First Chapter Of Book "It's Not In Your Mind" Plus Bonus Video Content!

IT’S NOT IN YOUR MIND

Solutions and Strategies for Lyme Disease, Mold Illness, and Chronic Infections

Second Edition

Diane Mueller ND, DAOM, LAc

Copyright © 2023 My Lyme Doc

Published by Amazon Publishing

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Please check out the online quiz that goes with this book because it will help you to understand which chronic infections you might have: https://mylymedoc.com/bookquiz

You can find free blog articles and find out more about other products and service offerings by going to MyLymeDoc.com. Please note that we do work with people all around the world. In addition, we treat a wide variety of root causes from a functional medicine perspective including Lyme, mold, toxic metals, hormonal imbalances, thyroid disease, digestive problems, other environmental toxins exposure, and much more. Everyone is unique which is why we run lab tests to help find root causes and treat the results specifically!

The information shared in this book is for educational and informational purposes only and is not intended to be viewed as medical or mental health advice. It is not designed to be a substitute for professional advice from your physician, therapist, attorney, accountant or any other health care practitioner or licensed professional. The Publisher and the Author do not make any guarantees as to the effectiveness of any of the techniques, suggestions, tips, ideas or strategies shared in this book as each situation differs. The Publisher and Author shall neither have liability nor responsibility with respect to any direct or indirect loss or damage caused or alleged by the information shared in this book related to your health, life or business or any other aspect of your situation. It’s your responsibility to do your own due diligence and use your own judgment when applying any techniques or situations mentioned in or through this book. References to persons or situations in this book are fictional, though they may be based on real life situations. Written

permission has been obtained to share the identity of any real individual named in this book. Any citations or sources of information from other organizations or websites are not endorsements of the information or content the website or organization provides or recommendations it may make. Please be aware that that any websites or references that were available during publication may not be available in the future.

Name: Dr. Diane Mueller, ND, DAOM, LAc

Title: It’s Not in Your Mind

Previous title of 1st Edition (soon to be out of print): Use Your Mind to Heal Your Mold and Lyme

This book is dedicated to all of those who suffer from Lyme, mold, and chronic infections. For everyone who has been told it is all in their head and suffers in silence, who knows that life could be different, this book is dedicated to you. This book is also dedicated to those who treat these diseases. It is going to take an army of dedicated clinicians to help the world. We are so grateful for you, and we deeply appreciate your work!

Question

Question 1: Are they Lyme literate ..............................................................341

Question 2: How do they diagnose Lyme Disease? .....................................341

Question 3: Do they work with mold illness? What is their mold illness treatment like?...................................................................................................341

Question 4: What is their treatment philosophy regarding Lyme, mold, and other chronic infections? ...................................................................................342

Question 5: Do they use herbs, pharmaceuticals, or a combo?

Questions 6 and 7: Do they test for dysfunction in the adrenal glands, thyroid, and gut? What about toxic metals and micronutrient levels?.............343

Question 8: Do they provide individualized treatment for their clients?....343

Question 9: Do they work on the mind and also the thought processes? ..344 When

PREFACE

UNCOVERING THE HIDDEN DANGERS OF LYME DISEASE AND MOLD

ILLNESS

Welcome to the journey of healing and hope. In this book, we will explore the often misunderstood and underestimated effects of Lyme disease and mold toxicity on the body and mind. Despite the challenges and struggles that come with these conditions, there is hope for recovery and a path toward better health. With the sharing of personal stories, expert advice, and the latest research, this book aims to empower and inspire individuals to take control of their health and find the support they need to thrive.

This book is written in a way to appeal to both the survivors of mold illness and Lyme disease as well as the clinicians treating these diseases. In chapters where I get into the deep science, I will also give a summary and key takeaway for those individuals who are not interested in the science or have too much brain fog and fatigue to understand it.

In addition to traditional treatment methods, this book will also introduce a unique and cutting-edge approach to treating Lyme disease and mold toxicity. Through a combination of holistic therapies and cutting-edge technology, readers will learn how to address the root causes of these conditions and support the body's natural healing process. From detoxification protocols to energy medicine, this book will provide a comprehensive and holistic approach to healing that empowers individuals to take an active role in their own recovery. To get access to some of the protocols and labs described in this book, you can visit us at mylymedoc.com/store.

