healing

Be Who You Were Created to Be

~ Solo Chick Traveler ~ Leave a comment

Holy macaroni! I had my first coaching session yesterday–and I was the coach! I’ve been taking free webinars lately all about online marketing, social media marketing, branding and biz building. But you know how she found me? Not through any of that stuff. She found me simply by me being me.

More and more I step into my purpose, spiritually and verbally, and with each action there’s a counter action. It’s like playing Candyland. And in the days prior to this appointment, I was in the Molasses Swamp. My laptop was resisting everything I was trying to do and Apple Support was uncharacteristically, extremely non-supportive. 

Times like these make me think of archery–the arrow gets pulled backwards before launching forward. Most of my best moments, maybe all if I sat and really thought about it, have happened this way. 

During the maiden voyage of my first camper, it started on fire. Being fired lead to me going on a 30-day spiritual retreat that ended up lasting twelve years and completely changed not only my life, but myself. And getting diagnosed with Crohn’s Disease gave me the gift of needing to access the power of the mind-body connection.  

I haven’t talked much here about the book I’m writing Gut Instincts: How To Get Off the Medical Merry-Go-Round and Have a Self-Induced Healing. I was diagnosed over thirty years ago, back when Crohn’s was weird and rare. No one I told had heard of it, much less had it. The book is about how I found my way through the wilderness and healed it. And the coaching business I’m building, Gut Instincts Coaching, is to help people find their answers by following their inner wisdom and guidance. 

My life has been calibrating around this purpose for a while now. And my mind has been spinning with all the ways to let the world know about it. Cutting through the mist like a laser, comes a text asking for a couple hours of my time to help with something someone is writing. 

She’s a new friend I’d met through a mutual friend who’d hired me as a writer for her business. I’m just so entertained by how it all works. Doing what I love–a reset afforded me by a pandemic that took away the work I was doing, hospitality, and gave me time with myself to hear what I really wanted to be doing, helping others–has lead to me doing more of what I love. 

Instead of fitting into various pay scales, I decided on what I was worth and defined my own minimum wage. I’m just starting out so it’s low, but it’ll grow. It always does. Once, as a daycare administrator, I took a center from having two empty classrooms when I was hired to having a waiting list two months later. My last job, playing pool games at resorts here in Key West, (think cruise director, but on land) started with three pools a week and it grew to fifteen. 

I’m not bragging. I’m reporting on what happens when I follow my gut. It never fails me. While the brain is busy thinking and figuring and weighing and analyzing, the gut knows and it broadcasts it like a beacon. In songs and serendipity, inklings and seemingly random encounters. In nudges and nuances. It’s a station you need to be tuned into–an already programmed preset. Just push. 

And the more we listen, the louder it gets. 

Thanks for celebrating this milestone with me. Leave a comment about a time this was true for you and I’ll celebrate with you, too!

“I was smart enough to go through any door that opened.” ~Joan Rivers

I Think I’m Allergic to Being this Far from the Beach

~ Solo Chick Traveler ~ 4 Comments

Soon after arriving here at my current workamping gig, two major things happened. Hurricane Nicole began forming and I got a wicked sinus infection.  When I was a kid, my allergies could get so bad they’d trigger a head-in-a-vice-teeth-hurting sinusitis. Leaning heavily on my inhaler bought me some time, but as I packed to evacuate to a hotel, I had to stop and catch my breath after every trip to the car.  After checking in, I went to the nearest urgent care where they confirmed my suspicions and gave me meds.  I got better.  For a while. 

What began as a headache two nights ago–one I thought might go away once I slept–has morphed into a drill bit spinning into my right temple and an ice pick shoved up my right nostril and into my right eye.  And this is after I’ve taken my last three Excedrin. The ibuprofen the other campground host brought me hasn’t helped either.  So I saddle up and head to the other urgent care where I’m told a different antibiotic would be better.

“That other one really isn’t the best for targeting the sinuses,” says Dr. Dan.

He leaves me there thinking about how hard it was to get my gut bacteria back in balance from the last round and unsure if I want to put my tummy through another. It’s a more holistic answer I crave, void of long waits in the pharmacy pick-up line. An idea streaks across my mind.

