Have you recently been diagnosed with a medical dis-ease? My work involves going to the root of the physical issue while empowering you to stay in your strength and courage.
I am a woman who, through trust in inner sources of love and acceptance, has transcended a crippling and supposedly fatal disease to achieve complete health and wholeness. Throughout most of my life, I suffered from Anterior Horn Cell disease, a progressive, degenerative neurological condition originating in the gray matter of the spinal cord, which doctors told me would leave me completely crippled by age twenty-five and end my life by forty. Physically, this meant I was locked inside a body slowly collapsing inward, losing muscle mass in my arms and pulling the tendons of my hands into the shape of claws. After eighteen surgeries, I made a decision to step out of the medical box and awaken my spirituality as well as explore alternative healing modalities. I was guided through that experience by remarkable teachers/healers. I understood the possibility of healing lies in the psyche and takes root where disunion between mind and body ceases to exist. Many others who face physical challenges stemming from emotional injury, as I did, might recognize themselves in my story.
Today at the age of fifty-seven I share my healing gifts with others who choose to view their dis-ease with courage and tenacity-not fear and withdrawal. The dictum I received at the age of fifteen was met without challenge at the time. My neurologist told me to keep my chin upbecause there was nothing else he could offer me. The medical professionals insisted I give up all physical activity for fear of making my condition worse than it was. I listened to them because they were the experts. I listened until I was so tired of listening. It was at the age of thirty-eight I decided to take matters into my own hands.
After twenty-three years I got back on a bicycle, learned to ski and started taking yoga classes. I learned to compensate and adapt the activity to my debilitating dis-ease. I couldn’t grip the poles while skiing so I skied without poles. I had a twenty-one speed bike adapted to my needs by having the chancing gears on the left side where I had some semblance of a grasp. I learned to do downward facing dog with my wrists in flexion, not extension, as the position suggests. I did what I could because I was tired of feeling like damaged merchandise.
And that is only the beginning of the story.