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Good morning everybody. Can you hear me? You’re going to hear me one time. Just one time. I don’t want to trigger any vertigo and anybody. Good morning, everybody. So hope you are all doing well this morning. Welcome to Sunday service. We’re going to be conducting this really for everybody, even though this is a post COVID a recovery program. These are things that are beneficial to everybody. I always like to start by kind of sharing my experiences of the week as I see new patients. At this moment I am this moment I’ve seen 113 velvet patients in full evaluations. So I just want to say that, you know, as, as we’re starting to see more patients, and when I say we, I mean, collectively the world as more patients are seen more as understood. But unfortunately in many cases, even though there’s more understood, there’s still a lot.
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That’s not understood. And you know, I don’t, I don’t say this to put it down on the beginning of the meeting. I’m just saying that, you know, there’s a lot going on here and I’ve never, you know, I’ve never seen another condition throughout my 30 year career in which there’s so much variability, number one from person to person and so much variability, even within the same person, often day to day, and sometimes even, you know, hour to hour where you could be feeling fine one minute and then, you know, 20 minutes later, you don’t feel so good. So I’ve seen a lot of patients this week. I’ve seen about six patients as we fairly complex. The good news that I’m seeing is that there are people who are slowly but surely starting to get better. And we’re trying to put together the pieces as to, well, what is it that’s common about these patients?
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In other words, what is it that’s making some people get better? What is it that’s making some people kind of stagnant in terms of remaining stable, but not in a place where they want to be. And then there’s some people who actually feel worse than when they first were diagnosed with COVID and then there’s this group of people that’s kind of up, down, up, down, and there’s almost no rhyme or reason to it. I’ll give you a couple of examples of things that I hear a lot. We do know that, you know, for a lot of people, there’s this concept of a budget, which, you know, I’ve been thinking about it. And it’s like, when we talk about there’s physical budget, there’s physical expenses, there’s intellectual expenses and there’s emotional expenses, and all of these things can tax your system. And I’m not just talking about, you know, the cardiovascular system or the brain or, you know, it’s, it’s all of the systems.
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And the way I view COBIT, at least from my experience is that we have kind of this collective body of you know, the body. And this is actually kind of a weird, but the way of thinking about it, which is that like this little cup here is the neurologic system. This cup here is the cardiovascular system. This cup here is the respiratory system. And I also see COVID has kind of like an electrical grid where inflammation in any one of those areas can lead to inflammation and our setbacks in other areas. So the key to all of this, as I see it, and as I read about it, you know, and as I’m reading more and more is that we need to number one, establish a stable baseline. So in other words, where are we to begin? And in some cases where we are beginning is actually even too stimulating for people.
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So in some cases, if you’re really seems like you’re banging your head against the wall to try to move forward, then we really have to almost take several steps back and then start from a lesser point and then inch up in just inch up. I’ve stayed at things that are most consistent are that for people who are having a lot of symptoms of autonomic dysfunction, the compression stop stockings help a lot particularly if you’re drop dropping your blood pressures and your heart rates are going up. If the stockings are not good enough, we can go to compression leggings. If that’s not good enough, we could go to abdominal binders being well fluidized so making sure that you’re well-hydrated, but not just by drinking a whole lot of water by drinking things with electrolytes. So if you do drink water, you can add those powder electrolytes to it, or Pedialyte or things that are going to restore electrolytes sodium, potassium fluoride, because by just drinking more and more water, you’re actually diluting your body’s system.
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And that can actually cause its own set of issues. There was some talk this week about the JAMA article that talks about inflammation in the heart and the impact that, you know even for people who didn’t have symptoms, per se, there are evidence of inflammation in the heart. And there was a recommendation this week that people should not exercise for six months or, you know, for three to six months after. And that’s a tough kind of spot to be in. It’s a super conservative approach. And I agreed that, you know, if really kind of struggling to make the steps back, that we can’t be doing these kind of bro push sympathetic, stimulating exercises where we’re like, go, go, go, go. But I do believe that we should conservatively be trying to inch forward but in a safe manner. So you know, when people first started you know, treating, we’re doing, doing, you know, treating patients after a heart attack or treating patients after bypass surgery, the prescription was
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Lie in bed. Don’t move you haven’t yet.
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If you want to drink the nurse raises the cup to your mouth with a straw so that you can take a sip and little by little, we you know, it was, it was determined that that was actually deleterious to people and it was actually harmful to them. And that early mobilization was actually very very beneficial to them and actually preventing complications. The tricky part now though, is that we have so many systems involved and we’re not a hundred percent sure. I would say we’re not even probably 50% sure. You know, how they’re relating to each other in terms of the overall being. So my point in showing you this poem, which I forgot to mean point was, is like, if this is respiratory and this is you know, cardiovascular, and this is neurologic and the thing is that they’re not enclosed.
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They all meet at the bottom. So it’s like if you, you know, inflame one area for a lot of people, if you overdo it in intellectual. So in other words, if you’re doing a lot of work on the computer, if you overdo it physically, or if you overdo it emotionally, if you have a particularly tough day emotionally, or even, it could be a particularly great day emotionally, that all takes from the budget. And so it’s important that you think about that concept as you say, well, what am I doing today? And I think it’s really beneficial if, if you’re having trouble kind of getting out of the mud to start taking some notes and take notes in terms of what am I doing physically, what am I doing emotionally? Like, did I have an upsetting phone call or did I have get some great news that I have a new nephew born or something like that?
