Glass Half Full with Leslie Krongold, Ed.D.

Tag: chronic pain

  • Mindfulness as a Disease Management Strategy

    Mindfulness as a Disease Management Strategy

    Being diagnosed with a chronic, debilitating disease can certainly bring stress to one’s life. In fact, that stress can be significant enough to be called trauma.

    How one handles this stress varies. Some people have amazing coping capacity and are hard-wired for resilience while others have more difficulty. None of it is easy.

    Mary Holt, a Registered Nurse with a Master’s Degree in Counseling Psychology, shares her journey of loss and recovery and the profound impact a mindfulness meditation practice has had on her life and work. She brings this practice to the clinics where she helps patients and their families with neuromuscular and Parkinson’s disease.

    Mentioned in this podcast episode is the annual International Rare Disease Day organized by NORD. Here are two relevant podcast episodes: Rare Disease and the Need for Research and It’s Not that Easy Being Rare.

    Transcript

    welcome to glass half full with leslie krongold she shares her stories experiences and knowledge of living and coping with a chronic health condition learn about tools and resources and hear inspirational interviews that help you to live a life filled with quality and dignity with two decades of support group leadership leslie’s ready to help you make lemonade out of life’s lemons are you ready are you ready

    hello listeners we’re nearing the end of february which means it’s almost international rare disease day i have a rare disease do you there are over 6 000 rare diseases i know i’ve met people with a disease so rare that they’ve never met anyone else with it i can’t even imagine what that would be like recently at my monthly support group we had a family joined us who had never met people outside of their family with myotonic dystrophy if you’re diagnosed and you live in or near a heavily populated city you will hopefully not have to wait too long before you meet others with the disease we have a patient advocacy organization that has an annual conference and this conference has given me the opportunity to meet others with the condition who live throughout the us and other parts of the world we’ve had people in the conference come from new zealand south america and of course you know a few european countries so rare disease day celebrated on february 28th is a day of advocacy getting out in the public to let others know about your disease last year a group of us met at senator dianne feinstein’s office in san francisco this year we’re joining others with rare diseases at a local museum and park so check the gospel website for links to learn more about rare disease day maybe there is an event happening in your neck in the wood and i will also include a couple links to podcasts that i did specifically about rare disease day today though is not about rare disease as i mentioned i’m part of a patient advocacy organization which meets in person annually usually in a different location throughout the country and last year we met in philadelphia and one of the sessions i attended was titled mindfulness as a disease management strategy now you can just imagine how that piqued my interest unfortunately the session was less than 45 minutes but i could tell the presenter had more to offer so i introduced myself gave her my podcast calling card it’s actually a postcard um if you want one let me know anyhow she and i recently had a chance to talk mary hope is a busy woman she works at two different philadelphia clinics and has a private practice in addition to her academic work she’s a registered nurse and has a master’s degree in counseling she has a lot of lived experience mary was a caregiver for her husband and experienced his loss at an early age with two young children to raise she’s also been in recovery from alcoholism for a number of years i have always worked in my nursing career uh with chronic pain and chronic illness that kind had always been my path and then there were actually a series of events that had happened personally in my life and i had not been working for a time while i was pregnant with my second child and yeah it was just knew i had to get back into the workforce my husband had become quite ill and i you know of course he was not able to work so i really had to kind of get back into the workforce um you know kind of help provide for us in a sense in my two children so i saw this job posting that was for a nurse coordinator i loved always being able to kind of have that integrative model so i love the coordination piece and it was neurology so it was it was the mda als center of hope um and at that time it was at diversity in philadelphia and that was back 2005 and then i started there as a nurse coordinator full time and i was probably seven years or so and had had a master’s encounter with a specialization in psychological trauma and bereavement so working with people that had you know a focus of course of chronic illness terminal illness that was really one of my passions so when the mental health specialist left that center then i kind of moved into that role in terms of being able to support the patients and the families yeah all throughout the journey really from time of diagnosis or from the time that we you know began with them and then journeying for as long as they stayed with us you know for a number of years the rest of my time my other full-time work i actually do three things so my other full-time work is working with parkinson’s and i’m a nurse educator a clinical educator with that population so i work with people that have parkinson’s and their families and i work with physicians movement disorder specialists and i do educate food i teach the families and the patients how to use a particular medicine medication and injectable medicine for parkinson’s and really how to live well you know as best as they can with their parkinson’s and then outside of that i am also i have a private practice in terms of life coaching speaking mindfulness practice and things like that so i’ve always had a desire to have uh and my you know goal still one of my goals is to be able to do that more to be able to reach people in a way that to have a greater impact in terms of helping people so i when i was working originally with a neurology team and during that time i had had a meditation practice of my own i’ve been sober for a bit over 12 25 years and i’ve had a meditation practice of my own for a number of years and when i was at jefferson i was working with chronic pain patients and they had a center for uh integrative medicine so i went there and i took a mindfulness course a mindfulness meditation it was actually a stress management course and at that time i fully impacted and shifted my whole experience in my own life my professional work my recovery my own personal health in such dramatic ways that i went on for more training and really have been teaching and doing that practice and really focusing a ton of my work professionally around stress stress management and how it relates to our health and also how mindfulness can be a foundational piece of that in terms of helping people live well in the midst of chronic illness and terminal illness so what is psychological trauma when it’s boiled down it is trauma if we look at just trauma in and of itself is something whether it be an experience a situation or an event that overwhelms the system right overwhelm the system physically of course it could overwhelm the system of course which is my my specialization psychologically and mentally emotionally spiritually as well so that can come from a certain particular event it can also come from chronic exposure to certain things whether they be you know external or potentially internal you know somebody is chronically experiencing anything you know negative perceived as negative to the point where it over overwhelms our ability to kind of integrate our experiences on a healthy level for us to be able to function kind of day in and day out in a healthy way yeah because when i hear the term trauma i think of people with ptsd or um some sort of sexual abuse i generally might and i’m not you know a professional in psychological or mental health but i um i think of it as like an incident or series of incidents that are traumatizing but the way you’ve defined it it sounds as if just the diagnosis of a progressive chronic illness can serve as trauma

    absolutely yes absolutely i’ve experienced that with people you know when we say in particular when we you know potentially give somebody the diagnosis of als or something um what can happen is that i mean on the flip side of this too i you know i don’t know if we’ll talk about it but is also the amazing resiliency of the human spirit in terms of being able to you know kind of integrate and wrap our brains around certain things and being able to function in the midst of these kind of crises these crises that happen in our lives but you know when somebody is you know faced with a situation that is in many ways i’m going to say potentially but can many ways alter their existence and how they perceive that it can absolutely be traumatic i was actually just this weekend i was working with our team our multidisciplinary team and in terms of the and talking about the effects of you know continually working with the population of you know in neuromuscular conditions and neurodegenerative conditions that you know it is a traumatic environment because we’re continually working with emotions that may arise from time to time such as frustration powerlessness not being able to make an effect potentially loss grief sadness you know and that can be incredibly distressing to the you know our mental capacity and our psychological capacity to be able to manage so how do you define resilience so i would define resilience as the amazing capacity which always seems to surprise me the amazing the amazing capacity of the human being and the human spirit to be able to integrate and rise above

