Fighting Parkinson’s, and Adrenaline, Dopamine, and Surrender, part 2

When I was near the conclusion of typing last Friday’s post, Fighting Parkinson’s, and Adrenaline, Dopamine, and Surrender, something came to me. I knew it was important, so I saved it for today for a post of its own. If you have not read Fighting Parkinson’s, and Adrenaline, Dopamine, and Surrender, I recommend that you read it prior to reading this post.

When we are faced with a stressful or dangerous situation, we go into the automatic fight-or-flight response mode. As explained in the previous post, when life is particularly stressful for a long period of time and we are running from fear, our Adrenaline-mode mind does not stop running. Eventually, we become so destroyed in our bodies that the Parkinson’s makes its way to the surface as diagnosable symptoms.

Here is what came to me on Friday: What is missing from the automatic fight-or-flight response mode formula is what happens after you get Parkinson’s: FREEZING. Fear causes freezing. With Parkinson’s, you are told there is no cure, so many people lack the automatic “fight” response. With Parkinson’s, there are physical challenges, so there is no “flight” response. Instead…you just freeze. And what does freezing do? Freezing exacerbates fear, which exacerbates freezing. As many of you know, this is a very vicious cycle.

How do you turn this around? Action. This is the third part of the faith, attitude, action, progress formula to being cured. When looking at fight-or-flight-or-freeze, the fear-based response with Parkinson’s becomes fight-or-freeze. And, when faced with fear, fighting your Parkinson’s or freezing so much with fear in your mind so that it translates to freezing in your body is a choice.

A couple of posts ago, I wrote:

“If you have faith you will be cured, then you have a “can do” attitude about your life and your recovery. With a “can do” attitude, the sky is the limit. Plus, with a “can do” attitude, you are more likely to put up with the unpleasantness of the recovery process because you want to achieve your goal of being cured and you know you can do it. With this type of “can do” attitude, you set into action the Parkinson’s Recipe for Recovery^® and you make progress every day toward curing yourself from Parkinson’s. This is the faith, attitude, action, progress formula to being cured.

If, on the other hand, you lack faith, then you have a “not so sure this is working” attitude about you life and your recovery. With a “not so sure this is working” attitude you are less likely to put up with the unpleasantness of the recovery process because you lack faith in you being cured and you lack conviction in your attitude…you do not know you can do it. With this type of “not so sure this is working” attitude, you do not set into action what it will take to be cured, and you make very little, if any progress.”

When faced with your fear of Parkinson’s and all the things that are said about the negative path it takes you on, do you fight the good fight or do you freeze and have the Parkinson’s devour you? That is your choice. Doing nothing (freezing) is still doing something, and you will get devoured. It doesn’t have to be that way!

It is time to fight. When the lion was chasing you, you ran from fear. In fact, your Adrenaline-mode mind kept running from fear for so long after the lion gave up the chase, that the Parkinson’s symptoms surfaced. When the Parkinson’s symptoms surfaced and you got the Parkinson’s gloom and doom diagnosis, you froze from fear. It is time to fight. Clearly, fleeing and freezing do nothing to help you in your life or your Parkinson’s.

Here are your weapons:
1. Faith. Faith that you will be cured from Parkinson’s.
2. Attitude. Your “can do” attitude of being your cure.
3. Action. The Parkinson’s Recipe for Recovery^®.
4. Surrender. Yes, I know it seems odd to surrender at the beginning of the fight, but you need to surrender some things to succeed. Surrender your attachment to perfection. Surrender your attachment to having to control the outcomes (you can control efforts, not outcomes). Surrender your fear to your Higher Power.

As you can see, surrender is a powerful weapon. The heart says, “I surrender. I know I will be cured.” The mind says, “you cannot be cured, and even if you could be cured, you are not doing things perfectly enough, and you are not controlling things enough, so you will not be successful.” And this causes fear. And this fear causes freezing. And this freezing causes getting devoured instead of getting cured.

Open your heart and know you will be cured. Look at life through your heart, like a child. A child is just being in the moment…filled with love and gratitude, and contentment, and joy and happiness and compassion…a child has a life in balance, existing in the moment. Open your heart and exist in the moment. Fear is in the past and in the future. Be in the moment and have faith. Surrender the fear and un-freeze your life.

And fight your Parkinson’s. It is the path to your cure.

You are worth it!!!

All my best,

Howard