Living a better life with MS

That was the title of my chapter in an anthology named Soul Whispers.  How can that be achieved?  And I guess the short answer is:  Be True To Yourself.  As simple as that.  If we all knew how to be true to ourselves, if we knew how to be congruent beings, we would have a much better life.  In my opinion, at least.

Religion was never a part of my family mythology, I grew up knowing I had to find the answers myself (maybe not as clearly formulated as that, but I had no sense of a heavenly father looking out for me).  When I was six, my best friend and I sat in the stairs, she claiming that God lived, I claiming that God was dead, or so my mum says.  I don’t remember anything about that, but I think it sums it up.  There was no God looking out for me, so God had to be dead.  That’s logical, isn’t it?  🙂  My more recent mystical experiences has brought me to a different point of view, but I still don’t subscribe to the “Heavenly Father” notion.  To begin with, why does it have to be a father?  And why does it have to be anthropomorphised?

I’ll talk more about my spirituality later on, I won’t be able not to, but now I want to get back on track regarding the title – how to live a better life with MS.  Spirituality is definitely a part of it for me, but everybody has to find that answer for her- or himself.  Nobody can tell you what to believe, you have to feel it on your own.  That’s my opinion, at least.  I have a feeling of connectedness to all that is life that I find quite wonderful.  It can be quite overwhelming at times too, but would I ever want to be without?  No way.

Learning to listen to your body is also important – what does it want?  What does your body want, not your feelings, but your body?  There’s a difference there.  I’m quite certain it doesn’t want a chocolate, or a cigarette or a drink.  Unless that drink is water.  Our feelings and emotions might want that and more, but not our bodies.  Our bodies wants to be sustained and nurtured, but how does one know what it wants, truly?  I’ve been trying to find out for a long time (several years), and at the moment I find energy testing to be the answer.  Using a pendulum or a muscle test to find what my body wants works for me.  I am fully aware that it has quite a few people rolling their eyes, but really – it works.  I guess the best testament to that is my physical transformation over the last few months.  I thought I had healthy eating habits, but I was also aware I had too much of a bread addiction.  Even though that bread was home-made wholegrain sourdough bread, it was no good for me.  I knew I automatically went to have a slice of bread when my energy was down, that I tried eating to boost my system, but not only didn’t it work, it also made me gain weight, and I didn’t manage to break the habit.  Until I tested and lost all power when holding a slice of bread.  I really wish I didn’t react that way, because I love the taste of bread, but I’m not mourning the loss of (so far) 20 kg, or the fact that for the first time in my life I have a low CRP count.

Then there’s exercise, and that’s both a standard kind of physical exercise, and energy exercise.  Qi Gong, for instance.  Of course, growing up like we do, being completely disconnected from our bodies and not learning to release emotions properly, we also end up with loads of blockages in our bodies.  I don’t know how many times I’ve tried to get into a good Qi Gong habit, but each time I’m stopped by backache.  Hopefully I’ll manage this time, I’ve started working with Spring Forest Qigong – and so far things seem good.  Other kinds of exercise is no good for me at the moment, because I get more MS symptoms from it.  Which possibly has something to do with ccsvi.  An endocrinologist checked my jugular veins and found one of them to have a malfunctioning valve and reflux.  Nice and fast blood flow towards the brain of venous blood is not a good thing.  Not that I’ve found someone who even want to consider that this might be a problem.  So instead of trying to get the hospital to cooperate, an exercise that is highly discouraging, I have started doing an EDTA treatment, as it is said to cleanse the bloodways.  I started Monday 21. February, so it’s only been a few days, and I can’t really tell if it’s had an effect yet, but after six weeks there should hopefully be some change.

There’s more to say about EDTA, and about EFT and Psych-K, about diet, various treatments, and mindfullness in general, but I think I’ll go for shorter posts and hopefully regular updates instead of humongous posts now and then.  And hopefully the bugs I had with getting this blogging thing to work have now been eradicated and it will be smooth sailing from here on.

Hello world!

What do you do when you get a diagnosis?  A diagnosis you never expected you’d get, and never wanted?  A diagnosis the docs claim is chronic, impossible to heal, and, based on your current health, will land you in a wheelchair sooner rather than later?  Do you accept the inevitable – or decide that accepting a diagnosis is one thing, accepting a prognosis is quite another?  I did the latter.

So, what is my challenge?  It’s a rather serious one – I have Multiple Sclerosis.  It’s been a friend of mine for longer than I care to remember – and it’s behaving better and better.  Not quite what the doc told me to expect, but then I haven’t behaved as he expected or adviced, either.  When I got the diagnosis back in ’94, a neurologist I’d known since I was a teen (my best friend’s father) told me to not spend my money on all the quacks out there.  The quacks who claimed their modality would help me.  There was nothing to do, MS is impossible to heal, after all.  Said he.  Of course I didn’t listen.  Eventually I will post a list of everything I’ve tried over the years, I need to wring my brain a bit to recall it all.  And, as you might guess, it has helped me.  As has my choice to take this as a spiritual challenge.  And that is what I’d suggest others do, as well.  Not necessarily stay away from allopathic medicine, as I did, that is a question not to take lightly (and I do not want anybody to claim that I suggested they ditch medicine and go for prayer instead), but see this as a great push towards taking a good look on life.  Take whatever meds you need to take, but research your options.  Ask questions.  You don’t have to be filled up with prednisolone, even though the hospital wants to go that route.  More on that too at a later time.

For me, a gigantic shift came in ’96, when I bought Caroline Myss’ Anatomy Of The Spirit, and over the course of several months worked my way through it. The book works its way up through your seven chakras (or energy centers), each chakra chapter has ten questions for self examination.  I bough a pretty notebook, and wrote down my answers to them all.  Being devastatingly honest did hurt, I have to admit that, but the effect was amazing.  It hurt to realise I held so many grudges, but I learned to forgive.  Wow.  I never thought forgiving could have such dramatic results.  So, if you happen to read this, and wonder “how on earth am I going to live a good life with MS (or something else you’d rather not have)?” start with some self search – and start to forgive.  Carrying a grudge is like taking poison and expecting someone else to die.  Forgiving is an incredibly uplifiting experience.  It takes a ton of your shoulders.  Try it.  Even if you don’t have any health challenges you know of.  Oh, and please remember to forgive the most important person in your life, as well.  Yourself.

Cheers!