Im very grateful for Mel's program. I did it in May, two years after I was diagnosed with CFS and 4 years after symptoms began. I am, I would say, 80% better since May and have so much of my life back. It’s incredible. In the last two weeks Ive done an overnight hike and started sailing again. Different things work for different people of course but I really recommend trying the program or her webinars. They've been an incredible gift for me.
So happy for you! What fun to be hiking and sailing again! Make sure you keep using your Switches to take you that last 20% to a full recovery. If you can get 80% better, then you can keep going even further!
Thank you! Just that one phrase opened my eyes. For the last 3 years since I moved state I am NOT stressed. But that doesnt mean my nervous system isnt in a stress response. Thank you. I was very stressed about life before the last 3 years.
That's a great realisation for you. Fantastic that your current life is not stressful, but yes, sometimes there is a lag from a previous time of stress that your body hasn't quite managed to get out of. I hope you can use that info to get some really good improvements in your health now
Just wanted to share that mels work, the switch programme and eveyrthing she talks about in this video truly works. As in EVERYTHING!! I had no hope of getting better from 8 years of persistent concussion symptoms that left me debilitated and dysfunctional in a lot of ways and the improvement that i have had is absolutely mind boggling to me. I have maybe 10% left to improve and i 100% know i will. Does "sure it worked for them but it wont work for me" sound familiar? That was me before the course and im so glad i committed to it despite that thought! Thank you Mel!
It works but you've got to go for it 💯 positive. You've got to be fully in charge of sending positive messages to your fight or flight system. I wasn't ready and so it took three goes but their was a big difference on.my third try. I was incredibly focused. I didn't work with Mel but I know she and many are getting people well. Doctors and psychiatrists have still to learn that this modality is saving hundreds if not thousands. ME groups in New Zealand won't even let me share my story. I can't even go there. It makes me furious. Keep up this life saving work. I salute you Mel It's a tough jungle out there.
Good for you getting your life back! And yes, it is infuriating that "support" groups are often the ones preventing the sharing of recovery ideas. So sad. That's why it's great that there are channels like Raelans, so that people can share recoveries from so many different methods
I have Charcot Marie Tooth disease, a form of peripheral neuropathy. I did Mel’s Switch programme about 5 years ago and it has helped me tremendously. The key is removing stress from our lives.
Around 19 minutes, she is talking about how people with CFS need to think like normal people and not count spoons, for instance. I disagree with this. It does no good to just think like a normal person (which i tend to do) and go out for the day and then crash. It would be better to discover my baseline and then carefully and slowly increase it.
I think what she is saying is not in conflict with what you have described. I don't think she means that we just behave as if all were "normal". The idea is that we are carefully, slowly increasing things and have a mindset that it will increase. It is not helpful however to have a rigidity to what we can do in a day and be monitoring the activity with vigilance. It is a delicate balance to walk this line. Here's how I have seen it change in my life: at a certain point a could plan a day that involved 1 hour of socializing. But I would be monitoring my watch and thinking about it too much before and during, so I was careful that I stopped it "in time". Changing my thinking patterns involved still planning on 1 hour, but then being present and relaxed to it, and if I found it went to 1 hour and 15 minutes without noticing it, I let that be okay, even including if symptoms ticked up. I just adapted my plans, softly, from there. I think the "spoon theory" can be helpful to realize we have shifting energy on different days, but if we get too involved with counting, managing, hoarding these imagined spoons, it is easy to reinforce a sense of scarcity and fear in our nervous system.
Raelan, thank you for being there. Because I'm here waiting for my 1st Zoom call with Mel. I watched your 1st interview with Mel, became hopeful, researched her courses and now I'm in my 2nd week of the 6 week webinar of The Switch. For a few years I had been pacing 4 days of bed for 1 day out of the house. No more! Just this weekend I've been joining friends for drinks, grocery shopping, meeting a client for a spring time art project, started on the 6 bags of laundry, visited a couple of craft fairs, and finally returned some clothing I bought 2 months ago. ( all in 4 days, maybe 1nap due to back pain) Again, thank you. And Mel, thank you too. I just hope I've figured the time zone thing ...EST to NZT with the daylight savings change 😮 I think my call is tomorrow or yesterday in NZ or in 10 mins today😅
The brain is a bio-computer with operating system and apps. How your "peripheral devices" and "extensions" suppose to work properly if your OS or apps are corrupted? Take care of your bio-computer, run some diagnostics, adjust and improve your software. Don't take your brain for granted. It requires maintenance.
