Transitions And Changes

Welcome to the Lyme Voice podcast and radio show. I'm your host, Sarah Slickdy, and this show, believe it or not, is not about illness, but about stories of hope and healing. I discuss the realities of getting a diagnosis of Lyme disease, finding treatment, and the journey through recovery with authors, advocates, MDs, survivors, and practitioners, with a special emphasis on the complex social and emotional aspects of life with a chronic illness. Together, we address the the medical and financial realities that impact households across the globe while simultaneously finding hope, strategies, and treatment plans. I acknowledge the suck factor of Lyme. It is an immensely heavy topic, but I have chosen time and time again to talk about it with authenticity and optimism in an effort to stay focused on what works and how to overcome. In my experience, and the very fact that you are listening to a podcast about Lyme means there is rarely anything simple about getting a diagnosis, finding effective effective treatments or restoring your mind, body, and spirit. It's just complicated. For years now, I've had the experience and privilege of talking with hundreds of patients and practitioners about all aspects of Lyme disease, and I can tell you that healing is possible. People are recovering and that there is a way through. And that's why I'm so glad you're joining me right now, because from this moment forward, you are no longer alone. Thank you for taking the time and energy to leave a review and subscribing. Means a lot to me to read those reviews. Anytime you find yourself in need of energy, courage, or hope, you can tune into Lyme Voice. I'm excited to bring you today's episode. Welcome to Lyme Voice Radio, where we talk about all things chronic illness. Lyme Voice is brought to you by Invita Medical. Over the last 20 years, Invita Medical Centers, located in Scottsdale, Arizona, has become a proud leader in precision research-based chronic Lyme disease testing and treatment. From advanced CLIA-validated next-generation sequence testing for Lyme disease and co-infection identification to treatment of all primary and secondary co-infections using patient-targeted anti-infectious therapy, immunotherapy, and the elimination of infectious neurotoxins. Invita's highly trained medical team and facilities provide the latest in research-based precision for the treatment of chronic Lyme disease and tick-borne associated infections, helping to transform patient lives for the better. Call to speak to one of their patient care coordinators today to see if Invita is right for you.

Welcome to today's episode of Lyme Voice. Today is a very unique episode because it's just me on the mic and I don't do this hardly ever. I'm not even going to tell you guys how much time I put into just talking over some stuff by myself. This episode is about transitions, and I have been podcasting about Lyme disease since 2015, and you all know this if you are listening to an episode podcast about Lyme. This is not an entertainment podcast. This is a utility podcast. It's meant to help people find information, get from one level to the next. And, but I don't, but people are not tuning into this for fun, in a sense. Not in a sense, they're not tuning into this for fun. Not a week goes by that I don't get a message from someone saying, "I called one of the practitioners I heard on your podcast." or, hey, I started doing ketamine IV because I heard your podcast. I knew I needed to make a decision to not commit suicide when I heard you talking about suicide on your podcast. Thank you for talking about medical PTSD because I feel alone in having experienced this and it's so confusing. I think one of the things that happens with chronic Lyme disease when it's not just a year or 5 years when you're hitting a decade and 15 years and you have caregiving situations going on. If you are sick enough, if you don't live a normal life, it can be hard for people to connect with you. Obviously, it's hard for you to connect with other people if you've got cognitive issues and immense suffering and seizures and ER visits. Like, you're just in a world that most people don't understand. And I feel like over the last 6 years, for me, choosing to talk about the confusion and the chaos of this illness, but then also the hope and the encouragement that can come, that is available, it's just been an interesting journey even for myself to have to talk about this or to continue to talk about things and So many of you, when you reach out, you're like, "Hey, I feel like I know you and you don't know me at all, but I feel like I know you and is that weird?" And especially when I'm doing a coaching call and I do get to know people. Having been on air has been both about Lyme, has been both very meaningful, which is what I set out for it to be, and also very difficult. And I've had to navigate my own journey in healing within continuing to talk about the trauma and the illness. And I know based on the analytics and feedback that I get that a lot of you find Lyme Voice and it's just this source of hope. It is a lifeline. I know I've got messages from you guys that say, hey, your voice is soothing to me. When I'm overwhelmed, when I feel like there's no hope, I tune into Lime Voice and I just listen because there's energy in your voice, there's hope in your voice. And like I had said, when you live this life that other people don't understand, and maybe your caregivers don't understand, your parents, your spouse, your kids, you lose that connection with life. And so I know Lime Voice gets to be this sense of connection, connection to hope, that things won't always be the way they are, connection to resources. And so for that, I love this podcast. I love what it brings to people, and I love getting to connect with guests, especially one-on-one