Financial Pain In The Neck

One of the things that I’ve struggled with over the years is finances.  Even when I’ve had money in my bank account, I get nervous about tomorrow.  I get nervous if it will be there.  I get the feeling that it will all be gone and there will be no more and I’ll be hungry and homeless. 

While all of those fears may be irrational and they don’t happen, they almost did at one time in my life.  That’s a part of my past, I’ll withhold from more detail because it is a dark part that I wish would have never happened. 

Then there is the part that when I was growing up, food was scarce.  I remember the free school lunches that sometimes were the main meal for my day.  I remember the government handouts of dried powder milk, dried eggs, and peanut butter.  No, they didn’t taste good but hunger outranked taste.

We went to bed hungry many times.  We shivered in the cold rural farm houses we lived.  Our boots that we trudged through the cold frozen snowy ground had holes in them.  Our mittens were thin.  Probably at one time, I could have packed all the clothes I had in one suitcase.  So some of the fears are real, even if they are from the past.

Abundance and financial security...

Abundance and financial security are concepts I still struggle with no matter what I do.  I’ve made progress, but then I got hit front and center with this latest trigger that messed with my head.

As I finally got up the courage to check my bank account and pay bills that I knew were coming due, the anxiety was so high.  In fact, I almost had an anxiety attack just getting myself to do the regular financial routine.  I wasn’t able to do too much because it was just overwhelming, so I did what I could and closed things down.  I didn’t think any more of it – until I went to bed.

My neck began to hurt...

Laying my head on my pillow and drifting off to sleep or trying to sleep, my neck began to hurt.  Now, as I’ve went through tremendous healing, there is one part of me that I still struggle with and that is my neck.  Often I have a lot of neck pain and if it isn’t every day, then it occurs frequently in the week depending on my physical activity.  At times, it is better.  At other times, it is worse.

Dr. Canali has a difficult time working with my neck and trying to get it and my shoulders to release.  Even if he distracts me, the minute he gets close to touching my neck, my entire body freezes on the treatment table.  At times, he has been able to work with it, but most of the time, it is hands off or I freeze approach.

So, as I was laying in bed, my neck began to hurt.  Often I can breathe a little and work on some relaxation and it will go away.  Tonight, nothing worked for me!  A few hours earlier, I struggled through the anxiety of the finances, but had not even considered the connection at this point.

The pain was escalating... 

Finally after I was not able to get the pain and tension to reduce, I ended up getting up out of bed.  The pain was escalating and the headache was increasing.  My neck muscle area felt cold and lifeless.  Yet, I could feel the intensity of the pain in a way I had never felt before.  I gave up and took an Aleve to try to bring the pain down a little.  I’m not a person that likes to take pills for pain.  For me, its about solving the issue – not masking the issue.  In this case, I could not alleviate the pain.

The Aleve did help and some more attempts to relaxing this area and breathing into it started to ease things a bit that allowed me to go back to bed.  I slept for several hours before waking up, but the pain and tension were still prevalent.  I was so hoping that with some sleep, they would improve.

After I got up, I almost took another Aleve, but I didn’t want to do that.  I knew that masking the pain was not going to help.  Most people turn towards the pain relievers, but I’m not one of those that do this.

I plugged in the Resperate...

So I finally got on my own treatment table, plugged the Resperate in and started to do the deep breathing connection with my body.  I went through two full cycles of this.  It was interesting to note that my pulse was actually lower, almost as if the anxiety and stress were weighing hard on my nervous system.  As I continued with the Reperate, I saw my pulse drop down, my breath slow way down and I felt the tension leave my body.

It was in that moment that I saw the little boy cowering in the corner of the room with his head down and his arms covering his head.  As things flew overhead, I was ducking and trying to keep myself from getting hurt.  My parents were at it again, fighting and screaming and throwing things – all over the family finances or what my Dad had spent when we had no money.  It felt like a war zone in those moments.  It seemed like it went on forever.  It seemed like it went on every day.  I cringe at the thought of what that little boy went through.  That little boy was me.

I saw the connection between what happened in my neck with the pain and tension and having to hunker down and duck from the things being thrown across the room.  I’ve never remember this one until now.  I wish I could forget.  I wish it never happened. 

At this moment, I’m really not sure what I do with this.  How do you recover from something that happened so long ago, but yet this most likely has a strong impact on how I view finances.  Finances are a war zone to me, where you just try to avoid them and duck so you don’t get hurt.  This isn’t really a good message to attract abundance or financial stability into my life.  In fact, the obvious statement is that it is the complete opposite.

I’ve struggled for a long time with neck issues.  Maybe I’m beginning to see what is fueling them.  Maybe it is more than just normal tension and stress.  If I had to sit down and create a movie about these experiences, it would not be hard to do.  The images and scenes feel so vivid and real.  They feel like one right after another.

I know they are challenges that I’ll find a way to overcome the financial pain in my neck.  I don’t get swept up into feeling like there is no way out and I don’t just do the doom and gloom.  I write these words so I can learn and process and find my way through it so that maybe they have less impact upon me.

