I really need to do something about my pain level.  Actually, to clarify, I need to apply the Law of Attraction to abolishing my pain level. 

As I’ve mentioned before, about three weeks ago, I decided I needed to get rid of the Oxycodone in my life.  I went on a five day purge to get the stuff out of my body.  DO NOT DO THIS EVER! 

I expected to be ill for about 72 hours but I only felt literally mind-numbingly ill for about 24 hours.  After that, I started to feel better, especially mentally, but I’m still paying for this decision. I’m incredibly sensitive to smells and tastes.  A week after I did this, I couldn’t walk more than a few feet without panting like a dog .  I’m also very tired but some of this is because I’m having higher levels of pain and I’m not sleeping well at night. 

Breakfast is the most difficult meal.  I almost literally have to hold my nose and pump down my oatmeal.  I wouldn’t bother but the diabetes nutritionist made a huge deal about eating breakfast and I do feel better when I eat this meal.

So, Why Did I Put Myself Through This?

I’ve realized for some time now, I was taking the medication, not for pain, but to maintain the level of drug in my body.  I had been taking either Percocet or Oxycodone for over a year.  My body had gotten used to taking it every few hours – way more often than was prescribed by my doctor.  Actually, I believed once I’d gotten the drug out of my body, I would find I didn’t have all that much pain after all, which turned out to be very wrong.

Surprise, Surprise! The Pain Is Alive And Well After All.

When the pain level went into overdrive, I  had to get my prescription refilled but I have been very successful in keeping the dose down to ten milligrams every six hours.  (I would judge my pain level is at the six or seven level.)  (Definition of pain levels:  http://www.tipna.org/info/documents/ComparativePainScale.htm)  I have found that ten milligrams of medication successfully keeps any feelings of withdrawal at bay and usually controls the pain for about 5 or 5 ½ hours, which I’m able to handle until it’s time for the next dose.  However, there still seems to be times when no amount of medication is going to totally control the pain.  Even after taking the medication, the pain stubbornly stays at the six or seven level until the next dose is due.  I have to be very careful to maintain my schedule during those times, which, of course, are always around midnight to four a.m.  I’ve learned various techniques to distract my mind during these times.  (I’ve put a few games on my phone and I always have at least one book going. )

Do You See The Problem?

So far I’ve been defining my pain level the way it is.  I need to start telling another story.  First of all, I need to decide what the story shall be.  Am I brave enough to really let go of the pain medication?  What has the pain come to mean in my life?  You see the problems.  Perhaps you, Fellow Traveler, have similar problems.  How did you solve them?

This I Do Know:

I am absolutely certain I want to be healthy and fit.  I know it’s easier to handle pain when the body, overall, is in good condition and when all muscles are able to function at their fullest possible strength .  I’ve been there.  I know how wonderful this feels.  I want this feeling again.

This I Can Do Now:

I want to start my day at about 6:30 every day.  I will brush my teeth and shower.  I will be ready to start my day with exercise and meditation.  During the exercise time, I will visualize my life as I want it to be with my body completely healed and healthy.  I will visualize my body at the appropriate weight for my height but also for my fitness level.  Muscle weighs more than fat; thus, BMI measurements are not always accurate because this scale does not take into account more muscle in a really fit person.  I also want to see my day starting out with healthy food choices. 

Don’t Worry, Be Happy

Happiness is a choice and I will make the choice every day to see the happiness in that day.  Every day I will count my blessings because I have so very much to be grateful for.

Doing all these things including visual meditation will get my day started in a way which invites the Law of Attraction to work in my life to create my life the way I really want it to be.

I’m finishing this post on Sunday, September 20th, and yesterday, I had to ride the handicap scooter around the store so MinuteMan andI could buy our groceries.  I just did not have the stamina to get around the store and I have done on several other occasions but I think I know why.

Two weeks ago, I decided it was time to get Oxycodone out of my life as much as possible.  I quit cold-turkey.  Believe me, I do not recommend it to anybody.  However, I was actually really ill for only about 24 hours.  After that, I started to feel much, much better.  Unfortunately, my stamina really went in the dumper.  I may have to bite the bullet on Monday and see the doctor. 

Bummer About The Job!

At my job, by rule, they could only allow me to work 90 days on modified duty.  Unfortunately, Human Resources did not inform me or my boss of the existence of this rule so when I started modified duty on April 6^th, my boss and I thought I would be able to continue as long as required.  I worked modified duty from April 6^th to July 2^nd.  In May andJune, I was able to work 80 hours for the month and keep my health insurance, which is whyI had decided to try working modified leave in the first place. 