when I'm doing coaching. Not just guests, but listeners, especially when I'm doing long-term coaching calls, because I really do— some of you guys, some of you listeners, you could— you have become dear friends to me. And that keeps things going, that makes it worthwhile. So you know that Aaron and I started the podcast together in 2015, and he has not been on air really in the last year and a half. His voice is there because it's pre-recorded, but Aaron and I have spent 2021 going through a divorce. And I know that that is hard for a lot of you to hear because you tune in and you listen, and you want things to work, and you want things to, um, pan out in the long run, even though there's been an immense amount of suffering and loss. And so it's interesting, just the feedback I've already gotten from some of you guys, like, just in a sense being disappointed because people look at our story and they say, okay, Sarah, you had 5 kids and you got through treatment. I've got 2. If you can do it, I can do it. Or, you got through treatment and/or didn't have a ton of resources or had to problem solve, and so if you can do it, then I can do it. And so I know for some of you listeners, knowing that Aaron and I are not gonna— are not together anymore is emotional because you want your own journeys, you want your own relationships to keep working. And that can— there's a ton of variations within each marriage as to why they stay or don't. And I've said this on air for years, that it only takes one person checking out in one area of life for your relationships to start falling apart. And that's just where we've been at. So felt the need to talk about that with you all because you have been on this journey with us through so many ups and downs. And if you are familiar with even the A couple years ago, I went through a reinfection and had to choose within getting reinfected and having spent so much time recovering to be— to say, okay, I'm not going to be a victim in this. I'm going to use the tools that I spent years developing and figure out how to get through this next phase faster. I know so many of you are making decisions that you're like, I don't want to do this, I don't want to implement it to your treatment program. I don't want to call the next physician and upload. I don't want to go pay for more labs. And yet I promise you, within this journey, whatever hard thing you have to learn how to deal with, if you do it and you face it and you embrace it and you take notes and you learn the lessons, it will make your life better. I don't even totally understand exactly how And there's so many different levels— financially, emotionally, socially, mentally, like cognitively. There's so many layers that have to be healed if you've been sick for a long, long time that it's not easy. But I promise you that whatever hard decision you are having to make right now, and I know they're there because I have a bunch of coaching clients I talk to every week who are making very difficult decisions. And so whatever situation that you are in, you can always take action. You can implement a mindset so that you can transform something that is not working in your life into something that does. If you can't heal your body, you can work on healing your spirit. If you're struggling, if your spirit is struggling, maybe you need to heal your mind. If your mind isn't working and you're struggling to heal your mind, there are so many things that you can do to move yourself, even if you are in a situation that is not working for you, move yourself in a direction that is. And when people tune in to Align Voice, they usually go back and listen to a bunch of episodes. They find it, they listen to a bunch of episodes, they feel a connection, they feel hope, and then they are empowered to take action, um, or just encouraged to keep taking the action they have. There also comes after people, and it's usually 2 or 3 years that people tune into Lyme Voice, and then they move on. And that's a really good thing because Lyme is traumatic, and people, and when they get to a point either of healing or restoration, it is time to move on. And in a great sense, especially from a coaching perspective, If I've done my job and done it well, then they move beyond the Lyme phase of their life and are getting into the healing side of life. So there's a quote that I want to read. It says, uh, moving away from trauma doesn't mean the damage never happened. It means it no longer controls you. And I think that that is a really powerful statement, and I want to talk about coaching with you guys. I don't promote it a ton because it's changed and transitioned over the years, but here's one of the things I've figured out in the 6 years of doing Lime Voice. I figured out what my strengths are and I figured out what my weaknesses are. So while this is a transformational episode with— it's going to have some good news and some hard news. So my strength— so last time I tallied up my coaching clients, so Coaching, one-on-one coaching starts at the beginning of every month and it usually goes 16 weeks. And if you are interested in coaching, you have to be at a place where you can do a once-a-week phone call. And I understand the ask of that because I understand people end up at the ER and have migraines and are struggling to to exist and make decisions that need to be made. But if you are not at a place where you can at least try to be on a call once a week, you're not ready for one-on-one coaching. And that has been the bulk of what I have done for the last year now is a lot of one-on-one coaching. It starts with a 2-hour call and then it's a once a week follow-up through those calls. The last time I, like I said, last time I calculated it or looked at my spreadsheet, I had over 300 one-on-one calls. So through that, I've learned so much about people, about