Alcohol

 

Alcohol has a different relationship with all of its users and even its former users. Some people spend their entire lives in the pursuit of alcohol. Wether it be the weekend warrior who works hard all week and just gets wasted all weekend or the two glasses of wine a night business woman who just needs to unwind. Some people can have just one drink and some just can’t stop.  Most people start off a certain way with alcohol but it seems that the general gist is that a lot of peoples problems or lack thereof in life can be directly correlated with their relationship with alcohol. 

For me personally, there was a period of time where I did go out and enjoy drinking but i was always very controlled with the amount of nights and drinks I had once I learned my limits. I never let it affect accomplishing my goals in my career and fitness. After my relationship with many alcoholics I just made commitments to my health, my body and mind. I outgrew alcohol being part of my life and would have one drink here or there.  Slowly but surely as I would have an occasional drink, it would have a horrible affect on me. Like a sip of vodka would cause anxiety and I couldn’t tolerate the lack of mental control. I didn’t like how it made me feel. When I was diagnosed with Bell’s Palsy I didn’t want to have a drink especially while on the medications and I just haven’t had any alcohol since. It’s been over a year and I just don’t have alcohol in my life at all and it’s nothing like I can’t if i wanted to it’s just I think that drinking alcohol prevents you from evolving, enjoying life and tackling your goals.  Alcohol is the inventor of problems and the masker of emotional wellness. It robs you of life even your celebrations. Why is #alcohol the celebration and not the feelings of joy you feel being enough. Problem thinking, bad decision making, procrastination and in some cases health issues. You can only go so long before alcohol deteriorates you in some way so you either go down with it or survive it. 

Effort

My body went from effortlessly walking about. Capable, defying flexibility & dynamic motion. I could do anything physical, would work out & play sports with ease. In an instant, of unfortunate timing, I was struck by a car while riding my bike. 

Effortless because extreme effort. My biggest challenge. Simply walking. I was always very physical and now just the simple motion of walking takes extreme effort and work. My left leg, I’ve been able to modify my movements with the support of the right leg so it works like a pendulum because I can’t feel it, it only produces pain in motion & cause & affect issues because I’m swinging my leg to walk instead of pushing off the ground.  My ankle will drop if I truly don’t pay attention to my motions. 

Effort. Every movement. Using my fast brain to literally study my every movement to see if I can do anything to reduce the amount of pain, increase my mobility & decrease the effort it takes to walk.  I have to manipulate my nutrition to control the inflammation and use soaking and heating as well. I’ve slowly found ways to improve then hit plateaus. Sometimes I slip and don’t mind my motions and it sets me back a bit. The one thing that never changes is the effort it’s taking to try to make it effortless.  

It’s truly amazing how you can repair the body & push through to continue to see improvement with effort. Really gives me the strength to keep trying because I think the minute I sit down & stop putting in the effort  is the minute my body will lock up & I’ll loose it all. I guess it’s living the dream because although it’s a struggle I’ve turned it into a positive & a better understanding of the human body & psyche! Using nutrition, mental & physical therapy, nerve therapy & excercise to repair the problems & make improvements as much as possible with THC & CBD to help take the edge off instead of pharmaceuticals. 

The one thing that has made it easier to continue to put forth such effort is eliminating the need for people to understand or know my pain. It doesn’t matter & I no longer need others to validate what I know exists & removing that part of the effort has allowed me to hyper focus on treating myself. I find that seems to be a huge road block for people who suffer from pain issues or hidden handicaps, the effort into convincing people about what they feel, limitations and needs. That’s the part of the human psyche that needs the effort to be towards a change in perspective. Knowing your effort & focus on getting better is the only validation you need to spark the ability to thrive & feel better by making the effort to improve & reduce pain to work towards becoming effortless. 

“Those times when you get up early and you work hard; those times when you stay up late and you work hard; those times when you don’t feel like working — you’re too tired, you don’t want to push yourself — but you do it anyway. That is actually the dream. That’s the dream. It’s not the destination, it’s the journey. And if you guys can understand that, what you’ll see happen is that you won’t accomplish your dreams, your dreams won’t come true, something greater will.” - Kobe Bryant

Joy and Fulfillment

The very core of a persons foundation for joy & fulfillment is set by what encompasses their first experiences. When taking my child to experience things like for example a Museum, I noticed that the Museum in itself is not the focus of the experience but rather the snacks & gift store purchases. When I take my daughter to an experience, she eats snacks in the car on the way & when we get to where we are going what we are seeing, learning, touching, viewing and the people we meet are the joy and the fulfillment within the experience. 

