From Fear to Freedom: How I Healed My Body and Mind

A Journey with Fear and Healing

For the past four years I have had medical professionals concerned that I might have MS. I now know that this was meant to happen in order for me to be able to heal from patterns since childhood. When I was 12, my Grandmother died of ALS, which is a neurological disorder. It is like being buried alive, where slowly everything shuts down, but the brain is still perfectly functioning. She passed away exactly 30 years ago today when I am writing this.

A Life-Defining Moment: Losing My Grandmother

Seeing her as a healthy, vibrant woman who then died within a year and watching her suffer was a life-defining moment for me. I now didn’t trust God (how could a higher power do this??) and I couldn’t trust myself or my body because who knows what could happen!

I spent my life trying to be 10 steps ahead of any sickness or disease. My friend growing up told me I was a bit of a hypochondriac. I definitely lived in fear of what could happen and wanted to control it any way that I could. Until I couldn’t. Until all of that fear created sickness and disease. What you think, you become, and my thoughts were like a hamster wheel of health fears.

A Health Crisis: Nerve Pain and Fear

Four years ago, I developed nerve pain right after the pandemic and was told by a doctor it was a reaction. It was like a wildfire of nerve pain all over my body. I had shingles in 2019 across the one side of my face, and it was like that, only everywhere. I could feel it traveling. The burning was so painful and intense. I remember sobbing on the end of my bed, Chris (my husband) couldn’t touch me because I would go into an intense pain feeling the heat from his touch. He felt helpless as I cried and screamed that I didn’t want to go through nerve pain again. It is hard with pain where you don’t know how long or if it will ever end. I couldn’t sit beside my kids or have them on my lap as the heat would send me into full body pain. It was one of the most challenging and difficult times of my life.

I had just started my life coaching practice and had people already signed up for my winter group sessions. I didn’t want to cancel and thought it would be good to keep my mind off of my body. I would do a session and then as soon as I would end the call on Zoom, I would drop to my knees and cry in so much pain.

I tried everything. I took supplements, saw a naturopath, a Chinese medicine doctor, and I have done so many tests to see what was happening. The medical field kept testing me, convinced I had developed MS. I had an MRI done and was told that I had lesions on my brain but that they were unspecified. The nurse practitioner spoke to the doctor, who said that it could happen from migraines or age. She sent me to a neurologist.

The Fear of the MRI: Facing Uncertainty

The neurologist again did all kinds of testing. He told me he wanted me to go do another MRI to see if there was a difference, and if I had more lesions, we would have our answer.

I was terrified. I had told myself I would only have to do this one more time, and now I had to do it again.

I remember the first MRI, I was shaking and trying so hard to regulate my body. After I got out of the machine, I was looking at the nurse's face, trying to figure out if she looked sad to be able to know if I had something wrong with me. So I knew it would be almost a year before I got my letter for my second MRI and I had to just wait….again.

A Shift in Perspective: Healing Beyond Desperation

At that time, I started to go to an Osteopath and booked her every two weeks. I was determined to get my mind and body healed. I was desperate and knew she did emotional healing as well and believed in the body/mind connection like I do. We did a few sessions together and she looked at me and said to be careful of trying to heal so much that I became desperate. When there is desperation, that is a different energy. Let my body tell me when I need to come back. I walked away annoyed. But she gave me the best gift. I had been searching and striving for healing, and what I needed more than anything was to heal my own mind. To heal that little girl who was 12 years old, still trying to beat fate and not become like her beloved Grandmother.

Releasing Desperation: Trusting My Body

I released the desperation. I surrendered to doing what made me happy and brought me joy. That was the main motivation for doing things and who I spent time with. I trusted that my body COULD heal! I felt it and knew it was possible. A friend of mine said, “You know that lesions in the brain can heal on their own,” and it was like a lightbulb went off. Of course, they can! Why couldn’t they!? There are TONS of documented cases of people healing from all kinds of sickness and disease! Look at the book Dying to be Me by Anita Moorjani. I read this book at that time, and it was life-changing. She talked about how fear is what we need to conquer in order to fight disease and sickness. It was all connecting, adding up, and becoming a new truth that I was developing.

