Beyond Fibromyalgia

I Wish You Enough!

by Bindu Johnson | Jun 6, 2022 | Emotional Health

Today, I came across this story and thought I would share it with you. Enjoy!

Recently I overheard a mother and daughter in their last moments together at the airport. They had announced the departure. Standing near the security gate, they hugged and the mother said “I love you and I wish you enough.”

The daughter replied, “Mom, our life together has been more than enough. Your love is all I ever needed. I wish you enough, too, Mom.” They kissed and the daughter left.

The mother walked over to the window where I was seated. Standing there I could see she wanted and needed to cry. I tried not to intrude on her privacy but she welcomed me in by asking “Did you ever say good-bye to someone knowing it would be forever?”

“Yes, I have,” I replied. “Forgive me for asking but why is this is a forever good-bye?”

“I am old and she lives so far away. I have challenges ahead and the reality is the next trip back will be for my funeral” she said.

“When you were saying good-bye, I heard you say ‘I wish you enough’. May I ask what that means?”

She began to smile. “That’s a wish that has been handed down from other generations. My parents used to say it to everyone”.

She paused a moment and looked up as if trying to remember it in detail and she smiled even more. “When we said ‘I wish you enough’ we were wanting the other person to have a life filled with enough good things to sustain them”. Then turning toward me she shared the following as if she were reciting it from memory:

I wish you enough sun to keep your attitude bright.

I wish you enough rain to appreciate the sun more.

I wish you enough happiness to keep your spirit alive.

I wish you enough pain so that the smallest joys in life appear much bigger.

I wish you enough gain to satisfy your wanting.

I wish you enough loss to appreciate all that you possess.

I wish you enough hellos to get you through the final good-bye.

She then began to cry and walked away.

They say it takes a minute to find a special person, an hour to appreciate them, a day to love them, but then an entire life to forget them.

Author Unknown

May You Always Have Enough!

❤ Bindu

Stay Tuned – Beginning July 1

I have been doing some great work getting materials created for this. I look forward to sharing them with you. My hope is to have all ready to go by July 1 or sooner.

Designed for fibromyalgia and beneficial to everyone. Revitalize your body, calm your mind, embrace your heart, discover inner peace. Includes:

Integrative Movement – yoga, tai chi chi gong, inner dance, joint freeing and more.

Relax, Meditate and Rejuvenate – guided relaxation, breath work, and meditation.

Click here to learn more!

The Power of Awareness

by Bindu Johnson | May 30, 2022 | Care of the Body, Emotional Health, Personal Growth

A lot of what I teach is awareness. Perhaps it would be helpful for me to describe what I mean by awareness and why it is so important.

What is Awareness?

We are very complex beings. We are multi-dimensional. By multi-dimensional, I mean that we have a physical body, emotional body, mental body, energetic body and a spiritual body. Within each of these dimensions are many energies and processes that function to give us the experience we have. Most of these processes and functions go on behind the scene and beyond our conscious awareness.

That is part of the grand design of a human being. Our heart beats without us needing to do anything. Our lungs breath without us knowing how this happens. We feel things, emotionally and energetically. Our mind thinks without our volition. We have cellular memories of our past that are subtle images playing continuously. All this and more is going on in the background creating what we experience moment to moment. Most of this we are not consciously aware of.

When we build awareness, we are choosing to bring into awareness some of these “programs” running in the background. We become more aware of our thoughts, emotions, physical sensations, energies, memories and soul.

Why is Awareness Important?

Awareness is important because it is these background happenings that create our experience of life. By becoming more aware of what is going on behind the scene, we can and will change the experience of our life. We can become the co-creator of our experience rather than the victims of our past and our conditioning.

Does this sound intriguing? Interesting? In my experience, becoming more aware has been a wonderful experience for me. I have changed and evolved in many ways that I could never have imagined. With increased awareness, we can impact our physical health, improve our relationships with others, improve our mood, get better sleep, enjoy life and more. We will experience a fullness of life that isn’t possible without increased awareness.

That is all I will say for today. But I will continue with this in future posts.

May your awareness grow,

❤️Bindu

Stay Tuned – Coming Soon

Designed for fibromyalgia and beneficial to everyone. Revitalize your body, calm your mind, embrace your heart, discover inner peace. Includes:

Integrative Movement – yoga, tai chi chi gong, inner dance, joint freeing and more.

Relax, Meditate and Rejuvenate – guided relaxation, breath work, and meditation.

Click here to learn more!

Fibromyalgia, Trauma, and the Five Elements

by Bindu Johnson | Jun 15, 2020 | Emotional Health

The 5-element theory from the ancient Chinese system of healing can add a further understanding of how trauma creates health problems in the physical body.

