Your Body Is on Your Side (Blog #1075)

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After four days of feeling like rough stuff, sneezing and hacking like all get out, this morning I woke up better. Not completely full of energy, but more energized. I haven’t sneezed all day. Let’s hear it for my miraculous body and its willingness to rise to the occasion (hip, hip, hooray!). This being said, my lower back has got me groaning like a bayou frog, and my hips feel like a door on rusty hinges. Either I spent too much time in bed this weekend, or my body is rebelling against the anesthesia I had for my EDG three days ago. I mean, that stuff knocks you out for a reason.

It ain’t no shit.

This afternoon I saw my upper cervical doctor, and he said I looked south of fabulous. Still, he decided to “push me” (that is, not give me an adjustment), in hopes that my body and nervous system will kick in and do their thing. Like, Oh, yeah, that’s supposed to be our job. So sorry we forgot! Thanks for the reminder.

My grandmother used to do this thing at holidays. She’d slave away in the kitchen for hours making a stupendous meal (which was free for us, her family, to eat, by the way), and when we’d compliment her, instead of saying, “Thank you,” like you’re supposed to, she’d come back with, “Well the broccoli casserole is undercooked because I got a new stove this year” or “The potatoes would have been warmer if you’d been here on time.” (That’s called being passive aggressive.) My point being that, for whatever reason, she simply couldn’t be satisfied. And I get it. As a recovering perfectionist, I really get it. My body just kicked a cold’s butt, and I’m like, my hip hurts. But more and more I’m purposing to focus on what IS working rather than what ISN’T.

Along these lines, I’m more convinced than ever that my body is on my side. I’m more convinced than ever that it’s trying and doing the best it can. Steve Goodier said, “You have a great body. It is an intricate piece of technology and a sophisticated super-computer. It runs on peanuts and even regenerates itself. Your relationship with your body is one of the most important relationships you’ll ever have. And since repairs are expensive and spare parts are hard to come by, it pays to make that relationship good.” To me this means that it’s incumbent upon me to do everything I can to support my body in its efforts to heal. By taking pressure out of the system (by letting go of tension and old emotions), by drinking water, by listening to what it has to tell me.

In terms of listening to what my body has to tell me, there are times I’m absolutely blown away by the messages it sends me. Day in and day out my intuition speaks to me about my relationships (dump them, call them), professional matters (create this, read that), and health matters (eat this, don’t eat that). And lightening fast. More and more I’m sure that one’s personal growth and even their spiritual growth center around this lifelong challenge–learning how to hear, trust, and act upon your own inner guidance. Even if no one else approves or understands. Even if you can’t say why.

Especially if you can’t say why.

For me the phrase that comes up when I get inner guidance is “I just know.” Like, I just knew my therapist was the right one for me, just like I knew Momentum was the right name for my former dance studio. Earlier tonight there was a singer on The Voice (Jon Mullins), and within three seconds of hearing him introduced, before he’d even sung a note, I just knew he was going to be good. I could feel it all over my body. And, y’all, he was awesome. He absolutely killed it. What’s more, and maybe this is why I got that feeling (and it doesn’t matter, I don’t have to know WHY), his song, “Don’t Give Up on Me” by Andy Grammar, was the perfect reminder.

I’ll explain.

First imagine that YOU are singing these words to your body. “I will fight. Yes, I will fight for you. We’ll make it to the other side.” Then imagine that YOUR BODY is singing these words to you. “I’m not giving up, I’m not giving up, no not me. I’m not going down that easily.” This, I believe, is really the relationship we should have with our magnificent bodies, a relationship in which we realize that we’re on the same page, that we want the best for ourselves, a relationship in which we fight for each other. For ourselves. More and more my advice to myself or anyone else is: trust yourself and the body you’ve been given for your journey. You’re both wise beyond measure, capable of far more than you ever imagined. So hang in there. And bet on yourself. Give yourself a chance. Don’t give up on you.

Quotes from CoCo (Marcus)

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It's the holes or the spaces in our lives that give us room to breathe and room to rest in, room to contain both good and bad days, and--when the time is right--room for something else to come along.

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On What We’re Capable of (Blog #1048)

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Today I saw my therapist, and we talked about scarcity versus abundance. Mainly because over the last year I’ve had a number of “dodgy” clients who haven’t been up front about what they wanted and/or have tried to manipulate me into doing more work than we originally agreed to. “I can’t figure out if the universe wants to you learn a lesson,” my therapist said, “of if it’s just that you live in a psychic field of scarcity that affects everyone in it.” Later we talked about how for the last several years I’ve done a lot of odd job work and about how, although I’m grateful for the work because it’s kept me afloat and allowed me to focus on writing, I’d really rather be doing other things. “I want to make my living as an artist,” I said. “I have gifts to give and want to give them.”

“And be paid an appropriate amount for them,” my therapist added.

I don’t know that me and my therapist reached an exact conclusion on this matter. She did suggest being “friends” with my money as much as possible. You know, taking care of it, not being so afraid to count what I have or don’t have. Mostly I mention all this because I imagine that there are other people like me who 1) struggle with the idea of abundance and 2) wish they could make a living with their gifts and talents but continuously find themselves “just getting by” through other means.

