How a World Champion Bodybuilder Overcame Post Viral Symptoms
After winning two world bodybuilding championships, Chrissy Zmijewski found herself breathless just washing the dishes. Simple tasks left her exhausted. Her heart would race. Basic words eluded her.
It was a precipitous drop from lifting weights many hours a day to being flattened after ten minutes of exercise.
Zmijewski’s symptoms started with a series of viruses. She got over the acute stage. But she was left with an exasperating array of persistent issues: fatigue, body aches, brain fog, insomnia, heart palpitations, headaches, acid reflux, interstitial cystitis and food sensitivities.
Her world became small. The once-professional athlete avoided activities, sounds and foods—anything that exacerbated her condition. She could only eat seven things without a major flare-up. At her worst, Zmijewski could only take cold showers because of her sensitivity to heat and body products.
Doctors couldn't find anything wrong, a familiar story with mind-body symptoms.
The medical system didn’t have a remedy so she combed the Internet. Her symptoms matched those of mast cell activation syndrome and histamine intolerance. As she limited her diet and tracked everything she ate, her symptoms worsened.
Eventually she found an interview I did with Sarah Rainwater, a Seattle teacher who beat long-Covid though mind-body healing. “It clicked! My symptoms were TMS,” she realized. “All of the things I was avoiding were making me worse, not better!
Zmijewski realized the symptoms were caused by her brain and nervous system, due to unprocessed emotions. Over the past couple years, she’d retired from a career she loved, lost her beloved father to cancer and moved across the country.
Her nervous system was on overdrive. She needed space to feel and grieve.
Zmijewski embraced the work of Dr. John Sarno, which she’d used to recover from back pain years before. The visionary physician described how the brain creates chronic symptoms when it’s under psychological stress, a condition he called Tension Myositis Syndrome, TMS for short. Neuroscience shows the brain can become stuck in a stress-symptom loop, even after an illness has passed.
“You have a pretty awesome brain,” Zmijewski says. “If your brain has the ability to create some intense experiences, it has the ability to heal and create an awesome life.”
When Zmijewski reached out to me, she wasn’t sure whether she’d initially had Covid-19, the flu or another virus. It didn’t matter. Since she understood the root cause, she could work towards a cure.
As you might expect from a world class personal trainer and health coach, Chrissy concocted an ambitious healing protocol and followed it with dedication. She shares so many insights in our YouTube interview!
In our video chat, you’ll learn more about:
❤️🩹Chrissy’s specific healing program
📝writing techniques that helped her release emotions and ‘flip the script’
🧘🏻♀️The somatic tracking meditations that changed her relationship to symptoms
🌺How she started looking at the flower, not just the mud
🐶Why play and laughter are real medicine (including funny animal videos!)
🧠Neurology exercises that calm the nervous system
Not only that, Zmijewski explains how she gave her worried mind a more productive focus. She started talking about her symptoms in the past tense, imagining she was telling her recovery story on a video interview just like this. Clearly, she reached that goal!
When we first spoke, I could feel Chrissy’s genuine desire to spread this healing knowledge. I was impressed by the way she used her intuition to craft a healing regimen that worked for her. As she says, experiment and see what rings true for you.
In her words: “Do the work. Believe in yourself. Believe in your strength.”
Try my free somatic meditation Chrissy used in her recovery.