WOW! Marie is five years symptom free. How inspiring is that! Five years ago, in the middle of my November to Remember, No Excuses November, 30-day challenge 2011, a comment was posted on the blog that Marie would not be accepting the 30-day challenge because she was fully recovered. Now, here we are, five years later from my November 11, 2011 post entitled, “Fighting Parkinson’s, and Marie is symptom free.” For the last five years, Marie has continued posting comments to inspire and encourage all of us.
I will begin with Marie’s comment announcing her recovery:
From my November 11, 2011 post, five years ago today, with what Marie had to say:
Marie says:
November 10, 2011 at 1:07 pm
“I accepted an internal 30-day challenge from myself when I discovered
fightingparkinsonsdrugfree almost a year ago. And that was just the beginning. I made a promise to myself that I would do whatever was necessary and change my life in whatever ways would support recovery, if it was really possible to have my condition improve rather than degenerate. As Howard so often says, ” What did I have to lose?” I trusted Howard as my guide, and the bearer of good news that penetrated the bleakness of my fear and despair . I put my faith in my power to heal myself. The Recipe for Recovery was my lifeline. AND it is why I can happily and gratefully report to you today that the reason I am not accepting this challenge now is that I am symptom free! YES! Symptom Free!!!
Cheering you all on as you courageously overcome the disease. I am a happy example of the success of the Recipe for Recovery.
With love to you all~ Marie”
Up until that time, I was the only one who had cured myself utilizing the Parkinson’s Recipe for Recovery®, so Marie curing herself became proof of concept: Yes, the Recipe would work for others! This was big news as many people were greatly inspired to learn that the Recipe worked for Marie — it made them know it could work for them.
Here is an excerpt from a comment Marie wrote shortly after being cured of Parkinson’s:
Marie says:
November 19, 2011 at 10:35 pm
“I’ve just read both of the latest posts, and all of the comments. How exciting to feel all the faith, courage and support being shared here. We are a lucky bunch! It is wonderful to read the comments and see the shifts in awareness and the victories over the disease. I never took any meds and am in awe of each of you who is defying that medical model and choosing to take yourself off the drugs and fight Parkinson’s.
You are so brave, and from what I read in your posts, it is working. You are getting better.
Because it is such a powerful component in my own recovery, I offer this :
Fully acknowledge yourself and give yourself credit for what you are doing. Love yourself for how truly brave you are
and how dedicated you are to healing yourself. Thank yourself for this precious gift you are giving yourself. Sit in that feeling and give your brain a lovely dopamine bath.
Our gracious guide, Howard, always tells us that we are doing it for ourselves, and still, I think we tend to praise everyone else for the inspiration they are providing.
Be grateful to yourself, too, for having that opening that let the inspiration move you.
For me, this has been a good tool, and I hope it may be useful. I found it very hard to do ,at first. Kind of embarrassing. And actually, it is even a little hard to write about
now.
“What? She sits around loving herself????”
I’ll tell you, I do, every chance I get.”
Over the last five years, Marie has continued to support our recovery community with comments she has posted. Last week, she posted this comment:
Marie says:
November 5, 2016 at 11:40 am
“Oh, Howard, I always love when there is a post about chipping away at the iceberg! That is such a wonderful and truly inspiring image of working from the inside, following the Recipe, with the certainty that the chipping is breaking away the iceberg. After reading it for the first time, I put on my lab coat, grabbed my hammer and chisel and really got chipping. It is funny how I visualized myself chipping in a long white lab coat, since there was no mention in your post of chipping attire, but, maybe because of the seriousness of the task , I visualized myself that way, and chipped my way to freedom .
It was a powerful image for me then, and a delightful memory for me now. I am so grateful for your sharing this metaphor and that you handed me the chisel.
To those of you who have accepted the November challenge, I wish you a sharp chisel and strong arm! You can do it! Chip. Chip. Chip!!!”
Additionally, three years ago, we all were fortunate to have Marie attend my Santa Fe, New Mexico workshop. At the Santa Fe workshop, I got to meet Marie in person for the first time. I can assure you, she is the luminous soul all of you presumed she would be from reading the comments she continues to post on this blog to support and inspire all of us.
Here is a picture from the following day, when I got to spend time with Marie at her home. This picture is in one of her beautiful gardens:
Even though we had met in person for the first time the day before, I felt that special connection, the one that feels like you have known somebody for decades, not just a couple of days. Before I left, Marie shared with me something she had been told in a seminar many years ago. The instructor explained that fear is like a prayer. If you live in fear, it is like praying for everything you fear to come true.
