Reiki, Meniere's and Rocks in My Pockets

"Do we get sick because we need to change or does the changing make us sick and work as our healer? Was the violent spinning a series of healing sessions, called, "vertigo", designed to crack me open and spin out every suppressed emotion and memory, taking me to my next level of frequency? "

When I walked out of the Ear, Nose and Throat Specialist's office in 2013, I fell into a deep hole.  After diagnostic testing, the doctor told me my symptoms of hearing loss, tinnitus and vertigo were a condition called Meniere's Disease. He also said the following, "With Meniere's, you'll need to take diuretics, remove salt from your diet, and take a drug called, Meclizine. Commonly, people with Meniere's end up unable to work, become deaf and fall into depression, needing to go on antidepressants." Did I just hear a doctor, " Primum non nocere- First, do no harm", speak those words?  I thought, "Be careful what you say, be careful what you think, be careful what you believe." The mind is all powerful.  Having years of experience in the field of wellness, I asked him, "What about diet, food allergies, stress and other factors? The doctor replied, "There is likely no connection". At that moment I was more distraught about the doctor's mindless forecast of doom and total unawareness of all the aspects that contribute to health, than the Meniere's diagnosis. Sometimes a constellation of symptoms is simply a constellation of symptoms sending us a message. My inner guidance told me there was much more to this story; a much bigger picture in terms of my health. I was determined to analyze and solve the puzzle.

And so, I began my healing journey. I started working with a nutritionist, and had a session with an energy healer who I had met 30 years earlier. He told me I was an energy healer and my ear was fine. He said the symptoms were for my growth. Interestingly, he seemed to catalyze my healing process, causing the vertigo to immediately increase. There was no rhyme or reason to the attacks. I was food allergy tested, changed my diet, got rid of the salt and used herbal diuretics. Later I discovered that none of that was affecting the vertigo. In fact, my stressing over food only exacerbated the symptoms.

Over a period of months, I missed several days of work due to the attacks. Every day, I experienced a low level of dizziness and was incapable of attending events with people, or being around noise and bright light. Earplugs became my standard. Outside of work, I had become an aesthetic- sheltering myself in the quiet of my home and meditating. Taking the Meclizine only helped for the violent disabling attacks- where I was instantly down, crawling to the cold tile floor of the bathroom and waiting to spill my guts out. The room spun and I could barely hold my head on my neck. The first time I tried to call for help after crawling to my Smartphone, I burst into tears; sobbing as I realized all the numbers on the phone were spinning-making a call impossible. I soon learned to keep little piles of Meclizine in strategic areas in my home, car and knapsack. After about one hour of vertigo hell, it would calm down and the Meclizine knocked me into a deep stupor of a sleep for several hours. The following day, I was hung-over, dull-headed and barely able to move. Being extremely sensitive, I can barely even tolerate a multiple vitamin, and pharmaceutical drugs and anesthesia knock me flat out. I knew it was my job to find my healing and I became a medical detective.

It took many months, but by early 2015, the picture began to change- for the better. Do we get sick because we need to change or does the changing make us sick and work as our healer? Was the violent spinning a series of healing sessions, called, "vertigo", designed to crack me open and spin out every suppressed emotion and memory, taking me to my next level of frequency? With all my symptoms, I pushed my way through life, while the stress caused severe adrenal exhaustion from my sympathetic nervous system being in over-drive. During the worst of it, I was working as a wellness buyer and educator at a large natural foods co-op. I learned to use my breath and concentration skills to stay on my feet and focus in a job filled with constant customer interaction, multi-tasking, bright lights and noise. My calming techniques helped, to a point, but it wasn't enough to prevent major adrenal fatigue, burn-out and vertigo crash. One of my last memories before I left my job was of two of my loving, co-workers- one on either side of me, lifting and carrying me like a baby, off the cold, grimy warehouse floor. It was time to let go and stop being the fighter I had always been. I had no choice.

These "healing sessions", called vertigo, led me to a life I could never have before imagined. I was on a journey of deep healing of body, mind, soul and spirit, as well as re-creating myself in terms of my life's path. As I followed my inner guidance, and sought out various alternative treatments, I learned much about myself. I worked with a nutritionist, herbalist/shaman, homeopath, osteopath, chiropractors, an Internist, a Medical Vedic Astrologer, acupuncturists and several energy healers. For months I wore Irlen spectral filters- prescription colored lenses, to calm the vertigo and heal the connected light sensitivity. I saw the world through rose colored glasses and still do. I felt as if no one was helping me and many times I seemed to get worse. In actuality, every single one of those gifted healers was teaching me how to let myself be held, seen, and cared for. They each taught me that healing works on deep levels and in the end, I am my own healer.

Three different energy healers, over the course of two years told me, "You are a healer" and "your hands-they are your gift." After the third healer told me this, I decided it was time. I began studying Reiki energy healing and made a discovery after my Reiki Level 1 attunement; I had so much electrical energy flowing through me, it was unbelievable. What was even more mind-blowing was that all my life, I had felt that same energy flowing through me. After the Reiki attunement, which intensified the energy, I understood that the electrical, tingly feelings in my legs, feet and hands, I'd experienced since I was a child, were my gift. I had assumed that everyone felt this kind of energy flowing. It's like the realization when one discovers they have synesthesia, and have always seen letters and numbers in color- until they learned it had a name, they  assumed everyone else was having the same visual experience.

