31 July 2014. From Don: This wasn’t supposed to happen. We were supposed to come back to Vancouver to get really fit and strong again, and instead Alison broke her ankle and I did something to my left hip which has left me in constant pain, with no easy or obvious solution. A dream I had last night in which I asked Does anybody know where we’re going? epitomizes how I’ve been feeling about our future travels. Once again it feels that we’re just making something up out of thin air: going places for the sake of going there without any particular purpose. But that’s how it’s been ever since we began our nomadic life. We just decide where we want to go and make arrangements to get there. Once we get there we find out what there is to see and do, and we have a good time doing that. Mostly we have a fabulous time doing that. So nothing is different except for my current concern about my left hip. If I can’t get pain free I’m not going to be able to do all the things I like to do. There’s also the underlying emotional reason for the hip pain: whatever that is about. I had thought that it was to do with becoming fully open hearted, but I’m not getting anywhere in that regard as far as I can tell. Pain, according to Louise Hay, is about anger and guilt: guilt always seeks punishment. Hips are about balance, and hip problems indicate fear of going forward in major decisions, or nothing to move forward to. That about hits the spot: nothing to move forward to. Where are we going? Heart problems represent longstanding emotional problems. Lack of joy. Hardening of the heart. Belief in strain and stress. Well lack of joy about says it all. I haven’t been feeling very joyful since we left South America.
So temporarily, I hope, I seem to have lost the thread, with no clear understanding of why we’re doing what we’re doing. I had thought it was something to do with living our joy and living a full rich inspired life, and as an added bonus, maybe we could inspire others by being examples of how to age gracefully, and how to live life to the fullest, and to demonstrate by our actions that we create our own reality in every moment. Well as I write this I realize that’s exactly what I’ve been doing: creating this current reality in which I have chronic hip pain out of fear of moving forward. My new chiropractor pointed me towards a stimulating book The Biology of Belief by cell biologist Bruce Lipton. In this book Dr. Lipton lays out the scientific reasons as to how we create our own reality. So I need to read more of that and to get back in touch with the joy I feel in travelling, and make some decisions about where we want to go and when we want to be there. After Australia and New Zealand should we go to Indonesia, the Philippines, Taiwan, or Japan? Yes, yes, yes and yes. We can go to all of them. I have been making up difficulties in my head, so I need to give my head a good shake and get on with the planning and organization. It really doesn’t matter where we go, there are wonderful and amazing things to see and do, and people to meet, wherever we go.
So a new beginning today, and every day: I wake up, face whatever needs to be faced, and move on, thanks to writing ‘Morning Pages’ and their wonderful ability to bring clarity whenever I’m feeling lost or confused. Every day can be filled with joy and wonder, if I only let it be. There’s nothing more I need to do than that. Relax, let go of feeling stressed and tense, be present to what is happening now, in every moment, and don’t resist what happens. Everything that happens happens for a reason. The aches and pains in my body are simply messages from The Mystery that need attention. Failure to pay adequate attention to those messages simply results in an increase in volume, in this case persistent increased pain in my left hip and buttock, until such time as the message has been read and understood and, if necessary, acted upon.
What brings me joy? Travelling to new places, seeing new and wonderful sights, being on the road again: travelling by train or bus or plane to somewhere and something new. Whether it is getting soaked to the skin in an open boat under a gigantic waterfall, riding and taking a swim with an elephant, or snorkelling in tropical seas, doesn’t matter. What matters is taking a risk, doing something exciting and out of the ordinary, living life to the full. I forget just how much joy doing those things bring me when I’m back in Vancouver trying to get fit and well again, and that forgetfulness has a major impact on my ability to heal: I lose the thread and lose the joy. So no more of that: I need to keep that in the forefront of my mind as we plan our next adventure.