“Are you familiar with Colloidal Silver as a treatment?” I ask Dr. Dan as I pass his desk on my way out.

He hems and haws and expresses doubt. Once back in my truck, I Google it. There’s thousands and thousands of reviews about how well it works for all sorts of things. Then I think about how disempowering the whole traditional medicine process often feels. How I didn’t get to offer much input on my treatment plan. How I didn’t learn anything more about my body and how it works. How I felt like a slab of meat on a paper lined table, just another chart to file when it’s done. Adventures into traditional medicine often feel incomplete, lacking in creativity and ignoring the spectrum of natural cures.

What would make me feel better right now, I wondered as I buckled in. I could feel the weight of it pulling me down. I’d felt this despair before in various tender, healing scenarios and this question had always been a trusty compass.

Buy more Christmas wrapping paper.

It seemed such a silly directive. Benign and completely unrelated. But I know better. I know to go how it it resonates rather than reasoning. I don’t know how the events that followed cured me, but they did. There’s this nice kid who works at the Dollar Tree, always says, “Welcome to Dollar Tree” from register #1. But he wasn’t there. While I waited for the couple in front of me to decide on the perfect balloon, he popped up and opened register #2.

“How’s it going?” I made small talk as he scanned my toilet paper, wax paper, stain remover.

“Oh, ya know, gotta take it one day at a time.”  

That’s a 12-Step program slogan.  I shrink it down to tell him where I’m at. “Sometimes one minute at a time.”

This little exchange bonds us somehow. It’s as if a window has opened in the swamp I’m sinking in. We tell each other to “Have a good one,” which feels more like a prayer than some robotic parting words. Once outside, I notice a lightness in my being. I’m not going to get the medicine. I’m just going to have to get better without it. I smile at the afternoon sun warming my face. I applaud myself for not going off on the rude receptionist at the clinic. I think about my cozy camper with my cozy kitty and how grateful I am for both those things. And for that sweet kid as my checker.

Turning the last corner into the park, I’m envisioning my flannel pajamas as the crisp air fills my open window while I talk to the ranger at the entrance gate. Closing in on my site, I notice something. The pressure in my head has eased. My teeth are no longer throbbing. The drill bit in my temple has ceased drilling and the ice pick is gone, too. I look at the time–I’ve got just enough daylight to bike the trail.

I felt good. I felt great! And I didn’t even buy wrapping paper.

A Serendipitous Day Continues

~ Solo Chick Traveler ~ 3 Comments
My flight leaving without me

The total ringing up to $4.20 at a store in the Madison airport was a checkpoint. One of life’s delights. The ‘I’m on the right track’ message they give to be illustrated by what happens at the next airport…

I’m hanging at the food court passing my three hour layover by snacking and writing.  I love when it flows so strongly, my fingers simply taking dictation from the creative ether.  I’m also staying aware of the time and the mounting desire for a window seat.  Finishing up, my gut says: Go now.  Rounding the corner to the gate, the agent is grabbing the intercom to announce the need for volunteers to give up their seats and fly in the morning.  For $400 and a free hotel room.  Already there, I’m first in line.  When no one else volunteers, they bump it up to $600 and an elderly couple steps forward.

I should’ve waited.  

“Good thing you didn’t wait!” the agent says after everyone around me has boarded.  “We only need one seat and you were first.  People wait, but that’s silly.  You all get the highest amount no matter when you volunteer.”

I smile as the little you-fucked-it-up voice inside my head sits back down.  The guidance I felt moving me in Madison has flown along with me.  Turns out, they only need one seat.

Feeling a bit flabby from a day spent mostly sitting down, I decide to resist falling into the crisply made king sized bed, and head to the fitness center.  I’m grinning from how beautiful the hotel and room are.  Damn, Delta!  Inside is a nice looking, nicely built guy lifting weights.  Hopping onto the treadmill, my Midwest niceness—still going strong having spent two weeks there—strikes up some small talk.  He’s got a nice vibe, so I keep talking and check for a wedding ring.

Our conversation broadens to where we’re visiting from and me mentioning Key West brings the follow-up question of What made you move there?  I answer like I always do, because I wanted to be a writer and Key West seemed the best place to make it happen.

