Defeat is not an easy thing to face squarely. The challenges I face now are new, and what I am facing is the hardest challenge of my life. Despite being happy, despite all the good times, and a happy new marriage, slowly and stealthily, my spine has deteriorated and I am facing some tough decisions and horrific pain at a time when I expected to be busy and happy, hiking with Wade and playing with my grandchildren. Instead, I have become a brooding mess, and all along, I have kept thinking,"Well, surely this is the worst my back can feel. Surely it cannot get worse!" But it has gotten much, much worse. I have to finally admit that I have been completely leveled by my disintegrating spine, and I am in so much pain I can barely breathe. Degenerative disc disease has defeated me, laid me out, and now I need to figure out how to be a phoenix one more time, and pull victory of some kind from this defeat.

Oh, do I need inspiration! I know that not everyone here is from the USA, so I will just note that I was yanked off pain medicine months ago, and Holy God! Big business has decided that here in my country, everybody not dying of cancer must not take pain meds. So okay, this is challenge number one: dealing with the pain. It's really, really bad, and getting worse. Until I find tertiary care, I need to somehow gather the courage to accept this; I cannot change it. I have lost three inches of height since I moved to Pennsylvania, and my spine is squishing all the nerves in my lumbar area. I have stopped moving, and have gained weight, which I cannot afford to carry. Moving is challenge number two. I want so badly to move again! I really do. I even dream of running, as in running like a kid. I actually am having running dreams.

The biggest challenge, though, is this:Where do I get the strength and inspiration to go on?

A part of me wants to throw in the towel, but a greater part of me does not! I am one stubborn person. Moving forward seems to me to be a better idea than lying here, just "taking" what I have been handed.

Please help me. In a way, I have never asked a more important question. You see, I am not the only one who is not moving; neither is Wade, and it is breaking my heart. He constantly, quietly inspires me to keep on keeping on- with his unbelievable patience, his constant love, and everlasting mercy, I really want to try, despite the pain. He is just as trapped in this as I, and I cannot just sit here anymore.

So: Inspire me. Please tell me if you have dealt with anything like this, and share how you got through it. How do I create, and manifest, a new life in the face of what I know only seems unconquerable?

My friends, I thank you in advance, with all my heart.

Jaianniah

asked 07 Jun '17, 05:43

Jaianniah's gravatar image

Jaianniah
37.8k13104607

edited 07 Jun '17, 13:59


I wish you all the power in the stars for your recovery, Jaianniah.

I would recommend to find some kind of body position that is tolerable enough to be able to visualize, and then perform as many blessings of strong things and beings that you can. Bulls, ocean windmills, beams in skyscrapers, the carbon fiber in ultralight bicycle frames, concrete frames, the silk in spiderwebs, the stone in obelisks, dinosaurs, huge ships, the space shuttle hull, elephant bones, teeth, coral shells, lobster pliers, ant legs, steel-reinforced concrete walls, the Eiffel tower, gorillas, the willpower of children, women who lifted cars to free a trapped child, bodybuilders, female bodybuilders, amazons, Diana the God, Wonder Woman, Hillary Clinton, cliffs, islands, or the earth itself.

Further, I recommend resistance training- I am quite serious, lift weights. In your current condition this will most likely mean finding some kind of movement that is actually, barely tolerable- and if it's just a few millimeters, or just some body parts, and no weight as of yet. Great care needs to be taken to find the movement that is tolerable, where the pain that it does cause is not the kind that makes things worse, but the kind that may signal a potential for change, and make you just a tiny little bit stronger. However, this will signal to your body that you wish to live, and grow, and that strength is important to you. You may actually be capable of performing a bench press, lying down, and perhaps some other exercises- perhaps a leg press- unloaded at first. This is mostly about its suggestive nature, like a physical prayer.

In order to show your subconscious mind some examples of unexpected strength, below are some women who are much older than you- admittedly also healthier, but I'm not sure where the 92 year old started out- who are strong.

Finally, use Bashar's method to clear negative beliefs. When you feel your physical pain, don't differentiate between that pain and emotional pain- emotional pain is just physical pain that is happening through muscle tension. It's all pain. So feel that pain, breath deeply and slowly, and occasionally ask yourself: What would I have to believe to feel this? When something comes up, that's it- the belief is gone. Negative beliefs don't survive well in the open.

