As a first year university student, I felt lost in the pack, resigned to never standing out. Then, just weeks after returning home from school, a truly terrifying and unique event happened – I was kidnapped by a total stranger while riding my bike. Miraculously, after nine and a half hours, having been blindfolded, handcuffed, then raped repeatedly and sodomized, I was released by my captor. Over the next few hours, I provided enough detailed information to the police, that they were able to find and arrest the man four days later.

After he was sentenced and jailed and justice was fully served, I continued living the nightmare of those hours. I underwent counseling and tried the medications my Doctors suggested. Still, I continued to experience the physical and psychological symptoms common to sufferers of chronic, severe Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.

For sixteen years, I lived this nightmare, until my sister pointed me to a way out. Through my own courage and a unique holistic practice known as John F. Barnes Myofascial Release, I was able to fully resolve my past and live with authentic joy and peace.

My healing, after years of failed attempts, required a radical shift in thinking about how healing works. With the help of specially trained therapists, I cycled through a strange yet viscerally familiar process and, for the first time since my capture, the nightmares stopped. Gradually, despite frequently getting in the way of my own natural healing process, I began to trust it. Again, another miracle – suicidal thoughts that had held me prisoner, all but vanished. Finally, never expecting to get this far, my first feelings of authentic joy began to occur.

Throughout the process, I needed help and support outside of the treatment room. I began a dialogue with my now long time Myofascial Release Therapist, Dave. Then, gradually, began to post my questions to the online MFR-Talk community. These posts seemed to help people in different ways on their own journeys and it was helping me to post and to get invaluable feedback to help me heal when I was stuck.

Now, I’d like this information out in the blogging community. If it helps just one person, then it will be worth it.

With some trepidation, because I continue to expand myself out of my comfort zone, but, knowing there are people out there who need to know healing can be done, I felt compelled to share what I’ve learned over the years. I took a very, very long and circuitous route, because I didn’t know another more direct route existed. I wanted to find that person who had done it. I wanted to find them believable. I wanted to know they were truly happy. I never satisfied my searching, so I lived my own healing story and then began writing and sharing it. This is the information I wish I had known that first day after coming home from the hospital.

I have read many, many tragic stories, some in self-help books and books from professional therapists in which I’m not convinced people have fully healed. They are functioning in their daily activities and interacting with people. But functioning and actually feeling good are not the same. There is a difference between pseudo healing and authentic healing that I want to convey through my story of healing. I want people to feel the healing process as they read my experience. This is more the telling of an experience than of telling a story. A story can be told at arm’s length. An experience puts you right in it. Some say it cannot be explained in words. True, there are feelings that are beyond words. But there are words that can point to the experience. Just like we can put someone into the character in a novel. It can be done. This is what I am attempting to do.

It is a glimpse inside the world of authentic healing like you have never experienced it. I hope it inspires you to radically heal!

About John F. Barnes Myofascial Release©

John F. Barnes Myofascial Release © is the ultimate approach to healing, taught by John F. Barnes for 40 plus years to over 75,000 therapists worldwide. The approach encompasses a gentle, hands on therapy utilizing three components: myofascial release, unwinding and rebounding, combined with verbal dialogue, to release the fascial straightjacket of pressure that perpetuates most physical, emotional and psychological symptoms. Once released, the person can then more easily return to their natural, relaxed and alert state. No other approach to healing reaches as far and with such compassion into the physical, emotional, psychological and spiritual realms of the human being. For more information on this approach and to find a trained therapist near you, please visit www.myofascialrelease.com