How To Turn Neuropathy Lemons Into Lemonade!

Today's short post from tellingknots.com (see link below) comes from a blog written by a lady living in Jerusalem, Israel and is a humorous look at an incident in her daily life with neuropathy. If only more of us could be able to bring a smile to other people's faces in such a way, living with neuropathy may not be such a daily grind.

Lemonade: A neuropathy kitchen ballet in one act 
Telling Knots 30th July 2014

Hot day in July, time to make lemonade. Sugar, lemon juice and a little hot water are already mixed up in the bottle. All that remains is to pour the cold water through the funnel and fill the bottle. Pouring from a Brita water-filter pitcher into the funnel. Left hand somehow loses grip on the funnel. Right hand somehow flips off the top of the Brita pitcher. Water, water of blessing, water of life, cold wet water flows over the kitchen counter, over me, onto the floor, onto the other counter, onto the floor of the next room.

I had no idea how much area a liter of water can actually cover.

Then comes the cleaning up part. My balance isn’t great today, but I need to make a choice: toss the floor cloth down and sort of skate around on it to sop up the water? Get down on my hands and knees (which means getting up again) to clean it up?

I start with the skating method, lose my balance (not a huge surprise) and fall over into the water. Nice and refreshing on this hot summer’s day. Since I’m down there anyway, I stay down and finish the clean up. Finally I crawl over to the bed and use it to hoist myself back up.

Cool – I did floor exercises today.
(This post appeared in almost identical form on my Facebook page. It made people smile, so I decided to post it here, too.)

http://www.tellingknots.com/archives/3490

When Neuropathy Shocks You Into Action

Today's post from georgeschofield.com (see link below) is the personal story of an educated man taken by surprise by a neuropathy diagnosis. He had none of the 'normal' neuropathy symptoms of tingling, numbness etc but found himself falling over at unexpected moments and for no apparent reason. Many neuropathy patients will be able to identify with what he says and the way he says it and maybe his best piece of advice is not to put your physical problems down to old age!!

A TROUBLING DIAGNOSIS
 
Feb 2 2016 George H. Schofield, PhD

I have to admit I took it badly. Not for long but badly nonetheless. You’d think I could simply test out of the emotional part of this. After all, I’m a professional counselor, a psychology PhD, an author and expert on human behavior and adaptability.

Wrong!

What set this in motion was the shocking number of times I tipped over. Once, after turning around quickly in a walk-in closet. (How is it that I can repeatedly ride my new bike for 30 miles without incident but just fall over in my closet?) Then, getting out of a car on my way to an important meeting. Then again in my closet. And again. My own diagnosis: doing too many things at once; distraction. My doctors’ diagnosis: peripheral neuropathy.

Peripheral what? I’d never heard of it.

That may be because it’s most commonly associated with diabetes, which I do not have, and as a side effect of chemotherapy, which thankfully I haven’t ever needed. Peripheral neuropathy (PN) is a condition that affects more than 20 million people in the US. It usually involves pain, numbness or tingling (or some combination thereof), but in my case I don’t have any discomfort whatsoever. It’s just that my brain doesn’t seem to know where my feet are when they are in close proximity to one another, especially when they’re turning.

There’s no cure for PN, but for some people—especially those with pain and tingling—a drug (sometimes Lyrica) is prescribed and may help with symptoms. For me, the treatment is physical therapy and better shoe support. That’s for my feet. For my head, I needed some other things, which I’m recommending to other PN sufferers:
Get Educated. A good source of information is the American Chronic Pain Association, ACPA.org. There also may be support groups in your area. There’s no PN support group where I live, but it is discussed at diabetes support groups, so I may try those.
Inform and educate your family and friends. Let your loved ones know about your diagnosis. They already will know something has changed just by observing you, but may not know the cause. In the case of PN, stumbling can be mistaken for having a drinking problem. Help your loved ones worry about what’s really going on and let them know how they can help.
Have a heart-to-heart talk with your life. I often say that there are a minimum of five of us living in my house at all times: my wife, me, our marriage, my life, and my wife’s life. Each of them needs nurturance. Each doesn’t always see eye to eye with the other. My wife and I were already in agreement. My life and I had some decisions to make. What do we want our quality of life to look like going forward? How dedicated to being active and vital are we? What kinds of limitations does this diagnosis place on us and what do we want to do about it?
Work seriously at whatever treatment process you choose. I’d never had physical therapy before, and was surprised at how much work it is. After the first few sessions, it’s easy to see progress and even easier to slack off. Kind of like dieting. Stick with your treatment for the long run, even for the rest of your life. You and your life (not to mention your family and friends) deserve it.

