On the Mend

I have been trying to get healthy.  After summer school was over, I spent August trying to focus on my health.  I used to be pretty healthy.  No aches or pains. I rowed, walked and gardened without any problems.  Last November is when I started going down hill.  I've written about it before, here.  Not feeling up to my normal self, forced me to review a lot of how I was living my life.  I wondered things like, are we really what we think?  Do our thoughts and worries really boomerang back to us?  I remember commenting on various occasions that I would hate to be in chronic pain.  Hello, here I am in chronic pain.  I've told my daughter the same thing, that she has become everything she talked about that she didn't like, hated even.  (So, why is it the negative thoughts that come to fruition, and not the positive ones?  Hmm). 

Anyway, I began reading articles, talking to friends, and trying to center myself so that I could relocate the person I was.  I liked that person.  The person I've morphed into is not someone I'm comfortable with.  I'm physically more than I want to weigh.  I'm mentally more negative and less spiritual than I like. I'm emotionally pinging from numb to fear to anger to sadness.  I'm not me.  Where do I start?

I had to start with the pain. It began with the wellness day at work last spring, but I only utilized the aloe vera juice as an anti inflammatory.  I swear by it now. Every morning I have a 1/4 cup, before I drink anything else.  I started using food as medicine.  I became a vegetarian way back in tenth grade.  I remember how after a few weeks I felt 'lighter' and ended up losing 20 lbs. without effort.  After I had children, I began eating chicken.  I eat a lamb gyro every now and then, too.  I decided to go back to the way I ate before.  I was more conscience about what I put into my body.  So, it's been more natural, less processed.  No white sugar.  I buy raw sugar and raw honey.  I also started reading about the flora in your digestive tract and that if that isn't healthy, then the food and supplements you take aren't as effective, so I discovered something called Keifer.  I drink two glasses of that a day.  I do take several vitamins, probably more than I need to but I can't wrap my head around the idea that all of the vitamins I need are in one multi-vitamin--all of those vitamins listed in the ingredients in one pill, really?  So, I take singles.  (It's me, I know). 

I have started moving more.  It's hard to move when you hurt.  It feels better to find a comfortable position and stay there.  Not the healthiest thing to do, but moving in pain is unbearable.  Sitting without pain feels a lot better.  However, not having the metabolism that I did at 20...yep, I put on some weight.  I felt 'blocked' or stuck.  I was not used to not moving.  After the majority of the pain started to subside, my daughter and I started stretching to this beginners yoga DVD I bought at a yard sale.  I love it. I can already see a difference in how I feel, physically.  So, now I stretch.  I can walk up and down the stairs without feeling like I'm 90 (though, my dad will be ninety in 2 weeks and he has been more spry then me).  I will start walking in the fall.  I'm taking things slow.  The last time I started feeling better, I over did it and found myself back on the couch.

Emotional and spiritual is taking longer.  The spectre of addiction is still lurking in the corners of my home.  It still has influence over my daughter and has also managed to infect me with emotions and feelings that I would normally overcome.  I am still processing how it has changed me.  When you're in the middle of it, it's like being in Dorothy's tornado; everything is swirling around and you can't grab on to any one thing. Once you land, you see everything sprawled around you, your personal life, your emotions, your fears, your child.  Learning what to do and not do is hard.  It's confusing and often goes against your very nature.  I am still so angry about so much.  I am hurt.  But I'm trying to work through this.  A very good friend of mine has given my name to a spiritual counselor.  I look forward to talking to her. 

Anyway, that is what I have been doing.  I have noticed how insidious addiction is and the way it seeps into your behaviors so slyly that you're changing even though you don't realize it, until one day you wake up and don't recognize the person you see in the mirror. You don't feel like yourself.   Sometimes I feel as though I was spirited away as I slept four years ago, and dropped into a dark forest on an unknown planet.  I have been trying to fight the unseen demons, while trying to keep my family alive.  It's hard work and it takes a toll.  But I feel as though I'm finally on a familiar and comfortable path. I'm finally on the mend.