If you are doing the Parkinson’s Recipe for Recovery®, then you are heading toward your cure. Know it. When others look at your external symptoms and think you are getting worse and cannot keep it to themselves, you have to know that you are heading toward your cure, and you have to politely ignore them. That is called self-preservation on your path toward full recovery, your cure, and it is a critical component of this recovery. You can do it!
It is very important to know the difference between Parkinson’s (the disease) and Parkinson’s symptoms. When somebody other than me tells you “this will help with your Parkinson’s,” they are talking about temporary relief from symptoms, not actually helping you get better from the disease. And, whatever they are suggesting may harm you in ultimately curing yourself from the disease.
It is not that they do not care about you, but since they do not believe that you can be cured, no consideration is taken to protect you from the future harm of the temporary symptom reliever.
When I say something will “help with your Parkinson’s,” I mean that it will help you cure yourself from the disease. Generally, it will have nothing to do with your symptoms, and it may even make your symptoms look worse while you are healing. It is important to know you are healing nonetheless.
Your symptoms are a reflection of imbalances inside you. That is all. Your symptoms will take you on a path toward degeneration from the disease only if you help them take you on that path. That is all.
There are three ways to help your symptoms along the path to Parkinson’s degeneration:
1. Doing nothing. Doing nothing is still doing something. We all were doing nothing when we degenerated to the point where we went to see a neurologist.
2. Taking medications and doing nothing else. This is what your neurologist means when he or she tells you that Parkinson’s is a progressively degenerative disease for which there is no cure, and here are some medications that will not cure you.
3. Taking Parkinson’s-specific supplements, powders and formulas and doing nothing else. This is what your naturopath means when he or she tells you that Parkinson’s is a progressively degenerative disease for which there is no cure, and here are some Parkinson’s-specific supplements, powders and formulas that will not cure you.
Here’s the hard part. To get off of the path toward degeneration and on to the path toward your cure, you have to do something more than the three above-listed things. The Recipe provides a whole lot of something to get you on the path toward full recovery and keep you there all the way to achieving your cure.
So, what is in your way…the flying monkeys. In the past, I have written posts referring to The Wizard of Oz, but I did not say anything about the flying monkeys. For today’s discussion, we need to address the flying monkeys.
The scariest part of the Wizard of Oz for me as a youngster was not the Wicked Witch of the West…it was the flying monkeys. It did not matter what the other characters were doing, at any given moment, the flying monkeys could swoop down and wreak havoc. For me, they perpetuated an edge-of-my-seat anxiety throughout the movie. They were unpredictable and uncontrollable…just like your “monkey minds.”
The Buddha described the human mind as having the equivalent of a bunch of drunken monkeys clamoring out of control, with fear being the loudest, most continuously forceful monkey in the bunch. You all know this monkey. This is the monkey who looks at your symptoms and says, “Come on, why are you doing this Qigong and chanting and meditating and praying…weren’t you paying attention…there is nothing you can do about Parkinson’s…what’s this Recipe…who is this Howard guy…face the facts, you are heading toward the walker and the wheelchair.” However, that is nothing more than the loudest drunken monkey screaming fear into your head.
Now comes your choice. Do you listen to the drunken monkey and run right into fear’s hands, or do you have faith and quiet the monkey and continue on your path toward full recovery? This “monkey mind” is what Socrates is talking about in Dan Millman’s Way of the Peaceful Warrior when he tells a young Dan, “Sometimes you have to lose your mind before you come to your senses.”
It is time to lose your mind and come to your senses; that is, lose your monkey mind. You need to break the habit of fear. That’s right, the habit of fear. The habit that any time a symptom changes in a way you do not understand, you think you are getting worse and then you fear the worst. That’s the habit of following the marching orders of a drunken monkey in your head. Come to your senses and create a better, more useful habit in your recovery.
How to quiet the monkey mind:
I am my Parkinson’s cure.
I am recovery.
I am doing Medical Qigong. I am recovery.
I am chanting. I am recovery.
I am Standing. I am recovery.
I am eating healthier foods. I am recovery.
I am doing Jin Shin Jyutsu. I am recovery.
I am doing near hand/far hand. I am recovery.
I am replacing negative habit thinking with positive habit thinking. I am recovery.
I am meditating. I am recovery.
I am praying. I am recovery.
I have nothing to be afraid of because I am on my path toward recovery doing the Recipe, the same Recipe that seven people already have used to reach their cure and hundreds have been using to slow, halt, and reverse their Parkinson’s. They did it and I am doing it. I am recovery.
For my mother, in the end, after two decades of heavy dosages of Parkinson’s medications and doing nothing else, she lost her mind…and it was not her monkey mind…it was her cognitive mind. There was no opportunity to come to her senses, and all the fears were realized…immobility, frozen face, loss of voice, wheelchair, Dementia, Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s. You see, that is what I was afraid of…the known path. Nobody should have to be that way with this disease, not her, and not you.
Please lose your monkey mind and your fears that are raging in your head, and please come to your senses while you still have your senses to come to. You need to do something. You have the Recipe at your fingertips…do not let it slip away. You are your Parkinson’s cure. Do not let your monkey mind tell you otherwise.
You can do this. I have faith in you!
You are worth it!!!
All my best,
Howard
Dear Howard,
Yes the monkey mind has learned a lot to be in charge, to be the driver of the car.
Now we have to tame the monkey and get rid of it or train it for our benefits.
It puzzles me about all the others, how to be in peace when it doesn’t happen, I mean, what if it is not to be to happen to cure. Is it because of lack of trust or training or something that is out of our control?
Hi Petra.
It is knowing that the ability to be cured already is inside you, and then staying on the recovery path long enough to clean the physical, mental, and spiritual toxins to allow your cure to rise up and greet you.
