Enter Label: intro/check-in after 60+ posts

and a few highlighted articles for new companions in the Healingvrse

Dear Companions,

After more than 60 posts, I thought I’d take a moment to introduce my world. Alexander Semenyuk, a Ukrainian-Swedish author with over 20 books to his name, inspired me with his generous offer to repost to his audience. I wouldn't be so bold as to call myself any kind of writer by comparison. For me, Away Message is an effort to build a living space of ideas to promote recovery in the Healingvrse.

That reminds me of a recent interview worth listening to by Jordan Peterson, where he discusses postmodernism, the purpose of religion, and the risk of dead ideas being reincarnated by totalitarian states. I hear he has gone off the deep end on Twitter, after returning from Russia where he sought treatment for a benzodiazepine addiction, but he still gives interesting thoughts to the current Zeitgeist. In any event, these are the types of ideas I like to share here.

This week, I also enjoyed practicing a breathwork technique involving two quick inhales followed by one long exhale, which provides fast calming. Try it for 10 seconds in the morning when you wake up.

The Healingvrse is anything gleaned from TV, book, podcast, art, doctor, friend, family or online conspirator that becomes a part of that ethereal ventilator that helps me get through this intense moment in life. And my motivation to share is that perhaps in some small or big way, it helps you where you need it.

I began posting a year into my illness as a way to redirect energy trapped in a stuck body. Drawing from the principle of water displacement, where the volume displaced is equal to the volume submerged, I had to figure out a way to replace my interests and activities or risk sinking like the crew in Junger’s Perfect Storm, which is one of many great stories of courage for when ours is lacking.

So, I began to read, scribble, and practice. A journey taken by so many true heroes who turned walls into doorways: Didion, Matisse, Rembrandt, Proust…

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In a prior life, five years ago—before the pandemic, pregnancy, motherhood, and illness—I was traveling to China, LA, SF, and NYC every other week. I rented places, rented out places, or couch surfed while building a digital management company for western celebrities in China. When I got sick after two years already in quarantine and pregnant, and prior to that, a miscarriage, the energy was throbbing from misuse.

I had to stay connected to stay living so I began to post publicly even when prior to that I had never even posted a photo of myself pregnant or married. The Berlin Wall in my life came down gradually, then suddenly, to quote Hemingway.

“How did you go bankrupt?" Two ways. Gradually, then suddenly.”

I got sick after the vaccine and then, doubly so, after COVID. For months after both, I couldn't sleep, eat, or talk on the phone for more than 10 minutes. I was besieged by pain from even the shortest conversation. Talking to my childhood friend Z for precisely 11 minutes, I ended up shaking like a leaf, riddled with pain for days afterward.

This was already three or four months after the worst part was over.

Although initially a cascade of symptoms, the main dominating one has been pain, specifically migraine and headache made worse by exertion. That’s my version of Long Covid. I believe every post I’ve written here has ended up in some kind of migraine or pain episode, except for the last one I wrote. A watershed moment.

The fight part of this experience, I comprehend. Like the time I stood my ground with a group of guys who beat me up leaving me with a broken nose, or the time a group of bullies on swim team chased me around the Asphalt Green playground in NYC and shoved a condom in my mouth. We all went to practice afterward.

But the hardest lesson has been learning to go with the flow, to let go of expectation and practice non-attachment regarding life, motherhood, work. I’ve had to learn how to bide time and surf on it, riding the waves of displaced water, like Steven Kotler who discovered his seminal theory on flow from surfing his way out of chronic Lyme, which had him bedridden for three years.

At the start, I was amazed that despite being this capable person, I had practically nothing inside of me, tool-wise, besides the instinct to fight. Nothing resourceful I could use to heal. But after some time, I found the life rafts. For example:

• Dr. Kristen Neff, mother to an autistic child, has a book on healing using self-compassion. Pop on the audiobook now and you will be attached to an intravenous device useful for surviving any crisis.

• Or here are several resources to help handle anger.

