The Bad Food Cycle

Photo by Chotda

I am an acupuncturist. Part of my training and my work with people involves dietary advise, so I've learned a lot about food from both a western and Chinese perspective. But I'm not sure it's helped me that much. I have a pretty good idea which foods are good to eat and which are bad for me based on the theory I've learned, and on watching my body's reactions to what I put in my mouth as I'm very reactive to what I eat. If I have a bowl of soy ice cream (unfortunately, I haven't had the real stuff in years), by the time I'm finished my nose will be stuffy. But I often get in a very bad food cycle.

I've never been much good at cooking for myself. I'm actually a fairly decent cook, but I can never think of what to make. My wife has the gift of looking at a recipe and knowing exactly how it will taste. I look at a recipe, even for things I've cooked many times, and it always looks like a list of ingredients to me. I can look at a fridge full of vegetables and have no idea what to cook. So all too often, I'll make pasta because it's easy and known. Or I'll pull out some instant food from the freezer which really isn't good for me.

To put this cycle in energetic terms: food nourishes me and I'm not very good at nourishing myself. I'm much better at forgetting to eat or just eating junk, which then makes me feel poorly, and it makes me crave more junk.

It's the sugar cycle: when you eat good food, you crave what's needed for your body. When you eat sugar, you crave more sugar. Sugar destroys the body's ability to know what foods to eat because it overwhelms all other cravings.

When I'm losing myself in the self-hate, I eat badly and don't nourish myself with good food. Then the bad food wipes out my cravings for good foods and leaves only cravings for more junk. So I eat more junk, which reinforces the negative cycle. And so on into more self-destruction. At that point, I can start beating myself up for not eating well, so I can do the self-hate on another level as well because I know so much about food I really know how badly I'm eating.

So how to break the cycle? It's not easy. The first step is to be aware of it. That the food choices I make are rooted in the self-hate, not in self-nourishment. At that point, it's identifying the foods that create the downward spiral. Decreasing sugar intake, and eliminating it if possible.

And from then on, it's mostly a question of will. Can I get myself to make one good meal or try to get myself to eat one or two good foods. Often, I have to force myself to eat a good food just to try to get in the habit.

Eating is something we do all the time, so it's a good way to know how we are treating ourselves. It's also a great way to feel guilty all the time and beat ourselves up for how we eat. I don't advocate the guilt. Nor do I recommend getting comfortable with terrible food choices. But like all things, this is an opportunity to negotiate with our self-hate and try to learn to nourish ourselves both physically and spiritually.

Photo by Wespionage

On fears for the future

I received a letter today from someone who was asking me about the possibility that taking Copaxone can help reverse existing damage and prevent new damage. I am posting my response because I think these questions are something we all face:

My read on your questions is that you are scared about the possibility of long term disabilities and are wondering if copaxone helps to clear up old damage. Is that a correct read? My answer is many layered and not an easy one.

Over the past 20 years of having MS, I've had to learn to live with the fear that today might be the last day I walk. I could wake up in the morning and find that my legs no longer work. Or the fear that whatever transient thing I am feeling today may be with me for the rest of my life.

Copaxone is a negative drug, like all MS drugs: if nothing happens then it's working. But, at the same time, nothing might be happening in any case so the drug might be having no effect, so there is no way to really know. I hate to say it, but these are the fears and the uncertainties that the condition brings. I could tell you different, but it wouldn't be true.

I spend a lot of time working on my fears, as I'm a person who was completely lost in fear for much of my life. Knowing that these fears are real means that I am aware of them and then they don't have control over me. I suspect that another person (who I have yet to meet) would use these fears to take every moment as special knowing that tomorrow everything might change.

For me, I use the fears to help propel me forward on my person growth. I know that my spirit is very tied up with MS, so I try to use it as a tool to give me clues as to the growth I need to do. But I suspect everyone forms a different relationship with the fear.

I recommend not trying to get to any point, but spend time with the fear and then see what relationship develops, just making sure that the fear is acknowledged without letting it take control.

How to explain MS to children

I have two children and have had to think a lot about how to approach the topic of MS with them, so I thought I'd share how I approach the issue. One caveat is that I treat each discussion with them as unique and don't assume that what I thought they understood the talk before is how they understand it now. They are growing and their minds are developing, and I have to respect that their perspective changes all the time. So what I can share is my approach to the discussion, not the discussion itself.

The first thing to keep in mind is that kids are really, really sensitive. No matter what you say to them, they will hear your emotions underneath. If you are scared of your MS, they will be scared of MS. If you are scared to talk to them about it, they will think MS is scary. So work on yourself first. If you've been diagnosed, don't wait until you are in the middle of an episode to bring it up. Look for opportunities to bring it up. For me, my kids see me take my shot every morning, so we talk about it then. Which brings me to my next point:

Make it a regular topic of conversation in the house. Kids will figure out that MS is something shameful if it's always talked about in whispers and behind doors. They'll hear the word "MS" and think it's a dirty family secret. If it's something you talk about with them around, it gives them a chance to ask their questions and know it's just a fact of life, not something they have to feel bad about or be scared of.

