What I’m Doing to Heal from Parkinson’s, Part II

In Part I, I covered my decision to get support and what exercise I am doing, along with medical Qi Gong and meditation.  Now in Part II I’ll cover lifestyle changes, my diet, Reiki, self-examination of my inner life, and my horses. 

Deep self-examination

To me, the deep self-examination along with meditation, is one of the most important aspects of self-healing and one of the first things I began to explore after I learned of my diagnosis.  The purpose of self-examination is to identify what’s problematic in my life: what upsets me, what keeps me up at night, what makes me angry, what makes me cry, etc.  It’s about taking the time to actually list what’s been bugging me.  Often it’s a serious look which takes courage to face things we might not like about ourselves.

Here are the kind of basic questions I have posed to myself:

• Why do I think I am sick?
• Where am I out of balance in my life?
• What are the challenges or recent challenges I’ve been dealing with?
• What haunts me?
• What are some of my predominant emotions I’ve been having and what is triggering them?
• What tapes are playing in my monkey mind?

Not a formal process

The process of self-examination for me isn’t formalized and it doesn’t have an easily identified beginning or end.   I began this process before I was officially diagnosed.  I knew there was something wrong with my health early on and I was already on the lookout for root causes.  It’s also not a formalized process.  There are however, some newer, more formal processes I might suggest for those wanting a more structured process of self-examination. 

I am particularly intrigued by the one developed by Dr. Gabor Mate called Compassionate Inquiry, a process which seeks to find the point where we stop being our authentic selves.  Dr. Mate says that “the purpose of Compassionate Inquiry is to drill down to the core stories people tell themselves – to get them to see what story they are telling themselves unconsciously; what those beliefs are, where they came from; and guide them to the possibility of letting go of those stories, or letting go of the hold those stories have on them …” 

What next?

Once I identified my issues, the next step is/was to do something about them.  Since the issues that come up can vary so widely, it’s really hard to quickly summarize what I do once I’ve identified issues that need addressing. 

Those next steps might be adopting new behaviors, such as learning how to say no to people, or it may be the act of forgiving someone.  Or it could be repressed anger and require that I confront someone about an issue.  Or it can be something that happened long ago that I am still carrying with me and it might require the help of a therapist to assist me.  Or it could be that I need to forgive myself.  Or it might mean I need to make some lifestyle change.

Lifestyle changes

When I was sick with lupus and rheumatoid arthritis, my self-examination process revealed that I had to face some big issues in my life.  One, after 15 years in a job I created, I realized I was done and needed to move on.  Two, after 10 years and 2 beautiful children, I realized that my marriage wasn’t healthy for me.  For me the illnesses were strong messages that I couldn’t continue living the life I was living.  Something had to change or I feared that my health would continue to deteriorate. 

So, I made changes – big changes.  In one year I left my job and separated from my husband – later to divorce.  Those two changes were HUGE.  Going through one is tough enough, but doing them both and doing them at the same time while caring for two young children . . . Well, it was tough but slowly I found my way back to health and happiness.

When you are taking stock of your thoughts and emotions and you realize you are deeply unhappy, you can’t always correct things through meditation, counseling, exercise, or prayer.  Sometimes there are things in your life that need to be changed.  It doesn’t have to be as big as your relationship or your job, as in my case.  But it might be your friends, your habits and other things you hold dear in your life.  

Luckily for me, this time around it wasn’t a divorce or a job change that needed to occur!  However there was one area that I knew immediately needed revision – my political activism.  Over the past 5 years or so I had become more concerned about politics.  Instead of just worrying about it though I became more actively involved.   I began reading and became immersed  in important political issues, I started watching the nightly news on a regular basis and I joined efforts with others locally to help make changes.

When I got diagnosed and realized that PD was a wakeup call about how I had been living my life, I knew that I needed to let my political work go.  I had been noticing for some time that I was angered and upset almost daily when I saw and read about issues our country was faced with.  I had contemplated taking time off for months, but I hadn’t.  So when I got my diagnosis, I realized a change was overdue.  So I stopped.

More coming on self-examination

I am sure I will blog more about this process of self-examination as I journey forward because it is ongoing.  It’s also an area that I am exploring a little differently since the last time I healed myself.  The reason that I will be approaching it differently is that there is just more information out now about a variety of therapies that deal with stress and/or repressed emotion/trauma that look promising:  EFT (Tapping), NET, EMDR, Somatic Experience, psychedelics, and more.

