Acceptance, Boundaries, and Play with Adrianne Anning

Get ready for a powerful perspective as Adrianne walks us through her journey of "over-productiveness" and "old-rusted-gate sorts of boundaries", through a massive health loss and into a time of great healing. Join us for her vulnerable and insightful  views on boundaries, acceptance, play, and vitality... a conversation worth listening to more than once.

3:13 How Adrianne’s creativity quieted a rambunctious group of teens…with Becca inside it.

7:37 Are we really responsible for other people’s healing and decisions? Does it make me enough? “Fixing” as a trauma response

11:21 Boundaries in action! Even with loved ones? 

13:29 Pressure at the brainstem...either it will kill you or teach you who matters the most in your health. 

14:47 Rusty gates and the queen’s space

20:08 Physical and metaphysical insights from a wobble board…how we make it easier or harder on ourselves when we “fall off”

26:00 Where are the answers we need? And how did Adrianne come to this place of knowing? Her story of massive production and performance, loss, misdiagnosis,  and healing.

39:00 3PD and what that stand for

40:17 Stress and its effect on functional neurologic disorders

42:12  A functional disorder can mean HOPE? (Instead of insanity?)

48:00  Healing may be different than curing, and how Adrianne has learned to accept what IS, moving and loving with reality.

52:05 Decay, rot, beauty, and how (especially if you are a nerd, too) it can teach us empathy and genuine presence communication

57:34  A doctor’s orders: “Becca, I want you to enjoy your life.”

1:00:00  Wisdom from Ekhart Tolle, a new earth in ourselves, and enthusiasm, enjoyment, and acceptance as the methods of living we choose for ourselves

1:01:00 What is joy?

1:05:00 The key to an open heart and spinning balls of light

01:10:57  What Adrianne thinks really makes a difference in living a life that you want to be living.