    what may be perceived as incredibly negative circumstances and find meaning continue to move forward um serve continue to serve in some way not that all of these are necessary but these are the things that i see in the people that i work with and the families that i really tiny amount like couldn’t even fathom what it’s like yet you are serving the world rising above taking your experience and helping others that is to me incredibly resilient because some people fold i also see a lot of people fold and i don’t believe that there’s a good a right or wrong necessarily we all do with the capacity that we have um but when you ask about resiliency it’s definitely i think you’re a living example of that so the session you read at the conference this year how i met you was titled mindfulness as a disease management strategy so i think we’ve led up to this right you talked about how mindfulness helped you and you your training and i’m assuming you’ve implemented it in all the work you do does a mindfulness training or does it as a strategy help build resilience for me personally you know mindfulness is kind of a buzzword around healthcare around the corporate world somewhat um and it really is a way of it really is a way of relating to the world you know i mean when i so i practice minds when yes there are strategies within mindfulness and from the bigger scheme it really is a way of relating to our life and our life experiences and ourselves and others um so it definitely can build resiliency because what mindfulness gives us is number one it gives us awareness so i’m not a and the other thing i want to say is it’s a practice so it’s something that is certainly cultivated over time i am absolutely not an expert it is something i practice every day um every moment of my life that i can become more aware so it gives us an awareness so we’re not just acting on autopilot so we have some sense of you know when we’re going down the rabbit hole per se so it gives us awareness and then it has this underpinning in terms of non-judgment and compassion so it offers me the opportunity to meet my life and my life experiences to number one become aware of my you know how i’m perceiving something and how i’m relating to it and then it gives me ways of coping with openness and non-judgment and compassion for self for others and for kind of life as a whole which is simple in words yet incredibly in light so yes it can 100 yeah build resiliency how do you do that in the clinic setting i mean i i’ve been to the interdisciplinary clinics in san francisco and at stanford you know for my disease and i imagine they’re kind of similar and you know i went for years i haven’t gone recently but i had a pt who i saw you know uh every year for many years and one of the last times i saw her and unfortunately she had to leave the clinic she moved away but she started talking about mindfulness meditation and i was blown away because it was such a departure from anything she spoke about before so i’m wondering you know is it something that the other clinicians are talking about too or is it just you that’s actually yeah that’s a great question so it is um it just depends on everybody’s level of comfortability uh in our life right now it’s not something that everybody talks about people they are becoming more aware of it and more i would say open to it you know whether that is because of you know kind of what i do you know i talk about there so i would love to see it one day as kind of a standard of care um interesting and really offering people ways to manage you know all of i mean you think i’m just thinking about the physical therapist so if your physical therapist is there talking about mindfulness meditation that shows huge kind of integration to me that says you know there’s a lot of integration there in terms of what can help support you that she’s not just just addressing you linearly right with a solo focus you know acknowledging the fact that you are simply as a being right you have a mind you have a body and you have a heart so how then can we because they don’t none of them operate individually so how is it then that we can take our health care management and also approach people you know i really meet people in the sense that you know that we each really do have the capacity within ourselves to kind of answer all the questions that we have and we do have the resources within us um whether we need to find some more outside but we really do have a that within us so i meet people hopefully with that uh intention that you really do have everything that you need um and my role with you is then just to help you uncover that and get clear what’s your relationship with yourself you know that’s a big thing so when i’m seeing people in clinic a lot of our conversation is around um what’s the you know what is the relationship with the illness you know a lot of people are you know fine you know quite they they’re angry they’re and those emotions sometimes are controlling them in ways that they are not even aware of and impacting choices that they make choices that they don’t make whether they’re going to use their walker or not use their walker whether they’re going to accept a feeding tube or not accept the feeding tube so how to how how help them explore the reasons underneath that why is it that you don’t want to use the walker when you’ve fallen three times right no not in a fault-finding way but just to help them explore that oh you know it means that um you know that much worse in my illness or i’m giving into it or you know what will people think of me i’m weak you know all sorts of things so um yeah so i really try to help them you know to provide a space for that to arise because the body does hold you know there’s a book called the body holds the score or keeps the score and it really i mean you know our bodies just like it needs to you know all these negative emotions they all kind of you know they can i mean whether we’re giving a space for them or not they need to come out some way right so especially people that have physical conditions you know like you all the people that i work with i i stress that it’s even more so important and myself you know i it is more so important if we already have a physical condition or a medical condition that we you know somehow manage the stressors and you know negative emotions in our lives when they arise because our body is already kind of working somewhat double time um you know to manage and you know negative emotions build up or not given space can just impact that in a profound way there’s a lot of research around that as well in terms of the cascade of events with the you know neural chemicals that kind of run through our body so i hope to just meet people you know i hope to just provide a space where people feel that they can uh you know be real and really explore what they need to so then they can make the best decisions that they can you know for themselves whether it’s using the walker or not using the walker having the feeding tube or not having the feeding tube so a lot of my work in the clinic is around life choices all the choices we have to make yeah i invite you to check out mary’s website especially if you live anywhere near philadelphia she teaches a variety of classes i wish i could take thanks for listening i hope you’re able to take away something you heard in today’s podcast and apply it to your life take care of yourself and i i hope to see you online in our facebook group on youtube instagram or on the glass f4 website thank you for listening to glass half full leslie invites you to leave a rating and review on itunes this helps spread the word to others dealing with chronic health issues for show notes updates and more visit the website glass half full dot online

    classful.online you

  • Patient Advocates, Patient Leaders

    • Andrea Klein
      Andrea L. Klein
    • Melissa Talwar & Leslie Krongold
      Melissa Talwar

    What is a Patient Advocate? A patient advocate can be an actual patient with a mental and/or physical health condition, a caregiver for someone with a health condition, or a paid professional advocating on behalf of others with a health condition.

    Andrea L. Klein, of Cleveland, Tennessee, has collagen six intermediate congenital muscular dystrophy. She started a Facebook group, Breathe with MD Support Group, for people with a neuromuscular disease who struggle with respiratory health. Recently, she established a nonprofit organization with the same name.

    Melissa Talwar, of Pasadena, California, has struggled with fibromyalgia since she was 14 years old. Her experiences with different medications and their alarming side effects catapulted her into focused research on the condition and potential treatments. After volunteering with a patient advocacy organization and then traveling around the U.S. to meet others with fibromyalgia, Melissa also established a nonprofit organization.

  • Diabetes? Two personal stories about movement and plant-based diet

    Diabetes? Two personal stories about movement and plant-based diet

    Dianna Rowley, diagnosed with diabetes type 1, was a professional dancer. Although she had health issues in her childhood she wasn’t diagnosed until her early 20s when she experienced a major health crisis. Her journey to wellness and life balance includes a lot of exercise and movement with setbacks and successes along the way. Today she is a Health & Fitness Coach inspiring others with disabilities and chronic health conditions.

    • Dianna Rowley
      Dianna teaches Brain Fitness class.
    • Heather Brock
      Heather and Dr. Michael Greger

    Heather Brock was diagnosed with diabetes type 2 nearly three years ago. An endocrinologist put her on medication which caused an adverse reaction. Determined to find a better way to manage the condition, Heather began reading books about reversing diabetes. Inspired by physicians like Dean Ornish, Michael Greger, and Joel Fuhrman, Heather adopted a plant-based diet and reversed the disease. She highly recommends Mastering Diabetes and Chef AJ.

  • Life After Cancer: Reduce Toxins (1 of 3)

    Life After Cancer: Reduce Toxins (1 of 3)

    How does a diagnosis of cancer and treatment change a person? In this 3-part series you’ll hear different stories on how a woman – diagnosed with cancer (breast, thyroid, and ovarian) – experienced the changes.

    In part 1 Shannon Lee Knorr, a Pilates and yoga instructor, shares how her own yoga practice and teaching style changed.

  • My Favorite Things: Conscious Optimism

    My Favorite Things: Conscious Optimism

    Holidays can be tough; that’s why we’re focusing on our favorite things. Peni, Laurel, and Kristl share their voices and 22 previous podcast guests tell us how they beat the funk when dogs bite or bees sting.

    Since this is the shortest podcast episode ever…check out these previous episodes all about optimism:

  • Gratitude & Thinking Small

    ‘Tis the season to be thankful, grateful, and appreciative. But how does one get to a place of gratitude if you’re feeling miserable — physically, emotionally, or both? Toni Bernhard, author of How to Be Sick (Second Edition): A Buddhist-Inspired Guide for the Chronically Ill and Their Caregivers, talks about gratitude as it relates to the Four Sublimes States of Buddhism. 

    A brief introduction to Robert A. Emmons‘, Ph.D. research on gratitude is presented on the physical, psychological, and social benefits to a gratitude practice. Emmons has written a number of books but here is a quick read for those anxious to jump into a gratitude practice, The Little Book of Gratitude: Create a life of happiness and wellbeing by giving thanks.

    Join Leslie with her 30-day gratitude challenge of daily journaling in the Glass Half Full Facebook group.

    Listen to Toni Bernhard in her earlier podcast episode and her articles on Psychology Today’s website.

  • Food=Medicine: Cooking with Love

    In the continuing series, Food=Medicine, Cooking with Love explores different interpretations of how love can be a vital element in the food we eat. Whether it’s part of the mission of a local organic farm, a vegetarian chef preparing pureed, nutrient-dense food for her father with progressive Parkinson’s disease, or another chef infusing fine dining, multi-coursed meals with cannabis — each guest offers a fresh perspective for mindful eating.

