Healing Series Part 1: Body Stress Release

In this healing series, I’ll explain the various healing practices that I’ve experienced and what I gained from them. I truly believe that in taking an active role in healing myself that I have sped up my recovery. Today’s topic is called Body Stress Release, or BSR for short.

Even before I became ill I met a wonderful lady called Lourentia at a business networking breakfast. I have since abandoned the networking breakfasts but it was a real blessing to meet such a quality person. I have been going to her sporadically for many years and at stressful times, ironically, I scaled back on the visits. After my diagnosis of my stress-induced auto-immune disease, I started going for BSR again.

Lourentia asks me each time where I feel discomfort or pain in my body. In the past I’d have aches and pains due to running injuries or stiffness. Since my diagnosis, I usually just feel tired, and not surprisingly have a lot of tension in my neck and shoulders. So I tell her all the areas that ail me so that she knows where to focus her efforts.

I take off only my shoes and then lie face down on a treatment table, much like the ones used for massage. I can breathe through the hole in the table my feet must dangle off the edge of the table. Lourentia then begins her treatment by putting her hands onto my back. She gets a feel of where the body needs work and goes ahead with the treatment. You are required to turn onto your back midway during the treatment in order to access all parts of the body. 

Just as the name suggests, the premise of BSR is to release, by small touches to pressure points, the stress that is trapped in various parts of the body. The practitioner tests for stress in many areas of the body and then works to release it. They use the feet as a means to monitor the effects of what they implement. I feel sensations in my body as Lourentia performs the releases, almost like a little ripple of something travelling up my spine or down my legs. Sometimes the pressure needs to be quite hard and the points can be quite tender but overall it is a very pleasant experience and something that has helped me a great deal.

Being an ultra-marathon runner I have a strong belief in the mind-body connection as it is very clear that your mind tides you through the end of a tough race. This connection has been even more evident to me this year as I’ve understood how stress has caused my body to turn on itself. Thankfully I am in remission now and the feedback from Lourentia also points to a much greater recovery since last year.

There are many ways in which BSR can help improve your overall health such as better posture, released tension in the neck, shoulders and back and even things like sinus. There are no side effects and it is a non-invasive treatment. I have benefited from BSR in treating a variety of ailments but in current times, to diminish the stress held in my body, particularly neck and shoulders. It must be said that with the many healing experiences I'm undergoing, it's difficult to attribute improvement to one discipline but overall, my sinus is not nearly as bad as it usually is during winter and my immune system is getting stronger. 

If you are interested, you can read more about Body Stress Release here: http://www.bodystressrelease.com/home/3

Despair

I have always judged people who run away from their families harshly. But not anymore. I understand why people run away from their children. I too, feel that despair today. The childcare is completely relentless. As a person struggling with illness, it doesn’t take away their need for love, attention, food, fun etc. It never gets easier, it’s a never-ending struggle and you completely lose sight of yourself. Between the lunches, the demands of the teachers, homework and relentless feeding, pouring juice, wiping bottoms, there is nothing left for me. I don’t have the strength to care for myself, let alone these kids.

I have felt that I really wished to be hospitalised with this illness. Even for three days, just to have someone feed me and care for me and to let me read and sleep. I’m the only one around me who seems to understand that it’s pretty serious. I’m the only one who can feel my exhaustion and know how much strength it takes to get out of bed and out into the cold to take a child to school. As much as your loved ones say they care, compassion runs out at some point. People get sick of helping the one who has always been so capable. Well, just so you know, I’m sick of it too. I’m sick of feeling tired and having headaches and struggling to do the things normal people do. I’m sick of asking for help and compassion. I’m sick of it all but I don’t get to escape this fatigue.

The exhaustion makes me ratty and I end up shouting at the kids. Then I feel guilty for being a bad parent and yelling at them all the time. But I just can’t seem to see a way out.I can't go out to escape them because I'm really exhausted most of the time and going out makes me even more tired. But they are here, all the time, wanting things from me. Even when I have a nap, I feel obliged to get up after an hour or so because they might be starving, or without toilet paper or cold or lonely. The feeling that their 24 hour care is on your shoulders entirely is a great responsibility and there is no respite. That in itself is exhausting. Just to have to be the responsible one all the time. 

