The Switching Point To Getting Our Health Back

I had another one of those great moments of discovery recently. One that I hope will help me keep control of this freakin disease that changes how it attacks me as much as I change ways to control it. I am starting to become aware of a switch, like a light switch in my mind. This switch is the moment I decide enough is enough and I change my habits back to ones that will bring me health again. All last week I had this down swing in my health where it felt like I lost all my strength that I just worked so hard to build back up. I was starting to feel depression set in and my mind hit the point where I couldn’t sit and meditate for more then five minutes. Right there for whatever reason is the point where I flicked the switch. I got out my massage oil and gave myself an Ayurvedic abyanga massage with lots of oil so my dry skin can soak in the dosha balancing oil. Then I sat myself down for 30 minutes of meditation, the longest 30 minutes of my life. Meditation is much easier today and my health is back under control thanks to me being able to find the switch and flicking it.Last September my mom had heart surgery that had the side effects of taking her to the edge of death. She was dragging on suffering for a couple months when all of a sudden she found her switch. Something inside her become aware that she wasn’t ready to die and in just that flick of a switch, what was impossible the day before became possible. My mom is now stronger then she has been in years with a heck of a lot more energy then me.What is a switch and how do we find a way to change it when needed? It makes sense that the point of turning around is different for everybody. Some people keep so on top of any toxic build up in their mind or body that they may live a lifetime without any major health problems. Then I suppose there are also those who for whatever reason don’t even understand that they have a choice to flick a switch, and those people end up dead before their time. A switch back to wellness will be in a different place for everybody. In fact maybe the switch is nothing more then a point where we become presently aware of the fact that we can start to make new choices in our life. These new choices will be like a switch because our lives will change; there will instantly be new reactions to our new actions.

Poop and a Fight

Now I am going to tell a story that is a little embarrassing to talk about, but I’m also proud about this fact. When I first got home from the Soul of Healing program in January of this year my health was changed around so much that I had one week of solid poops. Yes, after years of nothing but loose bowel movements because of the Crohn’s disease, I was given a sign when I needed it the most. I saw first hand that the impossible was possible. It didn’t last long, not more than a week after getting home I started to fall under some of my old habits and ways of doing things. I wasn’t eating the right way, my reaction to a lot of things was negative, and I quit meditating. But deep down I knew I had control over my disease now. If I am going to be strong enough to keep control is a whole other story. It is a day to day and sometimes minute to minute fight to keep my health, but it is a fight worth fighting:~)

Time and Pure Potential

I catch myself at times asking why is it taking so long for me to gain more weight. I know I should be 10 pounds more, but seem stuck at my current weight, it seems like it is taking forever. Last night I was watching a TV show that I thought was really good and 30 minutes went by in what seemed a blink of an eye, while when I did my 30 minutes of meditation my mind was racing and the half of an hour seemed to take as long as it is taking to gain some weight, forever. Time is controlling our lives but time also seems meaningless. More people die of heart attacks on Monday Morning then any other time of the week. I was listening one day to Dr Deepak Chopra talk about a flighty bird that is building a new nest. As the bird flies around gathering twigs for the new nest, it might without reason just stop and eat a seed, or chase another bird that comes to close. The bird that seems so over active and flighty is actually living its life off of natural impulse. It still has its purpose of building a nest, and it will finish its goal of building it, but the bird has no time line or clock telling it when its time to quit and go do something else. In a way the bird is living a life of constant miracles or a life of pure potential. Now getting back to dealing with my pain of wanting to gain more weight right now. I think I better take a closer look at the bird building its nest. If all I focus on is my intention of being 10 pounds heavier while not looking at what is best for me, I will lose the power of pure potential and no miracles are going to happen. But if I stop thinking so much about time and my ending goal while putting my focus more on the present moment and what is best for right now, I’ll find more then just 10 pounds on my body at the end of this journey. The stress, the self judgment, and the defenses I build in my mind will go away, while my body gets what it wants and needs.

A dream for a new health care system.

