Okay, are you ready for the longest post ever? Seriously. Get comfortable. I apologize that there are very few pictures to entertain you. Let me begin by saying I got some bad news last week. Maybe you could call it a very painful confirmation of what I was dreading.
My mom is not coming out here to help me when I have my baby. She’s not coming to visit at all. It wouldn't hurt quite so bad if she hadn't just gotten back from Florida, where she spent two weeks helping my older sister with her new baby girl. I have no hard feelings toward Krystal at all, but I guess the little girl in me wants to say, "That's not fair!!" (And then I hear my mom say, "Life isn't fair.")
When I got married without her, it hurt her to the core. That was the last thing I wanted, and I had no idea it would hurt her so much, but it happened and I have been unable to fix it thus far. Well, besides that, my mom likes to have her family close, and she really hates it that I live so far away. I guess this is how she is protesting. After she confirmed that she wasn’t coming (I kept thinking/hoping she'd come around) as you can imagine, I experienced some overwhelming and fresh emotions. I was devastated, shocked, hurt, and scared; I was also amazed that my mom, an amazing woman in so many ways, would hold her grudge, even at such an important time in my life. And with all these emotions and thoughts running through me, surprise surprise, I got sooooo sick. Sore throat led to sinusitis, then the infection moved down into my chest, and I felt like I’d been run over by a truck. Which leads me to my next chapter. I don’t know if this is too “out there” for a lot of people, but it has seriously changed my life to a small degree, so maybe it will help you in some way.
Let me give a tiny bit of background: In high school, I was constantly getting bronchitis, and it would drag on for months, because I played sports and wouldn't take time to rest and get better. When I got into college, I stopped getting bronchitis, and started getting a LOT of sinus infections. These were even harder on my body. I was sure that by going on a mission I would be blessed and be very healthy. Actually, it turned out that I got sinus infections almost every three months, the entire 18 months. I guess I was getting other blessings to make up for it. Anyway, my body built up all kinds of resistance to antibiotics, and they stopped working for me.
One other sidenote: I had a stiff neck for several years, which I thought was due to a fender-bender accident I was in. Then, as I went through college, my back and shoulder muscles got really tight, and sometimes would just burn. My uncle, a massage therapist, would frequently try to work the knots out, but it would take hours, and all his body weight, and his elbow, to make any progress.
Fast-forward to the future, I meet Samuel. He introduced me to a theory (and a book) about the effects of our minds (and thoughts) on our health. He had read a book by Louise Hay called Heal Your Body.
The book talks about how we have the ability to heal our bodies and sicknesses by identifying the thoughts we are having that are making us sick. I found it pretty fascinating, but I didn’t know how much I really believed it, until it dawned on me that I wasn’t getting sick anymore. Every time I started to get sick, Samuel would help me identify what was bothering me, and my symptoms went away! It was a bit mind boggling. So, I bought a copy of the book. (By the way, it’s very short and it lists symptoms and the negative thoughts that bring on those sicknesses, according to this lady of course.)
Well, my health was getting better, but my back and shoulder pain was getting worse and really bothering me. At first I thought it was just my posture, my office job, being hunched over a computer, etc. I was looking up some books on back pain, and I stumbled upon a book with similar ideas: It’s called Healing Back Pain by Dr. John Sarno.
His theory is that back pain, even slipped discs and other things that get treated by surgery, occurs as a result of our thoughts.
Well, more accurately, Dr. Sarno suggests that when we feel a lot of emotion, especially anger (or rage), rather than express it or even deal with it, our body kindly creates physical pain to distract us from our emotions.
He says he has literally cured thousands of people’s back pain with this theory, without any surgery or any medicine.
And an amazing part of it is, he doesn’t even make them go to psychiatrists or anything like that.
He says you don’t have to RESOLVE your emotional issues, you just have to RECOGNIZE that your body is creating real physical issues to distract you from your emotions.
Well, again, this was very new to me, but I became a believer when I started taking a good look at my emotional state, the anger I was feeling toward specific people in my life (okay, towards my mom).
Then after MONTHS of pain, within just a few days of reading the book and telling myself it was okay to feel angry, etc, the pain in my shoulder literally melted away.
I could NOT believe it. Not only that, my stiff neck that I'd had for years went away too!!
To make things even more interesting, Dr. Sarno says that if your back pain goes away, you should watch for it to re-appear at another place in the body. Sure enough, about a month after my shoulder pain went away, I woke up with a sore jaw on one side. At first I thought I’d just slept on it wrong, but it didn’t go away for several weeks. I didn’t make the connection at first, but I looked in the book, and it specifically mentioned a tight, sore jaw (and that it was especially common in women.) So, once again, I told myself that it was okay to feel angry (or, more ideally, it was okay to let the anger go, since it was only hurting myself), and the jaw pain went away within a few days.
So I was convinced…the MIND IS A POWERFUL tool, and we are just beginning to understand how much it can do for us.
Well, if you’re still reading this, I commend you, it’s almost over.
As you know, I’ve been very sick the last week. And the two weeks before that, I had developed a shooting pain in my lower back, I knew it was my sciatic nerve, and I’ve heard it’s common in pregnancy, so I figured it was something I just had to deal with.
On certain days the pain would “flare up” so bad I couldn’t walk, sit down, or even roll over in bed. I was afraid I was going to be on bed-rest. Samuel, always quicker to remember the whole mind-body connection, went to the Heal Your Body book to see what causes sciatic pain. Wouldn’t you know it, it was ‘fear of money and of the future.’ Do you think it applies? Um, YEAH! In seven weeks or less I am going to be a first-time mom, and we are going to have very little money. So, I started recognizing again, my mind was trying to distract me about my fears of the future. GREAT! (And yes, true to form, the sciatic pain was gone within about 4 days. It never ceases to amaze me.)
That's when I decided I had to share this with SOMEBODY!! What is the point you might ask? First of all, I hope everybody is aware of how their thoughts are affecting their bodies, and maybe even their kids' bodies. (I'm not sure when cognitive thoughts REALLY start processing in kids heads, but keep in mind that in adults, coughs=barking out/needing attention/needing to be seen or heard and sore throats=swallowed anger/the inability to stand up for one's self.)
Second, if you are struggling with any recurrent sickness (or pain) I highly suggest you check these books out, it's kind of like a free therapist, haha.
Last, you guys have been a great support to me throughout this pregnancy, and when I actually become a mother, I can’t tell you how nice it is to know that you guys are there to help me through it. I'll need your advice. And encouragement. That’s probably what I need the most right now. And also, a few quotes and scriptures about forgiveness, since this is going to be a big test of my character, and if I am going to be able to overcome the natural man, that totally wants to tell my mom I will never forgive her for this. But I AM going to forgive her, even if it takes all my energy to do it. Just look at what anger and negative thoughts will do to your body!!
So there's some food for thought.
And if you haven't read "As a Man Thinketh", it's a great read too, one of the best books out there.
Bye.
Nice background huh? We really do feel blessed to live in such a beautiful place. It's like the Primary song "My Heavenly Father Loves Me"--being played around us all the time. :)
Finally, I caught this picture of the flag at sunset. Kind of a patriotic moment. Touring that ship really made me think about war, and the people who have dedicated their lives to protecting us and defending our freedom. Then, all those beautiful fireworks were even more meaningful.
