Michael Hunter

April 2011

For two years, Michael Hunter was as sick as he'd ever been. Certain foods, pollens, pets, and scents—none of which had bothered him before—now caused his eyes to burn and his skin to itch. His lungs would fill with cotton; thinking clearly became impossible. He saw specialists from Cleveland to San Francisco, but none could explain where the allergies had come from, or how to chase them away.

Then, in the summer of 2008, he ran into Aaron Stern, a close friend of Michael’s wife. Michael described his allergy attacks, which had become so acute he was losing weight and missing work. Aaron listened, then said, "I have a way to help you unpack this”.

Aaron wasn’t talking about experimental treatment or wonder drugs. He was referring to Leading by Being®, the Academy’s two-year foundation course in personal leadership.

Michael was willing, and a few months later flew from his home in San Francisco to Santa Fe for the first intensive. The three days of profound conversation and reflection with fifteen other people was “enlivening, but very challenging,” Michael recalls. “I wasn't used to being so transparent."

When it came time for the second intensive, Michael found himself wringing his boarding pass in the Oakland airport while his plane took off without him. “I called Aaron and told him I was feeling this incredible resistance and couldn’t make it. Without judging or cajoling, Aaron responded that he would support me, whatever I did, but he felt there was something behind that resistance, something that Leading by Being® could help me explore."

Michael screwed up his courage and caught the next flight. Again, he found the work compelling, particularly the way the facilitators guided participants through the clutter of their lives so they could recognize what they needed in the moment. It was a new model of learning for Michael, based not in teaching and lecturing, but eliciting and listening. Still, in that intensive and the two that followed, his resistance did not abate. Neither did the allergy attacks.

Things seemed to take a turn for the worse when he walked into the first intensive of the second year. As the Academy had not yet finished its new center, the course was being held in private homes—and this one had a dog. The group tried to accommodate by opening the doors so Michael could sit outside, but his allergies flared. He ended up in an office across town, trying to participate virtually via Skype.

“It was frustrating,” he says. “I watched this dynamic work going on, and felt like the train was taking off without me. I realized I didn't want to lose this group."
The next morning, he drove directly to the home. The group was shocked: they knew a day in that house meant weeks of suffering for Michael. But they dove right into the work, which was, as Michael recalls, “especially intense that day.” He spent much of it supporting a fellow participant through a profound moment of self-discovery, and not until he stepped outside that evening, exhausted but enthralled, did he realize his lungs were clear, his eyes and nose relaxed.

He took a deep breath, waiting for the allergy attack to hit. It never did.

Back in San Francisco, Michael researched furiously to understand why he hadn’t reacted, and discovered Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP). Originally developed as a way of interpreting thought patterns in geniuses, it had been modified by English therapists into a treatment for chronic illness.

“NLP treats emotions as movements of energy in the body,” he explains. “When we repress those movements, the brain ‘turns up the volume,’ and focuses on producing more energy—in the form of adrenaline—at the expense of other bodily functions."

Through the introspection and interaction of Leading by Being®, Michael came to understand he’d been repressing an emotion for over three years, the sense of loss he’d experienced when his first child was born and his relationship with his wife had shifted, become less exclusive. To accept the emotion and restore balance to his body, he applied NLP practices he gleaned from the internet. His allergies disappeared in six weeks, and he flew to England to study the therapy in depth.

Now 42, Michael remains healthy, and has returned with new vigor—and new skills—to Thrive, his acupuncture clinic in San Francisco. Combining Neuro-Linguistic Programming with the transformative learning techniques he learned in Leading by Being®, he's helped scores of patients recover from chronic illness, most recently a woman who came to him with a burning sensation in her hands and feet, constant fatigue and an inability to sleep, among other ailments.

“Her doctor had diagnosed Multiple Sclerosis,” Michael says. “She was terrified, and before I took Leading by Being®, I would’ve been terrified with her. I would’ve set up weekly appointments for two years to palliate the symptoms.” Instead, he sat with her to elicit what was happening in her life, and listened carefully as she described the unbearable stress under which she worked. By the end of the session, the woman said she felt 40% better—simply by being heard. Michael coached her through strategies for expressing her needs at work, and the symptoms began to disappear altogether. Today, she believes she never had MS at all.

"None of this would have happened without Leading by Being®," Michael says. "I never would have made the connection between emotion and illness.

“Another Leading by Being® graduate once told me that aside from learning to read, the Academy's course was the most important learning experience she'd had because it allowed her to encounter her life. That’s exactly how I felt: like my life was always there, but I wasn’t finding it. I was hiding behind a mask, playing the role of a fictitious character. Leading by Being® broke me open, and catalyzed my life.”

Michael Hunter will soon have a website about his work at www.thriveagain.org.