A few years ago, I discovered what I didn’t realize at the time was the beginning of a life-changing journey into chronic illness.
It started with noticing shortness of breath when I bent down to pick something up from the floor, and it quickly snowballed. It was as if I entered another reality, where I went from being a healthy person whose life is full of hiking, dancing, and walking, to someone whose body could no longer cooperate with life. Worse, my heart rate rose throughout the day and night to levels that would send healthy friends rushing to the ER. I was tired and sometimes lost my energy.
A former Buddhist meditation teacher and hypnotherapist, I found myself on a crash course in treating a complex medical condition and learning how to live a meaningful life within a fundamentally altered body.
This was the beginning of a complex condition involving almost every system in my body, ultimately traced back to my time living in a small house occupied by an uninvited tenant: black mold. At the time, I had no idea how profoundly this experience would change my body, my life, and my career.
A former Buddhist meditation teacher and hypnotherapist, I found myself on a crash course in treating a complex medical condition and learning how to live a meaningful life within a fundamentally altered body.
During the years that followed, I worked to create spaces of healing, resilience, and happiness for myself, rebuilding a life that was in many ways happier and more comfortable than the one I had lost. I also found myself supporting many clients navigating complex illnesses themselves. Over and over again, I saw how mindfulness and addiction can help people feel a new sense of hope, connection, and power to relate to their lives and bodies in a different way.
A Nervous System That Assembles Against Threat
When we’re living with chronic illness or pain, it can often feel like we’re on our guard—and for good reason. The body is designed to detect danger and react quickly against the threat. We have survived generations of human evolution because of this finely tuned system. It’s a wonderful gift—until it isn’t.
Pain, stress, illness, and other problems can send signals throughout our bodies that something is wrong. It’s our system’s way of saying, “Hey! Wait! Please take care of me.”
“Maladaptive neuroplasticity” happens when the body and mind begin to reorganize to deal with an ongoing threat. Unfortunately, we don’t always reorganize in a way that helps us long-term or feels particularly good. In our minds and bodies, it’s about one thing and one thing only: our survival.
But in chronic conditions that occur over time, this repetitive activity can make our nervous system more sensitive to threats. Our body’s warning system goes off repeatedly, reacting to even the smallest changes in posture, environment, or living conditions like five fire alarms. This is part of why hypnosis and meditation have been shown to be very supportive of chronic illness and pain, when used in conjunction with appropriate medical care.
You’ve probably heard the term “neurons that fire together in a wire,” which is what it means when we repeat anything else repeatedly, we develop robust neural pathways that operate automatically. This feature is very pleasant in many situations: we consciously remember driving a car, we see the face of a loved one and a feeling of warmth wash over us, we wake up and go to our meditation cushion because it is a normal part of our routine.
Our brains are incredibly efficient. They want to save energy, so they create shortcuts to do so. This is often helpful, but when it comes to chronic pain and illness, this can lead to extreme sensitivity, and what some researchers call it. maladaptive neuroplasticity.
What does that mean for us? Essentially, the body and mind begin to reorganize to deal with the ongoing threat. Unfortunately, we don’t always reorganize in a way that helps us in the long run or feels the most fun. In our minds and bodies, it’s about one thing and one thing only: our survival.
Over time, an internal algorithm is created in the brain, body, and nervous system: We are exposed to a trigger or feel the onset of a symptom and automatically, a rash of chemical, physical, and emotional responses are ignited within a fraction of a second. Emotions run high, mental loops begin to spin, discomfort worsens, and emotional pathways that connect things like fear, sadness, hopelessness, frustration, and physical symptoms become stronger.
The amazing thing about neuroplasticity is that you have more agency in this process than you might think, especially when it comes to navigating habitual thoughts and reactions, stress, and frustration.
Neuroplasticity Means You Have Greater Power Than You Know
It’s understandable that these processes can feel overwhelming, automatic, and overwhelming, but that’s not the full picture. The amazing thing about neuroplasticity is that you have more agency in this process than you might think, especially when it comes to navigating habitual thoughts and reactions, stress, and frustration.
This is where mindfulness and addiction can provide real support. Both processes help you recognize when the alarm bells start ringing, so you can interrupt the flow of reactivity and learn to direct it elsewhere. Through relaxation, breathing, focused attention, visualization, and active work with the unconscious mind, you can begin to support the nervous system and create an environment where triggers, symptoms, and recurring attitudes and thoughts can be met and worked through.
The more you practice cultivating and resting in qualities like safety, compassion, kindness, and relaxation, the stronger and more spontaneous they become. Just as you have strengthened the muscles of stress and anxiety, you can strengthen the muscles of relaxation, honesty, and permission to relax and care for yourself.
One of my clients described this process as being able to access her “little sanctuary”—a place where even in the midst of years of complex illness, she can rest, remember her wholeness, and feel at ease. As a result, his sleep has greatly improved as well as his overall sense of hope, energy, and well-being.
Talking to Everyone
Of course, this does not mean that we can simply “meditate” on a condition that needs treatment. These practices are best done in conjunction with medical care, because they allow us to navigate the full range of our experiences—from stress about doctor appointments and medical procedures, to changes in our relationships and careers, to celebrating successes and progress when they come. Living with pain and illness affects our bodies but also our personality, our spirituality, and our view of the world. These processes can allow us to show all its parts.
Adding meditation and hypnosis to our chronic care program can reveal that we have more power than we think: the ability to disrupt normal thoughts, create moments of relaxation and inner security, and even restructure emotions, beliefs, and patterns that can make life with a chronic disease more difficult than it already is.
Adding meditation and hypnosis to our chronic care program can reveal that we have more power than we think: the ability to disrupt normal thoughts, create moments of relaxation and inner security, and even restructure emotions, beliefs, and patterns that can make life with a chronic disease more difficult than it already is.
This is very powerful because in the kind of mental states achieved through meditation and hypnosis, the mind becomes flexible, creative, and flexible. In fact, early research shows that physical practices such as meditation and hypnosis may influence brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF), a molecule linked to neuroplasticity, learning, pain modulation, and the ability of the nervous system to adapt in response to stress.
When we add these practices to our toolbox, we work with the subconscious mind to reframe our relationship with illness from the inside out.
