Yup - it's official I am certified! Yeah, yeah, I know I'm walking right into all those jokes about - gosh - that should have happened a long time ago etc. but I'm not talking about my mental health - I'm talking about being a certified NLP Practitioner, of course!
I first came across NLP when I was 22 and training as a TEFL teacher. It wasn't until a few years later that I actually learnt everything that I now discover makes up the Practitioner level training. So I've been using it now for over 14 years - much of it subconsciously. I now know what I know which is great - and more importantly I have proof of what I know in the form of a certificate co-signed by Judith Lowe and Robert Dilts. But boy did the course take it out of me!
I had forgotten how important the balance of nutrition, exercise, sleep and stress-free living were to my health. It's been a long while since I 'cured' the Ulcerative Colitis and Crohns that had riddled my body and were threatening the loss of my intestines. And the odd glass of wine, cup of coffee, bar of chocolate, late night etc seemed to have lost their damaging power, but a combination of rushed morning routines, shop bought lunches, coffee, biscuits, late and lazy dinners and nights soon put me straight on that score.
I'm hoping my parents don't see this post as I played it down (as I tend to do) and simply told them it had upset my health a little bit. Truth is, I had a full blown flare up - blood, mucous, cramps, muscle pain, diarrhoea - the lot. I was late every day from the middle of the second module onwards as the trauma that is the first few hours of the waking day returned. I was torn between ignoring it and carrying on as best I could and giving in and respecting the messages my body was giving me.
But I really wanted that certificate!
So in the last week, I gave in and took a day off an slept pretty much all day. It did the job and I finished the course just fine.
My dear friends/colleagues have been fantastic; Lucy-Ann (www.Simply-Nutrition.co.uk and www.YeartoSlim.com has prescribed me glutamine to heal my gut and fish oil to reduce inflammation. I've also started on probiotics again and am drinking my supergreens. And getting plenty of sleep and it seems to be working. Beryl (www.BerylWhiting.com has been running her eLybra Bio Resonance machine on me nightly. Coaching colleagues from the course were wonderfully supportive too, in fact, I don't remember ever having so many get well wishes - ever. Really rather overwhelming - in a good way.
Most symptoms have all but vanished which is great and I have learnt a valuable lesson about where my limits are.
