In my last blog post, I spoke of spring and autumn renewal. As part of the renewal was the reminder that this is 2021…the year of faith! One of the comments to that blog post sparked today’s discussion.
Here is an excerpt from the comment posted by our fellow warrior Val H:
“I’m sure it must be the case that dopamine is only dormant and not depleted, otherwise I wouldn’t suddenly be able to do something that I normally can’t do. For example, I recently got the urge to play Dare by the English band Gorillaz. This CD track is about 4 minutes long and all that time I was able to march and dance continuously with gay abandon. Ask me to do it today, and no way. I can only put it down to a rush of dopamine to the brain. I haven’t yet mastered how to keep the dopamine tap on – pardon me, I mean the FAUCET.“
Thank you, Val. I am grateful for your hard work on your recovery and for sharing a truly “dopamine-flowing” moment. I will tell you how to keep the dopamine faucet on…gratitude.
When people ask me am I still doing the Parkinson’s Recipe for Recovery®, I have a simple answer: On the day of my full recovery nearly eleven years ago, I stopped doing the physical part of the Recipe because I was cured. However, the mental and spiritual lessons I learned became how I live my life.
As I have stated in the past, I am truly grateful for this life, a spirit being in a human existence. Everything that is in this life stems from the fact that I have this life. I am grateful for everything, thank you, thank you, thank you!
As I go through my day, I am constantly giving gratitude, a heart-felt “thank you” for each thing, and everything. It is a way of living gratitude. Gratitude is an expression of joy, and the gratitude and joy keep the dopamine faucet on and flowing. Gratitude and joy are like having the dopamine be a re-charging battery.
One of our fellow warriors, Jamal, sent me this 4-minute video that drives home the point in such a beautiful way that I am sharing it with all of you. Thank you, Jamal. I am grateful for your hard work on your recovery as well as for this video. To watch the video, please click the following link:
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I am grateful for all of you. Thank you to each and every one of you for being here on this blog and for your hard work on your recovery. Thank you, thank you, thank you!
You are worth it!!!
All my best,
Howard
Howard, this is so timely. Today I was thinking, if it wasn’t for Parkinson I wouldn’t even know what the word qigong was, and of course I wouldn’t be reading your blogs that bring a message of hope every week, thank you again for being there.
Thank you Howard and Jamal for sharing this video. I’m always learning, and when you think you know it, there’s always something else to learn and being grateful for, how we take things for granted!
4 months today into my recovery, yahoo.
Love and blessings to everyone, Rick from Australia 😀😀😀
Thank you Howard and Jamal. These blogs are keeping me on track as my symptoms have increased again after a brief lull. 4 months and 10 days of the recipe and not a day missed. Good luck every one.
Ray
When I look back in my life, the old me was full of rage, resentment jealousy and not understanding and loving. I wrote all my struggles down in that time till shortly now. It came to me now that my thinking was the troubling part, not knowing how to handle this battle. Thinking is the conditioning part of life, how life should be etc etc. You know all what I mean by that. Once in 2008 I lost for one day my story. It was a big relief, but then I just stepped back in until I last month realized, this part (me without my story) is always around me. I don’t have to wait for another experience but it was/is with me all the time. So I can tap into that part and my symptoms becomes lessened. So when I lay in bed and want to meditate, when Petra is going to meditate, it doesn’t work, but when I meditate and my focus is on the unknown world it relieves my symptoms. Just what the Monk says. Everyone has his struggle (mind) but outside the mind there is such a relief of all the stressed out minds.
I will put all my writings in a box and write on it: “The Old Me” as a symbol that whenever a negative thought or mood is coming by, I say : “no thank you, not anymore of this garbage“ and I visualize putting this in the box.
The “old me” doesn’t believe in this all and it pulled me down.
Off you go in the box!!! You’re not helpful anymore.
The new me is growing. All things in my life now comes together: Advaita vedanta, A course in Miracles, Howard Shifke, and Dr. Joe Dispenza. They all point in the same direction.
