After many years of focusing my attention exclusively on the factors that contribute to the symptoms of Parkinson’s disease, I have two truths to offer.
The first truth is – Change is necessary to heal. There is an imbalance in your body that is creating the neurological symptoms associated with the diagnosis of Parkinson’s disease. This means that if you want to reverse those symptoms, you will have to make some changes in your behavior. I fully recognize this is a broad statement which implies a variety of possibilities:
Change may mean changes in how you are making decisions about what to do each day.
Change may mean making changes about how you live your life.
Change may mean how you move your body.
Change may mean what you put in your body.
Whatever the nature of the change that is required, something has to shift if you expect that neurological symptoms will resolve and reverse.
The second truth is – Stress has a direct connection to the symptoms. When people are stressed the symptoms flare. When people are joyously pursuing their life’s passion, symptoms are hardly even noticeable.
Have you ever heard the statement:
“Fasting is good for you?”
The challenge this week may be difficult for some of you, but I am going to suggest a fast. Not a food fast (although research does show that a food fast reduces symptoms), not a people fast, but a news media fast.
Are you a news junkie? If so, this particular challenge may be particularly onerous and difficult for you. Permit me to suggest it anyway. Your life may be transformed if you accept this challenge.
What does this fast entail for you to become more mindful moment to moment during the week?
No watching TV of any type.
No reading newspapers from any source.
No listening to the radio.
If you count up the hours that you spend in devoting attention to those three media sources, you may be surprised at how much of your life you are spending being exposed to mass media. I have personally realized that much of which is advertised to be news is actually just propaganda of one type or another. So why bother?
Once you turn off the TV, once you stop reading the newspaper, once you turn off your radio or never turn the radio on when you’re in your car; what are the alternatives. What do you do instead? There are many. Let me suggest a few.
Play a musical instrument
Learn how to play a musical instrument you have always wanted to learn.
Listen to music.
Cook.
Chill out and relax.
Meditate.
Walk.
Exercise.
Paint.
Write.
Dream
Talk with friends and family over the phone.
Invite neighbors over to sit on your porch or your back deck and hang out.
Of course the list of alternatives is endless. Gardening may be one of your favorites. Whatever the choice might be, the key is, turn off mass media for this week. Monitor how you are feeling and be aware of your stress level. You will read more about the implications of this particular challenge in a few days. May you have fun with the challenge of this news media fast this week.
What is, you are now wondering, the deeper meaning behind a challenge which suggests that you always say “Yes” no matter what is suggested or what opportunity might become available to you. It is the case that persons in some occupations tend to be oppositional. Certainly that is the job of lawyers. Certainly that is the job of academics who are always looking to see the flaws in what study is being suggested to be published.
Why did I personally decide to become qualified to be become an academic and receive appointments at the large state universities? The real reason I think, in retrospect, was job security. I did not want to be poor; I did not want to be dependent on others. I wanted to be able to take care of myself. How about a different reason for pursuing the life of an academic?
I could have pursued that particular profession because I loved teaching, or I loved writing. In retrospect, however, those weren’t the reasons. May I remind you I resigned my position as a full tenured professor at the University of Kentucky just ten years ago. The reasons that motivated me to become a professor were not good enough reasons to hold me in for a lifetime doing the work of an academic.
Being oppositional clearly takes us up into our heads as we rattle about one possibility after another before we either say yes or no. We are always pondering. We are always evaluating. We are always looking for flaws. That approach, that set of skills has a very different feel to it, a very different energy than the energy associated with just saying yes.
What has happened when you have said yes to situations these past few days that you normally would have paused and said no to? Is it possible that saying yes has alerted you to when you realize that your real answer is an immediate “No.” In other words, by saying yes you can immediately realize,
“Oh, heavens, that is not something I would ever really want to do.”
Alternatively, you might have spent hour after hour pontificating whether it would be a good decision or not. By simply saying yes your body told you no way should you pursue that possibility. Perhaps just saying yes alerted you to as to how you actually make decisions. Perhaps the reason why you can’t decide to do something that you really do want to do is because you already have made so many prior commitments. You immediately say no because of those commitments. The idea is you must honor those prior commitments always takes priority over a new opportunity that arises in the moment. Do you dismiss opportunities out of hand because of prior commitments?