My mother, Dr. Phyllis Silverman, is an expert in bereavement. One of her specialties is how children deal with the loss of a parent. I grew up in a house where death was talked about freely. When an older friend of mine died of leukemia when I was five, I went to the funeral and was part of the discussion about death. I wasn't scarred by the experience, but grew from it. There was nothing hidden from me. Dr. Silverman has written an excellent book entitled Never Too Young To Know about children and grief, which I highly recommend (and not just because she's my mom). When things are in the open, they are much less scary, and kids can feel free to ask questions about them.

My children have an amazing ability to make things up. I worry that they will make things up about MS if they only know part of the story, so I try to keep them in the loop. I think it's important to answer the question the child is actually asking. Often, my kids will ask things that seem to have a much greater meaning, but are actually much simpler.

I had an episode last year when my leg went numb and weak. I explained to my daughter that my leg was sick with MS. She asked me if I would be able to go out to the playground with her again. My reaction was one of fear that maybe I wouldn't and I wanted to explain to her about the unpredictability of MS. Then I stopped myself, and asked her what she meant by "again"? She said that she'd went this morning and wanted to go again, could I go with her? Not today I said, and she walked away content, though disappointed. I had answered her question, not what I thought she'd meant.

I also look for how MS effects their lives. When I take my shot every morning, my kids think nothing of it because they got their shots too, and they know that we both take shots so we don't get sick. I put it into their language, spoken to the questions they have, so their understanding of the disease can grow as they do.

I think that the only secret: talk to your kids. Give them room to ask their questions and then actually answer them. Keep your emotions neutral so your kid can have their own reaction without being influenced by your emotions. I make use of "Emotional Coaching" techniques to help them deal with their emotions. Kids are incredibly strong, and have a resilience which is completely amazing. Don't sell them short.

I didn't have kids when I was first diagnosed, but I think this must be a much harder discussion to have if you've been diagnosed and are in the middle of your first episode when you already have kids. My advice would be to give yourself space to deal with yourself, while give your kids space to digest the change.

My basic advice: just talk. The more you talk, the easier it will get to say things, and the easier it will be for the children's understanding of MS to change and grow as they do. I've seen my understanding and relationship to my MS grows and change too, so my kids need to be in the conversation so we can all grow together, not apart.

This is what's worked for me. What's worked for you?

August 16, 2012 - a quick post-script
One of the lessons I've had to learn as an adult, and have tried to teach my children is that things take practice. We never gets things right the first time, and rarely get them right on the 20th time either. My kids know that if you want to get good at something, you need to practice. It's true about talking to kids about MS, it takes practice. Don't assume that you can do it once and be done with it, or that it will go easily or well the first time. But the more you do it, the easier and better it becomes.

Fear is the mother of anger

In Chinese medicine, health is achieved through the balancing of the five elements. Each element has an associated internal organ and emotion. In the generation cycle, water is the mother of wood, meaning that water energy creates wood energy. The emotions that are associated with them are fear (water) and anger (wood). Fear creates anger.

In the western world, we refer to this as fight or flight. When we are scared, our instinctual reaction is either to run or to turn and fight. In Chinese medicine, the wood energy is understood to be forceful directed energy, much like a punch. We get scared, we want to hit something. My experience with MS is that the wood energy often gets directed back at oneself, so essentially when we get scared, we hit and hurt ourselves. It's a very ineffectual way of running away. It's also another aspect of the urge for self-destruction.

The key to unraveling this cycle is to deal with our fear directly. There are many ways to do that which I will write about in my next post, but the best way is to send love to the fear. In the five element cycle, fire is the child of wood. Fire is associated with the heart and with love, so when we transform our anger into love we are bringing ourselves back into balance. More on this in the next post.

This post has a lot of Chinese medical jargon in it. I chose to use it, though I usually stay away from jargon if possible, because it's the best way to express what I wanted to convey, so if you have questions about the jargon, please let me know.

Anger takes away power

I've been noticing lately how effective anger is in taking away my power.

I'm the kind of person who is very sensitive to noises around me, so when my neighbors play their stereo too loud or let their yappy dogs yap at one am, it just makes me really angry. So much so that I either just sit and stew, which is no good for me, or I knock on their door to "talk" to them about it. When I'm angry, I'm very aggressive and I just want to shout at them. Invariably, that just results in their shouting back at me, and the music stays loud. When I go talk to my neighbor in a calm voice, she'll usually listen attentively and turn it down. Invariably, when I'm angry, I yell and nothing gets done.

The anger saps my power and then I make choices to please the anger, not to help myself, and those choices are always the wrong ones. By allowing the anger to have power over me, I lose my power.

There are those who are fueled by anger. I hear stories about football players who play their best games when they are really pissed off. They have figured out, or maybe their just wired that way, to use the power generated from anger to help themselves.

