One of the wonderful things about living with a human body is the experiences we have through our physical senses. There are deliciously sublime tastes of food and spices, magnificent visions of beauty in nature, sensations of touch that make us feel connected and loved amazing smells that remind us of safety and home, and sounds of harmonious music that move us deeply. Yet, for some, sensory experiences result in only unpleasant reactions. Ingesting food is only a life-sustaining, necessary chore because we cannot properly process it; the lightest, lovingly-intended touch feels like needles or sandpaper against our skin; light coming to our eyes feels so unpleasant that we cannot appreciate the beauty around us; smells trigger all sorts of unpleasant feelings and sensations within us; and sounds, even natural environmental ones, stab us like knives and cause extreme distress. My son and I know what it is like to live with intense sensory hypersensitivities, and we know how it is possible to heal from them.
My son came into this world immediately struggling with his health. His genes contain multiple mutations that impede his ability to effectively detoxify himself.
When I tell people about what we have been through, they always want to know why it happened. My hypersensitivities developed slowly, coming to a head in my thirties. I believe mine were caused by a combination of factors: My professional career involved being a trombonist and conductor, so I was constantly exposed to very loud sounds; for the first six years of my son’s life, I was extremely sleep deprived due to his ongoing sleep problems; I experienced a head injury in a major car accident; and I had lived with unawareness for most of my life about the effects of toxins on my body, so I had not taken steps to detoxify myself or eliminate toxins from my diet. At this point in my life, I had also experienced two, major toxic exposures. My son came into this world immediately struggling with his health. His genes contain multiple mutations that impede his ability to effectively detoxify himself. With the combination of issues passed on to him in utero and the toxic exposures he had through vaccines, he was set-up for health issues from the start.
For some time, I falsely assumed, as many do, that my issues were sourced in emotional problems. The hyperacusis (sensitive hearing) was especially difficult to live with. If a fork was dropped on a plate during a meal, I would have to run out of the room and scream and rock in a ball on the floor until I stabilized. If a large truck rumbled by the house, I would collapse into a fetal position and cry without knowing why. Experiencing many other kinds of stimuli would result in me rocking and banging my head into the wall repeatedly. I could no longer stand being touched at all. All sorts of smells and sounds made me cry. When I was thirty-seven, a brilliant, forward-thinking doctor was the first person to enlighten me that the emotional distress I was experiencing was due to issues in my physical body. He explained many things about methylation and gene mutations and started me on natural biomedical treatments that are used for children with autism. This whole journey of healing was difficult for me as I was no longer able to experience one of my deepest passions, which was listening to and making music, and at the same time, I had to endure watching my son suffer.
With my insistence to persevere in finding a natural, gentle, honoring way for us to heal, shifts began to occur for both of us. Through a combination of healing work from other practitioners, implementation of special diets, and the energy healing and detoxification techniques that I had developed, I gratefully witnessed many of my son’s symptoms resolve: His chronic symptoms of respiratory inflammation and digestive issues went away, he could sleep through the night, he began to be able to read and to write, his daily after-school hour-long crying episodes ceased, all hyperactivity went away, his frequent rashes lessened, and life-threatening food allergies ceased to be an issue. I could clearly see that he was healing, and I wanted to support him in reaching his highest potentials for thriving.
In short, he was thriving, and he continues to thrive and find success and joy in his life today.
I continued to research and work to develop my own techniques. Once they were complete, with consistent implementation, both of our experiences of life changed dramatically. My son could stay at school all day without becoming overwhelmed or overstimulated by loud sounds, sleep through thunderstorms, play laser tag and go to movies without any hearing protection, read and write on advanced levels for his age, and he was happy. In short, he was thriving, and he continues to thrive and find success and joy in his life today. I experienced healing as well. With the hyperacusis resolved, music has returned to my life. I can enjoy playing the trombone and teaching music again. Recently, I was teaching a recorder lesson to my fourth-grade class. A student asked me if he could wear noise-canceling headphones. After class, he told me, “I have autism, and many sounds are too loud for me.” I smiled and told him that I understood, and it was always okay for him to use them in my class. He smiled back.
This journey has shown me clearly that individual uniqueness’s present us all with opportunities to be kind, open, and conscious of the fact that there are different ways to experience this world. We cannot assume that all our experiences of similar events and stimuli are the same. I also know through this direct experience that our bodies are designed to be able to heal. When we provide them with what they need to be able to accomplish this, and we persevere in our efforts, healing will happen.
SPECIAL GUEST AUTHOR Janice Carlin is an author and teacher. She holds a Master of Music degree and a Ph.D. in Holistic Natural Health and Nutrition. Her writing aims to connect science, spirit, and health in unique ways to empower people to create a peace-filled, safe world in which we all can thrive. She specializes in guiding people with high sensitivity to take the personal action they need to be able to live with health and vitality. Her Foundations Healing System and other books and articles can be found on her WEBSITE.
