I Feel Good

I Feel Good

The card I pulled today is the Why am I healthy?¨ card. I think it’s very fitting because I just finished my last round of chemo infusions and am starting my last round of chemo pills, the Jewels of Radiant Health.

I have had a lot of interesting experiences going through this crazy process, and have learned a lot of new skills, many of which I hope not to need again. The most important lesson for me has been this:  Paying attention to what feels good is better for me than paying attention to what feels bad.

Why do I enjoy radiant health? What makes me choose to be well? How to I stay positive?

Why do I enjoy radiant health? That is a question I have asked all the way through this experience. Mostly, I am radiantly healthy. I pay more attention to that than I do to the parts that don’t feel as well.

On the other hand, I do pay attention to how my body feels.This awareness saved my life. I could tell I needed help which led to emergency surgery and chemo. Good for me! I have a choice, though, whether to pay attention to what feels good, to my progress, to what I can do to feel good. I have a choice how to spend my time and my energy. I get to notice when I am approaching ¨the wall¨ so I don’t have to ¨hit¨ it. I get to notice when the numbness and tingling in my feet says, ¨Pay attention to placing me safely.” This has meant that I can run short distances. That makes me so happy! And my inner 6 year old is delighted. She loves to run. I get to notice when the numbness in my hands means pay attention to what I am holding, where I am placing my hands.

Yesterday, I was so excited for my last chemo I didn’t notice that I had bumped my hand on the coffee pot burner. When I did notice,  I used my qi gong tools to heal that burn, to bring down the little blister, and to remove all the discomfort. I have lots of tools like that. Today, the burn is barely visible.

One of those tools is the application of judgment. When I judge a sensation as bad, it gets bigger, stronger, and it takes up more of my attention, so I feed it more and the next thing you know is that little burn/numbness/cramp is huge, and I feel terrible. What we think about, we feed.

I have been speaking about secondary gains, and they are really important to understand. It is one of the mechanisms our ego system uses to keep us where we are.

Secondary gains are the ¨nice¨ things that happen because we stay stuck in our bad place. I may feel like I don’t deserve to be taken care of unless I am in bad shape. I may feel like I don’t deserve help unless I simply can’t take care of me. I may feel like I only deserve good things if I pay for them in bad circumstances.

Letting go of secondary gains takes courage and trust. It’s a classic leap of faith. A leap of faith is that moment when we really change our thinking and allow for a new reality. I get goosebumps thinking about it!

How have I change from focusing on what’s wrong with me to appreciating what is right with me?

(c) Pam Guthrie 2015 all rights reserved 01152015

Heal Me

Heal Me

We people are so passionate, even when we think we aren’t all that invested in anything. I love how vehemently we believe our beliefs, even when those beliefs make us suffer. These are ideas we are even willing to die for. Many of us have them, and we tend to think of religion and politics as the two biggies, but there are others to which we are so committed.

Health, diet, and exercise are the trifecta.

Why am I healthy? Why does all I consume nourish me? Why am I alive?

I believed, because of a doctor’s casual comment, that I would be dead by the time I was twenty-three. I was working nights at the time, and waiting for midnight was pretty tense. I actually was scared that I would drop dead before the stroke of midnight.

I didn’t.

You might guess that I was almost obsessed with my health, but I was actually more obsessed with illness. My focus was on sick. I had the chronic. Chronic headaches, chronic back pain, stomach issues, joint issues, vision problems, chronic colds and flu. I could always find some symptom in my body to fret about. So I slept poorly. I was so clenched that I ended up at the Mayo Clinic to find out why I couldn’t move my neck or shoulders.

I was obsessed with my diet. I starved me, I overfed me, I went on health-food kicks that left me feeling weak and feeble. I took dozens of supplements at a high cost every month. I was sure that there was a miracle food I could find that would solve all my problems.

I expected the dentist to bring me terrible pain, and was never disappointed. I was sure I would suffer the day or two after a big workout. I was exhausted and lethargic much of the time, even though I was running all day long. And  I knew that by the time I reached middle age I would be crippled.

I’m not.

Why do I enjoy radiant health? What makes me feel my vitality? Why am I energetic?

By processing through our old emo-stuff, we let go. As we let go, specific parts of our body also unclench allowing our life-force to flow there, bring health back to those parts. Our bodies make symptoms in the places that correspond to our idea. When the middle finger is sore, for example, we are often having a “f*ck you” thing going on that is just out of awareness. I had a very experience-y toe joint when I was refusing to “toe the line.” I know it sounds goofy as all get out, but more and more we are finding that the correlation between mind and body can be very specific.

