DEPRESSION, CHRONIC ILLNESS & THE TRUE MEANING OF CHRISTMAS

When I was a  little kid, I absolutely  loved the Christmas season. I loved the store decorations, the Christmas music, making Christmas cookies and anticipating Santa Claus dropping off presents around the Christmas tree. As I think back I realized that I had only one thought on my mind. “What was I going to get for Christmas? Would Santa get me the toys that I asked him for?” ”Already at my young age, I was conditioned to think  that Santa would make me happy by getting me a toy or a doll. And it did make me happy for awhile. Until it didn’t. 

The perfect Christmas card! (1996)

As I got older, Santa was out of the picture, but my childish thoughts were still focused on what  I would get for Christmas.  Don’t get me wrong. I loved getting together with family and helping my mom with the Christmas preparations but my thoughts always seemed to go to a dream present that would make me happy. Was I being selfish? Or was it something else?

It wasn’t until I became  chronically sick with Lyme disease  that I realized that I didn’t need presents to make me happy. I felt sick every day. I didn’t need presents under the Christmas tree. I now wished to get better.

I wished to be well. I wished to have my life back.

My main symptoms were chronic fatigue, brain fog, depression, digestive problems, hypothyroidism, chemical sensitivities and environmental and food allergies. My sickness brought out the worst in me. I became overwhelmed and stressed  with each passing day. Life was a struggle.  And when you are feeling lousy, the holidays can be slow torture.

I began to resent all the “extra”  Christmas preparations that I felt that I had to do:

• CHRISTMAS CARDS: I grew up believing that Christmas cards were an important part of the Christmas season. I remember counting all the Christmas cards we would receive and my mother making a big deal of it.  When I became a mom, I also  felt it was absolutely necessary to send Christmas  cards, too. But when I got sick, I didn’t have the energy for anything extra, so I dreaded the whole process  of taking the perfect picture of my kids (had to be a photo card!) and writing the addresses on all the  envelopes (about 60). And to top it all off, on Christmas day, my mother would always want to know how many cards I received! So sending Christmas cards became a stressful drama that I ended up resenting instead of enjoying.

• CHRISTMAS SHOPPING: I couldn’t stand all the perfumes and fake evergreen scents that permeated stores and my  overly sensitive eyes burned and teared up from the florescent lighting.

• CHRISTMAS BAKING: Sugar, sweets, etc., caused my symptoms to worsen so I had to stop eating it. As a result, baking all these goodies that I couldn’t eat made me feel  exhausted and deprived.

• CHRISTMAS DECORATING: I decorated my house to cheer myself up but I confess I also felt I had to  to keep up with my friends who lavishly over decorated their homes.

• CHRISTMAS PARTIES:  I couldn’t drink - my already fuzzy brain couldn’t handle alcohol.

For many years, I just wasn’t in the Christmas spirit.  Christmas had become an obligation.

And ... depressing!

When I began to slowly recover from chronic illness, I started to become aware of my thoughts. I was awakened to the thought that happiness  comes from within. And then the next time Christmas rolled around, I began to change my tune. I realized that I had forgotten the real meaning of Christmas. The real meaning had nothing to do with sending Christmas cards, shopping for the perfect gift, baking or decorating.

The real meaning is celebrating the birth of Jesus Christ - the greatest healer and teacher of all time. Jesus brought us  the true  Christmas message:  unconditional love, forgiveness and compassion. Jesus healed through unconditional love. Jesus taught us “to forgive those who hurt you.” Jesus taught us to have compassion for the poor and the suffering. He taught us not judge each other.  Jesus taught us that God is within each of us and that we are unconditional love. Jesus taught us the golden rule: "Do unto others as they would do unto you.”

And this is why we celebrate Christmas. And with this new realization, I began to feel better during the Christmas season. Instead of feeling burdened, I began to feel blessed! Instead of feeling deprived, I began to feel thankful! Instead of feeling depressed and alone in my dark thoughts, I began to have more loving thoughts toward myself and others.  And, of course, I had to dial down on the holiday activities that were stressing me out!

So now I can relax a little more and enjoy the Christmas season. I send cards to only those who send me cards and I’m not pressured to send them before Christmas. I do my holiday shopping mostly online! I bake a traditional dessert for Christmas Day and make a healthier and satisfying substitute for myself. And if I feel like it, I will decorate a little. I’m not comparing myself to anyone any more. It just doesn’t make me feel good. And since my recovery I am clear headed, so I can drink a little wine on social occasions.

