Glenn Ribotsky, a Board member with the Western Neuropathy Association, shares his dramatic initiation as a patient into the world of peripheral neuropathy. Now, 18 years later he advocates and offers support to others experiencing the often, invisible pain of a neuropathy.
For those of you that came here looking for a photo mentioned in the podcast, it will turn up. Check back in a week. Thanks!
Excerpt
I’m actually one of those people. I’m fortunate in that I can actually distinguish, in my case the symptoms, and I’ll talk about why among different types of neuropathy. But I have problems where I have cervical spine impingement on my spinal cord, but I also have peripheral neuropathy. The impingement from the cord, though, tends to create symptoms that are much more localized because it said certain levels of the spine, in my case from C5 to C 7. In terms of that nomenclature, those symptoms are basically neck backs of shoulders and down the arms, whereas the more systemic peripheral things are body wide and the symptoms also are somewhat different. I mean, I get more typical compressive symptoms out of the cervical spine stuff as opposed to the other small fiber neuropathy. I have and define those terms for people, which is much more of a burning pain.
Are you feeling stressed out? With all that’s going on in the world — pandemic, civil unrest, job loss, hurricanes, wild fires — it’s difficult to avoid stress.
Laughter therapy, or laughter yoga, might help alleviate some of the stress. It’s free. It offers numerous mental and physical health benefits. And it’s fun.
In the field of psychoneuroimmunology, laughter has been studied and found to lower blood pressure, strengthen cardiovascular function, improve circulation, boost immune function, trigger the release of endorphins, and produce a sense of well-being.
You’ll meet Annie Goglia, a certified Laughter Yoga Leader, who shares her story how laughter transformed her life. You can even join her, virtually, at her Laughter Club.
The University of San Francisco Osher Center for Integrative Medicine offers classes in Laughter Yoga as well as the Founder of Laughter Yoga, Dr. Madan Kataria.
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 we can all use a little more laughter are you agreeing i mean this is a tough time and that’s coming from a normally optimistic person me most of you listening likely have some type of chronic health condition that presents challenges for you with every day living now if you are more vulnerable like me with respiratory issues or maybe a compromised immune system you’re on high alert during this pandemic even quote unquote healthy people are at risk and maybe you’ve also lost your job or your work hours have been cut or like me your spouse has suffered a job loss which impacts your household and then we’ve got a lot of civil unrest and maybe you’re in the path of a hurricane or the air quality is super unhealthy because you live near wildfires like myself jesus episode is about laughter what am i doing going on and on like this the fact of the matter is we are all stressed out and if you’re not stressed out what in the world is wrong with you okay so we’re in agreement right you’ve gotten stress i’ve got stress people across this whole world are all stressed granted some have a bit more stress than others i can’t even imagine what it’s like to have to evacuate my home because of fires on its trail it’s a totally different enough to crack and i don’t think laughter therapy is the best antidote not yet ironically and here’s how i bring us back to the topic two years ago i was scheduled to interview a nurse about laughter yoga she teaches laughter yoga and meditation at the university of san francisco’s school of medicine
the day before our scheduled interview she sent me an email message that she needed to cancel because her cabin in lake county california was under evacuation orders for the fires the good news is that she’s fine i went to one of her laughter yoga sessions earlier this year pre-coded my intention was to return to her class again and reschedule the interview but that didn’t happen but i do have a guest and she’s in fact the very first person i experienced laughter yoga with
there’s a field of research about after therapy this type of research lies within psych neuro immunology which is the study of the interaction between psychological processes and the nervous and immune systems of the human body i don’t know when this term psych neuro immunology was coined but the scientific research has found laughter to be really good medicine some of the health benefits include lowering blood pressure strengthening cardiovascular functions reducing stress hormones and improving circulation increasing muscle flexion oxygenating the body by boosting the respiratory system immune function by raising levels of infection fighting t cells disease fighting proteins called gamma interferon and b cells which produce disease-destroying antibodies triggering the release of endorphins the body’s natural painkillers and producing a general sense of well-being pretty convincing results don’t you think so with all of this stress upon us maybe we should try working in a little healthy so what is laughter yoga it’s a fairly recent phenomenon an indian physician madame kettarian developed an exercise routine he calls laughter yoga it’s a combination of laughter and yoga breathing laughter yoga practitioners do not use asana or yoga poses as part of the routine so if you can’t do a great down dog don’t worry dr catorius started the first laughter club in 1995 and today there are more than 20 000 free social laughter clubs throughout 110 countries
my introduction on laughter yoga was several years ago i probably had read about laughter yoga and then i did a little research to find a local practitioner and that’s how i found annie golia my guest for this podcast episode i was facilitating a monthly support group for adults with neuromuscular disease we would meet at the kaiser permanente hospital in oakland california and annie happened to live nearby in oakland and she graciously joined us one sunday and led us through several laughter exercises it was not until many years later when i attended my next laughter yoga class at ucsf and during coven so far i’ve attended a couple of virtual laughter yoga sessions so anyhow here’s annie my first question and you know i don’t even know if i asked you this years ago when you came to the support group but how and when did you discover laughter yoga ah well i think it was 2005 or 2004 and i was living in the boston area and i i was very i was pretty shy when i was younger and as i got older i realized humor and laughter were things that helped me connect with people and get over that shyness and i i became quite the laugher and people with friends would tell me you should become a professional laugher or i knew you were in the room because i could hear you from from across the room so when so i thought well that’s funny professional laughter there’s no such thing and then i found out about laughter yoga some friend told me like there’s this thing that adults do and they get together and laugh together and i’m like that sounds spectacular to me so i joined a group and near where i live near boston and i loved it and then i moved here about a year later and i found a training and that’s and then i took a training with dr qatar it was the founder of laughter yoga and now i and then i also started to train other people to lead after yoga so that was almost 14 years ago is he in india or is he located in the united states he is in india he was then and originally he was in mumbai but now i believe he’s in the kind of silicon valley area of india and do you actually travel to india to city with him no no uh he does do trainings there but i at that time he would travel to the u.s to do trainings so it was near la and sierra madre oh okay and so previous to this when you said you were shy have you you know in high school or college done any kind of acting or improv or any of that not so much then uh i did i i think it was later on i got interested in when i was in my 30s i started to do storytelling and that’s before and after yoga yeah yeah and that really got me out of my shell a lot and then i started to take some improvisational classes too movement and storytelling improv so yeah it all kind of comes together in life together it’s very improvisational and playful and creative and brings all my fun stuff together so may ask what did you study in in college i was an english major
not literature did you teach did you go and teach after that or i eventually i got a master’s in arts and teaching and i taught for less than a year and that was the end of that oh my god did you hate it it was very very challenging and it was really hard to find a decent job in teaching at that particular time especially in english and so yeah it just did i wasn’t suited to it so then i ended up doing a lot of human service jobs for many years once you started uh you know working on laughter on your own and then discovering laughter yoga how did it change your life i think it’s it’s it’s kind of sneaky it kind of sneaks up on you you practice it the more you laugh the more you laugh we like to say and there’s a lot of things in left yoga that are intentionally meant to help you bring laughter into your everyday life we call them values-based exercises so for instance there’s something called argument for argument and forgiveness laughter so we argue with laughter and then we forgive with laughter and that’s a great way to just remember when you’re having a disagreement with somebody in your life like is it more important for me to be right or is it more important to have a nice relationship with this person i think things like that and then also just just remembering that laughter is a possibility when things are stressful especially minor things for instance uh one time i was carrying a plate of spaghetti with sauce on it down to the dining rooms in the kitchen and i tripped and of course i was in a hurry i tripped and i ended up all over this bookcase bigness and and i was really bummed out because i thought oh my god this is going to take so long to clean up and like first i was really pissed and then i’m like but i could laugh and it was much more fun and so i did and it made cleaning it up much more enjoyable and then one of my housemates was there and that person also started to laugh when he saw what was going on and it just like made both of our days more fun because of laughter yeah and and other things like like one time i was taking my bike out of the garage and i was going backwards with my bike and i started to fall on my back and before i hit the ground i started to laugh and because of that i i really didn’t hurt myself i think it just relaxed me and wow yeah so it’s really useful that’s this laughter thing yeah i mean over the years i have read you know different articles and i know there’s even you know peer reviewed scientific research about the health benefits of laughter yoga or laughter therapy which i’m thinking is kind of synonymous isn’t it laughter therapy laughter yoga pretty much yeah i mean it can be just like kind of entertaining and fun but there is a therapeutic aspect of it absolutely when when did you become a practitioner how many years have you been you know leading people i started leading into in january of 2007. okay mars you’ve been doing it a number of years and have you met people with different types of health conditions where they were seeking it out as a therapeutic you know modality yes um well certainly people have come who’ve been feeling i don’t know about depressed but down you know feeling down and needing needing something to cheer them up i mean i think people come to laughter yoga because they feel like they need more laughter in their lives and so and some of those people may have some mental health issues and they’re also you know people just want to be healthier they want some mode a way of becoming healthier and relieving stress i think really mean stress is a big reason people come to laughter yoga and certainly there’s plenty of stress to go around right now and stress causes inflammation in the body it causes the body a lot of wear and tear and it can cause heart disease cancer dementia so all of those things you know it’s a great preventative and if you have those things it’s certainly useful to help heal so i’ve done it a lot for elders who have all kinds of health issues i’ve done it for people who are on dialysis there was a study that we did i was part of a study that actually went in and did laughter yoga for people while they were on dialysis to see if that would help them and actually you could see their blood pressure on the machine and you could sometimes see it like going down wow interesting now so they were hooked up to the machine yeah and experiencing a class a section of laughter yoga yeah yeah that’s amazing