I think there are a lot of different reactions to Crohn’s disease. In fact I think there are as many different reactions to the disease as there are people with the disease. Modern medicine however treats crohn’s disease in one basic way. Not always the same medicine but pretty much the same kind of drug, an immunosuppressant drug to attack and lower the immune system throughout the entire body.
What would modern medicine do if they had to look at all illness on a person to person reaction to their health problem? Maybe that would be too tough of a job to look at everyone with a disease differently and then prescribe different actions for each person. What would happen if a medical doctor had to actually spend time getting to know a patient before deciding how to treat them? Medical school would change how they teach, hospitals would change how they take care of patients, and the sick would learn to make better sense of their health problems and treatments since it would be geared just for them. Imagine if a doctor sat you down and together you worked out a plan to get control of your health again. People would have no choice but to get more involved in what they do to heal and then would also have a better understanding how not to let themselves let the problem return.

Snow Days - Construction - And Our Choices

They are proving scientifically that in the winter time people seem to not have as good health both physically and mentally, but I am not so sure about the thought of blaming winter or the shorter day. I was explaining to my daughter why they have school delays and cancellations here in Pittsburgh when we only get a little bit of snow or freezing weather, but in places like Vail Colorado they can get a foot or more of snow and school goes on just like normal. In Pittsburgh when we get the cold gloomy days of winter most people try and stay in as much as possible, but in Vail if they have a cold snowy day people don’t stay in, they go skiing. The kids, the teachers, the principal’s don’t keep inside on what most call a gloomy day. These are the best days of the year with fresh powder on the slopes and nothing but fun to be had. People are not getting sick in Vail during the winter time because of the gloom. They might be breaking a bone, but are not letting what most call SAD or seasonal (something) disorder… In Colorado the fun of the slopes is actually creating stronger immune systems. You see it has nothing to do with the weather but with our reaction to the weather.
I have had a construction crew out ide my home for over a month now and was really letting it get to me. I even found myself pulling into the garage a couple days ago screaming the F word because I wanted it to be over already. Later that day because my gas was turned off in my house the gas company workers came in to light my pilot lights in the basement. I asked the guy how much longer they would be working and his answer with a smile on his face was months, months and months. Almost instantly my response to him was, well now that I know it will be that long I don’t have to think about them being gone soon, and was actually glad to hear the news. I tell myself that they will be done by June and finish in April or May it will seem like a bonus to me. It all comes down again to how we choose to look at each situation. The greatest thing about being human is that we have a choice on how we react; we just have to be aware of it.

Latch hook and the Bible

“The Dinosaur age was about 35-250 million years ago, and Ayurvedic Medicine started around 3000-5000 years ago.” Thinking of things happening thousands or millions of years ago makes me see how our lives can mean so little when we are looking at the timeline of life. I’ve been doing latch hook lately to help me calm my mind down when needed. When I am doing a new project I never see the whole picture, but just a small piece of yarn and 2 holes next to each other that I have to tie the yarn too. If I keep adding little pieces of information in the right way I soon start to see a beautiful picture appear from all the colors of yarn. I then look deep into only one piece of yarn at a time again and I lose the big picture where things become self-ish and small again. When I am done with my latch hook and step back I again see the picture, not just pieces of yarn. Now say I place the new picture I made on a wall and step back, I don’t just see a latch hook on a wall, but a whole room with all of its belongings included my latch hook. At this point the single piece of yarn that meant so much to me now seems meaningless in this big picture of the whole room. Let’s now say when I made my latch hook I decided to hurry things along and not put in pieces of yarn throughout the latch hook. I step back and see a picture, but it seems like something is missing. I then see the picture on the wall in a room and it just doesn’t look right. Just a couple little pieces of yarn missing and the big picture is not complete. Maybe our lives that seem to be just a little speck in the big picture really has a lot more power then we think. If we don’t live our lives to the fullest and most natural way of doing things, we will end up leaving an empty space in the timeline of existence, and that can make all the difference in the world. I don’t think there are an old testament and a new testament of the bible. I think there is a volume 1 and a volume 2 of the bible. We right now are living in volume 3 and we need to decide what part of volume 3 we want to be. All I know is I don’t want to be the missing piece of yarn.

