Hi all, first post here. I thought people might be interested in my experience of the Chrysalis Effect (hereafter referred to as CE. I shall refer to the founder as EW throughout).
Note before I start - I don't now believe I have ME/CFS, though I did believe it was this for a number of years. I have high inflammation markers, symptomatically I have variable mild to severe chronic fatigue symptoms (i.e., I experience chronic fatigue, but I do not have Chronic Fatigue). My main issue is PoTS type symptoms resulting in me needing to be horizontal for large portions of the day. I have diagnosed endometriosis (discovered through a routine hernia operation, spoiler alert it wasn't a hernia!) but am now menopausal. My own research leads me to suspect I have something auto-immune ish, but am still being investigated through our good old NHS, so god only knows if I'll ever get an actual diagnosis, but in the meantime I'm having some success in eating whole foods and have cut out sugar, dairy and gluten. I have been doing things like daily journaling, meditation and regular yoga for a very long time.
I've had my fatigue issues since around 2001, I can go through years of being basically functioning, but have been in my worst so far relapse since February 2024 and gave up working at the same time. I also suffer from chronic migraines and have done since my early 20s.
So, I have been in Chrysalis Effect since the end of 2024. The TLDR review is (unsurprisingly) that it is absolute horsesh*t.
I started having an absolutely visceral hatred of EW almost immediately, so I'm not really sure why I kept paying out. I could see some module titles that I thought might help me but of course they were locked since everything is drip-fed, but no, several months later, turns out there was nothing of value for me personally whatsoever. I think I thought there might be eventually, but nope, no miracle information, and many more red flags.
When I joined what I thought might be a helpful webinar on a coaching course (I had been toying with the idea of becoming a coach in a niche field, not related to health), it very quickly became a sales webinar, and EW was just gross in it, to the point where I left mid webinar. So many red flags, and after that I could not view her or CE in the same way again. It was so clearly set up to encourage previously (or potentally still) sick people to start peddling her method for the low, low price of a couple of grand (which was apparently at a massive discount). Of course if you know anything about CE, you know that the entire programme is based on EW's version of the wheel which is used by life coaches and productivity/health etc. gurus everywhere on the internet and certainly not a new and novel method.
As an overview, my first observation was that the materials were really poor quality in general. I don't think the course materials have been updated since they created it, they are now using Kajabi to deliver course materials, but the general quality of the materials is like you might expect to have received through your door in a correspondence course in the 1990s. The tone across all the materials is so patronising, it was clearly written by EW, and we get to have her "story" in every single module relating to that particular topic. Definitely a vibe of cult about that...
There are 40 modules in total, however, really only 20, because every other module is a 'touching base' video with EW. Naturally I completely ignored these after getting halfway through the first one, such was my visceral dislike of EW. And I started to notice that a lot of the modules after the first 10 or so were basically filler content.
You get relaxation / meditations, and when I tried them out, the recording quality was so poor, in one instance it was so distracting that I had to switch it off as it raised my stress levels (I have autism and one of my things is audio sensory issues). No doubt they would say I didn't do the program properly as I didn't use their materials... but I have been meditating since long before I even got sick, it is nothing new to me. It's like people pressed record on a bog-standard home tape recorder in an echoey room 20 years ago and it's been made digital. It's literally not hard to do decent sounding audio in this day and age. I have no idea who any of the people who did the recordings are, they aren't part of CE, it's not EW.
I'm sure it has helped some people... but only if they a) don't have true ME/CFS, b) have never ever come across the idea of journalling, yoga, meditation, mindfulness, good nutrition, and have no idea how to actually process their emotional baggage. I am none of these things, personally. It is designed to prey on people who are completely lost in life and believe this will fix them. Which it may if they are that lost, but it won't fix ME/CFS.
There are also some troubling comments which mention ADHD as if it's a personality trait like perfectionism rather than an actual thing. And type A personalities. EW thinks that all people with chronic fatigue must be type A and perfectionists and put the needs of everyone else above them. Um no, I am none of these things. I am however neurodivergent and found the concept of my ADHD being in some way to blame for my fatigue seriously troubling. Whilst I can see that if you have undiagnosed neurodivergence and have been employing high level masking to fit in for decades that could cause you to burn out, this is not the same as ME/CFS.
There's some information on nutrition, but there are way better sources on this, and inflammation is not even referred to. It talks about candida and ruling out parasites, and cutting out sugar, but that's basically it. It's not that this module wouldn't be helpful to someone who knew nothig about nutrition and needed to look at their diet. But to me the biggest problem is that any modules that involve things like nutrition should be updated regularly to reflect the latest body of knowledge that's out there. Also not referred to anywhere is the potential of auto-immune conditions. I also didn't see any mention of PoTS.
There's a session on thyroid and adrenals. This was the initial reason I hung on to the membership, because I thought this might be my magical answer. I can sum up the information contained in this module in one sentence - get your thyroid checked out. There's literally no actual information in this module at all, other than a long checklist of symptoms... which basically correlate with CFS/ME symptoms, so of course you are going to go 'oh, I have this!' (spoiler alert, there appears to be no issue with my thyroid at all, how did I find this out? Through actual medical investigations and proper blood tests). Again, the book recommended in this module is really old, there are more recent publications that should be referenced. But wait, there's no scientific referencing anywhere through the course to allow you to do your own research even if you wanted to.
The session on pain basically tells you to do some yoga or stretching. Sooooo helpful. Another talks about resistance and denial. Well, there may have been some useful information in that one, but given I am already so resistant to EW and her program, I could not read it.
