Visualization and Parkinson Disease

by Jeff Jennings
(Greenville SC)

I have Parkinson's Disease, a scary thought but even scarier reality. Diagnosed in 1996, this nasty affliction can turn your brain to mush and send your mental 'super highway' into a tailspin, which few people have been able to recover from, let alone allow for happy and productive lives.

After the initial shock of the diagnosis, denial set in as I looked for other conditions that may fit my symptoms and give me a way out. I spent a long time trying to fit round pegs into square holes, looking for other explanations that could shed light on my situation. But even harder than dealing with the what, was trying to figure out the why. I was thirty-six years young, played college football, ran marathons and taught aerobic classes, there was no time for Parkinson's Disease, and additionally, I was entering my strong earning years; things were really starting to look up for me.

It was college athletics that turned me on to visualization. In fact, athletics was the culprit of many habits I acquired from the ages of eighteen to twenty-two. One of the most important was passed on to me by a salty old football coach, who being much wiser than his years, shared with me the art of visualizing and all of its benefits.

The concept was simple: what you can believe you can achieve. His contention was that before you could win you had to sincerely believe that being successful was the only outcome. Furthermore, visualization was no stranger to the world's great inventors as each of them had one major characteristic in common. Before Henry Ford drove a car, the Wright Brothers flew an airplane or cavemen rolled a wheel they had successfully visualized the outcome. Their finished product began as a thought.

So here we are, fifteen years later and although things are far from perfect, I am driven to fight this disease using every ounce of energy God has given me. Some days are good, some days are not so good. But I wake up every morning visualizing a new day and a new beginning. I believe!

--- Copyright © 2011 Jeff Jennings