Difference betwen change and transformation

Vata equals movement and change, while the pitta in our body equals transformation. I remember Dr David Simon the medical director and co-founder of the Chopra Center for Wellbeing saying this to me in my training for recertification s as a Perfect Health instructor. I’ve heard the same thing a couple times before while I was patient, but this time something hit me. I realized I do not understand the difference between change and transformation, they seem like the same thing to me. That was a few years ago when I first heard him say that and I have always dwelled on it some hoping to understand it better one day. It was like me putting the question out there to the universe and knowing the answer would find its way home some day. After my last visit to the Chopra Center in January the answer popped in my head so clearly I laughed out loud wondering why I could not see this before. When I got on a plane and flew 3000 miles for help at the Chopra Center, I changed my location. My daily routine changed when I got to California, I had a new place to sleep and new people to talk to everyday. My Vata or movement was going through a lot of movement and change. I understand now why they say it is easy for a person’s vata to get out of balance when they travel a lot, there is nothing but movement and change which is all about vata. Now, when I first got to the Chopra Center and went through all this change I still was just 97 pounds, sick, and in pain, all that movement but my bad health was still the same, no transformation. It wasn’t until after a couple days when I noticed the pain was gone and I wasn’t going to the bathroom all day long anymore that I felt like my mind and body was going through a transformation. I could have traveled and changed everything about my life all I wanted, but until my health started to get better I saw no transformation or pitta. It is kind like that saying where you can run but you can’t hide. I can see that all the change in my life is not going to make a difference if I can not also let myself transform.

Chopra Center Massage Treatments For Healing

When I was writing at the beginning of the year how The Chopra Center for Wellbeing turned my health around, I skipped a very important part of that process. There is no doubt that a big part of my health coming back so fast was due to the Ayurvedic massage treatments at The Chopra Center Spa. For me on this last visit my massage treatments were all about replenishing my body in the right way, while having to be careful of my health condition. I noticed on this last visit a difference in the spa staff that was different then the last five years of experience at The Chopra Center. I mean it was always excellent service but this time I noticed that everyone seemed to work in perfect harmony. They all seemed to communicate with each other on a day to day basis on what was going to be the best way to help me get my health back. The hardest part was exposing my fragile body to them; it was an embarrassment to let anyone see me the way I was. Not only did these young group of healers help me with dealing with my emotions, they helped me heal my body. The treatments were the highlight of my wellness journey.

Everything is always perfect:~)

Wherever we are right now and whatever the health of our mind and body is right now has one fact that never changes. Everything is exactly the way it should be due to all the choices and experiences we have had in the past. Everything is perfect the way it is right now, even if it is being at the lowest point of our lives. Which makes me think of something else about that. It seems we seem to remember the best of times and the worst of times, but the truth is there is a hell of a lot more in between those two times that we have to live with. That would be like only thinking that your breath is right before you blow it out or right before you suck it in, and the rest doesn’t matter. If we can face that everything is exactly the way it should be at the present time, we can then realize that this is not the way it has to be an hour from now, a day from now, or five years down the road. Realizing this can let us see how what choice we make at this moment will have an affect on what our perfect will be like in the future.

Meditation Chopra Center Pure Potential

A Few Minute Simple Meditation That Can Help You Learn To Find The Gap Of Pure Potential That We All Have Inside Ourselves.

Elightenment Burst, Least Effort and Detachment

I thought I hit a point of enlightenment yesterday, I was sure I figured out the answer to me trying to control the Crohn’s disease and Epilepsy that I have. These last 5 years I have been focusing on controlling my diseases, those are even the words I used, I control my health. I have finally given up on that way of thinking and realize I can’t control diseases that have already done so much damage; they are not just going to go away like magic. You might be asking yourself now where the enlightenment was in that thought.
What hit me was since I can’t control the Crohn’s or Epilepsy I have, I can then focus on control over every action or choice I make, plus control the way I react. It is the actions and reactions of our choices that affect our health. That is the secret in one simple sentence. I even send this new thought off to Dr David Simon at the Chopra Center, I think just looking for his approval of this simple thought that came to me. Dr Simon managed to burst my bubble of enlightenment with just a few words. He said “It’s not simply a matter of mind over body, so don’t beat yourself up when the ride gets bumpy.” Here one of the top medical doctor’s in mind body medicine in the world was telling me it wasn’t a matter of my mind over my body. The man who taught me that if we change the information that makes up our energy, we will change our body is now telling me it is not all about our mind making the right choices. It first hit me in a way that I was wondering if he was telling me that I didn’t have the power I thought I had to keep my good health. Why would he tell me that? My ego and defense system was kicking in. Dr Simon knows me well and understands that I have a problem with acceptance to the what things are at the present moment, attachment to the way I want things to go, and if they don’t go right he has to be the one to hear me complain about it. He wants to let me know that as much as I think I can control what happens by my choices or reactions there will still be times when things will not go the way I picture it should go. That is when I have to practice the spiritual laws of least effort and detachment, and most of all just keep doing the best I can, I can’t ask myself anymore then that.