Transcript

0:00

Hello and welcome to the what really makes a difference podcast. I'm your host, Dr. Becca Whitaker. I've been a doctor of natural health care for over 20 years and a professional speaker on health and vitality, but everything I thought I knew about health. Was tested when my own health hit a landslide and I became a very sick patient I've learned that showing up for our own health and vitality is a step by step journey that we take for the rest of our lives and This podcast is about sharing some of the things that really make a difference on that journey with you So grab your Explorer's hat while we get ready to check out today's topic. My incredible guest network and I will be sharing some practical tools, current science and ancient wisdom that we all need, no matter what stage we are at in our health and vitality. I've already got my hat on and my hand out, so let's dive in and we can all start walking each other home. hello, loves. I am so grateful to be able to share my conversation with Adrianne Anning with you today. She's one of the best representatives I have ever met about sharing the healing, transformative alchemy of music. She has so many accolades in music performance and in curriculum music development. She headed up as the lead teacher for the arts fusion program through Southern Utah University, and she developed curriculum that interpolated science. Math and music together, which I think is so cool. She also developed a summer international arts exchange program with colleagues from China. And that grew into a full blown dual immersion Chinese program. in one of the local elementary schools. She also was the chorale director at a high school in her community where she directed 300 vocal students per year in five high school choirs. And they not only received continuous superior marks, but pretty much became the standard of excellence. She has also become a founding director of an interfaith Alliance choir. Been a music minister for St. Jude's Episcopal Church, is a choral master for the Orchestra of Southern Utah, and has undergraduate degrees in theater arts, music performance, education, and a master's of education from Southern Utah University. Adrienne would not tell you all of those things right off the bat. What you would know when you meet Adrienne is that you are with a person who is safe to be yourself with, a person who can handle joy. grief at once. She was so busy doing so much, much more than I explained. I think she's directed like 30 fully staged musical theater productions while she was doing all of these other things. She had a sudden health slide, debilitating vertigo, complicated neurologic diagnoses, and has had her share of having to find Her own healing amidst a life that seemed to be falling apart at the seams. Before I begin with her, I'd like to tell you a favorite memory that I have of Adrian. I knew her when I was a preteen in a. Church activity, and she was just starting in her marriage and was directing us in a roadshow choir. And if you can imagine 30, very rambunctious, very anxious teenagers about to go on stage for the first time, most people would really struggle to get our attention. We were talking and laughing and being naughty and loud. She did something I will never forget. She stood in the middle of us and very quietly started to sing. The letters to the word joy, JOY sounded something like this. J-O-Y-J-O-Y. Joy, joy. Joy. J-O-Y-J-O-Y. Joy, joy, joy. And she continued on in a little musical melody and kept her voice quiet. What I noticed was the quiet and the simple melody. And then others noticed and she motioned for us to join her until all 30 or 40 of us were quietly singing joy. And then she motioned for us to continue and she rose her voice just a little above us to give us direction about what to do, what to remember, what we were doing it for. And how wonderful she knew we were. I've just never forgotten it. In fact, it's a little song that I sing to myself sometimes when I need to soothe myself. And this is 20 years later. So she's a magical person. I'm so grateful for her. We're in a community choir of professional singers. I am not a professional singer, but they let me hang out with them. And my favorite part. Of the practices is my conversations with Adrian afterward. We sit on the benches. We talk real life. We cry. We laugh. I give you Adrian Anning. I know I've already introduced you on the introduction, but what I wanted to start with is just saying again, how grateful I am to meet with you this morning. Oh, I'm really happy that you're here. I mean, it's been such a wonderful reconnect from knowing you as a. Teenager. And surviving it. Like preteen. I, the best thing that I can say about you and the reason I wanted to just record a conversation is that you are one of those people that whatever is in the space, whatever is in the conversation is okay with you. I feel like the highs, the lows, the joys, the grief. When you come into a conversation, I feel no need at all to put on a fake face and say, I'm good. I'm just a little tired because it, because it's, it's all present. And I know a lot of that comes from your lived experience and learning how to love yourself through that and why you can be present for other people. Yeah, well, to me, it makes no sense to just have surface or superficial type, you know, relationships makes no sense. You know, let's be real. It's true. And I think it, having those conversations, makes it so instead of people draining me, Yes. It feels like I'm collaborating on a real song. Because sometimes people expect you to be something that you can't give, or, and that's what's draining. When there's a healer and you provide healing services for people, But you're not in charge or responsible for somebody else's you know, like stuff So it's like when people expect that of you It's like, you don't, you can't give that, that is not there. That is one of the things, I love how when I'm with you, it just pops up, like, Hey, Becca, what are you storing inside today? And then you're like, hey, let's talk about this, and you don't even know! That, that, that thing of not being responsible for other people's healing, or other people's decisions. That is a thing I'm learning so powerfully right now, and I gotta tell you, I am just as stubborn as a rock when that has happened, because I really did think if I'm good enough, kind enough, this is not just with patients, this is with family or relationships, if I'm good enough, kind enough, present enough, if I learn the therapeutic techniques enough, if I get less sleep so I can be more present for this or that, then surely. This person will feel my love, or this person will make a better decision, or if I'm a better example, or if I'm friendlier, then they will know I'm a safe place. I really did live a huge portion of my life thinking that I was, not only could affect change, but was responsible for change in other people. And as I look at it, I really think that is one of the things that took me down the most. Oh, yeah, well, you know what, and I... believe that you and I kind of share a similar place in our family history where we're fixers. You know, we were the ones, the steady ones that when everything was running rough shot and And, you know, being chaotic, it was our job to please and smooth things over and make things nice for everyone. And that is just like, it's kind of a trauma response in a lot of ways, you know, like, I sort of feel like. as we recognize that, and as we kind of look back and see, oh, this is my pattern. This was my role in my family group growing up. This is how I learned to function and survive within that familial group and tribe. And okay, I can see that, and I can see that that's sort of my go to, but it's not, but now I can let go of the pieces that are unhealthy and that are. truly robbing me of my own choice and robbing me of my direction in life. And I know that that's a little like weird to contemplate, but it's like you have to let go of those things that No longer serve you, you know Wild teasing that out Because I when I started learning that the first time that a mentor of mine said that is a trauma response You're like, what? I'm creating joy and peace. I'm not creating trauma. I'm not, I'm not living in trauma. I, I bring peace, you know, and then here's what, here's what my friend said too, when I was talking about like, but it's, she said, peace at what price? And I'm like, oh, yeah, you know what it's it is true There is there's a balance in it too because I will say that I I still even to this day In my own family group. I still function in a lot of those same ways, you know And I feel kind of proud that