Diet and detoxing

I understand that it is widely believed that manmade pesticides and toxins are getting into our diet and blood stream and may put people at risk of Parkinson’s.  And while I believe it’s true that pesticides and toxins are likely culprits, I hesitate to seriously attempt to detox because I haven’t seen the evidence that detoxing methods to remove the toxins from our system actually work.  My doctor also reported that she has seen many of her PD patients spend thousands on detox methods only to be disappointed.  So I have opted to skip this approach for now.

Overall, I haven’t made any significant change to my diet because I think I eat pretty healthy.  Any diet changes I make have been to help with constipation; to ensure that I am eating plenty of fruits and vegetables, whole grains, getting plenty of fiber and minimizing animal protein.

I have however, begun taking basic vitamins again.  I had stopped taking supplements many years ago for reasons I won’t bore you with.  So now, I’m back to taking basic vitamins and a little extra C, fiber and magnesium to help with constipation.  

Reiki and horses

There are two other things I do that I haven’t included yet.  One is that I still spend time with my horses.  My time with them is driven by my equine therapy work.  So I am spending time weekly with the horses, but it’s not part of any daily goal that I have.

The other thing not yet mentioned are the Reiki sessions my cousin has been offering me.  When my cousin heard of my diagnosis, she offered me a Reiki session.  I had had one other Reiki session from her in the past.  But honestly I didn’t feel anything from our first session together so I wasn’t expecting much from the session she was offering. 

She began the session at my head and worked her way down the left side of my body.  (The left side is my better side.  My right side is more affected by tremors.)  As she began coming up the right side of my body from my feet, I began feeling slight activity in my leg.  And then when she got to my right arm (the place where my tremors began first appearing in my body last February) the arm began tremoring pretty significantly!  I was shocked. The Reiki energy was having an obvious and startling affect!

It was like my arm was a puppet and there were invisible strings extending from her hands to me.  But after she finished her work on my right arm, the tremor began to subside.  Within 2-3 minutes, the tremoring had stopped.

So while I hadn’t felt that a Reiki session did anything for me before Parkinson’s, it was pretty obvious that the energy of the Reiki session was doing something!  We scheduled a 2^nd session.  And again the tremoring started up as she worked on the right side of my body.  But this time, it didn’t dissipate like it did before.  I had an uneasy, internal tremor the rest of the day.

After that 2^nd session, I decided to hold off on doing more Reiki sessions because the last experience wasn’t a comfortable experience.  When my cousin asked me if I wanted to reschedule another session, I shared my experience and concerns with her.  After talking it over, we finally decided to give it one more try. 

And so we did.  And I am glad I gave it another shot.  My cousin is a gifted intuitive and she asked her guides to help her to guide her energy during my sessions.  After she adjusted her treatments with me, I’ve found the sessions to be very comforting.  I find I am deeply relaxed after sessions. 

In summary

I know I’ve presented a lot of information over Part I and II of this segment.  So let me summarize what I am doing now to heal from Parkinson’s.  Minimally, every day my goal is to do 30 minutes of Howard’s medical Qi Gong,  my own 20-30 minute meditation ending with 10-20 minutes of self-examination/self-work.  And lastly, 30 minutes of an aerobic workout.

On days that I do yoga, I skip the aerobics.  On days I am struggling mentally, emotionally or physically, I might add my personalized guided meditation or a 10-minute (non-medical) Qi Gong routine.  And lastly, I am grateful to my cousin that offers my weekly Reiki sessions that feed my soul.

I’ve been tracking what I do since the first week of September.  All said and done, I am averaging 15 hours a week to time spent healing.  So that means I am routinely doing more than the minimal 1.5 hours per day of the goal I set.  I am putting in closer to 2+ hours/day. 

So how am I doing?

The good news is that the fast progression of Parkinson’s I was experiencing between February and July has not continued.  I haven’t had any new or worsening symptoms since I’ve begun my routine of self-examination work, exercise and meditation in August.  In fact, there has been a slight improvement of symptoms all-around.

I have had 2 setbacks.  One was one that I wrote about when I had the NET session followed by a massage.  And I had another setback recently as I dealt with vertigo.  Both times the situations exacerbated my PD symptoms and took some time to recover.

But again, given the rapid progression of symptoms I was experiencing earlier this year, I am pleased about where I am.  I am not having any balance issues, my REM sleep disorder seems to have backed off, I am off antidepressants as of September, my handwriting is legible again, and I’ve not experienced incontinence since the spring. 

All-in-all, I am feeling generally happy about my life.  I told my chiropractor today that in many ways I feel healthier and happier now than before Parkinson’s. 

Here’s to the journey,