A Note from Polly

You feel a surge of hope that it will change your life, and a twinge of fear that it might fail.

Many of you feel guilty for spending money on yourself. I can tell you that you are worth it and the world is a better place for your having been born. As a group, you have the most wonderful characteristics. You're kind, sympathetic, artistic, intelligent, compassionate, a great friend, and even "better looking" than the average person. Some of you will have instant success with this program - one key will unlock the door to freedom. Others will make great strides, slide back, start up again, and finally break free. Still others, like myself, will need to use every tool every time and repeatedly experience growth spurts and restarts before finding freedom. But, believe me, it will be worth every trial and all the time, money, and effort you put into it.

I'm one of those people born with genes that predispose me to high anxiety. My father suffered all his life from panic disorder. For most of his life, there wasn't even a name for his suffering. The medical community knew nothing about nutrition or techniques he could have used to lessen his pain. He had to simply "tough it out."

As with many people who feel they have no options, he turned to drugs and alcohol. This decision wrought great physical and emotional destruction on himself and his family. He never learned another way to combat his fears, stress, and anxiety. At the end of his life, he was blind, nearly deaf, in a wheelchair, and still he filled himself with anti-anxiety drugs to get through each day. Having lived among the chaos and destruction drugs and alcohol cause, I pledged that no matter how much I suffered, I would find a better way.

Like my father, I too was born before anyone knew how to help those who suffered from anxiety, stress, panic, and depression. When I was seven, I became very ill. For a year I lived in the hospital. During nine months of that year, I was confined to a crib. The only time I was allowed to leave the crib was when my parents would arrive to visit for an hour and, if I wasn't too ill, one of them would carry me to the toilet and back. No friends, no visitors. I learned to survive on my own. But, as you will learn from the BreakFree audiotapes, although onset can be sudden, most anxiety disorders set in after some prolonged or debilitating stress, be it mental, physical, or emotional. I became anxious over everything-going to school, riding the bus, visiting friends or my grandparents, or going shopping or to the show. If I had some big event to attend, I would suffer for at least a month beforehand. When my wedding date was set, I was so anxious, I could barely eat or sleep. My weight dropped to 87 lbs. My parents insisted we call off the big wedding and two days later my husband and I married in a small, private ceremony.

I've had some good times and some really rough times. A few years after my first child was born, I had a complete breakdown. For two weeks, I barely slept or ate. The chemicals that chronic stress produced were continually coursing through my body, day and night.

One day, one of my aunts, who had a similar problem, brought me a book. My condition had a name, agoraphobia - the fear of having a panic attack in crowds, public places, or open spaces. Agoraphobia is the most potentially debilitating of anxiety disorders.

Finding a name for my condition gave me the first ray of hope in twenty years. Although I had rejected drugs and alcohol, I mixed a drink to celebrate and lessen the anxiety, laughed at myself, and then walked out the front door and crossed the street in front of my home. I was determined that I would never be that low again.

I had a name for my problem but no solutions. Because one of my first symptoms of anxiety was instant diarrhea, my husband bought me a motor home so I could feel safe when I tried to do things. Women didn't drive motor homes thirty years ago. You should have seen the faces as I drove through San Francisco's hilly streets with my 4-year-old son as co-pilot.

In time, our second son was born. Within only a few months, he became ill. Joshua was unable to completely digest his food for the first two years of his life. I was up five to ten times a night and so exhausted that I couldn't sleep even when I had the chance.

By the time Joshua was three, he would become ill every time we went somewhere new. We realized that I had gifted him with the genetic predisposition for anxiety. As we look back on his life, we realized that stress and his nutritional deficiencies pushed him very early into the symptoms of agoraphobia and depression. If you made a scale from one to ten and ranked people by the disability of symptoms, with ten being the most anxious and zero having no anxiety, he and I would probably rate a nine. Because we developed agoraphobia at such young ages, neither of us could recall any experiences of living life free from anxiety. We had no memories to work from in order to know what we were trying to go toward.

