Love Your Body

Love Your Body - that is the topic for today’s Self Love Saturday. This is to be the kindest and most loving and respectful to our bodies. The entities that have been part of us and have been with us from before the time we are born and remain with us till the end. Our body is one that is with us through thick and thin and everything in between.

Loving the body isn’t just about doing good things, but also about treating it with utmost respect in every single aspect. Starting with the silent talks you have with it to what you allow others to say to you about yourself. Creating that boundary within which only love prevails. With love comes everything else that allows us to flourish in our lives.

The first thing to do is to cease any and all negative self-talk. Stop yourself dead in the tracks when a negative thought arises. Negative self-talk comes naturally to us. It’s what our society knows and gifts to us when we are born. It’s not anyone’s fault but a norm that we have just accepted. Most of us don’t know any better. We need to separate ourselves out from that and create that shield around us that no negativity can penetrate. All of this comes with a lot of positive self talk, affirmations that make us realize our own magnificence, and a lot of mindfulness throughout our day. Louise Hay affirmations are a great place to start and amazing resource. Her work and her books are tools for learning and strengthening our self-love. Do check it out if you’re interested.

Oh another thing, even if you don’t feel the love for your whole body, you chanting the affirmations daily will eventually and definitely have a positive effect on your body because the subconscious mind does not know the difference between the two. Intention is our seed that allows the tree of self-love grow and flourish.

Once I read this amazing thing where the author talks about loving ourselves as if we are a 3-yrs old child. Imagine all the things you don’t like about yourself. Now imagine your 3-yr old child having that. Would you love your child any less for having those traits? No way! We’d love our child regardless. It is time to show that same love to ourselves. We are worth it. 💗💗💗

How I healed my lymphedema

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Someone in the Lymphedema support group asked this question about how I healed my lymphedema. I have a rather long answer to share but I feel it has a lot of value. 

Additional Disclaimers/Notes: 

• This list is not to overwhelm, but to help. Please consider this as a big buffet that is in front of you and you are here to select the items that resonate with you and things that your intuition calls for.
• Every single person's healing journey is unique and different. What works for one might not work for the other and vice versa. It is up to us to find out what works and what help is needed. It's a self-discovery and no one can tell us what will work for us and what won't. Two people with exact same diagnosis and conditions will have completely different root causes that have created their situation so how they go about healing that depends on the individual and it has to be custom designed by the individual themselves. This is not one size fits all.
• All of this has been going on for over five years now. It has taken me over five years to get where I am today, not overnight. Please be super patient with self and only set realistic expectations from yourself. If you can't do something certain day, it's completely OK.
• With healing cancer or lymphedema or any ailment, be patient with self. Take it one day at a time, some days... take it one hour at a time or sometimes even just a minute at a time. This healing journey is very demanding so it's tiring and needs a lot of patience. Slow is good.
• If you are starting doing something from the list here, start with maybe just one or two things per day and slowly over time add more once those are incorporated into your routine.

A Patient Story

A bit of background, along with lymphedema, I had also developed depression after I lost my sister to a rare type of aggressive cancer a year before my own breast cancer diagnosis so I was dealing with a tremendous amounts of grief, traumas, losses, compromised immune system, imbalanced mental health, and so many other issues. Things I did to heal myself were not focused on healing just one part of me or one condition I had, but everything I had. Here are things I did for my mental health in parallel to things I did for my lymphedema. Sharing these here because I feel these had a positive contribution and big influence on my healing:

