“Before you start treating someone, ask them if they are willing to give up what caused them to get sick.”

Hippocrates

It took me several years to really understand in the deepest essence and in the scientific context what we all know superficially long ago…. And that the real and real cause of almost all health problems is STRESS! Of course, there are other causes, but stress is dominant. Unless we remove it, not only do we open the window to new diseases, but even the treatment of the old ones is simply not possible! I repeat once again: the body simply cannot cure itself in chronic stress!

Stress is historically the body’s natural protection against acute dangers (such as predators). It causes the release of hormones (cortisol, epinephrine …) that activate readiness for “fight or flight”. Active muscle readiness, blood pressure, pulse, breathing, sweating, attention increase…. However, this temporary state also reduces the functionality of digestion, immunity, regeneration, sleep, etc ..

The problem occurs when this state of stress is permanent (chronic) . Stress at work, fear of financial security, dysfunctional partnership, non-fulfillment, stagnation… .. Permanent secretion of stress hormones begins to attack other systems such as cardiovascular, respiratory, etc.….  And here begins the vicious circle (spiral) towards disease.  Decreased immunity allows the entry or multiplication of pathogens (such as Borrelia) and the development of infection. This in turn causes an inflammatory reaction. And the symptoms again. You turn even more stress, even worse immunity, hormonal disbalans and many other associated diseases… .. And the decline in health begins 🙂

Now you will say that what I am writing here is nothing new and that this old and boring cliché about the fact that stress is harmful is already known also by small children in the sandpit. But this is a big mistake! In fact, only few people know the real root cause of chronic stress… And that is FEAR! And the deep cause of fear is TRAUMA! 

So meditation, breathing and all possible anti-stress techniques are very important (I often use them myself), but they do not solve the core of the problem. And so they do not even solve the cause of the disease. Rather, they only suppress the consequences – the symptoms.

Fearer

Since this is a relatively complex causal system of causes and effects, I took a piece of paper and drew a stick figure, which I called Fearer, and on which I will explain the context of a man dealing with health complications. In this case, I adapted Fearer’s sketch specifically for Lyme disease. 

So it all starts with some trauma. Whether overt or covert. Individual or collective. Congenital or caused. Trauma is usually not understood in depth, so it’s being usually treated negatively.   This is the source of dislike and separation from the whole. Here we begin to perceive other beings as competition, not as a single whole. As a protective shell, one creates a false identity, the ego. And from it springs all stressful situations such as fear, anger, sadness, lust, clinging…. 

So if we want to start healing, we need to minimize stress. If we want to minimize stress, we must remove its true germs – trauma and fear. It’s not just to sweep him under the rug and pretend I’m calm 🙂 The connection between trauma, stress and illness has been professionally addressed by Dr. Gabor Maté for decades. I recommend watching a few lectures from him, where you will find many brilliant observations. For example, you can start with this mini document why you are in pain.

I have noticed that people who get “lyme disease” are mostly hardworkers and perfectionists who follow the principles of a healthy lifestyle. Sometimes they live an overly anxiously responsible way of life. But didn’t this lifestyle cause them illness? Isn’t their lust for social recognition and perfection the cause of their chronic stress and it the cause of illness? And isn’t their quest for a speedy recovery a source of even greater stress?

Fear

So we already know the connection between trauma -> fear -> stress -> illness. What are we going to do about it now? It would be ideal to reframe (positively re-process) the trauma, to solve the cause and thus change the whole perception from the character of Fearer to Healer. 

However, long-term and uncorrected trauma also causes physical changes in brain structures. It can be compared to derailed rails, which need to be “traversed” in another direction. Thus, this cannot be done with a one-time rational understanding. This requires different therapeutic approaches with an experienced therapist.  

For pragmatic and skeptical people (like most lyme patients), such a change requires a long-term process, system, and discipline. This is the principle of “peeling onions”, where we work in layers – from the top to the core. From consequence to cause. There are many ways to work with FEAR and its main associated emotions such as anger, sadness, lust and clinging.

My favorite techniques stem from the understanding that they are really no “stakes in game”, because:

• I’ll “die” anyway (everything will turn out well in the end), so why should I be scared?

• I’m not that important! – There are more than 17 billion earth-like planets in space. Compared to other planets, the earth is just a grain in the sand. There are approx. 8 billion people, so I’m like one grain of sand in the Sahara. So I’m a grain in a grain => unimportant 🙂

• “This reality is merely an illusion…” (A. Einstein). Quite a number of scientists have recently agreed that we most likely live only in fiction – in virtual reality. Something like a computer game. This means that everything we consider material is just a simulation, and in fact it does not exist. Nor “lyme disease”.

