Day 276: To Give up OR Give up on Giving up?

 

 

For the past few months my thyroid has been functioning normal. The cool thing is that it was functioning normal without me being on medication, so it was actually back to normal. It was a relief to me, because I could finally put it behind me. My Doctor did say it is something that I will have to monitor for the rest of my life – and when he said that, I create a slight undertone of worry within myself.

Now the whole process of my thyroid malfunctioning was not a very pleasant experience and it’s something I would not want to go through again, so knowing it could malfunction again I created That fear and worry in the back of my mind.

So about 2 or 3 months ago I started experiencing familiar experiences – like increased tiredness no matter how much sleep I get and general exhaustion even though I have no reason to feel this. My throat also became a bit sore, and all of this is basically the same symptoms I experienced last time. Basically it all pointed to my thyroid starting to malfunction again. The blood tests did show the levels were not correct and my thyroid was going hyper again.

This brought with it a bit of me feeling sorry for myself. I knew what to expect - the progression of symptoms – and really did not want this. There was a moment of self-pity as I looked at the road ahead of me and thought to myself it would be easier to simply give in to all these emotions coming up.

I looked at the process walked thus far and all the points I faced and saw that yes , it’s going to be crappy and yes, it’s not something I prefer doing, but that is not going to stop me from walking this point again. I did it before and thus proven to myself that I am able to walk this point. Within that I trusted I am able to do this. So I know that my thyroid might go hyper again – but it’s not something to be feared or be worried about.

When we are faced with difficulties in life there is not much we can do about the physical reality of the events, but we do have a choice how we will react to it. We can choose to feel sorry for ourselves and be overwhelmed and believe that we lack the strength to make it through and simply give up – or we can stop those thoughts and emotions and feelings that make us want to give up and then push through and face the point head on. It’s your life.

Dealing With Graves Disease

 

Today I am looking at how Graves disease have affected me thus far and reactions I have experienced. I’m looking at a before and after in terms of how I was before compared to now.

Physically there has been a big change. I lost most of my physical strength and became physically weaker. This brought up many points in relation to the idea and belief of strength and weakness – read here on support for that:

What is Strength Really?

Before my thyroid went into hyper drive I was working daily with the physical doing various tasks and managing the farm. Now I am unable to do so which made me feel useless and unhelpful. I felt useless, because I was physically unable to so. For support on uselessness have read over here:

Uselessness

I went from being very busy to not busy and judged myself, because I was unable to do all the things I used to do and had to depend on others to assist and support me. This brought some reactions within me and being very stubborn to ask for help when I needed it. For support on this read over here:

Ask and you shall receive - Or Be silent and suffer

Within my physical activities around the farm I felt useful. I valued it and saw the wroth it in. With getting graves disease and unable to participate with the physical activities that value and worth went away within me. What I did not realize at the time was that I linked value and worth as a point outside myself - as something I do instead of who I am. I missing self-worth and self-value. Here is support on self worth and self value:

Self-Value and Self-Worth and Repetitive Failure

Self Worth and Self Development

 

I experienced myself as being stuck since I got diagnosed With me unable to do the things I used to and having to learn to do new things. It felt as if I was not good enough and lacked the power move through this disease. I allowed myself to fall on this point and essentially gave up on myself which resulted in me not moving effectively. Here follows support if you are dealing with the same thing:

Being stuck

It is interesting to see how many points a disease can bring up and tell you about yourself and who you are. This is still a on going process and more points reveal themselves and open up.

Day 149 - Feeling Constantly, Gravely Tired

 

When the hyperthyroidism effects started showing – a side-effect thereof was tiredness. At that time,  I was not yet aware of having Hyperthyroidism. However, because I was in this Internal Mind-Battle against my fear of failure/failing and I was pushing and pushing and pushing myself to not fail but remain disciplined, I connected the tiredness my physical body was experiencing, and tiredness in-itself to my internal battle. Because throughout my life, whenever I was tired – I would usually have used it to justify me more giving into the tiredness and not tend to responsibilities/tasks which contributed to me becoming and accepting and allowing my Laziness. And then when I started deciding to discipline myself more – I changed my definition to tiredness in using it to motivate me to push myself more, so every time I would get tired – it would activate me to become more disciplined. However, this time – the tiredness was “real” in terms of it actually being a side-effect of the hyperthyroidism. But, because I within and throughout my life – connected tiredness to mind definitions and polarities, and so never in fact had a relationship with my actual physical body, I THOUGHT in my Mind the tiredness was me not being effective enough in my inner-battle between laziness and discipline. And so here is an interesting point, regarding how much or how little we in fact KNOW our own physical bodies with the extent to which we participate and exist in the MIND.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to judge myself when I started feeling tired all the time, to believe that I am doing something wrong based on the mind-relationship I created towards tiredness.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe myself as not being effective anymore - because no matter what i did I could not stop the tiredness I was feeling.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear the tiredness - because I believed it was something out of my control - that I could do nothing about it - and that it is something more than me

