Twice on FibroHaven I have had the pleasure to share with you the wonderful resource Yoga for Fibromyalgia by Shoosh Crotzer.
In Tips for Easing Fibromyalgia Pain Naturally, I shared an excerpt from Shoosh demonstrating her Healing Breath Technique, and then in Book Review: Yoga for Fibromyalgia, I shared with you her wonderful philosophy and structure for the book, and was pleased for the opportunity to partner with her publisher Rodmell Press in giving a copy away to one lucky commenter.
And now I am happy to share that healthy living for women website, Lifescript.com, has posted a great article on Yoga for Fibromyalgia – Need Fibromyalgia Pain Relief? Try Yoga. The article discusses the benefits of yoga for fibromyalgia and breaks down a sequence of five seated poses directly from the book.
Each of the five poses are broken down into how to set up and get into the pose, how the pose benefits you, and cautions for any pain or discomfort. They even include one of my favorite poses – the seated belly twist!
What a great way to get access to this wonderful book and gently incorporate yoga into your daily routine. It is just a small sample of the beneficial information and poses in the book, but a very good introduction.
As I continue towards becoming a certified yoga instructor, I know this book will be one of my tools to help me share the loving and healing benefits of yoga. I love Shoosh’s philosophy and her gentle reminders to listen to our bodies and honor what we are feeling. I will carry that wisdom with me into each class that I teach.
Today is Monday, January 3, 2011. It is the day millions of people around the world realize they have already failed at the resolutions they set for the new year. But failed is such a hard word when you consider the ridged and unrealistic expectations resolutions place upon us. Resolutions force us to look at what we don’t like about ourselves, rather than honoring and nurturing the potential of what we can be.
That is why, instead of living with resolve, I am choosing to live with intent.
Intent: purpose: an anticipated outcome that is intended or that guides your planned actions.
Living with intent is different than setting a resolution and trying to stick to it. Intent allows for the uncertainty and ever-changing nature of life. Intent allows for self-love, self-nurturing, and realistic expectations. Intent encourages growth, and is an avenue to release guilt.
You can wake up each day and set a new intention if it serves your purpose. The point is to wake up each day intending to be the best YOU possible, and doing what you can to make that a reality. It can be different every day, and that is okay. Intentions do not set you up for failure, they allow for variance and change.
If the best YOU today is someone who decides to let go of any guilt you would normally feel about being unable to clean the kitchen or about having to cancel plans – that is beautiful! Set it. Make it your intention: “I am letting go of guilt and honoring my health and wellbeing.”
Maybe you are having a good day, so you decide to set a more active intention: “I am walking today and spending nourishing time in nature.”
They are your intentions, and your are free to set them and change them as you please. The goal is not to focus on what you cannot do, but to focus on what you can do and embrace it, celebrate it, nourish it. Nourish YOU!
But if I may offer a few guidelines for intention setting, here they are:
Write your intentions down.
Get yourself a notebook, and wake up each morning with an intention for that day. Even if you write the same intention every day, allow yourself the opportunity each morning to account for the unpredictable nature of things.
Be active and present.
Always write your intention in positive tenses. Write them as if they are already a reality. “I am…, I have…, I live… ” It may take a few tries, but practice writing positive, active, and present intentions.
Be mindful and realistic.
You know your ability better than anyone else. Set intentions that slowly and gently propel you forward. What do you want to achieve? Who do you want to be? Visualize it, and make the daily efforts to move in that direction.
Be kind and self-loving.
Your intentions are tools to focus and encourage you, not to cause you stress, anxiety, or guilt. If today’s intention is not completed to your satisfaction, lovingly place it aside and try again when you are ready. There is no right or wrong here. Only the intention of self-love.
Release your expectations.
You are setting an intention with a purpose and to attain a goal. Let yourself be free to experience it in whatever way it unfolds. Do not be rigid in your anticipated outcome. Life is ever-changing. Expectations do not allow for change, and often lead to resentment and disappointment.
Share your intentions.
Intent.com is a great place to go daily and share your intentions. I have no affiliation with them, other than a personal profile page I have created. I am sharing them with you because I love the inspiration and hope they are spreading one intent at a time.
From Intent.com:
Why Share An Intent?
