Personal Health Journey with Leaky Gut and Lyme Disease 

And Soul Intentions in this Life

I came into this world a very open and sensitive being, I had so much love in my heart and desired to share the magic that I experienced in my heart with others. But the world we live in is intense and harsh, I struggled very much to understand the world and my place in it, how my intuitive and natural ways of being may fit into the experience of my daily life. I subconsciously formed layers and layers of protection strategies, I was so open and sensitive but realize that I needed to protect myself. This culminated at that very dark moment of my life, in my deepest depression. Reflecting on it now, my experience of it was a great numbness, a black hole of pain and that was focused directly and singularly at what some people called the solar plexus, an energetic center that is just below the sternum. It is a place where we receive information from the world at an intuitive level, how the energetic body goes out and contacts the world, and how we are in true felt sense relationship to the entire experience of life. It also rules the gut, intuition, the stomach that receives and digests all experience, food and other, the border of self and the world. I was so overwhelmed that I shut this off, instead I went inside of myself. This led to an experience of being non-embodied, of living all in the mind and head, in a state of trauma at a cellular level, such that any new thing that came in was seen as a threat and I tried my best to not engage with it, but it also lead to a hyper reactivity. It's a curious response as the way to truly engage with what was being asked was to fully step into my power, not to run from it because then it just leads to more and more retreat. This extreme tension of the solar plexus region was the energy that was required to block my natural perception, to hold in and shut off through closing the portal of connection to the world from this place. This also shuts down digestion function, stress impairing the nervous system’s regulation of digestion. 

In certain cultures across time extra sensitive little ones were seen and trained how to wield their gifts and skills, to be able to cultivate their intuition in a way that is serving, fully empowered, but kids are so open and vulnerable, they need help and guidance to be able to do this, but our world does not really recognize this nor have the structures to do this. I never really owned this pain as well, I just sort of went on, became bitter for a long time, eventually learned new ways and new perspectives, but this deep subconscious pattern what's still at my core, it was so buried and so deep that I was no longer aware of it, but it was still ruling my immune system, my choice of how I respond to and engage with challenges from the outside world, both in my inner landscape and in the world around me, the borders and boundaries of all sorts. 

I have experienced digestive health challenges, primarily constipation, food intolerance and leaky gut (though it took quite some time to realized that I had leaky gut), as well as Lyme disease for most of my adult life. My gut health challenges began in my youth and went hand in hand with depression and mental health challenges. This continued on through my early twenties when extreme constipation set in, extreme repression, then my energy and health in general suffered for many years. I then got Lyme disease and this finally required me to fully take a look inside to sort out all the pieces from the beginning.

I have learned so much about myself through this health journey, likely I would not have taken such steps without the pressing need to see what is there, to need to come into such alignment that my body may heal. It has been the greatest and most unwelcome teacher of my life. I came into this world a very open and sensitive being. I had so much love in my heart and desired to share the magic that I experienced in my heart with all beings in relationship to me. But the world I found myself in was intense and harsh, I struggled very much to understand the world and my place in it, how my intuitive and natural ways of being may fit into the experience of my daily life. I subconsciously formed layers and layers of protection strategies, I was so open and sensitive but realize that I needed to protect myself. This culminated into physical form, into undeniable presence at a very dark moment of my life, in my deepest depression in my high school years. 

This drawing inward tension shifted my true seat of consciousness from this place into the mental as my primary seat of consciousness as a protection strategy, and a resultant profound disassociation from my body. This led to an experience of being non-embodied, of living all in the mind and the head, into a state of trauma at a cellular level, such that any new thing that came in was seen as a threat and I tried my best to not engage with it, but it also lead to a hyper reactivity. I think this is a common pattern for lots of people in the world today, it’s all just too much, so we draw in and protect our hearts, retreat into the logical, who would want to be in their bodies when there is such disconnection from creation. And in this state there is no way to actually just be, to truly know anything if it isn’t felt, we are feeling beings, and the mind is only an access vessel to the world beyond. The mind perceives, but it must always be in service and in connection to the feeling aspects of the self in order to be integrated and reflect meaning and understanding, and not the other way around. It's a curious response I chose as the true way to truly engage with what was being asked was to fully step into my power and understand and respond to what my emotions were informing me of, not to run from it because then it just leads to more and more retreat, resistance, and further disassociation from the body. In certain cultures extra sensitive little ones were seen and trained how to wield their gifts and skills, to be able to cultivate their intuition into a way that is serving, fully empowered. Kids are so open and vulnerable, they need help and guidance to be able to do this, but our world does not really recognize this nor does it have the structures established to allow for this in general. I never really owned this pain as well, I just sort of went on, became bitter for a long time, eventually learned new ways and new perspectives, but this deep subconscious pattern was still at my core, it was so buried and so deep that I was no longer even aware of it, but it was still ruling my immune system, my choice of how I respond to and engage with challenges from the outside world, both in my inner landscape and in the world around me, the borders and boundaries of all sorts.