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to feel ashamed of me being tired all the time and that it is something that I should hide from others, because I accepted and allowed myself to in my mind define/judge tiredness as ‘weak’ so that I could empower my opposite experience as being ‘strong’. So, what I would do is judge tiredness as weak – but that part of me that judged tiredness as weak, was my Ego using tiredness as weakness so that in/as my Ego it could make itself ‘strong’ with not going into tiredness.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear that others will judge me, because of me being tired all the time and thus i must act tough as though i am not tired even though i was

I forgive myself that I have not accepted and allowed myself to ask for assistance from anyone, but to instead try get through this all by myself and this struggle unnecessarily just because i feared being judged and losing the self image I had of myself being a strong leader and believed that me being tired all the time is a sign of weakness

I forgive myself that I have not accepted and allowed myself to realize that my internal battle of constantly fighting with myself and all the reactions and backchats eventually placed too much stress on my body, because I did not direct it effectively and so contributed even MORE to what the physical body was going through in terms of the hyperthyroidism that I didn’t realize at that stage was manifesting, because I was too busy in my Mind

I commit myself to stop judging myself when I struggle with something and i commit myself to ask for assistance when I do my best at something and still struggle so that I do not struggle unnecessarily as I see, realize and understand that one cannot walk through life alone, and asking for assistance and support when I know that I have done everything I could and still can’t stand within a point – is not a sign of weakness, but the simple common sense of the fact that I do NOT KNOW everything, and only Ego would believe so and asking for assistance and support would in fact strengthen me and so another, as I would actually then LEARN from others and others would learn from me and so we grow/expand/develop through assisting and supporting ourselves and each other

I commit myself to stop the belief that being tired is a sign of weakness, being ‘tired’ is a physical experience in the sense that – when/as one do not have enough sleep or overwork the body, that is practical-reality physical tiredness, based on actual reality correlations / experiences. And so, I commit myself to assist and support me to always cross-reference reality with the physical body – for example, if/as I have not over an extended period of time overworked the body / slept too little and the tiredness persist and I can find no practical reality relationship that caused the tiredness: to immediately ask / consult a medical practitioner.

I commit myself to stop the fear of others judging me and realize that what i am going through is my process and ultimately is not their judgement that i fear - it is me judging myself.

Day 147 - I Have Graves Disease

 

I did the blood test and went to the doctor for my 6 weekly checkup to see how my body is responding to the medicine and my thyroid. The results came in and showed that the hormone levels are stabilizing, but not yet to where we want it. It also confirmed the cause of my hyperthyroidism - Graves Disease.

So we discussed the next step and goals for the future an d what options i have. The options I have are taking RadioactiveIodine pills. The thyroid is the only organ than absorbs iodine so with the pills being radioactive it kills part of the thyroid. The risks here are that it could completely kill my thyroid and  i would have to be on thyroid pills for the rest of my life - not an option i would want to take.

Another option is surgery - removing the poor thing. Taking out the thyroid/part of it. it leaves you with a sexy scar on your neck and may cause your voice to become hoarse and also has the risk of needing thyroid medication for the rest of your life.

The last option and my personal favorite is continue the medication I have that blocks the thyroid. Initially i had to take quite allot of pills, but now I can take allot less. This continues for 6 weeks then i do another blood test to check what my thyroid is doing and from there adjust the medication until we find a balance. Then after a year or two I go off it and see if my body stopped attacking my thyroid.