so you also do it in corporate settings right i have a little bit yeah and so is that are you brought into like hr and is it like some section of the staff and often it’s a manager who’s like i want to bring some stress relief or fun for the staff a way for them to cope with the stress of the job and so i try to always customize it for people so i find out what are these people’s stressors or challenges and also what do these people need to celebrate because life yoga is just about relieving stress it’s all also about learning to celebrate what we need you know and not just the big things in life but so important i think what one of the things i’ve learned from left yoga is celebrating the little things in life so we can say yay very good very good yay over like you know i i got up and took a shower this morning i mean i’m like it doesn’t have to be i’m still breathing it’s all relative though you know it is especially now in the pandemic exactly so so are there are there in your experience are there certain types of people that you find are more receptive i think there’s some people who’ve just decided for themselves i’m too serious i need more laughter in my life or i’ve got some issue and i think laughter would be good for me so there’s those people and then there’s the people sort of more like me who are like oh my god i want a place that i could just laugh like crazy and people don’t think i’m crazy you know um so i think those are the two biggest groups i think that come to us but and then there’s other people too but i think those are probably and is there any kind of generalization you can make about people that just don’t uh you know it’s just not they’re not their thing well i mean truth be told i i’m so i think you were the first experience of laughter yoga for me and then over the years i attended a couple of other sessions at ucsf yeah in person and then since the pandemic i’ve done a couple online classes and i don’t know how much you know about me but i embrace all modes of non-invasive healing modalities and for some reason it’s i’m i have not it just it doesn’t i mean i don’t have an adverse reaction yeah but i’m just not fluid with it yeah i think it depends totally on somebody’s openness and also on their personality i think some people just have a really hard time letting go and getting silly because i think silliness is really and feeling safe enough in the group is really really really important so i think that some people just you know i think it’s as as when we’re growing up we’re told when we’re told to grow up when we’re little what does that mean it means get serious get responsible it doesn’t mean have fun have a good life you know it means so we learn that being an adult means means getting serious and being responsible and those are not bad things to be but it kind of leaves out a whole other part of life so i think laughter local calls on us to have a more childlike approach and to see that to open up that side of ourselves to be silly to be playful and for some people that’s really hard i’m not saying you are like that but for a lot of people that is very challenging and they’re just like kind of frees up and they they’re like oh this is too silly for me or uh it’s too embarrassing um or it feels fake that’s the other thing i hear sometimes yeah i mean i’m you know i’m i’m open to still you know because every once in a while i come back and i’ve often wanted to do a podcast on it you know what works for me isn’t going to work for someone else and vice versa i mean they’re just um many different paths to hopefully the same goal of just leading a better life yeah but i tell people if they feel like that kind of sense of embarrassment or or inhibition to think about it as an exercise i’m doing an exercise for my health and hopefully elevating my mood as well because we still get that we still get the benefit out of it even if it’s intentional laughter even if we’re not laughing spontaneously so a lot of times i don’t feel like exercising i have to push myself to exercise and so this is a form of exercise and so i encourage people to take that bring that kind of experimental or decision of deciding to laugh because i know it’s good for my health and then often almost always people end up spontaneously laughing in the group there’s this sense of safety and sense of connection and and they say that actually most people laugh not because of humor not because of jokes but because they’re with a group of people they feel safe with and they’re just they’re just really kind of laughing just because they’re together that’s interesting so in the in the laughter clubs that you’ve been affiliated with is there a sense of community that’s fostered yes i i mean i i can’t speak for all laughter groups but i i do feel like the woman who ran the group that i went to in boston really worked on that and had regular people and and really tried to get people to share and connect with each other and i really tried to nurture that in my group so there’s regulars and then there’s new people we try to welcome the new people and that’s fine and but i do try to make sure people feel like they get to connect in a real way even if it’s um even if they’re there for the first time that they get to have this connection with a group that’s safe and enjoyable that might be the key for me you know is that in you know it did feel a bit like artifice but had there been more time where i actually got to know the people um and and the idea of like building that safety i mean because it is you know one it isn’t opening up to laugh freely and you know kind of that whole full-body jewelry experience is certainly yeah kind of intimate yeah it is oh absolutely it is and i tell people like to try to channel their their their childlike self that because when we’re kids we generally most kids don’t say oh i have to talk to this person to get to know them first before i want to play with them
i have to know what work they do or where they live or whatever they just like let’s play let’s play and so i try to like encourage that like getting to know people on a different level than the intellectual one or the the verbal one it’s getting to know people on a very human level that’s that’s just like we’re two human beings together we can play together without really knowing each other on that verbal level so are you are you able to achieve that online now have you been doing that it’s more challenging somewhat more challenging but i’m amazed that we’re able to it does work for a lot of people and it we’re still able to do it yeah so i’m very grateful for that for everybody some people in my group don’t come to the zoom and then some people never come before and hop down and and love it on zoom so you know i can’t say you know it obviously is not for everybody but i’d say it works for a lot of people i mean everybody should try it you know no harm done no no no i don’t know anybody who’s died from laughing
that’s a good testimonial
and most people come out of it saying they feel both more relaxed and more energized yeah nice combination yeah no i definitely did feel more energized i mean because you are really exercising your lungs and the one i did online we were moving around a little you know so yeah it is uh oh yeah a lot of movement moving clapping um breathing a lot of yogic breathing and of course laughter and i also do uh when we have a we so we do these playful after exercises we get people to connect and laugh with each other and we also do um some warm-ups before that some physical warm-ups and towards the end we do a time when we just laugh for a minute or two because you really get more benefit out of a more extended lab more health benefit helps with the blood pressure helps with the immune system which we really need right now right yeah
and as a natural pain reliever which is lovely and then uh at the towards the end i do a guided or eliza or i do a guided relaxation because it’s in the evening and we want to leave people in a peaceful place oh yeah that makes sense right you’re unwinding and gonna go to sleep soon so you want to come down a bit
great well thank you so much oh you’re very welcome my pleasure yeah i feel like i haven’t bumped into you somewhere since kaiser yeah i think we did but i don’t remember where that’s another way i use laughter is because it helps my dog my memory when i forget something i laugh and it’s amazing because it kind of it cuts through the brain freeze and i can think better and i almost always remember it what it was i was forgot wow i recommend trying them oh man can you jar that that’d be good wouldn’t it yes you’d get an arp magazine you know you’d make a fortune
hey guess what you too can experience laughter yoga with annie she has a groupon meetup i’ve provided the link in the podcast notes on the glasses website and if you’d enjoyed if you’ve enjoyed what you’ve heard in this episode i invite you to check out the other links on the glass apple website that are related to laughter therapy there’s an organization called comedy cures foundation that provides therapy therapeutic comedy programs for children and adults living with illness trauma depression and disabilities there’s the association for applied and therapeutic humor which is was founded by a registered nurse in the sev in the 80s 1980s meta organization provides and disseminates information about therapeutic humor and there are also links to the ucsf laughter yoga program and dr kitarya’s website so take care of yourself as best you can and when you’re ready consider exploring how some intentional laughter can help ease your stress 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
Practicing Pilates can be done on a mat or with any number of devices such as the Reformer. Shannon Knorr, a yoga and Pilates instructor, talks about therapeutic Pilates to help with body alignment, pain relief, and more. Julia Carver, a Pilates and Movement Therapist, works with veterans who have experienced PTSD and other trauma to help them with neural reconnection.