myself, about moving forward, about trauma, um, and then continuing to do the work myself, having my own coaches, going to counseling, just trying to not let the trauma continue, but then also fulfill this endeavor of Lion Voice and what it means to people, because it is life-saving, it is life-altering. I see people heal, I see people walk out of the chaos, and and that's immense. And then there's just still a lot of trauma that has to go with it. So one of my strengths that I've found is conveying a sense of energy and hope to people, and I feel like I do that the best when I'm in a one-on-one coaching situation. And I've— that's the bulk of what I've done. So one of the things that is gonna shift, but that's also just very It's emotional and it's time-consuming. So one of the things that I have been working on is getting to a place where, in addition to one-on-one coaching, we're doing more organized group coaching. And not, not more organized, organized group coaching. So you'll find that information coming. One of my big takeaways and things that I'm so happy to talk about within this episode is the weakness, the biggest weakness that I have within this podcast is the social media posting. It literally makes me want to barf because you guys know this, this is a hard community. Social media is hard anyways. When you put yourself out there on a platform, 95% of the feedback I get is good and encouraging and amazing. And then there's, you know, just a lot of garbage. And when I post on social media especially, I just emotionally, emotionally, I can deal with the interviews and all the research and reading and the different physicians that I've interviewed. I actually love that. I love one-on-one coaching. I do not love posting on social media and getting pulled into— and even I'm pretty good at not getting pulled into it, but it's just emotionally draining. And there's other things that are more a better use of my time and energy. So I have wanted to do this and have been working towards this for about 3 years within LimeVoice, but just last month I hired editors and marketing people to help me take Lime Voice and do what I'm good at, but then let them do what I'm not good at, which is posting on social media. So you will see starting in August a bunch more social media because I hired my weaknesses and, um, am letting someone help me figure out the social media side of this. And a lot of podcasting— we were kind of an early adapter as in the podcasting realm. You know, everyone kind of has a podcast at this point I heard it is like having a rock band in the '80s, like everyone was part of a band or a music group in the '80s, and that's how podcasting is. But one of the things that happened during COVID is just the way we consume content has changed. And so I need to produce more content for Lion Voice, which I'm going to be doing. But I'm also— I've spent so many hours and hours and so many conversations talking to people about this because I love what I'm doing. I love talking on air. I love telling these stories. I love the stories. I love the overcoming aspects, um, of interviewing all these guests and authors and stuff. I also don't want to talk about Lyme forever and feel like I can't emotionally, um, because you listeners, you come in and you tune in and you make your decisions and you get more information, and then hopefully you move on. And that's what I want. And I'm trying to figure out for myself how I continue to do this and then meet my own needs for growth, my own needs to use my voice differently. So again, I've just spent tons of meetings. I've been in so many meetings with my very patient new editors and marketing people to help me figure out this transition. Obviously Aaron and I are going through a lot of transitions. My kids are all getting older, so we have transitions unfolding in in that realm. I don't have a bunch of little kids at home anymore. Lincoln is the youngest and he's now 13. So there's a lot of transitions, and I'm trying to figure out how to use what I have learned to go to the next level, to take that next step for me, even within my own voice. And so, like I said, like, it's been challenging to come on air and talk about within the hurts and the misunderstandings as far as like illness and how people act and how people, you know, I've said this many times, but like, I remember when I was juicing and when I implemented the Gerson protocol back in 2013, and I'm juicing and I have little kids and my house is a mess because I've only got like 30 to 50% of my normal energy, and I'm using all of it to juice and swallow supplements and like maybe just cook dinner. That was like the extent of what I could do. And So there's transitions. For me, there's family transitions unfolding, there's professional transitions unfolding because I want to do both. I want to take Lime Voice to the next level as far as making an impact, which is why I hired the social media people. But then I also want to use my voice in a different way for my own healing and my own journey. And, um, And I know so many of you have messaged me or texted me and that you have— you've listened to enough episodes that you can hear it in my voice. You can hear energy, you can hear insecurity, you can hear tears. God, there's been a lot of tears on this show. You can hear it. And I feel like that's one of the things I've learned is to learned and am learning how to harness energy through my voice and convey it in a way and tell the stories that I want to tell so that I, I keep moving forward as well. So there's another saying that says, um, if you've mastered suffering, you can master joy. And I have been through an immense amount of suffering not physically in the last few years. But like I've said on the show so many times, there's fight, heal, live, right? Fighting is the mindset piece, healing