After my last post, I have gotten feedback about how difficult it is for some people to find acceptance in their heart regarding their symptoms. Anger and frustration over the symptoms seem to be the prevailing feelings. My response has been to look at Cause 1 in the Recipe. If anger and frustration are strong enough to assist your symptoms in surfacing as diagnosable symptoms, then they are strong enough to keep your symptoms in place and make them worse. Practice forgiveness and compassion, and transform your anger.
Please take a look at Cause 1 in the Parkinson’s Recipe for Recovery®. It says, “1. Qi and Blood Deficiency, which is caused by emotional stress, anger, frustration, and resentment.” Your blood is deficient because of too many toxins from a weakened liver, so it is not carrying the right amount of oxygen and nutrients, thus making your Qi (life energy) deficient.
And, this is fueled by emotional stress, anger, frustration, and resentment. If you are looking at your symptoms and you are angry, frustrated, and resentful, then not only are you sending a very negative message to the Universe as discussed in my last post, but you literally are fueling the symptoms and fanning the flames. As you can see, this only leads to your symptoms getting worse.
I have discussed this with people over the last week and have sent them to some previous posts for more in-depth information. I am going to pull some of that information and reprint it here along with some new information. Here goes:
Anger. Many people ask me what to do about the anger they are feeling inside themselves. As you know, anger is at the top of my list of the three causes that bring Parkinson’s symptoms to the diagnosable surface. Part of Parkinson’s recovery requires letting go of anger. You know, that precious anger that you feel you have the right to hold, to nurture, and to call your own…the anger that, ultimately, you turn on yourself. Yes, THAT anger. You need to send it on its way.
Anger is like drinking milk that is beyond its expiration date and has gone sour. Stay with me on this one. You went to the grocery store yesterday and bought a quart of milk. Your mind was wandering and you did not look at the expiration date. You got home and threw away the receipt which went out with the garbage and was taken away early this morning. You open the milk, pour a glass, and it is sour and disgusting and starts to make you sick. You look at the expiration date and it was two weeks ago.
Anger. Here it comes. You are angry at the manufacturer for having expired milk on the shelf. You are angry at the stocking person at the store who left it on the shelf. You are angry at the cashier because she took your money when the milk was expired. Ultimately, you turn the anger on yourself because you should have checked the date and you should not have thrown out the receipt, and there will be no justice after you have been wronged.
And, whose fault is this? In the end, you decide this is your fault because you were not perfect, you could have prevented the situation, you were asleep at the switch, and now you have sour milk. At this point, you have two choices: 1. Continue to drink the milk; or 2. Let it go…throw it away.
If you continue to drink the milk, who is harmed? The manufacturer? No. The stocking person? No. The cashier? No. You? Yes. Only you are harmed. But you continue drinking the milk and harming yourself because it is your milk and you paid for it and you never will get your money back. And this is why anger is like drinking milk that is beyond its expiration date and has gone sour. You are the only one who is harmed if you do not let it go.
So, look inside yourself and visit where the anger comes from. It could be current events or events from long ago. The bottom line is this: holding onto your anger only hurts you! Forgiveness is a gift you can give yourself to help let go of anger. That’s right, a gift you can give yourself.
Whoever it is that made you angry, forgive them. By the act of forgiveness, you are taking away the power they have over you. You are giving away the negative emotions that are destroying your health and feeding your Parkinson’s. Forgiveness does not “let the person off the hook.” Whatever it is that they did to have you hanging onto anger all this time, they will have to live with themselves throughout life, and after.
However, by giving forgiveness, you release their hold on you, and you throw away the anger. Forgiveness is like saying, “I have been carry this burden, this negativity, far too long, and I am lifting it off of my shoulders and letting it go because I do not want it anymore.” And you become free from the anger attached to the words or events that caused the anger in the first place.
You do not need to give the forgiveness to them personally as oftentimes the person is no longer presently in your life or has passed away. The forgiveness comes from your heart and can be given as a directed feeling from your heart during a time of quiet contemplation. If it truly comes from your heart unconditionally, it can be as simple as a feeling that says, “(Whomever), I forgive you for (whatever it is the person said or did).” Sit with the feeling and allow the previous feeling of anger to transform to compassion and forgiveness within your heart…and then let the anger go.
