What got me through

It has been four weeks since my surgery. I can lift my arms over my head and do some light weight lifting. I went to a Tai Chi class today for the first time since surgery, and did pretty well. My full-time disability days are coming to a close; I go back to work on Monday.

This seems like a turning point. One chapter of the journey is over, and another is about to begin. The next step will be six weeks of radiation treatments, then after that five years of hormone therapy. I have heard from several people that the hardest part is yet to come. But to me, from my current vantage point, it feels like the most difficult hurdles are behind me. For one thing, the cancer is out of my body now, which feels huge! For another, there are far fewer needles ahead of me than behind me. I think I'll have to get blood drawn every six months, and there's always the possibility of having to go through another MRI scan or biopsy round. But neither is staring me in the face in the next few months!

I have been meaning to write about the things that have gotten me through the journey this far. Now seems like a good time.

First, the non-woo:

1. Tig Notaro. Like, big time. Tig is a stand-up comedian who performed live just days after getting a diagnosis of breast cancer. She had tumors in both breasts and has since had a double mastectomy. Her 30 minute show, called "Live" (with a short "i", as in, to stay alive), was recorded and has now been released as a CD. I bought the download for $5.

An excerpt from the show was played on a episode of This American Life. You can listen to it here.

2. My friends, students, teachers and healers. The response on my Facebook post about the diagnosis was overwhelming. I felt so much love and support, it was just amazing. I was also very lucky to have several women in my meditation and yoga classes who have experienced breast cancer first or second hand and could give me understanding and advice. I am so blessed.

3. My husband. He's been fantastic through this. He's been with me every step of the way, always telling me that everything will be fine. And only a couple of times needing to be reminded that I'm in need of more special care than usual.

4. I already listed the books I have used.


Now, the woo:  

1. Prayer and meditation. I generally begin my day with yoga, followed by a few moments of prayer or meditation. But after my diagnosis through the surgery I increased my daily contemplative time to 10 minutes or so. It really helped keep me centered when I had to go to work. Here are some of my favorite prayers.

The Serenity Prayer
Goddess grant me the serenity
To accept the things I cannot change
The courage to change the things I can
And the wisdom to know the difference.

I said this one a lot in the beginning, while I was still really grappling with the diagnosis.

The Metta Prayer
May I be safe,
May I be healthy,
May I be free from suffering,
May I live with ease.

This Buddhist prayer was my go-to meditation whenever feelings of anxiety or sadness became too much. I repeated it over and over in my mind during my lunchtime walk or on my way from my car to the office before work. It always calmed me very quickly.

Humme Hum Brahm Hum

I searched hard for a mantra to chant internally during scary medical procedures, as a way to distract me, calm my mind and relax my body. It had to be short enough to repeat on one breath, easy to remember, and pleasant to my inner ear. "Om" felt too short, and Frank Herbert's "Litany Against Fear" was too long. I finally settled on "Hummee Hum Brahm Hum" (from the Kundalini Yoga tradition). The usual Sanskrit translation is "We are we, we are God". The word Hum also relates to the heart center, and one of its meanings is the grounding of Universal Form in the body. So the mantra can be translated to mean "God is in my very being," which I love.

Hummee Hum Brahm Hum also has a lovely tune, which you can hear in this YouTube video.



2. Visualization. Two visualizations came to me during the months before the surgery.

a. One was visualizing my body turned into a flock of butterflies. Most of my body was black butterflies with blue markings. The cancer cells appeared as red and black butterflies. I picked them out of my butterfly body and asked them to fly elsewhere.

Closer to the surgery, the butterflies in the visualization all turned into bright blue butterflies with black markings (think Morpho butterflies). The red cancer butterflies were absent. I took this as a very good sign.

b. The second visualization that came to me was of a sphere, a ball I could either hold or put up around me. When faced with needles of any sort, I put my fear in the ball and bounced it away from me. Or if someone irritated or stressed me when I was at work or otherwise out and about in daily life, the sphere expanded to include all of me, as a shield against the irritation. This visualization of a sphere of power has come to me several times now; I think it will stay with me.

3. Affirmation. Each week, I took a couple of hours out of my weekend for contemplation. This is when I found the mantras and prayers I wanted to work with. I would usually do some gentle grounding yoga to get in touch with me inner strength: Warrior 1, Warrior 2, Tree Pose. Some breath work to calm me.

I also looked for the perfect affirmations for my healing. I will end with a page from my notebook of my favorite affirmations. The symbol at the bottom is the Sanskrit symbol for Hum.

MRI guided biopsy

“We either make ourselves miserable, or we make ourselves strong. The amount of work is the same.” —   Carlos Castaneda

The MRI-guided biopsy went quite well, actually. The meditation and relaxation techniques I have been practicing worked well to help me get through the experience without too much stress. Not only did I cope much better with the pain of the numbing shots and IV of contrast fluid, but to my surprise, my subjective levels of pain were less! Quite a bit less, actually!