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Or did I you know, do something physical and then how did I feel before, during, and after, because only by kind of picking up on these patterns, can we determine the way out? You know what I mean? It’s like we have to throw this stone to see how the pool ripples and that’s, that’s the way we’re going to start to work with, again, we are seeing some positive patterns with respect to helping people get moving again. And I think it’s going to take more time. I have with me today, Marian Machlis before we go to Mary
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Though, I want to ask if there are any questions or comments that are burning in people’s heads right now, or feel free to just stare blankly at me, that’s acceptable as well. Either one is good. All the chats to say bold. So Joel, sorry, Joel. We just started hearing you so they’ll attack was disabled. So I see now that it’s back, it’s that woman at the top, she’s the warning. She’s wearing a mask that she doesn’t want you to know who she is. It’s like, those guys used to chop people’s head off. They wear something. So you don’t know, so you don’t come up to them at the gross grocery store and saying, you disabled my chat.
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Is it disabled? So the budget is working for you, Joel. You know what I would love if you don’t mind, if you could just talk a little bit and incidentally, next Sunday, I have a plan to have a talk about a coven success stories and there are people, and I would like to share some of these and have some of these people, you know, kind of share their story about what is working and what’s not enjoy Europe, particularly. Good example, if you don’t mind just sharing kind of your experience and what’s worked for you, I’ll try be click. April 29th is when I first started symptoms, I felt sort of better. Mid to end of may. Did two separate bicycle trainer rides. And I first worked my way up from 30 Watts to 70 rots. And I did the 70 Watts twice and two to 16 hours after the 70 Watts.
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I got crushed by fatigue two to 16 hours later for like one to two days. And I was like, I’ve never heard of this before. So then I researched it and found post exertional in the lies. And so I cut back, but the odd thing doing the 70 Watts, I felt great. So I would encourage people if they get too tired to cut back to just moving, let’s just moving would be on the bike trainer. 30 Watts is just lifting your legs up and down and hardly any pressure on the pedals whatsoever. So now I’ve worked from 30 Watts. Actually today I’m going back to 70 Watts for the first time, since the end of may. And I told no as advice about incrementing and 5% increments. And so I now instead of riding 30 Watts for 10 or 15 minutes, I’m up to writing for an hour. I’m warming up 30 to 50 Watts then doing like 55 Watts for like 10 minutes, then 10 minutes at 65 Watts, 10 and 55 and 10 more at 65 and then 10 more, 55 with a three minute cool down like in Nellis spoken about the treadmill and tells you how to set things up. I also do things I love to do. I used to have a paper route when I was little and I really enjoyed morning walks. I did,
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And I shut down the the bicycling for awhile. And I just started walking for I think, three to four weeks. And then later on, on a weekend I started to reintroduce the bicycle lane. And so I’ve been at it I’m slowly getting better. I’ve had stomach issues. Overall to me it was like a bad cold. It wasn’t as bad as the flu, but this fatigue thing is tough and challenging and frustrating. Cause I used to do 220 Watts and I thought 70 Watts was a low number or 50 Watts was low with low number. And but I think pretty much if you accidentally overdo it, you want to cut back 30%, at least 30% more from what you overdo it and make that your new level. Because overdoing, it kind of crushed me for like two days twice.
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And so I avoid that, like the plague. My, my favorite gadgets I guess is this is a heart chest strap monitor the Fitbit on the wrist. It when you shake your arms back and forth, it sometimes gives you a high reading, then sends you into a panic mode where the heart chest monitor is usually rural reliable. And if I feel yucky or I feel like I’m starting to get out of breath, usually I check the heart rate monitor and it’s up to 118 or 120. And I know that I’m pretty damn safe below 105. If I, if I go above that, then you know, I get I’ve put myself at risk. So I’m getting better. And we’ll see what today brings.
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Thank you. Guys, I want to just say one thing it’s, it’s possible that you may hear Joel say like, Oh, 70 Watts, a hundred Watts an hour, and you may be saying why while listening to Naomi Watts while you know, things like that, don’t be alarmed by the amount that he’s doing. He didn’t start there. Okay. And everything is relative. Okay. It’s like when I listened to Tony Robbins off, it’s like, you go to you go to a Tony Robbins spot. Not that I’ve ever gone to one, but I imagine this is what it’s like. It’s like, you hear somebody talking about how I went from living in my car to being a multibillionaire and you’re like, wow, I don’t even have a car. And you know, it’s, it’s, it’s sometimes that can blow your mind because you think like, wow you know, I’ll never get there.
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And I know that’s how it feels for a lot of people. It feels like you’re never going to get there. I don’t believe that. Number one, I don’t know exactly where there is, but I really encourage you not to give up hope and not to stop trying. We will figure this out in time and we will help you figure this out in time. It’s going to take time. This is a big wave that hit us. You know what I mean? It’s a, it’s something that’s never been seen before. And, you know, an example that I’ve used is you know, is like, okay, this is the medical community is like the staff of a cruise ship. And they’re prepared for, you know, certain things they’re prepared for, you know, waves. They’re prepared for seasickness, they’re prepared for weather, but this has been like a roadway that nobody has been prepared for.
