Announcements:
This Tuesday, 2/23/16:
Edgar Cayce Center, 241 West 30th Street, #100,
(212) 691-7690
From 8-9 Eastern, Skype chat followed by Q & A. If you’re in the neighborhood, drop by.
Tuesday, 06/14/16:
Personal appearance at Manhattan Edgar Cayce Center, 7-9 Eastern, see above for location.
Sunday, 06/19/16:
Amsterdam – afternoon presentation, details to follow.
Parkinson’s Healing Non-Timeline
We are all Mad Hatters in this day and age. Overscheduled, overworked, overwrought, and under stress a good deal of the time. Add to this a diagnosis of Parkinson’s or some other degenerative condition, and an urgency sets in: a rush to beat the clock, to hurry up and heal before the further damage that is promised with the diagnosis takes its toll.
STOP RIGHT HERE. That mentality is generated by fear. Fear does not promote healing, but just the opposite. Yet one of the first things people want to know is “how long” it took me to heal. This is understandable; if the answer were thirty years, it might be discouraging.
What you need to know is that the answer is different for each individual, just as the condition presents itself differently in all of us. There is a letting go required. An understanding that you are entering new and uncharted territory, that your path will have similarities to those of others who have healed or are in the process of healing, but no two trajectories will be identical. This is why I am vague about how long it took me to heal. To discourage others from marking their calendars, and then if complete healing hasn’t occurred within a certain window of time, becoming angry or discouraged.
I attribute the following words to my teacher, Master Mingtong Gu, and they are words to live by: “The slower you go, the faster you heal.” This does not just refer to how you do the physical practice, but how you control your mind as well. This is where the qigong meditative state of mind comes in. The more we practice the slow, meditative movements, the better the chances of bringing our mind and body together in harmony, which may be a definition of healing.
Prior to my healing, if this were written by someone else and I were reading it, I would most likely find myself agitated with the author for not yet disclosing the “how long” answer to the healing experience. Ever the teacher, I am attempting to familiarize you with the type of patience necessary to work on your own health. The answer will appear, at least somewhat, and may or may not be satisfactory. Even after I was declared symptom-free by the neurology department, and even two years after that, when I was released by said department, I considered myself still in the healing process. It was great to be free of physical symptoms, but I knew I still had work to do inside my head: more self-love, self-confidence, and self-forgiveness. I found, and continue to find, myself challenging my comfort zone as part of this process. I’m saying “no” more often to situations that involve “people pleasing” and saving my time and energy for the challenges that will help me, and hopefully others, grow. Like writing about my process and not concerning myself about how my sharing will be received. Or, here in my late sixties, hopping flights by myself to strange new cities and lands, and talking to strangers about my healing from Parkinson’s. I often vacillate between excitement and joy, anxiety and gratitude. And I’m grateful for it all.
So, now that hopefully you understand a bit more about how I view my healing, I will share with you that the physical symptoms were gone in less than two years. Again, that was my experience. Please do not mark your calendars or set your clocks. Instead, go inward. Practice devotedly, humbly, and without expectation. While we’re on the subject of time, I suggest, if you are a beginner, making a gong. A gong is a body of one hundred days of practice. That’s how I began with three hours a day. If you have work obligations that don’t permit three hours, ask yourself what is the maximum time you can commit to each day and go from there. It can mean a bit of sacrifice and inconvenience. Is restoring your health worth it?
And when you find yourself concerned with the speed of your healing, know that it takes approximately 100 days for new neural pathways to firmly establish themselves, and remember that time can be on your side when you view it as a generous friend.
Am I completely healed from Parkinson’s? Yes, it certainly appears that way, and medical science agrees. Am I done healing? Not as long as I’m on the planet. Each day I work more on my physical, mental, and spiritual self with the intent of improving the essence of who I am, which I believe will travel with me from this lifetime to the next, wherever that may be. Each day “when” seems less important than “how.”