consists of choices, and then living is the outcome. So for Lyme Voice, while we will still be doing very specific episodes every month about Lyme, I am taking the bulk of my coaching calls and have assimilated it into really the things that light me up that I love talking about. And that's healing. That's healing on every level. And then that's the living aspect, because positive emotions don't just happen, you guys. Like, you don't get through treatment and your pain is less. Like, if you've been in this for years and years— I told Dr. Tallman when I was out at Invita back in 2013 he was talking, he said, "Sarah, I want you to say the words— here I am sitting in a wheelchair— 'I am perfect, whole, and complete just the way I am.'" And my dad's in the office with me and he's talking to me about this, like, mindset work. And I'm thinking, "What the heck?" Like, and I said it out loud, "I can't say that. I can't say, as I sit in this wheelchair in excruciating pain, not knowing if I'm going to live, that I am perfect, whole, and complete just the way I am." I cannot utter the words, and I couldn't. And that was years ago. And I feel like I am, through the lessons learned, through using my voice in hard situations, for following, in a sense, my own internal pathway of where I want to go, what I want to talk about, I am now at a place where I can say that out loud. And affirmations have been huge for me in the last year and a half in helping me make some decisions. But I can now say, "I am perfect, whole, and complete just the way I am," knowing that I am on a journey to figure myself out, to take myself to the next level. And what I'm so excited about with this fall moving forward is Lime Voice is going to be doing what it's always been doing, which is bringing you guys hope and healing. But it's because I have social media help, it's not going to be as emotional for me, um, as it has been. So I'm hoping I can be more available in different areas. It's just not going to be specifically tied to ongoing social media posts. So something happened last fall, which is why I keep talking about the social media posts. I've always struggled with this I really want to write and produce and tell the stories and talk with guests and do coaching calls, not post on social media. But, um, last fall, some of you know Michelle Hoover. I've mentioned her on the show at different times. She was, was a Lyme patient. They moved out to Scottsdale to go through Invita. She did. They have multiple people in their family that are sick, and she has healed to some extent and then gone downhill. Gone back downhill to some extent, and that's just the nature and reality of what this illness does. But I would consider her, um, a good friend at this point. You know, our friendship has been based on this— it's called a trauma bond. I don't know if you guys know this, but when you are connected to someone through a traumatic experience, you kind of have a trauma bond. And, um, so that's not necessarily a bad thing or a good thing, it's just something to be aware of that that sometimes those bonds, those friendships, have to keep adapting and changing as you adapt and change, because you don't want to be stuck in the trauma together, right? You want to heal and grow and move forward. But, um, and I have an immense amount of respect for Michelle and what she's done and how she's fought for herself and her family. But last fall, her daughter Trinity who has Lyme, had Lyme, passed away at the age of 26. And I was already struggling with social media, and when that happened, it hit me so hard that I've— it's been almost a year that I've really struggled to post at all. And I've spent hours, hours in counseling talking about this. Like, is it the trauma of the fact that she passed away and knowing, like, all that her family was trying to do for her and all of the medical PTSD that she was dealing with, like, it's so real, it's so confusing. And then simultaneously, like, like, I don't even know half the time why I'm alive. I don't know why I've healed and other people haven't. I don't know why some people are doing their due diligence, spending money, implementing all the diet stuff, and they're still suffering. So when you are watching people suffering, when you're watching people make hard decisions, and then they still pass away because of this illness that we're all still wrestling with, posting on social media just became something I could not do. And we will do an episode about Trinity at some point. In my file. I've spent hours actually already working on it, um, and have recorded a couple times and just haven't aired it. Haven't met my own expectations for that episode. I think this illness can take you so far past rock bottom of a normal life that you're longing for the good old days of rock bottom of a normal existence, and you're not in a normal existence, you're in a You're in the upside-down world of Lyme disease.

Hello friends, today's podcast is brought to you by these sponsors. Urbane Medical. Urbane Medical is a boutique ketamine infusion center located in sunny Scottsdale, Arizona. They provide a hospitable environment rather than a hospital environment.

They're eager to accommodate your family in any way they can during your time of healing. Ketamine can promote a sense of well-being, decreases brain fog, and reduces chronic nerve pain.

I interview the owner, Jonathan, in episode 109 for more information. I can attest to what a therapeutic environment they offer at Urbane Medical, and Jonathan Evertson, the owner, makes you feel safe and comfortable and also has some really fantastic playlists available upon request. I have seen with a number of my coaching clients that ketamine is a game changer on a number of levels. So if you are in the Scottsdale area, check out Urbane Medical. All right, now on to the show.

