Cranky Fibro Girl

Harnessing the healing power of snark

  • Home
  • Resources
  • Blog
  • You Know You Have Fibro If…
  • Cranky Fibro Girl Manifesto
  • Contact
  • About

A-Little-Bit-Of-Soothing Wednesdays: Heidi And The Aardvark Pay Us A Visit

February 9, 2011 By Jenny Ryan 7 Comments

I’ve decided to add a little something new here to the Realm of Cranky Fibro Girl, and that is to occasionally share with you things I’ve found that help me to feel a little more comfortable when I”m having a Terrible, Horrible, Very Bad, No Good Day.

So the first treasure I have to share with you comes from my friend, Heidi Fischbach, of Aardvark Essentials: Lotions And Potions For Mixed Up Emotions, both of whom have graciously agreed to visit us here today. Welcome! Thank you both for taking the time to come and visit with us!

So, Heidi:

1. Could you tell us a little bit about how The Aardvark showed up in your life?

Oh yes. Before he became The Aardvark, he was just an aardvark who visited my dream one night and bit me. That’s right! I’d been trying to give him the slip, having much more important things to worry about thankyouverymuch, and finally, apparently reeeally wanting my attention, he jumped up and bit my hand. Just like freaking that. It definitely made me stop and listen.

I was feeling rather overwhelmed and discouraged at the time. I’d been playing with this idea of making lotions and potions for mixed up emotions for several months. My kitchen table looked like a lab, full of pipettes and droppers and vials in which I mixed and tested out different essential oil blends. My desk and bedside table looked like a messy library, with stacks of books about essential oil mixage and therapeutic qualities of plants. My sink was about as slick as an oil spill, from washing and rewashing utensils I’d used to mix all the oils and butters in the potion base cream.

And then doubt kicked in. “Whoever would want this silliness you so love?” it said. And then exhaustion: “It’s too much work,” it said. And fear: “You will fail. It’s stoopid.”

In the midst of all that, this aardvark appeared, and with that bite he said: “Heidi! You’re looking at everything that’s hard and believing all your thoughts about how you are just one girl and alone and you can’t do this and blah blah blah but, excuse me! It’s just not true. Keep at it. Do eet! Do this thing already!”

And so we did. He and I, with the encouragement and cheering of friends and amazing people, especially the lovely biggifier of little people with big (or little!) dreams, Havi Brooks, and her business partner, Selma the duck, who, incidentally, made it feel not only OK but the most natural thing in the world to take on an imaginary aardvark as a business partner.

The Aardvark–or Mr. Aardvark, or Messieur Aardvark (when he’s looking sophisticated and sporting his monocle), or as some of my customers like to call him, Aardie or Mr. A– balances me out. He’s the smart when I’m confused. He’s in-the-moment –as all animals are– when I’ve gone and lost my senses. He’s the calm to my panic. He is so not easily ruffled. “Enh, what’s a glitch!” he’ll say. He has a thick skin where I am sensitive, and, to top it all off, he has the keenest sense of smell ever.

In a word, the Aardvark is perfect and, as it turns out, my customers adore him. Indeed, a few (ahem!) have admitted to having a crush on him. Recently I got an email from a customer in the Netherlands. She said: “The Aardvark looks even better in person than he does on the website.” Probably she saw him in decked out all a-la-Snoopy in his bomber jacket and flying goggles that he wears to make his world-wide deliveries in the little World War II era propeller plane he flies.

2. Can you tell us a little more about being a “mood detective”?

I’d love to. It’s kind of like this: You have a body. And you have a mind. But they don’t always get along, right? That’s where a mood detective can help.

I started learning to be a mood detective some 20 years ago when desperation and imagination got together for me. They said, “we’ve got to help this girl or she will be lost.”

I had mega body things, including a big eating disorder and a very distorted and negative view of my body. I also had big emotional and mood things. I was anxious all the time. I had fantasies of being dead, which, in my sad state of mind I thought, would surely be better than how things were. In short, I felt at the mercy of very hard things and my body and my mind were at war.