For people with muscle weakening conditions, like muscular dystrophy, Pilates can help strengthen core muscles.
What is prayer and how do we do it? How does prayer differ from meditation? How can prayer impact healing? These are a few of the questions addressed by three podcast guests. The Jewish perspective of prayer from a rabbi who has faced cancer and chronic pain. The Christian perspective of prayer from a Baptist pastor whose late wife battled autoimmune disease and young son is in remission from cancer. And the perspective of a yoga therapist who has studied Christian mysticism.
To learn more about the Unity World Day of Prayer (September 12), visit their website.
An earlier podcast episode is with Dr. Lamar Hardwick – The Autism Pastor.
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 you ready welcome to the glass half full podcast if this is your first time listening i hope you’ll check out some of the episodes from the past three and a half years this is our 75th episode if something you hear resonates for you then it’s quite possible that many of the previous episodes have something to offer you as well i’ve wanted to tackle this topic of prayer for a while in fact we certainly have talked about the power of faith and prayer in other episodes a couple of years ago i spoke with the autism pastor dr lamar hardwick in georgia and in one of our caregiver themed episodes we spoke about faith but we’ve never focused specifically on the power of prayer i chose now because thursday september 12th next week is designated as the unity world day of prayer this happens every year but i was able to plan ahead this time so on september 12th for 24 hours there are activities you can engage in either virtually on the internet or perhaps in your local community you’ll have to check out the links i’ve included on the glass apple website to learn more so for this episode i spoke with three people about prayer i’m often curious about the differences between prayer and meditation two of my guests address this the first guest is molly lennon kenny who is a yoga therapist teacher writer you’ll learn more about molly in a later interview i was reading her book to prepare for my interview with her about bedside yoga something she’s been doing for nearly 20 years and i realized during the interview that she’d be the perfect person to reflect on the similarities between prayer and meditation
the second person i interviewed is an old friend from college new york university rabbi ramen letter nafshi i can’t recall what robin was studying in college but she went to law school soon after her undergraduate time and for years robin worked for nolo press writing self-help legal books here in san francisco she was active in a local synagogue and was a big help to me when i made my documentary film on women rabbis but at that time she wasn’t a rabbi and i don’t even know if it was something she was considering the last guest i have is a man i met recently at a podcast conference i attended in orlando florida we were at a speed networking event for podcasters it was insane and very loud in the hotel ballroom but jay holland stood out he didn’t introduce himself at the time as a pastor but he made great eye contact and shared with me how his son had battled cancer so i’d like you to sit back and relax and i promise you a very thoughtful and heartfelt show it’s a little longer than many of the previous podcast episodes but it’s worth it before you meet molly let me tell you that i did meet her in person several years ago i attended the northwest yoga conference in seattle and she taught one of the extended sessions i i can’t tell you the name of the session but i remember really liking her so i bought her book skip ahead for so years and i noticed a post she wrote in an accessible yoga facebook group i’m in this is in the last couple of months i saw this she was promoting a bedside yoga program that she was teaching and that piqued my interest and i got in touch with her so this fall you’ll learn more about her work in her conversation she told me how she had just graduated from the living school for action and contemplation which explores the heritage of faith from the christian mystical tradition and i know this sounds unusual but it will make sense once you hear the interview but molly’s sister had recently passed away before she attended this program living school for action and contemplation
if we’re coming from the yoga side we understand this is completely different and i would also say a lot of where my work is moving into especially after having finished this two-year program with father richard rohr is i think a lot of times in the yoga world we are like we’ve sort of run away from and kind of eschewed anything that smacks of abrahamic religiosity or like the judeo-christian religions that most of us grew up in so we’re kind of we kind of steer clear of those so i think from that side when we when we think about meditation we think of meditation and prayer as being something totally different and in many ways prayer is something that we wouldn’t do or we wouldn’t facilitate from the yoga side i actually don’t think that’s true or correct um and i think that also in different traditions so for example in christian mysticism what they might call prayer in many ways like centering prayer for example is uh one of the primary practices of christian mysticism centering prayer is essentially meditation open meditation right but they just use different they use a different term for it so i think it really i think it’s a lot about defining what those terms mean i think also a lot of us who grew up with prayer we still tend to think of petitionary prayer like you know please god like make my mom get better or let this tumor go away or you know whatever it might be those kinds of prayer whereas mystic prayer is more um i would say it ends up being more on the listening side of really sort of listening to the still small listening for the still small voice of god um or when i was just when i was just at my i just graduated my program last week and so i was up in albuquerque with my cohort and one of the people in my group was saying i hate when you know when i want people to pray for me i hate asking them because i feel like why should you be praying for me you know there’s so many other people who need to be prayed for and all of this kind of thing and and i shared with him that i had had an episode on my way to albuquerque um where i’ve been reading texts from my sister that were still on my phone and they actually it wasn’t a positive idea to do at the time and it sort of sent me into a panic attack i guess would be the closest that i could come to and i just um was changing flights and i was kind of losing it in the airport in the dallas airport to the extent that actually it’s a little embarrassing a little vulnerable to say but some of the people from the personnel from personnel from the airport came out and they were like are you okay you know do you need anything in that moment i texted two of my siblings my husband and my best childhood friend and i said you can’t do anything for me but can you just let me know that you’re there and my friends who were in at the living school with me had been talking about how he didn’t like when you know to ask people to pray for him they said well that’s that’s really what prayer is that like you’ve just defined prayer prayer is really the act of reaching out whether to a uh quote unquote real person a material person or to a divine presence and saying can you bear witness to my suffering so that i don’t hold it alone and i think that that is an extremely powerful and useful tool for for all of us to whether you know whatever way we want to define it or whatever religious orientation we might connect with or or push away um the idea of being able to just open ourselves up and ask that we are witnessed in our suffering is is a prayer modality that is extremely healing and useful i’ve already told you that i met robin years ago when we were in college she now lives in concord new hampshire and is in her 10th year as the rabbi for temple beth jacob a congregation of 200 families
so what is prayer in judaism how how do jews pray when what is the importance and and what are the variety of ways that prayer is part of one’s life
so in in traditional judaism a jew prays three times a day morning afternoon and evening and prayers are essentially made up of three kinds there are prayers that praise god or bless god there are prayers that thank god and then there are prayers that make requests of god and for most of our prayers outside the sabbath all three kinds are a part of the prayer service on the sabbath however prayers of request are generally removed from the prayer service the idea that the sabbath is a day of rest and if uh god rested on the seventh day when humans rest on the seventh day we continue to allow god to rest and so we don’t ask for prayers we don’t ask for things we don’t make requests of god the only exceptions and these are interesting are prayers for peace and prayers for healing we can ask those questions and ask for those things even on the sabbath so three types of prayers three times a day that we pray but that’s the formula and the formality of prayer i think prayer for jews is as individual as each jew is prayer can be a way to speak directly to the divine prayer can be a way to speak directly to oneself and particularly if one thinks that god is within prayer can even be an expression of aspiration what what i’m hoping for right when we pray for peace or may the one who makes peace in the high heavens brings peace to us we don’t know that there’s peace in high heaven we’re we’re hoping there is but it is what we aspire to on earth and for our own lives and for our family and community so we have lots of prayers for peace and again it’s not that we do it because we think each time we say it it’s gonna um it it’s either we’re frustrated because it feels empty because it’s not being there’s no response because there’s so much war and hatred in the world but again it’s something to which we aspire or it may be something to which we seek ourselves we also note that the word for peace shalom shares its root with the word for healing and wholeness which is schleimut and so really healing means to be at peace i i will often somebody tells me that their loved one is perhaps you know in hospice or dying and i’ll ask them if they want to be on our healing prayer list to which the person will say to me they’re not going to get better and you don’t need to put them on the list and i said a healing prayer is not is not about curing healing and curing are two different things one can be