“I’ve been just getting by for a while now,” I told my therapist.

“It’s probably bordering on intolerable,” she said.

Accurate.

I guess this post is partly about hope, the idea that even if you’ve struggled with something for a while, it can still turn around. This afternoon I saw my upper cervical doctor and told his secretary that although I’m still not perfect (something is pinched in my shoulder), I’ve only had one headache in the last month. This down from as many as four or five a week only three months ago. Seriously, they were so bad I was beginning to think nothing could help them. This is just the way it is, and all that. And y’all, I still think that about a handful of problems and challenges in my life, including my work and finances. But if one longstanding pain in the ass can turn around, so can another.

And another and another and another.

This evening I’ve been thinking about how we really don’t know what we and our bodies are capable of until we experience it. Sure, we can read about miraculous healings in books (or on blogs), but until WE experience something phenomenal in OUR body, it’s just not the same. Three months ago immediately following my first upper cervical adjustment I felt my body release emotions and shift and move itself in ways I never had before. Indeed, it was like a science fiction movie, something I didn’t think was possible. Not because my body wasn’t designed to do it, but because I didn’t KNOW my body was designed to do it.

Along these lines, much of the growth I’ve experienced through therapy has looked like me going, “I didn’t know I could do that.” This morning my dad said, “You like to confront people.” Well, it’s not that I LOVE it, I just despise the alternative, stuffing everything down, playing games, being passive aggressive. Better said, I’ve simply seen that these strategies cause more pain that they’re worth. My point being that five years ago no one would have ever said that I liked to confront people. They would have called me an avoider, a peace maker. Even I would have thought, I can’t. I just can’t confront. It’s not who I am. But having spoken up successfully on dozens of occasions, I now know that I was wrong about myself.

I just didn’t know what I was designed to do (that is, be honest).

Today my upper cervical doctor said that my nervous system looked out of whack. “You really need an adjustment,” he said, “but I’m not going to give you one.”

“Huh?” I said.

“Well, look at this,” he said, pointing to my patient history. “Here we adjusted you, and you went two weeks just fine. Then we adjusted you, and it was two more weeks. Then we adjusted you again, and here we are two weeks later. So your body’s in a pattern. It’s EXPECTING the adjustment to only last two weeks.”

“So your hope is that by going another week without an adjustment my nervous system will figure out that it’s supposed to be taking care of things without your help?” I said.

“Exactly,” he said.

Now, there’s part of me that wishes my doctor had made a correction today. Like, it might have helped my shoulder. Sitting here now, I could be more comfortable. But I’m reminded that a certain amount of discomfort isn’t necessarily a bad thing. So often we find ourselves in unproductive patterns–ways of thinking about money and ourselves, ways of acting–and stay in them because they ARE comfortable, familiar. And whereas challenging ourselves to step out of these patterns may be scary, it’s absolutely necessary if we want to discover what we’re really capable of.

This is, of course, more than we ever thought possible.

Quotes from CoCo (Marcus)

"Things that shine do better when they're scattered about."

In the Valley of the Shadow of Death (Blog #1027)

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This afternoon I saw my upper cervical care doctor, and we talked about the healing process. Thinking about the sinus infection I’ve been fighting for the last three weeks, I said, “I could use a little pep talk.”

“How long have you been coming here?” he said.

“Two months,” I replied.

“Okay,” he said. “Hang in there. There’s a reason you’re not on a two-month plan. [I’m on a twelve-month plan.]”

Then he showed me a “road to recovery” graph drawn by one of the people who developed upper cervical care (I think). “The top, mostly horizontal line is normal health,” he said. Then he pointed to a line that dipped significantly downward and said, “This was your health before coming here. Things would improve now and then, but overall they were headed south.”

Into the valley of the shadow of death, I thought.

Next he pointed to the bottom of the valley, where the declining line began to slowly climb upwards back to normal (as indicated by the–eekk–“exceptional chronic case” line below). “At two months we’ve got you going in the right direction,” he said, “but you’re still down here. Your posture’s changed because we’ve forced it to. [Get a linebacker to twist your neck around* and see if your body doesn’t respond.] You’re seeing improvements, but it usually takes three to four months for your nervous system to begin working and integrating with your immune system. THAT’S when we typically see the most dramatic results, and that’s when YOU should notice a difference in your sinuses and things like that.”

Fingers crossed.

*To be fair to my doctor, this isn’t exactly what happens. For an in-depth and less dramatic description of what DOES happen, read here.

So I’ve thinking about this graph this evening, about being in the valley of the shadow of death. Not just in health terms, but also in symbolic terms. What I mean is that there are so many times in our lives when things are going down, down, down, getting darker and darker and darker. Like we would if we were playing a game of limbo, we think, How low can I go? But then by some grace we reach–to borrow a phrase I used yesterday–a turning point. One day we see a therapist, get a new doctor, pick up a book, start a class, or hell, get married or divorced. Regardless, we think, Okay, I may not be out of the woods yet, but at least I’m not going any deeper into them.