At some point, by some grace, I became curious and I started to look inside for answers, whereas before I’d always–as I think most of us start off doing, especially when we are young–looked to others. I had wanted some teacher to give me The Answer, some expert to just tell me what to do. I wanted someone to save me. I wanted a magic pill.

In the last several years I have begun honing those mood detective skillz in my massage therapy work. I keep noticing that our bodies express our unacknowledged emotions and stuff for us. They try to get our attention. Those kinks in our shoulder? Those achy necks? That pain in the butt? That rumbly upset tummy? They are, in effect, trying to help us. When seen this way, our bodies can become our closest, most dependable allies.

But if someone has no idea how to look inside, how to listen, it can be hard. I help people do that, and “Mood Detective” is my playful name for what I do.

3. What, actually, do you do (as a mood detective)?

Most likely it starts with you telling me why you’ve come: what’s hard… what’s not working… what’s keeping you up at night… where it hurts… since when… basically, what it’s like to be you, in your body, in your life.

I listen and follow your clues. And you start learning how to listen and follow your body’s clues. Bodies are no different than any of us. They want to be heard. To be understood. They want for us to get–really get!–what’s going on inside us.

We don’t listen for many reasons. For one, we don’t know how. We aren’t taught, in school or at home, to listen. Mostly we are taught to have opinions and to make conclusions. And to defend ourselves. Unsurprisingly then, listening is not second nature. Actually, though, it’s quite simple once you set it as an intention. And believe me, once you start experiencing the magic that is listening, you will be setting that intention every day.

Oh my. I really could go on and on about this. I hope that answered your question at least a bit. I am thinking about this a lot these days because it’s something that, until now, I’ve only practiced on myself and with my massage therapy clients. But soon I will begin offering this to people who can’t, for whatever reason, visit me in person. It will also be part of a new, exciting potion thing I’m going to do.

4. What are some ways that you use your lotions and potions?

In the day to day, I use potions in a cream base in my massage therapy practice. I love their non-slippery glide on the skin and my clients love that they feel moisturized but not greasy when they leave.

I use them personally as moisturizer pretty much every day, including on my neck and face. (Especially in winter!) Shea butter and jojoba oil are fantastic and natural botanical substances, full of vitamins and antioxidants. I like the fact that a little goes a long way and that they don’t stain. Warm water and soap will get them off of bed linens or clothes.

In their magical way, which is what sets potions aside from a bazillion other moisturizers, I use them when I need help with the hard stuff. For example, Losing It is great for overwhelm or anxiety, and Night Queen is perfect when I need a shot of confidence. She helps me embody sovereignty. Ease, Please! is for when I feel tied up in knots in my shoulders or in my head; and I’ve Had It! is for when I’m exhausted. Sassypants helps me speak up already; Chocolita is sweetness, minus the sugar; Cha Cha Chai gets my butt in motion; and Up & at ’em! wakes me up and helps me see with new eyes.

Every single Aardvark Essentials potion is created in response to something hard I have struggled with and become curious about.

5. You keep mentioning curiosity. Can you tell us what it has to do with your potions?

Everything. Actually, I’m going to tell you a secret. Curiosity is the most powerful magic in Aardvark Essentials potions. Curiosity allows things to change in a kind, fun and playful way. Once I invoke the magic of curiosity, my awareness about whatever it is –in this case the hard thing– grows. Then, as I notice more about said hard thing in myself, I also start listening for how my clients and friends struggle with that thing. I especially pay attention to what people say after the words “I need ___.”

As I get curiouser, I also get more sensitive to that thing. I start seeing it everywhere! All the while I’m doing a kind of curiosity field work: What is that hard thing really about? Is there something under it? Is it covering something else? How does that hard thing express itself in our bodies? What does it most want? What does that hard thing keep saying over and over again? Clearly, it’s not been heard. Not yet. So I listen. I want to understand. All of that goes into the making of a magic potion.

Then, after all that curiosity field work, it’s finally time to mix essential oils into what becomes an actual magic potion in a material form we can use. Of course, aromatherapy–the use of essential oils for therapeutic effect–is thousands of years old as a healing practice. And not for nothing is it still around. Plants have powerful healing properties, and our sense of smell is the most primal of our senses. When we smell something it bypasses the think-y, rational part of our brain and goes straight for the limbic brain, which is, basically, our emotional processing plant. So yes, scents, in this way, can be used to powerful effect.

