I started out looking online, stopping by various forums and researching.  I quickly discovered this was a terrifying thing to do.  I know that many forums start with the intention of supporting people in difficult situations, but it doesn’t take long for a very fearful environment to take shape.  I do recognize that there are some forums where this has not happened.  For the most part, however, online pelvic pain  support forums are riddled with fear.

I was not looking for fear.  I already had plenty of that.  I wanted hope.  I wanted someone to say to me, “Yes, you can heal from this.”  Eventually, I realized I needed to widen my search and look into alternative medicine.  Even that research, though, had its unhelpful moments.  I took piles of supplements, rubbed magical creams on sensitive tissues, and ate specific, horrendously restrictive diets.  Not much happened, other than the violent allergic reaction to said magical cream.  (That’s right – hives on the sensitive tissues for weeks.)

This is why, when I encountered the breathing teacher who told me breathing would reduce my pain, I wept with joy.  Here was a completely normal, simple thing I could do for myself, as much as I wanted, that was safe and helpful.  It was in that moment that I first felt hope.  It was my first experience of empowerment, because this was help in the form that really works.  Help that would teach me how to help myself.  To me, this is the kind of support that makes sense and is effective.

I certainly wanted support on my healing journey, but I sure as heck did not want to hear other people’s scary stories, fear thoughts, or depressing outlooks.  I wanted to hang out with a group of people who were determined to help themselves, but who just wanted a little assistance doing so.  I wanted a group of people who would remind me to believe in myself.  Who would say, “Yes, you can heal yourself, it is possible, keep at it, way to go!”

I never found my group, but I did find various people along the way who offered such positive words.  I did learn how to help myself.  I did heal.  It was possible.

Those are the messages I wanted other women to hear when I started writing this blog.  I wanted to make my dreamed-of support group a reality.  I wanted to create a place where mind-body tools were available, along with other people who were focused on them, for women who were struggling with vulvodynia, interstitial cystitis, irritable bowel syndrome, and other syndromes.  But I didn’t want to call it a vulvodynia support group or interstitial cystitis support group.  Gack.  We’re not trying to KEEP these syndromes!

So, instead, I have focused on the mind-body healing message.  A mind-body support group sounds so much better, doesn’t it?  We are supporting each other in strengthening our mind-body connections and creating health and joy.  Talk about hope!

Over the last couple of years I have worked to create different levels of support for you.  Besides the free support in the form of weekly blog posts and resources,  I have created an online support forum.  To keep it secure and make sure it’s exclusively for mind-body support, it’s only available to people who purchase the Healthy Mind Toolbox Audio Course.

And recently, I created the all-new Mind-Body Mastery Circles.  The first one kicks off next week, and is a great group of women who are about to experience the very support I dreamed of when I was struggling.  I am so excited!  I will coach and facilitate, but the real magic is going to happen because of the connection and support these women will feel from each other.  That is an incredibly powerful healing tool in it’s own right.

It feels great to see this dream realized, and to know that this is just the first of many more Mastery Circles to come.  These groups will be hope-based, and healing will take place on many different levels.   Healthy, helpful support happens here!  If this is something you’re looking for, it’s not too late to join us.  There are a couple spots left, and you can click here to get all the info and register.

A few weeks ago I found some niggling self-pressure thoughts and noticed I still had remnants of my old tendency to think I should be different than I am.  Better.  Smarter.  Know more.  Work harder.  Be more successful.  Ugh.  Just saying that makes me feel tired.  Which is why those kinds of thoughts are life-force energy thieves.  Who wants that?

If you’re going to use all your mind-body mojo to heal from vulvodynia, interstitial cystitis, irritable bowel syndrome, chronic fatigue syndrome, fibromyalgia, or any other similar syndrome (by that I mean involves lots of annoying physical pain and is cloaked in a shroud of mystery in the medical world), you will need today’s assignment.   Because a large chunk of the mystery around these syndromes is a deep longing from your body for you to simply love yourself as-is and stop beating yourself up, thinking you should be “better,” or fighting with yourself.

When I was looking around for vulvodynia support and help for interstitial cystitis, I looked everywhere.  Doctor’s offices, online vulvodynia support groups, books…and everywhere I seemed to run into more scary news.  I ended up getting real support from a surprising place – my own inner wisdom.  As I spent time learning to tap into it, I kept hearing the same message:  “Love yourself.”

