Podcast 003 Transcript: Overcoming Thyroid Stress

(Intro doctors SONG: “No Matter” by Frances)

Hi there, I’m Deborah Wiggins-Hay & I’m really pleased you decided to spend some time with me today! Because I’m really excited to share with you my journey…About how I became Hypothyroid after the birth of my daughter 22 years ago; but more excitingly, how by using simple tools and techniques I have now become euthyroid and am now hypothyroid free!

These tools and techniques are what I would like to share with you through the Butterfly Wings Program.

Firstly, I want to thank you for taking the time to join me, because I know your time is precious, because we are all so busy in our lives today. And I want to assure you that you are not alone in your experience of hypothyroidism, and however hopeless things may feel for you at the moment, that I know (and so do those other people that have suffered with the same signs and symptoms of this disease know) that you are absolutely doing the best that you possibly can right now - and in the only way that you know how to do that!

We’ve all struggled, and we all know how difficult that can feel!

But there is hope - as more and more people are finding that they can make positive changes, that positively affect their overall health and wellbeing.

And secondly, Id like to invite you to really think about what it is you really want to do, in terms of looking after yourself, and begin to really own your own health and wellbeing journey.

Being here is a positive start to that - but what else might you be able to do in terms of looking after yourself right now.

So I'd just like to share with you a little of my own history and my own health journey. I am sure that for many of you, this will be very familiar.

I was diagnosed at the age of 25, just a few months after having given birth to my daughter.

What followed was a 20 year period from my diagnosis, where although I was given medication, and although I was at times told that my thyroid hormone levels were normal, I continued to experience the ongoing symptoms of my hypothyroidism almost constantly.

There were periods that that changed and things altered. When I could get different types of drugs and at different periods in that time, that my thyroid levels did change. But really I was left to really find my own way to improve my health and to find a way to get through my life…Sometimes day by day. Sometimes every day was a struggle!

I was a new mum, I had a young child. My husband was working away all day. We had a new home. I had more responsibilities to other people, and at the same time as all these huge ‘life changing events’ with all these things happening around me, I found that for the first time in my life I had no energy. I was not able to think clearly. I was barely able to keep myself awake. I had no reserves, no ability to do anything for myself and even less for the people around me - who really needed me to be doing things for them - or at least I felt they needed me and were relying on me - and I just wasn’t “cutting it”!

There was no way of being able to get help through the medical system at that time. Blood tests: If TSH came through as being normal (after taking medication/levothyroxine), I am sure this is a story many of you have heard before - then there was no further work or inviestigation required - and as far as the professional medical doctor was concerned I was within ‘normal limits’ and therefore considered OK!

My symptoms were put down to things like ‘depression’ or simply having a ‘bad day’, or “not being able to cope” or simply tiredness of just ‘being a new mother’!

And back in that particular time (20 years ago I was diagnosed) there was no google, no internet, of being able to check if there were other alternatives, or of being able to check if other people were having a similar or different experience to me.

And so, the doctors word was sacrosanct. It was the final word. We were not even aware back then that we could have a second opinion, that we could question the doctors narrative or the doctors opinion. However, I was VERY certain the day that I was told that I would be on medication for the rest of my life (and I told the doctor) that “that would not be the case”! And he just looked at me and laughed and said “You have an autoimmune disease and it is destroying your thyroid - and your thyroid makes important hormones for your body to function, and you WILL be on these tablets for the rest of your life!”

Well of course he was correct about many of those things - but I would like to tell you that today, I am no longer on any type of medication for my thyroid and that my most recent endocrinologist confirmed that my thyroid had regrown and was, and IS fully functioning!

I have actually felt better and not been on medication now for over 2 years. But for a very long period of that time, I did not want to admit to other people that I had in a sense ‘recovered’. I didn’t want to make it public straight away those changes that had occurred for me.

Now those changes had occurred because I made very specific and committed approach to doing something to improve my health. And I had been lucky enough, through my own path and my own journey to discover tools and techniques which I felt were going to change me. Were going to do something different and take me on a different path.

And because I was lucky enough to find those tools and those techniques (albeit that ‘luck’ involved many years of searching and studying), I made a commitment to just concentrate all my time and effort that I could for myself in utilising those tools and techniques and then ‘seeing’ what happened.

The result of that was quite unexpected and some might say miraculous, and generally in the medical profession it is not accepted or expected that someone being hypothyroid over a period of 20 years should then suddenly find that their thyroid is working well again and that they should not need medication again.

Now it is true that hypothyroidism and hyperthyroidism can reverse and people can have bouts of thyroid dysfunction and then the body can go back, readjust and find homeostasis. But it is very very rare and unlikely after such a long period of time (such as 20 years). That tends to happen when there has been short bouts of this dysfunction, perhaps post-partum, or during pregnancy, or over short periods of time where an adjustment is seen quite quickly after onset.

