I left the Internal medicine practice in tears and didn’t realize someone in the parking lot could hear me crying until she called out to ask if I was okay. A woman of sweet countenance approached me and just hugged me as I held my paperwork form the doc’s office close to my chest and sobbed. I let her hang onto me as the disappointment from deep within me, welled up with groanings that stole my breath. This was my last ditch effort to get some answers for the chronic pain that has exhausted my pocketbook and my stamina. I re-located to Atlanta and sought help from specialists at Emory for nerve conditions, auto-immune disorders and cyclical female issues that interlace with urinary tract infections. Compounded with PTSD, insomnia, hormonal changes brought on by thyroid issues, memory loss from a concussion, chest pain, blood clots, vertigo, fibromyalgia, skin cancer and migraines aggravated by dizzy spells, my health has always been in question. You can imagine the upset I had after seeing numerous specialists who all claimed sugar, gluten and alcohol were feeding my yeast overgrowth as I shelled out thousands of dollars for detoxes and downloaded hundreds of resources on diet guidelines, all to no avail. I grew sick and tired of the well-meaning Christians who suggested that I forgive, pray about it, fast and hope for healing as if I didn’t have a lifestyle of those things already. Everyone had a remedy based on their experience that compounded my desperation to find mine. Many sleepless nights I elevated my legs and iced my joints praying for reasons to get back up in the morning and questioning why this seemed to be my lot in life, as if abuse in childhood wasn’t enough. I shared this with my acquaintance who embraced me at my car and then exchanged info before heading home. The tears still washed my face as I spoke to my Heavenly Father once again about the fear which gripped me concerning my ailments and then His still small voice spoke, “Your story isn’t like most, so neither will your healing be.”

I have often shared my insight on chronic pain and the myriad of ways that it floods my heart with sadness when it feels all consuming, but in my recent history, something has shifted. They say knowledge is everything but I have found that I just need it to direct my prayers. The seemingly obvious manifestations of Guillain barre and polio shortly after two vaccines prior to an India missions trip, spurred on two years of anti-biotic treatment that further paralyzed me for 6 months. It wasn’t until my re-location to the south that my eyes were unveiled when a neurologist indicated that polio and flu vaccines would never leave my body and that they were accentuating my chronic pain, but he offered no solace. In fact, he told me to think better thoughts just like some of the dismissive church folk who heaped shame on top of my shoulders for not believing “mind over matter”. This grave contradiction of a poison complicating my immune system, with “it’s all in your head”, jargon became a clue for my recovery. If fear could be dismantled, maybe my expectation to heal could replace it? Before finding myself in his office I crossed state and country lines for a reprieve from limited movement and chemical sensitivities that insinuated ALS, MS and lymes disease were the culprit of muscle atrophy instead of an injection meant to ward off disease. Years of pill popping to heal emotional suffering that gripped physicalities in place, was used to further shame my inability to exercise or participate in activities that I once used to. I jumped from chiropractor to Internist, to holistic gurus and everything in between. In one year alone I spent upwards of $40,000 on doctor recommended solutions outside of insurance deductions. I jumped on every medical bandwagon offered to relieve the psychosomatic connection including; sensory deprivation water tanks, infrared heat tubes, colonics, saline IV injections, testosterone shots in my butt, progesterone creams, physical therapy, oils, ART therapy, weight training, swimming, electromagnetic stimulus, supplements, saunas, ice baths, hot stones, massages, CBT, dancing, hiking, meditating, psychology, hypnosis and days in bed just to try and cooperate with heaven in hopes for healing.

