Before December 1985, I was a do-er. I did things. I worked. I wrote. I socialized. I interacted. I thought. I hiked. I read. I traveled. I went to cultural events. I had goals and dreams-most of which involved doing.

I loved to dance. I'd be on the dance floor, and these stories would tell themselves in the movements of my body. It was my soul expressing itself, giving my body a way to connect with its life force and rhythm. I loved my body-loved living actively in it. But, on the darkest day of the year, I woke up feeling as if my very life force had sprung a leak. The body I counted on, took for granted as my partner in doing, stopped cooperating. It had been overrun by a chronic illness, eventually diagnosed as Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS).

For most of the next 12 years, I became primarily a "be-er." "Doing" was beyond me. I lived in what I called the gray zone, a monochromatic existence. My companions in this daily drama were the several pages worth of symptoms that comprised CFS, most notably debilitating fatigue and loss of concentration. A famous CFS doctor said that comparing a healthy person's fatigue to that of a person with CFS was like comparing a wind gust to a hurricane. I couldn't work or read more than 15 minutes at a time. Sometimes, in the middle of conversations, I'd find myself suddenly unable to comprehend people's words or remember what I'd done an hour before. At one point, I became so environmentally sensitive, I couldn't stay outside in nature.

I also discovered that I'd been sexually abused as a child and read research that showed trauma from events like abuse could contribute to serious illness-like CFS. I knew that the illness and abuse were linked, and hoped that healing the abuse wounds would eventually help me heal my body, too.

Believing in the mind/body/spirit connection, I saw CFS-and the abuse-as a giant wake up call to heal not only my body, but my life. As part of responding to that call and fully involving myself in my own healing, I dropped into and engaged the "be-er" part of me. Here, old foundations stripped away, I slowed down, let myself freefall in the void, listened deeply to my own being. Even though I couldn't do much in the outside world, I recreated myself as an explorer of my inner world-of consciousness and soul awareness, as an alchemist transmuting darkness into light.

The many lessons I learned while "being" helped me live as fully as possible-with or without the physical limitations of an illness. The most important of those lessons for me-and the most difficult was: To consent, to accept what is. The fear was that to say yes to all life, even illness or past abuse, was to resign myself to it, say it was okay it happened, or to diminish its magnitude. The fear was if I accepted it, I'd be giving up.

But none of this was true. Instead, truly embracing even CFS meant that I accepted all of myself. Instead of fighting with symptoms, judging them, feeling like their victim, I learned to surrender. Rather than pushing away difficult feelings-anger, grief, sadness, fear, I honored and loved my vulnerable messy humanness. And at the same time, I did everything I could to get over the illness.

Acceptance on this scale, I found, was tantamount to choosing life, to moving with the flow of life, rather than denying it. In fact, the more I consented to what was and surrendered, the better I felt, and the more things shifted on their own. New healing resources appeared. I felt more peaceful and had more insights about my next steps.

I saw that even my severely limited life, as a person dealing with CFS, was as valid and important as any part of my so-called "do-er," productive life had been. I opened myself to trust in the ultimate goodness of life and the rightness of my own zig zag bumpy path.

I dropped into the present moment, and found the love, the gratitude for all that I still had in my life, all that I was at my deepest core, that no illness, no abuse, could steal from me. I discovered a wholeness, a spark of light that existed in me even in the midst of all that seemed shattering. That part was beyond CFS, fully healed even as the rest of my body raged with symptoms. I knew it was there. And I could always take a moment to close my eyes and feel it.

Accepting my life fully-the "be-er" and the "do-er"-also allowed me to reclaim my creative writing voice, which had been silenced early on by the fear and shame surrounding the abuse. And the first book I was called by my very soul to write was the journey of healing my body by healing the impact of sexual abuse on my life, how I had transcended it and reclaimed the fullness of my life. Twelve hours after I made the commitment to write that book, in a workshop led by two healers, I had a spontaneous healing of the CFS and the wounds of abuse. I said yes to my life-surrendered to what was, to my creative path and purpose-and I had a healing. I've been healthy ever since.

Those writings became a memoir, Riding Grace: A Triumph of the Soul (Silver Light Publications, March 2007). In Riding Grace, I raised my voice, no longer silent, and told the story I'd been afraid to tell. Facing it opened me like a beautiful, fragrant red rose to the deepest parts of myself, and this act of deep acceptance has further healed and transformed me in ways I'd almost stopped daring to dream were possible. No longer a victim-or a survivor-of abuse or illness, I reclaimed that wholeness inside me and set the spark ablaze.

© 2007 Alissa Lukara. Based on excerpts from Riding Grace: A Triumph of the Soul (Silver Light Publications, March 2007). All rights reserved.

About the Author : Alissa Lukara is the author of Riding Grace: A Triumph of the Soul, (http://www.ridinggrace.com), a powerful and provocative memoir that chronicles her life's journey as she overcomes childhood abuse and incest and subsequent chronic fatigue syndrome as an adult. She is also president and founder of Lifechallenges.org (http://www.lifechallenges.org), a nonprofit website that provides individuals in 97 countries worldwide with the self help tools they need to cope with and transcend adversity She lectures, drawing on her personal healing experiences and the larger perspective she gained from them and can been seen hosting the Southern Oregon community television program, "Transcending Life Challenges." A writer whose work has appeared in numerous publications and Reiki Master, Lukara is currently studying to be a family constellation practitioner which is based on the work of psychotherapist Bert Hellinger. For more information, http://www.ridinggrace.com.