On June 28th, Human Resources personnel (neither “human” nor a “resource) informed  I would either have to go back to work full time beginning July 5th; I could resume Leave Without Pay (LWOP) status until October 12th or I could quit.  I had even less stamina then than I have now and I was literally living on pain killers while I was working.  I knew I would not be able to resume working a 40 hour week.  In fact, my doctors are all under the impression I will never be recovered enough to work full time again in this life time – too much damage to the back from the three surgeries; 62 years old and currently obese and diabetic.  Hmmm, challenges for sure. 

I decided to take LWOP and concentrate on doing physical therapy, which I have done with really incredible results.  Using a modified blood pressure cuff, which I put under the small of myback or my tummy depending on my position, I use the gage to ensure I’m doing the exercise correctly and I’m maintaining the correct amount of pressure with the targeted muscles.  It’s a great way to exercise because you get immediate feedback on whether or not I’m doing the exercise in a way which will reap the greatest benefits.

The really huge difference is on the left side of my lower back.  On a day to day basis, I don’t have any pain on the lower left side.  The only time I have pain on the left side of my lower back is when I stand for too long.  The right side has really improved a lot too but it was the most damaged side so I still have a considerable amount of pain in that area.  My whole back is finally showing some real improvement after so long of really despairing of ever being pain-free again. 

Some Flexibility Please

The gal that’s been doing my job since I went out for the first operation is a college student and would like to continue doing the job part-time.  Obviously, working part-time would be really great for me too.  The boss was on vacation at the time but Vanessa and I talked to his secretary just before I left to begin LWOP about setting up my position as a job share .  We would split the insurance coverage and other benefits.  The secretary thought it was a great idea.  Two weeks ago, I asked her again about it and she said she was working with the boss on rewriting the job description and it just had to go past the boss’s boss.  The secretary and the boss were under the impression Human Resources would not have to be involved.

Yesterday, my boss told me he wasn’t going to pursue the job share position.  He talked to Human Resources and they all decided I would have to return to work full time on October 12th.  I knew if Human Resources was ever involved, it would be a no-go.  I was heartbroken when I heard this news because last week, the pain specialist and the surgeon both told me going on the job share is about the only way they could see me ever returning to work.  They are both certain that sitting 40 hours a week at a computer, which is what I do, would set me back to where I was six months ago and it would be highly unlikely I would ever be off painkillers.  I don’t want to beat my body up like that.  

I’ve got a call out to the union representative and I’m hoping he’ll have some better information for me but at this time, I’ve decided to let them fire me for medical reasons.  The Human Resources woman has already informed me that if I come back to work and I am late for work, take too many sick days or am out too often for any reason, “She’ll be watching me.”  If I get fired for medical reasons and against all odds I do get better, I can tell the potential employer my medical issues are cleared up.  If she documents me out, which I am sure she is itching to do, it wouldn’t look very good to a new employer.  I do not want to take the risk of being documented out.

Rewrite the Story

Well, my dear Fellow Travelers, this blog is all about learning to be a dab hand at employing the Law of Attraction.  It’s not about telling the story the way it is but telling the story the way I want it to be and I’m going to do that very soon.  First, I want to know exactly what I want the story to be.

One thing I’ve learned in the last year is many things that appear to be negatives have turned out to be very positive.  For example, just before I had my first operation, MinuteMan was temporarily assigned from first shift to second shift.  I was not happy about it at first and neither was MinuteMan.  However, it turned out to be one of the best gifts we could have been given.  I had to go to the clinic every other day to have my peripherally inserted central catheter (PICC) line checked and a new bag of antibiotics attached.  I had to do that for almost six months.  If MinuteMan hadn’t been working nights, I don’t know how I would have gotten to the clinic and the almost-daily doctor visits.  

I love this job more than I’ve ever loved any other job, but I may not be meant to return to it.  I may be meant to be writing blogs and doing community work.  I don’t know but I’m willing to keep an open mind about it.  Right this minute, I’m praying to be allowed to return to work on job share.  I always finish with the “this or something better” statement so I ensure I allow for the best possible outcome for my life plan.

I’m sure I’ll get to where I’m supposed to be to fulfill my life plan.  I just have to be open and inviting for all positive circumstances to show up in my life.  Come along with me, Fellow Traveler, and we will find our paths together.

Dusted Entertainment Center

Messy Entertainment Center

You may have been wondering where the Scottish Mistress has been the last few days.  I’ve been getting my life organized – or I’m making some progress anyway. 

“When you start a project or make an agreement or identify a change you need to make, it goes into your present memory bank and takes up what I call attention units.  We can only pay attention to so many things at one time, and each promise, agreement, or item on your to-do list leaves fewer attention units to dedicate to completing present tasks and bringing new opportunities and abundance into your life.” The Success Principles(TM): How to Get from Where You Are to Where You Want to Be (Pg 209) Jack Canfield

Livingroom Catastrophe!!  Ugh!

