030 Healing the Heart Katina Makiris

From the creators of Lyme Voice and Disappearing from Society comes a brilliantly simple idea, but this time it comes as a book. Imagine a world in which birds can talk like people. You'll get a bird's-eye view of life with Lyme disease as one bird family must unite to overcome the obstacles of life with Lyme disease. Guaranteed to make you laugh and dry. Written in a way that helps you articulate the losses you are experiencing as a household while simultaneously empowering you to keep fighting. Little Bite, Big Trouble is available today at Amazon.com.

By giving up, you know, some of the things that we have held on to so tightly and learning to trust and to let go, it's like letting go of one trapeze bar and reaching for another. There's a moment in there where you think, oh my God, I'm in free fall and there's nothing to hold on to, but just reach for that next trapeze bar because I promise you, gifts are born of this illness and they are beautiful and you will contribute to the world in ways you never thought you would.

Congratulations, Lyme Fighter! Today you had the courage to open your eyes and face another day. Welcome to Lyme Voice. This show's purpose is to help you put the puzzle pieces of Lyme into place. Each episode is designed to inspire, educate, and encourage you on your Lyme journey to wellness. Together we will fight. Together we will heal. Together we will live. Here are your hosts, Aaron and Sarah Sanchez.

Welcome back to episode 3 of our in-depth discussion with Katina Makris, author and speaker. Really glad to have had the opportunity to talk to, to Katina. I mean, it was such an encouraging interview. I mean, every time we've either talked to her or met with her in person, it's just been an amazing time. But Sarah, what stuck out to you from this interview?

I think the thing, kind of my takeaway from it, was just giving myself permission to need vast amounts of rest. I don't want to need vast amounts of rest, but there's just weeks like this week I put my kids on the bus all 3 days and had to go right back to sleep, and I've kind of structured my life to where Nothing happens before noon. I don't make appointments before noon. I don't schedule anything if I have to go back to sleep. And I think for a lot of years, I never ever gave myself permission to need rest or resources the way I have.

Yeah. Yeah, 'cause it's inconvenient. I mean—

Oh yeah.

Life does not operate at Lyme time.

Yeah.

It doesn't give allowance for that. Yeah.

But to not— to almost like be okay with it, like that's what my body needs. And I can feel it. I'm like, okay, I have to sit really still today.

Mm-hmm.

And that's okay.

Yeah, and I think her book and her message and Do That, they give you validation, you know, even from— I said this during the interview, but even from the husband's side, it was helpful to hear her descriptions because it really painted the picture for me. In a way that, um, you wouldn't know unless you've walked it. And so for you husbands out there who— or wives, or wives, yeah, or partners or spouses, your significant other who may be the healthy one, the caretaker in the situation, parents, yeah, kids taken care of, yeah, the list can go on. This is a helpful to understand what it's like to be trapped within this illness. All of her books and all of her resources really simply do a great job of that. And you will be blessed by reading and investigating her work and reading her book.

Well, it makes sense too. This just came to me. You know, our goal with LymeVoice has been to shine a light on the social-emotional aspect of the disease. In her book, she said in her first interview that her book, she wrote it from the emotional side of the disease. And so it makes sense that she, she's a good fit with us.

I'm gonna wrap up the conversation, but there's some really good points. And again, I'm glad we separated into 3 because even for me to digest the conversation, it really helped to break it up into 3 parts. It's one of the benefits of doing the editing is you really get to examine these interviews really well. So if you haven't had a chance to go back through some of our interviews, please do. You will gain new information. I always do, and I was there for the original interview.

I know, I know. I listen— I feel like after we do the interview, I go back and usually listen at least twice to really absorb what's being said.

Yeah, so please do that, and then subscribe and like us on Facebook. If you subscribe to us on either Stitcher or iTunes, Every time we release a new episode, it'll get right to your inbox and you'll have notifications so you don't miss any episodes. Also, one last thing, we did a little fun part, kind of tried to make it a little more entertaining and not just serious. So that, that explains the first, uh, little clip you're going to hear, and then we'll roll into the interview. And make sure you stay tuned to the last part where she talks about some of the upcoming events. We'll have some of those links at Line Voice that you can look those up. Of course, her book links, they'll be there as well.