So I have been wrestling through my own divorce, the weight of watching people suffer, and trying to figure out how I continue to use my voice in a way that is meaningful, that does what it's been doing which is helping people connect, feel empowered, feel energized, feel hopeful, make hard decisions, and then also walk out the next phase of life for me, the next phase of using my voice. And I know this is, um, a heavy— this is a heavy episode, and I try not to make them heavy And I'm always evaluating if it's me adding a heaviness factor or if it's me lightening the heaviness factor and just the fact that it is so heavy that it hurts. Just the reality to so much of the decision-making and the suffering that goes on within this community. So you guys know this, but awareness happens for us in layers. Just like healing, healing happens in layers and it isn't linear awareness. Our awareness of who we are and what we want, where we want to go, happens in layers. And so that's been unfolding for me, and a lot of it's been on, on air because, because of my journey with Lyme disease. And, and while this stuff is heavy and real and hard. There's a beauty in facing hard things. There is— I called it, um, confronting dragons. And, uh, I haven't posted a picture of this yet, but last year I got this. I'm telling you guys like all sorts of stuff here, but you're gonna find out anyways. This has all been in the works for a while, but I've been writing my next book for about 18 months. And at first I thought going to be called You, My Friend, Are Worth Fighting For. That is in my— in the documentary that's online, voice.com, called Disappearing from Society. That's the last line and probably one of my favorites that says, you, my friend, are worth fighting for. And I tell that to people all the time in coaching sessions. I tell it to you guys on air. And that was the working title that I have had on this book for the next 18 months, or the last 18 months. And it's to some extent, a memoir, and to some extent, a self-help, and to some extent, how to survive, the suck factor of surviving. And, but last year, my son and I, Derek, who's 21, we got these— I have this huge dragon tattoo on my upper left thigh. And it's right where I got bit when I was 18. It was the place I had my bullseye rash, but it goes— it's pretty— I don't know, it's like an 18-inch tattoo that has both dragons and flowers on it. And my son and I got them not together. We don't have the same tattoos, but we use the same tattoo artist, and it was just this tattoo collaboration that him and I have. And it was really fun experience, and he had already picked out the tattoo artist, and then mine was a few months later. So through this process, I am texting, you know, you get pictures of what you want and like, and then you have to work with an artist that you like. But so I'm texting back and forth over a few weeks, um, and, you know, the whole thing was months in the making. But I'm texting back and forth with him and I'm explaining, I was like, oh well, I want it to be symbolic of like Fight Heal Live, of my journey with Lyme, of what I've gone through, of And at first I was just going to do the words "Fight, Heal, Live," and Derek, my son, kept saying, "Mom, haven't you heard the term 'a picture is worth a thousand words'? Like, a picture is going to be better." I'm like, "No, but I really like words. I really want 'Fight, Heal, Live' tattooed somewhere on my body to represent, like, what I've gone through and the overcoming factors." And but he got this dragon tattoo, we found this artist, so I was like, "Okay, I'm gonna get a dragon." Well, I'm texting the artist and We're sending pictures back and forth, and I said, well, I want it to be this really like, um, like a feminine dragon, but like a dragon, but like mostly flowers. So I want mostly flowers, but you know, a little dragon in there, like, or you know, a dragon, but not like this overwhelming dragon. And after a couple of weeks, he texted me and he goes, Sarah, he said, dragons don't play second fiddle to anything. And I was like, huh. And I learned this from Aaron. Aaron is an artist, was an artist for a long time, and he inlaid stone into wood in a really beautiful way. And he would say that like if people, clients came to him and gave him permission to be the artist that he is, like the pieces that they got were way better than if they just came in and controlled the situation and, you know, just told them what to do. So I, that was running in the back of my head of like I want to do what I want to do in collaboration with my son, and this represents my whole illness, but it also— like, I want him to be the artist. So when he said that, that dragons don't play second fiddle, I was like, you're right. So I'll post a picture of it at some point on social media here, um, but it's definitely gonna be in my book and my book is going to be called Become Your Own Damn Hero. This is the book that I've been working on through my coaching calls, through, you know, my own journey. And so I love what ended up happening was texting the day of and the day before, and the final drawing is so much bigger. It is a big dragon with a few flowers around it. And I love this tattoo so much because it represents the actual picture of what went on with my story of Lyme disease. I did not— like, my version, the version I wanted to tattoo on my thigh, was lots of flowers, little bitty dragon that we dealt with. And what is actually tattooed on my thigh is this big dragon. It's feminine, but she's big and she's even got some claws. She is a dragon. And then there's flowers around it. And I think proportionally what the artist gave to me was far more accurate than, in a sense, what I wanted it to be. And lime is a dragon. It is a hurdle. It is an obstacle. But when we face a dragon head-on, when we choose to jump the hurdle— you guys have heard me talk about like the obstacle is the way— when we decide this may not be fair, this may not feel good, there may be suffering, this may be a hard decision, but this is the direction I'm going, you start to transform your life. You start to heal in some capacity that leads to healing in some other capacity. So I feel like taking this step, this next step, for me, it's not a dragon that has to be defeated anymore. In a sense, Lyme— Lyme is there. We've learned to coexist. I'm in a really good place. A lot of you have asked about Nathan, who is 17. Who has Lyme, and he has had a hard year and a half and is doing school online. And I am going to put him through the Lyme Laser at Home program. I interviewed Dr. Douglas Wine, I think last fall, a couple of times, and they do a holistic program at home with lasers. And I am just fascinated by them. And so Nathan has not started that program. I am currently in the process of paying that off. As soon as it gets paid off, he will do it, and then I am going to do it with him in maintenance mode for my own experience and understanding of what the protocol really entails. So for him, that's an update on him because so many of you guys ask. But I feel like this next phase for me is about the healing, healing choices aspect, and it's about the living aspect. And so I'm excited about my journey on the mic. I'm excited about the, the help that I have, even processing through some of my reactions to even Trinity's death and, and the link towards social media. I don't fully understand that. And, uh, I have a friend who says, don't let your insecurities justify your weaknesses.

