Not letting your grooves become ruts, and making time for yourself.

I have learned that from a healing perspective, my body does much better with routine. However from a mental perspective, I have a hard time being creative inside of a fixed paradigm. Obviously, right now, getting my body healthier is the priority and Christmas, as it is every year, is like a bomb blast going off in whatever your normal routine was. This year was no different. Since the 15^th of December, the healthy routine that I had going slowly started to fall victim to the events calendar and the shopping that comes with the holidays; granted we also have a 5 week old baby so I am sure that she has thrown a couple of wrenches into “routine life” as well. Don’t get me wrong, because I don’t beg for routine and so I am not being negative, but I seem to need it now more than ever.  From a psychological standpoint, I do enjoy less routine to more but I am learning more about that as well. Structure seems to help our bodies and minds run on auto pilot which can be a good thing for doing routine activities, however, the chipset that is our brain can get deep grooves of thought patterns that result from that repetitive life.  When we introduce new things regularly or randomly, our brains seem to set aside some “CPU time” for the just in case. Just in case it has to do something new, and as a result, we are better able to adapt and think sideways when we need to. Without the challenges that new situations create, our brains deepen the grooves of patterned thinking and I derive that it must make it harder to get out of those deep grooves when we need to. We all know that our brain is this incredible tool that is capable of far more than any of us request from it, but like a leg that you sit on for too long, it too will go to sleep, and when you want to get up and run with it, you might find yourself flat on your face. That is what happened to me.

The gift of my time in the hospital and at home, has been time – time to spend with my family and time to spend with myself. I’d love to say I’ve been hanging out with my friends a whole lot, but just because your life stops doesn’t mean that everyone else’s schedule opens up. I will say confidently however, that I have not been wasting the time, and although I likely take it for granted on some days, I have been trying my best at doing new things, and challenging myself mentally. This blog is a good example of that. Who would’ve known that I would enjoy writing so much and that it would prove to be such a healthy outlet for me – the professional athlete and perennial jock and salesman?  I suppose that I need to be jarred loose from my grooved patterns of thinking to push me to try some new things, and it has been very positive.  Getting back to the creative thinking aspect, I have found is that you can make time for creative thinking inside of a routine. Your life doesn’t need to be that of a mad scientist in order to be creative, you can set time aside to do or think about something new each day, and I dare say that you should. I have been doing a lot of meditation and now I can get very deep into thought and separate my mind from the body, and the spirit from the mind even, and I can do it fairly quickly now. Once I get to this place of free thinking and analysis of the present, It is like accessing a deep well of ideas and thoughts that you may have had briefly but never really looked at closely. The trick is to set the time aside to allow that bucket and rope to pull ideas up from your conscious and subconscious so that you can explore them. That requires setting aside some time for you and then to do it. Where does all the time come from? Do you need to be hospitalized to create this time and free yourself from the stresses of life? I don’t think so.

I can honestly say that there has been more stress in life since I became ill. There is more financial worry, and job concerns, etc, but I think my perspective has changed and now I look at things with a newly revived sense of priority. This seems to be the key factor in making time for yourself. You need to make yourself a priority in your life – whether you want to acknowledge it or not is your decision, but you need to be your best to make the people around you their best. You need to keep developing and you owe it to yourself to earn that mental and spiritual and physical health. To do this, you have to set aside time for yourself.  When you want to improve your physical health, you get a gym membership and you get on the treadmill or lift weights – not because you have to, but because you make it a priority. When was the last time you put your brain on the treadmill? When was the last time your spirit lifted weights? You might answer that you do it at work, but that doesn’t count. Doing it for someone else’s benefit is not as selfish as it needs to be. You need to take time to identify, and pursue things that stimulate you. Have a hobby, read books on a new subject, take a class, write a list of things and start chipping away at them. Get back to the goals and dreams that you had when you were a kid. Then you need to set time aside for yourself. You’re worth it and it is a priority, and making time for personal health, staying out of ruts and bumping your brain out of its groove.

I’ll finish with this one last thing. The wonderful part of children, aside from snuggling and saying hilarious things, is their imagination and their dreams. We all cherish and admire it in them. They wake up in the morning and tell us about their crazy dreams and we pray that at night they lay awake and think about these wonderful places that they will travel to and incredible things that they will do. Don’t you deserve to do the same? At what point are we supposed to forget entirely what it is to dream big outrageous dreams and travel in our mind to wonderful places. The upside to being an adult is that we are better able to make our dreams come true! We can make the money, we can make our own decisions and we don’t have to listen to adults who might tell us we are crazy. Take some time and go somewhere wonderful in your mind, and do it regularly, do something crazy and don’t allow your mental groove to become a rut.

