Mary Ruth Velicki, a physical therapist and university instructor, also endured intense, debilitating pelvic pain for years.
My Healing Journey
Mary Ruth Velicki MS, DPT
Determined to get better, she set aside her initial skepticism and tried a plethora of treatments from the Western, Eastern, and alternative sides of medicine.
To her surprise, she underwent incredible healing that extended beyond her physical body to her full person and experienced many direct connections between her body, mind, and spirit. In Healing Through Chronic Pain, Mary Ruth recounts her five-year journey of “healing through the layers” and personal transformation. Along the way, she shares the treatment strategies she used and the support she received from a team of professionals to move past the pain and to heal her whole being. https://www.amazon.com/Healing-Through-Chronic-Pain-transformation/dp/1490966617
To Heal: To make sound or whole; To restore to health; To cause an undesirable condition to be overcome; To patch up a breach or division; To restore to original purity or integrity.
As evidenced by this definition of the verb heal, from Merriam Webster dictionary, healing is a multifaceted concept. Before debilitating pelvic pain pulled me out of my regular life and sent me on a healing journey, I was aware of only one part of healing: to restore to health. As a physical therapist, I thought that helping my patients to heal meant helping them to recover their functional mobility.
For over twenty years, I have focused on the rehabilitation of adults who had suffered neurological damage caused by a stroke, a brain or spinal injury, or having a neurological disorder such as multiple sclerosis or Parkinson’s disease. During that period of my life, healing & curing were synonymous, and both entailed decreasing the effects of a physical or mental disease or condition.
Then, I was suddenly inflicted with chronic pelvic pain and experienced another definition of healing: to cause an undesirable condition to be overcome. I worked years to heal from pelvic pain, which felt like my bladder was extremely full and someone was sitting on my stomach, like my pelvic-floor muscles were in knots, and like my nervous system was also in overdrive.
My ailments eventually were given the diagnoses of interstitial cystitis/painful bladder syndrome, pelvic floor dysfunction, and irritable bowel syndrome. The worst symptom was the bladder pain — a deep internal nerve pain that seemed to spark a primal kind of panic. In a survey reported on Prevention magazine’s online site in 2014, physicians listed the top ten most painful conditions, and interstitial cystitis was third on the list.
In the beginning the pain was extremely debilitating, so I quit working and focused full-time on healing for over five years. I tried almost everything Western medicine had to offer, including multiple medications, instillations (medication put into the bladder with a catheter), shots into the pelvic-floor muscles, and physical therapy. I also checked my skepticism and tried complementary treatments, such as yoga, meditation, massage, acupuncture, Reiki, and two types of holistic bodywork, CranioSacral Therapy (CST) and Myofascial Release (MFR).
I was in pain for about a year when I noticed that whenever I was stressed, the pain would increase, and that when I had more loving or open thoughts, my body relaxed and the pain levels would drop. Once I made that connection between my mind and body, the pain became more than simply a physical disease; it evolved into an internal alert mechanism. The discomfort signaled me that when areas of my life or my person needed attention, and it also motivated me to change so I could feel better. It was like an obnoxious GPS (global positioning system) kept telling me when I was off course.
When the pain reared up, I took care of my body and I also looked within to see what was happening in my life and what thoughts, emotions, or beliefs had been triggered. I wrote in a journal, spent time in introspection, and worked with therapists. Over the years, I unearthed buried emotions, subconscious beliefs, and behavioral patterns.
I realized that I had shut down much of the emotional, intuitive, and sexual sides of me, and I worked to gradually open back up. About four and a half years into healing repressed memories surfaced, and I remembered being raped by a priest as a young girl. It was really hard to believe those blocked memories, but they completely aligned with the memories I had not repressed, and my siblings told me they were sure the molestation had occurred.
The resurrection of that horrific truth enabled me to make sense of much of my life, and I came to appreciate that the pelvic pain was not only a sign that my body was breaking down but also a signal that it was finally time to acknowledge, process, and heal what was hurting within me.
Over the healing years, a spiritual side of me that had been buried came alive again, and I gradually began to appreciate how my experience was reflected in all parts of me—body, mind, and spirit. As my connection to the love that flowed within me grew stronger, I also felt more connected to the people in my life and the world around me, my relationships and life experiences became easier, richer and more enjoyable. Both my inner and outer life began to reflect two other definitions of healing: to make sound or whole and to patch up a breach or division.
It is such a challenge to feel pain and fear and not to become pain and fear. But the more I loved myself, even when I was hurting, and the more I encouraged myself, even when I was in despair, the more I connected with my essential self. That was how my suffering became a catalyst for transformation. It wasn’t that I began to change into someone else; rather, I started uncover and express my authentic self.
