Our mind is so powerful that if we simply think we are taking a drug, our body may respond identically to that of someone who is in fact taking it. For decades, conventional medicine has poured millions of dollars into controlling this well-known “placebo effect.” The idea was to effectively study the power of pharmaceutical remedies by getting rid of any potential interference. The most interesting and revolutionary discovery, however, was the one being straight-jacketed in studies: the power of the mind-body connection. We rely on scientific evidence to help us distinguish between effective and ineffective treatments. The politics of science, however — often motivated by money, power, and fear — may in fact lead us to trust that which can hurt us and mistrust that which can heal us.

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The past three weeks have been one helluva ride! I have so much to report back — about self-healing, self-advocacy, and the art of turning shit into fertilizer that grows pretty flowers. Meanwhile I’m pleased to say that I have safely landed in a new home in Northern California, where I am living near a bike trail. While all the drama was going on back at my home in LA, and I realized I would have to move for my health and wellness, these bike trails called me to come to them. And so I did.

Dancing has brought me to the point that with the exception of setbacks here and there, I live a pain-free life. And when I do have pain, I know how to heal it speedily. I am now seizing the next phase in my recovery: getting crazy strong and athletic again. I intend to start waking up early, eating a healthy breakfast, going for an increasingly long ride, then returning home for a dip in the jacuzzi and the beginning of my work day. I’ll be tracking my progress on Twitter and Facebook each day, so if you haven’t done so yet, be sure to follow me there!

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Our society conditions us to outsource our healthcare solutions – relying on and deferring to technological diagnostics, medical evaluations, surgical procedures, and pharmaceutical remedies. While it is prudent to be informed of the many healthcare options available to us; while it is judicious to receive expert feedback on the appropriate course of action for our ailments; and while there are cases where it is in our interest to turn to “the big guns” for help, our externally-oriented approach to recovery may cause us to overlook the primary, and in many cases, the most powerful source of healing: ourselves.

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I have had one hell of a two week run: On Wednesday August 10, my apartment company launched a demolition and construction project in the apartment beneath me, with no prior notice. When they threw out what appeared to be a sink, tossing it from the second floor landing to the steel garbage can below, the explosive crash caused an injury to the nerves in my ear and throughout my head – leaving me in horrific pain and unable to function for days.

On top of that, I couldn’t retreat, lay low, and focus on self-healing, because the demolition and construction continued. Considering that following the injury, even the sound of cracking eggs was causing me pain, the banging below was intolerable. Wearing earplugs was anything from impossible to uncomfortable for a while, because given the hypersensitivity caused by the injury, I could not tolerate the pressure in my ears. I ended up a café refugee but had a hard time functioning there as well, given that the sound of dishes clanging or people talking was causing me terrible pain.

On Thursday, August 11, I was informed that the painter was coming the next day. Fortunately, with some self-advocacy on my part and compassion on the part of the head carpenter, I was able to postpone it until after the weekend. In addition, that morning, I was able to tolerate earplugs; so I turned on the air conditioning and was able to pull off a much-needed, restorative, 16-hour sleep.

On Saturday, things were looking up following a delicious cranio-sacral appointment in my very own living room, and I felt I was on my way to recovery. Then on Sunday, I had a conversation that brought up the whole “bad things keep happening to you” backlash I’d gotten over the years when sharing my story. I was feeling vulnerable to begin with, so I ended up highly triggered and, as an upshot, an emotional wreck.

I felt too shaky to drive to teach class that night but did it anyhow. Fifteen minutes into the class, nobody had showed up, and I felt terrible anxiety and self-doubt — of the will-my-business-fail variety. Then a student showed up in horrific pain; I taught what was quite possibly the best class ever; the student was completely pain-free from the class; and she expressed a deep and heartfelt gratitude for my creating the space and offering the guidance to self-heal. I left on cloud 9, knowing that even if I can affect one person’s life like that, all my efforts have been worth it.

I took myself to the gym for some R&R in the jacuzzi and ended up being visually stalked by a woman with creepy energy – which unnerved me again. That night, I decided to hell with financial concerns. I just needed to have a quiet place where I could get grounded, do work, and rest, so I decided to check myself into the Marriott in Marina Del Rey – where I could walk on the beach when taking breaks from working. I saw it as a mini-vacation.

I tried waking up at 6 am, to get out of the apartment before the painters came, but I was so tired that I ended up pressing snooze for four hours straight and sleeping shittily as a result. Finally I got out of bed and made my way to the hotel. Not only did it end up being a different property than I thought (it was a Courtyard Marriott, instead of a regular Marriott), but there was – ta-da! – a major demolition and construction project going on in front of the hotel.

You are fucking kidding me.

I cancelled my reservation there and made a reservation at the Marriott near the beach – which is where I’d intended to go the whole time. I arrived to find not only that there was construction going on in the front of the building, but in the back as well.