I can now say that I feel blessed and thankful during the holidays.The child in me has reemerged and she has no expectations and no obligations. I am thankful for everything that I have. And I am happy just to be.

Each of us  can live with the Christmas spirit of goodwill, love and compassion every day of our lives - no matter what our religion is.  For we are all a  part of God’s unconditional love here on Earth.

And with that joyous thought, I wish everyone a Blessed Christmas and a Happy, Healthy and Safe New Year!

God Bless Us!  

LIME MEDICINE TEA

This is the time of the year that everyone seems to be coming down with some kind of bug or cold. Well, thanks to my friend, Roman Hanis, Co-founder and Director of the Center for Indigenous Medicine of the Paititi Institute*, I have a secret recipe from the Amazon that is a great remedy for boosting up your immune system and staying healthy.

Lime Tea or as I would prefer to call it, Lime Medicine Tea, was discovered when the Paititi Institute was looking to find a natural cure for Malaria. Through research, experiments and interviewing local tribes, they found that Lime Tea was very effective in preventing Malaria. The Lime Tea “helps eliminate the protozoa of Malaria from the blood system of the affected individual before they are able to penetrate into the liver, plant eggs and reproduce.”

This is how powerful this tea is!

And it is so simple to make!

So even though I do not live in a malarial zone, I began to make LimeTea over this past summer. This is my new go to remedy when I’m feeling like I’m under the weather or vulnerable to colds or viruses.

So I’m inviting you to try Lime Tea  -  the secret medicine from the Amazon -  and boost up your immune system...naturally!

  Lime Medicine Tea

This recipe is for about 2-3 one cup servings. You can use a combination of lemons and limes, too!

Cut up 5 limes (rinsed and scrubbed)  into small pieces and put the limes - including the skins and seeds - into a pot. (I use a 3 quart pot.)

Add 3 cups of water, cover pot and boil for 30 minutes. (I bring the tea to a hard boil then lightly boil for 30 minutes.)

Let the tea cool and squeeze all of the liquid and pulp out of the limes. Discard the skins.

Drink one cup  30 minutes to an hour before breakfast and dinner. This is preferable in order not to interfere with digestion. Two portions a day work the most effectively. Refrigerate the unused portions.

Supplement with a probiotic, kefir, sauerkraut,  kombucha, etc. to replenish the positive gastrointestinal flora. - Ripples of Awakening: Malaria Resolved Through Natural Means by Roman Hanis.

*The Paititi Institute is a non-profit educational center located on 100 acres in the Peruvian Amazon Rainforest. “The center has been established as a model community, incorporating permaculture restoration and reforesting projects, forest gardens, a living library of medicinal plants, a department for Indigenous studies, and a traditional Amazonian healing center."

Roman Hanis and The Paititi Institute are featured in the documentary, The Sacred Science.

ANITA MOORJANI - UNCONDITIONAL LOVE HEALS

“In the tapestry of life, we’re all connected. Each one of us is a gift to those around us, helping each other be who we are, weaving a perfect picture together. When I was in the NDE (Near Death Experience), state, it all became so clear to me because I understood that to be me is to be love.  This is the lesson that saved my life.” - Anita Moorjani, author of Dying To Be Me

“Many of us still believe that we have to work at being loving, but that means living in duality, because there’s a giver and a receiver. Realizing that we are love transcends this. It means understanding that there’s no separation between you and me, and if I’m aware that I am love, then I know that you are, too. If I care for myself, then I automatically feel the same for you!

In my NDE state, I realized that the entire universe is composed of unconditional love, and I’m an expression of this. Every atom, molecule, quark, and tetraquark, is made of love. I can be nothing else, because this is my essence and the nature of the entire universe. Even things that seem negative are all part of the infinite, unconditional spectrum of love. In fact, Universal life-force energy is love, and I’m composed of Universal energy! Realizing this made me understand that I didn’t have to try to become someone else in order to be worthy. I already am all that I could attempt to be.

Similarly, when we know that we are love, we don’t need to work at being loving toward others. Instead, we just have to be true to ourselves, and we become instruments of loving energy, which touches everyone we come into contact with.

Being love, also means being aware of the importance of nurturing my own soul, taking care of my own needs, and not putting myself last all the time. This allows me to be true to myself at all times and to treat myself with total respect and kindness. It also lets me view what may be interpreted as imperfections and mistakes with no judgement, seeing only opportunities to experience and to learn with unconditional love.” - Anita Moorjani

Anita Moorjani, author of the bestselling memoir, DYING TO BE ME, healed from terminal cancer, as a result of having a NDE (Near Death Experience). ( See Anita Moorjani - Fear Caused My Cancer). Her profound experience gave her a new awareness and changed her perspective on how she saw herself and her world. This new awareness gave her the ability to heal herself within 5 weeks. She is still healthy today and is known world-wide for her insights that she gained from experiencing  the “other realm”.