Love Gratitude Kindness.
And I want to add one more: ”Celebration of (my) life.”
Howard, you are the evidence for us all that it is possible ❤️
🌺🌺🌺
1. The more someone hates you, the more you must love them.
2. Don’t look for God in the sky or the temple; look in your heart.
3. Certainly give thanks for pleasures, but if something pains you, give even more gratitude for this lesson, custom designed for you by God.
Love and peace to all,
Chris
Howard,
Thank you for this video. It reinforced what you have been sharing with us. Prior to receiving your coaching assistance I took most things for granted. Here it is, a few years later, and down to more than half the medicine I started with, I am grateful every day. In fact, before I lift my head off the pillow in the morning, I pray and share my gratitude for all the things most people take for granted, including myself (in the past). The air that we breath, the gravity that holds us to the ground, the beautiful sunsets and sunrises and much more. Life isn’t perfect as the monk has stated but if we see the beauty in it, that will steer us to a happier place which is where we all want to be.
Thank you Howard, Val, and Jamal for the timely reminder and for making it clear what a life of gratitude is about. These reminders help keep me on track.
I was diagnosed with Parkinson’s 6 years ago. I religiously started doing the recipe 2 years ago. Over the past few months, I have started seeing improvement in my symptoms. Over the course of the last 2 years, I’ve come to realize the destructive power of negative thoughts and the healing power of positive thoughts. Giving gratitude greatly reduces the power of negative thought and gives one a sense of peace. Thanks Howard for guiding me through all of this.
Respected Howard sir
As the 2nd wave of Covid infection gets aggressive in India, it’s difficult to remain stable emotionally. In this darkness, your message lights the ray of hope. I divert my thoughts to gratitude..I am thankful for my heath, my family members’ health, I am thankful for lovely house, cooperative business partner, financial stabiliy and so on.
Lovely video Jamal. Today is World Parkinson’s Day. Let’s all pledge to work hard on our recovery and show other PD patients the path of recovery. Regards, Mona
Thank you Howard for another inspiring post.
I am GRATEFUL!
And thank you for that wonderful video!
All these ‘simple’ things expressed with such a lot of humour, lovely!
Love to all
Alison
I like Jamal’s post and all the other comments. I think it’s good if we share what’s happening to us because we can learn and benefit from each other’s input and, as ever, from Howard’s guiding light, interpretation and encouragement. Howard has linked gratitude with acceptance and surrender. This triumvirate is a bit of a conundrum to me because it implies a passive response to Parkinson’s at the same time as we’re fighting it like warriors. The video also drives home the message: ‘It’s not the happy people who are thankful. It’s the thankful people who are happy.’ It poses the question, should I just be happy with my lot, Parkinson’s and all? Having inspired this week’s blog, I am also interested in Howard’s thoughts on whether it is wrong to want to be well. How does that sit with gratitude? I take on board what he says about keeping the dopamine faucet open by expressing gratitude every day for the sheer joy and privilege of living. But I am left wondering if I am impeding my own flow by subconsciously making my gratitude conditional on recovery. God, who can see into my heart, can discern the difference between my being grateful for its own sake and expecting something in return. If I can be grateful for what I’ve got, regardless of the Parkinson’s outcome, then that’s true gratitude.
Hi Val,
It is not a passive response to Parkinson’s. The Recipe is an active response of a soul, mind, and body recovery protocol. The answer to your questions begin with:
Acceptance. Surrender. Gratitude.
1. Acceptance. I accept what is happening in my life (Parkinson’s). God’s will.
2. Surrender. I surrender. Nobody owes me an explanation why whatever is happening in my life actually is happening (Don’t ask God why you have the Parkinson’s). God’s will.
3. Gratitude. I am grateful for my life, so I am grateful for what is happening in my life (Grateful for the opportunity to re-balance your soul, mind, and body and heal your life). God’s will.
Combination of the three. “Thank you, God. I am grateful for my life, so I am grateful for what is happening in my life. I will take it from here.” Your free will. You decide what to do next (the Recipe), what solution is needed if any, where to take it from here.