    Lacey Sher, owner/Chef of the Encuentro pop-up restaurant in Oakland, CA shares two recipes for nutrient-dense smoothies. Aleta Pierce, farm manager for Alameda Point Collaborative’s farm2market program, welcomes farm volunteers and CSA subscribers. Michael Magallanes, San Francisco-based chef, prepares meals for private clients.

    Sweet and Green Protein Smoothie

    hemp milk, coconut water, or spring water

    handful organic fresh or frozen blueberries

    handful organic fresh or frozen raspberries

    4-5 leaves of lacinato kale or romaine

    handful of parsley

    2 scoops hemp protein

    3 pitted dates

    1/2 avocado

    – add ingredients into your Vitamix or blender
    – blend together until super smooth
    – pour into your favorite to go jar or mug
    – sip slow and enjoy!

    Berry Banana Antioxidant Booster   

    This smoothie is full of colorful foods, such as berries and cacao, which are loaded with a wealth of vitamins and antioxidants to help the body stay strong and vital. Plus with B-vitamin dense maca, omega rich hemp seeds, and beauty boosting coconut oil, this smoothie is filling yet completely whole and natural, assuring optimal function of body and mind. Enjoy!

    3 cups of water or herbal tea

    1 cup frozen organic blueberries

    1 cup frozen organic strawberries or raspberries

    1 frozen or fresh organic banana

    handful of cacao nibs

    2 tablespoons raw coconut oil

    1/3 cup hemp seeds

    2 tablespoons maca

    1/2 stick vanilla bean or ½ teaspoon vanilla extract

    optional: 2 tablespoons spirulina, your favorite green powder, or vanilla

    Sweetener of choice: 3 tablespoons honey or agave, 2-3 pitted dates, or 3 drops stevia (Stevia is very sweet and strong. Use the least amount to taste.)
    – add ingredients into your Vitamix or blender
    – blend together until super smooth
    – pour into your favorite to go jar or mug
    – sip slow and enjoy!

    These are simple and delicious and folks can use less fruit for less sweetness. I also like to add different ingredients such as chia, moringa powder, sometimes different vegetables like cooked or raw sweet potatoes, substitute spinach for kale if I have it. So many options. ~ Lacey Sher

    Resources for Dysphagia (Swallowing difficulties)

    If you truly want to understand the mechanics of dysphagia, check out this recorded webinar with the author of the textbook, Dysphagia: Clinical Management in Adults and Children, Michael E. Groher, Ph.D. It’s about an hour in duration but you’ll have a much better understanding of what this condition is.

    Here is a community-generated recipe guide for people with swallowing difficulties. Recipes were submitted by caregiving family members.

    Here is a recorded panel discussion about food preparation for people with dysphagia. Additional resources can be found here.

    More Food=Medicine Podcast Episodes

    The first Food=Medicine podcast episode included Retired Navy Lieutenant Laura Root and Edibell Stone, LPC & health coach talking about their respective diets. The second Food=Medicine podcast episode featured Jill Nussinow, The Veggie Queen, at the Farm to Fermentation Festival. Jill is a Registered Dietician and author of cookbooks and DVDs. If you want to go deeper into an understanding of fermented foods and their healing properties, check out this episode with fermentation guru, Sandor Katz. This episode explores the ancient tradition of Ayurveda through one woman’s health and diet journey.

  • Sound Therapy: I had to do this every day if I wanted to become well again

    Sound Therapy: I had to do this every day if I wanted to become well again

    Sound Bath? Sound Meditation? Sound Symphony?

    Sound therapy has become a wonderful tool to access deep relaxation. For many, it is a gateway to meditation. Melissa Felsenstein of Inner Sounds Meditation shares her story of how playing crystal bowls and metal gongs helped her heal from symptoms of anxiety and depression. A self-proclaimed Nervous System Advocate, after several years of exploring these musical instruments, she now shares her process to help others.

    Check out a video from this Summer Solstice Sound Bath.

    Transcript

    welcome to glass half full with leslie krongold she shares her stories experiences and knowledge of living and coping with a chronic health condition learn about tools and resources and hear inspirational interviews that help you to live a life filled with quality and dignity with two decades of support group leadership leslie’s ready to help you make lemonade out of life’s lemons are you ready are you ready welcome to the summer if you listen to the last podcast episode about nature i hope you’re now trying to get a daily dose of it vitamin n that is this past week i was quite fortunate to get this great double dose of vitamin and at the university of california’s botanical gardens in berkeley on wednesday i attended my first forest bathing led by a certified forest guide but the two and a half hour experience ended in a redwood tree grove and on thursday morning i found myself in the same grove i didn’t sleep there overnight and i was not kidnapped and taken there but i returned for a solstice sound math i would assume most of you listening out there have never been to a sound bath but it’s an experience i bet will come your way soon my first sound bath we always remember our first time right was nearly three years ago in july at a yoga studio in oakland california sound practitioner was melissa felsenstein and she is my guest for today’s episode so perhaps you’re wondering just what is a sound bath is it always experienced in nature and how is leslie able to read my mind

    often i use wikipedia as my go to web page for a solid definition of something but there is no entry for sound math i’ll have to rely on my experiential knowledge so you know when you’re in a bathtub you’re enveloped in water for me this is a truly relaxing experience well in a sound bath you allow yourself to be enveloped by the sound not any sound like i don’t think any cdc concert would qualify but you know who knows melissa uses crystal balls gongs and chimes to create her sound math i’ve been to several sound experiences with different practitioners sometimes it’s called a sound meditation or sound symphony where other instruments in addition to bowls and gongs are used such as a harp wooden xylophone and even a human voice each sound experience is unique many factors contribute to the overall experience who is the practitioner what is the environment like if it’s indoors what are the acoustics like how close to the practitioner am i seated or am i reclined do i shut my eyes and let myself be carried away or do i remain seated so i can watch and listen on thursday i chose to have my eyes open it was a gorgeous sauce this morning in a redwood tree grove and i wanted to videotape portions of melissa’s performance best to keep my eyes and ears open for that what you’re listening to in the background is from that day in the redwood grove you can hear birds communicating in the background and actually when melissa stopped playing the bulls and gongs the birds really went crazy i think they were beckoning for an encore you can already tell i’m partial to melissa’s sound performances i’m a fan shall i say her journey to this work and you know and now after three years she’s making a living as a sound practitioner or healer anyhow her journey is what this episode is all about you can watch a video of the solstice sound bath on the glass half full youtube channel but it’s a best experience live a link to the inner sounds meditation website is in the podcast notes and that’s melissa’s website so i was introduced to sound as therapy in 2008 and i was traveling india and i was at one of those bazaars there was this big market i walked into one that i had i’d known about the tibetan bowls the metal ones they’re metal bowls that are handmade in tibet and in india this was in rajasthan so it’s the northern part of india and so i i went there i saw i saw this this shelves and shelves of metal bowls and i thought oh that’ll be a really fun thing to have and i started talking with the man the store owner and i kept kind of coming back to it like we were there for a couple of days and i kept just wanting to be around this man and just sort of talking with him and i helped him with his business card and some other things and we were just kind of becoming friends and eventually he told me that he used these bowls he used the sounds to help heal children specifically of different ailments and that’s what he was known for and i remember i had this moment like oh my gosh like i’ve always been interested in music i was a dancer so the idea of sound as a way to help people i was just so blown away and i thought and then he was showing me some techniques and i eventually bought a bowl from him and then i convinced him to give me his mallet you know he didn’t want to give me like his mallet but i really wanted his mouth i felt like he was infused with this like power you know and he was very reluctant but somehow i convinced him um and i uh yeah so i came home and i was so inspired from that trip and i thought i’m gonna become a sound healer and then i got home away from india back in the grind of los angeles and i was like that is a crazy idea like who who would ever want that you know i completely denied the dream like i felt the dream and then i i denied it and i was working a corporate job and i just continued and then it’s interesting how you know you have this little if it’s meant to happen it will happen right so i i said i said no and then of course you know a short time later it came back to me like a boomerang i think i just felt like it was just too wild you know and anyway so needless to say um a few years later uh my father fell mentally ill so he was dealing with bipolarism and he was on lithium but then the lithium was really hurting his kidneys and so he was abruptly taken off the lithium by a really bad doctor i don’t know you know someone is a certain way and then you have no idea what might happen really when they’re taken off their meds you just assume it’ll be fine kind of you’re like well what’s gonna change really well everything changed for him everything changed he became manic and he just never recovered he was manic for eight years until he died so uh in the beginning you know he was on the street and it’s interesting how the system i i’ve said this before but the system doesn’t really care that that person was an mit graduate on a scholarship i mean my father was brilliant he worked for hewlett-packard his entire career starting right when he graduated from mit just this really brilliant man very kind and soft-hearted and always taking in stray animals and just a very introverted introverted quiet genius and but the system doesn’t care it doesn’t care that what you were you’re just like another person you’re another number and so he was lost in the system of just mental hospitals and um all sorts of situations that i i don’t really want to go into too much too much detail because it’s um it’s painful but we’ll just say that it was it was a really bad time and so i was very close to my dad i’d say we both had this kind of wild adventurous self that we both understood and we were both a little bit weird and we liked like kind of things that were a little different from other people and he really encouraged me to be an art major he loved the arts he loved that i loved music he loved that i danced so it was really supportive and just i don’t know fun we were like pen pals during that you know my college years so anyway when he got sick um i was doing yoga i was doing kind of your typical exercise and but my nervous system was becoming so