I also now know from experience that there is one thing NOT to do. With temporarily runaway emotions, I made the leap from a troubling diagnosis to OLD AND SLIDING DOWNHILL, which, of course, made it just that much more difficult for me to get centered again. So:
Do not succumb to the drama of the moment and translate your diagnosis into a confirmation that it’s the beginning of the end. It’s easy to do. This is where items 1-4 above come in. They are all essential.

It’s likely that this won’t be the only opportunity I will have to react to a medical/social/financial/professional announcement. I’m starting to think of it as practice for the ups and downs of life. I’ve found a lot of meaning in a song performed by the wonderful Christine Lavin, with apt rollercoaster metaphors. Be sure to watch Christine’s face as you are listening. Music and lyrics by Matt Alber. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z8xgoa04SNY

http://www.georgeschofield.com/a-troubling-diagnosis/

Turning A Negative Into A Positive Regarding Neuropathy

Today's post from psychologytoday.com looks at a Buddhist approach to dealing with negative thoughts and could be especially useful to people with neuropathic symptoms. One of the worst elements of having neuropathy is that we begin to doubt ourselves as to the severity of our symptoms; leading to stress and the feeling that we may be psychosomatically suffering more than we should. We feel we are being doubted by others and because there is no discomfort like neuropathic discomfort, this can lead to a negative spiral, leading to depression and yet more pain. It's all in our heads of course; the pain is real enough but learning how to deal with it can be helped by some of the things mentioned in this article. You may be skeptical but whenever we can turn a negative feeling into a positive one, the discomfort of neuropathy may be a little less and that has to be a good thing.
 

You Don’t Have to Believe Your Thoughts
Byron Katie's "inquiry" can help you question the validity of stressful thoughts
Published on October 3, 2013 by Toni Bernhard, J.D. in Turning Straw Into Gold 

For many years, I was an expert at making myself miserable by taking a neutral thought, turning it into a stressful one, and then spinning that stressful thought into an even more stressful story—one with little or no basis in reality.

In my new book, How to Wake Up, I call this tendency “storytelling dukkha” (dukkha being the word that the Buddha used to describe suffering, stress, and often, just plain unhappiness).

To illustrate my expertise at this, here are two neutral, fact-based thoughts:

“A friend is coming over today.”

“I have an appointment with a new doctor next week.”

Each of these thoughts states a fact, free of emotional content. But then, driven by worry and anxiety over my health, I’d turn them into stressful thoughts:

“My friend’s visit won’t go well.”

“The doctor’s appointment will be a disaster.”

(An aside: Stressful thoughts are not reserved for those with health problems. Before I got sick, I could easily worry and fret about my family, my job performance—you name it!)

Back to my examples. Having turned each of the neutral thoughts into stressful ones, the storytelling would begin:

“My friend will stay much longer than I’m able to visit, but I won’t have the nerve or the discipline to tell her I need to lie down. Then it will take me days to recover and I’ll be mad at myself for not speaking up.”

“The doctor won’t believe how sick I am. He might even think it’s all in my head. And even if he does believe me, he won’t want the hassle of having to deal with a complex case with no easy fix.”

As Buddhist teachers like to say, the suffering is in the stories.

Byron Katie In this article, I want to share a practice so powerful that I devote an entire chapter to it in my book, How to Be Sick. It’s a technique developed by a teacher (who’s not Buddhist) named Byron Katie. She calls it “inquiry” or “four questions and a turnaround.”

At the outset, it helps to recognize that the mind is going to think what it’s going to think. Trying to control the thoughts that pop into your mind is a fruitless endeavor. What matters to your well-being is not which thoughts arise but how you respond to them. If you can learn to respond skillfully, you’re much more likely to keep a stressful thought from turning into a full-blown stressful story.

Here are Byron Katie’s four questions—questions to ask yourself when you recognize that you’re caught in the net of a stressful thought:

1. Is the thought true?

2. Am I absolutely sure that it’s true?

3. How do I feel when I think the thought?

4. Who would I be without the thought?

Before addressing Byron Katie’s fifth step—the turnaround—I’ll apply her four questions to the two stressful thoughts in my example. In writing this, I’ll answer the way I would, but as you read it, try thinking of how you’d answer each question. I’ll start with my friend’s upcoming visit.