In leaky gut there is a disharmony, there is a breakdown of the borders of self and non-self, the digestive system is the outside of the inside, it is the meeting place of the self with the world. This is where a huge amount of the immune system tissue resides, where this border of what is allowed in must be carefully selected for and allowed in if it is safe and welcome. The gut wall is the place where all yin, foods, fluids, where all experience is brought into the inner world to be broken down, to be processed and to then be integrated selectively, the place where digestive fire, where the spark of our soul is applied to the yin, to the engagement with life experience. The spleen and the stomach and the breath work together in this transformation of yin into qi and blood, into everything that becomes us. When there is porosity, uncertainty, dysregulation, then anything and everything may flow into and out of a being without clear regulation, one cannot know how to make sense of the world without a sense of self in clear distinction and relationship to non-self. One easily becomes overwhelmed by everything as one is engaged in processing everything all the time, so much is flowing into the being, there is an impossible amount of information flowing through the doors of perception straight into contact with the spirit. The vital force tries so hard to deal with it all but it cannot, and this leads to inflammation, this leads to guarding, unwillingness, trauma, a lack of desire to engage with everything that is in front of us for one is always overwhelmed and it is incredibly uncomfortable. We now are associating with things outside of ourselves as ourselves as thing make it into the inside that should not be there, at least in the form that they are, and we react to these substances. This leads to fear, it becomes uncomfortable to be in this body for there is no clear border or a way in which to engage with the experiences of life safely, this often leads to incredible tension inside the solar plexus region of the body, and this often pushes the seat of consciousness up into the mind.

This exact process happened to me and lead to the feeling of existing in a state of chronic plateau, that I was at first resisting and fighting and trying my best to deal with the infection. My being wasn’t having its actual survival threatened so it didn’t have to react, and so it wants to keep things as they are, in a place that isn’t great but a place that is comfortable and moderately safe. This is cellular trauma, patterns of conditioning and protection strategies at a subconscious level, a common pattern when people are dealing with chronic disease for a long time. Perhaps this accounts for why I was so reactive to any sort of stimulating substance, I couldn’t seem to tolerate any sort of nervous system stimulant, any stimulating substance such as coffee, alcohol, or even nervous system stimulating herbs would cause a body wide reaction in a matter of seconds, far before the physiological process could possibly be received and in contact with the interior cells of the body. Instead these substances demand change, adaptation, response, receiving and navigating a shift, but I am in inward retreat, the tension in the solar plexus inhibits healthy response to further change. These substances or stimulating environment (stressful modern life for example) are recognized by the immune cells in the GI, first contacted in the mouth, in the place that meets and processes what comes into my being, and it’s the immune system in the GI that regulates the whole body, the intelligence that chooses how to respond to a given substance or experience. So even gentle stimulants by nature are thus perceived as a threat by the intelligence of one who is trying their very best to hide and shut down any and all connection because it is my established pattern that any change is unsafe. I had been in this place of rigid fearful retreat since high school, and this dramatically inhibited my immune system, I was always choosing to not engage. Years later when I got Lyme disease I wasn’t able to respond to it and it easily settled in deeply and became chronic, the immune system was so inhibited for so long that it perceives any unknown shift and change as a threat and so instead stays dormant as long as I am generally still well enough.