I know of no other way to heal from them at this moment.  It is the beginning of trying to find healing and I’ve got a feeling that as I heal, so many other things in my life will stabilize more.

 #FinancialStruggles

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Blog Post And Images (c) 2016 by Don Shetterly

• Permission required before any part of this blog post is reprinted, reworded or used in any form. 
• You are welcomed to share the LINK to this blog post.  

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Resperate and Deep Autonomic Breathing

This is one of the tools I use to help keep my mind and body connected.  It is called the Resperate.  While it is approved by the FDA for helping to lower blood pressure, that is not the way I use it.

Please refer to the owner manual and precautions that may affect how you use this product.  I am not giving medical treatment advice in this blog post.  It is merely how I use this product for my own personal way.  Please adjust it to meet your life's situation.


The Resperate is a great way to help work not only on the Mind Body Connection, but to help deepen the autonomic nervous system breathing.  Autonomic nervous system breathing has to do with allowing your body to go deep into rest and repair healing.  It is where you truly connect with your mind and body using the breath to help you become more aware of the felt sense.

Using the Resperate and pulse meter together, I can fully evaluate on my own, the health of my nervous system.  I am one of those people that sometimes struggles with a high pulse rate due to daily stress and triggers.  It is one area that I continually work on with the Pulse Meter.

The pulse meter not only shows the pulse rate at that moment, but it gives you a reading for the oxygen level of your blood.  For me personally, I try to get my pulse rate down to a consistent rate in the 60's or 70's when I am laying on the table in a rested state.  I watch the pulse waves that I can see on the pulse meter and I'm looking for a gentle flow of waves that are consistent from one to the next.  The waves should have some substance to them, but be gentle rolling waves is how I picture it.

Here are a few tips that have helped me use the Resperate more effectively.  One of the things that I have found is that it is better if I use it in a quiet room where I won't be disturbed.  Since I have a massage table, I often lie down when I'm working with the Resperate.  One of the best things I've found is that I use a pillow under my head because if I am propped up a little, it is easier for me to let go and get into the deeper breathing.  The pillow helps me feel more in control.

I've found that instead of placing the band on my chest, that I place it on the upper side of my belly and it feels like it works better.  I was struggling to get the thing to work if I put it too high on my chest.  I'm sure with each person, it is different and you'll have to explore what location works best for you. It most likely depends upon your breathing pattern.

Before I turn the machine on, I have it all ready to go and then I just lie on the table for a few moments.  I take a "before" reading with the pulse meter and just allow my breathing to quiet down a little.  If I don't do this, it seems like the machine starts out with too many quick inhalations and exhalations which sort of frustrates me more than it helps me to start relaxing.

In the early days, 5 minutes was a lot for me to do on the Resperate.  It took me time to acclimate to the constant breathing inhalations and exhalations.  As I've gone, I find that the full 15 minutes is really ideal.  It helps me to go deep into the process.  If I use less time than that, it is like I'm startled out of the relaxation process before I get that deep and then I wake up with results that are not as good.

I will usually monitor the breath rate on the Resperate in the middle of the time I am using it to see how well I'm doing and how far my body is dropping down.  I'll check the pulse meter to also measure just how far my body is dropping into the rest and repair mode.


Another thing I do is that I hold my hands on my stomach, free and clear of the sensor band.  When I do this, I am holding the thought in my mind that I want to feel and sense every part of the movement in my body as I breathe.  I want to feel the rise and fall of my abdomen and lungs.  This can be very therapeutic and healing once you start to connect it with your mind and body.

Some days I can do better with using the Resperate than other days.  Sometimes I use it every other day and other times I go several days without using it.  It all depends and you just have to listen to your body on what works for you.  You will have to find the frequency of how often you use it.

My overall goal is to work on deep autonomic nervous system breathing so I can connect my mind and body with the felt sense.  I know that the more I do this, the more I can go into rest and repair and physically alter the stress, anxiety and triggers on my life.  The pulse meter is essential in my view to help monitor this because if things are working, the pulse rate should drop down.

At times, I have had headaches and other tension in my body, but after 15 minutes working with the Resperate in the manner described above, I notice that things ease up.  Maybe it isn't 100% better by the time I get off the table, but as the hours go on, I physically feel better.

When  you do the deep autonomic breathing where you slowly exhale, you invoke the vagus nerve.  The vagus nerve is one of the largest nerves in the body and it helps relax you, find balance in your mind and body, and gets you into the rest and repair mode especially if you feel and sense through the felt sense mechanism.

There is a great deal of physical and emotional healing that we can do on our own.  Unfortunately we numb and disconnect with a million reasons of why we don't engage the mind body connection or we keep ourselves so busy that we don't take part in our own healing the way we should.  This is one tool that I've been playing with for some time and the more I experiment with it, the more healing and effective it is for me.

