The Awakening by Sonny Carroll

9th
Mar. × ’10
By Carolee

When I read this, it hit me like a ton of bricks. I’d had an awakening! This is exactly what I’m working on, what I’m learning and how I’m arranging my life. On top of that, it’s great writing. There seems to be a longer version (viewable here) that you may also want to check out!

A time comes in your life when you finally get it…when, in the midst of all your fears and insanity, you stop dead in your tracks and somewhere the voice inside your head cries out…ENOUGH. Enough fighting and crying and blaming and struggling to hold on. Then, like a child quieting down after a tantrum, you blink back your tears and begin to look at the world through new eyes.

This is your awakening.

You realize it’s time to stop hoping and waiting for something to change, or for happiness, safety and security to magically appear over the next horizon.

You realize that in the real world there aren’t always fairy tale endings, and that any guarantee of “happily ever after” must begin with you…and in the process a sense of serenity is born of acceptance.

You awaken to the fact that you are not perfect and that not everyone will always love, appreciate or approve of who or what you are…and that’s OK. They are entitled to their own views and opinions.

You learn the importance of loving and championing yourself…and in the process a sense of new found confidence is born of self-approval.

You stop complaining and blaming other people for the things they did to you – or didn’t do for you – and you learn that the only thing you can really count on is the unexpected.

You learn that people don’t always say what they mean or mean what they say and that not everyone will always be there for you and everything isn’t always about you.

So, you learn to stand on your own and to take care of yourself…and in the process a sense of safety and security is born of self-reliance.

You stop judging and pointing fingers and you begin to accept people as they are and to overlook their shortcomings and human frailties…and in the process a sense of peace and contentment is born of forgiveness.

You learn to open up to new worlds and different points of view. You begin reassessing and redefining who you are and what you really stand for.

You learn the difference between wanting and needing and you begin to discard the doctrines and values you’ve outgrown, or should never have bought into to begin with.

You learn that there is power and glory in creating and contributing and you stop maneuvering through life merely as a “consumer” looking for your next fix.

You learn that principles such as honesty and integrity are not the outdated ideals of a bygone era, but the mortar that holds together the foundation upon which you must build a life.

You learn that you don’t know everything, it’s not your job to save the world and that you can’t teach a pig to sing. You learn the only cross to bear is the one you choose to carry and that martyrs get burned at the stake.

Then you learn about love. You learn to look at relationships as they really are and not as you would have them be. You learn that alone does not mean lonely.

You stop trying to control people, situations and outcomes. You learn to distinguish between guilt and responsibility and the importance of setting boundaries and learning to say NO.

You also stop working so hard at putting your feelings aside, smoothing things over and ignoring your needs.

You learn that your body really is your temple. You begin to care for it and treat it with respect. You begin to eat a balanced diet, drinking more water, and take more time to exercise.

You learn that being tired fuels doubt, fear, and uncertainty and so you take more time to rest. And, just as food fuels the body, laughter fuels our soul. So you take more time to laugh and to play.

You learn that, for the most part, you get in life what you deserve, and that much of life truly is a self-fulfilling prophecy.

You learn that anything worth achieving is worth working for and that wishing for something to happen is different than working toward making it happen.

More importantly, you learn that in order to achieve success you need direction, discipline and perseverance. You learn that no one can do it all alone, and that it’s OK to risk asking for help.

You learn the only thing you must truly fear is fear itself. You learn to step right into and through your fears because you know that whatever happens you can handle it and to give in to fear is to give away the right to live life on your own terms.

You learn to fight for your life and not to squander it living under a cloud of impending doom.

You learn that life isn’t always fair, you don’t always get what you think you deserve and that sometimes bad things happen to unsuspecting, good people…and you learn not to always take it personally.

You learn that nobody’s punishing you and everything isn’t always somebody’s fault. It’s just life happening. You learn to admit when you are wrong and to build bridges instead of walls.

You learn that negative feelings such as anger, envy and resentment must be understood and redirected or they will suffocate the life out of you and poison the universe that surrounds you.

You learn to be thankful and to take comfort in many of the simple things we take for granted, things that millions of people upon the earth can only dream about: a full refrigerator, clean running water, a soft warm bed, a long hot shower.