It may also help you to know that in medical terms, your cell directly respond to your thoughts. So if the bones in your back are no longer being properly maintained by your cells, that is a response to some kind of energy emanating from you saying that your it makes sense to no longer properly maintain your backbone. It is not an inherent thing, it is a response to your energy.

So bless every little improvement that your new sustained energy focus may bring you. If you can move a millimeter more, and the pain feels a iota less severe, focus on that improvement and say to yourself: Hello, improvement! Be blessed! Congratultions! Keep going, and things will be much better. Then challenge yourself to a slightly more extended movement, slightly more difficult movement, that is also wisely chosen so it will challenge but not hurt you. Before you know it, you will need to buy a book on barbell training.

This woman started lifting at 92, and no longer needs to use her walker. 92 year old strong woman

Here is a picture of an 82 year old woman who has been at it for a while.

82 year old strong woman

link

answered 07 Jun '17, 11:12

cmc's gravatar image

cmc
3.7k6

1

@cmc- Thank you! You have inspired me- a lot. Thank you for all the time and thought you put into your answer. Much love, Jai.

(07 Jun '17, 12:31) Jaianniah

You are very welcome, @Jaianniah! It was a pleasure, and I am so glad it did.

(12 Jun '17, 03:48) cmc

I really hope you get better.

My back annoys me, too, and in the beginning of the year I had to do something about it.

I thought I could not exercise, but the less I exercised, the worst the situation became. I started exercising just a little, every day, and soon I found out that we have to strenghten the muscles of the back, so that they do their job of holding the bones :)

Start with little and increase the amount of exercises when you start to feel the results. Never stop exercising! The older we get, the more we have to move in order to keep running. You can find all kinds of exercises on the internet, just google it.

The ones I do are called "The 5 Tibetan Rites", and you can find information about them on the internet and videos teaching them on You Tube. They are to be done with care - so, if you get interested, I recommend you read a lot about them and learn how to do them correctly before starting. You start with the five rites doing only two of them a day (the five exercises only two times a day, and you can split in two sections if you find them hard in the beginning - one in the morning and one in the evening - ,so you start with ten exercises a day) for one week or more, and then you increase the amount by twos as you feel your strength coming back. I have known these exercises for a long time, but I was not doing them right, so the results were not satisfying. When I took them seriously, though, I felt amazing results. But be sure to search about them before trying - I understand that what works for me may not work for you.

Another thing I did was to buy a "band to support my back" (something like a corset - sorry, I could not find the right word for this in English, I don't know if "corset" applies, but you get the idea), and I wear it all the time now. Along with the exercises, the band helps a lot. I still feel some pain, but it has diminished and now I can live normally and do what I want to do. Vibrational work, of course, goes without saying. The worst we feel, the more tense the body gets - feeling pain actually increases the pain!

So, my humble suggestion is for you to try exercising a little every day, get a band to support your back, and try to relax. Even a little relief is better than nothing :)

link

answered 07 Jun '17, 20:14

VitoriaRegia's gravatar image

VitoriaRegia
1.3k14

edited 08 Jun '17, 18:49

1

Love the 5 rites- they were the first nudge that helped me get over the idea that exercise is punishment.

(12 Jun '17, 04:02) cmc

@VitoriaRegia- I am sorry it took me so long to comment. I thank you for your suggestion... I looked into the 5 Tibetan Rites, and was flummoxed, lol! I can barely walk, and can only dream of bending over just to retrieve something I dropped on the floor! So I will let you know how I do, rising from the ashes yet again. But your answer has fueled me with an idea- perhaps a Physical Therapist can help me. Btw, we call the item a "back brace". I own three...another LOL! Thanks! Jai

(18 Jun '17, 04:02) Jaianniah

@Jaianniah - I have really been thinking of you! I really do hope you get better. And YES, a physical therapist may help you with the right kind of exercises! What is most important is that you not give up regaining your health. As for the 5 rites, yes, they look very difficult, but in fact they are not, because you build your strength starting with very little. Who knows, in the future, when you get better? Please, let us know if the therapist works. Good luck! :)

(18 Jun '17, 21:58) VitoriaRegia
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