It took me a few years to really learn how to do that.  And even now, I am still cleaning up those little corners where I’ve missed a spot.  Loving yourself is largely about what you think about yourself, what you say to yourself day in and day out, and whether or not you honor your deep longings.

So here’s the assignment:

Make a giant list of everything you even remotely like about yourself.  Include: things you do well, your unique skills and talents, your positive character traits, things you’ve done in the past, and anything at all.  Take 20-30 minutes to start this list, and then add 1-5 things to it each day.  When you get to the daily part of the assignment, use anything you value or like about yourself from that day.  I ended up purchasing an entire journal for this, and I’m having so much fun that I’m challenging myself to find 20 things each day that I like/love about me.  It’s getting easier, I’m feeling more in love with myself than ever before, and I have even more energy.  (For my friends and family, that might be a scary thought…)

Here’s an excerpt from my love list:

I am a violinist who listened to her heart’s desire, dumped the classical music field after studying it for 20 years, and now plays her own compositions and Irish fiddle.

I am a fantastic coach, who was born to do this work.

I am a writer with a strong individual voice and style.

I am a veritable idea factory.

I am a fantastic listener.

I emit a loving energy that allows people the safety and comfort in which to cry.

I read at the speed of light, digest information quickly, and then share it easily with others.

I am a supportive and loving wife.

There’s so much more, but for the sake of brevity, I’ll stop.  But wow, it feels amazing!  Give it and try (don’t just take my word for it!) and you will notice your energy lifting.  You’ll feel the healing happening in your heart and soul, which means your body is soon to follow.

The final piece of this assignment is to share something off your list with someone.  If you want, post yours in the comments space below.  It spreads the love to see each other doing this for ourselves.  In the end, you are the only one who can truly love and support yourself, so it’s time to create a strong focus on that in our Healthy Life community here.

When you love you, when you support you, everything else will fall into place.  You’ll see.  When I started doing this assignment myself, a funny thing happened.  Everywhere I turned, someone told me how amazing, valuable, or loved I am.  Not just people in my inner circle, but people I’ve never even met in person.  I’ve gotten one or more complimentary emails a day since implementing this exercise.   So really, what are you waiting for?  Make your love list today!

Here are two of my favorite self-love resources:

The Art of Self-Love by Master Law of Attraction Coach Jeannette Maw

The Best Year of Your Life Kit by Spiritual Coach Debbie Ford

I have avoided emotions for much of my life, most of the time not even realizing I was doing so.  I did not realize that much of the anxiety I was feeling was actually a by-product of me trying like mad NOT to feel some other emotion.  I was living life with “don’t go there” as my mantra.

Now, I live my life with quite the opposite mantra:  GO THERE NOW!

Physical pain is not the dilemma our minds like to tell us it is.  Our thoughts come roaring into our awareness:

This is the worst pain I’ve ever felt.

The old pain is back, oh no!

I can’t stand this!

And on and on…

The key to moving forward is to NOT GIVE YOUR MIND ANY CREDIT.  Treat it like you would a young child – lovingly, with compassion, but don’t take it seriously.  If you believed everything your three-year-old told you, your life would look much different.  You’d be feeding her ice cream because she said she couldn’t live without it.  You’d be letting her stay up late because she said she didn’t want to go to bed.

Respectfully decline to believe your own mind.

Pain is just there to let you know that you need to turn and focus on your emotions and what’s been shoved down, pushed aside, or stuffed away for later.  It’s the steam escaping from the pot right before it boils over.  It’s just a signal, a message, or an alert.  Beep, beep, says your pain!  You must GO THERE NOW!  To the emotional stuff you don’t want to face!

Can’t find that emotional stuff?  Don’t know what it is?  That’s okay.  All you need to do is focus your awareness on your emotional inner world (use last week’s post to help you do so).  Let the pain be – it’s there, and that’s okay.  There’s no denying, no arguing, no fighting against it.  See it for what it is – just a signal – and then follow the directions it’s trying to give you.  Go toward all those things that haven’t been dealt with, faced, or felt.

That’s the journey.