Finally, a proven and comprehensive Lyme protocol with no antibiotics, no potentially harmful therapies, and no outrageous prices or hidden ongoing costs. Lyme Laser Center uses their unique technologically advanced laser system and their numerous other supportive technologies to help you gain control of your Lyme disease and overcome the often debilitating effects it has has on your body and your life. With a completely free in-house consultation with a Lime Laser specialist, it's easy to learn more about the Lime Laser protocol and how it can help you overcome your Lyme. Start healing your body naturally. You can hear all the past episodes of Lyme Voice at www.limelive.com. You can also hear new episodes here on the WGLR radio every Tuesday at 11 AM Central Time. Lime Voice is also available 24 hours a day and 7 days a week wherever you get your podcasts from. Give Lime Laser a call today and tell them Lime Voice sent you.

And I've thought that, like, what part is— it's just called hiring your weaknesses and then focusing on the things that you're better at that bring you joy. And there's big things coming for Lime Voice, even though it's going to be different. And I will be primarily the one on the mic with Lion Voice. But then I'm also going to be doing a separate podcast called Unpopular Decisions. And this I am so excited about because it's based on Fight, Heal, Live. It's mindset, it's healing choices, and it's living. Except we're just going to focus on the healing choices aspect and the living aspect and not the illness aspect. So Lion Voice will be here. It will be airing. It will be airing more consistently because I have some help, which I'm super excited about. But for me personally, I am just going to be using my voice and my energy towards what I consider the next phase, and that is utilizing all that I've learned within Fight, Heal, Live to do group coaching sessions about mindset, about confronting those dragons, about going around that next obstacle, And that's the stuff that lights me up. Oh my gosh, that's the stuff that makes me want to get on air. That's the stuff that makes me want to deal with social media because that's when the transformation comes. And I felt like in 2013, 2012, 2013, I didn't understand the confusion. I felt like I was having to go around a lot of people. I feel like I had to go around religious views, I had to go around medical views in order to fight for my life. And that's what I did. And my life didn't look like anyone else's. And people told me, you know, I was going to be sick forever, or that I should just accept it, or that, you know, all these clinics are just taking your money. And, and I fought based on my gut instinct having and the support I had, no, this is, this is what is best for me. Something is really wrong. I'm fighting for my life whether anyone else acknowledges it or not. And I feel like for this next phase, this next phase of life, I'm transitioning. I'm taking steps towards the living aspects of things, towards the healing aspects of things. And so feel like I get to take all of those lessons learned, all of those coaching sessions, the hundreds of stories I have heard, the 100+ interviews I've heard, and shape it into something that empowers people, not specifically with Lyme, just with life, to come out of whatever those restrictions are, whatever that box is in, whatever is no longer serving you How do you get through it? How do you confront it? How do you go around it? How do you move on to the next step? So that is in a nutshell a lot of what has been going on for the last 18 months with me and what direction I'm headed in, the products and services that are going to be available in a different capacity. So As with much of life, there is hard stuff happening. Within hard stuff and transitions, there is also good stuff, and there is also forward momentum. I've said this on air many times, but there is what happens to you, and then there is how you react to it. That is a defining factor in who someone is. There is how you react to it, and that's why I love self-help because you realize— and I love all these other Lyme podcasts, man. Tick Boot Camp has had some just incredible stories. And because there's people who have gone through these immensely hard things over and over again. And sometimes I'm like, God, I've heard the worst stories, like it could not get any worse. And then I hear another one. And, but those stories are so, so valuable because we all have hard stuff. Whether your story starts with Lyme at age 6, which is so unfair, whether your story is going through cancer treatments, whether part of your story is going through a divorce, whether your story is coming out of some type of religious oppression. We all have hard, hard stuff that we're going through. But if we become the type of people who deal with what is going on and then you choose your reactions. One of my favorite quotes by Abraham Lincoln says, "I claim not to have controlled events, but confess plainly that events have controlled me." And I think that so often with this journey through Lyme, that so much of who I am has been controlled or diminished or oppressed or stifled because of the suffering, because of the cost, because of the longevity factor. And that is all true, but within the suckity suck, feel like what I have learned, what I have implemented, trust I have in myself, whether that means you