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We’ve never seen anything like it before. So it’s definitely taking a long time. You know, I think most people would acknowledge that even though, you know, you can’t say they were mistakes per se. It, it, there were things that could have probably been done better from the beginning. You know, had we known then what we know now. Okay. But we can only go with what material is known at the moment that being said, I think we are seeing patterns and we are seeing progress and progress is never as fast as anybody wants it to be ever. It’s nobody ever gets done with something that says, wow, you know what? That was that was too quick. You know, I, I got there much quicker than I thought I would be. But the key is like what Joel said, Joel is operating at a pretty high level right now.
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Everything is relative. So wherever you are at this moment, that is the starting point. Okay. That is the starting point. And that starting point can sometimes change, right? So if something’s not working for you, we can say, Hey, you know what? I need to reassess. I need to reset. I need to take a few steps back and regroup, right? It’s like, we’re in a battle here. Sometimes we charge and guess what? There’s more people there than we expected it to be. We take a step back. We retreat sometimes so that we can move forward. And you know, again, I am, I’m not even close to losing hope on this, and I know that this is a tough thing to deal with. It’s not easy. But we are continuing to see new things every day. So if, again, want to talk your own personal situation out with us both Marian and I are here.
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We can also refer you to, you know, we have other, other people that we’re working with. Erica is available for consultation and you know, Lori is available, but sometimes it’s, you can listen to a webinar like this and yeah, you get the gist of what’s going on, but it’s not as, as, as personal. And it’s not going to necessarily, it’s sometimes hard to figure out how to apply that to your own personal situation. And I’ve sent for, you know, almost 30 years, 95% of what I know I’ve learned from my patients. And I could say the exact same thing about Colgate, in which case 99% of what I know I’ve learned from people like you. So if you want to talk about it, you know, where we could really sit down for an hour or so, and chop up your situation and help you kind of figure out where are you, where do you need to be? And how do we get you there, then we’re happy to do that. Linda, you have a question.
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Yes, I do. I’ve never talked on here. Can you hear me? Yes. Okay, good. Would you mind going back just briefly to the water issue that you were talking about? I’m drinking water,
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Water. Yeah. So, you know, one of the things
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I’m drinking a whole lot of water on purpose Springwater and bought some power aid, but then I saw it had sugar in it, so I didn’t use it. I, and then finally I’ve gotten some zero sugar power, a power.
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Yeah. So the idea, the idea about this is that so one of the things that we see that’s common in many patients is I’m not going to say it’s pots, but it’s sort of like a pot slider syndrome. And what pots is, is postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome. And I actually did a whole webinar on this a couple of weeks ago, it’s called the up and ups and downs of the autonomic dysfunction and it’s on our website. But in a nutshell, what happens with a lot of people is postural changes. Positional changes have a big impact on the nervous system. So if you’re lying in bed like this, gravity is pushing down, but it’s only pushing down that split between you and, and your bed. The thing is that when you go from lying down to sitting up, you, blood goes down to the lower body, right?
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Because of gravity and under normal circumstances, your pressure receptors in your carotid sinus, and also your yogic Marge would say, Hey, we’re dropping pressures. And it would cause the blood vessels to constrict. And that would normalize the pressure that doesn’t happen very often more, very often that doesn’t happen in this type of situation. And because your blood pressure drops like that, the heart rate will go up in an, in an attempt to maintain cardiac output. So one of the things is that we know that people who are dehydrated have lower blood pressure as a result of a decreased plasma volume. So in other words, if you think about your body as a closed water balloon the less water in it, the lower, the pressure, right? The smaller, the balloon, the higher, the pressure. So the bigger the balloon, the lower, the pressure, smaller balloon, the higher, the pressure, the greater water in it, the higher, the pressure, the less water I need to lower the pressure.
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So if you are already dehydrated, then that can cause you to have a more significant swing, even in blood pressure. But what a lot of people are doing is if it’s not just the hydration. In other words, if you’re over, like if you’re coming up and dealing with that, by drinking a gallon of water a day, another thing is that your body also likes to, to kind of regulate chemistry, right? So it likes a certain amount of salt or sodium in the Bible. So let’s say you know, it likes five units per a hundred units of water. I’m giving a pure example. It’s purely hypothetical. It’s not real numbers, but if, if you drink water, then you become less salty, right. And that can affect the electrical activity of your heart and your nervous system, same thing with potassium and chloride and things.
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So if you’re just having water and let’s say you had some lemonade, right? You had you know, like a scope of, of country time lemonade, and you put more and more, more water in it, the more water you put in it, then the less laminating it would be. So we need to make sure that fluids are restored in balance with electrolytes. So that’s why, you know, we like these, you know, if you’ve done a drink, a lot of water, then, you know, either a electrolyte replacement in the water or things like Pedialyte and the Powerade without sugar is a great kind of example is a great alternative to just plain water. Tonight we do have a, a meeting it’s going to be a support meeting where we, it’s going to be talking about the physical and emotional. And this is a weekly meeting, physical and emotional effects and challenges associated with COVID led by Erica Mastro bono, who is a clinical social worker, as well as Laurie needle.