6. Can you give us a sneak peek at any new products that might be coming up in the near future?

Yes! Custom-made potions! A number of customers have been asking me to develop a potion just for them, for the specifics of their stuff. So yay! Custom-made potions will be coming up, uh… soonishly. And yes, I definitely foresee mad use of mood detective skillz in the making of them: people will tell me what is happening for them, what they want, what is hard, what smells they love, which ones not so much, etc etc… and then Mr. Aardvark and I will go to work to play concocting a potion with tailor-made, just-for-you magics.

Also, there will be Pulse Point Potions. Indeed, here is a picture! Your dear people, Cranky Fibro Girl, are the first to see! It’s not even on my own website yet.

See how it looks like a perfume? And that’s what anybody that sees you putting it on will think. You, of course, will know that secretly it’s a magic potion, which just happens to also smell great, which just happens to look like perfume, but which helps you with the hard stuff you are getting curious about.

Pulse Point Potions are the same essential oil potion blends you know and have loved in the moisturizing cream base, but in an organic jojoba oil base that you can roll-on your pulse points. Because sometimes you don’t need to moisturize but you still want magics.

Thank you guys so much for coming, and for the sneak peek into what’s coming next at Heidi’s Table. Have a great rest of your Wednesday!

You can find Hedi and The Aardvark at Heidi’s Table —massage table, writing table, potion-concocting table— a place to explore this amazing, sometimes baffling, adventure of being human.   In a body. In this our world.

Filed Under: CFG Presents A Little Bit Of Soothing Wednesdays, CFG Shares Some Cool Stuff

If You Felt A Disturbance In The Force Yesterday, Don’t Worry. Here’s What Happened.

February 8, 2011 By Jenny Ryan 3 Comments

So last night I was talking to my parents, and they told me they had just gone to see “The King’s Speech”, and really liked it.

My mom said she highly recommended it, but then, being the good mom she is and wanting to set a good example she said, “Well, there is a little bit of swearing. But it’s really funny and it does fit in with the storyline. So do you mind a little bit of bad language?”

And lo, there was a giant tear in the space-time continuum, as the entire Universe snorted and then dissolved into uncontrollable fits of giggling.

And then I might have said something like, “Have you met me? Are you new?”

Because:

-I have an entire category on this blog dedicated to tagging posts in which I proclaim my love for (or dedicate my ability in) swearing (which, now that I look at it, clearly needs to be updated)

-I have proclaimed far and wide the fact that my favorite word in the entire English language is the word “ass”, and,

-My mom herself has specifically called me to specifically tell me a specific story because, as she said, “I am the “ass” person in the family.”

-And (in one of my favorite examples of all), when I had my first appointment with my fibro doctor I had to fill out approximately 87 billion new patient forms. So when I came to the question, “What other things have you tried?”, while I was faithfully producing my list-for the 87 billionth time-I decided to stick in a little something new. Because I was so frustrated and so bored of having to answer the same damn questions over and over and over and OVER again.

So partly to entertain myself, and partly as a little test to get a sense of my potential  new doctor, in the middle of things like “chiropractic”, “massage”, and “physical therapy” I snuck in “swearing”. Because it’s true-swearing is one of my major coping tools. Plus, I wanted to see what his reaction would be (or if he would even notice it), because that would help me get a sense of whether or not I thought we could work well together.

As it turned out, he did  NOT comment on my answer. And that was probably a good thing, because I appreciated how seriously he took the fact that I was seriously ill and obviously suffering. (Although as I started to feel better, I did then begin a personal quest to make him laugh, or at the very least, smile at one of my jokes. And it took about a year. BUT I EVENTUALLY PREVAILED. ALL HAIL THE POWER OF MY RELENTLESS HUMOR.)

And then, just today, I went in to see the chiropractor to get my hip adjusted, because apparently I had angered it, and its punishment was to prevent me from being able to walk. (F*&%#$). And when he asked me how I was doing, I thought for a moment and then said, “Um, what’s worse than sh*tty?” (He didn’t know. If you do, please leave me a note in the comments.)