We love hearing from you guys, and I'm typically on Facebook and email. We love hearing how Lion Voice has impacted you. So I just want to give a shout out to a new listener, Teresa Christiansen in Indiana. Just thank you guys for contacting us because it makes the endeavor more worthwhile to hear that it's impacting you. And I think it's encouraging for us because I was for so many years very alone with my pain and had no answers. And so when people contact us, I know that they're no longer alone. I mean, we can't, we can't solve each other's problems, but we're not alone.

Mm-hmm. Yeah, we got a friend of ours, Jen Mooney, contact us, and she's actually a new friend through the podcast. Yeah, a new friend through the podcast, and she was listening to our kid episode. I believe it's episode 8. In that episode, Nathan was— our son Nathan, who actually happens to be the same name as Jen's boy, uh, Nate. Our Nathan was talking about eating goldfish. Jen described the situation as her Nathan being very confused at why anyone would eat goldfish. And the reason being is he had been gluten-free his life and didn't know what Goldfish crackers were. So when Nathan was describing eating Goldfish, he didn't quite understand why anybody thought they were eating goldfish.

Goldfish.

Literal goldfish. Great meeting you, Jen. Hope that the rest of you guys can get a hold of us if you want. You can find our information. My email is aaronlsanchez@gmail.com. I can be contacted there. And then you can look us up at LymeVoice on, on Facebook. But we'd love to hear from you, so if you get a chance, look us up and give us a shout. Hope you enjoy this week's episode, and we'll talk to you soon.

All right, what do you think it costs to effectively treat Lyme disease? Per person.

Financially?

Yeah.

$35,000.

How important is community?

Very.

What is your favorite junk food?

Potato chips.

What is one thing that you should do every day?

Sit in silence.

What is your favorite TV series right now?

Oh, I don't watch television.

There we go, no TV. How would you describe your readers?

My readers are seeking knowledge and inspiration. Okay.

What is your go-to immunity booster?

Probably quercetin.

Who is currently your favorite author?

My favorite author? Gosh, so many great authors out there. I would say probably my teacher, Meredith Young Sowers.

All right, Katina, thank you so much. I have really enjoyed talking to you. I wish you could see my smile through the computer.

Yay! Smiling right back to you.

I think the, you know, another one of the hard realities is that this process of healing your mind, I think, really can't begin until your symptoms are under control. And for me, like, once I was out of pain, then I was able to kind of process through things and start kind of comprehending the losses. But I felt like, like I'd already fought so hard and I'd already gone through so many years and then 2 years of treatment and then, oh my gosh, I'm still not better. Not all the way. It's daunting because I'm like, man, I already gave a lot of my fight to get to this point.

I know. I know, but you know what? The wellspring inside of us at the level of spirit is never-ending. This is where meditation and prayer really come in so strongly because I am now trained as a certified intuitive and spiritual healer. I did go through the whole training program and certification process. I have to say that meditation is an act of receiving. We learn how to let go of thinking and push thoughts out of our mind, like to just clear it. Just follow your breath. Just stay attuned. You just put your mind's eye on your breathing. It's a very simple way to start meditation. When we can just get into that kind of state of being, okay, we're just being there, we're being still, we're being just present with ourselves, we engage the parasympathetic side of the nervous system, which is the relaxing side. It's not the fight-or-flight side of the sympathetic. So when we start to learn how to just be and to sort of be in stillness and to be in that meditative state, what starts to happen over time is you actually start to receive What you receive is pearls of wisdom or what I call divine guidance. These messages drop down. These ahas come in. What I would do is I would just pick up a journal after my 10 minutes of meditation or 30 minutes and I would just write. I don't even know what I was going to write. Some of it was random. Some of it was like a pearl like we just said, an aha. Some of it was me releasing an emotion. But it really starts to work. And then the other, you know, the other piece of it is prayer. And prayer is ancient, and it goes back to like every culture and every religion. And prayer, when you use prayer, are able to sit with yourself and just ask for guidance or protection or direction or a healer or something for love, just that simple act of asking for something of higher good, you're drawing down from above, from a higher— you know what I mean? The higher dimensions, from the God plane. Yeah, you're drawing down really good energy. So, you know, we can start to use these inner resources that we bear at the level of spirit that are endless. Prayer and meditation and self-affirmations, you know, positive statements like, "I am strong. I am healthy. I am resilient. I am creative. I am 100% well." I mean, positive affirmation statements. These are energy forms that do a world of good and And I know, I hear you, Sarah. I mean, fighting the battle at the physical level and the doctors and the drugs and the pills and the procedures and the— oh my God, the 67 supplements and, you know, 3, 4, 5 times a day and between foods or with foods or not with foods or at bedtime. I mean, it gets crazy. It does. It gets crazy. But then when you can embrace this state of Stillness. And I really, I love to teach this in my workshop. It's one of my favorite pieces, is this module of helping people create their own little inner temple. I call it their inner Eden. This is really powerful healing work when you can work on the inside, learning to work on the inside and to tap into these inner powers is it— this for me was, and still to this day I believe is what keeps me healthy, is maintaining those inner riches.

