March 14, 2026 • 40 mins
There are only two real responses to suffering:
Push it away.
Or say to it: “yes and thank you”
There is no “right” way to suffer, and in fact, most of us have tried both responses many different times.
But once you discover what’s possible when you soften into suffering, you can’t unsee it.
In today’s episode I’ll share an update on my health and talk about what I’m learning lately about loss, failure, heartbreak and suffering.
I hope this lesson finds its home with you too.
Host: Ally Fallon // @allyfallon // allisonfallon.com
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hi, and welcome to you to Write your Story pipecast.
Good job. Really pick up the pieces of your life,
pull them back together with the word you write. All
the beauty and peace and the magic that you'll start
too fun When you write your story.
Speaker 2 (00:19):
You get the.
Speaker 1 (00:20):
Words and said, don't you think it's down to let
them out and write them down and cover what it's
all about and write you write your story. Write you
write your story.
Speaker 2 (00:36):
Hello and happy March. Welcome back to the Write Your
Story Podcast. My name's Ali Fallon. I'm your host, and
on this week's episode, I have something really exciting that
I want to talk about. This is a concept that
I feel like has been being revealed to me and
has been unfolding in my life. A lesson that's been
unfolding in my life in the last couple of weeks
as I've been facing these health challenges. If you're new
(00:59):
here or if you miss this last week's episode, I
shared just kind of the thirty thousand foot view or
like a Cliff Snodes version of what I've been going
through for the last six or seven months or so.
I've had just like up and down health challenges, and
actually I have a really amazing update to give you
this week too. But the reason that I wanted to
talk about what I want to talk about today, which
(01:20):
is this idea of the two choices that we have
when we face challenges, is because I feel like this
is what's been unfolding for me during this time, as
I face these health challenges, as they come inside of
the context of other challenges that I've been facing. And
I know I'm not alone in this. I know because
I've chatted with so many of you, either on Instagram
or in real life or in my email inbox or elsewhere.
(01:41):
And also like I'm just my eyes are open, I'm
looking around, like what's going on in the world right
now is insane. And since twenty twenty, it feels like
life has gotten more complicated. Maybe part of that is
just because I'm getting older, and life gets complicated as
we get older. Maybe part of it is because of
what's happening on the global stage and the political climate
and the U right now. Maybe part of it is,
(02:02):
you know, pandemic life and post pandemic life and people
trying to get back to normal, whatever normal means, the
new normal, I don't know, some combo of all these
things plus I've had children since the pandemic happened, and
that complicates things. And that also like cracks open your
heart and blows you open from the inside out and
completely changes the way that you see the world. And
so maybe I'm just feeling things more deeply than I
(02:24):
used to. But whatever it is, I know that I'm
not the only one who feels like since twenty twenty,
life has gotten extra nuanced, extra complicated, extra heavy. There's
a gravitas to all of it. We're all just kind
of feeling it. And so what I want to share
this week is what I feel like has been birthing
from this time of great frustration, great despair, great heartbreak.
(02:50):
And I have always been of the mindset that life
is like a classroom, and I feel like this was
really solidified for me during my divorce, you know, several
years ago. It's been ten years now. I went through
a horrific divorce, which I always think is a funny
thing when people say, because it's like, what other kind
of divorce is there? Like, it's horrific kind of no
matter how you swing it. I think other people might
(03:12):
have more like peaceful divorces than what I had, But
no matter how you swing it, it's a heartbreak, you know,
it's an absolute rift. Nobody walks down the aisle and
gets married thinking that this is going to come to
an end. So for me, like for so many people,
it was an absolute shock for my marriage to come
to an end. Even though I was the one who
initiated the end, it was not something that I had
(03:32):
anticipated for myself. It wasn't something that I necessarily wanted.
It was something I needed to do, but not something
I necessarily wanted. And as far as I was concerned,
like this was the end of life as I had
known it, And now I wish I could have seen,
you know, fast forward ten years, because it's like, no,
all the good stuff in your life is coming. But
at the time, I just felt like, Nope, this is
the end of my life as I know it. I
(03:53):
can't possibly imagine another future for myself. And it just
felt like the rug had been pulled up from underneath
of me, and everything that I had cared about or
built had crumbled in a single moment pretty much. And
I remember during that time this idea really solidifying for me.
I just felt so clearly from God or guides or
angels or I don't know who was teaching me during
(04:14):
that time and just holding my hand and walking me
through this period of time of difficulty. I remember feeling
so confidently and so clearly like this is a time
of learning for you. This is your classroom, and this
is a time for you to learn more about who
you are, more about what you're capable of, more about
how the world works, more about who God is, more
(04:36):
about your own faith, your own connection to beings around you,
and to just like unfold into more of who you
really are. And so I've always had that belief, and
during that time it was really solidified, and I've been
reminded of that so many times during this season, because
especially during the health challenges. I was telling your friend
the other day, I feel like all the difficulties that
(04:57):
have happened since twenty twenty, I've definitely had moments of despair,
but I have, for the most part, I feel like,
really handled myself quite well. I've been proud of the
way that I've been able to keep my head above
the water, and i have woken up every day and
done my life. And I'm not like lying drunk in
a ditch somewhere. I mean no disrespect at all, because
you know, addiction is real, and I don't say that
(05:21):
too lightheartedly. But what I mean by that is like
I have felt this sense of pride that I have
been able to navigate these difficult waters and not totally
lose touch with the beauty of life and the gift
that it is to be alive. And I will tell
you in the last handful of weeks since these health
(05:41):
challenges started again at the beginning of February, I have
in many different occasions lost touch with the beauty. I
don't know, actually, now that I'm saying that out loud,
it's not that I've lost touch with the beauty of life.
I think I felt at moments so powerless up against
what I was facing that I just I was genuinely
(06:03):
out of ideas for ways to move forward. And I
don't feel like that very often. Where I'm out of
ideas for ways to move forward. I feel like my ingenuity,
my intelligence, resilience, my stick touitiveness, my sense of personal
power that I can navigate through this like I'm going
(06:24):
to come out better on the other side. That's the
piece that I lost track of during the last couple
of weeks. It felt like whatever illness I was facing
was also affecting my cognition, So it was affecting the
ability for my brain to think about a solution, and
it was affecting my mood. And so like this blanket
(06:45):
of just absolute powerlessness and depression came over me, and
it was a wild flashback to like a much younger
version of myself, before I had faced any of my trauma,
before I had done any kind of emotional work. It
was so unpleasant, and for reasons that still don't totally
make sense to me, it was one of the darkest
(07:09):
times of my life, like one of the top three
worst things that I have ever lived through. And it
wasn't until a few days ago when I got this
piece of really good advice that I felt a lift
and I have been able to come back to myself
in large measure. So anyway, I say all of that
to say that I don't take any of what I'm
(07:29):
about to share lightly. In fact, if you've been around
here a while, you know that I don't come to
these episodes with a script. I don't come with an outline.
I don't come even really with a plan of what
I'm about to say. I usually have a vague idea
of what I want to talk about, and the lessons
that I share are really lessons that I'm teaching myself
or lessons that I don't know some the whatever wherever
(07:50):
inspiration comes from, creative inspiration is teaching me. So whether
that's coming from from God or from source, or from
universe or from guides or I don't know what, these
are lessons that I feel like are being taught and
delivered to me. There are lessons that are unfolding or
birthing during this time in my life. I'm really sitting
here recording this episode teaching me what my life is
(08:11):
here to teach me. And if that lesson resonates with you,
then that just tells me like what I know to
be true, which is that we are also connected and
that we're not as different as we think we are,
and we can have really desperate experiences in life and
still share the same moral of a story. We can
still share the same lesson. So I hope that my
(08:32):
story today resonates with you in some respect. And I
also the other thing I want to say is just
a heartfelt thank you and my utmost gratitude for those
of you. I know there are so many of you,
because many of you reached out to me, who have
been praying for me, who have sent you know, loving
thoughts my way, who are holding space in your meditations
(08:55):
for me, who are sending healing my way. I have
felt the flood of just energy come my way, and
I have felt held during this time, even though it's
been an extremely dark time for me, and this new
piece of news that I learned in the last week
really feels like an absolute miracle, which is something that
(09:15):
I was praying for over and over and over again.