I love my children too much to run away from them. But I’m really exhausted. Weekends are hard. Today I feel that it is hopeless for me to have any dreams at all. How can I aspire to be anything and to follow my destiny when I’m so exhausted from just parenting? I can’t follow my life passion because I’m too busy just keeping them alive. At times I wish I had no ambition. I wish I was born being content to do the lowliest of jobs and to merely exist. Then I wouldn’t feel this despair of not being able to follow my dreams.

So what should I choose? Neglect the kids and get myself well so that I can have some future to look forward to? Or care for them and take months or years to recover fully? It wont do them a lot of good to have a mother devoid of hope. If anyone has any advice or solutions, let me know. 

Meditation for the Layman

I am currently reading The Resilience Factor by Karen Reivich and Andrew Shatté. The book has some wonderful strategies to build resilience – a vital skill for the Highly Sensitive Person and for those susceptible to stress. One of the strategies the authors suggest is controlled breathing when you find yourself in the midst of an adversity. By taking deep breaths and by concentrating on your breathing, you reduce your heart rate; increase the amount of oxygen in the brain (for better decision making) and minimise the risk of an amygdala hijack. 

In this blog I have mentioned the fact that meditation has helped me in my healing journey of my stress-induced condition. I want to make one thing really clear however: I’m no expert. I’m trying to obtain the benefits of mindfulness and to implement calming strategies.  For the average person who has never tried meditating, it can be daunting. I found this article to be a great help on how to get started.

The strategy I use is simple: focus on my breathing and ensure that my belly rises as I breathe in, and falls as I breathe out. I downloaded an app on my phone in order to guide me initially. There are a few apps providing soothing music and some guidance in an ever-so-calming voice.

Now that I’ve become more accustomed to it, I simply use my timer on my phone which I have increased from the initial two minutes to ten or fifteen minutes. I focus on my breathing and try to clear my mind. That is the trickiest part and the more stressed and busy you are, the harder it is but also the more necessary it is too. At times I wonder if I've dozed off because I seem to be close to sleep. I'm not sure whether or not that is supposed to happen but it can't be harmful.  

“Why is it I always get my best ideas while shaving?” – Albert Einstein

Many people seem to solve problems or get ideas in the shower. Back in university I used to solve my programming defects almost as soon as I got into the shower. Perhaps when the mind relaxes, solutions are easily found. I encountered this fun list of reasons why we get our best ideas in the shower.

This phenomenon seems to happen to me when I start to mediate as well. All sorts of solutions come to mind for things that have been troubling me. If you’re thinking that I’m not doing it correctly, you’re probably right. It is a great struggle for me to clear the mind and I don’t always get it right. But I figure that even if I get it right for a few minutes of the ten, it’s helping me to be calmer and to restore order in a stressed and busy life.

One of my strengths is to implement strategies to mitigate the risk of problems recurring. I wish I’d known before I got sick, how important it is to still the mind and how much meditation helps to combat stress. If you are under strain I’d highly recommend finding some time in your day to implement a meditation strategy that works for you.

Mindfulness as a means to Reduce Suffering

As someone with a stress-induced illness, it’s clear that our thoughts affect our health. It is possible to change the quality of our thoughts to reduce the stress. It is possible, but not easy and I’m not getting it right. I have suffered a set-back in my health lately due to stress. Worrying about how my actions will affect others; thinking about how people will react to me wanting to live my life fully; worrying about how my new path defines me and what people will say about it.

You can see from the statements above is that these are all thoughts and worries about the future. Focussing on the present and where I am today is a healthier and more productive pastime. I don’t enjoy it though because it’s hard to face the reality of the state of my health. I look at others achieving their goals, doing ultra-marathons, volunteering to help others, enjoying social events and I feel so despondent. For a person who has always been goal-focussed and achievement oriented, this state of recovery is so very frustrating. I’m not achieving anything. I’ve tried to apply goal setting and structure with my self-care roster so that I feel empowered. Having a goal to recover just feels lame and a short bout of stress has knocked my progress back weeks.