[Now, in my defense, I am coming off of a week where, on a scale of 0-10, my pain hovered between 15 and 17 for like 4 or 5 days. Which is just insane, and completely unfair that any human being should ever have to be in that much agony. So I’m aware that I might be bursting a lot of bubbles here for anyone who might have some kind of 19 th-century, romantic picture of the noble, long-suffering consumptive invalid, who patiently bears her burden with a cheerful disposition and and song in her heart.  But I’m just gonna tell you the truth here: There is a LOT of swearing when chronic pain is around. It is not pretty.]

OK, I’m sorry to say that I have lost the entire thread of this post, assuming there was even one to begin with. (Because when chronic pain is around there is also QUITE a bit of pain medicine involved.) So I’ll just end by saying this; just in case you ever wondered, CRANKY FIBRO GIRL THINK SWEARING GUD!

Filed Under: Swearing

Cranky Fibro Girl And The Puzzle

February 6, 2011 By Jenny Ryan 6 Comments

Today is not like yesterday.

Yesterday the pain was a smoldering bonfire directly above the bend in my elbows, slowly unfurling its tentacles until it completely took over my hands.
Today the pain is metal bands clamped to the top of my forearms, blowing out the pain with the force of a flame thrower, until it shoots out of my fingertips and into the space around me.
Today is not like yesterday.

Today I was able to eat a full meal for lunch-black bean tortillas, if you’re interested.
Yesterday the best I could do was an occasional handful of raisins, a little dish of pretzels, an empty pita, and a diet soda.
Today is not like yesterday.

Today it’s sunny and warm, and I can sit in my office in just a short-sleeved T-shirt.
Yesterday it was sunny, but I required both a sweater and a hoodie in order to be able to work out here.
Could this change in the weather have caused changes in my fibromyalgia? Maybe. Maybe not. I don’t know.
Today is not like yesterday.

Yesterday I only needed x amount of pain medicine all day.
Today it isn’t even noon and I already need y amount.
Today is not like yesterday.

Yesterday I couldn’t bend my fingers or open anything with a twist-off lid.
Today my fingers are swollen and my wrists are on fire, but I am able to type a blog post.
Today is not like yesterday.

Two nights ago I slept all right, with my trusty earplugs and my glorious CPAP machine.
When I woke up, the pain was at, oh, say Level C.
Last night I slept so soundly, I don’t think I changed positions the whole night.
Same earplugs, same CPAP machine.
But today when I woke up, the pain was at Level F, and threatening to descend even more.
Today is not like yesterday.

Yesterday I was able to make it through the day without binging-food, exercise, buying books, obsessive-compulsive thinking-in order to numb the pain.
Today, that option is looking mighty damn attractive.
Today is not like yesterday.

Today is not like yesterday, because fibromyalgia is a puzzle, where all of the pieces are always in constant motion, and are always shape-shifting into something different and new.

Imagine if this were your job,
What was waiting for you in your office when you arrived every morning.

This is what we wake up to every day.
And everyday we must re-learn the fact,
that today is not like yesterday.

Filed Under: CFG Is in A Lot Of Pain

I Can’t Believe I Forgot To Put This On The Dumbass List

February 5, 2011 By Jenny Ryan 4 Comments

I’d forgotten all about this, because it happened over five years ago. But once I remembered I knew that I had to share it here with all of you. Because we really haven’t had a good “dumbass incident” in a while.

So one of the (many!) symptoms of this stoopid fibro is a very weird, unbalanced internal temperature regulator. So I have massive, horrible hot flashes like other people have to inhale.

So I was at a retreat once for artists/writers/creatives/artsy entreprenuers etc., and during one of the workshops I had a pretty intense hot flash.

I happened to mention it to the woman who was seated next to me, hoping for a little sympathy, and she looked at me, thought about it for a minute, and then said,

“Well, you’re probably burning up karmic debt from your past lives.”

Filed Under: Sometimes People Are Stupid

By Popular Demand: Pirate Monkeys!

February 1, 2011 By Jenny Ryan 3 Comments

Pirate Monkeys!

