The heat and humidity was intense yesterday morning when Tom and I woke up to go on a run. Usually the heat and humidity saps my energy. Most people's energy is usually sapped by heat and humidity but I'm still recovering from the effects of paralytic polio and I can be especially vulnerable to wilting.
But not yesterday! I had a powerful mindset for my run - an intention to feel the joy of running. Yesterday's run came on the "heels" of the theme of gratitude. It was as though the heat lit a fire within me.
After Tom and I did our morning meditation and core work, ate a banana and hydrated, we headed out the front door with frozen water bottles around his waist and my Nike+ on my arm playing tunes on my new running playlist.
We decided to go once around the big aka Chestnut Hill Reservoir.
As the sweat poured and we basked in the gift of each other's company, I realized that I was going at a pretty fast pace. Tom noted that I was doing negative splits according to his Garmin.
I felt the joy of pushing myself; I felt the joy of pouring sweat and the joy of running.
This is the first year in 3 years that I am not training for an endurance event. I loved the challenge of going the distance 3 consecutive years in the Bermuda Half Marathon but I knew it was time to take a break and allow my body a chance to continue to heal from the effects of paralytic polio and trauma without the added strain of training for 13.1 miles.
I'm feeling good in the skin I am in for the first time in my life and able to experience the beauty and joy of running.
The joy continued as my body continued to pour sweat preparing an apres run breakfast of raisin bran and banana, toast and orange juice. Tom had coffee with his breakast and the smell of coffee and toast tickled my soul with more joy. As a side note, I stopped drinking coffee after the diagnosis of Post-Polio Syndrome but I can still savor the aroma.
I LOVE how breakfast tastes after a good run or a strength training workout. Food tastes so good as nausea yields to the joy of refueling. I savor every bite knowing how I am treating my body with love and respect. My gas tank goes from empty to full.
As my body recovered from the run, the feeling of running for the pure joy of it lingered in my mind and soul.
From my heart to yours,
To your health and wellness,
Mary
My healing journey is going to be featured in David R. Hamilton's soon to be released book, "How Your Mind Can Heal Your Body."
Be sure to visit my website by following this link.
One of my friends on Facebook started a thread asking about people's words for 2018. It's one word that sets the tone for the year. The first word that came to me was INTENTION.
I've been doing the work of Dr. Joe Dispenza on and off for the past 3 years - ever since a serious knee injury led me to a beloved chiropractor healer, Ryan J. Means, DC who told me I HAD to read Dr. Joe's book, "You Are The Placebo." I extricated myself from a toxic situation that was consuming a lot of my time and repeating the patterns of my past on July 4th of this year. Since then I have rededicated myself to my healing journey and been doing the work on a more regular basis with more passion, commitment and yes intention.
I remembered a poem I wrote shortly after the diagnosis of Post-Polio Syndrome. I was diagnosed 11 years ago and in February of 2007, poetry began pouring out of me inspiring me to heal mind, body and soul, creating my future self.
During a meditation, the image of a pinball machine came to mind. I played pinball as a child and remembered the feeling of when the flippers connected with the ball and all the lights, bells and whistles went off. But for years I was used and abused by many. I made the conscious shift from victim to a free soul with:
The Pinball Machine
Put in the quarters feel the flippers I can now take hold
feeling in control more valuable than gold
for many years that little ball bouncing from side to side
racking up points for others and risking my own hide.
Now I’m the only one who plays the game of life is mine
to win I feel my freedom and let my Spirit shine.
This poem from the next page jumped out at me: It is easy to succumb to a diagnosis. There are many well documented cases of a person dying exactly when a doctor predicted they would. In one case, cited by Dr. Joe Dispenza in You Are The Placebo, a man believed that he had terminal cancer when on autopsy there was no indication of cancer anywhere in his body. He believed what the doctors told him and his body acted on those beliefs even though it was not the cancer that caused his death but his belief about the cancer. We embody what we believe and so I had to make a choice and I decided on:
A Well Chosen Path
PPS, MS, cancer stroke and more
many diagnoses exist in the doctor’s store
does diagnosis shape and a cripple does it make
or do I use the pain to choose the path I want to take?
