I have been thinking a lot lately about how I can translate the improved health and continued healing I am experiencing into advice and encouragement for others. As the architect of my own health, the best way I can do this is to document my journey and explore the thoughts and philosophies with which I approach my wellness. Like the quote above says, we need to create in the light, and the more knowledge we have, the brighter our lights shine.

First I should correct my wording – I am not “experiencing” better health, I am manifesting it. It is not a passive action, as in the way we “experience” the weather, it is active, because each improvement is directly related to lifestyle changes and choices I have made. I am the architect of my current wellness path. And that has been pretty empowering – the realization that I have choices, and the bad choices I make directly contribute to the increase in my symptoms and the good choices I make directly contribute to the reduction in my symptoms. Sounds like a no-brainer right? So then why did it take me 13 years to reach this realization?

I have an idea as to why (based on my belief that western med/society is not about empowering the patient), but that is not the focus of this conversation. I am more interested in exploring how I got to this place of improved health and sharing what I hope can help someone else create their own blueprint for health.

I plan to do this in a series of posts, as it is impossible to cover everything all in one. My future posts will focus on first the trigger that sent us spiraling into chronic illness and if our lifestyle at the time of our trigger somehow predisposed us to our current chronic illness. I have a lot of theories about this and look forward to exploring them to see if anything rings true for others. This will of course require a look at all the many types of triggers – physical, emotional, viral, etc..

To continue the series I am also going to  explore: nutrition, exercise, self-love/compassion, relationships, our environments – home, work, nature, etc., and our spirituality. These are all things I am addressing in my blueprint, and it is the combination of these things that I believe has brought me to a place of better health and overall wellbeing.

There are so many elements that go into developing and treating a chronic illness, and  as we are all unique individuals, so is our experience with our illness. I know the blueprint for my health (which I am currently still in the processes of drafting) is not going to be your blueprint, but as all good architectures have done over the years, you can have a look at mine, and take elements from it that will help you build the foundation of your own blueprint.

As long as you believe better health is possible, it will be. But like all magnificent builds, it takes time, planning, and effort. You may spend months building a wall, only to discover it needs more stabilization. Or maybe one day you realize the foundation you poured is too weak to continue your build. Do you walk away from it completely? No, you acknowledge and address the problems with the foundation, give it time to set, and then move forward. Some days it is two steps forward, one step back, but as long as we keep stepping, progress is made.

Architecture, of all the arts, is the one which acts the most slowly, but the most surely, on the soul. ~Ernest Dimnet

The Benefits:

Yoga heals. A recent study on yoga for fibromyalgia conducted at Oregon Health & Science University confirms what I have been experiencing since beginning my yoga practice 18 months ago – “yoga appears to assist in combating a number of serious fibromyalgia symptoms, including pain, fatigue, stiffness, poor sleep, depression, poor memory, anxiety and poor balance. All of these improvements were shown to be not only statistically but also clinically significant, meaning the changes were large enough to have a practical impact on daily functioning. For example, pain was reduced in the yoga group by an average of 24 percent, fatigue by 30 percent and depression by 42 percent.”

Yoga is a joyful practice, and the results are undeniable as is clearly demonstrated in my own personal experience and the above referenced study. I cannot say it enough. Yoga heals!

I can, and am getting better! I am not only feeling physically stronger, I am also feeling mentally and spiritually stronger. I have hope. I have joy. I have peace. I have a new love and enthusiasm for life that I have not experienced in many years.

We are not alone in our suffering. One of the unexpected benefits of the teacher training program is the camaraderie I have found with the other students. Suffering is not unique to fibromyalgia, and the program has reminded me of this. Each of the students was drawn to yoga from a different need, and listening to the stories of others has helped me understand how universal suffering is, which has allowed me to let go of the limiting belief that anything I am experiencing is unique or unusual.

I do not have to accept the level of suffering I have been living with for 14 years. Suffering is found in more than just the physical manifestation of FM. It can also appear as self-judgement and criticism, guilt and regret, isolation and silence. These are all conditions we create in response to our illness, but they are also conditions we can change. As we being to improve our mental and emotional suffering, our physical suffering improves naturally – and vice versa.  Love yourself. Be kind and gentle to yourself. Embrace your body’s natural ability to renew and restore. It can and it will if you nurture it properly. You are worth the effort!

