Question the Experts

Four or five years ago I ran a half-marathon.  It was my second attempt and my friend and I hadn't trained all that much.  The first time I ran one I had trained hard, but had not been able to run the whole thing.  So the second time around I surprised myself by running (jogging slowly) the whole thing.  My friend and I celebrated that it had hurt so much but that we had pushed through it.  And when I tried to run again just a few short weeks later, I learned that I had really hurt my knee.  I hadn't run very far when I got shooting pain next to my knee.  It hurt to run, it hurt to jog, it hurt to walk.  So I stopped and went home.  I tried again later.  I got the same pain in my knee.  Rest wasn't helping, it wasn't getting better.  And it hurt really bad.
Hawaii has great health insurance, so I went to a doctor.  I googled an orthopedic surgeon in Kailua.  I didn't do any research on who she was, I just went.  It was the usual sit around in the waiting room until the doctor can see you 15 minutes late, then sit in the waiting room for 15 minutes by yourself deal.  I guess we are all pretty used to this, unfortunately.  Then I got to see the Doctor.  She asked me a lot of questions and did some manual examinations on my legs.  She manipulated the knee and finally instructed me to go with someone she was going to send for to get some x-rays done to see what was going on in there.  Before setting off to fetch her assistant she gave me a talk about different kinds of knee pains.  She talked a lot about how many people are not meant to run, especially if something was a little different in one leg than the other (one of my legs is a hare shorter than the other).  She then also went on to talk about how often she will do x-rays on elderly gentlemen and she will find a form of cancer that is causing the pain, often in the hips.  Right after she mentioned cancer, she left the room.  And I sat there for 15 minutes thinking about cancer and how I will never run again.  I went to take the x-rays and she determined that I would need to get an MRI on my knee to figure out what was going on since she couldn't see anything in the films.  Then she gave me another talk about how I should never run again (I don't remember exactly what she said, but this was the basic gist).  Then she sent me off to the hospital to get an MRI done.
I followed her instructions like a good girl, got the MRI done and then went home in a panicky depression.  I would never run again.  There's something wrong with my body.  I've done some real damage.  I never went to pick up the results of the MRI.  I never scheduled a follow-up appointment with the lovely Doctor.  And I stopped running totally for about a year.
It's not that I didn't want to look at the MRI because there might be something I wouldn't like in the results.  I'm not one to go into that kind of denial.  If there's something wrong I generally want to know what I can do to fix it or make it better.  It was more that there was something about the way the doctor treated me.  Something about the way she brought up cancer and left me alone.  Something about how she sucked all hope out of my recovery.  Looking back I realize that it was the first time that a doctor told me something and I didn't just blindly accept it.  Doctor's words were like the word of God.  If a doctor told me something I believed it.  But I didn't accept her message and it took me a really long time to figure that out.  I had to mourn the death of my implicit trust in all medical professionals.  I began to consider that doctors are humans. And that although they had gone to school for a very long time and learned a considerable amount about the human body and their specialties, they are not infallible.
I began to research the kind of pain I had.  I looked specifically at runner's blogs and discovered that the kind of pain I have is pretty common.  It is caused by tight, unstretched muscles, a lack of cross-training and strengthening other muscles and a tight IT band.  Turns out there's things you can do to help with the pain and a foam roller does a great job of stretching your IT band.  I tested out what I had learned.  I started kickboxing which strengthened all my muscles, not just my running muscles.  I started stretching and icing.  I worked on my running technique in short bursts.  If it started to hurt at all, I stopped what I was doing.  And you know what?  It worked.  I will not be running any marathons or half-marathons any time soon, and I actually have no motivation to do so.  But I have been able to compete in 3-5 mile trail races with obstacle courses.  I can run when it is involved in a crossfit workout.  I have regained all of my functional running skills and have gotten myself to a point where there is little to no pain involved.
The moral of the story is this: go to the doctor, listen to the doctor, question the doctor, do your own research.  If your heart and intuition are telling you that the doctor is not spending enough time with you, or the doctor's words are not sitting right with you, You Might Be Right.  Do not fear a second opinion.  Do not let doctors bully you when you go into their kingdoms armed with your own knowledge, intuition and research.  Do not let the doctor make you feel stupid or hopeless.  And for the most part this means that you will follow their prescription..  They very often know what they are talking about.  I almost always take the medicine they prescribe.  I can think of only one other time that I didn't and it involved medication that would have caused side effects worse than the problem they were trying to fix.
So question the experts.  This goes not just for doctors, but government officials, researchers, spiritual and religious leaders, your boss, your mother, your best friend.  Ask for help, listen to what they say, and then follow your intuition.

