Living with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome: A Lived Experience Becoming a Healer

There are moments in life when the world you thought you understood suddenly stops making sense.

For some people, it arrives through grief. For others, trauma, loss, or a relationship ending. And for some, it arrives through the body.

For Michael Owen, it came through illness.

At the age of 25, after a series of health challenges throughout childhood and early adulthood, Michael was diagnosed with chronic fatigue syndrome. But back then, very little was understood about the condition. There were no clear pathways. Few answers. Very little support. The Western medical system simply did not know what to do.

Imagine being in your twenties and suddenly finding yourself mostly bedridden.

Not for a few days.

Not for a few weeks.

But for years.

Michael described the first six months as largely bedridden and the following years spent mostly confined to the couch. For many people, such an experience would feel like life had come to a halt. Identity begins to collapse. Dreams feel suspended. The future becomes uncertain.

Yet strangely, it was also during this period that something else began to open.

He spoke about moments of perception—subtle experiences that did not fit within conventional understanding. A doctor who also practised Reiki unexpectedly helped him regain energy for several days, when he had none before. Encounters with healers opened experiences he could not explain logically, including moments where he sensed energy moving through the body in ways he had never imagined possible.

For many people, experiences like this might feel confronting. We are rational beings. We are taught to trust what can be measured, tested, explained.

But what happens when suffering takes you somewhere science does not yet fully understand?

Michael described it as a kind of dark night of the soul—a place where there are no familiar maps, no external ground, and no easy answers. A place where healing asks you to venture beyond the mainstream.

What struck me most was not only his resilience, but the depth of commitment required to simply continue.

Thirty-five years later, Michael still actively manages his energy every day.

Too much stimulation matters.

Too much screen time matters.

Food matters.

Rest matters.

Relationships matter.

How energy is spent matters.

And perhaps this is what chronic fatigue taught him: healing is not a destination you suddenly arrive at. It is a daily relationship.

A conversation with yourself.

A constant returning.

He described mornings when he wakes feeling depleted, unsure if he has enough energy to even get through the day. Yet instead of fighting against himself, he asks a different question:

What can I take care of today?

Sometimes that means making the bed.

Sometimes having a shower.

Sometimes simply sitting quietly in meditation long enough to reconnect to himself.

I found myself deeply moved by this because it speaks to something bigger than illness.

How many of us are exhausted in ways we cannot explain?

How many of us keep pushing despite knowing something in us is asking to rest, to soften, to reset?

What Michael eventually discovered was that healing was not only about symptom management. It became a spiritual journey—one that led him through meditation, yoga, Shen Therapy, esoteric healing, and eventually the Realization Process, a deeply embodied approach to reconnecting mind, body, emotion, and space within ourselves.

But perhaps the most powerful insight was this:

Healing was never about becoming who he used to be.

It was about learning how to become fully present with who he is.

Not fixing himself.

Not overcoming himself.

But learning how to sit with himself—through exhaustion, fear, uncertainty, grief, and all the parts of being human.

When I asked Michael what he would say to his younger self, his answer stayed with me.

At 14 years old, struggling deeply and unsure whether he even wanted to stay in this world, he remembered saying to God:

“If you want me here, let me be of service.”

Looking back now, Michael believes the soul had been with him all along.

Even through illness.

Even through confusion.

Even through pain.

That perhaps life, in all its mystery, had been quietly holding him.

And perhaps that is something worth remembering for all of us.

Sometimes healing is not about finding answers.

Sometimes healing begins when we stop fighting ourselves long enough to listen.

And maybe—just maybe—the journey is not asking us to become someone else.

Maybe it is gently asking us to come home to ourselves.

Full Podcast: Living with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome: A Lived Experience Becoming a Healer

MICHAEL OWEN~SHEN® THERAPIST/REALIZATION PROCESS TEACHER https://www.emotionalwellbeing.co.nz/