    it was becoming so severely imbalanced because i was so afraid all the time for my dad i was afraid for his health i was afraid for my mom’s safety i was afraid for everyone else’s safety he became kind of a dangerous man he became an angry man so um and his his own safety for himself and uh it just became too much you know there’s a certain amount of stress you can deal with but then when that stress keeps going like whether it’s a chronic illness right you understand that and just dealing with this something that’s relentless it doesn’t it doesn’t ever let you go and you don’t know what’s down the line you don’t know what’s down the line you have to become it’s very uneasy it’s unsettling you can’t ever get kind of grounded and feel confident or sure and i think about that like chronic illness or or cancer treatment and sort of my experience too there’s a lot of commonalities and i think a lot similarly this happens for everyone’s nervous system that’s under chronic intense stress you know basically like everyone else i stopped sleeping i was insomniac um because i just couldn’t rest my mind at night so that and then i stopped sleeping then i wasn’t able to eat and digest you know i could barely eat anything i was losing weight i felt sick all the time and bloated and it just felt awful i had migraines i had tmj i had teeth grinding and eventually it got to the point where i had like a shake as well like like and i was losing my hair i mean it was wow severe anxiety severe severe anxiety and as that started to compound i was also greeted with depression because you start to really feel down when you can’t get yourself healthy and you’re seeing you know i think depression it’s different from sadness i mean i was sad about my dad but depression is this there’s a quality to it that’s um so gray it’s so bleak and i could feel that with just this idea that tomorrow is going to look exactly like today right and when you look into the future and that’s all you see is a broken body and sadness grief you know at the time i didn’t realize i was grieving the loss of my dad right like i had lost my dad he was here but who he was was someone like completely foreign to me occasionally over those seven years i’d see this little spark and i’d remember who he was and he’d do a little joke or something and it gets me like teared up just thinking about god it was such a hard time um but was there also an element of fear that this could be your future oh yeah that’s a really good point yeah like i looked into my own future and i was like oh wow this could be it because i was still going to yoga classes and i remember being so like angry and i was very bitter a lot of the time because i was so um mad that my life was lost and my dad’s life and my family my family you know we were sort of broken up by the situation as any family would it’s very very hard to deal with mental illness i asked melissa about her reintroduction to the sound work how did she recapture that dream she originally had in india so i would go to these yoga classes and yoga had always been my savior it always been my refuge and i would sit in shavasana i would just steam i was just so mad because like i kind of felt like even that was taken from me like no matter what style of yoga i did it didn’t work i was doing acupuncture which i always felt exhausted by like i felt like it took something from me to show up to get there to receive treatment and then afterward i was always super tired reiki same thing i tried talk therapy i tried some western medicine i was basically just doing anything i could and i just i just didn’t have any extra energy for anything i was barely able to kind of just show up in my life and just kind of just get through the hours of every day so a few different people um encouraged me to take some time off and i and i did and one person actually said she was like you know i really she was my my therapist and she said i think you should like go to an ashram so i did i did and it was a brilliant move because they’re so disciplined there’s a lot of chanting and that’s kind of when i opened up to this other side of yoga that wasn’t just asana you know asana is the movement it was the chanting and then the meditation um and you know just kind of broadening out what what this concept of of yoga was and at the same time i was taking some classes around my neighborhood and i walked into this class and little did i know at the very end in shavasana she plays a crystal ball and i just had this moment where i could feel my whole body responding to the sound you know that deep deep relaxation and i could feel even my nervous system kind of calming down and it was really brief you know it was only like a minute or two and i just thought i don’t care why or how i’m just going to i walked up i was like what is this i didn’t even know what it was she’s like this is a crystal ball and i was like what and then i just bought them and i had them delivered and i taught myself how to play i bought i bought three of them from home shop in florida no they don’t make them there no no almost all the bowls are made in china actually but um so uh and they were delivered in like you know eight business days and i just unpacked them and just started to play them because i just at that point i was like i don’t care what it is i don’t care what tool it is because i i think i think the pivotal moment too wasn’t just how i felt when i heard the ball and i think it also was that it created hope for me a hope like that future that i saw before that we were talking about where every day is the same and you almost just want to give up you know it’s like why keep living why do i want to live i don’t want to live like this you know and i think a lot of people are confronted with that um often in our lives uh but so it brought me this tiny bit of hope like maybe it could be different maybe i could just try and use this so the sound came back to me under much more rough circumstances um and you know unlike some sound healers uh sound is taking off right now and there’s a lot of different healers out there but i think the thing that makes it slightly different for me was like it was necessary this wasn’t a choice it wasn’t like i like gongs these sound so pretty they’re fun they are fun they’re outrageously fun to play to feel it in your body as you play it’s amazing and i could see that draw but for me it was necessary like i had to do this every day if i wanted to become well again

    i don’t know i just feel like the gongs what what they did for me i felt like you know i started for like a month or two with just the bulls and they really rewired my nervous system but i was missing the jump for my depression like i still couldn’t quite mitigate that and um i think the gongs really help with that because they take you into this ethereal meditative open space so when i got the gong it’s jupiter jupiter was the gong each of each of the gongs have a um they’re a certain note that’s aligned with the orbital properties of each planet and they have they have the base note and then they have two overtone notes as well that’s how they’re different from orchestral gongs which are not tuned at all so when i have eight gongs or something i can set them up to be very harmonious based on notes or feelings or dissonant you know but orchestral gongs you can’t do that they’re all just set they they’re tuned to sound pleasant but that’s about it so these are really special instruments and they’re so high quality they’re all made of an alloy of of metal oh okay so they vary in what they’re made of well depending on the maker yeah every maker has their secret recipe so piste’s got a recipe and meinel has a recipe and um nobody wants to give up their secret recipe because it’s a combination of different metals okay to make the sound and of course you know there’s also there’s gong gongs have been around for thousands of years um so there’s chinese gongs and tai gongs and burmese gongs and how did you know you wanted to go to gongs like yeah that’s that’s a good question i don’t know there was an intuition that just you know i did go to a few sound meditations at the time in l.a and i would go and i would feel this like distinct calling like if if i really really want to feel healthy i’m going to need this and i i think it was so it was intuitive but once i got it i did notice a big difference in my healing experience

    it’s very hard to describe this the state of being

    i always struggle with it on paper and through voice because it’s like a place that’s beyond time i don’t know it’s a place beyond words it’s a it’s a feeling it takes you into this almost like to the soundless place that’s where the gongs take you it’s like you’re you’ve got to prepare the the mind you got to create the pathway in into the silence and i think the gongs really help with that and when we can find silence in different ways rather than just through meditation which is so hard for most people including me i mean i became a meditator after i used sound as meditation as a meditative tool but um so we all struggle with sitting there you know and in yoga they they have you do pranayama first so that way you can do a little breathing technique and then hopefully get your mind ready well in the same way that’s what the sound is doing the sound is stimulating your mind it’s stimulating your senses it’s stimulating your cells it’s vibrating everything it’s unpredictable the gong i don’t even know how it’s gonna show up you know some days i do a hit that i’ve done a million times and it just looks like crazy um so it’s very unpredictable and so the mind can’t um the mind relaxes in that actually it doesn’t it doesn’t grasp it’s not able to grasp to rhythm you know it sort of has to deal with unpredictability which is good because it makes it more flexible but the the sounds i think or this is what i know the sounds of the gongs