Love and blessings,
Howard
Thank you Howard
Hi Howard, powerful post.
Big Love
Karen xx
Very timely message … I’m sure that I have family and friends questioning my choice to take this path. Thank you Howard!
Howard, thank you for encouraging us to stay on the path to our cures.
Sharon in North Carolina
I’m so grateful Howard for all the beacons you have lit along the way.
I’m really realizing that I just need to focus on the recipe and everything else will be taken care of.
I’m also recognizing why you say and write very often
-you are worthy.
It’s such a crucial point.
It’s so important to practice the exercises and not focus on the symptoms.
Ty for all your beautiful input and guidance.
Bless you Howard
Hi Howard,
Thank you for such a powerful and encouraging post. So empowering to know I can choose to be at the mercy of those flying monkeys or I can head them off before they even think about coming anywhere near me with the Recipe! Yayyy!!! Feeling so grateful to have you Howard, the Recipe, and this wonderful group of warriors!
Love,
Margaret
Howard –
Great post. It actually starts making more and more sense as you read through it!
I read through the ‘I am’ list for something to work on, and I found it:
“I am replacing negative habit thinking with positive habit thinking. I am recovery.”
You see, I am a habitual worry wart. I need to wepwace the wowwy wart with a habitually fun-wuving joyful spwite. So here goes:
“Shh, be vewy vewy quiet. I’m hunting bad habits. Huh huh huh huh.”
Wuv to all,
– Elmer Fudd
PS: Found an interesting Wikipedia cross-link on Fudd: Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt and Despair. Wow, we certainly want to avoid that!
Great post Howard.
It puts fear in a new perspective thinking of it as a habit.
If it’s a habit then I can choose to stop listening to the monkey
🎈
In 1910 Frank Baum made the first OZ film at the Selig Studios about 6 blocks west of here. The monkeys were here then and they are here now. They rear their scary little monkey faces in different ways for all of us.
The Recipe prevails.
R.W. –
I find it interesting that once the ego is dissolved by a bucket of liquid recipe, the monkeys turn out to have been sick and tired of having to play the bad guys all the time!
– Chris
Chris–that is interesting!
Thank you Howard, you give hope to those of us that thought that this was the end of the road until finding and reading your book, which by the way, I found by accident in Amazon.com. You are a God sent. Blessings to you and your family.
Wonderful post, dear Howard, without your steady support
our life would be in another, horrible position, thank you!!
Howard,
Your message came in time when new symptoms are emerging.
Thank you.
Venkat
Thank you Howard for continually reminding us we are the cure. It makes me realize that the monkeys are always flying overhead in confusion. They are not grounded below like the tortoise. Like all of us, keeping our eye on the road to recovery. Slow and steady wins the race no matter what others say. We are RECOVERY.
Blessings to All!
Marie in S.C.
Hi Howard,
I love your approach and your philosophy and it helps. But I just had one monkey mind question: has any medical doctor ever publicly confirmed a case of somebody fully recovering from Parkinson’s?
Thank you.
John Barton
Hi John,
Not publicly, to my knowledge. However, on my two follow up visits after my full recovery, my neurologist twice confirmed in my medical records that I had no sign signs and symptoms of Parkinson’s. He first confirmed his original diagnosis, and without taking away his diagnosis, he put me through all of his tests and then he confirmed no sign or symptoms of Parkinson’s. Many people have seen my medical records in person at workshops I have given and at talks I have given, plus some people when they have come to my home.
Also, as I posted on the one year anniversary of Betty’s recovery from doing the Recipe, “At the Mayo Clinic, Betty was seen by two neurologists who first documented her history, beginning with, “This patient has had imbalance since 2006 when she began lurching to the left.” The neurologists put her through all of their tests and then documented the following conclusion:
‘Neuro: I agree entirely with Dr. Scharf. There is no evidence of parkinsonism.’”
So, publicly, no, not to my knowledge. Privately, in medical records, yes.
Blessings,
Howard
Very timely post. At present I’m struggling even to do the recipe due to bad symptoms, though I have done the recipe for a few years now… So positivity greatly needed.
X
My Dear Howard – I am extremely grateful for your relentless support and positive vibes you are spreading in my life and the world!!
I printed BOLD BIG font from your post ‘how to quiet the monkey mind’ so I can keep reading over and over and over, because my monkey mind is truly wild and destructive.
I am also a Monkey in Chinese horoscope … my mind is very cunning and wily lol!! … I am telling my monkey mind that I am going to be number 8 in Divine’s time not mine!
Much love to all
Ola
Dear Howard,
Thank you for continuously reminding us to have faith and be vigilant in our commitment to heal from this ugly flying monkey seeking to destroy us. God bless you, kind man.
Thank you ♥️
We have nothing to fear but fear itself! Fear has been a great motivator in my life, but thanks to Parkinson’s and you Howard I’m learning to fear not. I’m calming my monkey mind. Letting it rule just hasn’t worked for me. I’m slowing down and enjoying life as it comes. Symptoms are indicative of the monkey still fighting to control me. For I don’t fear this monkey anymore. I have faith in the recipe, which is proven. I trust God that I can love myself enough to heal myself. For love conquers fear and I am worthy of love. Monkey relax. All will be well – better than we could’ve made it out to be…
Bob,
I find your words very helpful. Thanks a lot.
Chris
Ocean of love and gratitude Howard
Dear Howard,
A timely post from you and you have put it very nicely about the “monkey mind” and how they can cause havoc to our recovery.
Your support and understanding of our mind helps us to continue with the recovery recipe and recover.
It is great knowing you, God bless.
A very powerful post Howard, thank you. And thank you too for your faithfulness to us warriors on this journey x