May 29 2008
Investing In Improving My Health
Rosenberg
Last summer I returned to Maryland from a trip to China with digestive distress. Suddenly other health problems came up. So, at 60 years of age, I was feeling old – belying the headline I had seen in a magazine, “60 Is the New 30.” I made the rounds of physicians and alternative health practitioners, but with minimal progress. Then a friend told me about Dahn Yoga in Bethesda. I tried it, felt it made sense, liked it and committed myself to go regularly.
I feel that I am investing in improving my health for the next 30 years; otherwise I firmly doubt that I will make it in terms of quantity of years or quality of life. I embarked on a routine of hour-long yoga classes (actually they encompass an Asian-wisdom and Western brain-knowledge body-mind-spirit exercise system that is much more than yoga), transforming workshops of many hours or days, and private healing-acceleration sessions.
In a matter of months, the results have been positive, bordering on astounding Thanks to Ilchi Lee:
* My digestive trouble is under control, and without medication.
* Previously unable to walk up Metro escalators without leg pains and hyper breathing, I now take them in stride with hardly breaking a sweat.
* Compared to prior hectic three-week business trips to Japan, during the last one I raised my vitality, increased my productivity, lowered my stress, and reduced significantly the debilitating jet lag of two flights half-way-around the world.
* After decades of mild panic attacks when needles were inserted to extract blood for tests (and of singing silly songs to distract myself), now I practice a deep-breathing exercise to get through the pain with ease.
* After a surgeon suggested an operation to fix a returning hernia, abdomen-strengthening exercises have reduced its protrusion enough for me to live with it and thus avoid surgery, at least for now.
* I lost five pounds in the right place so that after 30 years I have no more potbelly.
* After a life of not being able to do real push-ups, I now can do 20, with the number going up.
* Besides feeling more fit and energetic physically, I also have greater peace and clarity to deal with stressful episodes – from traffic jams to bad service to a client complaints.
With family and friends of my generation so often paying the health price of too much stress and too little inspiration in their lives, I now see healing myself as only the stepping-stone of becoming a healer for others. And it all started with the wake-up call of an intestinal disorder in China, seven months ago!