“Healing with Hemp (CBD)” – A self experience story.

                                                           (photo cred:Rob Lagerstrom) 

Healing with Hemp (CBD). A self experience story.

Both physical and emotional traumas are inevitable in a human life. The avenues available to cope and overcome these traumas are many and it is absolutely necessary for us to all walk our own path and act on the intuition that guides us toward our own healing. This is my personal story of how I have used CBD (cannabidiol) from hemp to help me work through some deep body trauma as well as find emotional wellbeing and balance.

To familiarize you with the body I’m working with and offer some relatability, I’ll share a bit of my story with you. I’m a 30 year old gym rat, a post collegiate athlete, a clumsy adventurer and a sensitive soul. I’ve endured all the usual injuries that come with a “rough-n-tumble” and athletically involved lifestyle. The main injury I have had to overcome happened my freshman year of college while on a basketball scholarship. I fractured my L5 vertebrae and tore supportive tissues along my spine. The doctor recommended road to recovery was to have surgery to “fuse my spine”. I opted out of that with a hard, NO.  My intuition even at age 19 knew better, I was way too young for metal to be holding my spine in place. Instead, I chose a non-invasive rehabilitation plan. I took a medical redshirt and was sentenced to 8 months in a back brace with the strict instruction of no running ever, no sitting for more than 2 hours, no standing for more than 2 hours, and no lifting more than 10lbs. I even slept in my brace. I did get to do daily core stabilizing therapies and eventually worked my way up to a “learn to run” program. Gradually I regained my strength and endurance and although touch-n-go at times, I was able to finish out my college basketball career in once piece.

Finishing out four more years of college hoops called for 12 cortisone shots to the nerve sacks around my spine. The continued roughness that comes with college athletics caused some crazy sciatica down my legs making it very painful to try and compete as a post player and was even debilitating at times. All I wanted to do was play though and the injections helped. So, not proud, but I leaned on cortisone to numb the pain so I could keep moving.

We all do this to an extent though, don’t we? Our shoulder, knee, elbow, whatever it is hurts so we take ibuprofen or perscription drugs to mask the symptom (pain) of a deeper issue. The show must go on, right? We have jobs, kids, obligations… I get it. But know this – When we take on physical trauma and don’t take the time to heal properly, our body or specifically our fascia adapts and gets stuck that way. This leads to decreased range of motion altering the way we move which throws our bodies alignment off and over time only causes more issues. Not to mention these drugs are very hard on our liver, rot our teeth, and can be addictive.

That being said, I don’t regret a second of it, my college experience was beyond fantastic. However, I do believe the trauma of numbing my nerves with spinal injections is primarily what I am still recovering from 7 years later. Because the cortisone worked so well it numbed my body from feeling the pain or hearing the “warning signs” that something isn’t right. My body was yelling 

STOP, and I refused to listen. This caused all sorts of imbalances. It has taken, and continues to take a lot of time and mindfulness to allow the physical and emotional space to break through set fascia, unwind muscle memory and rebuild myself with proper body alignment and balance. CBD has without a doubt accelerated my healing journey. My hopes in sharing my own experience with the hemp plant is to enlighten folks to the natural option of CBD for relief and healing of their own injuries, ailments and diagnoses.

The first time I took CBD was June of 2017. I had about 20 mg as a sample and within 20 minutes I took note of an overall heightened sense of wellbeing. I carried on with my day of laborious chores and recognized that the usual dull throbby pain in my low back wasn’t there. I noticed I felt more clear and concise in my thoughts and actions. Could this be the CBD I questioned? Maybe I just slept really well..? I examined the variables and still had my doubts for sure. It would be a week later that I had the opportunity to try CBD again. Same as before, 20 mg down the hatch and within 20 minutes I felt my typical on-edge, anxious vibes float away and the dull stabbing pain in my back subside. This is when I knew that the CBD was really working.

I have been consuming both sublingually and topically anywhere from 10 – 60 mg of CBD just about every day for 10 months now. The long term effects of incorporating CBD into my diet is even greater than the immediate relief I have found. I will say it was about 3 months in to taking CBD regularly that I started noticing breakthroughs in my body and greater mobility in my spine. The only thing I’m coming up with to try and describe what I mean by that is comparing it to having professional body work done. If you can imagine the sensation right after your massage therapist has found a knot, went to town on it, and then releases pressure? That sensation of new found openness or disbursement of tension, almost like a breath of fresh oxygen to your system. This is the wonderful sensation I have been experiencing at random since making CBD a regular part of my life. It is as if the constant intake of CBD is slowly breaking down inflammation and relaxing my nervous system enough for my body to melt into proper alignment again. And if feels so good!

I have experienced major breakthroughs in my chest and shoulders allowing deeper breathing, my ankle and knee joints feel nourished and buoyant rather than stiff and brittle. My neck and spine feel limber and long, not tight and locked up. My emotional wellbeing seems to have improved as well. I have not taken prescription drugs for my diagnosed depression, ADD, anxiety or anything else in over 10 years. Instead, I combate my anxious, attention fleeting and depressive tendencies by being proactive in my lifestyle choices as well as some go-to self soothing exercises if I’m having a bad day. Since incorporating CBD as a regular part of my diet I have without a doubt decreased the use of my “bad day” self-soothing exercises.

Now don’t get me wrong, I most definitely DO NOT attribute all or even half of my healing and wellbeing to CBD. I stand firm in knowing and preaching that sustainable wellbeing comes from a variety of consistent self-care practices. I do give CBD the credit of supporting my body to achieve a state of balance or homeostasis on a cellular level that has allowed my body space for healing and shedding what feels like years of wear and tear on the body. I do not believe CBD would be as effective for me if I did not promote and maximize its potential by consuming a healthy lean diet, exercising regularly, and having a daily mindfulness practice. There is never going to be one pill, supplement, food or practice that is going to turn anyone into a healthy and balanced individual. We must put in the maintenance work and be mindful of our lifestyle choices every day to achieve sustained wellbeing. It is in my experience that forms my opinion of CBD being an excellent choice for anyone looking for a natural solution to combat their daily aches, pains, anxieties as well as accelerate their healing journey.  

I don’t have a personal experience to share about the more extreme diseases and diagnoses that CBD has been rumored and in some cases proven to be effective for. I encourage you to do your own research and at least give this legal, non-psychoactive and natural plant a chance before jumping right to more invasive treatments or perscription drugs that will inevitably only cause more issues.

Thanks for reading my story. I hope it will help you make an informed decision on whether or not CBD is a good choice for you or a loved one. If you’re ready to give CBD a try, I obviously recommend my own awesome, organic, and sustainably sourced CBD product line, Full Spectrum Products. You can find and order products here. If you want to educate yourself some more before buying, I recommend you check out the non-biased and purely research based website, ProjectCBD.com. I always more than happy to work with you one on one to answer your questions about CBD as well as offer guidance on implementing self-supportive lifestyle choices into your world for sustained health and wellbeing. You can get ahold of me anytime through my website, www.lichenlivin.com . 

Be well friends. I love you.

Corrie