Healing

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.

Deep thoughts

by Crystal Lucas

The time line of my life is marked in joys and sorrows just like everyone else’s, but I find myself going back over all these moments with a finer tooth comb than i ever did before.

I am struggling with questions I will never know the answers to. Did I ever really know the man I married and lived with?

When did the cheating really start? How many lies did he tell? How many lies did I believe?

One thing I know for certain I loved him with my whole heart. I respected him and was supportive of every job change, every move. I was supportive of his choices and he made many without even considering me. I forgave and forgave because that’s what the creator calls us to do. I honored him and loved him and chose him over and over again.

I didn’t even always choose me and my health, he came first then my kids. Never me.

Why is it that we women think that’s the right order of things? Our partner should be our equal not one above or below. Even the creator gave us instruction on the roles for husband and wife, but says he took the rib to create woman so that we were equal and that women should be protected, and cherished. He didn’t do either of these things in our marriage. More often than not he left everything on my shoulders, o hey I’m taking this new job so we have to pack and move by this date. It fell on my shoulders to prepare our children, pack a household and take care of moving all utilities or canceling subscriptions.

It’s no different now that he’s chosen an affair and new woman. He walked out left me saddled with an insurmountable task of home repairs, didn’t lift a finger to help after hurricane Florence came barreling through and decimated our town. He hasn’t seen his kids in almost 9 months. Realizing that he is not a man of integrity is shattering, and telling about his character.

I no longer am willing to put forth so much effort to make his life easier or better. He walked away. He chose his life. I’m now choosing mine.

Happiness is just around the corner for me. I can feel it building. I can feel the joy bubbling just under the surface. I am finding more moments of peace. I have tried everything to reconcile and he refuses to even talk so it’s time to move forward and teach my children that you don’t need a man to make you happy. Neither do you need a looser who cheats on you and destroys your self esteem.

If your partner isn’t bringing out the best in you and isn’t treating you as an equal please get help. Don’t wait. Don’t keep hoping for the best. If you value your partner communicate. If your partner doesn’t communicate that’s a good indicator of where they place their values. Believe their actions, not their lip service.

The more work I do on me the more I’m seeing that the amount of love I gave him was all the love I should have been giving myself. I need to love me that well and not give it away to anyone else. Nobody can complete us, they will eventually leave and if we are not whole the void they leave will be insurmountable. When we stop looking for love outside of ourselves, but rather find the light of the creator deep within we can heal old wounds, and love ourselves as the beautiful creation we are. Find your worth alone before you try to find your worth to anyone else.

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.

Being a healer

by Crystal Lucas

Our natural state of being according to science is healthy and whole. Our bodies naturally mend themselves. That’s how if you break a bone it can regrow.

The same is true for chronic illness like mine. Being diagnosed with fibromyalgia I spent to many years feeling bad. I knew that science has proven we can heal I just hadn’t unlocked the keys to my particular healing yet. I have been searching for things to heal my body and find a place where I felt good again.

Healthy is the bodies natural state of being and where it will fight to get back to. Sometimes we need to find the things our bodies need to support our healing, and what works for one person may not always work for you. This is where coaching can come into a helping tool.

Discovering what your body needs to feel better is Paramount to your healing. But how do you know what to try? This is why I am branching out into being a healing coach. I don’t want to heal you, I want to support you in finding your own healing. I believe very strongly that we all deserve to feel healthy. We all deserve to not be run down, mentally or physically.

It can be extremely difficult to find the healing spaces within ourselves on our own. Sometimes we need someone to help us see the things we may have missed.

Are you ready to step into healing but need help? Don’t know where to start? Contact me. I will happily partner with you to discover what key factors you maybe missing in your healing.

Healing trauma’s

by Crystal Lucas

People everywhere face traumatic events that shape us in ways we never imagined. We each struggle with life and how to go forward. How to move on. Well meaning individuals will try to encourage you when your going through a trauma with platitudes, or positive thinking.

How often do you hear someone say things like ” you will get over it” or “you are strong,you will survive this too” or even worse to me is “God never gives you more than you can bear”?

This can often leave someone feeling as if their emotions surrounding a situation are invalid. It takes away the power of healing the trauma by feeling the emotions you feel. Each emotion is important. How we learn to cope with our trauma changes who we are meant to be as a whole person. It’s hard to sit with big emotions, be vulnerable and open.

Childhood trauma’s are something that shapes us in ways that we often don’t see until well after the fact.

