Parkinson’s Path: Power of Faith, with Lianna Marie

*The following is the output of transcribing from an audio recording. Although the transcription is largely accurate, in some cases it is incomplete or inaccurate due to inaudible passages or transcription errors.

The following Parkinson’s Path podcast is provided by Lianna Marie with All About Parkinson’s and Answers for Elders Radio. And welcome everyone to Answers for Elders Radio. And I am here with Lianna Marie from AllAboutParkinsons.com and Lianna is an amazing resource on Parkinson’s disease and we have kind of been going through a process in this podcast series of, you know, the realization of Parkinson’s disease and we just kind of finished up about hope. So now we’re going to move on to faith and and Lianna, welcome to the show today. Thanks, it is good to be here. You know, I love this hope. And now we’re talking about faith, because it’s a it’s a very, very overwhelming situation, and I say situation because it really happens differently to everyone in the family and I’m sure that the person that has Parkinson’s is kind of the fulkirm point or the center point. So tell us a little bit about how faith plays into that. For sure. And again that faith, as you know, is a very individual thing. A lot of people who are searching for hope will go to their faith because even though you know, faith doesn’t mean there won’t be any doubt, but a lot of people find comfort and strength in having a faith. And how we separate those two, because they are different. Hope and faith are different, we would say. Is something that I just really read recently. I thought it said it really well. So faith having confidence and trust in a person or thing that that there’s no proof, there’s no proof that that exists. Versus hope, that’s more of an optimistic attitude of your mind based on an expectation. And the summary was faith says it’s something is right now, versus hope is something it could be in the future. And for us, you know, faith, whether it be faith in God, faith in the universe, faith in a higher power, faith even in fair friends or family. This has been something that a lot of researchers are looking into in terms of how it can play to the to the betterment of your health, to have a brief and and most people, you know, they say in the majority of people have a faith in something or something bigger than themselves. R and so we, and I’d like to say that for for us, for myself and for my mom, faith made it played a huge role in battling, if you will, Parkinson’s and and again. It’s not to say that there is you know, you have to believe x, Y Z, but just that this is something that gave her a lot of inner strength. Well, and I think too, it’s very common for families as a whole to rely on their spiritual home or where they they draw that faith from, to come to that resource. I think that’s a really powerful way for families to deal with something that’s bigger than they are. Yeah, because it can be so overwhelming that I think, and again, it depends on your personality in terms of how you process hard things in life, but for sure, if you’re having difficulties, a lot of a lot of people would would point to having faith as being one of the things that rescued them. So so I’m going to just throw something sideways. Can you have faith without hope? Can you have faith without so I know that’s kind of a complex question, but I guess my question is don’t they? I mean I’m asking you because because if I hope, I’m going to get better than im going to build that faith right or it’s kind of like which comes first? On the other hand, that somebody, I mean I can also see it the other way right where the facts? So I don’t know. It is there. Is there a definite I understand that they’re different, but but can you have one without the other? You know, I think a lot of people who don’t practice, quote unquote, any kind of religion or don’t have that kind of faith in a higher power might say yes, because I have hope. I’m an optimistic person. I believe and in that that my body can my mind can sure my body. In a sense that that hopeful. So I think that that could be true in my mum’s case and in our case. We, you know, we have a strong faith, so it’s easier to be hopeful because we have that. So I think it’s easier to hope if you have the faith, but not necessarily you’d have to have faith to be hopeful. I’m not sure. I don’t you know, but as a great question. Well, I ask that because personally, for me, I think sometimes we can have faith in the process not made. There may be no hope in the disease right, but we may have faith in that there’s going to be something great happen from this right experience. Whatever that my good can come from bad and they don’t necessarily mean that they’re actually related. But I think that something that I want to talk to our listeners about because if, if, for example, you have a loved one or you have been diagnosed with a terminal illness and there is quote unquote, no hope, I still think there are things you can drop faith. Oh, for sure, and sure, and I that’s why I wanted to bring that out. I think that there’s a lot of things that having faith and relying on those. When you talked about the hopes, relying on others and hat including others in that process. That’s where I think faith comes in. Absolutely. Yeah, and and I think that’s a great topic. We we’re going to we’re going to talk about that in another podcast, as I think that’s a topic. But yeah, I you know, one of the things I was gonna talk about was about my mom’s faith too, and a little bit more about that. I’m going to first reintroduce you to our listeners, but we are talking to the one and only Lianna Marie, and she is with all about Parkinsons.com and before you go into your mom’s story, tell us a little bit about all about Parkinsons.com. Yeah, all about