“Have I heard of you?” His eyes soften and his smile offers encouragement and hope.

“Not yet, but you will.”  This day has brought out a level of confidence I don’t normally speak with.

His eyes light up and his smile says he’s enjoying this. 

“Jennifer Juniper.  My dad named me after. . . “

“The Donovan song.” 

“Yeah, it came out the year I was born.”

He looks to the ceiling and thinks, “1968?”

I often have to explain the singer and no one’s ever offered the year.  Who is this guy?

“I’m a bit of a music fanatic.”  Words I love to hear, delivered with a glint off the band circling his left ring finger.  

The irony.

The night rolls in, darkness pressing up against the windows surrounding us. We talk music, which gets me sharing some fun facts about my father and the music scene in Madison in the 70s while I bounce around to the elliptical, the bike, the weights.   The topic of my healing memoir gets broached.  I mention Bernie Siegel’s Love, Medicine and Miracles as the kingpin in my long and strong remission from Crohn’s Disease.  He’s an engaged listener, sharing he’s a two-time survivor of cancer.  

“The first time I was twenty-three.  I felt a lump that turned out to be testicular cancer.”  He goes on to say he wouldn’t wish chemo on anyone, makes a face still haunted by it.  “The second time was a couple years ago–prostate cancer.  Go figure.”  He attempts half a smile. 

“I was young, too, when my disease hit.” Our connection widens and deepens as we talk about how isolated our uniqueness made us.  Surrounded by the vibrance and strength of youth, while your body fights against you.  And you in turn try to fight back.  

“I didn’t tell anyone,” he says.

“Me neither.”

A bond is forming–overcoming similar obstacles locks you in with another person. I stop working out, falling into the warmth developing between us.  We talk about the tests of old: drinking barium and watching your insides light up on a monitor above your bed. The need for a sense of humor.  Having good doctors, having not so good doctors. 

“It changes your whole thought process,” my unplanned workout partner states.

I nod at his all encompassing answer to what having a chronic illness is like.

“I was in an intense career with high performance goals and heavy pressure to meet them, flying all over the place.”  The second cancer wrote his resignation letter, giving permission to step into something calmer, lighter.  Healthier.  Confirming a major tenant in my book. . .

A disease has symptoms, but is also a symptom itself of the life we’re leading.  Doctors laser focused on one area miss seeing the person as a whole.  Until we look and treat holistically, there’s little hope of true healing.  I share how I, too, was living at mach-10 speed with my hair on fire when my broken belly yanked me back and demanded I drop a gear.  

Or two.

Then three.

To now, living the life I want and choose because any day, any moment, the rug could get pulled out from under me.  

He nods that he relates.  “I didn’t think I had the option to wait till I retire, like everyone else.”

“Neither quantity nor quality of life is guaranteed when you have a chronic condition.”

He shares he gets scanned every six months.  Instinctively, I hold my breath in empathy of what that must be like. The topic turns to love and inspiration.  

“If not for the love of my mother the first time and the love of my wife the second time…” his voice trails off.

I scan my mind’s files for the person I could say the same about.  “For me, that was God. You definitely need a power greater than yourself to get you through it.  Love is so powerful.”

“I’ve got a friend at my gym back home who told someone my story and it really inspired him.  He wants to write my story, but I’m only just starting to talk about it.  I’ve kept it pretty private, it’s personal.  But the idea someone could be helped by it tugs at me.”

“I look at it like I made withdrawals of others’ stories of strength and miracles to inspire me.  Now, it’s my turn to make a deposit.”

He considers this as the streetlights pierce the surrounding darkness.  Our topic adding more light.  I share how even though my intention was to help others with my story, in writing it I’m reliving it and it’s helping me all over again.  

“I bet your mom would want you to write it.”

Not one to be flippant, he mulls it for a moment and smiles, “Yeah. . . she would.”

Laying in bed, I think of two things.  How I want to be in a hotel room this nice on my own dime, because of my book.  And how I’d like a duplicate of this guy, except single.  He was so attentive and easy to be with.  The warmth and the connection–that’s what I want.  And for a moment, I had it.  If that’s what I’m attracting, even for a half hour, then I must be growing.  I want to grow more.  I want to be in a whole other place personally and professionally by next summer.