Here is a QR code for the store for your convenience:

One of the key takeaways from this book is learning how to build a treatment plan that is right for an individual. You can look at this information as a survivor to apply it to your own life or, as a clinician, to build your knowledge and toolbox for treating these diseases. Even though there are so many commonalities in symptoms for those with Lyme, mold, and chronic infections, the exact combination of imbalances that are caused in the body by these disease processes are very different from individual to individual.

One of the biggest things to understand is how the entire body is impacted by Lyme and mold. Too many people do isolated types of treatment where killing and detoxing are the primary focus. While this book will cover those topics, it will also explore how to rebuild from the impacts of Lyme disease, mold Illness, and other infections.

For example, the thyroid and Lyme disease are related in that Lyme disease can cause several thyroid-related symptoms and complications. The Borrelia burgdorferi bacteria, which causes Lyme disease, is known to target the thyroid gland and can cause inflammation, leading to conditions such as Hashimoto's

thyroiditis or hyperthyroidism. Symptoms such as fatigue, weight gain, and hair loss, which are common in both Lyme disease and thyroid disorders, can occur because of this inflammation. Part of healing from conditions such as Lyme and mold involves a deep understanding of the imbalances, such as thyroid disease, that occur as a result of infection and toxic buildup and working to treat these imbalances to restore health. This whole-body approach is part of the My Lyme Doc method that we will be discussing later in the book.

There is debate in the medical community about the germ theory of disease versus the terrain theory of disease. The germ theory, by Louis Pasteur, is simple: “germs cause disease.” The germ theory is largely what much of modern medicine is based upon.

During the time of Louis Pasteur, there was another theory about how disease manifests which is thought to have been created by Antoine Bechamp. That is the terrain theory of disease. Bechamp’s theory was that germs are sort of like maggots. They need a proper host, and they feed on dead and decaying matter. Terrain theory suggests that if germs are involved, there is actually a deeper root cause and the organism is not in balance, creating the opportunity for germs to proliferate.

What I am suggesting in this book is that we stop being at war about who is right in this conversation and, instead, that we consider that both are right. We want to discontinue reducing medicine down to the cause being just Lyme, just mold Illness, just germ problems, or just terrain problems. Yes, we do want to get rid of the germs. They do have an impact. But we also want to bring the body, the terrain, back into balance and full of highly thriving tissue.

So what I am suggesting here is whether it is possible that Bechamp and Pasteur were both right?

To help a survivor get the most out of this book, I have developed a quiz that will shed some light on some of the most likely hidden imbalances that are unique to them. I will also share with some of the top lab tests that we suspect are needed based upon unique quiz answers. I also encourage clinicians reading this book to go through the quiz to get a sense of lab tests that my team and I are often thinking about and that we see get frequently missed in diagnostics and treatment for chronic Lyme and mold illness patients.

When we get to that portion of the book, the quiz will help to understand which labs and treatments to pay extra attention to. If you want to take this quiz to be able to tailor some of this book to you, please go to: mylymedoc.com/bookquiz.

I made the decision to take much of my own personal story with Lyme and mold out of this edition of my book. I am including bits and pieces of it, mostly regarding the mind. Those of you who have been following my work for some time have likely heard my story on the podcasts and interviews that I do. At one point in my life, I thought I was dying. I had memory loss so bad that I would forget where I lived. Some days, I had to be carried because I was in so much pain that I could not walk. I am now fully recovered, thriving, and I feel better in my forties than I did in my twenties. That, however, is a story for another day.

In this book’s edition, I want to focus more on some of our clients. Those are the people we have seen heal when they were told by so many that they had to live with their disease. And I want to focus on you. Every day that you survive the pain, the fatigue, the depression, the brain fog, and all the symptoms you face is a day you are a hero. When you make it onto the other

side of these problems, you will know that you can do literally anything that you set your mind to without a doubt.

So, Hero, let’s get started.

CHAPTER 1

MOLD AND LYME—NO MATCH FOR

YOU!

SARAH AND RACHEL

Sarah’s Story

The first time I saw Sarah, she showed up in a wheelchair. She was not disabled due to a trauma. She was in a wheelchair simply because of the crippling pain in her joints. Walking the long hall of that office was too much for her.

Sarah explained to me that every day was such a fight to survive. Some days she would wake up and even the thought of making it to the bathroom seemed impossible. Scared and frustrated, she told me her story of how she had seen more than a dozen doctors, and no one could figure out the cause of her crippling symptoms.

