Unrevealed Secret

Gentle Reader,

You come here to ruminate about arthritis, pain and the body's foibles as we age.  I have posted nearly 30 times about how to manage the pain and immobility from osteoarthritis, spinal stenosis, aching joints.  We try together here to avoid surgery and to stay away from hard drugs if possible.

My daughter, Grace, blogs daily on how our thoughts can cause more pain than our actual physical suffering.  She asks us to question our thoughts.  This morning when I turned on my computer, I found this wonderful inquiry into our thoughts about our bodies.  I hope you find it as provoking as I did.  I'd love to hear your comments.

My blog post today:
Dear Inquirers, 

Secret Confession: I am shy, embarrassed, protective and nervous about going naked in broad daylight! People do this at Breitenbush Hotsprings (where I was just co-teaching a retreat).

Wow what an absolutely fantastic 4-day retreat, despite this Unrevealed Secret! I am once again amazed at the power and love found in the middle of a group gathered to do inquiry. People came from across the whole country, from corners of the US, and it was sooooo sweet and incredible!

So here is the True Confession: I never went in the naked hotsprings during daylight hours. Only at night under the stars when everyone was murmuring quietly in hushed voices. 

And no one could see in detail my imperfect BODY! OMG!

At this retreat, we did the work first on one troubling relationship that has brought angst, sadness, anger, frustration or stress of any kind, as far back into the past as desired. 

But what about that troubling relationship with the BODY??!! That dastardly betraying imperfect lump of flesh!

We began our work on the Body part way into the retreat. As we all wrote down all the negative, stressful thoughts we have about our bodies, the laughter welled up. The sheer volume on our lists of what is wrong with the body was incredible.

Too many wrinkles, too much fat here, not enough fat there, too many veins, too much swelling, pain in the back, in the legs, in the neck, gray hair, aching joints, lumps in the wrong places, injuries, dislocations, sagging skin, cellulite-covered thighs, bruises, poor digestion, needing to pee too often.

The body is a wealth of stressful thoughts. My relationship with this body is a profound snapshot of my relationship with my life.

What does it mean about us that we have these flaws? 

What am I believing it means about me that I have jiggly and lumpy thighs or thick knees, that skin is starting to wrinkle and sag in many places on this body of mine?

What do I believe other people will see and think if I'm running around naked at the hotsprings in broad daylight!??!

People will think (as if I know): "Oh...I thought she was younger than that....oh, I thought she was in better physical condition that that....oh, I thought she was more disciplined and closer to perfect....oh, I thought she was nicer looking than that...."

They will not like me, they will not be interested in me, they will not think I have anything to offer, they will not be attracted to me, they will not want to know me better, they will dismiss me, they will be bored.

Yes, it's that petty and ridiculous.

But oh the beauty of discovering this long-held true secret that started so long ago, somewhere in childhood, when I began to believe that I was all my body and not my inner soul. When I started to believe this body could be attractive or ugly to others, and that this could mean I had company or loneliness. When I started to believe that this body needed to be protected at all costs, because if it got sick or died, I would suffer.

What if being sick, having pain, having a flaw, or dying is NOT suffering? 

"Every story we tell is about body-identification. Without a story, there's no body. When you believe that you are this body, you stay limited, you get to be small, you get to see yourself as apparently encapsulated in one separate form. So every thought has to be about your survival or your health or your comfort or your pleasure, because if you let up for a moment, there would be no body-identification." ~Byron Katie

What if I have been focused on the body so I wouldn't have to be limitless expansive emptiness...something that is entirely beyond the body and beyond "me"? What if that's the Real Secret Confession?

Love, Grace


www.workwithgrace.com

Makes you think, doesn't it?  

Be well, Do well and Keep moving.  (all the while accepting things as they are)

Betsy

BetsyBells Health4u

206 933 1889

www.HiHoHealth.com

Yippee! Yoga!