healed by dying at peace with the illness one’s had or the cancer or being able to leave one’s loved ones behind or whatever it is that is that is a peaceful you know a way of healing and bringing about peace but that’s not curing those are two very different things and we don’t pray for curing when when when someone is sick we pray for a refuga is like a complete and whole healing so it’s complete you know completeness and wholeness and health and all wrapped up in that sense of peace so the idea of praying for peace with you know where the person is at not necessarily some sort of miraculous cure there’s like that rational mind knowing that that perhaps can’t happen we’re not looking for magic exactly exactly we’re looking for acceptance we’re looking for you know it’s it’s sort of what i think i don’t remember who wrote about it but somebody wrote about the good death right where you know where you have this sense of i’m not in a place of regret i’m not i don’t have um unfinished business i’m not leaving relationships ugly you know all of those kinds of things where you you come to where you’re completely at peace with with the diagnosis and your ex you have an acceptance of it and you know you you’re able to move forward in a place where there’s really a sense of peace and wholeness to you um but but you know that isn’t to say that when somebody has a kind of you know a chronic condition um which isn’t necessarily a death sentence that is the you know those kinds of prayers for peace are for remission their prayers for a particular course of treatment to work successfully even if we know that the person will come in and out of uh flare-ups to their illness um we still pray for you know you know sort of the receding of the of the uh of the condition you know so yes we can we can ask for things that seem not miraculous but i think most people pray quite frankly for themselves whether or not they’re seeking a connection to the divine prayer helps a person feel centered prayer can help a person feel of that sense of peace many people and i think this is really interesting with the yoga practitioner is that you know peace and prayer and meditation often for some are one of the same and they wake up in the morning and they have a practice that involves prayer and it involves breathing and it involves maybe yoga positions so you know it’s all along a continuum and particularly for those who are not traditional jews orthodox jews who who will wake up and say a set of recite a set of prayers that have been predetermined and and many of them you know that is a deep spiritual connection and they feel that connection to god by doing this and they feel that sense of wholeness and completion for others it feels like an empty recitation and they’re you know they do it because that’s what they’re supposed to do but they don’t always find meaning and i’ve had many a conversation with orthodox jewish friends who say sometimes like they admire the liberal denominations where you can focus on a particular prayer or a particular chant or something that brings you meaning in that moment without feeling like you have to go through a whole whitney of things just to get through them because somebody said you were supposed to do that what about community prayer as a community versus prayer alone or someone coming to you and you praying with them how are you what are the differences there so i think for for most people they are overwhelmed in a positive way when they think about the fact that a community is praying for them so people will very specifically say to me can you include my name on the healing list the prayer list i have three people on there in fact one had a stroke around the time she turned in her early 70s she just had her 80th birthday wow she’s probably yeah she’s probably about as far along as she’s going to get in her rehab she has to live in a nursing home probably for the rest of her life but truly knowing that people were praying for her every time we came together as a community and that we still do gives her so much uh joy and hope and possibility um that you know she’s taken up piano she’s taken up a little bit of painting you know she really has found reasons to live and and it helps her so much knowing that her community is praying for her every week every week every time we join together in a prayer service so it’s fascinating and and fabulous to me and i and i have some other congregants similar i have one who has chronic liver disease and she is on registries and lists waiting for a liver transplant she goes for um treatment three or four times a week um and she is you know she too loves coming to synagogue when she’s able to which she’s usually not she’s usually able to she’s usually so exhausted but it gives her strength feeling and knowing that her community is praying for her and even people in a communal setting where they may say a loved one’s name silently so it’s not even said out loud or they say their own name silently there’s this sense for many people that all of these voices together rise up to some place you know the source the divine call it god whatever and from there goes out into the universe and brings healing to all those in the universe who are in need of healing so many many many people nowadays come to synagogue to say a healing prayer whereas a generation or two ago they would come on the anniversary of the death of a loved one now it’s more to say a healing prayer for their loved one i was reading something yesterday uh because i’m trying to do a little research you know like actual scientific studies um about the power of prayer and i was introduced to the term and i don’t have it in front of me so i may be mispronouncing it intercessory prayer yeah yes you’ve got it intercessory prayer it’s that is where you’re praying for people when they don’t know you’re praying for them and the the the attempt is to figure out if it makes a difference in a person’s life are they going to be cured or healed or whatever measurement the uh whoever is doing the study uses when people who you don’t know we’re praying for you pray for you it’s very controversial as to whether or not uh there is a success rate to it you know someone will point out oh well this showed you know more people with cancer were healed or went into remission than in another study the overwhelming majority of studies show no difference at all and i think that’s partly because for people to get a sense of healing or feel an improvement and therefore then report an improvement they need to know they’re being prayed for so as soon as you add that element to it then most definitely the rate of reported healing or feeling better or even possible cure or remission tends to go up because i think people do really benefit from knowing people are praying for them it’s when you do it without their knowledge is a very controversial part of it of whether or not it’s really has any efficacy i’m glad you’re familiar with that you see you’re very i when i was in rabbinical school i did an independent study with a theology professor on and it was entitled you know why pray for healing and so it was all about it was partially about intercessory prayer but it was also about communal prayer and individual prayer and why we pray you know why go into a hospital room and stand by the side of a bed and ask a person if you can pray for them or you can join them in prayer and pray together why do that why do it in a communal setting all of that and i was trying to i was exploring in that paper of whether i could come up with a theological reason for it and i ultimately decided that no i could not because it was so incredibly individual whereas you know someone was seeking god and someone was seeking community and someone was seeking not to be alone i mean they just wanted to know that somebody cared about them and loved them and held them in their hearts and were willing to pray for them and it was just a way to counter loneliness which i think anybody who has had any kind of a chronic condition a debilitating condition knows exactly what the loneliness of illness is
so it just happens that i have a history with you but you’re certainly the right person to talk to about all this oh great
yeah this has been a great interest of mine for a very long time before i moved up to new hampshire i was both a part-time rabbi in a synagogue and i was also a rabbi chaplain for a jewish healing center across three counties in new jersey so i’ve done a lot of this i i’ve worked as a hospice chaplain i’ve i’ve done a lot of it i’ve thought a lot about it i’ve researched it it’s so i mean prayer in general is so individual and i think praying for healing does even more so and i think it’s more so because each one of us reacts to illness so differently so many of us are private people we don’t i remember a member of my congregation a number of years ago had breast cancer she did not want anyone in the congregation to know she did not want to be on the healing list right so i actually keep on the healing list like initials at the bottom where you wouldn’t where nobody would know who they are they you know like say rc maybe there’s probably you know a bunch of people in the community now with the initials rc and it doesn’t even have to be from the congregation that can be somebody i know of and you know in in my family or in you know somebody else who’s just said you know please pray for my uncle richard who doesn’t want to be announced publicly anywhere but so i’ll have those initials down there and i and i will do that with people because even though they don’t want the community to know and they’re very private people they still benefited from knowing that someone was praying for them that someone held them in their heart and you know asked literally asked god for healing each you know so it’s very very very powerful but so individual and it’s so hard to generalize therefore you know you and and we want to allow people to have their prayer life reflect who they are um and especially in a time of illness when everything else in your life is generally not in your control if you’re sitting in a hospital bed everybody else controls you know who comes in when when they poke you when they take your temperature when they do everything when they feed you what you eat everything so if there’s something about it that you can control uh it’s very powerful so being being prayed for by whom when in what capacity is often just the smallest thing to give a person control over well for how how about this um i don’t know what the best term would be i want to say disbeliever that that sounds so negative but someone who is identifies as atheist or agnostic and they’re certainly you know