    are trying to prepare your mind for the sounds without the gongs to prepare it to kind of clear those everyday thoughts out of the way with sound because it takes over just it’s not going to let you spend a lot of time thinking about your grocery list

    melissa explains how her playing of the gongs was a healing process remember she was doing this on her own still the gongs and the crystal balls were tools for her own healing also getting a lot of strength from that space too right resiliency you kind of feel like you can get through these difficult points of our lives and you know my dad’s story you know as as i got better and better and better you know dad got worse so you know right as i was launching my business my dad was dying you know so um and i’m smiling right now which no one can see uh and it’s because you know he brought me the biggest gift like would i have found this if everything had stayed the same probably not or maybe it would come to me in a different way we don’t know um if you’re meant to do it apparently it comes back again again yeah but uh yeah i mean his he’s he’s he’s an inspiration for it and also i really felt like the sound as therapy and for myself really expanded my capacity to just handle more you know and so even though dad was going through so much i felt very robust and i let go of the need for him to be the way he used to be and i accepted who he was and i accepted his own karma if you believe in that his own path like i can’t change that it’s what his soul needs and i can just support him with love and kindness and caring and it really having those kind of realizations helped immensely with the guilt and the pain

    and i’d say i really started to feel better about a month into it and then really powerful changes in the nervous system three months later and i’d say the depression was really reigned in and sort of obliterated probably six months into it wow so yeah within a year i was already doing really i was a really different person and over the years people were like wow you’re so less gritty like you’re so much more soft i used to be really kind of intense and kind of feisty so it’s it’s it’s changed my pulse you know it’s changed my own vibration and and um but it was you know i started out with myself and i remember my friends they were like what have you been doing you seem different and i was like well i was kind of embarrassed about it i was like well i kind of do this stuff with sound and they’re like what i’m like they’re like that sounds cool like they’re all into it you know and i was like i don’t know and they’re like we should you should you should play for us and i was like i don’t know about that it really like i was pretty reluctant to share um for many reasons you know i kind of felt like well what kind of person is a sound a sound practitioner i’m even afraid to say healer it just feels too heavy what kind of person is that like who does that you know and i’m like that’s not me i like to eat hot dogs and hamburgers bacon i love bacon god if i could have that every day i would and i love to like drink wine and i i’m very standard in many ways just like i’m just a normal chick like you know who is this and so i was very um embarrassed and even when i first moved here you know that was a three years ago i launched my business full-time after doing a few of those events you know and then kind of growing a little bit in la but but i knew i just knew i needed to come here i need to come back home this is where i’m i’m bored i was born in south bay and now that melissa’s been sharing her healing tools with others for over three years she’s learned a lot about the instruments and how people respond to her performances i asked her to elaborate on this it’s organic and you’re really like for me i’m just listening i’m listening so intensely to wait and sort of find the sound that’s special because every sound meditation has several of them and it’s a it could be a rhythm it could be especially with the gongs the bowls are interesting how they show up every time too a little different but the gongs they definitely have their own

    individual way to them for each one and so i’m just searching i’m looking around and just trying to find okay where’s that nice and i hear it and i’m like oh what’s that what’s happening here and i’m like oh that’s exciting you know even after years and years and years and years of playing i have those moments every time or where one gong who normally plays very dark and deep is showing up right what’s this about what happened and i’m sure you could go into all sorts of like um the physicists are always like well it’s the temperature of the room and this and that but really i i think there’s something more to this that’s um less scientific and less rational because i could have the same exact two gongs playing for a private session and the person changes but nothing else does and they show up differently and i think that’s also me as a practitioner because like i said i i’m intimate with these instruments they were a big part of who i am and who i’ve become and i have a great respect for them so i’m really i could there’s many people who just want to you know aggressively go at the gong because it’s so exciting it’s so stimulating and it’s fun as a player it’s fun but as a recipient it can be create a lot of intensity and i’ve heard so many people go to these other experiences and say i hated it you know i will never do it again i found that to be like i was panicked the whole time and it’s because your nervous system you know doesn’t understand these sounds and they sound scary and they it just goes into fight or flight so as a player i’m very aware of that and because i’m a nervous system advocate and i’m trying to re-teach people how to relax i’m trying to calm their nervous system down and to clear their minds that’s my intent it’s like a healing environment i am mitigating the gongs quite a bit you know what i mean i i’m really working with them from that standpoint it’s almost like they know that that’s what they need to do and i know that’s what i need to do so but they will play very very very differently and we’re talking like nothing else in the environment has changed so you have to wonder well what is that about well it depends it depends how scientific you want to be or if you want to be open to you know the potential that there’s some greater forces happening that affect how they show up but it’s this idea that this is what i mean by there could be something more and i think there is i’m saying could because i’m being a coward well do you think the energy of the people yeah okay i think so the energy of the people that i understand right you do but you know the average person i don’t know um but yeah the energy of the people um and i get a lot of intuitive because i’m going into a very meditate meditative state i get a lot of intuitive hits as well about people so about like a stranger i don’t even know them but as i’m playing you know there’s a rhythm and there’s a feeling and i’m like oh

    i had a few questions from melissa that were less about her journey and more about the science behind the use of sound as a therapeutic tool i asked her to talk about brain entrainment a term i wasn’t familiar with but is often mentioned in this line of work so entrainment is the ability for our brains as animals as humans um and animals to synchronize and so this is how large fish can swim together as one organism or if you’ve ever seen a huge group of birds and they’re might and they’re they’re turning like a mass and it’s not because they’re talking to each other like let’s make a left no it’s because they’re entrained they’re near each other and they’re synchronized two heart cells placed near each other but not touching synchronize pendulums synchronize together um in a conversation actually there’s entrainment with body language so if i were to sit here and put my my chin on my hand you might eventually do that if i rub my nose you’re gonna rub your nose actually that happens every time because people are worried about like is this the whole mirror neurons yeah it’s mirror neurons yeah and yeah entrainment so um in this case your brain waves are synchronizing with the sound waves and the sound waves have tons of properties that induce deeper states of slower slower brainwave states or deeper states of relaxation some of it’s the tonal qualities they have high tones and low tones going together they have very low frequency tones as well that can help they aren’t pure notes so they’re normally flat or sharp by a random amount as your your brain receives these tones it entrains and naturally starts to slow down and it’s through that process that you can go into these deeper states so you can drop into the beta state you know relax tape and the theta lots of people drop into delta as you know so delta brainwave state is deep deep sleep so it’s the kind of sleep that you get after like massive travel right and you’re so tired and you’re like oh my god i’m exhausted boom and then 12 hours later you wake up so it’s like that but imagine getting that in just a one hour experience and say you get 45 minutes of it and it’s rich sleep

    my belief you know there’s been a lot of connection around sound healing and cancer treatment my feeling is you know with some of these conditions fibromyalgia chronic pain conditions where our sleep is affected i really it’s extremely nourishing because it’s that rich rich sleep and they find that people are falling asleep and sleeping eight hours but we wake up and we’re tired and there’s disputes about that right maybe it’s you’re waking up at the wrong time of your cycle of your sleep cycle but there has been some research um of late that says that actually it’s you’re not getting delta because we go to sleep and we’re thinking about all these things and we’re stimulated by the ipad and whatever else that we’re using which i’m guilty of and many others right we’re we’re on the line or we’re reading a book or something and we’re too stimulated and we sort of fall asleep thinking about our to-do list and then we wake up thinking about our to-do list and we’re not rested because we’re not actually getting that sleep but you can train your brain and that’s what the sound does so it’s cumulative so each time people they come to the sound meditations and their brain through neuroplasticity which is so amazing right we used to think that your brain was done growing at like 17. and now we know oh my god brains are changing all the time all the time and so you can get better sleep i mean i’m proof of it right like you can restore your entire nervous system from you know it was [ __ ] before to like robust and healthy and healthy immune system and everything just with sound that’s what i did but it’s not some kind of snake oil it’s through science you know if you can get into these delta brainwave states and your brain also starts to learn about the theta brainwave state which is so hard to describe that was the space i was talking about you know inner space a place that is boundless it’s free every time i walk in i it just gets bigger you know there’s so much space in there and there’s so much beauty and it’s a feeling um but your brain starts to get used to it it starts to unlock and become more comfortable with these states that we’re becoming less and less aware of and our ability to get into them on our own is becoming harder and harder simply because we’re being pulled in so many directions right like technology has been great but now we’re always kind of multitasking and the brain necessarily wasn’t made for that or the nervous system the nervous system hasn’t really improved in the way that technology has right it’s an old system so your nervous system doesn’t realize like oh actually i’m not being chased by a bear i’m just late to a meeting like it could be worse right it can’t differentiate but and the body responds in the same way either way and that’s where we get destructive with stress that’s when stress becomes destructive but there’s ways that are easy have no side effects you know sound has no side effects it has only benefit and you know when i said in the very beginning i was doing these other modalities and i felt like they took away from me and i had a private client say the same thing and he so beautifully said he’s like when i come to sound it always feels like it gives to me it doesn’t take it just gives and i love that about it as a therapeutic tool i hope you enjoyed this episode perhaps you might consider exploring this healing modality by attending a sound bath in your area or even trying to see how you react with different sound tools watch the youtube video segments on glass apple’s channel to learn more and check out melissa’s website thanks for listening thank you for listening to glass half full leslie invites you to leave a rating and review on itunes this helps spread the word to others dealing with chronic health issues for show notes updates and more visit the website glass half full dot online last half full dot online

