When I came to the Catholic faith, the scripture from John 10: 10 seized my heart. It was a promise from Jesus that He came to give me life, life in abundance. Just a year after my baptism, I had the privilege to discover what being fully alive means. It has been an adventure with my Lord; one that taught me the deep meaning of my faith. As I reflect on my years living life in abundance; the meaning of it is deeply rooted in me living out my purpose in life.
As a young woman freshly out of university, I had no clue what purpose meant. It wasn’t until I embraced my Catholic faith did the discovery began. One of the most impactful workshop that helped me in the process of discovery and systematically planning my life is JumpStart. The experience was like looking into the deep well of richness in my life through the lens of Father that ignited a boldness to dream and to plan toward making those God given dream a reality. Even through sickness, my mission never change, in fact God refined and clarified my dreams through the crosses I carried. I am deeply grateful for the opportunity to bring about a meaningful difference in the lives I encountered through JumpStart. Having JumpStart tools has indeed helped me to live my life to the full. How can JumpStart change your life? Find out more here.
As we discover and live out our mission, may the word of St. Irenaeus of Lyons encourages us;
With lots of love, Irene
*This article is also published in livethecall.live
Growing up things has not been that hard for me. I also have the tendency to take the easy way out. Seemingly blessed with good brain, being born in relatively stable home and having the privilege of being native of the land has also given me easier opportunities. I get into uni with my native quota and upon graduation it was relatively easy to get a job. Then changing job gave me a huge leap in my paycheck. Being a driven person, hitting target was my aim because earning a bigger paycheck was of utmost importance. It was not too hard but it was not too easy either. Being raised by my strict father, it was in my system to make things work for me. Even when I cried over my decision, I have to try to make things work and not giving up too easily. Those foundation has given me a good starting point.
Despite all the worldly successes that I experienced in the past, my heart was never satisfied. I was yearning for something more and that yearning eventually led me to quit my job and be in mission fully covered by God. Boy the lesson was tough. I grumble often and still did not learn my lesson of trust until Myasthenia Gravis (MG) made an entrance to my life. In the first few years of living with MG, I still did not grasp the real value of patience. Only after the crisis in 2023 did I finally grasp the meaning of patient suffering.
My desire for complete healing, I mean complete healing was and still is strong. I am only settling for the best and so I set myself to a heck of a journey. I know for a fact that allopathic medicine can only bring me to the point of monthly maintenance subscription. The management protocols are not designed for healing, only for control. But control is necessary to buy me time and give me clarity on what needs to be done.
In my quest of reversing MG, I learnt patience. At first rather reluctantly but eventually I understood the value of my suffering. God the Father invited me to live a life as the beloved who suffers well. I said yes though I did not know what does that entail. I was still restless and eager in an impatient (or lack of trust) way to get rid of the modern medication I was on. When I woke up in the ICU room realising that the cup of suffering was not to pass me, that was my moment of victorious surrender. I began learning patience as I was well aware I needed time to heal. I needed to be patient with myself and trust the process. I made a remarkable recovery journey. Got us a new off roader to serve us for our land that I signed the S&P of a week prior to ICU admission; travelled to the neigbouring country for a friend’s wedding – all within 6 months post ICU.
However, I was still a slow learner of patience even through the physical need to suffer. My life was still chaotic and God came to bring order to the chaos. I restarted scripture reading discipline which I thought was too hard after having my child. It was not the easiest restart as my nervous system was still on a high alert. I literally fought with my four year old back then to secure my sacred hour in the morning. Even though I knew I needed to be patient, my disposition was still an impatient one – deep in I did not give myself the space to really be. I still did not know how to properly allow myself to feel, I was swinging the pendulum between hope and despair. But I also noticed the time of recovery becomes faster and faster.
Then came the minor flare end of 2024, it was not too bad, even turned out to be a blessing in disguise. I know now that all my physical actions worked to heal my thymus and shrink the thymoma. That flare became the turning point of helping me to realize I have allowed stress to consume my being. Stress that resulted in a flare. It took me quite a long time to stabilize again. Through that I learnt the value of patient bearing of suffering. I also learnt that I had heaps of unprocessed and hidden fear. Those fear were false evidence appearing real. When I decided to face them, they came out bigger and scarier! Faith and techniques I learnt through the years was my remedy of these fears. My faith was put to test and I was willing to walk the rugged terrain of suffering to get to the side of victory. This victory was also fueled by our dire financial situation which I will share adventure of it in my next post.
Months after months of practicing simple breathing exercise has helped me to calm down relatively faster. I first learnt of pursed lips breathing after my ICU stay. It was a necessary part of my lungs healing. Till today I am still struggling with phlegm built up two years post extubation. I came to realize that I am only affected at a certain time of the day, most likely coinciding with the trauma of the time of reintubation. That helped me to learn about the power of mind body connection in healing. I started making it a point to build a stronger mindset that serves me using all sort of hacks from dopamine hacks to positive self talk to applying scriptures in my specific situation. The stronger mindset resulted in me being able to handle difficult things much better. For example, I used to think that exercise was too hard for me. What actually happened was the underlying fear of triggering MG with exercise. But I had a lung condition that took too long to heal, so I started walking on the treadmill for cardio exercise. It was initially hard but as I kept telling myself I was doing hard work, my brain kept rewarding me with quality dopamine. It gets easier and I even expanded to the bicycle as well as weight exercises.