• Get professional help (counselor/therapist, medication, etc.)
• Reading lots of self-help books, especially Book “Radical Remission” by Dr. Kelly Turner. This book changed my life for better. https://www.amazon.com/Radical-Remission-Surviving-Cancer-Against/dp/0062268740/ref=sr_1_1?crid=TV2DH330J655&keywords=radical+remission+by+dr.+kelly+turner&qid=1705980439&sprefix=radical+re%2Caps%2C220&sr=8-1
• Meditation & Prayers: 
• Depression Yoga with Adriene (15-min) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sxddnugwu-8 
• Inner child meditation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5lHiWyWU-Eo
• Om Mani Padme Hum chanting / listening to this YouTube link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R-ZO7bsA2pA (This one just calms me down and my fears disappear)
• Exercises & walking:
• Daily Walks in nature, some days I just go sit in nature/backyard/in sun when I don’t have energy to walk.
• Arm exercises and stretching/dancing
• Eden Energy Medicine exercises:
• Daily Energy Routine (DER) (7 min): https://youtu.be/3UHjyjvE14s 
• Activate Joy in your life (Radiant Circuits) (6 min): https://youtu.be/8AHS4GrRztg 
• Every single day, doing things that bring me joy. Not wait for some day or later, but spend time doing things that I love and enjoy, even if it’s for one minute only.
• Cry. Normalize crying. It’s completely OK to cry/bawl/let it all out. In fact, it's very healthy. Do it with a loved one by your side for more comfort. Let them know it helps you. I say I am emptying my jug so I can fill it up again. It feels amazing and it’s therapeutic. 
• Cold showers: check this page for benefits and how-do-guide: https://medium.com/@juanpabloaranovich/using-deliberate-cold-exposure-for-heath-and-performance-81828b9c4773 (I listened to the podcast that they mention in this article a month or so ago and started doing this daily and haven’t looked back since then)
• Gratitude journaling: Fill in the blank: Today I am grateful for________. Do this daily. I blogged about it here: https://swarmingforselflove.blogspot.com/2022/06/gratitude-journaling.html 
• Saying no to things I don't want to do including saying no to people and relationships that don't bring value. I struggle the most with this one, but becoming more aware and having loved ones remind and support me help a lot. Check out Dr. Gabor Mate talking about how not being able to say no in our life causes chronic conditions such as cancer, auto-immune diseases, etc.: https://youtu.be/xChNbQ2o0Ro?si=6KPQLztrHNQTDFI4

Sharing below the things I did to heal my lymphedema in the arm and trunk area post breast cancer and surgeries. I believe that improving my mental health had a big contribution towards healing my physical conditions too.

1. Post my lymphedema diagnosis, I did 20 sessions of PT (each session was 1 hour), wore my compression sleeve and compression bras religiously and everywhere for over 1.5 years, did my Tactile Medical compression pump everyday for 1 hour for 1.5 years, did and continue to do my PT stretches and many other things that I have listed below.
2. I did CBT / talk therapy to resolve and heal past traumas, resentments, anger, hatred towards self, other people, other situations, etc.
3. I follow the works of Louise Hay. She says that every physical condition has a mental thought pattern root cause and a positive affirmation that can change+heal the mental thought pattern and in turn heal the condition. She herself got a cancer at one point in her life and healed it and lived till the age of 90+. So as suggested in her book, I sat down with the book and highlighted all the ailments or physical complaints and symptoms I had and started reading the mental thought patterns and affirmations and found out they were following certain pattern. I started to see which aspects of my life and my thinking needed help. All of that analysis gave me a lot of homework to do. Things I needed to work on in myself. 
• Louise Hay also says that all physical ailments mean that there is something or someone/self we need to forgive. I did lots and lots of self-love and forgiveness for self and forgiveness for others. Healing traumas from this life or maybe even beyond this life. I did the Ho’oponopono prayer. It is Hawaiian forgiveness prayer. You can read up more on it online. I would literally smile while looking in the mirror every morning and say “I love you” to who I see in the reflection. I hug myself and tell myself “I love you”. I also do a lot of ho’oponopono prayer to myself.

Excerpts from Book “Heal Your Body” by Louise Hay on Lymphedema:

Problem: Lymph problems

Probable Cause: A warning that the mind needs to be reentered on essentials of life. Love and Joy. 

New thought pattern: I am now totally centered in the love and joy of being alive. I flow with life. Peace of mind is mine.

Problem: Edema

Probable Cause: What or who won’t you let go of?  

New thought pattern: I willingly release the past. It is safe for me to let go. I am free now.

Problem: Holding Fluids

Probable Cause: What are you afraid of losing?

New thought pattern: I willingly release with joy.

Problem: Swelling

Probable Cause: Being stuck in thinking. Clogged, painful ideas.

New thought pattern: My thoughts flow freely and easily. I move through ideas with ease.