As I was moving through last week. I was just like,
I need a miracle. I need the answer to this
not to be what I think the answer is. And
I got that miracle last week. So I'm extremely grateful
for that, and I'll share that update here in just
a little bit, But first I want to talk about
(09:35):
this idea of the two choices that we have when
we face suffering, because here's another little element of what
has been unfolding for me. I feel like I don't
have one hundred percent answers about my health concerns yet,
but I do have what I feel like is a
big piece of the puzzle. This is the update that
I will share today. I was reflecting on how oftentimes
(09:56):
we don't get to close the story loop that quickly.
Usually when something painful happens, or when we face a heartbreak,
or when everything that we were building falls apart, we
usually don't get to know for months or sometimes years,
what the meaning of all of this was. And this
is true for the business investment that I've talked about
(10:18):
so much on this podcast, that my husband and we
invested in this land development project. The whole thing fell apart.
It was extremely tragic for us. The fall apart really
happened in May of twenty twenty four, but it was
kind of happening for a few months before that. So now,
if I'm counting back, I mean, it's been almost more
(10:39):
than two years, maybe since things really fell apart, and
I still don't feel like I have answers as to
know why this happened, or what it meant, or what
it was here to teach me. There are so many
things that I have learned from the experience, but I
don't feel like I have a clear resolution to that
story yet. And so to get yet a resolution to
(11:01):
the story, or at least a hopeful resolution to the
story as quickly as I have in the past ten
days since I spoke with you last is quite rare.
And it also feels like, in a way, this has
been like a story inside of a story that is
reminding me what the lessons were of the bigger story.
So hopefully that'll make more sense about the time I'm
(11:24):
done telling you everything. But this short arc that I
just lived through, where I just had like a flare
up at the beginning of February, you know, a bunch
of different concerning things happening, went to the er, got
some images done, and then got what is hopefully a
big piece to the puzzle. Figured out that all happened
(11:44):
in the course of four weeks, I mean from beginning
of February to beginning of March. And that's a really
short arc, and it has felt to me a little
bit like a smaller story inside of the bigger story
that is reminding me. First of all, nothing happens, that is,
nothing's wasted like nothing. I'm not going to say nothing
happens by accident, because I do think some things are
(12:06):
kind of random, But every single thing that happens has
something to teach you. So there's like a weight and
a meaningfulness to everything that happens. And so that's one
lesson that I feel like I was reminded of during
this time is it's like, don't forget that your life
is speaking to you. And so no matter what takes place,
(12:27):
no matter how painful it is, no matter how dark
the time seems, just know that this is your life
talking to you and mirroring back to you what it
wants you to see or what it wants you to learn.
And sometimes it can be difficult to look at those things,
but I really do believe that. I believe life is
always speaking to us. And then, like the little lessons
inside of this smaller arc, feel like there are lessons
(12:50):
about the bigger arc. So I'll get into that in
just a minute. So there are a bunch of little
lessons that I feel like this short narrative arc has
taught me that also fit for the bigger narrative arc.
(13:12):
But the one that keeps coming through loud and clear,
over and over and over again is this one. And
this is the theme of today's episode that you have
two choices when you face suffering, and one is to
soften and one is to harden. And I think many
of us, most of us probably have experienced both. We've
(13:33):
experienced the feeling of suffering coming into our space, and
we want nothing to do with the suffering, and so
we harden ourselves against it. We hide, we shrink down,
we contract, we panic, we fear, we freak out, We
push it away. We beg for it to go away.
We beg for this not to be, you know, our
circumstances or our life. And when I think of a
(13:57):
perfect picture of that type of contraction, that type of
hardening against pain, I think of me in the last
four weeks of my life. I am not being too
hard on myself. I'm just reflecting honestly about how and
I'm not even suggesting that, you know. I think my
friends have said to me, like everybody would respond this way,
so like, please don't be too hard on yourself, And
(14:19):
I get that. I think that it's a totally human
thing to do to respond to this feeling like my
body is betraying me. I'm declining so quickly. That was
the feeling, like I'm declining so quickly that if this
is a neurological condition like MS or something else, like
it's going to take me out fast, and I was
just imagining, you know, like losing access to the things
(14:43):
that I love about my life, like being active, being outdoors,
doing yoga, teaching yoga, being with my kids, like I'm
imagining like not being here to watch them grow up.
And I just went to the dark place. I felt like,
this is happening. There's nothing I can do to stop it.
I'm completely powerless in this situation. And I couldn't even
(15:04):
see a glimmer of light or goodness in this in
that set of circumstances, and I just completely contracted against it.
I was actually scrolling Instagram one day because I did
a lot of scrolling Instagram while I wasn't feeling great.
I couldn't be up on my feet very well, so
I was like, you know, just laying in bed, or
even when I was at the hospital, I was laying
there scrolling Instagram for hours. And I watched this video
(15:26):
of Pete Rollins, who's a comedian, and like, I don't
know what you would call him, like a spiritual teacher,
I guess comedian and spiritual teacher who I really like.
So much of what he says resonates with me, and
I was listening to him teach about this idea of
accepting what is, and he was talking about how his
(15:47):
mantra in life is yes, thank you. This is It's
interesting because like this is universal in certain ways, like
you see this across different faiths. And also it made
me think of improv and taking improv less and I
did this a couple of years ago, where I did
like six different levels of improv and had a lot
of fun playing and learning so much about comedy and
(16:09):
improv comedy and all of that. Anyway, one of the
main rules of improv, and you probably don't even need
to take an improv class to know this. You've probably
either read, you know, Amy Poehler's book or just heard
this in the Ethos. But one of the main rules
of improv is yes. And you take a suggestion that
someone gives you and you build on that. You say
yes to the building block, and you add a building block.
(16:31):
And so this idea of yes and thank you, it
felt like it sunk deep right away. It was like,
what would it feel like to say yes and thank
you to this scenario, this situation, What would it feel
like to take something, to take in something that is
not wanted. That is, you know, not comfortable, that is
(16:53):
not asked for, that is the opposite of what you
were hoping for. And to say to it, yes and
thank you, receive this fully. That is what it looks
like to receive something in softness and not to contract
against it. There's that dichotomy there. You have those two choices.
You can either contract against something, push it away, beg
(17:13):
for it to go away, try to find a solution
to the problem, fix fix, fix, push, push push, or
you can go yes, thank you. And from a conventional
wisdom perspective, saying yes and thank you to something that
is unwanted feels almost irresponsible, and especially for those of
us I feel like who have a certain measure of privilege.
This is something I feel like has been revealed to me.
(17:35):
You have a certain level of privilege. You're a person
who has had access and power for most of your life.
You live on one of the most wealthiest one of
the wealthiest countries, or maybe the wealthiest country in the
history of the world, and you have every privilege given
to you. You have education, you have access to people,
you have resources, You have all these things, and it
(17:57):
gives you the illusion that you have control over a
situation like your life that you absolutely do not have
control over, and so when something comes in and interrupts
that illusion, there's this blocking like it's like, no, there's
no freaking way that you can just take my life
from me like that. And I think this really, this
(18:20):
experience really challenged my sense of control, which, by the way,
is what has been happening since twenty twenty. I have
never failed at something the way that Matt and I
failed at this land development project. I assumed we were
going to succeed. I don't know exactly why I assumed it,
because we were in way over our heads from the
very beginning. Many smart people told us that what we
(18:43):
were doing was extremely risky, So that was not unknown
to me. And I don't I'm not playing the victim
here at all, like it was clearly spelled out for me.
But I think I had this almost illusional sense that
no matter what happened, like we were going to be
successful at this and it was going to pay off
for us in the end. And so like what a
valuable lesson that life could teach me to say, you
(19:04):
don't always get to come out on top, Like you
don't always get to be the winner. It's not up
to you, you know these not everything is up to you,
and some things are up to chance, like I have
felt more than ever like some of this is just
a roll of the dice. This is not about being
a good person, or working hard enough, or coming from
(19:25):
a good family or like any of that. Bs like this,
some of this is just literally a roll of the dice.
Like things might fall in your favor or they might not.