A simple understanding of the 5 Element Theory

The Five Element Theory is the foundation of the ancient Chinese system of healing. It includes awareness of the meridian system, 5 elements of life, emotions and the relationships between the organ systems and symptoms.

The five elements are Wind, Fire, Water, Metal and Earth. Each of the elements relate to a pair of meridians, emotions, and organs. All symptoms in the body will relate to one of these elements.

Here is an image showing the relationships between the elements, organs and emotions:

According to the Five Element Theory, the health of the organism / body is dependent upon the flow of the energy through the body via the meridians. If a meridian is blocked or weak, the functionality of that organ or the related organs and give rise to symptoms in the body.

How this relates to trauma

A trauma can be defined as an experience that is overwhelming to the individual that cannot be fully felt, integrated, and released. In other words, a part of the individual gets frozen in time and the flow of energy gets blocked. As emotions are energy-in-motion, this translates into emotions being held within the body.

When you feel an emotion, you are simply feeling the flow of energy through your body. If the emotions are blocked or repressed, the flow of the energy gets compromised and the related organ system become compromised leading to symptoms. The symptoms are the body’s way of signaling to you, that there is a problem that needs to be resolved. Once the emotion is felt, the trauma is resolved, the energy moves, the flow of energy is restored, and symptoms can resolve.

A trauma does not have to be a huge event. It can be a small incident. Yet if many small incidents collect over time, the body can reach its toleration point and then one final event can break the camel’s back . . . so to speak.

Ongoing stresses in your life can have the same impact as a trauma. Such as ongoing financial stress, work related stress, family stress, or relationship issues. When you are stressed about a situation, you can contract physically, emotionally or energetically, which also leads to reduced flow of energy.

Complimentary with other approaches

Our modern system of medicine looks at a symptom as something that needs to be gotten rid of. It does not generally appreciate the symptom as a signal from the body that something needs to be resolved. Medications are given that relieve symptoms, yet the underlying imbalance is often not resolved.

This can be very helpful for intense symptoms, yet, unless the underlying imbalance is resolved, the imbalance may lead to additional symptoms or worse symptoms. Also, medications normally have side effects which can create additional problems.

Even dietary, exercise, lifestyle changes, herbs and supplements can be complimented by resolving trauma for the greatest results.

The interrelationship of the organ systems

Another factor to consider is the interconnected relationship between the organ systems. For example, unresolved grief, impacting the lungs and large intestine, may lead to anger which impacts the liver and gall bladder. The symptoms the show up may be related to the liver and gallbladder, but the underlying cause is the grief.

In the Chinese system, all spiritual, mental, emotional, and physical symptoms can be traced to one of the organ systems. Stay tuned for additional blogs addressing this!

How this applies to Fibromyalgia

In the case of fibromyalgia, there are often multiple traumas. Often a build up over time of small traumas that eventually lead to a breakdown.

When we have traumas and suppressed emotions, our mind attempts to create a mental understanding of why we feel the way we do. This can lead to unconscious beliefs, that block our happiness and health and undermine our authenticity, vitality, and passion. The most commonly held underlying belief is, “there is something wrong with me” or some variation of that.

From my perspective a well-balanced treatment plan for fibromyalgia, would include a way to resolve the underlying trauma(s). Resolving the traumas not only lead to a reduction in symptoms, but also a greater sense of inner peace, empowerment, and fulfillment.

I often get referrals from medical doctors and holistic practitioners to assist their patients with resolving the underlying emotional and psychological imbalances. They deem this to be an important part of a patient’s treatment program.

It is rewarding to see that there is a growing awareness of the importance of healing the heart and emotional wounds in the field of fibromyalgia and other chronic health issues.

Assistance is available

If you would like some one on one help in this area, I offer a free Discovery Session to explore your situation and see if we would be a good fit. You can request the Discovery Session via this link. All sessions can be done via phone, skype or zoom!

I will also be unveiling group programs sometime this year, so stay tuned!

May you grow in health and happiness.

Bindu

Fibromyalgia, Trauma and GNM

by Bindu Johnson | Jun 1, 2020 | Care of the Body, Emotional Health

Introducing German New Medicine (GNM)

Another look at the connection between trauma and fibromyalgia comes from a relatively new study by a German Physician named Ryke Geerd Hamer. Dr. Hamer was diagnosed with prostate cancer several months after his 17-year-old son was killed in a shooting accident. Dr Hamer intuitively asked the question, “Is my cancer diagnosis related the shock of my son’s death?” To find the answer to that question, he spent many years researching, studying and documenting the relationship between trauma and physical illness. What he discovered was revolutionary and will change the course of health care in the years to come.