If you can find gratitude, joy, and happiness in being alive, Spirit Val in a human existence, then what is happening in the body and the mind does not disrupt your happiness on the inside, spirit you.
It is okay to want to be well; that is why you are doing the Recipe. That is the “fight“ in fighting Parkinson’s. When I had Parkinson’s, I had read that people with Parkinson’s had no fight in them, but just accepted that they were going to have a very sad ending. It is why when I started my blog, I called it Fighting Parkinson’s Drug Free because that is exactly what I was doing.
I have written before that the potential for having the recovery already is inside everybody just like the potential for the bone to heal from a broken arm exists inside everybody prior to the arm even being broken. So, faith in God looks like this: “Thank you God for the recovery that already is inside me. I will control the part that I can control, doing the soul, mind, and body healing of the Parkinson’s Recipe for Recovery, and I surrender the final recovery to you as I understand that it is in your control and on your timeline. Thank you. I am grateful.”
When you say, “If I can be grateful for what I’ve got, regardless of the Parkinson’s outcome, then that’s true gratitude,” you are correct. Part of the paradox of this recovery is that when you do your part in faith, the Recipe, you surrender trying to control the outcome (ego mind trying to control everything), and you open your heart and soul in gratitude for your life and you feel ready to receive God’s blessings and gifts.
With gratitude, love and blessings,
Howard
Thank you, Howard. All that makes sense and reinforces what I have already learned from you and on my journey. I think I sometimes get hung up on the idea, why should I be different? Why should I expect to be healed from Parkinson’s? You are just now supplying the answer in my head: ‘Because you’re worth it!’ Every one of us. You are kind to respond during the weekend, bless you.
My deep, deep gratitude to you Howard, and also to those people responding. We can choose to live life with fear and continual mourning…or, in any given moment, acceptance and empowerment as we connect with the infinite possibilities that evolve from living life with gratitude and joy. The choice is ours.
Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! for you Howard and such a wonderful blog and all the inspiring comments from my fellow warriors and the reminder. After I read the blog last evening I upped my gratitude game and before long I was feeling so good about everything I forgot about Parkinson’s. This morning my meds lasted a whole hour longer than usual!!! Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!
Thank you Howard for lighting the path not just to recovery, which is of course HUGE, but also to more satisfying and rewarding life on every level.
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. ♥️
THANK YOU ALL! for being in my life.
Thank you Howard and Jamal for sharing the video.
There is nothing like a perfect life, but with this condition, I am learning how to live a happier and thankful life. It is people like Howard, including my wife, who keep motivating, encouraging and supporting me all the way in the recovery.
My Wife has been fighting Parkinson’s drug free for over 7 years she is 57 years old. She has tremors in both hands but continues to charge thru life without ever complaining. She does check nearly every box for someone who would suffer from her dopamine spigot being turned to low or off. People have always loved her sweet kind ways and love being around her as we get lots of invitations to parties and dinner. Recently she has begun to decline and say she is not comfortable right now and of course I go with it. This morning she awoke and was crying saying she was awkward and can’t relate or deal with people and makes them uncomfortable. Because I have read this post for years and your comments I was able to pin point what was happening because I can see it in progress. When she sees our friends she is so busy trying to suppress the Parkinson’s tremor she cannot focus on the conversation hence the awkwardness. Because of this exact post I was able to tell her that is not her, she is the same, it‘s the Parkinson’s, her beautiful soul has not changed a bit! “Honey they know you have Parkinson’s, it’s no secret and we keep getting invited pretty much every other week somewhere, it’s you, you are not Parkinson’s.” She was the catch of a lifetime and still is. We just got to keep fighting and win this. I want to tell you all we had the awesome experience of meeting Howard in person at a workshop and he is everything he appears to be and more.
Thank you for this. It’s great too be reminded of what we’re fighting for…I’m so grateful for the positivity and hope that Howard radiates.