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You Have the Power Within You to Change Your Life-The Fibro Hope Messenger, May 7, 2008
May 07, 2008

Dedicated to Helping You
Recover from Fibromyalgia


You Have the Power Within You
to Change Your Life

Hello!

One of my long-time readers, Susan, has made a major break-through in her pain and I am thrilled that she is willing to share her experience with you. Although this disease is not ‘all in your head’, your thoughts and attitudes do play a heavy role in the healing process. And it is up to you to get well. I’m here to push the process forward faster for you, but the actual getting well is in your hands. Enjoy the story. I’m sure you will relate to much of what Susan has to share, as I did. Here it is:

You Have the Power Within You
to Change Your Life

If someone had said that to me just a few months ago – I would have shrugged it off without a second thought. Today – I can say with complete confidence - “you really do have the power within you to change your life.”

A few years ago I started to have a lot of unexplainable pain. It started in my legs, moved up to my hips, up my spine and eventually all the way up to my neck.

I went to every specialist out there and even tried multiple alternative therapies, all with little success. I was told I had Fibromyalgia. Then it was chronic back and neck pain, then it was SI joint dysfunction, then adrenal gland issues. The list went on and on.

The doctors were unable to help me – all they could do was offer me pain medication that I didn’t need or want. I was desperate for answers to what was happening to me. Meanwhile, not only was my body falling apart – my whole life was falling apart.

There are so many of us that grow up in dysfunctional families. Even the very seemingly normal families have dysfunction. Adults are so busy with their own lives, and their jobs and their bills and the negativity and the stress that they carry--the things they learned from their own parents.

As a child in a dysfunctional family, you learn to be independent. You learn that grown ups are not always there for you when you need them. You learn to be invisible, and you learn to be strong and smart so you can take care of yourself.

You don’t get angry, you don’t cry, you don’t laugh. You don’t feel anything. You just learn to keep the peace. From this, you also learn guilt, and self hatred – always thinking it was your fault. You learn to blame yourself or other people. “If only I was (fill in the blank) they would love me. . .or what’s the use, no one cares anyway.”

You grow up very alone. You learn that if you need something, you must figure it out for yourself. You learn that the only one you have to depend on is you. You learn that the world is a very big place and you are very, very small. You learn to keep the hurt inside.

The hurt inside is very deep. If you keep it in there, no one knows. The more this hurt builds up, the more this hurt wants out – and it does come out. It manifests itself in a variety of ways from overeating, to starving yourself, to anxiety, to depression, to obsessive compulsive disorder, to self mutilation, to migraines, to disease, to very, very real, physical pain.

This hurt is screaming to come out – but yet, we do everything to keep it in there because we are taught to fight the pain, to resist it. We get really good at holding on to this pain. If we keep this pain inside, we are strong. If we let it out, we are weak. It is the only thing we know how to do.

For some of us – it is not so much internal, as it is external and it manifests in other unhealthy ways. We act on the hurt and become very destructive on the outside. We display risk taking behavior. We drink too much, we smoke too much, or we self medicate in a variety of different ways. We don’t take care of ourselves on the outside or the inside. We are hurt, therefore we hurt ourselves as punishment, because we learned that we were not good enough.

A few months ago, my daughter gave me a book that changed my life. Little did she know what kind of affect it would have on my life. I had it for a couple of weeks before I picked it up. I didn’t have time to breathe much less read a book.

As I looked at it on my desk, the title fascinated me. “The Secret”. What do they mean by “The Secret? Being the curious person that I am, I just had to know. What I found was nothing short of amazing. From that day forward, this book changed my entire life. It was like the key to unlock the door, the directions to life and living.

This is stuff I have known all along but never knew how to do. I was missing a very critical piece to the puzzle of my life. As I started to read it was speaking to ME. With every word, my heart was pounding. These were the answers I have been searching for my whole life. It was everything I had ever known and talked about, and told everyone else, but never knew how to do myself.

It is so simple and yet it never occurred to me that it could be this easy. I couldn’t put the book down, I hung on every word and when I did finish the book my entire outlook changed.

How in the world could I have not known this? The law of attraction? It was all because of the way I was thinking? How could that be? That is stuff on the inside that no one knows about – it is the stuff that I keep inside and only let out the parts that I want people to see.