juice for 3 years every day because you think it might help. I, coming through that, I have a sense of trust in myself that I get to have for the rest of my life. When you build trust with yourself, when you learn to honor the reality of what is going on and then react and make decisions towards health and healing, I think you are on the pathway to becoming what I have heard the term a no-limit person. In a sense, a no-limit person to me is someone who Dwayne Dwyer says— he's passed away now, but he's been a motivational speaker for a long time— he says there are no justified resentments. And when you can go through hard things, which are never gonna stop, by the way, for most people— I mean, some people get off with lives that are pretty easy I know a few of them. I've had hardness on a lot of levels. I feel like I've fought my way out of a lot of things. Um, I've had a lot of responsibilities, and a lot of who I am because of my illness has been diminished. And yet, because of the choices I have continued to make, because I have fought, because I have healed, because I have chosen to live, I get the benefit of trusting myself in deep new way that I don't know that I would have had. I don't know how else it could have come about because it was so intense and so long and so hard, and I had so many kids I was trying to take care of in the process. I don't know. It's, in a sense, it's, um, it's a gift to myself that can never be taken away. I told you guys that during COVID when the gym shut down here, I started walking up this hill by my house. And the hill, or the street, is called Kelly Road, and there's kind of like a 60-degree incline partway through, and it's 2.43-mile loop for me from the front door up to the top of the hill and then back to the house. So I take it 45 minutes depending on how I feel that day. Sometimes I just walk it, sometimes I run it, um, and then a lot of times I walk with a backpack, a hiking backpack and I carry between 20 and 40 pounds up this hill. So I started doing that when the gym shut down during COVID And after a while, after I'd done it a few times, um, because Aaron and I were— during COVID was hard and everything was shut down, and Aaron and I were in the mix of going through our own marital transition, and, um, I started just hanging a paper clip on the tree, and I've posted this on social media a couple times. I just hung a paperclip every time I walked up there, and sometimes I'd forget and take 2 back the next time or whatever, but eventually I have this string of paperclips, bright colored paperclips, that hangs from the tree branch. It's probably like 5 feet of paperclips. And the other day I walked it for the first time in a while, and I took the paperclip tree down, or the paperclip trail. Like I said, it's about 5 feet, and I brought it, I brought it to my house here, and it's on my bookshelf with all my books about self-empowerment and overcoming and Lyme disease and nutrition. And it's sitting by a mug, and the mug says, "You, my darling, matter." And that came from a listener, a listener who has become a dear friend who I really value, and she sent that to me a while back. And I hung the, the paperclips around the mug as a, as a reminder to myself that I can do hard things, that I trust myself enough to implement something, whether it's Gerson protocol, which doesn't make sense to a lot of people. And a lot— I had to go around medical professionals to implement that, and they were telling me it was a waste of my time and coffee enemas were crazy and whatever. I now trust myself in ways that I get to convey to my coaching clients on a weekly basis. And this whole second podcast of Unpopular Decisions is about that journey of making choices. And it's really just hard decisions. It's really just dealing with the next reality, whether that means you are moving across the country because your kid needs to live in warmer weather because they have Lyme disease, you're taking a job that has healthcare because you need that for your family in the moment, Whatever that is, those decisions— not everyone is willing to make those hard decisions, you guys. Not everyone will. And one of the things that I've learned through this lesson when I was so isolated, I think for so many people, especially when you have Lyme and so much of who you are and your identity has been taken away, we become our own worst enemies internally. And that's why I love affirmations. If you are if you are saying out loud affirmations, you realize, um, sometimes how negative your self-talk can be, how you don't give yourself the benefit of the doubt. Maybe you don't trust yourself ultimately. Maybe you want to trust yourself, but you don't trust your body, right? Like, maybe you trust your spirit, but your body's been so broken for so long that you don't trust your body to cooperate. Whatever it is, that confronting those dragons, overcoming those obstacles, man, that is just this powerful aspect of life and overcoming and doing hard things and making decisions just because you think that that is the next best step for you. And that is all okay. It's all okay. And it's not just okay, that is what will separate you from the person who lives in their trauma and stays there, right? There is what is happening to you, and then there is what and how you are reacting. And those are two separate things, and those separate people, those separate voices, those