14 August 2014. From Alison: I am well again. I think. My ankle has healed and I’m exercising again which feels great. We’re housesitting in hilly North Vancouver and I’m marching up and down those hills like a wild woman. On the other hand, last night I started to feel mildly nauseous, and again today, so wonder if I have a parasite from our South American travels. We both had all the tests done. Don had picked up some extra baggage, which has now been banished with the help of those nasty wonder drugs that made him feel ill the whole ten days he was taking them. Hard to keep your mood up when you feel a little ill all the time. I know I did pick up a virus in the Amazon (no matter how much I didn’t want to believe it), which is now healed, but sometimes the parasite tests have to be done twice to catch the little critters. I slept for about six hours today. Unheard of for me, and much welcomed. That I have become so relaxed seems a miracle in itself!
Don is still in pain in the left hip area and feeling a bit lost again. He will be having an MRI soon as all forms of treatment over the past month have not brought any relief.
And yet, even with all this, we are both fine. Grateful to have this time to heal properly so we can continue our adventures. I have a deep sense that nothing is wrong, and that we are infinitely taken care of. Always, and again, I have a bottomless well of trust that things are just as they need to be. I think we are both feeling more at ease than we have for a long time, and for myself, certainly, there is a deep calm that feels new, and abiding.
Although the title of this post is This wasn’t supposed to happen, I think it actually is exactly what was supposed to happen – six months back in Vancouver to deal with, and heal from, all the bugs we picked up during our South American travels, and to deal with and heal various issues to do with aging bodies so we can get fully healthy and fit again before setting off on the next adventure.
1 September 2014. From Alison: Thank goodness I am well again and can do the heavy lifting. And pretty much everything else really. Don’s persistent pain led to him having an MRI, and then a second more detailed one, which revealed a clear diagnosis of a herniated lumbar disc, but worse than that, the disc has ruptured and a fragment of the inner substance of the disc has travelled out of the disc and jammed up against a nerve root, hence the continuous pain. It’s called a ‘sequestered disc fragment’. As regular readers of the blog will know we are great believers in the theory that there are usually emotional and psychological reasons behind illness and dis-ease that need to be healed along with physical healing. We are also great believers in discovering exactly what is happening in the body and dealing with it on a physical level.
Life can turn on a dime can’t it? And this turn appears to be worse than we had imagined, but not insurmountable. Don might not get to see a neurosurgeon for another month (though we’re hoping for sooner) so in the meantime he rests, we pray and hope, and visualize healing. We have read sequestered disc fragments can dissolve and be reabsorbed into the body. That is what we visualize. We also visualize the fibrous outer wall of the disc closing and healing so there can’t be another fragment wandering out of there and finding a new home where it doesn’t belong. No squatters’ rights for sequestered disc fragments!
He may or may not need surgery to repair the damage. We are hoping not, especially since spinal surgery is such a delicate matter. He has discovered that resting, and doing nothing much at all really helps. Maybe, just maybe, that is all that is needed, and that with time this will heal itself. Yesterday morning he was feeling better than he had for weeks. It was moving day and he thought he could help with the cleaning so began vacuuming the apartment we were about to vacate. Fifteen minutes of vacuuming set him right back and he was in much more pain for the rest of the day. But, the good news is that with a few weeks of very little activity, although there are days he is still in a great deal of pain, he has begun to have some good days. It feels like a possibility that continuing in that direction could bring about healing.
A bit of a rant about the glacial pace of getting medical care in Canada: if we hadn’t paid a lot of money for private-pay MRI’s he would have had to wait six months to even get an accurate diagnosis, and even paying all that money he was given no advice as to what activities he should avoid. Fortunately through a friend he got to speak to a retired neurosurgeon who advised that sitting was not recommended as it compresses the disc which could create more sequestered fragments. So he stands and lies down. And we wait, all the while as much as possible focusing on a positive outcome. Among the many things we are grateful for, we are grateful we have the money to pay for medical care when needed. And we are grateful this happened in Vancouver where all feels safe and familiar and we speak the language, and not while we were on the road.