Surrendering to the Outcome: Healing from Within

I can heal. But also, there was a surrender that if the results showed something, then that is what my soul chose for this lifetime. Maybe it was to learn to heal it and teach others? Whatever the outcome, I knew I was going to be okay, and it was part of the universal plan and my soul's purpose. I released the outcome and was no longer attached to it.

During this time, as my mindset started to shift, I began to notice that I stopped getting nerve pain. It was becoming less and less over the four years, but it would still flare up, and other strange illnesses would show up like not being able to eat sugar or high histamine foods or my tongue would burn. This again was a mind-over-matter issue. I visited my sister and said, "I am having shawarma, this delicious dish from Ottawa, whether my tongue likes it or not." Not only did it not hurt, It hurt less and less each day that passed, and I refused to accept that this was how it was going to be. I refused to let fear take over.

Facing the MRI Results with Calm and Confidence

Finally, I got my letter telling me when my MRI was going to be. I held the letter and saw the date—December 22 at 6 pm. MRIs run every 24 hours, so it could have been anytime. This was on a Sunday when I knew Chris would be off, and our oldest could babysit, and I felt the wave of, "Oh no, I have to do this again," and quickly felt gratitude for all of the amazing things with this letter. The beginning of time off with family, Chris being able to come with me, finally getting a date.

As the date approached, I didn’t think of it often, and when I did, I made sure to tell myself how exciting it was that I was going to get it done. Not in a dreadful way, but like a little kid going to the circus. This feeling is a higher vibrational feeling that I was attaching to the MRI.

Trusting the Process: Visualization and Surrender

When the date came, Chris and I went to the hospital. I went into the room, and the nurse had said she had seen me before, which I don’t remember. The other MRI was done at another hospital, and I am sure she wasn’t my nurse. But we laughed and chatted about Christmas. I went into the machine where they lock your head in and slide you into a tube, and I had my eyes closed the whole time. I did meditative breathing and just calmed my body and mind. I think they play every single annoying sound in the world, but I kept thinking about how wonderful it was that my amazing husband would be there waiting for me, and we could go home soon. I was calm and just hanging out, surrendering to the process.

This time there was no desperate looking for answers in the nurse's eyes. I wished her a Merry Christmas, got my stuff, and off I went.

The Universe’s Test: Trusting the Outcome

Now, here is where the Universe decided to give me an extra test. The neurologist's office is closed over the holidays, and this was the beginning of that two-week period. It never ceases to amaze me what a funny sense of humor the universe can have.

The receptionist had said to me that the doctor should get the results within a day or two and would call if anything bad showed up but would call me on January 6th otherwise. The old me would have had a terrible Christmas waiting and wondering. I wouldn’t have been able to sleep, would have been crying, and thinking of the worst-case scenario, talking to anyone who would listen about poor me waiting for my results.

I did none of that.

I enjoyed my Christmas and had an amazing time with my family. I did think about the results because I am human, BUT this is what I would do. I would feel the thought come up and recognize that it was there. I would then visualize myself in my kitchen talking on the phone to the doctor. I could hear his voice clear as day, and he said to me, “Well, Sarah, everything looks great. I don’t see any reason to keep seeing you, so if anything comes up, let us know, but you are good to go.”

I can’t tell you how many times over the break I did this. As soon as I heard his voice in my mind, it was instant soothing of my nervous system, and I got on with my day.

I didn’t hear from him the entire break. I could have checked my results online but didn’t even think of it. I trusted and knew I was okay.

The Results: A Confirmation of Healing

On January 6th, he called me. He said WORD FOR WORD what I had been visualizing over and over again. My MRI showed no new lesions, and I was released from the wondering, the fear, the trying to control what was next.

Life Lessons: Embracing Fear and Choosing Healing

I want you to know that life WILL give you things that you have to overcome. That is inevitable. But YOU get to choose how you deal with it. Your mind is THE most important tool you have. Change your thoughts, you change your life. We have everything we need inside of us to heal, I truly believe that. I also believe that fear is our biggest obstacle and can teach us so much.

My hope for this story is to look at areas of your life that you have fear, where you can shine the light on it. Figure out where it is coming from and start to change your thoughts around it. We are in control but not in the ways I was looking for control. My goal this year is to continue to work on my mindset and help others to do the same.

The Self-Love Sessions is a way that I am able to do this through helping you move away from fear and create the life that you have always dreamed of without the negative inner dialogue. You can find out more HERE