cultural jews or jews who no longer identify as jews but are so jewish have have you had any experience where you know they’re in a time of grieving whether for themselves or some other suffering and they can’t pray but perhaps they are more open to you know meditation or other forms of energy that are less oh oh definitely definitely and that’s where i also as i know somebody i try to either characterize prayer or where the prayer is directed in a way that might resonate with them so as one person once said to me who had a absolutely no belief in god and this was just a general conversation about prayer he said to me you know when i come to synagogue and i say the words of the prayers it’s not because i believe them to be literal he said i just think it adds to the source of energy in the universe that then goes out and touches each one of us she said i don’t think there’s any kind of divine who’s directing it or taking it all in and sending it back out but i do believe in sort of universal energy that our prayers can be added to that energy and so you know when i say the words of a prayer i don’t take the any of the god language literally another person said to me in our house we just add an extra oh and instead of god we think in terms of goodness and so when we pray we’re praying for the good and the well-being of each person we’re praying for goodness in our world and he said and that’s how we practice our judaism you know very active member of the synagogue um it’s it’s not that it keeps anybody from being connected but they’ve made peace with where they have where they are theologically when they have no no belief in god or no sense of god but it doesn’t mean they’re not gonna not gonna participate in prayer because they they recognize and i try to teach that that prayer that prayer is metaphor and i’m not going to tell you what the metaphor is i want you to find it right because because again for each person the metaphor is going to be different that’s why i try to say that people recognize that prayer is often aspirational it’s not a reflection of the way we see the world to be in actuality i know you had your own health scare uh i’m not sure how many years ago but how did that impact you as a spiritual being how did it you know change your relationship to others who go through you know a health scare so um in 2011 i was diagnosed with endometrial cancer so that was one thing but i actually do have two chronic conditions as well so i live with health conditions and scares or you know going in and out of things all the time it has been a challenge to me at times it really has i mean i have to take my own advice sometimes and and think of the metaphor not think literally i remember one time a colleague of mine who was working on his doctorate in in in philosophy and theological philosophy and he asked the question of uh to a whole bunch of people ask the question of what are you most afraid of and the end you know people had you know the climate you know collapsing from climate change and nuclear war and you know all these sort of large catastrophes that could happen and i said to him you know i’m a rabbi and i have something called sjogren’s syndrome that weakens my joints it’s in the family with rheumatoid arthritis and lupus i said you know my biggest fear is my biggest fear is that one day i will open the ark and not be able to pick up the torah scroll that my health will be at some place where i can no longer do what i love to do or what helps me with my sense of identity in the world this is core to who i am and what i do and so prayer for me it’s not the miraculous stuff it’s really that schlemut that that i will have the wisdom to know what tasks to follow that my doctors will have it um that i will keep myself as strong and as possible that i can continue to do these kinds of things i mean i’ve already accepted the fact that the role of what we call hogba which is the person that lists the taurus role at the end of a torah reading i can’t do that i can’t lift it that high above so that the congregation can see it and turn around with it i’ve already given that up but just to pick it up out of the ark that’s what i want to continue to be able to do because my illness mostly affects my hands um that’s where i feel most of my joint pain i also have fibromyalgia so i suffer from muscular pain a lot as well i mean i just sort of have systemic pain throughout my body and so it is for me it is uh um you know a relationship with god who i do believe in who is a source of strength for me uh but really not so much that i expect god to quote unquote do the work but that i do that my loved ones are there for me that my medical providers continue to be wise and caring and things like that that i was going to say that’s the same thing i was seeking in prayer when i had cancer as well you’re open with your community i assume because you’re talking about it on a podcast yes i’m very i’m i’m very open with my community what sjogren’s is how it really differs from the other connective tissue autoimmune conditions is that it is dryness coupled with the muscle pain and the other joint pain and so i have severe dry mouth and dry eye and so every yom kippur i stand before the congregation and before the service begins i actually take a sip of water and i explain that i have an autoimmune condition in which i have severe dry mouth i have to drink or else i will not be able to function and then i talk about the obligation to fast but it is incumbent upon a person if for medical reasons that they must eat or drink that it will be a greater sin for them to fast than to eat or drink and then i recite a meditation prayer written by rabbi simko weintraub that is called a medication for one who cannot do a traditional fast and i offer it to anyone in the congregation who has to eat or drink over yom kippur
jay holland the man i met at a podcast conference is the senior pastor at covenant fellowship baptist church in stuart florida he has a podcast called let’s parent on purpose i spoke with jay shortly before the hurricane dorian approached the bahamas
so let’s say you meet someone in one of these you know events that has nothing to do with your church or your community and they find out you’re a pastor and they and they’ve never been affiliated with any sort of religious group and they ask you what is prayer how would you explain that i would say uh on just the most basic level prayer is talking to god it’s the way that that we interact with god um which is a pretty incredible privilege if you think about it i mean i it would take me a few weeks to get an appointment with the mayor of my little town here in stuart it would take me some real connections to meet the governor of florida and and i don’t even know how i could meet the president of the united states but the creator of the universe allows us to come before him anytime we want that’s a a humbling and awesome thing so prayer is prayer is talking to god and are there different ways to pray you know such as alone as a community silently reading scripture how about those different pathways sure yeah absolutely i think um you know when you ask other different ways to pray you think about your relationship with with anybody else are there different conversations that you’ll have with them you know i’ve been married for 12 years and and i love having really engaging conversations with my wife but sometimes i just like being by your side you know we sometimes our time off is just happily being next to one another enjoying the presence of each other even if we don’t have a lot to say so um you know i think prayer a really healthy way sometimes is you know if you don’t know what to pray uh realizing that the book of psalms in the bible it’s it’s a song book it was ancient israel’s song book to god and and most of them are prayers to god and what’s really interesting as you start to get into them is there was a lot of complaining and and i and i actually appreciate that that god found it worthwhile in in his scriptures to show us so many examples of prayer where people’s lives were very messed up where they could not see the other side um where they weren’t just giving god a bunch of false platitudes but they were saying god how long is this going to last i feel surrounded you know there’s one of them that psalm 88 that even ends with you know and darkness is my only friend so there’s some real depths of despair sometimes in prayer but i think i think some of those are the the greatest acts of faith that you can have because to to go to god and say i don’t know what’s going on i don’t trust you know i don’t even know how to trust right now but i trust enough to still come to you is is a pretty extreme act of faith so can you speak to the power of prayer as
an action of practice for people who are going through
some sort of chronic uh challenge be it emotional physical
spiritual yeah absolutely as a matter of fact i can and give you uh just three examples and and and you feel free to use what’s helpful to you uh the first is i i this i’m actually in my second marriage my first marriage i married my high school sweetheart um after five years of dating right after we graduated from college and had a good happy marriage and you know had its bumps just like every young marriage does um that we really loved each other and were doing really well and then she came down with an autoimmune disease called ulcerative colitis and this girl who was full of faith and full of love you know spent days after days of misery and complete agony and every time we would try a treatment she would have an allergic reaction to it or something would go wrong and i mean that the number of different weeks we spent in the hospital and and between that just the number of weeks that she spent at home unable to go out unable to travel um you know there’s some real depression that hit in there and i remember one of the things that that christie would do is she would write out prayers and she would tape them all around the house so you know i would go to the bathroom and there would be prayers and bible verses taped up in there i would walk down the hallway like anywhere anywhere that you’d been it was like a breadcrumb of prayers of just calling out and hope and a lot of it was like lord i don’t understand what’s happening um i don’t know what you’re doing through this but but i still need you and um there’s some incredible comfort in that of of just realizing you know you don’t have all of the answers but you can go to the person who does now she ended up actually dying of the complications of that sickness and so that would be my my second one is um you know leading up to her death as a husband as a caregiver