Getting Control of Your Health

When people here about how sick I was and turned my health around without medication or more surgery I almost always asked this question. What was the most important thing I did to get my health back under control? I have the hardest time getting someone to understand that one item has nothing to do with controlling my health, but it is the whole group of items together that make it happen. I think it is like asking someone what is more important our heart, our lungs, or our brain? Without any of the three of those organs we are dead, so how can any of them be more important then the other organ. It is the same thing for me and my meditation, yoga, herbs, diet, and conscious choice making. All of those things are part of the circle of positive choices I make to keep my health under control. I do not know if they will work with helping someone else, but they work for me. Everyone needs to find their own circle of positive choices and realize that if at anytime we feel like something isn’t right, we can always change to a new positive action. That is why we need to be very careful of people and advertisements that tell us that we need to do this to get our health back, when that is just not true. When someone starts to exercise because they feel like they have too and they force themselves to exercise, and do not like doing what they are doing does not show the same good results as someone who enjoys taking the time to exercise their body. See how our thoughts control how our body reacts to things showing how our mind and body are connected. We have to learn to look deep down inside ourselves to find the best choices that will create our own circle of actions that will bring about pure potential.

Karma After My Headstand

After doing 2 perfect practice headstands yesterday and then one that I recorded I started to get a little nervous about my neck hurting today. All I could think about after all those close falls was that maybe that wasn’t such a good idea. I kept thinking about Karma and how today I might have to pay for my silly actions with a reaction of a sore neck. The Spiritual Law of Karma says that we can have control over painful reactions if we only make conscious choices. The law of Karma says we should witness our choices and look for the feeling if it seems to be the best choice for yourself and those around you. Karma says to ask yourself what will be the consequences of your actions, but I should have or anyone should look at this before we make the actions. Now it seemed like I was screwed and the way my neck felt I knew there was a pay day. As all this was running through my head I also remember all the times I have changed my own karma with my health by suddenly changing my actions. By changing my actions I can control my Crohn’s disease when it starts to act up. I decided to then spend a good part of the rest of the day yesterday doing things that would replenish and refresh my neck. I rubbed in oil and gave my neck and shoulders massages through the day. I did lots of extra yoga stretching to help keep my neck from any extra trauma during the day. Today my neck is fine with no sign of stress at all. In fact I was able to change my karma so much from my reaction of being upside down that my neck hasn’t felt this good in awhile. Karma is not something that we have no control over; in fact it is the exact opposite. When our choices start to become more consciously made we can change the world:~)

The 7 Spiritual Laws of Success - on my head

The Seven Spiritual Laws of Success
On My Head!

Take One

Heath Ledger and a Doctor's Responsibility

What I wrote today has to do with my frustration at the death of actor Heath Ledger who died of an accidental overdose of painkillers, sleeping pills, anti-anxiety medication and other prescription drugs. He also had prescriptions to all of these medications. A cigarette company or a street corner drug dealer can be liable for someone who dies because of their actions. Even a bar can be liable if a person drinks too much at the bar and then dies later on, it is the bars fault for not cutting the person off. How can the doctors treating Mr. Ledger not have to face what they did to him?

I heard someone talking yesterday on how they had stomach aches and went to their doctor who gave them something to help with the stomach pain. When she got her medication she saw how the pharmacy’s now put papers with info on your prescriptions to explain what it is. The first thing she read was how her medication could cause stomach cramps. She thought isn’t that what I am taking the medicine for in the first place.
This makes about as much sense to me as if you went to an emergency room because you accidently cut your finger off and the doctor tells you he has to cut off a couple more before doing anything else. We look at drugs on how many percent of people it helps, but just shrug off the ones who had bad effects from the drug. If I take lomitil for my diarrhea it might help but always makes me feel like I am going to throw up. I can then get something for the nausea but am allergic to a lot of the medications and have bad reactions. I would then get Benadryl to help with the reactions and then become drowsy and want to sleep afterwards. I might then want to pump myself with caffeine and sugar to stay awake, which could cause the stomach aches again which starts the process all over. How is this medicine or even what we might think as making any sense? What if in the very fist place we looked at the stomach ache this person had and looked more at treating the cause of the stomach ache. Maybe it is food, stress, or disease that can all be treated at the root of the problem and not with symptom treatment medicine.

