When Life Falls Apart, You Might Just Have To Save Yourself

By Amy B. Scher

When I was 25 years old, I thought, as most 20-something-year-olds do, that my life was set. I was a marketing director for Harley-Davidson and spent my days organizing leather-studded fashion shows and charity bike rides. I wasn't changing the world in giant ways, but I was content making grown men smile via "Live to Ride" jackets and meditating to the sound of rumbling bikes on my lunch break.

Little did I know, my dream life would begin to fold suddenly when I began having trouble walking up the gentle ramp from my office. Shortly after that, I started to lose function of my arms. Doctors were puzzled, I was terrified, and my neurologist ordered me not to return to work. After testing revealed the outer sheath (covering) of my nerves was quickly unraveling throughout my body, I was diagnosed with a rare form of neuropathy.

For years, doctors (even those at the “Ritz Carlton of hospitals") didn’t have a clue as to why this, and now numerous other debilitating symptoms, was happening. Eventually, the reason for my disastrous health decline came in the form of what chronically ill people see as a "jackpot diagnosis” — the one that finally feels like it fits. I had chronic Lyme disease. Apparently, a tick bit me and transferred a bacterium, which infiltrated my whole system. But I didn’t catch it before it had done major damage to all my body systems.

The Trip of a Lifetime
Fast-forward through years of failed treatments into a leap of faith that landed me in Delhi, India, 10,000 miles from home. I was the first with my condition to be treated for an experimental embryonic stem cell treatment. I had no idea, nor did the medical professionals treating me at home in California, whether this would save my life or possibly end it. With breaths held hard, I underwent two months of intense treatment. Within weeks, my body began to slowly come back to health.

Years after my return from India, however, I experienced the return of some of my initial symptoms, and was terrified. Was my healing all a dream that was about to slip away?

It was then that it became clear what the only common denominator in my chronic health failures were: me. What was I doing wrong? How could a body virtually reborn after stem cell therapy be headed back to dis-ease?

A Life-changing Discovery
Broke and exasperated, I decided to turn in a different direction for my healing. I didn’t look for bacteria, viruses, or anything else to blame. Instead, I became willing to see myself in a way I never did before. Eyes wide open, I explored what part of me could be contributing to these physical manifestations. And that is when I discovered something life-changing: I would have to focus on more than just my physical body if I ever wanted to be truly cured.

As I began to soul search and research, I discovered the critical impact that unresolved emotional energy has on our lives. And even being familiar with the mind-body concept, especially while living in India, it was way bigger than I ever thought.

The True Healing Path
Not only does emotional energy cause us to experience intense emotional reactions like fear, excessive worry, and sadness, it also has a huge impact on our ability to heal. I believe wholeheartedly that unprocessed emotions, unresolved trauma, and damaging belief systems (ones we don’t even recognize we have) are the biggest contributors to why our immune systems become stressed, thus opening the door for illness.

And now that I was sure I was part of the problem of my health, I was also sure that I was part of the solution.

Disease and discomfort in our lives are always an opportunity for exploration and growth. By having the opportunity to release emotional energy that no longer serves us, we not only instigate our immune system’s full healing capabilities, but become more in line with ourselves. When I took this road, my world and all that I thought I knew about healing was blown wide open.

I learned that trauma isn’t always the obvious; sometimes the “little” things traumatize us. In fact, we even traumatize ourselves by trying so darn hard to be perfect, please the people around us, and control our lives in an effort to feel safe.

Because I had always focused so much on treatment, and less on the power I had to save my own life, I had missed an essential part of my healing path.

I began studying various energy therapy techniques — ones that release and balance old emotional energy that is stuck in the body. Through the physical symptoms, my body was trying to speak to me. When I learned to understand what it was saying to me — to let go, relax, and be more loving and kind to myself — my health transformed.

My true cure came from trusting the path, even when it led me to turn inward. It was my final piece.

While “Live to Ride” jackets were important in their own way, my life’s work turned out to be a greater manifestation of the same concept — freedom. I now have the blessing of teaching and writing books to help others find their own freedom. That’s the cool thing about life: it gets you right to where you need to be, even if it's a twisty, scary ride that sometimes seems to be going nowhere. Your only job is to show up and be willing to walk the path.
 

Amy B. Scher is the author of This is How I Save My Life: From California to India, a True Story Of Finding Everything When You Are Willing To Try Anything (Gallery Books at Simon & Schuster, April 2018). She lives by the self-created motto, “When life kicks your ass, kick back.” You can find out more about Amy’s book here. "Amy Scher is a brave warrior and a wonderful writer. She is a living example of what it looks like when a woman takes her health, her heart, and her destiny into her own hands." — Elizabeth Gilbert, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Eat, Pray, Love