The Benefits of Mindfulness and Meditation in Healing ME

Yet again, it is my clients who have prompted me with what to write about this week. Just today, I have had 2 conversations with clients about mindfulness. One person was going out this evening to a talk on mindfulness, and another was talking about her mindfulness meditation practice, and how it is helping her deal with her condition of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome.

And that got to me thinking about the time when I was very ill. I was actually a Buddhist when I first became ill with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. At the time, meditation was a huge source of comfort to me - it was one of the few things I could still do. (I know this isn't true for everyone suffering from Chronic Fatigue Syndrome - but it was the case for me.) I derived a huge amount of benefit and pleasure from being in my own space, in a way "tuning out" of my difficult life (maybe meditation isn't supposed to be about this - but it was like that for me at the time) and sometimes feeling a lot of blissful energy in my body and my mind.

Then, when I had been ill for a while, I started to learn more about the teachings of mindfulness. This involved learning to become more aware of my breath, my thoughts, my emotions, and my body. This awareness would mean it would be less likely that I would become over-identified with unhelpful thought patterns ("I'm so tired" or "I'll never get better" or "why's it not getting easier?"), I would gain perspective on my issues, and I would avoid being taken over by physical sensations - like pain, tiredness, brain fog etc

At the time, all of this was really useful. It gave me tools to manage the way Chronic Fatigue Syndrome was for me - and actually was a lifeline in terms of helping me to come to terms with a difficult and scary reality. It meant that I was less likely to overdo it physically or mentally - and so more likely to stay clear of that horrible scenario of slightly overdoing it one day and suffering for the next fortnight! It also meant I was much more positive about the situatio
I found myself in - which was fantastic at the time.

As time went on, however, I began to find tools that helped me to improve my health condition, not just manage it. First of all came things like an activity plan (balanced to avoid the two extremes of overdoing it and not daring to do anything, for fear of relapse), a diet plan, and then the energy medicine I now practice - the Emotional Freedom Technique and energy healing.

I found that when I finally came to the energy work, I was able to move forward in my healing journey with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome quite quickly. And I think that's for a couple of reasons. The first is that I had a high level of self awareness around my thoughts, feelings, emotions and physical symptoms - which came from both the everyday practice of mindfulness and from my meditation practice. Awareness of yourself in terms of your emotional and physical makeup is the first stage in the healing process - you need to be aware of the energetic patterns that are leading to physical illness in order to release them.

The other big benefit of meditation and mindfulness practice in terms of healing is that it encourages openness and honesty. Meditation practice in itself can lead to an increased personal honesty ie honesty with oneself about mental habits. And I think mindfulness practice when you have a condition like Chronic Fatigue Syndrome also leads to more honesty with yourself about things like how much you can do in a day, how "bad" your symptoms really are. And that practice of openness and honesty is fantastic when it comes to healing - the more open a client is able to be with me, the more I am able to be "there" for them and support them to go deeper in their healing process.

So, for all these reasons, I am pleased when I find someone has practised meditation or mindfulness when they come for energy healing. It means they are ideally placed to dive into the healing journey and gain more energy and more strength. I am also pleased for them that they will take the step of moving from "managing" their condition to healing it.