Fighting Parkinson’s, and Adrenaline, Dopamine, and Surrender

A few days ago, I was asked to write about Adrenaline and Dopamine again. Adrenaline and Dopamine — this is a critical balance in your Parkinson’s cure, so I said “Okay!”. Part of Parkinson’s is that you have been in Adrenaline Mode for so long, your organs and systems, including your Dopamine, have ceased to function in the normal way they used to function, and that is why you have tremors and all of the physical problems of Parkinson’s. Finding balance between your Adrenaline and Dopamine helps lead to your Parkinson’s cure!

I have written about the Adrenaline and Dopamine relationship in the past. Here is a brief summary:

Adrenaline — you are walking through the jungle and a lion jumps out and starts chasing you. When your survival mode Adrenaline kicks in and you start running, other things are required of your body. Your stomach gets the message from the brain that says, “eating is of minor importance right now so do not send me hunger pangs.” The bladder and the large intestine get the message from the brain that says, “no time to evacuate, so I need you to shut down temporarily.” The body gets the message from the brain that says, “you are being pushed to your physical limits, but I do not want to hear about your pain — shut it off.” The heart gets the message from the brain that says, “no time for joyful emotions, so do not release Dopamine, just store it for later.”

Adrenaline Mode — your mind keeps running well after the lion has stopped chasing you…and fear is what keeps your mind running, and running, and running, and running, and running, and running, and running, and running, and running, and running, and running, and running, and running, and running, and running, and running, and running, and running, and running, and running, and running, and running, and running, and running, and running, and running, and running, and running, and running, and running, and running, and running. I know, just reading this probably increased your tremors. I needed to make my point about how powerful the Adrenaline-driven mind can be in driving your symptoms.

What I am describing here is me. This is the me whose tremors were so severe I could no longer ignore all of the physical changes and limitations that I had been ignoring for the previous year (probably should say “years”). In my Parkinson’s recovery, I learned that my brain was hard-wired to fear. As soon as a situation occurred, my brain’s reflex action was to jump on the fear train and put it in full throttle.

Fear of what? Everything! Fear of: “Maybe I won’t be prepared for ______;” “Maybe I won’t know the answer to ______;” “Maybe I am not good enough for ______;” Maybe _____ (bad thing) will happen.” I think you know what I am talking about, and it is a long list. It is the list of things that could happen that we feel compelled to have all of the possible scenarios to so we will be prepared for everything that could possibly happen for the rest of our lives so that nothing will go wrong or bad and everything can happen according to plan. Fear of what? Life!

Think about it: If you are afraid of roller coasters, you don’t go on them. If you are afraid of scary movies, you don’t go to them. If you are afraid of the dark, you sleep with the lights on. When you are afraid of life, your options are limited. I could come up with two options only: 1. Continue to live in fear. 2. Face the fear and get beyond it. I knew that continuing to live in fear meant I would never be cured from Parkinson’s, so number 1 got scratched from the list. That left number 2. Face the fear and get beyond it. I had no choice.

I was not well-equipped to fight the fear. Fear was my natural reflex. I needed help, and here is how I got it.
(excerpted from my February 28, 2011 post, “Fighting Parkinson’s, and prayer.”):

“At one point, a friend pointed out that fear and negative thoughts are a constant battle with the disease. Although I had a very positive attitude that some day I would recover, fighting the disease mentally and spiritual was a daily war. My friend pointed out that God was in a much better position to handle my fears and negative thoughts and that I needed to give them away so I could stay focused on my recovery.

I meditated on this and adopted the following prayer for when I felt negative thoughts or fears coming into the forefront of my thoughts: ”Dear God, I have this fear and I do not have time for it to bring me down. I need to stay focused on positive thoughts. You are in a much better position than me to deal with negative thoughts and fears, so I am giving you this negative thought and fear and thank you for taking care of it for me.” The first day I did this, it must have been 100 times I repeated this phrase. After four or five days, the negative thoughts and fears diminished, and then they went away.”

And, also excerpted from the same post, I mediated like this:

“Hello Adrenaline. Thank you for all of the years you have run my body. Without you in charge, I would not have survived. However, all of life’s stresses that required you do be in charge are gone, and you can take a break and you do not need to run my whole body anymore. Hello Dopamine. It has been a long time. Thank you for all of those years you stayed closed and allowed Adrenaline to run my body. I appreciate that you understood it was for survival. Now that those stresses are gone, I need you to flow again. The thing is, I do not know how much Adrenaline needs to shut down and how much Dopamine needs to flow to achieve the correct mix. The two of you need to figure this out with God, and I am going to meditate on something else so I do not get in the way.”

The Qigong healed my body. The meditations healed my mind. Connecting my Inner Divine to the Higher Power Divine healed my soul, opened my heart, and allowed my Dopamine to flow. In the Peaceful Warrior, Socrates tells Dan, “I call myself a Peaceful Warrior…because the battles we fight are on the inside.”

He is correct. Although Parkinson’s symptoms manifest themselves on the outside, the battle we must fight is on the inside — healing our souls and our minds and our bodies. I knew I was a mess on the inside before Parkinson’s reared its ugly head on the outside with diagnosable symptoms. I knew I had to heal myself on the inside to make those symptoms on the outside go away. And, I knew I would be unable to accomplish this if fear continued to drive the train, so I worked hard to slay that demon, and I did…and it never has come back.

And, how did I heal myself on the inside? In large part, with forgiveness, compassion, and surrender. I began with myself, finding forgiveness and compassion for myself…then for everybody else. I surrendered my rights: my rights to be angry and frustrated and hold grudges and worry and be anxious and feel stressed and to live in fear…I decided that I needed to surrender all of these.

And surrender I did. I surrendered my need for perfection and my need for control of everything that was going on. As I was working on surrendering perfection and control, I came to a sad, but true, realization: my thought that I needed to be perfect and my thought that I needed to be in control and was in control of things were nothing more than illusions I had created in my mind. Quite frankly, I was not surrendering anything I had in the first place. However, I felt an enormous burden lifted from my shoulders.

Surrender continued to pave the way. If you look at the Adrenaline and Dopamine meditation above, it is complete surrender of control. At the end, after giving gratitude, I said, “I need you to flow again. The thing is, I do not know how much Adrenaline needs to shut down and how much Dopamine needs to flow to achieve the correct mix. The two of you need to figure this out with God, and I am going to meditate on something else so I do not get in the way.” This is complete surrender of control of the things in life over which I had no control.

And, in the final end, I let go of fear as I surrendered old-Howard, all of me, unconditionally.

That’s one of the most delightful parts of being cured. No fear of living. You can do this. I know you can!

You are worth it!!!

All my best,

Howard