Having struggled with sinus issues for decades, I can’t tell you how much I HOPE that one day they will be a thing of the past. Or at least be less frequent, more manageable. Technically, I guess they are. Despite the fact that they’ve reared their ugly heads (in my head) lately, they’re not as bad as they used to be. Still, my point is that for all my hoping, I also find the notion that they COULD be significantly better a little hard to believe. Just because that hasn’t been my experience. Ugh. It’s the damndest thing. We WANT better health, better relationships, better finances, and yet it’s difficult to truly envision them for ourselves because we naturally project that our future will be not all too dissimilar from our past. This is why we NEED others who are NOT where we are but are rather where we want to be to keep reminding us that other realities are possible, that–I promise–your viewpoint will change when you’re not in the valley.

Quotes from CoCo (Marcus)

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Boundaries are about starting small, enjoying initial successes, and practicing until you get your relationships like you want them. 

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A Lot Can Happen in 80 Days (Blog #1015)

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Last night after finally posting the blog at 3:30 in the morning I figured I’d fall right to sleep. Well, wouldn’t you know it, I got a burst of energy and was up until 5:30, scrolling on my phone, thinking, thinking, thinking, and talking to Jesus. You know, because he’s always awake. Anyway, I thought, Maybe I’m healing, maybe my sinus infection is going away. But damn if I didn’t wake up this morning still hacking and coughing. This being said, I have had more pep in my step today and haven’t thought about being sick nonstop. So who knows what’s happening?

Jesus, that’s who.

Six weeks ago I wrote about my first upper cervical care treatment, upper cervical care being concerned with your atlas, the topmost vertebrae in your spinal column. (Why be worried about your atlas, Marcus?) Because your brainstem, which is like Command Central for your body, runs THROUGH your atlas and can be negatively impacted if your atlas is misaligned. Make a circle with your thumb and index finger and think about running a straw or water hose through it. Then think about what would happen if you tilted your finger circle in such a way that it clamped down or put pressure on the straw or water hose. What would you have?

Problems, that’s what. Less “flow.”

All this to say that when my doctor took x-rays of my neck back in November (pictured below on the left), my atlas was tilted way wrong. “We want it to be at an angle of 8 to 10 degrees,” he said, “and yours is at 3.4. Additionally, we’d like your neck to be curved like a banana, but yours is straight as a board.”

“Yeah, it looks like a cucumber,” I said.

Anyway, for the last six weeks I’ve been being treated (or not treated if my doctor determines that my correction has “held”) once a week. Last week we took x-rays to see how I’m improving (or if I am), and today–today!–I found out the results (pictured below on the right). Y’all, in a nutshell, they were nothing short of miraculous. These were my doctor’s words, not mine. First, my atlas is now sitting at an angle of 10.5, almost perfect. Second, my cucumber neck looks more like a banana. “It’s almost textbook,” my doctor said. “I’d like to see your top curve just a bit more, but your bottom is superior. [I’ve been told that before, I thought.] But even if we don’t get any more improvement–and we should–I’m THRILLED with where you are.”

I just stood there with my mouth open, amazed, at the same time thinking about my sinus infection.

“To come this far in this short of time really is phenomenal,” he said. “It means your body is responding really well.”

My doctor said that because your nervous system directly influences or controls your immune system, it’s possible that somewhere down the line my body will be able to fight off sinus infections on its own. “Not that you’ll never get one,” he said, “but instead of it lasting a month, maybe it’ll only last a few days. Because when your nervous system is operating properly, it should be able to ADAPT [to fight off bacteria, etc.].” Then he added, “It’s just going to take some time to get there. Your brainstem has been under pressure for a long time, and it has a lot of repair work to do. But hang in there. Usually people start seeing really wonderful results around the three or four month mark.”

Okay, I thought. Hang in there, Marcus. We have a lot of repairing to do.

The four month mark, that’ll be about the time I’m wrapping up this blog project. Tonight’s blog is #1015 in a row, and that means that after tonight I only have 80 more posts to go, 1095 days being three solid years. I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately–THE END. And whereas part of me can’t wait to get there–like, I did it, now let’s drink a beer and take a nap–another part me of me, I know, will miss this. Because this is where I’ve found myself and where I continue to find myself. This is where I’ve learned to like me, my life, and life in general MORE. I guess it feels like these sweet moments are running out, and I’d just like to hold on a little longer.

Getting back to upper cervical care, even though I’ve ALREADY experienced such great results with it (my headaches are WAY better, my posture’s improved, my shoulder pain is all but gone), it still scares me. I think, What if I get to the three or four month mark and something still hasn’t healed? Ugh. We’re so programed to think, What if something goes WRONG? And yet more and more I’m learning to think, What if something goes right? What if I experience a(nother) miracle? What if THE END of the blog is THE BEGINNING of something ELSE that’s wonderful? I think of that book by Jules Verne and tell myself, Wait a minute. A lot can happen in 80 days. You can go around the world.

Quotes from CoCo (Marcus)

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You can’t play small forever.

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