“We truly believe in the power of intentions. After all, every action starts with an intention. When we share an intention with others, we make ourselves feel more accountable for the mission we want to complete. When you know what your intention is AND you can state it to others, then you are more likely to make the initiative to make your aspiration come true.”
Today my intentions are this:
I am sharing my goal of Living With Intent on FibroHaven.
I am sitting on my mat in silence and embracing the peace it brings me.
I also have weekly intentions:
I am practicing yoga 4-6 times a week.
I am writing 1-2 blog posts a week.
And there are several other intentions swirling around in my brain, all intended to help me be the best ME I can be each day. We all get to determine who that is for ourselves. No one else gets to tell you who to be and how to get there, but I think setting intentions together is a great way to work on it.
Living With Intent is a new project for FibroHaven. I plan to share, grow, and develop this project throughout the year. I am not sure exactly how it will unfold, but then that is exactly the point isn’t it. As long as I intend it to grow, it will.
I hope you will consider joining me, and if you do, please share your intentions either here or on our Facebook page. What you share will help and inspire us all.
Here’s to Living With Intent, and being the best we can be.
My heart is joyfully heavy with the love I feel for everyone I have connected with through FibroHaven. From my local support group, to our online facebook community, and to those who I interact with privately – each of you are a true gift in my life.
Thank you all for helping me make FibroHaven a place of hope and support. Thank you for inspiring me this past year, and for motivating me to make next year even better. You give me strength!
Wishing lots of comfort, joy, and love to each of you this holiday season. Your light shines brightly. I know, because it is what guides me.
The Rusnaks ~ With Love
Today is a day of recovery for me. Most people do not attend a restful and healthful three day yoga retreat and then come home to recover, but such is the nature of life with chronic illness. Yet I will welcome this time of recovery over and over again if it means I can continue on this path to wellness.
I have learned many things so far on my path, and the one lesson that appears repeatedly is that this is a process.
Healing takes time, and although I am caring for myself better than I ever have, there is still an unpredictable nature to fibromyalgia I cannot avoid. Setbacks, sidesteps, and distractions are all part of the process. That is an important point to emphasis – they are PART OF THE PROCESS. They do not separate me from the process, but they do challenge me to redirect my focus and discipline myself to get back on track when the distraction has passed.
The retreat I attended took place at a beautiful desert center in the community of Joshua Tree – the same Joshua Tree that inspired U2′s fifth album. The setting was beautiful and serene and COLD! Each building at the retreat center was designed by famed architect Frank Lloyd Wright. Wright designed buildings in a way to bring the outside in, meaning there were lots and lots of uncovered windows giving a sense that we were sitting in nature rather than a in building. Beautiful and quirky yes, but the design also made the rooms drafty and cool.
Our first evening we settled in the great room by the cozy fireplace for a restorative yoga practice. I chose an unfortunate place to lay my mat, and within 5 minutes I began flaring up from the cold draft hitting the back of my neck. I moved my mat to a more comfortable spot closer to the fire and was able to really enjoy the practice, but the damage was already done. I was in a flare.
One of the things I love most about yoga is the gentle way it warms my body from the inside out.
It is like an internal heating pad! And for a person with a regulated central nervous system, this internal warming would have corrected any discomfort caused by the cold draft. But for me it was too late.
I lay in bed that first night unable to sleep because of the extreme pain in my neck and head. The house started buzzing early that next morning with energy and excitement so I got up to join in. In truth I was pretty miserable, but I did not want to shut myself off from the other amazing women who were a part of the retreat. I was drawn to the buzz of energy and sound of laughter.
The last thing I wanted from this retreat was to experience a flare while I was there, but I chose not to let it become the focus of my experience. Instead I tailored my experience around it.
I participated in the gentle morning yoga practice but skipped the active evening session. I made sure I had plenty to eat and drank lots of water to keep hydrated in the dry desert air. And I accepted the help when my massage therapist friend generously offered to work on my neck. Massage is something I have resisted for some reason, and oh how silly of me! The tension in my neck was so great from the cold draft that my left eye was twitching uncontrollably. She was able to release the tension and helped me to assure my flare would be shorted lived and that I would be able to enjoy my remaining time at the retreat. I also credit my regular yoga practice for decreasing my flares and recovery time.
Today I am in what I call the “hang-over” stage of a flare.