And how do I become a person who softens in
the face of uncertainty, who softens in the face of
what is unwanted or unpleasant? How do I become a
person who says to a physical ailment, yes and thank you,
(19:49):
who says to a divorce, yes and thank you. I
will say to you, as someone who's been through a divorce,
which was something that was at the time incredibly unwanted
and unpleasant, saying yes and thank you to my divorce
has birth this new life that I have that is
inexplicably better than the old one. And so can I
use that as a foundation of trust to say that
(20:14):
when you say yes and thank you to the unwonted
and unpleasant, something new is born and that's something new
is always brighter than the old. And you know, again,
I'll reiterate, I don't say this lightly. I don't say
this without understanding the way and the gravity of what
I'm talking about. I also there are also hardships in
(20:34):
life that I have never faced, like losing a child,
for example. I don't know how on earth you would
ever say yes and thank you to losing a child
and have a brighter future birth, but I do know
people who have lost children. In fact, right away, a
client is coming to mind who I've worked with, who's
working on a book about walking his daughter to her death.
And I don't want to give too many details away
(20:55):
because it's his story to tell and we've signed NDAs
and all of that stuff, but I will say, what
an amazing inspiration this man is to saying yes and
thank you, and he has had like hatred coming from
people around him. I can't give too much of the
story away. Again, but like when you think about the
(21:17):
strength and the courage that it took for this man
to say yes and thank you to losing his child
and to give her everything that he had. And it's controversial,
I guess, is My point is that to say yes
and thank you to something negative is controversial in an
environment where we are told you can be anything you
want to be, you can become whoever you want to be.
(21:39):
There is truth to that. I believe you know that
you can use your creative powers to create new realities.
But part of how we create new realities is by
letting go of the old. And so what does it
look like for us to say yes and thank you
as the whole freaking thing burns down? And this lesson
(22:01):
has been coming through for me so loud and clear,
Like you can either soften or harden into this. There's
only two choices. And some things are happening no matter
what you do to try to fix them. And like
what's going on globally, what's going on in the US,
Like there's a nuance here because I don't want to
act like that we shouldn't stand up and fight against
(22:24):
things that are unjust. I absolutely believe that we should
use our voices and raise our voices against what is unjust.
And also there are just certain things that are out
of our control, and so defining which is which and
figuring out where we play a role is tricky. And
yet when we're faced with these hardships, we only have
two choices. We can either soften into them or we
can harden against them. And I believe that the choice
(22:47):
that we make on that subject makes up the outcome
of the new life that we step into. Like that brightness,
that breath of fresh air that came post divorce would
not have come if I hadn't softened to the loss
of the marriage, if I hadn't softened enough to go
yes and thank you, Because this experience is showing me
(23:07):
more of who I am. It's showing me more of myself,
Like it's showing me my darkness, my shadow, my downfall,
my toxic traits, you know, my codependency, my desperate need
for approval, Like it's showing me all the parts of
myself I didn't want to look at. And it's also
showing me more as possible for a romantic relationship than
(23:27):
I had previously been allowing myself to believe. And so
that whole experience just literally rebirthed me. It's like it
made me into someone new, someone who the old me
would hardly even recognize. And if I can remember that,
if I can hold on to that foundation of faith
(23:48):
and trust that was built during that time, then maybe
I can allow this to become something similar. It's like,
can you soften also into this experience? Can you let
go of the illusion that you have control over this,
that you could somehow fix this? And in fact, like
when you think about the details of this, the way
(24:11):
that this all unfolded, which i'll share, I'm about to
share with you. In fact, I'll just share this because
it will help me explain what I'm trying to explain.
So here's what happened. And I reached out to a
bunch of friends for help because as soon as I
could get in to see a neurologist in Nashville was
(24:32):
like June, and I was like, that's just not going
to work. I'm going to need to see someone sooner
than that. I was like, sos, like, does anybody know
a neurologist that you could connect me too? So I
could get in and get an appointment sooner than June.
And sure enough I got in on this past Wednesday
to see the neurologist, and this blessed woman, this neurologist
who I saw in Franklin, Tennessee, was such a gift
(24:55):
to me. She was an absolute miracle and answer to
my prayers. Okay, So I show up to this neurologist
with stacks and stacks and stacks of paperwork. I have
all of my er paperwork, all my imaging, all the
notes from the radiologist, all the notes from the the
er doc. I have blood work from like three different
(25:15):
doctors from an NP who I had seen, from my
general practitioner, from the OB from the fertility clinic. I
have the paperwork from the muld toxicity test that I
had done that I had three different types of toxic
mold come back in my system. I'm like, it's like
one hundred pages worth of material that I bring to
the neurologists. And I'm like showing up with all my questions.
(25:35):
I'm like, here's what I think, here's what's going on,
here's my symptoms. And she just looks at me and says, like,
I've looked through all your paper Well, first of all,
she's like, thank you for bringing all this with you,
which is not the response that I have been getting
from every single medical professional. So I just appreciated that
that was her take on that. She was like, thank you.
Not every you know, patient is this thorough and brings
(25:58):
this much information with them, I can tell you've like
run down every rabbit hole, and I'm like, yeah, that's
you know, nice to meet you. This is my style.
If you if you only knew me, you would know,
like I have been spending one hundred hours per week
just trying to figure out what the heck is going
on with me. I have like run down every possible lead.
(26:20):
I should have been an investigative reporter. I should have
been like a detective or something, because like, my brain
just will not stop until it finds the answer to
this question. And so I bring all this paperwork with
me and she just looks at me and says, you know,
I've looked at your imaging. I don't think you have
a MS. I don't see any red flags on your
(26:40):
imaging for MS. That's just not what I think this
diagnosis is. We went through some of the reasons why.
She said, I did see a flag in your paperwork
that you have toxic levels of vitamin B in your system.
I was like, wait, what, excuse me? What, like, how
did they not see that in the er? But sure enough,
like she shows me the paperwork from the bloodwork that
they did in the er, and I have almost triple
(27:03):
the amount of vitamin B twelve and then over the
amount of vitamin B six that they consider to be
normal or like, the highest level that they want you
to have of B twelve is I don't know what
the exact measurement is, but the number is like one
two hundred and forty five or something like that, and
mine was like almost four thousand, and then B six
the highest number they want you to have is like
one hundred and twenty five. Again, I don't know what
(27:25):
this measurement is, but mine was like one twenty eight,
So just like barely over. But high levels of B
vitamins in your system can cause many of the symptoms
that I was experiencing. The other thing that she noticed
is that in my images from the ER, I do
have a pinch nerve in my cervical spine, which could
be causing the tingling and numbness that was happening in
(27:45):
my arm. So from her vantage point, some of the
symptoms I could be experiencing could have different causes. And
I asked her a lot about the toxic mold too,
and she said, the toxic mold that they found in
your system could one hundred percent also be causing some
of the neurological symptoms, and because of that, she's like,
this could be multifaceted, but she was like, I don't
think this is MS. Her recommendation was to wait three
(28:08):
months and come back and do more imaging to make
sure that the lesions that they found on my brain
hadn't changed or developed in certain ways. But the lesions
are not the right shape, they're not in the right location,
they were not active lesions, they were not lighting up
with contrast from the MRI, And so she said, if
it were MS, she would expect all three of those
(28:28):
things to be different. So all that to say, I
will go back in three months and do more imaging
with her. There is still so much more to learn,
but even just this idea of learning that there was
this toxic amount of BE twelve in my system just
released me from the panic of trying to figure out
what the heck was going on, because it was like,
(28:48):
at least this one thing, I can now I have
some action that I can take where I can stop taking. Essentially,
here's what happened. My prenatal vitamin that I've been taking
for the last three years has are your max amount
of B six and B twelve in it. It has
fifty milligrams. Wait, how does this work? Yeah, fifty milligrams
of B six and two hundred and fifty of B twelve,
(29:10):
so plenty of B vitamins to last you onto eternity.
Like that's it's the B vitamins. And I remember when
I first started taking them. B vitamins give you a
lot of energy. So I remember when I first started
taking these prenatals feeling like who, Like this is like
drinking a cup of coffee in the morning. And because
we've been trying to get pregnant, I've been taking the
max dosage because you can take you can cut the
dosage in half or even in quarters and still be
(29:32):
getting enough of your vitamins. But I've been taking the
full dose, like eight pills a day. So I was
doing that. And then also at the beginning of February,
after my kids got sick, I was about to leave
on a trip and I really wanted to make sure
that I wasn't going to get what they had just had.
So I had this company that's like they're kind of
like an urgent care that will come to your house
and they came out to help the kids, and I
(29:54):
had the nurse practitioner also give me one of their
immunity ivs because I was just like really hope that
whatever was going on with the kids wasn't gonna happen
to me so that we could go on this trip.