Yeah, I think it's so important. It's one of those keys or one of those tools that you have to hold on to because, you know, not everybody is going to agree with every medical philosophy, or— but when you look at all the books that are out there and the people that are getting better they're all saying, you know, along the same line of that energy has to come from within yourself. Like, you have to speak life into your own existence, um, to counteract all that has been going on or been taken away. And everybody is saying it over and over. You've got to. Yeah.

And if you think of the big, um, motivational speakers or the, you know, renowned healers, you think of Deepak Chopra or Andrew Weil or Marianne Williamson or Carolyn Mace. I mean, we are all saying something, you know, very similar, maybe slightly different twist. Louise Hay, the inner healer is, is an enormous ally, and we all have an inner healer. And our healthcare system, as we said, post-World War II taught us to reach out and and to seek a doctor who could give us a medicine or fix-it procedure and pop a pill or, you know, a quick this or that, and then you're on your merry way, right? And that, you know, does work for poison ivy, or it does work, you know, you know, for some other things, ear infection, etc. But with the world right now in a state of really chronic illness and the This is the epidemic of the 21st century. The Lyme disease epidemic is the infectious illness epidemic of the 21st century. If you look back historically, every 30, 35 years, we see an infectious illness rip across modern society. It was AIDS in the '80s. It was polio before that. It was diphtheria before that, tuberculosis, malaria, yellow fever. You can look back, smallpox, I mean, just about approximately, you know, 30, 40 years Something rips across the population. It kills and maims hundreds of thousands, if not millions, right? Then it takes a while. It takes a couple of decades for medical science to catch on to it and they find a vaccine or a medicine or a sanitary measure or something to arrest it. AIDS and Lyme unfortunately both appeared at the same time. AIDS scared the hell out of us, right, because we had friends dying, at least I did. I was in New York and it was frightening and medical science went there and they figured it out. We know people now that have HIV that live quality lives. Lyme, we thought at the time, they thought it was just a short-term infectious illness, 2 weeks of antibiotics, that should be the end of it. Most blood-borne infections, most things like that, just a few weeks of antibiotics should be the end of the story. But we didn't give it the attention it needed. It just got squirreled away, as I said, in that little category, and they didn't come up with more research on it. They didn't find better diagnostic testing. They just kind of loped it into that little, you know, spectrum. And now here we are 40 years later, and we're looking at at a horrific situation that has like this organism is like pirated its way into our backyards and into our homes and we've got now multiple generations because pregnant mothers can pass it to the fetus and now we see learning disabilities and autism and all kinds of consequential— Right. Yeah. Oh my God. It's frightening and we don't have a good diagnostic test. I'm sorry, the ELISA test with a 70% inaccuracy rate to me should not even be on the market. It should be off. Igenex is doing much better, but most people don't even know how to reach Igenex Labs. The average medical doctor, I say they're driving in the dark. They're only given 15 minutes of Lyme education in medical school. It's a short-term infectious illness, and if they get on the CDC or infectious disease website, what do they find? They just find the bare bones. Here we are, we're behind the curves, doctors are driving in the dark, we have an outdated test, we have like no screening, you know, for it, and we're not even teaching in public schools and in summer camps how to do prevention. So there's a lot of work that needs to be done. As you can tell, I'm passionate about it. You two are too. I have hopes of an antigen test that's being run at the University of Pennsylvania right now, which would be a urine test with a 48-hour a result, which could be a huge breakthrough for us instead of waiting weeks on an antibody test. So, you know, I think the tides are gonna change. You know, I wish it could be tomorrow. Like you said, we all want to be better tomorrow, but 15% of us have faulty— well, I don't want to say faulty. 15% of the population has genetic predisposition for this illness to become chronic like you and I, Sarah. My son has the same genetic mutation flaws too, like if you— that 23andMe genome testing. 15% of us, 20% of us are set up unfortunately to be predisposed for the organism to replicate rampantly in us. A lot of people can get infected and they just have mild cases or they just have a nagging, you know, back thing or knee thing or headaches or etc. But You know, we need more studies, we need more research, we need a lot of work to be done. I hope it comes. And the private sector right now is the one that's funding the money for it, so, you know, we're in a tough spot.