At that point, I began to experience a beautiful part of the healing definition: to restore to original integrity.
One definition of healing—to restore to original purity—wasn’t fully true of my experience. For me, healing was definitely not about becoming pure or perfect. In fact, it was about feeling safe enough with myself to acknowledge my imperfections and weaknesses, and it was the struggle to accept or address those flaws that led to greater self-knowledge.
I learned that healing is about allowing your true self to be seen by yourself and by others, experiencing your humanness with eyes wide open, and learning and growing from the experience.
Healing can help us move out of physical or emotional suffering or simply live with more peace and connection. As we heal, we release resistance so that more love can flow to us and through us. If you are on a healing journey – I have information and inspiration for you.
Letting Emotions Live
I was sitting at my mother’s bedside during one of our last visits. At that point, she had suffered with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) for years and was almost completely paralyzed. We both knew the end was near, and I was reading her a letter that described all the ways she had influenced my life. Afterward, I buried my face in my hands and sobbed.
My mother looked over at me, and with obvious discomfort, she said, “You will be fine.”
“I know I will be fine. But I will miss you so much.”
“I would like you to read that letter at my funeral.”
“I don’t think I can do it. I might break down.”
“No, you won’t. You know what to do,” she assured me. “You’ll get up there and handle it.”
And I did. A few weeks later, I read that whole letter at her funeral without a tear or a tremble in my voice. But the intense emotion I was feeling had to go somewhere. When chronic pelvic pain descended five years after my mother died, I would come to appreciate how holding a lifetime of unexpressed emotion had affected my bodyIt’s probably not a coincidence that I eventually developed a condition that no longer allowed me to deny my emotions. Whenever I held onto grief, anger, resentment, or fear, my body would tighten up or cry out in pain. In order to get better, I had to acknowledge those feelings and find ways to let them flow through me.
One simple example of my newfound ability to let my emotions flow happened in the fifth year of healing, when I dropped off my daughter at the airport for her flight back to college after a holiday visit at home. At the curb in front of the terminal, I leaned over and gave her a hug and said cheerfully, “Have a great flight! I love you!” She hopped out of the car, and smiling, we both waved goodbye. But as I was driving away, I thought, Wait a minute! How do I really feel Immediately, and to my surprise, I started to sob. I pulled over and cried for a half hour. Then, like a summer storm, the dark cloud passed and I felt peaceful again.
That’s when I realized I was experiencing my life in a whole new way. This may not sound good, but it really is. Because my body became (and remains) more fluid, healthy, and free. Before, I was numb to the emotional pain in my life, but I also didn’t feel intense joy, wonder, and connection. Now, I feel all of it—the exuberant and the excruciating!
Not everyone shoves down negative emotions. Some people explode with anger or frustration; others continually seep out negativity like a toxic stream of consciousness. For those who are consumed by constricting emotions, the key may be to feel them without becoming them. For those with only one emotional response, like anger, perhaps the way forward is to recognize and appreciate the range of emotions underneath this habitual response. For example, if you dig a little deeper to understand why you are angry, you may find other emotions lurking under there, like fear or anxiety, which may actually have preceded and triggered the anger.
In all cases, healing is acknowledging and owning our constricting emotions, and learning to release them in ways that don’t create more problems for us and the people around us.
Listening to a New Voice
The first step in chipping away at my emotional issues was to admit that they even existed. I’d been in the same body-mind state for as long as I could remember. I thought that was just me, my natural self. But in the depths of pain two months into my illness, I listened to my mind’s chatter and realized that another part of me was listening, too. From deep down within me, a knowing rose to my consciousness—that my thought patterns were not the whole of me. I realized that if those habitual ways of thinking were changed, I would still exist. I would still be me. This awareness that I was more than my spinning mind was the first chink in my armor, and it launched my journey to discover who I was beyond those habitual mindsets that had dominated my being for so long.
The voices of others that resound in our ears as children often become our inner voice and limit us throughout our lives. These internal messages are individual and varied, but often they are controlling and judging. Common phrases for me were: “Don’t be a bother.” “Who do you think you are?” “You’re too ______.” This last one was filled in with many different adjectives, all of which had negative connotations.
Recognizing that this inner voice is separate from your authentic self is the first step in breaking its hold over your heart and mind. The more you hear that inner voice for what it is and challenge the messages it has imprinted on your mind, the quieter it gets.
Without all that negative chatter, you will start to hear another voice from your very essence begin to whisper. This voice is compassionate, accepting, and loving, and it says things like: “You are unique.” “You are valuable.” “You belong.” “You are enough.” If you allow it, this little voice will build to a roar and resound throughout your entire being.