It is impossible to live a life without stress. How will I survive if I can’t accommodate any stress? I’m trying to turn my energies to things that I can do at home: reading, writing and my crochet projects. At times in the past week I’ve felt too tired to read. It’s so hard to remain upbeat and focussed on recovery at times like this. I’m really tired of being sick. I want to live life fully. I want to chase my dreams. But I feel so handicapped. And I’ve had to let go of goals from the past because I know my health will not support them.

I’m reading a great book on how to boost your resilience. In doing the quizzes in the book it is evident to me that I am already a resilient person. I always try to understand the lesson in difficult life circumstances. I’ve been wondering why I’ve been given this drive to achieve and this lesson to recover. Seems a little incongruent, Universe, can you please give me a clear message? 

Maybe I’m still doing too much and I just need to learn to stay at home and just write. I’m probably not spending enough time practicing mindfulness as that seems to be the key to worrying less about the future or ruminating on the past and how I got to this poor state of health.

I’ve had my fair share of difficult experiences in life and I usually find some lessons in them.  I know that becoming sick has helped me change my path and that my life will be better ultimately. But to stay in the here and now when it’s so very limiting and frustrating, is really hard. I feel like I’m in a tiny room with no windows and I’m just trying to break out into the sunlight. Maybe this lesson is about not doing and just being. Grrr! 

“In the ash of suffering, a phoenix can be born.” ~ Thich Nhat Hanh

Nostalgia can be a Mood Booster

Yesterday I was looking for a mosaic kit to do with my six year old and I came across an old shoe box of letters. Yes, letters that were handwritten and posted with an actual stamp on the envelope. It doesn't seem like so long ago, only the 1990s when mobile phones and email were not so prevalent for us. The letters were from my time at university and I read them with great enjoyment.

The contents were from a few close friends and even some postcards from my mother. You see, I went to stay in another city for my studies. For most of my childhood I had to play the adult role, bringing peace and order to a chaotic environment. I was the mediator between all the various factions in the family. As I've mentioned previously, harmony is my top strength on the Gallup Strengths Finder. So it was quite a blessing to go away to university and to be able to have some fun. I consumed far too much alcohol and have memories of a few antics that I’d rather forget. Finally away from the tension and drama of home, I let my hair down and really relished the university life.

In the first year I had to share a room with a rather interesting roommate. She was stick thin with short dark hair and very pretty. All the boys envied me and tried to elicit details as to what she looked like without her clothes on. Her childhood was not neglectful but rather oppressive. In true student style she rebelled and was intoxicated almost every night. She partook in something called ‘bush diving’ where you fling your body into nearby bushes after taking in sufficient liquid courage. Needless to say she didn't obtain her degree and left university after a few attempts at various other degrees.

I felt no need to rebel since I was given a front door key when I was about thirteen. My brother and I spent a few Christmas holidays on our own, throwing some rather fun dinner parties on the lawn of our family home. We lost our home due to my father's company debt while I was away at university. None of my toys or possessions were kept so I have very few items to hold onto for nostalgia. I suppose that is what made reading the letters such a treat. Losing everything  helped me not to hang onto material things because they can always be replaced. It's relationships that are the key to a happy life.

Reading the letters and notes from university friends and my old school friends, I noticed how many people were thanking me for favours. I found it so wonderful how people took the time to actually write in the first place, let alone such a lovely gesture to thank me in writing. 

In recent years I've been so consumed with my troubles and my stress that I have had difficulty being a good friend. Graves’ disease has symptoms such as irritability and depression and the pure fatigue caused me to be really ratty with those in my vicinity. I'm noticing as I get better that I have the capacity to notice what is happening in the lives of others. Hopefully I can regain the ability to be a caring friend again as I sort out my health. 