As I keep expanding my mindset to one that is ordered towards the Word of God using physical and tangible techniques, I found myself more and more able to handle stress and challenges. I just show up in life together with MG. Knowing my limit and keep expanding it as well. My nervous system has become more regulated and calmed down. This greatly helped with healing. Not only that, the pages of the scripture jumps out in real life for me. “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me” – Philippians 4: 13; became my theme of this season. Truly I can only do all things because of the strength I received from Christ. His strength helped me to patiently bear my suffering, learnt from it, grew in endurance and that endurance produces hope that does not disappoint.
Dear friends, what sufferings are you carrying? How would you like to grow in the virtue of patience and perseverance? What are your hope for the suffering you are carrying? Let’s connect to share more about this.
What legacy do you want leave? How would you like your children to remember you? These are questions that I asked myself often. I aspire to be a mother who inspires my children to rise higher and that involves some sacrifice from me. In my current triple-H reality of Homemaking, Homeschooling and Health Healing, wanting to rise higher myself can feel like an impossible task. Parenting is energy intensive and it can drain us at the end of the day. Some days I feel like I don’t even like my child due to the drained energy. And those are the days that I easily fell into the trap of blaming her for not being able to live my life fully. By the grace of God, I am aware this is not to be. My child is my reason to rise higher not my stumbling block.
After days and months and years of reflection and evaluation, I came to see some light. I want to pursue my passion and dreams as my means of living fully. That in turn will fill my tank and that tank overflows to my child. But I also need to be realistic; what works and what does not. How do I move in the ever changing rhythm? What becomes important in this journey? I am going to share practicals in three areas that would hopefully help us to move forward in our journey of pursuing our dreams.
Stress Management This is an inevitable part of our modern life. Stress is also a nasty cause of diseases, hence it is so important to possess the skills to manage our stress. In my current reality, my days are pretty full as I am the kitchen ministry, cleaning ministry, children ministry, health ministry, purchasing officer etc. I cook most of our meals at home due to our health condition. My child is involved in cleaning, cooking and housework as this is part of homeschooling. This does not make my task faster but it does make our lives more pleasant and fun. Living with Myasthenia Gravis has limited me in a big way and to add that on, being a supporting wife of a struggling entrepreneur added a good amount of stress in my life.
So what works best when life gets overwhelming? Before the downward spiral spins out of control; STOP, PAUSE and BE PRESENT. This helps with emotion regulation. Simply by noticing your breathing or any one sense at a time helps us to relax. Just doing it for 5 minutes can free our body from the grip of stress. Once we are calm, we can acknowledge what happened in a neutral way and then let the grip go. This is helpful on a daily basis and when practiced intentionally, we trained ourselves to relax and let go of stress whenever we need to.
Staying Focused on Your Dreams What are your passions and dreams? What makes you alive? Are you working on it? These are questions that would give us a clue where we are at with our dreams. If you can name your dreams, write them down and have it in a prominent place. Take encouragement from this scripture;
This serves as a good reminder of what is in your heart and what you are working towards. If you are unsure of your passions and dreams, I’d like to invite you to connect with us at JumpStart. JumpStart is a programme that will help you to discover what’s in your heart and you’ll also receive the tools to plan towards them. Engaging with a coach or someone to accompany you in your journey of the pursuit of your dreams and passions is a good idea regardless of where you are at.
Incorporating Your Dreams in Your Daily Life Pursuing our dreams as parents is a delicate balancing act. First thing to evaluate is our daily and weekly rhythm. What does your typical day look like? What time do you wake up and then what follows? Are there time in my day that I wasted? I surely have that, I sometime waste my time on the internet doing things like scrolling videos that did not help me to further my dreams. Including time wasting activities in our evaluation will help us to clearly make a decision of what work best for us.
Making pursuing our dreams part of our lifestyle IS going to cost us. Be prepared to make sacrifices for our children and also be gracious towards ourselves from time to time. I am a typical go getter hyper achiever type of person. When I am focused on something, it is not easy to slack that off. So for me, growth is to be able to slow down, enjoy the learning from parenthood, soaked in the love of the Father in my season and be gracious to myself when I did not achieve what I aimed to do. It will take longer for me to pursue my dreams but what’s important is that I am on the track.
These practicals becomes easier when it is lived with great intention. I highly encourage having someone to journey alongside you as you pursue your dreams. Our children are precious and they deserve to have great role models in us, their parents. May you find great fulfillment as you pursue your dreams precisely because of your children.