One more important thing to know here: At some point, since the anger comes back to you and you are directing the anger at yourself, forgiveness begins with you…be compassionate to yourself and forgive yourself for whatever it is in which you find yourself angry at you. Be compassionate and forgiving to yourself first, and you will feel so liberated in your life that finding compassion and forgiveness for others will be easier. This is a transformation that helps pave the way to you curing yourself of Parkinson’s.
Cause 1 of the causes that bring Parkinson’s symptoms to the diagnosable surface: “1. Qi and Blood Deficiency, which is caused by emotional stress, anger, frustration, and resentment.” Look at some descriptive phases for anger:
“His blood was boiling.”
“Steam was coming out of her ears.”
“His face was red with rage.”
“If looks could kill, her glare would have killed me.”
When I look at these descriptive phrases for anger, one word comes to mind: TOXIC. Anger is toxic. It is why anger negatively impacts the liver and leads to “Qi (your life energy) and Blood Deficiency.” If your blood is boiling so much that steam is coming out of your ears, it is unreasonable to believe that a weakened Parkinson’s liver getting fed impulses from a low-energy Parkinson’s brain is any match for your anger.
Give yourself the gifts of forgiveness and compassion, and let go of the anger. The anger is literally eating you up alive and it fuels your Parkinson’s. You will be amazed at the shift in your emotions when you say, “Okay, instead of choosing to be angry, I am choosing to be compassionate (first for myself, and then for the other person), and I am offering the gift of forgiveness from my heart.”
Now that the holiday season has ended, the first gifts of this new year that you need to give are the gifts of forgiveness and compassion to yourself. Put them in a box, wrap them in beautiful paper, and top them with a lovely bow. Each time you feel anger starting to rise within you, begin the transformation by taking a deep breath and slowly opening your gift box filled with forgiveness and compassion. It is the gift you need to “re-gift” to yourself and others throughout the new year.
You will feel the shift from physical and emotional turmoil to spiritual calm and peace. It is a lovely transformation, and one that I highly recommend.
If the milk is sour, don’t drink it. Instead, be forgiving and compassionate to yourself and let it go…throw it away. And smile.
You are worth it!!!
All my best,
Howard
I really like this Howard, anger hurts us the most. We have to let go of the anger and fear. As we do, our symptoms will let go of us. We all know this is true. If a Sicilian like me can do it, so can you!
Howard,
This is all so true!
My issue is … I want to forgive, and I think I have forgiven – and then I find myself thinking about the person or event and I realize that I am still angry.
Any suggestions to help me change this?
Blessings
Barbara
Hi Barbara,
Here are two posts I wrote on forgiveness:
https://www.fightingparkinsonsdrugfree.com/2014/08/14/fighting-parkinsons-and-practicing-forgiveness/.
https://www.fightingparkinsonsdrugfree.com/2014/08/26/fighting-parkinsons-and-practicing-forgiveness-part-2/.
They should assist you in letting go of the anger in your mind and feeling true forgiveness in your heart.
Love and blessings,
Howard
What helps me Barbara is to realize that the person is another yourself, as we are all One, then to forgive yourself for creating the situation and forgive them for being involved. See the love in them as in yourself, surround them with love, release and let go. It may have to be done over and over until it “takes.” Love is all there is! (Beatles song?)
Blessings, love you, Lohren
Thank you, Lohren. This is really helpful – the reminder that we are all One and that many things need to be practised multiple times before they “take”. Now I see that once I have these truths firmly lodged in my heart, emotions such as frustration and anger actually become redundant.
I am not angry at any one person. I am angry that I have Parkinson’s. I guess I must be angry at God. I just have generalized anger, and it seems to be my default emotion. Imagine that, angry at God! I can’t seem to find my peace with Him.
Hi Judy, I hear you friend. God and I have many battles and there is only one voice giving out. When I cry the hardest at him and tell him how broken I am and how can I recover when I can’t get past the overwhelm, that’s when the peace comes over me. Then I ask him why do I have to get so upset to feel his peace surround me. As Howard would say, God is in a better position than we are to handle the negative emotions we hold. For me, I keep saying to him, I’m on this chosen path because I believe in the power of my soul, the part of you that’s within me, so why are you taking so long. It’s back to surrender and trust and I do frustration and anger very well too. :-)xx
Hi, Karen. Thank-you for those sympathetic words. It’s good hearing from a fellow passenger!
Hi Howard, oh did I need this post! 🙂
Bless you and big love to all warriors.