No matter what the outcome there’s no way I can fail
for when I take the hand of God through adversity I sail.
The body is imperfect but my soul is shining free
there’s never any limit to the true essence of me.
I get in tune and get in step knowing every limb is healed
running wildly with the wind embracing flowers in the field.
I love myself beyond all words a message says to live
and from my open grateful heart to others do I give.
I've started writing poetry again and I love feeling the connection to myself and to Source within and around me as I write poetry and prose. I am creating "The Adventures of Runnergirl1953" the 3rd and next book in what I never set out to be a series of books about my healing journey.
Two weeks from today Team McManus is leaving for Bermuda to have a well earned and much needed vacation after these past 3 years. Ruth Anne has suffered from severe depression and PTSD that resulted in 6 hospitalizations, numerous med trials, adverse reactions to meds and her almost ending her life last Spring. I was working on my own healing and while I made strides in moving forward in healing the effects of paralytic polio and trauma that manifested in the guise of Post-Polio Syndrome, I was still very much stuck in the patterns from my past. We are each moving forward going the distance in our healing, in our lives and on the roads!
We have trained hard and we have trained well.
With intention we will be running side by side, stride by stride taking it one mile at a time along the Bermudaful Half Marathon course.
It's time for me to write the next chapters of my life overflowing with gratitude, joy, peace, love, creativity, health and wellness...faith in the working out of all things for the highest good leaving my old self behind.
Leave the Old Self Behind
From worrier to warrior to one who is a beast
Transformed from meek and mild who felt she was the least.
At 5 years old you took my hand although no hand to hold
If you decide to choose this life there will be treasures to behold.
The dark night of the soul I’ve known and choices came from pain
The old self behaviors from those I now refrain.
A new song stirs within my heart joy and love now fill my soul
They tried to beat and break me now I’m free and healed and whole.
The old self tried to fix and mend and tend to others strife
The new me binds my own wounds others journeys are their life.
Compassion kindness gratitude inspiration light my way
Fellow travelers like hearted come along and join my play.
The future is my present the past now cleansed with light
Leaving my old self behind all hope and healing now in sight.
Affirming my Divinity my birthright now I name
Never to be robbed again my life I now reclaim!
While New Year's Eve is right around the corner, I am not waiting for a New Year to set goals and create my life. As we count down to Bermuda, I am busy writing the next chapters of my life.
From my heart to yours,
Mary
Be sure to visit my website by following this link.
On January 6th, 2015 I walked through the doors of Shields MRI in Framingham to have an MRI of my left knee. After receiving the results, I wrote a blog, "I'm on a Mission."
Here are a few excerpts:
My regular blog readers know that I am a truth teller. Last night I had a complete meltdown about my injury and the status of my left knee. I was able to hold onto the feelings of gratitude that the injury is nothing more than a lateral meniscal tear and that there is degenerative joint disease with swelling (among various other findings). It is not life threatening in any way shape or form. It hurts and I'm frustrated I can't run right now but I was planning to take time off from running in the winter and focus on cross training. I was tired of feeling the cumulative effects of spending so much of my life recovering from polio, from trauma, and from surgeries.
I went to bed early and released whatever needed to surface and clear through my dreams and my system....
I am doing the 30 day plank challenge. I have to modify it given my age and conditioning. This morning I was able to hold it for 50 seconds.
I'm on a mission to heal, to feel a new kind of physical strength by using more of my body than I have in the past.
I'm on a mission to shed the image of myself as a polio and trauma survivor and go from this moment forward to experience my body and my Being in new ways.
Much of my 61 years has been spent in the shadow of polio, trauma, disease and surgeries but all that is changing and I am standing in my own spotlight.
I'm on a mission to claim my birthright to heal and to be the best version of myself I can possibly be. I'm on a mission to get back on the roads in better shape than I've ever been in to run. I can't wait to feel the joy of crossing the finish line as Team McManus again...
and I'm on a mission to set the world on fire with my message...
