Today is the 17th day of my 30-day November to Remember, No Excuses November, Challenge 2022! Click here to review the challenge. At this point in time thirteen years ago today, I was not feeling very well. Here is an excerpt from my Parkinson’s daily journal from thirteen years ago today:
My November 17, 2009 entry in my Parkinson’s Daily Journal was difficult to write and harder for me to read:
“11/17/09. Up at 4:00. Eight hours in bed. Got up a few times to use the bathroom, but no problem going back to sleep.
I feel rested and stiff…slow moving, but the weighted feeling of yesterday is gone. Got to the kitchen at 4:09. Expecting a great day today.”
I had written in the daily journal every day for almost two months, and I could write no more. The pain was too intense and barely anything was readable after the first two letters of each word. As a result of this, November 17, 2009 was the final entry in my journal.
However, in reading this journal entry, I can see that I must have listened to my body on the day before and gone to bed at 8:00pm. Apparently, I needed the extra rest.
As you can see from above, my 51-day Parkinson’s Daily Journal came to an end because of increased symptoms taking away my writing abilities. It took a large dose of faith to continue with the Recipe at that point, but I did. (If you wish to read my entire Parkinson’s Daily Journal, you can find it in Appendix One of my book, Fighting Parkinson’s…and Winning).
Hindsight tells me that it was a blessing that I could no longer write in my daily journal. When you read through the journal, yes, there is a lot of hope and faith, and there is a lot of love for my wife and children. However, I will have to admit that there is a whole lot of being consumed with living Parkinson’s instead of living life.
Looking at it now, I see that I was measuring my deterioration, from how long it took me to get to the kitchen each morning to how stiff I was or how painful my rigidity had become.
I had yet to let go of my perfectionism. Since I was documenting my Parkinson’s recovery, my perfectionism told me that I needed to document everything “perfectly,” right down to each thing I could no longer do each day that I could do the day before, including a full and complete analysis of my symptoms right down to the comparison of “are my symptoms better or worse today than they were yesterday.” Sound familiar?
When I no longer could write in the daily journal, I stopped paying so much attention to the minutiae of the symptoms, and I stopped comparing each day to the day before. Since I was not documenting these things on a daily basis, my need to be perfect about what was going on with my symptoms disappeared, and my ability to be in the moment of what I was doing grew. My symptoms became nothing more than a reminder that I had more work to do in my recovery.
I know I had been measuring those things so I would know when I was recovering. How foolish was I. I had overlooked the fact that every day when I woke up and got out of bed and did my Recipe, I was recovering.
That’s right, recovering…moment by moment…recovering just in the doing! And, I did my Recipe because I had faith that I would be cured. Even in the midst of my complaining, look at the last thing I wrote on November 17, 2009, “Expecting a great day today.” That is faith. You can have it, too!
If you lack faith in your recovery, you stay in bed or you sleep so much you don’t know if it is day or night, and you don’t do the Recipe…what would be the point…you have no faith you will be cured.
Faith is an interesting thing. When you are experiencing wonderful things in life, faith in yourself and your life is easy and natural. When you are experiencing difficulties in life, faith in yourself and your life is difficult and unnatural.
Where you make progress in life is when you are experiencing difficulties in life and you still can find faith in yourself and faith in your life. This is living your life in the present moment!
For those of you who are struggling with your Parkinson’s and shaky with your faith in yourself and your life, please seize this opportunity. Seize the opportunity to begin your recovery by having faith in yourself and faith in your life, which leads to faith in your recovery. Seize the opportunity to make this your November to Remember!
Right here, right now, today, look inside yourself, find that spark of faith you used to have but misplaced somewhere along the way, and grab onto it, light it up, and say, “I have the power to heal myself.”
Please remember to hold onto that spark of faith strongly…you will need it to fight your Parkinson’s on the bumpy road ahead. And while you are holding tightly to your spark of faith, take action against your Parkinson’s, do the soul, mind, and body Recipe, and be your own cure! You are worth it!
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 slowing, halting, and reversing the progression of my Parkinson’s.
I am extraordinary.
I am recovery.
I am doing great!
AND, I AM WORTH IT!!!”
All my best,
Howard