After doing lab testing, we discovered mold toxins, Lyme disease, bartonella, thyroid imbalance, and gut infections. Once we found those causes, we began treatment.

Like it was yesterday, I remember the moment when Sarah walked into the office. She was not in her wheelchair. My eyes filled with tears. While she was quite exhausted from just walking down the hall, she did it and did not suffer pain from the movement.

Through the months that we worked together, Sarah became stronger and stronger as she ascended the steps to wellness. There was a day where she told me she was not getting tired from walking down the hall anymore, and there was also the moment she told me she walked a mile without any pain. The last time I saw Sarah, she was living a normal and healthy, happy life. She was full of energy, pain free, and able to really show up as the mother to her children that she wanted to be.

Stories like that are part of the premise for what my team does at My Lyme Doc. Stories like that are the motivation and the vision for this book. Many times we are told that there is nothing that can be done when we are suffering. And, so many times, that

advice occurs because someone has not found the right clinician or the full root cause of the picture yet.

If you are one of the many people suffering from diagnosed or undiagnosed Lyme disease, mold illness, or another chronic infection, then you may have been told at some point by somebody, or several somebodies, that it is just in your head. If this resonates at all, I feel for you and I empathize with the intensity of this sort of invalidating response. Many of the patients we treat at My Lyme Doc come into our office, struggling not only with an illness, but with the intensity of feeling completely and totally alone in their struggle. Because someone has been told, so frequently, that it is just in their head, they often begin to distrust themselves and their own intuition.

I know firsthand what it is like to be misdiagnosed, underdiagnosed, and told that everything is fine when it most certainly is not. At one point in my medical history, as I mentioned, I thought I might be dying. I was thinking of finding a small island where I could live cheaply and peacefully on a beach while I lived out the remainder of my life. During that time, while part of me feared that I might be dying, another part of me was questioning if what I was experiencing was even real. On the one hand, I was making end-of-life plans because I knew so strongly that what I was experiencing was real and that the pain was so intense. On the other hand, I found myself doubting my own sensations and inner knowledge. Sometimes, I would question myself and think my intense pain and suffering was just in my head. I would sometimes ask myself whether everyone felt that way? After all, I did look fine from the outside. Does this sound familiar to you yet?

This ability to understand and empathize with mold and Lyme patients is a huge part of how I built and continue to build my team at My Lyme Doc. The need to feel understood is essential in

working with chronic diseases such as these. Clinicians on my team are all able to report stories of how they or their loved ones overcame major health issues.

THIS BOOK’S INTENTION

This book is intended to be a guide that is a different sort of approach to Lyme disease, chronic infections, and mold illness. There are already many great books about how to treat these conditions with medications, herbal therapy, and other therapies such as hyperbaric oxygen chambers and ozone. There is no need to repeat the great work of others because, unfortunately, research in these fields is slow and not much of new research has come out since the last published literature on these topics. This book will explore some of the nuances that my team and I have discovered in pharmaceutical and natural treatments as a way of offering additional information that we feel is important to the reader. However, this book will also offer something quite different an insight into the power of the mind, the thoughts, and the emotional body when it comes to Lyme disease and other conditions. It will offer solutions for how to go through treatment in a more relaxed way and in a way that will facilitate the body’s parasympathetic healing system and an improved healing response. Think of this book as a self-help book specifically for chronic infections and mold illness. Together, we will explore the ways that you can utilize this horrible medical condition as an opportunity to improve the way your mind works for you. You will learn how to harness your own healing power, achieve greater happiness and joy in your life, and how to do this while your physical body is recovering. If you are a clinician reading this, you will learn about these additional supportive tools and how to apply them to your clinical practice.

You will discover in this book the ways that you can begin to think more and more like a healthy person, even when you are still sick. You will learn the power you do have in your life, even when it can feel like you have none. In subsequent chapters, we will explore how you can identify beliefs and habits that are getting in the way of your healing, even if you are taking all the right drugs and supplements. And we will show you the research behind why changing these beliefs and this mindset can change your immune system, your nervous system, and your hormonal response.

This book will bring an understanding to why, despite this horrible happening in your health, there is a silver lining and an opportunity that can positively change your life forever. The intention of this book is to bring to life that Lyme, mold, and chronic infections provide people with some of the hardest imaginable challenges, pain, and suffering. But they also bring the most amazing opportunities that life may hold. The book will inspire you to investigate your heart more deeply and to change, not only your body and your physical circumstances, but your mind and the mental patterns that govern your whole life. This book is intended to both guide you and give you hope. It is the reason why I will be sharing stories of clients who we have worked with.