• Lots of gratitude and positive affirmations all day everyday, morning, evening, daytime. Every waking moment whenever I remember. I even thank my cancer and my lymphedema. That’s my body’s way of telling me it needs attention, love, and help. Works of Thich Nhat Hanh have helped me a lot to become more mindful and more positive. 
1. Everyday, I thank my body, my arms, my compression pump, my compression sleeve, my bras, my PT, my stress/squeeze ball. 
2. One of my personal experiences of this technique working beautifully was when I got my COVID shots. I did a lot of ho’oponopono prayer and gratitude to my vaccine starting several days before my shot, along with affirmations like “My COVID vaccine and I are best friends and we coexist in harmony. Thank you COVID vaccine for protecting me, for helping me”. I also would hug my body and tell it “we are going to get a new shot and it’s for our protection and it’s helping us and it's OK”. After all of that, I had significantly less side effects (no fever, no body aches, no nausea) from it than when I didn’t do that. :) 
• I journal often. Write down my thoughts, how I am feeling, especially after a so-called negative/unpleasant experience, but overall, just writing about everything that’s on my mind. I call it my confidential journaling. 
1. I follow and practice Eden energy medicine. It is the modality that is based on balancing our chakras/meridians/energy systems, etc. and TCM (Traditional Chinese Medicine) and works with the electromagnetic energies of our bodies.
2. Acupuncture & massage. This is also based on TCM and balances the meridians and energy blockages. Important Note: My acupuncturist, with my consent and request, avoided massaging and putting needles in my affected arm because my lymphedema PT was doing the massages in those areas so we avoided additional stress / changes to the arm from a different healer.
3. Mindset changes:
1. Every single person's healing journey is unique and different than mine. What works for me might not work for others and vice versa. It is up to me to find out what works for me and what help I need. It's a self-discovery and no one can tell me what will work for me and what won't. Two people with exact same diagnosis and conditions will have completely different root causes that have created their situation so how they go about healing that depends on the person and it has to be custom designed by the individual themselves. It is not one size fits all.
2. Truly believe that only I have the power to heal my body and my mind. External help can help but it is entirely up to me to heal myself, my body, my mind, my soul. I have to open the door to let the help reach me. If I am not ready to open that door, help continues to sit outside my door and I will never get that help so I have to believe that I have the power to heal myself. Our bodies are magical, very forgiving, and have tremendous healing powers. We just have to start listening to our bodies.
3. Believe that the most powerful thing we possess is our mind and it has the power to heal our bodies and everything around us. Let go of all the anger, resentments, fears, worries, stress. 
4. Believe that everything happens for a reason and there is always something to learn from it. I now seek for a lesson in all that happens to me, especially if it’s a challenging experience. Most of the time, the answer or lesson is to “do more self love” and/or “create healthy boundaries for self”.
5. One other thing I realized and started to believe during all of this is everything is connected to everything. In our bodies and outside. What I mean by that is in our bodies, when one thing doesn’t feel right or has imbalance, it affects the other thing. If our mind is not feeling well, our bodies will reflect that unwell feeling. Every single thing is connected in our bodies and with mind and our spirit also. Externally, we are all connected to each other and with everything in the universe. This is a different topic for a different day and I will write more on that later and share here. This mindset and thinking made forgiveness quite easier.
6. I do not consider cancer as an external, invasive thing. It is all part of me and I created it myself. Unknowingly, of course. It is my body’s way of saying no. It is my body telling me it needs help and love. So I gave my cancer a lot of love and accepted it as my body screaming at me loudly. I thanked all my tissues before my mastectomy surgery and that brought me tremendous amount of peace and acceptance. The day I started to see my cancer as part of me that I had created, I didn’t hate it or dislike it any more. I call all of this my healing journey. My journal to heal myself, my mind, my body, my soul. I don’t call any of the cancer treatments as a fight, a war, or a battle. I am not a warrior or a fighter, but a lover, a healer. I have reduced and stopped most of the negative self-talk. All of these negative words carry a low vibration energy and don't lift you up. I thank my body for telling me what it needs by showing all the ailments. I didn't listen to the whispers from the body so slowly it started to raise the voice and cancer was the loud screaming from my body to start loving it again. It has given me an opportunity to learn to listen to my body and I’m learning it slowly but surely. I’m learning to give all parts of my body so much love, gratitude, and never take it for granted for all that it does for me. After all, if someone has always been with me, by my side since before I was born, it is my own body. I love my body tremendously and thank my body at every opportunity I get.
7. Summon the universe to help with healing. As Shah Rukh Khan says "agar kisi cheez ko dil se chaaho to puri kayanat usey tumse milane ki koshish mein lag jaati hai." Literal translation is: "If you wish for something with all your heart, then the whole universe tries to provide it to you". I feel that this works for any and all things positive so if you wish for something good, positive, beneficial for self and for the greater good of all, the universe helps manifest it easily and faster. So next time you need help, pray to the universe and ask for the guidance. Then be open to receiving that from anywhere. It can come from social media feed, TV ad shows up, your doctor mentions something or your friend suggests something. Universe helps us out when we summon it and request for help/guidance. 

