Why Kairos - personal stories

Since receiving Kairos therapy I feel more confident in myself. It comes out mainly in the little things which you don't always notice, at first; like I walk with my head up now, nearly all the time. I didn't realise that I didn't before, but as I see peoples faces passing me in the street I realise I was avoiding them hurrying past.

I don't feel self conscious going into my flat - I live very near my work so am aware that clients could know where I live; Some of whom can be very aggressive. Now although I am still aware of the fact that they could see me and sometimes they do it does not bother me the way it used to. I do not feel the same sense of threat about the idea.

I found myself the other day teasing someone whom I had just met in a large group of people. This I cannot remember doing before, and I found myself being amazed at how easy it seemed. I had done it before I had really registered it. I feel I am more myself with people. The warts and all are showing. I am not so apologetic and will be more likely to get angry about things which is quite unnerving... as I still think nice people don't get angry! The other day I was in the cinema and went and got the attendant to ask some giggling girls who were talking and phoning! throughout the film to stop. I would never have imagined doing this before and would probably thought anyone that did it must be completely OTT but I thought no, that's fair enough, it is a cinema and I realise they don't mean it, but it is still very annoying and disturbing and they're not paying attention to any of the customers telling them to shut up.

I have been startled at the things that have obviously bothered me before but I have rationalised away their impact so much that rediscovering how hurt or angry I was has given me a different vision of myself. I understand more why I react the way I do in that I am realising feelings don't go away and that they impart important truths which it is important to hear to feel whole and understandable to yourself. I apologise less for having feelings now, I don't feel the same responsibility to modify my emotional responses for other peoples benefits.

The only thing I will say about Kairos is that you cannot go into it having preconceived ideas about how you will feel during it, or what it will change. Each time I have received it, it has felt different. I have fallen asleep; seen dream like images and sequences, or had memories flash up. I have had strong feelings occur without any 'reason' and equally had images occur without any feelings coming up.

I was first diagnosed as having ulcerative colitis 18 years ago. My consultant described it as 'a disease of the bowel which flares up from time to time'. It is a very painful and debilitating condition. I suffered three major flare-ups during the first 8 years, which necessitated being hospitalised and treated with intravenous steoroids. In between times I was constantly having to monitor what I ate and never seemed to feel really well for any length of time.

Shortly after my third major flare-up I discovered that my husband was having an affair. It was a huge shock - I was in absolute turmoil. Quite by chance I met someone that very same day who told me about a kind of body-work therapy which was good for emotional problems. I arranged to go for what is termed 'an intensive' which entailed two sessions each day over three days, and I continued with regular sessions for a while afterwards.

During my therapy sessions I released emotion associated with my current situation and also from traumatic and stressful situations in my past.The interesting thing for me was that I found that Kairos not only helped me enormously to cope on a day to day basis but that my colitis also began to improve until I became completely symptom free. I have had 10 colitis free years since first receiving Kairos which has made an enormous difference to the quality of my life.

As time has gone by I have come to the conclusion that my colitis must have been stress related I have often felt that I would like to write about how Kairos has helped me but felt that I was not able to say categorically that Kairos was the answer - that is until now. A few weeks ago I received what was for me some earth shattering news and within a few days I found to my horror that my colitis was beginning to flare up. I arranged to have a Kairos intensive and gradually, much to my relief, my symptoms began to diminish. So now I feel that I am able to say without any shadow of doubt in my mind that Kairos, by releasing the stress and tension from my body, has enabled my colitis to settle down.

If you have an illness which you feel could be stress related, then I would recommend that you try Kairos.

Lynda

In my 20's & 30's & 40's, I experienced debilitating migraine headaches. My headache would begin with an intolerable pounding, then an almost blinding of my sight, along with nausea and an inability to focus or function. During the years of my migraines, there was no intravenous medication and I could not take anything by mouth because it would not stay down. The only thing that worked for me was to go to bed for two to three days and I had two small children. Even though, at those times, I was completely incapacitated, I felt terribly guilty about having to stay in bed.

