I Took Back my Power to Heal and Found Balance. Here's How You Can Too.
The Story of How I Became a Healer...
Having experienced various health issues throughout my life – including depression, anxiety, and cancer - it was my diagnosis of CLL (Chronic Lymphocytic Leukaemia) at the age of 42 that really knocked me for six. It was September 2009; I had recently been made redundant following the recession and was raising my seven–year-old daughter by myself. Sure, I was a casual smoker and had the odd drink, but ate what I – at the time, rather naively - believed was a “balanced diet,” and was active on a regular basis, being a single mother. To say it was a shock would be an understatement.
The period immediately after diagnosis was a bit of a blur. My primary concern was, of course, my daughter. I wanted to see her grow up; to become and achieve all that she wanted to be, having lost my own mother at the age of five. And despite truly feeling as though I was dying (due to the PTSD post-diagnosis), I had this strong desire to LIVE.
I wasn’t sleeping, was losing weight faster than I ever had before, and knew I needed to reach out for help. That’s when the Head Haematology Nurse referred me to Iris, who I later discovered was a Reiki Practitioner/Healer. After just one session, a black cloud had been lifted. I had my first full-night's sleep in months and felt this profound sense of peace. Without a doubt, this interaction was a vital turning point - not just for my health, but for my life on the whole.
"Suffering again from sleep issues and waking up in panic attacks; I had put on a lot of weight and was found to be in early menopause."
Skip to three years later, when I was finally able to receive chemoimmunotherapy (my CLL was a watch-and-wait scenario). In the period between diagnosis and treatment, I had been able to spend some quality time with my lovely daughter and volunteer with a local cancer charity, who also helped me with therapies and support. By the time treatment came around, though, I was suffering again from sleep issues and waking up in panic attacks, losing a considerable amount of weight and my lymph nodes were so swollen that they were pressing into my organs and causing me grief.
Following six months of chemo, my white blood cells count was much improved. My body, on the other hand, was damaged and in a lot of pain. I struggled to walk any distance, wash, and dress myself, and even cook, so my daughter stepped in and helped immensely. Over the next six months, I had put on a lot of weight very quickly and was found to be in an early menopause. I tried a few alternative therapies in a bid to help myself – including kinesiology, reflexology, dieting – but what turned out to help me most was, once again, Reiki. Having crossed paths with a beautiful, pink-haired angel who just to so happened to be a healer, I booked in immediately. The benefits were so immediate and clear that I wanted to learn it for myself, and so I started on the path to becoming a Reiki Healer, eventually qualifying as Master Practitioner and teacher.
While Reiki was a great modality to use for relieving pain, stress, and anxiety – and for connecting with my innate healing abilities – I was still overweight and not at all healthy and fit. My body needed to be taken care of if I wanted to prevent further illness or disease down the road. Continuing my quest to discover how to achieve my best health through learning and education, I stumbled upon a course that caught my eye... Nutritional Therapy. From the first module, I was amazed at what I was learning and couldn’t believe that a lot of it was not common knowledge.
This is where I discovered the relatively recent area of scientific research known as “Epigenetics” and the Human Genome Project. It has started now to revolutionise the way in which the world approaches genetics and lifestyle. Prior to the discovery, scientists – and, by extension, the general public - believed that our inherited genetic code (“The Central Dogma”) is what dictated our health and likelihood of developing physical or mental diseases later in life. Essentially, Epigenetics now proves that there are parts of our genes that can be “switched off” or “switched on” because of external factors such as our environment and lifestyle choices.
Epigenetics - translating as “control above our genes” – therefore is the science of how environmental signals - everything that you eat and drink, do, breathe, think, believe, perceive, and feel – affects your gene activity and plays a major role in how healthy (or unhealthy) you ultimately become. This might seem quite overwhelming at first so, to simplify it, I’m going to take you through changes I have made and habits I have incorporated into my daily routine over the past several years to take back my own power to heal my body and life...
(NB. I understand that we are all exposed to various healthy and unhealthy environmental signals and that our bodies are equipped to deal with adverse conditions until the negative environment signals start to overload us and become more than our bodies capability to deal with, thus causing disease. What I try to do is to
reduce my exposure to these unhealthy signals and increase my body's ability to protect itself and remain healthy.)
"What you eat and drink, do, breathe, think, believe, perceive and feel... plays a major role in how healthy (or unhealthy) you ultimately become "
So.. How have I Applied the Science of Epigenetics in my Daily Life?
What I Eat
Having learnt about the role that Epigenetics plays in switching genes on or off, I now pay attention to all that I feed my body. Most of the time, I ensure that I eat whole foods and fresh fruit and vegetables.
I know that foods such as green, leafy vegetables contain numerous vital vitamins that support bone health and our immune system, regulate blood sugar levels and more. Conversely, I am keenly aware of the impact that excess sugar (more than 6 tsp for adults, 3 tsp for children) can have on the body – including increased stress levels, weight gain and a greater likelihood of developing diseases such as cancer, diabetes, and depression.
As a keen gardener, I also love growing my own organic food for myself and family to eat, further reducing our exposure to unnatural chemicals such as pesticides.
Helpful Healing Tips
- 🌈 Eat the Rainbow! Include Vegetables & Fruit (organic when possible – or grow your own) at every meal
- 🍽️ Balance Your Plate; a combination of protein, carbohydrates, & vegetables at every meal.
- 🍇 Replace your processed snacks with a handful of nuts/seeds or a portion of fruit for that sugar hit.
- 🍫 Exclude or reduce C.R.A.P foods; Carbonated drinks, Refined Sugars, Additives & Alcohol and Processed foods.
What I Drink
Our bodies are made up of over 70% water, so it goes without saying that staying hydrated is essential for our health. During my chemo-immunotherapy, drinking plenty of filtered water helped to process and clear out the toxins from my body effectively.
