Fighting Parkinson’s, and how fear can impede your recovery

We have discussed many times how faith is important in this recovery. It is faith at the beginning, “I know I will recover,” that sends you down your path toward recovery. Faith gets you started, and faith helps you through the hardest of times. However, if your faith gets shaky in the face of fear, and fear takes over, the fear can impede your recovery.

The best example of how fear can impede your recovery is to return to my broken arm analogy:

You are 10 years old and you fall and break your arm. Your mother takes you to the doctor. The doctor says, “No problem. I am going to set your arm in place, put a cast on it, and when you come back here for your next visit, I am going to remove the cast and your arm will be better, 100% as good as new.”

Now let’s look at what happens in the healing process:

1. You have faith in the doctor (soul).

2. Because you have faith in the doctor, you do not worry that your arm is not going to heal (mind).

3. As a result of 1 and 2, you do not obsess about your arm, and then, your body heals your arm (body).

Now, let’s change this up a bit. Suppose the doctor said it would take 10 weeks for your arm to heal. At 7 weeks, you and your family and friends notice some terrible changes in recovery from the broken arm. Your arm has shrunk inside the cast, and it smells bad, and when you put the long stick inside the cast to scratch you arm which now itches all the time, it comes out covered in goo and it smells bad.

Enter fear…and FEAR (False Evidence Appearing Real). You start looking at these external happenings, let’s call them symptoms, and you experience fear. It is the fear that says, “Be logical, if your arm is shrinking, you are experiencing atrophy. If it smells bad, you must have an infection. If the scratching stick is covered in goo and smells bad, you are not healing your arm…it is getting worse.” If you know anything about a broken arm, then you know this is actually FEAR…it is 100% False Evidence Appearing Real.

However, if you listen to the fear and you listen to the people who are telling you that you look worse so you must be getting worse, then you cut off the cast, and as you hear the bones cracking as you arm falls to your side and you feel the pain as your arm re-breaks, you realize that giving into fear has impeded the recovery of your broken arm, and you have go all the way back to the beginning to begin the healing process again. Somehow, the fear made you completely forget that for the previous 7 weeks, your arm was healing from the inside.

Applying this example to your life, fear can impede your recovery by telling you to stop doing the Parkinson’s Recipe for Recovery®. Somehow, the fear made you forget all of the progress you had made in your recovery, and you just stop…and that stopping opens the door for what you incorrectly feared, “I am getting worse,” to actually come true.

That is how fear can impede your recovery. Fear is so powerful, it not only can impede your recovery, but as in the broken arm example and in your Parkinson’s recovery, it can send you backwards, and that backwards spiral has the potential to send you all the way back to the beginning of your recovery process if you cannot break the cycle of fear. Yes, fear is a powerful weapon in Parkinson’s arsenal, but please remember, FAITH crushes fear.

If you are doing the Recipe, then you are doing Medical Qigong to cleanse toxins and energize your brain, you are standing to allow your body to open blockages and balance energy flow, you are chanting and stimulating brain energy and activity, you are doing Jin Shin Jyutsu to energize your organ meridians, you are eating healthier food, you are meditating to calm your mind, and you are connecting with your Higher Power to help you maintain your faith in your recovery. You are healing yourself from the inside out.

And, while you are healing yourself from the inside out, you sometimes will look worse on the outside because you are pushing the toxins outward, and you need your energy on the inside. Sometimes your tremors look worse on the outside or there is extra stiffness or pain. As a result of that, people may tell you that you look worse and what you are doing is not working.

Have they had Parkinson’s? Have they recovered from Parkinson’s? Are they inside your body and your mind and your soul? So why do they know more about what is happening inside of you just because they are looking at what is happening outside of you?

They don’t. You have to have the courage and strength to stay on your path of recovery. You have to trust yourself that your decision to recover from Parkinson’s is one of the most powerful weapons in your arsenal against Parkinson’s. You are fearless!

Fear can impede recovery. Faith gives you the strength to defeat fear and continue your progress on your path toward full recovery. Each step you take on the path is recovery in and of itself. Recovery is a journey.

If you can look inside yourself, have faith in yourself and the process, trust that you know what is going on inside you, and trust that you know that you have the power to heal yourself, then you can travel down the recovery path and find joy in the journey — joy in the fact that you are traveling the road less traveled to a destination the supposed experts say is unreachable — and that you know in your heart that you will reach the destination of full recovery one day. You know it!

Keep the faith; defeat the fear. Each day you do something positive to fight your Parkinson’s, you are recovering! You are your Parkinson’s cure!!

You are worth it!!!

All my best,

Howard