Ain't No Stoppin Me Now!

Because My Mom Says

"You can be anything you want." - Pauline Sullivan.

Although much of my early life was dictated by fear- fear of failure, of letting others down, of saying the wrong thing, of breaking rules, of not being liked, of looking stupid, and of going to Hell, I was given a great gift that carried me through.  I'm not sure if I was only told once, or if it was a repeated message in my household, but I heard the message that I was allowed to dream big.  That we had very little spending money, but that I was fully capable of going to college and being anything I wanted.  Through the fear I heard that I could keep my mind open to possibilities.

I don't know how my mother knew to pass those words on, or how she came to believe them herself, coming from even poorer circumstances, growing up in the basement of her grandparents home as a young child under the abusive, angry watch of my alcoholic grandfather in New Jersey, but somehow she heard the message and believed it.  We may have been "poor" by definition of not having a lot of extra cash on hand, but my parents had (and they still have) 5 acres of land in the woods, with a stream and a house and garden that they built on their own.  My father worked for himself in a business with his friends that they built and my Mom was able to stay home to raise us.  What strength of character allows you to dream that you can have that?  That you are not stuck with what you have been handed in this life, but can make your own choices?

I was lucky to hear that.  Because I was given many messages, and most were not positive.  We are all given some obvious, and some very sneaky messages about who we are and who we are supposed to become.  How we are supposed to behave and how much we should be allowed to have.  How big we should allow ourselves to dream.  When I was a child I was going to be a teacher or a nanny, then I would be a Counselor, then I decided that I would be a physical therapist and work with sports teams.  I had limited connection to the possibilities that existed.   As time goes on my vision expands just a little to include new things, new possibilities. In college I moved from Physical Therapist (they have to touch sweaty feet!) to therapist.  This one has stuck for quite some time.  I think it bumps up really close to my passion and purpose.  And still I think there is more for me.  I will be a therapist, and I will be great.  But I am allowing myself to dream even bigger.  A life coach?  A nutritionist?  An exercise instructor?  A public speaker?  Owner and operator of a world-famous retreat center where spiritual leaders stay and speak?  President?  Who knows. Because I can be whatever I want.  My mom says so.

An Artist Who Truly Connects with the Audience

"When we really see each other, we want to help each other." - Amanda Palmer

This is a must watch.  The power of connection.  Enough said.

Click here if the video doesn't work.  Or look up Amanda Palmer: The Art of Asking on YouTube.

Everything You Need...

