Countdown to Bermuda and Adding Up The Miles

Less than 75 days now until we toe the line at the Bermuda Half Marathon.

I have the course map on my refrigerator, as my cover photo on Facebook and as the wallpaper on my computer:



Yesterday was the first nine mile training run that Team McManus had done together since 2009:


I had done a solo 9 miler 3 weeks ago and knew it was a milestone but not as much as a milestone as yesterday's training run. Now Team McManus steadily builds miles until we taper two weeks before Bermuda.

It was a slow and steady pace for Team McManus on a glorious Fall day in New England. Tom kept reminding me that we were going for distance, not time and to let go of setting some arbitrary time constraint on myself. I let go and enjoyed the glorious sunshine, the beautiful foliage, the blue sky and the ripples in the water at the Reservoir.

The miles seemed to fly by and we both know I am ready to go the distance.

One of my friend's on Facebook asked me what was my breaking point at which I was able to return to running and experience a sense of well being after she saw my post about our 9 mile training run.

I felt warm and wonderful inside to be able to reflect on and share the journey with her.

It all began...well actually it was all set into motion through my pen, my divining rod for healing, as I imagined myself running unencumbered and reclaiming my life from a history of paralytic polio and trauma but it came into being beginning in January of this year when I first met Dr. Ryan aka Ryan J. Means, DC - a chiropractor who asked me why I was setting limits on how far I was going to run. As he used kinesiotaping, spinal adjustments and Graston technique, he was encouraging my body to fully heal and re-ignited the flame of endurance running within me. I read, "You Are the Placebo," by Dr. Joe Dispenza and could feel transformation happening within me. I went on to read Candace Pert's book, 'Everything You Need to Know To Feel Go(o)d" and watched "What the Bleep Do We Know..." and "Down The Rabbit Hole."

Yes everything is possible as I knew when I took on the running of the 2009 Boston Marathon never having run a day in my life.

Team McManus has decided that half marathons are just right for us.

It's still going the distance ... and it's so much farther than I imagined one year ago at this time.

And so here I am counting down to the Bermuda Half Marathon and adding up the miles feeling incredibly grateful and blessed.

The question is, how far down the rabbit hole do you want to go?

A few months ago, we watched, "What the bleep do we know..." and "Down the rabbit hole..."



It was recommended to us by my beloved chiropractor, Dr. Ryan who is now practicing in China! It was May 24th to be exact which was one day shy of the 8 year anniversary of when I left my award winning VA social work career to heal my life.

Since reading Dr. Joe Dispenza's book You Are the Placebo, and watching his videos, Candace Pert's book, Everything you need to know to feel Go(o)d there has been a major shift in my life. There is a flow and a momentum in my life and in my training to run the Bermuda Half Marathon with my sights set on the Newport Marathon in 2016. The spark was lit when I stood face to face with Dr. Ryan at the book release party for "Journey Well" at the place where I used to go for massage. He came into my life to balance the naysayers who were telling me I shouldn't, wouldn't, couldn't run anymore or if I did to limit my distance. Dr. Ryan posed the question, Why set limits and I decided to only take yes for an answer!

I bought "The Little Book of Bleeps: Ponder these for awhile!" which contain quotations from the movie and information about the "talking heads" who share their views of quantum physics.

One of the quotes is, "When we think of 'things', then we make the Reality more concrete than it is. That's why we become stuck." ~Amit Goswami, Ph.D.

I have chosen to jump into the rabbit hole and see how much healing and transformation I am able to create in my life.

According to "reality" for a polio survivor, I should at the very least be in a leg brace and using a wheelchair to conserve energy. I should experience chronic pain and fatigue and according to Western Medicine there is no way that I can sprout new neuromuscular connections.

I am, as Einstein would say, changing the facts.

I harness the power of my mind through meditation, visualization and writing poetry to see myself as whole and healthy.

I used to be fearful, well terrified that my body would not stand up (interesting choice of words) to the challenges I gave it. Now I believe with my whole heart that I AM an endurance runner and I run unencumbered. My workout schedule is healthy and right for me even as and maybe especially as we increase miles. I do modify effort in the pool since we are adding miles to our long runs but maintain the level of strength training. I recover so much more quickly from runs and workouts and have so much confidence in my body now. With every meditation, with every run and workout, I am erasing the past and creating this magnificent mind/body as I was always meant to be connected to the Source of Divine Love and Intelligence.

My outer world has been filled with synchronicity and wonder and awe and mystery.

So I choose to not live in the know making reality concrete and reacting to it. I choose to live in the mystery and allow everything to flow and create.

The answer is, I am pretty far down the rabbit hole and it's a beautiful space in which to live!

How far down the rabbit hole do you want to go?