I don't know if I can generalize for all people with MS, but anger has never taken me to a good place, it's only taken me to more darkness. My choice is either to learn how to decrease my anger, which involves dealing with my fears (more about this later), or learn to channel the anger for my good.

I guess that's the question for y'all: does anger motivate you to help or harm yourself? Does it focus you? Or send you off in the wrong directions?

Giving away power

I always try to look inside myself for the things that seem to have the most power in my MS and then try to change those. There are three that always lead me to bad places: fear, my inclination to self-destruction, and giving away my power. Today I'll write about giving away power.

Giving away power is when we assume that we are incapable of doing something and then prove it by our own actions. Another way of describing it is when we shoot ourselves in the foot.

An example: I went to meet one of my study partners last night and within the first ten minutes, I apologized for lacking focus as it had been a long day. Now, I felt like I was a little scattered and was having trouble focusing, but I have no idea what his perception was. He hadn't mentioned it or said anything, and for all I know, he thought I was very focused and just following out trains of thoughts. But once I say that I'm lacking focus, he's going to look at me for the rest of the night and think that I'm not focusing. I've made him think something about me which is only a reflection of how I'm thinking about myself, but may or may not reflect reality.

There have been numerous educational studies that find that a teacher's expectations and assumptions about a student play a major role in the success or failure of that student. I think this is true of all of our interactions. If we assume someone is ignorant, or we expect that they don't know what they are talking about, then even if they give us the correct answers, it's very hard for us to hear.

Giving away power is all about shaping someone else's assumptions about us to think worse about us. Why we would do this is a whole different discussion, but becoming aware of it is incredibly liberating.

Another example: I'm very good at fixing things. I used to be an auto mechanic and usually when I look at a mechanical object I can see how it comes apart and, usually, how to fix it. When I see someone trying to fix something and I go over to help, if I'm staying within my power, I ask if I can help, let them know I'm good at fixing or that I've fixed something like it before, and I start a conversation with them about how we can fix the thing.

If I'm giving away my power, I start the conversation with: "wow, it's been a long time since I've fixed one of those, I don't even know if I remember how", or some variation of that. I'm letting them know my weaknesses before I let them know my strengths. Invariably, when I give away my power, the person discounts my input and even if I know how to fix it, they prevent me from helping. When I'm in my power, the person usually hands me the object and it gets fixed.

This brings me back to an important question: How do I talk about having MS without giving away my power?

Telling someone I have MS invariably brings up lots of preconceptions in a person's head and they might treat me differently now that they know. So the first thing I do is have a conversation with a person about their MS stereotypes. It puts everything out in the open as they then know what's going on for me and what's realistic and what's not.

When I talk about my MS, I always talk about it from a place of power. I don't talk about it as how it limits me, I just let them know it's a fact of my life and go on from there. I want to shape their assumptions about me to know I'm just a normal guy with MS, not the miserable, pathetic stereotype they may have in their mind.

I try to watch what I say to be aware of when I'm giving away my power and be aware of when I'm shaping someones assumptions to think worse of me.

I know that giving away power leads me to bad places, and when I look over the history of my episodes, I can usually find a way in which I was giving away power in a major way at the time of the episode. I don't know if holding onto my power will prevent more episodes, but it's been a good measure for how healthy I am.

I think it's important to note that MS does rob us of power. The question is if we're giving it away before the MS comes to prove the point.

Auto-Immune?

Several years ago my thinking on MS shifted radically. I was working with a patient who was suffering from an auto-immune condition. As we talked about the history of her condition, it became clear to me that the imbalances that led to the auto-immune condition existed long before the symptoms started, and, more importantly, her own actions and choices were directly contributing to the condition. In essence, she was creating her own condition.

I began to rethink MS at that point. MS is an auto-immune disease where the immune system goes after the body. Another way of talking about it would be to say that we are doing it to ourselves. At that point, I started looking at my life and trying to figure out how and why I would want to make myself sick. What I found is that over and again, my actions and thoughts were a contributing factor in my MS.

I want to be very clear, I am not blaming myself for having MS, nor do I think anyone ever should. There are many contributing factors to MS, and our actions are only one among many. But the idea that I may have some influence or control over the course of my MS is very powerful. It's a two edge sword, owning the power for the condition means that I have to come to some sort of peace with my role in worsening my MS, but it means that my actions can help me to get healthy.

I am an acupuncturist and a healer. I tend to see the body as comprised of Qi (roughly translated as Internal energy), and I don't see a separation between the body, mind, or spirit. In that vein, every one of my thoughts, feelings, or actions can contribute either to my health or to my sickness, though it's never completely clear which is which. I also know that my body can be giving my clues about what's going on in my spirit and mind, so I need to pay attention.

As I wrote in my introduction, I now look for the actions and attitudes that have power in my MS. If I begin with the idea that I do this to myself, then I have to work hard to change the parts of myself that don't contribute to my health. This is not an easy process as I'm quite connected to some of the things that need changing. The three most powerful things I've found so far are: fear, self-hate, and giving away my power. They are all connected to one another and I will write more on them in the future.