Now that the course is complete, I want to share some of my favorite excerpts with you. The video below is from last week’s class. While the majority of the course focused on issues such as diet, detox, and supplements, this final class was all about the emotional/pscyhological/spiritual component of healing.

This particular section is about how to get through those moments where we are just “hanging by a thread.” While Ann is specifically addressing that intense rock-bottom space that many of us have experienced at some point, what she says here is relevant and useful even if you’re feeling great and even if you don’t have an illness at all. Which is why I chose it. I hope you find it as interesting and valuable as I did.

Next week we’ll be releasing the entire 14-hour bootcamp for purchase. More on that in the next few days but for now, enjoy the video!

Update: Click here for more details or to purchase the Autoimmune Warrior Bootcamp

Click here for more details or to purchase the Autoimmune Warrior Bootcamp

Photo by joshjanssen, Flickr

No one can run a mile in four minutes.

At least that’s what the world believed until Roger Bannister did it in 1954.

Funny thing about that.

Once one person proved it could be done, suddenly, lots of people could do it. People who had been struggling futilely for months, years, simply unable to shave those extra seconds off, suddenly made it. Belief is that powerful. In fact, running the four-minute mile is now the professional standard for all middle distance runners.

If one person can do it, then you can do it.

In my darkest hours, I come back to this, or perhaps it would be more accurate to say it comes back to me. A mantra with its own will, with its own hands that seem to reach out and push me through that long, that dank tunnel of fear and frustration and doubt when I simply do not have the strength.

If one person can do it, I can do it. If one person can do it, you can do it.

Find one person who is kicking MS’s ass and for God’s sake, hold on. Model them. Let them be your inspiration. Hold to them for your light, and your belief, and your strength when your own falters.

Witness the beauty and grace of their four-minute stride and follow, follow.

Want more inspiration? Read Where Terror Has No Home or go to the main page to Get Inspired.

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Photo by Arno & Louise, Flickr

Do you know how elephants are trained? When an elephant is very young, a rope is tied around its leg and then tied to a post. The elephant is left for hours, during which time it keeps tugging the rope, trying futilely to break free. Finally, after a period of time, the elephant accepts the reality that when that rope is tied on, he is tied to the post and cannot move. The baby elephant mind has successfully been programmed.

Years later, when the elephant is all grown up, and massive in size and strength, all that’s needed to get it to stay still is a rope tied around its leg. The other end of the rope doesn’t even need to be tied to a post! Why? Because the elephant’s belief system says when there’s a rope tied to its leg, it cannot move. The baby elephant had the learning of this belief, and now this limiting belief limits the monster-sized elephant that could have easily broken free.

This is the power of limiting beliefs.

When I work with clients, one of the things I notice for are the limiting beliefs they hold. Because I work specifically with people who have chronic illnesses, their limiting beliefs can quite literally be the difference between life and death, vitality or disability.

Western medicine has been extremely successful in training us to believe that our only hope for healing from what ails us is drugs. Our doctors, our pharmaceutical companies, our health insurance companies, our commercials, our friends and families reinforce this. If you have Multiple Sclerosis, the prevailing belief is that healing is not even possible. You are on a downhill trajectory and the most you can hope for is a decent drug to slow your inevitable progression into disability.

Anybody feel the rope around their leg?

Deteriorating helplessly into disability does not have to be your present or your future, but it surely will be if you accept the limiting beliefs held about your illness. I encourage you to spend some time today considering what  you believe about your ability to heal and get well. And I want you to remember that you are the adult elephant. You are massive and strong, and because you are aware of the rope that’s been tied around your leg, you’re absolutely capable of breaking free.

Want more inspiration? Read Gratitude is Good or go back to the main page to Get Inspired.

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Photo by snake.eyes, Flickr

I was in San Francisco for a seminar when I was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis. The day after receiving the call, I remember riding across the Golden Gate Bridge on the bus back to the airport. I was still in shock, and felt like one might after a major breakup, or someone’s unexpected death – splayed, raw, hoping no one notices my exposed innards. I was sitting on the left side of the bus and staring out at the water when I had what I’ll call a vision (because it was not intentional like a daydream) in which I was speaking in front of a huge audience in a hotel conference room. I was speaking to people who had MS and I was making a difference in their lives.