It is curious to me how this pattern of hyper-reactivity is essentially exactly the same as has occurred in my life, being a very sensitive human yet not knowing how to healthfully exist in my original nature in the modern world, and I instead shut out the world and went inward in attempts to protect myself. I didn’t know how to meet the moment, how to integrate the lesson the world is presenting me, what my emotions are informing me of and this all results in trying my very best to keep things as they are, not feeling the world because it is painful and scary. Not welcoming any new stimulus asking me to shift my beliefs of how I am and need to be when I don’t actually have the capacity to make this change due to this restriction and tension of digesting life experiences, these are the origins of my core wounding and the resultant depression in my youth. Health is resilience, adaptability, the ability to meet the present unfolding moment, and disease is stagnation within the free flow of life energy. Without constantly taking experience in, processing it, and shedding that which no longer serves, a human isn’t truly being in the world. It’s about being willing to be, to know it’s scary and unknown, but to trust and have faith and do it anyway because that’s how this whole embodiment thing works, it’s here to be experienced. To soften and be rooted in solid earth, and by resisting and trying to not be hurt by constantly avoiding new experiences I only suffer further, I must be in the river absolutely fully to be able to navigate upon it and thrive. We become hardened and weakened just as the GI becomes in leaky gut when on the side watching life float by, easily drifting into a victim mentality. It becomes easy to feel the world is too big and is ‘happening’ to us. Truly we each are aspects of consciousness that are creating and dreaming reality, it is our opportunity and responsibility of human life to exist through the framework that we are the weaver of the tapestry of life, we get to choose to grow and evolve and fulfill our purpose, or not; either way the lessons are continually there until we learn them, life is patient. 

This all also completely mirrors my digestive health challenges, leaky gut is nothing more than lack of solid borders, no longer any clarity where I and world meet, a lack of integrity of the border of self. Too much gets in through routes that it shouldn’t enter from, without active choice, experiences are not properly digested and received into the being, but chronic leakage of unchosen particles of existence enter my life-blood which results in chronic inflammation as the immune system responds to life itself as a foreign invader. The fundamental experience of being should not be one of fear avoidance, one rooted in the belief that the world itself is hostile and dangerous to me, instead it could be one of trust and love and connection. But after this pattern plays out repeatedly the cells become habituated into learning how anything new that enters the system that is foreign and unknown and stimulating is unwelcome and innately damaging to the self, and should be attacked and prevented, and this keeps one in a state of perpetual plateau, of baseline survival but not developing into one’s highest potential and true expression of self, of having the strength and courage to follow one’s true path and learn the lessons of this unique life. Why are you here, cultivate a life that is able to play and celebrate with whatever is presented so your soul may grow and learn and be in connection with all of life. We are all connected to everything, we are simply a concentrated manifested conglomeration of meaning, we are a density of meaning and consciousness, from our hearts and solar plexus’ are endless golden threads of connection to all things in the experience field surrounding us, these threads flow until they once again condense into physical form that we can see and feel.

Lyme disease is a curious thing, many people can simply take antibiotics and be done with it, while many do not. All of the tests, the science, it all showed that my immune system was simply not engaging with multiple chronic infections, these organisms were unchallenged, I was being a host to other beings who found a home in my body because I was not fully choosing and being in my body and so there was space for these others. All of my efforts for so many years have been about taking the right thing, some magic cure, this treatment or that, these intensive antibiotics or that herb. All medicines including antibiotics are not actually meant to completely and fully eradicated whatever organism is being fought, but rather an aid to the bodies own systems, to help get on top, but the body still has to do the work, it still has to respond, I still must make the choice of meeting life or hide from it.

I am now practicing being reembodied, reawakening this deep intuitive sense of being once again, my seat of consciousness has drastically shifted from out of my head and into my core. It’s the way of the human experience I think; to be whole, then forget ourselves as the ego develops, but then the work of a life to remember our truth and then be able to grow from there… it just doesn’t always happen, and it’s more intense for some, I truly see this as my great rite of passage into my destiny. It’s curious because I have identified for most of my life as one who is dominant in the mind, but this core tension and guarding is exactly that which drove my seat of consciousness up into the mind. But now as I remake and uncover these truths, I do so as a man, I have the capacities to fend for myself, but I must continue and learn how to fully embrace and develop my gifts to their fullness to be able to engage in the world with them and not be overwhelmed. For me it’s a feeling of being filled with radiant energy in every part, filling myself to the brim with my own light, such that everything unserving simply spills over the edges of my already filled cup, rather than a process of removing the diseased parts. I feel strong and alive, and choosing to engage with the Lyme disease. It's by unbinding the center and connecting all of the channels that energy is able to freely flow throughout the entire vessel, to raise my vibration. It is this underlying state which is required first and foremost to be solid before all of the medicines can be useful, they go on top of all of this. And yet, many of these herbs have shown me the way to this understanding.