  • Multiple Sclerosis & Mindfulness Meditation

    Multiple Sclerosis & Mindfulness Meditation

    Gareth Walker, in northern England, works as a police officer and has progressive multiple sclerosis. His daily practice of mindfulness meditation enables him to navigate the physical and emotional difficulties of living with a chronic health condition.

    Walker was first introduced to a mindfulness practice when reading Wherever You Go, There You Are: Mindfulness Meditation in Everyday Life by Jon Kabat-Zinn. Walker is featured in Jo Marchant’s 2016 best-selling book, Cure: a journey into the science of mind over body.

    To learn more about Gareth Walker and his practice, visit his website, Everyday Mindfulness.

    Transcription

    welcome to glass half full with leslie krongold she shares her stories experiences and knowledge of living and coping with a chronic health condition learn about tools and resources and hear inspirational interviews that help you to live a life filled with quality and dignity with two decades of support group leadership leslie’s ready to help you make lemonade out of life’s lemons are you ready are you ready

    hello and welcome to today’s podcast last year i read a book called cure a journey into the science of mind over body it’s written by a woman named joe martin chant who lives in london has a phd in genetics and microbiology and works as a science journalist in the book she explores several healing modalities that are more alternative than western medical treatment and pharmaceuticals each chapter is a dive into an area such as hypnotism virtual reality aromatherapy or mindfulness meditation i love the book the author approaches these subjects skeptically and seems to walk away perhaps not a convert but somewhat enlightened my guest for today’s podcast episode is someone she interviewed for the book but before i introduce our conversation i want to tell you my small world story associated with this book the last couple of years each time i visited my neurologist at stanford university i noticed his office was opposite the center for integrative medicine i asked my doctor about the center and he knew nothing about their work so i went inside their offices to investigate apparently most of their work is with cancer patients i talked with the receptionist about my rare disease how i experienced chronic muscle pain and after securing a referral for my neurologist i could get an appointment with one of the doctors i think there was a three or four month wait when we finally did meet there was a discussion about my condition and what they offer which was mostly acupuncture since it takes an hour for me to get to stanford and there are good acupuncture clinics in my community i declined but the doctor did suggest i make an appointment with another doctor at the center who’s not theirs regularly and specializes in hypnosis so i did and the wait was a few more months now i know nothing about hypnosis other than what we see depicted in popular culture i was intrigued and as many of you probably share i’m always open to non-invasive ways to cope with pain and discomfort well the appointment was last year and it was during the time i was reading the cure book and i bet you thought i was going off on a wild tangent right well it turns out that the doctor was waiting to see daniel spiegel he’s in the book and he’s a world renowned expert on hypnosis i didn’t know that i had the appointment and i was reading the chapter just about a week before the appointment and i you know discovered that so i was really psyched but unfortunately when i met with him we went through these little uh tests and everything and it just so happens i’m part of the i don’t know about 10 of people that can’t be hypnotized i don’t know if that’s a good thing or a bad thing anyhow now back to this podcast episode gareth walker lives in northern england and has multiple sclerosis joe marchand the book’s author contacted the multiple sclerosis society in england and asked if they knew of anyone practicing meditation and they all knew of gareth and now you will too when were you diagnosed with ms and how did that happen i was diagnosed about

    eight years ago now

    it happened um i got blurry vision in my left eye um so obviously went to the doctors and several tests were done the first they thought it was conjunctivitis but the drops they gave me didn’t clear it up the opticians couldn’t find anything wrong so eventually i went for an mri scan which is when um the bomb went off really i was told by a neurologist that there was damage to my optic nerve and that could be a precursor to ms it may not be go away and live your life and and hope that you don’t have ms but unfortunately i do and um about six years ago the symptoms started to accumulate and they’ve been going on since then and it’s pretty certain now that i have um progressive ms and i don’t really have relapses the condition just keeps getting worse to the point where i’m in a wheelchair now oh i didn’t realize that so and you’re able to to still uh work but in a different capacity you’re a police officer that’s correct i’m a police officer and luckily it’s a big organization i work for and a desk job has been found i’m still doing kind of detective work and and still researching things but it’s all computer-based now so what were some of the first ways that you tried to mitigate or alleviate symptoms did you try certain part you know drugs that were helpful i kind of got myself in a bit of a um

    depression’s not the right word but i was in a bit of a thug and um i was really down about the diagnosis and i remember my mum gave me a a book the book wasn’t really relevant it was kind of a self-help book and it and it just kind of got me thinking come on you know that this is life this is what’s happened to you and you’ve gotta you’ve gotta start doing something about it and i i went away and did research and things like that and eventually i came across um a website um from an australian doctor who’d got ms and he recommended a series of lifestyle changes um to give yourself the best possible chance with the disease that the lifestyle changes were diet exercise and one of one of the aspects of the regime was meditation but i had no clue what meditation was about and so suddenly gave me a recommendation somewhere for a book the book is called wherever you go there you are by jonkerbat zinn and so i picked up this book uh and it just so happens that junk about zinn is the um pioneer of secular mindfulness in the west he i think he’s a buddhist and he’d stood it he’d studied it from a buddhist view and but but realized that there was a lot in this that could be brought to people um in in the west and so he stripped the religion out of it and um started teaching uh mindfulness classes mindfulness based stress reduction uh this book rang very true with me um and i started meditating and and that was where it all started

    meditation is it’s so many things and and often people are confused between well what is mindfulness and what is meditation and they try and they feel like they’re not doing it right did you go through that sort of struggle at the beginning yeah and i think everybody who starts meditating does you know what what happens if i get an itch while i’m meditating what am i supposed to do uh i i’m i’m a bad meditator and that i can’t keep my mind still for a second you know everybody has these kind of thoughts but eventually over time the the benefits start to bed in and mindfulness itself it it’s become kind of a a way of life meditation is the it just brings about more mindfulness um you can do mindfulness the person walking down the street can do mindfulness we can all do mindfulness if you if you’re sat at the beach and there’s a particularly beautiful sunset you’re gonna be looking at the sunset you’re being mindful right there but the problem is sustaining mindfulness do you drive leslie i do not not very often but i do and i i don’t know if you’ve ever been on a journey and you you pull onto your drive and then you think i don’t remember anything about that journey at all right right and that’s because your mind was elsewhere you are on autopilot thinking about the argument you had with your partner the day before are you thinking about the meeting next week that you’re really worried about and the mind is such a restless tumultuous place uh it it it’s always wanting to go here there and everywhere and it’s easy to get sucked into the stories that it it generates for meditation helps you see the mind for for what it is and helps you bring yourself back from these storylines and the effect is life-changing so i understand you started with a five-minute daily practice is that correct uh yeah that’s great so would you did you create a place an actual location at your home or your work or were you able to take the five minutes in any sort of setting at first um i used to try and get myself to a quiet place in the house where i wouldn’t be disturbed now it’s just anywhere and everywhere and do you have the ability to do it if you’re in a room with other people

    yeah and you can be um you can be mindful at any moment in your life you in in a room full of people you just listen to the sounds around you listen to the people that are talking to you and listen to the distractions there was a um a really good meditation one day out fairly early on in my practice and i was meditating and um my son was very very young at the time uh burst into the bedroom and i and at first i started to become irritated oh you’ve you’ve interrupted my meditation and you know starting to get angry and then i managed to pull myself back and i thought what hang on a minute my son is the meditation he is the moment right now and instead of meditating on my breath i meditated on him and um he gave all my attention to him and that was quite a revelatory meditation that day