Tap water has been found to include chemicals such as lead and limescale from old pipes, microorganisms such as bacteria, and even microplastics, which is why I choose to use a filtered water. This reduces my exposure to harmful substances and helps my body to be healthier as a result, one less unhealthy environmental signal to have to deal with.......
Helpful Healing Tips
- 🥤 Drink Water (6 x 8oz glass daily)
- 🥬 Make your own Green Smoothie (Equal 50%Veg:50%Fruit, along with your choice of milk or water), to give you an energy boost or on days when you struggle to eat enough fruit and vegetables.
- 🍵 Tea (Herbal, Green, White, etc)
- ☕ Organic Coffee
- 🥛Organic Milk (or alternative milk of choice)
- 🍷Wine (Red/White), Guinness, spirits (½ glasses/wk.) - no, you don't have to completely deprive yourself! Everything in moderation.
I try not to exclude anything in my diet but instead aim to find a BALANCE.
What I Breathe
This is a straightforward signal to understand; this is what we breathe in – from pollutants to cigarette smoke - and how we breathe – deeply or shallowly.
Helpful Healing Tips
- 🚶♀️Take walks out in nature - try to avoid walking on busy roads/streets as much as possible to reduce your intake of vehicle fumes and other pollutants.
- 🪟 Open your windows every day to clean the air in your home and get rid of germs.
- ⚠️ Reduce/stop using household cleaning products especially sprays (I make my own).
- 💚 Reduce sprays you use on your person, perfume, deodorant, etc harmful to you & the environment you in.
- 🚭 (For smokers) Stop or reduce the number of cigarettes you have daily
- 🫁 Take deeper breaths; do not slouch when sitting – sitting upright allows for fuller breaths and a greater intake of oxygen for your body.
What and How I Feel
Emotions are, obviously, a normal part of being human. But when certain emotions become a near-constant presence in our everyday lives (particularly stress and anxiety), our health – both mental and physical – becomes jeopardised. I have no doubt that the chronic stress I had been experiencing prior to my diagnosis had a great influence on my development of disease.
Being an empath (a Highly Sensitive person), I not only have to deal with my own feelings, but I can also sense other people's emotions on a deep level. This was therefore an especially important one for me to deal with and the one I have struggled with the most. I’ve needed to find tools to stop feeling unworthy, stressed, anxious, angry, frustrated on such a regular basis, and become better able to manage all of these. Through the years certain tools have helped me to remain balanced.
Helpful Healing Tips
- 👐 Using Reiki for personal use daily, bringing me back to a sense of balance.
- 🧘♀️ Meditating every morning to reduce stress and emotional reactivity in everyday situations – you can take as little as 5 minutes.
- 👥 Avoiding people or situations that unnecessarily make you feel on edge, uncomfortable and anxious.
- ❤️ Being patient with yourself and practising self-compassion! This all takes time.
What I Do
If you are anything like I used to be, your days consist of a long list of to-dos, tasks, and responsibilities. You barely get time to and for yourself once work and family commitments have been taken out of the equation.
When I looked at this at a deeper level for myself, I realised that I was doing far more for others - helping them to achieve their goals and ensuring they were happy – than I was for me. In doing so, I had been ignoring my needs and well-being, which gave rise to further frustration, anger, unhappiness, poor health, and just feeling worn out.
Remember, we are all human beings – not human doings.
Helpful Healing Tips
- 🌱Gardening – getting outside and growing your own vegetable & fruit is so good for your mind, body, and soul
- 🚴♀️ Exercise – according to your own ability and preferences; such as walking, swimming, Yoga, Qi Gong etc
- 🫂 Spending quality, tech-free time with friends and family
- 🤝 Joining groups you share a similar interest with, e.g. walking, open water swimming, knitting, painting etc
- ⚖️ Striking the balance between connecting with others but also spending time alone
Above all, pay attention to your own limits and listen out for signals that you are becoming burnt out.
What you Think, Believe and Perceive
To think is to have a particular opinion, belief or idea about something or someone.
To believe is to accept (something) is true, especially without proof.
Even as a self-declared optimist, I have allowed several negative and limiting beliefs to dictate my life at various points in time. I have also found myself stuck in cycles of destructive, spiralling thoughts, which inevitably end up eliciting more negative emotions and manifesting more of the same undesirable conditions. Unnecessary suffering resulting from these has, without a doubt, contributed to a number of health issues throughout my life.
Believing I was going to die following my CLL diagnosis (considering the only association I had with cancer was my mum passing away when I was 5) lead to severe PTSD. On the contrary, developing a belief in a Universal Energy or Life Force (after being raised Catholic in the North of Ireland throughout the 70s and 80s) has resulted in living a happier and more contented life.
Helpful Healing Tips
- 📜 Repeating Affirmations for positivity (e.g. I am Healthy, I am Strong, I am Perfection, I am Abundant...) - instructing every cell in my body to believe these statements.
- 🥗 Switch or establish Daily Habits that align with who you want to be.
- ✍️ Journal or use a Diary to write your thoughts and worries out, releasing them from your mind and body and allowing yourself to process them.
- 🌻 When you catch yourself in a negative thought cycle, practice replacing your negative thoughts with the oppositional positive ones.
- 💚 Start by TRUSTING that you can CHANGE a belief you have had all your life - you do not ever have to stay stuck with beliefs or thoughts that do not serve you.
Back to Myself
The one belief that has had a major effect on my life, is the one that learning about Epigenetics has given me; through what I eat, drink, breathe, touch, how I feel, what I do and what I think, believe and perceive, I can be safe in the knowledge that everything I do for myself helps me to live a longer, healthier and happier life.
Love from Briege x
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