My message one year ago was no matter what happens to us we can all find a way to journey well. That message morphed into whatever the goal, whatever the challenge, we can always find a way to go the distance.
Shortly after putting out the word that I was on a mission, I met Dr. Ryan J. Means; a chiropractor and healer in every sense of the word. I was working with a massage therapist at the time who ironically enough was in the same office space as Ryan and he never referred me to Ryan for help with my knee. It was only after an epic fail with a physical therapist and the fact that the PT script recommended taping and Ryan had taping listed as one of his services on his website that I decided to partner with him on my journey. As the massage therapist I was working with would shrug when I was adamant about healing my left knee without another surgery; the only surgery recommended was an eventual total knee replacement, Ryan and I devoured You Are the Placebo.
This past year I have developed a new relationship with my body. My body is incredibly resilient. I read Candace Pert's book, 'Everything you need to know to feel go(o)d.' Another book recommendation from Ryan who heard Candace speak when he was training as a chiropractor. She talks about how we talk to our bodies when we feel sensations. Harnessing the power of my mind (much like a Jedi master would) I would interpret sensations in the positive.
The Universe would not let me stop short of what I set out to do after receiving the diagnosis of post polio syndrome, a progressive neuromuscular disease that was my wake up call. I vowed to heal my life and healing my life I am. Despite a major family crisis, I did not relapse. I put my body through a more rigorous training program than I ever have - even more rigorous than when I trained for Boston. I am healthier, stronger, more confident, have greater faith in the resiliency and healing capacity of my body as long as I take excellent care of it. After training for the Bermuda Half Marathon I am a woman transformed shedding the identity as a survivor of paralytic polio and trauma yet honoring all that I have overcome.
As I count down to Bermuda, my heart overflows with gratitude and I welcome this time of reflection to celebrate what I have accomplished and to experience resilience, trust, and faith in ways I never have before in my body and in my life. I am a woman transformed; a journey blessed by the gift of the presence of Dr. Ryan in my life.
Dr. Joe Dispenza was critically injured in an accident during the bike portion of a triathlon and fractured several vertebrae in his back. He was told that he needed surgery to have a metal rod put in his back and was given a guarded prognosis about being able to walk again even with surgery. Without surgery, paralysis was certain. He chose to heal without surgery.
From You Are the Placebo, xvii, "Maybe I was just young and bold at that time in my life, but I decided against the medical model and the expert recommendations. I believe that there's an intelligence, an invisible consciousness, within each of us that's the giver of life. It supports, maintains, protects and heals us every moment. ... I reasoned at the time that if this intelligence was real and if it willfully, mindfully and lovingly demonstrated such amazing abilities, maybe I could take my attention off of my external world and begin to go within and connect with it-developing a relationship with it."
And so at the age of 23, an "accident" was the beginning of Dr. Joe Dispenza's path to do research and help others to heal and transform from the inside out.
I was familiar with our abilities to heal ourselves from the inside out and thinking and acting greater than the circumstances of our lives when I started writing poetry 8 1/2 years ago. Despite all outward conditions and never having run a day in my life, I went on to run the 2009 Boston Marathon shortly after coming out of a leg brace and being told I should prepare myself to be in a wheelchair for the rest of my life.
It's been an incredible journey!
With any journey there were many triumphs and a lot of trials, tribulations and setbacks.
After reading You Are The Placebo, partnering with Dr. Ryan and dedicating myself heart and soul to this journey, I feel that I have traction in my healing that manifested in Wednesday evening's training run.
I visualized a 46:52 and watch Billy Mills' video over and over and over again.
I had to beat my time by two minutes from what I was running in training runs.
Last weekend we went to a wedding reception where runners and fast runners were in attendance. I found myself sharing my story with a couple that Tom had met while I was talking with the father of the groom. He told me I had to meet them. We were talking about my journey and the words my goal is to somehow run a 12:00 minute/mile pace fell out of my mouth. When I was training for Boston I ran an 11:00 minute/mile pace pushing myself during training runs. In the 2008 Tufts 10K I found myself "Running with God" and coming to the finish line four minutes under what I had visualized for the race that day with a sub 14:00 minute/mile pace.
