Fighting Parkinson’s, and how fear impedes recovery

We have discussed many times how faith is important in this recovery. It is faith at the beginning, “I know I will recover,” that sends us down our path toward recovery. Faith gets us started, and faith helps us through the hardest of times. However, when our faith gets shaky in the face of fear, and fear takes over, the fear impedes our recovery.

The best example of how fear impedes our recovery is to return to my broken arm analogy:

You are 10 years old and you fall and break your arm. Your mother takes you to the doctor. The doctor says, “No problem. I am going to set your arm in place, put a cast on it, and when you come back here for your next visit, I am going to remove the cast and your arm will be better, 100% as good as new.”

Now let’s look at what happens in the healing process:

1. You have faith in the doctor (soul).

2. Because you have faith in the doctor, you do not worry that your arm is not going to heal (mind).

3. As a result of 1 and 2, you do not obsess about your arm, and then, your body heals your arm (body).

Now, let’s change this up a bit. Suppose the doctor said it would take 10 weeks for your arm to heal. At 7 weeks, you and your family and friends notice some terrible changes in recovery from the broken arm. Your arm has shrunk inside the cast, and it smells bad, and when you put the long stick inside the cast to scratch you arm which now itches all the time, it comes out covered in goo and it smells bad.

Enter fear…and FEAR (False Evidence Appearing Real). You start looking at these external happenings, let’s call them symptoms, and you experience fear. It is the fear that says, “Be logical, if your arm is shrinking, you are experiencing atrophy. If it smells bad, you must have an infection. If the scratching stick is covered in goo and smells bad, you are not healing your arm…it is getting worse.” If you know anything about a broken arm, then you know this is actually FEAR…it is 100% False Evidence Appearing Real.

However, if you listen to the fear and you listen to the people who are telling you that you look worse so you must be getting worse, then you cut off the cast, and as you hear the bones cracking as you arm falls to your side and you feel the pain as your arm re-breaks, you realize that giving into fear has impeded the recovery of your broken arm, and you have go all the way back to the beginning to begin the healing process again. Somehow, the fear made you completely forget that for the previous 7 weeks, your arm was healing from the inside.

Moving this to our lives, you just stop doing the Recipe for Recovery out of fear. Somehow, the fear made you forget all of the progress you had made in your recovery, and you just stop…and that stopping opens the door for what you feared, “I am getting worse,” to actually come true.

That is how fear impedes recovery. Fear is so powerful, it not only impedes recovery, but as in the broken arm example and in your Parkinson’s recovery, it sends you backwards, and that backwards spiral sometimes sends you all the way back to the beginning of your recovery process. Yes, fear is a powerful weapon in Parkinson’s arsenal, but please remember, FAITH trumps fear.

If you are doing the Recipe for Recovery, you are doing Qigong to cleanse toxins and energize your brain, you are standing to allow your body to open blockages and balance energy flow, you are chanting and stimulating brain energy and activity, you are doing Jin Shin Jyutsu to energize your organ meridians, you are eating healthier food, you are meditating to calm your mind, and you are connecting with your Higher Power to help you maintain your faith in your recovery. You are healing yourself from the inside out.

And, while you are healing yourself from the inside out, you sometimes will look worse on the outside because you are pushing the toxins outward, and you need your energy on the inside, so sometimes your tremors look worse on the outside or there is extra stiffness or pain. And people may tell you that you look worse and what you are doing is not working. Have they had Parkinson’s? Have they recovered from Parkinson’s? Are they inside your body and your mind and your soul? So why do they know more about what is happening inside of you just because they are looking at what is happening outside of you?

They don’t. You have to have the courage and strength to stay on your path of recovery.

Fear impedes recovery. Faith gives you the strength to defeat fear and continue your progress on your path toward full recovery. Each step you take on the path is recovery in and of itself. Recovery is a journey. If you can look inside yourself, have faith in yourself and the process, trust that you know what is going on inside you and you know you have the power to heal yourself, then you can travel down the recovery path and find joy in the journey — joy in the fact that you are traveling the road less traveled to a destination the experts says is unreachable…and you know in your heart you will reach the destination of full recovery one day.

Keep the faith; defeat the fear. Each day you do something positive to fight your Parkinson’s, you are recovering!

Aren’t you worth it?

All my best,

Howard