By the end of this book, I hope that any doubt that you have about healing will be banished. I hope that any residual concern that this is all in your mind will be dissolved. It is too often that we hear patients say that they were either told it was in their head or that they began to think that their symptoms were imagined because clinician after clinician could not find the answers to their symptoms.

A medical approach that is so quick to say that it is in your head is not an excellent solution and practice of client care. It is

absolutely not what I mean by my statement that Lyme disease and mold Illness are mental diseases, too. I want to explain more of the intention of this book as well as my own personal struggles with chronic illness that led to the inspiration behind this book. Then you will begin to understand the reason for my statement.

Rachel’s Story

Rachel was a strong woman. She was in her thirties and the mother of three children when she showed up at our office. Being a mom was the most important thing in her life, and she felt like she was failing. She was no longer able to make dinner for her children. She could not get down on the floor to play with them due to pain. Even showering was such a laborious process because of the pain of opening the shower door and squeezing the shampoo bottle, and she only did it one time a week. In addition to Lyme disease, we found lots of gastrointestinal infections for Rachel. These infections had started an autoimmune process that led to joint and muscle breakdown.

Perhaps the most heart-wrenching thing was listening to Rachel talk about how she felt she was a failure to her children and the despair that came with that.

Using methodologies that we will explore in this book, Rachel made a full recovery. She can get down on the floor. She runs marathons. And for those shampoo bottles, let’s just say she does not even think about them anymore.

“Mold and Lyme, a tricky pair, But you're a force, beyond compare, With courage and determination you will be free, You will claim your liberation.”

CHAPTER 2

THE MIND’S MIGHT

I grew up on the East Coast of the United States in northern Virginia. While this area is known to be endemic for Lyme disease, Lyme is in many ways everywhere as we will explore in this book. Therefore, it is hard to say exactly where I initially contracted Lyme disease. As is true for about 75 percent of those with chronic Lyme disease, I did not have a bull’s eye rash. It is possible I did have a fever, but that probably would have been perceived as simply a common flu virus.

The first sign of Lyme disease that I can remember was chronic bursitis in both of my elbows. Bursitis is swelling of a fluid-filled sac that surrounds a joint. I had several procedures when I was about twenty which involved draining the fluid. Those procedures did work for my left elbow, but the bursitis continued to return in my right elbow and eventually led to surgery.

I find all of the challenges I have had with my elbows to be interesting. We now know that Borrelia, the bacteria that causes Lyme disease, loves hyaluronic acid, and that is one of the things that Borrelia can use as a food source. Since the large joints of our human body are full of hyaluronic acid, it is no surprise that Borrelia congregates in these areas and uses our hyaluronic acid for food. That inevitably causes a breakdown and inflammation of our joints. It is no surprise that I had so many inflammatory issues with my elbows, but I also had hip pain so bad at one point in my life that it felt like my legs were being sawed off.

In 2004, I discovered meditation and qigong. For those who are not familiar with qigong, it is a very slow martial art which bears similarities to tai chi. When I was working my three part-time jobs and growing my clinical practice while trying to heal from Lyme disease, and also dealing with an emotionally abusive

MY JOURNEY INTO THE POWER OF THE MIND

relationship, I let much of my meditation and qigong practice fall away. During that time of healing and deep depression, I decided that working with the mind was very important.

One thing I frequently tell my patients is that healing is a nonlinear process. It is often two steps forward and one step back. Then three steps forward and five steps back, followed by ten steps forward. We know we are on the right track when the overall trajectory is improvement of symptoms.

One of the most challenging things about working with Lyme and chronic mold is that the steps backward can be so disheartening. However, it can feel so incredibly hopeful to have a good day. As we heal, we often try too quickly to re-engage with activities we miss such as socialization and exercise. But sometimes the stress of too much engagement too quickly, or the stress of things that simply just come up in life, can cause a backslide. Other times, the exact reason for the backward steps is unknown. It just happens.

What I was witnessing in myself during that phase of the healing process is something that I commonly observe in my clients. It is so easy to have damaging internal dialogue during the time of a slight backslide. I would witness myself having thoughts such as, “Crap, it is not working,” or “I am never going to be better.” Oftentimes, the thoughts were a lot more colorful than that, but they were almost always full of desperation and despair. I witness a similar pattern of dialogue in those that we treat at my medical clinic.