I believed that if I researched every topic affecting me that I would be helping myself because God didn’t just give out free healings and I had to exercise a little elbow grease due to His helping those who put the effort in. I didn’t really believe that crap but it was quoted to me from every believer I knew so I figured it had some kind of scriptural basis, until I sought help from a Christian counselor who turned me onto IFS Therapy. Instead of judging my body for it’s limitations I could champion the determination to overcome obstacles. She taught me about the many parts within my psyche who have a story to tell. She described sensations in my body that may be trying to get my attention for a reason, to unburden a memory that has held significance. She took the darkness out of the shadows that covered my imagination with a suggestion of curiosity. She lent intrigue to my questions and let me ask them, to myself. What surprised me was that parts within me produced answers. I curiously saw my strongest attributes in a masculine way, showing up as cartoon characters in vivid color. I had emotions that were buried deep and disguised as anger or fury but really beheld innocence at their core. Abandonment, estrangement, aloneness, and hunger for acceptance laid naked and bare for me in my current state to pick up and bring into the light of present day. I held, rocked and loved the innermost parts of me that felt hopeless, powerless and unwanted. I exercised my ability to become my own best advocate and reverse time by acknowledging that the most vile things I have done, the greatest mistakes, still had reason, purpose and intention to help my overall well-being. I was re-directed from conventional, western prognosis back to my SELF, where my internal system operated simultaneously like an abusive, yet miraculous family. And I relinquished my need to fix, restore, eradicate, maintain, change, perfect or explain and make sense of my history. The chronological picture to be understood no longer made sense because science and medicine failed to encompass the ability for my brain to heal thyself.

Thy self is a powerful essence in this thing we call life. If we do not take initiative to care for ourselves, no one else can. It is in the meeting of our subconscious parts that we shed light on how complex we are in hopes to fulfill a unique purpose. My parts within are intricately woven around my past traumas in hopes to keep me from self-destructing as an adult because childhood pains are locked in a prison. Part of me knew as I sat in the doctor’s office, that my looking toward him for answers to my chronic pain was a waste of time. Part of me knew when I arrived, that my own proficiency with research and risk taking could expertly lend help to him as the professional on how to aide others like me. Part of me wished I had stayed home and relaxed. Part of me wanted a good cry on the shoulder of a stranger in the parking lot and to be told a new direction would appear. And then part of me wanted the faith I have in miracles to get the one it sought after, freedom from chronic pain. My internal system truly showed up for me like a family today, allowing parts to be seen, heard, emerge from confinement and recalibrate for the next steps in our process of healing. We learned that in our expectations from man, outside sources whom we place our hope, that they fail us so we can find strength within that longs to be known. For no matter what happens in our daily routine to make sense of our behavior and life, we have understanding for why we have struggled and why others follow suit, even the doctors. Our quest on this journey of life as healers is to help ourselves heal as we seek meaning to that which pains us, and then to graciously permit others the same opportunity. Knowledge is only as good as the freedom it brings to heal the SELF.

Proverbs 3:4 So find favor and high esteem in the sight of God and man. (For the Internest said to me, “I am fortunate to have met a person like you, with your story, and I consider it a privilege”)

Proverbs 3:8 It will be health to your body, your marrow, your nerves, your sinews, your muscles- all your inner parts, And refreshment, physical well-being to your bones.

As we recognize that others are suffering, parts of us lend compassion, parts of us seek isolation, parts of us want to pass along what it has experienced in hopes of joy and health to be transferred. My greatest strength has always been in praying for others based on what I have lived through and the disappointments in humanity to sustain the possibilities of hope beyond fact. I like to think all my parts share my connection to Christ. If conflict remains in scientific and psychological realms it would make sense that faith and imagination adds to hostile arguments, but what if curiosity opens the door to an all encompassing mindset that is broad enough to incorporate all schools of thought? We have a saying in charismatic circles of , “More Lord”, that I like to shout when I conquer knowledge of facts with an action that negates its limitations. I prayed for a man who also has muscle atrophy like myself and he openly shared about the polarized parts that wanted to receive healing but didn’t trust it. My parts understood the reservations his parts had to receiving prayer from a stranger, but I didn’t have agenda so pressure was off to convince him to trust me. I have pressed into this understanding for years and been made fun of by Christians and the world alike for explaining parts work and physical healing, but it is only because I have experienced it. My faith is surmountingly bigger than what most expect because I was healed of IBS through this modality. When parts of our internal family get physical relief, it is impossible for other parts in the system to not want the same freedom. In this video, I share how my own ailments won’t hold me back from sharing the truth of the Gospel that Jesus heals, because He is knowledgeable of all our inward parts.