I work hard and fast when I’m stubbornly pursuing this thing (Success?  Perfection?  Some kind of gold medal?  Who knows!) and completely ignore my body and inner self in the process.  You would think that ridiculous amounts of physical pain in a very personal area of my body would have served as a sufficient wake-up call.  While suffering from IC and vulvodynia, I spent hours upon hours learning what my body was telling me, listening to the messages of my inner self, learning how to rebuild my chi, and accepting my physical pain so I could learn what needed to be learned.  The general message seemed to be, “For God’s sake, could you just learn to treat yourself with a little compassion?”  I studiously applied that lesson for a while – at least a year, I think.  Six months, for sure.  Well, maybe three…

And then I forgot.  So my body sighed, rolled its eyes, and mumbled to itself, “Here we go again.”  Wham!  I was struck by intense Achilles tendonitis that prevented me from running, my preferred form of exercise.  At the time, I was determinedly running daily (and increasing my mileage) while also dieting and working constantly.  Oh, and I was in school, too.   The tendonitis pretty much hobbled me, forcing me to actually…get this…rest.  With my feet up!  Suddenly, struck by the irony of the new ailment, I had a light-bulb moment and went back to the compassionate self care routine I had discovered before.  This time, I kept at it for a little longer.  I think.

I know you’re not going to believe this, but you do not know the extent of my stubbornness.  About a year ago, I picked back up the running routine again, delighted my heels didn’t hurt, and started adding mileage once more.  I focused with great intensity on my coaching, put immense pressure on myself, spent my days rushing madly around working like a dog (actually, come to think of it, if I worked like my dog does, I’d be the most relaxed woman alive), and generally headed straight down the old road, AGAIN.

The early warning sign was an interesting flu that took me out for two weeks – I lost my voice and literally could not coach.  The next warning sign was the second round of the same flu – during which I lost my voice again.  Did I listen?  Did I heed my body’s messages, like I tell all my clients to do?  Ummmm…..no.  Why not?  Well, it could have something to do with that pursuit of perfection/success/gold medal of some kind…

So then my body started giving me rather embarrassing intestinal symptoms.  I’ll save you the details.  And then it threw in a daily mid-afternoon slump that left me practically unable to keep my eyes open between 4 and 6 pm.  I started getting regular headaches.  Getting out of bed in the morning felt like a huge project.  (And yet, off I went for a daily morning run – yes, yes, I am insane.)  Then I visited my GYN for that enjoyable yearly experience and admitted to him that, at the age of 30, I have been having hot flashes.  I know, hot flashes!  Crap, crap, crap!

So here I am again, back at school, learning the lesson.  For the umpteenth time. I know, however, that I am learning it on a deeper level this time.  Having coached myself quite thoroughly, I am recognizing the driving force behind my lack of compassion for myself, my utter lack of regard for my body’s limits, and my refusal to listen to all these messages.  Apparently, I feel as though I should be superwoman, mortal being though I am.  Apparently, I do indeed need to be perfect and drive myself into the ground, according to my slave driver self.  Martha Beck calls this nasty little part of our psyche the Dictator.  Mine is ruthless, obviously, and she really wants that gold medal.  Who is going to give it to her, you ask?  Nobody at all.  She is pursing a ghostly, vague ideal that is completely, totally useless.

I am listening to my body now, finally, and the message is once again clear.  Rest. Rebuild.  It’s not what you do, it’s how you do it.  Have some compassion for the physical instrument that brings you life every day despite your stubborn ignorance of its existence.  Stop putting ridiculous amounts of stress on yourself and enjoy what there is to be enjoyed, do less and love what you do even more.  Sleep.  Eat well.

I’m sharing this experience with you in the hopes that perhaps it will save you one round of classes at the University of Pain, my alma mater many times over.  Learning to truly care for yourself, to treat yourself as a whole being with a mind, body, and spirit, is vital, especially if your body is screaming at you like mine has done so many times.  Stop and look at the ridiculous pressures you are putting on yourself and recognize the stress that creates within your body.  If you listen, it will tell you.  You’ll feel the muscle tension, the anxiety, the racing heart, the feeling as though all your nerves are humming.  All you have to do is check in and follow the wisdom of your body.