Since the Finish at the 50 is an evening race, I knew that Tom and I would need to get in evening runs so I could plan fueling for the day and let go of my fear and perception that I am fatigued by the end of the day. The journey of transformation can be distilled to love becoming greater than fear; being an ambitious god and tapping into that delicious Divinity within thinking and acting greater than the circumstances in our lives.
I had an early morning dream about the trauma I experienced as a child and was able to create a very different outcome from the one I actually experienced in the dream. Instead of waking up feeling terror and being in a cold sweat, I felt strong. Every day in every way my body is changing biologically and neurologically from the one that was created out of those horrific circumstances.
Late afternoon, I experienced fatigue and nausea and decided to meditate for a half hour before meeting Tom to go on our run. I settled into a deep meditation and visualized 46:00 minutes as my goal for Finish at the 50 even though a time of 46:52 would be a PR over my Bill Rodgers 5K time last year. I surrendered to the magic and the mystery of the Universe allowing for complete healing of body and mind. There were moments of the old self wanting to assert her opinion into running and setting these goals for myself but I wouldn't let those thoughts take root. I offered her compassion, kindness, tenderness and love but told her she would no longer be in control. I tapped into Oneness, wholeness, images of Forrest Gump and Wilma Rudolph and embracing and embodying myself as a runner who runs swiftly.
I exerted a lot of effort in our run but I wasn't struggling. I was training my mind and body in this new state of being.
First mile we ran a 15'59" pace as we warmed up. I ran with God from the inside out feeling connected to something Divine within me. I threw it out to the Universe that I wanted to see 46:00 minutes when we finished our training run. I would not do a time check. Because I set my Nike+ for distance, I was able to find out when we were at 1 mile for a water stop. After the first water stop, I went back inside of myself and ran from the inside out. I ran hard but without struggle.
"Tom, it's time for another water stop. We're at mile 2." We were both amazed and knew we had done an amazing pace but didn't know how amazing until after it was all over. I ran mile 2 at a 12'40" minute/mile pace. Don't ask me how and that's what's so wonderful and amazing about this journey. It wasn't something I did on my own. I tapped into something beyond myself yet something that is right here inside of myself. I did have to pause and walk briefly between mile 2 and 3 to get my breath back and to find my running rhythm.
".1 mile to go," the Nike+ voice cued me and I took off in a sprint. "Hey where are you going?" Tom asked me. "We have .1 mile to go...we are coming to the finish line."
We visualized our friends Reno and Susan cheering for us and coming onto the field to run us in. I saw the finisher's clock at 46:00 minutes and I cried as though it were race day feeling how I will feel the moment I cross that finish line. Hugs and congratulations all around just like Ms. Nike+ said, "Congratulations. You completed your goal of 3.11 miles."
I was excited to see my time...had I hit 46:00 - um actually not -- It was 45:04 - a 14'30" average pace!
I can move forward from here feeling the joy in this journey and falling in love with the creative process.
I was nauseous and had a headache; nothing that more hydration and crackers wouldn't take care of and a good dinner after an ice bath to rejuvenate my legs.
I was born to run and I love to run and I love to challenge myself as a runner. Running is my medicine and my therapy. I could feel new neuromuscular connections happening during Wednesday night's training run on my left side. I could feel the past being erased from my mind and body so I can be someone new filled with joy, vitality and vibrancy, health and well being and wholeness.
I experienced a miraculous transformation in Wednesday night's training run and will continue to focus and set my sights on running swift, running hard yet running without struggle unencumbered by the circumstances of my past.
Miracles happen when we think and act greater than the circumstances in our lives.
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.
In Journey Well, the journey continues in the wake of my nephew's suicide on 3/4/11 and the events of 4/15/13. Through my journey of healing and transformation, we learn that no matter what life circumstances happen to us, we can always find a way to journey well.
