The storm that cleared the path
"The storm that cleared the path"" is a tragic but ultimately optimistic story about my spiritual journey with Lyme and Morgellons disease. For more than three years, I brought this roller-coaster ride to paper, and through the struggle I obtained a new perception on dis-ease in general and its imputable cause, leading to this narration.
Closer to the finishing line, yet still tweaking and refining the structure of the book while designing the book cover at the same time, this book will also contain an extensive self-help guide, introducing natural cures and unthinkable approaches that helped me battle the horrendous affliction.
"Every scar tells a story. The story of survival, which wants to be turned into wisdom"
It has been my goal and exigency to complete and publish this book in 2018/19. My biggest hope is that this account will be an inspiration and support for many sufferers of this dreadful ordeal with Lyme Borreliosis and Morgellons disease. Since there is only little awareness and almost no fundamental help in our medical community, with the disease evolving and rising to an epidemic level, I feel obligated to share my success in conquering the disease and winning back my life....
(Preface)
It has always been her firm conviction, that one day, she was going to write a book; even though, naturally, she wasn’t a wordsmith. Not particularly. Despite her deficiency of authorship or the lack of knowledge and composition in English writing, she unfailingly reckoned to disclose an account of her very own rendering. And not to mention, English was only her second language.
The urge to drop her own lines and portray a scope through crayons of language always existed. A kaleidoscopic journey of aspirations, shaped by her effervescent imagination, which she could embark on, and find solace, on a cloudy day in her head.
By no stretch of imagination could she have ever conceived to write a book for any other reason. Time went by, and as it happened, she accomplished that book.
Only, this very book didn’t hatch out of ingenuity or the ambition to entertain. Nor did she had to invent a plot or fabricate any storyline. Not a bit! The story simply recorded itself and was generated by the force of labefaction. Its impetus was born out of despair and its incentive out of a response.
A response to a stroke of fate that she was happen to be experiencing for quite some time.
A thunderous journey filled with struggle and hope, with pain and epiphany, with iniquity and responsibility.
This story is a glimpse into her recovery from a multi-symptomatic illness which has yet to be accepted in our medical community. This is a book especially for those who experience this shattering spiritual seizure, to allow themselves to gain new insight and open up to a visual range in which “dis-ease” becomes a great teacher and not a cursed menace, in which we let ourselves be beaten by the natural troublesomeness that attend every kind of toil.
Yes, miracles do happen, and Lyme is nothing short of it, and as long as we allow ourselves to wholeheartedly change the way we look at things, then the things we look at will change.
“The most intense conflicts, if overcome, leave behind a sense of security and calm that is not easily disturbed. It is just these intense conflicts and their conflagration which are needed to produce valuable and lasting results.”
Carl Jung
excerpt from chapter 17 (gift of pain):
....By the end of fall, she broke down. The warrior inside of her was gone. Instead she felt like a tormented soldier who lost his compass(ion) and with it, his hope for a better future.
Suicidal thoughts have conquered her mind and a heavy arduous depression dictated her miserable existence. She wanted to sleep, to sleep forever, and to never wake up.
She stopped scratching even if it itched; she stopped twitching even if shooting pains zapped her entire body. The visual symptoms were now growing with her lethargy. She completely surrendered. She threw in the towel. And paradoxically enough, it was like she had almost made peace with pain.
At times she imagined the wondrous ability of some yogis, who could leave their body at any given time. She wanted that ability, and she wanted it in an instant, without all the necessary work of getting one there. Derailed and trapped in this one way street of unease, there was nary a way out but to finally appoint to herself. An appointment with her inner life, her unvalued psyche. An inward-looking journey that compelled her to come home to self. The true and main component of her nature and being, that wanted to tell her its story. There was nothing else left for her to do. She started meditating, something she hadn't done in a long time.
“I have seen many storms in my life. Most storms have caught me by surprise, so I had to learn very quickly to look further and understand that I am not capable of controlling the weather, to exercise the art of patience and to respect the fury of nature”
Paulo Coelho
Throughout these moments in stillness, she came to many realisations, of which one made clear that she had never given herself the chance to really fail. She had never even really given her true vision a chance to be proved or disproved. Essentially, she didn’t believe in her own power and as a result, she undermined her capacities to bring forth her own unique prospect. She gave her power away, and wasted it like a non-returnable bottle, and allowed herself to get the short end of the stick. Way too often she gave in, or even gave up on her true visions and outlooks. Her compromise to depreciation and her own self-doubt led to chronic lack of recognition. A subtly pain that didn’t want to be felt. Healing become background music, instead of priority, since the brokenness was never fully recognized.
And often enough, when we are in pain, we just want to get out of it as fast as possible. We run to the next chiropractor, we fast fix with a massage, we numb ourselves with meds, we shut down, we escape or we blame, and we do anything to deluge all of our space and time with compensatory gratification, just not to be reminded of that hole that we think wants so desperately to be filled. But it doesn’t want to be filled. It wants to be empty, for once. It wants to be cleared with the crap we allowed it to be crammed in with. It wants to be quiet. And it wants to be healed.
More often than not, we refuse to look inside of us, to find the source of our pain, because it often mediates more pain, as it reminds us of its causation. Instead we get caught up in a vicious circle, compensating with self-inflicted pain, just to proof the misery. The truth is, that this curious thing called pain, is nothing but a form of attachment to transitory experiences, and wears many different masks, like anger, despair, impatience, morosity or neglect are just derivations.
Pain, the great encounter of the uncrowned king of the world of transition, demanded from Yvette to be wholeheartedly felt, and perceived as a teacher and healer rather than a punishment. It taught her so many things, as long as she allowed herself to listen and embrace it. It pushed her off the cliff, and made her capitulate. It forced her to go for the untried and unusual, and compelled her to step over her own shadows. It tested her true creativity, while it demanded her full presence.
And in this presence, she grew stronger. Stillness, gifted her with groundedness, and devotion calmed her needs to want, to have or to must. There was no need for any agenda, just trust- a sense of basic trust. Trust became the new pasture for her true being to eventually unfold. And slowly it became clear that she no longer could follow that gridlocked path of complacency and self-deception. She had resisted change for too long, and measured her self-worth on the length of her to-do list, flooding her open space of time with distractions, hurriedness and permanent occupation and objectives, until her life became utterly derailed, prompted by all the hidden and pent up emotions that had build up to a gargantuan burning mountain, with a slumbering volcano suddenly erupting, wrenching all false values and beliefs into the gaping abyss. The universe introduced a switch point, to discuss the future fate and to set the course for a different future. A better future.....
“To have faith is to trust yourself to the water. When you swim you don't grab hold of the water, because if you do you will sink and drown. Instead you relax, and float”
Alan Watts
...........to be continued
if you are interested in helping Yvette to fund the publication of this book, then please contact Yvette at [email protected] or use this email for paypal.
(The initial title idea of the book once was " In the Lyme light", but since a Lyme awareness Association has named itself already the same, Yvette has decided to change the title to "The storm that cleared the path")
Thank you!
Yvette
(endorse me for my writing, if you want-merci!)