As I have come to soften my hold on my beliefs, I am willing to let go of ideas that make me suffer, like focusing on being sick. When I focus on what feels great, I can often let go of discomfort. If it is very insistent, I will attend to it, and do what I can to uncover my very personal message. I find that relaxing, breathing deeply, and asking good Creative Questions about my health and wellness will often do as much for me as taking a pill ever did in the past, without nasty side effects.

Because I know my body and how it feels so well, I know when I need to address a topic with healers, and when I can just let it run its course.

How have I changed from believing I am sick to noticing how I feel healthy?

(c) Pam Guthrie 2014 all rights reserved 07292014

Supporting Wellness

Supporting Wellness

Why am I healthy? Isn’t that a nice question. How do you think about your health? Do you have health or do you have sickness? That, my dear, is a very powerful distinction.

The concept of walking on the sunny side of the street has been showing up for me a lot lately. I like that song, and have since I was a kid. The sunny side is often just a step or two away, but so often we think we can’t get there because we have X.

I am not my behavior. I am not my body’s behavior, either. I am a divine and infinite being. I impose limits on that all the time with my thoughts, and many of those are unconscious. So what do I do about that?

Am I having a lot of emotions about physical discomfort? Fear, anger, sadness, disgust, contempt; each of these, when we are feeling them about our bodies for any length of time, will bring a flood of hormones that cause our bodies to have stress reactions on top of whatever discomfort we are experiencing.

Experiencing our feelings as they arise, and then letting them move through, keeps us clear. When we ignore those feelings, they will build and build, and actually turn into physical symptoms.

I watch my language, for one. Am I using wellness language or illness language? There are some interesting subtleties in our language around wellness. The same way that Creative Questions have results built in, words have experience built in. When I have a problem, I start from a disadvantage. When I say my sickness or my disease, I own it and that means it is mine to take care of on some level, like a sofa, or a puppy. It’s one of the reasons we talk about taking out the trash rather than our trash.

How am I well? Where do I feel good? Why would I choose health?

One of the curiosities of our minds is that we can’t do everything at once. When I am fully engaged in a task, for example, I will often forget that I have a hurt. Where did it go? Why did it cease to trouble me? This gets easier when I have not laid claim to the situation, to stop attending to it, that is.

How do I enhance my wellness? What makes me strong? Why am I so resilient?

Choosing our health care providers is another biggie. Does my provider want to treat my illness? Look at that phrase. It’s the same one we use when we are going out for ice cream or a massage. If anything, I want to treat my health!

Providers in many modalities will have a wellness or a sickness propensity. It is up to me to notice whether this provider understands that I enjoy more wellness through positivity. Treat my wellness, and mitigate the discomfort. Lavish my health, help me banish the imbalance in my body.

When I choose to own my wellness, I step over to the sunny sun. I can have more fun, I can enjoy more, I am less dictated to by the current imbalance in by physical being.

How have I changed from supporting sickness to enjoy the health I have?

(c) Pam Guthrie 2014 all rights reserved 06352014

Leaving the Wah-Wahs

Leaving the Wah-Wahs

I’ve said this before, I will say it again. Each of us has our own, particular set of stuff to work through. If we want to be happy grownups, there are some things we need to do.

We first have to accept it. That can take some time. We often feel really sorry for ourselves. We often feel singled out to suffer our own particular hell. We decide that no one understands what we are going through, that no one has ever had to deal with what we have to. This is called “reverse grandiosity.” Seriously. There is always someone who has it worse. If need be, find that person, and help him. Or her. Meanwhile, accept what is.

Once we’ve been able to accept our situation, we assess it relative to ourselves. How does this impact my life? Is this my new normal? Where are my edges? What is gone? What have I gained? Where can I change for the better?

Notice that these are not Creative Questions. Creative Questions have results built in. These questions are searching questions, assessment questions. And it is good to ask questions like these often. I need to remember that my situation will change. Some things will get better, some things will get more challenging. Nothing is static. So my assessment is for now. My plans are plans. When I flow with my life, some plans will work, some will need to be modified, some dropped.

Now that I have accepted and assessed my situation, I can start to grow within it.

How have I changed from feeling sorry for myself to feeling alive? What makes me love my life? How do I experience joy?

