Releasing the trigger finger

A special thanks to my husband Lior for helping me with typing this entry.

I read a book called The Secret not long ago in which author Rhonda Byrne describes the law of attraction. To summarize, the law of attraction tells us that whatever thoughts, feelings or statements we put into the universe come back to us, almost like placing an order with the big catalog in the sky.

While I was reading the book, I encountered little bouts with the law of attraction everywhere I went – at the supermarket, in the car and even in relationships with others. If I was thinking positive thoughts, those thoughts would return to me. And negative thoughts, brought on more negativity.

Of course as time has gone by, the lessons of the law of attraction went back into the cobwebs of my mind. And I’ve been feeling like I’m in a bit of a funky, slumpy place lately. Stuck in a swamp.

Metaphorically, I’ve also been suffering from trigger finger in my right hand up until a few days ago when I had surgery to release the trigger. In layman’s terms, trigger finger is caused by inflammation near the finger’s tendon, making it almost impossible to bend the affected finger. It’s also painful. Basically, you fingers get stuck, and you can’t bend them. I’ve had the surgery five times before. An orthopedist cuts the tendon, releasing the trigger, and fingers return to normal after about two months of physical therapy.

I know the routine and I also know how my hand surgeon Dr. S operates – both literally and figuratively. Everything was going to be pretty much the same except for one thing: This time, I was getting local anesthesia instead of general.

A few days before the surgery, I told Dr. S during an appointment that despite knowing the routine, he can feel rest assured that I would be freaking out.

Dr. S consoled me, “We’ll talk you through it. We’ll even let you choose which radio station you want to listen to.”

I made a mental note, but was still nervous of course.

The surgery was three days later. Lior drove. On the way, I began to think about which radio station I would choose.

“It’s between 95.7 and 106.1,” both are pop rock and dance hit stations, “Well, I am okay with anything but country.”

I made it to the surgery. Waited my turn. The nurses prepped me. After taking my vitals, the OR nurses escorted me to the surgery room. I got up on the table and as I lay down ready to stretch out my arms, I heard it – COUNTRY.

The doctor came in. The nurses were busy placing an incredibly tight tourniquet on my right arm, which is supposed to stop the flow of blood to the arm. And then Dr. S shot my hand with Novocain. Boy did it hurt.

And as I lay there wincing from the pain, feeling the pressure of their surgical movements on my right hand, Dr. S turned to me and said, “Are you a country music fan?”

“Absolutely not, no way,” I exclaimed, “Is someone here a fan?”

“Actually, none of us are. We’d been listening to classical all day. And I don’t know why, but we switched it not too long ago.” Dr. S sounded amazed, as though they had been possessed to change the station by some supernatural power.

Dr. S kept chatting, calming me down, segueing to country line dancing and how he was sure I’d come from Texas and wore a belt buckle. Mind you, this is funny as my name is so Middle Eastern (Israeli actually), and I live in New Jersey.

He did all this while he released the trigger, checked to see if my hand was working, and sewed me up. The nurses removed the tourniquet. With bandage and pain prescriptions in hand, Lior drove us home for a long weekend of my arm propped up on a pillow. No complaints, I’m feeling fine.

The law of attraction ah ha moment came that evening as I told Lior the story of the surgery. Country music. The one genre I had mentioned in the car ride down. The one I didn’t want. And the Universe delivered.

You see, according to The Secret, the Universe doesn’t understand the words: don’t, doesn’t, or didn’t. The Universe understands the vibration of the energy you put out. For example, if you say, “I don’t want a million dollars,” The Universe hears, “I want a million dollars.” (Yes, I’m sending positive energy even as I write.)

If you think thoughts of frustration, anger, loneliness, or fear, then your life will be guided by those principles. But if you think thoughts of abundance, peace, confidence, and love, then that’s the life you will be living.

My trigger finger is released, and I believe that the Universe was also sending a message, telling me how to get unstuck. Through country music, no less. A reminder that what we put out into the Universe is what we receive in return.

Forbidden fruit

When I first learned that I have celiac, an allergy to wheat, rye, and barley, all I could think about were all of the croissants that I would never have again.

In all honesty, I hadn’t even eaten croissants all that often. So it’s not like I was really missing something that I was accustomed to eating all the time. I wasn’t upset about bread or pasta or even cookies for that matter, which I would eat much more often. I was upset about croissants.

