This post provides an update on this season of forgiveness opportunities in my life.
Table of Contents
Who is Betsy Leighton?
I’m a writer, blogger, and healer dedicated to helping individuals reconnect with their innate peace and wholeness by healing nervous system dysregulation. My personal experience with chronic illness called Mast Cell Activation Syndrome (MCAS) shapes my work, and my content offers tools to empower those with chronic illness to improve their well-being and take charge of their health.
I created the Sacred Self-Healing Method and am a trained and certified Safe and Sound Protocol provider, an author, blogger, and A Course in Miracles Teacher. I hold a Master of Divinity in Spiritual Counseling and am a trained spiritual mentor, with certificates in sound healing, aromatherapy, nutrition, and Sacred Deathcare. I offer a self-study certificate program in the Sacred Self-Healing Method, provide spiritual counseling and coaching, courses, and supported subscriptions for the Safe and Sound Protocol.
What is MCAS?
Mast Cell Activation Syndrome (MCAS) is a chronic condition that affects all organ systems. It can cause severe, disabling symptoms every day, including potentially fatal anaphylaxis. MCAS often occurs with other chronic conditions like Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome (EDS) and Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome (POTS). Managing MCAS is challenging because many healthcare providers are unaware of it, and diagnostic tests can be unreliable. Treatments include antihistamines and mast cell stabilizers, as well as avoiding triggers. Check out this post on managing MCAS.
2020 Update
It’s been a while since I’ve posted because I’ve been busy with life – selling our house in Minneapolis, preparing to move, house-hunting, moving, and finally settling into a new home in Woodbury, MN. I never would have imagined doing any of this during a global pandemic, let alone in a regular year, but the conditions that made it the right time to move all came together in June.
My life was so utterly turned upside-down that I had to refer back to my website’s Events page to remember that in March I switched to offering Zoom spiritual circles for women. It was a fun challenge to create engaging content and build connections among participants, even though we were meeting from our separate homes.
Forgiveness opportunities for everyone
We all went inward in April when the social distancing mandates went into effect, and May continued much the same. I’m grateful that the nurses at Pediatric Home Service continued to provide my daughter’s home immunoglobulin infusions throughout the quarantine.
Also in May, I saw a one-on-one spiritual-healing client via Google Meet that catalyzed me to start work on a second book. It started out as cleaning up the MyWomb project started over a decade ago, and morphed into a Sacred Self-Healing Workbook that will serve as the experiential companion piece to my first book. More on that later.
Healing as a forgiveness opportunity
Then, in June, we saw our LymeStop practitioner in Onalaska, WI, who immediately picked up on a mold issue that had been eluding us for years. He recommended that we get rid of our belongings, move, and start over to get away from the toxic mold that was hindering my daughter (and me) from healing from Lyme Disease and other co-infections. Though we had done mold remediation in our house several times, we hadn’t been able to get to the root of the problem. Whenever we were tested, we showed mold toxicity and mold illness, and though we had mold experts search our home, they couldn’t find the cause. Hearing this news gave us the kick in the pants to get over our resistance to moving and do it.
July was spent preparing our house for sale, getting rid of our belongings, and looking for a mold-free home. But almost every house we entered gave me brain fog and nausea because they, too, were water-damaged. It was frustrating because we wanted to stay in the SW Minneapolis vicinity but nothing was suitable. We expanded our search to neighboring suburbs, then to outer-ring suburbs, and finally landed on a new-construction home in Woodbury amid cornfields. Never in my wildest dreams could I have predicted this trajectory. But once we closed and moved in, it was home.
Changes with Covid-19
In July, before we moved, my landlord at Well Connected Twin Cities reached out and said they were closing their doors. So, I gave back my key and put that part of my spiritual healing practice on hold. Now that things are settling into a predictable rhythm, I’m beginning to update my website, LinkedIn page, and get on other networking sites like Alignable. I’m returning to a deeper meditation practice than was possible while we were in the throes of moving and tuning in to what my next endeavor will look like. I’m excited to pick up where I left off on the Sacred Self-Healing Workbook, which will include more meditation exercises, movement practices, and creative ways to express and explore your connection with Spirit.