I may need to acquire resources. These might be actual items, like canes or walkers, hearing aids, oxygen tanks, medications, or special glasses. These might be tools like behavioral choices, or emotional flexibility. I may need to learn some new things to do when I feel angry or blue. I may need to get help from a 12 step group, or a therapist, or a physical therapist, or some other kind of healer.

Why am I resilient? What makes me flexible? Why do I go with the flow?

I may need to make some amends if I was acting out before I accepted my situation. I may need to make some modifications to my home, to my diet, to my activities. I may need to let go of a relationship that supports me in suffering rather than in joy. Dump my misery buddies. Find a new place to hang out that promotes my well being.

How do I feel like a divine and infinite being? What makes me so positive? How do I feel when I am happy?

As I grow within my circumstances, I am proud of myself. When I stumble, and we all stumble, I pick myself up, or get some help to pick me up, and treat myself with loving compassion, gently, kindly, wisely. I encourage myself in feeling alive, in spending time with people who lift me up. I celebrate.

How have I changed from living in the Wah-wahs to loving my life as it is?

(c) Pam Guthrie 2014 all rights reserved 05232014

My Gentle Loving Care

My Gentle Loving Care

This morning I drew the Why am I healthy? card. I have heard from a bunch of you that, because you have a chronic something, this card is upsetting. So let’s talk about stuff.

I had extreme chronic discomfort for decades, from my teens into my 40s. I was frequently bed-ridden for days, which was awful when I lived alone. I lived on aspirin and prescriptions, and when ibuprofen and pseudoephedrine hydrochloride came out on the market I thought I’d gone to heaven. I was thrown by a car when I was in my mid 40s, and the western docs told me that I would be walking with a walker by the time I was 50 and likely in a chair at 55.

I was diagnosed by a very fancy shrink with a couple nasty and incurable mental illnesses when I was 27.

I’m not walking with a walker, I’m dancing with delight. I have mental health. I have joy and delight. I have satisfying relationships, and a lovely life. I have stuff, but it’s all manageable. I love my life.

For me, a lot of my physical stuff fell away as I cleaned up my mental stuff.

My basic rules of physical well being go like this.

If it’s not true for everyone, there are loopholes. I just need to find them.

Once I find a healer whom I find trustworthy, do what they say, and tell them every single relevant thing.

Branch out; healing modalities can be hugely complementary. I have used with good results at various times, in addition to western medicine, traditional Chinese medicine both herbal and acupuncture, chiropractic, reiki, shiatsu, western herbal medicine, homeopathy, flower essence, aromatherapy, color therapy, craniosacral work, hypnosis, and who knows what all else.

Accept and respect my current situation. Allow for room to improve.

My words and thoughts have a huge impact on how I feel. Pain language makes everything much worse. Neutral language makes things better.

Be kind to myself. No beating up, no name calling, no blaming. It is what it is. What are my lessons to be learned from it today?

What kind of help can I accept? How can I get the help I need? Why am I grateful?

How am I strong? How am I healthy? What makes me feel alive? How can I be healthy in my current experience?

Oh ho! What do you think about that last question? It’s not a contradiction. I have many ways to be healthy; body, emotions, mind, spirit.

It has been my experience more times than I can count that my physical experience changes with my thoughts. Finding the right body metaphor, and the right Creative Question has cause serious discomfort to literally disappear in an instant.

I am in a transitional phase right now, things are changing all around me, through me. It has been my experience that going through these phases creates a lot of body experience. Why do I listen to my body’s messages?

How have I changed from feeling physically doomed to respecting my physical experience?

(c) Pam Guthrie 2014 all rights reserved 04232014

Why would I love and respect my body? That's a good one for a lot of us, for a lot of reasons.

If you like what you find here, please + and share.How do you feel when you matter?

The Fountain of Daily Bliss

The Fountain of Daily Bliss

How do I feel when I am alive? What fills me with vim? Why am I vibrant?

You know, every single one of us has being alive in common. We also have being born, so we share that experience, going from liquid to air breathing. What a change that was!

Then we come to the quality of our lives. And that’s where stuff gets interesting. We get our circumstances, and then decide how we are going to go with them.

How do you live your life? Do you see your days as a chore to get through, slogging along in the mire of circumstance, weighted down by responsibility, and drained by the wants and needs of others?

Do you see your days as a string of blessings, opportunities, and challenges, nourished by the milk of human kindness, thriving in contribution to family and community, and growing in spirit and maturity and bliss?