separate outcomes. What has happened to you does not— and I know I'm telling this to people who have been sick for 15+ years, who have lost relationships, who are starting over. I get that. But the gift of facing all that and honoring that reality is that you get to create a life you love. And even if those are unpopular decisions for other people, you get to take all the hardness, all the lessons learned, and implement it. Learn to trust yourself differently. Learn to speak your internal dialogue differently. And then create a life that, that you love, that is transformative from the realities that you were dealt. So Lime Voice will continue to be aired, but it'll be different. I think better. It'll be like Lime Voice 2.0. And then I will— my helpers will be posting on social media about unpopular decisions. And then I'd be happy to show you a picture of my tattoo at some point. Like I said, it will be in my book, and I'm hoping that will done in spring of 2022, but regardless, it will be on air and, um, Unpopular Decisions will be coming to you. Again, it'll be structured around Fight, Heal, Live, but it will mostly be about the healing and the living, which is really something that makes me excited to talk about. So thank you all for tuning in. We will be in touch. You are worth fighting for. This Isn't Going to Be Forever, Your Forever Reality. Thank you for tuning in, and I cannot wait to bring you guys the next level of healing and restoration, which is going to be available through what I'm calling Unpopular Decisions. It will be a Facebook group, it'll be a podcast, and, um, this is the next step for me, and I hope that you guys will continue to join me. And the other thing I love about this is is when people have come out of Lyme and they tuned in and they implemented the protocols and they did everything, they don't need to tune back into Lyme Voice because they don't want to. I have a dear friend who's like, Sarah, I cannot listen to the podcast anymore even though you have helped save me. You have— like, you are the person who literally— the only person I made her eventually go to testing with me, my dear friend Heather. And we've talked about this. She's like, I cannot listen to this podcast. Like, I don't want to go back into the trauma. And I'm like, yeah, I get I get it. I don't necessarily want to go back into the trauma too. And the beauty of what is unfolding for me is that we get to use the trauma as a foundation, which you will all resonate with. But when you're at that place where you're ready for more healing, when you don't want to focus on the illness but on the health and the wellness and the living side, you will now have that next platform to step with me into those next levels of healing and transformation. So please continue to send me your messages. I love, love getting feedback, especially when it's good and positive, which it mostly is. And thank you all for being on this journey with me and with Aaron for a number of years, and even with our kids as far as continuing to have to deal with the realities of Lyme disease So, all right, until next time, bye.

Hello friends, today's podcast is brought to you by these sponsors: Medical Bill Gurus. The experts at Medical Bill Gurus are dedicated to innovative solutions for any medical billing scenario, which we all have in this community. Oh my gosh. With empathy at the forefront of their daily mission, Medical Medical Bill Gurus is dedicated to being in the trenches with patients and raise awareness for the daily challenges facing them. From medical billing errors to raising awareness for their diagnosis, Medical Bill Gurus takes pride in speaking with patients every day and helping them find guidance on how to navigate our broken healthcare system. Their patient advocates are available to help reduce medical bills and assist patients with navigating a dynamic health landscape. I also interviewed Daniel Lynch, founder of Medical Bill Gurus, in episode 111. In addition to helping you get money back from your insurance company, if you need help deciphering what health insurance provider to choose— and I have done this several times a year for years now—

or you are looking for a clinic that is covered by insurance, they are a great resource for all things related to medical bills, figuring out which insurance provider you could or should have. They're an awesome resource. Again, I use them multiple times a year.

Give them a call. All right, now on to the show. This is just my opinion, but I think the best, most authentic, vulnerable, and memorable parts of these interviews unfolds in the fourth quarter, so I am so glad you are still with me. I get messages from so many of you saying that you are listening to Lime Voice when you are implementing daily protocols, driving back and forth from appointments, or detoxing. However you are spending your precious energy, I'm so glad I got to be a part of it.

Remember to follow Lime Voice on social media and subscribe and leave a review.

This is a common common sense and medical disclaimer, people. I am not a doctor or a therapist. I'm not an authority on actually treating Lyme disease, but I have become adept and skilled at living with it. So take these experiential conversations for what they are, which is practical survival skills in the land of chronic Lyme disease. But for actual medical advice, go to someone with credentials.