Dr Hamer found that the human body is an amazing conscious organism that is guided by divine intelligence. It is more intelligent and capable than the human mind can even begin to comprehend. It is designed to survive, to adapt to changes and challenges in its environment and, most importantly, to heal itself.

The impact of trauma

Dr Hamer discovered that when a person experiences a trauma or an unexpected negative event, a series of changes begin to occur in the body. The event could be a major even such as the death of a loved one or as simple as getting stuck in a traffic jam making you late for an important meeting.

At the moment of the distressing event, we are now considered to be “conflict active” and a lesion appears in the brain in a specific location. Then a biochemical signal is sent to a specific organ or tissue in the body causing changes to occur in the organ or tissue. These changes involve growing or losing cells to make that specific organ or tissue stronger or weaker. The location of the lesion and the organ or tissues in the body that are affected, depends on how the psyche interprets the event.

Our nervous system becomes sympathetic dominant. This is the part of our nervous system that wakes us up, keeps us alert and functional during the day, and rises to the occasion to respond to a threat.

The changes occurring in the affected organ or tissue are assisting us so we’re in a better position to manage the unexpected event. There aren’t many symptoms during this phase, but signs that you are “conflict active” include having clammy hands, nausea, a racing mind, and an inability to sleep.

The Healing Phase

Once the conflict is resolved, your nervous system changes and your body responds by addressing the changes that occurred in the conflict active phase. If you grew cells, you’ll now break them down; if you lost cells, you’ll now replenish them. This phase is called the healing phase. You now experience (there generally were NO symptoms before this) symptoms in the body as the parasympathetic side of the nervous system becomes dominate. This is when we are tired, in pain, and need to rest and take care of ourselves so our bodies can heal. In Dr Hamer’s research, it became clear that the symptoms were simply the body’s way of healing itself, reversing the changes that occurred after the shock and returning to balance or homeostasis.

If the conflict isn’t resolved, the trauma or negative experience can be re-triggered again and again, keeping us stuck in a never-ending cycle of re-traumatization and ongoing symptoms.

Let’s look how this applies to fibromyalgia.

Fibromyalgia is the medical term for widespread muscle pain of unknown origin. From the perspective on German New Medicine, “fibromyalgia” indicates a long-lasting healing of a generalized self-devaluation conflict affecting the whole person. In my case, working through my lack of self-esteem and self-confidence and trusting in myself and my inner knowing has been a major factor in my process of rebuilding my health.

It seems to be very common for women with fibromyalgia to feel unheard and not believed. They are often misunderstood by others who cannot understand or relate to the difficulties of the fatigue and pain she struggles with every single day. When you add the insomnia and depression and other symptoms such as IBS, daily life can feel like sheer torture.

There were many years when simply getting up in the morning and struggling to be functional was all I could manage. And after years and years of pushing through the fatigue and pain, my body completely gave out. I had to rest. Rather than continuing to push myself, I had to look inside and resolve the underlying metaphysical causes of my fibromyalgia. I continue to work on that but doing so has helped me make huge shifts in my physical, mental and emotional health.

Symptoms vary from person to person based on your own unique situation and the intensity of the pain. However, we gain a new perspective when we learn GNM. We learn new insights into the underlying trauma or negative life experience that began the symptoms and continues to keep them active.

German New Medicine can support us in rebuilding our health

Once we correlate when the symptoms started with the negative events in a woman’s life, we understand the events that created the conflict shock. We can then begin to resolve our relationship to the events and reminders of that event and support the body in releasing the cycle of ongoing re-traumatization and symptoms.

When we understand our symptoms as the body’s process of healing itself we can release the fear and support the body in the healing phase.

If you would like to learn more about German New Medicine, click here to watch a free mini-course on new German Medicine. The mini-course consists of 8 short videos about 4-10 minutes in length. Once you have watched the mini-course, you are invited to contact me for a German New Medicine Consultation. Simply visit my contact page and request a New German Consultation at a discounted price of $97 or sign up for a complementary Discovery Session

Until next week, Bindu

The Power of Compassion

by Bindu Johnson | Apr 20, 2020 | Emotional Health, Self Love

Last week, we looked at the Power of Acceptance. About how we have been programed to judge and push away parts of who we are, either because they are what we deem bad parts or even our gifts that seemed unacceptable to those who raised us. We talked about how accepting these parts of us allows us to explore and reconsider decisions we made growing up to fit in, receive love and acceptance and perhaps even to feel safe.

