Common Problems to Heal / / Anxiety / My path through anxiety

My Path Through Anxiety

I have been meaning to write for a long time in more detail about my path to becoming an energy healer. And recently, more and more, I find myself sharing aspects of my journey with people in order to help them along their own paths, help them feel connected, to see that they are not alone in their journeys, and feel that there is hope when times are difficult.

I am also aware that it is scary putting your faith in some apparently random person on the internet, putting your energies in this person's hands, *especially* when there are (very, very sadly!!) so many scammers out there :( I have also fallen victim to a scammer, so I know how frightening and upsetting that can be. We really do have to be careful. Please see my blog for more information on one particular ongoing internet scam (article: 'A word of caution - scam alert').

So with this in mind, I feel in this age it is very important to tell you about myself, so that you know that I am a real person, with real issues, and a real journey :)

So... how did I become an energy healer?
Well, I reached a moment of crisis in life when I stood to lose everything I loved. As a result of a stream of severe panic attacks, I had completely shut down. I was caught up in a massive anxiety cycle that led me to be in excruciating physical pain, causing me to be afraid to leave the house, and eventually stopping me from being able to walk from one end of the house to the other because of the pain I was in. I found that any external stimulus would set off my pain, so I eventually could not communciate with anyone, my boyfriend (who I live with), my family or friends. I basically had to turn myself to stone in order to not feel pain!

How on earth did I get to this point?
A sequence of stressful circumstances led me to this crisis: an ongoing cycle of panic attacks and general anxiety, long-term debilitating financial strain, months and months of noise-disturbance from our neighbours (which then led to sleep-deprivation and great tension between myself and my boyfriend as a result), burn-out at work, and I had relatively recently finished reducing down my anti-depressants to zero (about 6 months previously).

I also am an empath - but at this time in my life I had no idea! (An empath is someone who unconsciously absorbs energy from those around them - so I was drawing in others' negative energies as well as battling with my own.)

I had bottled all of these stresses up and as a result my system was energetically overloaded (hence not being able to take any extra input, like communicating with other people), and I was shutting down in order to protect myself.

And how did I get out of this crisis?
The decision to get better, and a giant leap of faith
With some help from a dear friend who had recently trained as a cognitive behavioural therapist, I first made the decision to change the situation I was in. And to do this, I had to make the frightening decision to go on the scheduled holiday I had planned with my boyfriend. We were due to fly to Spain for a 10-day holiday just days after I reached the peak of my crisis! I had only flown once before in my life, so was nervous anyway, but remember that I had not left the house in ages and was so shut down I could barely speak or move.... let alone go to an airport full of people and get on a plane to a foreign country :-o

But I did it :) I found the strength within to fight how I was feeling. It was one of the most difficult things I've had to do in my life. But if I didn't take this step I knew everything would come crashing down. I knew I could not continue that way.

Once I'd made that first step, things gradually got easier. I had reached the bottom of the negative spiral I was stuck in, and now I was on the way up again :)

From here, while on holiday, I read a lot about cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) and anxiety disorders (from material given to me by my therapist friend), I wrote in a diary about everything I was feeling (so I could release everything from within) and I set goals for what I wanted to achieve. I even tried (and succeeded) swimming in the pool by our apartment - something I had a great phobia of all my life!

Once back from holiday I made an appointment immediately with a CBT therapist. I also started taking natural herbal remedies (rather than anti-depressants) to take the edge off how I was feeling so that I could cope enough to keep moving forwards.

Cognitive Behavioural Therapy and a return to myself
Therapy was a very interesting and eye-opening time, in more ways than one! I started to evaluate everything in my life and how I had got to this point over the years, from childhood (even from my time in the womb!) to this point I had reached. By the end of my therapy I had found my core issues I needed to work on, and had started to find ways to address and resolve these issues.

At the same time, therapy opened me back up to a side of myself that I had turned away from just before the pains and high anxiety had really kicked in in my life (when I was just 13 years old). Up to age 13, I found myself drawn to crystals, a pendulum, I-Ching and astrology. I was seeing a homeopath regularly, and had high hopes of becoming an alternative therapist at some point in my life.

Then for one reason or another I suddenly turned away from this side of me. And that's when my anxiety cycle set in. This was when I experienced my first physical pains as a result of my anxiety (which I later realised were panic attacks).

Between age 13 and my peak crisis at the end of my 20s, I went through months of being OK pain-wise, then suddenly I would have months of this excruciating pain returning. Each time these pain cycles occurred (after/during times of particular stress in my life) they would get worse and worse until finally the peak one came where I shut down.