Karen xx
Thank you for this post, Howard. Over the last few days I’ve watched The Divine Matrix by Gregg Braden (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y0OexbB-EXM) which Lohren recommended back in Oct 2014. It’s deepened my understanding of everything you teach us. In particular it’s helped me to get to grips with what you’ve explained about the connection between what we send out to the universe and what the universe sends back to us. I have some days when I feel down about the limits that Parkinson’s places on my life but most of the time I take the view that things are what they are. I most certainly wouldn’t want to have missed out on lots of things I’ve learned and experienced as a result of having Parkinson’s, of following the Recipe, and of being involved with this community of amazing people. I’m enormously grateful for having learned to quiet my chattering mind and to start experiencing the feeling of moving into my heart.
I send my love and good wishes to all you lovely people here.
Cheers Anita, just spent the afternoon watching that link you posted ( thank you Lohren too) Brilliant! Loved it! Jimmy would love it too. Big love Anita.xx
Thanks Howard. Your posts are very helpful and timely. Sometimes I don’t realise how much I need help until it is pointed out.
parkinson invites you to look inside
this is a good time to observe and analyze ourselves, the reason why you live in the drama, in the judment, the continuing struggle and fear, it is because you do not know yourself, your looking out the recognition and love.
everything around you, things that happen to you day by day, are the perfect reflect of what dwells within each of us , nothing comes into your life without having been sustained and created from some point from your own consciousness, so it is time to take responsibility for your own life from the unconditional love and act upon it, if you want change, change your first.
Do not justify your reality but saying you’re a victim of others or life, think differently and act differently, that created a big change, is the strength of the new energy called love
Is the loving acceptance and open heart, what opens the doors of The Mastery of Love ,, is when love, will make act of presence, because love is what sustains the universe and is the force that holds each seed of creation. so when you perceive from your consciousness the absence of love in the experiences of life, the door of suffering is it opens, find the language of love in every experience is an act of inner silence, and deep compassion, that’s when the universe opens the door to understanding,
when, from the heart you allow yourself to accept and listen and apply the greatest mastery of love is only then that we’ve learned all that have to teach the suffering, in that moment the suffering has no meaning and disappears.
HOWEVER, in order to open the consciousness it is necessary to raise the vibrations of emotions you hold daily vibrate stop victimization and judgment, anger or fear to live with joy in your heart
is this the wisdom of the soul that invite you to look at the depth of your being, that which brings peace and joy is definitely the direction the soul want to take. follow yourself, hear the true feelings of your heart and then you will realize that life is simple, the soul seeks happiness THROUGH love and simplicity, allow yourself to just be, just exist
Fabulous Jimmy, you should be writing a book with all the deep wisdom you share. I also feel Howard should do the same as his weekly blogs alone are inspired through God. Hope Parky being kind to you Jimmy. 🙂 xx
Karen thank you for your nice words, I have learned a lot from Howard. especially to see the parkinson, not as a threat but as a teacher. not with fear or angry but as a transformative experience,
I strive to live in the present moment, but it is not always easy! Not when I’m experiencing loss cordination, tremors, loss of balance, loss of dexterity, walking weakness, slowness, stiffness ..
however I accept this experience in my life from the perspective not of suffering but from the incondicionnal love, this loving acceptance creates coherence and harmony with the present moment, with life .God has chosen his best warriors to the hardest battles. I know that this experience left behind, as everything that happens in this wonderful journey called life.
meanwhile I open my consciousness so that from there, be enormously grateful for all i have, it’s easy to see how much I have to thank at this moment . I have a wonderful daughter, I have three brothers impressive. I have my mother alive,I have life, I have experienced an incredible spiritual growth, and I can be happy from within me, the only time we have to be happy is now,in the present moment, not tomorrow, not in the future, just today, be happy now
Jimmy, I’ve just watched the link that Anita posted above-Gregg Braden. It’s 4 hours long but you will love it. Keep the faith warrior.xx
Wonderful heart-fulfilling words Howard…I am so nurtured by you, your wisdom, and your coaching support….thank you, too, for setting up this opportunity for members of our PD community to chat and share experiences and insights too. Together, we have such strength…more opportunity for learning and healing… and in dealing authentically with fear…head on!
I treasure you all so very much.
Well said Jimmy
thank you Helen blessings
The community is wonderful
Thanks, Howard. It is all too easy to feel the twinges of anger about knowing that my husband, Don, could possibly slip away from me because disease could take him. Instead, I know that between our Creator and all of the things that he is doing that it is a high probability that he will be just fine. I am already seeing improvement in Don.
Sincerely,
Karen