I have been meaning to write a post on all the things that I am grateful for in my life and I find that the beginning of this new year is a good time to do just that. This sense of gratitude was reinforced multifold today morning as I started clearing out some old documents from my home office. As I went through some old documents including bank statements, invoices, school notices, old prescriptions from the years past I came across a folder containing some medical reports and hospital discharge papers.

These were from 2013 from the time when our daughter had been hospitalised in the Intensive Care Unit for about a month with a severe life threatening infection. Her hospitalisation was due to a drug induced reaction which resulted in her battling for her life. She had been on various systemic immunosuppressive medications for the past year or so to keep her extremely severe eczema under control. The new medication had been started just 3 weeks earlier after the necessary precautionary tests but which nonetheless had had a disastrous effect on her immune system. It was the most harrowing time in our lives as she struggled to overcome the infection with the help of antibiotics and other medications. To cut a long story short, she overcame this phase in her life, celebrated her 7th birthday while in the hospital and 2 weeks after her birthday, she was discharged. This year proved to be a turning point in my life even though I did not know it at that time.

As I went through those papers today, those memories came rushing back and my breath got stuck in my chest. Earlier, I would have also been likely to experience a rush of fear, anger, uncertainty, sadness whenever I would think of what our daughter had been through, what all of us had been through. But time had healed many wounds and assuaged many fears.

TODAY……

I felt a sense of………GRATITUDE

I realised that I had finally stopped waiting for her eczema to return for some reason or the other; in other words, I could stop waiting for the “other shoe to drop”; I felt a sense of ……RELIEF

I knew that I had the strength and the tools needed to deal with such difficult situations in the future as well; I was surrounded by a sense of……. BELIEF

I knew that in spite of my best efforts and intentions there would be times that I may fail or make mistakes and that I would forgive myself; I found in myself a sense of……… COMPASSION

As I discarded the papers which I had been holding on to for 5 years, I realised that I was truly ready to move on. That particular phase of our life was behind us now. And while I would never have asked for such an experience had I been given choice, I also realise that it has been a truly TRANSFORMATIVE phase in our lives.

MOSTLY I realised that finally today I was ready to……. LET GO

Our struggles and our learnings during those difficult years have shaped us in many ways which are most precious. As a family, we experienced the love and support of our friends, family and the medical professionals who guided us along this difficult journey. Personally, I was forced far beyond my comfort zone to a place of strength I never knew existed deep inside of me. This strength combined with love propelled me on a journey that I could have never visualised for myself. I had to find ways to nourish and heal our daughter’s body, mind and spirit. I did so by focussing inwards rather than outwards.

(I have written a three part series on self care which you can read using the links given below-

https://aninditarungta.com/take-back-the-power-to-heal-yourself/

https://aninditarungta.com/you-cannot-drink-from-an-empty-cup/

https://aninditarungta.com/getting-to-know-yourself-part-3/)

As I found ways to know myself better through self care, meditation, movement and other modalities, I found ways to help heal our daughter. I found that as I became more grounded, it helped me make better decisions regarding her care and treatment. It also helped me to prioritise and focus on what was truly important instead of getting carried away and becoming distracted all the time. In other words, my own growth as a person helped in our daughter’s healing journey

Embarking on a journey to help our daughter led to me the doors of Functional Medicine and in 2015 we started her on this mode of treatment of finding and addressing the root cause of her eczema. As we supported her body with the nutrients that it needed and removed the obstacles standing in its way, her body started to heal from within. Over a period of 2 years her eczema gradually disappeared and in October 2017 she went off all her medications. She is a living example of how we can truly heal ourselves if we know how and believe in ourselves.

But that is not all. Our daughter’s life is also an example of how one person’s experience can touch and impact so many other lives.

It is because of this experience that I am able to

Share my gifts with you as a Health Coach

Stand by you as you find your way back towards health and healing

Point out to you your strengths which can aid you in your healing journey but which you may be unable to see at this time

Show compassion towards you if you fall off the bandwagon so that you learn to forgive yourself and get back on track as soon as you can

Uphold your belief in your own power to heal as you struggle through your darkest days; to let you know that you are not ALONE 

And so from a place of despair, we can slowly but steadily move to a place of strength and true healing ….TOGETHER

As someone had said, “Sometimes strength comes in knowing you are not alone”

I wish you and your family HEALTH and HAPPINESS in 2019!!