Episode 118: How Practitioners Can Navigate Their Own Chronic Illness and Healing Journey with Helga Byrne

Listen to Episode 118 with Helga Byrne →

When the Healer Needs Healing

You trained to help others but now struggle yourself. Your chronic illness makes long workdays trigger worse symptoms immediately. You wonder if you can continue your practice effectively. Can healers heal when they themselves need healing support?

Are you trying to work caring for others professionally while navigating your own chronic health symptoms that limit you? In this episode, we'll take a careful look at one woman's decade-long battle with chronic illness. And the actions she took to build and maintain her practice despite daily limitations.

Helga Byrne worked years in corporate environments, successfully advancing. But she wanted a more meaningful life helping people directly. She became a licensed therapist to serve others in pain. She spent years struggling with persistent chronic health issues without having answers from doctors who couldn't explain her symptoms.

Eventually it was discovered to be chronic Lyme disease. But that didn't bring an overnight solution or cure. How do we manage being a professional effectively in the healing field when we have our own chronic health issues? What happens when physical health issues get triggered significantly by long days or emotionally difficult clients?

In this conversation, Helga joins me to share her struggles and strategies she implemented successfully over time to effectively run her business while navigating brain fog and extreme fatigue that persisted.

She'll also share insights on common identity challenges that emerge. The challenge of finding practitioners who believed her symptoms. How to identify what gives you energy versus drains it. And changes you can make to your life, relationships, and work structure that support health better.

Whether you are a practitioner, parent, or other caregiver, this episode will give you insights into how you can structure your life and work schedule around your body's needs while showing up for others effectively despite your limitations.

Helga's Journey

Helga's background involved years in corporate climbing the ladder. Wanting more meaning in her work and life. She became a licensed therapist to help people heal from trauma. Then chronic illness changed everything about her practice capacity.

The decade-long battle lasted ten years struggling without answers. This is common for complex conditions like Lyme that standard medicine often misses completely.

Chronic Lyme discovery eventually revealed the underlying disease causing her symptoms all along. But diagnosis didn't mean instant cure or improvement. The struggle continued, requiring long-term management and patience.

Understanding the Biology of Trauma® includes how illness affects practitioners. The professional dilemma involves being in the healing field yourself while having your own health crisis creating limitations. The paradox of the helper needing help when you're supposed to be helping.

The Identity Crisis

Physical issues triggered by long days compound the challenge. Difficult clients emotionally drain your limited resources. Your symptoms flare from the work you're doing to help others heal from their own struggles.

Brain fog challenges make sessions difficult to conduct well. Trying to think clearly and hold sessions effectively. Remember details while brain fog makes everything harder than it should be normally.

Extreme fatigue reality goes beyond just feeling tired sometimes. Not just tired but extreme fatigue that's debilitating. That makes simple tasks feel impossible to complete. Yet clients still need you to show up.

Identity challenges are common for practitioners with chronic illness. Who am I if I can't work full time? If I'm limited in what I can do? If I need help myself instead of giving it? This shift creates a crisis for many healing professionals.

Medical Trauma and Isolation

Finding believing practitioners represents the challenge of finding doctors who believed her symptoms were real, not imagined. Medical gaslighting is real trauma, creating additional wounds on top of illness itself.

How trauma is created by medical rejection compounds suffering. When doctors dismiss your symptoms as nothing serious. Say it's all in your head, not real. This creates new trauma layered on existing illness. When you're clearly not fine but told you are.

Chronic illness creating isolation happens because you can't participate. You can't do what others do socially anymore. Can't keep up with normal life demands and expectations. People stop inviting you because you always cancel. Isolation compounds the struggle, making everything worse emotionally.

The spoon theory for managing energy helps understand limits. Each activity costs spoons representing energy units available. You have limited spoons daily to spend wisely. Choose wisely because when they're gone, you're done for the day without ability to continue functioning.

Creating Sustainability

Creating multiple income streams becomes essential when you have limited capacity. When you can't see clients full-time anymore physically. You need other ways to earn income sustainably while preserving energy for what matters most.

Different revenue options include online courses requiring less energy. Group programs, recorded content, consultation services offered selectively. Each uses less energy than individual sessions requiring full presence and attention.

The healing power of acceptance shifts everything about living. Accepting your illness instead of waiting to "get better someday" before really living your life. This shift changes everything about your present experience.

Acceptance versus waiting means waiting to live until you're better keeps you in limbo indefinitely. Acceptance allows living now, despite illness present currently. Living now with what you have.

The Wounded Healer

Working with clients can be energizing even during chronic illness affecting your daily capacity. The right work gives energy, not just drain. It can replenish somehow.

Personal struggles help clients by creating authentic understanding deep. Your own health struggles can help you better understand and connect with clients who suffer their own health or trauma struggles.

The wounded healer concept means your wounds make you more effective, more empathetic, more real with clients who suffer similar struggles. Who suffer and need someone who truly understands.

Structuring life around the body means honoring your body's needs. How to structure your life and work schedule around your body's needs, not fighting them constantly. Not fighting them trying to force normal capacity.

Finding Hope and Community

Learning to say no can protect your limited time and energy from being depleted. Boundaries become essential, not optional, for daily survival with chronic illness requiring careful management.

Finding a supportive community can change your outlook on your illness and your ability to cope. Not being alone with the struggle makes all the difference in maintaining hope forward.

The hope that chronic illness doesn't mean ending everything. Doesn't mean end of career, end of purpose. End of helping others heal from their struggles. Just a different approach needed that works with illness rather than against it.

Building sustainable practice that works with your illness matters. Not against it, fighting your body's limitations constantly. That preserves your health while serving others effectively within your actual capacity realistically.

This Episode Is For: 

✓ Practitioners with chronic health issues maintaining practice

✓ Parents or caregivers dealing with own illness

✓ Therapists, doctors, coaches with chronic Lyme or complex conditions

✓ Anyone feeling guilty about limitations

✓ Those needing permission to structure work around body

✓ People facing medical gaslighting

✓ Anyone struggling with helper-needing-help identity crisis

What You'll Learn

Listen to hear Helga Byrne's decade-long journey navigating her therapy practice with chronic Lyme disease. Learn practical strategies for managing brain fog, extreme fatigue, and limited energy through spoon theory application. Multiple income streams, saying no, and the healing power of accepting illness now instead of waiting to "get better someday" before living.

Your chronic illness doesn't end your capacity to help.

Listen to Episode 118 with Helga Byrne →

Disclaimer

This podcast is for educational purposes only and is not a substitute for professional medical or mental health advice, diagnosis, or treatment. The information shared reflects my clinical expertise and research, but every person's biology and healing journey is unique. Always consult with qualified healthcare providers before making changes to your treatment plan or starting new interventions. If you're experiencing a mental health crisis, please contact emergency services or a crisis helpline immediately.

Join the Conversation

I'd love to hear your thoughts on this episode. What resonated with you? What questions came up?

Please keep comments respectful and supportive. This is a community of people committed to healing. We welcome diverse perspectives and honest questions, but we don't tolerate personal attacks, spam, or content that could harm others on their healing journey.