Watch this interview of Anita. It is a 30 minute interview that changed my life. She speaks with absolute clarity, articulation and passion.  You just know she is on to something. I believe she has found a path of awareness for each of us to learn by - if we choose to believe her impassioned words.

Anita Moorjani’s NDE gave her the realization that we are love and love heals! Love is our true essence. When she saw herself as loving, her world became a reflection of her thoughts. By accessing the unconditional, non-judgmental love within her, she was able to heal herself.

I don’t know anyone who has experienced a NDE. But I know that you don’t need to have an NDE in order to gain insight and awareness. Like Anita, I have had a profound experience that changed my life and made me realize one very important thing:

Change comes from within.

When I began to break through the fears that were blocking me from  fully expressing myself, my world began to change. When I broke through the self-judging, the  self-criticism  and the fear of not being good enough, I realized that I was free to be me!

In other words, when you “free your mind” and follow your passion, live to create and access the love that you truly are...miracles do happen!!!

ANITA MOORJANI..."FEAR CAUSED MY CANCER."

“Fear is very subtle, and it can creep up gradually without our even noticing it. Looking back, I see that most of us are taught from a very young age to be afraid…”

Have you ever heard of Anita Moorjani? She is the  author of the  bestselling  book, DYING TO BE ME, a fascinating and enlightening memoir about how she overcame cancer as a result of having a NDE (Near Death Experience).

“After fighting cancer (lymphoma), for almost  four years, her body shut down - overwhelmed by the malignant cells spreading throughout her system. As her organs failed, she entered into an extraordinary near-death experience  where she realized her inherent worth...and the actual cause of her disease. Upon regaining consciousness, Anita found her condition had improved so rapidly that she was released from the hospital within weeks - without a trace of cancer in her body.”

As a result of what Anita had learned through her NDE, her perspective on how she saw herself changed and she realized that she had the power to heal herself. And she did.

Anita believes that it was her overwhelming sense of fear that caused her cancer!

So what was she afraid of?

“Just about everything, including failing, being disliked, letting people down, and not being good enough. I also feared illness, cancer in particular, as well as the treatment (chemotherapy) for cancer. I was afraid of living, and I was terrified of dying…

After my best friend, Soni, and brother-in-law were both diagnosed with cancer, I started to develop a deep fear of the disease...I began to do everything that I could to keep from getting sick. However, the more I read about prevention, the more I felt I had a reason to be afraid. It seemed to me that everything caused cancer. I read about how pathogens in the environment and food were carcinogenic. Microwaves, using plastic containers for food, eating anything with preservatives, using mobile phones - they all seemed to cause cancer. The list just went on and on....

Soni died while on chemo and this just exacerbated my fears...

Slowly, I found myself terrified of both dying and living. It was almost as if I were being caged by my fears. My experiencing of life was getting smaller and smaller, because to me, the world was a menacing place. And then I was diagnosed with cancer.”

WOW!!! This was incredible! This was a revelation!

Was this a coincidence that Anita’s emotional state before  and during her sickness was almost identical to mine? I felt the fear and anxiety that she was talking about. “I’m not good enough” was my mantra for my whole life!  I also believed the world was a “menacing place”. Especially being outside in nature - where ticks and mosquitoes can bite you  and  possibly make you sick.  

When I was diagnosed with Lyme Disease (MSIDS - Multi-Systemic Infectious Disease Syndrome), I clearly remember being terrified of getting Lyme before I got sick.  And after I got sick, I was desperate to get well, but terrified that I wouldn’t. I was totally frustrated, confused, depressed and most of all, scared. I truly believed that God was punishing me for some unknown reason. Read my blog post, I Think I’m Getting The Fear, that reveals my Lyme paranoia.

And, like Anita, I  believe that  this subtle thread of fear weaved throughout my thoughts from a young age.

Coincidentally, like Anita, my fears of death started as a child and were introduced to me through the teachings of the Catholic Church. Even though Anita was raised Hindu and I was Christian, our experiences are remarkably similar.