Then, you begin to take responsibility for yourself by yourself and you make yourself a promise to never betray yourself and to never, ever settle for less than you heart’s desire.

You make it a point to keep smiling, to keep trusting, and to stay open to every wonderful possibility.

You hang a wind chime outside your window so you can listen to the wind.

Finally, with courage in you heart, you take a stand, you take a deep breath, and you begin to design the life you want to live as best as you can.

My awakening came after me hitting bottom physically and mentally. It lead to and is supported by the work I’ve done since. The poem is almost somber the way it talks about it, but for me, the awakening was a thing of great joy and the work I’ve done since then has created even more joy.

Have you had your awakening? How did it come to you? Was it a positive or a negative experience?

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PANIC ATTACK! or Feeling 18 All Over Again

26th
Feb. × ’10
By Carolee

I never thought it’d be easy. The road of growth and of actualization is not a smooth one. It’s steep with hairpin turns, big ol’ rocks dropping on you and the occasional goat. I was kind of prepared for all of that. What I wasn’t prepared for was becoming 18 again.

In my younger days, my life was both more simple and far more difficult. I’d just crashed and burned through my first year of college. I was back home and working with my friends at McDonald’s. And above all that, I was sick. My stomach would ache. It was sour. They were worried for a time that I had an ulcer. Come to find out, nope, it was nerves! So off to the therapist and onto Celexa and an anti-anxiety med for “emergencies” (a.k.a. panic attacks).

With time, they subsided. I thought I was growing up, growing out of the old nervousness and in one way, I was. But, what I realize now is that I was actually just dulling myself to them. My body and subconcious mind had decided to conspire to get me to ignore it all. It was working, working really well in fact. Most of the time, my depression was minor. Panic attacks were far more rare. When I finally went totally gluten-free, the depression became non-existant. I felt good thinking I’d conquered this beast.

However, conquering it came with unintended side effects and I decided to try to work through some of my mental blocks. For a very long time, I’ve been uninspired as to my greater calling. My creativity left. And worst of all, my personality felt like it didn’t “fit”. I mean, I could “be me”, but “me” felt wrong. I used to be so distraught. I’d sob as I tried to explain how I felt like there was a different person inside of me and the person I was today fit totally wrong. I’d cry over how fake I felt. I was obsessed with authenticity because I knew I was lying to everyone, including myself. I wasn’t doing it on purpose. I wasn’t sure how I could change it.

Since then, meditation, prayer and lots of relaxation became part of my daily life. As part of me learning about HSPs, I gave myself permission to be low key. Given the space and permission, I’ve become a lot more of an introvert and have been reconnecting to my need to serve rather than to achieve. Of course, I’m now struggling with one of my nastier tendencies: I hold myself to insane standards. I know that, with time, it’ll loosen up. In the meantime though, I’m losing my mind.

I’m sure it’s my ego talking, but, as I described it to a friend, I think my calling is calling more loudly than I’m ready for yet. In private, I joke that I feel 18 again. I know this pain. I know this queasiness… feeling like you’re going to be sick from the feelings and doubt and everything getting the best of you. Thankfully, now, I have meditation. I get into a feeling meditation and just go. It helps calm the belly, but it does not calm the mind. The mind still churns, “Should I force myself to grow? This place I’m in now feels very uncomfortable. I feel like I’m keeping secrets from people by not telling them about who I am now. Do I share? How do I share? Is sharing the right thing to do?”

This time, there is no Ativan and no Celexa. There’s just me and my iPod. I know that all of this is something I can defeat on my own. I know and feel deep inside that there is a plan for me to be huge, to grow and be a role model for others, to write my best-selling book and to be a top notch sought after life coach. People will read my blog and find solace there. I will help my friends and friends-to-be. I’ll leave humanity better than I found it.