I wonder if only some people respond well to the whole spoons thing or what’s referred to as pacing sometimes? Like maybe it doesn’t work for everyone. In this case, it didn’t work for Mel but someone else with this condition might NEED to implement pacing in order to recover. For another person, it may make recovery harder. I think everyone is different and so there is no one size fits all. I think for me, focusing too much on trying to save energy and getting mentally ahead of my activity, seems to make me worry more and it’s been a little bit of a roadblock in my recovery. I may need to adopt this mentality she said of not overthinking it. I have to think like a healthy person and healthy people don’t pace much really. She’s right about that. I can definitely see how this wouldn’t work for everyone because the fact is, this is an illness, and some people have to be a bit more mindful to keep themselves from a heavy flare up. It maybe also depends on what stage you’re at in recovery.
I am confused by something I see others concerned about in the comments too. She talks about counting spoons being a negative thing that keeps you thinking like a sick person/anxious, etc., and yet so much of recovery also seems to be about the importance of pacing. Is keeping track of your activity levels and being careful about not overdoing it a good thing or bad thing?
I'm copying my response above in case it helps: I don't think she means that we just behave as if all were "normal". The idea is that we are carefully, slowly increasing things and have a mindset that it will increase. It is not helpful however to have a rigidity to what we can do in a day and be monitoring the activity with vigilance. It is a delicate balance to walk this line. Here's how I have seen it change in my life: at a certain point a could plan a day that involved 1 hour of socializing. But I would be monitoring my watch and thinking about it too much before and during, so I was careful that I stopped it "in time". Changing my thinking patterns involved still planning on 1 hour, but then being present and relaxed to it, and if I found it went to 1 hour and 15 minutes without noticing it, I let that be okay, even including if symptoms ticked up. I just adapted my plans, softly, from there. I think the "spoon theory" can be helpful to realize we have shifting energy on different days, but if we get too involved with counting, managing, hoarding these imagined spoons, it is easy to reinforce a sense of scarcity and fear in our nervous system.
I think it distracts you with the wrong thing. If you see symptoms as message from your body and u learn to translate these messages and act on them properly, ur symptoms will go away. By pacing ur keeping urself busy not listening to what is underneath the symptom, u just get more scared by the symptom. Just how I see people recover but dont want to force my opinion on others :) pacing I usually see people being more scared and distrusting the body more
@@verenasu2037 I agree with this. Generally pacing leads to trying to control symptoms, being overly conscious of them and anticipating them, which perpetuates them. It's also important to push your boundaries
I think it depends on how you talk to yourself. Her idea is that the longer the illness goes on the more limiting your self talk is and it becomes very negative and you need up having to cure yourself of your own negative limits and self talk. On the other hand, pacing is for everyone. Even healthy people. There are also pushing ourselves negative mindsets we can develop. And pacing as a self care can help us get free of those ideas of spending too much energy because of negative self talk. It all comes down to awareness. It's not just what you do, but how you do it.
I started watching this and heard how quickly she got better and thought..Lightning Process. I am about to work with someone who did this but has some regrets about how people working with practitioners of the process have been treated.
Hey Mel - how long did it take for your body to turn the stress response off as a first step. I assume this is an ongoing process you need to use but initially before you expanded how long did your body take to recalibrate and repair? Thanks!!
I had a very stressfri life but became ill with ME after severe glandular fever. Stress was not the cause of me not being able to recover from the virus. However, since I got ME I absolutely agree that stress make my ME-symptoms worse. I also have been able to heal from several symtoms through deep meditation. But since stress can aggravate neurological diseases I think it makes sense that mediation can have the opposite effect. And that is reassuring to know. With that said, I really think this woman oversimplify what causes ME. I actually find it quit arrogant to claim stress being the main reason behind ME.