Right.

Hmm.

It's interesting, you know, you can't separate body, mind, and spirit. No. And yet, for years as I would go into the doctors and be like, I'm still in pain, something's very wrong. And they'd tell me, well, you're depressed because you have too many kids, or, you know, all this garbage. And I just think of my little dog, like when he gets a sticker in his paw, he limps all over and it's really pathetic. And right away I'm like, oh, poor Coco, you know. But so many of us are limping through life and it's just as if the medical community is kind of like, I don't know what your problem is, like you should be better because you took this one pill. And yet that's, you know, the actual medication is such a small percentage of really healing at a soul level, healing at a cellular level where you're healthy from the inside out. So it does sometimes seem insurmountable in the sense of, like you said, the education process is wide and deep that has to happen.

Wide and deep. And thank God for the support groups. Oh my gosh. Phyllis Mervine, LymeDisease.org, founded the first support group out in California. Thank God for the support groups around this country. I go and speak with them all the time and they are holding lives together, these support groups. It is the only place of resource right now where people can find some kind of hope, really, or when you meet a survivor like me who has made it through the other side and realize, whoa, if Katina did it and it took her 5 years of treatments and, you know, she had to sell her house and give up all of these things in order to get well, deal with mold remediation and all of these detoxifications and body, mind, and spirit. I went through a huge amount of work of emotional and spiritual transformation. We used to have vision quests, we used to have pilgrimage walks, we used to have pieces of our culture that asked asked us to remove ourselves from, you know, our habitat and our structures and our routines and asked us to take time outs and to seek contemplation and to look at how we needed to do so-called house cleaning at emotional levels, spiritual levels, physical levels. And like we mentioned with the annual fastings. We don't have that anymore. People barely go to church on a Sunday, which was a time of sanctuary. So, you know, body, mind, and spirit, it's sad to say, but it's a crisis often like this that asks us to make the journey. I call it Persephone's journey to the underworld. You— we didn't have to make the journey. The only way out is through, and it's, it's tragic, but we need to let go. Often we have to let go of some of the things we love the most. Like, I had to let go of my home, I had to let go of my career. I remember the day I burned— I was 7 years sick and I burned all my homeopathic vials because I never I would practice again. I never thought I would work again. I prayed that I would live long enough to see my son be 18 years old and be a man and graduate from high school. There's a certain amount of death that happens to us in this journey, and as I said, our culture is really not set up for that process. And it's hard, and it really helps when you have a friend or a counselor or a religious support network or a spiritual healer or somebody that can be there with you as you die to your old life. And I have to tell you, the gifts that are born on the other side are magnificent. I mean, my treasure chest of life now is so rich. I mean, who would ever have dreamed that I would become an inspirational speaker, a Lyme disease educator, a radio host, an author of 2 books, a workshop leader? I never believed any of this. I was perfectly content with my hometown practice as a homeopath. Raising families and youngsters with homeopathic medicine. I thought it was a beautiful life in a small community. But what has come from this, I mean, the scope of the people I meet, the thousands of people that I meet every year, the hands I hold, the hearts I touch, the new friends I've made, the support groups I work with, the countries I've visited. I mean, it is profound. And, you know, I want to give this message of hope to all of you. There is something inside of you there is a pearl inside of you that is yours. It is your very precious pearl that you are meant to bring to this world. And your pearl can take any form. We are each unique. And, you know, mine has come through this medium of communication and teaching and speaking, but your pearl could be anything. It could be working with young children. I mean, each of us bear a dream and we have a gift, and it's yours to bring to the world. And holding on to what you're supposed to do or expected to do, or, you know, that's been sort of patterned into you, does not have to be all that you are. You're so much bigger than that. Our spirits are beautiful, and they are mighty, and they're strong, and they're brave, and they're beautiful. And By giving up, you know, some of the things that we have held on to so tightly and learning to trust and to let go, it's like letting go of one trapeze bar and reaching for another. There's a moment in there where you think, "Oh my God, I'm in free fall and there's nothing to hold on to," but just reach for that next trapeze bar because I promise you, gifts are born of this illness and they are beautiful and you will contribute to the world in ways you never thought you would.

