If You Want to Recover, then Stop Trying to Live with Your MS
In the book, “The Healing Code”, Dermott O’Connor tells the story of his client that was going to his clinic for treatment after an MS attack. O’Connor asked his client which side of his body was his “bad side”. His client confidently pointed out that he didn’t have a ‘bad side,’ he had “good side” and a “recovering side”. Why is that change in wording so essential to recovery from multiple sclerosis? Because of the action or inaction, it creates. Let me give you a few more examples:
Living with MS
Telling yourself and others that you are “Living with MS” can be detrimental. Why? Say those words to yourself right now and answer the following: Is there a sense of empowerment? A sense of hope of improvement? Drive for change? Direction? Motivation? Probably not. There is acceptance (good) but no direction for recovery (not so good).
Managing Your MS Symptoms
What about when you are managing your MS symptoms? What are you telling yourself “neuro-linguistically” (to your mind with your words)? And how does that influence outcome and expectation?
Let me give you an example that might be easier to understand what’s wrong with the word “manage.’ Imagine if we were trying to lose weight. Does practicing “weight management” let us know we will be successful and never have to look back at those old ways of being with and relating to food? How about managing overeating or living with weight issues? Dreadful mindsets aren’t they?
Broken Immune System
Another tricky mindset is blame. What if we were to justify to ourselves and others that we have weight issues because “we have a bad metabolism”. Brilliant solution to our weight problem. Or is it? Blaming something you have no control over is not empowering nor does it give you the motivation to make the necessary changes. Would you agree that isn’t helpful? Would you also agree that saying:
- you have a “weak side”
- A “broken immune system”
- You are “unlucky””
- “I must have somehow deserved it”,
- This “runs in your family”
does nothing to help you find the means necessary to improve health and kick MS to the curb? So now what?
Stop the Blame Game
The first step to become empowered and recover from MS will be to stop the blame game.
Returning to our example: Would we blame our weight issues on food? The food did it! Some people will but it’s not accurate. Andrew Austin, who does neurolinguistic programming (NLP) trainings for weight loss had a need trick he used with his students. The first day of his weight loss training, he would cover the front desk in his classes in sweet pies, cakes, and donuts. All the new students would come into the class and be appalled!
Why do you think he did that? He did that because he wanted them to realize the food is not to blame. The problem is their relationship to it; the behaviors around it; and the emotional issues that food masks. He invited them to use his course to work on those issues and put the responsibility back on themselves. His course would give them a chance to create the necessary changes to keep themselves slim and healthy no matter how many donuts are in the room.
I invite you to do the same.
Stop blaming the immune system and its reaction to our nervous system? Take full responsibility for finding solutions to everything that is causing your body to break down. That is what the Creating Health series wants – to give you as many effective solutions to reversing multiple sclerosis from the inside out.
Recovery from multiple sclerosis is about being proactive. And like Andrew with his diet students, look at your relationships, behaviors, and emotions (for common one, check out the MS Personality). By addressing all aspects that could be causing the MS reaction in the body, you have the greatest chance of becoming healthy and resilient.
Can You Recover from MS?
Your job is to use all the information on the different techniques and modalities out there that have helped others heal their MS, and find your ideal combination. My job, Eva M Clark, in this post and this Creating Health Series post, is to help you change your mindset concerning MS. My goal is for you to feel motivated and believe that recovery from multiple sclerosis is possible.
“If you believe you can or if you believe you can’t, you are probably right.” – Henry Ford
Currently, even though you might be interested in healing and have tried a few modalities, you probably believe it’s not working for you. That is why so many give up so easily. So the first step in recovering from multiple sclerosis is believing it can be possible for you. So let’s begin.
The Recovery from Multiple Sclerosis Mindset
NLP is the study of successful mindset structures. An NLP practitioner helps you discover HOW you are doing the problem and then helps you discover HOW to do success instead. Sounds strange, doesn’t it?
The most basic problem keeping you from recovery is that everyone, including your doctor, have the mindset that MS is an “incurable disease that will only get worse”. And that mindset helps to keep the disease in place! We want to change that mindset to one of recovery. This new mindset will open up possibilities and give us the motivation to go beyond managing your symptoms and into actively creating health.
This is one of the powerful processes I, Eva M Clark, use in my one-on-one sessions (You can see an outline of the areas covered in my sessions by reviewing the the Healing Multiple Sclerosis Outline).
This NLP process taught in this video of recovery from MS was adapted from Connierae Andreas “Engage Your Bodies Natural Ability to Heal”. You can find the entire process in detail and demonstrations of its use in “Heart of Mind.”
