Let There Be Peace On Earth

A special post. My family is now spread across the United States. (I also have family spread across Canada, but I haven’t met most of them, sadly. Some day!)

One of my brothers lives on the west coast of the United States. I live on the East Coast of the United States. 

I sent him this music. He played it on his keyboard - piano style. And I listened to his music on my earbuds and played violin. I put them together using iMovie. 

I hope you will enjoy this music. 

I wish you a beautiful and comforting holiday season!

https://youtu.be/ZR3fiAr2muM 

Self-Care

For a while there, I saw a lot of people talking about "self care." There were items sold in stores labeled, "self care," that included things like candles, nail polish, soft socks, who knows what. It felt to me like luxury items.

I don't feel like I ever was specifically taught,  "this is what self-care is." In fact, in the Christian Science upbringing, I was actively taught to deny my bodily existence. If my body was hurting, I was to turn to god and pray. I was taught to be grateful for pain, because it was telling me I needed to pray more. 

The strictest Christian Scientists say that their version of prayer (called "Christian Science treatments") is the very BEST care. Doctors are 2nd in line. Praying to god is supposed to be able to heal absolutely everything. 

I am now out of the Christian Science belief system, and I definitely have a human body. I'm learning how to take care of it, too. It's a work in progress. But I am definitely working on making progress. 

I am starting to realize what self care ACTUALLY is. I don't believe it has anything to do with candles or nail polish or hand lotion or soft socks or whatever other things you can spend money on for things that look pretty in a store. 

I have come to the conclusion that self-care includes things like: 

• drinking water
• making good choices about what foods to eat and what foods to eat less of
• taking care of your body by bathing it and tending to its needs
• taking prescribed medicines when needed, and at the appropriate times
• giving your body ample rest time, for me this often includes a nap in the middle of the day
• exercising (this is something that I am still working on getting up to doing, but that is a whole other journey for me to work out. I am just not there yet.) 

Well, I have seriously struggled with ALL of those for YEARS. I think all of those, I haven't done for the bulk of my 48 years. Seriously. I had a friend one time (Stacey, who I mentioned in a previous blog post about vision impairment & accommodating our friends with low vision) comment that she had no idea how I could be up and walking around and presenting as basically a healthy, normal person, when I had so many issues. But when you're taught to deny your body's existence from a very young age (let's say: birth), you can walk around as present as normal no matter what you're feeling. People who live with chronic pain know exactly what I am talking about here. 

Anyway, so I have, FOR DECADES, tried to come up with "a schedule."  I know that having a schedule - a routine - would help me thrive. I just couldn't come up with such a thing! It was so frustrating and I am learning now that I have been very cruel to myself inside my own head about not being able to do something that so many people find to be easy. 

Oh, by the way, my vision issues can make me present as if I have ADHD. Folks who have ADHD also struggle to come up with a schedule or a routine. I don't know if I have ADHD. Maybe when my vision issues are resolved, we can see if things start coming more easily. (A psychologist did diagnose me with ADHD several years ago, though.)

I wanted to do the syntonics / light therapy, but didn't have a spot set up for me to do this, I had no consistency. I would do it at the dining room table, by shoving aside my watercoloring or homeschooling papers.  I tried it standing up in my kitchen with the lamp coming out of a cabinet (this was before I was given the spotlight I now have; I had a clip on lamp and needed a place to clip it on!)... I tried doing the syntonics in bed but then I needed a place to put this lamp when I was done.... A few times I forgot it was on my bed and I knocked it off in the middle of the night. Thank goodness the bulb didn't break!!!!

Well, I got to thinking about our living room and furniture. I had a sweet little writing desk that I love, and it was holding a lot of our dog items like dog bags and medicines and the paperwork for our dog. Meanwhile, other dog things were spread everywhere - toys, grooming, clothes for her ... 

I have a piece of furniture called a "bachelor's chest" that I love. I refinished it with black paint. It has 4 drawers and a pullout thing that can be used to write at. I had my sons move our furniture around. We replaced the little writing desk with the bachelor's chest, and now all of our dog's things are in the drawers of that. (Very tidy!) and we put the little writing desk in my room and got rid of one of my side-tables. 

I put the syntoics spotlight lamp on the little writing desk. it has a little ledge at the back for me to put my indigo and dark forest green glasses on. And I set my little Alexa / Echo timer on it, too. I also put my Thai Chi (vision exercises) paperwork on there too, so it is my little vision therapy area now!

Once I set that up and had a dedicated space for it, suddenly I found a new rhythm to my life! I am so excited to announce that for the FIRST TIME IN MY LIFE, I am starting to build a routine!