The more we keep our body and mind tuned up, the greater our life will be and we will be able to more effectively connect with peace and healing.  The more we do this on a regular basis, the more life becomes one that we have greater control over in our physical and emotional moments.

The items I use can be purchased on Amazon and I have listed them on my page, Health Products I Love.

Please feel free to ask me questions on how I use this.  I would love to hear your thoughts and experiences if you are using the Resperate.

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Blog Post And Images (c) 2016 by Don Shetterly

• Permission required before any part of this blog post is reprinted, reworded or used in any form. 
• You are welcomed to share the LINK to this blog post.  

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Don't Forget To Breathe

Doesn't this sound silly to hear this?  I mean, don't we all know we need to breathe.  Why on earth would anyone tell you, "don't forget to breathe!"  Unfortunately, far too many hold their breath at times or diminish how much they breathe.

I remember a therapist often telling me when we were in a counseling session, to not forget to breathe.  I was like, but I am breathing.  However, as she kept working with me on this, I could sometimes begin to tell that I was not fully breathing.  I was holding my breath and I was not even aware that I was doing it.

When I'm working with someone in a healing session, I will see the breath being held.  They often will not notice it or be aware of it.  Usually they will think they are breathing as normal, but they are not.

Trauma, stress, and other experiences in life cause us to hold our breath, even if it is for a short period of time.  It is like seeing that startling scene before you and you gasp and stop breathing as it shocks you.  The daily build up of stress does the same thing and so do traumatic experiences from our past.

It is like the body and mind are preparing for your escape and so by conserving breath for just one second, it gives you a burst to take off running as fast as you can.  The body and mind also hold the breath when it is trying to be very quiet so the tiger in the jungle doesn't hear you.  Please note, that the tiger in the jungle is the abuse or trauma you may have gone through.

If we don't hold our breath, we fail to fully breathe.  We breathe shallow or rapid.  We don't breathe in a full breath and our breathing is at the rate where we are preparing to run like mad to get away from the tiger.  Again, it is trauma, stress and other experiences that can continue to cause this long after we are out of those situations.

One of the best things you can do for your own health is practicing deep breathing.  Learning to breathe fully and slowly and connect with it.  It isn't just about breath work, but fully connecting internally in a deep way.

Learning to breathe and remembering to breathe can help alleviate some of the issues in the tissues of the body.  A slow and deep connected breath is very healing for the body as it brings nutrients to the tissues and takes away waste from the cells.

The more stress we've been under or the more trauma we've been through, the more we need to practice deep and slow breathing.  I use the resperate to help me practice and 15 minutes on this in a day, I get up feeling much more peaceful, centered, and an overall sense of feeling better.

Don't go through life forgetting to breathe.  It is too crucial for our body and our mind.  We need it to function at peak efficiency.  The more oxygen we can breathe in, the more healthy our body and our mind is.  The more deeply connected we breathe, the more we can release the stress and trauma that we carry through our days.

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Blog Post And Images (c) 2016 by Don Shetterly

• Permission required before any part of this blog post is reprinted, reworded or used in any form. 
• You are welcomed to share the LINK to this blog post.  

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Autonomic Breathing With Resperate

I started using this at a recommendation of a colleague.  It wasn't so much for the effect of lowering my blood pressure, although that is what the claims are for the Resperate.  My reason for purchasing this and using it is to help my autonomic breathing pattern and drop my body breathing into the therapeutic zone.

At this time, I am surprised by what the Resperate is doing.  The first time was challenging and I went the entire recommended 15 minutes.  The next time, it was not as challenging and the third time I have tried this, it was much easier.

My breaths per minuted started out at 14.4 the first time, then 12.6 the second time and now today, they were at 10.5 when I started.  Today I only did 10 minutes on it but when I finished, my breaths were at 6.4 per minute which is under the therapeutic zone of 10 breaths per minute.

Since I don't have a blood pressure machine at this moment, I've been using my pulse meter.  I noticed that it has been dropping my pulse down about 20 points when I finish with it and sometimes more.  I know this is an anxious time for me with the holidays coming up, but even to drop it a little is good.

My main goal though is to help work on my autonomic breathing patterns.  I know that if I can kick in the vagus reflex and learn to breathe better, it will help my heart and my life.  Sometimes, I get busy in a day and I just don't think about slowing down or what my breathing is doing.  This is a good machine to help train my body further to do something natural that will help me.

Breath is life and healing and we all need to be more aware of it.  The Resperate is a great machine for helping do this.  It is pretty simple to use once you go through the tutorial and figure out where to place the band around you.  Other than that, it is about just lying there and following the breathing prompts.

I will update this more as I go with the Resperate and share further details.  I have only used it three times.  Soon, I will have a blood pressure machine so I can monitor that as well and give more fact based feedback and reviews on it.

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Blog Post And Images (c) 12/19/15 by Don Shetterly

• Permission required before any part of this blog post is reprinted, reworded or used in any form. 
• You are welcomed to share the LINK to this blog post.  

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