To see that birthday’s & holidays at school & how people define joy all mean unhealthy food, drinks & candy that are horrible for a persons health, it makes me step back & evaluate the possibility of how important it is for us as parents to treat the focus of an experience to be about the festivities, dancing, singing, being silly or just the exploration & what unfolds being what joy is derived from instead of the connotation that unhealthy choices in a new environment for another reason are what joy is based on because you can’t achieve fulfillment within that. 

Could shifting the mentality & focus help make it easier for people to create a life of balance & fulfillment because from their very core foundation they were directed to focus on actually being present in the moment & finding joy in singular things as they are. Dancing & singing with your friends at a birthday party without holding a drink or food in your hand but actually just enjoying it as it is. Do we contribute to the likelihood of unhealthy lifestyles as adults by the focus we put on the external unhealthy additions to simple moments. 

I’m not saying delish treats and cocktail splurges aren’t fun additions to a birthday party, I just wonder how different society would be if we tweaked the focus of how we achieve joy & fulfillment.  My intention is to set the foundation for my child not to focus on unhealthy choices but be happy in the present moment, not needing anything as a co dependent to achieve fulfillment & joy by giving her the foundation to easily achieve joy & fulfillment in each singular present moment of life, experiences & celebrations. 

 

Spend time with people who are good for your mental health!

Mental Health is one of the most important yet most ignored part of our existence.  There use to be a stigma about mental health issues and people who suffered from them were essentially shunned from the community or told to suppress it and hide it. This has culminated to where we are today living in a world where people are afraid to send their children to school because they could be shot by an unstable child or even an extremely disturbed adult.  Where suicide is no longer shocking and everyone is on a pill for anxiety, ADD, ADHD without the therapy needed to work through the cause.

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Having grown up in a family with huge mental health issues that were just ignored, enabled or the person was medicated without any psychological help, I have learned that who you surround yourself with plays a huge part in your mental health. As the saying goes you can lead your family and friends to the psychiatrist but you can’t force them to drink the water!  Ok ok I made up that saying but it’s true.

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As I navigate my way around motherhood and parenting I have watched my daughter positively and negatively react to people which shows me that some people are good for you and some aren’t.  If you’re working on your mental health and doing what you can to live a  positive productive life that can by all means include cutting people out who aren’t.  We all share energy and who you surround yourself with fuels some of the energy around you which helps guide you towards being happy inside and out.

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So while I always try to give someone the benefit of the doubt or the opportunity to show me that they are working towards dealing with their issues, I honestly steer clear of people once I realize they have a negative affect on me or aren’t willing to do the work to get the help they need.

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It’s very important for your own mental health to surround yourself with people who are good for you! The goal in life is to be happy and have fulfillment with your desires so surrounding yourself with people who are good for your mental health is one of the most helpful things you can do for yourself. Life is to short to spend time with shitty people. 

#mentalhealth #awareness #proactive

Therapy and family.

I've asked my brother and mother to get therapy with me to develop a new foundation for healthy relationships to break the dysfunctional cycles of our family. I was told I have isolated myself from them and my mothers cancer was used to try to make me go against what is the right thing to do which is therapy.  

Parents raise children, children don't raise parents, so when a child develops disorders it directly corilates to the family dynamic. I was tormented by my brothers, my mother and my grandmother over my appearance and if I tried to complain about it my mother would say, I don't want to hear about it. To this day she denies this, probably because she didn't want to hear it. She was very critical of everything, had zero tolerance for emotions and any compliment you were given came with a backhanded criticism. My aunt was very jealous and would say awful things to me and my parents would never defend me, they would just say she is mentally ill. 

