Tamara: Thanks for all those wonderful,inspiring thoughts. I wish you well with the album and all the music in your life. Movement, positive, hopeful brain messages, courage, not giving up on life, meditation, good support systems, creative outlets and balance in one’s life are the ideas that I hope the readers will take away from your comments.
Very best wishes,
Barbara

Hi Barbara, I had to do some heavy thinking about your questions so here I go……

First and foremost, I don’t want to be thought of as an incredible success story because I still have my ups and downs. I still have bad fibro flares and I still struggle with pain. I have found balance though, which came through pacing myself and surrounding myself with a really great support system. That is the true secret to success in managing fibromyalgia – Balance. You need to have an understanding family and if people around you don’t understand you have to find people who can be that understanding family to you.

In regards to re-energizing myself, I was a Bikram yoga instructor for 8 years before my fibromyalgia had me bedridden. It was insane to me that I couldn’t do what I once did. Since then, I have found that yoga can be irritating for people with fibromyalgia. With fibro we pull it all in and hold tension in our bodies. The only way to get out of that tension is to stand up and straighten your posture and move. In my yoga class I use to say, “the more pain you create in class the less pain you will have later” and it’s true. So with fibromyalgia it’s important to move but also do yoga the right way. Once I got my pain under control, I started combining Bikram posture with some Yin yoga posture and found balance! BALANCE – it’s the key to managing fibromyalgia. So I created my own variation of yoga for a person with chronic pain. I also do a lot of meditation and writing to re-energize myself.

Now, as for this question that has kept me up at night – I don’t know if my brain has created new pathways, it’s an exciting thought though. All I can say is that I do believe the brain creates new pathways. My grandmother was a stroked victim and I know for a fact that the brain will re-wire itself. I also know music carries energy and fibromyalgia is an energetic condition so I’m sure there could be truth to that idea.

Lastly, for those who are not creative, they just have to something that they love. Try out different things, you may surprise yourself! There was a time when I couldn’t do much of anything. I worked with my doctor and I’m very spiritual so that was a big part of my faith that kept me from giving up on myself. Just last week so much was going on, the album is getting a lot of attention and has a five-star rating on the internet and I did a photo shoot and was working so hard. I am tired today but I am still excited for what happens tomorrow. I think that is most important, you have to find things that make you excited about life again, seek them out and fill your life with them!

Hi Tamara: Are there days when you think you just can’t keep going and if so do you always re-energize yourself with just music, or do you use other means as well? Do you think that because you are a musician that your brain (nervous system) creates new pathways for the pain to temporarily subside? From what you just wrote it seems as though that is what happens to you.
The new research on pain- from the work of the neuroscientists- suggests that doing creative, innovative (to the person) and repetitive tasks, along with physical movement and meditation are among the most important practices we need to undertake in order to deal with chronic pain. This of course requires discipline, but in your case it seems well worth it. BUT, what about those of us who are not creative? How do we develop new brain maps?
Yours is an amazing success story as so many with fibro are very incapacitated and could not begin to live the busy life that you do.

Hi Barbara – Yes, I am very driven and try to take on more than is sometimes possible. I touch on that exact notion in “Overcome” – people really do show they ARE strong when they can ask for help and recognize that they have options. I learned that eventually when I struggled to do everything I use to do prior to fibromyalgia.

I do feel highly intuitive and I am so hyper sensitive to nuances in my environment. It’s funny you ask that because as a singer and trained Opera singer, I have perfect pitch so if I hear someone who is off key it is like nails on a chalkboard. I think being a musician makes me more hyper sensitive because I am tuned into sound so much.

I completely agree with your idea that music could help retrain the brain (I really enjoyed the blog you wrote). I think music carries energy and can change a person’s mood, uplift them and even heal. I can actually listen to a song and get energy from it, which is remarkable when I think about it. Music definitely affects me psychologically and I feel physiologically. Also as a creative outlet it gets out emotions and pain that would otherwise stay in my body and wreak havoc. The joy that music gives me is always there so I go towards that, I know if I am having a hard day with fibromyalgia that comfort is going to come from my music, it has never let me down. I trust my music to help me out and it does.

Once I accepted that I have fibromyalgia, I knew I had to still live my life so I try to do that as best as I can and my music enriches my world so that keeps my spirit going and energizes me.

Thanks Tamara: Would you mind telling the readers the type of personality you have? It is my view that people with fibromyalgia are highly intuitive and hyper sensitive to nuances in their environment. It seems like you are a very high achiever and high energy person. Am I right about that? I have put forward the idea that music (see the blog I wrote on that) could help retrain the brain and wonder if your music has allowed you to continue in a very stimulating profession in spite of your fibromyalgia? Lots of questions for you, but I know many of the readers would wonder how you can keep on working with all the challenges that fibro brings to daily life.
Looking forward to your response.
Barbara

Thank you Barbara for being so generous in spreading the word about KatZens’ new release, “Overcome” and our magnificent cause. I’ve been medically diagnosed with fibromyalgia for over three years but looking back it seems that I’ve always had FM tendencies.

I refined my classically trained piano playing and Opera singing at the prestigious Oberlin Conservatory of Music (although listeners will hear a more rock sound and beautiful ballads on “Overcome”). It was there that I also began to become aware of the energy that exists in all living things. Expressing my emotions and the energy they carry through my music and writing is so important to easing my pain. At times it can still be hard to get through a piano song when my hands hurt but the benefits of making music and living my passion outweigh the discomfort. Now our music is connecting others who are struggling with chronic pain, which is amazing. Music is a universal language and even listening to it can help calm down anxieties and ease tension and stress.

This album is helping to benefit the National Fibromyalgia Association now through February 15, 2010. One-third of the Katzen proceeds from “Overcome” will be donated to the NFA, which like you said Barbara helps to aid new research that can find answers for all of us throughout the world. The five star rated, “Overcome” can be downloaded on iTunes and many other digital retailers. Physical copies of the CD can be bought on Amazon.com, for more info such as blogs, photos, musician bios and direct links to the on-line retailer’s readers can go to http://www.katzenmusic.com/overcome