It has been, and continues to be a roller coaster: a lot of sadness and frustration and grieving and tears. There is more to be learned here for both of us. Probably more unfelt grief, anger, frustration, sadness, that shows up in the body as dis-ease, and as these feelings are acknowledged and felt, and through that as healing takes place on an emotional level, then there can be more healing of the body. The body is always a mirror. And yet, at the same time we both realize that we are generally feeling a level of trust and equanimity that we couldn’t have even dreamed of ten years ago.
For weeks now Don’s intuition has been to not book flights for our next trip until this has been resolved. Very good thing we listened. We are also settled into our latest lovely comfortable housesit for the next two months, so no more lugging things around for a while. Two whole months! It feels like heaven.
1 September 2014. From Don: If I’d had a sequestered disc fragment in my back ten years ago I’d probably have been freaked out about it. As it is, apart from occasional feelings of sadness, and frustration about the glacial pace of the medical system, I’ve felt a remarkable equanimity about what has happened. Once again, the lesson for me seems to be all about practicing presence and acceptance regardless of the circumstances. At the same time, the thought arose that the ruptured disc is due to unfelt anger and powerlessness about an incident in the Galapagos. Another piece of this puzzle seems to be about putting into practice a process of inner healing of the physical body: in my case visualizing the sequestered fragment being reabsorbed fully into the body leaving me symptom free, and the burst disc healing fully so that no more of the central core can leak out. Alison added that we’re also practicing living into the reality, or imagining, that for both of us there’s nothing wrong with our bodies: they are already fully healed. What if it’s true?
4 September 2014. From Alison: What if there’s nothing wrong? This is the question I continually return to. It’s a rhetorical question. It’s not looking for an answer so much as it is designed to challenge the mind with its precious beliefs and assumptions. My back aches. Oh there’s something wrong. Don’s hip and leg are painful. Oh there’s something wrong. My neck aches. Oh there’s something wrong. I have a fractured ankle. Oh there’s something wrong. Don has a ruptured disc. Oh there’s something wrong. He maybe can’t see a neurosurgeon for a month. Oh there’s something wrong. I’m feeling tired. Oh there’s something wrong. It’s raining. Oh there’s something wrong. And on and on. But what if there’s nothing wrong? What if there’s never anything wrong? What if there’s just this. Just this, this that is. As it is. Nothing right. Nothing wrong. Just what is. I ask the question over and over and slowly begin to imagine that it’s true. Nothing is wrong. If I imagine it’s true it becomes true. There is just this. Nothing more, nothing less, nothing right, nothing wrong. Just this.
Photo of the day: A blue jay on the back deck of our latest home.
All words and images by Alison Louise Armstrong unless otherwise noted
© Alison Louise Armstrong and Adventures in Wonderland – a pilgrimage of the heart, 2010-2015.
I’m so sorry to hear of your painful hip, Don. This can’t be easy. Allison, I’m glad your fracture healed and you’re well. Sending light and love that your hip pain takes a hike. Love to you both.
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Hi Paulette,
Thank you so much for your good wishes. I too would like the hip pain to take a hike, so that I can be the one to go hiking instead.
Much love,
Don and Alison
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BTW, they’re nothing wrong.
😉
So get better soon….. you’re still and always on the path to improvement, yes?
It will be interesting to look back at this summer of challenges, maybe next year or further on, at which time you’ll totally GET what was going on with all of this! Hindsight, how we sometimes long for its wisdom for right NOW!.
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darn, with there were edits allowed…. I meant to type {there’s nothing wrong} of course
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snickering at self…. I meant to type {WISH there were edits allowed}
Mind goes faster than fingers….
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Hi Kate,
So after reading your comments and corrections to your comments a number of times, and then getting Alison to explain them to me, I finally understand what your Flying Fickle Fingers of Fate were trying to say.
I too look forward to getting clarity about whatever this summer of pain and stuckness is all about. I already have some clues, the majority of which revolve around being present to whatever is happening right now, and not letting my mind take me into places of suffering.