It is incredibly easy and natural for negative thoughts to occur. After suffering for so long and when things start to change for the better, it is easy to gain hope of what life could be like again. When one is used to having days where even going to the bathroom feels like an impossible task, it becomes easy to get

excited when those days become fewer only to find despair if they return.

What became apparent during my healing journey was how I was becoming depressed. I would start each day with a full body scan immediately upon waking up. If I was having one of my improved days with less pain and more energy, I would think something like, “Hooray, the treatment is working.” Upon thinking that thought, I would feel hope and I would be able to meet my day with positivity.

Other times, when I started my day with the same body-scan, the day proved to be more difficult. I would wake up and have a return of the pain, and even showering would be difficult. I noticed that my first thought on those days was something along the lines of, “This is so hard. I hate my life.” And, no real surprise after that thought, I would feel waves of sadness and depression. On top of that, I would feel my body move into a state of anxiety and panic, and that culminated into a lot of fear that all the pain would return again. When I would have a bad day, all of those thoughts about the disease returning would permeate my mind. I felt out of control with my thoughts and would hyperfocus on the disease and my pain.

What I went through was sort of like the chicken and the egg phenomenon. Feeling bad one day would worsen the pain, which would lead to the bad thoughts, which would heighten anxiety. The heightened anxiety response was likely related to cortisol release in my body. Cortisol is our stress hormone that when elevated will turn down our immune response. So, when I would allow myself to have thoughts that were stressful, my immune system would not work as well. You are probably guessing that the downstream response of my immune system not working as well was a flaring up of my symptoms.

Part of the reason why I call my responses as the chicken and the egg events is due to the fact that, even on good days, I could find myself being concerned about whether I was pushing myself too hard and whether I was going to crash the next day. I would sometimes find myself ruminating in my mind about whether I was going to feel good enough the next day to participate in what was on my calendar. That rumination was creating a stress response. Once a stress response turned on, cortisol levels were likely rising, and my immune system function was turned down. So, it all became a self-fulfilling prophecy in part. I would allow my mind to ruminate and to pull my nervous system into stress, and that would affect my healing. It was the beginning stages of my personal understanding of why it is important to work with both the body and the mind in relation to Lyme, mold, and chronic infections.

I began to place more awareness on my thoughts that were helping me and the thoughts that were moving me more into a stress response. In research, we see that negative, pessimistic thinking is linked to an increase in the cortisol stress response in our body.1 It is also interesting to note that research shows that our stress response is activated by perceived stress, not actual stress. Oftentimes, perceived stress and actual stress are related. For example, we perceive we are going to be in a car accident as a car is barreling toward us, and often this means we are actually in that car accident. But our thoughts can create the stress, too. For example, if we have thoughts about the world not being safe, or about never recovering from illness, or about the world being a place where others are out to get us, we will create a cortisol

1 Thomas, Susan Jennifer, and Theresa Larkin. “Cognitive Distortions in Relation to Plasma Cortisol and Oxytocin Levels in Major Depressive Disorder.” Frontiers in Psychiatry, vol. 10, 2020, doi:10.3389/fpsyt.2019.00971.

stress response that is our body reacting as if we are in danger, and it is just a result of our thoughts. If these thoughts continue for more than a few minutes, in addition to the increase in cortisol, our body will release inflammatory molecules known as cytokines into our bloodstream.

Now, if we have a negative thought, recognize it, work on not carrying it and turn the thought into a positive one. We can change our stress response into a positive response that is not harmful.

During my former life, it was easy for me to ruminate. I would have a thought on my difficult days that the disease was coming back. That would lead to thoughts of, “Why is my life so hard?” or “Why am I so broken?” I would find myself comparing myself to my friends, many of whom were older but oh-so-much healthier. The quickest way to make oneself miserable and depressed is to compare oneself to those we think have it better. Comparing what we have to what we do not have is certainly a recipe for disaster.

As my negative thoughts began to circulate, I would think of other harmful and self-deprecating things to say to myself. I would criticize my body for failing me. While so many of my patients got much better, I was still struggling. What did that mean for me as a doctor? I had thoughts of being a failure over and over again that plagued my mind. As I was participating in my self-deprecating mental activity, there were all sorts of things happening in the physiology of my body beneath my conscious awareness. The same things that I will mention here are happening to you when you have negative internal thoughts.