My parents felt that if you throw money at problems they go away. My family all talks negatively about each other behind each other's backs then are phony to your face. I developed an eating disorder and body image dysmorphia which lead to me using crystal meth at 14 years old. I just thought that if I could be skinny the criticism and talking about me behind my back would stop. I've been through counceling my whole life trying to change what my family thinks is wrong with me while none of them get actual mental help, they all just get medicated for their mental illnesses and carry on with their abuse behavior. 

I have overcome the affects of my families dysfunction by therapy, doing hard mental work, developing the right tools, knowing my triggers and I have tried to accommodate their mental illness for a very long time until now when it's affecting me again and I can no longer accommodate them because of the physical pain I deal with from an accident.  I have asked for years for us as a family to get help but the only person who has is me. 

So, what happens when you evolve, change, develop healthy communication, talk about your feelings and overcome all odds but the people who caused you to develop disorders in the first place do nothing?  You get to a point where they are all the same as they were 30 years ago telling you, that you are the problem.

You see, I am happy in my life, have wonderful relationships, a passion for living, proud of my accomplishments and am happy with myself as a person despite living in constant pain and struggling to be able to walk from a major trauma. I am even happier without being involved with these people but they want me back in their dysfunction to just sit there and take it without any of them actually doing any mental health work to make me want to be there. 

Life is hard enough as it is and if your family puts you down or isn't nice to you, discredits your intelligence and wants you to be anyone but who you are, they aren't your family, they are your abusers and it's time to end that cycle. They either get help and you work together with a professional in a safe environment to create change or you move on with your life and create a family for yourself that lifts you up, supports your passions and prioritizes your relationship to work together on keeping it healthy. Reality and functionality is a wonderful place to live, I do hope that one day my family would join me here but my bets are on them continuing to think I'm the problem. Problem solved, I've moved on with a glimmer of hope still in my heart. My door is always open but the boundaries are set and they don't bend for dysfunction they are there to keep it out. 

Where is the food?

We are made up of 3 things: water, oxygen and what we eat! 

Ask yourself these questions and change how you look at food:

1. What ingredients are in the foods I'm eating?

2. How are the foods I'm eating feeding my body?

3. What nutrients and minerals does my body require to be healthy?

4. What foods have zero risks associated with eating them and benefit my health while preventing diseases?

5. Am I really hungry?

When we start understanding how to properly feed our bodies we change our mental and emotional relationship with food. 

Feeding your body the proper nutrition connects and balances the body, mind and soul connection, making you a well rounded healthy person and not a victim!

Why I think taking pain and nerve medications is like giving up.

Pain

When do you come to the point in your recovery or ailment that you just accept that you will always be in pain? It's just your reality. Your obstacle to endure and persist to work through. Can we just accept that the repercussion from something has changed our whole life. How do we use our minds to move on to another level of comfort. Make our negative reality a positive. 

While dealing with chronic pain from my accident, I will not allow myself to become addicted to pills. Once you start using pain  and nerve medications, I think you are giving up hope of being able to make your body heal itself. 

The human body is a miraculous thing and if we treat it as such and feed it properly, it can heal and repair itself beyond our wildest dreams. If scientists can regenerate cells on their own with a chemical reaction in a dish, then you have to be aware of how much more powerful the body is. 

Throughout my journey doctors have been telling me that things are in my head. For 15 months after my accident, I was hit by a car while riding my bike, I walked around, tried to resume my life, and did physical therapy with bone on bone in my hip joint. From the impact of my hip on the ground, it shattered some bones and those fragments landed on my femur. The violence of the seat lodging where the sun don't shine tearing my hip labrum.  Eventually where my hip joint and femur were touching bone bumps developed.  Every step I took my hip joint and femur would grind against each other and my hip would try to go over where the bone bumps were, like it was off-roading on my femur. Doctors told me I wasn't really feeling that and it was something called Bursitis. I was injected 6 times into my bursa and it just landed me on crutches for a week after each injection. 

