Back to Discipline

Amazingly enough, after weeks of frequent discomfort and even pain in my hip, I went to two half-hour exercise classes and VOILA! Pain gone! After leaving the gym and the following day no hip pain. It had been so constant that I easily noticed its absence.

The classes were "Willpower and Grace" and "Body Flow." Both got the hip moving, first with lunges and squats that one might think would aggravate the hip, and then with yoga asanas - twists, lotus and pigeon that are meant to open the hip joint.

Since I had not been going to the gym or exercising much on my own, I was stiffer than ever. But as one of my teachers likes to say, "yoga is for stiffs." I attempted to lay my torso upon my legs in the forward bends, to press my heels to the ground in downward facing dog, and the attempt was enough. I was so pleased with the benefit of even a small, one-time exercise session that I have made it a point to continue.

I biked, walked or took a class at the gym everyday this week. And my hip is dandy. The spectre of expensive hip surgery has been banished. I hope I have learned my lesson.

Owl
Pre-Columbian Stirrup Vessel

It's Summertime - to Hell with Discipline!

I read my last post just now about rules. I have been breaking the rules for so long now that I am on a roll with it.

For 12 days I went to a clay session at Haystack Mountain School of Crafts and worked very hard, from dawn until late at night. I ate as low gluten as I could when it was easy, but not when I was tempted (stuffed shells, yes please), and never missed a dessert at dinner. So between eating too much, very little physical exercise, and a lot of concentrated work on clay projects while sitting or standing, I found that my feeling of well being declined.

Studios at Haystack

By the end of the session I was shuffling and slow. Pain in one hip and knee woke me in the night and caused me to limp. On the last day to glaze, facing the prospect of having to work and move about in a small space filled with other students, I felt ready to cry. I found a way though. I worked early in the morning, I worked through lunch, and I finished glazing without having to navigate through a crowded room.

It was exhausting, but rewarding. When I got home I rested for two days, then started going to the gym again - for awhile. Summer with its distractions has caused a relaxing of discipline. My hip continues to bother me, my walking is still not very good, yet I'm coasting along just ignoring my body.

I'll have to pay better attention soon. First another trip.

Lessons from the Wheel

Its not easy learning how to throw on the wheel. I have been trying to learn - I've put it off long enough. But it takes time to learn this skill. For me it seems an unreasonably long time. That's why I always gave up in the past.  

So I have had to ease up on the idea of perfection with this media. The clay like some wise old sage instructing me calmly, immovably to master my impatience, to curb my worry, to learn "the ways of the clay" as it spins and spins on the wheel.

I can only control it with the utmost attention, focus and sensitivity. Like a living being, it is.

Oh Yoda, help!

Being Perfect

I read Howard Schiffke's post today on Parkinson's personality traits. What he said rang a bell for me. One trait he mentioned was the impulse to seek perfection in oneself. Howard advises that instead of beating yourself up about your mistakes or shortcomings, remember this:

Your best is your best; you cannot do any better than that. Be kind to yourself and accept that if you are doing your best, it is the best you can do, and it is good enough!

That seems reasonable, right? But to this personality, it's not so easy. For me my diet has been a source of much guilt and confusion. No matter how I promise to be good on a daily basis bloopers occur - I eat a couple of cookies, I have seconds of dinner, snack on unknown quantities of tortilla chips right out of the bag with salsa, etc. Then, no matter how wonderfully healthful and gourmet my cooking has been, how spartan my recent repasts, I am riddled with guilt that I have not been PERFECT.

So I decided to make fairly strict rules for myself, and just like during the cleanse, follow these rules faithfully for a certain time period. I don't have to be perfect on this diet, but I'm not really supposed to veer very much either. For me I feel more secure with rules. When each day was free to be "whatever" with only the intent to be moderate with my diet, it was much too easy to shove the intent aside for the pleasure of food now.

Discipline is positive action. It is not about perfection, but perfection was an issue when I had no rules.