For me personally I am learning how my childhood trauma’s caused me to shut down, retreat from those I loved when I felt they didn’t want me. I closed my heart and pulled away physically as well. But I am also a nurturer by nature and so I would do other things thinking that it would relay my message of love and convince them how deeply I loved them. Caring for them, cooking for them, doing things to make their lives easier. I often ignored my own pain or didn’t recognize my own hurts. I didn’t realize how my limiting beliefs were playing such a huge role in my life, or even that I had so many limiting beliefs.

When we ignore our pain thinking we have gotten over it or moved on we have not really healed, but we have mastered coping skills. Until those coping skills don’t work anymore. One day you discover how broken you feel.

Something we don’t fully understand is that all trauma changes our brain, not just our psychology but also our physiological brain and how we process even normal events in our lives. Childhood trauma causes cortisol to be released into the brain, this response causes the brain development to be delayed. When trauma happens as a child we don’t know how to heal the past hurts, or the beliefs we form from those responses. It is through our current life experience that we can come to understand that our past has effected us. A trauma response is often a shutting down in varios ways and it’s normal. We may never be the people we once were again but that doesn’t mean we can’t grow and learn from it.

That’s the good news!

We can grow from our traumatic events and reshape our lives. Acknowledge that your response to the trauma was normal. It’s trauma. Even years later it’s normal! You can go back and revisit trauma and heal it now. Or you can stay stuck in repeating patterns that have destroyed your life. The choice is yours.

If you are ready to step into healing and move past trauma responses let me know. I am happy to meet you where you are on this journey and offer my services to coach you.

The problem with social media diagnosis memes

by Crystal Lucas

I have been fairly silent here because it has been a time of serious introspection.

I am taking courses on cognitive behavioral therapy and mindfulness. What I’m learning about myself in these courses is intense, healing, and scary all at once.

The thing that I have discovered is that in my own need to justify my reactions I played the victim and in that vilified the man I love. Instead of digging deeper and looking for reasons I started seeing memes that talked about narcassism and while he displays many of the symptoms he has symptoms of other things as well; post secondary traumatic brain injury resulting in anxiety, depression and PTSD symptoms.

Was his treatment of me unfair? Absolutely.

Was my reactions to him just as unfair? Absolutely!

I feel completely let down by a system that should have caught all of these things and helped us both cope. Instead they saw a few symptoms and offered drugs. He would try them and things would get better for a bit then stop and he would stop taking them. Instead of insisting they talk to us together they pushed new meds, they didn’t know about some symptoms because they don’t have the knowledge I do of every day life living with this man.

I have my own set of issues and while I always thought I was showing my love, and certainly other people saw my love in my actions, but perhaps he couldn’t because of his own internal dialogue.

So about two years ago I started seeing memes on Facebook talking about narcassist and what the symptoms were. Of course I started seeing symptoms in my husband. To be honest many of the symptoms listed on these memes are true of many mental health conditions and there in lies the problem. Without a true professional diagnosis you won’t know.

In the last several months I started looking at why the man I have loved for the entirety of my adult life suddenly became this person. I started looking back on our lives together. It suddenly dawned on me that changes happened after his concussions, 2 within a few months of each other almost a decade ago. Things that I had no idea could be related to these concussions were on the list.

In the last month I am also seeing my own failings. I certainly closed my heart to this man because his actions hurt me and I was afraid. Owning my own shit is hard. Owning my part in the life I loved falling apart is hard. Facing my own fears and my own hardness and being vulnerable enough to share them here is scary. I became hard and bitter. I didn’t respond with the love in my heart and I held resentment over each thing he did or didn’t do. I judged his actions without actually hearing his cries for help. No he didn’t hear mine either and in that we failed each other.

Truth be told, I still love my husband, even if we are separated and supposed to be getting divorced.

I am still learning and growing, but something I have learned is that I need to take responsibility for my reactions, actions and inaction.

My advice to those of you who feel like you are in an abusive situation, get help. Now. Stop the stigma that therapy is bad. Stop sharing memes on FB with symptoms of xyz, they don’t serve to connect us in love. Listen to one another. If you can’t hear one another clearly get help, individually and together. Coaches are a great tool that can be utilized in helping you narrow down your own desires.

I have no idea what my future is bringing me but the lessons I’m getting right now are hard one’s… Weather this is worth it I don’t know. I am finding gratitude in this as I am growing and without the separation, and devastation I likely would not be doing the work to heal myself or grow in me. I certainly wouldn’t be venturing down the life coaching path and I wouldn’t be growing.

…stay tuned for further enlightening processes.

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.