Hey there. I'm Crystal.
I live in the Seattle area. When I’m not practicing yoga or meditation, you’ll find me attempting to get creative with cooking, joyfully walking around the many local parks, or hiking the beautiful mountains around here. Some of my favorite hikes I’ve experienced are the Hidden Lake Lookout in the North Cascades, and anywhere at Rainer!
After my graduate studies in Applied Mathematics, I started my professional life in the data science and analytics field. And here I am now, over a decade later, passionate about helping others enhance their well-being through trauma-informed mindfulness and somatic-based practices.
My long, personal journey through chronic illness has led me here, to my purpose.
In 2018, I fell severely ill. After a routine sinus surgery, I was unable to fully recover, even months later. Within a year, I began having difficulty walking. In addition to being on-and-off bedridden, I experienced debilitating fatigue, malaise, neuropathy, and other neuropsychiatric and neurological symptoms. Answers never came until two years later, when I learned I was dealing with multiple late-stage, disseminated vector-borne diseases. Lyme disease. Bartonellosis. Babesiosis.
Healing my dysregulated nervous system was the catalyst for returning to health and wholeness.
I treated for four long years, throwing everything at the chronic infections. Prescription antibiotics and antimalarials, herbs, supplements, supportive therapies. And my health did not improve. Until I began facing the early developmental trauma I experienced in my childhood head on, and leaned into restoring my mind-body-spirit connection through meditation and somatic-based practices, trauma-informed therapy, rewiring my brain, retraining my limbic system and healing my dysregulated nervous system. A switch turned on inside me. The treatments that my doctor customized for me were becoming more effective. Supportive therapies benefited me more. My body’s healing abilities came back online and I started having more good days. I went from deciding on which power wheelchair to purchase in December, to hiking without pain in March.
There is always hope. Healing is possible.
As I continue my recovery and healing journey, I feel profound gratitude for my precious life, and am called to devote the rest of it towards helping others. It truly was not a choice that I needed to make. I hope to offer those suffering from chronic pain and complex chronic illnesses some peace, and to help facilitate healing with tools that continue to support me.
For more information about Lyme disease and associated infections, visit globallymealliance.org, lymedisease.org, or ilads.org .