“No. Sorry. I can’t go on that 3 day trip tomorrow to Hawaii with you all expenses paid because I promised to make a chocolate cake for my Uncle.”
Really?
Perhaps saying always yes alerts you to the endless hours that you actually spend in your head just as like hamster who spins around and around and around its wheel pondering, figuring, assessing, creating cost benefit analysis, weighing a decision, when the obvious answer for you is an immediate yes.
“Of course that is something I would love to do.”
Just saying yes then allows us to begin to examine the energy behind resistance as contrasted to the energy behind moving forward in life. What does this all have to do with experiencing the symptoms of Parkinson’s disease? Many people are focused on the symptoms and saying “No” to the symptoms, ”
No to the fact that this left arm happens to be tremoring day after day.
No to the fact that I can’t swallow as I used to just one year ago.
No to the fact that I can’t talk loudly and clearly.
No to the fact that I have pain in my right thigh.
No, no, no, no.
The focus is on the negative rather than saying “Yes” to life and all that it affords.
The amazing discovery that I have made over the last six years of my research on Parkinson’s is when individuals pursue an activity that they truly love, symptoms totally and completely dissolve. It doesn’t matter what the activity is.
I’ve seen people in wheelchairs who, when afforded the opportunity to line dance, slowly got out of their wheel chair, held on to another person and by George, line danced up and down the dance floor.
I’ve seen people who had serious symptoms associated with the diagnosis of Parkinson’s disease who were able to play championship ping pong games without showing any evidence of symptoms whatsoever.
I’ve seen painters with serious symptoms who- once they launch a painting project – do not experience any tremoring or any other symptoms whatsoever.
In activity after activity I hear report after report of people who report back, “I don’t seem to have any symptoms whatsoever when I am with my granddaughter or grandson or son or daughter.
I invite you to seriously ponder what you genuinely love to do. What haven’t you been doing recently that you always loved to do years and years ago? Start focusing on the ‘yes’ of your life. Start doing what it is that you truly love to do.
When you begin to spend and allocate your thinking energy on the “Yes to life,” I suggest you will see the problematic symptoms be less and less worrisome and bothersome to you personally. Saying yes has a far more energetic charge than saying no.
Saying no creates a diffusion of energy. It creates equivocality. It creates hesitation.
It paralyzes. We are not moving forward when we are stopping to evaluate. We are not moving forward when we say no. We do move forward in our life and we do have a surge of delicious energy when we say yes.
Clearly you don’t want to say yes to everything. That is not the point of this mindfulness challenge. The point of this particular mindfulness challenge is to tease out the difference between when you do say “Yes” and when you do say “No,” and to shift your responses moment to moment so that you are riding on the waves of a joyous life that refuses to go to sleep at night because you’re having so much fun.
Of course symptoms may still be present here and there, but the focus is not on the symptoms. The focus is on the life that you choose to lead.
May you have a magnificent time this week as you continue to say
Over three decades ago, Nancy Reagan, the wife of President Ronald Reagan, launched and supported a program to help children get off of using drugs. The program was known as “Just Say No.” My mindfulness invitation for you this week is just the reverse of Nancy Reagan’s program. My invitation is to
“Just Say Yes”
to everything that happens and anything that is suggested to you.
I realize this may sound quite outrageous since there are some suggestions that are made that are obviously not in your best interest or in the best interest of the person making the suggestion. If the suggestion might incur a risk to life or safety, then suggest a diversion. If, for example you are working with a child or a grandchild and they want to do something that obviously might create some risk to them personally, how about simply seeing if you can divert their attention rather than immediately saying “No, you will get hurt if you do just that.”
Some situations it may be very difficult to just say yes. In those situations I invite you to consider the possibility of smiling and simply being pleasant. When a person is suggesting an idea that you find to be particularly aversive to you, again, smile, be pleasant. Do not however engage or initiate any disagreement.
The opportunity this week then is to assess what is going on within you when you say “Yes” as contrasted to situations where you are evaluating, you are judging and you are considering cost and benefits before you say yes.
Since saying no is habitual for many people (or offering no response) engaging the challenge of saying yes activates a mindful consideration of the responses to suggestions that you are mostly likely to offer.
Say yes immediately. Experience what happens to your energy.