So I have her give me the immunity I V
which is like zinc vitamin C. It's you know, saline hydration,
but then also vitamins, so like vitamin C, zinc, I
(30:15):
don't know what else, but then also be B vitamins. I
was not thinking about this at the time that it
was B six and B twelve. So this is like
step one of where I think my symptoms really started,
because then the next day is when I started experiencing
numbness in my feet and chinz So then when the
numbness started happening, I was like, what's going on. I
(30:38):
was googling trying to figure out, you know, why on
Earth would my feet feel so numb. And the first
thing that pops up is vitamin efficiency. So when I
get home from my trip and it still hadn't resolved,
this is like four days in I call the nurse
practitioner back and was like, Hey, you know, I have
this thing going on. I'm not really sure what's going on,
(30:59):
but when I'm googling and it's it talks about vitamin defficiency,
you know, do you think that's a fair idea of
what could be happening? And she was like absolutely, especially
since you're doing hot yoga. You're in the hot yoga
room all the time. Like she's like, you're probably just
losing these vitamins and minerals quicker than you can you know,
replace them. And I remember thinking like it was so
strange because I'm like, I not only take this prenatal vitamin,
(31:22):
but also, you know, I do element packs in my water,
I'm pretty good about hydration. I am in the hot
yoga room a lot, so I'm you know, losing a
lot through sweat. But I was like, oh, I guess
just being older and trying to get pregnant, and you
know they talk about that magnesium gets burned through very
quickly with stress and with high cortisol. So I was like,
I must just be under a lot of stress and
(31:43):
so that must be what's, you know, part of what's
causing this. So then I had her come back and
do another IV, and that second IV is what really
sent the symptoms into high gear. It was like they
just kept getting worse and worse and worse and worse
after that, and I think that must be what skyrocketed
BE vitamins. So again, it doesn't answer every single question
for what's going on with me, but it does check
(32:06):
a lot of the boxes. And when you stop taking
B twelve, it can take a while for the symptoms
to go back to normal, even if your levels go
back to normal, from what I understand, because B vitamins
are water soluble, everybody's body processes them differently, but they
are water soluble, so they will leave your system. But
from what I understand, even when they leave your system,
(32:26):
it can take a minute for symptoms to go back
to normal. So hopefully this is like the primary thing
that's going on with the neurological symptoms. I already have
felt an improvement in like six days of not taking
the B vitamins in my cognition and just my mood.
The anxiety feels lighter, Everything feels lighter. So I'm grateful
(32:49):
for that. I'm grateful for that answer. It's a really
positive answer to the question that it's you know, they
don't think it's MS. It doesn't mean that it couldn't be,
but it's just unlikely to be MS. It could be
some combination of B vitamins and mold and a pinch
nerve in my cervical spine, and you know, Lord knows
what else. So we'll keep running down the answers to
those questions. But in the meantime, one of the things
(33:11):
that became really clear to me was this idea that
the harder I worked to try to solve this problem,
the worse I actually made it. That my fear and
panic about the symptoms in the beginning, my frantic googling,
my calling the doctor back, my getting her back out here,
getting the second immunity, i'd be getting more B vitamins
(33:33):
in my system, all of that actually made my situation
worse instead of making it better. And I want to
be careful here because I don't think that the moral
to the story is, you know, don't fix simple problems
when there's an easy fix. And I don't think that
the moral to the story is like, don't take control
of your own health or do your own research or whatever.
I just think sometimes we're so desperate to fix the
(33:55):
situation because we don't want to be experiencing it that
in our desperate to fix it, we actually are making
it worse. This, to me, translates to so many different scenarios,
like relationship scenarios where I at least have an anxious
attachment style. So when I feel like there's a rift
in a relationship in my life, I have a desperation
(34:16):
to fix it, Like I'm like, I can't go one
more minute without figuring out a solution to this, Like
what can I do? How can I fix this? How
can I make it up to you? How can I repair?
And sometimes what is needed in those situations is just
a breath. It's just a little space, it's just some softness.
It's just a feeling like yes, and thank you. Yes,
(34:37):
and thank you for showing me more of myself. Yes,
and thank you for this experience of being alive. To me,
this whole experience has been an absolute awakening, a mind
blowing awakening around what a gift it is to be alive.
I have been reminded more than ever of how absolutely
fragile we are. Our bodies are so fragile, are mind
(35:00):
are even more fragile. I feel like I lost my mind.
I lost my mind. In the last three weeks, I
lost my body. I was having these physical symptoms that
made me lose control over my physical body. And then
inside of that experience, I absolutely lost control of my mind.
And I think that in again, in our privilege, in
(35:23):
our first world country, in our wealth, in our experience
of having control over our circumstances, that we forget that
we are actually utterly powerless in a beautiful way, Like
there is a story being written through you that you
could not possibly write if you wanted to. There are
(35:44):
multiple elements at play, like, yes, you have agency, you
have power, you have control, you have choice, you have
all these things. You have a brain that you can
use and put to work. And also like you are
just a tiny speck of dust in a universe that is,
you know, whirling through space at insane speeds. The balance
(36:05):
of those two things is tricky, and I'm not saying
that again, Like there are moments when we need to
speak up and use our power and have our agency,
and then there are other moments where you go like, wow,
none of this is up to me, Like you do
not have to fix this, ali fallon, Like you do
not have to shore this up. You do not have
(36:26):
to get your ducks in a row. You do not
have to know the answers to all of these equations.
All you have to do is just be here. And
let me tell you. When I got word from the
neurologist that this was most likely be vitamins, my ability
to be here just clicked into place. I came home
(36:47):
and the kids had been with my mother in law.
She has been an absolute just life saver in terms
of keeping things normal and natural for my kids. So
my kids have not even known that anything crazy is
going on with me. Their life has just gone about
as usual. I came home, she was with the kids.
I went over to get them, and I was like
just in tears because I, for the first time in weeks,
(37:08):
was able to just be totally present with them and
have dinner with them. And we just ordered out dinner
and celebrated and spent time together as a family, and
it was so lovely And I'm grateful that this, in
this circumstance, I got a positive resolution to my story
very quickly. That is not always what happens. I'm still
waiting for a positive resolution to stories. Story loops that
(37:30):
opened for me six years ago. So not every story
resolves that quickly, but it felt like this story inside
of a story was showing me quick little lessons that
were part of the bigger story. It's like, hey, not
everything is in your control. And because not everything is
in your control, like, don't be so hard on yourself
when when stuff doesn't go your way, it doesn't go
(37:52):
the way you wanted it to, it doesn't go the
way you thought it would. Like instead of telling yourself like, oh,
I should have done this, or I should have done that,
or it's all my fault because of X y Z,
maybe it's not. Maybe it's just not. Maybe that was
just how it was always going to go and nothing
that you could have possibly done could have changed it.
And maybe you can relax into that and just say
(38:13):
yes and thank you, yes, and thank you that this
is my life. Yes, And thank you that I get
to be here, yes, And thank you that I get
to feel pain, yes, And thank you that I am,
that I have breath and my lungs, that I'm a
human being, that I get to be here with my kids,
even if it's only for another twenty four hours or
three weeks or three years or whatever. It is like
every moment that we get, every breath that we get,
(38:34):
is a gift. And I think this experience has really
like blown that lesson wide open for me. So I'm
grateful for that. I'm not saying I won't struggle again.
I don't even know if this health saga is over.
I don't know if the B vitamins are the answers
to all the questions. But I feel extremely grateful for
(38:55):
all of you and for your love and support and prayers.
I feel extremely grateful for this life that I get
to live. I feel grateful for the lessons that I
feel like came through like loud and clear, loud and clear.
It's so nice when lessons come through loud and clear.
Because the business investment saga didn't feel that same way.
It has felt like a long, long saga where lessons
did not always come through loud and clear. It just
(39:17):
felt like, you know, the things didn't go my way,
they didn't fall in my favor, and I have no
freaking idea why, and maybe there is no reason why.
Maybe it's just sometimes things don't go your way and
that's just how life is, and we can celebrate that
we get to be here for it and get to
experience all of it. Thank you again for your support
(39:37):
and your love. I really mean it when I say
I have felt all the love that everyone has sent
my way. I have felt all the support, the prayers,
the just all of it. Thank you so much for
the way that you've held me during this time. I
hope that watching this unfold in on an authentic way,
I hope is encouraging for you. I hope you feel
us alone and whatever you're facing, and know that I'm
(39:59):
sending you big cats, you my crops and talk as
we us, you speaking your story past
Hi, and welcome to you to Write your Story pipecast.
