"Wired for Healing"

When I first started to write a column for the Kelowna Capital News in 2004, I never imagined how my life would change over the next 10 years. Nor could I imagine that my writing would influence people beyond Kelowna to reach readers worldwide in seven different languages.

In my early columns, I would address everyday emotional challenges that people might be experiencing and demonstrate how to identify thought, feeling and behaviour patterns that could be keeping them stuck in their lives. I would elaborate on what it is like to step into the ‘curious observer’ of self and identify underlying limiting beliefs. I would also describe how to look at life through a different set of lenses and gave my clients practical steps to help them move forward in concrete and practical ways.

In later years this skillset would help me to convey information about how everyday toxins in our home or work environment can cause brain trauma that is affecting millions of people on a global scale. Eventually, my experience and recovery from a limbic system injury in the brain would attract the attention of both patients and doctors worldwide in seeking a solution to often mysterious, invisible and chronic illnesses. The program that I went on to develop called the Dynamic Neural Retraining System has now helped thousands of people in 35 different countries to recover from illnesses that have baffled the medical system for decades.

If you would like to know more, the entire story is in the book that I just released called Wired for Healing; Remapping the Brain to Heal from Chronic and Mysterious Illnesses.

The following is the Introduction from the book.

 

“In order to tell you where I am now, it is equally important to tell you where I came from and the influences that have brought me to this gracious place in life.

My partner James has also had a first-hand experience with neuroplasticity. He was profoundly deaf when we first met. He had lost some of his hearing at the age of five from a reaction to penicillin. His hearing started to deteriorate in a big way in his late twenties. By the time James was in his late thirties, he was classified as profoundly deaf. He was forty when we met, and, at that time, he could no longer use a phone or follow any live conversation due to his hearing impairment.

Approximately two years after we started dating, James became the lucky recipient of a cochlear implant, which gave him the ability to hear again. What this means is that sound was now being received through electrical impulses. In a nutshell, his brain had to re-learn how to hear.

Two years after this, I had my own experience with neuroplasticity. I had suffered from a chemical brain injury that affected my limbic system, and my life quickly took a turn for the worse. Eventually, I did recover, and I will tell you all about this in the next chapter.

Through it all, James was there. He stood by my side through my darkest hours, and, for this, I am eternally grateful. Now he works tirelessly at helping me deliver information to the world.

As I said, when we first met, James was profoundly deaf. Neither one of us knew sign language, and, because we were in a long distance relationship, we communicated mostly through emails to each other and used notes when we were physically together. I highly recommend this practice in general to get to know your loved ones. For me, it was important that James really knew me, and by that, I mean the inner me. As a core belief counsellor and as a person who deeply values personal awareness, I was accustomed to having conversations that revolved around these topics. Amongst my inner circle of friends, our conversations covered such topics as personal awareness, descriptions of our inner terrain, and an understanding of ourselves and the world around us. For me, this is still like poetry for my soul. For James, however, this was like speaking a foreign language. In order to share my world with him, I had to be creative and learn how to break down complex information about my internal world into smaller, bite-size pieces. I needed to convey my message in a written format that reflected common sense and describe my message with concrete and practical examples.

This skill set became invaluable later on when I started to write a newspaper column called “Emotional Rescue” for the Kelowna Capital News. In my column, I would write about general life challenges and describe their commonly associated inner terrain. I would elaborate on how to become an internal observer of one’s inner self – how to identify emotions, thought processes, and resulting behaviour patterns. I would suggest ways to look at challenges from a different perspective, ways to foster compassion for self, and ways, through understanding and practical steps, to break habitual patterns in order to create a different outcome and avenues for greater understanding. Soon afterwards my column was also picked up by an Internet newspaper called Castanet.net.

Readers of my column would often comment on how my articles spoke directly to them. They would go so far as to clip the articles from the paper, collect them, or copy them and send them to their loved ones. My counselling practice grew tremendously as a result of this, and I was also invited to be a featured guest on local talk radio as an expert in emotional wellness.

Needless to say, my skill set of identifying and describing my inner terrain was invaluable during the recovery process from a limbic system injury. This has graciously allowed me to deliver a pivotal message of understanding limbic system dysfunction, the impact of the environment on brain function, and most importantly, the practical tools for recovery.

At one point during my journey with illness, I never could have imagined that I would be healthy again or successful again, nor could I have imagined that I would be in a position to help facilitate global healing or convey the importance of environmental awareness in this way. It never dawned on me that some day I would speak at brain injury conferences or speak to groups of medical doctors, educating them about limbic system dysfunction and the environment. In fact, there are times when I still do not feel like a proficient writer or a very eloquent speaker. I just know that I am an example of what it is like to suffer from a limbic system injury and that my experience and knowledge of rehabilitation can help millions of other people recover. This, I believe, is what I was born to do.

As it turns out, having the ability to relate my internal experience in an easily understood language, allowed me to communicate a greater message. I am extremely grateful for this gift and for all of the struggles that have led me to this place. It is from this humble place of knowing the fragility and vulnerability of being human and from the liberation that comes from healing, that I offer this book and my experience to you.

May your own liberation unfold in magical and beautiful ways."

 

It is with great honour that I can still reach local people and know that the message always has a global influence. To pre-order your copy of Wired for Healing; Remapping the Brain to Recover from Chronic and Mysterious Illnesses by Annie Hopper, please click here.

 

Annie Hopper is a Limbic System Rehabilitation Specialist and can be reached at www.dnrsystem.com

This article is written by or on behalf of an outsourced columnist and does not necessarily reflect the views of Castanet.