A few years ago, I experienced what I didn’t realize at the time was the beginning of a life-changing journey to chronic illness.
It all started when I noticed shortness of breath when I bent down to pick something up off the floor and quickly rolled into a snowball. It felt like I had entered an alternate reality where I went from a healthy person whose life was punctuated by hiking, dancing and traveling to someone whose body would no longer cooperate with life. At worst, my heart rate spiked throughout the day and night to levels that would send healthy friends running to the emergency room. I was exhausted and sometimes too weak to walk.
As a Buddhist meditation teacher and hypnotherapist, I found myself on an accelerated course in the treatment of a complex illness and learned to live a meaningful life in a body that had fundamentally changed.
It was the beginning of a complex condition that affected almost every system in my body, eventually being traced back to when I lived in a small cottage that unknowingly had an uninvited tenant: black mold. At the time, I could not have imagined how much this experience would change my body, my life, and my work.
As a Buddhist meditation teacher and hypnotherapist, I found myself on an accelerated course in the treatment of a complex illness and learned to live a meaningful life in a body that had fundamentally changed.
Over the years that followed, I worked to create spaces of healing, resilience, and joy, rebuilding a life that was in many ways happier and freer than the one I had lost. I have also found myself supporting more clients who are managing complex illnesses themselves. Time and time again, I have seen how mindfulness and hypnosis can help people experience a new sense of hope, agency, and ability to relate to their lives and bodies in a different way.
The nervous system mobilizes against the threat
When we’re living with chronic illness or pain, it can often feel like we’re on high alert—and for good reason. The body is designed to detect danger and quickly mobilize against the threat. We have survived through generations of human evolution thanks to this finely honed system. It’s an incredible gift – until it isn’t.
Pain, stress, illness and other problems can send signals to our body telling us that something is wrong. It’s our system’s way of saying, “Hey! Stop! Please take care of me.”
“Maladaptive neuroplasticity“occurs when the body and mind begin to reorganize to meet a constant threat that arises. Unfortunately, we don’t always reorganize in a way that helps us in the long run or feels particularly good. For our brain and body, it’s only about one thing: our survival.
But in chronic diseases that develop over time, this reactivation can make our nervous system more sensitive to threats. Our body’s warning system goes off again and again, reacting to even small changes in posture, environment or living conditions as if it were a five-alarm fire. This is part of why hypnosis and meditation were shown be very beneficial for chronic conditions and pain when used in addition to appropriate medical care.
You’ve probably heard the term “neurons that fire together wire together,” which means that when we repeat anything over and over we build strong neural pathways that work automatically. This trait is fantastic in many situations: we effortlessly remember how we drove, we see a loved one’s face and a warm feeling washes over us, we wake up and lay down on a meditation pillow because it’s a regular part of our routine.
Our brains are incredibly efficient. They want to save energy, so they create shortcuts for it. This is often useful, but when it comes to chronic pain and diseases, it can lead to increased sensitivity, and what some researchers call maladaptive neuroplasticity.
What does this mean for us? Essentially, the body and mind begin to reorganize to meet the ever-present threat. Unfortunately, we don’t always reorganize in a way that helps us in the long run or feels particularly good. For our brains and bodies, it’s about one thing and one thing only: our survival.
Over time, an internal algorithm is created in the brain, body, and nervous system: we are exposed to a trigger or experience the onset of a symptom, and a cascade of chemical, physiological, and emotional reactions is automatically triggered in a fraction of a second. Emotions run high, thoughts start swirling, discomfort increases, and the neural pathways connecting things like fear, grief, hopelessness, frustration, and physical symptoms are strengthened.
The wonderful thing about neuroplasticity is that you own more of this process than you might imagine, especially when it comes to navigating habitual thoughts and responses, distress and overwhelm.
Neuroplasticity means you have more power than you think
It is clear that these processes can seem large, automatic and out of control, but this is not the whole picture. The wonderful thing about neuroplasticity is that you own more of this process than you might imagine, especially when it comes to navigating habitual thoughts and responses, distress and overwhelm.
This is where mindfulness and hypnosis can provide real support. Both practices help you notice when alarms are starting to go off so you can interrupt the cascade of reactivity and learn to redirect it. Through relaxation, breathingfocused attention, visualization and active work with the subconscious, you can begin to support the nervous system and create a space where triggers, symptoms and recurring attitudes and thoughts can be met and worked with.
The more you practice cultivating and resting in qualities like safety, compassion, kindness, and relaxation, the more they become ingrained and automatic. Just as you have strengthened the muscles of stress and overwhelm, you can strengthen the muscles of ease, trust and permission to rest and take care of yourself.
One of my clients described this process as being able to access her “own little sanctuary”—a place where, even in the midst of years of complex illness, she can rest, remember her wholeness, and feel relief. As a result, her sleep has improved significantly, as has her overall sense of hope, personal strength, and well-being.
Appeal to the whole person
Of course, this is not to think that we can simply “think” about a condition that requires treatment. These practices are best used in conjunction with health care because they allow us to navigate the full spectrum of our experience, from the stress of appointments and treatment protocols to changes in our relationship and a career to celebrate wins and progress as they come. Living with pain and illness affects our bodies, but also our identity, spirituality, and worldview. These practices can enable us to show for all its parts.
Adding meditation and hypnosis to our chronic illness treatment regimen can show us that we have more power than we think: the ability to interrupt familiar thought cycles, create moments of relief and inner security, and even change the emotions, beliefs, and patterns that can make living with a chronic illness seem more difficult than it already is.
Adding meditation and hypnosis to our chronic disease treatment regimen can show us that we have more power than we think: the ability to interrupt familiar thought cycles, create moments of relief and internal securityand even change the emotions, beliefs, and patterns that can make living with a chronic illness more difficult than it already is.
It is so powerful because in the type of states of mind accessible through meditation and hypnosis, the mind becomes more flexible, creative and adaptive. Early, actually research suggests that mind-body practices such as meditation and hypnosis may influence brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF), a molecule associated with neuroplasticity, learning, pain modulation, and the ability of the nervous system to adapt in response to stress.
When we add these practices to our toolkit, we collaborate with the subconscious mind so that we can reframe our relationship to illness from the inside out.