1. Is it true that her visit won’t go well?

“Yes, I think it’s true.”

2. Am I absolutely sure it’s true that it won’t go well?

“Hmm. I guess I’m not absolutely sure. I’m not even 75% sure.”

Sometimes just seeing that you're not absolutely sure that a stressful thought is true is enough to stop the thought in its tracks and keep you from turning it into a stress-filled story.

3. How do I feel when I think that my friend’s visit won’t go well?

“I feel even more nervous and worried about the visit and, worse, now I’m dreading it.”

In this particular situation, dread is more painful than worry, because the dread carries guilt with it: I love my friend yet, here I am, dreading her visit. This definitely does not feel good!

4. Who would I be without the thought that the visit won’t go well?

“I’d be a person living in the present moment, with a chance to enjoy the day I’m in right now, instead of being lost in worry and anxiety about tomorrow.”

Now I’ll try the same technique with the doctor’s appointment.

1. Is it true that the doctor’s appointment will be a disaster?

“Yes, it’s true. They always are.”

2. Am I it absolutely sure it’s true?

“I suppose not. Perhaps I was exaggerating a bit when I said, ‘They always are.’”

3. How do I feel when I think it will be a disaster?

“I feel scared and I feel angry. I’m scared that I’ll be disregarded again. I’m angry that I’m sick because that’s why I have to go to all these [insert expletive] doctor appointments in the first place!”

4. Who would I be without the thought?

“I’d be a person living this day instead of worrying and feeling anxious about something that’s a week away.”

Pausing to let my response to Question #4 sink in is always helpful, because it switches my focus to the present moment. If I stop here though, I’m likely to drift back to stressful storytelling, so it’s important to move on to Byron Katie’s turnaround.

In the turnaround, you take the stressful thought and turn it around—change it—in a way that works for you individually (there’s no one “right” turnaround). Then the instruction is to come up with three reasons why this new thought might be true.

I’ll start with my friend’s visit. Here’s my turnaround: My friend’s visit will go well.

What are three reasons why this might be true?

1) Maybe she’ll be sensitive to my limitations and will only stay a short time.

2) Maybe I’ll be having a good day and the length of her visit won’t have a negative impact on my health.

3) Maybe she’ll have another obligation coming up and won’t stay long.

In coming up with reasons why the turnaround might be true, I’ve found that it’s helpful to be creative in my thinking, even if it becomes absurd. For example, one reason could be: “Maybe she’ll get an upset stomach and have to leave early.” This isn’t even nice (!), but letting my imagination go wild helps shake me loose from the rigid thinking I’ve fallen into that has me believing there’s only one possible outcome for this visit: it won’t go well.

In sum, coming up with multiple reasons for why the visit might go well drives home the point that there’s no reason to believe the stressful thought that it won’t go well. This enables me to stop fretting and just wait and see how the visit unfolds.

Now, to that doctor’s appointment. My turnaround: The doctor’s appointment will be a success.

What are three reasons why this might be true?

1) The doctor might be friendly and a good listener.

2) The doctor might be sympathetic and understanding about my illness.

3) The doctor might be honest with me about what he can and cannot do to help.

When I reflect on the two dozen or so doctors I’ve seen about my illness, a few of them have been just like I described above, so why should I decide ahead of time that the appointment won’t go well, even if the odds are against me? After all, if my stressful thought turns out to be true and the appointment is a disaster, it won’t be because of my worrying and stress-filled storytelling about it. No doubt about it: my time could be better spent in the days leading up to the appointment!

Byron Katie’s “four questions and a turnaround” has been a gift of inestimable value to me. It's such a relief to know that I don’t have to believe my thoughts.

© 2013 Toni Bernhard www.tonibernhard.com

http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/turning-straw-gold/201310/you-don-t-have-believe-your-thoughts

Into the Mystic

Misty spring mornings conjure images of Avalon. It hangs low over the newly budding land and drips along the banks of the river. It called me out to the bridge, a new place I've not yet been. 

 The bark on the trees glows in the moisture like freshly wet silk. 

 Striking features are illuminated. 

And dew quenches baby leaves.

A bridge between worlds, I walk into the mist with no expectations. I hear the rippling water and hazy breath of the forest. The smells floating are of watermint and cress.

I open my pores to the humid touch. 

And gaze quietly at the heron.