There’s a neuropsychological phenomenon called Blindsight in Hindsight: when a particular blind subject was asked to point where he thought visual stimuli might have occurred he was more accurate than chance, even though he never had any conscious awareness of having seen the visual stimuli. Sounds much like my experience with messages from The Mystery: sometimes I don’t get the message until after, sometimes long after, the event.
Thanks for all your continuing comments and insights.
Don
p.s. Alison is pleased to share that it feels as if it has finally fully landed that there’s nothing wrong. So apparently the persistent use of the rhetorical question has done its job.
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I have to run out the door right now – but I will write to you about this sometime soon. I am sorry to hear about all the adversity. Sending good vibes and lots of love in the meantime…..
jo
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Thanks Jo. We’re both doing better and better. Don’s having a good day pain-wise, and for me it has finally fully landed that there’s nothing wrong. Hooray. I feel as if I have my life back.
Looking forward to whatever else you have to say.
Alison ❤
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I am so sorry to hear of the difficulties that you both have been suffering; truly I am. I agree wholeheartedly that disturbances or imbalances in the psyche can spin out into physiological phenomena, the distinction between mind and body being, if not totally artificial, then a blurry one at least.
Still, it remains the case that our bodies age and fall into various stages of malfunction in the process. This broadly linear progression, as I know you will both appreciate, does not constitute any necessary correlation with psychical disturbances. It is in the nature of matter to disaggregate over time, imperceptibly at first, then to such a point as it becomes of sufficient intensity to prompt attention in awareness.
Some readers here, myself (and yourselves?) included, will have known beings with perfectly clear minds, and yet who endured physical ailments in later life. Whilst the sensitivities of the clear mind can also act so as to mirror disturbances in the environment (including other people), these ailments are not products of psychical misalignments or imbalances within the sufferer; they are instead simply bodily tissues and structures disaggregating, again, as is their nature.
Every situation is different. You may well be correct Don, in that your own problems are to some extent psychically related. I couldn’t possibly know of course, any more than the medics could, their expertise being specialised in the sphere of physiology.
Still, there is perhaps a danger in projecting too much of our beliefs into our situation – a great tendency of the human condition! – as in so doing, we risk perpetuating what may in the end be discovered, in a particular instance, to have been no more than an erroneous idea.
With love and best wishes for a speedy return to full health for you Don, and for your own continued good health Alison.
Hariod. ❤
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Ah you have a wonderful way with words, Hariod, and thank you for your good wishes for my speedy recovery.
Your comments on how it is the nature of matter to disaggregate reminded me of the very first neuropsychology conference on the brain and memory that I attended. There was a lot of discussion about Alzheimer’s Disease, and the logo chosen to go on the conference t-shirt read “The Brain Rots.”
I remember reading Ramana Maharshi’s biography and being shocked to read that he had done nothing to heal the cancer that developed in one of his elbows. My favourite living advaita teacher, Adyashanti, got Bell’s Palsy, a partial paralysis of the muscles on one side of his face, which told me that no-one is immune to the vagaries of the physical body. We get what we get: now this, now this, now this.
We are all human, all humans eventually die, I too will eventually die. In the meantime I do the best I can with whatever my body decides to offer. I’m still preferring to look for, and focus on, the positive aspects of each experience. I might have some pain, but I can choose whether or not I’ll experience it as suffering.
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May I ask Don, what was your specialism such that you were attending a neuropsychology conference?
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This may come as a complete surprise, but I am/was a Neuropsychologist for many years before I retired.
p.s. Is specialism a real word?
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Tee-hee. XD
http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/british/specialism
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I am so sad to hear about your troubles. My good thoughts are with you, and I hope that healing happens fast and completely.
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Thank you for your good thoughts and good wishes.
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Hi Don and Alison,
Wow! It sounds like you, Don, have almost exactly what I was dealing with last summer–a disc extrusion that was pressing on the L4 nerve root and giving me immense pain. I even used a walker a little, and got around with a cane. For a while there it took drugs to get enough sleep before the pain woke me up again.
