How successful is the Lightning Process?
This is an extremely important question, as you will obviously want to know what kinds of results have been achieved using the Lightning Process. In answering this, we highlight one of the key elements of the Lightning Process – identifying that the single most powerful ingredient to success is you.
I will cover its success rates later, but to make better sense of the question, it’s important to first consider the idea that you are the most powerful ingredient in the success of the Lightning Process. This naturally follows on from the discussion about whether the Lightning Process is a training programme or a treatment.
Before anyone is accepted onto a training seminar, their practitioner will spend some time working with them to make sure they are adequately prepared for the training – we will cover this, too, in more depth later.
One of the most important points of these discussions is for the participant to understand that they will need to apply the tools of the training, both during and after the seminars.
I have found that it’s essential for participants to recognize that by ‘just turning up’ for the training programme they will not get the same results as previous graduates, and that they will need to be instrumental in making the training programme useful by applying it appropriately.
Only one person has the power, and therefore the most influence, to do this: you. This defines you as the most important player in the Lightning Process seminar, which is a great thing to know as it means you can start to be in charge of, and design, your future, as you want it. Having said that, you are not alone in your journey. Knowing that all great athletes, top performers and explorers need a great back-up team, your practitioner and this book do not expect you to go it alone. They will be there for you before, during and after the course to help you keep putting the training into practice in any way they can, for as long as you need.
From this understanding, it is clear that the success an individual gains as a result of attending the training is dependent on:
This includes the concepts, theories, tools and techniques that are the components of the training programme.
This includes the practitioner’s ability to deliver the training in an easy-to-get and effective way. They will also need to have an appropriate depth of knowledge about the subject to be able to tailor their delivery of the seminar’s contents and support/coach the individuals in an effective manner.
This includes a commitment by the participant to ensure they understand the concepts, theories, tools and techniques that are the components of the training programme. To be willing to ask appropriate questions to enhance their understanding, be ready to carry out the tasks and exercises suggested by the practitioner and training, and be open to feedback about their usage of the Lightning Process’ tools and concepts. To also have a belief that it is possible they can attain the results the seminar suggests is possible, and that they are capable of doing that.
In the Lightning Process, the first two of the points given above are demonstrated by its track record of effectiveness. The Lightning Process Practitioners have delivered the training seminars successfully worldwide, and supported large numbers of people to get life-changing benefits.
The Lightning Process is continuously developed in line with best practice and the latest research. The practitioners are trained to be consistent in the quality of their delivery; they have to attend professional development courses and are supervised on an ongoing basis.
The element that is the most unpredictable, therefore, is the third point – the participant. This is why we stress the importance of the participant’s contribution to the training programme, as it’s the main variable that will dictate the effectiveness of the Lightning Process.
In spite of this unpredictable factor, there is only a small variation in the results. This is a reflection of the effectiveness of the training programme – from all the steps in this book through to the post-course support – the practitioners, and, especially, the level to which participants apply the training effectively.
To date, we have found that the vast majority of people get the results they desire by attending the training. For example, in a recent survey 81.3 per cent of 1,092 people with CFS/ME, and 80 per cent of 440 people with depression reported that they felt they had recovered after the Lightning Process seminar (to read the full survey, visit www.lightningprocess.com/research).
Those are quite staggering results when you consider that these are both good examples of issues that many people usually struggle to resolve in the long term.
So far, the small percentage of people who haven’t had the desired results have been those who haven’t felt able to put the training into practice as fully as they’d hoped. And in terms of the seminars being ‘right’ and ‘useful’ for people, in our recent snapshot survey15 on day three of the training only two of the 1,297 people felt that the training wasn’t appropriate for their needs.
Influence is a term that crops up a great deal in this book, in the Lightning Process training, and in my work as a whole. Therefore, it’s worth clarifying at this point what I mean by it.
Looking this word up in the dictionary will give quite a confusing list of definitions, ranging from the magical effects the stars were historically thought to have on people to the one we will be using in this book: the idea of being able to have an effect on some object or situation.
It’s important to note that this concept differs from a number of other related words such as:
The difference being that ‘influence’ looks beyond who or what was to blame or at fault, and instead looks at what could be done to make things change.
So, ‘having an influence’ refers to someone who is going to do something about resolving a situation. They do this by recognizing the elements they can influence and then affecting those things to make a difference. I often tell the following story about a bus journey to emphasize this important point.
Imagine we are on a bus. While driving at speed down the road, the bus driver suddenly falls into a coma and slumps over the wheel. This coma occurs because he is an insulin-dependent diabetic and he hasn’t taken his medication or eaten today, so his blood sugar levels have dropped to dangerous levels. Who is to blame and at fault for this situation?
The bus driver is supposed to be in charge of monitoring and managing his blood sugar levels properly so he is competent to drive us safely. Today, however, he hasn’t done that, so we could reasonably say that the situation that we, the passengers, now find ourselves in is his fault. His blood sugar levels aren’t something we can really influence, so they are things we are ‘passive’ to.