Let’s bring compassion into the picture

This week, we are going to take a next step. We are going to explore the power of compassion. Compassion brings into play empathy. Compassion is the feeling of true acceptance; of allowing the hardness of our heart to melt as we encounter aspects of our self that we judge or condemn.

Maybe you say, I accept that part of me. But is that acceptance true? Are you secretly saying to accept it only hoping that it will go away? Do you secretly feel shame because of that part?

Compassion is about feeling and empathy

Compassion happens when we feel into and understand our parts. When we understand that all our parts are there for a purpose. That in their own, often misguided way, have our best interest at heart.

Here is an example from my life:

I have a part that doesn’t trust other people. I judge myself for not trusting other people. I see how it can lead to isolation and pushing others away. I judge that as wrong and feel like there is something wrong with me.

When I feel into that part, I notice the emotion of fear. I feel that fear in my belly. When I feel into that, fear, I notice that underneath the fear is sadness and hurt. Memories of being hurt, abused and tormented by other people begin to surface. Feelings of being alone and unprotected. Feelings of being powerless and unsafe. I decided that people weren’t safe. I was alone and I had to do it myself. I had to take care of myself because nobody else would. I became a loner.

With all this information, I can understand why I don’t trust people. People from my past hurt me, emotionally and physically. At the time, I wasn’t safe. I didn’t feel safe. I needed to distance myself from those who would hurt me to stay safe. I became invisible and small. I needed to stay out of their radar. By doing that, I was safer. The choices I made at the time kept me safer and allow me to survive my childhood.

In my adult life, I continued to live by these beliefs and actions. I was small. I was afraid to step out and be seen. I didn’t thrive in life. I didn’t feel fulfilled or loved. And I was afraid. I had many health issues.

By understanding all of this, I could have compassion for myself. I could embrace the part of me that was frightened and needed to be small and push people away. I could understand why I didn’t trust people. I also realized that I had often attracted people to me that treated me with the same disrespect. I was reliving the experience from my childhood again and again.

Yet, now I am an adult. I have resources available that I didn’t then. I could reconsider my choices. At the time, I did what I needed to do to survive and feel safe. I survived my childhood. I grew into an adult. Yet, I had to ask, if these choices were still serving me. Are the decisions I made still true. Are the strategies that I adopted to survive still needed and effective. What is the cost of staying safe? Is what I am losing out on, worth the perceived safety?

From that perspective, I could make different choices. I could use the power of discernment to choose who I let into my life and who I wouldn’t. I could practice self-love by saying no to people who treated me with disrespect or hurt me. I could find new friends whom I felt safe with. I could let people in and feel connected rather than isolated. I could ask for help and not feel I had to do it all alone.

By calling on the power of Compassion we can transform

By accepting and having compassion for the part of me that didn’t trust people, I was able to discover the fear and hurt inside. I could understand the choices I made to keep myself safe. I could reconsider and make different choices. But without acceptance and compassion and some self-inquiry, I was stuck and alone.

Now I have loving considerate friends. I feel connected to myself and to others. I use discernment when I meet people and discretion as to who I allow in my inner circle of close friends. I can ask for help and not feel like I am all alone and frightened all the time.

Also, by going through this process and feeling and accepting with compassion suppressed emotions and creating a life where I didn’t need to be fearful, my body began to heal in ways that it hadn’t before. Pain reduced, sleep improved, fatigue lessened, anxiety dropped, contentment improved.

Transformation is a process

This transformation has been a process. And challenging at times. The fearful part of me, had to take some risks to trust and try a different way of being. Had to risk saying no to people that weren’t respectful or that just didn’t resonate with me. I had to stop being a people pleaser and listen to my deeper inner voice and make the best choice for my well-being even if someone else didn’t approve of it.

It is worth the effort

It was totally worth the effort. I will have many more years of inner peace, love and greater fulfillment for understanding and shifting the old patterns of protection into new patterns of empowerment and self-love. This process allowed me to stop playing small and to access my inner gifts and share them with the world. And finding great fulfillment in that.

The awareness, acceptance and compassion were instrumental in supporting this inner transformation and freeing me from a life of misery and delivering me into a life of freedom, joy and fulfillment. I wish that for you too. That you can meet yourself with awareness, acceptance and compassion to set yourself on the path of transformation and inner peace, fulfillment and improved health.

Awareness Practice for this week:

Take some time this week to sit with parts of yourself that you judge.
Do some self-inquiry to identify emotions, thoughts, beliefs, memories and physical sensations connected with that part.
Watch what happens.