watching the the person i love so much just have everything go wrong there’s a there’s a lot of crying out to god in prayer but also just finding my strength and soulless in that time and i can tell you that just the regular disciplines of of going to god of making that a regular habit and not just going when things are bad but going on a normal basis uh those were things that that prepared me for when she died to be able to walk through that time it was almost like it was almost like in my life god had used her sickness to prepare me for the bombshell of being 27 years old and a widower and so you know i remember during that time just simple prayers of you know and i had a little three-year-old girl with her um and so it was like i i’m in a time where i remember one of my prayers during that time being god i just have a lot of decisions that i have to make but i am just so emotionally and spiritually drained i know i could make some very bad decisions that would affect me and my daughter right now and so god i’m just gonna i’m gonna walk in faith i don’t have enough strength to just sit and discern the right path in every way so i’m going to move and walk and lord i’m just going to ask that you close any door that might be harmful in my life and and i looking back see that god answered that and he did it over and over again not that i made every right decision but it was just amazing with hindsight how many doors he closed that would have been really foolish or harmful and so just as a caregiver of in that depths of loneliness uh a lot of complaining prayers but also gratitude and and thankfulness and how knowing that other people were praying for me and their actual prayers not just the knowledge of it but the fact that people were praying for me lifted my soul and helped me to move on and just gave me great healing able to just celebrate the life that we did have together and the fact that that you know christie is is dead on this earth but that she’s not dead that that she’s alive and with jesus and uh you know knowing that that’s not the last time we’ll see each other was was an incredible help it you know it didn’t make the day-to-day missing her easier but it it made it to where grief was not the monster that could completely consume my life and then the the third example that i would give you is uh just over five years ago in april of 2014 my little five-year-old boy elijah spiked a fever one weekend and on monday when we got him into the emergency room we found out that he had acute lymphoblastic leukemia and so you know from from that morning to mid afternoon that day just the complete floor fell out from underneath us but i even remember being in the back of the ambulance because we were in a little you know small town hospital emergency room and they said the ambulance is coming to take you to the children’s hospital in west palm beach and and i had just let two or three people know you know i’d let my pastor know and my parents and you know my wife was with me but just driving in that ambulance in the back and and starting to get texts from this friend saying hey tell elijah we’re praying for him hey tell elijah we’re praying for him and i feel like that just did not stop for three and a half years of um i i i don’t know that i don’t know that we win a day i know that we never went a day without somebody praying for us but i don’t know that we went a day without somebody reminding us that they were praying for us and um and god used that and i think one of the things that god does is it’s it’s hard to pray for somebody and then not get emotionally and spiritually invested in how they’re actually doing and so you know people would ask what can we do for you it’s like i don’t know you can’t cure my son from cancer so you know just pray and in praying they came up with things to do to help our family um i mean we it was like we went through an extreme makeover homeowner addition when we were down in the hospital we had we had people swarm into our house rip up all of the carpets lay down hardwood floors bought a new heating air conditioning system that had one of those uv lights in it to kill bacteria um i mean that like they they probably put 20 000 in remodeling in our house in the first two weeks that we were in the hospital and and i think all of that was really launched from prayer from just people lifting up to god you know lord help him and sustain this family and what can we do and then god puts things on their hearts and they and they walk so you know that’s the i think that’s one of the beauties of prayer is it’s not a one-way street i have never had god audibly speak back to me but i i mean my my life is just littered with the trail of god stepping in and speaking and you know i’ll sometimes lament about something in prayer and somebody will come along that day and give the answer that i was looking for and and even if i can’t like even if even if my prayers of that day you know like if god doesn’t answer it um sometimes i’m just able to let go because of being able to to just give it to god you know jesus has cast your burdens upon me and cast all your cares upon me and so being able to do that is uh it’s freeing like i don’t have to control the world and i don’t even have to control everything in my life i realize that that there’s somebody who loves me even more deeply than i love myself who i get to interact with and and to lay things at his feet and you know jesus told a parable about god the father saying you know which of you who’s a father if his son asked him for a fish would give him a snake and uh and saying if you being evil know how to do good things for your kids how much more of my heavenly father will do good for those who love him and so i just you know trusting that if i don’t see the answer that i’m looking for right now it’s because because in the grand scheme of things god has something bigger and greater and you know and i’ll be honest like i’ve been really really not happy with that answer in the moment but but over the course of my life you know given a little bit of depth and perspective i just i see the hand of god and what a joy to get to go to him not just when things are bad but also when things are good and when things are just normal you know like one thing about thinking you’re going to lose your son to cancer is is every day is a gift you know the most normal mundane day when nothing remarkable happens is an absolute treasure and remembering to go back and thank god for those treasures um is just something that that i think we fail to do quite often like you know when’s the last time you thanked god for your opposable thumbs well you know wait till you hurt one of them and then all of a sudden it’s a big deal but um we’re just so littered with gifts in our lives and and i think prayer lifts our soul
and your son elijah five years right five years uh this august actually i think maybe the day we met leslie was was five years from the first cancer-free diagnosis that he had so we keep having celebrations and with his it’s actually five years post treatment before they consider the very uh he’s very high risk for relapse but you know every day we go on as a is another victory day and lowers the chances of relapse so we’ve got another two years of um that cloud kind of being over us but but it’s you know what i’ve got four kids and i’m not guaranteed tomorrow with any of them so elijah’s just the one that gives us perspective on all of that there’s one more thing that i think especially coming from a uniquely christian perspective that is so empowering in prayer in the book of hebrews uh it talks about how jesus is our great high priest and the role of the priest was to come before god you know in the old testament the role of the priest was to come before god on behalf of the people but now we get to go directly to god but we do so alongside jesus and and in hebrews it says we have a great high priest who understands us because he has suffered in every way like we have yet without sin and when i really realized what that meant it meant that you know because like i know jesus was god and i know he was fully man and fully god but i sometimes think that he didn’t live the kind of drudgery life that we do sometimes but he was born into an impoverished family he grew up you know as a day laborer basically as a carpenter he you know in his ministry he was homeless he knew hunger he knew pain he knew betrayal by best friends he knew people in his family not understanding him and laughing at him and thinking he was crazy and so you know one of the confidences that i have in in going to god in prayer is that i you know as i go in jesus name you know and jesus represents me he understands my suffering and and to me that’s having a god that understands our suffering is is pretty profound and i think is is one of those calls like why would you not pray if that’s the case well thank you jay yes ma’am i wish you and your family peace during the storm and i’ll be watching the news and and sending my prayers to i appreciate it yeah i appreciate it and leslie how could i pray for you i just i don’t know that’s a that’s a good question but just recognizing me and who i am and when i do is is uh solace to me
well good what can i pray for you right now sure all right lord i just thank you for this time with leslie i thank you for putting us in front of one another at the podcast movement and having listened to her podcast some and hearing what she’s doing i just thank you for her i thank you hal she has not fallen into letting this this condition that she has letting letting those challenges be her story and and she’s not fallen into living the rest of her life as a victim and god i pray that as she puts together these podcasts that she uh mentors people god i pray that you would help her to see the goodness of god in her life i pray that that jesus would be very real and evident and i pray that you would help bring the the very people to this show that can be most help we know that there’s so many people out there just on their last ropes so many people in despair and i pray that they could find the show that they could find great comfort in it and that you could help leslie know that she’s doing a really worthwhile work and i pray that you would make it very fruitful in jesus name amen amen thank you jay 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 glass half full dot online
We’re a week into the New Year. As I understand, it’s still acceptable to talk about the new year and even make resolutions throughout the month of January. There is no mandate that this must happen during the first few days of the year. We want to be thoughtful, intentional…clear out the holiday fog.