When I was researching on the whether women has the innate desire to mother, I was pretty surprise to see articles coming from secular sites that said it is a myth. So what they claimed is that not all women has that mothering desire or instinct. I personally don’t agree that it is a myth. The world we are living in are trying to take women away from their natural ability or desire to mother. We were told to be career focused, that motherhood can wait. What seems to be common is that something in us tells us otherwise. For me, it was hard to pin point what was that opposing forces within me – what I presented and live by was a strong career minded women who appreciated her independence. The other other part of me was feeling so satisfied and fulfilled when I spend time giving myself as a gift by nurturing young souls.
That was an expression of Spiritual Motherhood that I experienced as a single unmarried woman. Something unbeknownst to me when I enjoyed my time with my nephews, nieces and Goddaughters. Those years of living out my womanhood as a Spiritual Mother has prepared me to where I am as a physical mother now. The blessing is mutual: I was immensely blessed, so was my Goddaughters. Looking back at those days, I wish I knew these three guiding elements that would help me to be a joyful, effective and fulfilled Spiritual Mother. I share this is in full in this video and here’s the summary for those of us who prefer reading.
The first one is deepening our relationship with Christ. The Catechism of the Catholic Church No. 27 states;
The desire for God is written in the human heart, because man is created by God and for God; and God never ceases to draw man to himself. Only in God will he find the truth and happiness he never stops searching for:
It cannot get clearer than this: our deepest longing or we may call it a deep hole that keeps on leaking unless it is filled with the love of God. Having a living relationship with Christ will fill that God sized hole in our hearts. Why does this matter for Spiritual Motherhood? The living relationship with Christ is the base of our lives, this is something for everybody. In the context of our service as Spiritual Mother, a living relationship with Christ will help us in the way of detachment. Long time ago, I had an encounter with someone who played the role of Spiritual Mother to me. She was incidentally available at the time I needed someone to talk through some issues I was facing. The conversation helped me to hear myself out and to calm down from the stress that I was experiencing. So I thanked her at the end of our conversation and she in turned said this: thank you for making me feel needed.
That actually left me feeling cringed. Gosh, the need to be needed can be unhealthy for us. If we are not careful, we can unintentionally idolize it. I acknowledge there’s place for being needed; as a mother I am needed and that’s a reality. To help us moderate and sanctify our need to be needed, we need Christ as our centre. The best way to do it is to make time for prayer. I would propose making the first hour of the day a sacred hour for the Lord. Spend that hour seeking knowledge of God through scriptures reading. It is also really good to read the commentaries on the chapter you are on. The sacred hour doesn’t have to be a full hour; it’s not five minutes either. It’s a chunk of time that you dedicate for prayer and scripture reading.
Becoming a woman of the Word is a way to shape our lives to be better Spiritual Mothers. Who is a better model of this than our Blessed Mother Mary? This brings me to the second element; consecration to Mother Mary. She is the perfect disciple, a woman of the Word and truly a woman after God’s own heart. In John 19: 26, Jesus gave His Mother to us. She’s called THE MOTHER in that verse. How awesome is that! She is our Mother as well! When I finally consecrate myself to her, I had in my heart set on having a relationship with her as well; I want to learn from her, I want to be a better disciple, I want to model after her as a woman after God’s own heart.
With that desire in mind, my consecration to Mother Mary has truly bear fruits of holiness. Areas of my life that needed sanctification were brought to light. Slowly but surely, I am growing in my dignity as a beloved daughter of God. It was also really interesting to note this beautiful connection of how Mother Mary was instrumental to intercede for me. I was so inspired to put aside time to live out my consecrated and intentional singlehood in 2014 and when that period ends, the main fruit was a clearer invitation as well as a clearer courage for me to embrace sacramental marriage as a state of life vocation. So with that fruit, I started a 54 Days Rosary Novena with the intention to pray for my future husband. My intention was to be married to a man after God’s own heart, that God is his absolute number one so that he will lay his life down for me, his bride. At the same time, I also prayed that I become a woman after God’s own heart, that God is my absolute number one so that I would be able to submit to this man God has for me. God wasted no time and got to work on me. The amazing thing then happened in 2017, when I finally decided to consecrated myself to Mother Mary. I did a 33 Days DIY retreat towards my consecration and at that period, I was reconnected to Hans, although totally unaware of the movement God was making through Hans. On consecration day, Hans attended the Assumption mass with me, we were seeing each other back then and the rest is History. Of course I am not suggesting that Mama Mary will lead you to your spouse but who knows!
When we intentionally make time to know Jesus deeply and when we consecrate ourselves to our Blessed Mother, our life becomes richer. This richness is meant to be shared in community which brings me to the third element; becoming part of a life giving community. We are social beings and as a woman, a support system outside our home is essential. It is also important to choose a community of people who are as committed to your growth as you are committed to theirs. What does a life giving community looks like?