I think it is simplified, but I think stress can be thought of multiple ways and it can be subjective. It can even be just a mindset of doing everything yourself instead of asking others for help. It can be a perfectionistic mindset. It can be just a type A personality. I think there's a certain subset of people or circumstances that when they get sick with something like covid or glandular fever, where instead of fully resting out the disease you choose to or have to, push through it and 'soldier on' because you have to go to work, or you have a family. This often leads to ME as well. I'm not sure if any of that resonates with you, but that's my understanding.
I think you might be confusing "stress" with "the stress response". The stress response is a physiological change in the body that causes depletion of the digestive system, immune system, hormonal/reproductive system, detox systems etc. There are many causes as to why someone's stress response would become physiologically activated, but when I look at all the different reasons that show up in my clients, they all trace back at their root to a physiological stress response that is keeping their body out of balance and unable to recover. Whether that stress response was activated by trauma, an injury, a virus, a vaccine, burnout, or any other cause will be unique for each person
All dis”ease” is simply that ….a lack of ease in the body. Victim hood is a slippery slope. It’s a vibration. My dis ease is not better or worse more compelling or less compelling than anyone else’s. Victory/Wellness is a completely different vibration. It doesn’t live where victimhood does, ever.
This is one of the things that I can't wrap my head around either. LC for 33 months now and on my bad days my voice is barely there. It's like a raspy exhale sound. It feels like I'm not even using my vocal chords to produce the sound either. It' so strange. I know exactly what you mean.
@@mrjackolanterns That sounds really tough for you. I hope these interviews are giving you many ideas on where you could start finding answers and get your life back...
Nobody has yet responded to your comment. Is it that you need friends, or is it that you need advice on how to connect with people? I am not a psychologist so I can’t really help with the latter. But I can help with the former. If you want a friend and a chat from time to time please feel free to say so.
I remember when I was ill, talking to people was the most tiring thing of all, so I couldn't do it very often, which was hard for me when I'm naturally a very social person. If you are able to ask your friends to have 10 minute catch ups with you so that it doesn't tire you out, or ask them to go to a beach and lie in the sun with you but not talk, or watch a movie with you without talking, that might be ways to get people connection time without exhausting yourself?
Obvious question: you were tired and fatigued and tried to sleep 3 hours in the afternoon to help with that. We know that people with ME/CFS get unrefrshing sleep - but we still need sleep and will take as luch as we can get. How did you feel having less sleep? Do you think ot was the quqlity of your sleep that resulted in you giving up on your afternoon nap - or were you just breaking a non-helpful thought?
For the first week, I felt so tired during afternoons without my naps! But overall, each day led to more and more energy improvements, and by two weeks later, I felt fabulous! I was actually getting more sleep overall than when I was sick because the quality of my sleep improved so much as my body got calmer. I was now getting 7-8 hours of good quality sleep each night instead of being in bed for 9 hours at night and 3 hours in the afternoon, but only getting patchy bad sleep
You interview so many people and that’s very encouraging for me. Would you be able to interview people with Annie hoppers program DNRS , or maybe Annie Hopper herself, ruclips.net/video/OdhAA3oD8xA/видео.htmlsi=t6PjgsFwbEMQF3uj please we want to know about her program too. and how that works for other people, we would appreciate it so much God bless you, my dear🙏🏻🙏🏻🌺❤️
🛎 FREE Webinar With Mel - empowertherapies.co.nz/pages/webinar
Im very grateful for Mel's program. I did it in May, two years after I was diagnosed with CFS and 4 years after symptoms began. I am, I would say, 80% better since May and have so much of my life back. It’s incredible. In the last two weeks Ive done an overnight hike and started sailing again. Different things work for different people of course but I really recommend trying the program or her webinars. They've been an incredible gift for me.
So happy for you! What fun to be hiking and sailing again! Make sure you keep using your Switches to take you that last 20% to a full recovery. If you can get 80% better, then you can keep going even further!
Thank you! Just that one phrase opened my eyes. For the last 3 years since I moved state I am NOT stressed. But that doesnt mean my nervous system isnt in a stress response. Thank you. I was very stressed about life before the last 3 years.
So happy you found it helpful 🧡🧡 You've got this!