But right now, I feel like I’m trapped in a cage of fear. It’s a cage made from the fear of being judged or being seen as I’m not. This is a cage I made for myself and somehow managed to move into. This sickness in my stomach isn’t that fear. The sickness is my rage at the fear. I want nothing more than to move on from this. I need to move beyond this and out of this cage if I’m going to get anywhere. I just wish I knew how to take it apart. Maybe someone will pass me a cake with a file in it! :)

So here I am, at 18 again. The plus side is this time I have an extra 10 years of knowledge to apply to this problem. The downside? I’m still not sure how to use it!

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A Gentle Reminder From Marianne Williamson

23rd
Feb. × ’10
By Carolee

Scribbles

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It’s not just in some of us; it’s in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”

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My Mission or How the Shower Power Hour Gave Me Focus

10th
Feb. × ’10
By Carolee

Some people get their best thinking done after meditating. Others find great thoughts to them come while driving. My best thinking happens in the shower. Not sure what it is about being in the shower. Maybe it’s the white noise from the water, maybe it’s the smell of the shampoo or maybe it’s just because I have nothing else to focus on, but the shower is the time when the great ideas come to me.

Today was no exception. After a day of being shocked by finding beauty in a normal thing, having a great chat with Kristen at herfuture.com and having a quick lunch, it was time to get my day started. I was washing my hair and suddenly, it hit me… at least in a rough draft form. MY MISSION (yes, it’s in big letters because come on, it’s a big thing!), if I should choose to accept it? To empower women, through knowledge and guidance, to live a life of authenticity and joy. Do I accept it? Absolutely!

After hearing it, tweaking it and stewing in it a bit, I was reminded of a recent post on The Art of Non-Conformity called The Small Man Build Cages for Everyone. In this posts, he quotes a Hafiz poem, which I’ll place here as well:

The small man
Builds cages for everyone
He
Knows.
While the sage,
Who has to duck his head
When the moon is low,
Keeps dropping keys all night long
For the
Beautiful
Rowdy
Prisoners.

Later in the post, Chris then implores the reader: “But whatever you do, don’t be the small man building cages. Be the sage, dropping keys for the prisoners.” I took it as a sign. It’s time for me to start dropping keys.

One of the lessons I’ve been having shown to me over and over lately is that I think too “small picture”. I have a tendency to keep things to myself, not because I’m jealous or think it’s some big secret, it’s not! I’m just oddly embarrassed about the changes I’m making. It’s as if I’m concerned what my friends, most of whom are hard-core tech geeks, will think of me now that I’m embracing my hippie-dippie power and really getting in touch with my inner voice. But the progress is undeniable. I’m so different from where I was just a month ago, let alone six weeks ago, six months ago or a year ago. My situation hasn’t changed, my outlook has. These are changes anyone can make if they want to. I wanted to. I had to. I hungered to, so I did. And now, my life is entirely different. How I did it isn’t a mystery, but maybe not something talked about often enough. I like to talk, so maybe it was time for me to start.

This is the first big step. I’ve cleaned up some of the old blog posts on here to make room for focus. Expect to see a lot more stuff on the blog, including videos, about what I’m learning about right then. I’ll be trying to tweet more. Time for me to stop hiding and hoarding and start sharing. Let’s do this together.

Much love, c

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Highly Sensitive People – Are You One?

7th
Feb. × ’10
By Carolee

A lot of people will read the title of this post and think, “me? Sensitive? Even highly sensitive? Never!” At first, that was my reaction as well! I’m decidedly unsensitive, almost to a fault. But something told me to dig further when I heard about it and I’m glad I did. Once upon a time (as in two weeks ago), I would push through pain, brain fog, whatever I needed to do to get things done. I was also exhausted and grumpy, I wasn’t sleeping and was generally having a bad time. Upon reading about highly sensitive people, I decided to take a more proactive approach to managing my stress and stimulation levels. I started relaxing before bed, either by watching fun TV or reading. I walked more. I asked my boyfriend to help watch me and keep me to my commitment to lower my stress levels. I cut back on caffeine and sugar. Not only has it been a boon to my physical health (I have far less pain and am far more well rested than I once was) but I’ve never been better emotionally.