me with all of my physical limitations at the moment I can still say I'm the capable one in my family that has schizophrenia and, um, drug and alcohol addictions and Alzheimer's and narcissism. You know what I mean? I'm proud that I can say, yeah, well, I, I can stand up and be the capable one and, and help, but I've learned how to set goals. boundaries that protect me that that give me the time for myself that I need Because and that's what makes me feel quite happy to visit some of these more complex, very, very what I see as difficult ways of living in the world. I can face them with my family and I can say, I'm here to help. I might not be the help that you want or the help that you need, but I'm the help you got. And this is what I can do. This is the time I've got for you. This is, let's tease that out a little. Okay. Because I really. I, I was so frustrated when I first heard that my helping, we'll put that in quotes, that my helping and loving and just trying and trying and trying and trying was a trauma response and also was sort of horrified to realize it had created other problems. Like, it had enabled other people, it had stopped their progress, also my nerves were shot, also my health was shot, also I couldn't digest or sleep. And I was really angry that the things that seemed so good had somehow turned into a poison for me and other people. Like how could love and kindness and trying and working possibly be a poison and what you just said. Like, but now I have found boundaries that I think was the key for me. For me, the key for boundaries, I, when I, I didn't even know what boundaries really were for maybe like the first 15 years of my marriage probably. And when I first, you were just there to serve there to serve there is, I mean, and that's, you know, cultural, religious, familial programming. But when I first heard them, I thought boundaries, truthfully, I thought boundaries were something that. Only bitchy feminists have. Was so, so well programmed out of boundaries. I had to learn what they were and then I learned the people in my life I had no boundaries with, especially like my, immediate family. People who were more of kind of like the taker kind of patients at the clinic, I, they did not like my new set of boundaries, not even a little. And then I, what, what finally made it so I could find them was me learning that. I matter in that equation. I remember, so I was having intense neurologic problems, I had this really strong pressure at the base of my brain stem that literally could just turn me paralyzed any time. My legs would stop working, my arms would stop working. And I remember when I realized there was something to finding me in the middle of it was when a mentor said, Becca, I don't know if you've ever discovered. That you matter to yourself because I was frustrated and sad that I didn't seem to matter to anybody else. My time didn't matter. My energy didn't matter and I would put it all in to someone and they still wouldn't know they were loved. I'm like, it's like nothing I do even matters. And he said, when you matter to yourself is when all that would change. So I walked around repeating, I matter to myself, but really, really settling with it. And I remember feeling that pressure just release. Yeah. It was wild. Wild. So tell me how to, how, what was your experience in learning boundaries and how, how do you actively hold yourself in the middle of that? Well, I, I'm really. I, I think that I am a pretty good like visualizer and like it just using my imagination and stuff and my, I was working with a counselor, a therapist who threw that out to me that, you know, boundaries and, I remember, arguing with that therapist saying, but I just think that my just base personality is, I'm a helper. I like to help. I and my therapist was like, well, maybe but you're going beyond helping, you know, and so then and then she started talking about boundaries and I remember trying to close my eyes and imagine what do my boundaries look like and I was like, okay It's sort of like a half wall that you can jump up and sit on and there's like this rusty gate that just has like a piece of bailing wire, like closing it and it kind of sometimes swings bing, bing, bing, bing and cracked, you know, against the tiny half wall. That's what my boundaries look like right now. Anybody can break in, no problem. It's not very secure. And then as I started like kind of. What I did with my family is I said, how about these days? I'll only come down and take care of things on Sundays and Thursdays. How's that? And, you know, and that has been really good, to just stick to a couple of days. And then when I drive down to help my family, I, I... Just get ready to be my Mary Poppins best and spit spot things and then just hop on my hop on my little umbrella and tootle on back from once I came. I know the listeners cannot see you right now but I wish they could. Because I'm doing my impersonation of being Mary Poppins spit spot. You can tell by her voice it would be wonderful to see. I'm just picturing you in the sky. Yes exactly. Floating. But also I see now my boundary. My daughter said to me, mom, it's the Queens space. And she used her arms and she made this like circle around her and it's the queen space And you have to have the right protocols To address the queen, you know, and she was all saying that i'm the queen. So i'm like, yes, okay It's you know, the queen can be benevolent Very benevolent, but you have to have the permission to enter, you have to have the right protocols, to greet the queen, you know, and so when my daughter was like kind of saying that to me, I thought, Okay, so I can make my half wall, it can be a little higher and have like lookouts, you know, where I can look out the wall and it can even have like a drawbridge that I can like open up on special days. When the queen is all prepared to greet the public, you know, I can put the drawbridge down and I have the guards all in a row. And so that's how I kind of. You know, you know, I love like play and all this. So that's one of the ways that I think I've incorporated my visualizations of, okay, is the drawbridge up? Are the ramparts, you know, well guarded with muskets? What if someone is I guess two questions. What if someone is not approaching? Yeah, someone's banging on the door. Yeah. Yeah You know, I really I really do feel like I have some guards that say You know, not now or I really do have some guards that say that and and I also feel like There are often times when I just you know, I don't even have my boundaries. I'm not walking as a queen I'm not remembering, you know anything and so of course, yeah, I You can get toppled all the time but then I just have to Get back up, find my throne, find my, you know, get back in my place, because it's true, you know, it's not, it's not a thing that I feel like I can sustain all the time, but it's a good visual for me to remind me, oh yeah, pick yourself up in your royal robes, you know, and put that crown back on, and you know, my problems with my balance are all from this, you know, idea of crown, or, you know, so I, I do, I do make that imagination of me wearing a crown and fixing my, my off balanceness, my off kilterness, you know, just get back up, be a queen. I have learned about myself that I tend to think if I have found boundaries, then I will be able to keep them. And if I have found my worth, I will be able to remember it. And if I have. You know, announced myself as the queen of my space. Obviously that will hold Forever. Yeah, and I I have learned that sometimes I feel frustrated with myself But then I'm like I'm here again. Are you kidding me? My boundaries are down again Like what is when you gave me the analogy of a wobble board? So Because I do a lot of neurology, I have a wobble board. Yeah. So for those in your practice, for those in the audience that haven't ever been on it, it's a delightfully entertaining piece of equipment. You can find a physical therapist officer or people that work with neurology, but it has a sort of half ball on the bottom and a wooden circle on the top, a platform. And you put one foot on one side of the ball, one on the other side, and you try to balance the point is building the strength of your neurology by learning how to go to move the edge of that wooden platform around on the floor and it's designed to be difficult and you can fall off, you can lose your balance, you will find that like maybe The front right corner is much harder than the back left corner. You'll learn all kinds of interesting things about your brain as it's learning to balance. Now I know that physically, right? I know that neurologically. And I've seen patients have