I think you're right, because I mean, that was what the feeling at Omega was. There's, you know, hundreds of people who have been, who have been abandoned, broken, ignored, divorced, bankrupted. You know, there's all these hurts and losses, and yet people who were on the other side of them not that those losses don't matter, but that, you know, you— it just teaches you to kind of move forward and focus your energies on what is truly important, and that changes the trajectory of your life in the process.

Most definitely. I agree with you 100%. And I remember the publisher of my first book, Out of the Woods, when I was first picked up after I had been a year pounding the pavements trying to find a publisher. He said to me, Katina, he said he'd read my manuscript and he called me and he says, I want to publish this book because you're the example of what we call a thriver. Yeah. And I said, a thriver? What's a thriver? And he says, well, we all know survivors. He says survivors They pull through. He says they do not allow themselves to succumb to their situation no matter what it is—an illness, a house fire, a bankruptcy, a war. He says they see themselves in a better place down the line. They see themselves reunited with loved ones or continuing their life in some way. Survivors see down the line. They don't just wallow in the present. We all know survivors, he says, but we also know survivors that bear scars and they're bitter and they can't let go of the past and they've made it but they bear the wounds. He says, but thrivers move beyond their self. They move beyond the ego and they contribute to mankind in some way. Thrivers expand beyond the self. Thrivers no longer live in the place of ego but live in a place of universal love. And he says, your story so exemplifies that. He says, we have to publish this book because we have to bring this message. He says, this is what life is about. He says, this is why we are on this planet, is to contribute and to share and to care and to love. And so I felt so blessed in those moments, besides the fact that he picked up my book to help me publish it. He gave me— I felt like a blessing, like, wow, I made it through this horrific odyssey, this Persephone's journey into the underworld and out the other side now. And like you two with your radio show, I mean, you're contributing to mankind. I mean, this is beautiful. This is powerful what you're doing. I mean, you're helping others with information, with insight, with knowledge to reach beyond themselves and to believe in the magic of living and their contribution to mankind. So thank you for having me on air with you and for helping me bring some of my insights to the world. I don't bear all the knowledge I wish I could have. Every day is a learning experience still for all of us. But thank you for having me and also for continuing to broadcast because this is important. Important work you're doing.

Katina, you have a number of projects you're working on currently. Tell us about your new radio show and bringing your healing workshops to people all over the world.

