My Journey to Chronic Stress Relief

Out of emotional and physical dysfunction to a new state of Mind-Body connectedness and health

For most of my life, talk therapy sessions typically focused on the same thing — reviewing / analyzing the “thing(s)” that happened over the past week. The goal — restore myself to calm, regulate the state of the orb above my neck.

At the same time, to settle the state of the body below my neck, I exercised and worked out — road cycling, basketball, tennis, hiking, snowboarding, lifting weights, running, yoga, etc.

Through these two “work streams”, I really thought I knew myself well. That my two operating systems, while never perfect, didn’t run independent of or in total opposition to each other. I truly believed I was aware of and could notice in my body when things weren’t right in my head. An easy example — it was clear as day for me to tell when I was stressed or anxious or upset — my digestive system turned turbulent. I wasn’t wrong.

In hindsight, the reality was that there was a gaping void between my head and body so massive I could drive my SUV through it.

Part of me absolutely knew that a lifetime of stress and anxiety might have gotten me sick in one way or another over the years. Other, wounded parts inside me didn’t want to listen; I continued the pattern of ignoring signals of impending chronic illness. So, as I’ve come to learn is the case for so many people, I lived in a state of denial–how could this be happening to me?

Here’s how the journey unfolded.

For decades, as it turned out, the state of my health was guided by some pretty powerful myths:

• If my body felt ok, it was ok, I was ok.
• If a moment of emotional panic had passed in my head / mind, it would have also passed in my body.
• Living in a suppressed emotional state wasn’t creating havoc and dis-ease in my body.

Then, in 2016, myths got debunked and reality hit.

I collapsed, literally falling headfirst into the check-in desk of a hotel. A moment that signaled the onset of unattended-to mind-body dysfunctions stuck and growing inside me my entire life. I could not work or do much of anything; my body reeled from digestive problems (e.g., SIBO, among others); consistently racing heart (normally in low 40's); horrible head fog and “storms” of what felt like adrenalin (but turned out to be cytokines); debilitating fatigue. I felt crushed, overwhelmed, like I had the worst flu I’d ever had but without the sinus or bronchial symptoms. WTF was wrong?!!

At the time, in complete distress, I did remember less severe episodes in years past where I felt kind of the same symptoms. During these episodes, I really had no reason to interpret them as anything chronic or systemic — “it’s just a bug of some sort” was the typical rationale — because they ended in a week or so, disappearing as fast as they had appeared. I just went back to “normal life”.

This time, however, there was no quick return to normal. Months went by unsuccessfully exploring the paths of individual medical, mental, and alternative medicine “specialists” (e.g., allergist; gut expert; neurologist; acupuncturist; ENT doctors; mental health practitioners of various ilks, to name a few).

Nothing worked. A year in, I still felt like shit, some days barely able to move. Even after my digestive system had been completely rebuilt; after tens of thousands of dollars invested in innovative and alternative approaches to mind/body healing; cabinets became full of supplements and self-help books.

The world said I was “burned out” — my therapist at the time said it; one of the world’s leading neurologists I was fortunate enough to be evaluated by told me my Amygdala which performs a primary role in the processing of memory, decision making, and baseline emotional response to trauma (including fear, anxiety, and aggression), which should normally be the size of two (2) almonds was, in his estimation, at least twice that size, indicating significant “overworking” and inflammation. “Likely been this way my whole life”, he said with a wry, knowing smile.

Saying I was burned out was true. But, I came to view this euphemism as a wild understatement; describing my state as this kind of hyperbolic cliche insults the elegance of how our bodies and minds work (or don’t) as a unified system.

Unable to find “the fix” that would get me back on the bike, back to work, back to my role as husband and friend, my stress level skyrocketed. “Great,” I remember telling my best friend, “now everything above my neck has become as dysfunctional as everything below it.” Time spent in sickness and increasingly acute stress trudged on. I became more and more panicked over my collapsed body AND that I was living in an unsolvable mystery. That was almost worse than how I felt — not knowing what the true problem(s) were or what the solution looks like was taking an increasingly large toll on me.