I wore my Frida Kahlo socks, for strength. 

Just as for the MRI two weeks ago, I lay on my belly with my arms over my head. The main difference was that this time the right breast was squished behind a plate to get it out of the way. The left breast, the one that was being biopsied, dropped through a hole in the bed, where it was clamped between plates like for a mammogram. The doctor worked on the breast from the side. Like in this picture, except my face was pointed down, resting on a face cradle.

(image from www.appliedradiology.com)

The MRI technicians did a series of scans, both without contrast and with, so they could hone in on the area to be sampled. This time I asked for earplugs, and the scanning process wasn't bad at all.

I was wheeled out of the machine, and the doctor started prepping me for the biopsy. All this time I had to remain completely still so as not to shift the sample site out of the "crosshairs", so to speak. (Before I was taken to the MRI room, the doctor had told me the MRI scan from two weeks ago had seen a "tiny spot" that they wanted to sample. I was all..."Tiny? Tiny is good! I like tiny!")

This was my third biopsy. The worst part for me, every time, are the numbing shots. I hate shots. This time I had my calming mantra to sing internally to myself with each breath. It worked really well. I swear the shots hurt less than they had before. I winced a couple of times, but after that it was okay.

When the core biopsy needle was inserted, I did feel a little bit of sharp pain as it came to the final position, and asked for more numbing. Before they actually started taking the samples, I was wheeled back into the MRI machine for a final scan, just to make sure they were at the right spot.

The samples were taken very quickly...it was over before I knew it. They inserted a titanium chip that will show up on a mammogram, then wheeled me back into the MRI tube for one final check that the right area had been sampled.

And that was it! The technician kept compression on the incision for 15 minutes, during which time I slowly began moving my arms, which were stiff from being held overhead for an hour or more. The last 10 minutes in the scanner things were getting pretty uncomfortable. My cheeks were sore from being pressed into the face cradle, and my shoulders were started to get pretty sore as well. I was so relieved when they finally told me I could move again!

Now another waiting game. The results should be in by early next week. Nothing to do now but wait, and recover from the biopsy.

MRIs are LOUD

Well, I made it through this MRI!

All my prep paid off. I wasn't laughing through the insertion of the IV, but I wasn't whimpering and tense, either. Also, I should remember that insertion of an IV catheter doesn't hurt as much as a shot does. I think that's because injection doesn't happen at the same time the needle is inserted. By the time I got the injection, I was safely in the MRI tube, where no one could hear me whimper.

I brought my Nook with me for some reading material in case I had to wait, but as it turned out I didn't wait in the outside waiting room at all. Instead, I waited in the MRI area, where electronic devices were prohibited. I guess the strong magnetism can wipe out the memory, which would suck.  The next time I have one of those, I should bring some actual paper reading material. As it was I had to make due with People (Ashley Judd is getting a divorce!) and Architectural Digest (pretty!).

I have had two MRIs before, one previous breast MRI and one for low back pain. Each time I was offered a choice of either music over headphones or earplugs, and I chose the earplugs both times. This time they had Pandora (as opposed to a commercial radio station), so I decided to try it.

Mistake!

I knew the machine was loud, but without the earplugs it was REALLY loud, especially in the upper registers. Klaxon is the word I would use to describe it. I got through about three of the half dozen scans they were taking before I pushed the panic button and stopped the machine so I could ask for earplugs. I was starting to fear I was going to have hearing damage (I already have some hearing loss in the upper registers. I don't need more).

It's a good thing I didn't wait any longer. When the technician pulled me out of the machine she said she had been just about to inject me with the contrast fluid. If I had stopped after she injected me, I would have had to reschedule and go through the whole scan again. I would have been royally pissed!