Good job. Really pick up the pieces of your life,
pull them back together with the word you write. All
the beauty and peace and the magic that you'll start
too fun When you write your story.
Speaker 2 (00:19):
You get the.
Speaker 1 (00:20):
Words and said, don't you think it's down to let
them out and write them down and cover what it's
all about and write you write your story. Write you
write your story.
Speaker 2 (00:36):
Hello and happy March. Welcome back to the Write Your
Story Podcast. My name's Ali Fallon. I'm your host, and
on this week's episode, I have something really exciting that
I want to talk about. This is a concept that
I feel like has been being revealed to me and
has been unfolding in my life. A lesson that's been
unfolding in my life in the last couple of weeks
as I've been facing these health challenges. If you're new
(00:59):
here or if you miss this last week's episode, I
shared just kind of the thirty thousand foot view or
like a Cliff Snodes version of what I've been going
through for the last six or seven months or so.
I've had just like up and down health challenges, and
actually I have a really amazing update to give you
this week too. But the reason that I wanted to
talk about what I want to talk about today, which
(01:20):
is this idea of the two choices that we have
when we face challenges, is because I feel like this
is what's been unfolding for me during this time, as
I face these health challenges, as they come inside of
the context of other challenges that I've been facing. And
I know I'm not alone in this. I know because
I've chatted with so many of you, either on Instagram
or in real life or in my email inbox or elsewhere.
(01:41):
And also like I'm just my eyes are open, I'm
looking around, like what's going on in the world right
now is insane. And since twenty twenty, it feels like
life has gotten more complicated. Maybe part of that is
just because I'm getting older, and life gets complicated as
we get older. Maybe part of it is because of
what's happening on the global stage and the political climate
and the U right now. Maybe part of it is,
(02:02):
you know, pandemic life and post pandemic life and people
trying to get back to normal, whatever normal means, the
new normal, I don't know, some combo of all these
things plus I've had children since the pandemic happened, and
that complicates things. And that also like cracks open your
heart and blows you open from the inside out and
completely changes the way that you see the world. And
so maybe I'm just feeling things more deeply than I
(02:24):
used to. But whatever it is, I know that I'm
not the only one who feels like since twenty twenty,
life has gotten extra nuanced, extra complicated, extra heavy. There's
a gravitas to all of it. We're all just kind
of feeling it. And so what I want to share
this week is what I feel like has been birthing
from this time of great frustration, great despair, great heartbreak.
(02:50):
And I have always been of the mindset that life
is like a classroom, and I feel like this was
really solidified for me during my divorce, you know, several
years ago. It's been ten years now. I went through
a horrific divorce, which I always think is a funny
thing when people say, because it's like, what other kind
of divorce is there? Like, it's horrific kind of no
matter how you swing it. I think other people might
(03:12):
have more like peaceful divorces than what I had, But
no matter how you swing it, it's a heartbreak, you know,
it's an absolute rift. Nobody walks down the aisle and
gets married thinking that this is going to come to
an end. So for me, like for so many people,
it was an absolute shock for my marriage to come
to an end. Even though I was the one who
initiated the end, it was not something that I had
(03:32):
anticipated for myself. It wasn't something that I necessarily wanted.
It was something I needed to do, but not something
I necessarily wanted. And as far as I was concerned,
like this was the end of life as I had
known it, And now I wish I could have seen,
you know, fast forward ten years, because it's like, no,
all the good stuff in your life is coming. But
at the time, I just felt like, Nope, this is
the end of my life as I know it. I
(03:53):
can't possibly imagine another future for myself. And it just
felt like the rug had been pulled up from underneath
of me, and everything that I had cared about or
built had crumbled in a single moment pretty much. And
I remember during that time this idea really solidifying for me.
I just felt so clearly from God or guides or
angels or I don't know who was teaching me during
(04:14):
that time and just holding my hand and walking me
through this period of time of difficulty. I remember feeling
so confidently and so clearly like this is a time
of learning for you. This is your classroom, and this
is a time for you to learn more about who
you are, more about what you're capable of, more about
how the world works, more about who God is, more
(04:36):
about your own faith, your own connection to beings around you,
and to just like unfold into more of who you
really are. And so I've always had that belief, and
during that time it was really solidified, and I've been
reminded of that so many times during this season, because
especially during the health challenges. I was telling your friend
the other day, I feel like all the difficulties that
(04:57):
have happened since twenty twenty, I've definitely had moments of despair,
but I have, for the most part, I feel like,
really handled myself quite well. I've been proud of the
way that I've been able to keep my head above
the water, and i have woken up every day and
done my life. And I'm not like lying drunk in
a ditch somewhere. I mean no disrespect at all, because
you know, addiction is real, and I don't say that
(05:21):
too lightheartedly. But what I mean by that is like
I have felt this sense of pride that I have
been able to navigate these difficult waters and not totally
lose touch with the beauty of life and the gift
that it is to be alive. And I will tell
you in the last handful of weeks since these health
(05:41):
challenges started again at the beginning of February, I have
in many different occasions lost touch with the beauty. I
don't know, actually, now that I'm saying that out loud,
it's not that I've lost touch with the beauty of life.
I think I felt at moments so powerless up against
what I was facing that I just I was genuinely
(06:03):
out of ideas for ways to move forward. And I
don't feel like that very often. Where I'm out of
ideas for ways to move forward. I feel like my ingenuity,
my intelligence, resilience, my stick touitiveness, my sense of personal
power that I can navigate through this like I'm going
(06:24):
to come out better on the other side. That's the
piece that I lost track of during the last couple
of weeks. It felt like whatever illness I was facing
was also affecting my cognition, So it was affecting the
ability for my brain to think about a solution, and
it was affecting my mood. And so like this blanket
(06:45):
of just absolute powerlessness and depression came over me, and
it was a wild flashback to like a much younger
version of myself, before I had faced any of my trauma,
before I had done any kind of emotional work. It
was so unpleasant, and for reasons that still don't totally
make sense to me, it was one of the darkest
(07:09):
times of my life, like one of the top three
worst things that I have ever lived through. And it
wasn't until a few days ago when I got this
piece of really good advice that I felt a lift
and I have been able to come back to myself
in large measure. So anyway, I say all of that
to say that I don't take any of what I'm
(07:29):
about to share lightly. In fact, if you've been around
here a while, you know that I don't come to
these episodes with a script. I don't come with an outline.
I don't come even really with a plan of what
I'm about to say. I usually have a vague idea
of what I want to talk about, and the lessons
that I share are really lessons that I'm teaching myself
or lessons that I don't know some the whatever wherever
(07:50):
inspiration comes from, creative inspiration is teaching me. So whether
that's coming from from God or from source, or from
universe or from guides or I don't know what, these
are lessons that I feel like are being taught and
delivered to me. There are lessons that are unfolding or
birthing during this time in my life. I'm really sitting
here recording this episode teaching me what my life is
(08:11):
here to teach me. And if that lesson resonates with you,
then that just tells me like what I know to
be true, which is that we are also connected and
that we're not as different as we think we are,
and we can have really desperate experiences in life and
still share the same moral of a story. We can
still share the same lesson. So I hope that my
(08:32):
story today resonates with you in some respect. And I
also the other thing I want to say is just
a heartfelt thank you and my utmost gratitude for those
of you. I know there are so many of you,
because many of you reached out to me, who have
been praying for me, who have sent you know, loving
thoughts my way, who are holding space in your meditations
(08:55):
for me, who are sending healing my way. I have
felt the flood of just energy come my way, and
I have felt held during this time, even though it's
been an extremely dark time for me, and this new
piece of news that I learned in the last week
really feels like an absolute miracle, which is something that
(09:15):
I was praying for over and over and over again.
As I was moving through last week. I was just like,
I need a miracle. I need the answer to this
not to be what I think the answer is. And
I got that miracle last week. So I'm extremely grateful
for that, and I'll share that update here in just
a little bit, But first I want to talk about
(09:35):
this idea of the two choices that we have when
we face suffering, because here's another little element of what
has been unfolding for me. I feel like I don't
have one hundred percent answers about my health concerns yet,
but I do have what I feel like is a
big piece of the puzzle. This is the update that
I will share today. I was reflecting on how oftentimes
(09:56):
we don't get to close the story loop that quickly.