There's a module talking about harmful EMFs and recommends energy dots. The company no longer exists and scientific research indicates that they had no effect on EMF whatsoever and at worst were a scam.
There's an entire module on 'finding your life purpose'. Great! But how does this help you recover from ME, exactly? And who says we aren't already entirely comfortable with our life direction?
Another which was particularly triggering for me was about your Support network, and interacting with them. Completely unhelpful for me as my support network is basically my cats. I'm not at the point where I need to start talking to Social Services but I also don't think I'm far off, potentially. Not all of us have close family or a partner who we can rely on and who takes care of us.
Other recommended and referenced texts and speakers? The Secret and Tony Robbins. If that doesn't tell you everything you need to know I don't know what does. There are also so many filler modules as I've mentioned above, that basically rehash what has been covered before, or telling you to review what you've done already, or are interviews with people (e.g. Patrick Holford. Whilst I have known about Patrick Holford since the early 2000s, and feel like he does have some useful information, I also can't unsee that he is a vitamin salesman at heart).
Things that are good, I'm trying to be balanced! There are regular coffee mornings / peer support sessions, I think one or the other every week? The peer ones are recorded, so even if you miss them you can catch up later. Some of these are more helpful than the program itself and do actually talk about latest developments - for example, there was a whole session on genetic testing, some useful ones on nutrition beyond what's in the course, done by actual professionals. You know, the kind of thing that should be incorporated into the programme proper, but clearly EW has no interest in putting effort into updating the thing.
There's also a fairly active Facebook group. However, that one is also troubling. I have seen people post for help about specific things and you'll see EW pop up who basically tells them to go and look in the programme for help, without any specific recommendation of where to look. For someone potentially in severe pain and with brain fog and fatigue, that is completely unhelpful (let's be honest, the real reason she doesn't give specific advice is because she has none to give. Finding out on here that she may never even have been sick in the first place and just was money grabbing was an eye opener).
There's also a massive yoga hub and live yoga sessions a couple of times a month which seems potentially helpful, but again, the production is really piss poor and I couldn't overlook it. I'd rather pay more for a proper yoga membership elsewhere or use what's on YouTube for free. The instructor also has ME, I believe, and sessions have been cancelled as a result - which is totally fine and understandable, but also... not?
There is absolutely nothing in CE grounded in actual science, no mention of things like investigating PoTS, emerging aids like Visible, vagus nerve stimulation, nervous system reset. There's nothing about chronic inflammation, nothing about Long Covid (you'd think for a money grabber she'd have adapted the program to add in several mentions of that, wouldn't you!), nothing about alternative therapies which some might find helpful for relief (other than 'get a massage'). Early on I made a mention of KORE Therapy, which is a modality which some with fatigue symptoms find helpful, they had never heard of it. Which is fine, it's very niche, but for people peddling a cure for chronic fatigue, why would you not be on top of every single thing that is mentioned in relation to chronic fatigue relief? It's literally a Google search. Oh wait, because then you'd actually have to put in some effort to keep your course updated. Simarly no mention of things like craniosacral therapy. I understand this group would be side-eying such therapies and I totally get that, but for a programme that is grounded in woo woo non-help, I found it odd. (For what it's worth, I have been having KORE therapy for a year now and I find it massively helpful for increasing my energy levels, but only around for a few days after the treatment and it's not cheap. I consider it lifestyle treatment, and a reminder that I do not believe I actually have ME/CFS). It's just occurred to me that there's also no explicit mention of pacing or spoon theory, nor of PEM.
For a system that keeps harping on about being trauma informed, there's almost nothing about about trauma release or management, unless I totally missed it (but then I don't identify that I have trauma that needs releasing, so). Considering the focus on things like rest, there's nothing at all about sleep hygiene. I also heard from someone in the focus group that people are recommended not to chase trying to get a diagnosis of what's wrong with them, which seems really harmful to me - what if someone is actually seriously ill but doesn't go to the doctor? Surely you only get to that point once a GP has confirmed they can't find anything wrong through blood tests / investigations etc.
There's no mention of brain-retraining anywhere, but it is veiled throughout. I strongly believe if she were to bother updating this course she'd be all over it in a heartbeat, surprised she hasn't, tbh!
I don't want to tot up how much I have spent on CE because it will get me raging. So I'm considering it costs I have incurred to try and prevent others from making the same mistake. Whilst there are things in it that technically do help me (the previously mentioned journaling and meditation) I knew about them long before CE, and no-one needs a course to tell them how to do those things, it's a google search! And I consider them of minor importance in the scheme of things, the most helpful to me personally are pacing, giving up work, much rest and lying down generally, eating as well as I can and KORE Therapy. These have made the most difference to me personally in my quality of life.
Vagus nerve stimulation also seems to be helping although it's early days (not Nurosym, I have a standard Tens machine that works for it, I just bought a £7 ear clip and looked up settings on the internet). Along with not exerting myself basically ever. But again, I don't believe I have ME/CFS, so your mileage may vary. Visible with the arm band has been immeasurably helpful to me for pacing and because I don't necessarily always feel tachycardia, or know when I am starting to over-exert. Plus the customer service has been top-notch when I've needed to use it. Visible does sometimes get it wrong for me in terms of it'll score me a 4 (a high score for me) but I'll feel absolutely awful. However, it's never been wrong the other way yet - if it scores me a 1 and I think 'I feel great though', guaranteed an hour later I will have had to go back to bed. This is after over a year of using it. I've also used the FunCap functionality it has to export data to produce a report of evidence for my ongoing PIP appeal (which of course may not be successful, but the fact I could easily do that was great).
That was an essay, but happy to answer any questions or clarify anything!