The gift of my time in the hospital and at home, has been time. Time to spend with my family and time to spend with myself. I’d love to say I’ve been hanging out with my friends a whole lot, but just because your life stops doesn’t mean that everyone else’s schedule opens up. I will say confidently however, that I have not been wasting the time, and although I likely take it for granted on some days, I have been trying my best at doing new things, and challenging myself mentally. This blog is a good example of that, who would’ve known that I would enjoy writing so much and that it would prove such a healthy outlet for me? The Professional athlete and perennial jock and salesman?  I suppose that I need to be jarred loose from my grooved patterns of thinking to push me to try some new things, and it has been very positive.  Getting back to the creative thinking aspect, I have found is that you can make time for creative thinking inside of a routine. Your life doesn’t need to be that of a mad scientist in order to be creative, you can set time aside to do or think about something new each day, and I dare say that you should. I have been doing a lot of meditation and now I can get very deep into thought and separate my mind from the body, and the spirit from the mind even, and I can do it fairly quickly now. Once I get to this place of free thinking and analysis of the present, It is like accessing a deep well of ideas and thoughts that you may have had briefly but never really looked at closely. The trick is to set the time aside to allow that bucket and rope to pull ideas up from your conscious and subconscious so that you can explore them. That requires setting aside some time for you and then to do it. Where does all the time come from? Do you need to be hospitalized to create this time and free yourself from the stresses of life? I don’t think so.

I can honestly say that there has been more stress in life since being ill and that there is more financial worry, and job worry etc, but I think my perspective has changed and now I look at things with a newly revived sense of priority. This seems to be the key factor in making time for yourself. You are a priority in your life, whether you like it or not. You need to be your best to make the people around you their best. You need to keep developing and you owe it to yourself to earn that mental and spiritual and physical health. To do this you have to set aside time for yourself.  When you want to improve your physical health, you get a gym membership. You get on the treadmill or the Stairmaster. Not because you have to but because you elevate the priority of your own physical health. When was the last time you put your brain on the treadmill? When was the last time you put your spirit on the Stairmaster? You might answer that you do it at work, but that doesn’t count. Doing it for someone else’s benefit is not as selfish as it needs to be. You need to take time to identify, and pursue things that stimulate you. Have a hobby, read books on a new subject, take a class. Maybe write a list of things and start chipping away at them. Get back to the goals and dreams that you had when you were a kid. Then you need to set time aside for yourself, you are worth it and it is a priority, and make that time for making you healthy, staying out of ruts and bumping your brain out of its groove.

I’ll finish with this one last thing. The wonderful part of children, aside from snuggling and saying hilarious things, is their imagination and their dreams. We all cherish it in them and admire it. They wake up in the morning and tell us about their crazy dreams and we pray that at night they lay awake and think about these wonderful places that they will travel to and incredible things that they will do. Don’t you deserve to do the same? At what point are we supposed to forget entirely what it is to dream big outrageous dreams and travel in our mind to wonderful places. The upside to being an adult is that we are better able to make our dreams come true! We can make the money, make our own decisions and we don’t have to listen to adults who might tell us we are crazy. Make some time and go somewhere wonderful in your mind, and do it regularly, do something crazy and don’t allow your mental groove to become a rut.

Health update and what is next for me...

I have come down with the flu again, but it is clearly my own fault. I tried going out a little too much last week. I was getting sick and tired of missing out on everything and so I went out with my friends to a couple of different Christmas parties. As I should have expected, my body is just not up to it yet. 48 hours later I have the flu. Apparently my immune system is still pretty down and out and so being out too much and running myself down equals getting sick. I can tolerate the flu – it seems to keep coming back, so maybe I’m getting used to it! The part I can’t seem to get used to is the part where the body aches, sweats, headache, and vomit want out of your body so badly that it is willing to travel out of your nose! But, like I said it is my own fault, I need to buy back into the slow and steady plan.

