Why I Call My Program The Edison Effect

This morning I was reviewing a list of all the recovery programs out there, and I noticed that most of them share a similar kind of name. Almost all of the titles focus on recovery, healing, reorientation or reprogramming. 

And then we have my program, The Edison Effect which doesn't seem to on first sight, have anything to do with any of it. 

So I thought today I'd share with you, why I named my it The Edison Effect, because there is pretty awesome story behind the meaning of it. 

When hearing the name, some folks think it's because I'm trying to say that recovery comes from brilliance, grit, or hard work (hence the reference to American inventor of the lightbulb, Thomas Edison).

But it's actually quite the opposite.

Thomas Edison is often remembered for the lightbulb — the breakthrough that changed the way the world operated and helped to birth the industrial revolution and the work day of the every day man. But what’s far more interesting to me is the process that came before that invention ever happened. 

One day, when I was living with MECFS, I was struggling to get to the toilet, crawling on my hands and knees, and often having to lay down and rest for several minutes before crawling again - when I reached the dark bathroom and reached up to pull a cord on an exposed lightbulb. 

And in that moment, I had a sort of epiphany, watching light flood the room from this singular bulb. 

I thought of Edison, who had done what so many thought was impossible. I imagined him, teetering away in his work shop, day after day, night after night, toiling away, one "failed" experiment after another, hundreds and hundreds of times. 

And I wondered how on earth he found the resolve or energy or confidence to keep going. 

Laying there on the bathroom floor, I realized something.

I realized that Thomas Edison did not succeed because he found the solution or the answer quickly or easily. 
He succeeded because he learned — over and over again — what simply didn’t work.

“I have not failed,” he famously said.
“I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.”

And that sentence, in its own way, captured my own recovery process from ME/CFS, more accurately than almost anything else I’ve ever encountered up until that moment. 

To fail at creating the lightbulb that many times, Thomas Edison must have had two important qualities: a zen like determination that allowed him to continue on a path without immediate success, and a surrender to the process that allowed him to believe that it was inevitable despite any real proof of that belief. 

And for me, in MECFS recovery I discovered that both of these qualities were needed as well. Because when you’re living with this illness, it can feel like every attempt to pace, or expand, or find your baseline, or create a bit of new capacity, or attempt a walk or new activity - all of it costs you something.

Crashes can feel like a tremendously high price to pay for such a small infraction or task. 

Sometimes you are in a crash for a long time, and it all can feel like proof that you're doing recovery wrong. 
Every setback feels like evidence that recovery is impossible; that you're going backwards, that all your effort is for nothing. 

But what if that framing is actually backwards? What if your nervous system is not failing, but learning? What if YOU are not failing, but adapting and fine-tuning with ever increasing precision, what works, what doesn't and how to get recover? 

What if each flare, each wobble, each “this didn’t help” moment is actually powerful information, and a lived, learned understanding that you cannot embody just by reading or listening to someone else?

What if you're not failing backwards, but failing forwards into recovery? 

That, my friend, is what I call The Edison Effect.

Recovery, in my experience, was not a straight line or a single breakthrough. On the contrary, it was a messy, non-linear spiral staircase upwards. It was a slow process of discovery:

- Learning which signals matter and which are noise
- Discovering what your body tolerates now, not what it used to tolerate, which is always changing 
- Understanding when to stabilize, when to rest, and when to gently expand
- Figuring out which layer of the system needs support first so you can build capacity, and how to reinvest those dividends  

Most people don’t fail at recovery because they lack discipline or belief. People with MECFS are honestly some of the most determined, resilient, patient, curious and hard working people on the planet. If anything, they can't imagine a way out of anything that doesn't involve effecting; it's almost built into their DNA. 

Recovery is a missed mark, because the arrow they shoot is one that is directed at answers, instead of putting the bow down, and learning how to listen. It's about moving from overthinking, to understanding. From vigilance to embodied pacing and expanding. Leaning into symptoms instead of away from them. 

The Edison Effect also isn’t about doing everything at once. I doubt Thomas Edison could have created electric light while also trying to invest 3 other things at the same time. Recovery is about running small, thoughtful experiments in baseline and expansions, and letting your body respond and show you (not tell you), where the soft fence of your capacity is; and when its time to go beyond that fence, we again, SHOW, not tell the body that its safe to expand. 

We try something.
We observe.
We adjust.

Nothing is wasted. Every wobble is information and extremely helpful. Even the things that don’t work teach us where the system’s edges are. And this reframe is a huge part of my program.

This is why I don’t believe in one-size-fits-all protocols, in miracle methods, or purity camps around brain retraining or nervous system work in recovery. If one thing were enough, most of us wouldn’t still be here, wracking our brains trying to figure out how to get well. 

Instead, recovery happens when:

- the nervous system feels safe enough to change its default response

- the body has the resources and support that it needs to adapt

- pacing becomes a process, not a prison and not reckless gaslighting

- and learning replaces fear as the organizing force

That’s what I mean by The Edison Effect.

Not a lightning bolt that has you climbing mountains in 3 days. 
Not a cure.
Not even a promise of instant relief.

But a grounded, iterative process that honors the intelligence of your body — even when it’s struggling, and allows you to actually heal and remain well for the rest of your life.