This week, I spoke with many people and received many emails regarding my post Fighting Parkinson’s, and fear…and FEAR. What I learned is that for the most part, when we drilled down to the real fear, it was not fear that the Parkinson’s Recipe for Recovery® did not work or would not work for them, and it was not from lack of faith in their Higher Power to help guide them through to recovery. Ultimately, it came down to fear that they would not be able to persevere through the physical “worries” long enough to “get to the other side of the worries” and reach their full recovery.
Four years ago today, on October 19, 2009, about three weeks into doing the Recipe, here is what I wrote in my Parkinson’s Daily Journal:
“10/19/09. 4:00 Monday, oh, boy! It is cold today, 48 degrees. Yesterday evening, my kidneys and lower back began to hurt. I think it was the lentils doing a cleansing. As I was reading about lentils and kidneys, many articles referred to lentils as being used to relieve constipation. Of course, I am having the pleasure of constipation today…go figure. This is very discouraging…Even though each day I feel worse, I refuse to accept that I cannot get better. Maintaining where I am today is not the future I envision…we will see.”
Things really change in four years. Today’s temperature is supposed to be 86 degrees. Oh, yes, and I am 40 months being cured from Parkinson’s. As I have strongly reiterated in the previous five posts, faith is extremely important, and quieting your mind is very important.
There I was with kidney and lower back pain three weeks into doing the Recipe, and how did I look at it? “I think it was the lentils doing a cleansing.” What else was going on? “Of course, I am having the pleasure of constipation today…go figure. This is very discouraging…” The constipation bothered me, and I did not get it under control until late January of 2010, some three months later. However, the point I want to drive home today is where was my mind (the place of fear and FEAR) and where was my heart (the place of faith):
“Even though each day I feel worse, I refuse to accept that I cannot get better. Maintaining where I am today is not the future I envision…we will see.”
I envisioned a better future than where I was, I accepted that each day I was feeling worse, and I refused to accept that I could not get better. There was no fear and there was no FEAR. Why? Because I was strong in my faith. On a coaching call a couple of weeks ago, I was told of a book where the author referred to faith as FAITH, Full Assurance In The Heart. That pretty well sums it up.
If you live your life in your mind, then your fear appears real even though, as stated by Will Smith in After Earth: “Fear is not real. The only place that fear can exist is in our thoughts of the future. It is a product of our imagination, causing us to fear things that do not at present and may not ever exist.”
If you live in your life in your heart, then faith becomes Full Assurance In The Heart. With this kind of assurance and the fact that it is in your heart, it is with you always…you just have to close your eyes, quiet your mind, and look inside yourself.
So, when you hit a bump in the road, instead of being afraid and looking outside yourself and reaching for something, why not turn your attention inward. Look inside your heart and reach for something…feel the power of faith and hope and joy and compassion and gratitude and happiness and forgiveness and contentment and recovery. Trust in yourself, trust in the Recipe, trust in your Higher Power. Look deep inside yourself, and say:
Parkinson’s is curable.
I am my own Parkinson’s cure.
I am halting, slowing, and reversing the progression of my Parkinson’s.
I am extraordinary.
I am recovery.”
AND, I AM WORTH IT!!!
All my best,
Howard
To have the faith you had Howard while being the first to trudge the path to recovery is truly remarkable. I have to learn not be so fearful of tomorrows and let tomorrow worry about itself. Unwavering faith that I am on the right path and calming my overactive mind is key. Thanks howard for this insightful post.
Thank you Howard for sharing your most intimate path with us – it allows me to do so also. I now have a new sheet for my mirror, for every morning when I wake with headings; FEAR , FAITH, TRUST and then the I AM’S ending with I am WORTH IT. Your hand and heart reach out to us daily, we have but to accept. Blessings, Marilyn
As always, Howard, your post is timely, supportive, insightful and inspiring…. I am so grateful….