So this was quite an unusual and an unexpected thing to happen; but it was also very specifically directed and intentional on my part. I was doing something specifically to make a change - although I did not know the change was (definitely) going to happen!

So what I would like to do is to be able to share some of those things with you.

I have spent the last year trying to find a way to share the knowledge, the tools and the techniques that I have through the journey that my own thyroid dysfunction has led me on.

Finding a way to share that with other people because it is my profound belief that I am not a miracle case - that I have no ‘special power’, and that I have done nothing that is not in the power of anybody else to do as well.

This is not done through nutrition, or changing my diet. But purely through ‘energy psychology’ techniques. Through understanding what was at the root (cause of my disease) - fundamentally within my own thinking, experience and emotional body. Understanding & recognising events, thoughts, beliefs and patterns that were actually reinforcing and holding my body in a way that was stopping my body from rebalancing and healing (itself).

So when I was able to understand those thoughts, those feelings, those patterns - all of that mind, body, social connection, I was able to make choices about whether I wanted to remain stuck within those patterns, or to make alternative choices and begin to break those patterns.

Once I had broken those patterns in various ways & relating to multiple different

thoughtsevents and beliefs

Then my body was able to do something which it had always been TRYING to do (i.e. "heal itself'), but which it was not able to complete and fulfil, until it was given the opportunity to come out of that constant chronic stress that was constantly being initiated through those constant thoughts, events, beliefs and experiences!

Now most of those (thoughts and beliefs and their connected events and experiences) are unconscious - so we don’t realise that we are doing them, or that by doing them they are having a direct effect on our biology and our body!

But once we start to understand those patterns, those thoughts and beliefs and those processes and how and why our body is responding to them in that way, we can chose to make changes around them.

The rest (of our healing ability) is then down to the body…so…

This is what I would like to share with you - the tools and the techniques. Everything that I have come to understand - not from a medical point of view, not from a nutrition or a dietary point of view; but purely from the ability to change your own thoughts, and the way your body is behaving and how you are feeling about certain events. And that is hugely power - a self-empowering gift.

It is the single GIFT from having such a disease as hypo or hyperthyroidism.

Its a profound gift - and whilst it didn’t seem to be one at the time I was unable to get out of bed, or remember what I had just been thinking about, or function on so many levels…then it really didn’t feel like a gift at that time. But now - NOW I can see the gift in the situation and the life experience that I have had.

And because I can see that, and it has changed my life so drastically now - I see it as a gift - and one I would really like to share with you

(SONG: “Change” by Taylor Swift)

(This is the main aim of the MBD Blogs and Podcasts - to share the thoughts, the tools and techniques and other peoples experiences with those. Looking at how we can consciously engage in our own self-empowered health journey!)

This really is an opportunity for change - a real opportunity to be able to make a difference to your life and to be able to be completely in control of what it is that you do and you think and understand how that has an impact on your mind and your body - and really begin to see those changes happening.

It is a revolution!

It is a revolution in the way we think about health!

It is a revolution in the way we think about our body!

Its a revolution in the way that we know that the things we think and that we do have a direct impact on the cells in our body, in the way that the organs of our body are functioning.

And that that body is supremely intelligent and doing a miraculous job that is all about keeping us safe, keeping us in the best possible health!

And even though that seems impossible to consider to be true when we are feeling those effects of our ill health - when we really understand what it is that our body is doing and why it is responding the way that it is responding - it becomes a real miracle!

Its an eye opening, a mind blowing reality, to begin to understand yourself - and to see that your body is doing the best that it can possibly do in every moment - in every situation!

When we become completely aware of how our mind, and the experiences of our past, and the things that we are expecting and believing about our life and our future - when we truly begin to 'see' that those thoughts have a complete and direct effect on our body, we can absolutely chose how we want to think, how we want to act.

And even though that seems like such a simple thing to do, it is a profoundly personal journey to really begin to understand ourselves on that level!

So it is a revolution, but its a revolution in terms of not only health, and the way that the world comes to look at and understand health, but it is a revolution in terms of how you come to look at and understand yourself

• and why you do the things you do

• and why your body is doing the things it is doing

Change is always possible!

Change is a choice!

And when we understand that we have that choice -

the only thing we have left to do is to decide…

To Make It!!!

If you would like to take part in the next MBD course “Overcoming Thyroid Stress: A Self Help Program”, then visit the MBD website and sign up at www.themindbodydetective.com

For general supporting information about thyroid dysfunction, visit www.hypothyroidfree.com

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