That's a great realisation for you. Fantastic that your current life is not stressful, but yes, sometimes there is a lag from a previous time of stress that your body hasn't quite managed to get out of. I hope you can use that info to get some really good improvements in your health now
Just wanted to share that mels work, the switch programme and eveyrthing she talks about in this video truly works. As in EVERYTHING!! I had no hope of getting better from 8 years of persistent concussion symptoms that left me debilitated and dysfunctional in a lot of ways and the improvement that i have had is absolutely mind boggling to me. I have maybe 10% left to improve and i 100% know i will. Does "sure it worked for them but it wont work for me" sound familiar? That was me before the course and im so glad i committed to it despite that thought! Thank you Mel!
Soooo what did you actually do? How did it come about? What was the key for you?
Hey Renata, thanks for sharing your experience! I'm so glad I could help you so much ;0))
It works but you've got to go for it 💯 positive. You've got to be fully in charge of sending positive messages to your fight or flight system. I wasn't ready and so it took three goes but their was a big difference on.my third try. I was incredibly focused. I didn't work with Mel but I know she and many are getting people well. Doctors and psychiatrists have still to learn that this modality is saving hundreds if not thousands.
ME groups in New Zealand won't even let me share my story. I can't even go there. It makes me furious. Keep up this life saving work. I salute you Mel
It's a tough jungle out there.
@trishcovich1923 hey, what one did you do? Was it LP here in NZ, ? Mel's program is great I agree. 🙏💙
Good for you getting your life back! And yes, it is infuriating that "support" groups are often the ones preventing the sharing of recovery ideas. So sad. That's why it's great that there are channels like Raelans, so that people can share recoveries from so many different methods
@@empowertherapies Hi Mel, do you do anything like a refresher course for those that have done the LP?
29 years of ME after a virus and i recognise myself - so profound. Thank you for ALL you do - I am starting my recovery 😁
I have Charcot Marie Tooth disease, a form of peripheral neuropathy. I did Mel’s Switch programme about 5 years ago and it has helped me tremendously. The key is removing stress from our lives.
So glad I could help you! And yes, removing the stress response is so important
Around 19 minutes, she is talking about how people with CFS need to think like normal people and not count spoons, for instance. I disagree with this. It does no good to just think like a normal person (which i tend to do) and go out for the day and then crash. It would be better to discover my baseline and then carefully and slowly increase it.
Exactly
I think what she is saying is not in conflict with what you have described. I don't think she means that we just behave as if all were "normal". The idea is that we are carefully, slowly increasing things and have a mindset that it will increase. It is not helpful however to have a rigidity to what we can do in a day and be monitoring the activity with vigilance. It is a delicate balance to walk this line. Here's how I have seen it change in my life: at a certain point a could plan a day that involved 1 hour of socializing. But I would be monitoring my watch and thinking about it too much before and during, so I was careful that I stopped it "in time". Changing my thinking patterns involved still planning on 1 hour, but then being present and relaxed to it, and if I found it went to 1 hour and 15 minutes without noticing it, I let that be okay, even including if symptoms ticked up. I just adapted my plans, softly, from there. I think the "spoon theory" can be helpful to realize we have shifting energy on different days, but if we get too involved with counting, managing, hoarding these imagined spoons, it is easy to reinforce a sense of scarcity and fear in our nervous system.
@sparrowcrow SO agree, thanks for your comment 🙏
@sparrowcrow Thanks. She should be as clear as you are though!
Raelan, thank you for being there. Because I'm here waiting for my 1st Zoom call with Mel. I watched your 1st interview with Mel, became hopeful, researched her courses and now I'm in my 2nd week of the 6 week webinar of The Switch. For a few years I had been pacing 4 days of bed for 1 day out of the house. No more! Just this weekend I've been joining friends for drinks, grocery shopping, meeting a client for a spring time art project, started on the 6 bags of laundry, visited a couple of craft fairs, and finally returned some clothing I bought 2 months ago. ( all in 4 days, maybe 1nap due to back pain) Again, thank you. And Mel, thank you too. I just hope I've figured the time zone thing ...EST to NZT with the daylight savings change 😮 I think my call is tomorrow or yesterday in NZ or in 10 mins today😅
Mel has just described me. I push because I'm not enough. Working on it through therapy and starting to feel better.
