I am excited to announce the winning e-course that emerged from the choose your course poll.

And the winner is *drumroll* 14 Essential Pieces for Recovering from Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (ME/CFS)”

My enthusiasm increases every time I think about all the great ideas

Learn what you need to know to reach your full healing potential.

and techniques I’ll be teaching you. To see what’s in store for everyone who attends this free e-course:

Click here to read what the course can do for you and reserve one of the free seats.

To celebrate this new venture, I’ve decided to add some exciting bonuses:

1. Three Group Q&A Calls where I’ll answer all your questions and coach you through your difficulties.
2. Working periods where we’ll meet in an online meeting room and work together on the action items from each lesson.
3. A free 45-minute one-on-one consultation where I help you discover the most important next steps in reaching your full happiness and health potential (limited to thirty consultations, first come first served)

Why did I add these bonuses? First, I see teaching this course as a great opportunity to establish myself in service of the Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (ME/CFS) community.

Second, these bonuses give us the opportunity to interact more, which will help me build the best course possible.

Third, I’m committed to you getting great value from this course. I hope that you’ll be so excited about it that you’ll shout about it from the rooftops of your city.

Read about the course and reserve your free seat.

Hope to see you in the free e-course :),

Johannes

What is the CFS Recovery Project all about?

If you came to this page to quickly download the manifesto, click here.

What is a manifesto? According to the Merriam Webster Online Dictionary, it’s “a written statement declaring publicly the intentions, motives, or views of its issuer”

That’s exactly what this manifesto is: the CFS Recovery Project is outing itself, claiming what it’s all about.

Here are two reasons why this is exciting for you:

1. The purpose of the CFS Recovery Project Manifesto is to help you discover how the CFS Recovery Project can make your life better. Since CFS Recovery Project is all about helping you regain your health and happiness, the manifesto is about that, too. Depending on what recovery approaches you’ve already tried, the manifesto outlines what parts of the CFS Recovery Project you might want to look into, so that you can reach the next level of recovery.
2. You can leave your mark! The CFS Recovery Project is a baby. Since it’s in it’s infancy, you can dramatically influence the direction in which the CFS Recovery Project will be developed. Leave your mark by reading the manifesto and sharing your thoughts about it by sending an email to johannes@cfsrecoveryproject.com or by posting a comment on this blog.

Claim your copy of the manifesto now by clicking this link.

I hope the manifesto will serve you well, and I look forward to hearing what you think!

Warmly,

Johannes Starke, founder of the CFS Recovery Project

Have you ever felt guilt and disappointment rear their ugly heads during the holiday rush?

Christmas craziness can exacerbate symptoms in Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and Fibromyalgia

We want to make it really nice for our loved ones. We want to use Christmas as an opportunity to thank our caregivers and network of support. We want to show how much they mean to us by giving them a delicious Christmas dinner, a home-made present, or a thoughtful card.

And yet, we often can’t.

I remember that when I had severe Chronic Fatigue Syndrome  it was already hard enough to get through a normal day. Often, during the holiday season, I just didn’t have the energy to make my presents beautiful, thoughtful, or special enough so that they could live up to my high expectations.

And I felt lots of ugly emotions about it. I remember feeling resentment, disappoint in myself, and sadness. It was difficult to deal with.

Luckily, on my recovery journey, I’ve come across a simple practice to deal with this.

If you ever get down on yourself during the Christmas season, I believe that the simple technique below, adapted from world-renowned healer Byron Katie (or ‘Katie’ as everyone calls her), can make a big difference for you. It can show you a way to work through some of the difficult thoughts and emotions that can get triggered during the pre-holiday season. [Read more…]

Lying on my bed with my mind running a million miles per hour, my agitations made it impossible to find the rest my body needed so badly. The agitated exhaustion I suffered from since I had first come down with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome was unbearable.

If you suffer from Chronic Fatigue Syndrome or Fibromyalgia, then you’re likely to have experienced agitated exhaustion firsthand.

Woman Suffering from Agitated Exhaustion

Erica Verrillo and Lauren Gellman explain the term in their book Chronic Fatigue Syndrome: A Treatment Guide. “[Agitated exhaustion] is often described as a ‘tired and wired’ feeling. A person with this type of fatigue does not feel sleepy, although the desire for rest is overwhelming.”

Agitated exhaustion filled my life with terror. My mind was occupied by thoughts such as, “Damn it. This is hell on earth. I need to get out of this.” I was worried that my girlfriend would leave me. My worst concern was that no matter what I did I would never be able to enjoy life again and that I would eventually end up committing suicide, filling my family’s hearts with deep sorrow.

Before I had I suffered from agitated exhaustion, I would have just lay down and deeply rested when I was tired, but now I was haunted by a million thoughts that made me feel worse. Trying to distract myself by reading didn’t work either: prior to coming down with ME/CFS reading would have calmed me and infused me with a sense of peaceful magic, but now the thought of picking up a book alone was enough to worsen my mental exhaustion.

Do You Sometimes Feel As If There Is No Way Out?

Perhaps you feel as I did. You just don’t know how to get out of the vicious cycle of agitated exhaustion. Just like I was, you may be longing for rest and healing – but it seems as if there is no way out.

I did not feel like there was much hope, but even in my despair I kept up the search. It was on the Phoenix Rising site that I read about the Gupta Amygdala Retraining Programme which promised to give me the tools and inspiration to accelerate my recovery from ME/CFS employing my mind and emotions. I couldn’t possibly imagine that it would work, but since Phoenix Rising’s Cort Johnson shared his positive experiences of the program on his blog, I decided to give it a try. [Read more…]