Inspiration Sunday: Trent's story

Another great “Inspiration Sunday” story about a mans journey with physical and emotional adversity and how he is coming out on top! Thanks for sharing your struggles with us Trent, you are giving others hope.

How it all started….

Looking back now, as he tells his story, he believes the initial concern stemmed from his emotional health. Toxic emotional health actually contributes to and leads to physical illness. He had terribly low self esteem and compulsive thoughts as a child. He was afraid to be himself and turned to alcohol and drugs to fit in, turning his back on God and those closest to him he says he became what he would describe as a “monster”. After 3 DUI’s within 3 years he finally sought help and began the long journey of emotional, physical and spiritual healing. He began attending AA meetings where he met his wife. As he began to let go of those crutches that he had held on to he began to heal slowly, but he also started to have more trouble with OCD that he had dealt with in his past. Throughout this whole period of time he was not making any effort to eat good healthy foods.

While healing emotionally and spiritually and making good headway, he began to have some disturbing physical symptoms. After seeing blood in his stool and seeing no relief he relented to have a colonoscopy and was diagnosed with Ulcerative Colitis in 2009. He had no clue at that time, the battle he was about to enter.

At the advice of his doctor he began taking the medications he was told to take. The GI nurse practitioner did mention diet as part of the treatment at that time. He had by this point in his life decided to begin training for preaching and public ministry. While away on a trip he ran out of his medicine and ate foods that were not on the diet he was told to stick to. That evening he had a flare up so bad that he felt like he was going to die. It was at that point that he started doing some of his own research. He began implementing some of the things he learned from a holistic chiropractor, such as Vitamin E enemas, and went into remission for a year and a half. As he took on more stress since he was now preaching and attending school, he began to have some of his old recurring symptoms again. As he had this downturn with the blood, pain and fatigue it became very severe and he was admitted into the hospital for a 3 week stay and then was sent back home. He tried various things at home but to no avail and he continued to decline with another hospital stay. After that second stay he began to get sick very rapidly and was admitted to a different hospital where they discovered that the steroids he had been given previously caused an additional condition called Cytomegalovirus Colitis on top of the UC he already had for years. His weight went from 200 to 135. This coupled with other serious complications led him to relent to surgery to deal with the situation at hand. At the time he was tired of the extreme pain and illness and although he now knows that autoimmunity can greatly be helped by natural means, without the knowledge of how to go about that he felt that surgery was the best option at the time for him. This surgery would leave him with a long recovery period and life with an ostomy bag, which was a tough battle to navigate.

Let the healing begin…

He focused on the positive and gratitude. He tried to find the beauty around him and rather then praying that “God would heal him” he prayed that “whatever happens, I will glorify you”.
He used essential oils for pain relief. He found Idaho Blue Spruce to be especially effective
He worked on overcoming the obsessive thoughts which were a huge obstacle for him. He learned to view God’s grace properly and to view the passing thoughts properly. Those thoughts didn’t need to dwell, but because he felt guilty about them he tended to obsess over them. This was a huge shift for him. While also incorporating clean eating into his daily routine he found this directly affects the brain and that coupled with developing a healthy biblical view helped greatly.
Physical activity was difficult at first as he pushed himself in physical therapy. He later began training with his wife and the following year he was able to run a half marathon with her which brought a lot of fulfillment to him.
He incorporated a morning lemon detox drink, green juice drink and superfood protein powder which has become crucial to his routine really makes him feel great.
He developed a morning routine including prayer/meditation with breathing, Bible reading/other reading, gratitude list, affirmations, visualization and exercise. Hal Elrod calls these disciplines “lifesavers” and they are.

Where is he now?…

It took some adjustment periods to learn how to live with an ostomy bag and he had accept the fact that this would be a permanent part of his life. It all starts with mindset and he has chosen to embrace it and use this attitude to help others to accept hardships that they might encounter in their own lives.

He got out of the hospital in July of 2014 and is now back to his normal weight and has devoted himself to working out/running and increasing his strength daily.

His view of grace really started to significantly shift to a healthier and more biblical view around January 2015. This was a process. Growing in faith works in this way. He found that by eating very clean and not dwelling on obsessive type thoughts that his compulsive thinking has shown great improvement and he is now experiencing much peace in this area.

After incorporating the morning drinks and green juice throughout the day he saw a very quick difference. He also does not consume gluten, sugar or conventional dairy. He can tell a huge difference in the way he feels by incorporating these eating guidelines and truly feels very vibrant today.

Words from Trent to us…

“We need to learn to be grateful for where we are instead of making contentment dependent upon getting to a certain place. Stress and worry fuel disease. We need to strive to get to certain places, but in the process, we need to be grateful. Make daily gratitude lists and pray and meditate. This isn’t about making temporary changes until you feel better, but about lifestyle change for permanent results. Figure out your why for wanting to get better, and fight to make that lifestyle change. This is a fight and you need to realize that. Educate yourself. Seek out others who have recovered from what you have. Make yourself accountable to fight for your health to people who love you. Help other people. Visualize yourself recovered and helping others. Make a vision board and visualize yourself living it every day.”

After attending The Influence and Impact Summit with Michael Hyatt he decided to overcome more of his fears and after a very inspirational discussion with a recruiter which shifted his confidence level he has just completed his Health Coaching certification and is now beginning to coach clients. He can be found at his new website at www.roytrentchilders.com.

Wow! Another great story of personal triumph and courage! I’m so honored to be able to share these stories. If you’ve missed any of the others stories check out the links below!