But who has an influence in potentially recovering the situation, for making it good and saving everyone?
The answer is, of course, anyone who can get to the wheel in time and take over driving the bus.
We could spend the remaining seconds of our lives blaming the bus driver as we head towards the oncoming traffic, but maybe there’s more value in letting go of the idea of finding someone or something to blame and using that time more purposefully to rescue the situation.
One way of ensuring that things don’t work out as planned, is avoiding finding what elements you can influence, and instead spending as much time as possible finding out which people are to blame for things not working out. Possible targets for this are ‘them’ or ‘the powers that be’, ‘men’ or ‘women’, ‘my partner’, ‘my parents’ or ‘my upbringing’.
It’s probably true that all those things from your past that you feel are to blame for your current problems did have a negative effect on you. But does focusing on that actually make your current life any better; does it help you move on or does it just justify why things are the way they are and so hold everything in place?
Blaming is such a tempting idea that it lures us when something goes wrong. I remember once, when I was chopping up some carrots, the knife slipped off the carrot and I cut my finger a little bit. The sharpness of the cut was enough to make me drop the knife. It fell, point down, and I had to quickly move my feet to avoid a second injury, which meant I knocked the chair behind me and the bag of flour sitting on it fell open onto the floor. Fuming, I picked the knife up carefully and, as I stood up, hit my head painfully on the open cupboard door that ‘someone’ had left open. I began to curse everyone else in the house (in turn), including the carrot, for leaving the chair, flour and cupboard door in such a ridiculous way. Then I realized I was alone – everyone else had gone away for the weekend. I was cooking for myself and I must have left all these things in such disorder. It was me – I did it. Notice how, instantly, I stepped into blame mode, finding a wrong doer, someone else to get annoyed and find fault with.
As Erica Jong said: ‘Take your life in your own hands and what happens? A terrible thing: no one is to blame.’
So, to summarize, the concept of ‘influence’ that I want to use, and for you to work with, throughout this book is not about fault-finding and not even about thinking, ‘I should have influenced that situation differently’ (because that’s just blaming yourself and of no use). Instead, it’s all about asking, ‘What can I do about a situation to make it good or better?’
What will happen as you learn a new way to use that power you have to influence your life and take the driver’s seat of your future?
We recognize that it is essential to carry out studies to scientifically verify the results we see in our seminars every day. We are currently in the advanced stages of planning randomized controlled trials (RCT) with well-established researchers who are renowned within the research community, and assigned to acknowledged research institutes. We are also currently involved in a feasibility study with the NHS to look at whether we can recruit young people into a study, and there is a further project looking at the effects of the Lightning Process for those with MS in a Proof of Concept study.
These projects have been designed according to research standards because we feel this is essential for reliability and for acknowledgement. However, research of this nature and quality takes a long time – in many cases ten years or more – to get to a position where the results are ready for publication. More details will be released once the findings are collated and some conclusions are drawn, as that will be the most appropriate time to discuss the impact of the research. The section about research on our website (www.lightningprocess.com/Research/) is the best place to find up-to-date details as they are released.
So, depending on when you read this book, there could be a few years to wait for those kinds of figures. The question then, is what can you use to make an informed decision about the success rates and, even more importantly, how they might apply to you?
In the absence of RCT data, we have to rely on other data collection studies, and something that, we as individuals, put most trust in – other people’s accounts of their personal experience.
Our filing cabinet is bulging with cases, known by the rather disparaging title of ‘anecdotal’ evidence, that support the perspective that people can and do have lasting recovery. We have cards sent to us by graduates of the Lightning Process seminars from mountain tops all over the world that they have just climbed, plus photographs from shopping centres they have finally shopped in, of Christmas meals they have finally been able to prepare and cook, and of babies they have finally been able to have.
Of equal importance, and even more appealing to those with a more scientific mind, are the positive findings of independent studies. Among these are the survey by the ME Association (UK) from 2008, the survey by the Brighton and Sussex Medical School and the Sussex & Kent ME/CFS Society from 2010 and the ‘ME 2008: What progress?’ survey by Action for ME and the Association of Young People with ME (AYME). Much of the Lightning Process research to date has been into CFS/ME. This is not because that’s all the Lightning Process works with, but because CFS/ME is a field in which so little actually makes much difference that our success has been of great interest to researchers.
The MEA ‘Managing my ME’ survey asked 4,217 people with, or caring for those with, CFS/ME about their ‘experiences on issues relating to ME/CFS management’ and looked at 25 approaches (Appendix, Table 1).
The figures from the Lightning Process are very interesting; it received the highest percentage out of all 25 approaches for those feeling they had ‘greatly improved’, with 25.7 per cent. Another 18.8 per cent felt the Lightning Process had helped them improve (totalling 44.5 per cent).