Receiving help for your transformation

I understand this can be a challenging to do alone. I am working on some affordable programs to support you in this work:

Reclaim your Power Program – a 21-day program to guide you step by step on how to connect with your body, heart, emotions and soul.
An online group program entitled, “Healing the Pain Body”, where we can come together to support each other in this transformation.
As always, I also offer one on one sessions to assist you in unraveling the underlying matrix of beliefs, emotions and negative cellular memories to help you to rebuild your health and reclaim your life.

May you meet yourself with compassion, moment by moment.

Bindu

Breaking Free from the Pain Body

by Bindu Johnson | Feb 24, 2020 | Emotional Health

breathing The pain body, is an integral part of fibromyalgia. It is the blend of destructive cellular memories, suppressed emotions, sub and unconscious negative beliefs that cause emotional pain, stress and contribute to physical symptoms.

In order to heal the pain body, it is essential that you break your identification from it. Otherwise, it literally feels like you are trying to kill a part of yourself. Your defenses will come up and sabotage your success.

In order to break your identification with your pain body, we need to develop Witness Consciousness or Awareness.

To understand awareness, we must first understand multi-dimensionality. Multi-dimensionality is the awareness that we are not one-dimensional linear beings. It acknowledges that we are the sum of many parts. The parts can be summarized in 6 dimensions:

Physical – body
Emotions – feelings, emotions
Mind – thoughts, belief systems
Expression – how we interact with others and the world
Spirit – the spark of God, consciousness that is the enlivening of our existence, our connection with God, Consciousness, Spirit
Energy – e=mc2 – meaning everything is energy

Why is this important?

When we are connected with our spiritual essence, we can become “identified” with our body, mind and emotions. We have forgotten that we are more than the body, mind and emotions.

When we have been subject to trauma, negative conditioning, or negative life experiences and haven’t resolved those experiences, they congeal into what is called the pain body. The pain body feels separate from God and everyone else and creates a separate identity to keep itself safe. The downside of this is that it also holds onto its pain.

In order to free our self from the pain body, we need to step outside of the pain body and view it from a detached perspective. Stepping outside of the pain body is accomplished through Witness Consciousness. Witness consciousness is the part of us who can step back and observe the body, mind and emotions. It is intimately connected with our spirit.

How do we do this?

The biggest block to Witness Consciousness is the mind. The mind is where we store memories of our past experiences. It evaluates and creates conclusions about those experiences and makes decisions and forms beliefs based on that. Many of those decisions and beliefs keep us stuck in pain and limitation.

To access Witness consciousness, we need to step outside of the mind. There are many tools to do this. I will provide a few here:

If we connect to our breath and watch our breath, it creates a momentary gap in the stream of thought. That gap is the doorway to Witness Consciousness.

Deepening the breath. When we slow down and deepen the breath, that gap widens, and we come into greater connection with our body and Witness Consciousness.

Pay attention to the current moment. Look around the room. See the furniture, photos on the wall, other people, animals.

If used correctly, positive thinking can quiet the mind. Our minds are habitually filled with negative thoughts and beliefs. When we balance the stream of negative thoughts with positive thoughts, the mind can slow down and become less identified with the old negative thoughts and beliefs.

Becoming aware of our emotions. Many of us demonize our negative emotions and suppress them. Emotions means energy in motion. By suppressing an emotion, we block the flow of energy and create increase tension and pain. We also block our awareness. By breathing and being present with our emotions, we can release the emotion.

Intend to step into awareness. By using this languaging, you are speaking from the witness. It encourages breaking identification with the body, mind and emotions.
- Simply say, my mind is thinking . . .
- A part of me is feeling . . . (insert emotion).
- My body is feeling . . . (insert sensation)

The Benefits of Embracing Witness Consciousness – Awareness

By breaking the identification with the mind, and becoming more aware of our breath, body, emotions, the environment around us, we are entering the present moment and Witness Consciousness.

From a state of witness consciousness or awareness, and its natural connection to our spirit, we can receive answers to the challenges that we have from outside the mind, our conditioning, and our deeply held sub and unconscious belief systems. This new awareness holds the key to healing and transforming every area of your life.

Awareness practice:

Take some time each day, even 2-5 minutes to just stop and notice your breath. When you are at a stop sign, waiting in a line, or every time you open a door. When you go to bed at night or when you first wake up in the morning. Put a reminder on your phone.
Pick any one of the steps above and take some time each day, even 2-5 minutes to practice it.

This begins the process of breaking the identification with the pain body and reclaiming your power.

Stay Tuned

I am working on a new 21 day program called Reclaiming Your Power, that will walk you through steps to break the identification with the pain body and bring you into Witness consciousness and Awareness.