The body recognizes certain foods as nourishment, so I use food as a vehicle that teaches the body to associate the medicine with this safe food. I normally have an automatic/untruthful/negative response to these medicines that should be good for me, I seek to train the immune system how to welcome the medicine into my being, something that can be trusted and brought into the being, past the cell walls and integrated into self. To soften at the cellular layer to receive new experience with welcomeness, not rigid resistance. Let the cellular trust shift, the border of bringing in new substances to soften. Strengthen to be able to meet the moment. To allow the body to take care of itself first the cellular border must be repaired, the cells must have a solid and safe boundary, the ability to regulate what comes in and out, and the extracellular fluid that regulates absolutely everything, the place where the immune system exists and functions must choose to not react to medicines that are coming in. So this softening plus some awakening out of chronic passivity may go hand in hand. I must know that food is safe, that bringing in nourishment is a process of healing, to heal is to be vulnerable. I must enter into a parasympathetic state always before eating, humming, blessing food with prayer, a sacred space to receive that which is for healing, chew and be present with my food, state my intention that I bring in food for these purposes, the body still knows this deep truth and by deeply pairing my medicine with my food I may change some of these chronic patterns and false reactions. It is also helpful to start very small with dilute doses and work up to reeducate that not all stimulation is harmful, adaptogens are here to help, not to harm. Also mushrooms are key, the immune system of nature, the interconnecting web of intelligence that coordinates and regulates the function of the ecosystem into an intelligent conscious response, and they can help reeducate the same in our bodies.

We live in a mentally dominated existence in the Western world, this is partly because it is so uncomfortable to be in our bodies when processing so much, but partly because it is absolutely impossible to process the amount of information that we are subjected to daily. All this strain puts such demand on our earth, it is the solar plexus that is the true seat of power in the being, the fire that transforms. This is the place of all warmth, the place of the distribution of the source qi energy that is produced inside of each of us, the soul, the spirit, the shen, it is the fire and the spark that consumes and transforms the yin, the substance which is brought into the body and nourishes our fundamental essence. This combustion of fuel is facilitated and driven by the breath, by prana, by oxygen, by qi, by the undifferentiated universal lifeforce energy that we borrow and use in our bodies. As each being continually chooses life each moment through this process, source qi is created and then vital force may be applied to all life processes inside of us. However the warmth that is generated from this process is the solar plexus, this direct harnessing of will power, drive, and intention is how we are warmed and protected, how we go forth and engage with life.

I feel my place among this planet in this lifetime is to simply emanate a field of clear and radiant vibration that transmutes all I come into contact with. It is the energy field of my being that is the medicine I have to share with all my relations. It is my place to build these connections with spirit, to be in abundance, filled, alive, a conduit and a bridge, to cultivate these gifts and remember this core truth of connection that I am deep down, that we all are, the role of the human is to imbue meaning into the world through facilitating connections. To be charged with source qi, strong and full with spirit, to have no need for fear of being overwhelmed by the world because that richness is the exact strength that allows for resilient connections. To witness and recognize, to honor the beauty, for my experience of being to be an invitation to others to meet what is being asked of them, to invite consciousness transformation. That by being on my path I walk in service to help others go the these depths themselves, and remember what it truly is to be alive, the gift of this life, and the fullness of the great mystery. To cultivate my connection to spirit not simply for quenching my curiosity of the unknown, but to be connected to the fabric of consciousness is to be guided always, to receive wisdom, to learn to develop into my highest expression of self, and to then be in the greatest service by my vibration sharing positive transformative energy with all those around me. To uphold the sanctity of life, to resist negative influences that stagnate or restrict the flow of all that impedes the ever changing light of creation in its infinite permutations. To help others also feel this universal connection to source and the strength and courage to step into the darkness, to see what is inhibiting fullest connection, meet it, understand it, do the work, be uncomfortable to then integrate the blockages and be ever the more in clear connection and celebration of life. 

This is the work, the art of living and dying each day, and I welcome it fully, may I dissolve into complete abandon of anything that doesn’t serve the development of greatest alignment and the unfolding of my highest self, to be in greatest service to the light. To become submerged in the truth of life, before all the conditioning, able to see beyond habituated patterns and reactions, and into the fullness, to be a messenger of creation through my field as I share with others. To share my vibrational message of trust, trust into magic and the wonder of life, and the release into the raging current, wild abandon of the known, of control and into surrender of the flow, to follow the golden threads of divine guidance always. I have no idea where my life is going and I couldn’t be happier, but I am choosing to seek for and follow the guidance where it comes, known by the guidance felt in the heart, and the mind is simply in service to the heart’s knowing. At the end of one golden thread of connection there are always threads that carry me forth onto the next. There is no need for fearing the rushing river, fully believe you will be cared for completely, but you must submit absolutely to the guidance, the synchronicity, the wonder, the magic of the great mystery.