I also started going to physical therapy (3 times a week) for my shoulders. I have something called "armoring" due to my Complex PTSD. This means my muscles are ALWAYS tensed in my shoulders and neck. I never relax them. I have to consciously work very hard to relax them. Doctors, massage therapists, physical therapists have all commented on it - my muscles that don't relax. Believe me, I want to be able to relax them. The constant tension in them causes constant pain. Over time, it creeps up to my neck and I can't move my head, like for driving and checking the lane to my left when I need to merge. Combine that with my vision issues, and honestly, I am not sure I want to drive anymore. Sigh. 

Well, in typical Jodi-fashion, I have digressed from the topic - AGAIN. 

So I started this nightly routine of taking my medicine, going to the bathroom, brushing my teeth, flossing, rinsing with mouthwash, washing my face, putting on my night medicine on my face, then going to my room, changing into my pajamas, then sitting down with the spotlight to do my syntonics. It takes about half an hour to do all of this. After doing it for a while, I realized: "I have a routine! THIS is what "self-care looks like!" 

When I started the recent therapy on my shoulders, they gave me exercises to do at home too. I added in lying down on a yoga mat and manipulating my arms and shoulders in a way they told me to do. I also added in what my vision therapist has wanted me to do for a year now - Moro Splat movements. So my nightly routine now has vision therapy and shoulder therapy combined. I am so proud of myself for having come so far to do this basic self-care routine now. This is HUGE for me!

I also have a morning routine now - self-care. I have a shake I make for breakfast. I have a vitamin supplement in liquid form that I take. I take my heart medicine and other vitamins in the morning. And then I make some herbal tea. Because of my heart medicine, I am no longer drinking coffee (which I am finally admitting to myself that I never enjoyed anyway; it has never been my "thing" but I felt socially pressured to drink the stuff), and I also no longer drink any kind of wine or spirits. They are also not really my "thing." Although I also felt socially pressured to drink. I feel so much better now, drinking lots of herbal tea and also water. My favorite teas are either Dandelion Root tea or Lemon Ginger tea. Oh, also Peppermint tea. I should do a whole blog post just on tea. I really should. I have so much to say about it! Hahaha.

It feels so good to have the morning and evening self-care routines now. 

I hope that this post will help others learn what self-care means, and what a routine might look like. 

Resting Your Eyes vs. Palming

When I was little, I remember my dad saying, “I’m just resting my eyes.” I am not sure if it was because I was talking too much and he needed a break. (He did, one time, yell at me: “You talk too much!” I went next door to the widow and asked her if I talked too much. She so graciously replied: “I like it.”)

So, Dad would be sitting up, and “rest his eyes.” He would close his eyelids and sit there for a while. 

When I started Vision Therapy, they taught me palming. Well, I had read about it in a book years ago called, “You don’t have to wear eyeglasses,” that my violin teacher had loaned to me at one point. I never really did it. I didn’t think much about it. 

[A photo of me covering my eyes with my hands. Left hand's fingers overlap my right hand's fingers.]

I got to Vision Therapy and on the first day of therapy, they told me to Palm. I cupped my hands over my eyes, and rested my eyes for a bit, wondering how this was different from what my dad did when I was little. 

After more than a year, going to Vision Therapy, I was, once again, Palming in between activities. As I sat there, palming, I asked my Vision Therapist “what is the difference between closing my eyes to rest them, and palming?” 

She gave me a great reply - she said that closing our eyes is fine. But if we palm, then the warmth from our hands can cause our eyes to tear up just a little bit. It gives our eyes some moisture. 

What a fantastic reply! I had no idea! New information! I love learning new things!!

Thinking back about my dad “resting his eyes,” now that I am a parent, I wonder if perhaps he was napping. 😆😂

Dissociation

One of the things my vision therapist is working on me with very intensely is “dissociation.” It’s an official diagnosis. One of the things they have pointed out to me with this is that I am not aware of my feet or my body when I am walking. 

My gravity reader in my body is dialed way too low. They want me to get ankle weights and wear them everywhere to make my gravity reader go up. So I will dissociate less.  

[This is a photo of me walking the board, wearing my dress that has blue roses on it. I have my right leg raised, and I am tapping my knee with my left hand. I am also wearing black ankle weights in this photo.]

I continue to be surprised and (grateful?) that this is an actual, diagnosable thing. And that they are working on it with me.  I am literally learning how to walk again. 

Today they had me swinging my arms widely while looking straight forward. They also have me walking on either side of a plank and tapping my raised knee with each step, with my opposite hand. It is cross-body exercises. We are re-wiring my brain to have cross-connections that I apparently never made in early childhood. 

Per their instructions, I bought a walking rail for my dining room. I painted it a happy turquoise. 

I walk it a lot. My feet follow the edges of it so I am learning to walk properly.

