With it the decision arrived that I will be victim no more.
“And a resolve so bone deep that it seared out all the hopelessness and despair and left complete resolve that I will live my life differently no matter what the circumstances. Now that is resolution I want you to know. And although my diseases are still active, I am happy. Bone Deep happy. And I intend to stay that way no matter what.”
That’s how my last post ended. I wrote it Sept 16, 2016. Resolve is a powerful thing. Its going to take a book to write about how I arrived at that place of resolve. But I want to share it with you. It is so important.
My food plan is going great. Rarely am I really tempted to eat something off my plan. It’s called the AutoImmune Protocol. Very interesting and great. I am eating good meat and seafood, cooked vegetables, and fruit. Anything else is no go: no dairy, no nuts, no grains, no eggs, no nightshade (like tomatoes and potatoes). Here’s what’s happening. My lung and sinus symptoms are a bit better. My colitis – just barely some incremental improvement. But I am have so much more energy I am blown away. My memory has improved significantly, very little fatigue, very little pain, and I plan to go a few more months on this plan until my body has reset it self. My goal was to reduce inflammation in my body.
I had just started on this new food plan, when I had that horrible awful no good day out of which was born this bone deep resolve. The resolve is carrying me through wild times. I have been on six pet sitting gigs, which means I have moved six times since I last wrote. And I have to carry my new foodstuffs around with me. Arrowroot powder, carob powder, olive oil, coconut oil are some things I move because I need to cook all my food. Eating out could mean I might eat something not on my plan (like sugar)!
Now I have not been a cooking person. And I’m learning to love cooking for myself. I love finding the challenge of how to have a pizza when you can’t have any of the traditional flours. It’s possible. Just look online for AIP pizza and there’s someone who has found a recipe. So I have had lots of challenges with my time, and I am staying true to my resolve.
My intuition is kicking in big-time. I decided to write a book about this journey. I have a lot of skills that are valuable, and knowledge from walking in these shoes. “Coping with autoimmune disease”s is my working title. As I have gotten excited about writing, I had this incredible thought, what if autoimmune diseases are related to people who are highly sensitive? Guess what. There’s a big correlation!!!!!!!!!!
So off I jaunted in my research, and got one of the biggest epiphanies of my adult life. Part of what Elaine Afron talks about in The Highly Sensitive Person is the arousal of the nervous systems of people who have this temperament. I have always been told “You are too much.” “You are too ‘big’ in your energy.” You laugh too loud, you cry too loud, why can’t you be steady as a rock like most people. When you come into the office, its like a whirlwind happens. You really impact people too much with who you are. Calm down, be normal, be quiet, be thoughtful.” And more of those kinds of gems (roll of the eyes). And this was never about my behavior, this was always about the personhood of me. (so it felt).
When I was working on my master’s degree in human development, I specifically targeted a population that I wanted to work with. I wanted to work with Adults who have the same temperament as I do. Back then I was studying with Linda Budd Ph.d who wrote “Living with the Active Alert Child.” These are some of the coolest people in the world (as are the highly sensitive people), but they also have some big challenges. Think Bill Clinton, Jane Fonda, and you can kind of get a feeling for what they might be like.
So both the Active Alerts and the Highly Sensitive People receive enormous amount of negative feedback both because of their behavior, and their being-ness. Each temperament claims about 20% of the population, and it will be fascinating to see if they are subsets of each other.
When I studied Active Alerts, I knew that I could get really challenged by being in groups, because I didn’t have some of the screens that lots of people do to screen out incoming stimuli. What happens when all that stimuli gets in, it just floods the body, setting the body into alert status. The world does not feel safe. Cortisol floods the system as does adrenalin, and away we go. I just had not put it together that the arousal of my everyday life was creating nervous system overload. What I called earlier – arousal. Big thing to find out.
So of course you can guess what happened, when I got this epiphany and all the excitement of seeing my whole life and my life’s work beginning to emerge. I hit overload and overwhelm. Typical of overloaded arousal. This, I am sure, is what wears down people’s immune system.
After a weekend of being in the overload soup, I remembered!!!! Once again I am feeling victimized by my own nervous system. What crap! Literally (laughing out loud – with colitis – well that’s more information that you need on this blog).
As soon as I recognized that, I immediately calmed down and began remembering all kinds of techniques I can use to calm my system and myself down.
So I have learned an enormous amount about me, my relationship with my body has changed, and finally I see a way to find a population who wants my work and needs it desperately, and who I understand very well, so I feel I am finally moving into my own, and my own’ life purpose. Part of it is to heal myself. Part of it is to show others that it is possible. I have created a Facebook Group where you can chat with me called “Success Factors.” Please drop by and chat. And like this page please. We are in wonderful times of change. Let’s do it.
I will be victim no more. That’s a resolution. Wherever I feel like a victim, it shows up, and now my illness points me directly to it.
So now my illness has become my best ally. And I have no doubt and all confidence that this new path will take me to success beyond my wildest dream.