Back Up, Don't Beat Up

Recently we received an e-mail from a lovely and very determined woman with MS, who was reporting her progress and asking a few more questions. She had vowed not to make any mistakes on the diet. The following is what I replied: Please don't fret about mistakes--they can be very helpful. Someday down the line, you want to eat something bad so you can learn what your usual reaction to it will be and then you can see how quickly you can recoup and what works best to get back. You need the mistakes to add to your understanding of your reactions and your body--without mistakes, you will not be as effective in your healing. Everything is reversible so there is no long term effect from them. Once you discover this for yourself, you lose your fear of MS. It is very liberating. So, do make those mistakes.--Ann Sawyer (Co-Author of The MS Recovery Diet). 

While these words were in the context of the MS Recovery Diet (which, to be clear, I am not vouching for one way or the other), I thought this was an inspiring and beautiful way to think about mistakes in general and mistakes regarding our health in particular. This is the line that I think captures the concept best: "...without mistakes, you will not be as effective in your healing". Bee-ooo--tiful. Indeed. 

Rather than simply bumbling through, though, I am enjoying writing down my experiences--mistakes and imperfections in my health journal. Allowing myself the opportunity to just observe and get curious about how and why I am functioning in certain ways is refreshing. Or, as health consultant Kelly Bliss has so effectively stated "Back up, Don't Beat up". 

For instance, I am continuing to have trouble sleeping. On the surface, this seems like a simple enough problem. However, as I have backed up and studied why/how this is happening I have noted that the issue is multi-fold and lasts the ENTIRE sleep cycle. Not only do I have trouble going to bed (anxiety means I push my bed time back until I am absolutely exhausted), but also my sleep is often fitful and I wake up many times during the night. I often wake up suddenly with a jerky wake-up movement which not only shows how cyclical this whole sleep issue is, but also suggests that I may very well have an underlying sleep disorder, such as sleep apnea. Sleep apnea, the temporary stopping of your breathing while sleeping is a serious but treatable disorder. 

In short order, I am MUCH closer to solving the real problem. Although my health insurance does not cover sleep studies, as it turns out there are new devices on the market that for relatively cheap can allow you to test for sleep apnea. So, my next steps are to investigate which brands reviewers suggest and to conduct the test. 

The larger issue, though, is not so much about any individual problem, but rather what MS is teaching me is that it is my approach and my attitude that make the world of difference. I have never been a kicking ass and taking names kind of woman. While that attitude has its place, it's not my general M.O. The attitude, I am not going to let MS win or I am not going to let MS take my life, just makes me tired. As I read blogs about MS and speak to people who have MS, I find the attitudes that I admire the most are those that highlight an approach that emphasizes joy, creativity, and emphasize how many choices there are towards any goal. The peer consultant I spoke to recently, for instance, shared that she had had a life-long dream to go to Egypt and since she would not be able to tolerate the heat (a symptom of MS), she had plans to go to Egypt during their winter when it was a mild 50 degrees. Same destination. Different route. Love it. It's all about your attitude, baby.