by Lawrence
republished from Gupta Coach Frances Goodall‘s newsletter with permission
It’s not easy to know where to start when looking back over the last five years. It’s been one astonishing journey – my own “heroic odyssey,” to use one of Ashok Gupta’s analogies.

Without getting too philosophical about things, the health problems I have experienced and the solutions that I found have actually changed my outlook on many aspects of life.

I have gained a far deeper understanding of my body, mind, emotions and spirit. Even now I am still learning more about body and mind and I’m still often amazed at how things really work. I feel like the Gupta Amygdala Retraining™ Programme has upgraded the entire operating system of both my intellectual brain and also my whole being.

The short version of my recovery story is that two and a half years ago I was extremely ill: I had been bed- and wheelchair-bound with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS) and Fibromyalgia for about a year and had lost any ability to lead anything like a normal life. At that point my life had been reduced to basic survival.

Twenty eight months down the line, I am 80-90% back to normal levels of functioning in terms of activity levels with the help of the Gupta programme and Frances Goodall’s coaching. In short, I have my life back.

When I began working with Frances in January 2012 I had been doing the amygdala retraining for a few weeks and had already found my levels of fibromyalgia pain had reduced somewhat. Even so, I remember feeling that the walk from the car up to the Wellforce clinic was quite arduous and actually increased my levels of pain. That was probably about a 20 metre walk. At that point, on a very good day I could maybe walk 50-60 metres. I had tried pushing myself to walk further on many occasions in the previous year but it was just physically impossible. My legs just wouldn’t go any further and the levels of pain I experienced was so severe it would have me close to tears at times. My physical capacity was at best 1% of what it had been before my illness.

During the early sessions, Frances introduced me to the Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT) procedure which I had heard of but never really investigated. The name alone would have put me off in the past as I had always tried to cut myself off somewhat from my emotions and probably equated emotional introspection and expression with weakness. I certainly hadn’t considered how emotions and thoughts might play a role in this illness until I began to understand the mechanisms involved in the amygdala retraining more fully. To me, EFT feels like a combination of acupuncture, hypnotherapy, psychotherapy, meditation and more. It is certainly a powerful technique. I used it quite a bit in the early days of my recovery process along with meditation and the Gupta Amygdala Retraining™ method.

The Gupta Amygdala Retraining™ Programme and meditation have been mainstays throughout my recovery process. When it came to looking into patterns that were keeping my amygdala in a state of high-alert, overstimulating my system, the help of Frances as a coach was invaluable. With Frances’ guidance, there were many occasions in which I was able to identify patterns and their origins with remarkable precision and clarity. After these sessions it was far more straight-forward to begin to dissolve stress patterns using the Amygdala Retraining Accelerator technique.

Ashok Gupta’s Amygdala Retraining™ Programme is a fantastic tool. His explanation of the amygdala circuitry was the only programme and treatment relating to CFS/Fibromyalgia that made sense to me. I won’t go into personal details but I knew that I had experienced many, if not all, of the triggers that Ashok talks about and even some that weren’t on the list.

This culminated in a severe viral illness that I never really recovered from and which left me with CFS and Fibromyalgia. I had tried many options and knew that dietary approaches, pain-killers and other medical and alternative approaches just didn’t work. Listening to Ashok’s explanations gave me real belief at a time when it seemed like I had no way out and nobody could really help me. Most of the questions that mystified me about the illness were answered in his presentation. I was optimistic about the programme. After doing a few days work on it I got in touch with Frances and over the course of the last two and a bit years, I have made it back to a state of health that now allows me to lead a normal, happy life again.

In my own case, the situation in which I was recovering in was far from peaceful and there were a number of situations that made retraining my amygdala more challenging.  It didn’t matter though, even in the face of an imperfect recovery environment, ups and downs, maladaptive stress patterns, difficult situations and impossible people, the techniques still worked. I didn’t need to become some kind of Zen monk meditating for six hours a day and only eating a super-nutritious diet. My recovery so far hasn’t been neat or perfect – but there has been huge progress over a period of time. The reality is that I’m not quite back to full health but I’m getting close. It’s not that long ago that just to be able to walk down the street was an absolutely incredible joy and thrill. Now I’m able to be far more active and I’m even back into part-time work and slowly re-building my life at a measured pace.

Aside from the work with Frances and the Gupta Amygdala Retraining™ Programme, I also incorporated yoga and tai-chi into my recovery programme at about the six month point when I felt strong enough to try to branch out into a little bit of gentle physical activity. These activities were really a great way to get back into physical activity in a meaningful but also accessible way. From there I made incremental progress and after a few months of yoga and tai-chi, I was able to eventually move on to more demanding physical activities such as walking longer distances and, more recently, dance and strength exercises. I intend to keep yoga and tai-chi as part of my weekly routine as I think they are really great decompression exercises for the body and mind.

I still have a ways to go but I am hugely grateful for the progress that I have made with Frances and the Gupta Programme. The daily work that I have put into the programme has most definitely been worth it and there have been many unexpected side-benefits to my life that have come out of this recovery journey. At the moment I am continuing into my recovery and I expect that soon I will be integrating fully back into normal life.

photo © Ychty | Dreamstime.com – Conceptual Image Of Brain And Heart Connected Together Photo
Lawrence lives in Sheffield, England, where he continues the practices that led him to recovery and is working toward full integration back into a normal life and work schedule.