Reclaiming My Peace

Reclaiming My Peace

A Story of Recovery from Covid & Virus Induced Damages to Creating Evolution

I was on my way to making a come up in life. Only twenty six years old, I had graduated from four years of undergraduate collage four years ago and am about to graduate from a year long distance education course from the Hypnosis Motivation Institute. My professional career I am developing is in Hypnotherapy to finally do the real work that I know my energy is good for, healing people with a fairly unconventional type of “alternative” healing.

I had already become certified in Tinnitus Treatment with Hypnotherapy by the American Hypnosis Association, a sister agency of HMI. This is already quite the specialized certification and I am glad that I have finally acquired this training and certification after having done intensive therapy with an HMI Intern on my own Tinnitus more than half a year prior that radically transformed my condition. I had the training, the knowledge, a certification, an upcoming graduation toward the end of June to look forward to, and my wedding I am in the planning stages of to place at the end of July this summer. Just recently I had signed a temporary lease agreement for a nice therapy office space in the Lower Queen Anne neighborhood. The only thing I did not have at this time in my life was a steady stream of clients, but I knew it was only a matter of time.

My partner got sick, but it was not Covid-19 that had been going around earlier that winter of 2021-22. We both had it in late December into January of 2022, contracted it from a family Christmas party, what a gift that was. It came and went and it was not the worst viral infection in the world. So what was this? She developed a cough, a dry cough that would not go away. It persisted for about a month without clearing up and perhaps the first strange part is that I seemed to not be getting sick from her despite us living together.

Then It got me. Some days I was extra cold, more than I normally always am. Then there was two or three days of feeling on and off heat, but not a real fever. Then I has several days of fatigue and after that I recall I had muscle soreness all over my body for a few days. Finally the sore throat and cough started to set in, but without the previous symptoms. I did an at home test or two while I was sick, but no Covid-19. The spread out symptoms also made it difficult to figure out what it was.

I was able to finish my HMI education about a week earlier than I expected and they sent my diploma. Then I left the job I was at in early July, still sick but barely alert and well enough to be there on my last day. This was for the better because my condition only got worse after that. My cough escalated to a violent dry cough that frequently made me bend my back and lunge my head forward when it would happen. This resulted a major disruption in my spinal energy (kundalini) and t would interrupt my speech mid sentence. This physical disruption and the virus itself affected my brain and memory and before too many days into the thick of this virus. I would be talking with friends, my partner in person and family on the phone and while I would be talking my brain would suddenly blank in mid sentence, mid thought train, and I would completely forget what we were talking about, sometimes who I was talking with or why it was important at all. At my relatively young age, if I could imagine what having Alzheimer’s is like, that was it. One of my grandmother’s had it, so I know what it looks like. I simply refuse to ever lose my short term memory like that ever again.

As if losing my ability to maintain my short term memory trains of thought was bad enough, I noticed that during the weeks that I had this mystery virus, my dreams became strange, abstract and absolutely nonsensical. Those that I did remember snippets of. I also lost my ability to remember my dreams, again. As if the first bout with Covid-19 taking my dream memory wasn’t enough. This and the earlier dream memory loss was like, I would normally remember parts of dreams after waking, and often the dreams I had shortly before waking up, but with the loss of this ability I would be dreaming and then wake up and it was like someone had cut the film real of my dreaming and I was now stuck in waking life, unable to remember what I dreamt. I was either here or there with no control.

What was I to do? Would I ever recover? How can I, a fairly skilled Hypnotherapist, heal myself of this virus induced brain damage and recovery my virtually non-existent ability to remember my dreams?

I eventually went to see an urgent care doctor and got a prescription for antibiotics to kill the aggressive bacteria that had settled, in what had felt to me as my upper chest. The antibiotics did their magic after a couple of weeks, that even herbs I had been trying could not pull off. The bacteria was killed off and my esophagus healed from the lingering inflammatory damage, after about three to four weeks. The cough subsided, my energy levels gradually returned, but I was still left with a damaged short term memory, attention span and practically no dream memory ability. Doctors are not capable of fixing or healing what was done to me. So, although I had all of this hypnotherapeutic and energetic healing knowledge, I turned to the best reliable source of solid natural healing I knew of, Herbal Medicine. I called a local herbal shop and was lucky to be able to speak with a well educated Herbal Medicine Practitioner who was there, and for my type of brain and memory damage, she recommended Lion’s Mane mushroom.

Lion’s Mane is readily available in North America, and probably other parts of the world with wet and lush conditions where it can grow. It is known to be able to bypass the blood-brain barrier, allowing direct access to the brain for helping with repair, optimum functioning, cognitive and memory health and some say it helps with dreaming and developing and maintaining psychic and extrasensory abilities. This shop called, has hundreds of medicinal herbs, but Lion’s Mane mushroom was the number one plant for brain healing that this woman was confident would help me. So I bought some dry Lion’s Maine powder and started buying the raw form health foods stores to add to my food.