Why? The croissant, for me, is really more about a memory. Croissants remind me of the days when I traveled around Europe and lived abroad, back in my 20s and early 30s. I would stop each morning in unique, little coffee shops, filled with lots of character, and have a glass of fresh squeezed orange juice, an aromatic café au lait, and a luscious, buttery croissant.

Croissants take me back to the days when I allowed myself to do whatever and whenever I wanted. I felt free and adventurous, avant-garde and oh so European.

The croissant was more about the feeling it inspired in me, the person I wanted to be.

I may very well have enjoyed those moments tremendously. But I can almost guarantee you, without documented proof, that afterward, my sugars either soared or went low or a combination of both. I’m pretty sure that an hour later, knowing what I know now, I must have stopped on some park or art museum bench and shoveled down sugar packets.

Back in the days of croissant eating, I can also almost guarantee you, without documented proof, that I was actually stressed out about something – whether work, relationships, money, or health. I knew that croissants were going to wreak havoc on my blood sugars, and I ate them anyway. And when I ate that croissant, it symbolized a moment of pure pleasure, an escape from what was really getting me down.

I used the croissant to suppress feelings. Instead of allowing my feelings to be, I stuffed them with sugary, high fat carbohydrates.

When I was first diagnosed with celiac, the thought of a buttery croissant was the first thing that came to mind, what I would miss, what I longed for. But the croissant was really a longing for what I deemed as carefree days.

The croissant became, yet again, a way to suppress what was really going on.

And in the days of celiac, the croissant began to symbolize something new. The memory of my croissant became yet another thing restricting my life. Another thing to analyze, weigh, and dissect. Another thing that I can’t have. I wanted to taste the forbidden fruit. Because doesn’t life seem so much better on the other side?

Not eating the croissant became about control. Restriction.

When you truly allow yourself to have whatever you want, you find that you may not even necessarily want it, Geneen Roth says in Women, Food, and God, the book I’m still currently engrossed in.

Geneen Roth uses the example of chocolate cake, rather than croissants, to explain her reasoning.

She says that it’s like when you really want a piece of chocolate cake, and all you can think about is that piece of chocolate cake. And then you get yourself a piece. And you have a bite. That first bite tastes so good. The soft, moist, chocolaty flavor. Even the second bite tastes good, but a little less. And then, by the third bite, the chocolate cake kind of loses its excitement, and by the fourth, you’ve forgotten about it entirely and your mind drifts off to something else entirely. And by the time you're done, you've eaten an entire cake, while only really enjoying one or two bites of it.

Geneen advises people – who are seeking a healthy relationship with food, and therefore with themselves – to give in to their cravings. BUT with a few caveats which she calls her seven eating guidelines; to summarize, eat only when your body is hungry, and stop when you are satisfied. So basically what she is saying is that if that chocolate cake isn’t satisfying by the third or fourth bite, then stop eating it.

Okay, that’s great, Geneen, but I can’t allow myself to have what I really want. High fat, high carb, glutinous foods wreak havoc on my body. So what do you say to a person like me?

Geneen says that whenever you eat, and you aren’t really hungry, the food is really about something else. Which I have demonstrated through my own relationship with my lovely croissants.

Here’s what’s totally amazing: Once I became aware of what a croissant really means for me, and since I have learned to accept that I have celiac, my palate has changed. I’ve become a more creative eater. I’ve discovered new foods. I’ve become more of that adventurous, avant-garde person I was searching for back in my 20s than I ever was when I was eating a croissant. And I’ve actually stopped craving croissants entirely. I’ve stopped craving a whole lot of foods that were never that good for me.

And since I’ve begun paying attention to my body's real cravings, and eating when I’m hungry and stopping when I’m satisfied, I have also found that I crave foods like salad with lemon juice and olive oil, dates, quinoa, grilled fish, and nuts. My body naturally craves healthy foods most of the time. And yes, sometimes my body craves chocolate. But when I'm eating it, I usually find that one bite is more than enough to satisfy the craving.

Our bodies are seriously smart. And once you take the forbidden out of the fruit, accept what you have, and practice awareness, you find that your body craves what’s good for you and what your body needs.

So now I ask: What are you really hungry for?