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Who’s a psycho, a psycho therapist and myself who was just a psycho. And at this time I’m going to turn it over to Marian Machlis marrying. And I have been working together since 1994. We both survived. We’ve only had two fights, one only involved, one only one resulted in physical violence. It was her on me, not me on her. Marianne is a physical therapist who specializes in cardiovascular and pulmonary disease in particular airway clearance and secretion clearance. She’s the chief of the pulmonary wellness and rehabilitation centers, airway clearance unit. She’s a massage therapist. She knows a lot about a lot of different things. So I will turn it over to Marion. And I hope to see you guys tonight.
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Hi. Okay. Hi. Thank you, Noah. Thank you very much. I just want to reiterate a few things that Noah said, because it’s part of the success, which is keeping records. I am a big fan of journal of journaling, especially now, because I do believe that you all need to bank you know, and treat this sort of like a bank, what you put in, what you take out. If you know, you’re doing a laundry one day, hold back on something else. One of the things that, the thing that I’m going to go through with you today is somewhat of a breathing exercise. I call it a mindful meditative breathing exercise. For some of you who have had a session with me, you’ve had a very small, teeny weeny taste of it. Others, very long ones. When I spoke Sunday night, you got a little taste of it.
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We’re going to take it a little deeper. I’m going to start this for a lot of people who are maybe not as advanced in as advanced place as others, but then you never know because you know, I’ve had patients who I thought, wow, those days are gone and not to get anyone upset, but something happened. They totally overdid it because they were feeling so fabulous and, you know, had a little setback. It was just it, but it’s a setback and this too shall pass. And it has. So what I’d like to do is give you something that will help you. We’ll help you with your setbacks and help you hopefully avoid them. So I’m taking something to a very basic level. Eventually they’re a ways to build on it. Everything that I do is a level of a scaffold, and then you just keep building and building and building on it.
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And then you can always pull back in one cart, build in another. So it’s a very basic thing. And then after we do it, I could tell you some of the things that we would do to build on it. A lot of what I have, what is in here now is actually the result of working with a lot of you. It’s, as Noah says, we learn from you. And what I have found in this work is, and I said this before, there’s a little bit of a dissociation with your body and how you feel. And especially because your body is just doing all these things that it wouldn’t necessarily or normally do when you do certain things. And sometimes you find a pattern and then you think you have the pattern, and then all of a sudden it’s gone and something else is there.
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So so I started to develop with, and it was through working with especially two different patients with who are in two different places in their recuperation, a way to breathe, to get to know your breathing and to bring your body into a mindful place with your space, with your breathing and what’s happening. So this will not have a breathing pattern. This is where you will breathe, how you feel good breathing or easy breathing, because it’s not a pattern. This is a learning experience between your brain and your body and the world around us and air. So no breathing pattern that would come later, or for instance one of my patients now uses this as just her good morning meditation or her afternoon meditation, because I also believe if you are doing something like the laundry or having an, and then doing your walk later on each time you do that, you should have a moment of sitting quietly.
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As Noah said in quiet does not mean on the computer or on the phone or watching TV just quietly. I love Headspace. They have three minute to 10 minute meditations. So it doesn’t have to be long. Just something to reset. These techniques are also something that can reset. You could do it as a whole. You could do it in pieces. It can be added on to other things which I do do later on in a session. So I’m going to keep it simple and we’re going to get started. The first thing I want you to do. And at some point I will move my, my computer. So you see a little more of me. You can sit in a chair and do this on a couch, find a place that’s comfortable. If there’s, if there’s some of you who are laying in bed, that’s fine. When you are laying in bed, if you can be pillowed up a little bit or, and also have your elbow on the couch for a second, pop your feet pillows pillows up so that your feet are somewhat on the, on your mattress. If not, if you can’t do that, it’s fine too. We can, we can deal with it. There are ways to deal with it. So now what I want you to do is I want you
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To just look around with your, in your room, just take in. What’s the light in the room right now. I’m getting a lot of sunlight. What is the light in your room or is it dark? Is it shadowy? What does that room like? What does the room feel to you? Look at the walls that you’ve stared at stared at forever. Do you see something in one, on one of those walls or in the pattern of the seat that you’re sitting at or something you’re looking at that you never noticed before and just look at it. And now I want you to look around the room and I want you to find one spot that is going to be your safe spot. And because we’re going to close our eyes a little bit, and every time you open your eyes, I want you to go to that one spot.
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That’s going to be your spot where you can just let anything in your head, unload, feel safe, feel okay, and know that your home, it could be a new thing in the room that you’ve just discovered like a spiderweb up there I never saw, or, or it can be something that you love looking at that gives you great joy that you like staring at all the time. That’s something you stare at when you’re drinking your water or juice or whatever. If you have water near you, that would be good or drink so that you can constantly drink. Okay? Now I want you to just listen to the sound in that room. You have your, hopefully your safe spot. I want you to just take a, listen to the sounds in the room with your eyes open. Just note the things you hear. Do you hear outside noise inside? Of course you hear my droning voice, my New York accent fans, whatever. And now I want you to close your eyes just for a minute. I’m going to be quiet. And I want you to take in the noise or, or what you don’t hear in the room.
