Time to worry, an unproductive pursuit…

I am back with conversation #14.

Conversation 14: 

A few days ago, I made the decision to expend the effort to heal my hernia instead of caving to the expectation of having surgery.  I have had this hernia since August of 2008.  Usually, once I incur an injury, I jump on it with all four feet and heal it, usually in weeks.  It hasn’t mattered what the injury has been.  I have had ligaments separated from bone in ankles and knees, I have had back injuries so sever I could not move, neck injuries so bad I could not turn my head.  A number of times I was informed by my chiropractors that it looked like I would have to have surgery.  Once, one chiropractor who had watched in wonder as over the years I had healed myself told me a particular back injury I was suffering with was so severe that even I couldn’t fix it.  I asked how long he would give me before he decided to schedule the surgery.  He said I had to make significant improvement in 2 weeks or he’d recommend surgery.  Two weeks later he was scratching his head in wonder as he marveled over the amount of healing that had taken place.  I never doubted I could heal myself.  Once I knew what had to be done and my chiropractor gave me a time limit of how long he would wait, I would fulfill the expectation.  There was no worry, I just fulfilled my expectations.  That and I enjoyed proving my chiropractor wrong. 

Now why has it taken so long to “decide” to heal my hernia?  Why didn’t I jump on it like the other incidents?  First off, I wasn’t aware that it was there.  I knew that since I had taken a bad tumble, my stomach had not felt right.  I felt queasy and just not right in my abdominal region.  Since I couldn’t identify anything in particular, I forgot about it.  That and I simply didn’t have time to worry about it.  My job was very challenging at that time and I was working on rehabilitating my ankle which was severely injured in my tumble.  A lot of time and worry was already being expended.  Then, while working over the Christmas/New Year holiday (2008/2009), I became aware of a bulge above my belly button.  What the heck was that?  I don’t have time to deal with this!  I did some research and came up with either a soft tumor or a hernia.  It took me a few more weeks to definitely identify it as a hernia.  All the research I did said that hernias can’t heal by themselves.  I found this discouraging.  And this should have been my first clue that something was wrong with my attitude. 

In the past I never let a doctor’s attitude about the body and healing dictate my own beliefs.  But, I was filled to the top with worry and over extended time commitments.  I mean there was our financial issue, the very real possibility of losing our home, my work situation, Dama’s educational demands, my not so perfect health, and the family challenges we were undergoing while compensating for Rick’s absence while he worked a second job on nights and weekends.  There simply was no more time or energy left for additional worry.  This should have been clue number two that my attitude was in dire need of adjustment.  But I ignored the clues… and developed a rash.

This particular attitude, namely that I had no time for anything and there was so much wrong in my life that I simply had no room for anything else persisted for quite some time.  Finally I caught myself saying things like, “We can’t do that because there is no time”, “I have no time to help you with that”, and “I’d love to work on healing myself but I can’t, not with everything else that has to be done.”  I also found myself saying things like, “I don’t have time to worry about that,”, “Well, that’s one less thing to worry about”, and “I have enough to worry about, I can’t think about that too.” 

Not an attractive reality to create.  And, not statements I truly believe in anyway.  And all leading to the same thing, a “poor me” attitude and victim mentality.  It was a choice.  I was choosing to be a victim of my perceived circumstances instead of perceiving the circumstances I wanted and creating them.  No wonder I didn’t heal myself. 

And as always, a bad habit formed takes the same amount of energy (effort) to reverse as it did to put it in place.  Sigh.  Off and on for months I would put a little work into healing the hernia.  I would make a good start and I could tell it was getting better and then I would allow the most currently pervasive worry to take over all my energy again.  And of course what you focus on you create more of… in this case, worry.  So I forgot about it again.  And my rash increased to cover half my body.  Lovely.

 My perception of reality persisted.  I would get over one worrisome issue and immediately replace it with the next hurdle on which to worry.  Hurry up… worry… hurry up… worry.  Scratch my itchy rash.  Sigh.

 Then a number of weeks ago, we received word that our insurance options would be changing.  This didn’t worry me because I never used the insurance anyway.  There was nothing covered that I use.  There were a few people who had to use the insurance for hospital stays and surgeries.  This new buy up option was being offered to us because of the expense incurred by those people.  We were being offered a buy up option that covered hospital stays and surgeries at 100% after deductible instead of the current 50%. 

 After the meeting, we needed to decide whether to have the buy up or not.  We took the buy up because I was afraid I was not going to be able to heal my hernia and if I had to have surgery, we were afraid we wouldn’t be able to afford it unless we had the buy up.  So, because of two fears, we purchased additional insurance for $84.00 a month.  Interestingly enough, taking and brooding about this action prompted me to make the decision to heal myself. 

 This time, when I researched hernias, I typed in “healing hernias without surgery” instead of “hernia symptoms” or “hernia issues” and found a number of people who had already healed their hernias.  Quite remarkable what a difference in attitude makes.  So, with the first steps taken, there is nothing left but the doing.  I am sure the monthly paycheck deduction will keep me motivated. 

 There are so many things we allow to stand in our way and prevent us from creating the reality we desire.  Worry is definitely one of them.  Worry is an insidious visitor, one that should not be welcome in one’s life.

 Instead of creating a worrisome existence (that gives one, or at least me, a rash), try fostering a more positive attitude, where doing doesn’t feel so hard.  Notice I said more positive attitude and doing, because inaction builds nothing, worry laden or not.

I love you all,

 Donna

Explore posts in the same categories: Conversation with Donna Moore, Conversations, Conversations with Donna Moore

Tags: Healing, Worry, Worry is a bad habit

You can comment below, or link to this permanent URL from your own site.