The Challenges:

I still have symptoms and must remember to continue to listen to my body and honor what I am feeling. I experience so much joy in movement, but given the neurological nature of FM, it is possible and even likely to over do it and trigger a flare. It is not in the practice of yoga that I find myself overdoing it, but in the routine of my daily life. Because I have so much more energy and much less pain, it is easy to get carried away and take on too much. I do not want to slip back into the unhealthy patterns that lead up to and contributed to the severity of my FM – always on the go, saying yes to everything and everyone, never slowing down to enjoy the moment and breathe! But the good news is that when I do experience the symptoms of a flare, they are shorter and less intense. I recover more quickly. I am hopeful that the 2 week and 2 month flares are behind me!

Taken in Sedona AZ after a 3 hour hike - something I could not have done just one year ago.

If I had to nail down the one thing that has benefited me the most, it would be the understanding that I can and do control my health. Fibromyalgia is a very real condition, but that does not mean it is a permanent condition. We have options, and there are things we can do and lifestyle changes we can make that will diminish the symptoms we experience. I have no idea if I will ever completely eliminate the symptoms I experience, but I am continuing to improve and better my quality of life. If I only improve to the percentages stated in the study above, that is enough improvement for me. But I believe I will improve much more!

As much as I want each one of you to experience the same improvements I am, I understand that we all must take our own journeys. Yoga may not be your exercise of choice, and that is okay, as long as you choose something that improves your health and slowly betters your quality of life. Did I mention it has taken me 18 months to get to where I am? It does not happen overnight, and it certainly has not been a straight line from my first yoga class to the teacher training program I am in today. If I had to map it out it would make us all dizzy! But there has been a lot of joy in the journey so far, and I have a lot of motivation to continue on, regardless of the obstacles and dangerous turns ahead.

Make the choice – choose to improve, choose an exercise you love, choose to feed your body the foods that nourish and heal, choose to love and forgive yourself, choose to love and forgive others, choose health. It is possible. The choice is yours!

I was surfing around through my old posts, looking for an appropriate one to share, and I came across this post I originally published October 13, 2008, the same month I began my blog.

Selflessly Selfish

I struggle every day with who I am. I am different because of the Fibromyalgia. I am not the independent, fiercely productive person I once was.

Every morning I envy (but am grateful for) my husband and his ability to jump out of bed, hop into the shower, and rush out the door on his way to a destination where he knows his purpose and is able to perform at a high level. I lie in bed with muscle soreness, a dizzy head and complete exhaustion and wonder, “how am I going to contribute today?”

And it is not simply how am I going to contribute to my house and my husband, but how am I going to contribute to my physical and emotional wellbeing, and how am I going to contribute to the world around me.

Sometimes it is the smallest things I do that contribute the most and make me feel the best. I dry my hands on a dishtowel rather than a paper towel. Yippee! I just saved a tree. I pick up the wrapper from a straw that a fellow patron at the coffee shop has let the wind take away. She doesn’t know it, but I do and it makes me feel good.

There are days when I let the wrapper blow away. Days when I tell myself I am in too much pain to bother, but I never feel good about those moments. I always feel that I have given up or given in to the Fibromyalgia. If too many of those moments build up I get depressed, and then it becomes even harder to live productively with FM.

That is the point I am trying to make. I struggle to be a better person for myself. To be someone that, in spite of all that is different in my life, I still feel useful and productive, and that in very small ways I am contributing to my world. By trying to be conscientious and selfless I am being selfish, because I am the one who benefits the most.  And the small things add up.  They really do make a difference.

So what did I do that was so great today? Nothing so far, but the day is not over. I still have time.

Wow! Rereading this post really took me back. It really made me take a moment and reflect on how much has changed in the 18 months since I began this blog.

And that is what I want you to know about me: I have changed. I am different. I am improved.

I am no longer at the mercy of Fibromyalgia. I am a participant in my health, not an onlooker. And I got here by making many small changes:

I created a community, starting with this blog, which brought people like Kathy into my life. I began sharing more and worring less because I have a greater support foundation to rely on.

