When shaman Kelley Harrell and I worked together in May 2015, only a few weeks had passed since my saliva test had left my home, winging its way to a special lab. At the time, I was deeply stressed, as I had been for many months. There was a particular situation in my life at that time where someone who had a little bit of power was intent on destroying a creative project I had built for what I can only assume he thought were all the right reasons. Unfortunately, he was succeeding in his efforts.
I had not been under any stress that bad in the previous decade and very seldom in my life. In short, something wonderful had happened in my life that wasn’t wonderful for him and we couldn’t both be happy. I was fighting for the life of something very important to me with no…what was the word for what I needed from someone, from anyone? Support?Back-up? No, that wasn’t quite it.
Kelley saw the stress immediately, saw the sharp edges, the hard stance of a fighter. She called on what I call my “entourage” for help. Almost everyone who has ever done this type of spiritual work with me has been surprised, sometimes stupefied, by the number of guides around me–whether they are guides, ancestors, or merely some aspect of my higher self. The point is, there seems to be a lot of them and they all talk all over each other, trying to make themselves heard to my benefit.
They were doing this to Kelley as well. Except that one was not trying to be heard.
One of my primary guides was taking a very passive role–sitting back, watching, maybe offering an occasional apathetic cheer, but doing nothing that was her job. And her job? Reinforcement. When Kelley said the word, it leapt off my tongue at the same time. It was exactly what I had been needing, for months and months, in my life. Reinforcement. My Gods, I was desperate for it.
Kelley took the guide aside and worked to heal her and to re-integrate her into me. I’m probably using the wrong words, but this is how it felt to me.
A few days after my work with Kelley, I began to feel better. Stronger, but still tired. And a few things started to break loose so that I did get the reinforcements I needed. Or, as one of the people reinforcing me said, “The cavalry is finally coming.”
My medical symptoms didn’t disappear entirely, but they were greatly lessened. As always, Kelley had given me plenty of insights to think about.
My doctor’s office sent me the results of my saliva test a week before my appointment. Although I was already feeling much better than I had at the point where I’d spit in a tube, I knew what the numbers meant. I’d seen them before, a few years back. They were lower than then.
“How are you even getting out of bed?” my doctor asked at my appointment.
“Uuuhhhhh…mind over matter,” I finally said.
“Mind over matter works a lot of the time. But, at some point, and this is one of them, you can’t just will your body to do everything you want it to do. It’s rebelling. Have you been under stress this last year?”
I answered with a laugh and muttered, “That would be an understatement.”
“Well, you’ve got to get out from under this stress–”
“Not possible,” I said.
“—or, we have to find a way to reinforce your adrenals. You’ve burned them out.”
Adrenal burnout, or adrenal fatigue, is a fancy way of saying there is a group of symptoms related to overtaxing your body, either through stress at work, at home, over-exercising.
But I knew all that already. To rebuild my adrenals, the doctor prescribed a bioidentical hormone cream at a much higher dosage than I would have expected and told me to go order Dr. Wilson’s adrenal stress supplements and an Adrenal C supplements, in addition to my so-called “executive stress” vitamins. We ended the appointment with the doctor telling me to lay off the sprints and P90X and instead stick with long, leisurely walks and a little bit of weightlifting, if I felt like it.
“I’m not going to give you anything new to do,” the doctor told me as I left. “I feel like anything I might tell you to add to your exercise or diet regimen would just be added stress right now.”
When I heard these words, I stopped cold in my tracks. They were word for word what Kelley had said to me at the end of our session.
I smiled as I left the doctor’s office. Reinforcements were already on the way. Yes! And the path had just been cleared for more support. My adrenals could heal now and the spirit guide in charge of “fight or flight” could get back in the game.
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