As I reflect, faith, for me comes down to fully accepting my present truth….. my heart knows this… so, for me, FAITH might more aptly be Full Acceptance In The Heart…
Yes! I whole-heartedly agree! Another good description of FAITH! Thanks, Penny! Marie
Thank you Howard I cast my fears aside and am going to meditate and feel my heart. Thank you for the inspiring message
I have been sick on the tummy this morning having to tell my sister I don’t want to have any more contact with her as its too stressful. I love her but not her anger. I chose to do this after years of being frightened of her calls. I am not afraid I won’t heal from Pk I am afraid of my sisters anger over a lifetime. It was hard to do but felt I had to break ties. I want to recover and this relationship felt like it was holding me down and sick. A hard thing to do letting her go. In the name of nurturing myself and healing I did it
Helen I applaud your courage! I can only imagine how difficult your decision must have been. We all owe it to our recovery to surround ourselves with only supportive and positive people. Anger has no place in recovery; well done knowing you are worth more!
Thank you linda for your kind words of encouragement it was hard but I know in time I will see clearly how and why I had to break this tie for my healing and self worth. Love helen
Thank you Karen I feel like crying when I hear your words of encouragement. For my life my parents always asked me to take care of my sister and to turn the other cheek so this I always tried to do. Not good advice I know now at the grand age of 62 ! Freedom is my essence and goal. Inner peace freedom and joy thank you
dear helen,
love and blessings to you for being so brave while also working on your recovery
i understand that feeling in the tummy when trying to speak your truth
you are an inspiration to me today and i am sure to many others
you are worth it
as howard always reminds us
thnkyou again helen
and as always thanks howard
Dear Helen,
I do not know you but I know what it is like to be afraid of a family member’s anger. You are so brave to share your experience with all of us. Sending blessings to you that your courage will help to ease the fear that exists in your relationship with your sister and also blessings that you have helped to heal that relationship, even if it doesn’t feel like it at this moment. I don’t think you are letting her go, rather you are letting go of your fear (and FEAR). As Howard says, you are extraordinary. Be gentle with yourself, it is very scary to be brave.
I just ended two days with tears and the words “this is so frustrating”, referring to my inability to complete some small task. So this post sharing your previous discouragement is particularly compelling and instructive for me. You clearly set up the battle between the heart of faith and the mind, where fear resides.
I want to etch this thought in my mind to replace frustration and discouragement:
“Even though each day I feel worse, I refuse to accept that I cannot get better. Maintaining where I am today is not the future I envision”
How beautifully your way of thinking meshes with this, from a book I am reading:
(God speaking) “Anxiety is the result of envisioning the future without Me. If you must consider upcoming events, follow these rules: 1) Do not linger in the future, because anxieties sprout up like mushrooms when you wander there. 2) Remember the promise of My continual Presence; include Me in any imagery that comes to mind…. The reality of My Presence with you, now and forevermore, outshines any fantasy you could ever imagine.”
Howard, thank you for a gem of a post! You are most definitely helping us with our mental discipline. You have been where we are. You know what we deal with. You know how to overcome. How blessed we are to have you!
Howard
Once again you come to our aide with a life preserver for us to cling to, as we struggle and fight for mind discipline. We look to you as one who has conquered the constant battle and won the fight , showing us it is possible to keep the faith though it is so easy to fall into the trap of fear as it continually rears its ugly head! Thank you for keeping us on track and showing us the way! Up until recently Anxiety has been a real struggle for me based on fear but I’m finally learning how to focus more on faith. We are told that with faith we can move mountains.
Melanie
This poem and the guidance of Tara Brach have been so helpful on my healing journey:
TRUSTING PRANA (Danna Faulds, via Buddhist Teacher/Clinical Psychologist, Tara Brach, from her free talks –www.TaraBrach.com)
TRUSTING PRANA
Trust the energy that
Courses through you Trust,
Then take surrender even deeper. Be the energy.
Don’t push anything away. Follow each
Sensation back to its source
In vastness and pure presence.
Emerge so new, so fresh that
You don’t know who you are.
Welcome in the season of
Monsoons. Be the bridge
Across the flooded river
And the surging torrent
Underneath. Be unafraid of consummate wonder.
Be the energy and blaze a
Trail across the clear night
Sky like lightning. Dare to
Be your own illumination.