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[Inaudible]
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And now I want you to open your eyes again and just taking the sound, taking this around. Now, I want to take it a little to your body. Feel whatever you’re sitting on or laying on. I want you to feel the weight of your body, wherever it’s touching that chair, that couch, the floor, the bed, whatever. Just feel it, feel where your tush or your bud is, is how is it sinking or your legs? How was your back being supported? Your arms, your shoulders, your neck. What does that feel like? Does your body feel really heavy on it? Does it make your body feel like it’s floating a little? What does it feel like? And then if you wanted to change your position a little, because you realize it’s not a feeling, you like go right ahead.
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The next thing I want you to do once you do that is just take your hands and just like, you’re waiting in water. I want you to just make believe. You’re just sculling in water. Because as I’ve said before, for those of you, who’ve heard me, we go through life in this thing called air, but we don’t think of being in it. And it’s surrounding us. It’s something for us to just use, to breathe, to keep us alive. It makes us comfortable or uncomfortable. It’s hard to breathe in. It’s easy to breathe in. It’s hot, it’s cold. It gives us headaches, but we’re actually immersed in it. Just the way a fish is in water. This is our surround. So Scully through it and just let your hands with your eyes open. Give you information. What is that air like? Is there a movement? Is it cool? Is it heavy? Is it supporting your movement or do you have to work really hard to support the movement? And if you have to work hard to support it, how can you use that air to help so that you don’t have to work as hard? So maybe you could use that energy for something else.
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Now I want you to just drop your hands on your lap and just sense what that feels like. And now I want you to take your poems and your wrists and just let them loose cheek a little round. What does that feel like? How heavy are your wrists? If I lift them up just a little, is that harder? Easy. I put them down a little. What does it feel like? What does it feel like to raise them up? What kind of energy is that? And put them back down. And now just like in plop on your legs again and just let them send whatever message to your body they got from that.
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And now I’m going to have you close your eyes and repeat the same thing. Just your legs, your hands, your hands up and use them like you’re sculling and water. Now with your eyes closed, what message is it giving your body? How does that air feel? How does it feel supporting you? Does that air feel warm on your body or cool. The skin move? Is it thick? Is it thin? Does it help buoy you up a little or weigh you down? Can you do something if it weighs you down to make it lighter, or if you need to make yourself heavier? Cause it’s too light. Is there some way you can move in the air or that it can help you to do that? And now just take your risks and let them jiggle again, like we did before jiggling your wrists, just move your arms up and down. Think what kind of effort that is with your eyes shut. And now let everything flopped down. Take a moment to just feel that.
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And now I want you to open your eyes and go to your safe spot. And you’re just going to stare at your safe spot for a minute. If you need to take a sip of water, take a sip of water, refuel your body, and just like everything out of your head, just let the body and what did just experience, talk and get your head out of it. And now we’re going to bring our body into this. So what I want you to do, and in a more advanced time, I would have you do tapping, but we’re not going to tap today. We’re just going to just let our bodies sense. It’s being. So now we’re going to start externally, done this environment, and then we’re going to start bringing it in. So what I want you to do is take your hands. And if you can get, you don’t have to go all the way down to your ankles. I don’t want you bending over, but as far as your arms can go for those laying in bed, if it’s just here, that’s fine. And I just want you to give a rub to your calves or your legs or your knees or wherever your hands lie, where they can reach. Just give it a rub and then stop and just hold your hands there. Tell your leg that your hands are there and it’s safe. What does that feel like?
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What does your leg feel like? Now? Bring your hand to your thighs and you’re just going to rub, just give it a little Rob and then hold your hands there. Let that sit for a minute. Let the weight of your hands holding your legs. Just sink until they almost become one. And let that sensation, just go into your body and let your body feel it. Now we’re going to take it up. We’re going to just take our hands and place it on our abdomen and then slide it up to our chest. Hold our chest. Just breathe. Normally. What does it feel like? What message is your chest getting from your hands? Does it all of a sudden feel like maybe it’s there Or your hands too heavy, try to lighten them. Or if you don’t feel your hands much, just try to let them gently suction and become one with your chest. Now we’re going to just slide our hands over to our shoulders and just rub your arm up and down. Just like you’re soothing yourself and then feet stop and just hold your arms that way and feel it Head up to your shoulders. Open your arms and head up to your shoulders and just place the weight of your hands on your shoulders. Again, breathe any way you want in whatever position you want. If you need to change your position, that’s fine.
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And since the weight of your hands on your shoulders and then bring your fingertips to your neck and just let your fingertips rest on your spine and touch your neck, then we’re going to bring your hands together and rub them to get a little heat.
(00:41:27):
And you’re going to put your hands on your occiput and really hold your, how many times do we really get to like put our hands on our head and just let your hands feel the head, beat the shape of your head. What does that shape feel like? And move your hands around. The only thing I don’t want you to do is put them over your ears. I just want you to go around your head and just sense, and then place your hands on top of your head and let your hands, send your head a message.
