place in this society after being away for quite a while. Although I had good friends, I often felt lonely and emotionally disturbed. I was also worrying too much about the political and economical situation in my country and its potential effects on my life. I can freely talk about it in retrospective, but at times I do not think I was aware of the emotional struggle that ended up triggering the neurological change in my body. I also had a lot of flights throughout 2015, I was often sick with the flu and it always took me quite a long while to recover. Now, I know that loneliness is a killer for the immune system. But at time I had zero ideas about that and effects of stress on the body in general.
I was constantly weak, my eyes were burning, it was hard to concentrate on work and I felt really crappy overall.
In September 2015 I came back to Russia from my vacation in Spain and caught the flu (again!), but this one seemed to never go away. Another month or two I tried not to notice the changes that were happening to me: I was constantly weak, my eyes were burning, it was hard to concentrate on work and I felt really crappy overall. At first, I did not attach any importance to this and continued to try to live normally. But day after day, fatigue was becoming stronger and other symptoms also developed: eye pain intensified and cognitive dysfunction appeared. I decided to go to the doctor after my close friends convinced me to.
The medical quest
And here is where the quest for health begins. First were the immunologists – I visited many of them. They were finding all sorts of immune problems with me, different diagnoses followed. Many pills, many actions that did not bring any relief but only made things more complicated since I was loosing my mind to all of them. Something always hurt: my head, my body, my eyes. I began to experience insomnia: I either could not get to sleep, or woke up constantly. I saw so many doctors, I do not remember them all. All sorts of them: neurologists, cardiologists, therapists. I did MRIs, and I did tons of blood tests. I tried all kinds of medicines and collected the whole set of diagnosed conditions: from vascular dystonia, to asthenia, as well as Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and many others that were very much dependent on the creativity and world views of the doctor I was seeing.
I went for alternatives such as Chinese medicine and acupuncture, but nothing helped.
While I was exploring the wonders of the Russian healthcare system, and spending thousands on it, I lost most of my life with all its joys, and I lost many friends. In addition, it was very hard for me to bear in mind the idea that I could not plan anything for the rest of my life as I was scared I was locked up in that sick and exhausted body forever.
I was scared I was locked up in that sick and exhausted body forever
At the same time I was not ready to completely give up on the life that I previously had. Sometimes, I went to recreational activities near home or work. I also did some sorts of trips in hope that being by the sea and enjoying what I have always enjoyed about my life would help me. I am glad I did it actually, though it was impressively hard. I think those small trips helped me stay mentally strong and understand what I am fighting for: a good life. I guess I was lucky I had that special sort of stamina to go on with life while being so badly sick. I know many people get bedbound, so I was feeling grateful my body did not do that to me.
The end of medical quest
My medical journey lasted for about a year. It was very hard since you kind of need a lot of stamina and energy to go through such journey while being an exhausted and tired CFS patient. There were days where sensations in my body were so hard to bear that I was calming myself with the idea of suicide. I did not have harming suicidal thoughts (I absolutely didn’t want to end my life and was fighting for it as hard as I could) and generally was doing okish mentally in comparison to what I have heard other people are going through, but ironically the idea of that option added some calmness to the situation.
It was hard to combine work (yes, I was still working since I had to pay doctors and all the blood tests) and the medical quest. It was also annoying to go from one doctor to another and hear nothing useful. Some of them were really nice and tried to help but could not and some were just money making machines deprived of any empathy for a patient. I did tons of research myself, I was actually spending most of my free time online reading about possible solutions and theories behind those conditions labelled CFS/ME. I think I read everything that was ever written about CFS: all medical research, all alternative opinions. Everything. I just really wanted to get my life back!
