Archive for April, 2008

Feeling the Healing

Wednesday, April 23rd, 2008

I’d like to let you know that I am now also writing for Dr. Echenberg’s website, Secret Suffering.  I hope you enjoy the articles as well as the site, which is jam-packed with helpful information.

I’ve been sick this week, and it has reminded me of an important idea I’ve been meaning to share.  A few days ago, I woke up with a sore throat that progressed rapidly to laryngitis, a sinus infection, and bronchitis.  The only problem was I didn’t have time to be sick.  I had two exciting coaching workshops to present, clients to coach, and a million other little things scheduled.  I barreled onward, because, as you may have noticed from other posts, I am quite capable of feeling fine emotionally while feeling sick.  I gave the workshops, even though my voice was just above a whisper, and enjoyed every minute.  I kept up with my clients, croaking my way through sessions.  I did not alter my schedule one bit, other than to skip my morning run a couple days because it was adversely affecting my vocal cords. 

After a few days of this, I noticed something.  I noticed a feeling of extreme exhaustion taking over my body.  I noticed a deep ache in my bones.  I noticed my voice was not returning.  I noticed my Inner Healer asking me to please, please, just rest.  I remembered writing post after post about the messages from our bodies, and finally, I crawled into bed and slept.  And slept.  And slept.  Whenever I begin to forget what I have learned, my Inner Healer reminds me.  Gently, but firmly.  This time, she literally stole my voice, and I know she won’t give it back until I have listened to her message.  She knows I’ve been moving at top speed, not heeding her soft reminders to care for myself.  She pulled the emergency brake by taking the one thing I need for my job: my voice.

How many of use don’t have time to be sick?  How many of us, dealing with one chronic issue or another, plow forward with our lives, never stopping to listen to our Inner Healer?  We hate our symptoms, we resist our experience, and we try our hardest to ignore it.  And then we wonder why it won’t leave.  We rage against it, fight it, try to escape it – we do everything but stop and turn inward.

Today, I am giving you the same assignment I gave myself this week.  I think of it as Feeling the Healing.  When you’re dealing with chronic health issues, Feeling the Healing is a most enjoyable, relaxing, helpful experience.  It’s the best gift you can give yourself, and I recommend you give it to yourself daily, or even twice daily.

Feeling the Healing:

Find a comfortable place to rest, and assume a comfortable position.  Start with deep breathing (see my earlier posts for detailed directions), making sure to feel your ribs expanding outward and sideways.  Do this for several minutes, breathing in and out through your nose, letting the air fill your lungs and even your entire torso.  Now, send your breath to any area of pain or discomfort, and as you exhale, imagine the breath taking that discomfort from your body.  Do this as long as you would like.  When you feel relaxed and at ease, move your focus inward.  Imagine you can feel the inside of your body, just underneath your skin, all over.  See if you can feel an inner presence moving within you, circling throughout your body.  This is the physical form of your Inner Healer – often it will feel like a slight tingling sensation all over your body.  If it helps to imagine a warm, glowing light within you, you can do that as well.  Let yourself be carried away into the focus of feeling this inner healing power.  Watch it move through your body, let it go wherever it needs to go, and just know that it is healing you, right now.  If your mind throws up a blockade, such as “this is silly,” or “I’m not healing,” just notice the thoughts and redirect your attention to the sensation underneath your skin.  Notice what it feels like.  Is it warm?  Is it glowing?  Is it soft, heavy, light, syrupy, smooth?  Where is it traveling?  You can also say to yourself, “I know healing takes time, but it is beginning right now.”  This helps alleviate mental doubts and fears. 

Stay in this state for as long as you’d like, and simply enjoy the sensations within your body.  Feel the power of your own body to heal itself, feel your cells regenerating and the healing flow of oxygen to every part of your body.  If you fall asleep, allow it.  You obviously needed it.  Rest.  Take the time to heal, just like you take the time to do everything else.  Schedule in healing time and make it a priority.  Your body is always trying to heal, even as you are living in anxiety and stress mode, running here and there, working, and berating your body for not healing.  Give it a fighting chance to succeed by making time for healing. 

Don’t forget to visit Fighting Fatigue, where blogger Sandy Robinson has been posting my blog posts.  Her site is a great resource!

