NLP Saved my life!

NLP Immersive Certification by Hayley Carr - Leadership coach

I had been diagnosed with an incurable illness (Chronic Fatigue Syndrome) - during a time when we knew little about it. We now know so much more about this debilitating illness.

When the doctors said to me, "You're tired because you're depressed. Depression is what's making you tired," and my response was, "no, I'm depressed because I'm tired. The tiredness came first, and it's not going away - and it's depressing!"

And then, "Congratulations. You've given yourself, at 22, the type of burnout I've only ever seen in 40-50-year old executives".

And, "You'll never be able to hold down a regular job ever again, the damage is done. You'll just have to get used to resting a lot and being tired all the time and lowering your standards for what you think you can do now..."

And, "I think you've had a nervous breakdown."

Oh, and let's not forget "it's all in your head"...

I made an executive decision to stop talking to certain people who couldn't give me accurate information or hopeful answers, and take things into my own hands. And I copped a LOT of flack for this too.

"Whether you think you can, or you think you can't... you're right".
(Henry Ford)

I became increasingly exhausted at the idea of remaining exhausted. Yet I knew I wasn't too far gone to turn things around again. If this mystery 'invisible' illness had come from seemingly nowhere, it could go right back there - but not in the environments I was getting my information from.

This was the year I learned NLP. And it saved my life.

Initially, I had signed up because it had helped me win a world title and break a new world record. (Catch that livestream here).

At the time, I was sick, and I barely even made it to the class... but something incredible happened. I was in a room that eradicated my identity and saw me instead as a well of human potential.

In that room, I wasn't tired. I could focus. I felt free.

I'd leave and fall asleep immediately. I slept for two whole weeks after that training. But in that room, something had shifted.

When I came out, I said to my Dad (who took the training with me), "there's something I know about myself when I'm in that room, that I seem to forget everywhere else."

And this was where the healing began for me.

Day in and day out after those days. I'd practise these tools on myself in the moments I was awake and could think. Digging for gold. Or demons. Scratching at the mental blanks drawn on my subconscious. Questioning everything I believed.

It took me two and a half years from that day to get to the point where I felt it "click" in my body.

And while that sounds like forever - and it felt like forever when there's no guarantees it's working... it saved my life. Because here I sit before you, able to share this, with no association to that diagnosis - or prognosis any more. Year after year, my body gets better. Every day I'm so grateful to be alive because in a moment when I could have believed in something else, I found myself in a room where everything I knew about reality was turned on its head. I learned the science behind transformation and why our current experience is only one option of many.

Maybe I'm a slow learner because it took me that long.

But I decided back then that if I ever made it out alive, I'd spend the rest of my life helping people transform their experiences. And right now, that long time it took feels like NOTHING to pay to get here.

I have tears running down my face as I write this. I wasn't expecting that. I feel so deeply the helplessness your mind can convince you of when it looks like everyone else is getting it, and you're not. (another livestream for you) When it seems like you can't, but actually, if you just don't quit, you can.