    so can you tell me about any of the physical and emotional changes that have taken place since you started your practice of mindfulness and meditation

    and i’m not sure that there have been any physical changes emotionally um as human beings we are emotional creatures but um mindfulness allows you to ride the roller coaster of emotions i i can see anger i can see anger coming and i just allow it to come and i don’t get sucked in by it and allow it to come and i allow it to go and then i think and try and react respond rather than react to the emotion

    at the time i was off work due to the ms um and i was thinking that maybe website design would be a career that i could do without the use of my legs i’d be able to sit at a computer and do it i was thinking about providing my for my family and what if i had to be retired from the police and it was a time when i was just starting to notice changes from mindfulness and starting to feel better about myself so i just bought a domain name everyday mindfulness and just started messing around really and i set up a twitter feed and right at the very beginning i i just started tweeting my daily observations of mindfulness really and i saw that i was getting so many retweets and and the account was growing really really quickly and it’s just come from there really i added a forum to the website where people can come and chat and get guidance about the practice and

    that the website has just crack kind of grown organically really but mike but as it happens mindfulness has got me in such a good place that i’ve been able to return to my old job so it it has had a physical effect on you

    and i’m able to deal with the um physical ms provides a lot of physical difficulties and um mindfulness allows me to navigate them um much better i remember one time at my old house it was um a victorian house with a very steep set of stairs and i was starting to have mobility difficulties um and getting up the stairs was getting harder and harder at the beginning when mindfulness was just starting to kick in i remember a time and i had to go upstairs and i just noticed my mind was oh it’s going to be so hard getting up the stairs and i realized that’s in the future my mind’s in the future there just take it one step at a time and i found that it was so much easier

    sort of that be here now so it’s like that book be here now you know where you just try to be in the moment without reliving the past or or fearing the future that is mindfulness yeah it’s so hard i mean it is uh it is a hard um thing for a lot of people but it’s always hopeful to to hear stories about how people are able to sort of develop a whole new

    habit

    i don’t think you can make somebody meditate they have to want it for themselves and they have to there’s a certain amount of dedication that is required at the start and you need to meditate every day i think um and then eventually your practice begins to get off the ground and doesn’t have to be so rigid i don’t like to i don’t advertise really that i’m into mindfulness there’s still a bit of stigma you tell people you meditate they think you’re a caftan wearing hippie and and i think it’s becoming more and more mainstream but i don’t generally tell people other than close friends and family it has an effect on me at work has an effect all through my life you know you’re you’re going down the corridor and your boss gives you a funny look and in the past boom the mind starts going did he not like the report that i wrote yesterday is he displeased with my work and the mind starts going but with mindfulness i can see those thoughts and i can pull myself back from them

    should try meditation leslie it’s fantastic well i actually i i have been practicing uh yoga for many years so i do um you know shavasana at the end yes that is a meditation and i am not a um i don’t adhere to one type of meditation i’ve you know explored uh creative visualizations i go to a lot of different workshops and something that i really like a lot is they call it sound bath um it’s where someone you’re you’re in a restorative pose like shavasana and there is a person playing um bowls glass bowls uh or different instruments like gongs and for me it’s very powerful in terms of um being able to meditate and get to a a point of pureness and oneness i feel in me and it’s also visceral the sound does amazing things to my body so i find it healing in that way but it’s not something i do every day and consistency is uh important i think um there was um a period in my early practice i was quite lackadaisical some days i meditate some days i wouldn’t and then i was going a holiday a two-week holiday in spain and i thought no i don’t need to meditate i’m going holidays my holiday and so i didn’t meditate for the whole two weeks and then i did a meditation um i think the first day i came back and i noticed how much more untidy my mind had become and at that point i thought right i’m really gonna knuckle down and do this every single day and i did it i did every day and i increased my practice a bit and and from from then on i really began to notice the benefits well it is something i aspire to i’m always um i think it’s important for me um with a chronic health condition to try to remain open and see myself as growing and learning constantly because sometimes things that have worked for me in the past no longer continue to work and i have to open up to another path another way of seeing things so so i am inspired by your by your journey and um you know i i i will continue to explore different ways to meditate and i know when i’m

    i’m mindful i mean it’s a it’s all it’s quite palpable and then i know when you know i’ve got that monkey mind which i don’t know if we can ever totally escape completely you can you can never totally escape i i some days i sit and it’s it’s chaos up there there are thoughts floating about hitting me from every single direction and some days i sit and it’s a much calmer place that’s the nature of the mind and there’s and then knowing that you had that day a couple days ago that felt good where you were able to escape the monkey mind i hope gives you know gives the hope continued hope that you will have those again you know you you don’t get mired in that that downward spiral the uh the only constant is change right right you don’t have to meditate to breath as well i’m i’m a big sound freak as well i my normal method of mess meditation is headphones on listening to music oh okay so what kind of music um it’s generally ambient stuff so nothing too vigorous okay that’s good to know because i as sound is um is very powerful for me you know that’s helpful because some and and sometimes i don’t know if you’re ever explored essential oils a certain uh essential oil can help me uh deepen and relax my body and be that sort of um uh transition into a a uh clearer state of mind a quieter mind so all factory sense uh helps me too you can meditate on smell too yeah

    well so gareth this has been wonderful i am i wouldn’t did you have anything you wanted to say that i didn’t ask you about anything to share um only come along to my website have a look

    www.everydayhyphenmindfulness.org thank you for listening to glass half full leslie invites you to leave a rating and review on itunes this helps spread the word to others dealing with chronic health issues for show notes updates and more visit the website glass half full dot online.online

    You should try meditation…savasana at the end is a meditation. I’ve explored creative visualization…I like sound bath…consistency is important, I think. There was a period in my early practice. I was lackadaisical. I was on a holiday in Spain. My mind had become untidy…I need to do it every day. I increased my practice. I talk about monkey mind…some days I sit and it’s chaos up there. And some days I sit and it’s a much calmer place. the only constant is change…you don’t meditate to breathe. I’m a big sound freak. My normal method is with headphones listening to music…ambient stuff…nothing too vigorous. Sound is powerful for me. I talk about essential oil…can help me deepen and relax my body and transition into a quieter mind. You can meditate on smell too. Come on my website and have a look…

  • Stories of Healing with Essential Oils

    Stories of Healing with Essential Oils

    This episode features personal stories about how the use of essential oils has helped with a variety of conditions including depression, anxiety, fibromyalgia, fatigue, post-surgical pain and post cancer treatment.

    If you’re interested in deepening your exploration of essential oils, please leave me a note here.

    For information about Dr. Kris Gast’s medical practice you can visit her radiation oncology website or Beauty through Health website.

    To learn more about Lori Melero’s alternative care practice, visit her website.

    Loose Transcription

    It’s hot this week – in northern California – and heat is a trigger for me. It exacerbates my symptoms. Oddly enough, most people I know with my condition – myotonic dystrophy – tend to feel better in the heat and have problems with the cold. Give me the cold any day. We have the air conditioning turned up right now and I’m using a variety of tools to help me through it. And one of those tools is natural essential oils. Peppermint is a good one to help with a little cooling.

    Using essential oils isn’t necessarily a new tool for me but as I learn more about various oils and how they can help with my physical and emotional well-being, they’re becoming a more helpful and necessary tool.

    So this episode is all about essential oils. I wanted to share personal stories rather than a bunch of factoids about essential oils.

    Actually, he used to say…we have a really BIG show for you tonight…but I couldn’t find that sound bite. But…we do have a REALLY BIG show for you. Stories about how using essential oils have helped for a variety of conditions including depression, fibromyalgia, post-surgical pain and post cancer treatment.

    First let me share my story. I remember buying essential oils at the health food store when I was young. I bought them for the fragrance…I loved jasmine, patchouli, musk. It wasn’t until years later when I realized there were differences in the quality of the essential oil. So many of them have additional chemicals added and weren’t a pure therapeutic grade quality oil.

    My first experience with a therapeutic grade essential oil was…lavender. I’ve been carrying around a lavender roll-on with me for at least 10 or so years. I use it every night as part of my sleep hygiene routine but I also use it to fight a bout of anxiety during the day.