I went to see my neurologist last week and she was pleased with my pace of recovery. She encouraged me to keep working out and told me that maybe in the New Year I could start trying to build muscle again. She also says she is hopeful that in a year we might expect to have no recognizable trace of the illness. The big question is, “When I can return back to work?” We hoped it might be just after Christmas but then recently my doctor said that I need to be able to live full speed for 2 weeks with no sickness or setbacks, otherwise working is still unrealistic. That is difficult to hear as I need to be working on something to maintain my sanity, and so I have started to organize my research and reading towards a goal and created a project of it.

The most common positive focus point, keeping me on track, is setting and working towards goals.  Looking at this more closely, I realized that in recent years I had set my big picture goals aside in the pursuit of more short term and less altruistic, day to day goals. I am getting back on track; “I want to help people to live healthier and happier lives”. Pursuing that goal will help me to be a happier and healthier individual. So I am choosing a huge and somewhat crazy sounding goal of going to outer space and I am going to use the process as a learning tool and a teaching opportunity for others. That is correct I am going to go to outer space. I am planning to raise the money, $200,000 from micro donations from private citizens and then use the accomplishment to create a non-profit, fueled by corporate donations.  The foundation of this project, is that the pursuit of your dreams is the pursuit of happiness and that I believe we all have the right to dream big and chase those dreams and in doing that, in a responsible and realistic manner, we can be happier and healthier.

Please read further about my trip to space at http://imgoingtospace.blogspot.com

Health status update and some insights that are working for me

It has been about 10 weeks now since I fell ill. A lot has happened in that time and it has mostly been wonderful. For whatever reason, we have been able to see my illness as a blessing and used it to refocus on the simple but important things in life. Oddly enough they are generally the things that fill a great amount of the immediate time and space that surrounds our life. Family, close friends, pets, comfort food, sunrises, sunsets, time spent on positive projects, early morning walks, the feeling of the ground beneath your feet, cold air on your face, the smell of a baby, the laughter of a toddler. Not since college have I taken the time to really focus on being better and healthier like I have recently and back then it was a very thin approach focused at broad based learning and physical strength. Since becoming ill, I have taken a much more complete approach at getting physically, mentally and spiritually healthy. My internal dialogue has never been so positive or reinforcing.  I am able to see the positive in almost anything. I am able to stay present or regain presence easily in most situations. I make healthier more conscious decisions, and more consistently. I spend time on my physical health but have been forced to refocus on the simple basic things like stretching, yoga and meditation. I am assessing what does and does not make me happy, what is avoidable and what is unavoidable and how to accept the unavoidable knowing that I am doing everything I can do.

I just got a call from the Rehab co-coordinator and they have granted me two more weeks with my Rehab without Walls – where they come to the house for therapy. This is great news for getting back on track before transitioning to outpatient therapy.  I have slid backwards since the birth of the baby, but the good news was that I started to get a bit of a cold and I was able to fight it off, even with the tremendous lack of rest. Our families have been awesome and Jennifer’s parents are still with us and have been so helpful. My ability to walk is greatly reduced as I fatigue and I have had to use the cane most days at some point over the past week. There have been nights were there was only 3-4 hours of sleep and prior to this my body has been requiring 12 hours of sleep each day. The most prevailing symptom is fatigue, without a doubt. It is very obvious how focus, positive mentality, and consciousness or presence is all much more difficult to manage when you don’t have enough rest.

I am using today, Monday morning, as a time to refocus, get back to some simple short term goal setting and try to not lose any more ground this week. After that I can get focused on regaining the recent loses. I am walking and functioning around the house pretty well, I have to take breaks and try to find some time to get horizontal and rest even if it isn’t napping. I can help out around the house a fair bit and can play with Wyatt pretty normally but I have to watch to not burn up to much energy in one blast, it made me sick the other night after a good wrestling session but it was worth It! I can cook a full big meal and do simple grocery shopping, take care of the dog (but Grandpa Doug has been doing a great job of that), and I can help with the baby by changing diapers and getting Jennifer what she needs around the house. I am able to run to the store and drive to the mall but have learned that the commotion and amount of energy required by a full trip out on my own is probably a little too much still and I have to be careful and make good decisions or I pay for it.

All in all things are very good and I am so grateful for the health that I have, the lessons I continue to learn and the health and happiness of Jennifer, Wyatt and our newest addition, Olivia. Life is good and only getting better each day.

Thank you all for your continued support and prayers. How could anything get you down when you have this in your life (see picture below)

JM