I began doing research and filtering the abundance of information on Fibromyalgia to determine what fit best for me. I determined a holistic approach was more appropriate for me than the pharmaceutical approach taken by most doctors.

I added supplements to my daily care.

I began practicing yoga and cut gluten out of my diet. Through research, trial, and error (and believe me there were years of error) I found what works for me and my health.

I slowed down…… and took many baby steps to avoid making those painful leaps.

This has been a true journey, and I am so grateful for how far I have come. It was not without work, setbacks, and a lot of effort. But the foundation for my change came from the belief that I could improve, and that it was up to me to figure out how.

I am still frequently tired and dizzy in the mornings. I still have daily symptoms. I am not always able to contribute. But my progress is discernible.

I hope this encourages you. I hope you are able to look closely at your daily habits and routines, and distinguish what nourishes you from what holds you back. There are many components to Fibromyalgia we cannot control. Take a look at what you can, and honor yourself by making the best choices for your particular situation. You can change. You can improve. Believe it!

It was several years ago now that my therapist tried to help me resolve my physical pain by dealing with my suppressed emotions. Ironically, her recommendation to me was to write. She believed that through the process of writing, my muscles would begin to let go of everything they had been storing. Unfortunately I did not get very far with her. Maybe I was not ready to hear her and understand then. Maybe the time was not right. But today as I sit here writing about it, I am so much more aware and accepting of where she was trying to guide me.

My muscles are full of emotions I have spent the last 40 years avoiding.

The pain is stored there because that is how I unconsciously chose to process it. I stuffed it deep down inside to avoid facing it, but it doesn’t just disappear, it simply manifests itself into a different kind of pain.

My muscles are inflamed and toxic because I did not have the skills to manage and deal with the crisis in the moment. Who does have the skills? They are not easy to acquire. I still do not have them, but I am working towards it. It may take me the next 40 years, but at least I am now aware.

Healing is not a simple process.

First we must really come to terms with the source of our pain. For the purpose of this post I am focusing on emotional pain, but as we all know there are many other components to our pain (trauma, infection, toxin, etc.) that make this process even more complicated.

So where do we start?

Again, there is no easy answer. Years ago I started in the most logical place, therapy, and yet it turned out not to be my actual starting point. I had years of stagnant suffering after that, waiting for my health to change, but not actively making the changes necessary for my health to improve.

Looking back on it now, I am learning from my time spent in therapy, but it made little difference in my life at the time.

My true starting point in understanding how my emotions have contributed to my pain is this blog. Writing here has allowed me to explore and examine myself in ways I never would have otherwise. It has allowed me to acquire new tools and resources to actively apply to my intention of wellness.

What does that mean?

Well it means I am no longer sitting on my couch with a tub of mashed potatoes, convincing myself that my misery entitles me to eat it. And it means that I am no longer waiting for better health to find me, I am actively seeking it out. And it means I am no longer discouraged by the many set backs, because I understand it took years for this damage to occur in my body, and it will take years for me to correct everything, but each step I take towards healing tips the balance to the path of wellness and a better life.

For me, the tools and resources I have acquired to deal with emotional pain are writing, yoga, and meditation. The combination of the three have given me a greater awareness of the mind-body connection, which I believe is essential for healing our emotional pain.

Yoga and meditation teach you to connect with and examine your body, scanning for places of tension and pain. They teach you to acknowledge and breathe into those places, and not ignore what you are storing there. It has been an amazing process of self-discovery, and both practices often leave me more emotional but less painful.

Writing is where I come to process everything. This is where I put the piece together and try to make sense of them. Without this blog, I am certain I would still be waiting for my health to change.

So how can you take what I have learned and apply it to your own path to wellness?

First, you have to be ready to take your journey. You have to be ready to do the work and the research to find the best tools and resources for you. Then you have to understand that it is a journey of endurance and not be discouraged by the inevitable setbacks. You have to believe that you are worth the effort and that better health is possible.

If you are not there yet, like I wasn’t not that long ago, keep reading, keep researching, don’t give up. Never give up! Better health is possible. Once you believe it is, your journey will begin.