Last Day

It's the end of three weeks. I can go back to three meals a day tomorrow if I want to. What are the results? I have lost weight - about 20 lbs over the 7 weeks since I went off wheat. I look better, I think I look younger. Those are nice things. And the Parkinson's? Still there.

I did not really expect recovery, but what can be expected is greater stamina, energy, health, vigor, those kind of things. Am I energetic? Well, today I shopped for groceries, worked in the garden, organized the shed, made a marker drawing, fixed dinner for others (I had a smoothie which I also had to make) and got my ipad email working again. The last was particularly grueling - ha!

Was it all accomplished effortlessly? No. By dinner time I was dragging my feet around. After my blueberry smoothie and a pleasant chat with my family, I felt better.

I hope I'll not swing back into my old ways. I do intend to continue eating whole foods, and less of the "bad" foods. Fortunately I have the Suppers group now to give support in the fight against food addictions and bad habits. I will post a photo of myself to compare with the photo taken in February in Santa Fe.

 Pictures don't lie. So any difference?

                                                    

Cleaning Up and Trimming Down

What I put in my mouth has become a major focus this year since I started attending the Suppers lunches. Suppers is a group for those who want to eat more healthily. You can learn a lot, about good nutrition from Dor, the leader/founder and the other attendees, and how to cook because you may either attend and prepare the food at the lunch or stay after for cleanup.

The first big change I made was going wheat-free. Reading the book “Wheatbelly” put me solidly in the anti-wheat brigade, at least for a trial period. I wasn’t keen on the idea when Dor proposed it because I had experimented with other similar diets, but one chapter into “Wheatbelly” and I was sold.

After four weeks gluten-free, and prompted by another Dor initiative, I started a three week cleanse guided by the book, “Clean.” I am now 11 days in. The goal is to clean out my body of toxins that have accumulated in the tissues, blood, and digestive tract. The main rules are to eat a solid food lunch of selected foods, and a smoothie, raw soup or juice meal for breakfast and dinner. An added benefit is weight loss if you have extra pounds, which I of course do.

I am feeling well, have lost a few pounds, but is it of benefit for Parkinson’s Disease? Let me finish the cleanse and then see. Maybe there will be some impact. If I do actually remove a significant level of toxins, will there be a reduction in my symptoms?

Parkinson's Summit

I attended the Parkinson’s Recovery Summit in Santa Fe last week with my PD friend Janet and came home with a range of impressions. Focusing on those of the summit itself and not the distractions of that fair city, I found that the ideas about healing that I have been hearing from the alternative health community for quite awhile were reinforced. Here is what I heard:

Chinese Traditional Medicine – good. Two sessions focused on Qi gong, the ancient Chinese energy exercise, that harnesses life energy from the earth and from the heavens to utilize in healing the body. There were lots of mentions of chi, grounding, meridians, acupuncture and other traditional eastern ideas by presenters all around.

Power of the mind in healing – effective. Visualization is a powerful tool for changing the body’s level of health. You can heal yourself with meditation or visualizations focusing on the sickness and seeing the healing process taking place.

Joy – essential. Stress and trauma may be a big part of the cause of Parkinson’s. If we can turn around our patterns of anxiety, perfectionism, stop criticizing and judging ourselves or others, and feel appreciation and gratitude for all of the positive elements of our lives, that will go a long way to healing our symptoms.

Today I was thinking about the idea of stress as the cause of PD. Obvious to me, that by itself cannot create all the symptoms of PD. I think a combination of factors is at fault, a series of foul-ups in the body system that when combined with stress and a Parkinson personality manifests with symptoms labeled as Parkinson’s Disease.

I feel a transformation in myself now that I have time to focus on myself and being and functioning a little differently from the old me. An inner transformation needs to take place I think and that is essential in the recovery process. 

In general, the conference was uplifting. Most of all because there were people speaking at the summit who recovered from Parkinson’s Disease. That by itself was the most inspiring element of the summit.