Usually when something painful happens, or when we face a heartbreak,
or when everything that we were building falls apart, we
usually don't get to know for months or sometimes years,
what the meaning of all of this was. And this
is true for the business investment that I've talked about
(10:18):
so much on this podcast, that my husband and we
invested in this land development project. The whole thing fell apart.
It was extremely tragic for us. The fall apart really
happened in May of twenty twenty four, but it was
kind of happening for a few months before that. So now,
if I'm counting back, I mean, it's been almost more
(10:39):
than two years, maybe since things really fell apart, and
I still don't feel like I have answers as to
know why this happened, or what it meant, or what
it was here to teach me. There are so many
things that I have learned from the experience, but I
don't feel like I have a clear resolution to that
story yet. And so to get yet a resolution to
(11:01):
the story, or at least a hopeful resolution to the
story as quickly as I have in the past ten
days since I spoke with you last is quite rare.
And it also feels like, in a way, this has
been like a story inside of a story that is
reminding me what the lessons were of the bigger story.
So hopefully that'll make more sense about the time I'm
(11:24):
done telling you everything. But this short arc that I
just lived through, where I just had like a flare
up at the beginning of February, you know, a bunch
of different concerning things happening, went to the er, got
some images done, and then got what is hopefully a
big piece to the puzzle. Figured out that all happened
(11:44):
in the course of four weeks, I mean from beginning
of February to beginning of March. And that's a really
short arc, and it has felt to me a little
bit like a smaller story inside of the bigger story
that is reminding me. First of all, nothing happens, that is,
nothing's wasted like nothing. I'm not going to say nothing
happens by accident, because I do think some things are
(12:06):
kind of random, But every single thing that happens has
something to teach you. So there's like a weight and
a meaningfulness to everything that happens. And so that's one
lesson that I feel like I was reminded of during
this time is it's like, don't forget that your life
is speaking to you. And so no matter what takes place,
(12:27):
no matter how painful it is, no matter how dark
the time seems, just know that this is your life
talking to you and mirroring back to you what it
wants you to see or what it wants you to learn.
And sometimes it can be difficult to look at those things,
but I really do believe that. I believe life is
always speaking to us. And then, like the little lessons
inside of this smaller arc, feel like there are lessons
(12:50):
about the bigger arc. So I'll get into that in
just a minute. So there are a bunch of little
lessons that I feel like this short narrative arc has
taught me that also fit for the bigger narrative arc.
(13:12):
But the one that keeps coming through loud and clear,
over and over and over again is this one. And
this is the theme of today's episode that you have
two choices when you face suffering, and one is to
soften and one is to harden. And I think many
of us, most of us probably have experienced both. We've
(13:33):
experienced the feeling of suffering coming into our space, and
we want nothing to do with the suffering, and so
we harden ourselves against it. We hide, we shrink down,
we contract, we panic, we fear, we freak out, We
push it away. We beg for it to go away.
We beg for this not to be, you know, our
circumstances or our life. And when I think of a
(13:57):
perfect picture of that type of contraction, that type of
hardening against pain, I think of me in the last
four weeks of my life. I am not being too
hard on myself. I'm just reflecting honestly about how and
I'm not even suggesting that, you know. I think my
friends have said to me, like everybody would respond this way,
so like, please don't be too hard on yourself, And
(14:19):
I get that. I think that it's a totally human
thing to do to respond to this feeling like my
body is betraying me. I'm declining so quickly. That was
the feeling, like I'm declining so quickly that if this
is a neurological condition like MS or something else, like
it's going to take me out fast, and I was
just imagining, you know, like losing access to the things
(14:43):
that I love about my life, like being active, being outdoors,
doing yoga, teaching yoga, being with my kids, like I'm
imagining like not being here to watch them grow up.
And I just went to the dark place. I felt like,
this is happening. There's nothing I can do to stop it.
I'm completely powerless in this situation. And I couldn't even
(15:04):
see a glimmer of light or goodness in this in
that set of circumstances, and I just completely contracted against it.
I was actually scrolling Instagram one day because I did
a lot of scrolling Instagram while I wasn't feeling great.
I couldn't be up on my feet very well, so
I was like, you know, just laying in bed, or
even when I was at the hospital, I was laying
there scrolling Instagram for hours. And I watched this video
(15:26):
of Pete Rollins, who's a comedian, and like, I don't
know what you would call him, like a spiritual teacher,
I guess comedian and spiritual teacher who I really like.
So much of what he says resonates with me, and
I was listening to him teach about this idea of
accepting what is, and he was talking about how his
(15:47):
mantra in life is yes, thank you. This is It's
interesting because like this is universal in certain ways, like
you see this across different faiths. And also it made
me think of improv and taking improv less and I
did this a couple of years ago, where I did
like six different levels of improv and had a lot
of fun playing and learning so much about comedy and
(16:09):
improv comedy and all of that. Anyway, one of the
main rules of improv, and you probably don't even need
to take an improv class to know this. You've probably
either read, you know, Amy Poehler's book or just heard
this in the Ethos. But one of the main rules
of improv is yes. And you take a suggestion that
someone gives you and you build on that. You say
yes to the building block, and you add a building block.
(16:31):
And so this idea of yes and thank you, it
felt like it sunk deep right away. It was like,
what would it feel like to say yes and thank
you to this scenario, this situation, What would it feel
like to take something, to take in something that is
not wanted. That is, you know, not comfortable, that is
(16:53):
not asked for, that is the opposite of what you
were hoping for. And to say to it, yes and
thank you, receive this fully. That is what it looks
like to receive something in softness and not to contract
against it. There's that dichotomy there. You have those two choices.
You can either contract against something, push it away, beg
(17:13):
for it to go away, try to find a solution
to the problem, fix fix, fix, push, push push, or
you can go yes, thank you. And from a conventional
wisdom perspective, saying yes and thank you to something that
is unwanted feels almost irresponsible, and especially for those of
us I feel like who have a certain measure of privilege.
This is something I feel like has been revealed to me.
(17:35):
You have a certain level of privilege. You're a person
who has had access and power for most of your life.
You live on one of the most wealthiest one of
the wealthiest countries, or maybe the wealthiest country in the
history of the world, and you have every privilege given
to you. You have education, you have access to people,
you have resources, You have all these things, and it
(17:57):
gives you the illusion that you have control over a
situation like your life that you absolutely do not have
control over, and so when something comes in and interrupts
that illusion, there's this blocking like it's like, no, there's
no freaking way that you can just take my life
from me like that. And I think this really, this
(18:20):
experience really challenged my sense of control, which, by the way,
is what has been happening since twenty twenty. I have
never failed at something the way that Matt and I
failed at this land development project. I assumed we were
going to succeed. I don't know exactly why I assumed it,
because we were in way over our heads from the
very beginning. Many smart people told us that what we
(18:43):
were doing was extremely risky, So that was not unknown
to me. And I don't I'm not playing the victim
here at all, like it was clearly spelled out for me.
But I think I had this almost illusional sense that
no matter what happened, like we were going to be
successful at this and it was going to pay off
for us in the end. And so like what a
valuable lesson that life could teach me to say, you
(19:04):
don't always get to come out on top, Like you
don't always get to be the winner. It's not up
to you, you know these not everything is up to you,
and some things are up to chance, like I have
felt more than ever like some of this is just
a roll of the dice. This is not about being
a good person, or working hard enough, or coming from
(19:25):
a good family or like any of that. Bs like this,
some of this is just literally a roll of the dice.
Like things might fall in your favor or they might not.
And how do I become a person who softens in
the face of uncertainty, who softens in the face of
what is unwanted or unpleasant? How do I become a
person who says to a physical ailment, yes and thank you,
(19:49):
who says to a divorce, yes and thank you. I
will say to you, as someone who's been through a divorce,
which was something that was at the time incredibly unwanted
and unpleasant, saying yes and thank you to my divorce
has birth this new life that I have that is
inexplicably better than the old one. And so can I
use that as a foundation of trust to say that
(20:14):
when you say yes and thank you to the unwonted
and unpleasant, something new is born and that's something new
is always brighter than the old. And you know, again,
I'll reiterate, I don't say this lightly. I don't say
this without understanding the way and the gravity of what
I'm talking about. I also there are also hardships in
(20:34):
life that I have never faced, like losing a child,
for example. I don't know how on earth you would
ever say yes and thank you to losing a child
and have a brighter future birth, but I do know
people who have lost children. In fact, right away, a
client is coming to mind who I've worked with, who's
working on a book about walking his daughter to her death.
