Rosalie Richards
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Goldfish Happen

2/25/2016

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Last week I wished I could mail a batch of non-stress to a friend.  Her obligations will not give her room for a relaxed life. 

She agrees with me that non-stress is essential for a healing life, and that living on high-alert has negative health implications (and here is yet another study that finds this to be true, http://www.mayo clinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/stress-management/basics/stress-basics/hlv-20049495). 

But—unless she disappears from her current life, with its loves and huge obligations, she can’t live the sort of ideal life, with rest and quiet moments, that help create that healing environment that we all want.
When she asked me to send her ideas I was stumped.  My go-to inspirations are for a different life—visit a retreat center, and in that idyllic setting, away from life pressures, take time for serenity and simplicity.  These ideas don’t match everybody’s life styles.  What then?

I didn’t know the answer. 

Then another friend sent me an email with a solution that seemed so simple I wondered why I had forgotten it, had lost track of it in my life. 

This friend is someone I’ve known for many years.  Like me she has a disease, and it takes a physical toll—but in her email she told me what she has discovered, the poetry of life in the center of life’s confusions.  

I read her email and realized—this is the answer I had been looking for.  When we don’t have that monastery to retreat to—we find poetry in this life all around us.  Here is what her email said…

     the 'poetry' is even more acute, I think. Not 'big' things at all but a fish tank of goldfish--
     I LOVE goldfish, they channel my inner 12 year old-- and there have been SO many days
     when I was very ill, mostly unable to be up out of the recliner for long periods of time,
     that watching those little fish SO kept me going, these little utter sparks of LIFE. 

Her description of the goldfish helped me find something I had forgotten—that poetry moments are all around—that the word ‘mindfulness’ used by meditation gurus means seeing the curving bodies glide back and forth, instead of ignoring them.

I knew that once, but it got lost in the stuff of my life.

This is what I mean about finding what gets lost, how I understand it.

I misplaced something a month ago.  I looked everywhere I could think of, retraced steps, felt that it must be around…but it never turned up. 

Then, last week, I tore through some backpacks in my office closet to get to a box beneath them.  When I was through with the box, and had put the backpacks in the closet, and closed the door, the very thing I had lost was there, sitting on the floor in front of the closet, waiting to be seen.

It literally had been hidden by my baggage.  How's that for ironic.

My friend’s email uncovered something I hold to be true, like a Declaration of Life.

This is what I believe:   life is full of the poetry of ‘goldfish moments.’  These split second instances of beauty and of poetry are things we can lose in the urge to get through the contents of life. 
​
I live my day in a constant urge to do the next project, to make plans for the next undertaking -- and that impulse, which is a good thing in my life, sometimes pushes me beyond the ‘goldfish’ moments.  My friend helped me see something I had lost—the goldfish moments of poetry.  The trick isn’t to change life situations, but to find the goldfish moments in life (http://fractal enlightenment.com/27015/life/the-effect-of-positive-emotions-on-our-health). 

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What would you do if De-stressing required you to leave your life?

2/18/2016

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​It seems intuitive that healing and de-stressing are related.  If we need more convincing, though, we can find studies that talk about it. 

One study looked at rates of wound healing and stress.  They measured wound healing for people caring at home for someone with Alzheimer’s. 
This study was not measuring an MS-related autoimmune illness.  Instead the question was:  are people under significant stress less likely to recover quickly from surgery than others.  The result indicated that yes, continued (chronic) stress slows the healing of wounds (https://interferon.osumc.edu/ KG%20Publications%20(pdf)/102.pdf). 

What can we say specifically about MS and stress, though? 

Another study shows that chronic stress negatively impacts various diseases, including those involving immune function (https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Theadore Vanitallie/publication
11331672 Stress A risk factor for serious illness/links/

55368dcbocf218056e952c85.pdf)/).

There is a reason why we don't yet have more proof of the effects of stress on diseases such as Multiple Sclerosis.  Because, unlike a bacteria-caused illness, there is not a measurable and identifiable agent, or cause, and the exact sorts of stressors that cause or exacerbate a disease are not easy to define or measure.  Nonetheless, evidence that chronic stress causes or worsens disease is growing (https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Theadore Vanitallie/publication 11331672 Stress A risk factor for serious illness/links/55368dcbocf218056e952c85.pdf)/).

