Ain’t got no troubles in my life

No foolish dreams to make me cry

I’m never frightened or worried

I know I’ll always get by

 

I heat up

I cool down

When something gets in my way I go round it

Don’t let life get me down

Gonna take it the way that I found it y’all

 

I got the music in me

I got the music in me

I got the music in me yea

I got the music in me

I got the music in me

I got the music in me

 

-Thelma Houston, “I’ve Got The Music In Me”

This past week, I was helping one of my clients with her adrenal problems.

 

Most of the new clients who come to see me are in some stage of adrenal burnout. It’s really just a matter of how bad it is.

 

Now my client had already seen an M.D. and a nutritionist. She was on hormones and supplements. She admitted that when she takes her supplements, she does indeed feel better.

 

I also use plenty of nutritional supplements with clients who have burned out adrenals. It can be a matter of whether or not they are able to continue to function with chores and responsibilities that they absolutely have to do – i.e., jobs, children, taking care of things that can’t be put aside or delegated to anybody else.

 

But aside from the supplement problem, any time there is an adrenal burnout problem you also have a spiritual challenge.

 

Are you really doing what YOU want to do?

 

Are you pushing yourself too hard?

 

This is frankly just a rhetorical question because the answer, if you actually have burned out adrenals, is a big YES.

 

Are you using your willpower to get through life when you should be yielding and flowing? Another rhetorical question.

 

You can take supplements and keep going, but that doesn’t change anything. To really heal your adrenals, you have to look at many deeper questions.

 

So what my burned out adrenal client and I did was this. We got out five sheets of paper.

 

On each sheet of paper, we made a list. Things she was doing for herself. Things she was doing for her children (we made a column for each child). Things she was doing for her husband. Things she was doing to run her household. And finally but not least, things she was doing for her business.

 

Then we used kinesiology. I asked her to pick a colored marker with a color she really loved. We actually muscle tested which of the things she was doing she actually enjoyed. Then we put a star by the very few items on her long long list that she actually loves to do.

 

Then I asked her to pick a marker with a color she doesn’t like. Then we marked off the things she does that she really does not like to do at all.

 

Guess what? Most of the items on her list of things she does every day she did not enjoy doing at all. She was should-ing herself to death. She should do this, she thought, she should do that. Nothing in itself was a problem, but put the whole shooting match together and you got a life of stress, too much responsibility and drudgery and not enough joy.

 

Now I realize the saying, “Before enlightenment, chop wood, carry water. After enlightenment, chop wood, carry water.”

 

Believe me, there are a lot of things on my list that I really don’t like doing that absolutely have to be done. Sweeping. Anything to do with the garbage. Vacuuming (it’s amazing because when I time myself it’s a measly 10 minutes if I go slow and I spend much more time dreading the activity than actually doing it).

 

And yet, at the end of the day, as they say, problems can not really be solved at the same level of consciousness that created them.

 

If you spend the bulk of your life doing things that you absolutely hate doing, guess what, you may end up exhausted, tired, moody or depressed. Now that’s a news flash, but who among us actually thinks that through?

 

My client admitted that she felt better when she takes her supplements, but why feel better when you just have to trudge through a life that really actually drags your spirit down anyway?

 

It is vitally important that we figure out what feeds our soul, what uplifts us, what actually makes us happy, who actually makes us happy, where and in what locations our soul can open up like a flower blossoming and what soul nutrients we need to keep us going.

 

When we focus on what makes our soul sing, the garbage suddenly feels less overwhelming.

 

This afternoon, I got to feed my soul. I walked Belle. We visited two of our dog friends, Callie and Sarah. Now I am bundled up in my winter coat in one of my favorite spots on earth, my hammock, even though it is January and Belle is snuggled next to me when she is not too busy begging for cookies.

 

A long long time ago, after writing my book about how to heal depression without drugs, I figured that I needed to focus on spending more time doing what I love to do. You are reading about a lot of this in my blog. Angels. Orchids. Teaching yoga. Teaching qi gong. Doing my healing work. Really anything to do with natural healing. My garden. My dog. I even get excited about juicing (really, truly, I am not making this up – I can get very enthusiastic about fresh spinach and if you don’t believe me, come over and watch me juice).

 

YOU have music in you too. It’s just a question of whether or not you have discovered what it is, whether or not you are listening and are you playing that tune.

 

A good way to think about it is this.

 

The angelic is here, the demonic is here. It’s all here, it’s just a question of what vibration you tune into.

 

There is sadness in your life, there is great grief and tragedies. You could focus on that and cry yourself to sleep every night, or you could tune into whatever is beautiful, whatever sustains you and uplifts you, the moments, the scenes that take your breath away.

 

“I’ve Got The Music In Me” is a very old song that I have listened to for a very long time. I used to listen to Thelma Houston sing that song to psyche myself up before I wrote my plays. Really. I also listened to anything by the Persuasions, an all-male a capella group, my favorites being “Walk On The Wild Side” and “Another Night With The Boys.”

 

If I listened to that music, I knew I could get into the right vibration to write my heart out.