self care

But ya gotta have friends…

by Crystal Lucas

A year ago when my husband informed me he wanted a divorce I realized just how isolated I had become. I really only had one person in my local area I would consider a friend. Sure I, like most people in today’s modern society I have “friends” on social media. But I really realized just how alone I was. Fighting this battle alone, left to raise kids alone, with no support system. Nobody to be there to hold me while I cried as I mourned the end of my marriage. Or to cheer for me as I started to gain my feet again. I had my kids and that was it. While I love my kids there is so much that they shouldn’t have to see or feel and their mothers deep mourning is one of them.

I started looking at why I isolated myself, and deciding what I should do about it. Evaluating what kind of people I want in my life and then I slowly started adding people who are kind, generous, funny, lighthearted individuals. People who like me enjoy helping each other, laughing and sharing a good meal. People who aren’t afraid to do dirty work, or cheer me on as I do my work. Finding like minded individuals who like to go out and play at the park or on the beach. Friends who want to hike or fish, dance, listen to music.

The more curious question I find myself pondering is how did I allow myself to become so isolated? How did it become acceptable for me to have no friends who come over and enjoy a BBQ or help bust out projects? How did I make excuses for this behavior that prevented me from having friends? His jealousy and constant accusations made it so uncomfortable after friends would leave that I slowly stopped inviting anyone to be a part of my life. If I went anywhere without him I was accused of having an affair, ironic since he’s the one that wound up cheating. I stopped looking people I met in the eye, I stopped laughing with people, I quit inviting friends over because he would constantly tell me how I was doing something wrong. The manipulation was so intense that I learned to put distance between me and anyone else I may have come in contact with.

About 6 months ago as I was doing therapy I realized just how isolated I had become. I missed the physical connection of friends, family, people you laugh with who enrich your life in a million little ways. I slowly started feeling my way into this space where I am finding friends again. Where I am meeting people who make me laugh. I am enjoying hanging out with people and making friends who are supportive, kind and who can joke without there being fear of belittlement coming at me.

As a friend I am someone who wants to help and support my friends too. It makes me happy to just be able to be there in whatever way possible for my friends. If I can I will. I have learned new healthy boundaries for myself too, and if it’s not possible for me to do something I’m ok with saying no. But for a friend I will go the extra mile.

So if you are a new friend, thanks for being a part of the journey to finding a healthier me. Thanks for helping me step back out of the shadows and for helping me make healthy choices. If you are one of the few who has been there through it and watched from the sidelines thank you for still loving me, and even more for being excited for the changes for the better happening in my life.

Getting relief from chronic pain

by Crystal Lucas

As the ache of pain has subsided in my life, both the chronic pain I have lived with and the fierce pain of a shattered heart, I am discovering a new person in my skin. One with drive and passion and a sense of adventure. A friend says let’s go and I say yes instead of “if I’m having a good day”. That in itself is amazing, but the why is even more amazing!

Back in December of 2018 while my world was crumbling I took a leap of faith and joined a gym. So outside my comfort zone that I didn’t know if I would continue, or if I would even accomplish much. I mean I still have fibromyalgia and there are still pain days, but I had to do something different. I couldn’t sit by on the sidelines of life anymore… Wondering… Dreaming… And hoping for something better to come along. I had to take control and do it! I had started taking CoreAo on the 31st of July, the infussion of anti inflammatory properties helped my body so much that it gave me movement back. So I was primed and ready to go. I also hired a personal trainer, and my first trainer was amazing, guiding me through motions that were completely new! Her schedule got busy as she entered a competition and I switched trainers. I opted to switch to my friend who also has been cupping me to help with problem areas. She is learning all about fibro in a very detailed way. Learning some of the insane ways that fibro reacts and what causes more inflammation and what to avoid. Let me tell you folks, don’t let fibro hold you stagnant. It’s the kiss of death. Moving hurts, doing to much hurts, being still hurts.

The start of the journey in healing

As I have progressed on this journey I have found that my emotional torment of an unfaithful husband who was controlling and manipulative contributed a good deal to my physical pain. It magnified how much pain I was in and how my body responded to pain on any level. The body has a natural fight or flight response and stress is a trigger for that response. However when you are living in a bad situation that maybe you mentally aren’t acknowledging your body still has the triggers and is storing the response which is then converted to pain.

When we start living more authentically and relieving the stress we find the pain starts to daminish. Pain receptors are tied to fascia, and fascia is our bodies first response in the fight or flight trigger. Fascia is a connective tissue that is throughout our bodies. In every person I know with fibromyalgia they have bound fascia. Bound fascia triggers pain.