And if your first response to that sage advice is something like, “But there’s so much I need to get done! There’s the laundry, the kids to feed, the husband to water – oh wait, no that’s the plant…” then allow me to offer my favorite quote from The Art of Power by author and Zen master Thich Nhat Hanh: “There is only one kind of success that really matters: the success of transforming ourselves, transforming our afflictions, fear, and anger.  This is the kind of success, the kind of power, that will benefit us and others without causing any damage.”

Because if there’s nothing left of you to give, then you might as well throw your to-do list right out the window anyway.  Your care of others suffers greatly if you do not care for yourself.  We are not superwomen.  We are mere mortals.

While visiting, my father once encountered my to-do list.  After noting its immense length, he took the liberty of adding one last item.

“Create world peace,” he wrote.

I’ve decided to wait until tomorrow for that one.

The more I breathed, the more I calmed down.  The more I calmed down and learned to do the breathing exercises at home, the more I was able to hear my Inner Healer.  I followed her instructions and started seeking out a myriad of different treatments.  I kept seeing my vulvovaginal specialist, because he was the first doctor who seemed to know what was going on and did not brush me off.  I was tired of doctors telling me this was in my head, this wasn’t a real problem, I should see a therapist, etc.  I wasn’t seeing amazing results from my Western medicine approach, but I didn’t feel like I needed to stop the treatments.  I just listened to my Inner Healer and started adding. First, I added chiropractic work on all the muscles of my lower body that relate to the pelvic floor.  My Inner Healer found this a good choice.  Then, she sent me to an acupuncturist.  She did not like the first one I went to, so I followed her advice and went to another one.  He was fantastic and helped me on my journey to health.  She pointed me in the direction of therapy, which only added to the improvements. 

She became the architect of my life, and I liked her so much I hired her permanently.   Eventually, on her recommendation, I let go of chiropractic, acupuncture, medication, physical therapy, and therapy.  Though they all served their purpose, they weren’t necessary after a while, and though I was actually still having physical symptoms, I was so sure of my Inner Healer that I was not even concerned about letting these other therapies go.  I kept the breathing and relaxation techniques, and I followed her lead into the realm of working with my own mind.  I began studying different books about the power of the mind, and eventually I discovered Martha Beck and her life coaching techniques.  

My Inner Healer led me right to my life’s purpose, because, like I mentioned two posts ago, the Inner Healer and what Martha Beck calls the essential self are truly one and the same.  My path to health was also my path to joy and truth within myself. 

Though I used many different healing modalities, I would never tell anyone to follow in my footsteps.  Even though I did heal and do live completely pain-free, take no medications, and follow no strict dietary regimens, I would not tell anyone my way is the right or only way.  You each have an Inner Healer, and your Inner Healer knows what you need.  She knows what’s right for you.  My job, as a life coach, is to help you uncover her, guide you to emotional strength, and support you as you move toward a place of feeling good.  At last.   

If you’re listening, that is. 

All of the panic, fear, anxiety, anger, and depression surrounding your health issues do a fantastic job of blocking the communication between you and your essential self.  To communicate with her again, you need to discover the thoughts behind all of your feelings.  Those thoughts (remember the Thought Log?) are in your head making a lot of noise.  You can’t hear your essential self through all that ruckus.  All you hear is, “I’ll never get over this,” “I can’t stand this anymore,” “everyone else gets to have a normal sex life and I don’t,” and on and on and on… 

The amazing, awesome essential self is a major key to your return to health.  You absolutely want to contact her, because she is very wise.  In Finding Your North Star, Martha shows you how to access her so you can discover your true purpose in life.  For those of us with health issues, your essential self takes on a new persona.  I like to call her your Inner Healer. 

Your Inner Healer, when she can be heard, will tell you what is right for you every step of the way through your medical crisis.  She will tell you when a doctor is not the right doctor for you and when you’ve found the exact doctor you need to see.  She will tell you whether or not the medication you’re considering is really something you want to try or not.  She will tell you what alternative medicine avenues are right for you.  She will tell you what you need to do on your own to help yourself heal.  She is a genius.  But she has a very soft voice – probably because it’s hoarse from trying to shout over the noise of all those panic-creating thoughts.   

