ME is a multi-systemic neurological illness with a wide range of physical symptoms. Essentially anything that can go wrong, does! It feels like a really bad case of the flu. But one that never goes and that gets worse if you exert yourself at all with even the smallest of tasks like standing up or even thinking.

I have read of people dismissing recovery from ME using the Lightning Process because we ‘weren’t really ill’ and ‘people with real ME never recover’. It’s important to say that I was referred to and diagnosed at the West Yorkshire ME/Chronic Fatigue Unit, using the Fukuda criteria. I was told there was no cure and that I would just learn to manage the symptoms. Aged 21 I thought my life was over.

I had ME for 5 years. At my best I worked sporadically part time for two of those years and came home exhausted, ill, confused and in pain with incredible ‘payback’ fatigue. Eventually things got so bad I struggled through the absolute bare minimum to survive, I would have to choose between cooking a meal, getting dressed or taking a shower because there wasn’t the energy to do more than one on the same day.

I heard of the Lightning Process (LP) and was sceptical at first. I did my research and found stories of recovery that seemed too good to be true. And then I started to look at the research and the theory behind it. The LP has been developed from some core ideas in NLP and Psycho Neuro Immunology and those made sense to me. Though I still wasn’t sure if it would work, I knew that it had helped others and that if anyone was going to recover, it would be me.

I took the LP training in October 2008 and it changed my life! I started to make huge steps towards recovery on the very first day. At the end of day one I had enough energy to catch a bus into town and spontaneously meet a friend for dinner and a film with energy and a clear head! I went home and DANCED round the house. All this after just a few hours! People who have not experienced ME may not realise just how much of an achievement this is!

By the end of day 3 I left with the tools to keep applying to my life. I know some people leave the process and they know they are ‘cured’. That wasn’t the case for me, but I knew that I’d experienced more improvement in those three days than in the last 5 years. I was on to something big and that I had something here that was going to work. It took commitment on my part but I always had my LP practitioner to ring if I needed her. And I did, regularly! And I learned that if something unexpected came along, I could use the LP to resolve it. There was always a way out.

At first I was using the process constantly while my brain learned to make this new way of being automatic. But that was easy to do because I knew I was making more progress than I had in the past almost 5 years. I knew I had the responsibility to myself to keep doing the process. Sometimes admittedly, I didn’t do it. And I got frustrated. And I wanted everything to be perfect right now. And those were the times I most needed to stop and do the process. That’s the thing with LP, it’s a training programme. It’s not a pill you can take. But how wonderful to realise you have done this yourself and can take complete control of the way you want your life to be.

Some things did take time to right themselves. But I kept and keep using the process when need to. I am so pleased to be able to say that I am now well and have used it in many other aspects of my life.

Now instead of pitying looks, or ‘pull yourself together’s, I get comments all the time about how healthy I look, and people often come up to me in the gym and ask me how did I get so fit or so strong or how come I have so much energy and stamina!

It is incredibly important to understand the concept behind the LP. ME is a ‘real’ physical illness.  The way the LP and NLP work is not a case of positive thinking, it’s about understanding how the brain works and how that has a direct correlation to what is happening physiologically in the body. The brain learns very quickly and moulds itself constantly as it learns. You allow your body to re-engage properly with it’s natural ability to heal, and all the parts that weren’t doing their jobs properly, start to work as they should.

Anything I have written here is a personal account of my experience only, it is not the opinion of, nor endorsed by, Phil Parker or anyone affiliated with The Lightning Process other than myself.