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Does your head actually feel like it’s being helped by your hands? It’s being held that your hands care. What does your head feel? And I know it sounds crazy, but if you really all of a sudden, listen, let your head, listen. It might get a message. Now bring your hands back down to your chest, like in a butterfly position and let it sit. I want you to open your eyes and find your safe spot. Let your hands down and just let everything Sikh sink in. Let your body feel everything that it just felt. Bringing your hands now down onto your knees and just let them just let them sit there and sort of hold, hold your body there. Let your body know you haven’t left. You’re still there. You’re still hanging in with it.
(00:43:26):
Take a minute
(00:43:33):
And then just let everything go. Let it go. Let it do what it needs to do inside your body. If you need to take another sip of water, this is a good time to sip. Again, take another sip of water or juice or Powerade or Gatorade or Pedialyte or water with Malane salt, whatever it is.
(00:44:01):
Okay. The next thing we’re going to do is now we’re going to go a little bit more inside. You’re going to take a breath in a bear and this is not to account and it’s not to fill up this nice deep breath in through your nose, out through your mouth purse, your lips. You don’t have to puck pucker and blow. Nice, easy breath out. And first I want you to do with your eyes open. We can look at your safe spot if you want. It’s taking a breath in and now think about what that breath feels like, what the air feels like. It doesn’t have to be deep. Just breathe the way you feel like breathing Is the air that you’re breathing in warm. Is it cool? Is it light or heavy? Thick or thin? Hot. Cool. What does it feel as it’s coming in and going out? Do you get an image or a feeling as it’s coming out? What it looks like? How would disperse does it come out this way or this way? Or float down, float up now, close your eyes and do the same thing. Just sense that air going in through your nose and out through your mouth.
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What does that air feel like to you? What does it feel as it goes down further into your chest? What image do you get as it disperses in your chest? And then when you blow out or breathe out or exhale, when it comes out into the air around you, when you breathe it out, does it feel like it comes, becomes the same air that you breathed in? What does it feel like? How does it relate to your body? Now we’re going to take our hands
(00:46:30):
And you’re going to put them down on your abdomen, just under your breasts. If you can keep them on your side, by your hips. So that the top part of your hand, part of your hands are touching your rib cage. That’s fine. If you can’t just like, this is fine. I want you to feel the palms of your hands, sinking into your body. Don’t push them, just let the feeling of the weight of your hands. Be there, let your body feel the weight of those hands. Now we’re going to take our feet and press our feet on the floor.
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If you can’t parse your feet on the floor, if you’re slick in the bed, press them against the mattress or the couch pillows. What does that feel like? How supported are your feet on the floor or pillow or mattress? If your feet are straight ahead and laying just and not pressing against anything, feel the weight of your heels and how the air feels on the souls of your feet. You can even rub your feet together or rub your shoes, even on just move them a little on the floor, rub your feet on the floor. If your barefoot just get a sense and let that tell your body what is there.
(00:48:02):
Now you’re going to take a breath in through your feet and send it to your hands. Take it in through your nose and blow out through your mouth. If you can’t breathe in through your nose. Cause you’re too stuffy. Just take a little into a purse lip, not forcing it, just a little sick and then pull it out should be nice and easy. Not forced. Send it from your feet to your hands. And then as you blow out, let your hands just drop into your ribs and your abdomen. Let them just sink in. Ask yourself what that feels like. Let it come up through your feet, to your legs, to your hands and then out. How does the air feel? Now take your hands and put them on your thighs. Continuing to breathe in through your legs and try to feel where your hands were on your rib cage and see if you can send the air there. Now that your hands are no longer there. Can you still feel them? And when your hands aren’t there, how does it affect how you breathe? Now, you’re going to take your hands and open your eyes. You’re going to give your thigh, your calves, a squeeze like we did before. Squeeze your thighs and your knees. Squeeze your abdomen. Just touch it a little bit. Say I’m here having left. And then you’re going to look at your safe space and give your body time to just absorb it.
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And now again, if you want
(00:50:28):
To just refuel your body and take a sip of drink, now it’s a good time, which is going to go to our chest. I’ll take a sip if you need. Okay, you can just take your hand one hand over the other, put it on your chest. Anywhere feels comfortable. You can put it over your heart, okay? Anywhere, wherever someplace, where you can feel comfortable. And this time you’re going to send the breath from your foot, from your feet up your leg, into your hands, on your chest and just let it out. Ask your body how that feels.
(00:51:41):
[Inaudible].
(00:51:42):
Now I take the top hand as you’re doing that and keep the breath going and put that back down on your abdomen with the other hand on your chest And just breathe in feeling the air, asking the questions. How does that air feel as it goes to your hands from your feet? Is it heavy? Is it light? Is there work in your breathing or can you make it easier? How can you change your hand position or your breath to make it easier?
(00:52:37):
Now you’re going to take your hands off and come back to your little safe spot. And we’re going to just go up from our legs again. Just squeezing our legs. Just let your body now I’m here. You’re still sitting. You’re here. I’m like, yeah, all the way up chest. Grab your arms and give them a squeeze. We’re going to take this to a classic breathing exercise, and then we’re going to just sort of let our body and the session. So what you’re going to do, okay, is take one hand. You’re going to bring it to your shoulder.