I do not discount actual physical causes for these things, I don’t think it is only our psychic states. But at any rate–in my case, surgery was not recommended, for the precise reason that the body can heal these things. In the meantime, though, I took a drug–nortriptilene–for a while to let my nervous system calm down about it a bit (it didn’t make me groggy or anything) and I got one epidural steroid shot–great relief!–just to buy some time for my body to do its work.
A year later I am back to almost everything I did before, and I sure did a lot! But some things are probably gone. I can hike in the Andes at 13,000 ft, but I can’t run. That may be permanent. We do age.
Anyway, best of luck with the medical system dance! I am one of the few lucky US people with good coverage.
Love to you both,
Meg
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Hi Meg,
Thanks for sharing your own experiences with disc and nerve root problems. I’m glad to hear that you’re pretty much back to normal apart from not being able to run.
It sounds as if you had much more pain than I’ve been experiencing: I’ve been managing the pain with Tylenol Extra-Strength and fortunately for me when I lie down the pain goes away.
I too am hopeful that my body knows exactly what it needs to do to heal itself, and that I won’t need surgery. I might try an epidural shot if the pain persists.
Thanks for your good wishes.
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I forget a lot that physical distress is psychological too. I WANT to believe that, but I don’t think I really do. I’ve been diagnosed with degenerative disc disease; that word degenerative gets to me. Usually I do ok. But your post makes me take another look at what I’m telling myself. Thanks.
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Dear Kay,
Lovely to hear from you. I too hate words like degenerative being applied to parts of my previously perfect (at least in my mind) body! All these new-fangled diagnostic tools like MRI scans give us way too much information to my way of thinking. What we don’t know can’t hurt us, can it?
Eckhart Tolle makes a lovely distinction between pain and suffering: that we might not be able to do much about the pain when it comes, but suffering is still optional.
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I’m glad you have two months to relax and allow for healing. Stress only makes your body tighten up causing more pain. So relax, and trust the Universe.
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Hi Angeline,
Thank you for those wise words. Both ALison and I are very happy to have these two months to relax and heal.
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I so admire your honesty in this post and the ability you both have to expose and express your doubts and fears as you deal with illness and pain, This sounds like a time of endless frustration and a real test of patience and faith. I’m sending best wishes your way for a positive prognosis and a quick recovery. Anita
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Hi Anita,
Many thanks for your good wishes. It really has felt like a time of endless waiting, but that, on my part, has included a desire not to push the river, but to let The Mystery, which knows exactly what is wanted for the best of all concerned, take its own good time.
Don
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Wow, so many thoughts, so eloquently expressed. What a lovely, honest post about fear and hope in life, health, travel. And I love your question, “What if nothing is wrong?”. I just recently had a minor (very minor compared to Don) back injury that took about three weeks to heal, and the lesson I took from it was STILLNESS. Be still, honor the pain, heal, then remain still beyond when your mind thinks you’ve “healed” until your body agrees (my mind tried for several days to leap ahead of the process, without success). For travelers, being still is such a challenge! But this provides contrast, forces us to slow down, live in the present around us, and then finally… we are so happy to move again. I’ve recently started practicing Tai Chi, which in only a few weeks has presented enormous opportunities in mindfulness and moving slowly while simultaneously making me stronger and energizing me in an entirely new way. I can’t wait to write a post about it, and highly recommend it as a tool for healing the body and quieting the mind. Thank you for such a thought-provoking, heartfelt post.
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Hi Kelly,
Don here: thank you for your feedback and comments. I too need to remember to honour the pain, because as soon as start to feel better I want to start to do more: to walk, to get some exercise, to be as active as I want to be. Thank you too for suggesting Tai Chi. You are the second person to mention Tai Chi in the past two days, so I need to pay attention to that.