I will he saying quite a bit more about this in future blog posts.

Life gets in the way sometimes

I guess I haven't posted a blog update last week or the week before. Life got in the way 2 weeks ago. And then the next week, I may have been trying to sort out what to say about how life got in the way. But ... you know what, it doesn't really matter. On the scale of life, I had things to do. I am sure you did, too. I had emotions to feel and things to think about and stuff to do with my teenage boys who are taller than most men I meet. Sooner than I would like, they will launch and I will be able to sit around all day and write nothing but wonderful blog posts.

So, I hope you either didn't notice my absence, or you took a nice break and did something wonderful. I will begin posts again next week. As soon as I am done typing this one, I will start working on the next one. It should run next Monday, as usual. Although I am thinking of switching to a Wednesday schedule. My vision therapy days are on Tuesdays. I usually leave those with a bunch of blog posts swirling in my head and Mondays doesn't seem to be a day that is working for me to consistently post. It is strategically the furthest day from my Tuesday therapy as it could be. (or is it the closest?)

I hope everyone is having a lovely year. We are almost done with Month 1 of 2020!

Last night, I looked up at the cold winter sky and saw so many constellations. The sky was brilliant. I hope you will consider going out to see if you can see the sky and constellations. They really are quite beautiful. I was in a neighborhood that is just filled with light pollution and I could see all my favorite constellations. That sort of floored me, to be honest. So even if you live in a light pollution area, go look at the night sky. Make up your own stories about what's up there if you don't know the ancient stories about Orion & Pleideas and Taurus ... Cephus and his baby goats ... Canis Major and minor ... the Gemini Twins named "Castor and Pollux." And - do you happen to know what "Betelgeuse" means? It's kind of funny once you learn it.

[A black background with white and colored stars in the formation of the Orion Constellation and also the Big Dipper. Image courtesy of: https://i.ytimg.com/vi/G3tFtyUnnlA/hqdefault.jpg]

Ok. Signing off this post. See you next time. Thank you for reading my blog. Feel free to drop a comment any time. I love comments. 

Migraines & Chess

Note: I just signed up to be an Amazon affiliate. This blog & information is provided free, from me. I would appreciate if you are going to buy something on Amazon, what I recommend or something else, if you could please click through either of the two products I mention in this blog post. It will maybe give me a dime or something. But every dime helps me right now in my life. Thank you so much. <3

About a year ago, I started going to a neurologist to diagnose my constant migraines. He did wonderful work. I had several brain scans and blood tests. All sorts of things.

He laid out a plan that was like playing chess - pawns in the front to help guard the more important pieces, then stronger pieces guarding the King.

The pawns in his regime for me include: drinking water, getting enough sleep (I have a constant awful time with this piece of the puzzle), and eating fairly well.

The knights or bishops of my regime include high doses of Magnesium Oxide: 400 mg and Vitamin B2: Riboflavin 400 mg.

The Queen is the one low dose medicine he has put me on.

Before he put me on this regime, I had a constant migraine. It varied in pain from about a 2 to an 8. But it was always there.

After starting the regime with him, my migraines went down to about 1-3 per month. If I get one, my first order of defense is to take Aleve. Most of the time, that solves the problem. If it doesn't, he has a caffeine medicine for me to take. I rarely (basically: never) need to take that medicine. I keep losing and finding that bottle. I don't know where to keep it, because I don't use it!

This past week, my personal life stress has been through the roof. One of the things I have done is gotten my resume together and also started to apply for jobs. I was turned down for about 10 jobs.

My personal life is just overly stressful.

As I was staring at the computer, making my resume and applying for jobs on indeed dot com, I realized that it was easier for me to read if I took off my glasses and shut my eye. (The habit of how I have read, my whole life.)

So, I did that. I didn't think much of it.

At the end of the day, I was telling a friend that I had a bad headache. My friend asked me if I had worn my glasses that day much. I confessed that I had hardly worn them at all. I had been staring at this computer for most of the day.

"Aha!" My brain said.

Ok. Notes to self:

1) wear glasses

2) take breaks

3) try to remember to keep both eyes open when reading

4) don't keep staring at the computer for an entire day; look out the window and focus far away

5) palm (to palm is to cover your eyes with your hands and let your eyes have a rest. They aren't bringing in any visual information. This allows your body to relax).

Maybe when I start to feel a migraine, I can slow down, let go of the tunneling stress that I do inside my body, and breathe. Check and see if I am wearing my glasses. Am I shutting one eye. Do I need to palm? Should I drink some water?

There is a lot to learn. I am so grateful for the good people at my vision therapy setting me up to succeed! They are teaching me solid life skills that I never had, growing up.

I feel like I am starting to get my feet on a good trajectory.