I had been teaching Switch all week with this prickly feeling in my back and a rash that was getting bigger and bigger. A doctor confirmed that it was shingles.

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Thankfully, I had a pretty mild case. I had a patch on my back that was larger than my hand and all bright red and blistered and felt like little bits of glass prickling in my back. But I didn't have any pain. From what I hear, Shingles is excruciatingly painful for some people.

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It was a big wake-up call to me though. I have been working far too hard all year to produce the Switch Webinar Series and a new website, and then the previous two weeks, I've been doing big hours upgrading all my course manuals and application forms. I was enjoying myself so I didn't see it as stress, but I can see now that I had been in such a frenzy of busy'ness for so long that when one task finished, I leapt into the next and carried on.

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Added to that, I felt angry at a couple of people the previous weekend, and suddenly - BANG! I had shingles!

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When I looked up the metaphysical meaning, it said "a release of stored up negative energy, little bursts of anger, or a sign that you need to slow down and practice self-care because your immune system is compromised by your stress".

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Yip! Guilty of all 3 issues!

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My first response was anger at myself for letting this happen to me. I should have seen it coming and intervened sooner. So then I did The Switch to let go my anger at myself, since that's not going to help matters. Then I immediately stopped all my editing projects. They could go on the back burner for now.  I apologised to my body for getting caught up in the mayhem and not noticing that I needed to stop. I thanked my body for making me stop. I did another two Quick Switches that afternoon to let go of the people situations that I felt angry about, and I did a Deep Switch on some anxiety that might have been fuelling my busy'ness, and then I just waited and let my body get back into balance and fix this. By Day 5, all the prickling feeling was gone and it was looking a lot paler.  By Day 8, it was all over!

From what I hear, it can often take 8 weeks to recover, not 8 days! I believe my quick recovery and mild symptoms were because of the swift action I took to address the root cause of WHY this happened to me, so that my body could then move into natural healing mode for me.

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Practitioners don't always get it right! We are just human too. But hopefully my experiences can help others to take a look at their own lives and see if they need to make some changes for more balance as well.

If you need help to calm your stress response and make lifestyle changes to support well-being, consider attending The Switch - a four-day programme at Empower Therapies. I used these techniques to bring about this very speedy Shingles recovery.