Parkinson’s is a place for people to come and to learn about the disease in an easy, easy to understand way. We’ve tried to give people information, caregivers information and people who have the disease, but so place for people to come and share their informatory there’s portals from that website to where people can share their own stories and learn from each other and be connected in a world that can seem really, really big and and you can feel a lot of awesome. That’s awesome. Yeah, so tell us about your mom. Yeah, MOM’s faith. Yeah, so I would say that one of the key reasons, you know, I believe. I believe mom lasted thirty years with Parkinson’s, not just because she’s the resilient kind of person that she is, but she had a inner strength faith that just was undeterred. She was just the strongest person I know, strongest person I know in terms of she wasn’t a preacher by any means. She was a quiet believer. So she just she and again, not to say that she wasn’t didn’t have her doubts throughout and it wasn’t to say that’s normal. Yeah, exactly so, but she did have a strength in inner strength that she found from her faith and in her case, faith in God, and she naturally was a worry wart when I grew up. She Oh my gosh, I know a lot of mom’s who worry, but my mom was a eleven on a scale of one to ten on terms of worrying, and when she got Parkinson’s that got exacerbated and one of the things that she was able to do because of her faith was I could we coined the term faith in her fears. That kind of as a tongue tied. Tongue tied when I say that faith in her fears. So when she was fearful and I had we just say, you know, mom, you got to have faith. Remember, you’re the one that preached this in the beginning. We’re not preached, but told us. You know, and I said it’s still true today. Just because you have parking sins and you may feel a certain way doesn’t change the reality, and that is your belief, your faith in God, is going to carry you through. Now we don’t know what the end outcome is going to look like and we you know, we’ve said that before. There’s no way. No one has a crystal ball. Whether you got parkinsons or not, but the idea that she was able to believe that some good could come out of the bad. We could all believe that. It’s not just her, was the caregivers, myself, her husband, allowing to gradually accept situations and say, okay, you know what what are, what are we’re going to gain from this and how were we going to how we going to step forward? and faith in her close family and friends and they really, really, really helped her well, and that’s just such a central piece of everything that everyone should have in their life. I mean I when I think about but especially if you have when if you’re facing something as unsurmountable and as Parkinson’s. HMM. So how did she bring that forward? What? Yeah, one, a couple of the technique, couple of things that she used in her you know, she was very musical to begin with, so a lot of things. She loved to sing and play piano and she found a lot of, if you want to say, therapy through that and she had a small group of there’s a gospel there’s a there’s a Christian music group. Some people might underknow this group the gaither choir, and they are in they’re older I would say in their s or s even and the gaither Gospel Choir. And Anyway, my mom found a lot of she she found a lot of joy from listening to them. So she put on music and that was her way of kind of worshiping or whatever, if you will. Will and that changed her mindset, like listening, playing music, getting together with a small group of friends she called the gay or girls because they went to gaither or concert together. So she had five or six ladies and their s that went and that’s how she lived out her just her faith and being able to be with like minded people and forgetting about Parkinson’s. It literally just she’d forget about it. You know, Tims tempor early and yeah, so that’s awesome. Yeah, so she then she grounded herself, obviously through music. Is there any other methods that she would use? Yeah, for she she was big on prayer and she wasn’t I would say meditation is something we’ve talked about in the book and that being a very popular topic lately. People talk about mindfulness and and there are so many books on that right now. It’s a hot topic because I think more and more today just in life, people are realizing, oh, my gosh, we need to slow down and calm myself and have that quiet time, quiet time, because I got my chaos. In this world there’s too much chaos. So one of the things that she did, and a lot of studies you’re showing, that prayer and meditation can calm you know, bring down your blood pressure, feel obviously me’ll feel less alone. If you’re connected with a higher power, you can feel that which we mentioned before, less worried about your life. So yeah, those are some things that my mom found through prayer and many people have found through meditation as well. That’s awesome. So, Lianna, how do we reach you? You can go to all about Parkinson’scom and shoot me an email if you like, and I’m I’m always loving emails and questions from my readers and this guy’s element. Go ahead and you know, you really you actually read those emails per ID and and certainly have helped us so many families here and we’re so lucky to have you here in the studio today to kind of help people on the journey, not only from Parkinson’s, which is great, but what the information you have crosses over to Alzheimer’s. You know, no matter what so I’m so glad that you’re here in the AMA. Thank you. Thanks for being on the show. The preceding Parkinson’s Path podcast is provided by Lianna Marie with All About Parkinson’s and Answers for Elders Radio. To learn more about Lianna’s story, her books, the Parkinson’s Wall of Honor and more, go to www.allaboutparkinsons.com.