Every time I participated in my negative mental ruminations, my inflammatory cytokines went up in my body.2 Those inflammatory cytokines would lead to an immune system dysregulation, and my immune system would not work as well. And guess what? We see in research that when this process happens, latent viral infections wake up. So now, on top of my dysfunctional immune system struggling to fight the Borrelia, Bartonella, and the gastrointestinal infections that I discovered on my lab tests, the latent mononucleosis infection that landed me in the hospital in high school was probably brought out of dormancy. All of that was largely due to my negative selfdestructive thoughts.

While my symptoms were very real and my diagnosis was very real, my infections were largely things that happened to me that were out of my control. I began to wake up to the idea that there was something I could control, and that was my mind. That awareness was the beginning of everything changing.

NO INTERNAL GASLIGHTING

In 2022, gaslighting was the most looked-up word of the year. Gaslighting involves using psychological manipulation techniques, many of which can be very subtle, which cause someone to question their own reasoning.

I bring this topic up here because it is essential to discuss it when we are talking about the mind. While we want to make sure we

2 Morey, Jennifer N, et al. “Current Directions in Stress and Human Immune Function.” Current Opinion in Psychology, vol. 5, 2015, pp. 13–17., doi:10.1016/j.copsyc.2015.03.007.

are not working with thoughts that are driving cortisol and negatively impacting our healing response, we also want to make sure that we are not internally gaslighting ourselves. This is a very tricky line to walk. It is how we change our internal dialogue to something that is healthier, happier, and helpful to our healing while at the same time honoring our experience and the immense emotional journey that these diseases take us on.

As previously mentioned, in the world of chronic infections and mold toxicity, it is so easy to feel like a victim. This is natural because those suffering from these disease processes likely are victims. You cannot control the fact that you got Borrelia from an insect bite. You cannot control that you got Bartonella from a cat scratch or an insect bite. You cannot control the fact that the neighbor you share a wall with in your apartment building had a leak which led to the mold problem that you didn't even know existed. It is so easy to feel completely out of control and angry very angry at the world for doing these things to you.

As we see in research, having negative thoughts about things that happened to you does not allow your stress response and your immune response to work correctly and to do what we need them to do which is to fight pathogens and to detox well.

The mind begins to shift when it starts to realize that, while we are often victims to several factors that cause health to decline, we are not the victims to our minds. As this realization kicks in, oftentimes we see a second realization. We can allow thoughts to control us and our immune system, or we can allow thoughts to help support the healing process. The latter is certainly more difficult but much more effective. What we see in our clients is a shift. There is an awakening and a realization that each moment, especially the really painful and difficult ones, also come with opportunity. We can think about all the things we cannot do, we can compare ourselves to others, we

can become angry at the world for doing this to us . . . or we can choose different thoughts. We can focus on what we can do and what we are still capable of doing. We can tell our body that we still love it and believe in its ability to heal. We can focus on the areas that were healing and that we are seeing improvement in. This is not easy, but it is one thing we can control in this process.

Forgiveness is for the past, and responsibility is for the future

I love this statement because I think it helps us know how to deal with the mind. When we realize we have power to learn to control our thoughts and the way we respond to our life, it is easy to get in a trap of feeling guilty for all the years we spent thinking of damaging things. But it does not do us any good to think negative things about our previous pattern of thinking negative things. The way around that is forgiveness. We forgive ourselves for the ways we did not take the best care of ourselves in the past, and we let it go. And we take responsibility for the fact that we can impact our future. At the very least, we can take responsibility for the way we respond and the internal conversation we have, even if the external circumstances are truly out of our control.

Of course, some things are easier said than done, and I will not leave you hanging. Later in this book, I will give you some specific exercises on how to forgive and be responsible. A common response I hear from my clients when I talk about this is something along the lines of, “I cannot control my thoughts, they just happen.” To that, I often respond with, “You cannot control your thoughts yet.” Yet is the key word as the use of this word linguistically presupposes that we will learn to control our thoughts eventually.

If you have never played basketball and someone throws you a ball, you will likely not be able to dribble well. If you are righthanded, it can feel strange and awkward to try to write or eat with your left hand. If you have spent your whole life allowing whatever thought to emerge in your brain, and you think about that particular thought, of course you do not know how to control your thoughts! How could you? You have never been taught to do it and never practiced! Later in this book, we will talk about some strategies and tools you can use to help you get better control of transforming your thoughts.

