Get your mind off what you perceive you lack and toward self-improvement

But, naturally, these changes must have the right counterpart in our physical part. After all, it is our body that hosts everything else. When we experience relationship problems as codependents, we have experienced relationship problems throughout our life, our physiology is seriously decompensated. The toxicity of relationships has repercussions on our bodies as well as other toxic substances. I think that process takes the evil and softens it a little bit. It's like, I'm not going to let that evil thing that happened to me take my life from me. I'm going to make something good of it. Michelle and Mother's Grace helped me fund the $2,500 I needed for the 501(c)(3). At that time, my husband and I went through complete financial devastation. But Amanda told me that she wanted every child to get a Comfycozy for Chemo adapted apparel she had first imagined. Amanda died March 30, 2012. We helped our first 600 children in December 2012, before our official nonprofit was even totally set up. I didn't wait. I couldn't. Not only did he establish suicide-prevention centers for teenagers--a precursor to his work in the camps--but he also developed his signature contribution to the field of psychology: logotherapy. Frankl believed that people have a will to meaning, and that this drive to find meaning in life is the primary motivational force in man. The purpose of logotherapy, then, was to treat the distress and suffering of his patients by helping them find meaning in their lives. By 1941, Frankl's theories had received international attention, and he was working as the chief of neurology at Vienna's Rothschild Hospital, where he risked his life and career by making false diagnoses of mentally ill patients to keep them from being killed by the Nazis. That same year, Frankl faced a decision that changed his life. With both a rising career and the threat of the Nazis looming over him, Frankl had applied for and was granted a visa to America.

By that time, the Nazis had already started taking Jews away to concentration camps, focusing on the elderly first. Frankl knew that it was only a matter of time before the Nazis came to take his parents away. He also knew that once they did, he had a responsibility to be there with them to help them. Still, he was tempted to leave for America, where he would find both safety and professional success. For example, bodies are temporary. You are not the body you inhabit. When you experience an end to identifying as a limited thing, such as a body, it is a transcendent experience. Somewhat miraculously, you then will take care of the body you are in that much more lovingly! Similarly, to recognize the passing or death of all limited or temporary concepts of who you are--a role, a gender, a nationality, an identity, and so on--is a wonderful thing. What remains, fears no more. You suffer no more. Because you are no more, at least not within the limits of a personhood. There is no more two-sided nature. Buddhists call this the end of duality. It would be important to check our physiological conditions before starting a healing process as what has decompensated for years cannot be resolved in a few days. It does not mean we can autonomously take easy and important actions to obtain the minimum conditions to face a first change in the very short term. Our body is incredibly grateful, flexible, and prepared to accompany us as it knows best. So, let's see some basic principles to keep in mind to understand better how our body can help us heal from codependency. The Famous Cortisol Cortisol is a very important hormone for the proper performance of our bodies.

It helps to regulate the production of glucose in the bloodstream but it is also one of the so-called emergency hormones, which is one of the hormones that go into hyper-production when we perceive we are in a risky situation. Cortisol regulates the production of glucose to give us immediate energy in danger when we are supposed to give a strong and decisive response. From a physiological point of view, when we must face danger, we should react only in two ways: attacking or fleeing. It does not matter if it is a real or perceived danger, and if it is dangerous for the safety of our body or our emotional and psychological integrity, our physiological response does not change and starts to produce cortisol. I put my loss and grief right to work. Amanda had designed this Comfycozy apparel line, and it took me a while to find a manufacturer and learn how to do it, what it would actually look like, and how it would function. People in the community who had known Amanda wanted to help. I was committed full time to this right from the start, from the moment she passed away. I couldn't go back to work. My mind could not wrap around any of that. All of my energy and passion has been about perpetuating Amanda's legacy. Lots of people advised me to take a couple of years off after Amanda's death to grieve, but I was having none of it. I was on a mission, and it was quite simple, really, at least in my mind. It was my daughter's last dying wish, I told people, and I'm not going to sit on it for two years, or anything like that. Frankl was at a loss for what to do, so he set out for St. Stephen's Cathedral in Vienna to clear his head. Listening to the organ music, he repeatedly asked himself, Should I leave my parents behind? Should I say goodbye and leave them to their fate? Where did his responsibility lie? He was looking for a hint from heaven.

When he returned home, he found it. A piece of marble was sitting on the table. His father explained that it was from the wreckage of one of the synagogues that the Nazis had destroyed. The marble contained the fragment of one of the Ten Commandments--the one about honoring your father and your mother. For example, let's say you identify as being a male. In identifying as a male, you do not identify as being female. There is nothing wrong with identifying. However, as someone who attaches their entire existence to a temporary state of physical sex, this is a setup. It's like riding a roller coaster up to the top of the peak. When you notice good things about being the sex you identify with, you may cheer. Yet, there is a downside. When you hear bad things about males, you may open yourself up for suffering. You may create an ego-mind around what it means to be male. This can open the door to manifest stress and fear. The point is that we do not attack, and we do not flee so often, we usually stay in many risky situations, sometimes for many years. Due to codependency, we constantly feel in a situation of stress, anxiety, suspicion, and therefore in a dangerous situation. Being codependent implies a need to want to control constantly the situations around us and the difficulties of others. This constantly exposes us to situations in which our body perceives dangers and decides to hyper-produce cortisol. Unfortunately, the chronically high production of cortisol produces decompensations in many areas of our body. The first consequence is a well-known physiological reaction: We gain weight.

Cortisol alters the production of other hormones that are directly involved in weight regulation, the so-called lipolysis of our body. For example, it lowers the effectiveness of insulin and this creates the typical accumulations of fat that in common language we identify as stress fat. In the worst case, it could also cause type 2 diabetes. However, the effects are many: it interferes with the activity of the thyroid gland, it alters the sleep cycle and prevents us from resting well. That would mean fewer kids would get help, and I'm not going to be the one not to help them. Keeping my promise to Amanda has never been in question. My drive was also fueled by my anger at the pediatric cancer world for not doing better. People wonder how I'm doing, and the simple truth is, I'm a pissed-off mom. We went through all of this, and it shouldn't have been this way. Do I have great faith in God? But I am angry. For instance, why are we still using the same drugs we developed in 1950 when we know they give cancer a second chance? Why on earth are they being used to this day? As much as my goal is to bring dignity and modesty and family-centered care and education to Americans because that's what this journey is all about, it's also about me being really mad at the world for allowing this to continue. With that, Frankl decided to stay in Vienna and forgo whatever opportunities for safety and career advancement awaited him in the United States. He put aside a life of comfort to serve his family and, later, other prisoners in the camps. During his three years in the concentration camps, Frankl began many of his mornings in more or less the same way. He woke up before the sun rose and marched for miles to a dismal work site, where he and his fellow inmates were forced to dig ditches in the frozen ground as Nazi guards loomed over them with rifles and whips. During the march, the winter wind would cut through their threadbare clothing. They were starving and exhausted, and those who were too weak to walk on their own held themselves up against the men next to them.