My way of explaining being an HSP to others has been “it’s like having your nervous system turned up to 11 when most people are around seven or eight”. The wiki entry on it explains it best. HSPs “process sensory data much more deeply and thoroughly due to a biological difference in their nervous systems”. Being an HSP isn’t emotional or mental, it’s a genetic physical trait that roughly one in five people has. It’s also been observed in animals! It’s something totally natural and just part of the spectrum of life. Now, being like this can definitely have some emotional and social traits associated with it. It can contribute to behavior which can be seen by observers as “shy” or “anti-social” but that may just be the way the person deals with their oversensitivity. However, about 30% of HSPs are extroverts (including myself) so HSPs are all types of people.

So how do you know if you are one? In the research I’ve done, the best thing I’ve found is Dr. Elaine Aron’s self-test but a few questions to ask yourself:

- Do you find yourself retreating to your imagination a lot, esp. in busy times?
- Does too much noise and commotion drain you more quickly than most people?
- Do you need a lot of alone time to feel “normal”?
- Does your body react differently to various chemicals (drugs, caffeine, etc.) than most people you know?

If so, you might also be an HSP! Take the self test and find out.

If you are an HSP, there are basically two ways to go about it (and, let’s be fair, it’s this way in many situations): fight it or learn to take care of yourself. I’ve learned that fighting your body is like fighting quicksand: the more you fight, the more you sink. The more I ignore the signs that I need a break, the more pain and exhaustion I feel as I work and after I’m done. So, please, listen to your body! It will tell you what it needs! As an HSP, it will often need alone time for rest and reflection. Honor those requests.

I’ve found several resources that have been helpful to me in this journey, which I’ll list below. Hopefully they’ll help you as well! HSP isn’t something that’s discussed frequently, but there definitely are people out there discussing it, trying to learn from each other and grow along with it. If you think that you or someone you know is an HSP, please do some reading, join some discussions and tell us about your experiences!

Dr. Elaine Aron’s site
An HSP Yahoo! Group
The HSP group on Tribe.net
Highly Sensitive Power, a great blog written by an HSP

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My Journey to My Next Steps

6th
Feb. × ’10
By Carolee

I feel blessed to say that life-changing experiences have been raining down upon me since opening myself up to them. Gabrielle Bernstein, Dr. Aron and others have created such a difference in my life, caused me to look at things, esp. myself, in such new lights that I feel like a wholly new person. But this was all just prep now as I look at it. The tough work to earn me the cash? Prep. Taking a leap of faith? Prep. Opening up my mind? Prep. Prep for what you might ask?

Innovative Ease.

Two words. Two words I would have never put together. Two words that, in their way, encompass me, completely, totally. Who I am now, where I want to be, where I need to go. I am the embodiment of Innovated Ease, even if I’m not yet the cleanest conduit. From here on, all work will be toward the one goal: actualizing my Innovative Ease.

Where did these two words come from? From Carrie listening and hearing what I couldn’t hear in myself. Who’s Carrie, you may ask yourself? Carrie McCarthy is the power behind Style Statement, in her own words, “an invitation to make more powerful choices… to create your life with intention, to communicate who you are in all you do”.

She released a book about the process in early 2008 which I picked up shortly after it was published, at the suggestion of Gala Darling. I would work on it in starts and stops and, just before I left Andrey, I fell on what I thought were my two words, Comfortable Play. And while that fit my life at that time, it didn’t sit right with me. It felt like a costume I put on. While I liked those two things, something sat wrong, it wasn’t me. It wasn’t my essence, it wasn’t me whole.

The book was one of the ones that made the trip with me to Seattle. I would look at the blog occasionally, thinking, “Oh man… I should work on that again. Something’s calling me, but I just don’t know what…” It was actually through the blog that I found out about HSPs, so Carrie was already sending me knowledge (whether she knew it or not) that was changing my life in totally new ways.

When I saw that she was offering a new year special on her one-on-one readings, I took a leap of faith. Yes, it was somewhat expensive for an underemployed person, but maybe this was a sign from the universe. I signed up and though I grew scared as it came closer, it was an excited scared. I was ready to be busted open, I was just nervous about what I might find.

