My Journey from Burnout to Breakthrouth
This is the full story of the content on this site’s landing page. If you haven’t seen it – read it here first. I share it to inspire you that true healing really is possible.
I didn’t know why I couldn’t sleep. The PTSD I experienced after the fire, particularly the insomnia, was especially severe due to early trauma I’d blocked out until my late twenties.
As a teen and young adult, when I tried to go to bed, I would often get panic attacks. I’d run outside and walk around the streets of London for hours trying to get the adrenaline out of my system.
One night, when I knew someone had been murdered a few blocks away, I remember thinking ‘This isn’t logical – you’re safer in bed.’ But I didn’t feel safe.
Walking the streets at night, I was mugged and attacked three times. I was tired of making police reports. I was tired of not feeling safe.
And then one day, aged 27, a memory surfaced. In the memory, I was very small. It was during the night. A friend of my parents entered my bedroom and molested me. Shortly afterwards, another memory came back. This time I was 7. It was the morning after I’d been raped.
My parents hadn’t known that one of their friends was a pedophile.
As an adult, I came to understand that I hadn’t realize these terrifying ordeals only happened when that man stayed in the house. To my child’s mind, I thought they could happen any night. And to my undeveloped brain, if this scary thing was going to happen in my bed, I was going to make sure I was awake and alert for it.
So at a very young age, I had trained myself not to sleep.
After these revelations, I had some therapy, calmed my nervous system and developed good sleep hygiene. And for many years, I slept quite well. If I was going through a stressful time, I wasn’t the best sleeper but I told myself this was normal. Most of the time, I was okay.
After the fire, all that changed. It was such a shock having my life threatened and losing my home that once again, I felt unsafe. My nemesis Insomnia returned and nights became ordeals.
Because I’d lost everything (we’d been underinsured) and I had just gone through a divorce, I didn’t have financial reserves to take much time off work. I needed to recover fast.
I knew that ‘Neurons that fire together, wire together’ (Hobbs). This means that if you experience a frightening situation, particularly one that happens over and over, your brain will remember the circumstances around it in an attempt to warn you when those same circumstances happen again. It learns to trigger the same neural connections by fusing those things together.
The fire had triggered my early life trauma of not feeling safe in bed. The neurons that were firing together were SLEEP = UNSAFE.
And in an attempt to protect me, my brain was trying to stay vigilant and alert all the time.
But understanding this intellectually didn’t change it.
I had to find a technique that could intercept the neurons firing response and create a new circuit.
Through my tenacious research and soul’s guidance, I found it. And after experiencing it, I got trained and certified to an advanced level so I could help others.
I was still exhausted, but once I could sleep again, over time I was able to apply energy practices and other techniques to rebuild myself and my life.
An intrinsic part of my healing journey was soul integration. I had to get to know the fragmented parts of myself that had felt shattered during those early traumatic experiences and love them. I had to bring into conscious awareness the beliefs I’d created to survive in that environment, realize they were no longer serving me and let them go.
How It Created a New Challenge
Years later, I learnt the early sexual trauma had created a different challenge.
For over a decade before the fire, I’d experienced pain in my abdomen for one to two weeks of every month. At times, it was so acute, I couldn’t move. Shortly before the fire, an investigative scan revealed a tennis ball size fibroid on the top of my uterus. The surgeon advised me to leave it, saying it was too risky to remove.
I could never say what caused another woman’s fibroid – these things are deeply personal. But for me, it was my body’s response to those early sexual assaults. It felt like a physical ball that held years of fear, grief and emotional pain. I wanted it gone.
I found a different surgeon and scheduled a consult. That meeting changed my life.
The nurse didn’t think the pain was caused by the fibroid but something called endometriosis. She said the only way to find out was through surgery. This surgeon knew how to safely remove the fibroid, as well as any endometriosis, and keep my organs intact.
She was right. Surgery showed I had it, as well as the more challenging adenomyosis. But a few weeks before the surgery was the fire. I barely registered the diagnosis and didn’t have the bandwidth to do research or make any lifestyle changes. I’d just lost my home.
The ensuing PTSD following the wildfire exacerbated the old symptoms and, months later, I found myself in pain. I asked if my surgeon would see me. He did and we scheduled a second surgery.
This time, I read every scientific journal and book I could find on the condition. It’s possible we’re born with it and many women have it who have never experienced sexual assault. Again, I couldn’t comment on another’s experience but for me, I felt the early trauma contributed to its development. As with most disease, inflammation plays a huge role, and a root cause of inflammation is acute stress.
The condition has been my greatest teacher.
I used to be addicted to adrenaline because releasing it made me feel alive. I was a Type-A who did four things at once and wore my badge of business as if it was an accolade.
Once I’d connected flair ups with stress of any kind, that changed.
I knew the pain was my body’s way of teaching me something. It was showing me how to live.
I made big changes. The person I was completely changed in the process.
I stopped rushing from thing to thing. I stopped confusing anxiety and excitement.
I got the endometriosis in remission and I was mostly pain free.
Despite practicing energy healing, I have no problem with surgery. Your body has created an illness and you can manifest its treatment in a variety of ways. You’ll always need to address underlying causes and make changes but be gentle with yourself as you go.
We’re all learning and growing and the greatest gift we can give ourselves, and anyone else, is compassion.
The Power of Love
In fact, one of the health condition’s greatest lessons has been learning self-compassion.
I used to be so hard on myself and so critical. One day, soon after the fire and surgery, all that changed.
My clothes had been destroyed in the fire so I’d gone to Nordstrom to buy new ones. I was just about to enter the changing room when I stopped.
Ever since I was fourteen, whenever I’d been in changing rooms under fluorescent lights, staring in the mirror I’d always found fault with some part of my body. As if criticizing myself would somehow mold me closer to perfection, which would make me lovable.
