SPEAKER_00: hey guys having talked to over a hundred and seventy people already about their recovery from me cfs or long covid i've learned that while recovery definitely is possible it usually takes a while rapid recoveries are the exception but they are incredibly exciting when they do happen and today's interview is an example of just that hi everyone i'm ralan if you're new here welcome on this channel we explore recovery strategies and share real life stories every week to learn as much as we can from each other in fact these interviews are now part of a research study to discover what helps most people regain their health i'm super excited to have kelly with us today over in new york just four months after starting a recovery program she completed a ten k run and is now training for a full marathon so let's dive in and hear about her incredible journey and how she went from barely making it through the day to now running incredibly long distances kelly so great to have you here today thank you so much for being here and sharing your story yes thank you for having me so take us back you know to the beginning or before the beginning how did you how did this all start for you how did you start to notice that you something was off and you were well

SPEAKER_01: yeah so i typically am a very active person and i usually have a lot of energy to do different activities but there is a phase in my life where i just started to get really tired and i didn't have the motivation to go out and do as many activities and so i just started to notice things like laying in bed i would get these canker sores and just overall not feeling the best

SPEAKER_00: and did you go to see a doctor what did you think was happening

SPEAKER_01: i did go get my blood work done i thought maybe it was low iron or my electrolytes but my blood work came out pretty good and i thought maybe it was something mentally that was causing this

SPEAKER_00: and what made you think that

SPEAKER_01: just because i went to multiple doctors and they all said the same thing that everything was perfectly fine for my vitals my blood work but still i was getting lightheaded when i was standing up i didn't have as much focus during the day and the worst symptom was the mouth sores which i thought maybe had to do with me not handling my stress well

SPEAKER_00: okay so it sounds like the doctors essentially sent you away with nothing and you were left to figure this out on your own so what did you do from there

SPEAKER_01: so i heard about this program i can thrive and i was referred to the program by a family member and so i went to therapist before this to try to figure out some skills but none of them were as helpful as this program that i started to use

SPEAKER_00: okay i've had jason on the channel before that's jason mctiernan's program correct i can thrive yeah i've interviewed a lot of people actually on the channel who have gone through his program and have recovered and interviewed him himself he's a great guy so what was it like going through the program for you and how did you find how do you think that it helped you to get past this and get where you are now

SPEAKER_01: in the beginning i was a little skeptical because the program does have like a hypnosis type of effect in it where you're going through and imagining yourself at ease in a situation and trying to bring that into the future so i never really had that type of technique but once i really committed to learning the program it really made a difference and i could use all these little techniques in situations when i'm by myself such as like when i was driving in the car i get anxious and you really train your brain to think differently

SPEAKER_00: yeah it is the whole program is based around i know a big component of it is this brain retraining piece which so many people are finding incredibly helpful with their journey had you heard of anything like this before you started doing this

SPEAKER_01: i heard of going to a hypnotist which i never went to but i know some people like that i also heard of the emdr techniques for therapy so i movement desensitization and reprocessing but i never really tried his method

SPEAKER_00: yeah i just i asked because it can be a different way of thinking about healing than we usually do when our doctors tell us from what we grew up hearing about how you get well typically some sort of medication or surgery or something so to work with your brain to heal your body is a completely paradigm shift that we're in right now understanding healing and symptoms so once you started doing the program how quickly did you start to see progress

SPEAKER_01: i started to see it maybe two weeks after it was pretty quick and compared to some other cases i know jason said that mine was a quicker recovery but yeah it really changed within six months i was back to feeling fully well

SPEAKER_00: wow and since then you're even running ten k races can you tell us about that and what did that feel like

SPEAKER_01: that was great my first ten k that i ran that year it was just motivating me to get back out there and challenge my body with physical activities right now i'm training for a full marathon with some of my friends and before i don't think i would have had the mental stamina to do that and now i just have that positive affirmations and changing the way of my mindset from fix to growth and it really has made a difference

SPEAKER_00: yeah going through these things does seem to transform people it's a horrible thing to go through but thankfully there's a lot of good that comes out of it do you have you noticed other changes within yourself for how you live your life now versus before you went through this

SPEAKER_01: yeah i definitely think that i am more eager to surround myself with people who have the growth mindset that they want to continue to challenge themselves and get better i also use a lot more of empowering statements where i didn't realize that saying like i am anxious is disempowering but instead you could say i am on my way to getting better and that's more of a journey rather than oh i'm stuck at this state of anxiety so definitely having those skills to keep positivity in my mind has helped my progress

SPEAKER_00: yeah it sounds like you took a lot away from the i can thrive program although it's meant for cfs and long covid and similar conditions recovery but like a lot of programs or like a lot of things that we do you learn a lot of tools that end up serving you in life past this and beyond this yeah so when you're going through the program if someone's watching it and they are thinking oh this might be a good fit for me what does it look like to actually do the program can you tell us what an average day or week looks like

SPEAKER_01: sure so in the beginning you'll start to meet with jason more frequently and he will guide you through the meditating process you also have access to the resources so there's online videos that he'll send you i think one of the best parts of this program is how personable jason is so i would get text messages randomly and throughout my recovery saying i just climbed a mountain i know you can do it you're doing great and it's just great having someone who believes in you that much even though we were complete strangers and the program focuses on like you said heavy resources so we would do our coaching sessions i would watch the videos he would recommend audio books and he'd give you free copies over email and just pointing you to different authors that have similar experiences so you see that the evidence is out there that this program's working

SPEAKER_00: amazing and are you do you feel fully past this now is this officially behind you

SPEAKER_01: i think there's still some days where i do feel very tired but i have now these tools to fix that so obviously you know life is stressful i'm still going to have some anxious moments but i can refocus and use these tools to pass it

SPEAKER_00: yeah i think that's a really good answer because i mean the question itself really you know what does it mean to be fully recovered and fully past this if anyone ever really you know because these are things that were happening in our brain and our nervous system and you know trying to send us signals and alarms and we want those things to keep working so we're going to keep going to keep having symptoms and different things in our lives to let us know what's going on i guess the great thing is is that we walk away feeling not scared of that because if something does pop up like okay i've got the tools i know what to do i can get past it yeah so for you have anything that you'd want to say to people who are watching right now who are still on their journey maybe feeling a little bit lost or hopeless or anything that you'd say to yourself if you could go back during those times

SPEAKER_01: i would definitely validate what you're feeling even if you haven't found any doctors or any social support that has the same experience there are people out there who have these product fatigue syndromes whatever they're facing and this program truly could help all you need really is to be pointed to the right resources and you know just like jason he'll always tell you that you got this and it's a journey so can't just keep comparing yourself to where you've been like you're on the right path to recovery

SPEAKER_00: amazing well i'm so so happy for you kelly this is incredible i'm happy you connected with jason and yeah wishing you just amazing things from here i appreciate you taking the time to tell your story i know it will mean a lot to people to hear it it's always great to see that hope on the other side and that you can turn things around quite quickly sometimes sounds like yours is you know i always say radical success is the exception not the norm so you know don't want people watching to feel discouraged if their recovery doesn't happen in two weeks i know overall it took longer than that a few months for you guys yeah it is just really encouraging to see that you can turn things around and sometimes really quite quickly so yeah thank you so much for doing this today i really appreciate it kelly yeah thank you for those of you watching looking forward to your comments as always and i will link up here if you're interested in learning more about jason mctiernan and his program i can thrive we'll put a video here to help you get a better sense of what that's all about so yeah thank you again kelly thank you to those of you watching i hope you enjoyed this video i hope you got something out of it and i hope to see you in this next one here

SPEAKER_01: thanks erin
