The answers for healing that I have found are listed below, and I am getting there!
First: I am a busy, married, 40 sumpthin', with 4 kids, ages 15 to 8. I have fibro
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[More]myalgia, and possibly some sort of autoimmune disease. I just had a positive ANA screen Jan '08. I have heard fibro can give a positive ANA. We'll test again in March.
My mascot is the Blue Morpho Butterfly. To me, it symbolizes what beauty, vitality and strength can come from someone ordinary who works hard, even through pain, even when it is a great effort. Also, from beneath, a morpho flying or resting, looks brown and ordinary, but from above, God's view, it is a radiant, reflective blue, striking and beautiful! From God's point of view, we are all like the Morpho, each beautiful for all we have been through, worked for, accomplished and even survived.
My answers so far are basic, but for me, crucial:
1. For comfort and guidance, when you are miserable and when you don't know what to do, no medicine, no person, nothing compares to praying to Heavenly Father, or to what you acknowledge as your higher power. The more often you do this, the better you get at it. Build a relationship with Him who can truly heal the heart, mind and body. Your book of scripture is also a very powerful tool for God to communicate with you. Have a little faith and let the book fall open to where ever it does. I have been given answers to my questions countless times this way! It is powerful, peace bringing and HEALING to the soul to feel that kind of love, and no human being we rely on can deliver love quite the way He does. Any kind of spirituality will give you peace. reduce stress and will heal.
2. Exercise positively effects every system, organ, and process in our body! Even if you are disabled, have had surgery, are in pain, or are obese, there is some form of exercise you can always do, if only rehabilitation. Even just stretching daily is wonderful. It lifts our mood, helps us sleep better, lengthens tight ligaments, builds muscle, helps digestion along, too. Exercise can prevent most disease and even heal some diseases. After you get past the 1st two weeks of daily stretching, daily tai chi, daily strength training, daily walks, daily pilates or yoga, kick boxing or hippity hop dancing, or whatever you can do, you'll start looking forward to your workout for the endorphins alone. Exercise really is the cure all of all cure alls!
3. Eat the best foods, and take medicine and supplements wisely: this is KEY. Do your research, go to clinical specialists and naturopath doctors, take a class, read books and med journals. and gather info from other sufferers. For me, I discovered healing occurs when I stay low on the glycemic index. This isn't hard. It just requires some knowledge and a proper shopping list! The most amazingly energetic breakfast is an apple with peanut or almond butter, and diluted lemon juice water (this gets digestion going and cleanses body of toxins). For lunch, high fiber, low fat, low sugar meals like whole oatmeal with fruit or steamed veggies with a little lean protien keep you from feeling sleepy in the afternoon. For dinner, complex carbs, some protien and dairy are great. Low carb yogurt is one of the best desserts. Carbs get your serotonin flowing and get you ready to sleep well, and calcium and magnesium do too, and are absorbed best at night while you rest. Good fats from avocados, nuts and seeds (especially sesame and pumpkin!), olive oil, or any that is liquid at room temp, Omega-3, Flax seed, Borage or Primrose Oils are worth supplementing for the mood they give, and quality coconut oil can be used as butter in baking. This, and not eating refined flour, refined sugar or bad sweets (agave and stevia are natural sweetners you can research and try), and drinking lots of water, make me feel SO MUCH BETTER! Much less pain. It takes a few weeks though, and I suffer if I don't follow this plan. Holidays are killin' me! Bad flare up. . .
4. Fourth, when you are miserable, in pain, or having a pity party, doing something for someone else, however small, can help begin to pull you out of a flare up. Even a shut-in can call someone who is lonely, write a note or poem for a loved one, donate to a worthy cause and follow it up, listen to a child's report of what happened at school, listen to a teens' problems, dream up what to give for another's birthday, or any manner of things to delight those within your circle of influence. Here, you can provide an encouraging post or advice to one who is newly diagnosed. I know first hand that life is so difficult when we're sick, but the truth is that everyday we are alive is another divine opportunity to GIVE. THAT is what life is about. Take great care of yourself, but then don't dwell on the pain. After you see to what you need, forget yourself and go do the amazing kind of work that loves you back.
5. We heal when we decrease stress, and increase fun, happy, good thoughts and feelings, but remember we can only control ourselves. Be kind, loving and patient with yourself, your loved ones (even with their issues, even if they are difficult), and all you associate with. This is difficult when you are exhausted, in pain or depressed, but WRITE IT DOWN AS A GOAL and work toward kind thoughts about yourself and others, then your words and actions will follow. Managing ANGER is important, because we all have it, whether we let it out or no. This can be done by exercises such as a deep breath and mental reminder to control your tone of voice, counting to 20, putting what you're angry about on a sticky note in your shoe and go for a stompin' walk, and learning the very "adult" way of saying to one you're angry at, "Terrie, when you ("are 30 minutes late", "call me a name like that", "ignore me while watching TV") I feel ("really irritated", "so angry and hurt", "invisable and forgotten") so I need you to ( "call me if you're more than 10 minutes late", "know you can not do that anymore", "acknowledge me when I get home, and really listen when I speak to you and get TEVO so you can pause!") You often only get what you want when you ask for it. Expressing what you want is claiming you have worth and personal power. This is a "must have" habit that helps us get closer to the goal of being kind, loving and patient, which seems so impossible sometimes to me.
Prayer, exercise, eating wisely, giving to others, and managing all those emotions and stress with good habits: these are my philosophies for healing and having a happier life while we're on the road to health. Does this mean I can do all these perfectly all at once? No. I know I can't, however, I can keep track either mentally, or much more effective, keep track by journalling goals, where I am in these areas. I fail often in one or two areas and that's okay. It lets me know where to focus, while keeping the other principles in the back of my mind, and I don't worry or get overwhelmed about it.
For my first post I thought I would repeat some answers I have found for me, from my "About Me", because my hope is that perhaps this will help one of you. I am...