Before we get there, let’s be a little cliche in this. I used to roll my eyes whenever people say this to me whenever I pointed out elephants in the room that existed in the community. I almost always get this: “there’s no perfect community, Irene”. Duh! I know, I just wanted to be heard. What it sounded to me was just an excuse to not change. But that line is true; there is no perfect community because we live in a broken world. This is something we need to be aware of when we join a community. A healthy community ought to be imperfect but life giving. Life giving in the sense of speaking the truth of Christ, providing support, encouraging and challenging you to rise up. This is the place you share and celebrate your growth as well as the place to get support when you are in need. A place where accountability is taken seriously. Try to visit different communities and see which one resonates with you most and which will support you in your journey of holiness.
I really wish I knew these 3 element more clearly when I was younger and made it a lifestyle more intentionally. Our dignity as women is God given, we are called to steward our gifts well and therefore express our identity in the best way possible. Our life experience is also so precious, there are times that we are honored and there are also times that we are disadvantaged. As in community, the world in which we live in is also not perfect, it is not always easy to navigate our lives as women. We feel the pains of loneliness, the pains of unfulfilled longings and so much more. Deeper than that is the truth that Christ is still our centre and He is faithful. In this Mother’s Day, may all women be honored in our dignity. To birth and adoptive mothers; thank you for loving sacrifices for your children. You are indeed the pillar of society. To all bereaved mothers, your tears are counted and thank you for growing even more beautifully in your vocation honoring the children that has returned to the Lord. To spiritual mothers, thank you for channeling your innate maternal energy to add colors and positive impact to the lives of our children and most importantly thank you for your sincere prayers for the conversion of the world. Happy Mother’s Day.
Yes, that’s part of the story of my life! Many years ago, when I was young, vibrant and energetic, I worked as a legal drug pusher – the way pharmaceutical representatives fondly call our job title. I have left pharma for almost 10 years now. A little more than 2 years ago, after being diagnosed with Myasthenia Gravis (MG), I went down the path of pharma drug addiction – by necessity! It became a journey of unlearning what I thought I knew and learning a new way of honoring my body. Praise be to God, I am now in sobriety for a little more than 2 months.
In the background is a snapshot of the cocktail of drugs I was on
Having a pharma background has indirectly made me ignorant to the natural healing ability of my body. As I am also not free from confirmation bias, so it was kind of an eye opener to walk down the path desiring total sobriety from pharma drug. It is not uncommon for patient living with an autoimmunity being told that they have to be drug dependent for the rest of their lives. I stumbled upon stories of people who defy the odds and achieve something called a remission, some even successfully reversed their autoimmune condition with the right protocol. In the beginning it was amazement for me and kind of a wishful thinking that I want to be one of those who beat this. As time goes, the more I learned about this amazing God given body, the more I am convinced that healing is possible.
So started my quest for an alternative natural treatment. In the quest for healing, one main attitude that I took on is radical self responsibility for my health – I am responsible for my health, not my physicians. Hence that calls for a shift in the way I treat my body. What comes in contact becomes important be it the food I take, supplements, cleaning agents or even medical treatment I allow in my body. “Are those interventions necessary?, What are the risks vs benefits?” are among the questions I will ask before proceeding with any medical intervention. Thanks to my pharma background, reading products insert and clinical paper is something I am accustomed to. What it comes down to is doing my own research and own my decision as I should be the one who is most in tune with my body, knows my body best – not just following orders from my physicians. Self responsibility is an attitude welcomed by my physicians, it’s much easier to work with me as I do not put the burden of my health on them.
The initial part of the journey felt quite lonely as MG is a rare condition. What’s more rare are people who successfully reversed their condition naturally. The support group I joined are mostly conventional based which is fine as that’s the best known ways. I am grateful that I got support from my family who also believe that natural healing is possible. With heaps of prayer, I met my Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) physician. Acupuncture, chiro work and TCM herbs worked for me. It may not the answer for every MG patient but it’s worth a try. I recognized the importance of radical self responsibility when it comes to healing as I met people who unconsciously embodied their victimhood in their healing journey. Living as a victim will not bring any freedom or victory. We are better off doing the heart work of getting out of victimhood to accountability if we want any progress at all in our lives. Talk to me if you’d like to explore tools to shift from victimhood to accountability.
Has there been bad trial for me? Yes, you bet! Some of the stuffs I tried not only did not help, it worsened my condition. When that happened, I simply stop and keep searching for things that may help. Have I been reckless? Oh yes, indeed recklessness was the main driver towards my sobriety. In March this year, I ventured into mushroom growing at home. It was an awesome experience to able to harvest fresh mushroom at home. What I did not consider was the spores from the mushroom. For any healthy person, those spores are easy peasy to get rid of from their body. For me at that time still on immunosuppressant, I got infected and suffered prolonged cough. Tried all sort of medication and it only just helped the condition a little bit. I knew for a fact, I need to be weaned off the immunosuppressant in order for the fungi infected cough to be healed. Praise God I have at that point started the weaning process. The cough been quite an ordeal and I thank God once I was off the immunosuppressant, my condition started improving exponentially.