So since it’s nothing, then why be afraid, angry, and sad? Why have lust and cling to everything? Why to stress and make treatment impossible? 

“Everything will be okay in the end. If it’s not okay, it’s not the end. ”

J. Lennon

Beliefs / reality

Your beliefs are not reality, but they create it. It is very important to have order in them, as they significantly affect the quality of your life and thus your health. It doesn’t matter if they are true (we never know what the real truth is), but if they serve or harm you. Therefore, it is important to get rid of toxic beliefs and promote healthy ones. You can easily recognize their usefulness, or harmfulness, by the FEELING you have associated with them after a short time.

Typical toxic beliefs:

• “Lyme disease” is my enemy and it hurts a lot
• it cannot be cured
• I am it’s victim
• it is very unfair
• I have to fight it

Typical healthy beliefs:

• what if “lyme” is my teacher?
• what if it doesn’t want anything bad, just came to tell me important information about my misunderstanding and stagnation?
• what if it started changes that will make me happier at the end?
• what if I will be grateful for this “lesson” once?
• what if I don’t fight but rather try to listen and understand?
• what if then “lyme” leaves alone and I will be in full health again?

Which of these beliefs makes you feel less stressed? Which are more healing?

“Things are not as they are, but as you perceive them”

Antonie De Saint-Exupéry

Placebo / nocebo

There are also scientifically proven phenomena such as placebo / nocebo or the Pygmalion effect (self-fulfilling prophecy) based on the principle of belief, which indicate that what you believe is true in your reality and that will most likely turn into a physical form later.

Beliefs are even so strong that there is a notion of “autosuggestion infection,” where news and the media raise concerns about a disease that causes pro-inflammatory bio-chemicals to form in the body, which in turn weakens the immune system by activating so far “sleeping” microbes. So advertising for a drug can also be an invitation to the disease 🙂

“Whether you think you can, or you think you can‘t – you’re right”

H. Ford

Mindfulness / energy

“Energy flows where your attention goes!”

T. Robbins

If you are convinced that people are bad, you will really see their bad qualities in them, and you will continue to confirm yourself in this spiral of belief (confirmation bias). On the contrary, if you are convinced of their goodness, you are guaranteed to find something good for each person and later even more.

The same goes for illness and things related to it. If you are convinced that you are sick, you will direct your attention to tests, doctors, articles… You will fall into the spiral of the mentality of the disease and forget that the vast majority of your cells in the body are still healthy. You will stop noticing them and thus support them. Do you know what will happen to them in the end?

The problem is that it is not a static attitude, but rather dynamic thought spirals that have the ability to create and attract new similar ideas. It is a vicious circle towards health or disease. So what are we going to notice? What is less stressful? TV newspaper, politics, or a good comedy? Discussion forums about “lyme disease” or a nature documentary? 🙂

Fire – the cause

So we already know trauma as a major cause of illness. We talked about how we can work with beliefs and attention to influence our reality and thus the strongest emotions such as fear, anger and grief.

We already know that this significantly reduces stress, which is an absolute obstacle to healing. For simplicity, we have called this whole concept of causes “fire.” Reducing fire is a relatively long-term process. However, each step forward is sweetly rewarded with significantly better holistic health, relationships and overall quality of life. It is a real self-development. The ideal state is to be at a level where the disease does not even occur (there is no fire), but the fact is that each of us has some intensity of “fire”. The result is an “increase in boiler pressure”. If the “pressure” is too high, symptoms will appear. 

Steam – consequence

The long-term strategy is therefore to reduce the “fire” and the short-term is to “release steam from the boiler”. The combination of these two strategies will reverse the “healing spiral” towards symptom-free health and life. So how do you “release steam”? There are hundreds of books, articles, theories, protocols, therapies and methods of natural treatment of Lyme disease. However, everyone has a different disease state, a different response to treatment, so it is difficult to find a universal solution.

First, I would start with the question: what resources do I have? How much money, time and contacts do I have on EXPERIENCED EXPERTS? If you have enough of these resources, I recommend going to “release steam” under the supervision of these top experts (doctors, therapists, etc ..). However, if these resources of yours are severely limited (as with most “lyme disease” patients), we will need to generalize the treatment of symptoms a little more.

Initial diagnosis in the form of events, symptoms and tests is important to determine the basic health hypothesis. However, with limited resources, I recommend devoting more resources to treatment than to diagnosis. Routine tests are expensive and inaccurate – insufficiently sensitive and non-specific. In addition, they target only a few species of pathogens among hundreds more untested or have not yet been discovered.