When you are going through test after test and Doctor after Doctor is telling you that you don't feel and hear a grinding with every step you take, you dig real deep to find the confidence and self reliance to fight on.  Your family and friends even doubting you because you look fine. You have to become the most honest version of yourself. You evaluate anything that causes you stress or could be toxic for you and you remove that from your life because you honestly don't have time for that bullshit.  This is your mental medicine. You're not taking a pill to eliminate the affects stress has on your symptoms. You're removing that actual cause of your stress and life becomes easier to handle. You find the truth in what really matters to you in this life because you want to live in heaven while dealing with pain not live in hell and try to be comfortable there. You find the simple joy in life and make that your heaven which leaves a lot of people, foods and behaviors in the dust. People feel hurt but you want to live in the truth to find solutions for your pain and if they don't live there too; it's toxic for you. 

I knew then and now, that if I took all the pills that they were pushing on me that I would never be able to solve the grinding. My left leg felt dead, it still does today and there was no way that they weren't missing something. I started to notice that my high protein diet was making me swell and stiff. I started reading more about holistic nutrition so I could still feel my body but reduce the pain and things that I could do naturally to combat my symptoms. If you use pharmaceuticals you can't feel and if you can't feel, you will never heal.  I decided to use marijuana for pain which makes life a lot slower and slightly more manageable. It's like living on the edge of bearable which is better than no relief. As I started to read about the affects of high protein diets and started to eliminate processed foods, dairy and limit my animal product intake. I was able to reduce some of the painful symptoms but was also able to feel my bodies issues a lot more. I was eliminating anything that could make me think I was feeling things I wasn't.  I took every tip to heart and followed every advice I was given.  Doctors wanting to continuously poke me with injections for false diagnosis. All the while still having major neck problems and nerve pains but my main focus was my hip. I knew there was something really wrong. 

Going back to a doctor who tells you that maybe things are in your head, is a very mentally challenging thing, especially when you're dealing with pain management without pharmaceuticals. Sometimes using them to give you a break for a day to do something you really want but only to have to go back to full pain the next day. I wouldn't say I found religion but I have definitely been directed to focus on the grace and divinity of my soul. You have to really learn how to perceive the world in a positive light; in spite of it. Focus on the good to drown out the bad, find your purpose and be willing to make an effort to make yourself live in that state. The true inner dialogue, the truth of who you are and what you want in life in order to overcome your reality to be strong and actually be and feel happiness while feeling pain. 

After 15 month of testing my doctor gives me my 6th injection into my bursa, a pocket along side the hip and says that it's time to remove my bursa because it's chronically inflamed and that's probably what's going on. This surgery would leave a large scar across my hip. Knowing this was wrong in my heart, I asked my dad to get me in to see another Orthopedist for a 5th opinion. 

This doctor listen to me. Months of what felt like screaming for anyone to believe me. He did. He did a diagnostic injection and ordered a contrast MRI from a different angle.  There it was. A fully torn labrum and bone on bone in my hip joint with the bone bumps. I wasn't crazy. It wasn't in my head. I cried. I never backed down. I may have had doubts. But I did everything I was suppose to do. Not just for my body but for my mind and my soul. I didn't do it the easy way and I finally got a break.  I needed major hip surgery. I actually had to have two hip surgeries within 7 months of each other. I've had to relearn how to walk and I'm actually still doing it. 

So, now back to my original question, when do we just give in and accept our reality of always living in pain.  I guess I just reminded myself that there's always a way to get to your next break and it's probably not going to be easy but it's definitely always going to get better.  If you take the pills they're shoving down your throat you take away your shot at actually getting better. 

Forcing myself to do physical therapy when I would rather be laying on the couch. 

Thankful

I am so happy and thankful for my support network. I wasn't born into an emotionally supportive family who surrounds themselves with positive people who speak supportively to each other. My upbringing was luxurious but critical and emotionally destructive. It's taken years to get to the happy place I am at without self destructing. I have worked hard to cure my eating disorders and not hide them. Overcome the low self esteem I developed from my older brothers torment as a child and my moms constant criticisms.  I am so thankful for the people who I have made my family who love me, believe in me and support me in the most positive light. By removing toxic people, toxic foods and toxic behaviors from my life, I found an inner and outer peace I never thought was possible. I can express my feelings in a healthy way, I process what people say for what it's worth and I work hard to make sure I am constantly moving forward towards my dreams. 

No matter how low you may feel, just take one step towards your dreams by removing one thing that's preventing you from getting there. Before you know it your issues are thousands of steps behind you and you will that much closer to your dreams. 

