Reprinted from the Amherst Bulletin April 12, 2002

HEALING FROM THE INSIDE OUT
By Bonnie Wells

“Crisis as opportunity” was Sophy Craze's mantra during her two-year struggle with rheumatoid arthritis. Now the Amherst resident is writing a book and offering workshops to share what she learned about healing.

Walking was Sophy Craze's stress buster. Long hikes with her dogs Rufus and Maisie in the conservation area abutting her South Amherst home started the day right and revived her when whe finished her workday as a writer and editor. “For my soul, my body and mind, walking every day was one of my most important pleasures,” she says.

So when she began to have problems with her feet five years ago, it was especially troubling. The pain, swelling and stiffness soon spread to all her joints, accompanied by extreme fatigue. Ultimately she was diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis, a chronic and crippling auto-immune disease for which, she was told, there was no cure.

But today, Maisie and Rufus have their hiking pal back and Craze is offering two workshop series to share with others what she learned about healing over the last five years, on a path that led beyond conventional medicine.

Born in Oxford , England , Craze had spent the turbulent late ‘60s in London . Like many of her generation, she was introduced to spiritual teachings from the East, and over the years had engaged in various spiritual practices such as meditation and yoga. She wasn't a stranger to the notion that the body, mind and spirit are connected.

When she got what she says felt like a life sentence of pain and disability, she fought through her fatigue to try healing approaches on every level. She was unwilling to take the immune system suppressants prescribed by her rheumatologist, but she did use the recommended antibiotics for several months. Gradually she changed her diet, eliminating dairy, sugar, wheat and vegetables of the nightshade family: tomatoes, potatoes, peppers and eggplant. She followed several detoxification regimes, engaged in psychotherapy and worked with her journal. She took herbal and homeopathic remedies. And she meditated.

During a ten-day silent meditation retreat at the Insight Meditation Center in Barre, a curious thing happened. On about the eighth day, Craze experienced what she says Buddhists call “don't know mind.” It translated to her roughly as “There is nothing but this moment and this moment is very full.

“I started to experience bliss, which pervaded my whole body,” she explains. “My pain and stiffness were gone. The next day I was running up stairs.”

Back home, the effect began to fade and her symptoms returned. “But I thought, if this could happen, I know that the body, this illness, is not as solid as it seems.”

She says a year of struggle followed, much of it spent in deep despair.

“Life was like a retreat. I started lightening my load in every way, from diet to long-held painful emotions. Crisis as opportunity was her mantra.

“I started to feel that I was holding all this rage, sadness and self-hatred in my body, and that was what I had to let go of ,” she says. “I learned that if I entered into the pain with some kind of gentleness and compassion for myself, the body would reveal what it needed.”

Two years after her diagnosis, the tide turned on her illness, and she began to recover. She has been virtually symptom free for two years.

“It was an amazing journey,” she says today. “This opportunity to really look at my life and to uncover a lot of things I was holding onto has resulted in healing, and not just my body.”

Still, she has to pay attention to her body. If she feels tired and a little achy, she knows it's time to take it easy.

“I almost feel blessed that my body speaks to me so clearly,” she says. I can't run in circles for too long before my body speaks to me.”

Craze says the next step in her healing is to help others. She has spent the last six months working on a book to share her experience and her research on healing. Healing from the Inside Out is her working title.

In addition, she is offering two related workshop series this spring, one exploring the healing power of creative writing and the other, a mindfulness-based stress reduction program.

“I was this average kind of person, running along with my life running me, and this (illness) stopped me in my tracks. This taught me how to really live my life. I want people to know that if we really listen, we are all able to heal.”