I can tell you that at one point in my healing journey I would have streams of thoughts that went something like, “The world is out to get me. No one understands me. I am so alone. I hate my life. My body has failed me. I am ugly. No one will want to be with me because I have so many problems. I am alone. I am all alone. I am so sick. I am so weak. I am all alone.” If I can transform those thoughts, so can you. This is our human superpower. It is our human right to control our inner dialogue. Sometimes it is all we can control.

I want to be clear that in no way am I suggesting that you should just do the mental exercises that will be presented later in the book in order to help you heal from Lyme, mold, and chronic infections. One of the main points that we are trying to make in this book is the importance of stopping the segregation of body parts in healing, as well as the segregation of the mind from the body. What I mean by this is that healing from these infections works much better when we do not only kill the infections but we give proper nutrition and supplements to balance the hormones, balance the blood sugar, and heal the gut and any other imbalances that may largely be created from the chronic infection picture. In addition to this, it is important to improve the stress response and regulate the immune system

which can be greatly affected by trading negative thoughts and pessimistic attitudes into positive ones.

SILVER LINING

John was a client who struggled every day to become comfortable. Walking was hard due to his joint pain, but too much sitting also seemed to make things worse. The vibrations from his feet hitting the ground shook his whole spine. It was a vicious cycle. Moving seemed to make things worse, but so did sitting.

John had one of the best mindsets of anyone that I ever worked with as a client. Despite his continued daily struggle to find ways of taking the edge off of his pain, it never went away, but he was always positive. He would mention in conversation things that his wife got to do with their children that he could not join, but he always seemed so happy for them.

I asked John how he was able to find peace despite his crazy symptoms. What he told me was simple. Every single day, he would focus almost solely in his mind on what he was able to do that day. He prevented his mind from entertaining thoughts of, “I wish I could do that today.” When it came to things such as his family playing sports in the yard, he focused on the joy that came from watching them from the window and seeing the faces of his kids light up.

My team worked with John to help him get his life back. We found evidence of Lyme disease, parasites, mold toxins, hormonal imbalances, and more in his lab work. John now plays soccer in the yard with his children. He gets out of a chair and walks without pain. And he does not spend half the night in bed trying to find a comfortable position.

A big part of John’s recovery, in addition to all of the treatments we did to get to the root causes, was John’s mindset.

He was so focused on working on his nervous system and mental game. That made his work on the root causes go so much quicker.

PARADOX?

It is a paradox to be able to think about being grateful for how things are right now while additionally working hard to change things for the future. It is easy and natural to be angry and frustrated about how things are now and want to be living a healthy normal life. Allowing yourself to feel these things is normal, natural, and it is encouraged. But getting stuck in feeling and thinking destructive thoughts repeatedly is strongly discouraged. It is not because these thoughts are not true. It is because, when we get into these vicious thought cycles, it slows down our healing process.

John made one of the fastest recoveries we have seen in the chronic infection and toxin world. He had beenwas sick for decades. When we found the root cause, he was 100 percent better in a matter of months. I strongly believe that was due to the combination of working on both the root cause as well as the mindset. When we work on the mindset, it helps our body to heal more quickly. It is not in your mind. But you can use your mind to improve your healing response.

What we will be talking about in regard to the mind later in this book will feel like a bit of a paradox. I will be asking you to find ways to find small bits of joy on the really hard days, and that is a very challenging task. While you are working on finding that joy, I will also be teaching you about some things you can do to get to the root causes of your illness so that finding joy no longer becomes a challenge. It simply is the state that you live in. When we work on the body root causes, as well as the signals

that come from the mind, in part through our thoughts, we can heal the deepest parts of ourselves.

I hope as you read through this book that you will be filled with hope and a reminder that you are stronger than you believe and that your body is meant to heal.

End of Chapter 2

Thanks for taking time to read this excerpt from “It’s Not in Your Mind”. The full book can be found on amazon for order. You can find free blog articles and find out more about other products and service offerings by going to MyLymeDoc.com. We have an online store where you can purchase many labs/supplements talked about throughout this book. This can be found at mylymedoc.com/store.

Please note that we have ways of helping people all around the world. In addition, we treat a wide variety of root causes from a functional medicine perspective including Lyme, Mold, toxic metals, hormonal imbalances, thyroid disease, digestive problems, other environmental toxins exposure and much more. Everyone is unique, which is why we recommend lab tests to help find the root causes and treat what comes up!

For additional bonus education you can find us at mylymedoc.com/clienteducation