Gentle Reader,

One of the disappointments in my pain management for my back and the spinal stenosis, arthritis and osteoarthritis residing there and in other joints was the need to abandon yoga practice with a group. I was a 3 x weekly participant in the early morning 8 Limbs yoga studio here in West Seattle, walking distance from my house. I loved the discipline of falling out of bed, putting on my yoga clothes, walking the mile down and then up hills, entering the quiet sanctuary to take my place on the mat.  Twisting into those beautiful poses exacerbated rather than healed affected joints and I had to stop.

Since then I have incorporated a few yoga stretches into my daily routine including down dog and the cat-cow sequence, happy baby and the lunge, with a couple planks, and tree.  I missed warrior and triangle and worked hard to replace regret with gratitude for what I could still do.

A couple weeks ago, a friend reminded me of Peggy Cappy, the older woman whose "yoga for the rest of us" program is sometimes aired on our public television station during their fund drives.  After visiting her web site and watching a few demonstrations, I decided this could be for me.  When the DVD's arrived in the mail, I quickly made an hour or so in my day to practice.  I am so thrilled to be following the kind, steady voice of a yoga teacher again.  Her Back Care Basics includes a full hour of restorative and strengthening floor yoga exercises.  My ham strings are really loosening up, the T band down the outer thigh is lengthening.  I am taking fewer Pain Relief Complex.

I bought the 3 DVD set and have checked out the other two programs which are calm and peaceful and yet push me to greater core strength and fuller movement WITHOUT straining the damaged discs.  Her students are well over 50 (not to worry, if you are younger) and their bodies less than glamorous, but they are flexible.  They show you how to modify moves if you can't go the whole way.

I recommend Peggy Cappy highly.

I also bought her CD call Back Care Deep Relaxation for the Rest of your Life.  Oh, my.  If you have trouble sleeping or quieting your mind, this will do it.  I put the 22 minute mediation on my ipod.  I don't think I have ever been that deeply relaxed except in yoga class when a good instructor really takes you deep in the final rest position.

I can't tell you what joy it gives me to be able to pass on this information.

I know two women in Seattle who may just be Peggy Cappy's equals.  Perhaps you have instructors who know cranky backs where you live.  If you are, like me, able to carve out a full yoga practice time right in your own living room, then get her DVDs and claim the flexibility you crave.

Be well, Do Well and Keep Moving.
 Betsy

PS.  Here is a web site with every yoga pose ever developed described in detail, in case you are looking.

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Take a swim

Gentle Reader,

Everything hurting?  Can't get enough exercise to lose those 15 pounds that promise to make a difference?  Walking is hard because of the knee, the hip, the back so you are spending too much time sitting in front of the TV, the computer, the window.  What's a person to do?  Everyone says you must exercise.  Don't I end every post with Keep Moving!?

Have you tried going to the water aerobics class for arthritis sufferers?  Go.  You will find a convivial group of people, mostly women but with a few handsome men in the pool.  Every shape imaginable is there so don't be held back by a too large bathiing suit growing mold in the bottom drawer.  Get it out or go to Costco and buy one of theirs.  I haven't checked, but this is about the time of year when there are tables full of bathing suits.  I myself picked up the perfect suit a couple years ago and have been very happy with it.

For me buying a bathing suit is tricky because I wear a breast prosthesis.  I long ago stopped bothering with sewing in a pocket for the thing (it's been 40 years since I had breast cancer.  I can't remember how many falsies I have worn out.)  The style I like has a gathered cross over so the material itself fills out even if there isn't anything helping push the cloth from the inside.  More than once swimming off the coast of Mexico, I saw my very expensive prosthesis bobbing along in the waves just beyond my finger tips.  Thus I chose suits that fill out without it.

If you have a fuller figure and only one remaining breast, you'll have to sew in a pocket.  There is a large bosomed life guard at the salt water pool here in Seattle who had a mastectomy a few years ago. She sat up on top of the life guard stand in her Speedo, the right side of her chest flat and the other amply filled out.  It's life. When you have it still, losing a body part is insignificant.