Tags: , , , ,
Posted in Chronic Pain, Interstitial Cystitis, Life Coaching, Martha Beck, Vulvar Pain, Vulvar Vestibulitis Syndrome, Vulvodynia, Vulvodynia Support | No Comments »

Letting Fear Drive

Tuesday, April 15th, 2008

Most of us are not hoping to wake up every morning and feel intense panic or desperate fear.  If we could ask for anything, we’d probably ask for peace.  Peace for others, peace for the entire planet, and peace within ourselves.  Yet, when we face health problems and physical pain, peace seems impossible.  Fear and panic are driving our lives, and our emotional states can vary wildly from depression to high anxiety.

If fear is in your driver’s seat, it is time to take back the steering wheel and connect with your own inner navigation systems.  Fear is a terrible driver with an awful sense of direction.  You, on the other hand, are a brilliant driver with a personalized GPS installed inside you.  All you have to do is learn how to use it. 

The first important step to taking back your steering wheel is to realize when fear has ripped it from your hands.  This sounds simple, but it is not always easy.  Noticing your own thinking and realizing you’ve been hijacked by repetitive, anxiety-creating thoughts takes a little practice.  First, you have to notice your own fear, panic, or anxiety.  Then, you can take a minute to step back and look at the fear as separate from your true self.  Notice that it comes from a different part of you than your intuitive, relaxed self.  In her latest book, Steering by Starlight, Martha Beck explains that fear, panic, and anxiety have their roots in the very animal part of the human brain.  She calls this the “lizard brain.”  Recognizing your lizard brain as soon as it starts taking over can immediately give you a chance to grab the steering wheel before fear shoves you aside.

I spent a great deal of time in complete lizard-based fear mode when I first began dealing with the chronic pain of interstitial cystitis.  I gave fear the steering wheel and didn’t even bother to watch the road.  Let me just tell you, that was not a wise decision on my part.  My lizard brain was so certain I would never recover normal bladder function and would suffer IC symptoms for the rest of my life that it went completely nuts.  I imagine it literally, as an actual lizard, reaching out with little lizard claws in every direction, grasping and scrabbling at everything it found.  It researched like crazy, becoming very obsessive and intense, and spent hours combing the internet and reading books.  Then, it decided to try every single therapy option available, be it medical, holistic, dietary, or just a rumor.  It tortured me with one cystoscopy after another to confirm that yes, my bladder was a mess.  Then it pushed me to try various infusions of drugs flushed into my bladder and held inside for an eternal thirty minutes.  It urged me to take various medications.  Finally, after little success, it took the advice of a doctor and decided to take a couple Tums daily.  This seemed to help the symptoms, so without seeking medical advice, my lizard brain decided that if one Tums helped, a zillion would be better.

Fast forward three months to the results of that experiment: me, writhing in agony on the emergency room floor, a kidney stone lodged in my body.  Too much calcium, it turns out, is not a fantastic idea.  That stubborn kidney stone required emergency surgery, which then had to be repeated twice.  I spent the next six months dealing with infections and horrific kidney pain.  All of this, I must say, was far worse than any of my IC symptoms. 

Sadly, I could give you more examples of ways my lizard brain took over and wreaked havoc in my life.  It took me a long time to learn the lesson I am sharing with you now, in the hope that it will save you at least a little mental or even physical suffering.  When I learned how to notice my own fear and see it as a separate part of my mind rather than regarding it as absolute truth, I was able to recognize the thoughts perpetuating the fear.  These thoughts ranged from, “I have to try everything, because otherwise I might miss the one medication that helps,” to “Oh, God, I cannot take this, make it stop NOW.”  Recognizing anxiety-causing thoughts and realizing they may not be true is the second step to regaining the driver’s seat.

My own thinking, stuck in lizard mode, took me in all the wrong directions.  When I learned to stop, take a few minutes to do deep breathing exercises and allow calm to have a fighting chance, I discovered my inner GPS, which I like to call my Inner Healer.  Simply stopping, becoming still, and breathing allowed me to tap into this amazing navigational system within myself.  I noticed that when I did this, I could make decisions about everything based on my own GPS guidance.  I knew, intuitively, which medications were worth trying and which weren’t.  I knew which doctors to call, which alternative medicine routes to explore.  I even knew which books to read and which internet sites to peruse.  If my Inner Healer signaled No to a resource, I dropped it and moved to something else.  Listening to your GPS gives you the courage to stay in the driver’s seat, certain you will always know which way to turn.

I now sit firmly behind the steering wheel, my GPS calibrated to peace.  It directs me flawlessly, every time.      