I was raised as a non-practicing Christian which means we celebrated Christmas and Easter but  we didn’t go to church and I wasn’t baptized when I was a baby. (This is a long story!) Back then, the Catholic religion taught that if you weren’t baptized or went to church on Sundays, then you would go to hell. When my Catholic cousins or school mates found out that I wasn’t baptized, they told me what they were taught - I was going to HELL!! This was the beginning of my nightmares of Jesus dragging me to hell, and Jesus scolding and punishing me.  And, you guessed it, I was terrified of Jesus, too!

I finally  was baptized at the age of eleven and became Catholic. I know now that I was  motivated to become Catholic  by one thing and one thing only: fear. But becoming Catholic didn’t put me at ease or resolve my fears - especially my fear of death. I was baptized now - so this meant  I was going to heaven.  But this still didn’t comfort me. I was still afraid of the unknown. I was also afraid of winding up in limbo - the place between heaven and hell. Or worse yet, what if I stop existing altogether?

I admit this was a lot of deep thinking for an eleven year old!   I believe my overwhelming fear  of dying catapulted into other fears and  anxieties  and remained in  my sub-conscious  thoughts throughout my whole life. Could these  thoughts manifest into sickness? Absolutely!  I believe that my  root cause to my illness was unresolved emotional trauma - in other words...FEAR!  

Many many years later,when I started to release my fears and started to access the love within me, I began to heal.

In Chapter 15, Anita talks about why she got sick:

“While I was in that state of clarity in the other realm, I instinctively understood that I was dying because of all my fears. I wasn’t expressing my true self because my worries were preventing me from doing so. I understood that the cancer wasn’t a punishment or anything like that. It was just my own energy, manifesting as cancer because my fears weren’t allowing me to express myself as the magnificent force I was meant to be.

In that expansive state, I realized how harshly I’d treated myself and judged myself throughout my life. There was nobody punishing me. I finally understood that it was me I hadn’t forgiven, not other people. I was the one who was judging me, whom I’d forsaken, and whom I didn’t love enough. I saw myself as a beautiful child of the universe. Just the fact that I existed made me deserving of unconditional love. I realized that I didn’t need to do anything to deserve this - not pray, nor beg, nor anything else. I saw that I’d never loved myself, valued myself, or seen the beauty of my own soul. Although the unconditional magnificence was always there for me, it felt as though physical life had somehow filtered it out or even eroded it away.

This understanding made me realize that I no longer had anything to fear.”

Anita’s experience allowed her “true self to shine through and release her fears.”

But Anita’s experience was extraordinary and unique! So how can you release your fears without experiencing an NDE?  

As for myself, I am still learning to re-condition my thoughts to serve me.  This is a daily process. By being aware of my thoughts, reading books by spiritual teachers, using my intuition, practicing MFT (tapping) and getting professional help to release past trauma, I  believe that I am on the road to a fulfilling and healthy life.

The therapies of Dr. Michael Gurevich, such as APN ( Applied Psycho-Neurobiology) and Neural Therapy, helped me to release fears. Read “I Think I’m Getting the Fear” and “ I Must Not Fear...Fear is the MInd-Killer” for my APN session with Dr. Gurevich. For more info on APN, read The Healing Crisis - for my APN session with Dr. Sharon Rasa.

Kathy Moser, a CranioSacral Therapist of Balanced Health and Healing, has helped me to connect to my Spiritual Self and disconnect my egoistic thoughts of  fear, anger and most of all...seeing myself as a victim!  Read CranioSacral Therapy and Somato Emotional Release for more info and  my own CST session with Kathy.

I have learned that I have the power to heal myself. MFT( Mental Field Therapy), consisting of tapping on acupuncture points, is an effective way to change negative thought patterns of fear into new thoughts of love, gratitude and forgiveness. Whenever I feel stuck in a negative thought pattern, MFT is my first go to method for releasing unresolved patterns. Read more on MFT and how I worked through my fear of chronic sickness.

“I understood that the reason that I got sick and then chose to come back was to serve as an instrument for healing to take place in others - not just physical healing, but more important, emotional healing, since our feelings are actually what drive our physical reality...”

I agree with Anita.  Our inner thoughts create our physical world. We are what we think and to quote Louise Hay - “your present thoughts create future experiences.” Our thoughts are energy and energy can be changed. Emotions are energy and emotions can be changed!

I am learning to change the fear...to love. ‘Cause that is what it is all about. When you change your thoughts - you change your world.

And loving thoughts…. create a loving world.

To be cont....

All quotes from the book, DYING TO BE ME, by Anita Moorjani.

© Danette C. Whelan 2015