Oh yes, thank you, Aaron. Yeah, you know, a lot of creativity is still flowing through me in great abundance. So a new radio show in the making with Genesis Communication Network is going to be launched probably in the spring of 2016. It's going to be Healing with Katina, and we're going to be visiting with all kinds of specialists regarding healing and natural medicine and integrative medicine so that chronic illness does not have to be present in everybody's lives. So stay tuned for that. And I've got two beautiful manuscripts in the making that will be following up my latest release, Autoimmune Illness and Lyme Disease Recovery Guide. I've got 2 books of spiritual teachings. They're lovely. They were basically given to me during my times of meditation. Great pearls of insight. One is called In the Cathedral of Winter, messages delivered to me one beautiful winter, be layered with gorgeous photography. And another book coming called Life Lessons, which are, again, spiritual gifts given to me in my meditations, kind of akin to some of the works of Pema Chödrön and the like. I love them. They're lovely and of great far-reaching merit that I think a lot of people will enjoy our workshops that I'll be co-teaching. Some are Lyme disease specific. Living Well with Lyme Disease will be at Omega Institute June 17th and 19th through 19th. And also I'll be teaching with Dr. Edie Restow, who's a wonderful naturopath from the West Coast. We'll be teaching at the Feather Pipe Ranch in Montana last week of May 1st week of June, Lyme disease detox and renewal, which is fantastic. We will be cleansing the body and also then using bio-meridian testing and other methodologies to find out where your depletions are and specifically tailor-make nutritional diet and supplementation program with homeopathics and nutritionals and herbals for each person. So you come home with a whole protocol that is tailored just to you. And yeah, really exciting. Probably also be hosting it in the fall in a New England location. So it'll be those 3 great Lyme disease-specific workshops. And then with a brilliant— a colleague of mine, Suzanne Kingsbury, we are leading also at Omega Institute, June 19th to 21st, Inner Eden: Reclaiming Your Inner Healer. This is a 5-day workshop where we will be working on the inner healer that I have spoken about today in the interview. I will be teaching you how to ignite the mind-body healing pathway, and Suzanne, who's a gifted writer, has a method called the Gateless Writing Technique. So we will be working on the inside, both— through meditation and guided visualization and writing, how to empower your inner healer to bring forth your strongest immune function and healing ability. It's patented work. It's really profound. We'll be bringing that workshop, the Inner Eden Workshop, around the country and around the world, actually. We'll be bringing it to the West Coast and also up to Canada and over to Europe. Lastly, a conference along the same idea of the Omega workshop, Living Well with Lyme Disease, I'll be bringing to Canada, to Toronto in the fall. That will be with Lyme Ontario. Keep attuned to my webpage, which is katinamacris.com. My schedule will be up there. The workshops will be there. And there's also the Ticked Off Music Festivals, which I can't not mention. Wonderful philanthropic events that we host all around the country. We've got Ticked Off Hawaii, January 23rd in Honolulu. We've got Ticked Off San Francisco, October 8th. We've got Ticked Off Toronto, which is actually going to be in June of 2017. We bring together absolutely stunning speakers and great musical acts. Music is a great unifier. So yeah, raising for Lyme disease, we've got a great patient fund to help people get financial support for their treatments through the scholarship program of the Ticked Off Music Festival. So Google tickedoffmusicfest.com and come to the festivals. They're dynamite. They're a great feel-good day. We've got music, we've got educators, we've got all kinds of wonderful things. So I'm involved in a lot of projects. Yeah, you are. I hope to see you out on the road with me at any of the workshops. And of course, visit my website for more information, katinamakris.com. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you. I didn't know about those Ticked Off music festivals.

That sounds awesome. Dynamite! You should interview Greg Kirk. Okay. Greg K-I-R-K, about the music festivals. He's the founder of them and I'm a co-director. They're really dynamite. Awesome! We've done 5 now. We get big names at them too, like Les Stroud, Survivorman, and we get big acts. Cool! Really, yeah, they're really dynamite.

Yeah, I will contact him. We'd love to start showing up at some of those things. Yeah!

Yes, you would love it. You should show up with them. Yeah, the San Francisco one you should put on the calendar, October 8th. Okay. Yeah. Yeah, for sure.

Well, if they ever need a small podcaster to play a kazoo or something up on stage, you just let me know.

Right, I know. So, well, thank you guys. Thank you. It was a beautiful time with you. I know we covered a lot of ground. I'm hoping will help a lot. Thanks.