Great that you have had this realisation and can now work on it. It can make a big difference!
Raelen, I really appreciate your channel. It is always filled with great content. Your dedication is excellent. Thank you!
The brain is a bio-computer with operating system and apps.
How your "peripheral devices" and "extensions" suppose to work properly if your OS or apps are corrupted?
Take care of your bio-computer, run some diagnostics, adjust and improve your software.
Don't take your brain for granted. It requires maintenance.
I wonder if only some people respond well to the whole spoons thing or what’s referred to as pacing sometimes? Like maybe it doesn’t work for everyone. In this case, it didn’t work for Mel but someone else with this condition might NEED to implement pacing in order to recover. For another person, it may make recovery harder. I think everyone is different and so there is no one size fits all. I think for me, focusing too much on trying to save energy and getting mentally ahead of my activity, seems to make me worry more and it’s been a little bit of a roadblock in my recovery. I may need to adopt this mentality she said of not overthinking it. I have to think like a healthy person and healthy people don’t pace much really. She’s right about that. I can definitely see how this wouldn’t work for everyone because the fact is, this is an illness, and some people have to be a bit more mindful to keep themselves from a heavy flare up. It maybe also depends on what stage you’re at in recovery.
I am confused by something I see others concerned about in the comments too. She talks about counting spoons being a negative thing that keeps you thinking like a sick person/anxious, etc., and yet so much of recovery also seems to be about the importance of pacing. Is keeping track of your activity levels and being careful about not overdoing it a good thing or bad thing?
I'm copying my response above in case it helps: I don't think she means that we just behave as if all were "normal". The idea is that we are carefully, slowly increasing things and have a mindset that it will increase. It is not helpful however to have a rigidity to what we can do in a day and be monitoring the activity with vigilance. It is a delicate balance to walk this line. Here's how I have seen it change in my life: at a certain point a could plan a day that involved 1 hour of socializing. But I would be monitoring my watch and thinking about it too much before and during, so I was careful that I stopped it "in time". Changing my thinking patterns involved still planning on 1 hour, but then being present and relaxed to it, and if I found it went to 1 hour and 15 minutes without noticing it, I let that be okay, even including if symptoms ticked up. I just adapted my plans, softly, from there. I think the "spoon theory" can be helpful to realize we have shifting energy on different days, but if we get too involved with counting, managing, hoarding these imagined spoons, it is easy to reinforce a sense of scarcity and fear in our nervous system.
Prof. Ron Davis (Stanford) says if there is one way to recover from ME/CFS it is never crashing.
I think it distracts you with the wrong thing. If you see symptoms as message from your body and u learn to translate these messages and act on them properly, ur symptoms will go away. By pacing ur keeping urself busy not listening to what is underneath the symptom, u just get more scared by the symptom. Just how I see people recover but dont want to force my opinion on others :) pacing I usually see people being more scared and distrusting the body more
@@verenasu2037 I agree with this. Generally pacing leads to trying to control symptoms, being overly conscious of them and anticipating them, which perpetuates them. It's also important to push your boundaries
I think it depends on how you talk to yourself. Her idea is that the longer the illness goes on the more limiting your self talk is and it becomes very negative and you need up having to cure yourself of your own negative limits and self talk.
On the other hand, pacing is for everyone. Even healthy people. There are also pushing ourselves negative mindsets we can develop. And pacing as a self care can help us get free of those ideas of spending too much energy because of negative self talk.
It all comes down to awareness. It's not just what you do, but how you do it.
This sounds like she did the lightning process. I think people should credit the program used to recover prior to creating their own
I started watching this and heard how quickly she got better and thought..Lightning Process. I am about to work with someone who did this but has some regrets about how people working with practitioners of the process have been treated.
yes "doing illness" is lp.
Awesome video, thanks! SO informative 🙏
I'm so glad you found it helpful! 🧡🧡
Great content girls x
I'm glad you found it helpful! 🧡🧡
Hey Mel - how long did it take for your body to turn the stress response off as a first step. I assume this is an ongoing process you need to use but initially before you expanded how long did your body take to recalibrate and repair? Thanks!!