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Fantastically beautiful blue bird! 🙂
This is inspiring. Yet another motivation to travel: bird watching, nature tours.
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Thanks so much. Glad you find it inspiring. We love nature tours. Hoping to be all healed soon so we can head off on a few more of them!
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Well, this shows that life is unpredictable; no matter how you plan or you think about it, it might turn the other way. So I’d say stay positive and don’t think too much. If Don needs surgery so be it, and lets hope that he will get well soon…. ❤
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Hi Nina,
Life is indeed unpredictable, and as you remind me, thinking is vastly overrated! I’m hoping that my body knows exactly what is needed to heal itself, and that I won’t need surgery.
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There is nothing wrong 🙂
I hope Don’s good days turn into nothing but good days – sending healing/healed thoughts.
And what a beautiful bird!
xx
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You’re so right, there IS nothing wrong, just life expressing itself in a new and different way. Thank you for your good wishes and healing/healed thoughts.
Don
p.s. Alison says thank you re the photo. The birds come every morning because we feed them peanuts. Haven’t seen any elephants as yet.
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‘better the cold blast of winter than the hot breath of a pursuing elephant” – enjoy the birds 😉
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LOL.
Not any elephants in Vancouver AFAIK 🙂
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Sending loving and healing energy your way. I love the last paragraph written…What if there’s nothing wrong?… 🙂
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Thanks so much Anyes for sending loving and healing energy our way.
Yes, that last paragraph is really good for getting the mind turning in circles.
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Blessings of healing, peace and guidance to you both.
And that bird??
Incredible!!
With heart,
Dani
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Hi Dani,
Many thanks for your blessings: we loved receiving them from you.
Alison says thank you for your kind words about her photo. We do enjoy watching the bluejays coming around every morning for their peanuts.
Don 🙂
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I’m sorry you are having to go through this, Don, and hope that visualization helps and that you will be on the mend soon. Stay positive!
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I continue to believe that everything happens for a reason, and in the meantime I’m staying positive and continuing to visualise myself as healed and whole.
Thanks for your support.
Don
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Really sorry to hear about your painful hip, Don. While people may hold different views about the root cause of physical ailments, nobody can deny that a positive attitude and an emotionally & spiritually strong disposition significantly aid the process of healing. From your posts and comments, it seems that you may know about (or even practise) yoga. I’ve known yoga to be exceptionally healing for mind, body and soul. I wish you speedy healing, and ever renewed joy & vigour for everything life has to offer. 🙂
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Thank you so much for your thoughts and good wishes. I love yoga and will resume doing it as soon as my current back problem has healed sufficiently to ensure that I don’t cause more problems. Don
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Hi, both:
Sorry to hear about the bad news. We Taiwanese believe it is not something wrong, it could be something that would happen and you are just not lucky enough to avoid it. Don’t worry, take your time, Anna and I will always be here in Taiwan waiting for your visiting. This, I am sure, is nothing wrong.
Kenny
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Hi Kenny,
You sure got that right: something happened and I wasn’t lucky (or smart) enough to avoid it! Very pleased to hear that Anna and you will always be there in Taiwan, and we look forward to being able to visit you there some day.
Don
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Many many hugs and well wishes. I’m so sorry to hear you’re not doing too well. I hope that everything heals properly and as quickly as possible. Positive thoughts – even during your hardest moments – can help ease the pain and re-calibrate your spirit. I’m so glad to hear you’re doing Morning Papers. I used to do that for a while and slipped for a bit. I may just get back into them again… Thank you for that!
❤
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So lovely to receive such heartfelt good wishes and {{{{hugs}}}} to help with my speedy recovery :). I see how this event has encouraged me to practice presence with even more rigour than before so that I don’t get lost in mind stories. And, as you remind me, having a positive attitude is so important.
Many thanks,
Don
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I hope you both are feeling better…stay healthy! 🙂
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Thanks so much for your good wishes Allane. We’re doing a lot of resting and relaxing and staying present.