Exhausted from the assault on my nerves all week long, not to mention the run-around trying to find a place to ground, and desperately needing to just lie down somewhere, I asked the receptionist if I might be able to survive the noise with the windows closed. She informed me (good for her for being honest!) that the jack hammers at 8 am that morning had sent half the guests running from one side of the hotel to another, only to be greeted by more intolerable noise on the other side.

So I cancelled my reservation and went to the beach area. Fortunately, Gladys the Parking Goddess was in my favor, and I found a spot right in front of a café that had been highly recommended to me a few months earlier. Unfortunately, the sounds of dishes banging and coffee grinding made it very challenging for me to be inside. I explained my hypersensitivity to someone and asked her to save my place, so that I could wait outside. But she didn’t, and between trying to plug my ears from the noise and keep them open to communicate with people (plugging my ears while talking made me hurt myself from my own amplified voice, and not plugging my ears made me hurt from the outside noise), let’s just say that after a couple of rounds of trying to get a tuna wrap and medium latte, I fled the scene.

Great. Something basic like ordering a sandwich had become impossible.

I walked to the beach, where I sat and cried from frustration and depletion. I tried calling my best friend but couldn’t hear a damn thing she said. The cell phone was hurting my ear, given the injury, so I couldn’t hold it close; and the crashing waves were making it impossible to hear over the speaker phone.

I actively decided to get things in perspective. While it was certainly unnerving to be essentially homeless, the beach at Marina Del Rey was really not such a bad place for that to happen. And while my business was in a critical time where I had to explode forward with a burst of energy, in order to achieve the level of success I need within the time frame of the loan I recently received, I had a terrific media coordinator holding the fort and keeping things on course while all this craziness was happening. So maybe things were not progressing as fast and furiously as I’d like them to be, but they were moving forward nonetheless.

Then there was the fact that I had a car to get me around, a computer and Skype phone to work at cafes, my overall health despite the pain and hypersensitivity in my ear from the injury, the power of self-healing – meaning that over time, I could heal my ear too, my creativity and intelligence, and a host of other privileges. In addition, while the explosive noise did injure me, it didn’t make me deaf, for which I was grateful.

In addition, while I’m in a tight and beginning-to-be-scary financial situation right now, I did in fact have enough budge room to get cranio-sacral therapy and book myself into a hotel for a few days. What’s more, I was not starving; I was not in an abusive relationship; and with the exception of the recent injury, I was functionally pain-free and mobile.

Considering the million and six ways there are to be disabled, and considering what happens in this country every day (hang out in any police station or hospital to get perspective), not to mention what goes on around the world every day, I really had nothing to complain about.

So I took myself to a Mediterranean café, where I had a delicious falafel lunch, and where a nice tourist struck up a conversation with me. I looked out at the palm trees, beach, and happy tourists, and things did not seem so bad.

To be continued…

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Sometimes fielding people’s responses to a trauma ends up feeling more traumatic than the trauma itself.

If you’ve been following my blog for a while now, it’s no surprise that navigating through public space is a challenge for me: Repeated traumas over the years have left me with a hypersensitive body. That hypersensitivity in turn has made me vulnerable to those who find it more important to shave two seconds off their walk or drive than to gracefully offer those around them an extra bubble of body space.

A few weeks ago, I took the risk of sharing with a friend the grief I was feeling over my latest challenge navigating space. Being that she was a person who lived with chronic pain, I anticipated she would respond with understanding and empathy. Instead, she remarked, “Why do these things keep happening to you?”

I suddenly felt judged and unsafe, which I said. My friend and I got into a deep conversation, in which she revealed that the “everything happens for a reason” approach has been very helpful for her in coping with her own series of repeated traumas and resulting pain and disability.

When I challenged her thinking – pointing to the overwhelming levels of randomness, chaos, and violence in our universe – she shared that she suddenly felt confused about how to process her own experience. I encouraged her to stay true to it, ie, if you believe everything happens for a reason, and if that approach helps you keep on keeping on, then go for it! Don’t let me stop you.

And I really mean that.

The problem is when the “everything happens for a reason” camp talks about their belief system as if it is indisputable fact, and worse yet, when they impose that belief system on me. That’s tantamount to telling me that the reason X happened in my life is because Jesus distinctly wants me to do Y. Yeah, you go sing your Christmas carols to your heart’s content, but don’t come knocking on my door on December 25! I’ll be busy eating Chinese food.

Which is all background for what happened today: This friend called and said, among other things, that she had read my blog post about the recent injury to my ear, and that she “wanted to comment but didn’t know what to say.” She repeated that twice.

Maybe I’m projecting here – I haven’t talked to her about it yet (because I didn’t and still don’t have the energy), so I recognize up front that I may have misinterpreted where she was coming from. But I got the distinct impression that the reason she “didn’t know what to say” was that she perceived the incident not from a place of compassion, empathy, and interest in supporting my recovery, but rather from a place of removal, evaluation, and commentary – ie “why do these things keep happening to you.” I presume that knowing I would not appreciate that kind of comment, she didn’t leave one. Which of course is better than leaving a comment that will piss me off.

