April 29 marked one year since I received the Johnson & Johnson COVID vaccine. We still don’t know exactly what happened or what is still happening in my body but my understanding of it, that I’ve pieced together over time, is that the vaccine caused massive amounts of inflammation, perhaps a minor cytokine storm, that triggered a reactivation of Epstein-Barr virus, Lyme disease, probably bartonella, and Chronic Inflammatory Response Syndrome (CIRS).
In the hour after I received the vaccine, I felt like something had lit up my nervous system, like someone had shoved a fork in an electrical socket. I had a lot of fatigue for a few days, but that eased up. A full week later, my left palm started itching, and then my right. On the recommendation of my beloved herbalist, I began taking a lot of different kinds of binders, working on the assumption that I was reacting to some of the chemicals in the vaccine. Then I started having panic attacks. Then headaches and body aches. Then brain fog and increased fatigue. It felt like a tick-borne illness relapse and then some. Two months post-vaccine, I got costochondritis (inflammation between the ribs), and could barely walk. My knees and feet hurt everyday. Stairs became a whole thing. My daily walks became marathons that would knock me out for the rest of the day. The whole experience felt eerily similar to what happened after I got a concussion in 2012. Just like this time, I had been feeling much better physically (a high point in more than a decade of living with health challenges) until I got doored while riding my bicycle. In the week after, I had my first ever panic attacks, followed by the return of a host of symptoms I’d forgotten about: light and sound sensitivity, frequent urination, body pain, and much more.
This wonderful little body has been through a lot.
And, even though it really sucked to get sick again, and in some ways more debilitated than ever before, I saw early on that it was an invitation to heal at a deeper level. In some ways, it also wasn’t surprising. Like a lot of folks, I pushed myself really hard through much of the early part of the pandemic, working two jobs, mostly completely alone in my apartment with very little touch or in-person interactions. I do not blame myself for getting the vaccine, or for my body’s reaction to it, but I recognize now that I was ripe for a relapse.
The vaccine experience also felt on trend in a season of letting go that started in 2021. I let go of living in Boston, said “no” to a graduate program, left a job where I loved my colleagues, left the following job because I was too sick to do it, ended a relationship with someone I loved who didn’t want the same things, and after many, many days on the coach, subsequently let go of the idea that my body had to function in a particular way. This experience has invited me to REALLY let go of striving, slow the F down, and accept love and support into my heart in a much more expansive way.
Unsurprisingly, this deeper healing experience has had a big influence on my coaching work. It makes me chuckle that I’ve become a life coach who is anti-striving. It feels so right, and also antithetical to a lot of the messaging in the coaching industry that often invites folks to do more, be high achievers, and “maximize” their potential. My clients achieve truly amazing results – landing dream jobs, launching businesses, getting the clients of their dreams, writing books, fundamentally shifting their relationship with work, etc. – but we start by slowing down, resourcing, and building a foundation of clarity and alignment. Do less to eventually do more.
My year of deeper healing has also fundamentally changed my outlook on what healing is. I’m no longer interested in trying to “fix” my body or helping others “fix” theirs. I am more firmly rooted in acceptance and being. I am still receiving medical treatment, and still hopeful that I will be able to run again someday, but I trust my body and feel clear that healing from this vaccine injury is going to take as long as it's going to take. My job is to do my best to enjoy the ride. Understanding it like a concussion has been helpful too. There’s only so much you can do for a concussion. Mostly you just have to give it time.
I have found a lot of solace in the Fleet Foxes song, “I’m Not My Season,” and specifically the lyrics,
Though I liked summer light on you
If we ride a winter-long wind
Well time's not what I belong to
And I'm not the season I'm in
Instead of my previous “I gotta do whatever it takes to heal this” energy, it has felt so much better to say “F you” to time, and to the capitalist expectations that my body can’t meet, and honor the season I’m in.
Given this new orientation to healing and time, the guiding question for me and my work with sick clients now sounds like: How do we let go of the chase for a cure and create a joyful abundant life with what is?
If that sounds like a question you want to dance with, I invite you to set up a strategy session with me here.