… After two years of suffering from rheumatoid arthritis, the pain and physical limitations had exhausted me; I could barely sleep, and I was experiencing side effects from the medication, like nausea and stomach pain.
After two years of suffering from rheumatoid arthritis, the pain and physical limitations had exhausted me; I could barely sleep, and I was experiencing side effects from the medication, like nausea and stomach pain. For a long time, I had been looking for solutions from others, but I found nothing that would stop my pain and the ongoing deterioration of my body.
I had little energy and no experience in creating a well-thought-out and structured plan to help myself.
It wasn’t until I reached the point where I could no longer bear the pain that I remembered something I was good at, even in my state of utter helplessness: observing and comparing things.
When pain would flare up, I used the coping strategies that were available to me: I could relax, reassure myself, offer myself words of encouragement, and use my imagination.
So I continued practising, comparing results, observing reactions, and testing my approach in various situations. Sometimes I found more than I could immediately explain, sometimes less than I had hoped for. I experienced setbacks and always had more questions than answers.
My arthritic pain and my desire for it to end were what kept driving me forward. As I gradually learned to reconnect with the emotions and tension underlying my pain, through an initial period of ups and downs, I began to understand that I had started my healing process.
In that, practising in and with all kinds of situations that would usually have been governed by harmful habits, by my too high stress level, or the chronic course of the disease, was a priority, while individual, isolated HÜ! exercises would help work on the pain whenever it hit.
To persevere in my healing process, it was essential that I continually refocused on the next step, allocated my energy, and created a plan and structure for my exercises.
Because I wasn’t only a little bit involved here: just like my rheumatoid arthritis affected and challenged me as a whole and in all areas of life since its onset, the same was true of my path to recovery.
Without a plan and overview, the various insights gained while practising become a confusing jumble, and it’s left to chance whether and when one can retrieve something helpful from it again. One’s healing process then becomes unclear, non repeatable, and doesn’t allow for drawing conclusions. That will, in turn, shrink the part of experiences one can find an explanation for, causing anxiety and weakening motivation. Planning and keeping a clear overview is therefore paramount.
That’s why I divided my HeilÜben exercises into manageable levels, making it easier for me to organise the insights I gained into myself. When everything did not come to me naturally, and the healing process was often not straightforward, my organisation kept up my efforts. With a good structure, one can keep track of the individual elements of the HeilÜben exercises and their effects as well. That allowed me to use them more and more specifically over time and combine them.
Adjusting to the new and unfamiliar takes time. This process often occurs unconsciously, and it always fosters inner growth. Patience and perseverance help us during this crucial phase.
All the interim results proved helpful for me in my HeilÜben exercises because they reliably showed what was successful and what needed improvement or change.
When I experienced setbacks or was too anxious, I felt helplessness and boredom, meaninglessness and disorientation. Those feelings are depressing and can give way to doubt in one’s self-efficacy. But every explorer knows such phases. They’re part of the process, not the end of the story, as long as we keep going. I learned to accept that such feelings would be there sometimes, didn’t fight them, and instead learned to acknowledge and let them pass.
What helped me further was the fact that if we generally assume that it’s certain and natural that we’ll find what’s best for us at any given moment, this will automatically direct our thought processes toward solutions and produce more helpful results. Even if something we do isn’t successful, this very realisation is already a success because it allows us to learn what doesn’t work at all, or doesn’t work precisely as expected.
Then, failure becomes a valuable feedback tool that helps us progress. That’s why it’s essential not to belittle or judge ourselves for making mistakes, but to encourage and show ourselves kindness.
A primary factor in staying consistent with practising my HeilÜben exercises was that it didn’t require any radical change in my everyday life: I simply adjusted my way of reacting to/doing all kinds of things.
Ultimately, the HeilÜben exercises functioned like a well-stocked toolbox, whose tools I had developed myself, as, over time, I had learned to recognise and apply my abilities.
Now, when it comes to fixing things with those tools, uncovering the leaks is the first step. Yet, they are not always apparent, and we only become aware of some of them over time, as with inner growth, our perception becomes more acute.
Imagine a house—even if it needs repairs in some places—that you can immediately tell is the home of your dreams, your safe space. How much more stable, beautiful, and well-maintained it will be once you fix the window that’s hanging off its hinges, install new doors, and repair the roof.
Visualising my well-being as my dream house, which just needed a bit of fixing, helped me face the discomfort and pain caused by RA: I interpreted them as pointers, making me aware of various issues that I could learn to understand and resolve. Self-awareness, paying attention to what is going on inside of us and to how it is happening, is always the first step.
My rheumatoid arthritis pushed me to a high level of suffering, so in terms of solutions, I wanted and needed one that would come into effect immediately. Preferably provided by others. Yet I was the one with the greatest potential of understanding myself, and so it was I who needed to step up for myself.
The first step is always the hardest, and no one can learn or do everything all at once. An immediate solution, therefore, wasn’t achievable for me, but I could do a little every day.
“First, a master is a beginner who kept beginning […]”¹
Let’s return to your mental image of your dream home. Imagine going inside, taking a look at the furniture and the layout of the rooms, inspecting the ceilings and floors, and familiarising yourself with your vision. Next, imagine stepping outside to take in the image of your house as a whole: the roof, maybe a chimney, the windows, and going around it to look at it from all angles. You will see a different image, depending on your perspective. This way, deliberate imagination can help us look at things from more than one angle. The HeilÜben exercises require taking in and considering different perspectives. That is why HeilÜben exercises can resemble one another while each places the focus on different aspects of a larger problem.
When I refused to accept my rheumatoid arthritis and continued to seek a cure despite medical diagnosis and treatment for an incurable disease, I encountered several challenges:
- I was going against the grain,
- acted outside of some of my own beliefs,
- and, while still being ill, I invested precious time and energy into my new approach.
So the challenges I faced as a sufferer of rheumatoid arthritis didn’t consist of the chronically inflammatory joint disease alone. They were more varied, something I learned to take into account through my HeilÜben exercises.
Nevertheless, my situation was by no means hopeless: I learned that even with RA, I could better understand my own abilities, hone my skills, and utilise them effectively. Specifically, I was after expanding the deliberate influence I had over myself.
And I made progress in the process of my HeilÜben exercises, both mentally and physically. Over time, I came to understand that this was the exact antithesis of my rheumatoid arthritis. I began to see the disease as a representation of what had made me stiff and immobile.
And I could improve my mobility by setting good impulses that worked for me, triggering good physical reactions.
I increasingly incorporated my HeilÜben exercises in dealing with myself and with my surroundings.
Many individual situations have multiple variations. I adapted and applied the HÜ! exercises to these variations, allowing me to get to the root causes of my overload-related RA, examine and understand them, and further develop my most effective HÜ! exercises. Among other things, my movement confidence increased, and I created a more stable body awareness. Concerning rheumatoid arthritis, I was able to gradually observe a reduction in the disease, with a decrease in pain and inflammation, and the end of the chronic reaction.
Everyone, and so everyone affected by rheumatoid arthritis as well, lives with their own unique external and internal conditions. For this reason, the HeilÜben exercises specifically present my experiences, explaining my approach and its effects, which, in my opinion, led to the healing of my RA.
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