And I don't want to give too many details away
(20:55):
because it's his story to tell and we've signed NDAs
and all of that stuff, but I will say, what
an amazing inspiration this man is to saying yes and
thank you, and he has had like hatred coming from
people around him. I can't give too much of the
story away. Again, but like when you think about the
(21:17):
strength and the courage that it took for this man
to say yes and thank you to losing his child
and to give her everything that he had. And it's controversial,
I guess, is My point is that to say yes
and thank you to something negative is controversial in an
environment where we are told you can be anything you
want to be, you can become whoever you want to be.
(21:39):
There is truth to that. I believe you know that
you can use your creative powers to create new realities.
But part of how we create new realities is by
letting go of the old. And so what does it
look like for us to say yes and thank you
as the whole freaking thing burns down? And this lesson
(22:01):
has been coming through for me so loud and clear,
Like you can either soften or harden into this. There's
only two choices. And some things are happening no matter
what you do to try to fix them. And like
what's going on globally, what's going on in the US,
Like there's a nuance here because I don't want to
act like that we shouldn't stand up and fight against
(22:24):
things that are unjust. I absolutely believe that we should
use our voices and raise our voices against what is unjust.
And also there are just certain things that are out
of our control, and so defining which is which and
figuring out where we play a role is tricky. And
yet when we're faced with these hardships, we only have
two choices. We can either soften into them or we
can harden against them. And I believe that the choice
(22:47):
that we make on that subject makes up the outcome
of the new life that we step into. Like that brightness,
that breath of fresh air that came post divorce would
not have come if I hadn't softened to the loss
of the marriage, if I hadn't softened enough to go
yes and thank you, Because this experience is showing me
(23:07):
more of who I am. It's showing me more of myself,
Like it's showing me my darkness, my shadow, my downfall,
my toxic traits, you know, my codependency, my desperate need
for approval, Like it's showing me all the parts of
myself I didn't want to look at. And it's also
showing me more as possible for a romantic relationship than
(23:27):
I had previously been allowing myself to believe. And so
that whole experience just literally rebirthed me. It's like it
made me into someone new, someone who the old me
would hardly even recognize. And if I can remember that,
if I can hold on to that foundation of faith
(23:48):
and trust that was built during that time, then maybe
I can allow this to become something similar. It's like,
can you soften also into this experience? Can you let
go of the illusion that you have control over this,
that you could somehow fix this? And in fact, like
when you think about the details of this, the way
(24:11):
that this all unfolded, which i'll share, I'm about to
share with you. In fact, I'll just share this because
it will help me explain what I'm trying to explain.
So here's what happened. And I reached out to a
bunch of friends for help because as soon as I
could get in to see a neurologist in Nashville was
(24:32):
like June, and I was like, that's just not going
to work. I'm going to need to see someone sooner
than that. I was like, sos, like, does anybody know
a neurologist that you could connect me too? So I
could get in and get an appointment sooner than June.
And sure enough I got in on this past Wednesday
to see the neurologist, and this blessed woman, this neurologist
who I saw in Franklin, Tennessee, was such a gift
(24:55):
to me. She was an absolute miracle and answer to
my prayers. Okay, So I show up to this neurologist
with stacks and stacks and stacks of paperwork. I have
all of my er paperwork, all my imaging, all the
notes from the radiologist, all the notes from the the
er doc. I have blood work from like three different
(25:15):
doctors from an NP who I had seen, from my
general practitioner, from the OB from the fertility clinic. I
have the paperwork from the muld toxicity test that I
had done that I had three different types of toxic
mold come back in my system. I'm like, it's like
one hundred pages worth of material that I bring to
the neurologists. And I'm like showing up with all my questions.
(25:35):
I'm like, here's what I think, here's what's going on,
here's my symptoms. And she just looks at me and says, like,
I've looked through all your paper Well, first of all,
she's like, thank you for bringing all this with you,
which is not the response that I have been getting
from every single medical professional. So I just appreciated that
that was her take on that. She was like, thank you.
Not every you know, patient is this thorough and brings
(25:58):
this much information with them, I can tell you've like
run down every rabbit hole, and I'm like, yeah, that's
you know, nice to meet you. This is my style.
If you if you only knew me, you would know,
like I have been spending one hundred hours per week
just trying to figure out what the heck is going
on with me. I have like run down every possible lead.
(26:20):
I should have been an investigative reporter. I should have
been like a detective or something, because like, my brain
just will not stop until it finds the answer to
this question. And so I bring all this paperwork with
me and she just looks at me and says, you know,
I've looked at your imaging. I don't think you have
a MS. I don't see any red flags on your
(26:40):
imaging for MS. That's just not what I think this
diagnosis is. We went through some of the reasons why.
She said, I did see a flag in your paperwork
that you have toxic levels of vitamin B in your system.
I was like, wait, what, excuse me? What, like, how
did they not see that in the er? But sure enough,
like she shows me the paperwork from the bloodwork that
they did in the er, and I have almost triple
(27:03):
the amount of vitamin B twelve and then over the
amount of vitamin B six that they consider to be
normal or like, the highest level that they want you
to have of B twelve is I don't know what
the exact measurement is, but the number is like one
two hundred and forty five or something like that, and
mine was like almost four thousand, and then B six
the highest number they want you to have is like
one hundred and twenty five. Again, I don't know what
(27:25):
this measurement is, but mine was like one twenty eight,
So just like barely over. But high levels of B
vitamins in your system can cause many of the symptoms
that I was experiencing. The other thing that she noticed
is that in my images from the ER, I do
have a pinch nerve in my cervical spine, which could
be causing the tingling and numbness that was happening in
(27:45):
my arm. So from her vantage point, some of the
symptoms I could be experiencing could have different causes. And
I asked her a lot about the toxic mold too,
and she said, the toxic mold that they found in
your system could one hundred percent also be causing some
of the neurological symptoms, and because of that, she's like,
this could be multifaceted, but she was like, I don't
think this is MS. Her recommendation was to wait three
(28:08):
months and come back and do more imaging to make
sure that the lesions that they found on my brain
hadn't changed or developed in certain ways. But the lesions
are not the right shape, they're not in the right location,
they were not active lesions, they were not lighting up
with contrast from the MRI, And so she said, if
it were MS, she would expect all three of those
(28:28):
things to be different. So all that to say, I
will go back in three months and do more imaging
with her. There is still so much more to learn,
but even just this idea of learning that there was
this toxic amount of BE twelve in my system just
released me from the panic of trying to figure out
what the heck was going on, because it was like,
(28:48):
at least this one thing, I can now I have
some action that I can take where I can stop taking. Essentially,
here's what happened. My prenatal vitamin that I've been taking
for the last three years has are your max amount
of B six and B twelve in it. It has
fifty milligrams. Wait, how does this work? Yeah, fifty milligrams
of B six and two hundred and fifty of B twelve,
(29:10):
so plenty of B vitamins to last you onto eternity.
Like that's it's the B vitamins. And I remember when
I first started taking them. B vitamins give you a
lot of energy. So I remember when I first started
taking these prenatals feeling like who, Like this is like
drinking a cup of coffee in the morning. And because
we've been trying to get pregnant, I've been taking the
max dosage because you can take you can cut the
dosage in half or even in quarters and still be
(29:32):
getting enough of your vitamins. But I've been taking the
full dose, like eight pills a day. So I was
doing that. And then also at the beginning of February,
after my kids got sick, I was about to leave
on a trip and I really wanted to make sure
that I wasn't going to get what they had just had.
So I had this company that's like they're kind of
like an urgent care that will come to your house
and they came out to help the kids, and I
(29:54):
had the nurse practitioner also give me one of their
immunity ivs because I was just like really hope that
whatever was going on with the kids wasn't gonna happen
to me so that we could go on this trip.