all kinds of different reactions to this piece of equipment. Some people jump on it like it's a game and they just want to beat their sister at it. Some people it's a game with themselves and they're fascinated at what their brain can do. Some people are angry that they can't do that front right corner, and they get frustrated. Some people, when they fall off, they feel like a failure. And I've seen the difference in attitude that it makes if it's a sense of, strengthening. Like oh, look, look where I'm weak that I didn't know I was weak, and what can I do to help this? And just patience with oneself. But I was not applying that to my emotional or energetic self. I was one of those people throwing a fit and getting mad at myself when I fell off the wobble board of life. And so I'm so grateful for that analogy because see, and don't you feel like when it's, we could even use karma as, a way to describe what you're talking about when there is, when there's a, when there's a negative situation, in front of you, like someone's either. angry or, ultra frustrated and you're trying to help them. So there's this angry thing., the more..., we add positive karma to that if we can just sit and allow or we can, we can radiate loving acceptance to this person in front of us or this situation in front of us. But when our karma also becomes antagonistic, or blaming, or whatever, we add negative karma to that situation. So that increases negativity. I do this too, so I totally understand what you're saying. I expect that I should be I should be, uh, like the head of the class, you know, I expect that. So when I'm not, then I'm so angry with myself. I'm adding a negative karma situation to the already difficult or negative. So that makes it twice as bad or way worse or an only negative thing. And, um, one of the other ways to go back to the queen analogy, and this is, you know, like I, I love humor and I love play and I do like to visualize things. So I see the queen and she went out, you know, in public, she's not even got her boundaries or her guards around her. And she gets like, she falls in a mud puddle, you know, in the middle of the street and her crown rolls down the, you know, rolls down the street and she gets up. I meant to do that, you know, dusts off her hands and her clothes. I meant to do that, you know, and it's like, but So just being able to look at it in our own folly, in our own mistakes, and just let it be what it is. Even when we're in that experience and we're like, Oh, I'm so accustomed to her, where can I get this? Just be like, oh man. I'm such a brute. Why am I such a brute? Or you also, one time you were like, when I was talking about the wobble board, and you joyfully laughed with me, and said, maybe something you can think to yourself is, there I am, brainiac, trying to figure this out again. Yes, exactly. Trying to analyze and, and, Get this thing, uh, mapped out, graphed out on, you know, here I, that's exactly it. I'm also going to give other people their map. Right. Because I obviously know. Because I know how to graph this. Obviously. I could graph this and I know exactly where they should be and I've analyzed it and, yeah. That's genius. But it's not, but it doesn't. That's not always the fix. No. And so, and that's, you know, and that actually leads me to this idea that we've talked about too, where we have a lot of power in us and just because we're having an issue or something has come up. And sometimes that thing that comes up takes the whole body down as you know. And as I know, it takes the whole body down, but We still have power within us. I like to think of them in shock chakra centers, you know, like we have these spinning balls of light and power that go throughout us and They're not they're not all depleted all the time but some sometimes enter those energy centers need help and they need our attention. And they can get that help and attention from all the other areas of powerful spinning balls of light that we have. You know, we, we can help ourselves by connecting to ourself. That, oh, which again, now jumping way to another topic, but I also realize and You know, as a provider, you are a provider of healing, but all of the answers are inside of me. The answers for my life, for my health and happiness, they reside in me. And I go to people to get help and support and, feel their healing love and desires for me. And, and it helps, but the answers are in me. It's my job. So a person doesn't really say that with a feeling and an energy that I can feel coming from you unless they, unless they know it yes, so I would like to know more about how you discovered that for yourself. Can you tell me about, what your life was? that sort of brought you to the place where your body broke down and what you learned, how you found that knowledge inside. Well, and I, I definitely want to be concise in this because it has been, uh, to this point, it has been a, an 11 year journey with this balance disorder. Um, and I want to be really concise. I was like. really at the height of my career, I was doing, and I was living in such a way. That I just, I mean I'm probably a little bit ADHD, so I get bored easily. So I always wanted to do something new, something exciting, something more. And so I was doing that more, more, more, more, more, with teaching music, and with performing, and with creating programs, and blah, blah, blah. And I was definitely really over... Taxing myself because I worked all the time and I, I will just pause to say a stunning voice and amazing creator. So not only did you want to do it, but everyone in the community wanted me to do it. Yeah. Yes. If you could be a part of something that Adrian was at the head of, it was going to be great. It was going to be creative and collaborative and positive and amazing. And so. People like you keep getting asked for things. Yeah. And, and because again, I think, you know, I was like, yeah, I get a little bit bored. So yes, I want to do it. Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. Anyway. I had this and I had a home life that was not very, uh, loving and, I had just confronted my partner about the deception and the betrayal, you know, that had gone on. And then, literally within like six days of that confrontation, I woke up in the middle of the night and I thought I was having a stroke. I felt as if I got thrown back down on the bed. I kept trying to sit up and I kept getting thrown back. And then I... Finally I crawled into the bathroom and I just threw up and then I laid on the bathroom floor and it looked like my the walls were just like melting and I thought what the heck I'm having a stroke and so I told My partner that I think I'm having a stroke and he said you're not having a stroke or you wouldn't be able to talk Like okay, I guess I'm going back to bed. I guess it's fine. The walls are melting, but it's okay Anyway, so now fast forward that began a process, so initially it was just benign parapositional proximal vertigo, which is where you have those fast mario round type spins that knock you down. And I just had a really bad, case of that that lasted Um, for about two weeks and it was a daily experience where I was having those. How were you teaching with, so was it normal and then, I tried, it was not, in fact, it happened within, it was like the first full week of school coming back. So I'd been there for a couple of days and then I did get, uh, I did get a substitute on the first day of that, but then I kept trying to go back and it was just miserable. I mean, I would throw up. It was miserable, but, um, I kept trying and, um, then I kept trying to get a diagnosis and of course you go through a million tests and I saw doctor after doctor and it was, oh, you have a cold in your brain stem. Oh, and it'll go away. It didn't go away. And then, it was, oh, you're having migraines. And I said, but I'm not having pain. I'm just, I can't, I can't, looks right, nothing feels right. It feels like I'm walking on a swinging bridge all the time. Or like I'm on a, and some days it would be better, it would be like, oh today I'm Just walking on like a cruise liner and I occasionally feel this way and then it was nope now I'm walking across the rowboat. I can't even handle this, you know, like and I remember seeing you so we had moved back to Utah I didn't see you very often and then I remember seeing you at an event and Um, in that state, I remember you had sunglasses on and your head was kind of bowed and you were over on the side of a hall trying to walk, you had two walking sticks and you were just kind of trying to make it focus on to be focused, quiet, energy drawn way in. And I thought, That's exactly, that was exactly