Tags: , , , , , , ,
Posted in Chronic Pain, Interstitial Cystitis, Life Coaching, Martha Beck, Vulvar Pain, Vulvar Vestibulitis Syndrome, Vulvodynia, Vulvodynia Support | No Comments »

Pain: The Messenger

Monday, April 7th, 2008

After years of struggling with physical pain and other uncomfortable sensations such as vulvar burning, rawness, and itching, I felt exhausted.  I was so sick of pain I wanted to give up, somehow, or run away.  I longed to jump out of my own skin and just escape.  I was going crazy dealing with the pain, and I really hated it, feared it, and obsessed about it.  My whole life centered around this terrible thing called pain.  (And itching – let’s not forget that.  Anyone who has suffered vestibulitis with itching knows the madness involved in that sensation.)

Instead of going bananas, however, I ended up following my Inner Healer (see previous posts) and discovering an amazing woman named Kathleen (see the Barratt Breathworks link on my blogroll).  I’ve spoken of her before, because she taught me how to elicit a relaxation response from my body and immediately snap out of panic.  Before my first appointment with Kathleen, I had reached the point where I actually wanted to go bananas.  I figured insanity would at least bring with it blessed unawareness and thus relief.  What I didn’t realize was what I really sought was awareness, or consciousness.

Kathleen introduced me to awareness, which I found so inviting I studied it in depth and found an entirely new career as a result.  Awareness is simply the ability to step outside of your own thinking long enough to separate yourself from your thoughts.  Eckhart Tolle discusses this in depth in A New Earth, and this is truly the key to releasing the despair around pain.  The most incredible notion about pain is this: pain is pain.  It is something that occurs in the body, and nothing more.  When we are unaware and involved in our thoughts, we believe many things about pain, such as “pain is horrible, pain is the worst thing that’s ever happened to me, I can’t stand this pain, I can never live a normal life again, my life is ruined,” and on and on.  It’s easy to see, as someone looking at these thoughts rather than believing them, that these thoughts escalate anxiety and panic.

With awareness, you can step away from these thoughts and see pain for what it is.  Pain is a messenger.  It is a way for your body to communicate with you and help you stay alive.  It tells you to remove your hand from the hot stove.  It sends you to the emergency room when you have a severe illness that needs immediate attention.  It lets you know you’ve broken a bone so you can seek a doctor for help.  Pain is on your side.  Hating pain is not helpful at all on the road to healing.  Looking at pain with clear thinking actually invites you to learn about yourself and reach emotional equilibrium.

Once I saw my pain as a messenger, I began to listen to it and question it.  Clearly, it wasn’t there to save me from death, as my condition was not going to kill me.  So I literally asked it why it was in my body, sometimes with a journal in hand and other times while in a relaxed, meditative state.  Every time, it responded with this enigmatic answer: “I am here to teach you.  I will go when you have learned.”  I did not make that up mentally – it simply came to me.  At first, I felt very confused.  Teach me what?  I wanted to learn it quickly, whatever it was, so the pain would go. 

Of course, that was the whole point.  It was there to teach me how to listen to my essential self, my inner healer, and stop resisting everything in my life.  It was there to teach me how to become aware, to see my own thoughts as separate from myself.  It was there to teach me how to follow my North Star and discover my purpose in life.  It was there to teach me how to find joy, calm, peace, and love.  It was there to teach me how to truly feel good, confident, strong, and alive. 

I became so entranced in the learning process I forgot about my teacher.  I ceased to focus on the pain, and my attention turned to the material I was learning.  I fell in love with awareness.  I studied Martha Beck, Dr. Sarno, Pema Chodron, and a host of other writers’ works.  One day, I woke up and realized I hadn’t felt a symptom in months.  Yes, it’s really true.  I actually forgot about my condition and ceased to focus on my symptoms entirely. 

Instead of escaping through unawareness, I lived in my own skin with absolute awareness.  I learned from Pain, my Teacher.  And when I truly understood, my Teacher left, as promised.  Never in my life have I had such an effective learning experience.  I have a PhD in my essential self.  I will never stop studying, because I know I can learn more, always.  And truly, the joy is in the learning.         

Tags: , , , , ,
Posted in Chronic Pain, Interstitial Cystitis, Life Coaching, Martha Beck, Vulvar Pain, Vulvar Vestibulitis Syndrome, Vulvodynia, Vulvodynia Support | 1 Comment »

The Crazy Woman Syndrome

Tuesday, April 1st, 2008

When I was 19, I started having very strange bladder problems.  I noticed I always felt like I needed to urinate, and yet I never felt as though I could quite empty my bladder.  I woke up several times a night to use the restroom.  Sometimes I had to sit and wait on the toilet for what seemed like an eternity to relax my muscles enough to go.  I felt embarrassed by the whole issue and didn’t really talk about it with anyone.  I hated road trips, which were bound to be agonizing, and had trouble sitting through concerts and other events. 

