A New Year's Resolution: Every time I cook a meal or whip up a dessert that's especially yummy, I take a bite, look at my husband Jeff, make a sour face and proclaim, "OHMYGOD that's really, really bad. You might as well save yourself from trying it, and just let me take care of the rest of it." Sometimes I'm overly dramatic and pretend I'm gagging. And then I burst into laughter - that's when Jeff knows it's a hoax. So for 2014 I'm vowing to keep a straight face at least once and let Jeff think the food is actually disgusting. Which it isn't. Which leaves more for me... ha!
Autoimmune Disorders: I have psoriasis, and it's usually not uncontrolled because I eat healthily and make an organic scrub and body lotion that keeps it well under control. But a few weeks ago my feather mattress topper started to fail. Feathers were poking out of the top, through the sheet, and poking me wherever I laid. The result of all this poking is that I'm now in a full-blown psoriasis event - ugh. I have never experienced so many multiple lesions on so many different parts of my body, and I gotta say it's making me miserable! So we threw the mattress topper away but my body is still in crisis mode; it will probably take another month to get the situation under control and make my body think there aren't any foreign invaders to defend, and being an impatient person, this is my idea of Hell!
I'm sharing this experience so that those of you who also suffer from an autoimmune disorder can hopefully learn to look for triggers, especially if you have your disorder pretty well under control. I rarely use the word "cure" for any disease, disorder, whatever-ails-you because any one of our cells can go wonky at any given moment given the right (wrong?) environment, and having an autoimmune disorder means never being "cured." But we can certainly keep our disorders under control through a whole foods diet and using meditation as a stress-reliever and moving our muscles whether walking or strenuous exercise. But when the autoimmune triggers go into overdrive, we should become detectives and search for what set it off. In my case it was clearly the feathers - and one of my dogs has a bad habit of jumping on my bare legs to claw at me when she's hungry! - but nightshade vegetables (tomatoes, eggplant, potatoes - not sweet potatoes, though - and so on) can also trigger autoimmune responses in many people. Petroleum products in skincare lotions - Vaseline is a petroleum product, for instance - trigger awful reactions in many of us who are autoimmune, as do certain medications. So think about what you may have eaten, or used ala personal products, or even what you may have worn since many fibers used in clothing are also petroleum based, stop eating/using/wearing that product, and see if your disorder becomes more manageable. The results won't be instant but will be well-worth the exclusion of your trigger!
My Biggest Fear: My biggest fear is not death. Since I've had the privilege of traveling to the Otherworld, I know death is not final but rather a beginning of yet another life-phase. Nope, my biggest fear is being homeless. I can't imagine not having adequate shelter or a clean bathroom complete with bath and shower, or a refrigerator, or heat or airconditioning, or a comfy bed, etc. So I've taken that fear and made a plan: if Jeff and I ever experience the horrendous fate of being homeless and completely poor, we'll take his last paycheck and buy a tent. Between the car and tent, we should be fine as far as shelter is concerned, and we'll park/pitch on unused land...somewhere. We haven't thought that part through :D. Jeff is quite concerned about our retirement years that are coming up quickly on us, but when I told him about my biggest fear and my thoughts concerning shelter, he actually has been much more calm about our future. I reckon I gave him a small measure of hope, as bleak as that may sound right now as I type this from my desktop computer in my nice, warm home with supper cooking on the stove.
So take your biggest fear and make a worse-case scenario plan. Embrace it, own it, hope to the universe that it never, ever happens but if it should, you'll have a backup plan. Hopefully the backup plan will alleviate any future concern - even just a little! - and you can live your life to its fullness without being constantly afraid of the next crisis. Because the next crisis is just around the corner - it's all part of life, and stress and worry are meaningless in the grand scheme of things, aren't they? How many times have you gone through a crisis and thought, "Survived another one - ha! Don't know why I was so worried about that...!" Take the fear, plan for it, hope it doesn't happen, place it in the back of your thoughts, and live a wonderful life!
And I have nothing but the best, most loving thoughts toward each of you reading this - let's make 2014 a year in which we've healed each other and our way-too-chaotic world~
Autoimmune Disorders: I have psoriasis, and it's usually not uncontrolled because I eat healthily and make an organic scrub and body lotion that keeps it well under control. But a few weeks ago my feather mattress topper started to fail. Feathers were poking out of the top, through the sheet, and poking me wherever I laid. The result of all this poking is that I'm now in a full-blown psoriasis event - ugh. I have never experienced so many multiple lesions on so many different parts of my body, and I gotta say it's making me miserable! So we threw the mattress topper away but my body is still in crisis mode; it will probably take another month to get the situation under control and make my body think there aren't any foreign invaders to defend, and being an impatient person, this is my idea of Hell!
I'm sharing this experience so that those of you who also suffer from an autoimmune disorder can hopefully learn to look for triggers, especially if you have your disorder pretty well under control. I rarely use the word "cure" for any disease, disorder, whatever-ails-you because any one of our cells can go wonky at any given moment given the right (wrong?) environment, and having an autoimmune disorder means never being "cured." But we can certainly keep our disorders under control through a whole foods diet and using meditation as a stress-reliever and moving our muscles whether walking or strenuous exercise. But when the autoimmune triggers go into overdrive, we should become detectives and search for what set it off. In my case it was clearly the feathers - and one of my dogs has a bad habit of jumping on my bare legs to claw at me when she's hungry! - but nightshade vegetables (tomatoes, eggplant, potatoes - not sweet potatoes, though - and so on) can also trigger autoimmune responses in many people. Petroleum products in skincare lotions - Vaseline is a petroleum product, for instance - trigger awful reactions in many of us who are autoimmune, as do certain medications. So think about what you may have eaten, or used ala personal products, or even what you may have worn since many fibers used in clothing are also petroleum based, stop eating/using/wearing that product, and see if your disorder becomes more manageable. The results won't be instant but will be well-worth the exclusion of your trigger!
My Biggest Fear: My biggest fear is not death. Since I've had the privilege of traveling to the Otherworld, I know death is not final but rather a beginning of yet another life-phase. Nope, my biggest fear is being homeless. I can't imagine not having adequate shelter or a clean bathroom complete with bath and shower, or a refrigerator, or heat or airconditioning, or a comfy bed, etc. So I've taken that fear and made a plan: if Jeff and I ever experience the horrendous fate of being homeless and completely poor, we'll take his last paycheck and buy a tent. Between the car and tent, we should be fine as far as shelter is concerned, and we'll park/pitch on unused land...somewhere. We haven't thought that part through :D. Jeff is quite concerned about our retirement years that are coming up quickly on us, but when I told him about my biggest fear and my thoughts concerning shelter, he actually has been much more calm about our future. I reckon I gave him a small measure of hope, as bleak as that may sound right now as I type this from my desktop computer in my nice, warm home with supper cooking on the stove.
So take your biggest fear and make a worse-case scenario plan. Embrace it, own it, hope to the universe that it never, ever happens but if it should, you'll have a backup plan. Hopefully the backup plan will alleviate any future concern - even just a little! - and you can live your life to its fullness without being constantly afraid of the next crisis. Because the next crisis is just around the corner - it's all part of life, and stress and worry are meaningless in the grand scheme of things, aren't they? How many times have you gone through a crisis and thought, "Survived another one - ha! Don't know why I was so worried about that...!" Take the fear, plan for it, hope it doesn't happen, place it in the back of your thoughts, and live a wonderful life!
And I have nothing but the best, most loving thoughts toward each of you reading this - let's make 2014 a year in which we've healed each other and our way-too-chaotic world~