how I coped for years and years. And continual testing, misdiagnosis all the way around, thinking I had MS, you know, like doctors would, theorize, you know, migraines, MS, then I got misdiagnosed with, by two doctors with early stage, uh, progressive supernuclear palsy, which is a five year death sentence, you know, and I just, and I totally believed it. You know, that's another thing. That's another. Part of it is our own belief system. So I believed that I was going to die in five years, but my symptoms had become more and more. My eyes were holding, they had square wave jerk, nystagmus type stuff. And that's why I got the misdiagnoses because my eyes were responding just like somebody who. Who has Progressive Supernuclear Palsy. Anyway, I finally resigned to the fact, And then, when they said, Oh, it's not that. It's not Progressive Supernuclear Palsy. Then I had, uh, doctors at, I was diagnosed with Lyme disease, Cause I do have the Lyme disease markers, Antibodies in my blood. But I still say I didn't have Lyme disease. I don't know why those show up. Then I, neurologists at, at a really highly, highly, reputable clinic in Phoenix said, well, you should just be institutionalized in a psychiatric facility. And I, I was defeated by your erupting me and, and you know what, it's defeating. So that's kind of, I guess what I want to even convey is. Finally coming back here, and for some reason, this little town of Cedar City has some very, very good,, specialists and physicians, and It's freaky my six during this time. You also separated from your. Oh, yes. Yes. I changed my whole life During all of this. I got divorced. I after about two years of Continually, I kept thinking my brain is going it's going to reset. Everybody tells me it should fix itself The school district gave me tons of support. They they gave me They gave me a part time aid, they assigned me, every semester they assigned me a, a student teacher, which is a pro and a con, but what it allowed me to do is it allowed me to mentor and be able to sit there and not have to be up and moving around. And that's what, the help I needed. So, so you changed everything. Changed everything. I changed. Everything, and my whole focus was on, getting better, you know, like, but still trying to do things, and I would, uh, I would function as the director, I couldn't ride the bus anymore with the kids, that was way too much, so I would drive myself, which sometimes was not easy, but mostly it was because it was a quiet space. You know, like I was safe in there. It was quiet. It was calm. I put no music on, you know, and I couldn't handle any sensory input. And then I would have some of my students would help me, you know, like carry my shoes. So you could put them on for the pretty, pretty part. I had my 20 minute shoes and they would carry my 20 minute shoes. And, uh, you know, but just, so I would have people helping me, or parents, parents would walk, uh, around with me when I was at a festival. And I would go outside and walk around the building instead of walking through where there were crowds of people. And I'd have a parent, a parent accompany me. You know, so that. So anyway, those were the ways I coped while I was continually trying to fix it and thinking I should fix it. This is, and I should know what's wrong, um, but why don't I know what's wrong? I should know. And that's that negative karma element that I was adding to my disorder. Let's pause on that because I see why you would have a drive to fix it. So I was in that, in a. Really bad state for three years. And again, same thoughts. And I know so many of our audience will too. You were trying to just work through it. Like, this should fix. Something isn't right. I should know what to do. Okay, I'm going to try this and this and this and this. Yeah, I'm going to change my diet. I'm going to change my environment. I'm going to change my relationships. I'm going to change. To fix it. Change my religion. I'm going to change. Yes, I'm going to change my religion. I'm going to change it all. I moved houses. Uh huh, yes. That's a great idea when you feel terrible. Yes. to fix it. And why doesn't anybody else know? You talked about being passed around to doctors about the different misdiagnosis, some of which are. Terrifying Horri. Horrible. I mean, you move past that, but really being told that you're gonna progressively mm-hmm. become more paralyzed. Mm-hmm. terrifying. Mm-hmm. being told that it's in your mind. Mm-hmm. terrify. And that terrify you should be institutional That you should be institutionalized. Yeah. Oh my gosh. I mean, I know that look. Yeah. And, and then you go home and you think, why am I making this up? Am I making this up for. Is this how I'm trying to get attention? I know! Am I just super messed up? I'm like, wait, what? Is this real or is this not real? Wait, we are not alone in that. I love how you're highlighting, that's how we make it harder on ourselves. I think we add all that. I can give myself some grace for doing that for so long because of course we want to fix it. In fact, that's a way we know we aren't just doing it for attention. Right. Because we're so mad at ourselves. Yes, but maybe the attention of ourself is what we're looking for. That spot in ourself that, that I matter to myself. That is not just, Hey, how can I have the semblance of my life that was happy? Like the creativity for you or I kept trying to work or like. How can I still do all the things I used to do and make this thing go away? Yeah, I expected that it should stop this. That this imbalance and that this perception of the world as not, I, I don't want to say that it's not a three dimensional world, you know, but that's kind of where my eyes are, what my, my 3PD is, what the real diagnosis is, and it does have a pathology, and it stands for, three P something. P P P D. The D means dizziness. Oh, okay. It's like perpetual, that's the chronic, perpetual, perceptive, postural dizziness. Meaning that, my perception, my, my balance signals do not vestibular system. Because my brain has stopped listening to them. When I had that terrible benign Fast spinny stuff. My brain just quit listening to it Because it couldn't trust It has never reset. Most brains want to reset. Once they've gone through some kind of confusing situation, they want to reset. But I have learned about this, that a combination of stress, and the fact that I had a major head trauma about 40 years ago and just stress. Stress, stress, stress. Yeah. And um, creates a situation in my brain where it's like stuck. It's not going to soften and relax and just chill out. So I've been working on that. I'm going to pause you there too, because talking with you. Is so relieving to me because it's one of the most similar things. I don't have the balance. Part of what I am left with, you know, right now I'm open to the possibility still of moving through it.'cause it is getting better. Mm-hmm. but is a functional neurologic disorder. Mm-hmm. where again, stress. When stress or trauma gets so high, it's like my body does not know. Mm-hmm. What to do with it. And before it would just, now I realize. The signals don't send right. Yes. They've patterned, they've patterned a response to stress. And it is, it's a brain problem. It's a neurologic problem. It's a nervous system problem. And even mine, it's not a disease, but it is a functional problem. Just like what you're talking about. And it is real. And it is real. Yeah. And I think that that honestly, so being diagnosed properly, really, really was like such a help. And, and I still have used every single tool that I have picked up on my way in alternative medicine, because you know, once they can't find it on a test, you. get kicked to the curb. And, and I can see that because actually one of the guys at the Mayo Clinic gave me the most hope. I think I saw him when I, my symptoms were the worst, including I could no longer speak with fluidity. I was stuttering and I took me forever to say a sentence. He said, he was the infectious disease guy because I'd been diagnosed with Lyme's and so my neurologist sent me to him. So the infectious disease guy said, clearly you have something. And he said, I will tell you here at the Mayo Clinic, 30 percent of the people that we see have some kind of, cancer or some kind of that we can test for and we can see and we can often treat. Thirty percent have, some kind of structural deformity or, you know, something with bones or joints and we can see and test for it and we can, Another 30 percent have things wrong with their cells and their blood and their, and we can test for that and we can see. 10 percent of the people that come here, we don't know. But I will