Filed Under: CFG Shares Some Cool Stuff

Cranky Fibro Girl And The Pirate Monkeys

January 26, 2011 By Jenny Ryan 4 Comments

A couple of weeks ago I got to go to Portland to meet one of my Mad Internet Crushes, Havi Brooks, in person, by attending a Rally (Rally!) at her studio.

Her studio is named The Playground, and is completely pirate-themed. And there was lots of cool stuff to buy in the Toy Shop. This will be important in just a minute.

So yesterday I had an appointment with my acupuncturist, and after 6 appointments or so, I realized that there were some things I could do to help make myself a little bit more comfortable while I was there. Specifically, I could bring some pillows with me for extra support. Because normally when I’m at appointments like these (massage, physical therapy, etc.) and they’re working on my arms, my arms hang over the edge of the table, straight as a board, and just as rigid. And the therapists are always like, “Hey, you can just relax.” And I’m all, “DUDE-THIS IS ME RELAXED.”

So yesterday I brought one of those neck pillows, plus a pouffey pillow on which I could rest my arm.

And when the assistant was raising up the table to the correct height, she glanced down and got a good look at my pillows.

And then she did a giant double take. But I could tell that she wanted to be polite, so she didn’t say anything.

So to help her out I said, “Yes, those are Pirate Monkeys.”

“Hm,” she replied, in that overly-bright way that health care professionals use when they don’t want to upset a potentially crazy patient, while her eyes darted back and forth, surreptitiously searching for the nearest exit.

God, I love being me.

Filed Under: CFG About Town, CFG Dishes On Herself

Questions I Really *Don’t* Want To Know The Answers To, But Yet Am Somehow Still Compelled To Ask Anyway

January 24, 2011 By Jenny Ryan Leave a Comment

“Why does my office smell like pee?”

Filed Under: These Are The Days Of My Life

Cranky Fibro Girl And The Correspondence

January 21, 2011 By Jenny Ryan 2 Comments

Dear Wonderful Woman Who Sat Next To Me On The Plane Ride Back From Portland,

You truly were an angel sent by God to help me.

You helped me create an on-the-fly icepack using barf bags.

You rubbed my fingers when my hands swelled up.

You rubbed my back comfortingly when I felt like I couldn’t take it anymore.

You made sure I always had whatever I needed to take care of myself.

You offered me your aisle seat!

May God return those blessings to you times a million.

Your Grateful Seat Mate,

Jenny

Dear Awesome Flight Attendant Who Ordered Me A Wheelchair,

Thank you for not questioning my request at all, but just taking care of it for me.

Thank you for sharing your own battle with fibromyalgia to let me know that I’m not alone, and that you really got what I was going through.

Thank you for your words of hope.

Your So Grateful Not To Have To Walk Anymore Passenger,

Jenny

[Read more…] about Cranky Fibro Girl And The Correspondence

Filed Under: CFG About Town, CFG And The Effects Of Fibromyalgia

I Call Uncle

January 12, 2011 By Jenny Ryan 4 Comments

I have fibromyalgia.

AND, I am a massively creative person.

I have ideas and possibilities and desires to try new things pretty much oozing out of all my pores at all times. I walk around in a shower of ideas for creative projects generated by the streams of creative energy that are constantly flowing through me.

In some ways, this is SO cool. I have almost no trouble entertaining myself, because I have an incredibly rich, complex, and well-developed inner world. And truth be told, I’d rather spend my time there than anywhere else.

But in other ways, this is So. Damn. Hard.

And the Particular Hard that I’m experiencing right now is the fact that I can no longer ignore the existence of my body and its current physical reality of living with chronic pain and chronic fatigue. And I can no longer deny the fact that my body, fatigued, battered, and aching, plays a role in bringing all of my various creations out into the world.

[Read more…] about I Call Uncle

Filed Under: Chronic Illness Is Really Really Hard, Processing The Process, These Are The Chronic Pain Days Of My Life

Stop Calling Me Shirley!

January 6, 2011 By Jenny Ryan 2 Comments

So I have to go on an airplane in a couple of weeks, and I am totally freaking out about it.