From my first Reiki attunement, I never missed a single day of giving myself Reiki. With each of my successive Reiki attunements, the vertigo intensified for a time and then calmed down again. I understood that some of the symptoms were manifesting, to help me release old emotions and energy which was stuck and needed to clear out, as I stepped further into my path as a healer and teacher.  I soon discovered that if I put my hands on certain Reiki points on my body, I could calm and release the vertigo. Initially, with violent vertigo, it would take about an hour to stop; the same amount of time as the Meclizine- though with no side-effects. At one point, I experienced a paralyzing low back spasm like nothing I had ever had. The pain was excruciating and I felt sliced in two while frozen on the floor near my bed. With no one there to help, I placed my hands on my belly and channeled my breath, directing short, powerful bursts to the painful area in my spine. The pain immediately moved out and I was mobile and pain-free once again-with an experiential understanding that energy can be managed, moved and transformed.

Following my training and attunement as an Usui Holy Fire Reiki Master, something shifted in a deep way. I felt a deep inner sense of warmth and love-everyday. For the first time, I felt whole, at peace with life and myself. "I am what I am." My intuition sharpened as never before and I understood and listened to each and every message coming through. In late winter of 2015, I listened in and heard this- "Your neck, your neck, your neck- it's your neck." A month earlier, my astrologer told me to get my neck checked out and I shelved it in the back of my mind.  So, I got online for the millionth time to do a search on Meniere's and vertigo causes. Even though I had been thinking, "neck", I'd been wanting to read up on Meniere's and an anti-oxidant called Pycnogenol. Being a health educator and trained supplement geek, I often thought supplements were the key. There is so much more to healing than that. My plan was to next look up Meniere's and the neck connection. But, the article that came to the top of the list with the Pycnogenol search was about a modality called, N.U.C.C.A.   N.U.C.C.A is The National Upper Cervical Chiropractic Association. The article had nothing to do with Pycnogenol, but reading about necks was "neckst" on my list. I saved the link and immediately did a search for N.U.C.C.A. specialists in Southern Oregon and found Jordan Weeda and Tim March at Wellspring Body Balance. I immediately made an appointment.  When I checked my e-mail two minutes later, sitting in my inbox was an e-mail from my mother. She had forwarded me a link from a friend, suggesting that I look into N.U.C.C.A. treatment. It was synchronicity at its finest.

My N.U.C.C.A doctor, Tim March, discovered through digital x-rays that my C-1 (Atlas) , first cervical vertebra, was so subluxated that my head was not correctly sitting on my neck. He told me this was causing damage to my nervous system due to my cranial nerves being compressed by my misaligned neck vertebra. Some of the neck issues may have come from a whiplash I received in 2012. Once I began treatment, the scoliosis I was diagnosed with as a teenage, mostly disappeared. My hips and shoulders straightened out as did my neck. I have gained almost an inch in height. Over a period of months, the daily vertigo lessened, but I still had some vertigo attacks during the treatment period. Most often, the vertigo came when I was near wireless networks, computers, cell phones, fluorescent lights or under stress. Dr. March told me it is common to get some symptom exacerbation during  treatment. Light sensitivity soon decreased to the point where I was able to wear lighter colored Irlen lenses and some days needed none. I soon discovered Mind-Body techniques to get the vertigo to stop within minutes. My N.U.C.C.A. doctor also used a method called, Koren Specific Technique-KST.  Through KST, we discovered there was a large amount of energy stuck in my head, triggering some of the symptoms. In the universe, everything is energy and different elements vibrate at different rates. During this acute treatment period, I found profound healing from the heavy, dense energy of rocks; dark rocks, like obsidian, onyx, black tourmaline and also quartz crystals. The little mountain of Meclazine on my night stand was soon replaced by crystals, rocks and stones. I still regularly carry smokey quartz in my pocket. Many of the vertigo attacks came on at night while sleeping- startling me awake to violent spinning. Where I previously used only Reiki on certain points, I began to use a combination of Reiki and stones. A big, flat quartz with several points and what looks like some hematite mixed in, became my miracle stone. When placed flat onto my third chakra/solar plexus, just below my ribs, with one hand on my heart center and one on my second chakra, the energy in the head was swiftly pulled down by the magnetism of the stone. At the same time, the Reiki moved the energy down and out. I was  swiftly back to peaceful dreaming, with a lovely feeling of warm safety. The ability to control the energy so quickly, replaced the vertigo-triggered fear with a sense of well being and safety.

During this healing process, I learned to balance my energy, slow down, let go, rest my adrenals and step back. This healing period for me was a serious, miraculous lesson in learning to work with energy and allow it to flow through me.

My most effective teachers and healers now are Medical Qigong, the flowers, plants, trees, stones, water, fire, breath, Mindfulness, human touch, deep heart connection, my beloved Reiki guides and gratitude. When I tune into Mind-Body awareness; practice Reiki and step into, "I am who I am", nothing more, nothing less, I enter a blissful dance of hands, heart, body, mind and Reiki flow.

Many blessings that you may step back; feel; listen; and find your path of deep healing and wholeness. 

 

(Updated 10/19/2016)