tell you, out of all those categories, That 10 percent fares the best. Really? Yes. Okay, let's pause on that because when people say that to me, I feel like, great, I'm lost at sea. It's the 10 percent of, I don't know what's going on, but good luck. You're going to fare the best because that's what made me understand, okay, I don't have a disease. That we can test for. And those people that have diseases and that have, they don't fare well. Their, their challenge in life is one of collapse. And they still have, you know, they can find good tools to help support the infection and get rid of it. Because I have, I had Lyme disease. You have Lyme disease. Yes. And so I had to find the right people that could help me with it. But yeah, that is a thing that is present that needs proper care. Yes, that's a disease. Yes. And they can test for it. And they can help. Yeah. See that. But, so when he said that, I was like, okay, this, then maybe this is as bad as it's going to get. You know, like, maybe, because maybe it's not going to kill me. Maybe I won't die in five years, you know, when he said that. I'm not dead yet. I know we were both helped very much by Dr. Sanderson, the neurologist that appropriately diagnosed you. He sat and watched me. He gave me some medication, which I wasn't eager to take because I had been in the alternative world. And then I tried so many big pharma medicines that I didn't feel like, well, number one, they didn't fix it. So I wasn't. You know, interested in continuing with these. So when he gave me a really big pharma thing that treated Huntington's disease symptoms, it's because I was exhibiting those symptoms. And he told me, he said, this is not anything that cures anything, Huntington's disease or anything, but it helps with the symptoms and we need to quiet those symptoms you know, that was his thing. He's like, we want to try and quiet those symptoms. Well, they helped. It helped. And then after a little while where I was able to sort of stop my flicking and my shakes and my tremors and stuff, and I don't think I had my voice back yet, but then he put me on, a dopamine thing. Like we, we were working on different ways to increase. Neuroplasticity. Mm-hmm. We still didn't have a diagnosis yet, but he just wanted to try things and I said, I'm in your hands, you know?'cause I, I was trusting him. Yeah we were using things like dopamine, endorphins, serotonin, and finally, He handed me a paper after watching me for about 10 months, and I think I met with him every 6 weeks or something, for 10 months. And he handed me a paper and he said, I think you have this. And it was a whole, like, thing he had printed out, um, from a medical journal. And I just, like, I just, like, tears came to my eyes because as I read it. It was everything I'd been saying for, you know, eight years at that time when I saw him. Yeah. Everything I'd been saying. This is how it came on, you know, this was the onset and, you know, so it just made perfect sense to me. And he said, and it's treatable and you can Heal from it and, you know, just hearing somebody say that, you know, we can treat this and you can heal from it. And it's interesting because, you know, even after using the treatments that he's prescribed and I'm still working on, I still do physical therapy. I still take the medicines he's prescribed. I still do my alternative things. And I, I am here to say that it has not fixed. But, that doesn't mean I'm not finding healing. I am. I heal all the time, every day. And my acceptance, my true acceptance of, because, and I think that the proper diagnosis has helped that, helped my acceptance, um, the true acceptance that, hey. This might be the way it is forever and ever amen, you know But I can find healing every day I can slow down when I need to I can stop and just take a few deep breaths When I need to I can use my canes if I need to I Can put my sunglasses on when I need to to just sort of cut out some of all the harshness That my you know, my flimsy nerves they can't They can't process everything that they used to, and that's okay, you know. I, the first time I heard that was about a year ago. The phrase that healing is different than curing. Yes. Than getting a cure. Yes. A dear friend of mine passed from breast cancer. And, I was talking to another dear friend. And they were... Best of friends, the person that passed from breast cancer had helped, I don't even know how many people find healing. And she was frustrated at first that she couldn't get her breast cancer to go away. And her journey through the breast cancer was learning that there may be a difference between finding healing and finding a cure. That everyone needs to exit this planet or this life or whatever you believe one way or the other. Yes. But, that really settled with me because that puts some of the, what is the word, I guess peace or fortitude? Yeah. Back in my own self. Yeah. I, I haven't, I have not met anyone that struggles with pain or sensory problems or what you call like weak nerves with more grace. than you do. I see you accepting yourself in that way, and that is something I would like to learn. That's something I learned by being around you. Because for me, I'm like, I used to be able to climb up like you. My daughter is doing a state competition in mountain biking this year, and I was, last year, I had to have help walking up to where I could see her, a walking stick. Two people pushing me from behind. The year before that, I was in a wheelchair. We had to have four people helping me up to get to a little hill. The year before that, I couldn't go, right? Because I was laying in bed, paralyzed, couldn't speak. So every year that goes by, I tick by and remember, Wow, a year ago it was this, a year ago it was this. But it took me a while when I was being pushed up in a wheelchair. I remember just trying to fight back the tears because I didn't want to make anyone feel bad. And I remember just sort of like holding on to the, the word gratitude that I at least am supportive and have a tribe around me, but I still felt so deficient, useless. I was used to being a trail runner. Like I ran in those places where now I have a cane or a wheelchair and it was the deficiency, feeling deficient that made it so hard on me. So what was your transition from? Adrienne, capable creator of all things, to, especially musically or creatively, to now I am the woman in the sunglasses trying to hide, to actually now here I am with my sticks today, or I've named my sticks, they are my supporter, and here's my sunglasses, isn't this wild? I'm going to show up to choir. And today I will show up to choir and sing quietly and wear my sunglasses and it's fine. I just wear two pair of glasses. Yep. I wear my sunglasses and my strong readers. Tell me where that happened in your heart or your soul. See, it's interesting because I know that for me it has been a, and I think for all of us, it's, it is this, this gleaning as we go. You know, like as I experienced this, like, Self loathing because I can't do what I used to do and as I feel like I'm so like such a loser because I have to get a Substitute last minute or you know, like as I feel all those hateful thoughts about myself I learned geez, you know, like give yourself a break give yourself a little love here You're not doing anything wrong Just that things are happening, you know, and yes, and I need to figure them out, but they're not gonna go away You know like tomorrow. Oh, I but I expected them to go away tomorrow And so then that was part of what my frustration was about and I really truly believe Trying all the things doing all the stuff to try and help has been Well, I do remember one day, I was out, I was hiking with my sweet love, and you know, it's hard for me, but we, we stopped at this grove of like, fallen trees everywhere. There were dead trees, and fallen trees, and partially dead trees, and we just sat amongst all of that decay. And we saw these just beautiful mushrooms and there were like wild, um, irises growing out of this, all this undergrowth and all this dead. And I remember just kind of looking around, thinking. Wow, this is beautiful. All of this like decay and rot and, you know, I really, I was just like, man, this is beautiful. And, and I think that coming Back to the idea that the world, and I call myself the world, the world expands, expands, expands, expands, and then it collapses, collapses, collapses, collapses. That is nature. You know, as I'm looking around this beautiful mountain scenery, you know, in the Ponderosa Pine Tree Forest in Flagstaff. And just sitting amongst all of it, you know, just being there amongst all the living things, all of the dying things, all of the things that spring forth from the decay and from the dying. And, you know, it just kind of gave me that perspective to say, it's all nature. Sometimes we can stave off our, our collapse, collapse, collapse, but sometimes we can't. And so just kind of like accepting it. And I have, I have comforted myself and I have found healing by just being okay with what shows up today, you know, and sometimes even just walking into a fluorescent light, I get that feeling of like, I can't breathe, but instead of saying, Oh crap, I can't breathe. I just say, okay, well then just take a few breaths. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, take a deep breath and see if I can get back to my function., two things. So one, I'm so glad you brought that up because that helps me specifically because it brings up a very nerdy thing. So I am really into regenerative gardening. And I think the reason for that is because I started learning about the soil and the soil just reminds me so much of how we as humans work, our bodies, our guts, our soil, the diversity that has to be present in it. What I learned is that in the soil there has to be a balance of bacteria, which feeds on living things, and a fungus, which feeds on dead things. So you talked about the mushrooms coming out of that. The fungal network. That is the communication network. I cannot believe how incredible, the way that they communicate with each other and then they can care. For, if there's a plant over a mile away, it can pump nutrients to it. And I think that's how we work as humans. When you meet someone that can sit with you eye to eye, when you can have tears coming down your face, or you can say, I am really struggling today. I can't walk. And that person can look you right in your eyes and hold you in love. Because we're connecting through our fungus. Yes! Our Yes. That comes from sitting in the rot. Yes. Understanding. Understanding it, going through it, and finding like the mulch, creating something beautiful. I think part of what I am learning I'm here to do on this earth, I feel like sometimes I have pummeled down some of the belief systems that have grown like massive trees in my body, you know, in my family lines, in my whatever, and the more that I have. I have pummeled the unhealthy stuff down. It has made this incredibly nourishing soil for the things to grow that I want to grow. Yes. Yes. You talked about taking a moment and it reminded me too of one of the most impactful things that's happened to me in this three years was also when I got my diagnosis from Dr. Sanderson. Yes. And I know many people out there may not have a diagnosis yet. So. I know what it is like to be in the ocean. Oh, trust me. And it's not Pollyanna ish for me, to just say, Oh, acceptance. I know what that feels like to be so frustrated, not knowing. Yeah. Or to have a diagnosis that. That is wrong. That's painful. But what he did for me, and I'll just, you know, tell it quickly, but he looked at every test, he looked at every MRI, he believed everything that I was saying, he didn't question me, and he asked insightful questions, he, he showed me himself going through the tests. We turned off the lights, he looked at the screen. And then he asked me more questions, he did more of a physical exam, and then he just looked me straight in my eyes and he said, Becca. There is nothing physically wrong with you. And I just started to cry because he had actually checked it. But then I thought, okay, this is another time where somebody says, I don't know, and passes you on to a next, which I had seen three very high quality, very credentialed neurologists before then who had just passed me along. And he said, I think I know what this is. It is a functional neurologic disorder. And he told me the history of it, how it used to be called hysteria, how they don't know what it is. But instead of talking about it like that made me crazy, or like I was just hysterical, he said, there was a time when people who had multiple sclerosis were put in mental hospitals because we didn't know why they were flinging or they couldn't walk. And now we found that it was a problem with This is what's happening here. We don't know what is creating it. People that have what you have have been mistreated since it began, but that doesn't mean there isn't a cause. He said, since post post COVID, we're finding so many people have this. Most of the time it comes up after a massive disease. We don't know why, but the good news is. There's so many people with post COVID right now, but there's more research going. He said, the thing I do know is that your nervous system does not handle stress well anymore. It's had too much for too long. It can't relay anymore. Right. So when you have an episode that comes on, if you start to go into the future of, What is this going to be like if I go paralyzed right now? What is that going to do to my family? I'm driving this car. I'm doing this. Blah, blah. If you freak out and go to the future. Negative karma. If you go to the past. If you go anywhere but that moment, it will make it worse. I want you to sit down. I want you to breathe. I want you to find this moment and I want you, Becca, to enjoy your life. I had not been told I could enjoy my life or that I even had a chance. I'm enjoying my life for three years. I'm telling you, yeah. He said, find this moment and breathe. And when you can do that, you can walk. After you can walk, I want you to do yoga. After yoga, I want you to do Pilates. After Pilates, I want you to dance. And I thought, There will be dancing yes. And so the moment I love that you are translating that not to just if you're going to have a paralysis episode, but to what does my body need? What does today bring I love that. One of the philosophers that has really,, stayed with me is Eckhart Tolle, and especially,, that book, The New Earth, where I create this new earth in myself, the idea that,, being in the present moment is really the way that we find, either enthusiasm or, enjoyment or just acceptance. And if we're not living in any, either of those three ways, then we're creating a negative experience for ourselves and for others. If we're not in the one of those three ways. All right. Well, I need to reread this book because guess what? I have found out of a paralysis episode, enthusiasm is the only thing that will bring me out. If I can find something to be enthusiastic about, yes. Because you're sending endorphins into your brain when you have that kind of enthusiastic enthusiasm. And I know we're not being re religious or anything, but the word means with God and Zim with God. And so to me that is, That is where, yes, we're living a joyful, bounty, bounteous life, you know, like we're living with, like higher everything. I heard a mentor of mine, Kathy Heller, she was talking about joy and I think about it often. When joy naturally comes up. Like when you want to call a girlfriend and you're like, guess what just happened? Yeah, she said it is not for the things that you have carefully planned and controlled like I detailed this out I let this person what they know what they needed to do to support me exactly and I showed up in this exact way She's not a graph. Yes, which is like we don't call our girlfriend to say well I manipulated my husband into giving me flowers and it was wonderful The things that we want to call and celebrate our you would not believe what happened. I just had a feeling to go to this place and this person was here and they said this thing and it's she's like joy is being in the flow where we allow life or God or that higher whatever it is the flow of our day to bring us Things that are beautiful, that mean something to us, a conversation with Adrienne, uh, you know, uh, a coffee at the farmer's market that actually tastes good. A cup of coffee, and oh, yes. So joy, I thought of that, it's not a big thing to chase. It is, am I in this moment? Am I breathing? Right here. So enthusiasm, joy, and what was your other thing? Awareness? Acceptance. Acceptance. Just acceptance. Just to be, you know, and like... Again, when things are hard, or, and for me, I feel like, you know, my dizziness is constant. And so for me, things get harder when, there are elements around me that change. Like people moving around, or harsh lighting, or a lot of sound, things that are distracting. Because it's really just my eyes that are giving me. My balance cues. It's not my ears or and it's also my touch gives me balance cues So what I do in those moments where things are hard is just an acceptance I just slow down or I stop or I touch something take a few breaths. Like you said and Then I'm just accepting I'm accepting that, okay, it's