JESSICA SARAH WELLNESS
Hi There, I'm Jessica!
I'm a wife, a mom to one son, a women's Chronic Illness coach, and a health blogger. I had been living with chronic symptoms for over a decade. My illness has taught me the true meaning of resilience, and to be honest it has been a blessing.
Yes, I did say blessing...It has opened up an entirely new world to encourage, guide and teach others.
I know all too well how chronic symptoms can affect your mind and body.
“What you seek is seeking you”
Rumi
My Story
On a beautiful winter's day, my life was turned completely upside down (literally). I woke up to debilitating dizziness, blurred vision, pain, fatigue, and anxiety. Up until this point, I considered myself a very healthy woman.
Fast forward a number of years, I was given a diagnosis: Vestibular Neuritis. After years of research, I incorporated mind-body exercises to begin to re-train my brain away from fear, which in turn healed my chronic symptoms.
I was told by numerous doctors that there was nothing more they could do for me. After years of research and education, I learned that no one else could actually heal me, I had the power to heal myself. I developed what was my new sense of normal and became a new version of myself. I realized I had other options besides just managing my symptoms each day.
This is what completely changed everything for me, my AHA moment!!
I learned that I could actually write a new healing story that would start to ease and shift my symptoms. Once I started to incorporate mind-body exercises, to begin to reinforce messages of safety to my brain, rather than fear, I committed to my new healing story, my symptoms began to heal after many long years, I was BACK!!
Now I choose how each day will be, and know that I can do anything that I put my mind to.
What are chronic symptoms? And why do so many of us have them?
Our brain can learn, change, and develop. It has a collection of what we call neurons (nerve cells and neural pathways) that talk to each other by short electrical bursts. The more that these neurons communicate, the more repetition, the more they get better at it.
An example of this is, learning to drive. The more you do it, the more the neurons connect and create learned pathways, which over time driving becomes second nature.
Chronic symptoms basically come from our brains learning a bad habit. When our brain experiences chronic symptoms that cause fear and stress, it puts the brain on high alert. Those neurons begin to communicate and work together, they make new pathways that continue to make the chronic symptoms.
Constantly having the brain on high alert makes it feel as if it's unsafe.
Many of us live in a world that is quite stressful. Whether that's from a stressful situation like.. losing a job, death of a loved one, an illness etc, or from early childhood trauma. Stress can come from many different places.
Certain behaviors and personality traits can also make us more susceptible to fear and stress,