This peak crisis was my body telling me to get back to that side of myself that I had ignored all these years! And CBT helped me realise this.

The positive spiral: Meditation, self-help and crystal healing
The first thing I did while in therapy was to look for a meditation group locally, as I needed to a) get out of the house and realise that society wasn't so scary ;) and b) find a means of relaxation. I 'just happened to be' told about a group that met once a week in rooms above a crystal shop :D A coincidence? I think not :) Next came another leap of faith (like getting on that plane to Spain) - I had to build up the courage to go out of the house to meet with a group of strangers and try out this new 'meditation experience'. This was still a huge deal for me as I was still struggling with my physical pains, panic attacks and anxiety disorders.

However, I did it :) I told myself I'd made it to Spain and back despite all my fears, so I could make it to a local group and back!

Once I had been to that first meditation group, everything started to move forward in a positive direction at a greater speed :) I was naturally drawn to all the beautiful crystals in the shop (and had an awesome grounding experience just picking up one crystal, hematite, on my first visit!), I found I could be out in public and communicate with people without being full of anxiety and pain, and I found the best way to relax and release my anxieties: meditation! And then combined meditation with crystals for an amazing combination!

The next stage in my healing I remember fondly :) It was summertime, and - feeling claustrophobic indoors - I'd sit out on the sun lounger in our back garden until late in the night, watching the stars, meditating and listening to self-help CDs on my walkman. This really opened up my mind to all the possibilities out there, what I could achieve with the power of my mind, and I received great guidance on how to continue my journey up this positive spiral. It was the beginning of an extremely enlightening time, and to be honest it has never ended, and I don't believe it will ever end :)

In time I began to have crystal healing myself from a local practitioner. This was when I opened the door on chakras, their meanings, and crystals. The day I learnt about chakras, was the day that everything started to fall into place for me about how I feel, why, and how to work on healing myself. I finally found some real answers where medical doctors for years had drawn a complete blank. My crystal healer introduced me to grounding (being connected to earth energies) around this time too, and this was immensely healing for me, and something I could do by myself between our sessions.

Turning my life around: Traning and Self-healing
As time went by I had the opportunity to take a course in crystal healing. At the same time I was desperately seeking a way out of my current job which was highly stressful and pretty diabolical financially - a major source of my anxiety. I didn't necessarily think that I would become a crystal healer, but I felt immensely drawn to take this crystal healing course. I felt I just *had* to do it for some reason.

At that first introductory workshop in crystal healing I knew that this was the answer I had been looking for. With just that first session, I began healing myself. And very soon afterwards, stopped seeing my local practitioner to focus on my studies and research into energy healing myself.

Through self-healing I was then able to make massive headway in my journey. Everything sped up ten-fold, and it was not long at all before I was able to stop taking the anti-anxiety herbal remedies I had been popping since that crisis time! I was able to replace the remedies with energy healing processes and changes in my state of mind. I was thrilled when I was finally completely pill free! :)

My new life as an energy healer
As the days turned into weeks and months, I then knew I had found my new profession: energy healing. I was 90% healed. I was virtually pain free, and any time I did feel a slight niggling pain begin I knew why it had happened and immediately handled it and the situation that had caused me to feel that way. I was finally on top of my anxiety, and feeling such a great new perspective on the world :)

With my anxiety under control, I could then set about changing the things in life that were causing the anxiety, and primarily that was my job. So there and then I launched FireBeans and within months I had quit my day job (thanks to my awesome marketing manager)!

Since then it has been a joy to work with so many people worldwide, helping them get rid of negative energy (from external sources) and heal inner energetic imbalances. It is the most amazing job to help others along their own spiritual jouneys and I love it :)

Today
My own spiritual journey of course continues day by day, and I continue to clear and heal myself, those I love and care for, and of course every one of my clients through FireBeans.

And with every day I learn more and more about energy healing - there is always more to learn and explore, it's wonderful :D

As I learn, I keep making so many new discoveries into our energies, how they work, why we feel and think the way we do, why certain things happen to us, and about external forces of energies (good and bad), which then leads to a constant stream of new healings and energy clearings I've developed as a result.

Your journey
If you would like to share your own experiences with me or would like assistance on your own spiritual journey, then please do get in touch with me, Katy, at Healing@FireBeans.com. I will be very happy to hear from you.

Love, light and blessings to you all,
Katy