No Regrets

One of the things that went through my mind a lot in the early days after my AFib diagnosis (two and a half year ago from now) and maybe also a short time before when I had realized my “burnout condition”, was: “What did I do wrong to get that sick!”

From that time on I was constantly blaming myself like: “Why did I not react earlier, why haven’t I change my life in time, etc. ?” .

These thoughts got stronger and stronger. The harmful side effects of various attempts at therapy did not make it any better. After a very short time I got really depressed and my feeling was: “It’s all going down the drain, because I did a big mistake, every idiot could have seen that and would have made it better but sadly not me. Why? Why did I listen to doctors that nearly killed me by performing their standard treatment protocol like bulldozers.”

I was full of regret and self-reproach.

It nearly took me two and a half years to get a different view on myself and the whole story that had happend. On my way to that point I had met in meanwhile a lot of people who went through “hell” in their lifes. They appeared out of nowhere, but our lifes crossed. There was a kick-boxer who got a stroke while he was in a training session, another one who got a stroke too while being in the outback doing a retreat session and many more.

There was one connection between all these people, they did not give up and they started their own healing approach and made a decision to help others who are actually in their own “hell” too. I am very glad that I had the chance to meet these people, although I must say that in the beginning I didn’t understand most of what they were trying to tell me.

They were showing me not to throw my life away without fighting for it and they were the proof that even the most severe strokes of fate and diseases can improve, healed or resolved.

I think the day when I realized that there is a key to unlock myself out of my cage of sorrows and regrets was the day when I had realized I can influence my personal condition.

Somewhat preciser this was about the point in time when I had found out that I can stop my AFib episodes by performing a special interval training, was the day a strong conviction arose in me that not everything is lost.

Suddenly I was convinced that an improvement is possible and everything somehow made sense for me again. This was the direct opposite of what the most doctors had told me until that time: “There is no cure or improvement possible, only a deterioration.”

Around that time I had also read a little book “How I Cured My A-fib” from Jay Clarke. This story was another proof to me that AFib needn’t to be that “Dead End Street” that I was told of all the time.

To be honest, AFib was and is not my only “problem” I am actually facing. There is also a partial loss of the sense of breathing and smell, regular headaches, etc. what is with great probability a consequence of the completely inappropriate therapies and medications prescribed to me in the past (maybe my AFib also is), but AFib is definitely one of the thicker boards I have to drill through.

From this point on everything got into movement again and that is really great. (This blog is also a result of of this “stone” that started rolling.)

From my todays perspective I haven’t done that much wrong as I thought I did. I did my job, I did not smoke, did not drink (that much), I had a normal busy job, listened to my doctors (at the beginning) … . To sum it up I was an average busy “ant” in the system like all other people. Not better but not worse.

But I was an “ant” that got stuck somewhere and was trying to get loose again. While doing this I tried to change my mindset and an early finding of myself was: “I did not make any mistakes intentionelly to harm myself (or bother others), I always acted the best I could at that time.”

We can only act from that point where we actually are and not from a point where we not are.

So, “What went wrong?” could be one question, but today I would ask another, a better, one: “What went right that you are still alive, Christian?”

Things that went right were: “I started asking questions, trying out new things, learning from people who had survived hard times, taking responsibility for myself. … I stopped regretting my situation permanently and began to take a deeper but much more constructive dive into my “problems” to find a solution my own no more believing ‘the commercial spots’ anymore. … and I stopped believing into the wrong thought: “If Western Medicine cannot help, nothing can help and if a western doctor/pill has damaged my health it could never be repaired, because mistakes by Western Medicine are always permanent.”

What I am trying to say is: “Things, even if they seem hopeless, can still change for the better if we are willing to go beyond our previous limits that we have been ‘talked into’ from the early age. This means to find out what our own truth in life is.”

Steve Jobs the founder of Apple, did a very good one on this.

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