For twenty four hours before the talk, my stomach was full of butterflies. As it approached, I couldn’t sleep. I was worried I would be sick. For some reason, I could go through first dates, interviews, whatever, with panache! I am who I am, people will judge me, but I’ll know I did my best. For this, I was talking with someone who was ready to offer me up the core of who I am, distill it down to two words. Someone I’d never met! I carried my pumpkin cup full of tea and pressed call, ready for anything but still so nervous.

Carrie put me at ease immediately. We had a brief talk about everything and nothing all at once. The time flew and when we were done, I was sad it was over. It was a conversation, one I’d enjoyed thoroughly (I mean, who doesn’t love talking about the things they love?) and wished I could continue so much longer. She asked me to give her 20 minutes. Longest twenty minutes of my life… I was excited, not knowing what to expect, the closest thing I think I’ll ever feel to being an expectant parent. Like I’m waiting to meet someone I’ve known my whole life.

And that’s when she said it: Innovative Ease. As she explained what that meant, I knew it. I’d been thinking too small, way too small. She had seen the whole picture from the minute to the big and reduced it all to two words. Then it all the inspiration flooded to me. I was ready for this. So so ready.

What’s my next step? I don’t know really. She gave me some great tips, books to read and I think that’s where I go from here. The Ease is key. It’s a lesson life has been trying to teach me over and over and over again. I’m going to post my style statement somewhere huge to remind me. The key? It’s ease!

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The Power of Prayer (Written By an Affirmed Atheist)

1st
Feb. × ’10
By Carolee

After a review of my 2009, on the surface, it looked great. My new year was happy tears awesome. Moved on to a new life in Seattle, which went well. I have new friends here, a new love and a new life all of which I’m very happy with. I had a great visit with my family over the summer and got to see many of the friends I miss very badly.

But, toward the end, things started to get rough. Legal troubles, job loss, stress and with it, a LOT of pain. Not psychological pain, physical pain. 2009 left like a lion, that’s for sure.

I decided that I was done with it. I was done with the pain and the stress. 2010 was going to be a year I dedicated to myself. I made some resolutions/goals for the year and started reading to try to get closer.

Another thing I started allowing myself to do is not be such a skeptic. I’ve used "The Universe" as shorthand for the unexplained for years, despite being a logical atheist. You know, the times when something you were thinking of shows up over and over, or you think about calling someone and they reach out to you first. I knew this project was bigger, bigger than myself, bigger than I could handle on my own. My awesome boyfriend would be there, but I needed someone big, someone huge, in my corner… someone like The Universe.

I’m a natural insomniac. I’ve been a bad sleeper as long as I can remember, from childhood really. And so, at night, I just started praying. Yup, just started one day. It felt right. I’d been reading Sera Beak’s The Red Book and just started to have a conversation with the Universe about how open I was to this change and that I would watch my life with a keen eye looking for things and actively search for more. I started talking to it in my meditation, using mantras about keeping my eyes open to the guidance I needed.

Since then, I’ve been surprised, very surprised. Suddenly, big things started happening for me.
- I found Gabrielle Bernstein. Her book created a new internal dialogue for me, got me meditating regularly, had me reaching out to friends.
- That reaching out found me some dear friends who were on a similar path and we’ve now banded together (this site!)
- After a stressful, but lucrative, work situation ended, I had another one pop up that ended up being with a woman I consider a mentor and she and I were able to talk about her story, which helped me a great deal.
- Listening to Gabrielle’s talks lead me to herfuture.com where I’ve met and talked with other people.
- I got the strength and the determination to finally get my Style Statement done, something I’ve wanted to do for years and never done.
- Through the Style Statement blog, I found out about Grace Kerina and her blog, Highly Sensitive Power, which introduced me to the concept of the HSP, the highly sensitive person, a person who’s nervous system is more highly attuned than others. Hearing about it, I think I actually heard it click in my head. :) (I’ll be writing more about this in the near future at the request of my dear Amy so if you’re curious, stay tuned!)
- My meditation practice has created a situation where I have big and small talks with my inner voice. This alone has helped me so much.

I still have so far to go but I don’t think I could have done all of this without the active and passive set up work. Whether or not The Universe is a real thing or not is not the point. The point is I put myself in the right frame of mind to be open to the changes. I was general. I allowed it to come organically. My control freak and latent Type A tendencies are trying to control the progress and that’s my biggest fight now but I know The Universe has my back and it’s something I return to every time I close my eyes, breath deeply and just let the wisdom come. I don’t care about the source, just about the message.