I went pretty far down the rabbit hole when I quit my award winning career as a VA social worker to heal my life...My books are available on Amazon and share the mystery and wonder of my journey. It just keeps getting better and better and I'll be bringing you these next magical and wonder-filled miles in my next book, 'Going the Distance.'

Feel the Heal: Claiming the Change

During this morning's meditation I experienced peace and stillness. My body was quiet. My breath deep and full. This thought came to me:
Everything is healed and rewired. Flip the switch and watch me go...

It's so easy to focus on what is in the current physical reality but I felt a profound shift happen in my thoughts and experience this morning. Notice what you want and where you are going as I, to quote Dr. Joe Dispenza, "cross the river of change."

It's a little scary, a whole lot exhilarating and I felt tears run down my cheeks. Tears of gratitude, relief, release. Yes I am a child of God and just as a loving biological father loves his little girl, that's the Love that the Father has for me.

I felt it from the time I was 5 years old and lay paralyzed on the couch from paralytic polio with a drug addicted mother smoking a cigarette and glaring at me waiting for my biological father or grandfather to come home from work to attend to my basic needs.

I can feel all those wounds healed now and my body is rewiring itself.

I felt pulsing in my throat as wounds of oral rape and strangulation healed. I felt the tingling of new nerves growing along my spinal cord and throughout my cervical spine.

When once I felt blockages of energy from being pinned down during rape and grabbed and restrained during beatings, energy flowed down my arms.

I felt several poems spring from my soul and realized that I've begun to write Feel the Heal: An Anthology of Poems to Heal Your Life Volume II. As I expand and heal and grow and transform, my poetry sings praises to the Divine within and around me and reflects and reinforces the healing process.

As I go about my day I notice and praise stillness imprinting this new Body and new way of Being rewiring with love.

As I put on mascara today, I kept repeating peace and stillness embracing and embodying me transformed. I gave loving and gentle support to my right hand and arm to steady it. Even though I am right handed, I lost use of my right arm for 6 months and had open shoulder joint surgery which cut muscles and nerves but it is just as easy to heal the effects of surgery as it is to heal anything. It's all about what I choose to believe.



While there may be particles of anxiety that go through me, I focus on the waves of the life Force and the waters become still again. Each time the episode doesn't last as long and I am able to harness the power of my mind to heal and rewire default responses to external circumstances. I remind myself that my body does not have a mind of its own; I am my body's mind and I am the captain of my fate. What a delicious voyage I am on now.



I realized that I was cheated out of childhood. I didn't have the freedom to run and be free because of paralytic polio and a bat shit crazy family. I always had Divine Protection otherwise I would not be here writing this blog and living my life. I am now keenly aware of the blessings and grace in my life both then and especially now. What a sweet life I now have!

During my strength training workout, I work on Theraband stabilizers that my beloved chiropractor, Dr. Ryan recommended for me.


First it's seeing how long I can balance on each leg and then it's standing for 10 minutes with eyes closed to balance.

Today I felt a shift from tremulousness to feeling my strength and even practicing martial arts in my mind's eye to disarm and take down my father. I could feel those delicious waves of spinal fluid flow and a sense of freedom and power and strength surge through me.

I increased reps of upper body strength training.

How wonderful that Louise Hay's affirmation today was in sync with how I am feeling:



To add icing on the cake of a delicious start to the day, we met our friends Karen and Chris DiMare for brunch at 75 on Liberty. They were in town for last night's U2 concert.

During brunch we talked about healing and going down the rabbit hole of all possibilities. Karen talked about planting seeds and watching them grow as I shared that I have grown a new gastroc muscle. Chris had surgery to remove a cyst from his spine that resulted in pre-operative paralysis. To remove it, they had to cut vertebrae and put in a metal rod. The doctors say there is no way the rod could ever be removed. I have been visualizing total healing for him during my meditation and that they would somehow be able to remove the hardware.

"Can you grow new vertebrae?" Chris and Karen pondered ...

"Hell I grew a new gastroc muscle. Anything is possible."

And so they are going to get out the DVD's of What the bleep do we know...and Down the rabbit hole and watch it again while we all tend to the seeds and the garden of our lives for healing, evolving and transformation. What a blessing that we all affirm each other's journeys with such love!

Here we are apres brunch at the Seaport waterfront area:


It's stunning to see my transformation from when we met for brunch in March:


Everything is healed and rewired. Flip the switch and watch me go ... claiming the change ... Being the change ... evolving and transforming ... feeling the heal in every fiber of my Being and sharing possibility with the world!

Cheers! To life! Love yourselves well!

Dancing Warrior from the soon to be released "Feel the Heal: An Anthology of Poems to Heal Your Life". You can find all of my books on Amazon.