    About two years ago I met Valerie Jew — an Urban Zen integrative healing practitioner featured in an earlier podcast – she introduced me to other essential oils. I’ve been gradually exploring them since and learning about their healing qualities. There is a lot to learn. I’m using oils in a variety of ways – rubbing on my feet, diffusing them in the air, and occasionally using them in foods and beverages. They’re a great addition to my nightly bath ritual.

    Just this month I began a year-long program that culminates with a certification as an essential oils wellness practitioner. But, I digress…I’ll tell you more about this after you hear a few personal stories.

    The first guest is Mindy Kim – Mindy was in this year’s first podcast episode when I asked people to share their New Year’s resolutions. Mindy lives with her family in North Carolina and she also has myotonic dystrophy. Exploring the use of essential oils was one of her goals for the new year.

    Mindy I bought my oils and I’m ready to start using them. I hope it will be a healthier year in general.

    Back in April Mindy and I spoke again and she shared how her health goals were progressing.

    Mindy I ordered the DDR prime oil. I roll it on my feet. I love it. I can’t pinpoint it. it makes me feel like I’m doing something good for my body. I ask about other oils she’s tried. In the book it mentions basil but I haven’t used it yet. I like the idea that I’m doing something positive for my body. I don’t have to use it every day with a meal like medications. It feels good on my feet. I like the idea that it’s ancient since before Jesus’ time. I’m very happy with my oils.

    The oil Mindy mentioned is considered a supplement. I’ve been applying it to my feet every morning for the last couple of months and I, too, feel like it’s a positive experience. It apparently works on cellular energy and it’s been helping with my daily fatigue. Plus, I appreciate the morning ritual of oiling the bottoms of my feet.

    Previously I mentioned Valerie Jew who turned me on to oils beyond my lavender. Her daughter, Laura, is my next guest. Laura began exploring essential oils as a child.

    Laura My earliest memory when I was 10 and my mom and my brother went to Bali for a yoga retreat. There were so many mosquitoes. My aunt took out lavender EO, rub it on our palms…it took mosquitoes away. It wasn’t associated with my use of them emotionally. In the program Urban Zen an integrative…one of the modalities. I got introduced into the spectrum…it’s been an all-around journey.
    Laura So, one part of my story is that I have chronic depression. I’ve had it since adolescence. At that point see a therapist, get on anti-depressants. For year – I’m almost 30 – it was fatalistic view…your mental health is up to some foreign expert and taking drugs. My epiphany came when I was in the UZ program – along with restorative yoga I started noticing I felt more grounded. A happy accident – I forgot to take my anti-depressants one day. I stopped taking pills and did oils, meditation, yoga…I had my ups and downs…I learned a sense of empowerment. I’ll start with citrus oils in the morning. I’ll bring 2-3 oils with me for the day. I’m more in tune with my body. I’m feeling my energy drop a little bit, I’ll take peppermint. It has fostered this amazing connectivity between my physical self and my spiritual self and my mental self.
    Laura One of the first things I do is take a shower I put oils in the bottom of the shower. It creates a steam…I mention the shower mister…usually I put peppermint on the back of my neck or on my palms I’ll inhale. I will take peppermint oil with a full glass of water. I’ll use cedar wood, vetiver…floral oils are calming. Lavender or clary sage. I mention so many…geranium is another favorite.
    Cinnamon is one of my favorites for the winter. My body wants something different. She’s completely off anti-depressants. I say “that’s very powerful”

    Laura’s story is very inspirational. I’d love to hear from other people that have had a similar experience of transitioning off pharmaceuticals but the friends I know who are either diagnosed with clinical depression or bipolar disorder have quite adamantly told me they the drugs they’re on and it would be frightening to stray from the routine that now works for them.

    I wonder how doctors would respond to this switch from pharmaceuticals to the use of essential oils? There are medical doctors exploring the application of essential oils in their practice. I recently met one – well – virtually met – Dr. Kris Gast. Remember I said I’m studying essential oils; the course I’m taking has an online classroom component and I saw Kris’ post about implementing essential oils in her medical practice so I jumped at the opportunity to speak with her. Her medical practice is in Fort Smith, Arkansas which is on the border of Arkansas and Oklahoma.

    Kris I originally started in medicine in the 80s – radiation oncology – a lot of computers, big linear accelerators…at this point people retire…I have so many patients have followed and see them once/year. I have a huge population…2/3 to 75% cancer patients survive. It’s part of the practice to make them happier and healthier in their lives. It’s been driven by their patients to expand the practice to have other tools.
    Kris A lot of our patients will go through chemotherapy or placed on hormone pills and all of that causes health issues. They always gain weight. I searched for diets. Not just a cancer provider to make sure their other health issues are…I asked about implementing EO. We started using the recipe for insomnia. One menopause recipe. I’m in the process of doing this right now. it gives them an alternative to adding another pill to their ever-growing pile. Old now is like 85. They’ll be like on 20 meds. We get them detoxed and out there doing what they like to do.
    Kris I ask how receptive they’ve been. Most of these people in our practice they’re pretty much rural; they have land, grow gardens. They have a history in their family that may date back Indian blood…they used to use this concoction. Our location…Irish and Choctaw and Cherokee Indians. They like natural.
    Kris It’s so much fun; it’s helped me be able to say I can practice for another 20-30 years. My staff is so good for our patients…we’ll all take it. anything give a patient I’ve tried it on myself. It helps us understand that something really works.
    Kris

    Kris

    		 I think that most doctors do not come to their full potential until they’ve been a patient. I’ve had a chronic illness for 20 years – fibromyalgia – and it’s been a struggle to find anything that helps. I ask about EO for fibro. The first thing that has helped the most was to keep moving…the movement was the only relief. One of my employees encouraged me to become gluten free. Now I look at food to see not how it will taste but what will it make me feel like. The EO for myself to help me sleep better…my recipe is frankincense and lavender. I can sleep 5-6 hours straight. I rub it on my hands and on the back of my neck before I go to bed.

    Until doctors get sick and have to take pills, I don’ think they’ll be very receptive to it…

    Wouldn’t you want Kris as part of your medical team? We can all hope for a future when doctors will be open and receptive to alternative modes of healing.

    The final essential oil story I have for you today is also part of that cross-section of natural healing and western medicine. Lori Melero has been a massage therapist and wellness coach for 20 years. I knew Lori from a local qigong class and had heard through a mutual friend that she recently used essential oils to recover from a rather dramatic surgery.

    Lori My earliest experience with oils was in 1997 when I did massage therapy. In 2014, someone introduced me to doTerra. In 2014 I got reintroduced to them. I stopped using oils and they had synthetics and I was allergic. I ask if she did it for the aroma; she was. She didn’t know about the healing benefits. Lavender, eucalyptus, peppermint. A yoga instructor offered a massage with her oils. Aroma Touch session. My body completely opened like a flower. It was like a cleanse.

    Once reacquainted with therapeutic grade essential oils, Lori used different blends for allergies, digestive issues and created a lotion with frankincense which helped her with inflammation and a hematoma from a fall.

    Lori Back in 2010 I had a gall bladder attack. I went to doctor and advised I get the gall bladder removed. The stone was 2 millimeters. Drink olive oil and lemon juice. I passed the stone. I changed my diet. I was great for 6 years. I ate an egg and cheese experienced with pain. Rushed to the ER. They did tests and I had a 7-millimeter stone. After the procedure, they put a scope down the throat…I became septic. They had to consult with surgeons. They waited a few days to see if would heal. I came out of it and…my white blood cell count was going up. I had a blood transfusion. Another major surgery – clamped my stomach…I don’t remember a lot because they had me on a lot of medication. I asked for my diffuser and lavender. I was in the hospital for 11 days. Once I came home they offered me Norco for pain. My husband had to say, “she said no.” I took Advil for 1-2 weeks. I used frankincense and DigestZen. I put it on the bottoms of my feet. I was in bed for some time. I had feeding tubes…
    You used the diffuser…my oils next to me. I would pick which one was suitable for me. Whatever one resonated for me at the time is what I used.
    Lori I’m doing great; at least 90%

    So…now I ask you…are essential oils part of your tool chest? If not, and you’d like to learn more, please contact me via the Glass Half Full website or the Glass Half Full Facebook group. I’ve embarked on diving deeper into my knowledge of essential oils and will soon be starting a side project for those that would like to join me.

    Future podcast episodes may touch upon essential oils but I’ll continue to mix things up. After all, it’s good to have a lot of tools available.