I had a very stressfri life but became ill with ME after severe glandular fever. Stress was not the cause of me not being able to recover from the virus. However, since I got ME I absolutely agree that stress make my ME-symptoms worse. I also have been able to heal from several symtoms through deep meditation. But since stress can aggravate neurological diseases I think it makes sense that mediation can have the opposite effect. And that is reassuring to know. With that said, I really think this woman oversimplify what causes ME. I actually find it quit arrogant to claim stress being the main reason behind ME.
I think it is simplified, but I think stress can be thought of multiple ways and it can be subjective. It can even be just a mindset of doing everything yourself instead of asking others for help. It can be a perfectionistic mindset. It can be just a type A personality. I think there's a certain subset of people or circumstances that when they get sick with something like covid or glandular fever, where instead of fully resting out the disease you choose to or have to, push through it and 'soldier on' because you have to go to work, or you have a family. This often leads to ME as well. I'm not sure if any of that resonates with you, but that's my understanding.
I think you might be confusing "stress" with "the stress response". The stress response is a physiological change in the body that causes depletion of the digestive system, immune system, hormonal/reproductive system, detox systems etc. There are many causes as to why someone's stress response would become physiologically activated, but when I look at all the different reasons that show up in my clients, they all trace back at their root to a physiological stress response that is keeping their body out of balance and unable to recover. Whether that stress response was activated by trauma, an injury, a virus, a vaccine, burnout, or any other cause will be unique for each person
All dis”ease” is simply that ….a lack of ease in the body. Victim hood is a slippery slope. It’s a vibration. My dis ease is not better or worse more compelling or less compelling than anyone else’s. Victory/Wellness is a completely different vibration. It doesn’t live where victimhood does, ever.
How about a video also on how you are getting prettier day by day.
The body keeps the score. It's nothing new It's the wisdom of Chinese and Ayuvedic Medicine now being touted as breakthrough science.
My voice is like sick persons voice. Have no idea how to change. I noticed when I feel good my voice is different
This is one of the things that I can't wrap my head around either. LC for 33 months now and on my bad days my voice is barely there. It's like a raspy exhale sound. It feels like I'm not even using my vocal chords to produce the sound either. It' so strange. I know exactly what you mean.
The first step is recognising the problem - well done!
@@mrjackolanterns That sounds really tough for you. I hope these interviews are giving you many ideas on where you could start finding answers and get your life back...
How do people connect with others, I struggle
Nobody has yet responded to your comment. Is it that you need friends, or is it that you need advice on how to connect with people? I am not a psychologist so I can’t really help with the latter. But I can help with the former. If you want a friend and a chat from time to time please feel free to say so.
I remember when I was ill, talking to people was the most tiring thing of all, so I couldn't do it very often, which was hard for me when I'm naturally a very social person. If you are able to ask your friends to have 10 minute catch ups with you so that it doesn't tire you out, or ask them to go to a beach and lie in the sun with you but not talk, or watch a movie with you without talking, that might be ways to get people connection time without exhausting yourself?
Obvious question: you were tired and fatigued and tried to sleep 3 hours in the afternoon to help with that. We know that people with ME/CFS get unrefrshing sleep - but we still need sleep and will take as luch as we can get.
How did you feel having less sleep? Do you think ot was the quqlity of your sleep that resulted in you giving up on your afternoon nap - or were you just breaking a non-helpful thought?
For the first week, I felt so tired during afternoons without my naps! But overall, each day led to more and more energy improvements, and by two weeks later, I felt fabulous! I was actually getting more sleep overall than when I was sick because the quality of my sleep improved so much as my body got calmer. I was now getting 7-8 hours of good quality sleep each night instead of being in bed for 9 hours at night and 3 hours in the afternoon, but only getting patchy bad sleep
I love you Rae
You interview so many people and that’s very encouraging for me. Would you be able to interview people with Annie hoppers program DNRS , or maybe Annie Hopper herself, ruclips.net/video/OdhAA3oD8xA/видео.htmlsi=t6PjgsFwbEMQF3uj
please we want to know about her program too. and how that works for other people, we would appreciate it so much God bless you, my dear🙏🏻🙏🏻🌺❤️