After college, my symptoms continued to increase.  My husband was a Naval Officer, so I decided to visit a doctor and discuss this unusual issue for the first time.  The doc prescribed a drug to help decrease the need to go, and I left his office filled with hope.  I wasn’t a freak!  There was a medical explanation for this strange and frustrating problem. 

The medication did not help at all.  Crushed, I returned to the doctor, who prescribed other medications that did not work.  My husband and I relocated, and I visited a new doctor, who wanted to try the medications again.  Discouraged, I tried another doctor.  He suggested a course of antibiotics, because at this point I had begun having a burning sensation every time I urinated.  It didn’t seem to help.  Living the Navy life, we kept relocating, and I kept seeing doctors.  I explained my symptoms, they suggested all sorts of treatments, and nothing worked.  Trying to make sense of my symptoms, I started telling the doctors every little thing about my body.  I hoped one piece of information would be the magic key to unlocking the mystery.  This method backfired completely and placed me firmly in the “crazy female” category.  In the Navy medical system, this is amended with “whose husband is probably out to sea.” 

In sheer frustration, I began to do my own research and, sticking a toe in the pool I would later dive into headfirst, started listening to my intuition about my own body.  I mentioned to the doctor I was butting heads with at the time that I had a lot of hip and knee pain, and I really felt there was a connection between that and my bladder symptoms.  I had no idea what this connection could be, but it felt right.  That idea earned me my first prescription to a therapist.  Though I eventually got used to this good old doctor standby, it still made me angry every time a doctor mentioned it.  I was actually in therapy already, but that was a moot point.  It was the brush-off I resented.

Eventually, I diagnosed myself with interstitial cystitis, called urologists until I found one who had heard of it, and took my health into my own hands.  Though this was before I discovered my Inner Healer (see previous posts), I had made the important connection between knowledge, research, and self-awareness.  Never again would I consider any doctor smarter about my body than myself, because I had the one piece of the puzzle they didn’t – my intuition.  Surprise, surprise, I was officially diagnosed with interstitial cystitis.

I became so in tune with my health intuition that I named it my Inner Healer and handed over the managerial reigns to this wise inner self.  My Inner Healer was on the ball.  I found that I could quickly decide whether or not a medication was right for me, sometimes without even trying it.  It was quite logical in a lot of ways, actually, because if a medication made me feel worse and created a sinking feeling in my gut, I quit taking it (carefully, of course, in the recommended manner).  If a doctor said something that didn’t resonate with me, I moved on to someone else. 

I no longer feel angry with doctors because I know they are simply trying to do their job.  They’re giving me the best of their knowledge.  They can’t know what it’s like to live in my body, to feel my intuition.  If they say or do something that isn’t right for me, that’s not their problem.  It’s not my problem, either.  We just aren’t a good fit.  I eventually found a doctor who explained the connection between pelvic muscle problems, bladder symptoms, and hip/knee pain.  I felt a sense of relief and sheer confidence – my Inner Healer knows her stuff. 

If you are tired of feeling like the crazy, misunderstood female as you lay on the doctor’s table, your southern regions covered by a napkin-sized square of see-through fabric, you are ready to access your Inner Healer.  Here is how she speaks:  tension in your stomach, chest, or other areas, a slightly sick-to-your-stomach feeling, a sense of heaviness…but these are only examples.  Your sensation will be your own.  On the flip side, you might feel a light, relaxed feeling in your chest, or like you can suddenly breathe.  These physical clues are the language of your Inner Healer.  “Yes, this is the right doc for now,” she whispers.  Or, “No, this medication just isn’t what my body wants.”  Tune in, learn, and follow your guide.  If you let her, she will take you all the way to health.  Take it from me – thanks to my Inner Healer, I am healed.  I used to have interstitial cystitis, an “incurable” disease.  My Inner Healer knows better.   

Tags: , , ,
Posted in Chronic Pain, Interstitial Cystitis, Life Coaching, Martha Beck, Vulvar Pain, Vulvar Vestibulitis Syndrome, Vulvodynia, Vulvodynia Support | 1 Comment »