CBT (Cognitive Behavioural Therapy), being one of the mainstays of NHS approaches to this illness, is useful as a yardstick. Here, only 2.8 per cent felt greatly improved and a further 23.1 per cent felt improved.16
GET (Graded Exercise Therapy) is the other common NHS approach to treating CFS/ME. The survey showed that only 3.4 per cent of respondents felt greatly improved and a further 18.7 per cent felt improved.
MEA survey results showing percentage of respondents who felt ‘greatly improved’ after trying CBT, GET and the Lightning Process
In the study by Brighton and Sussex Medical School and the Sussex & Kent ME/CFS Society you see a similar trend. When surveying 460 CFS/ME, patients the Lightning Process showed as being top of the approaches for being ‘very helpful’, at 44 per cent, with only 24 per cent feeling the same about CBT.17
Action for ME and the Association of Young People with ME (AYME) 2008 survey of 2,763 people found that the Lightning Process (although it was misnamed Lightning Therapy!) scored better for being ‘helpful’ (53 per cent) than the two main approaches in the NHS, CBT (50 per cent) and GET (45 per cent) (Appendix, Table 2).
A study using the RAND SF-36 data collection tool has provided some preliminary outcome measures from 205 clients who attended a Lightning Process seminar. The indications are that the Lightning Process is making a significant positive impact, resulting in increased health status at six weeks, persisting at three months, and demonstrating improvements in all areas that were covered by the RAND SF-36 questionnaire. The subjects in the study had a range of conditions, as shown in the table below.
| Self-reported diagnoses | % of people with each condition |
| ME/CFS | 64.4% |
| Anxiety/Depression | 17.1% |
| Multiple Sclerosis | 2.9% |
| Fibromyalgia | 2.9% |
| Low Self-esteem | 2.4% |
| Chronic Pain | 1.5% |
| Addictive Disorders | 1% |
| OCD | 0.5% |
| Other | 7.3% |
Full details of all the studies in this chapter are available at www.lightningprocess.com/Research/
So, there is a fair amount of data and a wealth of life-changing stories to support the idea that the Lightning Process is a very valuable approach for many people.
One of the purposes of this book is to help you make sure that you will be among the majority of people who are able to use the tools of the Lightning Process successfully, and get change in the long term. It’s useful then to consider what makes for long-term success so you join that group of successful participants. Let’s go back to the idea of the other training programme that we’ve mentioned before, the one where you are going to learn French. It’s similar to the Lightning Process in that the success an individual gains as a result of attending the training is dependent on:
The successful student would choose a course that had been effective for other people, and a trainer with the correct credentials. Then they would have to apply themselves effectively.
As a result they would learn the basics of French, and we would consider that they have succeeded if they have the beginnings of fluency. You wouldn’t expect them to be able to read every single French word they came across, though. There would still be things to learn above and beyond the course, but they could apply the basic skills they had discovered in their training – pronunciation, grammar, accent and how to extend their vocabulary by using a dictionary, etc.
So, let’s imagine that they leave the college with a sound grasp of French, but does that guarantee they will speak French just as well, or even better, a year later? What do you think?
I would suggest that, ‘No’, you can’t guarantee that. At that point in their training the actual teaching part of the programme has stopped, and the future is now in the hands of the participant. Has the programme provided them with the appropriate skills to start to master French? ‘Yes’.
Has it provided them with the skills to self-manage their studies in the future and have a good support network to assist them to put it into place? ‘Yes’.
Is there much more the college can do? At that point, the answer really has to be ‘No’.
The college now has a much less influential role in the student’s progression and the continuation of their usage of French. They are still available in a supporting role, but now it’s primarily up to the student to use the tools and resources to maintain their momentum.
In exactly the same way, the Lightning Process is a training programme. The success at the end of the course, fluency with the tools and an ability to get all or some of the changes you want, is easy to identify. The participant’s continued long-term success is dependent on continuing to apply what they have learned. Fortunately, the vast majority of people on our courses realize this before they begin and do keep on applying the Lightning Process to continue to reap the rewards it can offer.
Ask yourself, ‘What does this teach me about what is required from me to get the best out of the Lightning Process?’ Please write down a few sentences.
If, after reading this book, you decide to take the next steps and learn the rest of the Lightning Process and apply it to your life, our experience tells us that you will get change in your life and find a way to influence your health and future. And if you continue to apply it, then, bit by bit, you’ll begin to get the life you love.
There will be many things for you to learn in this book, some of which will be obvious to you as you read it for the first time. Others will surface once you’ve begun to put it all together.
The Lightning Process suggests that you get out of life what you put in. So if you’ve got a life or health that are not as great as you’d like, it’s time to discover if there is something you can do to influence that positively.
While you read on, I suggest that you keep in mind what Henry Ford once said about success: ‘There are two kinds of people: those who think they can, and those who think they can’t, and they are both right.’
So, if you’re ready for a change, let’s continue. In the next chapter, we’ll begin to examine some of the scientific theory that underpins and explains how a training programme such as this can affect our physical health.