(00:53:25):
What I want you to do
(00:53:26):
Is keep your other hand on your leg and let it know that it’s there. I’m going to show you first. I want you to do it with your eyes open. You’re going to take a breath in and as you blow out, you can push the air away and then you’re going to breathe in and scoop that air up and throw it over your shoulder and bring your arms down and just squeezed yourself. Let your body know. You’re still there. Take your arm again. Put it in that position, right in, blow out, push that air away. What did that air feel like? And then scoop up that air. What does that air feel like? That? Throw it over your shoulder and give yourself a moment. And again, let your body know that you are there. Just your legs, chest, ribcage, or head. Just let it know you’re there. And come back to that position. One more time. Remember to try to feel the air, helping your arm move. Take a deep breath in, blow it up. Push the air away. Breathe in, come on up and let that air out and let your arm just drop.
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And now we’re going to take the other arm and put it over. Does this feel different than the other arm? Maybe. Maybe not. How does it feel? Take a breath in and blow out and push that air away and then scoop it up and bring it over and throw it over your shoulder and just take your arms and give yourself a squeeze. Let your body know you’re still there and repeat. You’re going to bring your arm up, fill it with there. We then push the airway as you blow out and then Oop it up as you breathe in and throw it over your shoulder and go back and let your body know. I’m still here.
(00:55:48):
Feeling grounded. Feel your feet can go back. One more time to that arm, breath in, blow out it, sweep down and bring it back and up and let it come back. And again, squeeze it. Go back down to your calves and give nice rub. Rub up your thumb. Eyes. Rub up your body, your arms, your shoulders, your back, your neck. Get your head. Say here I am. I’m back. How you doing? Hope you’re still there. I’m still here. And now you’re going to just take a deep breath in holding yourself. Just bring your arms, let them float up. Take a breath in and let it down and go. Now this time, you’re going to take a breath in with a smile, open your eyes and give a smile and breathe in and say it out
(00:57:07):
And give yourself a good hug. Bring your arms to your side. Hands, palms facing up to the ceiling. Just raise some shoulder, let the air, bring it up around you. Smile, looking up and let your palms go down to the floor and go and come on up. Look at your safe spot. Put your hands on your lap. Just let your body be. Let it feel itself. And when you’re ready, take a drink of water. Feel your feet on the floor. Bring yourself back into the air in the room, your walls, those new things. You found those old things. You found the sound And let your body take it in.
(00:58:08):
And there you are.
(00:58:19):
So that is basically what I like to do to help people feel grounded and solid. It doesn’t have to be that long. It can just be one part eventually for those who have trouble getting up, I like to use just the method of touching your legs or eventually tapping reading through the leg, feeling the weight of yourself in the chair as you come up and then breathing through the beat and feeling yourself to make sure you’re there. When you stand to get solid, before you take the run to the telephone, the walk to the, to get the dog, to answer the doorbell, to brush your teeth, whatever it is to do your office work From there. I find that people
(00:59:22):
Can ease better into the breathing exercises that they might have trouble with when we start to count and make them longer and longer and longer and longer, or in tandem. So you do a little of this and then go into that. It’s all, whatever works for you. It’s all made to be adaptable. All right. So I open it up to Noah and anyone else who would like to share, speak it’s okay if you didn’t like it, it’s okay. If it didn’t work for you it’s just a way to learn your body. It’s one way there’s no right. There’s no wrong. It’s just there to help your body learn a little bit about itself. Well, he said he liked it. Yeah, but monkey’s always a fan of mine.
(01:00:35):
Thank you so much. It was so healing and I love to do movement and breath. It just brings me out of my head and more into my breath. And so soothing because I’ll speak for myself, but I’m sure other people can relate. There’s so much going on in our bodies that that mindful breath really helps settle it down and the touch so helpful, the feeling of support and my hands. I do Reiki too, and I haven’t been doing it that much. But while you were, you said, rub your hands together. And immediately I kind of went to Reiki energy and holding the head. And I got so much information when I held my head, I was like, Oh my gosh. It was so it was so luxuriating. And what I find is that amount was really helpful because guiding us through, it allowed me to just stay present and raw rather than going to all my heart’s palpitating. This buzzy feeling is happening in my body. It doesn’t feel like my body right now, but it is my body. And to like really embrace, this is where my body is right now and holding it and saying you’re safe. So helpful. It kind of tells the cells and that fuzzy feeling in the palpitations while I’m doing it. It grounded me a lot just to keep going back to your say, and this is where my body is right now. And it’s really important just to be with that. And so this kind of work really
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Reinforcing
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The acceptance of where it is right now.
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Thank you.
(01:02:50):
I have a quick question. That was lovely.
(01:02:56):
I love it. But this was really lovely. Is there a way that you could record it so people could have access to that? I think what we’re going to be doing some recordings this Wednesday of just the exercises in our beautiful setting when, and what we’re going to do is we’re going to, you’ll see, we’ll have it available within a couple of days. But it’s a whole bunch of different tools that you can use and what I call the magic garden. Now there’s running water, so it’ll be nice. Thank you. Thank you.
