By Theresa Curry
Minerva Rogers remembers a time when the stresses were piling up by the day. At the time, she wasn’t feeling well (though she had not yet been diagnosed with myositis), and her mother in Puerto Rico had metastatic cancer. She worked for the FDA, part of a highly specialized team investigating fraudulent scammers online, a job that was demanding and difficult, but fascinating.
To care for her mother during her final, challenging year of illness, Minerva lived a life in motion, navigating a move from Maryland to Florida and making frequent trips to Puerto Rico, all while keeping up with her job remotely.
Anxious and sad, she sought help. Her therapist introduced her to mindfulness, the practice of paying calm, non‑judgmental attention to the present moment so your mind and body can relax instead of reacting to stress. These techniques—things like slow, deep breathing; guided meditation; walking meditation; paying attention to sensations—helped Minerva stay calm, and she found that her body responded well to the more composed state of mind.
“Mindfulness is a matter of being present,” says Minerva, who is co-leader of TMA’s Adelante Affinity Group. “It’s dealing with what you have right now rather than the crises of the past or your worries about tomorrow.”
Mindfulness is the basis of mind-body medicine, and it’s especially helpful to people with chronic disease and chronic pain. Minerva has lupus-dermatomyositis overlap, something she discovered after years of searching for the reasons for her rashes, hair loss, fatigue, and body aches. Specialists call it the revolving door: this cycle of pain and apprehension that causes anxiety, which in turn causes more pain, apprehension, and anxiety.
Her background made her a good candidate for embracing natural remedies as well as appropriate medical care.
“I come from a family and a place where people respect the idea of natural healing,” she says. She was born in Vieques, Puerto Rico, and her parents—and really the whole community—were more likely to treat childhood diseases with special teas and herbs rather than rushing to the doctor.
Like them, “I believe in doing what you can for yourself first,” she says. “There are a lot of tools in the mind-body toolbox.”
For example, Minerva fits meditation into every day, usually in the morning. She does yoga with gentle stretches and uses Reiki to calm her nervous system. And she begins every day with a gratitude practice.
After her experience with myositis, her belief in the unity of body, mind, and soul has been reinforced.
A few years ago, Minerva and her husband, Peter, visited Zen master Thich Nhat Hanh’s monastery in New York for a weekend. “It was amazing,” she says. “Serene and also an eye-opening experience away from all the noise. It really changed my perspective on life.”
Minerva knows that not everyone is open to meditation. The beauty of mindfulness is that it can be found in activities other than meditation. “It can be anything that puts you in a state of awareness or contemplation without judgment,” she says. “The simple practice of stillness and breathing can work wonders. Our nervous and immune systems respond very well to these quiet moments, realigning us with the very core of our human nature.”
Minerva says she tries to keep herself in a state of flow, meaning a willingness to adapt to daily life and the challenges that come up. This is especially important for people with chronic disease, because some days will be more challenging than others. During those difficult days, she will adjust her routine to keep things simple and gentle. Her meditation may need to be in the middle of the day or evening, for example, or maybe it needs to be 10 minutes or 20 minutes rather than an hour.
She does not dwell in the past or live in the future. “I simply embrace what is here, right now, and breathe. Every day is a lesson to continue our life journey and find our purpose.”
Minerva retired last year and focused for a while on her own health, but she was asked to fill a temporary job as a guest relations receptionist at a senior resource center. This area was outside her comfort zone, but thinking of her mother’s love for seniors back in Puerto Rico, Minerva took the leap. It was a whole new set of skills for her, but she found it to be “absolutely amazing and fulfilling.” She found the love of the seniors she helped was another contribution to her sense of well-being and contentment. After the short contract ended, she went on to a new job with similar duties and a similar focus on helping seniors.
“I don’t believe in coincidences,” Minerva says. “All of these things needed to happen for many reasons, some known and some unknown.”
Minerva’s understanding of the mind-body connection has taught her to allow life to unfold and to be open to energy that heals her body, mind, and soul, always with a heart full of gratitude.
“When we embrace life as it is, find stillness to breathe and listen, and keep trying to connect with the Divine within us, we can definitely improve our outlook on life,” she says.