50% of book proceeds from all of my books, available on Amazon are donated to the Arredondo Family Foundation whose mission is to provide a helping hand to those experiencing a tragedy and to provide education on matters relating to military, veterans, military families, and the issue of suicide.
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.
The subconscious mind cannot tell the difference between reality and imagination ... Relive the moment the way you want it to be. - Billy Mills Olympic Gold Medalist
Heading out on my training run, I wanted to break that 16:00 minute/mile pace that has been with me since I returned to the roads in March. I had it in my mind's eye last Saturday but it didn't happen. I'd been watching Billy Mills YouTube video as I retrain myself as a runner after last December's injury. I've been keeping a healing journal and writing affirmations.
I wanted to write down in my training journal a 5K run with a sub 16:00 minute/mile pace but to be honest, I was afraid to write it down in case I missed my mark. Now I know that you have to be willing to commit 100% to goals. I am still clearing out the messages from doctors and therapists who discouraged me from running or pushing myself. I guess too there was a part of me that didn't want to "fail" if I wrote down the goal and fell short today and that's okay. The important thing is that although I couldn't commit to writing down the goal, I made a shift in my thoughts before I went on my run.
I reminded myself that I am a runner. I imagined Forrest Gump and Wilma Rudolph and Billy Mills. I am fearless when it comes to setting and achieving goals when I move out of the way and allow the transformation to happen.
I thought about the work of Dr. Joe Dispenza, and "You Are the Placebo" and rather than focusing on the how's or why's or what's of breaking the 16:00 min/mile pace and beginning to focus on a PR for my race on July 3rd, I decided to set the goal and just let it happen.
I reminded myself of how I felt when I ran in 2010 breaking PR after PR by setting my mind and intention squarely on the outcome and visualizing how I wanted the moments to be. I ran and flowed from the inside out.
I could tell when my mind was straying from working coherently with my body and I reeled it right back using the imagery that Joe uses in his You Are the Placebo book about taming a stallion to focus during meditation.
I felt a side stitch and nauseous and I reminded myself to run from my soul. I kept coming back to running from my soul and allowing the beautiful elegant runner within me to emerge.
I did not look at my time but had every confidence that I was running a sub 16:00 minute/mile pace. I believed it with every fiber of my being and asked the Universe to work with me to just make it happen.
Now just as a side note - I have also been strength training and cross training in the pool to become the runner I am today but my beliefs about my running and setting goals are just as crucial as the physical training. Joe Dispenza talks about the importance of coherence with the mind body. During my run today I kept coming back to feeling everything working together releasing doubts and placing all of my physical, mental and spiritual energies into the outcome I wanted for today's training run.
And so it happened! My fastest pace since 9/20/14 and 1 minute and 46 seconds within striking range of my 46:53 PR at the Bill Rodgers 5K in August. ***46:52*** is the time I want to see on the clock when we cross the finish line at the Finish at the 50 on July 3rd. I believe in setting goals not limits and I know how amazing it feels to open this body up and just run as well and as fast as I possibly can.
I'm back feeling strong and confident as a runner once more surrounded by a great support crew in my husband and my running family. And when doubts or fears rear their little head, I can now outrun them. I'm retraining myself mind, body and Spirit for speed and endurance. Success breeds success. Seeing an average pace of 15:33 with splits of 15:44, 15:14 and 15:47 (the last mile had a hill!) makes me smile from ear to ear.
Life is indeed a marathon and I am so blessed on the roads and off.
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.
Last weekend we watched "What The Bleep Do We Know..." The movie is 10 years old! It stars Marlee Maitlin as Amanda who goes on an Alice in Wonderland like adventure while philosophers and scientists present their ideas and studies about quantum physics.
Now before you tell me that you barely made it out of high school chem class, the information presented juxtaposed with Amanda's journey awakens us all to a world of possibility and harnessing the power within us to create our lives.
I began my journey eight and a half years ago as the intention and emotion I experienced through my poetry, despite being in a fragile, deconditioned and decompensated body drove my physical, mental and Spiritual transformation that continues today.