I got it under control again

I've heard Dr Deepak Chopra say a couple times how the 3 most important things to do for good health is: meditate, meditate, meditate.
Some people will come up with different reasons why I was able to get myself under control again so fast. My running to the bathroom 8 -12 times a day has dropped right back down to 2-3 times for these last 3 days. I know the real reason why things got better so fast, it has to be this reason. For the last 5 years I have been keeping records of when my Crohn’s disease acts up and the one action that seems to be the thing to pull me back again is no doubt meditation for 30 minutes twice a day. When things just started up again I could not sit for 30 minutes in row, I lost some kind of a connection. 2 days ago I made myself sit 4 times for 30 minutes and a total of 2 hours of meditating. Yesterday I meditated for 30 minutes 3 times and have meditated once so far today. Somehow when I slow down my mind I also weaken any problems.

Pitta Dosha Imbalance

Ayurveda looks at our mind and our body as being mixed with a combination of three dosha’s, vata, pitta, and kapha. Each one of us has our own combination in our body and mind that helps to make us the unique person that we are. It is when one of these dosha’s rise above our natural being that imbalance and illness start to happen. Pitta is based on all the transformation that is constantly going on in our body and mind. Pitta is the fire of transformation. We breathe oxygen in and it moves through our blood stream using the vata (movement) in our system, but when the oxygen becomes part of a skin cell, or a kidney it has transformed into something different then it was, that is the pitta working in us. When my daughter Lily was born I could fit her whole head and body in my hand and forearm, but now it might be more like her head and neck might fit in the same spot. Right before my eyes she uses the fire of transformation and is constantly amazing me.
If a person can not balance the pitta in their mind and/or body might find health problems like indigestion, arthritis inflammation, skin rashes, even cancer.An out of balance pitta mind might get angry and irritated easy, and look at problems in a way where others are doing things wrong and that is what is causing the problem. A person who already has a lot of pitta in their make up needs to pay attention to this the most of all. If someone is a good leader or good at taking charge of situations finds that they need to be involved and have a say in most things going on around them all the time is setting themselves up for the powerful heat that pitta will put in our bodies. A pitta type person needs to learn to balance life out by finding activities that are free of any expectations or judgments, things that might seem cooling like a walk in the woods, yoga class, and most important I believe is meditation twice a day. If a pitta person is always creating that change and leadership without the balance of letting it go they will find out too late that they have to chill out as the saying goes.

Sh-t Happens for a reason

They say Shit happens for a reason, and after many years of study and experience, I have to say I believe that old saying. I think what happens is that a lot of times we lose awareness of this and we never find the reason that can make us grow further. Even someone who strongly believes that everything happens for a reason can never find the reason because they may forget to look for the reason and change when the reason comes along.

Here is a story I heard once about a very God loving man who was stuck in a major flood. He refused to leave because he knew God would save him, and when his neighbors tried to get him to leave his home, he stayed. Later the water was as high as his second floor and a boat came by to save him, but the man said he was staying because God would save him. Next the water was up to his roof and while he was standing on his roof a helicopter came by and tried to get him to climb aboard. The man would not budge sure that God would save him when next he found himself dead and face to face with God. The man asked God what happened, why didn't you save me from this disaster? God looked at the man and said "what do you mean, I tried to get your neighbors to warn you, I send a boat to help you, and then I brought a helicopter and you still would not take my help."

The Set Back

It was a hell of a lot easier to write when was I getting better and better, but that is not the way things are going now. I am back to 8 or more time running to the bathroom, and have some of that tenderness back in my lower right abdominal area. I do know one thing for sure now that I had forgotten. If I can connect the right combination of mind, body, and spirit wellness, I will have my health back in less then two days. There is not one part of me that wants to give up because of this set back, but just the opposite. I am more determined now to find the right way for me to live, and like magic I’ll have perfect health:~)