A very interesting experience of being off pharma drug was the withdrawal syndrome. My hands and feet were swollen for a month; I shivered at my neck while the peripheries of my body felt crazily warm. To intensify the drama, the prolonged cough finally affected my taste buds. When my taste buds were affected, that’s when things got hard. I enjoy my food and for that simple pleasure to be taken away, I was left in a state of choice again. Do I rise up victoriously or do I sulk in self pity? I chose victory. Well, experiencing drug withdrawal with an affected taste bud has become a reality, I may as well laugh it out. Not in my power to stop that with a switch but definitely in my power to define the experience with an attitude of praise and gratitude. As I continue to praise God for His healing power upon me and His overflowing grace that helped me through; I find peace, strength and courage to persevere in my healing journey.
So today, I am a little less young, still vibrant and regaining my energy; being thankful for the experience I had journeying from a drug pusher to a drug addict and now in sobriety. Thank you for your support dear friends through my journey. It is my prayer that you will also embody radical self responsibility when it comes to honoring your body. May your journey be an exciting one!
The vivid thing that I remember was being overwhelmed with grace in the beginning of the diagnosis of Myasthenia Gravis (MG). When I first started having symptoms, we did some research and were desperately hoping it was something mild and less nasty. The illness progressed really quickly to the point of hospitalization and looking back I now know I was just a day or two away from a full on myasthenic crisis, where intubation would be necessary. We are ever so grateful for the grace and the favor from the Lord upon us that I was just in time.
I was determined to make my season of healing a season of grace and that mindset became the guide of my search. The journey was tough and at every juncture, I searched for the blessings behind it. My mother was in my house helping me at the early stage and she needed to get back to my hometown for her doctor’s appointment; so my niece helped for a week followed by my sister for another week. Then the lockdown happened. I was a little more than month out of hospital, still very weak and found myself without any help. My attitude was “think possible and do what’s possible”. With the outlook of gratitude, here are some things I learnt (please note that these are my personal opinion derived from personal experience);
Emergency care is life saver I am alive today thanks to emergency care where I get immediate help and rescue medication. In my case IVIg was administered to bring my body back to a more stable state. I am evermore grateful for my dear friend who helped me in the admission and also my neurologist who is respectful and dedicated to saving me at the time of hospitalization.
Get a medical insurance coverage in case you need it This is where grace was really abounds. My work as a lay missionary paid me nothing monetarily and so that led me to a decision to put my insurance to a holiday mode. Thank God I get to restart it in time for its use. We are privilege to have private hospitals that can attend to us immediately. The bill was really huge for us and thanks to my medical insurance, I paid only a fraction of it. I got my medical insurance when I was young with the desire to not ever need it and it turned out to be a blessing when I needed it.
It’s liberating to unlearn limiting beliefs and learn new ones I’ve worked as a medical representative for quite some time and the medical field was one that I looked from a one sided perspective. When I was diagnosed I was told there is no cure for MG and that I would be on medication for life. I know the fact that there is a possibility to depend on drugs for life but I do not like that option. So I start researching extensively on the topic of autoimmunity. The search opened my eyes to a whole new possibility of healing naturally. I learnt not only about autoimmunity but also about cancer. The whole dynamic of the body becomes something I start seeing a whole. It’s like scales were peeled off my eyes that I now am able to embrace the fact that the body is really interconnected. I may have an autoimmune of the nerves but healing my gut would be the gateway to heal the autoimmune.
Understanding the modality of natural means of healing gave me a lot of hope. My research led me to meet my Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) doctor who helped me to heal to the point of wellness. This in turn enabled me to start tapering down the immunosuppressant I am on. This is hope enfleshed and I am so grateful.
Diagnostic tools of modern hospital are helpful I have a good relationship with my neurologist and I appreciate his care for me. Some MG patients are not as lucky as they did not meet good doctors who are respectful. The diagnostic tools in modern hospitals are really helpful in the navigation of disease management. Yearly CT scan is needed for me to monitor the thymoma, blood tests will give an indication of what’s going on. So for me, even though I am experiencing healing through my TCM doctor, I am still going under the care of my neurologist.
Mental fitness is a plus for healing journey I am privileged to have gone through my own mental fitness journey in 2021 and now on the journey of advance coach training in this area. Mental fitness is our ability to take on life challenges with a positive rather than negative mindset. It’s the work developed by Positive Intelligence (PQ) and the programme has helped me tremendously in stress management. It is a well known fact that stress is a root cause of many diseases and I believe the it was major contributing factor to me getting MG. Since the diagnosis in 2020, I made it a point to regulate my emotions well. With PQ I was able to identify the source of stress in my life and am able to regulate even more effectively. I learnt tools that helped me to stop the spiraling down of negative thoughts and emotions that often resulted in stress and unhappiness. My PQ journey has seen me being happier and more productive in my work. I run an eight weeks mental fitness journey to as a foundation for clients who desires to achieve their desired outcomes with ease and great happiness. Connect with me to find out more.