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Ohh thats good, relax is the best you can do! Get well soon 😀
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Sometimes we embark and the path we thought we thought we were on changes…. “this, too, shall pass”. Those words have brought me comfort. Know that you are in our thoughts….
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Hey Maureen,
You got that right: we sure didn’t know the path that we were about to embark upon when Alison and I came back home this time around. We’ve also been saying “this too shall pass” as well as saying “now this, now this, now this.” Our spirits remain good and I’ve been in less pain today so I’m hopeful that healing is happening.
Thank you for holding us in your thoughts.
Don
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I enjoyed this post very much– the writing from both of you, the honest exploration of your feelings in the face of unexpected difficulties. For myself, it’s all fun and games until I don’t feel well, and then I wonder what ever could have bothered me before, when feeling well required no attention whatsoever… The shift always brings up the paradox of accepting the present with equanimity vs feeling as though we haven’t lived up to the ideal of “creating our reality”… We’ve learned that, haven’t we? In our desire to understand our role, our power, our presence… We are creators. We are called to accept our full potential as beings within and of creation. Then bam. We are on the mat. We are hauling out the manuals… 🙂 What was step thirty-two again? Eat more mechanically swirled fatty-acids exactly thirty minutes prior to listening to the natural frequency of Andromeda as sounded through a hollowed-out walrus tusk?
For me illness or pain creates this internal conflict, or maybe brings it to the fore. It is hard not to feel as though something has gone wrong– either we did or didn’t do something, or could have done something, or didn’t quite pull off becoming who we always were, or whatever. But this creates a division within me from the place where I’m able to recognize that even in my pain there is the working of some greater process. And being divided from that place, it’s impossible not to be constantly facing the alarm signal “something ain’t right, something ain’t right”.
Perhaps there is a wisdom at work of the sort we are oh so slowly able to consciously grasp. Perhaps this is the straightest path to magnificence. Perhaps there is a love you have the opportunity to consciously give yourself in this process that changes everything… We like to choose from the menu those experiences we desire, without realizing sometimes the menu goes on and on, or that somehow our lives know precisely what is needed on levels far below the haunts of the thinking mind. You know all this… I’m just sending love basically. I wish for your swift return to pain-free living, also knowing that whatever is unfolding will ultimately be found to have been precisely, sublimely, unerringly gentle and perfect in it’s conveying to you an even grander version of all that you desire.
Michael
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Dear Michael,
As always I’m gobsmacked by your masterful grasp of everything we’ve been feeling and thinking since this new opportunity for growth arose (apart, perhaps from listening to Andromeda through a walrus tusk). You have such a wonderful way of expressing what we have been struggling to articulate. We feel like a cro-magnon couple grunting at Shakespeare who then turns around and converts the inarticulate into masterful prose. Thank you so much for this and for your love and good wishes.
Don and Alison
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Thank you for that, but you should know the view from this side of the mirror is of two beautiful beings graciously and courageously navigating the waters of this unprecedented experience of revealing limitlessness through the artful deployment of our given limits.
Michael
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Thank you. And a deep bow.
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Wow- as Don said, not exactly in these words, This Guy is Awesome! That was articulated beautifully. I often lurk on this blog but am deeply moved by Alison and Don’s posts, and by the comments of so many others. Recently I’ve been struggling myself with a physical “issue” to which I haven’t been able to sufficiently apply enough right thinking to eradicate. What am I unable to let go of? What am I supposed to learn from this? Why can’t I create my own reality? That “working of some greater process” realization helps me relax and wait for the answers…
Hope that, by now, Don and Alison are excitedly planning their next adventures, whatever they may be!
Thanks to all.
Sarah
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Thanks Sarah,
We too are still digging for answers while trusting that The Mystery has everything in hand and well planned for the betterment of our immortal souls. Our bodies are healing, we’re on the mend, and we’re getting set to leave on a five-month trip to Australia and New Zealand by way of Hawaii, Samoa and Fiji.