A new home
My new living situation is pretty different from the 1937 Tudor in the Kenny neighborhood where we lived for the last 20 years. The old house had many “charming” elements (er, idiosyncrasies), and the neighborhood was a mishmash of many architectural styles, ethnicities, and textures. The new house is, well, brand new. We have yet to discover its quirks, and from the outside, all of the homes in the neighborhood look very similar. We’re living in a new development where all the homes are less than 3 years old, and the trees haven’t grown big enough to provide shade yet. Our driveway is neatly lined up directly across from our neighbors. That offered an unforeseen opportunity for forgiveness last week when my neighbor and I both got in our cars simultaneously and pulled out into the street in sync so that our bumpers met in the middle of the road. Ouch!
Oops!
After I heard the impact, I jumped out of the car and found myself face-to-face with a lovely neighbor I hardly knew, as we inspected our cars and both kept repeating, “I had no idea your car was there!” It was distressing but also comical, and luckily, neither of our nearly identical Subarus had sustained any damage beyond a paint smudge on the bumper.
But even though the “accident” was over, and there wasn’t a need to call insurance, I found myself reliving the event in my mind. And at the conclusion of each re-telling in my mind, I found myself returning to feelings of shame and guilt. Even though I knew I wasn’t bad, hadn’t done anything wrong, and that everything was alright, I continued to believe I was guilty.
This went on for about six hours, while I periodically practiced forgiveness for the event and my feelings, and I continued to experience waves of shame. Finally, after dinner, I focused on the root of the feelings of guilt and shame, and I directed my loving gaze at my hurting. I saw the part of me that, for whatever reason, felt I was bad and believed that by bumping bumpers with my neighbor, I deserved to suffer. In my mind’s eye, I bathed that part of me with loving light, feeling myself being filled with love, sensing my Divine helpers holding me in their arms, and hearing them tell me that I was meant to know I was pure love and light. This world, they reminded me, this reality, where cars occasionally bump into each other, is not the true reality where I am at home with God in Heaven. After this love bath, I resumed my evening free of the recurring surges of guilt and shame, and I resolved to write about it later.
Forgiveness recap
So, here I am, in a different city, having moved houses after twenty years. The resources required to plan and execute the move took all my available energy and creativity, leaving me with nothing left for growing or even maintaining my spiritual healing practice. According to Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, one must attend to basic needs for survival (food, shelter) before there is room in one’s psyche for more ethereal pursuits.
So when I finally had a secure bed to sleep in and food in the pantry, it was a great joy to feel my spiritual life rekindle in the last week. My creativity opened up for writing again, and I’m thinking about my spiritual healing practice while I write this long-overdue blog post. And a lovely result of our move is that when we visited our LymeStop practitioner again last week, we showed no evidence of active mold. Hurrah!
The up-side
I’m excited to see how the next phase of my spiritual healing practice plays out. Many, many opportunities for forgiveness came with letting go of our old house and belongings, moving, and realizing that we deserved to live free of mold, and I hope to share more about them later. And certainly, with our current political climate and the state of the world, there are innumerable opportunities for forgiveness facing us each day.
I wish for you a glorious day of knowing that you are loved, noticing the sun on your shoulders, enjoying the change of seasons, and finding peace within the chaos of our time. And I leave you with some luminous words shared by my friend Jeannie Ouellette by Randall Brown:
“The world – shattered and lying in shards – has grown tired of its pieces being glued together to create the illusion of something complete. Instead, the world hopes someone will pick up a single fragment and create out of it something whole, something that fills that compressed space with the entirety of all that there is.”
Randall Brown, author of the award-winning flash collection Mad to Live and editor of Matter Press
Intention
Sacred Self-Healing relies on intention and frequency. Intention directs frequency to bring about healing. The universal formula for healing is:
Intention + Frequency = Healing.
In this expression, “frequency” refers to the specific healing modality being applied. Setting an intention is particularly beneficial when utilizing self-healing methods such as frequency and forgiveness. This post covers more information on the power of intention.