So how did I recover my attention, focus, short term memory and dream memory? Not only that, how did I grow my dream memory ability beyond what I had before? I can say that it was along process, spanning about six months for me to feel like I was mostly recovered from the damages I endured. I continued with Lion’s Mane, every day, often multiple doses or servings each day. The fresh mushroom became a considerable portion of my diet. I also added specially formulated mushroom and herbal tinctures to my teas and juices. Organic black cherry juice became a favorite of mine for months, not too sweet, not too tart, and full of antioxidants and good stuff to fight nerve damage and pain as I have heard. One long haul effect of the viruses I have endured has been my nervous system becoming more sensitive than it already was, to pain, to temperatures. I have also learned how to help control or ovulate my nervous system reactions via hypnotherapy. Daily Self-Hypnosis sessions, often prolonged and deep ones helped with my healing process and helped my check in with my spirit, guides, subconscious and destress, heal and reset to name a few benefits. One beneficial effect that occurs during deep hypnosis is significant amounts of brain chemicals such as dopamine and norepinephrine get released by the brain into the rest of the body and helps to relieve pain and help the body reset.

Thanks to the bacteria killing help of the antibiotics and the mushroom and herbal tinctures I was adding to my drinks everyday and the whole Lion’s Mane mushroom I started adding to my food, I was able to start my recovery and notice real results right around July seventeenth to eighteenth of 2022. It was only a day or two before then, and I was able to attend a Therapeutic Imagery Certification training that weekend with only a mild dry cough. What’s also perfect timing in the early days of my recovery is that I was able to attend our wedding rehearsal dinner a week before the wedding with the need to only cough a few times that evening and with my brain performing decently with minimal memory lapses. By the time our wedding day rolled around the inflammation in my esophagus was practically gone and my brain was able to talk with people and be attentive with no memory lapses. Thankfully I was also able to make it through the long day, from early morning until the afterparty, without needing a nap or needed to check out because of low stamina. Throughout July while I was dealing with the virus, especially the violent dry cough, I usually was able to last up to four or five, sometimes six hours after waking up without needing a nap. So my wedding day was nothing less than perfect timing in conjunction with my recovery for me to have a perfect and problem free wedding. We really do live in a benevolent universe where miracles are possible.

These are some of the main points of how I integrated multiple natural healing modalities to create a greater state of balance, calm, recover my short term memory ability and recover over time from that aggressive virus. How did I recover my dream memory though? The single most powerful tool I have used, almost every single day in my long recovery, one that I will never live without, is my dream journal. From the state of having no dream memory ability, I strongly believe that Lion’s Mane helped, like a crutch, or supplement, to assist my brain in learning dream recall again. From that state of no dream memory, what I learned to do is to write something from or about my dreams in my dream journal. It started out as small, short bits, Sometimes just a few words, sometimes a phrase, a sentence. It really does not matter what you write from or about what you remember from your dreams. It could be a color, a sound, a feeling, the core of a message, a face, a silhouette, an object. Anything is a good start, even if you only get fragments day after day. After a few months for so I was lucky to write a paragraph about a dream. Since about the beginning of 2023 an amazing evolution occurred in my ability to remember and write about dreams. I believe it was also in conjunction of my daily reiki practices, that I started to be able to remember whole dreams, or significant parts of them, after waking, go to the bathroom and event take care of a little thing or two, then go journal about it wit relatively great recall and detail. Since then a more recent evolution, in February of 2023, has been my ability to recall very long story dreams, write some quick notes about them if I need to get up and do something, then come back and journal about the story dream and its details and symbolism later that day! This is even greater dream memory ability than I have ever remembered in my life.

I am grateful that I was recommended and started ingesting Lion’s Mane as a medicine. I am absolutely convinced that it is the number one medicine that helped me in recovering my short term memory, focus, attention and helped me in recovering my dream memory. I do not ingest it every day now, and my brain has returned to being strong and sharp like before any damage occurred, but Lion’s Mane will forever be in my cabinet and in my diet or supplement regime.

Since acquiring my certification in Reiki level two, I have been doing Reiki Self-Treats almost everyday and that has been profound in clearing and boosting my mind and energy on all levels. Just recently I had a minor common cold with mucus, a cough and sore throat, but because I was practicing Reiki every single day throughout that bug I never felt tired, despite vending at a very large wellness fair for two eight hour stretches. After what I have learned and how I have transformed, healed and am growing I will never live without frequent Reiki treatments, frequent Self-Hypnosis sessions, Lion’s Main in my diet, various other mushrooms and other brain and body supporting botanicals, and certainly never live without my daily dream journal practice and always working to deepen my dreaming practice.

*The above article is a retelling of my story according to my memory and experience. I am not a licensed medical doctor and this article is in no way giving you or anyone medical or nutritional advice. I am available to work with you as a Hypnotherapist and Reiki Healer to help augment your recovery if you have been damaged in similar or different ways as I was, but I would advise you to always consult with a qualified health care practitioner before diving into a new independent or holistic health management plan.

My name is Troy J Bacon and I am a certified Hypnotherapist, Certified Reiki Healer and I specialize in Tinnitus treatment & Trauma Healing and Recovery from Trauma and intense experiences. I also offer the services of Past Life Regression Therapy & Soul Contract Review and Rewriting, Reversing Fears & Phobias, Habit Replacement, Motivation and much more. My Hypnotherapy work often involves angels, saints, your ancestors, your spirit animals or animal spirits and sometimes other loving, truthful & benevolent beings who wish to assist in your healing. Depending on the session and the need for it I may even guide you to connect with your higher self or oversoul for clarity and guidance on a situation. Whatever the issue is, my services are always tailored to the individual and can address issues on the levels of the mind, body, energy body, emotions, behaviors, beliefs and soul to help you break through what is troubling you. The ultimate goal I believe in for this type of therapeutic work is to become clearer, brighter, stronger, more free and cultivate sovereignty as an individual and to become more of your unique self to live the life that you want.