In that moment, the physiology of my entire body shifted. The brick in my gut morphed into a swirling excitement, I sat upright, and for the first time since my diagnosis the day before, I could take a full breath. In fact, as I watched the image of myself in my mind, I was overcome with the unmistakable sensation of yes. Of rightness. Of purpose. My diagnosis suddenly went from a random unfortunate tragedy to a powerful plot twist in the story of my life.

The ten years of mysterious illness prior to that moment suddenly became meaningful. In the context of this emerging story those ten years were no longer torture, they were training. I understood – riding across the bay that afternoon – that I had a greater purpose to fill, and my MS diagnosis was simply the vehicle to do it.

This is not to say that the next few months were not extremely challenging. Of course they were. They were often dark and mostly terrifying. But what was absent was the “why me”. What was absent was the doubt and confusion that befall us when we imagine ourselves victims of a random, meaningless life. Even the worst moments, in the context of a meaningful story – become bearable.

Choosing Your Story

Did I choose my story? I don’t know. My sudden awareness of it that day on the bridge makes me think it chose me. But every day, I wake up and choose to believe in it. I live my life as if it were true and in doing so, it becomes my reality. I am living into my story. The stories we tell ourselves about our lives are extremely powerful. They are our compasses and our personal translators. Human beings are meaning-making machines. If we decide our story is that we are pathetic victims with a lousy lot in life, we will find the evidence to prove it. We will weave that story using the threads of the events that occur – we will often even create the events to match the story.

You are the author of your life. Do you believe that? If you do, you are now responsible to write yourself one hell of a story. As Donald Miller says in his book A Million Miles in a Thousand Years: what I learned while editing my life “The truth is, if what we choose to do with our lives won’t make a story meaningful, it won’t make a life meaningful either.”

So my question to you today is: What is the story you’ve been telling yourself about your life? Is it serving you or does it need revision? Do you relate to your illness as an essential part of your story or an unfortunate inconvenience? If you could rewrite your story (because you can!) what would happen?

The idea for this post was sparked by Chris Brogan’s challenge in his post The Importance of Story. Thank you Chris!

Want more inspiration? Read The Rope Around Your Leg or go back to the main page to Get Inspired.

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Photo by Camilla Ferrari, Flickr

This is perfect.

If you’re symptomatic, if you are suffering, if your legs are weak or your toes are tingling or you’re in pain, this is perfect. If your ex-husband is insane, this is perfect. If your kids are giving you a hard time, this is perfect. If money is tight, this is perfect. If you’re scared, this is perfect.

When I first heard this, I thought, I’m not going to fool myself and tell myself that a situation is perfect when it just plain sucks! But note, the phrase is not “This is exactly how I want things to be.” The phrase is “This is perfect”. It’s perfect, because it’s what is.

The women who have the easiest time in childbirth are the ones who accept the pain and breathe into it. They relax into the sensation instead of demanding a drug to shut it down. The ones who resist the pain are the ones who can’t bear it. When you resist pain, when you fear it, the sensation increases. Our culture is, as a whole, terrified of pain. When we have an ache, we think we need to subdue it, which is why there are aisles filled with drugs to alleviate every symptom imaginable. But pain is a sign that something is out of balance, it’s a message from our body, and it needs to be listened to. But in order to listen, we need to acknowledge it, not resist it and shut it up.

When you’re in pain – physical or emotional – remember that This is Perfect. In saying so, you are allowing yourself to breathe. You are releasing the resistance to your circumstances and acknowledging that it’s perfect because it’s what is.

Now that you can breathe again, what can you do to begin to move things in the direction of what you want?

Want more inspiration? Read Ask and Ye Shall Receive or go back to the main page to Get Inspired.

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Want more inspiration? Read This is Perfect or go back to the main page to Get Inspired.

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“Jill Bolte Taylor got a research opportunity few brain scientists would wish for: She had a massive stroke, and watched as her brain functions — motion, speech, self-awareness — shut down one by one. An astonishing story.”

Watch the video now.

Want more inspiration? Click here to find out about The MS Symptom Nobody Told You About or go back to the main page to Get Inspired.

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