Mrs. Brightside

To recap my last post, I’d been feeling like I was going to die any day. Yet massive amounts of bloodwork and tests had all “proved” I was fine, and doctor after doctor sent me home with no answers. Until an acupuncturist took my pulse and told me I was very sick.

I began to come up with the theory that maybe I had just run out of Qi. Remember, I was desperate and I was reaching.

But it does makes sense right? Blood, stomach, and hormone specialists can’t find anything wrong, but the Qi specialist discovers something seriously wrong. I’d already run through all the western theories – Sibo, a vagal nerve problem, a biofilm problem, dysbiosis, a brain tumor. I was in need of a new one, and running out of Qi was as good as any.

So one day, covered in needles, I asked my acupuncturist about Qigong: I was looking for ways to build my Qi faster, to feel better faster.

“You could try Qigong”. She responded. “In China we say acupuncture is the lazy man’s Qigong”.

So the next day I looked up beginning qigong on youtube and discovered Marissa, the lady in the red outfit that comes up when you do that search.

About half way through, I felt it. My hands started tingling and getting warm. When I brought them toward each other it felt like a giant magnet in each hand repelling the other.

It was amazing.

The routine only lasted 23 minutes but I felt great afterward. I could actually go up the stairs and take a shower with minimal effort.

The next day, the same thing, 23 minutes, hands feeling like they’re glowing, and I’m good to go. My stomach even started feeling better.

On the third day, something transformational, something massive, happened. It was nothing more than a simple thought. I had the thought, “What if I could heal myself with this? What if I didn’t need doctors?”

That thought transformed me for the rest of the day. I was a happy camper. I was free. I didn’t need any frickin’ doctor. I could heal myself! Somehow. Some way. I would do it. I’d figure it out. I was brimming with enlightenment and hope. There was something in my hands at the end of Qigong that I could physically, actually, feel. Fuck the medical industry! This was real. It felt like magic!

My stomach started feeling better, the bloating went down, and the fatigue began to fade. I was bright and happy!

But then one day, after about a week, something else happened. I had a bad day. I did my Qigong and my stomach didn’t feel better. I was bloated. Really, really bloated. And my mood, thoughts, and energy totally crashed. Hard.

I sobbed. I think that was the first time I sobbed that hard. It was the first time I really lost hope. It wasn’t going to work after all! The thought that I’d have to keep searching for doctors, and for ‘what was wrong with me’, sent me into deep despair. The thought of having to go back to yet another doctor literally made me want to commit suicide. Lost hope is not a good thing. I have learned that that is what suicide is made of. Lost Hope.

After a few days of this terrible misery I made the decision to get up and try again. I remembered how good it felt just to feel that magic in my hands for the first time and so I tried again.

And I felt better.

Thus began a vicious cycle of feeling a little better, getting my hopes up, and then falling completely off the happy-feel-good wagon into a deep, dark depression of utter hopelessness, fatigue, and painful bloating. I began to think maybe I was bipolar. I’d be overjoyed with the slight relief in symptoms from Qigong, and then fall into a pit of tears and despair when I’d have a bad day, where all was lost and I was an idiot for thinking I could heal my body with invisible energy.

The madness continued for months. Up, down. Up again, down again.

I’d have days of hopelessness, of plotting my own demise, and pointless, migraine inducing sobbing. This would be followed by strange surges of happiness as I’d pick myself up and start feeling better… like the calm of eyes of a string of hurricanes. I’d often ponder my own sanity, literally thinking I was beginning to go mad, which had its own spirals of despair to add to everything else.

But within the madness of this storm was a treasure. An epiphany that looks so simple on the outside, but within contains the true secret to our lives. The madness wasn’t going to stop until I acknowledged this little piece of wisdom …

My thought patterns were creating whichever reality I was experiencing.

I’d feel the bloating and fatigue returning, and in would flow all of these negative thoughts of how this was never going to end, and how I’d have to explain things to yet another doctor while enduring more eye rolling and belittling just to go home empty handed. I’d revisit in my mind these depressing visits, then I’d think about how stupid it was to think I could actually heal myself, that Qi was bullshit, and that I was deluding myself while my body continued to get worse. And down, down, down I’d go.

And then I’d do Qigong, and feel the energy in my hands that felt so real and I’d remember that sense of hope and happiness. I’d think that maybe energy was real and I’d never have to see another doctor, and my whole body would feel better for days.

Since I started to wonder if my own thoughts were elongating whichever emotion I was experiencing, I tried something. The next time I got upset I combated the onslaught of negativity with positivity. I started thinking about how lucky I was. I looked around and tried to appreciate everything good, from the colors on the walls, the sky, or the plants outside to how much I love my cats, my husband, my bike, my breakfast. I would try to get into the feelings that felt good and anything that made me remotely happy.

Oddly enough, it worked. I started to feel better physically. Sometimes it would take a day or two. Sometimes it was really, really hard to get out of the muck and start thinking positive. But if I could manage it, it would work.

At some point during this time an even bigger realization came. I started to notice that just beneath the surface of my thoughts, just barely recognizable, was fear. This fear would be bubbling up just before I’d have a really bad day physically (which would lead to the bad days emotionally).

The whole thing was being caused by fear. The fear was that it wasn’t really going to work. After feeling better for a couple of days I’d start to fear that the healing wasn’t real, that I was crazy for thinking so. And I’d fear the return of my health problems.

The root problem interfering with my healing was fear. And the negativity was then enhancing that fear. I am currently working on this fear, and so far the best weapon I’ve come up with is not caring so much. Fear works because I wanted so badly to feel better, I cared about it too much. So instead I gave up. I said to myself, ‘if I am meant to be in pain and discomfort, so be it. I am okay with that’ and I dedicated myself to simply doing the best that I can with what I’m given each day.

It’s amazing how difficult it can be to step out of your mind and start thinking positively when you are down in the dumps. How hard it can be to go with the flow of what you are given and make the best of it, when it really sucks. But honestly, if you practice this enough, you will realize that what “sucks” is what you make of it, and things do improve slowly over time if you change your attitude.

I now truly believe that positive thinking is very powerful. As a previous cynical bastard of life, I feel a little weird saying that. But it’s true.

So the main message is this: we create the energy in our world with our beliefs, thoughts, and emotions. Are you creating out of fear? Are you thinking negatively? Do you take the lemons and suck it down puckered up in discomfort and then complain about all the lemons life hands you?

There is much in this world that can bring you down. But how you think about it is your choice. That’s where you are truly free, it’s the one thing nobody can steal from you but you. Dwelling on the negative events of your life is like putting yourself into a straightjacket. Every fear you coddle and every negative thought you have about your life is like another rope tying you down, mummifying you.

Just becoming aware of your thoughts can be a challenge. But what I’ve learned is that your emotional state as well as your physical body are like the reflection of these thoughts, like a window into that world. Negativity begets negativity. Take a couple of positive thoughts or things you love, and remind yourself to think about them throughout the day. In every way you can, remind yourself of the good. It is so much more important than I once thought.

It is much easier said than done. When you’re feeling grumpy, to look around and think to yourself how lucky you are, how beautiful life is, to just sit and enjoy the sounds, the sensations, that exist around you… it’s can be really, really hard. But I swear it’s worth it. It can change your life.