The worst is over, but I still need to be mindful not to over do it and re-trigger. I know the gentle yoga sessions helped me, along with the wonderful massage, but in truth the thing that helped me most was the friendship and community I felt there.
I had the option of staying in my room to rest and recover, but instead I chose to interact with the wonderful women there. Their kindness, sharing, and laughter restored me and helped me remember I do not suffer alone. I was the only woman at the retreat with fibromyalgia, but each woman there is dealing with her own type of suffering – depression, addiction, abuse – and their honesty and bravery inspired me. I felt safe and understood amongst them.
It was unfortunate that I experienced a flare while at the retreat, but in a way it opened me up even greater to the experience, and because I was open about how I was feeling and did not try to hide it, it became an avenue for others to share their own pains and struggles.
It is so humbling and empowering to recognize that we are not unique in our struggles, and most especially to recognize that we are not alone. We all live with our own particular pains and suffering. It is how we deal with those pains that either separates us or brings us together.
There is some debate among patients of chronic illness whether nutrition is a contributing factor to our illness. I can only speak to my truth on this matter, and for myself it is an emphatic yes.
When I think back to the days after both traumas – the first that triggered my fibromyalgia and the second that exacerbated my symptoms – I clearly see that my eating behaviors contributed to my dis-ease.
Before the first head trauma I had what I consider healthy eating habits. But as soon as I became couch-ridden, trying to recover my ability to speak coherently, I turned to food as a source of comfort. I jokingly say now that I was “medicating myself with mashed potatoes.” But really, it was the truth. Overnight I lost – was forced to give up – so much of my life as I knew it, but the one thing I could still do and not cause myself more pain or distress was to eat.
Eating became the one thing I still had control over.
Food became my comfort, and in a way gave me a sense of empowerment during a very vulnerable period of my life.
Eventually I made my way off the couch and back out into the real world, but with each flare I returned to this behavior. “Can I get you a glass of water?” my husband would ask me trying to help. “Yes.” I would reply, “And some potato chips.” Flare after flare, this was the pattern. At the time I did not make the connection, but with time and healing, it is painfully clear to me now.
No longer was I nourishing myself with foods that sustained me, instead I was stuffing myself with foods that depleted me. My new eating behavior did not cause me to develop fibromyalgia, but it did contribute to my overall pain, fatigue, and mental fog. It did prolong my flares, and it most likely is going to make my recovery more difficult. I actually was causing myself more pain and distress without realizing it.
But I forgive myself this lapse in food judgement.
My mashed potatoes and potato chips actually did bring me comfort on some very dark days. Would I ever go back and deny myself that comfort? No. But I would share some of my new wisdom with that me, and love her and forgive her if she was not ready to hear it.
Food matters.
And it wasn’t until my 13th year of illness that I started to acknowledge how much food matters. When a very wise doctor recommended I would feel better if I eliminated gluten from my diet, I walked out of his office and that day became gluten-free. I was ready for the change. I was strong enough that I could let go of my attachment to food as comfort. And he was right. Within three short days I was feeling better!
The pain in my hands that had me convinced I was developing arthritis was gone! The debilitating head and neck aches I regularly suffered – never noticing that they occurred most often after mealtime – happened with less and less frequency. My hair stopped falling out!
So, if eliminating gluten could improve my health so much, isn’t it worth considering how other foods I eat are affecting me? And so the shift in me happened. And today I can happily say I have cut back on or eliminated many foods that deplete me and complicate my health – gluten, processed foods, fried foods, sugar.
I am nowhere near a saint, and I do still enjoy my comfort foods. In fact the other night I made mashed potato for dinner. But instead of butter and milk, I use greek yogurt to thin them out. And instead of pan-fried pork chops to accompany them, I grilled vegetables. And instead of needing the mashed potatoes to comfort and sooth me, they were just a tasty part of my meal.
So when someone asks me if curing fibromyalgia is a simple as good nutrition I say absolutely – No.
Fibromyalgia is a neurological disorder, and there are many component of FM that nutrition will not address, but good nutrition can help improve many of the symptoms that are a part of fibromyalgia – poor sleep, fibro-fog, IBS, fatigue. It is not a cure. Currently there is no cure. But if good nutrition can reduce some of your symptoms and improve your quality of life 15, 20, 30 percent, then isn’t it worth a consideration?