The contents of the letters made me laugh at what things were important to us at age nineteen. It’s sometimes the daily routines and the small things shared that keep relationships alive. The little notes at my university residence telling me that I missed a tea party and the letters from school friends saying that they missed me. I found cards from my family and our cleaner even, who is now deceased, welcoming me home and saying how much I was missed. 

I think at school and university I used to laugh such a lot. I had a great deal of energy and had so much more fun than I do now. I often wonder if my daughter somehow extracted my fun when she was born because she seems full of life as I used to be before having children. Isn't it a pity that we lose our fun-loving side when stress and responsibility take their toll? 

I have always enjoyed small groups and one-on-one interactions. I like to have discussions on a deep level, discussing issues that bring real meaning to life. I struggle to enjoy situations where the men separate to drink beer and talk business and the women discuss child rearing and grooming. 

I think I’m getting so much better spotting the appropriate depth that I require in a friendship. I have also come to realise that when you have an experience such as a serious diagnosis, you can outgrow some relationships. Some things that seemed so important in the past have become trivial and don’t require the same focus. It is sad to have friendships dwindle but I think that as I recover I will attract a different sort of person into my life with friendships that will feed my soul more.

This weekend I was amazed to see a school friend post something on Facebook that suggested she has no hope or desire to improve her life. I find that to be frightening. For me life is more than having things just happen to me reactively while I wait to die. I know that I'm empowered to change my life for the better, despite what the wet blankets say. I'm already doing it in fact. I want the people around me to be inspiring and to push me to improve myself and enhance my happiness. More active happiness enhancing and less despair, please.

The Power of Novelty

I’m a strange combination of attributes I guess. I’m right-brained and creative but also I’m disciplined and focussed. I’m a great fan of structure and I tend to create order out of chaos wherever I go. But as much as I love and need routine, it’s really fun to break free occasionally. In the months, or years, where I was just trying to survive and not really living life, I just chugged away on the treadmill of my existence.

In the process of recovering I’m focussing on actively improving my quality of life and I’m forcing myself to try new things. Many of the things I have tried are in the interests of healing and today I’m trying a new approach called Theta Healing. I’ll report back on the various healing practices in another blog post in future.  

I also try to include novel experiences, apart from healing, in order to make me feel more alive. Last week I tried something called fish therapy for the first time. You place your feet in a warm tank full of fish who feed off dry skin. The tickling sensation is rather fun and the mere novelty was really enjoyable. I don’t think I’ll do it often but it was well worth a try.

I believe that creativity and novel experiences greatly enhance recovery and stimulate self-improvement. On the weekend I tried a new technique called Zentangle. The teacher spoke of its various benefits such as having a calming effect. She has no awareness of the concept of flow but I suspect Zentangle is a flow-inducing activity. You have to concentrate, you lose track of time and it can be all-consuming. I've already done a few more since the class and have some ideas about larger scale drawings incorporating the technique.

Many people on a growth path or having a ‘mid-life crisis’ try new experiences and buy themselves fun toys like sports cars and Harley Davidson motorcycles. I can see how the thrill of something new stimulates people and helps them to feel like a kid again. Many people have developed a Bucket List from the concept in the movie of the same name. 

These activities can include travel to new places as well as daring activities such as sky diving. Considering the fact that I’m suffering from a stress-related illness, I’m not seeking any thrills and extra adrenalin is not welcome in my body right now. I prefer to focus on creative experiences as well as seeing new things, in different places or even while shopping in places I haven’t visited before.

I made sure on my weekend away at the beginning of this month, that I walked around the town, observing as much as I could. The town we visited is well known for art and the many galleries and stores displaying crafts were really stimulating for me. That’s despite dragging around two little ones who wanted to touch everything and who kept asking ‘when are we going?’ every few seconds.

I have found that new experiences help me feel more awake and help me to notice the things around me. It is helping me live my life more fully. I couldn't think of anything worse for me than to be trapped in a cubicle or office every day all day. I want to be experiencing something new, having flow experiences regularly and stretching my consciousness. I’m confident that it will help me be a better, happier person, at home and at work.