Though neurologists are not prescribing de-stressing as a therapy, some offices include psychologists and physical therapists in their centers, because of the interaction of these things on symptom control. 

When I was first diagnosed no mention was made of stress and the impact of stress on the onset or progression of the disease.  I met more people with MS.  I got accustomed to the association of high stress with the onset of the disease.  It wasn’t a 100% correlation, but it happened often enough to suggest to me that there is a strong association between high stress and the disease onset. 
 
So…let’s all de-stress.  It sounds reasonable.
 
But how do we find the ways to de-stress when our life challenges are constant?

This is what I mean. 

I have a great friend is a fellow MS-er.  She is someone I admire—she is creative, she is a writer, she is well-versed in studies on MS.  She a person I turn to when I want to know more about MS therapies.

My friend’s life doesn’t center around MS.  Instead it centers around another challenge—her son, who she cherishes, for whom she is the strongest cheerleader possible, and who has a chronic health condition. 

Her life stressors don’t slow down.  To de-stress her life, to really de-stress it, she would have to opt out of her family. 

“Creating a healing environment sounds wonderful—and out of range.  De-stressing sounds good,” she said to me, “but --can you think of ways to de-stress in the middle of the sort of day which is my day?  If you do, will you send them to me?”

I drew a blank.  Short of leaving her wonderful family, she isn’t going to slow her life stressors down.  I wished I could say something, but I knew there wasn’t an answer.

That is when I learned something so simple—so obvious—but it took another friend to show it to me.
I’m going to explore it myself, so that next week I can write more about it—how to find the moments in the day that bring the healing environment.  You will read it and say, “Of course, I do that, I have done that, this is simple.”  It will not be new, but I hope it delights you like it does me.
​
Till then, sending you love on your path--Rosalie
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‘Let me understand why others should be in charge of your destiny instead of you.'

2/11/2016

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‘Let me understand why you think these people should be in control of your destiny instead of you being in control of your destiny?’ says Shaka to kids in gangs-- and is he talking to us too?
​
I am inspired and energized by an ex-convict in dreadlocks named Shaka.  From constant solitary confinement and other results of trouble in prison to MIT Media Lab fellow, Shaka tells me we CAN plan for the best life we want. 

Research shows that empowerment promotes health and lack of power is a broad based risk factor for disease (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10146784).  A review of studies finds empowerment to be associated with well-being and health (http://www.altogetherbetter.org.uk/SharedFiles/Download.aspx?pageid=4&mid=112&fileid).   If we need an excuse to claim our lives on our terms, these findings provide it

So, today I am sharing Shaka’s self plan to keep moving toward his best life.

Shaka says his best tactics, ones he continues to use today, are:
• Look outside yourself. “Sometimes it’s hard to see yourself clearly. It’s easier to get caught in the emotional side. At those moments, if you look to other people in similar situations and see how they handled it, you can be in a more cerebral state and make more logical decisions.”

• Recognize what’s most important to you. “I put things on a scale in terms of what they mean emotionally, physically, and spiritually. When we react in the moment, it helps to do a comparative analysis in your mind to conclude what are the things that are most valuable. Do I spend that last $100 on what I think I want, or in a way that has value in my life experience?”

• Surround yourself with people who will keep you honest. “This is usually the toughest for most people. We like for people to tell us what we want to hear. I’m afraid of those people. I want to hear what I need to hear from a person whose core values I trust.
“You have to be clear to people about what you want to get out of life and how they can support you in it.”

• Meditate. “I started to seriously meditate around 2000 in solitary confinement. One of the things I love is it made me embrace the negative thoughts. Instead of acting like they don’t exist, recognize they are your thoughts, let them run their cycle, then affirm with positive thoughts. You don’t have to sit on the beach with crossed legs to do it. You can do it while you walk. I have a running narrative in my head that helps me figure out what makes the most sense at the end of the day.”

• Understand your triggers. “In life you will have patterns of negative thinking. If you can recognize that in yourself and how it spirals out of control, you can put yourself back on the path.
“Typically, one thing goes wrong and people start reflecting on everything that goes wrong. It creates a whole cycle, and if you don’t have anything to break out of that, you become a victim of your own thinking.”