Let’s live in faith. Let’s live in love. Then faith in recovery can be your prayer, and love for yourself and others can kindle the flame of joy in your heart.
Finally, two years ago, Marie posted a comment to help all who were forging ahead in that year’s November to Remember, No Excuses November, 30-day Challenge 2014. Here is what she had to say:
Marie says:
November 5, 2014 at 2:02 pm
“Dear Recovery Community,
It is so beautiful to read all of these posts. To those of you who have accepted the 30 Day Challenge, congratulations!! You are so fortunate to have found Howard and his amazing Recipe for Recovery! You are recovering from Parkinson’s!
Since I recovered , I don’t do the Recipe for Recovery anymore, but when I committed to following the Recipe, it totally changed my life. From the Recipe, I learned how to live a happier, less stressful life and learned the importance of savoring what is good in each day, and practicing, Gratitude.
Howard once told me that for some people who find the website….and I paraphrase here, since I do not remember the exact words….a block to recovery is thinking that Howard is so amazing ….so committed, so full of Faith…that, in some way he is “better” and that is why the Recipe worked for him. Maybe you do not believe that you could do the Recipe ”as well” as Howard did it. Maybe you don’t feel 100% faith in your recovery and you think that will keep you from recovering.
As he does for many of you, Howard holds a very special place in my heart, my mind and my spirit. I love and admire him. He is a truly rare and awesome being!!!!!
To each of you I want to say that you can most certainly do the Recipe for Recovery as well as I did, and I recovered. I committed myself to doing the Recipe, even when I was not sure that I believed it. The commitment was rock solid. Faith was a little more difficult. When I didn’t feel like doing the Recipe, I did it anyway. When I did not have Faith in my recovery, I did not let that derail me; seeing how easy it would be to let lack of faith get in my way , I “acted as if” I had faith, until my faith caught up with me again.
Whatever obstacles you find, you can also find your way to sidestep them. Don’t let ANYTHING stop you.
Love and best wishes, Marie”
So, my dear friend, Marie, here we are five years after you becoming cured from Parkinson’s. Absolutely amazing! Absolutely inspiring! Absolutely loving! Your recovery…and you…absolutely amazing! and inspiring! and loving! You could have given your gratitude and walked away. You could have said, “I am cured, good luck to the rest of you…and disappeared.” But no, here you are, still opening your heart to all of us, still being such an active part of our recovery community with your blog post comments.
I want everybody to know that I never have asked you to post a single comment since your recovery, but instead, that you have continued to give of yourself from your heart. I am grateful for you, Marie, my dear, dear friend. With gratitude, blessings, hugs, and love, Howard.
CONGRATULATIONS, MARIE!!! FIVE YEARS SYMPTOM FREE FULL RECOVERY, CURED FROM PARKINSON’S!!!
Who’s next? What are you waiting for?
Make the commitment to cure yourself from Parkinson’s!
Okay, everybody, put big smiles on your faces and chant together so the whole world can hear:
“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.
I am doing great!
AND, I AM WORTH IT!!!”
Yes you are. Each and every one of you is WORTH IT!!!
All my best,
Howard
I will resume my Daily Parkinson’s Journal tomorrow with parts 45 and 46.
I have been doing the recipe for 3 1/2 years. I feel I have healed my body but still have work to do on my mind. It’s coming, I know I can do this with Howard as my guide! He is amazing and such a Powerful supporter! I feel I finally have a full understanding of what I still need to do. I’m working very hard and know I can recover without a doubt! Recovery is just around the corner as long as we do not give up! We all can do this. With much love and gratitude to everyone.
Congratulations Marie, after rereading your comments I come to see
what a wise and loving soul you truly are.
Congratulations Marie. You have helped build my determination to follow the recipe. Today is my 101st day !
Thank you, Marie, for bolstering my confidence, and my courage, to hold the vision of healing before me as I do my morning Qigong.
hola a todos, gracias Howard por ser nuestro angel guia ……nuestro soporte……….empece la receta hace 3 años y no parare hasta curarme…..felicidades Marie
Translation:
Hello everyone, thanks Howard for being our guide angel …… our support ………. I started the recipe three years ago and I will not stop until I heal … .. congratulation Marie
Congratulations Marie and thank you so much for all of your comments , they are very helpful. I love the picture of you and Howard , you both are beautiful people/souls. I also love to visualize and Photoshop a picture of me standing next to you and Howard and have it hanging on my refrigerator under the words “I Believe” and I do believe 100% that I will recover
Blessings to All !