Graves Disease is an autoimmune disease where the body starts attacking/fighting itself in this case the thyroid. This causes the thyroid to start overproducing and become overactive. As to why the body suddenly decides to see the thyroid as a threat the medical industry does not know - it happens. I was disappointed and a bit 'gatvol' when i heard the news, but i was not surprised. I have always been unlucky - on the farm there actually a name for it '' the curse of the fidelis''. But instead of being sensitive about this ill am sensible. The results I got means I am improving and that I am getting somewhere. I feel allot better physically than I did 6 weeks ago and im not a skeleton anymore. I also got some of my strength back - I carried a 30 kg bag all by myself, although it felt like I was carrying a 50kg cement bag.

So there the update on what is currently happening in my life and the possible future that lays before me. What i find interesting is that we chose to write about me always fighting myself - lol - and today I hear my body is fighting itself, because of Graves disease.

Day 146 - Fear of Dying of Disease

 

When my body first started giving me problems i did not think it was a disease - i thought it was probably something im eating. I come from a line of bad genetics - bad teeth, cancer, asthma to name a few. It was only when i went to go see doctors about my body that i started to worry that the sins of my fathers will be laid upon  me so to speak - that I actually just might have a disease.

When i told the doctors the symptoms they asked me if there is cancer is the family and i would think to myself "" O shit, I might just have it"". It started to dawn on me that I just might die from some horrible disease. Yeay for me.

The doctors named a few sicknesses that it might be and it was some real scary sh it. That a tiny being in your body that kills you - having death inside of you and nothing you can do about it. You never think or believe that it will happen to you until it does - that you might actually die - this was the worse case scenario anyway.

I have experience death and loss a few times in my life, but never that i might die .The realization hit me and it was a different exp erience of myself - death. Where my body stop functioning and ends, returns to the earth. At first I was a bit shocked and feared it - this is something I have not faced on a personal level yet and I am not ready, then I was a bit angry at myself because if I die and thought what about my responsibilities here? What about all the things i still need to do? i wont be able to tend to them. Then I got sad, because I unfortunately know what loss feels like - to loose someone to death and others around me will experience it if I go, It is sad.

I told myself I would fight it and not give up, that I will not allow myself to die, lol. But then I realized that if it is really my time to go then its my time - everybody will die eventually. And that it is nothing to fear - there is no reason to fear death. I got a bit excited - a new experience. It was not a point of giving up - I would do to the best of my ability, but death is not something you fight, otherwise we go down the road of fighting yourself again. (This is different to each persons process, i am writing about my own here).

On Wednesday I have another appointment with my doctor - a checkup to see what my thyroid is doing is if the medication is working effectively. And on Monday i first need to do another blood test to check my thyroid hormone levels. 

Day 145 - Sensitivity to Sensibility

 

I am a sensitive person. Being a sensitive personality and character is what i have accepted myself to be. I am sensitive to pain - small things like scratches and especially pimple squeezing is quite painful for me. You can say i have low pain threshold. Interestingly when it comes to big pains like going fast downhill on a skateboard and loosing balance falling off and rolling and skidding on a tar road getting some serious road rash - I can handle.

I’ have also been sensitive to emotions and  feeling my whole life - I easily got affected. Also with conflict situations, because i was so sensitive towards it I would avoid it because I could not handle it.

This is a accepted behavior that I have made part of my life, but if I am allowing myself to be easily affected my situations and directed by it then I am not the directive principle in my life. I must be able to stand in every and all situations and not be affected or afflicted or directed by it. I must be the directive principle and not be sensitive, but be sensible. Sensitivity to sensibility.

I am not talking about being a ''macho man'' or masculinity. I am talking  Facing any and all points that come my way. Not giving into fear, but facing it head on no matter what. Real Strength is standing no matter what. And that is a difficult concept, because we get easily side tracked. It requires going against your own beliefs and perceptions and idea of yourself. It is so much easier to belief that I lack the power to do this - that I am not strong enough. But i am the one who created that idea of myself in the first place.

Sensitivity to sensibility

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to be a sensitive person

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to create within myself and participate in the sensitive character.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to so easily be affected by situations and not be able to handle myself well

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to avoid conflict situations, because I  believe myself to be too sensitive to handle it

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to create the idea and belief that I am a sensitive person and thus be directed by emotions and feelings and situations and thus not able to stand strong

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe that I lack the power and strength to stand in any and all situations not realizing that i am the one who created this belief despite everything that i have overcome thus far that proves i have the strength

I commit myself to stop being sensitive, instead I go from sensitivity to sensibility

I commit myself to stop the belief that I lack the strength and power to stand no matter what. instead i realize that I had the power all along and the proof is in all the times i did stand and overcame situations I thought never possible.