• Be mindful of the messages you hear. “We take in so much information in our day-to-day lives. A lot of times, we don’t stop to challenge that information. All of it is some form of messaging. I am conscious of the music I listen to, the people I’m with, what I watch. If you subconsciously listen to music, you may not realize what is feeding into your spirit.”

That is Shaka’s message, to himself and to the world: “No one cares if your mama is on the main strip selling her body right now. No one cares what you have to do to make your life. Take the excuses off the table.”
 
(citation is http://unstuckcommunity.tumblr.com/post/57791607469/how-to-break-the-negativity-loop-a-true-story-of)
 

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"Take the Excuses Off the Table," he told himself from solitary confinement.

2/4/2016

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Part I
 
Last weekend I had an interaction that blindsided me.  I wasn’t ready for it and I couldn’t shake the negative feeling that I was left with. 
 
I know that positivity is associated with lower levels of inflammation, and inflammation is what gets MS people into physical problems(http://www.medicaldaily.com/awe-inspiring-moments-lower-inflammation-marker-cytokines-positively-impact-health-328092).  
Besides that, it is awful to feel depressed.  On the other hand, pretending to not be miserable doesn’t work.  I was too bummed out to pretend, anyway.

Instead, I decided to work on the Inmate book I’m co-authoring.  Chapter four needs an inspiring story about a shift in someone's life.  That’s when I found the story of Shaka. 
Shaka spent 19 years in prison for second degree murder.  He went from a reputation for tough negativity to someone who KNOWS we can live positive lives—his story sprang me from my funk, and so I am giving it to you (http://unstuckcommunity.tumblr.com /post/57791607469/how-to-break-the-negativity-loop-a-true-story-of).   
 
The former inmate says: “I focus on where I want to go, my thoughts coincide, and my actions get me there.”
 
                                                                                                       * * *
 

What broke the negativity loop
During his first eight years in prison, Shaka was resentful and violent. 


“I fed that negativity every day. Anything could be a trigger. Whenever the officers didn’t help me or I didn’t get mail...I felt like I didn’t have any value.”

He reacted negatively to the any slight from a guard or inmate. “I literally woke up rebellious,” he says.

His reactions landed him in solitary confinement for a total of seven years, once for four and a half years straight. 

During his final stay in solitary confinement, he realized he was “tired of myself moping around. I thought, ‘Dude, get yourself together. Man up. Deal with it. Life isn’t over. You can accomplish something.’ ”

So he turned his attention toward books. Stories of people like Nelson Mandela, who overcame huge hardships, began to change him. “[Mandela] was incarcerated for 27 years, and he did it with courage and dignity. Here’s a man who stood up for something. And here I am complaining about some dumb shit that I did,” Shaka says.

His shift was gradual. He read, and reread. He journaled and wrote his own stories. He processed his emotions through writing.  His outlook became more positive — AND he was able to influence some of his fellow inmates.  This, Shaka believes was critical to his transformation.

“Normally, positive thinking is frowned upon as weak [in prison],” he says. “One of the things that made it more acceptable was when I was negative, I was consistent… so when I started making the shift, I was able to bring more guys along.”

Shaka’s positive MO
During his last nine years in prison, Shaka developed his own approach to making his life better. He worked hard at it — he read every book in the prison library; he wrote on any piece of paper he could find.
He learned to let go of the negative thoughts that put him in a place he didn’t want to be.  He learned to replace them with hopes and goals. 

From solitary confinement to positivity--

 “It’s not the normal trajectory for a former felon,” Shaka says. “But it’s normal for me.  I think positively of where I want to be in life.  If more people did that, they’d have more positive outcomes.”
                                                                                               *  *  *
Shaka’s story made my efforts to spring out of a funk very doable.  I am printing out his wisdom and putting it on my office wall.  Next week I’ll share Shaka’s “Tactics” for positivity…

Till then, wishing you the very best,
Rosalie

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    Author--
    ​Rosalie Richards

    MS keeps coming in stages.  The first 'maybe' diagnosis was in 2004, the next 'for sure' one came in 2011.

    I thought that was the end of the story, but life with MS keeps unfolding.  

    I'd enjoy reading your posts.

    If you like this blog, check out my books--
    Beyond MS  Your Best Life and 
    Beyond MS--Get Moving!

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