But don’t then go and imply what you were thinking, because it’s almost worse than just saying it straight out. Moreover, when I’m faced with a health challenge, no matter whether it’s my first or my millionth (come to think of it, especially if it’s my millionth), how about a little cheerleading pom-pom action — comments like this:

• “You’ve overcome worse. You’ll kick the ass of this injury and further deepen your self-healing powers. I have faith in you!”
• “Remember to dance out your pain and angries. If the stereo is hurting your ear, dance to the music in your mind!”
• “I’m sending you healing energy, prayers, dancing angels, fairies, and sparkly elves to support you in your recovery.”
• “Let me know if there’s anything you need. I’m here for you!”

You know, be present with me in the moment of what’s happening, instead of stepping out and looking at me through shady glass, or worse yet, stepping out and looking down at me through shady glass. Love me. Hold my hand. Sing me affirmations. Support me in self-healing.

Anyhow, as soon as she made that comment about her non-comment, I wanted to get off the phone. I exited gracefully, but by the time we hung up, I was shaking in my core. Again, maybe I’m projecting all over my friend. But I’ve had enough experiences with people telling me (in my weakest, most vulnerable, and frightened moments, I might add) that I have bad luck, bad karma, that I “must have done something horrible” in my life, that I’m “attracting this energy”…that I think it’s worthwhile to explore the impact these responses have on me. So let us begin:

There are a whole lot of things that can be freaking me out right now:

1. How long will the pain last?
2. Is the hearing damage permanent?
3. How can I function, when even the sound of cracking eggs is hurting me now?
4. Will the lost work hours irreparably undermine my ability to get my company off the ground at this critical time?
5. How can I afford body work treatments when finances are tight?
6. Will Western medical diagnostic tools be able to detect the damage that obviously happened, or will it be another case of my pain and suffering being invalidated?
7. How might dedicating my self-healing energy to this injury effectively drain my reserves for other healing, or as OAR puts it, “How many times can I break till I shatter?”
8. How can I afford going to a hotel when finances are tight?
9. If I don’t go to a hotel, will my situation get even worse?
10. Will the apartment manager be open to helping me out with the expenses that resulted from the explosive noise? Will asking for his contribution lead to conflict that at the end of the day will simply exacerbate what I’m going through?

Despite all these uncertainties and anxieties, I have been bringing my attention – again and again – to what I can do about the situation at hand, instead of focusing on that which is outside my control:

• I’ve been pouring my energies into self-healing and affirmations.
• I’ve gone ahead and committed to a hotel for the week if need be, and I have scheduled two cranio-sacral appointments — putting my health and wellness first and leaving the rest up to Providence.
• I’ve stopped even trying to move my business ahead right now, knowing that it’s more important to take care of my body and rest. And rest I’ve done — sleeping up to 16 hours at a shot.
• I’ve asked the manager for the accommodation I’ve needed to rest, despite feeling super-uncomfortable about asking.

That there is a lot of mental discipline, considering the number and weight of uncertainties right now. And the discipline has paid off: When I woke up this morning, the pain and hearing weirdness was not only at an all-time low since the incident, but I felt peaceful and happy.

Then I got that phone call and the non-comment comment. Not only did I start shaking, but my ear started hurting. And I felt so rattled that I suddenly was afriad to get into the car to teach my class. I felt unstable and did not want to therefore end up in a car crash.

Telling someone they have bad luck or bad karma or that they are attracting negative energy or any of the other permutations of this same notion can only serve to undermine whatever confidence someone who has been traumatized needs to heal from that trauma.

Self-healing takes tremendous focus, power, and resolve. All our energies must be lined up in service to this one goal. Each comment someone makes or action someone takes that distracts our focus or otherwise pulls us out of this alignment can impede our healing progress significantly.

What’s more, there is a cumulative effect of being faced, again and again and again, with people responding not from a place of love, compassion, and support, but from a place of judgment, ridicule, dismissal, invalidation, and so on. The million ways so many people — friends, doctors, random strangers — choose to respond. It’s absolutely depleting. It’s traumatizing in its own damn right. I dare say that at this point in my life, I have PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder) from people’s response to the traumas I have endured, more so than from the traumas themselves.

Which leads me to conclude this: Friendly fire is worse than enemy fire. For starters, it’s totally unexpected, so we’re not even braced for what’s coming. The filters are off, so it can really get under our skin. It also can mess with our sense of trust, safety, and support – effictively leading to a sense of isolation in the moment that we need support the most. In addiiton, it can lead to self-silencing: People can get so afraid of the response to the trauma they have endured, that they dare noe even mention it. And we all know how healthy it is to internalize distress!

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