Yeah. So I have one question for you before we wrap up here, and you'll laugh because I wrote it before we had even talked, and it's about healing the spirit. And so I just want you to kind of give us your— obviously, people should go out and read the book and get all the information that you painstakingly put in there. But as far as healing the spirit, what I know, it begins with daily decorations. There's an element of needing, you know, your symptoms to be at a certain level. But I feel like one of the things that I wrestle with coming out the other side is I'm a different person, but I can't tell if I'm different. Like, I'm not as verbal and I would like to communicate more. But part of me, I'm like, am I just different, like calmer? Or have I just kind of let fatigue kind of rule the day? Does that make sense? Like, I can't kind of figure out if this kind of new calmer quietness is part of me moving forward permanently, or if it's just temporary.

Well, I hear a couple of different things there. What you're saying. So what I believe, in part of what you're just inquiring about, is what I call the art of being, or the act of being. The first chakra of our body, which is down by our coccyx area, rules the muscular— rules the skeletal system of the body, the bones, and the energy diad of this part of our root chakra, which is kind of our base, is the act of doing and the act of being. And as we discussed earlier in the program, our society is very geared up to doing. Yeah, we get up, we get going, we go to work, we get the kids off to school, we manage our days, we have errands, we fix you know, and mend and tend and care. And we do a lot. We're very active. There's a lot of doing. But the act of being, that place of stillness, of quietude, is not encouraged very much anymore. So what I perceive, just in speaking with you, Sarah, is— and having experienced it myself through the journey of Lyme disease is that this place of stillness is very important for you. So that place of calm that you just mentioned to me, yeah, I would suggest you cultivate that place of calm. It's different than fatigue.

I know, but it's hard to discern sometimes.

It is, and it's okay if you don't, if you don't understand the difference right now. The importance, I think, is what I found is that taking that time out, even when I got well, I would still lie down every day for half an hour no matter what and close my eyes and be still. And I also feel beauty is very important. Beauty helps us maintain that place of stillness. So if you think of the Japanese Zen gardens, right? But, you know, the Buddhists are very attuned to life as a journey and is a path of enlightenment. And it's not just a Buddha that receives enlightenment. All of us are on a journey to receive enlightenment. And enlightenment really is a place of sanctuary, of quietude, of serenity. I love that word serenity because when you are serene, you basically have let go. You're not holding on to very much. When you meet an elder person with those beautiful clear eyes that have that quiet grace to them, they are serene, and they have lived through a lot of life storms. And in that process, they have learned to let go of a lot of the baggage, a lot of the damage, a lot of the chaos, and you see serenity. You see it in the eyes of a great masterful yogi. You'll see serenity in their eyes. You'll meet a very wise elder or priest or someone of wisdom and you see serenity. And serenity is what I feel this illness is actually showing us. When you finally can realize, oh my God, I don't have to fight these symptoms, or I don't have to worry so much about my treatments, when I can trust that the treatments are going to work, that I found a practitioner that I like, that I've built a support system around me, or I am building one around me. And when I can accept this journey and be in this place of stillness, even though sometimes I've got brain fog, you are on your path of enlightenment. And I know this might sound fantastical to some people in the throes of a vicious Lyme disease state when their body's wracked with pain, or I had those 4 and 5 days of meningitis migraines per week, you know, and I couldn't barely manage to, you know, get a bite of food down. You are on a journey, and this journey asks for personal transformation. And I believe this place of this act of being, not doing, This act of being is actually a calling, and we need to answer that calling because the only way out is through. So don't be afraid. I think it's fine for you to be there in that place of stillness, and if you're foggy some days, it doesn't matter. Just keep meditating or sit there with something beautiful, a daffodil in a vase, it will all start to come. It takes time. It takes time. It's not a quick fix. It's months. It's years sometimes. But healing the spirit is really, in the end, something you will be forever grateful for.

You know, it's interesting because you're saying serenity, and how I have perceived it is I would say I can hear my own voice.

In this sense. Beautiful.

