Mary Obana 0:05
I'm Mary Obana. Welcome to Shine. I’m all about friendly, soul-nourishing, spiritually inspired conversations that expand perspectives and offer practical guidance so you can live joyfully and shine brightly.
I believe:
Your experiences are a result of the perspective you bring to your circumstances. If you expand your perspective, you can transform your life.
I believe:
Everyone has something special within them, a unique gift—a light you are to find and share with the world. You are meant to shine.
I believe:
You are meant to live with complete joy and peace—nothing less. It’s just awaiting your allowing.
Ready to get to it? Here we go!
Mary Obana 00:54
Hi there. I’m so glad you’re here. Thank you for joining me!
You know it’s funny; my work is to help people get unstuck in whatever ways that may show up for them. And I have to confess, while I can do this for countless people, including those I hardly know, I have never felt so helpless than an experience I went through last year with my very own son, Kai. We were very stuck.
Then, the coolest thing happened!
As I walk this journey of mine, I continue to be amazed at all that has unfolded and the ability to help others in new and exciting ways…and this time, it hit especially close to home.
In this episode, I’m going to bring you in on something that I discovered, which enabled me to help someone in my own family. If you, or someone close to you, has been living with chronic symptoms that you’ve never been able to get to the bottom of, this may be of interest to you.
Mary Obana 02:02
Kai is now 18. He’s a beautiful person in every way, so kind and compassionate. (Gee, could I be biased!? No!) My husband, Michael, and I relished the bonus time we had with him at home over the past year, as he was usually away at school.
Kai has always eaten well and taken really good care of his body. He is a two-sport varsity athlete and had been working diligently for months to put on weight and condition for his spring lacrosse and fall football seasons last year, seasons that ultimately would sadly never transpire with all the cancellations.
He’s 6’3,” and shortly after getting home in March of last year, his training got him up to nearly 215 lbs. Then, things started changing. As the weeks went on, he suffered from pain throughout his body – I’m talking neck, shoulders, elbows, wrists, lower back, hip flexors, knees, ankles… some were nagging discomforts from various accumulated sports injuries that had become an unfortunate part of his life, but the pain seemed to intensify and spread. A right ankle injury suddenly was paired with left ankle pain; a left wrist injury was suddenly paired with right wrist pain, and so on. Soon, he couldn’t even sit at his desk for school work without neck and lower back braces. And that wasn’t all. All of this was accompanied by increasing gastro pain that got so bad that he had difficulty eating more than a few bites at any meal. In just a few short weeks, Kai lost nearly 20 lbs. Aside from the obvious discomfort, this has been especially difficult for Kai as all the benefits from all those months of training seemed to vanish in an instant, and to add insult to injury, one of Kai’s greatest passions is cooking. Over the past few years, his love and appreciation of food have evolved into an inspired interest in cooking. Michael and I marvel at his culinary creativity and talent.
Mary Obana 04:16
We went to a series of doctors at one of the world’s leading teaching hospitals (Mass General in Boston) -- an internist, gastroenterologist, rheumatologist, physiatrist, sports medicine specialist, physical therapists. He underwent comprehensive blood work, multiple MRIs, an Endoscopy, biopsies, testing for everything from Lyme to more obscure tick-borne illnesses, Celiac; they checked his kidney, liver function. The list goes on and on.
The good news: everything was negative… no Celiac, no tick-borne antibodies, no esophageal damage, no cancer, everything was functioning properly; his rheumatoid factor was normal. Everything was “normal” on every lab report and MRI, yet… it was far from normal. Kai was still living with pain and discomfort. One appointment after the next seemed to lead nowhere.
While we were incredibly grateful we had dodged any of those scary diagnoses no one ever wants, we still hadn’t determined what was going on and, most important, how to solve it, how to help him feel better.
Mary Obana 05:32
Michael scoured the internet, doing hours of research, trying to get anywhere. Michael and I both have food allergies of our own, and we are well aware of the toll incompatible foods can have on your body, your mood, your energy level. Many think of food allergy symptoms to be sneezing, itchiness/hives, tingling in the mouth, congestion, maybe even abdominal pain, but the symptoms can also be things like inflammation (joint pain, stiffness), weight loss, weight gain, headaches, fatigue, depression, sleep issues, acid reflux, and more.
And given we had eliminated so many things, one of the physicians did suggest it might be allergy-related.
We turned to what he was eating. We started eliminating gluten and dairy, which seemed to help, which was encouraging. He was incredibly disciplined and rigorous, adhering to his elimination diet, but there seemed to still be more.
Our bodies are brilliantly designed, an intricate system that we can inadvertently mess up by exposing it to things it doesn’t like, but the tricky part? The combination of things is different for every person – unique as each one of us. What if we could know what that list was for Kai? Michael has often said that his mechanic can take his car key and know everything about his car and what’s wrong with it in a moment. Wouldn’t that be great to do with our bodies!
Mary Obana 07:10
We’ve had Kai food tested for allergies through EverlyWell, one of those saliva-in-a-tube mail-in tests, but we found it unhelpful. For us, it revealed little if anything. Unlike environmental allergens, the science around food allergy detection is frustratingly limited. So we were left with going down the complete elimination diet route.
The tricky thing about this process is you have to give it a good three weeks to do it justice because it takes that long for your body to rid itself of all traces of the tested food entirely. Then the idea is to re-introduce the food to monitor the reaction. And, for optimal testing, you should isolate one thing at a time while keeping everything else exactly the same. A daunting process, to say the least. With hundreds of possible culprits, we were looking at a lifetime of elimination tracking. All we wanted was for him to get better, fast.
Like any parent, when something is off with your kid, all you want to do is help figure it out; do anything and everything you can to end their pain, discomfort, suffering. So then I asked, “What more can we do? What can I do to help?”