Healing is possible when we take responsibility Self responsibility is so crucial in healing. I take full responsibility for my healing by educating myself on the disease, being discerning on what I put into my body and choosing a healthier lifestyle. Education is what helped me to tap into hope of healing through the natural means and what I learnt is such a treasure on every front. Formerly a drug rep, I know well how modern drugs work. I acknowledge that modern drugs can be quite helpful especially in the beginning phase of getting ill. Dealing with symptoms can be debilitating and having drugs to help control it for a little while helps us get back on track. However, to gain full healing, it would be worth it to look at natural means. In my condition, the drugs I was on just could not bring me to a state of wellness. I thank God for TCM modality that brought me to where I am. Getting to know other people who are sick and stuck, it became apparent to me that they lack the courage to take responsibility of their bodies. They are likely to embody an attitude of helplessness and depended fully upon the advice of the healthcare provider without any question or research. Those advices are great but as responsible adults, we are invited to discern what’s best for us. Nobody knows your body better than you do, in all logic, we should be the “expert” of our bodies. What went missing that we became so disconnected from our bodies? I can answer that for myself – I was not present to my body and I did not know how to love my body fully. Through MG I learnt to reconnect, listen to and love my body the way God intended me to.
I intentionally choose my diet, lifestyle and what kind of medication I allowed in my body. Healthcare providers had encouraged me to take certain drug for prevention of some disease. My response was to check on the recommended drug; is it necessary? What are the contents of the drug? What potential side effect would it bring? Would the mechanism of action injure me due to my condition? What is known about this drug? Is it even ethical? These are some of the questions I would bring to the table of discernment whether to take any additional drug. In my discernment I would tap into grace of the Living God and connect to my instinct for decision. When it concerns life, I think it’s important to go beyond our rational mind to our intuition. All these requires a sense of self responsibility. This body is a gift from Christ and it is my responsibility to take good care of it.
God heals the way He pleased One of my first response when I got sick was to pray. I invited family and friends to join me on a 54 days rosary novena with the intention of my healing. I secretly wished I would be one of those who received healing instantaneously. However, in my case God is pleased to heal me according to natural law. It’s a process that I go through with some days being great and some being really crappy. I learnt to be grateful through it all. This is a journey of endurance and trust training. I certainly see my trust in the Lord increase steadily. Do I still cry when it’s difficult? YES I do! I also experience recovery from the negative emotions way faster and with every hurdle comes greater trust. I am learning as St. Paul taught us to find contentment in all circumstances (Philippians 4: 12).
I hope my little nuggets of learning is helpful for you. Wherever you are in your healing journey, the burden feels lighter if you have someone who walk alongside you. Should you be considering a coach, I am here. My prayer for you is that you find fullness of life in the midst of your circumstances.
The recollection of events that happened 2 years ago is still vivid in my mind. It sometimes felt surreal that we’ve been through such drama, especially now that I am in a much better state physically. Just a few weeks ago I shared my grace of healing with a Myasthenia Gravis (MG) support group, one response that I got was pretty astounding: “that’s crazy, you are one lucky person!”. Indeed I am really blessed to have found healing through Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM).
I can count so many blessings that came out of my healing journey; one of them being my openness to unlearn what I thought I know to be the “right” way of viewing sickness and relearn to connect to my body through natural means. As a former drug rep, this is a sanctifying journey and I am just simply amazed at the grace of openness that I was able to tap on. Because of MG I enrolled myself into all sort of health education programs and the irony is that I finally understand a little bit of the principle of TCM through an English speaking American program despite growing up more deeply rooted in Chinese culture (I only speak a few Chinese languages but am unable to read or write Chinese scripts).
Acupuncture has been attributed to being quite helpful for MG, with that knowledge I started praying and looking for an acupuncturist from the very beginning of the diagnosis. I finally found one after more than a year of searching when my friend shared his experience with his TCM who also does acupuncture. Meeting my TCM doctor was an answered prayer. I only wanted acupuncture to supplement my current conventional medicine regime but I was given more.
At my first appointment, I found out that my TCM doctor did his masters in autoimmunity, hence he was totally unsurprised by MG with thymoma. Another assurance came my way when I met his wife who had MG with thymoma 17 years prior. That gave me a lot of hope as I know then the doctor I found knows what he’s dealing with as MG is a rare condition. I started off with just acupuncture as I wasn’t sure about taking herbal meds on top of my current conventional regime. After consultation with my TCM doctor, his advice was to take the different meds at an hour and a half apart.
It was Aug of 2021, I started experiencing slight worsening when I finally met my TCM doctor. Came Sept, I lost my dearest younger brother and that bout of emotional stress threw me to the floor of MG flareup. I was so weak to the point of having difficulty in swallowing water. So at that time, I restarted steroid and pyridostigmine to help control the symptoms. Both my neurologist and TCM doctor had great empathy and were really supportive.
