Gratefulness and Positive Affirmations Can be the First Steps to Great Change in Your Life

Gratefulness for what you do have can be a catalyst for many more good things to come into your life!

In a world of instantaneous everything (fast food, processed foods, microwaves, internet, etc.) it is easy to get swept up in having it all NOW!  We lose the anticipation of working for something and having it come slowly to fruition.

Finding things to be grateful for in your daily life has a trickle-down effect in all aspects of your life. I can think of no better time than November, a time in America where we think about being thankful and grateful on Thanksgiving.

About 20 years ago, I was seeing a very nice Endocrinologist who was prescribing me Synthroid for my lack of thyroid hormones due Hashimotos destroying my thyroid. I was working out and eating nutritious foods, and had lost some weight, but not the 70 pounds I had gained in 6 weeks when my thyroid had stopped working.  He asked me how I had managed to lose weight, since he rarely sees that in thyroid patients…. (Right there, one has to ask what is being done wrong with thyroid patients!)  I told him about working out daily and eating non processed foods, but also told him I was still beyond exhausted, I could not get through a day without a long nap, I still had brain fog and struggled to complete sentences, I was still on antidepressants and medication for Bi-Polar disorder (I was mis-diagnosed).  He looked at me with great compassion and said “You have a lifelong disease, and you will have to live with the downfalls of this disease. I suggest you find the good things in your life to focus on daily”.  I left his office in tears.  I was still 50 pounds overweight, I still felt horrible, and his answer was learn to live with it?!

The next morning as I had my cup of coffee, the birds were singing, the sun was shining, and I thought to myself, “This is a lovely moment and the best cup of coffee I have had!” I grabbed a notebook, and I wrote the date and time, and a description of that moment and how good I felt. I decided I would fill that notebook with only good things, daily.  And so began my journey of being grateful, and the first steps towards having the hope of finding another way to feel alive again.

The next step was learning not to despise me.  To not spend every waking moment putting myself down and degrading myself. To do this I wrote a little script (remember, at this point I had worked as an actress for years, so I was doing what I knew!)  This script was simple, it said “You are smart, you are funny, you are talented, and I love you”. I stood in front of the full-length mirror in my closet and stated this daily to myself.  In the beginning, I could not look myself in the eyes and say this, it took time.

Once I had been doing this for about a year, I was noticing that I could fill a page of things I was grateful for in my notebook with ease, and it had nothing to do with the coffee that morning!  I could easily smile at myself in the mirror as I stated my script of positive affirmations. 

And then I was ready to find another way. I researched thyroid disease, I wrote everything down I found, printed things and highlighted them, I found all my lab work and typed them up in one document, I researched what each lab meant and what they should be when optimal.  I started learning about different kinds of thyroid medications, that the thyroid made five thyroid hormones, T1, T2, T3, T4 and Calcitonin.  That the Synthroid I was taking contained only the storage hormone T4 which is supposed to convert to the active hormone T3.  I learned about Reverse T3 and how if that lab is high, it could mean you are not converting the T4 to the active hormone T3.  I could see in my labs that T3 had NEVER been tested!  The ACTIVE thyroid hormone and nobody is looking to see how much of that I had?!  Reverse T3 had never been tested either… (I now know this is ridiculously common in traditional medicine).  I discovered that thyroid disease had been treated with Natural Desiccated Thyroid since 1891 with success.  It contains all five thyroid hormones, T1, T2, T3, T4 and Calcitonin. THIS sounded promising!

I typed up a new script, with references to studies I had printed out and headed to see my primary care doctor.  She had always listened to me, and I felt there was a possibility she would consider prescribing another form of thyroid medication.  I told her that I struggled to speak, to remember things in order, so to please bear with me as I read what I had typed, I read it through, looked up and was about to present all of my studies, when she said “Yes, I will prescribe the Natural Desiccated Thyroid and run the labs you have requested.  All of my patients that I have referred out to Endocrinologists have returned to me worse than when I sent them.  It is heartbreaking to watch”. I left that appointment in tears too, happy tears!

It was slow going to get my thyroid hormones optimal, but within 2 weeks I noticed some big improvements!  I was completing sentences, I felt like the locked doors in my brain were swinging open and filled with information, I was still napping but not so utterly exhausted.  My husband came to me in tears at that time and apologized for not believing that I was sick, as it was clear I had been, when the right hormones were being given to me, he could see the wife he had married so long ago. 

I had many of what some people would call setbacks.  I referred to them as one step closer to having all the answers to fix the problems!  Through trial and error, I found myself optimal on mostly T3 medication (Liothyronine) and a small dose of Natural Desiccated Thyroid.  Through genetic testing I discovered that the reason I was not converting the T4 medication to the active hormone T3 was due to some gene defects I had.  Because the Natural Desiccated Thyroid is still higher in T4 than the other hormones, I personally had not been able to become optimal on only that.  So, taking a low dose of it, for the benefits of all the hormones, and adding in the direct T3 (vs converted from T4), I was able to get my thyroid hormones optimal and remove EVERY symptom of hypothyroidism I had.

This whole process took about 5 years.  Mind you, I felt amazing through that time, but weight never comes off as fast as it comes on in hypothyroidism!  My weight has been steady for the past 7 years, and the same weight I was before my thyroid stopped working about 20 years ago.  I view myself as a work in progress, I am always learning, applying, and tweaking my health.

Something as simple as writing down things I was grateful for daily, and telling myself in the mirror that I was smart, I was funny, I was talented, and I loved myself made a HUGE impact on my life, and in turn on the lives of my loved ones.  These were the building blocks of being able to find the solutions to the issues that were destroying my life. Find something to be grateful for today and savor the process as your life becomes better over time.