Because despite the fact that yes, I KNOW it’s 2011, and we have left all the magical, superstitious thinking of the Dark Ages behind us, and now worship the god of science (well-SOME of us do. Others of us, we still kind of like it back there), I do not believe that planes can actually fly. I believe that it is all a giant illusion, and that the illusion could burst at any moment-PROBABLY a moment when I’m on a plane-but I don’t know what might damage this illusion, so I don’t know what to do or what not to do to ensure that my plane doesn’t fall out of the sky while I’m on it.

So airplane travel is just a tiny bit stressful for me.

And yes, all you Science People, I can hear you all out there gearing up your three-dimensional, interactive presentations to explain why, yuh-huh, it does TOO work, but let me remind you that I am married to an engineer. And even he doesn’t try anymore. Because if it were just a matter of more information and having something explained to me in a different way, I would not still be having this problem.

I’m also concerned because this will be the first time I’ve flown since I got sick, and I don’t know how or if it will affect my fibromyalgia. So when I had my latest appointment with my fibro doctor, I decided to bring this up (read as: desperately beg for reassurance that I will be all right)

So when I asked him if flying might cause me to have a flare-up, he said (and I SWEAR I am not making this up): “Well, an airplane is a pressurized tube.”

And I thought, “Huh-that doesn’t actually help me at all.”

(All right, I confess-the first thing I actually thought was, “Wow-that sounds really dirty!”)

But I was really confused, because that didn’t really seem to me to be an actual answer. So then I wondered if it was maybe some kind of Zen thing, like when I went to the acupuncture guy and I asked if he was going to try to get me to stop taking my medicines, and he said, “No one tell you stop. No one tell you continue. You follow path that unfold for you.”

So then Fibro Doctor continued, “…so unless air somehow gets into the cabin, you shouldn’t have any problems.”

Now, see what he did there? I was so SO close to feeling reassured, but then, perhaps in an effort to “touch all the bases”, he tried to reassure me by referencing the possible sudden loss of cabin pressure. Which would most likely occur as a result of an equipment failure or something blowing out a window (the horrible causes of which are too numerous to list here). Which would mean that the plane was crashing. In which case, I wouldn’t give a crap about my fibromyalgia pain.

Now I L-O-V-E my fibro doctor. Because besides being a really fantastic doctor, he is also a really cool person. Like, part of me wishes he weren’t my doctor so that we could hang out and I could invite him to all my parties. (If I ever gave any. Which I don’t. Because I am a cranky hermit. But that’s an issue for another day.)

But I think that doctors lately are so concerned with giving us a complete and truthful answer, that my doctors at least are overinformationing me. I mean, I appreciate the fact that you are trying to educate me and help me take responsibility for my own health care, but I don’t always need to know the worst possible thing that any given condition might be. Really-there are times when it’s okay to hold some stuff back. I promise I won’t be mad.

So I guess this has really just been a very long way of saying that despite my many attempts to be reassured, I guess I won’t actually know what will happen until I’m there, on the plane, in the air. And yeah, so that’ll just fold right into my super-relaxed personality as an anal-retentive, obsessive-compulsive, manically-tendencied, graspy, controlling first-born. Sure. No problems there.

GAH!

Filed Under: My Mind Is One Scary Place, My Mind Works In Mysterious Ways

  • « Go to Previous Page
  • Page 1
  • Interim pages omitted …
  • Page 33
  • Page 34
  • Page 35
  • Page 36
  • Page 37
  • Interim pages omitted …
  • Page 122
  • Go to Next Page »

Cranky Fibro Girl News And Updates

* indicates required
Check here to get blog posts by email as well.
Email Format
fibromyalgia best blogs badge
fibromyalgia best blogs badge
Healthline
16 Best Fibromyalgia Blogs of 2014
Healthline
fibromyalgia blogs

Pages

  • Contact
  • Home
  • My Podcasts
  • Resources
  • Blog
  • You Know You Have Fibro If…
  • Cranky Fibro Girl Manifesto
  • My Story
  • About
  • Contact

Archives

Categories

Meta

  • Log in
  • Entries feed
  • Comments feed
  • WordPress.org

Logo designed by Calyx Design

Copyright © 2025 Jenny Dinsmore Ryan