Healing with Awareness has activities for each chapter that help readers use the presented concepts. Here is an example that matches the reading above:
Spend at least five minutes alone in a quiet, safe place where you will not be disturbed. Tune in to the internal soundtrack that narrates your life. What is on your mind?
Consider writing down your thoughts as soon as they come into your mind.
Try the following activities to consciously move your focus away from this mental chatter:
Pull your thoughts into the present by observing the sights and sounds in your environment. When your thoughts wander, gently refocus on the stimulation coming in from your five senses.
Notice the areas where your body is holding tension and consciously try to relax them.
Move the body in a repetitive way, such as walking, running, biking, or swimming, and focus on the sensations of the body.
Perform an activity (like gardening or washing the dishes) and focus on the sights, sounds, and feel of the action.
From Fear to Love
I’ve experienced and witnessed how the internal focus can switch from a fear-based mindset to a love-based mindset.
For example, about six years into healing, I was visiting with Alex Sr. (my father-in-law). He held my first book, which had been recently published, in his hand and pointed to the multi-colored swirl on the cover that moved from red at the base, through all the colors of the rainbow, to purple at the top. For many, this is just a cool-looking graphic, but others can appreciate the colors of the body’s energy centers, or chakras, and how the colors flow from the red of the root chakra, where the pain originated for me, and rise to the indigo of the sixth chakra, or third eye, which represents spiritual insight.
Alex Sr. had no knowledge of any of this when he said, “This shows your pain,” as he pointed to the red area, “and this is your healing,” as he traced the colors upward. “Your story lets people know that healing is possible,” he continued. “And when you know it is possible, it can happen.”
His insight was surprising to me because I had never told him what I had gone through and he hadn’t read the book. It was difficult to communicate because he had lost much of his hearing and English was not his first language, and I wasn’t sure he would be interested in the details, anyway.
He then told me about the new data from the Hubble Space Telescope, which led scientists to estimate the number of stars in the observable universe to be 1029, one hundred octillion (the number one followed by thirty zeroes). He shared how this number boggled his mind and how he often looked up at the stars, marveling at the vastness of the universe.
Then, almost as if a switch had flipped, Alex Sr. started to talk about losing his driver’s license and independence, and he became anxious and fearful. He had children who would have loved to help him, but he refused to accept the support. His fierce independence and hyper-vigilance had helped him survive as a fatherless child in Yugoslavia in the middle of World War II, but now this pattern was causing him to suffer.
I recognized these two contrasting states because I had experienced them myself. As I healed and my body-mind relaxed, I could feel more love within me and I sensed more of a connection with everything around me. It was only then that I understood how ramped up my system had been before and how the post-traumatic stress of my childhood had often solidified my mind and body into the reactive survival mode.
When we appreciate fear-based beliefs and behaviors and decide to update them with more loving ones, we move from being internally quiet to becoming progressively more still. When you are still, different perceptions can float into your awareness, and you may experience your life (even the same settings and situations) in a whole new way.
For example, about nine years into healing, I was walking in my neighborhood when I heard my inner voice saying, I’m spinning and depleted. Just then, another voice came through: Are you sure about that? In that moment I realized I was also grounded and full, and my perception shifted. I could see to the edges of the horizon, and the sky arched over me like a big turquoise marble dotted with wispy white clouds. Along with this expanded view came the knowledge that when we switch our focus, we can change our experience.
From: Healing with Awareness. Activating the Body-Mind-Spirit Connection to Restore Health and Well-Being! https://www.healing-body-mind-spirit.com/
Quantum Physics proves that we are all instantaneously connected by principles of Quantum Entanglement. Using principles of interconnectedness, we can all be energetically understood and energetically healed, immediately.
E = mc2 All is energy. By changing energy, changes occur.
Nice True Story…Heaven sounds Very Peaceful and Beautiful … Everyone is Treated the same…Amen to that 
Wow, once again, when the student is ready, the teacher appears. OMG …. this is a brilliant video and so beautiful . My heart and soul really needed this , all of us need this (O: <3 I keep watching it over and over again.
To what extent our core beliefs and our intention create the reality we experience? How can we learn to deal with fear and to reconnect with our true self?
“The more deeply we experience our true nature, the more present, light, and vibrantly alive we become. Our passion for touching the mystery of existence continually opens doors to the miraculous and magical, and creates anew.” Anamika’s website: http://www.anamika.com
Our lives are magnificent puzzles, each connected to the other within the unimaginable energy filed. When we die, these pieces come together and life is complete. Within this construct we can’t look at illness and disease as isolated events, unconnected to body, mind and spirit’s purpose. To live profoundly, it is essential to see that everything is connected–creativity as well as challenges 🙂