She’s fierce
the heart of a warrior ready to battle darkness
no longer needing to stand her ground holding firm
with lightness of Being she dances
a dance of light
nimble no longer numb

flexible and easy
swift of foot to dart arrows
from those who want to pierce her soul
deflate her wonder filled life
wondering
where is the music
what does she hear

she hears her soul sing
the rhythm of her heartbeat
unbridled joy

upturned lips with a knowing smile
the dancing warrior of love.

Why Wait?

In What the Bleep: Down the Rabbit Hole , Dr. Joe Dispenza asks the question, "Why wait?" He goes on to talk about how people seem to need to wait for a crisis in order to awaken to the possibilities for a wonderful life.

I know I sure did as I wrote about in yesterday's blog post.

I resurrected two poems from June 2007 from New World Greetings:Inspirational Poetry and Musings for a New World:

The Gift of Polio
Thank you God for the gift of polio that brought me so close to you
while paralyzed I saw your face no matter what I’d do.
Many wonderful healers you sent them to me at age 5
perseverance and triumph life’s lessons learned
but my Spirit could not yet thrive.
At age 53 the gift was sent to me a second time
having time to sit and feel to heal I started to rhyme.
The second time more worse than the first yet your love and wisdom I found
from pain and weakness and fatigue a remarkable spirit rebound.
Reliving all the trauma of special shoes and such
I discovered remarkable healers who brought a loving touch.
I had no clue I had such strength and the ability to grow
no matter what the outcome deep gratitude I show.
And from that place so dark and deep my body could not move
I took the reins took charge of my life this time with nothing to prove.
This gift so precious I live a new life gratitude flows from me
my heart and soul are filled with grace and each day’s a gift from thee.


A Date With Destiny

Don’t wait til you die to let your soul fly free
please listen and hear what happened to me.
My body was broken every imaginable place
yet to the world I always wore a smile on my face.
My soul trapped inside feeling it was broken too
God brought me out of darkness my light I shine on you.
She showed me the way through people I met
it took awhile a message hard to get.
The kingdom of heaven is right inside me
take the leap of faith fulfill your destiny.
While I did my soul work and let my soul fly free
my body transformed changes did I see.
My head now aligned the tremor no more
my body aligned such strength in my core.
When once head detached from my heart and my soul
they all work together amazingly whole.
The rules that I live by are only my own
to find strength and courage my how I’m soaring I've flown.
I followed my heart to create my bliss
to spread God’s word no greater joy than this.
Take the leap of faith into grace I can fall
but I’m floating on air answering God’s call.
Don't wait til you die to let your soul fly free
there’s no reason to live a life in misery.
Follow your passions and I will tell you this
the body falls away healed when you follow your bliss.

I can only imagine what would have happened if I could have practiced gratitude, forgiveness, and meditation and found a way to either better manage the stress of my job or find the courage to leave before becoming gravely ill; if I could have found balance and allowed my creativity to flow and to find paths for healing for trauma. But that is the irony of experiencing trauma, it is hard to break the cycle of addiction to the chemicals produced in the stress response.

But there is no reason to wait before a life spins hopelessly out of control. There are so many wonderful resources and healers available to help.

I recently added a Resources page to my website which I will also share with you here:

When I experienced an infection that resulted in loss of use of my right arm for 6 months, my earth angel of a nurse brought me a cassette recording of Bernie Siegel, MD's, Love Medicine and Miracles. I partnered with Bernie since the 1980's as my "chosen dad" and "coach" to help me heal. He has many wonderful books and meditation CD's. Visit his website and see his healing offerings. His son is carrying on the family tradition of healing with Wisdom of the Ages.

Dr. Joe Dispenza, NY Times Bestselling author of "You Are the Placebo" conducting healing workshops and has a You Tube Channel to bring healing to the collective consciousness.


Tara Brach, NY Times Bestselling Author of True Refuge, is a leading western teacher of Buddhist meditation, emotional healing and spiritual awakening.Her offerings on line and at retreats brings compassion, tenderness, awakening and how we can find our true refuge within us through meditation and finding our sangha, our community that supports, nourishes and sustains us.

Two movies that will take you into the world of quantum physics and expand your view of your life and the world are What the bleep do we know and Down the Rabbit Hole.

So why wait? Start today practicing gratitude and exploring a world beyond what your eyes can see connecting to something greater than yourself to create a life overflowing with joy, happiness, peace, comfort, vitality and vibrancy. Don't wait for the crisis to live the life you were always meant to live!

Wishing you well on your journey!



Cheers! To life! Love yourself well!

I chronicle the first 7 years of my healing journey after being diagnosed with post polio syndrome, a progressive neuromuscular disease as a survivor of childhood paralytic polio and 9 years of childhood domestic violence in Coming Home:A Memoir of Healing, Hope and Possibility.


I am working on my new book, Feel the Heal: An Anthology of Poems which brings together my best poems of the last 8 years and will include my latest poems as I continue to feel the heal and move forward in my life.