So I have her give me the immunity I V
which is like zinc vitamin C. It's you know, saline hydration,
but then also vitamins, so like vitamin C, zinc, I
(30:15):
don't know what else, but then also be B vitamins. I
was not thinking about this at the time that it
was B six and B twelve. So this is like
step one of where I think my symptoms really started,
because then the next day is when I started experiencing
numbness in my feet and chinz So then when the
numbness started happening, I was like, what's going on. I
(30:38):
was googling trying to figure out, you know, why on
Earth would my feet feel so numb. And the first
thing that pops up is vitamin efficiency. So when I
get home from my trip and it still hadn't resolved,
this is like four days in I call the nurse
practitioner back and was like, Hey, you know, I have
this thing going on. I'm not really sure what's going on,
(30:59):
but when I'm googling and it's it talks about vitamin defficiency,
you know, do you think that's a fair idea of
what could be happening? And she was like absolutely, especially
since you're doing hot yoga. You're in the hot yoga
room all the time. Like she's like, you're probably just
losing these vitamins and minerals quicker than you can you know,
replace them. And I remember thinking like it was so
strange because I'm like, I not only take this prenatal vitamin,
(31:22):
but also, you know, I do element packs in my water,
I'm pretty good about hydration. I am in the hot
yoga room a lot, so I'm you know, losing a
lot through sweat. But I was like, oh, I guess
just being older and trying to get pregnant, and you
know they talk about that magnesium gets burned through very
quickly with stress and with high cortisol. So I was like,
I must just be under a lot of stress and
(31:43):
so that must be what's, you know, part of what's
causing this. So then I had her come back and
do another IV, and that second IV is what really
sent the symptoms into high gear. It was like they
just kept getting worse and worse and worse and worse
after that, and I think that must be what skyrocketed
BE vitamins. So again, it doesn't answer every single question
for what's going on with me, but it does check
(32:06):
a lot of the boxes. And when you stop taking
B twelve, it can take a while for the symptoms
to go back to normal, even if your levels go
back to normal, from what I understand, because B vitamins
are water soluble, everybody's body processes them differently, but they
are water soluble, so they will leave your system. But
from what I understand, even when they leave your system,
(32:26):
it can take a minute for symptoms to go back
to normal. So hopefully this is like the primary thing
that's going on with the neurological symptoms. I already have
felt an improvement in like six days of not taking
the B vitamins in my cognition and just my mood.
The anxiety feels lighter, Everything feels lighter. So I'm grateful
(32:49):
for that. I'm grateful for that answer. It's a really
positive answer to the question that it's you know, they
don't think it's MS. It doesn't mean that it couldn't be,
but it's just unlikely to be MS. It could be
some combination of B vitamins and mold and a pinch
nerve in my cervical spine, and you know, Lord knows
what else. So we'll keep running down the answers to
those questions. But in the meantime, one of the things
(33:11):
that became really clear to me was this idea that
the harder I worked to try to solve this problem,
the worse I actually made it. That my fear and
panic about the symptoms in the beginning, my frantic googling,
my calling the doctor back, my getting her back out here,
getting the second immunity, i'd be getting more B vitamins
(33:33):
in my system, all of that actually made my situation
worse instead of making it better. And I want to
be careful here because I don't think that the moral
to the story is, you know, don't fix simple problems
when there's an easy fix. And I don't think that
the moral to the story is like, don't take control
of your own health or do your own research or whatever.
I just think sometimes we're so desperate to fix the
(33:55):
situation because we don't want to be experiencing it that
in our desperate to fix it, we actually are making
it worse. This, to me, translates to so many different scenarios,
like relationship scenarios where I at least have an anxious
attachment style. So when I feel like there's a rift
in a relationship in my life, I have a desperation
(34:16):
to fix it, Like I'm like, I can't go one
more minute without figuring out a solution to this, Like
what can I do? How can I fix this? How
can I make it up to you? How can I repair?
And sometimes what is needed in those situations is just
a breath. It's just a little space, it's just some softness.
It's just a feeling like yes, and thank you. Yes,
(34:37):
and thank you for showing me more of myself. Yes,
and thank you for this experience of being alive. To me,
this whole experience has been an absolute awakening, a mind
blowing awakening around what a gift it is to be alive.
I have been reminded more than ever of how absolutely
fragile we are. Our bodies are so fragile, are mind
(35:00):
are even more fragile. I feel like I lost my mind.
I lost my mind. In the last three weeks, I
lost my body. I was having these physical symptoms that
made me lose control over my physical body. And then
inside of that experience, I absolutely lost control of my mind.
And I think that in again, in our privilege, in
(35:23):
our first world country, in our wealth, in our experience
of having control over our circumstances, that we forget that
we are actually utterly powerless in a beautiful way, Like
there is a story being written through you that you
could not possibly write if you wanted to. There are
(35:44):
multiple elements at play, like, yes, you have agency, you
have power, you have control, you have choice, you have
all these things. You have a brain that you can
use and put to work. And also like you are
just a tiny speck of dust in a universe that is,
you know, whirling through space at insane speeds. The balance
(36:05):
of those two things is tricky, and I'm not saying
that again, Like there are moments when we need to
speak up and use our power and have our agency,
and then there are other moments where you go like, wow,
none of this is up to me, Like you do
not have to fix this, ali fallon, Like you do
not have to shore this up. You do not have
(36:26):
to get your ducks in a row. You do not
have to know the answers to all of these equations.
All you have to do is just be here. And
let me tell you. When I got word from the
neurologist that this was most likely be vitamins, my ability
to be here just clicked into place. I came home
(36:47):
and the kids had been with my mother in law.
She has been an absolute just life saver in terms
of keeping things normal and natural for my kids. So
my kids have not even known that anything crazy is
going on with me. Their life has just gone about
as usual. I came home, she was with the kids.
I went over to get them, and I was like
just in tears because I, for the first time in weeks,
(37:08):
was able to just be totally present with them and
have dinner with them. And we just ordered out dinner
and celebrated and spent time together as a family, and
it was so lovely And I'm grateful that this, in
this circumstance, I got a positive resolution to my story
very quickly. That is not always what happens. I'm still
waiting for a positive resolution to stories. Story loops that
(37:30):
opened for me six years ago. So not every story
resolves that quickly, but it felt like this story inside
of a story was showing me quick little lessons that
were part of the bigger story. It's like, hey, not
everything is in your control. And because not everything is
in your control, like, don't be so hard on yourself
when when stuff doesn't go your way, it doesn't go
(37:52):
the way you wanted it to, it doesn't go the
way you thought it would. Like instead of telling yourself like, oh,
I should have done this, or I should have done that,
or it's all my fault because of X y Z,
maybe it's not. Maybe it's just not. Maybe that was
just how it was always going to go and nothing
that you could have possibly done could have changed it.
And maybe you can relax into that and just say
(38:13):
yes and thank you, yes, and thank you that this
is my life. Yes, And thank you that I get
to be here, yes, And thank you that I get
to feel pain, yes, And thank you that I am,
that I have breath and my lungs, that I'm a
human being, that I get to be here with my kids,
even if it's only for another twenty four hours or
three weeks or three years or whatever. It is like
every moment that we get, every breath that we get,
(38:34):
is a gift. And I think this experience has really
like blown that lesson wide open for me. So I'm
grateful for that. I'm not saying I won't struggle again.
I don't even know if this health saga is over.
I don't know if the B vitamins are the answers
to all the questions. But I feel extremely grateful for
(38:55):
all of you and for your love and support and prayers.
I feel extremely grateful for this life that I get
to live. I feel grateful for the lessons that I
feel like came through like loud and clear, loud and clear.
It's so nice when lessons come through loud and clear.
Because the business investment saga didn't feel that same way.
It has felt like a long, long saga where lessons
did not always come through loud and clear. It just
(39:17):
felt like, you know, the things didn't go my way,
they didn't fall in my favor, and I have no
freaking idea why, and maybe there is no reason why.
Maybe it's just sometimes things don't go your way and
that's just how life is, and we can celebrate that
we get to be here for it and get to
experience all of it. Thank you again for your support
(39:37):
and your love. I really mean it when I say
I have felt all the love that everyone has sent
my way. I have felt all the support, the prayers,
the just all of it. Thank you so much for
the way that you've held me during this time. I
hope that watching this unfold in on an authentic way,
I hope is encouraging for you. I hope you feel
us alone and whatever you're facing, and know that I'm
(39:59):
sending you big cats, you my crops and talk as
we us, you speaking your story past
Feeling Things with Amy & Kat News
Host
Amy Brown
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