I don’t know about you but last week my email inbox was filled with numerous offers to help me make resolutions for the new year. The vast majority of them have some monetary cost associated with them — make meditation part of your new year and sign up for this online course, maintain dietary goals for the new year by signing up for this meal plan, or buy these books to get you started for the new year. Whole Foods even mailed me a brochure titled, Feed Your Resolution: Solutions for Special Diets.
Thank you very much but I think I can do this on my own.
Actually, this may the first year I’ve not made any New Year resolutions. Basically, it’s all about change. We either want to start doing something different or stop doing something we’re doing which we know no longer works for us. Well, I don’t need the Gregorian calendar new year, Chinese New Year, or Jewish New Year to initiate any changes.
Having a chronic health condition is all about change — monthly, daily, and sometimes hourly changes. What may have worked for me yesterday, no longer does today and I’ve got to work around that to achieve my goal whether it is opening a bottle, getting nourishment, or soothing some pain or discomfort.
I am open to change…thankfully…because you know — a sure sign of insanity is repeating the same patterns and expecting different results.
Back to New Year resolutions, there’s certainly nothing wrong with making them. It’s the maintaining them that can be problematic for some. Here’s a short piece to help you with the process. Last year I interviewed a few friends about their resolutions. But I’ll resolve to continue learning and making changes on an as-needed basis…which is definitely more than once every 365 days.
This podcast episode explores the experiences of six people who have used medical cannabis for a variety of conditions including cancer, depression, muscular dystrophy, fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue syndrome, bone fracture, and bipolar disorder.
There’s a lot of information about medical cannabis but I recommend watching this CNN documentary. Check this map to see where your U.S. state is in terms of medical cannabis legalization.
Check out another podcast episode with Toni talks about gratitude as it relates to the Four Sublimes States of Buddhism.
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
hello and welcome to this podcast if this is your first time listening and you enjoy this episode i hope you’ll check out the first 21 podcast episodes or the ones that interest you the best way to gauge what’s discussed in each podcast is by the title as well as the tag words that appear to the left of the podcast notes and you’ll only find the podcast notes and tags on the website glass half full dot online the tags for the previous episode were goals hope multiple sclerosis myotonic dystrophy and parkinson’s disease now those tags and the title don’t resonate with you you might still want to try listening to the episode i just wanted to give a plug to these other episodes i’m quite fond of them so let’s chat about this episode several years ago i found the book how to be sick i can’t remember how i found it if i’d read a review or was just intrigued by the title but i’m glad i found it although the author tony bernhard didn’t have a similar diagnosis as mine i still found so much of what she spoke or rather wrote about to relate to i’m recommending the book to people in my support group and even had it featured at one of the annual conferences for my community of adults with neuromuscular disease and then last year i started this podcast as you may realize i’ve interviewed a lot of people i’ve known people with chronic health conditions and people who work with a healing modality if i stick to people i know well my podcast days will be numbered so i knew i had to reach further so i started trying my best to contact authors and others who have inspired and taught me tony bernhard was one of the first people to respond quite openly to my inquiry not everyone i’ve tried to contact responds unfortunately before tony and i spoke though i wanted to make sure i’d read her most recent book how to live well with chronic pain and illness soon after i read the book we spoke via skype in december unfortunately when we spoke um i had a cold so i sounded a little froggy the good news is i’m feeling a lot better but my voice lives on and apparently there are no audio filters that can zap out a cold i hope you enjoy our conversation so my first question was really i wanted to ask you how you would characterize the three books that you’ve written how to be sick is the first book and it’s the first and the third books address chronic illness although i have to tell you that many people have read how to be sick who are perfectly healthy and have found it very helpful and i think the reason is the difference in the organization how to be sick is organized around practices and a kind of philosophy of life to help people with coping with chronic pain and chronic illness and so because the prac but the practices are helpful to anybody and so a lot of people love that book even though they don’t have health issues the third book which is also which is how to live well with chronic pain and chronic illness is organized differently it’s organized around the various problems that people encounter and how to best deal with them um and so there are chapters on isil isolation and loneliness there are chapters on how to deal with people who don’t understand who don’t believe that you’re disabled or sick or who don’t understand and aren’t supportive so and there’s a chapter on being young and being chronically ill so it’s it’s like 42 different challenges that people face so they’re similar in that they both discuss coping with chronic illness finding a measure of peace in your life but they’re just organized differently the middle book is actually i think of it as an introduction to buddhism book of all things i’ve been practicing buddhist for 25 years i don’t for me it’s a practical path not a religious one the buddha was a human being like like you and me and he came up with some very important or helpful insights into life and came up with a lot of practices and so uh how to wake up how to wake up a buddhist-inspired guide to navigating joy and sorrow really sets forth my understanding of his teachings and the reason i got the i i didn’t originally think of it as an introduction to buddhism but many buddhist teachers are using it that way so because it covers the basics now because i all of my books are written from personal experience and i always use stories from my life or stories people have told me to illustrate the points or the practices there’s a lot about chronic illness in how to wake up because i wrote it while i was ill so a lot of the examples in there um so in that sense all three books are about chronic pain and chronic illness how did your buddhist practice prepare you for living with a chronic illness and do you ever imagine how differently you would have handled everything if you didn’t have this 25 years of practice yeah well it’s interesting because at the time i got when i got sick i got a viral infection which turned into a chronic illness 15 years ago um i’d already been a practicing buddhist for 10 years that’s where i get my 25 years at first i i really turned away from all that i’d learned because i was so uh i was really traumatic to have my life turned upside down by this unexpected illness that forced me to retire early from from my job and made me pretty much housebound and some days bed bound buddha the buddhist teachings just i didn’t see the relevance and that’s how how to be sick came about because four to five years into the illness i began to use many of the buddha’s teachings to help me cope with what was happening and that is what eventually became how to be sick and uh you asked how his teachings have helped well i could talk for an hour ago just say a couple things one is that the buddha was very upfront about the human condition and that’s why sometimes people say oh that first noble truth is life is suffering what a pessimistic religion that is but all the buddha was doing was telling us the chapter and how to be sick that talks about this is called the buddha tells it like it is and what he does is to say you were born and this is actually all in the first noble truth this life is suffering is not the right translation he says you know you’re born and so you are subject to certain uh life events including uh illness and growing old and being separated from those you love either by distance or by death and so he was very oh and he also said getting not being a not getting what you want that’s where complaining comes in right or getting what you don’t want that certainly happened to me when i got sick and he said this is something that happens to everybody when i went back to his teachings that was the first thing that resonated so strongly for me was it’s as if somebody from 2500 years ago someone understood what i was going through and was saying well this is a part of being alive is that sometimes bodies get sick and actually i mean it happens to everybody just in different ways and this is how it’s happening to you there’s nothing wrong with you and that was the initial eye opener for me because i would have had been blaming myself for not recovering and this is a very common thing i’ve discovered with people who write to me about my books they’re they feel released by my writing from self-blame they’ve been directing it themselves over these circumstances that they don’t control and then happen to everybody and it’s what i had been doing the first years of my illness until that light bulb went on and i realized that this was just a normal part of life and this is how it happened to me and i needed to learn to live gracefully and purposefully with it or i was going to add another i was going to add a layer of mental suffering to the physical suffering that i experience every day so that was the initial insight well that brings up the question about the three components of physical discomfort could you just elaborate on that i found it very insightful look at pain with this sort of categorization or or segmenting i do find it i i find it helpful myself in dealing with pain i there’s two different ways i segment it and the first is what you’re referring to these three components of physical discomfort and what is interesting is that two of the three are mental the discomforts in the body so of course the first is the unpleasant sensation in the body itself whether it’s pain or aching or fatigue and the second is our emotional reaction for that physical discomfort which is often frustration anger it could be fear irritation self blame that kind of thing and the third so there’s that initial emotional reaction and that that’s kind of the buddha’s uh getting what you don’t