Then, I heard a message: “Use your pendulum.”
What!? Of course! Why didn’t I think of that!!
I don’t know if you’ve ever worked with a pendulum or even heard of one for that matter, but it’s a divination tool. You’ve heard me talk before about tuning into your guidance. A pendulum is a tool that you can use to help you focus that communication from your higher guidance. I hadn’t used it in a long time. Once I connected to Spirit directly auditorily, let’s just say it was out of the rotation!
Mary Obana 09:02
Anyways, without going into all the intricacies, it allows me to tap into Spiritual guidance to get explicit yes or no answers to any question. I used it to understand what things have a negative effect on Kai’s health. Item by item, ingredient by ingredient. I put a spreadsheet together of hundreds of foods, herbs, spices, including obscure ingredients. Asking one at a time. The answer was either, YES, he can have it, NO he cannot, or a little only.
Though it was an exacting process, to say the least, it felt like a miracle! Suddenly, we had all the answers compiled in a spreadsheet right in front of us!
This is our Magic List. Follow this, and recovery will come.
Mary Obana 10:03
I learned at last what the SOURCE of his issues were. It’s an interesting, varied, and excruciatingly detailed list – from the big things – dairy (but a little sheep’s milk is ok), to the obscure things like chocolate extract… he isn’t allergic to gluten (we thought he was because Kai improved when he eliminated gluten and dairy – turns out it was the dairy, not the gluten). The list goes on… 35 items and it didn’t end there. I checked laundry detergents, shampoo, toothpaste, deodorant, facial cleansers, body washes, lotions, dryer sheets, cleaning products… and all I have to say is WOW!
Overnight we eliminated a host of things from meals and our household. It was like a miracle. Finally, finally, Kai was on the mend, feeling better every day. He was able to eat without discomfort, joint pain subsiding. It was a process to be sure. It took time, but what an eye-opener it was!
Mary Obana 11:15
I can only imagine the months, if not years, it would have taken to get to this “magic list.” I then went through this same process for Michael. Amongst many other things, he can’t have caffeinated coffee – decaf is ok… sorghum isn’t great for him, an ingredient in many gluten-free flour mixes – who knew! 26 items for Michael and for me, 4 items. I’ve always known I cannot have dairy but didn’t know I should stay away from nitrates, and lamb! It’s crazy what we’ve learned and the positive changes we are already seeing in each of us by simply avoiding the things our bodies don’t like.
Michael and I reflected on our own lives and how much we would have benefitted from this information earlier on. We are so grateful that Kai has these tools now and that we caught this relatively early in his life.
To be honest, I was reticent to share anything about this, but I was guided that I couldn’t keep it to myself, knowing the drastic changes we have seen and knowing that I can help others.
Mary Obana 12:29
I feel for physicians -- it can be difficult for physicians to know the root causes of issues might be especially when they may be driven by what we eat and the products we use. They can test to see what is happening to your body, prescribe medications to manage the symptoms, certainly administer care to solve the problems they see, but getting to the root causes of some of these more obscure things would be nearly impossible given the limited information they have available to them. After all, they can only work with what they can detect and what we share with them. And the truth is, most of us aren’t acutely aware of every symptom we have let alone how it correlates to our intake from moment to moment. So what do we do? We know when we feel off – or even rotten. And when it gets bad enough, we seek help. If we’re lucky, our physicians can solve it. If not, we are prescribed medications to manage it or live with symptoms without resolution.
Kai was so discouraged, leaving one appointment after the next with “everything looks ok, but why don’t you take this medication to see if it helps.”
Kai doesn’t like taking any medication, particularly when he knows it’s just masking the root issue and not getting down to what is going on with him.
And, this can turn your life upside down, leaving you feeling hopeless, as it did for Kai.
You may be listening to this thinking, “What the heck! Are you saying you consult spiritual guidance to get the food, ingredients, and products people should stay away from??”
I know, it may sound wild.
I can only share my experience. I trust in the guidance I’ve been given and I also know when you’ve tried everything, been evaluated by one doctor after the next without any answers, you suddenly become open to exploring anything that might be of help, particularly if your doctor has suggested you explore food elimination.
I know there are reasons for all of this happening – learning for Kai and learning for me. For Kai, who knows how this experience will have its own unfolding in his life. As we have learned from so many of the guests in this podcast, all of our experiences contribute to our future work. I know Kai has already learned and shared with me, “Maybe this is all happening so I can really appreciate what feeling good is like – and to never take it for granted.” Boy that’s probably true! I also believe this has helped him understand the power of tapping into the guidance that awaits us, not to mention how we feel can be more in our control than we might think. For me, I know I am to use this to help others. Another way, I can serve.
Mary Obana 15:25
Our guidance can work in every part of our lives, but I’m an example that it’s easy to forget! I’m grateful for the nudge and recovery from which Kai has benefitted so greatly! We all have those nudges. Listen to them. They are always there to serve you.
If any of this resonates with you, perhaps you have experienced symptoms that have created discomfort or pain, and your physicians haven’t been able to get to the root cause and have even suggested it may be food or environment-related, and you’ve tried things on your own to no avail, I’d be happy to see if it may be something you’re eating or you’re being exposed to, shoot me an email at mary@maryobana.com if you think I can be of help.
There’s just no end to the love and support you can receive, that we all can receive. That higher guidance is always there for all of us.
I hope this has been helpful. If you know someone who has a child or even themselves has struggled to get to the bottom of what ails them and you believe they can benefit from this information, please share this episode with them. We are all meant to feel good and live with strong, healthy bodies that support our joy every day.
Thanks for joining me. Remember, be kind to yourself, be kind to that beautiful body, and be kind to others. And shine, yes! Always shine!
Until next time, take it easy!