When Joshua was one, my husband decided to go back to school to become a doctor. I had always wanted to be a doctor too, but my anxieties prevented it. Because of the stress of caring for our son, my anxiety symptoms increased and all my body systems started to send out troublesome signals that serious destruction was taking place. One of the doctors my husband befriended during his internship took me under her wing. Although she didn't have experience with panic disorders, she taught me how to balance my blood sugar and clean out the toxins in my body, then started me on a nutritional support program.

My husband and I both had a strong interest in nutrition, so I would plan great meals to entice his teachers, classmates, and fellow doctors over to our house so I could participate in their discussions. I even managed to convince the other doctors to let me research and present a report on nutritional supplementation, just as they were doing. I became a nutritional guinea pig for them and myself.

At the same time, I enrolled in a how-to cognitive therapy support program for agoraphobia that was being taught in our area. As I started gaining control, the symptoms eased. I certainly wasn't cured, but I was functioning. Several months later, I went to work in real estate. Being able to make money - good money - lifted my spirits. Still restricted, I was probably the only successful real estate agent who never took clients in her car.

Little by little I learned to change my thoughts, my actions, and my nutrition and believe in my rights as a human being. I learned to say "no." I started putting the puzzle together, one piece at a time - all the things you will be learning. I only wish I had been able to learn them earlier.

Years later, when I turned forty, I said, "I've had enough! I'm going to fly. Now I'm really going to travel anywhere I want." My goal was to be able to fly anxiety-free on flights of two-hours or less. I figured if I could do that, I could hop across the country in two-hour segments. I planned every second of the first 20-minute flight. My husband drove me to the airport in our motorhome. It must have been quite a sight as he gently pulled me through the parking lot. By the time we got to the plane, it was five minutes until take-off. I buckled in, started shaking, stood up, and said, "I can't do this!"

My husband said, "Okay, let's get off." As we stood to leave, the door thunked shut. There was no turning back. I have to tell you that day was one to the "highest" times in my life. My spirits soared with the plane. I never wanted the ride to stop. Every step in the arrival airport was pure ecstasy.

I had lots of ups and downs as I practiced. I used all the cognitive and nutritional skills I had learned. I still carry an anti-anxiety drug in my purse, which I used many times in the beginning. Recently, several times I've forgotten to bring the little bottle with me. Last year I flew at least 30 times. Once I flew by myself from Los Angeles to New York. I then took a taxi from the airport to the hotel, spent the night, and took a taxi back to the airport where I waited for my husband, who had been lecturing in Europe, to arrive.

I can truly say I am grateful and happy to be alive every morning of every day. Joshua, now an adult, owns a paragliding school and also helps people who suffer from anxiety. His greatest joy comes when he works with people to get over their fears and fly free - whether in the air or just by walking out their front doors.

Joshua and I have learned to tame the beast, to make lemonade from lemons. Although we can't say we never feel anxious, panicked, or depressed, we have both concluded that if we had to give up the gifts we were given along with the anxiety - sensitivity, intuitiveness, compassion, intelligence, creativity, and those things that make us human and loving and who we are - we wouldn't. We have been forced to feel every bump of life, both high and low, and been given the ability to feel emotions strongly and to love fully. How few people are so gifted.

I don't know whether your progress will be filled with lots of ups and downs like mine or occur in an instant of illumination with one bit of information you learn. But no matter the degree of success you attain, you will be better and more capable for having learned these skills and information. For me, I can say that it is with great joy that my husband, Dr. Ron Meyers, my son Joshua, my friend Dr. Joel Swabb, and I pass the nutritional knowledge, learned over our lifetimes, on to you, so you too can break free to a more calm and joyful world. May you wake up every day happy and thankful for the opportunity to live in this world.

Please take advantage of our gift to you-the Stress University Course #2020-BreakFree. We are giving it free so millions of people will not have to suffer like I did. Many of you will get all the help you need by listening and putting the ideas from the course into practice.

For those of you who are genetically predisposed and having physical symptoms, you most likely will need more help. Because this is my heart project, I’m going to take all your risk away and make a promise to you. Purchase the BreakFree eProgram. Make a commitment to give it a real chance-read, learn, do the lessons and take the nutrients. And then, if for any reason, you don’t feel you have made substantial improvement, just tell me, and I will refund your money. You have nothing to lose but those terrible feelings inside you.

My greatest wish is for you to feel good again.

Love,