One of my favorite scenes is "The Water Scene" - take two minutes to watch it:
"Makes you wonder doesn't it? If thoughts can do that to water, imagine what our thoughts can do to us."
I KNOW what our thoughts can do to us and for us.
Shortly after receiving the diagnosis of post polio syndrome, what medicine calls a progressive neuromuscular disease, I had an abnormal mammogram. In fact, the diagnosis of post polio syndrome manifested from my years of self loathing coupled with being in a constant state of fight/flight survival mode in response to severe childhood trauma. For one week before returning for a repeat mammogram, I meditated and focused all of my energy on seeing my breast tissue as healthy. Given that I was dealing with the diagnosis of post polio syndrome, I felt with every fiber of my Being that I was not and could not add breast cancer into the mix despite having an extensive family history of the disease. The only outcome I could see and feel and breathe was that this tumor would dissolve.
When I returned for my follow up mammogram, I confidently told the technician that this was really not necessary because the tumor was gone. She was kind and supportive and said they had a wonderful oncology team available at MGH who would give me the best possible outcome with the best treatments available. I told her that she'll see and the doctors will see - it's gone!
She took extensive views and the doctor examined them with a "fine tooth comb." They concluded it must have been an artifact or a mistake on the first reading. I know different. I felt the tumor. They saw the tumor but they could not imagine that I could heal myself.
Last December when my knee became inflamed, I briefly returned to Western medicine to get a handle on what I needed to heal. But I didn't stay there. The messages they sent me were words of caution and admonishment that running wasn't a great idea but since they knew I would run away that longer distances were definitely out if I wanted to preserve my knee joint.
While I knew that I could heal myself using my mind as I had when I was first diagnosed with post polio syndrome and went on to run the 2009 Boston Marathon, I knew that since I wanted to take my healing to the next level, I needed to find a partner for this next phase of my journey. The Universe answered my call with Dr. Ryan J. Means - a healer chiropractor.
I keep a healing journal and am now writing down my affirmations. Here is a sampling:
~I am healthy, whole, confident and strong
~The tremors are healed.
I had never thought to put this out there before now even
~My left knee has full range of motion. I feel the scar tissue dissolve in my mind's eye and feel a comfortable and easy stretch when I stretch my quads. In last week's treatment, I had almost full range of motion. I open up to the possibility and feel it happen.
~I run a 12 minute mile. The actual time doesn't ultimately matter but I see myself as running with ease and being swift of foot. I see myself and embody myself as an endurance runner. Period. I was a mobility impaired runner. Now I am building strength, confidence, endurance and ultimately speed. When I do my sit ups and crunches I see myself as ageless creating and forging and forming the endurance runner within me.
I feel the heal. I journal and write poetry feeding myself well on thoughts that create my new reality. I meditate, work out and I am unstoppable. I am invincible. And all things are possible! "If thoughts can do this to water...."
Feel the Heal
The Potter’s wheel with loving hands a figure forms brave and true
breaking mold cast by others, Triumphant Spirit emerges shining through.
In the likeness of Divine’s image, all excess baggage gently melts away
unbridled freedom, joy, resilience fired up whole without fringe or fray.
Rhythmic turnings ever so slowly, tender kindness she feels the heal
Potter pauses as work now finished, she gracefully leaps from Potter’s wheel.
Color and shape beyond compare magnificent in radiant sun
going the distance helps others to heal fueling her 26.2 mile run.
Transcending transforming no pain can last, grit and gratitude fill heart and soul
leave doubts and fears in dust of memories past
sights set clearly on finish line goal.
In the distance the Potter’s cheering that Voice so clear rises above the din
she feels in every fiber of her Being this race is hers to win.
Pacing, persistent and patient in each moment she feels the heal
reminded of her humble true beginnings blessed by grace on Potter’s wheel.
BE BLESSED! TO ALL GOOD THINGS.....
I chronicle the first 7 years of my healing journey in Coming Home:A Memoir of Healing, Hope and Possibility.