All you have to do is change your thinking, and you change your life? How could it be so simple? So my life is the way it is because I am attracting the negative to me? If only I had known this a long time ago, my life could have been so different. Maybe I wouldn’t have understood then. I don’t know, but for whatever reason, the timing was right at that moment and I got it. I must have been in alignment with the universe.

I do have the power within me to change my life. This whole time, I had the answers I was seeking. All I had to do was look inside of ME. To love ME, to believe it and feel it, and know it and think it… and it was true.

I had been searching for everything from my mother, my father, my children, and all of my relationships. I even went as far as to create a bigger family – so there would be more people to love me. I was looking for everyone else to love me so I didn’t have to.

I was taking care of everyone else, because that is what you do, you take care of the family. And you give until you have nothing left to give, and you put yourself at the bottom of the list because everyone else is more important. Everyone else gets all the love you have, and there is nothing else left for you. Sigh. I didn’t believe what I was preaching to everyone else. No one ever taught me to love me.

All those messages from childhood carried over into my adult life. Those message were so ingrained in me, they filled my thoughts with negativity. I was still getting these same messages from my boss, my children, my spouse, all because of the way I was thinking. I was attracting all of this to me. Not only was I attracting it to me, I was unintentionally teaching this to my own children. No wonder my life was falling apart.

The pain I had was very real. The pain that I had kept inside of me for all of those years, and couldn’t let out. I knew that in order to let go of it, I had to learn to love me, and I had to forgive me. I had to stop being defensive, and although I thought I was protecting myself, I was only resisting. Holding on to the pain was the only thing I knew how to do. I started by standing up for myself and taking back some of what I was giving away, and turn it inside to give back to myself. I had to go back to the hurt little girl in there and forgive her. She didn’t know any better.

Once I was able to forgive, with each new day, my muscles started to soften, they stopped attacking my body. My jaw that had been clenched for years in frustration, released. I was excited for the first time in my life to be able to let go of all of it. It is like I used to tell my kids – we can do this the hard way, or the easy way. The easy way is to let go of the negative thoughts, the self criticism. Let go of the hurt and the pain. I had to let go of anything and everything that was not making me happy. I had to put up boundaries. I had to start saying no. I had to hurt people that I care for in my quest for self discovery. I had to make major changes in my life in order to do this but for the first time, I was free.

I wanted to play like a child who was never able to. I wanted to run, and jump and skip and catch up on all the things I had missed out on. I wanted to find my old friends, I wanted to tell every person I knew about this because it was so very easy to do, once you know how to do it. It was one of those moments when the light bulb goes on and you go “ah-hah” so that is it! It was a complete revelation. It is such a blessing to be able to see clearly for the first time. It explained why my life was the way it was. It was all because of what I was thinking. All I had to do is change the way I was thinking.

It didn’t happen overnight. I still have good days and bad days, but I am learning every day.

Now, when I get angry, I am learning to accept it, and release it. When I am sad, I am learning to be sad, and cry. When I am happy, I am learning to have fun, to just smile and feel good for once. The happier I am, and the more I love ME and I am proud of ME, and everything else around me changes.

When the negative thoughts pop back in, I acknowledge them, and then I let them go. I change my thinking and I think good thoughts. I smile at ME in the mirror. I am proud of ME when I do something right. I no longer dread the next day because I am excited about all the things I get to do that I would not allow myself to do before. I no longer want to hurt ME. I am thankful to be alive. I am thankful that I get to live the rest of my life the easy way, instead of the hard way.

The more I love Me – the more I realize that all this time, I always felt so alone. Now I know the truth. I was never alone, I just thought I was. I had ME right there all along. And I love her, very much.

Susan is from Auburn, WA, and is open to chat if you would like support in learning to let go and love yourself. If you would like to get in touch with Susan by email, contact me by replying to this email or using the Contact Me form at FibromyalgiaHope.com. Give Susan a hint as to what you would like to know or share. I’ll forward your note and email address to Susan.

Click on The Secret Book or DVD to learn more and/or purchase at Amazon.com.

Another quick note from Anita: I noticed the coolest thing today. Ya know that fat that is between your bra and your arm--kind of sticks out the side of your bra strap? Mine is disappearing. I'm so excited. What a great feeling. Love to hear how you are doing on the Great Taste No Pain diet .

All for now,

Anita

P.S.- Take Extra Special Care of Yourself!





Anita Murray

Fibromyalgia Health Coach
Nutritional Consultant

Fibromyalgia Hope, LLC
N3486 Guenther Rd.
Waupun, WI 53963
920-382-0680


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