I commit myself to realize that although there are new challenges that come my way that may seem like it is bigger and tougher and too much  for me to handle - they are not. I stand and breathe through trusting that I am able and have the strength to move past it - this can only make me stronger.

I commit myself to stop being so ''thin skinned'', but instead give myself the skin of a rhino to be able to handle any situation.

i commit myself to when i am in a situation and react to it in a sensitive way. I stop and breath and be sensible - be aware of what I am doing and not allow myself to be directed by feelings emotions or situations, but instead i direct it

Fighting with Myself - Leadership

 

One of the points that came up was fighting with myself within being in a leadership role. How i was in the beginning a person with no leadership skills and quite lazy to diving right into the role of being a leader and my idea of what i leader is or should be.

Before I came to the farm I was a lazy person. In school I did the least possible and generally stayed away from doing allot of work.

When I first came to the farm I did not know what to expect. We saw that there was quite a bit of work needed to be done and got started on it right away. Now there is me, my whole life trying to avoid any kind of work, now facing it head on. Understand that I looked forward to it, but faced allot of resistance when I started.

The first thing we did on the farm was unpacking everything. There was some heavy lifting involved. I don’t know if any of you ever moved to a new place, but the new farm was quite exciting so unpacking everything and settling in was fun. I did not feel like doing the work, but did it anyway.

At that time there were only 2 able bodied guys. LJ and I. I was the oldest so I took it upon myself, or more I believed I should take it upon myself to take the responsibility of being a ‘’leader’’. I did not have any idea what that means, I just dived right in.

I noticed that people would come to me when needing some advice on a particular task and I felt important within it. I believed it important to be in a leader position.  I defined myself as a leader, and to be a leader Is to have discipline and not be lazy. So I believed that I should fight myself, my laziness to keep it from creeping up on me and hinder my definition of being a leader.

Every time when I am faced with a feeling of resistance - I would fight it. The thoughts that would come up is: can’t give up, can’t give in, must push. I experienced it as a feeling creeping up bringing me down and that I would fight it to stop it

And I fought, hard. Eventually on some of the points it became natural, I changed. Where I no longer needed to fight myself. I was disciplined within myself in tasks. There were still some points I fought myself with.

 

What is interesting is that within all this my experience of myself was like me being hyper all the time, placing myself in hyperdrive in order to do everything believing it was the only way to get things done, but its not. Pushing through resistance does not mean fighting it - because the resistance is me and thus pointless to fight myself. I have been slowing myself down the past few weeks and breathing and stopped the endless fight with myself.

Journey - Listen to My Body : HYPERTHYROIDISM

 

Its been a while since my last blog. Those who were following this blog series know that i have been having problems with my body for a long time now. After lots of test and a hospital visit including a colonoscopy(not a fun thing...) I have finally found the name of the cause : Hyperthyroidism.

A Refresh on the symptoms I have: fatigue/decreased energy, constipation, frequent bowl movement, increased heart rate, muscle weakness, shaky hands/body, weight loss ( i lost 10 KG) sweating. All this, because of an over active thyroid.

A Hyperactive Thyroid is when the thyroid(sits in your neck) excessively produces thyroid hormones. The Thyroid hormone is important at a cellular level, affecting nearly every type of tissue in the body. Thyroid hormone functions as a controller of the pace of all of the processes in the body aka metabolic rate.

Now you know more about your Thyroid.

I am relieved that i know what it is, very. No more wondering. The body is a wondrous thing. Me and my body have been living together for some time now. Since i started with Desteni i have learned to listen to it. Your body shows you things about yourself so my body is revealing to me ....something. I am listening and beginning a new journey to find out more about myself.  

The first point I noticed was the word HYPER in hyperthyroidism. If i look at myself and what i do within task I am always rushing or tense, basically hyper. for a long time now. It became normal for me so i didn't notice it then, Now i did.

So here starts my journey - ill have a look at my symptoms and write on how It relates to my lifestyle/who i am. Stay Tuned