In all of this, the idea is to try out each modality with an open mind and when something resonates, then truly believe that it will help you heal. Some call it the placebo effect. I use that to my advantage, for my healing. 

Today, I continue to do quite a lot of these supplemental things to heal myself. Hope these tips and my experiences are insightful for you. If you have more questions about any of these or need more info, please ask and use me as a resource. I am reminded of this quote of Albus Dumbledore: "Help will always be given at Hogwarts to those who ask for it." Guess what! This is true for us in this life, in this universe too! 😁

Love & Light, 💗✨
Kanan

How I started my gratitude journey

My amazing friend recently asked me:

Hey dear… I love to see you being so grateful at every aspects of life. 

Can u guide me to do so and to become so much grateful. 

How to start the "being grateful journey and motivation"?

I have written about how I started my gratitude journaling here, which started back in Oct 2020.

How it all started: https://swarmingforselflove.blogspot.com/2022/06/gratitude-journaling.html

Initially, I started my gratitude journaling sporadically. Seeing gratitude post-it notes around me became a reminder for me to do more of it. I started to pay attention to how I felt after I wrote gratitude notes and realized it felt really good and it was calming too. Eventually, overtime, as I read more and practiced more gratitude, it started to become an integral and very big part of my life. Today, gratitude journaling is still part of my life in a slightly different way. I still do write the fill-in-the-blank: “Today I am grateful for…” as an activity but more than that it has become a sacred ritual that I have incorporated in everything I do during my entire day.

First two gratitude books that I read are these. I have read them over and over again because the chapters or verses are small and could be read daily. Do check these out.

(1)

Attitudes of Gratitude: How to Give and Receive Joy Every Day of Your Life (Practicing Gratitude) Paperback – October 1, 2017 by M.J. Ryan (Author), Mark Nepo (Foreword)

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1573247103/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1

(2)

A Grateful Heart: Daily Blessings for the Evening Meals from Buddha to The Beatles (Prayers, Poems, Gratitude, Affirmations,Thanks) Paperback – October 1, 2011 by M.J. Ryan (Author)

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1573245372/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Another great book that I read was this one that my cousin recommended. It changed the way I thought of everything in my life. I started to think about so-called negative, unpleasant things as teachings and started to look for what lesson they were teaching me after I read this one. Highly recommend for those wanting to make big shifts in the way their life works right now. It has truly been a game-changer one for me!

(3)

Attitude Is Everything: Change Your Attitude... Change Your Life! Paperback – March 13, 2012 by Jeff Keller (Author)

https://www.amazon.com/Attitude-Everything-Change-Your-Life/dp/0979041031/ref=sr_1_1?crid=VWN49AJIVP6R&keywords=attitude+is+everything&qid=1707871080&sprefix=attitude+is+%2Caps%2C166&sr=8-1

There are a few other things that have helped me improve my gratitude practice and gratitude journaling. Some of them include forgiveness, compassion, loving kindness, mindfulness, and self-love. Forgiveness for self and others, compassion for self and others, loving kindness for self and others... everything applies to ourselves first and then others. Practicing all of these have made me feel more grateful. I will share more on all of these later.

Love & Light,

Kanan