Mental Health

Since the day of my accident I have not felt comfortable in my own skin and I don't mean that in a self esteem body issue type way. I mean my body hurts always and I can't ever just sit still and be. I have nerves that are dead and some that are overworking. Nerves healing, bones healing and crazy other connectivity issues. Part of it was because I saw the car coming down on me in the split second before she hit me so my body tensed. I constantly have to move around because the stillness just isn't possible. The symptoms are always there. My hands are numb and my feet are always freezing and my spine feels like a metal rod that's just constantly throbbing. Through all of this there have been times that I've wanted to end it. The thought of living like this forever which, reality is saying it's so, could drive someone into the depths of mental hell. 

This is one of the main reasons why I won't give in to taking all the pills they push on me and why I continue to work out in any way that supports my capabilities and disabilities. I eat to support not only my physical health but my mental health. 

 I've had two episodes where I went into a two day whoa is me desperation and wouldn't leave the couch. My parents couldn't recognize their daughter nor feel her pain but I saw theirs. The anguish in seeing their daughter in so much pain that life didn't serve purpose, this fight seemed never ending. 

It was the look in their eyes that fueled me to dig deeper within myself to see that I knew I controlled my happiness and I was letting the pain win. 

As I lay her today typing this my hands are numb, my left foot is burning, hip is in spasm and my neck is just, we won't go there but, I'm the happiest I've ever been mentally. In spite of it all. 

I've shed all the toxic family and people who don't add joy to my life.  I try my hardest to look at the positive in every situation and have created a perspective that produces happiness. As each thing comes my way, I have an understanding of the importance of the little things and I appreciate the small victories in life with an elevated sense of gratitude. In essence I turned my frown upside down and researched ways I could change my brain. I didn't want to depend on a pill to just make me "feel" better. I wanted to be better and make the changes I needed that would stay with me. If I have to walk with a crutch I certainly wasn't going to use one for my mental health. I want off crutches in every sense of the word so that I can be free and evolve as a person beyond my wildest dreams.  The world is a place bigger then our own minds and if we don't expand our own minds we won't evolve as a race. 

I'm proud to talk about my mental issues because we all have them and we could definetly use a fresh breath of honesty with our shortcomings so we get better  instead of delusions of grandeur.

  A little moment of love goes a long way. Find love and happiness in everything you do. It's there if you're looking for it. 

A moment in time.

       Me and Louie at Physical Therapy

Yesterday at physical therapy I had notice this woman. She looked like a deer in the headlights the entire time the therapist was working on her. I sensed something off in her energy.  As we were leaving my instinct blurted out. 

"You're seeing the best in the business"

"I am?" She asked as her eyes lit up! 

"I drive 50 miles round trip from Sherman Oaks to come here, whom ever referred you, really cares about you" I said

She continued to tell me that she had back surgery and had crazy symptoms and now has vertigo but the vertigo pill gave her every symptom. She couldn't believe that she was having random swelling all over her body. One morning she is fine the next her ankles are so swollen and painful. She had no idea surgery would have this affect on her. There is no way she could have. 

My first hip surgery, the recovery was a breeze with regards to me walking but not so much the second time. It's always different, every time and for every one.  

As her eyes began to well up, I said "you're not alone, I have crazy symptoms too and I feel crazy half the time having to tell them what's going on"

She too knows what it's like to have to keep moving because once you stop the pain sets in and that's all you can feel, hear or think. Pain. It's hard, especially at night. 

I told her how I don't take any pain meds and she was in shock. She said she couldn't imagine living through this without them. 

I suggested Marijuana and it was like I was talking to a wall. She's uneducated about it and lived through Nancy Reagan's say not to drugs. I'm use to this. I softly gave her multiple holistic nutrition suggestions and described some of the different ways she could utilize marijuana. I got her wheels spinning. That's the goal. Provoking positive thought to solve our health issues as natural as possible. 

I told her to read my blog because I've written many a post on the craziness of recovering from major surgery.  (If you're reading this, Hi, I hope you slept well last night) 

She thanked me and walked away without the energy, fear, she was carrying before. 

This moment is what life is about to me. Being human, helping and caring about someone you don't even know because this moment in time can make a difference in their life. It made my day.