The fastest way to talk to your Inner Healer is to enter that relaxed state of being (discussed in previous posts) in which you watch your breath and remain very quiet.  As you quiet your mind, releasing your hold on your thoughts, and focus on your breath, you will start to feel an inner calm.  Stay in the breath until you feel this – it may feel like a floating sensation or just a very relaxed quiet.  It might help to take any thoughts that pop in your head and imagine them scrolling across a page and then disappearing.  Don’t panic if you don’t hear any messages or don’t have any flashes of intuition.  Simply keep returning to this place as often as you can.  Soon, you will feel moments of knowledge – you will just know what is right for you.  Very peaceful yet insistent ideas will float into your head.  Sometimes these happen during the meditative state, and other times they just happen randomly.  I often hear my Inner Healer the most right at the end of a meditative session.   

I’ll be talking to you about my Inner Healer in future blog posts, so I wanted to introduce you to the idea today.  Have fun with this – your Inner Healer is a blast to get to know (she’s the person I was talking about in my last post – the one who rocks).  See if you can meet her and start the flow of communication today. 

I remember this feeling well.  I was living in a beautiful little house only a mile from the ocean with lots of friends, a great husband, a really cute dog, and a good job.  From the outside looking in, my life was great.  Inside me, however, everything was dark, black, and unbearable.  I had struggled with depression prior to my vulvodynia diagnosis, but the onset of physical symptoms seemed to bring a whole new level of depression into my world.  I couldn’t find it in myself to enjoy anything, even if my symptoms were slightly less at the moment.  I was too busy worrying when they’d be back, stronger, and whether or not I’d have to live this way forever.  All I could think about were the things I was missing out on and the life I wanted but did not have. 

Looking back on this time, I have a lot of compassion for this me who was suffering so much.  She was in as much emotional pain as she was physical pain, and remembering brings a wash of gratitude into the center of my chest for what I have learned from her.  She went through a lot to bring me to where I am now, and she was a warrior.  She refused to collapse into that black hole of depression and instead took a learning journey right through it to the other side.  She faced the darkness by accepting where she was right then and allowing herself to learn from it.  That is a most humble, self-loving place to be, and I am still in awe of her ability to be there in the face of physical pain.   

I think of it as surrendering.  It felt like it, at the time – I was waving my white flag and saying, “Okay, I’ll stop fighting.”  Realizing the simple truth – I was where I was, no matter how much I resisted, somehow released me from my own mental nightmare.  I know the minute I stopped fighting, stopped resisting the experience, was the minute I began healing.  I didn’t heal overnight, and I quit expecting to heal overnight.  I quit looking for someone outside of me to give me the perfect answer, because they couldn’t.  I turned inward and found the only expert available on myself – Me.  Not the me thinking all those crazy-making thoughts (I’ll never get better, etc.), but the Me beyond those thoughts.  The deeper, smarter, wiser, calmer, intuitive me.  She rocks.   

Let me just introduce you to page 51.  Well, you’ll need to read up to this page to truly understand it, but even if you only read this much of the book (but how, oh how, could you stop there?!!) you would discover an essential piece of information about healing.  On this page, Tolle talks about identifying with a physical problem or illness too much.  In other words, your identity becomes tied up with the illness in your own thoughts – you think “I have vulvodynia,” you say “I have vulvodynia,” and you do both frequently.  It becomes the central focus of your life.  “Since I have vulvodynia, I can’t…”  Or, “If I didn’t have vulvodynia, I could…”  Your thoughts focus on vulvodynia frequently, if not constantly.  You can no longer separate yourself from this illness.  You can’t imagine life without it anymore, even though you long for just that – desperately.   

Read page 51 carefully, because if you can release yourself from this kind of thinking, you will move toward a state of mind that invites healing rather than blocks healing.  You are not your illness.  You are you – the illness can come or go.  If you tie yourself to this illness and think about it constantly, the illness cannot go.   

You are you. 

Who are you, when you think of you without vulvodynia?  Does that very thought – that you are you, not you with vulvodynia – bring you a tiny sense of relief?  