Beautiful, Barry, thank you for sharing. Many of Tara Brach’s meditations (and others) are also available on the free Insight Timer app, available for iPhone and Android devices. I also use this app to time my Jumper Cable (provides two-minute prompts to change fingers!), Standing meditation, Brain Vibration Chanting, and Near hand-far hand exercises. It connects to a wonderfully supportive meditation community and I am a member of the “Be Here Now” subgroup where I find myself humbled by the wisdom. For the statistically minded it keeps track of all meditations.
I love who I am
AND
I love who I am becoming
thnx so much to howard and this healing recovery community for all that you share
i have felt incredibly alone in this experience and logging onto your words–wise, compassionate, brave, loving–enriches and fortifies me,
i have been thinking recently of a dear friend whose daughter was diagnosed with slight brain damage and dyslexia when she was a child over a decade ago.
the prognosis was that she would probably never read, go to normal school or function properly in the mainstream.
used to draw and paint in those days and believed an image could capture a hope for the future. i painted a picture of a beautiful young woman–the one i knew she would become–and called it blessings in disguise.
despite all kinds of pressure and persuasion my friend never medicated her daughter who ended up going to a mainstream school–where she received a lot of help, won multiple awards and is now working full time. my friend gave her daughter enormous continual support, which she needed, but, despite great difficulty, she never lost the belief that everything would be ok.
her faith has paid off!
the picture i made of her daughter still hangs on her bedroom door n it turned out her journey was full of blessings in disguise.
i share this hopeful story with you all my friends as i try to find faith and the blessings in disguise for my own journey, to face and fight the fear that arises every day now
perhaps we can all make a mental picture of how and where we would like to be
as we make this faith-filled walk to recovery
many thnx again and love to all
Lovely linda that is so moving. I am quietly letting my mind make the changes it needs buoyed up by Howards advice and these wonderful shared posts. Love to all we are not alone.
I feel I must send to all you wonderful people a little true story that I read today giving us a message that we should never be afraid to tackle what may seem to be an insurmountable task: it’s all in our imaginations.
A young man went out into the forest in order to meditate. Suddenly he sees a terrible, threatening LION before him! He wants to scream for help but his tongue becomes paralyzed. He picked up his feet and ran for his life. Then he thought, “I have come into the forest to contemplate the surveillance of the Creator on all my being – the Divine Providence – and now I find that a mere lion is more frightening and more tangible than all the faith that I was supposed to have had!” So he encouraged himself and returned to the very spot which he had left before. He came closer to the “lion”, and, behold, he recognizes that it is the stump of a tree that in the darkness had appeared to him in the shape of a lion.
He told this to his mentor and teacher, who responded: Sometimes people compare imaginations, angers and fears to terrible lions but the truth is, there is no reality, it is all in our imaginations. It seems to us that something terrible and awesome is hiding away and ready to jump out and devour us at any minute, but it is all in our imaginations.
The bottom line is, that no one of us is challenged with a task that for us is insurmountable. The Creator knows with what potentials He has blessed us with. If we answer to the challenge, we will be blessed with infinite rewards. If we are lazy or indifferent to the challenge, of if we are full of complaints that the Creator (who is bountiful in His Mercy) is punishing us, we will have to face the consequences.
Good luck and best wishes to you all for your health and speedy recovery.
Beautiful story nml for michal.thankyou.
Hello all. Howard’s approach is a practical application of the Law of Attraction as it is being taught by Abraham via Ester Hicks. It does work, It can’t not work if you really devote to it. Howard figured it out instinctively, without knowing that he was following the law of the universe, which is a physical law, just like law of gravity. Your reality is a mirror of your beliefs. If you have doubts, that will be the major obstacle, which you must overcome if you want recovery. To understand more you can listen Abraham-Hicks on youtube. Start with health/food topics. And when you do understand and believe, Howard’s program will be a god given gift for you. Everything depends only on you, circumstances don’t matter. Have open mind and good luck. Remember,not long ago people were burned on fire for stating that earth is round. You would have been declared insane 50+ years ago if you had tried to explain internet. Just like young inventor Boyan Slat, 19, said: “Human history is basically a list of things that couldn’t be done, and then were done.”
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