A Beautiful Path Part 1: Suffering And Selfishness

Throughout my life I have been consumed with myself. I feel like that may be a common theme in a lot of people's lives in different ways. I will not discuss the ways others have lived this way, I will however begin to uncover and explain how I feel I have lived. I grew up thinking that naturally I was the star of my story, I was the sun and the moon of my world, and that all things that happened in my life, were about me.

I was the princess in my fairy tale, I was the main character in my nightmares, and I was the victim of my circumstances in real life. When I suffered through an abusive relationship, the loss of my mother, drug addiction, anxiety, depression and chronic pain I did so as an innocent victim, or so I behaved. 

I suffered through these things, often feeling sorry for myself and in doing so, asking others to do so as well. I let myself fall into the pattern of believing I had no choice. I honestly believed it. When I entered the rehabilitation center that I spoke of in a previous blog, I entered thinking that I had no hope of a different future. When I left the center I realized I may not need hope, I may have just needed to start making different choices. Start taking control of my life and my future, if I was to have one at all.

This new path was not easy, my body still writhed with chronic pain, my heart still burned with loss and love, and my anxiety was through the roof. I was finally clean and sober from the addictive medications that I had struggled with for years, and yet I was still struggling to get through the day. Throughout the next two years I would make small changes here and there that started to positively impact my life. Some of the changes were related to getting better positioning in my career, getting a dog named Stanley, who eventually became my best friend, spending good quality time with the family and friends I had taken for granted for so long, and yet I still struggled.

This was, what I had determined, an acceptable amount of struggle to survive my daily life. Then, as things do, something happened and that all changed again. One day while talking to friends at work my face went instantly and inexplicably numb, I got dizzy, then my arms and face started tingling all over. This seemingly unexplainable incident bled on for three to four months. During which I was seen by many specialists, I was given all the crazy medical tests; anything from sticking electrical things on my scalp, MRIs, EKGs, needles in my muscles, and the most exciting, spinal taps. Nothing came of it. I went into another depression where I thought I had no way out. The life I had fought so hard for was falling apart again!

Eventually those symptoms subsided, without a name, a reason or a cure. However, on any given day for the next year I would still experience overwhelming anxiety and chronic pain. When I say these two buzz words "anxiety and pain" I don't think the majority of people understand the absolutely debilitating effect these two little words translate to in real life. Again I found myself isolating from friends, family, and the life I was dying inside to lead. 

During one of these bouts of isolation I began to read and watch documentaries about the one thing in all my years of suffering that I had not tried yet. Changing what I put into my body! I started out researching clean eating, pretty sure I even bought the book for dummies about it (I don't recommend it, you'll see why later, trust me). That lead me to the next book and then on to the wonderful world of documentaries. You name it, I read it or watched it.

Now, I am going to quote myself from my previous blog about entering rehab, because after-all, I am the star of my story, "I made myself a deal, do the thirty days, get this poisonous medication out of your system and see if you can handle the pain that is left over. If that doesn't work out, you can always devise a new plan for checking out again."

So I again said to myself, "Marie, I'll make you a deal, do the thirty days, get this poisonous "food" out of your system and see if you can handle the pain that is left over. If that doesn't work out, you can always devise a new plan for checking out again."

So I did what any person on a mission would do, I went out and got shit-faced, drank beers, smoked cigarettes, and ate a ton of "food"! The next morning I woke up, feeling like hell, and went to the grocery store. I basically bought them out of fresh fruits and vegetables along with all sorts of cool contraptions for juicing, chopping, slicing and spiraling. I started what was to be a 30-day whole food plant based diet. I gave myself thirty days, kind of as a ritual and because who in their right mind would want to "give up so much" forever? I didn't even really believe or have hope that it would change anything.

To clarify what these changes meant in my daily diet I'll start by telling you all of the things I had to "give up"; 

Animal Products: milk, cheese, butter, cottage cheese, ranch, ice cream, creamer, turkey, chicken, roast beef, pot roast, steak, sausage, bacon, pork chops, eggs and cheese, did I mention cheese?  Yes, cheese too. 

Processed and junk foods had to go too, so I stopped drinking diet soda-pop, stopped eating things that I couldn't really pronounce or understand the labels, and stopped buying products that had more than the bare minimum of ingredients in them. An example of this is bread, my bread now had four ingredients; yeast, flower, salt and water. Rather than the 17 or so products in other brands that contain chemicals that retard flames or are helpful ingredients in cleaning engines of a vehicle. I surely didn't need that stuff in my body when I had worked so hard to get the poisonous medications out already.

So, lets explain how the next six or so months went on. within a few weeks of starting this diet change I no longer took blood pressure medication four times a day to manage my debilitating anxiety. You know, that fight or flight feeling that makes your heart race, stomach drop, and body exhausted? Thats the one, it was Gone! Additionally I would sleep like a baby, so the melatonin I was basically still abusing, was now a thing of my past. Then, the overdose of ibuprofen I was still giving myself everyday to deal with the chronic burning and clenching sensation in the muscles of my upper back, oh yeah, that was fading away. Much like the memories of how miserable I felt. For the first time in my adult life I woke up feeling great, I had ups and downs, but this freedom from pain and anxiety was the greatest gift I ever gave myself. 

Think about that, I was willing, in my worst times, to do months of physical therapy, take addictive and life-ruining poisonous medications, let doctors poke and prod me, stick medical equipment to my body, draw my blood, force needles into my muscles, thrust a needle into my spine in order to withdraw fluids for testing, and yet somehow I thought changing my diet was too much to "give up" in order to change and take back my life. I wish I knew then what I know now! This is one of the beauties of me having gone through this, I can tell others, and I can share with others what I have learned. And oh boy have I learned!

Onto the most poignant part of my evolution, and I say evolution because this was a process, a progression, an enlightenment that just continued to unfold the further I went. Throughout all of this discovery and change I was enjoying my life and I was living more than I ever thought I could. I was reveling in the beauty of the path I was on. I had no idea it was about to take another turn. 

Remember the victim of my story? You know, poor little Sarah Marie and all of her suffering? I lied, Nay, I was oblivious! I really had gone my whole entire life thinking of myself. Not just in a purposely selfish manner, or in the way that we think our reality is the truth, but I was oblivious to how my life and my choices could effect others. I didn't know that everything I do has the capacity to change the life of not only myself, but others in this world. I didn't even realize that my choices were not only causing a lot of my suffering, but that my choices were causing the suffering of others too.

"Thats chapter I, would you like to have chapter II? You better, son of a bitch, I know the way!" - Sublime, Cisco Kid