Didn't mean to get off on the cancer business.  We're here to talk about arthritis and moving for health to avoid surgery if we can.  Pick a pool that is warm if you can find one.  Public pools and YMCA's and club pools nearly all have water aerobics classes for people who suffer from arthritis.  Google it.

I can't swim, you protest.  This is not about swimming. This is about water holding you up.  You are in a near weightless environment with the water supporting you so you can to kicks, bends, twists, arm and leg raises, walking back and forth across the pool with NO pain.  The good teachers are very encouraging.  The best ones get to know you and are in the water with you.  You spend about 45 minutes warming up, moving all your joints, building up to pretty strong movements and then cooling down and stretching the way any aerobic workout class is conducted.  The difference is that you are being held in the supportive arms of water.  You will astonish yourself with what you can do when you are in the pool.

Personally I have not taken water aerobics for arthritis on any consistent basis.  My late husband Chuck, however, was a regular.  He was trying to manage terrific pain in his right hip and faithfully walked the 1 1/2 miles to the Y here in West Seattle, down Genesee Hill and up the hill to the Junction and on.  He loved the class and the ladies all loved him.  He had the sweetest brown eyes, a thick head of graying brown hair, a winning smile and was flirtatious, making them all feel appreciated.  He sat in the hot tub after the class, loving the bubbling heat on his joints.  He would buy an apple and take the bus home.

He did end up with a hip replacement and the surgery was successful.  Because he had worked out in the pool regularly, he was an excellent candidate for surgery.  Even though Chuck was on medication for a bad heart, had 5 stents in his arteries and had suffered the occasional TIA (mini stroke), he sailed through the operation and the recovery with the physical therapist coming several times to monitor his return to normalcy.
He continued with the arthritis water aerobics after his hip replacement as it helped his cardio and his over all strength.

When I did go to the water aerobics class a couple years after his death from cancer, the ladies recognized me from the few times I had joined him in the past.  The teacher even called him by name, saying "aren't you Chuck's wife?  Where is he?"  I had never gone to the Y to tell them that their favorite student had died.  It was a kind of home coming and memorial service all at once. I was there to work on healing my own body with these ladies. I had developed an neuroma in the ball of my left foot that was so painful, I couldn't walk.  Happily a good podiatrist and specially orthotics have alleviated this problem  I have water aerobics available to me any time other exercise is impossible. So do you.  So go for it.

If you'd like to read what the Arthritis Foundation has to say about water aerobics, here's the link: http://www.arthritis.org/water-exercise.php

Be well, Do Well and Keep Moving.

Betsy

BetsyBells Health4U
206 933 1889
1 888 283 2066
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The aging process

Gentle Reader,


I was looking in the mirror this morning and seeing the sagging skin of a woman who has lived outdoors and loved it, who has smiled, laughed, talked animatedly for decades enjoying the rapid repartee. Even if you are under 30, you can appreciate the inevitability of our aging process.  


Our bones and joints are part of this aging picture.  Instead of writing about the aging process, I am going to let Dr. Jamie McManus tell you the scientific facts we know today about what happens at the cellular level to hurry or slow the aging process.  


I take the Shaklee product Vivix, not mentioned in her talk, but alluded to since it contains the plants extracts she discusses as a way to slow down the aging process.  I am absolutely convinced that a swig of this delicious liquid once and sometimes twice a day has helped lower my arthritis pain level considerably.  And think what it might be doing for my mental capacity, heart health and kidney function. Watch the short video and let me know what you think. She talks fast and the topic is complex.  You might want to watch it twice.  I did. http://content.shaklee.com/shaklee/flash/show.php?video=why-we-age


Be well, Do well and Keep moving,


Betsy


Betsy Bell's Health4U
206 933 1889
www.HiHoHealth.com
for past posts, check in at www.nowheelchair.wordpress.com