But this day was different. My post-surgery abdomen was badly bruised, covered in band-aids and swollen so that it stuck out five inches.
Could I be kind to myself instead?
I made a new pact. ‘We’re not going there. You’ve been through surgery. A divorce. Your house burnt down. We’re not going there.’
I went inside and looked at the imperfect, bandaged, scared human staring back.
I’d always felt I had value due to my accomplishments. I’d found it easier to be loving towards myself when I looked nice.
In that moment, I finally learnt to love myself for who I was. Not because of anything I’d achieved or owned. Not for having anything to be proud of because I had nothing. I learnt to love myself because I exist. I was still here, and I deserved love.
I call my brand BeLovingYou® in honor of that moment. Because life feels a whole lot lighter when you love and value yourself not for what you’ve achieved, how you look or what you own but for who you are.
What Really Is Love?
For two years my story ended there. But my beloved Dad’s health was deteriorating. He has Lewy Body Disease with Dementia and Parkinson’s. This form of dementia comes and goes so that he’s sometimes cognitive enough to know his brain and body are deteriorating and that he’s dying, which is deeply distressing for him, whilst also being confused and traumatized by hallucinations much of the time.
The disease attacks the nervous system so he gets inconsolably upset whilst additionally suffering the debilitating physical pain and disability of Parkinson’s. I flew back and forth to visit, at one point staying for months. I had never seen anyone in so much pain. I felt powerless.
My protocols work brilliantly to quickly transform any emotion except grief. And the grief overwhelmed me. One day, as I held my hands over my chest, trying to calm my heartache, I realized the area was physically hurting.
A scan revealed a breast tumor over 2 cm wide. My emotional heartache had created a physical counterpart.
A biopsy revealed the tumor was benign and a skilled surgeon removed it, leaving my breasts intact. But the emotional distress of dealing with it and my upset over what was happening with Dad exacerbated the old endometriosis symptoms and I had one final surgery.
Two weeks after the surgery, Dad collapsed and was taken to ER. We reluctantly realized we needed to get him into a home with full-time professional care.
I never wanted that for him and I was devastated. My reaction swiftly triggered acute physical pain, leaving me panicked about the implications. That morning I had received internal photos from the surgery displaying my scorched uterus for the third time. I couldn’t control what was happening with Dad but I also couldn’t seem to control how upset I felt about it, which resulted in pain.
I sat on my meditation cushion, took some deep breaths and asked ‘What am I not seeing? What do my soul or guides want me to know? I need more support. I don’t know how to do this. I can’t have another surgery, I just can’t.’
A voice spoke through me but it wasn’t from me. It said: ‘You’re resisting’. I replied with my thoughts – ‘Yes! Because what’s happening with Dad is so awful.’ The voice replied: ‘Then you will be in pain’.
I realized I’d spent months screaming at God/Spirit/Life that this shouldn’t be happening, that it was wrong. The guidance I had been seeking was there and words tumbled out.
‘You don’t know what his soul’s journey is. He is receiving love, in his own way. Allow him to have his experience and accept it.’
The guidance told me so much more and I finally understood concepts I’d read about for decades.
Everything we feel has to cycle through our body. Even if we think we’re projecting something out there, even if our anger and grief is justified, our body experiences all of it and pays a price.
I needed to stop fighting. I needed to find radical acceptance and within that, experience whatever emotions were present and release them.
A core tenet of my coaching practice and life is that we are all whole and complete; no one is broken and nothing needs fixing. Because Dad was so close to me, I’d lost sight of that.
It isn’t for me to take away his pain; I can’t anyway. My job is simply to allow him to have his experience, without judgment, and to love.
After several hours I stood up, wondering where the guidance had come from. I laughed as I realized I didn’t care, because after over three years of struggling to come to terms with Dad’s condition, I finally felt at peace.
That presence has been with me many times since. They feel like benevolent, supportive souls and it could also be an aspect of my higher consciousness. To me it doesn’t matter because the insights I receive and light I feel through the experience is beautiful.
I later realized I had asked for more guidance that night but I was always being guided. In my grief, I just couldn’t hear it.
I understood too how we can only create in the world what we are. If we’re angry, we add anger. And the world doesn’t need more angry people; it needs centered people who can contribute understanding and love.
And I finally understood the full power of the maxim: ‘It’s not the circumstances that matter but our reaction to them’.
I found that once I stopped judging the situation as wrong, I could experience any emotion without being in pain. And once I stopped resisting what was happening, the majority of my grief transformed to love.
It’s still a journey, witnessing where Dad’s at day by day. But finding acceptance has given me a deep sense of peace and that’s been the greatest blessing.
The Greater the Darkness, the Greater the Light
I never think about those long ago early life events now. I’m a completely different person. The soul draws lessons for its growth and I’m grateful for the journey because it’s made me who I am. I’ll probably always be more sensitive than other people but I’ve learnt to honor that and it makes me good at what I do. Sometimes the more we have experienced the darkness, the greater our appreciation of the light.
A new acupuncturist recently read my pulse and said – “Do you meditate? People who have long standing meditation practices have very deep pulses like you.”
The other day, someone told me I looked like I’d never had a day’s tension in my life and had spent every night sleeping soundly with a humidifier.
And to both I say – GREAT! True healing really is possible.
If you want tools and meditations to uncover unconscious beliefs, clear blocks, sleep soundly and reset your nervous system so you can unlock peak performance, sign-up for my newsletter and follow me on social where I’ll be releasing details about up-coming group workshops and programs. If you’re interested in working with me personally, apply for a consult. If that’s you, be willing to dive deep.
We are living in extraordinary times. It’s time to start living an extraordinary life.
To your health,
Millie x