This is what I started with:

Messy Livingroom

Well, I have had a real mess on my hands for a long time.  I had three back operations last year and I’ve slowly been recovering.  Basically, MinuteManhas had three jobs – his weekday job as an electrical technician, his once-a-month job with the Army National Guard and taking care of me.  Doesn’t leave much time for housework.  I’ve done what I can when I’m feeling well but over the last year, it’s gotten more and more out of hand.

Clean Livingroom

With our new Law of Attraction direction becoming more and more defined by the day, I decided to start by getting the livingroom in order. 

Our two DVD cabinets were full to the overflowing and we finally bought a new set of shelves because it’s obvious we’re not going to stop buying DVDs.  MinuteMan got the shelves and my new two -level file cart set up for me Monday night and I started my cleaning project on Tuesday.  It was very slow going because I didn’t have much strength.  I kept having to sit down and take a breather after what seemed like just a very few minutes. 

At the end of the day, I was very glad I was able to keep going because it looked really nice when I was finished. 

Bathroom Polished Up Nicely, Thank You Very Much (smile).

On Wednesday, I cleaned my bathroom and did part of the kitchen.  I’m very weak though.  It’s really amazing how much energy it takes to get the job done.  

When I first started cleaning the bathroom, I was literally panting after just a few minutes of exercise.  I finally got a footstool to sit on so I could do some of the jobs sitting down and that helped a great deal.   The same thing happened when I started in the kitchen.  I’m going to finish it today while MinuteMan is out Salmon fishing with a friend.

In all the books I’ve read about the Law of Attraction, the teachers always make a point, usually in the very beginning of the book, to remind the reader that he/she is 100% reponsible for everything that happens in their lives because of how they govern, or do not govern, their thoughts and emotions.  It’s a really tough concept and I really struggle with it. 

I Can Think For Myself, Thanks

I used to think I didn’t really have control over my thoughts.   If somebody said something hurtful, surely I had no choice but to be hurt?   At the time, I certainly didn’t think so.  What they said was hurtful, so I reacted by being hurt or offended.  If someone called me “fatty two by four” as a child, or looked down at me for being heavy as an adult, I thought I had absolutely no choice but to be hurt by those actions. 

If I’m not paying attention to my thoughts and emotions, it can still take a while for me to realize I do indeed have a choice on how I respond to various situations.  I’ve been so indoctrinated to believe I have to respond to a certain situation in a certain way, I can quickly forget I do have options.  It’s been slow going to get my head in a place where I remember I am free to make my own decisions about how I feel without putting myself through too much grief before I get there.  My goal is to always remember, I have perfect freedom to feel any way that enters my mind about what they’re saying or doing.  I do not have to let myself be defined by someone else, ever.

In fact, Jack Canfield in his wonderful book  The Success Principles(TM): How to Get from Where You Are to Where You Want to Be starts his book with this important concept.

If you want to be successful, you have to take 100% responsibility for everything that you experience in your life.  This includes the level of your achievements, the results you produce, the quality of your relationships, the state of your health and physical fitness, your income, your debts, your feelings – everything.  (Pg. 3)

In watching the DVD’s of Esther Hicks as Abraham, they come back to this very important topic time and again as people in the audience struggle to accept this concept.  Abraham states that every experience we’ve ever had in our lives, we’ve brought to us with our thoughts and emotions. While I would give children as pass on this, I think it’s important to start teaching the concept at a very early age. 

The very extreme ugliness is really hard to accept as being the responsibility of the victim and victimizer.  For instance, it’s very difficult to believe that six million Jews collectively, if unconsciously, decided to be fodder for Hitler’s furnaces.  I still don’t get that one.

Let’s Not Get So Extreme

I think we can, in most cases eliminate the extreme and go with a more day-to-day example to understand the concept.  I thought there was a perfect example in The Secret.  Bill Harris talks about a young gay man who was getting harassed every place he went.  The poor guy was getting beat up on the street and picked on by his co-workers .  He had a really miserable life until he was introduced to the concept of the Law of Attraction.  He turned his thoughts away from expecting to be picked on and harassed.  He kept these positive pictures as primary in his head and eventually, the coworkers who were giving him problems either quit or were transferred.  I believe he stopped having problems with street vandals because he started carrying himself differently.  He didn’t walk about like a victim so the steet vandals perceived his strengths and left him alone.  

Because the changes in his life were so quick and so profound, I think it’s really important to grasp the concept of what he did.  If we don’t, we’ll tend to say, “He did it, but I don’t think that’ll work for me.”  He turned his thoughts and his emotions away from expecting any kind of trouble and he got the peaceful existence he was so craving. 