hard and I could probably get to something that feels a little bit more enjoyable if I, can make it and sit down or whatever. So to me, that is what the idea of just accept it, you know, it's like, yeah, it's happening again. Just there you go. That visualization of reaching out to touch the wall. Breathing out like. Perhaps we have, some of us have a tendency to pull in on ourselves and fight when we don't want something to be happening. Like my sunglasses on, head down two sticks. Yes. Yes. Where when you, just even the visual of instead of pulling in, reaching out, touching the wall, being a part of just what is. You know, and another thing that you just reminded me of, and my husband does this instinctively now. He will pat my shoulder from time to time and having him touch me gives me that proprioceptor. But it's almost like, and then it also gives me that endorphin to be like, you know, he's right there. There we go. And he just pats my shoulder a little bit or sometimes he'll just leave his hand on my shoulder when I'm walking with my sticks, you know, and that, and it anchors me. And, you know, I know my problem is balance, but it's metaphor as well, you know, I, we're connected. Yeah. We're all connected in this web. So two more questions. One would be you said something to me about keeping an open heart that I think is so beautiful. So I, uh, love to have a heart that is extending, that is full. That is full of love. Sometimes I'm just really pissed off and I don't want to have an open heart. Sometimes it feels like, ah, if it's open, I will get hurt. But you talked to me about having an open heart as a way to balance. is. Yeah. Can you talk to that? Again, I love to think of our seven chakras and these spinning balls of light. We have these three foundational areas of, of, our root. our root, which is like our childhood, our tribe, our foundation, our safety, uh, our red spinning ball, you know. And then we have our creativity and our sexuality, our self identity, you know, as we're growing up. Uh, and we're a child and we're starting to have an identity of who we are and we learn how to color and draw. How to color outside the lines and how to color inside the lines, that's all our creativity, that yellow. And then the next foundation is our sense of power and our sense of like, I can, I could do things for myself. I'm growing up, you know, I. I can make money, I can have plans, I can organize my life, you know, those are our foundation. And then if we go to the top three, our more esoteric, our enlightened, our, we have the top, our crown, which is this sense of divine knowledge and, you know, our our connectedness to the world really, just sort of the web of life. And then we also have our spinning ball of light right at our forehead where I, you know, it's like our pituitary gland area where we have our intuition, we have our intellect, we have our knowledge base, we have the ability to see things. And then our chakra. at our throat is our ability to express ourselves. Our ability to say what we want and what we need and teach and sing and connecting those three higher, more esoterics with our foundational sense of self and power is this tiny little funnel, in the skinny part of the hourglass. It is our heart chakra, and it is such a, such a vulnerable place because it connects what we love and who we love to us. And it's easy to close it. when we're betrayed or when we have loss, when we have grief, it can close. We can be hateful, not loving. We could be hateful. We can hate ourselves and close our heart off. And man, if we can just keep that beautiful spring green, spring green ball of light, trying to spin and move and keep it open and sit through. and grief with love and acceptance and joy and enthusiasm. If we can sit with it open with all of that, then our chakra energies have a much easier time connecting to each other. You know, that's what I feel like connects them is love, you know, and we connect to ourselves through love and patience, acceptance. I asked you how you balance joy and grief because, truthfully, like I said at the beginning, I feel like whatever a person is, is welcome on the couch next to you. And that was your response was an open heart is what allows it all to be there at the same time. I've thought of that since you said it and it's been a while, but then I remembered the open heart is for me. That isn't just for everyone else to experience an open heart in my presence, it's for me. You're not giving away your heart, you are opening it and allowing that energy to ebb and flow within my own self. So I have resources, higher resources, lower resources. So that you connect yourself to self. Right. Yeah. And whether someone else feels that love, well then, I mean, that's, that's... There's so many factors in whether they will fill it or receive it, but it's for me. So my last question, we've covered most of it, so you might just repeat something that we've said, which is totally fine. But because this podcast is called What Really Makes a Difference, I will say my question for you is, when you are left with something that so far you're aware may not go away. Right. Yeah. What really makes a difference in still living a life that you want to live? Yes. The short answer is, again, acceptance. And true acceptance, true acceptance, not just, okay, yeah, huh, my life sucks, I'll just accept it. This is as good as it's gonna get. Acceptance of the, and I've used this term with you too, just as it is, God's breath. You know, just the idea of being in the present moment, true acceptance. And,, I, to make the short answer long, it's also me trying things. And then trying them again when they don't feel good the first time and then trying it for a fifth time. And, and then pulling back again and taking a rest and, you know, finding some new supplements that make me happy. But without the pressure that it has to help or all is lost. Yeah. Or what am I going to do? And, you know what, and now I'm thinking back to those beginning years and how I really tried to make work, work for me. And I had help from the people that were in charge of me, you know, because I just was genuine and honest saying, you know, I, I need help. This is so hard. Can you help me? And yeah, just. Accepting help, accepting the state of what is, trying a little bit, and then trying again, taking care of myself, breathing, when the panic attacks happen, the more you fight and resist a panic attack, the worse it makes it, you know? So acceptance. The beauty and the irony. Um, is that what we started with was talking about, being a helper or making life better for other people and how we had to come out of that, find boundaries, find ourself. But what I'm sitting with right now is gratitude for the work that you have done in your life that has made it so I get to sit on the couch with you. And the irony is. It helps me, not because you're trying to do everything that you can do to be there for me, but because you living a life where you are on that wobble board and you're reaching out to encourage me on my wobble board, it's the best hope I could have. You got this. So thank you. I love you. I love you too. Ladies and gentlemen, this is Adrienne. Until next time. Toodles! And now, you know why I was so thankful to get a conversation with Adrian recorded and on the podcast. Some of my favorite takeaways were how we talk about trying to fix or help people. Um, really being a trauma response and boundaries as either rusty gates or a queen space. I loved listening to her story and I also love the takeaway that she got about how sometimes the decay and the rot and the hard things in life are really the communication pathways for how we can be together with people in whatever they're going through. And I loved her. reference to Eckhart Tolle's work when he talks about creating a new earth in ourselves and that we do that through enthusiasm, enjoyment, and acceptance. I love thinking about what joy really is. And I love just so much of Adrian's play, the thoughts of wobble boards, the thoughts of chakras being spinning balls of light. I'm just, grateful for her wisdom. Those are my takeaways. I'm interested in what your takeaways you can let me know through social media, anything else that was really highlighted and I can pass messages along to her. Stay tuned for our next episode, which is with Dr. Judy Caldwell. She is. Uh, teacher of doctors as well as a doctor herself, and it's going to teach us about the structure and function of our craniosacral system and how it might relate to more than you realize to how we feel, to how we function and basically to our life itself. So until next time, thanks for joining me.