Yeah, I admit I didn’t know what it was either so don’t feel badly. After my summer, Dr. Jack talked to me about my sympathetic nervous system and how it had been activated into high gear and seemed to be staying there. I had no idea what he was talking about, what it’s effects were or how to fix it.
I have always said Dr. Jack is a natural born teacher and he is. He can take the most complex topic and break it down into language that non medical people can understand. The first webinar of his that I watched, which pushed me to contact him, was one where he explained what Hashimoto’s Disease actually is. I told him, ‘You are the first person who explained this disease to me so I could actually understand it.” This was no different.
He patiently explained how your sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous system is part of your immune system. On a larger scale, it is the fight or flight response. It obviously had been kicked into high alert over summer but my body was having a hard time shutting it down. What I didn’t realize was that although it was not life threatening, it definitely was life altering. Your heart rate increases, your blood vessels constrict and it definitely makes your digestive system work differently by not letting food get to where it needs to go. As he explained it further, I started thinking about changes in how I felt that I just chalked off to stress. I read about it to further understand it and he answered my questions, which mostly were how was it going to get fixed.
That being explained, he did a ton of research and came up with a supplemental supplement plan… ha ha… I like that phrasing, and ordered what I needed. I dutifully bagged up the new stuff with my current supplements and continued to eat as clean as possible, moderately exercise and get sleep on a regular schedule.
While I waited to find out if they helped, Dr. Jack and I had many conversations about distressing and enjoying life more. After all, my weight will follow and I have to not get crazy waiting. But there is more to it. Every time I was stressed, I was aggravating that system, so it was not calming on its own. I was in fact, helping it. And although not consciously, I was definitely contributing to my symptoms.
I thought a lot about that and realized that the simple fact is, I can take everything he tells me to, and eat well, but there are things he cannot do for me. He cannot walk into my mind and change my mindset. He has a great deal of influence in my life but ultimately, it is me who has to change. I talked to him about techniques he uses, and I talked to my wonderful life coach, Rob Ciminelli, who has the most beautiful outlook on life you can imagine. He also patiently gave techniques to help.
I knew I had to make some big changes to my mindset. Huge changes! That has been the challenge and I am going to write more about that, in the hopes it helps others. The choice though has been simple. You can either keep living like this? Or you have to change what you have the power to change and improve your life. So I made a big decision, that even at sixty, you can change a lifetime of thinking, you can change anything you want to. And I wasn’t living this way anymore. Easy? Hardly? Worth it? Immeasurably….. have I made the big change? Not yet, but I am so much better than I was!
I don’t want to leave you totally hanging… so one of the things I worked on? Lose the negative people. I know what you will say… you can’t. And believe me, I can’t either. They are in my life, and I cannot avoid them. But I do not buy in, I want no part of their junk. It has been hard for me. I am a collector of other people emotions and I let their thoughts about me change how I view myself, well I used to!
I have learned that there are things you can do. Example, negative Facebook friends, I scroll past. You know the ones….. there isn’t one happy thing in their lives and the only time they post is because something bad happened. And somehow the more of that I read, it does effect my day. So, I don’t read it, scrolling is easy. Some I just defriended, I couldn’t read anymore of it.
I don’t mean when someone has a prayer concern or they need support. You know the ones. The mail didn’t arrive by 10:02 today. The constant use of that phrasing I despise, about hate my life only they use a four letter word. Every day, every post. There has to be some good somewhere! See, I used to respond to all of that, and I might try to help. But they weren’t going to change their mindset and all I was doing was wasting energy trying to fix what they don’t want to fix anyway! I only have so much mental energy for a day not wasting it trying to convince people of that which they don’t want to fix anyway.
There are the ones that you have to encounter? The daily, see them every day people? Those were a harder challenge. After talking to Dr Jack, I started to realize that the minute I saw their face? I could feel my body tense. I had a physical reaction, and that needed to change. No wonder ….. I could actually feel that fight or flight kicking in.
When I see their face? I breathe deep, and I seriously envision myself walking up to them as some character from something like Star Wars, putting up my invisible shield. I imagine their words bouncing off the shield. Inside my shield I live in a happy place of sunshine and flowers, with my children and family and my wonderful friends that I cherish. Those negative people, are toxic. They are miserable and I feel sorry for them, but not sorry enough to carry their emotions. No thank you…. I have my own journey to worry about.
I had a difficult situation like that yesterday, when I was feeling particularly vulnerable. It’s been a rough week, but I handled it all well. My daughter had her procedure to keep her baby inside, my son was dealing with Shannon’s birthday, a sad day for him and my ex husband. Who is still a great friend, had to have a partial leg amputation and was needing suppprt. Add on my job, my students and their needs… yeah I was feeling way too vulnerable to “mentally toxic infection” of people.
I had a few moments where I had picked up this person’s toxicity, but I took some time, recentered my mind, and found my happy. It was a bit of a battle. Of course, it kept coming back to me, but I kept coming back to my happy. And at the end of the day? I was pleased with myself that I didn’t let it impact my day.and pleased with my progress.
So now a few weeks in to all of this and things are changing! Slowly …. but they are changing. First, I noticed that my mental clarity is in high gear again. It’s funny about that….. do you wear glasses? You go to the eye doctor and you get new contacts and you pop them in. Then you look around the world and think how did I not know I couldn’t see this! That’s a lot how Hashimoto’s is. Your mental clarity slowly loses ground. And when you get it back, you have the same reaction.
One day last week at school, I had a poor planning period day, one where my “break” was short. And yet at the end of the day, often working in two minute increments, I had managed to get tons finished. I thought that a fluke until,the next day, it was the same. So mental fog? Lifted!!
Then I was drying my hair and noticed that it looked fuller and shinier than it been! And my nails looked healthier. I also noticed I was sleeping more soundly, waking early with energy to get up and get moving. Then, I noticed that my apetite had become ore normalized….. I could eat my regular food, and maybe a snack and was not raveneous all the time.
So yesteray after a day of challenges and better reactions, of stress followed by finding my happy, of mental clarity and a great night’s sleep? I realized……
Normal….. oh how I have missed you…. and as Dr. Jack always tells me? It’s only going to keep getting better! Look! There it is!! The rainbow!