From Sun-Gazing.com

I never thought I'd be the type to write out a check to myself, signed by "The Law of Abundance" with the hopes that it would bring me anything but a roll of the eyes from anyone I might tell about it.  And yet I did this very thing about 10 minutes ago.  I sheepishly explained to my husband that a trusted friend had mentioned this on Facebook and it seemed like a great idea so I did it.  His response was an entertained smile and a nod of the head.  He no longer seems fazed by my "Why the hell not?" attitude and all the strange behavior that has come with it.
So why am I hiding abundance checks in the back left corner of my home within 48 hours of the new moon? I have found it to be true that when a message shows up in your life all at the same time from several different sources, it should not be ignored.  The recent message that has been gently, but persistently nudging me for quite some time is that everything you need is available to you right now.  Like, as in, I need nothing.  It's all here.  All you need to do is look for it or ask for it.  This may sound a bit crazy to you if , like so many people out in the world grew up hearing one or a combination of the following messages:
There isn't enough money, money doesn't grow on trees, the poor will inherit the earth, asking for money is shameful, people who have money must have done something wrong/evil/sinful to have that much money, rich people are spoiled and/or selfish, you don't need something that nice, it is wrong to want money/things, you should be proud of how we do without any money..., and on and on.
For me, I at least grew up knowing that having money wasn't the answer to everything.  We grew up poor, but I was well fed, had a fabulous backyard including woods and stream to spend all of my free time and the most amazing siblings that anyone could ever ask for.  We actually sat down and ate dinner together every night and had family game night.  My parents instilled in us a sense of humor and pride that I would not trade for anything.  The only drawback, as there is always two sides to a coin, is that now I don't know how to have money.  I am embarrassed to talk about it.  I have made really cool things for people- handmade stuffed animals that took hours of my work- and was ashamed to charge anything more than what you might buy a mass manufactured Made in China toy for.  When I have money I tend to spend it immediately- and I will try to get the best deal that I can for mediocre quality clothes or goods.  I am proud of my ability to get clothes for 4 dollars at Sal's Boutique.  This is not a bad thing, but it definitely hinders me when I am asked to spend a reasonable amount of money for a quality good or service.  It also gets in the way when I think about charging people a good amount of money to sit down and talk to me for an hour.
Because of my lack mentality, I know I have not been attracting wealth.  I have been pushing it away.  When I think about it, I know there were opportunities that I missed because I was afraid or embarrassed or scoffed at the amount of money they might cost.  One example- In high school, I can count on one hand how often I asked my parents for money for anything.  My friend Jen and I would go around the cafeteria at lunch and ask other kids for a quarter "for the phone" and get enough to split an ice cream sandwich between us.  I did not have real basketball shoes when I played basketball, I had these cheap sneakers from PayLess.  And when I joined LaCrosse in college I wore the SAME SHOES, the same terrible, cheap basketballish sneakers to run in.  And of course I got a stress fracture.  Could Mom and Dad have afforded shoes?  Yeah.  I think they could have.  I was just too ashamed or scared to ask.  I also didn't want to buy the 100 dollar health insurance that I was required to have when I played LaCrosse because it was too expensive. Luckily for me, I had to and could see a doctor for that stress fracture.  I never bought anything but used books, wouldn't spend cash on food (I had a school lunch card), and when I moved to Hawaii in 2002, I continued these cheap spending habits.  I wouldn't buy good bras, workout gear, sneakers, shoes, food, craft supplies, work supplies, nothing.
Sure, I was good at not spending money on quality stuff, I was good at getting a lot for not much money, but was I saving money?  Was my life better because I saved 5 dollars?  No.  And my mindset of "never enough money" drove me to depression and anxiety.  Being a cheap-ass did not make me happy and it did not make me wealthy and it did not stop me from worrying about money.
For all that time I never questioned the fact that it wasn't working.  I thought I was budgeting and saving.  But a few years ago I had a bit of a breakdown when financially several big ticket items, costing several thousand dollars each all fell on us at the same time.  All were unavoidable.  And it broke me down.  I saw a therapist and started searching to figure out what life is all about.
You can read my other posts on gratitude, living the life of your dreams, and forgiveness, lessons I have been learning about on my quest.  This week I have been researching what basically boils down to the famous "Law of Attraction." The idea that you attract that which you think about or believe.  The theory would be that since I had been living in such a lack or "have-not" mentality, I was attracting more and more of the same.  I was getting exactly what I thought I deserved.  I wanted more, but didn't believe myself worthy of having it.  I was not good enough, smart enough, didn't have enough letters after my name, and didn't grow up in a wealthy family and therefore I would never get more.  I behaved in a way to get me just enough money to get buy.  Never more.  I got a paycheck and spent exactly all of it, like clockwork.  I didn't mingle with "rich" people, I didn't do things "rich" people would do.
So, if the theory is that you must believe in abundance to attract abundance, I am sure as hell going to give it a shot.  I think the difficult piece is that you have to actually believe that you are worth it.  That I can have a cleaning lady and buy Victoria's Secret bras.  That I can spend the money on grass-finished beef from Whole Foods.  That I can buy a quality wrist brace to use when I work out- not the cheap one from Long's- an actual gymnast's wrist brace.  The tough part is not just saying it, but feeling it in your heart and in your gut, that yes, you are worth it, life is worth it, and those products are worth the money you are spending.  I believe I am ready for this now.  After a few years of saying that I am worth it, I truly now, believe that I am.  And I don't mind telling all of you that I am.  That my therapy and life coaching services will be worth the money that you will pay me, because it will change your life and you will wonder why you waited so long.  And with the money that I earn from the book that I write, the services I provide, and someday the retreat center that I will run I will get myself regular pedicures and manicures and haircuts and quality gifts for my husband and family.  I will buy plane tickets all over the place to visit people I haven't seen in too long.  I will tithe 10% to the charities, church and organizations of my choice.  I will support the people who are creating quality goods and services so that they can spend that money to pay it forward.
The miracle of it all is, that everything I need to make this happen is all there waiting for me.  Every time I put this theory to the test, it holds true.  The opportunities are always there.  I have to stop shying away from opportunities that present themselves and continue to live in the knowledge that I am valuable and worth it. I am remembering to ask for what I want and need.  I know you may not believe me.  I hope you can begin an experimental journey of your own.  I hope you continue to follow this blog to see what happens.  I'm excited to find out how this all turns out.
What is your experience with abundance?  Do you attract what you want into your life?  Do you know what you want out of life?  Comment below!