Beneficial Frequency
Beneficial frequency refers to natural vibrations that synchronize biological and Earth systems, to support overall harmony. For instance, visible red and blue light from the sun are beneficial frequencies because they regulate circadian rhythms. Likewise, Earth’s Schumann resonance is a naturally occurring frequency that aligns internal and external rhythms for health. This post discusses beneficial frequency in more depth.
Forgiveness
Forgiveness, like love, is seen as a high-frequency energetic state connected to compassion and gratitude. In contrast, emotions such as resentment and anger are thought to have lower frequencies, constricting rather than elevating well-being. Forgiveness helps elevate energy, promote emotional healing, and support physiological balance. Science hasn’t measured the frequency of forgiveness, but studies show that forgiveness can improve heart and brain patterns and help the body work more smoothly. Forgiveness brings balance, healing, and peace—both emotionally and physically. This post delves deeper into forgiveness.
The bucket theory
The bucket theory simplifies understanding symptom reactions with MCAS. Imagine your body as an empty bucket you don’t want to overflow. Reactions to various stimuli fill the histamine bucket at different rates, forming the total histamine level (how full your bucket is). More histamine means more symptoms. By managing triggers, reducing exposures, and taking medications and supplements, you can control your bucket’s level.
Know your typical symptom progression
Understanding your symptom progression during a flare is key to developing your rescue plan. This post discusses how to recognize symptom progression so you can be prepared to address them.
Get my free ebook, symptom log, and meal plan!
Want a tool to easily track your symptoms?
Check out these circadian health tools!
I’m an affiliate with Bon Charge, a company that makes tools for circadian health, and you can receive 15% off your order with my coupon code BETSYL.
Bon Charge offers tools such as yellow– and red-tone blue-blocking glasses, red light therapy devices, PEMF mats, infrared saunas, and EMF-blocking products.
Sign up for the SSP!
I’ve found the Safe and Sound Protocol (SSP) to be the most helpful bottom-up healing strategy if your nervous system has been overloaded with toxic exposures, including mold or non-native EMFs, chronic infections, concussions, stress, or trauma. The SSP is a passive listening therapy based on Polyvagal Theory that helps heal nervous system dysregulation. Many people with MCAS and other chronic conditions have nervous system dysregulation stemming from infections, toxic exposures, concussions, and trauma. The SSP is an easy-to-use app that lets you listen to specially filtered music for 30 minutes each day as part of a 5-hour cycle. Studies show the SSP has a profound effect on mental health and chronic conditions. Here’s a short podcast describing the Safe and Sound Protocol.
You can sign up for the SSP here!
Heal your mind!
While the SSP is a bottom-up, somatic therapy for healing the nervous system, the Sacred Self-Healing Method I offer is a top-down nervous system-healing modality that focuses on cognition, attention, perception, and emotion, using the mind’s higher functions. The SSP and the Sacred Self-Healing Method complement each other and together produce lasting results. Here’s a short podcast on my self-healing practice.
I provide one-on-one in-person and remote chronic illness and caregiver coaching, as well as Sacred Self-Healing Sessions based on the Sacred Self-Healing Method, a proven, novel co-creative healing modality detailed in my Books.
Order my books!
Here’s a short podcast highlighting my five books.
My latest book, Living In The Light: Healing with Forgiveness, Sound, and Light, is all about the tools that have been most helpful for me to heal: forgiveness, sound, through nervous system retraining using the Safe and Sound Protocol, and light, through entraining my circadian rhythm with the energy of the sun. Living In The Light is available here!
Rocks and Roots chronicles my solo backpacking journey on the Superior Hiking Trail and my efforts to overcome nervous system dysregulation, gut dysbiosis, and Mast Cell Activation Syndrome symptoms to complete the 328-mile hike successfully.
The Sacred Self-Healing Method ebook is available here and in most ebook retailers!
The Sacred Self-Healing Workbook is available for purchase here!
Betsy’s first book, Sacred Self-Healing: Finding Peace Through Forgiveness, is available here
Companion Recordings
The companion audio recordings of chants, guided meditations, and sound healing demonstrations that accompany the Sacred Self-Healing Method are available for free on my YouTube channel here
What do you think?
I’d love to have your reply below!
Disclaimer
The preceding material does not constitute medical advice. This information is for information purposes only and is not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, cure, or treatment.