Hope that you’re getting some insights into the reasons for your physical “issues” and that healing is happening for you too.
Blessings,
Don and Alison
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Juicy post! As always, I want to reciprocate the light you have sent out with lots of words and wisdom, but (as always) my fingers decide that less is more.
Life is.
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Hi Kelly,
As always your love and caring comes across regardless of the words you choose to use.
Many thanks,
Don
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As usual, just an amazing post full of honesty and able-to-relate realizations! I’m also doing a lot of soul digging for my weight issues and I’m feeling the heaviness of that search; sometimes it almost feels futile to me as it brings about a lot of discomfort from just the simple act of drudging through those past hurts etc. I can relate to what you’ve said here and I really want to get the book you mentioned, The Biology of Belief, that looks fantastic.
My Dad is dealing with back issues right now, nerve damage, and is going through the awfully slow rigmarole of the health care system back home. What a very frustrating experience – I hope you get some answers shortly.
I’m wishing you both well and lots of love during this important time of exploration.
~ Andrea ❤
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Hi Andrea,
What an amazing journey we’re all on. We never know what new (and old) challenges will be presented to encourage us to look even deeper.
Thank you for your love and good wishes.
{{{Hugs}}}
Don and Alison ❤
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Alison and Don, so sorry that Don’s hip is so painful. Those kinds of maladies are so confusing and frustrating – one day everything’s fine, and the next day it all goes south. James and I seem to go through cycles – when the traveling is challenging we hold it together, but when we arrive somewhere safe and familiar we get sick. We think we “give ourselves “permission” to fall apart when we feel safe. 🙂 Then, like you two, we get well and rally for the next adventure. 🙂 Here’s hoping for self-healing. Take good care of yourselves and each other. ~Terri
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Hi Terri,
We too always seem to give ourselves permission to fall apart when we’re back in our own home town, and this time we had six months to fall apart even more completely than usual! We’re both improving thanks to the doctor’s best friend “tincture of time,” to the body’s natural tendency to heal itself, and to the help given by forces invisible to the human eye :). Don has been in less pain for the past two days so healing is clearly happening.
Thank you so much for your kind thoughts. We’re still planning to be in Canberra for Christmas.
Don and Alison
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I’m visualizing healing with you. I find it helpful to say, “This is how it is right now.” It puts me in the present moment and reminds me that everything is temporary.
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Hi Jane,
All of the healing that you and others are sending seems to be working: I’ve been in much less pain for the past few days and am continuing to visualize full healing. I too say “now this, now this, now this” to help me stay present to whatever is happening as each new opportunity arises and then changes.
Thank you,
Don
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Oh my….I know how you feel. I had a CT scan for pain near my hip and the scan picked up a nodule on my lungs. The doctor said, “Hmmm….looks like it might be primary lung cancer.. We should do surgery to rule out cancer.”
WHAT? Wait! I came in because of a pain that is nowhere near my lungs.Instead of helping me with that, you just gave me something else? I have never smoked. I really don’t want surgery and/or more pain. I don’t want to get cut up just to “rule something out.” Auuuugh. Next thing I know, the doctors will see something else ‘wrong’ and want to cut me into a million pieces. As you say–“Oh there is something wrong. But what if nothing is wrong?
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Mary, that must have been dreadful news, I do hope you’re okay. Surely there is another way to find out than invasive surgery. Get more tests, and a second opinion. Don was first diagnosed, by MRI, which is much more accurate than a CT scan I believe, with tumours on his spine. It was only with a second MRI using contrast medium that they got an accurate diagnosis of a herniated disc.
Wishing you good healing and good health.
Alison
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Wow what a journey you two are on, I love it! I wish you healing and blessings along the way. So nice to connect to your blog.
Charlee
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Hey Charlee, sorry I’ve taken me so long to reply! I don’t know how I missed your comment. Thanks so much for your good wishes. We’re slowly on the mend and already planning our next adventure.
Blessings to you too!
Alison
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