You may have seen my blog post on Chi Gong practice as a helpful tool in Parkinson's. Recently, Barbara, one of the local leaders of a Parkinson's support group reached out to me to ask if I had seen the work of Dr. Janice Hadlock and her Parkinson's recovery project. Dr. Hadlock is a professor of acupuncture and traditional Chinese Medicine. Barbara, a scientist by training, had been spurred on to do some additional research in to Chi Gong and in the process came across the work of Dr. Hadlock. You can find her website here.
I took a look at her website and in particular her book Stuck on Pause which was available for download. In the book Dr. Hadlock was describing the connection to trauma, often unrecognized, and how this kicks the nervous system off the train tracks of the sympathetic and para-sympathetic railroad tracks so to speak. She describes a process for going inward, mentally, to that inner space of darkness that is "quivering". Those words light up my mind like the lights in a football stadium because in many ways this was how my husband, John, had initially described his Parkinson's to me. He said, "It is like I have this internal tremor/quivering, that you can't see but I can feel inside.". Sometimes we he is asleep, I will reach over and touch his arm and I can feel a very subtle "current" or shiver from deep inside.
Dr. Hadlock describes many causes of patients and her work with them in the first part o the book. The second part of the book goes through a process she has developed, working with her patients, that helps them reset and kick the system back to the sympathetic/parasympathetic railroad tracks. I won't go in to the details of the process here because I think it is important for you to decide for yourself whether her work rings true for you. The book can be downloaded and read for free. She has many other resources available on her website and several more books.
Please let me know what you think at martha@marthasquest.com