By early Oct, I started herbal meds with weekly therapy that involves cupping, chiro work and acupuncture. Within 3 months, I showed signs of improvement to the point of wellness. One example would be computer screen time. At the peak of when symptoms was relatively low on conventional drug treatment, I could withstand computer screen time up to 10 minutes and then my eyelids will start to droop. By that point, my whole body would feel a tiring sensation like an out-of-sync-electric-current numbness that runs through my body. I would need to lie down for at least 20 minutes to recover. After 3 months of TCM treatment, I can withstand computer screen time up to an hour before I started feeling my eyelids. I only need to take an eyelid rest by closing my eyes for about 30 seconds and then I am ready to continue with my work at the computer again. That’s a massive difference and I can only praise God for His grace that led me this far into my complete healing.
Today I am on yet another milestone journey – the last leg of immunosuppressant dose reduction prescribed by my neurologist. The last appointment in Dec showed how much I improved clinically and that somehow gave him the confidence to propose the beginning of the dose reduction. I am ever so grateful at the mercy God is showing me. His mercy that enveloped me from the beginning of the journey. His grace that led me to decide to make this a meaningful season. I’ve learnt so much through this and it has certainly changed me in the way I view life, the world and the way I honor my relationships. My heart is filled with gratitude towards everyone who jumped in support of me and my family during the most difficult time. I am praying for you daily as I thank God for the healing I received.
Being able to turn any circumstances into blessing is indeed a grace I received and happy to tap on. One of my way of blessing others is sharing my journey and what I learnt. My next post will be focused on what I’ve learnt through my healing journey. When I prayed for healing, I was expecting an immediate miracle. God, however has a different thought (Isaiah 55: 8-9). In His mercy, He allowed me to experience the fullness of loving myself – transforming my mind, teaching me patience, forming me in His love and my trust in Him. I experienced a miracle that manifests itself in the ordinariness of life, the power of natural remedies and the effectiveness of life long mental fitness training. Praising God in my own transformation and looking forward to share more with you.
I used to be a person who proclaim certain ways of eating some food as being food crime. How could someone possible put rice on pizza? Or what a strange way to eat chips with ice cream! There were heaps of comments that I would make as I was a picky eater. Then the ultimate funny thing happen when I actually started liking the very food crimes I used to judge. It started when I ran out of ingredients to cook the conventional way. What’s the best next option in that case? Creativity kicked in and I started experimenting making food in ways that was crime for me. Those turned out to be the most fun experience as I managed to turn a challenge into a blessing.
Seeming misfortunes happen all the time because our plans do not always turn out the way we want it. The matter here is our response towards those incidences. Some are small matter that can be easily turned into something good and some are heavier stuffs that need time and space to make sense of. Big stuff like the diagnosis of Myasthenia Gravis for me was not a pleasant thing that happened. I certainly did not choose that misfortune. However, I have the power to choose my response to move forward to make this a meaningful season in my life.
The experience of making the best of the worst that happened reminded of the song, This is How We Overcome. It says: “You have turned my mourning into dancing, You have turned my sorrow into joy”. Such powerful way of turning the worst scenarios into a blessing – turning to God almighty for help. Even your deepest hurt can be turned into a gift to the world. That brought me to a principle I learnt in prayer school that says: “Your deepest hurt becomes the launching pad of your greatest calling”. More often than not, this is hard to comprehend as deep wounds like childhood trauma often scars people deeply. So much so that some chose the destructive path.
Tragic childhood trauma like an abuse is indeed very detrimental to the person. It confused the child and sent wrong messages to the child which in turn destroyed the true identity of the child. It takes a lot of work and heaps of courage in the part of the victim to rise up to victory – reclaiming their true identity as a beloved child of God. We know for a fact that none of us are immune to trauma whether inflicted by a trusted person, teachers, schoolmates etc. Treating ourselves with great compassion and taking the courageous path of healing with trusted companions have proven to be a path towards great victory. Putting these misfortunes in its right place bring out blessings that would otherwise be hidden.
In my current season of immersion in Positive Intelligence (PQ), I see a connection to this concept. The author of the book, Shirzad Chamine shared his childhood wounds were indeed blessings in disguise. It took him heaps of work to be where he is today, a deeply compassionate person who is directly blessing me with this programme. The inspirations drawn from this program is beyond what I imagined. Being an active gift and opportunities seeker in all circumstances is a powerful gift to self and the world we live in.
Dear friends, what are you facing today? I pray that you are given the grace to turn EVERY circumstances into a blessing. My father’s death which was a tragic event has taught me so much about life precisely because I choose to grieve with gratitude. This blog is one of the beautiful fruit coming out of that season of grieving. Be encouraged dear friends to be conqueror that is capable to tap in the grace of God – turning misfortunes into blessings. In the event that you need some help in getting there, feel free to contact me for coaching information.