All the art, literature, ideas and survival stories I have found, all availed themselves as if by divine intervention during hours that threatened to choke me with their pounding, painful silence. Just when I thought I’d hit the proverbial end, that is to say, no more inspiration, something new blew me out of the water, carrying me to sweet peace. From Nelson Mandela’s biography to the incomparable story of early settlers surviving and dying in The Indifferent Stars Above, to deep diving with the Vikings, and so on.

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So, today.

I’m improved from where I was when Away Message started, but I’m probably only 55% of the way there. I would have said 60% if not for the stomach bug I had last week which had me throw up a few points. Some days I’d be happy to just get to 75%, which allows me back on a plane. Other days I dream I can heal to be the best version I’ve ever been—300% or bust! And still other days I think—to hell with planes!

The most recent progress is due to my brain zapping with Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS), which I posted about here. It’s a phenomenal technology, the absolute cutting edge for people suffering from depression, anxiety, and other disorders, and more recently, as an experimental solution for pain sufferers like me.

I’m also a big fan of brain rewiring techniques, which I write about here, on crazy thought technique here, and with TMS resources here, including a great yoga community. In this case TMS stands for Tension Myositis Syndrome, a mind body field of medicine started by Dr. John Sarno. It reframes the issue of pain (which is real!) as a mind body issue, wherein you focus, address, and heal your emotional state, including your response to pain.

TMS rewire the mind to form new neural networks. So does energy work like Third Eye meditation with a more technical explanation here. In fact, one of my neurologists loves to tell me how meditation can completely redesign the brain. It just takes time.

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Anyone who has been sick or faced protracted hardships knows the liquifying fear that comes when you start to worry about everything happening in your body. It's easy to stay in that fear, especially when you've had an apocalyptic reaction to a virus that no one cares about anymore. It would be easy to crawl into a hole and disappear.

But first, I showed up here at least bi-weekly to say something. And if I did that, I must be a mother. And if I am a mother, I should also be a daughter, a wife, a friend, and a business partner. So, I went on, collecting commitments like a rope to pull myself out bit by bit.

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Functional medicine has been a lifeline too. The Healingvrse is a good place to start thinking of yourself as a whole. I have yet to post the 10-page document I developed with my functional doctor useful to anyone seeking to detox no matter their condition, but I have shared snippets like this Vitamin C Cleanse.

My husband and family deserve credit for so much. Even if they have not always had the tools to deal with my emotional state, they allowed me to sleep despite having a toddler. Sleep is divine nectar that allows the brain to repair itself, and the autonomic system to reset. I don’t know if Hannibal ever gave sleep credit, but this post touches on what he did value and neuroplasticity.

Having a baby during this experience has been both the most difficult aspect but also the greatest demand on me to pull through. Much of it as a blur, except for those heavenly little kisses. My heart goes out to all the mothers who have little support by comparison.

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A bit on the posts you will find at Away. I have five basic types.

Enter Label—inspired by the slogan in AIM messages, these are rants, and cascading thoughts on the state of being, as well as recovery updates. Here is one on Ross Ulbricht and Moses and machinations on goodness. The next one in the hopper is a rant about the lack of female Joe Rogans.

Dorthy’s Basket—these are curations of books, podcasts, people, and humor that are uplifting or at least letting me float. Here is one on murder, mutiny and shipwreck tales, psychedelic art, and a slew of history books.

Toto’s Take— are my reviews of technologies or medicines helping the most or rising to the top in the Healingvrse. Here is one on the Curable App which supports TMS groups and one on Functional Neurology which gives at-home, productive exercises for the brain that I recorded after 8 sessions.

Scarecrow Stories—little vignettes or short stories.

Tin Man’s Books and Records—have a special focus on a book, like this one on Finding the Words, a guide for surviving grief written by a father who was driving when two of his children were killed in a car crash.

Thank you so much for joining me here. I cannot wait to learn from you experiences in life too, and I welcome all insights that inspire your personal journey.

With much love from the Healingvrse,

Rebecca