August Bootcamp 2012: Action and Adventure

❀ Be present
❀ Be grateful
❀ Enjoy the beauty of life
❀ Nourish my body, mind and spirit
❀ Immerse in loving and healing energies
❀ Treat everyone with kindness and compassion

♥ Meditate
♥ Be present
♥ Nourish my body, mind and spirit
♥ Continue learning about Ayurveda
♥ Treat everyone with loving kindness
♥ Immerse in loving and healing energies
♥ View myself and others without criticism
♥ Take time to be grateful for all the beauty in the world

✿ Meditate
✿ Be present
✿ Nourish my spirit
✿ Nurture and love my body
✿ Treat everyone with kindness

❀ Meditate
❀ Be present
❀ Go on an adventure
❀ Host a card game night
❀ Continue learning about Ayurveda

My life has started to feel a little too stagnant; I need to start shaking it up in every little way I can. Not quite sure yet what my first step will be, but I need some newness, freshness and change… going abroad for a month or so would be ideal.

On a side note, we have 100 bootcampers right now! How awesome is that?! :D

❀ Meditate
❀ Nourish my spirit
❀ Nurture and love my body
❀ Get plenty of sun and fresh air
❀ Continue learning about Ayurveda

❀ Be present
❀ Nourish my spirit
❀ Nurture and love my body
❀ Continue learning about Ayurveda
❀ Go for a barefoot walk on the beach

I’m feeling super inspired today and grateful for both the ‘good’ and ‘bad’ in my life… I’m feeling like I can do absolutely anything I put my mind to – and it’s true, I can! :-)

I’ve been learning about Ayurveda (which is a Hindu system of traditional medicine native to India, it’s even older than Chinese medicine) and it has a really fascinating way to look at health and illness. I wanted to study Western medicine and become a doctor for a long time, but nowadays I feel like one of my missions in life could be helping people to cure “hopeless” health issues that are seen as incurable by Western medicine so becoming a regular doctor wouldn’t quite be the right choice for me anymore. Ayurveda however seems like something I could see myself study more in depth one day and use it along with other holistic practices, paleolithic/primal nutrition, etc. :)

❀ Be present
❀ Nourish my spirit
❀ Nurture and love my body
❀ Get plenty of sun and fresh air
❀ Remember that this, too, shall pass

One challenge being sick brings into my life is that despite feeling inspired to take action and having ideas on what I should do next in my journey to health, I don’t have the energy to follow through most of the time. If I had normal energy levels and, you know, was healthy… I think I’d have already solved my health issues completely ages ago because I’d be able to travel to see Ayurveda and Chinese medicine practitioners, go see if Japan has as great a health care system as it sounds, and generally do all the things I believe could help me. But quite obviously part of the challenge of being sick is being sick :-) And it is with these low energy levels I have that I have to be able to solve this.

The good thing is that my actions tend to be pretty good when I’m able to take them, so I’m often rewarded with more energy and health after I’ve taken them, which in turn makes taking new action easier. The contrast to the worst I’ve been – bedridden, so sick I had to lie in a dark quiet room most of the time because my Addison’s disease etc. were so bad I couldn’t tolerate much light or noise, I had a 40+ C (104+ F) fever all the time, I was so exhausted I couldn’t speak most of the time and obviously couldn’t have written this, during my absolute best days I was maybe able to take out the trash if I really put all my willpower and energy into it, but often a couple of months went by without those “good” days so they were rare – is pretty incredible. If it was possible to get myself out of something that seemed so hopeless, it should be fairly easy to close the gap between where I’m now health-wise and where I want to be compared to that.

I guess no long road that leads to any place truly special and meaningful is linear. Some days I feel like there’s not only light at the end of the tunnel but that I’m already out of the tunnel; other days it feels overwhelming how much still needs to be done. During some weak moments I start comparing my body to people who weren’t born with a severe immunodeficiency and get frustrated that my body doesn’t respond as quickly and clearly to things like the paleo diet, improving the quality of the food, switching from tap water to spring water, grounding, and other similar things. Which is a waste of time and completely useless, not to mention an unfair thing to do to my body because I know it is trying its best and doing everything it possibly can to help me but it just cannot do everything that healthy bodies with normal immunoglobulin levels, antibodies etc. can. Our bodies always do everything they possibly can to help us out with the tools they have and with the tools (nutrition etc.) that we give them. I need to give my body some time – after all it is already doing much better than it is supposed to (since I’m supposed to be dead).

