Perhaps more than any other aspect of chronic illness I have ever had to deal with, including chronic unrelenting pain, dysautonomia has the ability to throw your entire life into disarray, permeating every single aspect of your life in ways that can be as invisible to the casual bystander as they are devastating. Is there a bright side, things we can learn, ways of living with it better?
The natural response of the mind is often to shut-down vague recollections of some past event that you don't remember fondly but there lies the problem...we shut it down consciously, yet the body continues to harbour the irritation or pain, at the subconscious level, which then has no choice but to manifest as imbalance or some other symptom, that feeling of perpetuation in the body (on and on and on in perpetuity = "chronic") and, of course, where one "off-kilter" energy tends to linger, other sticky energies will attract, leading to escalation (the "snowball" effect).
Illnesses stop us in our tracks and call time on the old ways of being that no longer fit who we are. Often, they are an invitation to look deep into the corners of our life and do some real work…the kind of work that brings us into love and acceptance of who we really are, beyond the stories and expectations that get overlayered by our crazy and demanding lives. Often, there is an opportunity to be found in our own disarray and, once we find it there, it doesn’t stop giving…not ever, for the rest of our lives.
The effects of vitamin B1 (thiamine) deficiency are widespread, sometimes bizarre, much-more common in the western world than we think...and look a lot like certain chronic conditions we all know so well in this space. So, what does saturating the body with high dose B1 do? I'm about to find out...
With renewed clarity, I find I can see the path that led into many years of chronic pain...and the way out of it. Sharing some bullet-point thoughts on this topic, to help and inspire you, for the start of this potential-filled new year.
Introversion, visual or non-linear thinking, social anxiety, chronic or social fatigue, autism, high sensitivity...looking at all the many, often overlapping, factors that might make writing preferable to conversation for a lot of people and considering is this wrong, of just wonderfully different?
When one small thing breaks the camel's back, its usually time to stop and pay full attention. So often, its a clue to how we have been giving ourselves to everything, and everyone, else and not to our own needs...a key trait to notice when we have chronic conditions (because there seems to be a link)...
I am reminded by what I am about to share (a transformation in progress) that slow-steady transformation on the inside happens in just the same way, in tiny increments, and more so without the burden of high-expectations, the deadly weight of huge targets or imperatives...just simply rising up and making that small effort, day after day, with steady faith in the outcome.
Gluten intolerance is far from a simple gastrointestinal effect...more of a spectrum of conditions with wide-ranging complications, as I was reminded recently. Here's why to take gluten elimination seriously (and tackle it thoroughly!) if chronic pain is your reality...
Being an HSP isn't a flaw but an evolutionary advantage, as has been amply demonstrated by science and history. We were always meant to be the natural outliers of the community, by design, so that we could be the first to notice important things that others miss, picking up envornmental cues and alerting others to any danger that we sensed coming our way. But what happens when our alarms start to go off all the time and when or how do we get a respite? How does this relate to the modern age phenomenon of chronic pain, fatigue and systemic meltdown?
Living whole 