Late 2016 around the time I started going to Simrin, my health was quiet bad though it didn’t show on the outside. I was still in high spirits even when for over a series of months I had an unknown illness that took away any feelings of hunger or an appetite at all.

At first I just thought it was my bodies way of telling me or preparing me for sickness or fever, but this went on for months and when I did eat anything I got headaches and chest pain and because the cause and effect felt so bad I didn’t want to eat anything. Though logically as a human being I knew I had to eat so everyday I just forced myself to eat with no appetite and faith that things would change.

I expressed my frustration and determination in Self portrait 4, interests, health and chakras, more in my Self portrait gallery

This carried on like this for a while and until I noticed my upper chest , the bones on my right side stood out, I could poke one and practically pick it up. When I got to the scales I had lost almost a stone, I was almost at the weight I was as a young teenager (7 stone). By now people were noticing and I explained that I was ill, my appetite had gone and I had accidentally lost weight (which many people saw as a great thing) but it wasn’t, as though my mood was still happy my hormones had shut down, I was trying to put it back on and had gone for some tests. Though from the doctors and hospital I found I didn’t have diabetes, a thyroid issue, Celiac or anything found on my insides in an endoscopy or on my ovaries in an ultra sound.

This was frustrating as from tests I was perfectly healthy but nothing was working as it should! My boyfriend at the time suggested eating a range of foods including fast foods just to put the weight on but I knew that wouldn’t work as I also have a fast metabolism, as soon as they were in my body they would be out again! Also I felt sad that the all the good effort and enjoyment I had for healthy eating would just go to waste.

So I decided I would heal myself naturally, through eating healthy and doing Kundalini yoga. Which was exactly what I was doing at the time so the idea seemed a bit silly, my mind came back to say ‘But that’s what your already doing?!’ Well then I will just do it some more, maybe eat some bigger portions, at the time I was just looking forward to eating something, it coming from a place of hunger for food and not survival or literal nourishment.

Also painting intuitively Roads tubes and eggs, more in my Intuitive painting gallery 

The steps along the way that lead to personal success:

1. Eat natural – Slowly but surely a few months later I was starting to recognise hunger again, I celebrated each time ‘Wow I feel hungry!’ Having knowing what it felt like to have no hunger I was really appreciative to feel something again. Though I am fully vegetarian, I am partly gluten free, dairy free and low sugars, I did loosen up on the latter as I don’t have an allergy, I just feel a whole lot better eating whole foods rather than processed and allowed myself to eat foods I wouldn’t usually. I ate foods for vitality – Avocados, green juices, lentils, chick peas, rice, chai seeds and others such as dark chocolate, bananas, apples, oranges and Indian desserts- a whole variety. It feels great knowing that I stuck to my own values of eating for energy and vitality and some other foods out of love, over anything else.

As I ate well, my menstrual cycle appeared (from it’s very long vacation) horaay! It felt like a miracle though I noticed that I got worse period symptoms that I had ever experienced, as if my body was playing catch up and not used to the things happening. I felt sick each day, like I suppose a sort of morning sickness due to the changes of the cervix, anyway things got better and the more nuts and healthy fats I ate the better each cycle would be. To the point where I would prepare lots of healthy snacks in case I went it to ravenous hormonal lady mode once a month but instead I didn’t no cravings, no mass desire to eat everything, it is incredible.

2. Get to sleep earlier and get more of it – I can’t emphasise this point enough and the trouble is me 6 months ago would have glazed over it thinking ‘yeah, yeah, how’s that possible?’ Well it is but there are possibly habits, routines and boundaries that need to change first. Getting enough sleep can be hard, for me I have to get enough sleep so that I can continue with a 40 day sadhana as part of my daily habit and yoga training. Though everyone is different and their thing may be getting up for the children, dog, early shift and so on. I used to get around 5-6 hours sleep and felt fine, better than fine – great all day! Though through the app My Flo I noticed that the same suggestion kept coming up to get more sleep and that not getting enough can effect glands and the endocrine system. You can read more about it here. So I started to got to bed around 9pm and getting 6-7 hours sleep which still allowed me to get up early to do Sadhana! Within weeks I felt fabulous and my cycle was starting to come back – more celebrations!

3. Kundalini yoga helps your whole system – As it happened and I didn’t plan for it to, most Kundalini yoga classes and Gong baths I went to seemed to relax then kick start my endocrine system, as if my hormones had just had one long massage! Whether it be lying down in a Gong bath or doing a lot of arm work in class – it all helped sometimes almost instantly! Though I will say make sure you honour your body too, as I can be determined and so focused that I over exercise and I’m back to stage one again, meditations are very beneficial too.

4. Change what doesn’t serve you – This seems the hardest to put into words but I basically mean take a real honest look at life and notice what is and isn’t serving you. Even if your life seems and feels wonderful a little self enquiry can go a long way! Your symptoms, frustrations and medical team not having a clue, may mean that there is something energetically or emotionally wrong that you are not dealing with. Maybe you are holding on resulting in your body becoming tense and not working as it should, or you need to grow in a higher level of confidence and trust to truly let go on all levels of someone or something. It sounds cliche but self enquiry is so useful here and I can vouch for saying – I changed a, b, c and everything got better, my body started working again! There’s an interesting post here about letting go what doesn’t serve you.

Self healing has been a journey of around 9 months (a re birthing!) and when your transforming something time seems to go incredibly slow and people around don’t really understand. Like when I was trying to get my weight up with faith that if I was a bit heavier (around 8 stone) my hormones would flow more naturally, my body would again be capable of giving life technically. Now they do! Though eating to keep weight on is hard and no one talks about it because the majority of people want to take weight off, I’m so happy I pursued it. Flo Living is a great resource and through their app I can easily see what to do for my health, what each craving means and track everything.

I am in such joy that I healed my body in my own way and continue too, throughout I was very optimistic, some days I did have doubts but amongst it all I was determined that positive change would happen!