Hello and thank you for this opportunity. My name is Nora Knople. I am a board certified hypnotist in Norwalk, Ohio, specializing in helping clients diagnosed with autoimmune disorders. This niche began after my own journey with autoimmune. It has been a taxing journey. One I still work through, daily, as I am living with toxicity. I made a conscientious choice to work to live my best life, despite being toxic. You see, years ago, my parents made a choice, along with my dentist to use amalgam fillings in my teeth. I was plagued with dental caries, as a child and still bore the ramifications today. I also want to state I am not an anti-vaxxer, however it was after my one and only flu shot that I was able to be diagnosed properly and subsequently treated, putting me on a road to recovery. Because I am living with toxicity I am not able to get flu shots, as the benefits do not outweigh the risks for me. It has been a lengthy process of balancing life, being aware of reality versus perception and stepping outside the pain and anguish to experience life fully and wholly. Prior to being diagnosed with mercury poisoning, I surely thought I was dying. This thought was familiar, as I had beat cancer twice and allowed that thought to flutter in on occasion to remind myself I was actually, quite alive, as it were. I did this to connect back to self and reality bc so much of what I was going through at that time felt so much like an out of body experience, and today, faintly like I experienced it at all. Like a parallel lifetime. I see versions of it but it’s like watching a movie. Like I was not a part of the story at all. I would go through the motions but I was not living. I felt like I was floating on a bubble within the ethereal atmosphere. Even the day the doctor who I sought for a second opinion suspected I had heavy metal toxicity felt foreign to me. I was on nine different meds by my family doctor, to treat symptoms of asymptomatic occurrences. I certainly was not my respectful, stoic self. I had become argumentative, uncertain and paranoid. And I felt like my family doctor stopped listening. In actuality, he had, giving credit to each new symptom as a result of depression and mental illness. Reality, well, it looked very different to me, than it actually was. I was and am sane. Despite it all, somehow, within myself, I managed to function. Like a marionette, my body danced along to the rhythm of life despite the disease. Once diagnosed and given a plan of treatment, the new doctor took me off all my meds, actually ran tests the family doctor did not. I was diagnosed with RA factor, mercury poisoning and had a rare tumor growing in my middle ear, which had been growing for 13 years and masked by the overload of meds I didn’t need. My entire body was toxic. This new plan lifted a cloud from me that weighed me down for years. I felt confident and in control, yet I was anything but. Most importantly, I felt, for the first time, hope and I felt listened to. The subsequent specialist appointments to formulate treatment plans felt liberating and rounds of chelation therapy worked wonders, but my body was still on a trajectory toward despair. Stress, even superficial, caused a spiral of doom. Reality was scary. The physical was being cared for. I needed to care for every level of me in order to heal. It was then I returned to my roots in complementary care, and also saw a highly qualified counselor, who helped me understand I was not only not crazy, but not my illnesses. Add in meditation, yoga, hypnosis, massage, physical therapy and more – all aided me to restore my authenticity and focus on actual reality, leaving fear and pain in the peripheral. I am evolving toward a goal of eroding the fear and pain, but I can tell you, though some symptoms remain, my life is no longer a struggle and living present to the moment has allowed me to live no longer overwhelmed and given me a profound presence and quality of life with deeper awareness of self and deeper connections to the outside world. When battling mercury poisoning, stepping into the outside world required every part of my personality to function as individual marionettes to play their part, embodying the whole. Failure to do so would quickly escalate to full blown meltdown causing me to implode. Now, I embody the here and now, presently. Understanding my body is a vehicle for that purpose and fully aware of the responsibility, care and maintenance required to keep me going strong. I am happy to say, I am now living fully – no longer the marionette, but, now, the puppeteer. I took control of my life and having a well-rounded plan for wellness was the answer for me. My new doctor was open to discuss combining complementary care as a protocol for treatment. For me, it was necessary. I, not unlike many who are plagued with pain, was caught up in the emotional and cognitive realms of pain. Much of my pain was not real, just perceived. I found my way through it and these processes help me balance other emotions as they arise: grief, sadness, overly-joyful, etc. We need balance to function best. So much of the work I do with clients as a board certified hypnotist is centered on a subconscious uncoupling on the sensory realm of the pain itself. In doing so, the results are usually quick, and the process allows the intensity of those senses to be less debilitating, allowing the client to develop a more accurate interpretation of the senses through awareness. To some degree, despite some feeling paralyzed by fear embedded in the pain, the awareness of the pain itself lessens, offering respite to the clients, liberating them from fear and more intune with the emotions attached to the pain. This awareness allows for a deeper connection to the self, by tuning into each sensation within the body, mind, spirit and energy and accepting, without judgment, what truly ‘is’ and what truly ‘isn’t’. This disciplined exercise of the self is not easy, nor for everyone. However, if able and open to it, can assist clients in showing up more presently in their lives, eroding the once overwhelming fear and pain and contribute to a better quality of life. However, most importantly, I listen. As my clients often know themselves better than I. I provide a safe space and opportunity for them to explore what that means and teach them how to best operate their vehicle of self and all its bells and whistles. This is best practices and aids to their quality of life. While I am still toxic, I am less so, now.
I consciously choose to place my focus on living, instead of dying. Complementary care helped me have a better quality of life. Said practices are being sought, often when nothing else works. I believe, together, with traditional medical care and therapies, where applicable, wellness practitioners, as we are, can and do fulfill exquisite needs to caring for clients and/or patients, holistically and wholly. Consider these collaborations not just as means to aid the clients/patients, but to build a foundation of best practices for self and business, too. Thank you.
-N. Knople 2-19-2020 Integrative Healthcare Symposium