That said, it’s difficult to feel too bad after enjoying the sun on the balcony, sipping some good espresso and herbal tea and eating some raw chocolate I made yesterday. I’m doing what I can with what I have today, and let everything else be. I can only take one step at a time. It’s also five years since my blood work indicated lymphoma (which was particularly unpleasant news for me since my immunodeficiency causes lymphomas and lymphoma is the most likely cause of death for me) and pulmonary embolism for several months and I’m still alive five years later despite no one knowing what those were about, so life is good.

Anyway, enough of my rambling – I’m so excited to see how many bootcampers we have this month! I hope you guys will have the best month ever filled with action and adventures :)

In addition to wanting to be more active and adventurous in general, my main goals for August are:

❤   Change my thinking – be mindful about what kind of information I feed my mind.

I mainly want to ditch the useless eating disordered thought patterns that go on and on in my head. They’re such a waste of brain capacity, time and energy.

I’m not going to try to monitor my every thought and try to forcefully change it when I notice I’m thinking about something ridiculous and brain-cell-killing (I’ve tried that in the past and although it’s possible to force yourself to think differently when you pay attention, it doesn’t really last and isn’t very effective in breaking thought patterns that have been going on and on for years, at least not in my experience) but I’m simply going to change the mental “food” I feed my mind. I don’t know how other people’s minds work, but when I pay attention to my thoughts and try to observe them without affecting them, it’s easy to see that my mind often dwells on things I’ve talked, read, heard or wrote about. And so I think changing what I talk, read and write about and what I listen to should do a lot of good. I guess it’s like programming yourself to think better thoughts and give your mind something more useful to dwell on.

One thing I’ll be paying attention to is how I feel – I guess you could generalise that feelings are our bodies’ physical reaction to our thoughts a lot of the time. So if I feel good, I’m probably not thinking about anything too stupidly eating disordered and there’s nothing that needs changing; if I feel bad, it’s time to pay more attention and notice what I’m thinking about. This way I don’t have to try to monitor my every thought; it’s much easier to notice how I’m feeling and go from there.

❤   Love my body and treat it like a friend.

And not just in the way I treat it in my physical actions but also how I treat it in my thoughts – which is what the previous goal was about. In my physical actions, I’ll continue following my grain-free paleo diet that consists of unprocessed, natural, whole, wild and organic foods and nourishing my body with wild spring water, make sure I get plenty of rest and high quality sleep, and at least a few hours of sun and fresh air daily. The usual stuff I always do.

As for the mental side, I thought of keeping some kind of a gratitude journal every day and write down everything I’m grateful for body-wise – and not just amazing things my body can do (breathing, walking, etc.) or has done (healing itself from asthma, Addison’s disease, hypothyroidism, eczema, psoriasis, etc.) but also things I like about the way my body looks like. That could sound superficial, but I’ve had such ridiculously huge problems with my body all of my life that I think this will be a useful exercise.

All in all… my body really deserves all my unconditional love I can possibly give on all possible levels. It’s an amazingly fantastic body and it’s incredible what it has been able to go through and yet stay alive and succeed at everything my doctors thought would be impossible. I’ve for sure worked hard at finding the right information and at giving my body the tools it needs to heal itself, but those are the only thing I’ve done – my body has done and is doing the actual healing part. It really deserves nothing but my love for having been such a great friend.

❤   Decide what to do about my treatment.

Some quick boring info in a nutshell: I was born with a primary immunodeficiency and need regular infusions that are made from healthy people’s blood to prevent cancers, autoimmune illnesses and severe infections as much as is possible (not all of the immunoglobulins and antibodies I lack can be given as an infusion).

I’ve had a subcutaneous infusion for a few years now but it seems my body is done with it, so it seems I’ve not much choice but to give the intravenous version of it another try despite the bad history I have with it. Being without a treatment isn’t really an option, but there are several reasons why I’m not too excited about the intravenous treatment so currently none of my options feel good. Intramuscular injections aren’t used in my hospital anymore so those aren’t an option.

This is something a doctor would normally decide about, but even my doctors admit I know more about this than they do, so I’ll try to make a smart decision about this during August. Often when none of the options A, B and C feel right, it’s possible to go with D. I just have to figure out first what that option D is in this situation. :-)

❤   Enjoy the last bits of summer.

The Finnish summer is so short I definitely need to enjoy every bit of it I possibly can! So I’ll be spending many hours outdoors meditating by the river, going for long bike rides, getting as much sun and fresh air as possible, collecting and eating lots of wild greens, going for barefoot walks – just doing all the wonderful summery stuff that’s still possible.