As I have worked through emotional triggers, and worked on fixing my fascia, my inflammation through out my body and cleaned up my diet I am down to manageable pain levels. I have an average pain day of 2 on bad days and they are few and far between. I now am working out lifting weights building muscles, and working on my fascia every day. Not a day goes by that I don’t work on something with my body.

I’m down from a size 20 to a size 12/14. But even more importantly I’m feeling free. I’m free of pain, free of weight, and building muscle and feeling like a whole new me. I laugh easily now. I have more energy to do the fun things and less desire to be home bound. I love exploring and doing something new with my new found energy.

The knowledge I have gained combined with my coaching certifications are what is propelling me to help others in the kind of pain I lived with for to many years. If you suffer chronic pain and want a coach to help get you on track get in touch with me.

Healing isn’t linear

by Crystal Lucas

As a fibro warrior I am constantly tweaking my diet to see what I can change to improve my health.

I gave up gluten 3 years ago. As it turns out this was the best thing I could have done both for my health and my fitness goals. This picture shows the change clearly. The only thing in my diet or life that had changed at this point was the absence of gluten in my diet. Removing gluten was the first thing to reduce the puffiness. One of the biggest things I have found with fibro is inflammation chronically causes more pain. Gluten causes inflammation.

So the last few weeks I have been so busy working that I hadn’t remembered to order my supplements, the CoreAo, smart and balance spray I have been using. I’m even running low on my magnesium and my vitamin d. While most people would be in a panic I decided to hold off on ordering after the first week. I had two CoreAo stiks and 1 smart stik set aside so I could experiment some.

So it’s been about two weeks now without the CoreAo and while I am still functioning and not in drastic pain or worse flaring after working, going to the gym to work out, coming home and working on finishing projects I am noticing inflammation in areas. For example for the last two weeks I have had swelling that I thought was my knee. But it turns out it’s really coming from my hip, the hip keeps slipping forward, this causes the hamstring and the quad to over compensate working to hard and not properly. My personal trainer had given me stretches to do and things to balance it out but it wasn’t fixing the problem. The last two days I decided to go ahead and take my CoreAo and that with the stretches has finally reduced the swelling and the muscles are back to normal. No more pain and discomfort.

The smart I have held out longer. I know that I am functioning better but I can see the lack of focus and the bits of brain fog creeping in some days. Especially on days when I have to work a register and focus on money. Just one smart has already cleared the foggyness.

I am also using CBD oil and wanted to see if that alone would make a difference. I notice that it helps as well but alone it can not do the job of all the things happening in my body. It’s a good addition but not the only thing.

In the past two weeks I have noticed a difference in my sleep as well. I’m waking up more tired and needing to sleep longer.

So my experience tells me that the supplements are helping my body heal and I need to keep up with them.

Yes I am functioning but slowly noticing pain coming back and I am tired of living with any pain. Healing my body is my top priority and I’m getting there slowly.

If you suffer from chronic pain and want help getting a handle on your pain so that you can function more normally I am just a message away.

Turn around, you’re going the wrong way!

by Crystal Lucas

What happens when you realize you have chosen a wrong path in your life? Do you keep going or do you turn around?

The Creator tells us to repent, what does that mean exactly? It means turn around. It means stop that decision and turn around.

When we are doing things that are not in alignment with our values we feel shame and guilt.

If you continue to go down the path the wrong way you will continue to feel worse, owning our mistakes releases the burden of guilt and shame. Turning away and going back to the starting point is extremely liberating.

What if you don’t know how to go back? It’s never easy to examine our choices and see where we went wrong. It’s not easy to own our faults.

As I have examined my own faults there are areas I’m very sorry for. The hurt that those areas has caused is immense. Both to me and those I love. I am choosing to heal. I am choosing to turn around in those areas. I’m choosing to make better, more healthy choices for me. It is not an easy thing to do but it is the right thing.

I found a kind of calm in owning my part in how things dissolved in my marriage. Owning my mistakes and repenting. Turning around and being vulnerable is frightening. It shakes you to be vulnerable and open because the what ifs start to play in your mind. For me that’s when I pull on faith, what if the best possible imaginings could happen? What if healing takes place and the Divine Spirit brings all the best to you? What if through love, compassion and faithfulness to ourselves and Spirit our hearts desire is achieved?

When you faithfully listen to your body, & soul Spirit will speak to you. Are you brave enough to listen?

I am so thankful for my guides who bring me messages of love and hope for the future. I am thankful for helpers here who help me see the things I need to heal, and how to heal them. When I decided to become a life coach I knew that I needed to help me first, so reaching out to others in the same field and working with them to help me has been invaluable. Coaching is a great tool to help others discover their own healing abilities.