To calm a high heart rate that just wouldn’t abate, my psychiatrist (I saw both a psychiatrist and a psychologist…yup, I tried everything) prescribed an SSRI. Her evaluation also included psychological tests, the results of which indicated beyond any doubt that I had been living with what is called Civilian PTSD since childhood.

Part of me was relieved because now there was an actual name for how I’d always felt. Another part of me was terrified because this diagnosis had revealed or validated that what was happening to me now wasn’t just a physiological breakdown; it meant that the root causes of what was happening in my body could be tied pretty damn closely to my emotional state…50 years of it.

Holy f — k! I just couldn’t believe that emotional dysfunction could create such acute, systemic sickness. Unless I woke to the need to find a new way to get unstuck and heal emotionally I’d likely never heal physically.

All I knew was that something inside me screamed that I could not possibly live the way I was living. I had to get better. Nothing else mattered. Nothing else would ever matter. I just didn’t quite realize what getting better meant or what, more importantly, staying better would mean for the rest of my life.

It took nearly 2 years to reveal the actual cause of the collapse in 2016 and why sickness had been so chronic and systemic.

After moving to Boulder in 2017, I had the lucky good fortune to meet the integrative medicine / health specialist whose rigorous approach and experience working with others with similarly systemic maladies revealed the biophysical source of it all — a horribly depleted immune system. I felt like I had the worst flu ever, all the time, because the level of Epstein-Barr virus in my system was, literally, off the charts.

“Excellent! Finally! Let’s get this fixed!” Light at the end of the tunnel for healing everything below my neck.

I dove headfirst into what would become a lifelong rebuilding of my immune system which, in turn, would help other malfunctioning systems (e.g., low thyroid; neurological brain inflammation) return to a healthier state.

At the same time, I began working with a new mental health counselor / mentor who, for all intent and purposes, introduced me to entirely new perspectives and frameworks to get my emotional state unstuck. Since then, she has guided me into the most powerful and meaningful processes of rethinking and rewiring the way everything above my neck functions. Including the use of psychedelics, which became a world-changing protocol for me as it is increasingly for so many who suffer intransigent emotional distresses.

Most importantly, she helped me, finally, acknowledge and accept that the only way everything below my neck would heal is if I truly healed the orb above my neck. Suffice to say, with her help, emotional therapy has become quite a lot more than just reviewing what happens in between sessions.

Fast-forward to today, 2023.

My journey isn’t over. I’ve done a shit-ton of work, learning and living in the state of acknowledgment that mind-body healing and health isn’t a thing that gets “fixed”, that there is no “yep, I’m done” to this process.

What is certain, however, is that getting unstuck and living in a more intimately connected mind-body state, I have become more emotionally grounded and physically healthy than I’ve ever been:

• I live less “in my head”, more in my body’s felt-senses.
• With the help of psychedelics, I’ve cleared out stuck, toxic energy that kept me “in patterned”, dysfunctional behaviors.
• I have a clearer sense of my core Self; I live in this state more and more, which is the most biophysically calming way to live I’ve ever experienced. It’s the only way forward. My system loves this shit.
• I see now that I have to learn and practice being more present about what the felt senses in my body are and what they mean — then learn how to calm the parts of me that are conditioned to power through the signals and not ignore them. Which I’ve come to learn far too many of us do.
• My system functions much more as a unified, Self-led whole that is, finally, capable of listening to and taking truly better care of itself. Above and below my neck.

Rewired and doing more rewiring, I’m the same person I’ve always been yet nowhere near the same person. As my wonderful guide offers, I took the blue pill (not Cialis), and am on my way out of the Matrix.

Sure, it’s cathartic to write this. But my sincere hope is that readers learn from my journey, even those who’ve been on or are in the middle of a similar struggle right now. I’ve already received feedback from people I know and are currently working with that my story is helping them see a new way of getting unstuck, connected, and more aware in their journeys to becoming Self-led. Their journey to a new way to live in healing and health.