Because pain takes away— the pain was so, for me, for so many years, over a decade, just constant that, and especially as my central nervous system went haywire, that's all I could hear. I couldn't hear my inner voice anymore. And I've told Aaron, I'm like, I have spent so many hours in the last 2 years pondering, sitting, thinking in ways that I can't ever imagine especially for me who's pretty active and likes activity. I can't imagine, and I appreciate it, you know, I'm still on the journey, but it's totally different than what I would have ever pictured unfolding in my life.

Oh gosh, and I agree with you because I was, and I, I mean, I have a lot of energy naturally, and I hear you. I was, I would I would never have gotten to this place. I would never have been able to articulate what I just said to you before I got sick because I was a doer. I had 2 practices going, a health column, a huge organic garden, young children, a small mini farm. I was just a doer and an excitement junkie. You know what I mean? I was just like, "Yeah, let's go hang gliding. You know, whatever, let's go scuba diving. Like, you know, hey, I haven't had a party in a month, let's have another party. Like, right, right, just like, like, live it, go. Like, hi. I mean, I'm, I'm, you know, I never would have been able to articulate what I just said to you. And it's all okay, you know, like, even now, if you met me, yeah, I'll go out dancing with my friends till 1 o'clock in the morning, or, you know, I'll I'll go speak at the Ticked Off Music Festival or I'll be at Omega teaching for 3 days straight, mic'd in, on cameras, right? That's not an easy job. I love it, but it's demanding. I still have the capacity to have that high energy wattage and work really hard, but I have also developed a very, very prominent internal life with a very strong sense of spirituality and care and attention to myself with my meditation, with my writing, with my swimming, with my quiet time, with my great reverence for the inner me because the inner me needs to be nourished just as my body needs to be nourished with those good wholesome foods that we talked about and cleansing and detoxing. I need to nourish my spirit, and I need to, you know, nourish my emotions too. I'm an extrovert, and I need people, and I need fun, and I need, you know, companionship. And, you know, so I know now what are the pieces that, you know, feed my body, feed my emotions, feed my mind, and feed my spirit. And it's unbelievable, but it took a treacherous illness like Lyme disease to teach me. And I'm sure I will still keep learning because life is filled with that, filled with learning. I'm happy to have a second chance at life, and I do not take it for granted. And I walk it with grace, and I walk it with pride, and I always ask for guidance and protection. So thank you for having me, and I, I hope that we gave your listeners some worthy information today and that I didn't overload them with too much medical knowledge, but that we gave them some inspiration because I, I do want you to believe in your happy, healthy, vibrant future. Yeah.

And you know what? And that's the thing that, you know, 2 years post-recovery is I think I'm figuring out is I've had to give up so much and yet they're coming back and I get the added bonus. Like, I think long-term you can have moments of serenity and enlightenment and still get to go do the fun and go dancing and skiing and all that stuff. And that, that's amazing. It is.

Yeah, it's beautiful. It's the yin and the yang. It's the night and the day. It's the external and the internal. And it's the balance. It's the balance point. And This illness, you know, is very much about that. It's finding that balance point within and without and, you know, at so many different levels. You're doing a great job, Sarah. I'm very proud of you. It sounds like you're really on your way.

Well, thank you, Katina. I'll exit right here. Ladies and gentlemen, Katina Hill. Therefore, wherever disease exists, life must also fight to exist.

Good job fighting, Lyme fighters! Keep it up. We'll see you next time. LymeVoice contains general information about medical conditions and treatments. The information is not advice and should not be treated as such. 'Kay, Lincoln? 'Kay. The medical information on LymeVoice is provided as is without any representations, warranties, expressed or implied. Okay, okay. Lion Voice makes no representations or warranties in relation to the medical information on this podcast. You must not rely on the information on this podcast as an alternative to medical advice from your doctor or other professional healthcare provider. If you have any specific questions about your medical matter, you should consult your doctor or other professional healthcare provider. And for you, you consult your parents, okay? Okay. If you think you may be suffering from any medical condition, you should seek immediate medical attention. You should never delay seeking medical advice, disregard medical advice, or discontinue medical treatment because of information on this podcast. Got it, Lincoln? Got it.

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