It’s ok to Cry

by Crystal Lucas

After being with someone for a long time splitting up is hard to do.

The emotions run a wide range from anger to sadness.

Something people always want to do is give you platitudes. They tell you it will get better. Or give it time, know it won’t always hurt this bad. Knowing that doesn’t change the feelings. The hurt is still there.

Crying when you hurt is a way to allow the emotions to pass. To let them out without trapping them. Give yourself permission to cry. It’s ok to be sad and it’s ok to say the things you need to say, to allow the feelings to flow without stopping them is powerful and strong.

Just don’t dwell to long in the pain. Remember that healing happens when we release these emotions and step into our power. Crying is healthy, ok and even good. Sobbing, is cleansing, the healing comes when you take the steps to release that which is causing you the pain. We may not always be able to discern that for ourselves. Especially when we are in the thick of the emotional response. Reacting from a place of pain and hurt can give us regrets. I don’t like to have regrets for my actions and so I tend to try to stop and think before saying and doing something. When dealing with emotional pain and trauma of a sudden life event like divorce, that I truly didn’t see coming, I got stuck in this pain for several months. I decided to reach out to my friend who is an amazing coach in her own rights.

As an empath and lightworker I often go into my higher self to intercede for others but had ignored my own pain for so long that it’s almost as if it was damned up tighter than Fort Knox. I had this vision of myself standing at a castle with a mote around it and I was drowning in the mote because I forgot I could just stand up and use the key. Keys often come in many forms, for me it was reaching out to a fellow energy worker friend, Christina over at Radiant Living, The Art of Conscious Creation She has a wonderful gift of helping you get in touch with your inner self to heal these hurts. The first picture in this post was taken the day we worked together. I couldn’t stop the tears. The flow was unbelievable. Christina helped me find the old trauma’s from my past that we’re bringing up fears and effecting how I am processing the current trauma of a divorce after 24 years of marriage.

Some days the work of healing your soul is hard, but it’s always worth it. Knowing we all go through the same heavy shit helps us connect with each other in a very real way.

When I reached out to Christina she was more than happy to share her time with me helping me work through these fears. She gave me some new tools to use and helped me seek out the past as well as current issues so that I could heal and move forward. Working with Christina and her unique way with energy helped give me some much needed focus.

Shortly after working with Christina in a one on one session I decided to take steps to heal myself. One thing I have lacked was a good solid foundation in my physical body. I wasn’t ever sure how to do things and with my limitations of fibro I wanted help getting fit.

I no longer feel held hostage by my emotions. The sadness still comes from time to time but the overwhelming grief is easier. I still give myself permission to cry, and to feel sad. I also give myself permission to love. Love my ex for all he gave me, love myself for all I gave him. I am continuing to love us both through this. I refuse to stay stuck in ugly, hurt or sadness. I love me more now than I did 6 months ago. I can’t say I won’t ever undervalue myself again but I am learning to see my value in a different way.

It is healthy to move forward in life, grow and learn from your experiences. If you are struggling with something it’s always good to ask for help, even if you already have the tools and knowledge there is no shame in asking for help from someone outside of yourself. We need our community and our tribe to help us through these rough spots.

Self care through the grief

by Crystal Lucas

Self care is so hard when you are in the moment of grief. Today I have felt overwhelmed with sadness because in 4 short years my life went from this happy moment of getting the keys for our first home to being in the middle of a divorce I never dreamed would happen.

This moment always a top 10 happy moment in my life. Topped only by falling in love, getting married and having our children.

I spent the entire day today fighting back tears, unable to contain them even in public they randomly would fall. I still love this man who promised to love me forever and while we had problems and his mental health issues, I still miss those happy moments. They may have become fewer and further apart than when we got married but that happens when you are raising kids and life gets hectic.

I decided I needed to do some self care. I couldn’t stay stuck in this pain. The sadness. The grief. Only I can heal me and I opted to practice some self care in the form of moving my body. I touched on this in my article in the free e-zine Our soul Oasis.

So my self care was to head to the gym. Only to discover the gym was closed because some group rented out my gym for two days! Who does that? That could have been the end of it. But I really needed to feel something physical. So I came home and tackled an hour long work out minus weights,just using resistance bands.

For the first time today I don’t feel like weeping. I absolutely cried while working out. I put music on cried and kept pushing. Sobbing and working out is an interesting experience, releasing bullshit from emotional build up as well as endorphins from the exercise is an astonishing healing practice. Who cares if you have to stop and blow your nose because the tears make it run?

There is something empowering in allowing yourself to cry and keep pushing through to work muscles.

Don’t be afraid to cry, and keep going forward.