HEALTH + WELLNESS
ENERGY AND HEALING:
Connecting My Strength to Energy
I
was diagnosed with Muscular Dystrophy in August of 2020. After about fifteen years of worrying my legs did not work the way they should, the diagnosis almost gave me relief. Almost. I remember how the silence expanded to fill the room after the doctor said, “You may be in a wheelchair in five years, or you might be exactly the same as you are now for a very long time.” Because of the rarity of Oculopharyngeal Muscular Dystrophy (OPMD), he declined to give me odds or even hazard a guess on my future abilities. The zoom appointment ended with him saying medicine could do nothing for me. Go live my life and come back when it wasn’t possible anymore. It felt
By constantly battling my disease, I battled myself. It took a long time to see all the sneaky, subtle ways I fed into these cycles of negativity.
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BY SANDY BARRY (SHE/HER) so dismissive, like snapping a book shut. Nothing to see here, move along. As a yoga and meditation teacher and Reiki practitioner, I’ve seen how powerful these practices can be for healing. So when I received my diagnosis, you’d think I’d instantly lean into them for support. Nope. I instead alternated between freaking out and ignoring the diagnosis all together. Eventually I landed squarely in the panic zone and got quite good at feeling sorry for myseIf. It took months for me to realize what the constant stress and anxiety did to both my body and my mind. My symptoms progressed much faster than I anticipated, I wasn’t sleeping well, and it started to be a struggle to feel happy. Always on high alert, I looked for signs of the disease. Every day my legs felt like lead, every time I smacked into yet another wall of fatigue — it felt like another battle lost. I started to sense how choosing to focus on the effects of OPMD closed me off to the energy around me. By constantly battling my disease, I battled myself. It took a long time to see all the sneaky, subtle ways I fed into these cycles of negativity. How my
“I saw myself walking up to this amazing ocean of abundant energy with a teacup … then a bucket … then a pipeline … Until finally I just walked right in.”
inner dialogue obsessively cataloged all the ways my body failed me. How I let the need to slow down and rest become signs of weakness instead of acts of self care. While so busy trying to keep up physically, I didn’t allow myself to slow down mentally. Even my meditations had an agenda. I focused on what I wanted instead of allowing for what was present.
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