I slide around on that continuum. Most days are toward the bliss end, fewer and fewer at the slogging end.

I will tell you, also, that some days it takes me some thinkin’ to scooch over to the bliss end.

Why do I choose to be happy? Why do I choose to be positive? Why do I choose lighthearted?

Feeling crabby, or grouchy, or a little scared, or anxious; those are familiar feelings to me. They grew up with me, kept me company. Thing is, they are not supportive or nurturing feelings. They chew on my nerves, suck the juice out from my immune system, and otherwise drain me on all fronts.

That means it is in my best interest, when I notice I’m in there, feeling one of those feelings, to break that habit loop. I need to change my thinking. Asking a good Creative Question is the fastest way to do it that I know of.

We all ask creative questions all the time, mostly bad ones. Why is it so hard? Why am I such a loser? How could it get any worse? Why don’t things ever go my way? Why am I so unlucky? A creative question is one with the answer built in to the question.

When we ask creative questions, our subconscious mind goes to work to find answers for us. Each time I ask, why is it so hard, my subconscious comes up with reasons for me.

When we think thoughts, our mind/brain converts the thoughts from thought energy to physical energy, and we read that as emotion. When the emotion is repeated often enough, we have a physical sensation. Depending on the flavor of the emotion, we end up feeling happy, or scared, angry, sad, surprised, contemptuous, or disgusted. Then we put thoughts on top of that, and that complicated soup becomes feelings. Wow.

Asking good Creative Questions shifted all that into a place of light. Where stuff can heal in safety, where topics can be addressed from a resourceful space. Where bliss can be a daily occurrence.

How am I tapped into the fountain of daily bliss?

(c) Pam Guthrie 2013 all rights reserved 11122013

No Pain, No Problems

No Pain, No Problems

One of my favorite words these days is rejuvenation. It means to make feel young again. I think of cool water on a hot day, or a refreshing breeze, or a wonderful, cracking stretch. I think of running for the joy of it, and giant smiles. I think of flowering meadows, and singing birds and sparkly sunshine.

On the other hand, I will tell you that I have little interest in feeling like I did when I was young. Ow. Being young for me was no picnic, I tells ya. I ached all over most of the time, crashing headaches most of the time. I had insomnia, anxiety, and I was always cold. I caught everything; colds, flu, random viruses. I got bronchitis and pneumonia like nobody’s business.

Not only that, but I was almost completely focused on my pain. I suppose that should really read, My Pain. It was certainly the focus of my day. I thought about it all the time. I worried about how bad it would get, how bad it was. I wondered what it would stop me from doing. I wondered how it would ruin my life this week. Poor me.

Now, let me say right up front, I am not without intense sensation from time to time. However, in the same way that I decided I would no longer have problems, I decided I would no longer have pain. This is a language thing, not a sensation thing.

When we decide that we choose happiness, we have to give up some stuff. We have to give up having problems and crises, having pain, worry, anxiety, guilty, and so on.

Giving up those things doesn’t mean the same stuff doesn’t happen.

That’s important.

What it means is that we reframe it.

When I wanted to stop having problems, crises, and issues, I started looking for new language. What else could I say to describe whatever was going on? Now I have topics. For me, that is a really neutral word. I have a car topic right now. A topic is something I can pay attention to or not, it has no emotional weight. The car broke down. I was safe. I have an auto club to call, I can choose to be cheery. Car got dropped off at shop near my home, all was well, no big deal.

Plus, I felt light for being cheery. Plus, I felt proud of me for choosing light. Plus, I felt grown up for staying calm. Plus, I was happy that the guys from the car club who helped me appreciated that I was cheery. Oh, and there’s more, but you get it. I felt great.

When I decided to stop having pain, I did the same thing. I looked for words that were emotionally neutral. I settled on discomfort and sensation. When I wake up in the morning, I have sensations, and after I do some yoga, they go away. When I dislocated and cracked my shoulder, I had discomfort, often at an 8 or 9, but still simply discomfort.

When I call it pain, the sensations seems to radiate through my body, my chest caves in a bit. I start to feel heavy and dark, and scared all the way through my body. When I call it discomfort, the sensation stays put, and I can stay upbeat.

So I focus on what rejuvenates me; Qigong, kungfu, yoga, walking, napping, wholesome food, time with friends and loved ones, sleep, a day every so often of being alone, the occasional crazy thing.

How have I changed from suffering to enjoying being alive in my body?

(c) Pam Guthrie 2013 all rights reserved 10072013