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My Very Public 2010 Plan

31st
Dec. × ’09
By Carolee

Happy new year
(click image for link back)

2009 has been an odd year for me. Lots of good has happened but a bit of bad has outweighed all that. More specifically, outside of some money stuff outside of my control, my body sort of abandoned me this year. After many years of ignoring it (I haven’t worked out in a serious capacity since, oh, 2000) it finally decided to give up. Lots of pain, serious brain fuzz, etc. It made a little bounce back after I went gluten-free, but getting the PAX plague set me back into the negative.

I’m hoping that it’s nothing more serious than just being out of shape. If I’m not better after meeting or exceeding my health goals, I’ll go to the doctor and see if they can’t figure it out. Thyroid issues do run in my family after all! But really the plan is thus":

1) Lose some of the fat. (GOAL: GET DOWN TO A C CUP)
This is primarily for my poor back. I’m a DD right now and assuming I can lose the weight to get down to a C, it will help my back pain out a great deal, esp. since I’ll be doing that in conjunction with:

2) Gain muscle (GOAL: 3X WEIGHT LIFTING/WEEK)
That seems really basic, but I seem to overextend myself very easily. I’m hoping I can start slow and build up to more than that. I’d like to see real muscle definition as well as potentially cure the terminal white girl ass situation.

3) Sleep better (GOAL: REGULAR, DRUG-FREE SLEEP)
Ideally, until later in the year when I may go polyphasic again, I’d like to get 6-8 regular hours of sleep around the same time every day. Sleep I don’t have to take Tylenol PM or melatonin to get would be the best.

4) Stay happier (GOAL: GOOD OR BETTER 90% OF THE TIME)
Thanks to the introduction of SAM-e to my life, I don’t have the issues with depression or anxiety I had before, but I do still get bogged down with unnecessary crap. I’m going to start tracking my mood on a 1-5 scale in my moleskine and hopefully I can meet my goal!

Hopefully I can get most of these in place in the next 4-6 months (esp, since they’re all I’ll be working on in the foreseeable future) and then after that, I can focus on other things, like:

* going polyphasic
* daily blogging
* starting my own business
* finishing a sewing project a week

and some others. Additionally, my big picture goal is to hopefully have the skills, money and resources to have a couple big fancy parties, probably for the fall-winter holidays, Martha Stewart-style: several courses, drinks, the works. I think the money one will be the biggest part of that, but hopefully that’s something I can work on over the year as well. I just don’t have a specific plan for it yet (will before I start the business though!)

So, what are your hopes, dreams and goals for 2010?

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Things I Love Thursday

10th
Dec. × ’09
By Carolee

I’m a big proponent of gratitude. Gratitude gets you way farther than attitude in my book and taking the time out every day or every week or so to sit back and think, “hey! What’s super awesome in my life?” really does help create a shift in your outlook. I should know! It worked for me!

Things I Love Thursday is something started by Mz Gala Darling who blogs at galadarling.com. She’s a great inspiration to those who want to live life their way, even if they’re not necessarily sure what way that is just yet! Check out her TILT for this week here.

So what am I diggin’ on this week?