Esther Hicks as Abraham is always saying, “If you want something different, you’ve got to tell a different story.”  If we keep harping about “what is”, we’ll never get what we want.  Our thoughts and our emotions have to put out energy towards what we want.  If we want to move to a different place in our lives, we’re going to have to tell a different story.  The young man we’ve been talking about got a profoundly different life very quickly when he started telling a very different story about how is life was going to be.  He took charge and created the situation to his liking.

We’ll be coming back to this concept a lot, as MinuteMan and I really work toward implementing the Law of Attraction in our own lives.  It’s going to be very interesting as we start telling our day to day stories on how things are going in our desire to create to perfectly beautiful perfectly healthy bodies.

It doesn’t help that I’m a complete novice when it comes to blogging and working with website creation technology.  Fortunately, along with the help from GoDaddy, I have also found some really informative books like Building a WordPress Blog People Want to Readby Scott McNulty and Blogging For Dummies (For Dummies (Computer/Tech)by Susannah Gardner and Shane Birley. 

Yesterday was MinuteMan’s birthday and we really had hopes of getting things off the ground then but today seems very appropriate as well.  It’s a very somber day filled with vivid memories of 9/11, but it’s also a good day for determined new beginnings.  Hubby-honey is in the National Guard which is why he chose “MinuteMan” as his handle.  He’s been in the service of his country in various compacities for well over 35 years.  He loves being a citizen – soldier.  Thus, we feel that getting our little venture off the ground today is also auspicious.  Please join us on our journey.  We’d love to hear from you along the way.

A Little Bit About Us

I am the wife, The Scottish Mistress (62) and hubby-honey (MinuteMan) turned 57 yesterday.  (I often refer to him as my boy-toy.  He doesn’t seem to mind.) Most unfortunately, we haven’t been living on love alone, and we are both most definitely in the morbidly obese weight range.  All of our adult lives, we’ve tried every diet printed including the Cabbage Soup diet, Atkins and South Beach. We’ve had some success with all those diets but we didn’t keep the weight off for very long.  Indeed, it was often shocking how quickly the weight would come back with a little more to ensure we were really, really depressed. (I am a total sucker for those tabloids at the check-out that have the diet of the week.  I can’t pass them up.  Ridiculously, every week I think that this will be the miracle cure I’ve been seeking.)  The goal of this blog is to utilize the Law of Attraction to lose weight, keep it off and to end up with very healthy bodies we can enjoy for many years to come. 

The Law of Attraction Path to Healthy Bodies

I have read a great deal about the Law of Attraction starting with The Secret by Rhonda Byrne and most recently, Excuses Begone!: How to Change Lifelong, Self-Defeating Thinking Habits by Wayne Dyer .  I am a believer and I think  While the MinuteMan and I definitely share the same goals, he is a novice when it comes to studying the Law of Attraction.  He has watched The Secret DVD with me but he hasn’t really studied the same way I have.  However, he is an electrical technician and he understands the concept of thought waves being similar to radio waves and that we have control over what we think.  For you, Fellow Traveler, our journey could be very interesting because you will have a view from two very different perspectives.

Let’s Get Real – Weight Watcher’s and Exercise

For an eating plan, we’ve decided on the Weight Watcher’s points plan.  In the past, both of us have had very positive experiences with this diet.  MinuteMan and I have physical challenges so we’re combining exercises with physical therapy.  MinuteMan has knee issues and I have had several back surgeries so it’s important to guide these areas toward health with imagery and common sense.  Medical attention is, at times, necessary.  At no time, will you hear us say we believe you should ignore medical advice.

Along with a common sense diet and exercise plan, we are going to be learning to utilize positive thinking, guided imagery and other Law of Attraction tools to ensure our success.  I really like materials created by various individuals.  My personal favorites are Jack Canfield, Wayne Dyer, Deepak Chopra and Esther Hicks as Abraham and I am open to new teachers as they come along.

Seeking Positive Reinforcement Through Your Comments

MinuteMan and I really encourage you to leave comments for us.  We don’t mind constructive criticism but we would urge you to leave comments worded with the intention of being helpful; help us move forward by improving day by day.  MinuteMan and I are determined to have more positive thinking days than negative, but we are indeed very human.  We know there will be challenges along the way.  We’d very much like to have you join us as new friends, Fellow Travelers, who are also determined to live a positive life.

Let’s Get Started – Again

Okay, it’s time to get started.   I’m holding my cursor over the”publish” button and with a very real shivver of excitement, understand that this is it.  We’re finally fulfilling a dream.   I’m really looking forward to seeing how all this turns out because right now, I have no idea.  It’s an adventure and I hope you’ll join MinuteMan and I as we dance our way through this unique experience called life.