(01:03:39):
Anyone else? Did anyone find some discomfort or find that they found a way out of their discomfort or at least found comfort in their discomfort? I could speak to that. I have so many key places and touching them kind of hurt, but you know, the awareness of where they are and how they manifest. It’s chilly here in the Northwest and your, it warmed me up, which was just so lovely. You know, I could feel the chill air coming in, but warmed up as I breathed out and it’s Theresa will make a call to speak to the one’s own body. And just the sensation of touch is very nice at this time, since I’m alone. Thank you. You’re welcome. Yeah, actually, I just recently brought in a lot of that touch. I used to just do a warmup with patients who are more on some who had COVID, but we’re in a more advanced, more dense state of healing, our, and along in their journey. And some who and I recently had to start way, way, way, way, way, way, pulling myself way back. Someone who had a lot of trouble sensing their body, cause it was so much going on. And I said to her, would it, you know, what would help? And she said, well, helped me when you just had me, you know, like touch myself some and then, so I started to add it in and what I found was it really did help,
(01:05:19):
Helps bring everything back to center. And remember that there’s, there is a body here because we’ve become so much of this walking bag of symptoms that we forget that we actually have a, we have a soul, we have a, we’re a person, we have a personality, you know, we have, and we can feel, and we have a body that is built to be present here and it sort of would help with that sense. So I encourage people that, you know, when anything happens and you can’t even get to the point of breathing, just start with like, you know, I know Laurie at night does the fist, but you know, there’s also just, you’re here. You’re okay. You’re here. You’re not flying off somewhere. You’re anchored. And that can hopefully help a little bit, get through whatever you’re getting through at that moment. It’s like dance grounding. Yeah. Thank you.
(01:06:23):
Yeah. I just want to end on a couple of just minor, not minor, but major, but kind of grounding thoughts, which are number one. Do what feels good. Okay. This is the opposite of no pain, no gain, right? Because what’s going to make you uncomfortable is not going to heal you. And there are some conditions where, you know, you have to push yourself to the point of discomfort in order to move forward. This is not one of them. This is the opposite. So with COVID and post COVID, it’s almost like we have to reset. So think of this as an absolutely no pressure, right? So it’s almost like, you know, trying to like squeeze your way through something or, or try to just smooth your way. Like, if you think of how, like, you know, a high jumper is so graceful and if they have to just turn their body just so to avoid that pole, if that pole is the inflammation, then just do whatever it takes to avoid that at all costs.
(01:07:30):
And also with respect to the budget keep in mind that bootcamp is part of that budget, right? And we always say you don’t live to rehab, you rehab to live. So that means your life comes first. I had a bootcamp. I had a really fascinating interview with somebody the other day, who is actually actively working a farm at the moment. So, you know, during the interview I heard roosters and what I thought were shaped and things like that. So, so this is somebody with an obviously already very active lifestyle and you’re not going to say, well, I’m not going to work my farm, or I’m not going to feed my children or I’m not going to do the laundry. So, you know, think of that all as part of your activity, budget and act accordingly. So it may be that you that you don’t do the walkabout because you have to milk the cows.
(01:08:31):
I’d rather milk the cows and do the walk about, I dunno about you, but but you know, like just doing the things that feel right, okay. This is a very highly charged condition and we need to stop the insanity and the insanity is the inflammation. And you can even say something like, you know, when I get anxious which, you know, I, I probably don’t come across as being anxious, but, you know, I have, I have times of course, where I, I like to everybody else have these. So I’m like, Oh my God, what am I going to do? And I, I have to stop myself. I talk to myself and say, stop, you can do this. You know, if not you, who else, you know, you’re going to do it and you are all going to do it. We just have to find the right code for you.
(01:09:19):
We have to find the individual di Vinci code for each and every one of you. And that is, that is what we’re looking for. And it’s, I’m looking at each one of you. And no two people are gonna have the same code. So little by little and a lot of what we’re helping you try to do, or trying to help you do is to figure out your own code and, you know, and allowing you just to sort of step out of your own way so that you stop adding fuel to the fire. That’s physically, emotionally, spiritually, intellectually. And you know, I’ll just end with just two little things. One is a lot of the groups, okay. And this is not a criticism in any way, shape or form, but if, if a support group, including ours, if you’re finding something is more irritating to you than soothing, don’t do it.
(01:10:18):
Okay. if you find that a meditation that more irritating to you than soothing, don’t do it. If an exercise is more pain inducing than, than energizing, don’t do it. And that goes for, you know, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, whatever it is, watching CNN or Fox news or MSNBC or whatever it is you do. If it’s something that gets you into this heightened state of stimulation and anxiety that is anti healing. So keep that in mind, go easy on yourselves. As a group, we are moving forward as individuals, there are more, there are some success stories and there’s some challenges though. But like I said, if we can help you feel free to email console the time.
(01:11:15):
So you’re probably not going to hear me. I’m going to put this in the chat. If you want to set up an appointment for a consultation so we can help you consult@covidpt.org consult@covertbg.org. Hope to see you tonight at seven. And I’m going to end with words from the master, have a great day everybody. And thank you, Maryanne. The dog’s got me all discombobulated, have a great day. Enjoy it. Sunday.
(01:13:21):
Love you.