Food is a great means of unity, celebration, expression of love, reconciliation, happiness and heaps of other things. For me food is my source of creativity. I am a person who refers to recipe and method but never really follow the exact measurement or method. Most of the time, I prefer to modify the recipe to suit my taste, the needs of my family as well as availability of ingredients.
Recently I felt inspired to try steaming fish the way restaurants did. It was a pleasant learning experience because in the past, I could not be bothered doing a few steps process. I like things simple and easy. However, my past way of steaming fish never produce truly satisfactory taste. With the newfound knowledge, I immediately hooked on to the method and started creating all sort of sauces for steamed fish. It was such fun experiments and I look forward to Fishful Friday just so I can create new dishes every week.
Creating food being therapeutic has been a great help especially when changing diet is a neccesity due to the autoimmune diagnosis. Eating healthy can be tasty and enjoyable. All that is needed is a dash of creativity.
I recently came to realise what a great gift is this expression of creativity. It was a difficult morning and I was starting to beat myself up for not being a perfect parent. I knew “being a perfect parent” is a lie, I had that intercepted so those negative emotions did not drag me further. As I was trying (and struggling) to gain better perspective, I decided to create a new dessert for dinner. It resembles milk pudding from my hometown but I have never been able to get any recipe. So with a little bit of imagination of the taste I began my experiment. Praise God it turned out well.
The effect of that 20 minutes of creativity was beyond just yummy dessert, I was able to clear my mind and start seeing things from a better perspective. I was able to show empathy towards myself and to express my loving concern towards my child. My level of happiness increased so was my overall wellness.
I recalled my days in the mission centre where celebration of life was emphasized. We will work together to create a beautiful atmosphere for celebration. The most elaborated one would be an Agape Meal that typically involved good food, well decorated room, well dressed people and heaps of honouring – a setting that enabled expression of creativity in so many ways. I remember having fun cooking, baking and sometimes trying things like decorating and flower arrangement. That kind of excellence has become my lifestyle though not as elaborated. We recently celebrated my husband’s birthday and it happened to be a Friday. I was jumping with joy as that was an opportunity to express myself creatively. I steamed a large fish and made a marble milk pudding as the “cake”. It was a joyous occasion filled with love.
Some of my food creation
The experience of having my mind cleared and filling my love tank through creative expression has demonstrated to me its importance. Creative outlet does something great to our being. It helps us to connect deeply to our true self and hence enable us to appreciate the being who’s made in the image and likeness of God. The direct impact is the release of stress and clarity of mind. In our fear saturated and highly stressed out world, creative expression becomes a remedy to bring us some sanity.
Dear friends, I pray that you are encouraged to make time for creativity, however you like to express it. May you find joy in the little things in life that fill up your love tank. Make sure you also empty your stress tank regularly. Have fun expressing yourself creatively.
Recently we recorded a podcast with the title The Cry for Affirmation, that turned out to be such a powerful and healing experience for me. The past year has been focused getting my body back into a new optimum and we are also aware that the past year has been tough for most of us. Isolation has been especially hard for me due to my natural preference of being around people. Little did I know, I slowly lost sight of my true self. I have not surrounded myself enough with people who live with a lifestyle of affirmation. So happened word of affirmation scores high for my love language.
With the challenges of the lockdown that rendered us to react rather than respond also has activated the survival part of the brain big time. Reacting to every announcement made became a constant fight or flight response. Not only it is stressful for the body, it also has the ability to rewire the brain in an unfavourable way. I was constantly tired, unmotivated and found myself settling for the small things. We have managed to find ways out of those episodes of reactions.
God is truly generous in providing resources like the availability of communion, books, courses as well as master classes that I can learn from. We dare to dream bigger with each hurdles we overcame. It has been a slower process when we are isolated. Going back to coaching is also a great blessing and now being part of my friend, Justin’s podcast Don’t Just Talk Lah, I am provided with a platform to give. All these works are possible also thanks to my body’s healing progress. I have the attitude to give as I am, although still not 100% healed yet as I occasionally get mild symptoms.
The recording of the affirmation episode helped to dust off the dirt that covers the whole true self. I have somewhat become less affirmative through this challenging year. Being affirmed through the recording, I was so energized and decided to live that more fully again. So I started affirming my daughter for every little things she did well, even to the detail of her listening to my instruction. She was glowing with joy with my new attitude; so was I and my husband.
Challenges ahead when met through the truth of own goodness can produce wonderful results. When we choose to overcome problems and deal with sin through the lens of our inherent goodness, we are elevated to a place of higher praise. I believe that is a place of freedom and happiness!. After all, if negativity has ability to rewire our brain unfavourably; positivity ought to do the favourable rewiring.
Dear friends, if you are in a place of uncertainty or are embarking on a new venture, do surround yourself with people who affirm you or hire a coach to achieve better results. A coach will help you see new perspectives when you are met with blockages; hear you out and affirm you in your journey as well as celebrating progresses with you. May you be blessed in your venture and remember you are worthy of happiness and joy in life.
Fully Alive 