  • Machine Translation. Looking for more cooking inspiration pushed me to look at machine translated Japanese last night and it had the boy and I giggling like idiots. I should be able to scrape a few recipes (reshipi!) from it so the whole thing was quite productive. Speaking of which…
  • The Beau. We’ve had a bit of a rough week, having a pretty serious discussion and both getting bothersome news from the state on the same damn day(!), but he’s always there to set me right, give me encouragement and say, “we can make this work” and that’s worth more than it’s weight in gold. And on that note…
  • My Fellow “Peas”. Ever heard that phrase “two peas in a pod” to describe people who are really similar and get along all smashingly? Well, I’m part of a three-pea pod and it makes me super happy. Chillaxin’ on the couch, watching Mythbusters with mah peaz is the best place to be. We all sigh over Keri. Goodness she’s adorable!
  • New Friends. Hit up the beau’s holiday party and met some new folks. Hit it off esp. well with one in particular, discovered later that we had other connections previously unknown. Very much looking forward to getting together with new friends in the coming weeks or at least early 2010!
  • Rediscovering The Lost. Not the show, mind you, but things you thought were gone only to be pushed up to the surface again. For the longest time, I haven’t considered myself a creative person, but now I’m trying to write and take photos daily to force myself into the habit. I have a lot of trouble starting new habits, so I’ve created a little reminder for myself:
    My Reminder
    So far it’s working! And by so far, I mean, for the last three days! Three down, 18 more to go (they say that it takes 21 days to create a habit)!
  • Amazing Opportunities. A friend recently presented me with a ridiculous opportunity to brush up on some old skills and make a good chunk of change doing it. I’m psyched!

There’s tons more making me grin right now, but if I listed all that, we’d be here forever! And now for the moment of truth, what’s floating your boat today?

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My Gluten-Free Story

9th
Dec. × ’09
By Carolee

Certified Gluten-Free Logo At this point in my life, aside from the occasional accident and soy sauce eaten at restaurants, I am gluten-free. I tell people any variety of things, that I’m “allergic to wheat”, “gluten-intolerant” or that I suffer from Celiacs. Now technically, I don’t know for sure if any of those statements are true! I’m pretty sure ONE of them is, but if I had to show you science to back up that claim, I couldn’t. I’ve always told people that it could all by psychosomatic. I really don’t believe it is, but isn’t that what psychosomatic illness is? :) But as part of this blog, I feel like I should let you know the hows and why of my illness and the reason why I now am a far pickier eater than I’d like to be.

About five years ago, I moved to the West Coast, specifically to San Diego. I was around 22 years old and ready for a new adventure! Slowly, I noticed that I was dealing with acid reflux on a more regular basis until it was rather severe and daily. My doctors had me on double doses of Prilosec and Zantac and it did nothing to help. During this time, I was eating loads of starch trying to stop the constant burning, cough and raspy voice. I ate bread, pasta and rice twice a day to get by and it barely made a dent. The meds weren’t working and I was sent to an allergist to see if it was an allergic reaction. One horrible skin test and one less horrible blood test later, nothing was high enough to be causing the problems I was having. My next option was having cameras inserted into me in less than lady-like ways.

I was lamenting about this with a friend of mine who asked again about the allergy option as he’d heard of people with undiagnosed food allergies, specifically gluten allergies, having a similar problem. At this point, I was at the end of my rope and willing to try anything including going a week without my beloved pasta and Luna bars. After I finished the brunch I was eating with him, I decided to go gluten-free.

Within two days, the acid reflux was gone. That’s right, two days. I cancelled my endoscope and resigned myself to never being able to pig out on restaurant pasta again. However, this doesn’t mean I was at the level of gluten-free that I am right now. For most of the next several years, I reduced the amount of gluten I ate, but would still occasionally pig out on half a pizza. Sure I paid the price, but delicious food!

While home this summer helping take care of my mom after knee replacement surgery, my youngest sister (I have two sisters) wound up going to the emergency room due to severe stomach pain and acid reflux. Somehow, when I heard that, it all came together. Her symptoms mirrored mine. I told her she needed to give up all wheat and gluten for a few days, just to see if it helped.

When it did, I wasn’t surprised, but I was happy for her. She wouldn’t have to suffer nearly so long as I did. Sure, the initial blow can be devastating (esp. to people like her and I. We’re pasta fiends!) But, if you learn it to grow your cooking repertoire, you’ll have a hard time seeing it as a disadvantage. At this point, the only time I do is at pizza time!

The funny thing was that the difference between normal eating to low gluten and low gluten to no gluten were insane. The first step had rid me of my immediate symptoms, but the second one, which I did out of support and solidarity with my sister, was another surprise. Suddenly, my head cleared, my energy level went through the roof, as did my mood. When I ate some wonton soup on a sick day, it was devastating. I was so tired and listless that it was worse than the initial illness!

So, what’s a person to do after diagnosis? That’s a story I’ll tell shortly!

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