want and so you react against it and the third are the stories that we start to spin that are related to the physical discomfort and this emotional reaction and so if i have a day where i’m experiencing a lot of pain the stories that it’s one thing to just be able to say i’m experiencing pain it’s unpleasant what can i do to make this day as manageable as possible but instead what we tend to do is start spinning stories and that’s where the real mental suffering resides like this pain will never go away i’ll never have another pain-free day i’ll never be able to do anything useful in life because i’m always in pain those stories that we spend and actually there’s buddhist teachers and often say the suffering is in the stories and i certainly find that to be true in my life so those are the three components of physical pain and sometimes uh i don’t put this in the book because i i’m really not writing uh this this last book is a buddhist book it’s just that i’m so influenced by buddhism of course but in buddhism that’s known as the second arrow the first arrow is you’re experiencing physical discomfort or particularly pain is what we’re talking about here that’s the first arrow the second arrow is that is the mental overlay the second and third components that reactive mind that reacts in anger or frustration instead of being able to say oh yes pain is present pain is present and not react to it because it’s those reactions that set off the stories so number two and three are we often called the second arrow the unnecessary arrow now having said that i don’t put me on a pedestal i i’m uh you know i have to work with this every day
it’s not that easy uh simply be mindful of physical sensation and not start spinning the stories but with practice you get better at it and you’re able to say well this is what’s going on right now let me not make more let me not start predicting a future which may not eat which is unlikely to come you know most of our predictions about the future don’t spin out the way we’ve predicted them it takes practice it’s really a mindfulness practice in the sense of becoming aware you know when people talk about mindfulness there’s usually an emphasis on what’s outside of ourself be mindful of the of the trees and the sound of the birds and i’m kind of changing subjects here but for me the the true value of mindfulness is to become aware of what’s going on in my mind that’s where the mental suffering is that’s where that the the uh that’s where i make things worse for myself it’s interesting for me to see the language for this because i’ve always felt that i what i try to do when i have pain i know it’s exacerbated by the anxiety that i experience about it and that anxiety could be you know i could use the words you use about separating it into you know the emotional reaction and then the the fear and everything that i’m predicting this is my future a new baseline etc and when oh i know that one right the baseline yeah yeah so it’s it’s it’s trying to really become for me my experience is just become trying to really identify okay this is the anxiety if i can control the anxiety i will still have the pain but it won’t be exacerbated because that’s where it becomes kind of unbearable for me yeah and you know that and that’s exactly what i’m talking about doing leslie and it’s another reason it’s helpful is that um that that kind of emotional reaction can actually exhaust exacerbate the physical symptoms because we tighten muscles sometimes we tighten muscles around the point of pain and so then we’ve got secondary pain from that or so you know emotions are felt in the body so it’s not i’m not the the separation body mind is artificial to some extent it’s certainly helpful to talk to be able to distinguish them in that way but it’s also true that when we learn to recognize how we’re react or how our emotional reactions are making things worse for us that also helps us relax our bodies and so that can help with pain too the afterwards certainly caught me by surprise and it was you know of course sorry to to read about your diagnosis and i wondered if this experience going through i guess different treatment and such and having an acute illness has given you a different perspective and will you be writing a book about it well here’s what i’m doing i’m not right yeah you mentioned the afterward i should explain that it was two years ago actually almost exactly that i was diagnosed i had a lump removed from my breast and and went underwent treatment and um the prognosis is good but i had just finished polishing the manuscript with my editor uh for the book that you just read when i got this diagnosis and i actually called her up and said well we can’t publish this book it doesn’t it’s not truthful anymore because now i have breast cancer to throw it out and start over and she’s we talked about different options and what we decided was to just include an afterward that talks about it’s just three pages that explains what happens and says a few other things about it so a few months ago my publisher asked if i would do a new edition of my first book how to be sick which has was published six years ago i jumped at the opportunity because what i’m doing is revising and expanding it in several ways one is to include mental illness because i’ve had a lot of people write to me about how my books have helped with that even though i didn’t set out to address that and another thing is that i’m able to add some practices and some other ideas and in that i do talk about when i give examples or explain how these things have worked for me i talk about the breast cancer and the worries and the fears and the dealing with side effects of medication and all that kind of thing so i am writing about it and it will show up in that book in two years because the publication date is fall 2018. that it takes a while from the inception to actually get all to do all the things involved in getting a book published which i knew nothing about before i entered into that stream and i have written i wrote one piece about it for psychology today i will be writing about it actually breast cancer is best thought of as a chronic illness because it’s i didn’t realize this but it’s ongoing in the sense that after you initial treatment then there are medications to try to prevent recurrence and those medications have side effects that can lead person to have to weigh quality of life against how much they do a statistical analysis for you that tells you if you take this pill it will reduce the risk of recurrence a certain percentage and there are women who decide to go off the pills because uh they have diminished their quality of life to the extent that they’d rather take the risk and that’s an individual decision hopefully you have an oncologist who is supportive of discussing that with you and weighing the pros and cons some of them just want you to take the meds
but hopefully you have someone who understands how difficult it can be so it’s it’s been two years i’m still a breast cancer patient i just saw my doctor uh last week actually so the only thing that i would that i wish we had time to talk about are some of the practices that are that can that come under a heading of that are called the sublime states in buddhism wishing others well compassion feeling joy for others when they’re happy and equanimity those are the four sublime states and i spend every one of my books emphasizes them because when i started my little buddhist wrap by saying the buddha tells it like it is and some people find that depressing well the good news is that we can overcome so much of our fears and frustrations through these positive practices cultivating friendliness towards others and toward ourselves compassion which means reaching out to others and to yourself when you’re suffering being being kind to yourself people write to me about my books who people who are chronically ill the most common thing they say if i were to keep track i just know from reading the emails is that until they read my books it never occurred to them to treat themselves with compassion to be kind to themselves they thought they didn’t deserve it well if you don’t deserve i mean if you’re not going to be kind to yourself who is i there’s in my view there’s never a good reason not to treat yourself kindly it doesn’t mean you can’t learn from mistakes but to allow yourself to live in a state of self-judgment self-blame it just makes a difficult life worse and so it’s really important to cultivate compassion and kindness an equanimity which refers to equanimity as a sta a balanced state of mind in which you accept that life will be a mixture of joys and sorrows and successes and disappointments and being able to accept that with grace whether it’s the results of an election how you feel this particular day to be able to say oh i really feel awful today well okay that’s how i feel today sometimes some days people feel awful and to be able to accept that without bitterness and also just with some historical perspective that life has always been this way for everybody a mixture of joys and sorrows so that’s kind of a short version of equanimity so that that’s the only thing we didn’t talk about or some of these positive mind states that that are helpful to cultivate and i write about them in all of my books well actually it’s funny i did have a question about the the three i don’t know attitudes that you cultivate and and equanimity was the one that was uh most interesting because well one it’s not a word that i mean i’ve heard the word but i wasn’t i’ve never used it so it was um it was very interesting to read about and i was going to ask you that so i’m glad you brought it up good good yeah well that’s just the translation of a pali term pali being the language the buddha spoke the term is upeka and it’s been translated into english as equanimity which is given what how it is described it’s a good translation if you look equanimity up in the dictionary you’ll find it says you know basically a balanced state of mind being able to ride lives life’s ups and downs without being tossed about and it’s also something that is a something you have to work on every day i mean if i were if i were equanimous 100 of the time oh i’d consider myself enlightened that would be good enough for me well we could just keep trying yes yes try or there’s a zen teacher who has the expression keep a try mind i love that and i just love that well thank you so much tony it’s been a pleasure to to speak with you and i really appreciate the two books i’ve read and i will read your other one good good yeah i think you’ll enjoy the other one it’s an easy read because that i don’t know turns out that’s the way i write a very conversational style so i i’m glad you’re you’ll have a look at it
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 dot online.online
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