At some point I realised that sadly conventional medical science does not know where CFS comes from. There are all sorts of theories about viruses, bacteria, etc. but none of them are proven and agreed upon. I thought something must be wrong here, since if a particular virus would be the starting point of CFS, it should not be that hard to identify and find a cure. After months of endless doctors’ visits and different medical treatments, I kind of lost hope in medical science in this regard. This was a sad realisation for me since I am very scientifically minded and had a misconception that medical science knows everything about everything and should help me out I was forced to look for answers elsewhere. At the same time I was a person too far from esoteric things, energy healing and that sort of things. Deepak Chopra was not an inspiration for me ?
I soon found out that there is no magic behind it – just the magic of our powerful brain
This is where the Lightning Process (LP) came in. I firstly found information about it on the Phoenixrising platform of CFS patients from the USA. I am forever grateful to those people who shared their LP stories over there and I did the same the day I knew I was recovered. At first, I did not pay attention to those stories about brain retraining programs like Lightning Process, but when I realised there were not many options left, I dug deeper just to find out they already helped thousands to recover from all those debilitating conditions. At first, I thought they had something to do with spirituality since I was very poorly prepared in that field and had no idea what a brain retraining can be. But I soon found out that there is no magic behind it – just the magic of our powerful brain that can go crazy and start to send all the wrong signals to our body. This is how I got stuck in all my recurring health issues, symptoms and fatigue. Luckily the brain can do the reverse work as well.
I did research on the available options and decided to go for Lightning Process since it looked the most efficient to me. Also, some of my friends’ friends from New Zealand reached me out to tell about their recoveries. It all sounded amazing and gave me hope that I so much needed.
What I liked the most about the LP approach was that it is a self-healing tool
I applied for the British visa and choose the first available course in London. I took it and started to apply the tool in life, consciously choosing to send the right signals to my brain about how I wanted to feel. As anyone else’s brain my brain is plastic, which is fantastic. In a couple of weeks I was back to full force and got my life back! No magic was involved, no pills or medical stuff. Just my inner power and the power of my brain. What I liked the most about the LP approach was that it is a self-healing tool – the tool that I got from the trainer and then I was free to use it and no one could take it from me. I did not need to depend on third party opinions, or their professionalism. I could do everything on my own. For me this was very empowering, though my LP journey was not the easiest one. However, in the end it does not matter at all. What matters is that the goal of healthy living was achieved. I cried every day for at least a month or two when that hell was over. Even 3 years later writing these words brings me to tears. No kidding.
Retrospective
Looking back at those years, and analysing things, I can see how stress in my life, which I did not even recognise, had caused disbalance of my body and brain. Now I know for sure that stress is a killer and should be seen as a number one enemy of any human being. It causes physical damage to the body. Some bodies are stronger than others and we yet do not know why some get stuck into a CFS type of illnesses and some do not. My brain got stuck and so did my body. There was no medicine that could reverse that process for me since pills targeted very different things: all the symptoms and not the reason behind them.
Thank God, I quickly (I think one year is pretty quick) realised that I can be unstuck out of the processes that were running in my brain and body and learned the Lightning Process technique. It taught me how to use my powerful mind-body connection to get unstuck and form new healthy neuro pathways in my brain. That was the tool I needed. While pills were a banana for nailing, Lightning Process was a hammer.
While pills were a banana for nailing, Lightning Process was a hammer.
The whole CFS thing was a life changing journey that greatly influenced the way I see and experience the world and my life. I am still in the process of reinventing and reframing my life after it. At the same time years after my recovery have passed very fast and now I am a Lightning Process practitioner myself. I have become the first ever Russian speaking Lightning Process practitioner and currently run LP seminars in Moscow. It was hard for me to accept the fact that so many of my compatriots suffer from chronic illnesses of CFS type without access to all those fantastic mind-body developments of the Western world. We have some Russian tools but I have never heard of any helping specifically people with CFS. I am very proud of myself for finding my way out of CFS and for finding a way to bring the Lightning Process to the Russian speaking world. It is a great tool and should be accessible to as many people as possible.
Having said all that, I wish big luck to everyone who has not yet found their way out of chronic illness. I am with you, believe me!