From Hillary

I am committed to provide you with support and ways to really tackle the challenges that arise in order to create more peace in your life.

But in order for me to really HELP YOU it takes your walking with me to assist YOU on YOUR Journey. And it’s easy to find your power, harness your will, enjoy freedom and feel good about it as you heal your disease when you know you are not alone!

It’s Simple – All YOU have to do is send in YOUR question and tell me what keeps YOU up at night so I can better assist you gain all your hearts desire to have more PEACE in YOUR life.

Back in 1996 when I was diagnosed with MS I turned to every book possible. All I had were pages to turn to not a person who walked in my shoes and NOW YOU have this opportunity to ask YOUR burning questions –  this one I would of pounced on!

So what are you waiting for?

http://www.AskHillaryNow.com

I have participated in two of Hillary’s calls. Each time I came away with inspiration to apply to my own quest to improve my health and wellbeing, and to one day live free of Fibromyalgia symptoms. There is a saying that goes, “People don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care.” I assure you, Hillary cares, and I think it would be worth you time to listen to what she knows. I will be listening tomorrow. I hope you join me.

25/30

Laughter Yoga is a revolutionary idea – simple and profound.  An exercise routine, it is fast sweeping the world and is a complete wellbeing workout. It is the brainchild of Dr. Madan Kataria, an Indian physician from Mumbai who started the first laughter club in a park on 13th March 1995, with just 5 people. Today, it has become a worldwide phenomenon with more than 6000 social laughter clubs in 60 countries. 

Laughter Yoga combines unconditional laughter with yogic breathing (Pranayama). Anyone can laugh for no reason, without relying on humor, jokes or comedy. Laughter is simulated as a body exercise in a group but with eye contact and childlike playfulness, it soon turns into real and contagious laughter. The concept of Laughter Yoga is based on a scientific fact that the body cannot differentiate between fake and real laughter.One gets the same physiological and psychological benefits

 

So what are the physiological and psychological benefits of laughter and how can they help patients with Fibromyalgia? Here is a list I compiled from my research:

• Laughter reduces pain and allows us to tolerate discomfort. It is not clear whether laughter is just a diversionary tactic to help us forget our pain or if it is due to a chemical change and an increase in endorphins, but researchers have time and again documented lowered pain responses in patients treated with humor therapy. It is also thought that a good hearty laugh that brings you to tears removes toxic substances that build up in our bodies during periods of emotional stress.
• Laughter improves brain function and reduces stress. Laughter stimulates both sides of the brain to enhance learning. It eases muscle tension and psychological stress, which keeps the brain alert and allows people to retain more information. Laughter is a great way to combat fibrofog.
• Laughter aids in better relaxation and improved sleep. The focus on the benefits of laughter really began with Norman Cousin’s memoir, Anatomy of an Illness. Cousins, who was diagnosed with ankylosing spondylitis, a painful spine condition, found that a diet of comedies, like Marx Brothers films and episodes of Candid Camera, helped him feel better. He said that ten minutes of laughter allowed him two hours of pain-free sleep.
• Laughter helps your immune system carry out its natural functions. Laughter moves lymph fluid around your body simply by the convulsions you experience during the process of laughing; so it boosts immune system function and helps clear out old, dead waste products from organs and tissues. Your lymph system doesn’t have a separate pump; your body needs to move around to properly circulate lymph fluid so that your immune system can carry out its natural functions. Laughter is a great way to support that.

Pain, brain function and sleep (the three biggest complaints of Fibromyalgia patients) can all be improved with a regular dose of hearty laughter. And according to Dr. Kataria, founder of Laughter Yoga International, it doesn’t even matter if the laughter is spontaneous or forced, your body does not recognize the difference. When you laugh you are forcing oxygen into your lungs, muscles and the cells of your body, which boosts circulation and increases energy. And if you watch this video you will see, laughing is just plain old fun.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0eB3ISAYE-I]

Tomorrow evening my support group is going to be treated with a session of laughter yoga. I will be sure to report back on the event and share with you how we all feel after all the laughter, giggles and silliness of the event.