I love that idea too, Chuck!!
What an amazing recovery, Marie.
Thank you so much for this encouragement! These are the stories that help us go on and become unstoppable.
With all my love and endless gratitude to Howard……
Thanks for sharing your journey, Marie! It means so much to hear such good reports. Thanks, Howard for doing this blog so that so many people can profit from your studies, from what you learned, and from your report on how you also healed up perfectly from Parkinson’s disease.
Blessings and love to all,
Karen and Don
Marie thanks for the encouragement – what an incredible journey. We are very blessed to have you and Howard cheering for us toward the ultimate goal – recovery form PD. Have a wonderful Thanksgiving to you and all! Beth
Thank you to each of you who sent congratulations for celebrating this day with me.
and Howard my dear friend,
Thank you so much. You say that I could have walked away and just said thanks. But what about you, Howard? What would have happened if you had not taken your own hard won recovery and decided to share it? That is why I could never have walked away with just a thank you. You hacked your way through the wilderness and created the path. And I know that I did not have the personal resources to have been able to hack that path myself. Without you to follow, what would I have done? Where would I be?
My first computer search was for “hand moves by itself” before I’d gone to the doctor and Hadnt learned the word tremor. I took on the task of finding our everything I could in daily agonizing sessions at the computer reading everything I could about Parkinson’s as symptoms got worse. That brought more despair and sense of hopelessness. Then a friend asked me if I had heard about Qigong and Parkinson’s. when I typed that in , there you were, Howard, in your yellow shirt, in a video showing how to do medical qigong for the liver. and there were more videos. And a blog. and you said Parkinson’s COULD be cured, and you had done it yourself. So it was almost too good to believe, this flood of relief. And then there was the fear: “is this too good to believe? Should I not believe this ?” But your sincerity came through so clearly. You were so earnest, and that gave me hope. And what did I have to lose???
That you cured yourself of Parkinson’s and posted those videos and wrote your blog to share your recovery…. that the internet existed and thousands of miles away a click of the mouse opened a whole new world to me….that’s miraculous. You didn’t walk away, Howard; you were there for me. And you are there for every other person fortunate enough to find the Recipe for Recovery. You are helping so many people, building a community that stretches around the world.
Howard, thank you from my heart, thank you from my soul. Our bond is a deep and beautiful one of true recognition and friendship. I send love and gratitude to you each and every day…..with an especially big helping on my fifth anniversary .
~ Marie
Oh, Marie and Howard! This post is wonderful and so inspiring! Knowing we are not alone in our challenges, both major and minute, helps one confront and rise above our barriers of whatever form or magnitude. And the picture of you two is icing on the cake! Thank you both, and dear Marie, know that your loving communication is priceless to this group! Lovin’ hugs!
I am so grateful to all of you serving me this love❤️
Congratulations Marie on your 5th year! What you said about Howard is beautiful and so true! and what Howard said about you is beautiful and true too! It’s very nice of you both to share with us your time, experience and encouragement to help us on our recovery.
Thanks to both!
Wow, what an impressive and inspiring stories here. People working on its recovery for periods ranging from 9 months to 4 years. You are ROCKS (wants to be a compliment).
I can’t imagine how you can manage to fit the entire Recipe in the busy days. Family, work, parents, ups and downs, traffic, medications, life administration (feeding, washing – car, dog, myself -, house maintenance, … sometime wife – luckily -).
This is my weakness: TIME. Two aspects: difficulty to find time for the recipe and my hurry for a full recovery; even if after 9 years walking with PD and drugs, I know recovery can not be immediate. But I repeat to myself: I want to live other 20 years and want to be better than the previous 20. I’ve to do something and for sure, since when I found this (and other) site and exercises, I’m not getting worst any more and drug are under control. Yes, it is not easy; limitations are countless; it is a life lived in half … but it is a real life and I’m in balance now, and quality and consciousness (and love and gratitude and many others) are much better. The alternative is to go back down the other side of the hill … and the time I spend now for the receipt would be spent despairing. Faith vs despair: an easy choice.
Reading the posts helps me to recover inspiration and faith. I don’t do it enough. I promise myself I’ll do more often.
My take away of this post is the wonderful phrase: “fear is like a prayer. If you live in fear, it is like praying for everything you fear to come true”. I’m collecting all this inspiring and motivating phrases in a booklet, to re-read periodically.
The travel is more important than the destination: may each one of you enjoy his (our) recovery