Life is a Journey

“Life is a journey to be experienced, not a problem to be solved.”

Winne the Pooh

I awoke this morning at four am (I know many of you think I’m nuts) and started my routine, which if you have read how I manage chronic pain starts with exercise, something ten years ago I hated.  Now, I love it.  I love the mornings and have always been a morning person.  This is “me” time, before my toddler awakes and I hear: “Mommy, mommy, mommy” incessantly.  I am not complaining: mommy is by far my favorite word in the world but I also need to focus on my happiness and health.  As I was doing an interval workout, my mind kept drifting to what I had to do next, to the new car we are buying, to the grocery list I have yet to write, to phone calls I have to make today etc  etc.  We all do this and we all know better.  I love working out to music with just Mumford and Sons in the background but instead of enjoying the moment I was literally thinking about a grocery list; so much so that I paused the DVD to write down my grocery list.  It is four in the morning, I think I will have time to accomplish everything that needs to be done today.  I did finish the work out and proceeded to cut up fruit and veggies to juice once the sun is up and people are awake: I need to invent the silent juicer!!

Yesterday we found the SUV we are most likely buying as I was in that car accident two Sunday’s ago and we need a new car for multiple reasons anyways.  How much can change in a week.  Just last Monday I was a mess: crying, stressing, on hold with my insurance company five thousand times while my daughter was begging to play outside.  I did have a horrible day the day following our accident and because I refuse to take pain medication (Advil I will take but I swear it is such a placebo as anyone with chronic pain knows over the counter medicine for pain has the same effect as chewing a piece of gum would have on our pain levels.)  However, I did not freak as I would have two yeas ago or even a year ago: a lot can change in a year.  The day pretty much sucked but I kept reminding myself that most things happen for a reason and because I am doing all the right things and happy with myself the Universe has got this covered: I just had to deal with the nitty-gritty crap.  A week later I am in a car I LOVE with tears in my eyes just as I was the day my La (grandmother) my dad and I went car shopping for my Jetta after graduating college and meeting much more important goals than my degree: I was living with chronic pain naturally: a much more difficult feat than any diploma.  This week has been rough but great at the same time.  The fear of the unknown can be very terrifying but we all must keep this in mind: a year from now will this really matter?  Probably not.  However, a year from now there will be another obstacle either in your way or on your way: the choice is yours.

I love so many quotes from Disney, especially Winnie the Pooh because there is so much meaning behind each character and a lesson in each story for children and adults.  Life is a journey.  Life is not one big problem to be solved.  When faced with a problem, we learn and grow without even knowing it but we much be conscious of what is happening and take control of our thoughts before they take control of us.  There is always going to be a problem or a set back during our life here on Earth.  Again: will this problem matter a year from now and is the problem so major that we expand all our emotional and physical energy on?  Probably not.  We all (myself included) need to just enjoy the moment for what it is and stop over thinking and over planning.  As Ferris Bueller says: “Life moves pretty fast, if you don’t take a second to look around you may miss it.”

How Do You Run Away from Your Mind?

“How do you run away from things that are in your head?”

You don’t run away: You change your thoughts

People ask me questions such as the one above quite frequently.  I understand why, especially because my chronic pain is literally in my head because of brain surgery and the treatments for years after.  I tried to run away from the things in my head: pain, sadness, loneliness, anxiety and every other symptom that comes with chronic pain.  Running away to Colorado never changed the things in my head or the physical pain in my head but I will never regret that crazy decision I made on a whim.  It brought me to my rock bottom and subsequently to the Mayo Clinic in MN.  You cannot run away from anything that your mind or soul feel.  However, you can use a ton of tools that literally change your thoughts, feelings, and pain.  Just this morning I awoke and my first thought was of chronic pain.  My second thought was about the things in my life I am sad about.  My third thought was: “Get the hell up and put on some music and work out.”  Forty minutes later I have a clearer mind and more positive thoughts, along with the song Riptide that is stuck in my head.

Two days ago, my most avid reader and the person I help (or hope I help) vented to me all the things that were going wrong in her world.   She has a right to be very upset and her battle with chronic pain is quite validated.  This is an eighteen year old girl who lives in the UK.  She never gives herself enough credit and is so much stronger than I was at her age.   She actually takes my advice on how to live with chronic pain naturally and be happy.  I swear, at her age I would not have taken my advice.  My way of managing chronic pain is very difficult and takes a huge amount of courage to do.  At eighteen I was determined to find a cure and if I saw this blog back then I would have cried.

After she wrote out all the things that are truly affecting her happiness and well being, I asked her to do an exercise that just popped into my head.  I wrote: “Get a piece of paper.   On one side write each thing you are able to control and on the other side write the things that are totally out of your control.  Ten minutes later she had it done and sent it to me.  Lets say she had twenty problems and put each on this “in my control, out of my control” list.  About fifteen of them were on the side of “cannot control” and five on the side “can control.”  I asked her to hang it up somewhere she would be able to see each day to remind herself that she must let go of what she can not control.  Why the hell have I not done this? Most things we are worried about or sad about are totally out of our control.  We cannot control how others treat us; we can only control how we react to that treatment.  We cannot control other’s views of our invisible illness; we can choose to either give those people information on chronic pain or we can choose to just ignore their opinions.  Trust me, everyone has issues and no person has any right to judge you so I think you should choose the latter but that is up to you.  Since I gave her this exercise it has helped her.  I guess I should probably do the same exercise considering I need to practice what I preach, not to mention it was a really good idea.  It is okay to compliment yourself.  We should all do this exercise.  Not only does it help to write things out but to visually see what we can control and what we cannot can give us a lot of peace.  All readers who are daring enough  to take my advice, there is some homework for the weekend, mine as well.

There are so many ways to run away from the thoughts that do not serve you.  The best being distractions.  When you are sitting in bed thinking and thinking you tend to create more problems that do not even exist.  Please as hard as it is (I know) get up and do something you enjoy.  I do not care what that is, Real World episode: go for it.  My personal distractions are: exercise, yoga, writing, cleaning, organizing, cooking, being outside, (damn snow) listening to music, going for a drive with my daughter singing to Mumford and Sons, dancing, watching game shows, playing and teaching my daughter.  Train your brain to not think about pain.

I truly encourage anyone reading this to do my random exercise: writing down what you can control and what you cannot.

“Yesterday is history, tomorrow a mystery, today is the present hence a gift”