In my early 40's, I was introduced to Shen (Kairos), and took the training, immediately. On several occasions, while in the trainings, I would experience horrific migraines. At that time, the only thing we were clear about was that we were not to do flows on the head. I received a lot of work and much of it was for low/no self esteem, self-loathing and self- hatred, i.e. belly/dantien work. I also experienced massive grief. Although, initially, I did not receive work specifically for migraines, the migraines began to lessen, both in duration and frequency.

I have been migraine free now for over 10 years, due entirely to receiving Kairos. My experience of the emotional components in relation to migraines is that they involve a lot of deep grief and a lot of self-worth (lack of) issues. Very soon after training in Shen, I decided to become a practitioner and an instructor. I've worked with a number of clients who experienced migraines. I worked with a couple of migraine clients mid-migraine and in one case the migraine was halved. In the second case, the migraine was completely gone. The first client spent time in the hospital every month on intravenous medication. And she was totally dysfunctional for 3-4 days, each month. The second client forced herself to function, although she was in a lot of pain.

In all cases, when working on the migraine, I started with either HT, or the atlanto-occipital junction. Again, I always work with what's up with the client in the moment. If the client is not experiencing a migraine when they come for his/her session, then I work with what's happening in the present and not with migraine.

Stephanie

In Kairos therapy, we believe that blocked emotions tend to be held in specific areas of the body. We will therefore work in all those places where we believe that they are held.

How did it all start? High stress, high profile corporate job? Life in the fast track? Childhood trauma? All of the above? I don't know. What I do know is: I wasn't able to breathe for about a year and a half. Every ten minutes or so, I had to concentrate on taking a breath because my breathing was so shallow in between. I was terrified! I went to doctors, I had blood exams, I had a chest x-ray - and nothing. I was ‘fine’. But yet I couldn't breathe.

Fast forward - I had a yoga teacher who also was a Kairos intern. I happened to read her website one day, and she wrote about how Kairos Therapy could improve one's ability to breathe.

Right away, I called her up and made an appointment for this. I didn't know what it was exactly, and I didn't care. I was desperate. After a few Kairos sessions with her, I was able to breathe easier.

But then, something else happened. I had a complete collapse*. One day I woke up and was unable to read, unable to stand, unable to move, unable to think. I was basically a vegetable. I called my yoga teacher/Kairos Intern practitioner and hold her what was happening. She referred me to Jan because - I think - she knew my condition was beyond what she as an intern could deal with.

So I started Kairos with Jan. In the beginning, I wasn't even sure if I could drive to her place. I was destroyed and completely dissociated. Some months later, when I went to see a medical doctor (solely to help me complete some forms for disability), I was ‘diagnosed’ as having had a nervous breakdown, a psychotic break, chronic fatigue syndrome, and fibromyalgia. Whatever these things are, I don't know and I don't care. They are just labels doctors give to people when things go very wrong and they don't know why. My diagnosis to myself is: I had a complete collapse.

After three to four sessions of Kairos per week over a period of about three months, I was ‘cured’. I could walk, think, BREATHE. Basically I was brought back to health within three months at a financial cost of less than $3000.

Had I gone the route of the established medical profession - doctors, psychologist, blood tests, etc. - this cost probably would have been closer to twenty, thirty thousand dollars** and I would still be extremely ill.

Think about it: why would you seek treatment from a profession - medical doctors - who use dead bodies to try to learn how to cure live people? This makes no sense. I'm sure the medical profession is well-intentioned, but their training and methods are anti-life.

Without Kairos Therapy, I would be like so many people today - chronically ill, full of prescription medicines, hopeless, and depressed. Instead, after only three months of Kairos, following a complete mental and physical collapse, I am 100% healthy in every way.

Felicia

* The function of shallow breathing is to keep some unpleasant emotion out of awareness. By shallowing our breathing, we can continue to ‘function’ despite deep emotional issues under the surface. The initial kairos sessions Constancia received relaxed her enough that the breath came into the body more fully, and this enabled her to feel what she had been not feeling. Rather, it prevented her from NOT feeling the feelings she carried inside her body. She began to decompensate, i.e. her strategies for coping were what collapsed.

** estimate by a M.S. in Hospital Administration for this scenario: Well over one hundred thousand dollars.

PERSONAL STORIES

SHEILA'S STORY

ULCERATIVE COLITIS

MIGRAINE STORY 1

MIGRAINE STORY 2

FELICIA'S STORY