 I reached a point, brought on perhaps by the endless doctor’s appointments, where I just got tired of the word vulvodynia.  I felt irritated every time someone said it.  I felt silly saying it.  I felt embarrassed saying it.  It just didn’t seem right to even say the word in connection with me.  I think my inner self was speaking up, rejecting the illness and the word and asking for health.  I stopped saying “I have vulvodynia.”  I stopped reading about vulvodynia.  I threw the word out of my vocabulary.  When I felt symptoms, I said to myself, “I’m a healthy person who has some symptoms right now.  It’s okay.”  It no longer mattered what those symptoms were, why I had them, or whether or not they were going to go away.  They just were.  Nothing else.   

This was the major turning point in my return to health, the beginning of my discovery regarding  the power of the mind and emotions, and the beginning of my journey towards life coaching, my true North Star (to use Martha Beck language).  So when I read page 51, I felt a welling of gratitude for Tolle, who is sharing with everyone this powerful, incredible secret.   Vulvodynia does not describe you.  You are more than your thoughts, so step outside of them with the breathing techniques I’ve mentioned previously and just discover what you are thinking.  Jot down thoughts that seem prevalent or quite painful in your Thought Log.  It’s always incredible to see what you’re thinking and then to realize you don’t have to buy into it – you are not your thoughts.  You are you.   

I include my iPod in pretty much every breathing and relaxation session I do.  Music is far more powerful than we can even fathom, though someday perhaps science will be able to measure more and more of its effects on our minds and bodies.  Including music in your relaxation session will increase your body’s relaxation response, as long as you use music that you find soothing, of course!  I am a violinist, so I tend to prefer very new age, non-melodic music.  Otherwise, I find myself following the music rather than my breath.  Try different kinds of music and explore what feels right for you.   

Exploring the many recordings of music written specifically for healing can be fun and fascinating.  A lot of people are researching and studying the idea that music has healing power, and it’s really no secret that music influences emotions.  Find the perfect music for you and your switch from panic to peace will be quicker and longer lasting.  As for sound healing, well, I have an open mind.  It certainly can’t hurt to listen to music performed specifically for healing purposes (Dr. Andrew Weil has a fantastic recording that also includes guided imagery).  I have found healing music to be profoundly relaxing, enjoyable to listen to, and very mood-enhancing, which is perhaps the very secret to its power.  The emotions we feel affect us physically, as you know, so the more we can move from negative to positive emotions, the better we will feel mentally and physically.

Besides, with your headphones on and soothing music blocking out other noises, you pretty much can’t help but relax.  It makes it even easier to focus on the breath and invite relaxation into your mind and body.  Some of my favorite sound healers are Jonathan Goldman, Kimba Arem, and Steven Halpern.  Once you start exploring this fascinating genre of music, you just might get hooked – on the sounds, the feelings, and the healing.

When you push the panic button, you also push the adrenaline (and other stress hormones) button. Your sympathetic nervous system is activated, which is what surges your body into fight-or-flight mode.  If you are continually feeling fear and panic, you are continually running your sympathetic nervous system, which I compare to running the heat in your home on hot summer days.  Not only does your electric bill go up, but you suffer discomfort.  Your body is not comfortable continually using the sympathetic nervous system, and it will let you know via increased pain.  You won’t feel well, and you won’t heal.  You will be expending useless energy (electric bill up) that could be focused toward healing.   

The parasympathetic nervous system is in charge of your relaxation and is the part of the autonomic nervous system you want to access.  The more you can power down from your fear and panic state into a calm, restful state, the more you can access your body’s own ability to heal.  This is the second reason to take those ten minute breaks to focus your breath and invite it deeper into your body.  The breathing technique creates a relaxation response in your body by activating the parasympathetic nervous system and immediately pulling you out of your fight-or-flight overdrive.  Moving into this healing state and evoking the relaxation response several times a day will only help both your emotional state and your physiological healing. 

Do you see the genius of your body/emotion connection?  Your emotions serve beautifully as messages to you – little reminders to pay attention.  Fear and panic are your internal sticky-notes reminding you to return to a relaxation response.  The more you listen to these emotions rather than focusing on them and return to your healing state, the better you will feel emotionally and physically.  Soon, you will be spending more time in a healing state than in a fight-or-flight response.  This will feel about ten million times better to you, even with your symptoms still present.  Your symptoms will not be as strong, and your emotions will not be as intense.  Ah, sweet relief.