Life was much better once I had earplugs.  I was able to relax and meditate. I did two types of meditation. One was The Microcosmic Orbit, which is a method of concentrating on circulating energy around the body. The other was to silently repeat my calming mantra with each breath. It was really interesting that when I performed either of these meditations I was able to relax, but as soon as I stopped the concentration, I became agitated and anxious to be done. This is the power of meditation. It calms the nervous system, making difficult situations easier.

~~~~~~~~

That was Tuesday. It's Saturday now, and I haven't heard anything about the results of the MRI or gotten a call for another consultation. They didn't tell me how long it would be for the results, but I assumed I would hear something by the end of the week, at least. Monday is a holiday. If I don't get a phone call Tuesday morning I'll call after lunch and ask when I can expect the results. I still don't have a date for the surgery. I'd like to have that so I can plan when I need to take off work.

Fall Into Spring

A lot has happened in my life since the last time I posted here. Sadness and frustration gave way to expansion and growth as the year turned from fall, to winter, to spring. This post gives the highlights of those changes.

My fall seemed unrelentingly stressful. My elderly cat, who had taken so much care for over a year, finally worsened and I had to put her to sleep in early September. I became increasingly unsatisfied with my work situation over the summer, and applied for several jobs to change my situation, but with no luck. For reasons that I won’t go into here, those potential work avenues are now closed.

I struggled with pressures on the work front, both positive and frustrating, that just kept coming and never let up.

I continued to feel frustrated with my lack of strength and flexibility.

I just wanted a life that worked again.

I felt like I was in a holding pattern. Craving movement, and frustrated at its lack. As is often the case when it feels that life isn't working, I recognized that much of the frustrations I was feeling were because of my attachment to a certain outcome. One particular job that I wanted badly. Getting this job would have meant a big change in my life, including a potential move. As I waited to hear about it, I held open space in my life that I hoped that job would fill.  

At the change of the year things began to shift. I started making new, positive steps in my life.

* I started seeing a Reiki healer I had seen a few times about a decade before. Our work together really shifted my energy and freed some of the blockages in my life.

* I began making plans for the new year. Plans that would fill the space I had been keeping empty. My New Years goals for 2011 included 1) begin taking Tai Chi classes and 2) begin teaching meditation regularly.

I started teaching/leading mediation classes in February.

In late February, after too long a delay, I was finally able to find time to have a heart-to-heart with my manager, and ask for some of the duties I had found missing in my job. Amazingly, she was able to give me everything that I asked for. My job is now (for the time being at least) much more fulfilling than it has been in a long while.

I started weekly Tai Chi classes in April.  

My life has changed in so many ways for the better. All of the new things in my life have brought me a great deal of learning and growth. I plan to be a better blogger and record some of those blessings here.

Meditating with color

Recently I have been working with color in my meditations and self-healing work. Mostly blue and green to calm and relax. Green is supposed to help cleanse and move ill and stuck chi from old wounds. Blue soothes and calms inflamation. I have used both colors, often green followed by blue, on the chronically tight muscles in my back. The method I use is to visualize the color flowing into the area I am working on, where I feel tight. As I gain more practice this becomes easier. In my inner eye, the colors swirl and flow more easily through my body now than they once did.

My meditation class is also working with colors right now. Last week my meditation teacher challenged us to figure out what colors we have around us most and which the least. Blue and green have been my favorite colors for years, long before I knew to use them in healing work. I surround myself with lots of green and blue: several rooms in my house are painted either green or both green and blue. Next prevalent I think is red, then yellow and orange. I also have a number of earth tones around me: tans and browns. But almost nothing around me is purple, save a few shirts that I wear, and I have no fuchsia in my life.

Her challenge to the class was to find ways to increase those colors around us. I took a fun shopping trip to World Market (one of my favorite stores) and picked up a few glass candle holders in purple and fuchsia, and a pillow containing both colors. They make me happy. Perhaps now I'll be more conscious of those colors and try to bring them into my life more.

From a healing perspective it interested me to learn from the book we've been using that purple is a very strong healing color and can be used anywhere blue is used for healing. I had read this before, but I think I may have been intimidated by the strength of the healing qualities of the color. Reluctant to grab that for myself. Interesting.

In the meditation we did at the end of the class, I sent purple throughout my body. I had a lovely meditation and felt fantastic after ward. The purple was not difficult to visualize. In fact, it swirled through my body in a gentle, lovely fashion.

Blissful meditation

I had a lovely meditation last night.  As has been my habit for a while now, instead of sitting quietly I used Taoist visualizations to direct chi within my body. I began by being aware of a circuit, which the Taoist call the Microcosmic Orbit, from the base of the spine up the back, over the head, down the middle of the front of the body to the perineum, then back up the spine to complete the circuit.

Then I simply followed where the energy seemed to want to flow while helping it along with visualization. Eventually I opened each Tan Tien (head, heart, and navel) to the six directions (front, back, right, left, up and down), and opened my awareness to the universe above and below me.  I felt as though I were floating within a sea of energy, perfectly supported and protected. I asked that the chi flow to places that needed to heal physically. I smiled to these places in my body.

I stayed in this blissful place for the last 10 minutes or so of the meditation until my teacher pulled us back.

Looking for Non-attachment

With my continuing back problems, I feel like I have a unique opportunity for the practices of non-attachment and renouncing the fruits of action. And yet, I am not doing well at this practice. I am impatient at every stage. I wanted the pain to stop. When I was no longer in daily pain, I was impatient to be able to return to normal activities like dusting and carrying without risking recurring pain. Now that I can once again perform those normal tasks I am impatient to return to a cardio and strength training fitness routine. Want, want, want! I am never satisfied!

But the body is never limitless; it always imposes limits on activities. Accepting this fact of human existence is one of the biggest lessons of the life, I think. It is why the yogis say that Corpse Pose is the most important pose to practice. We must learn the humility that there are limits to what we can achieve, and to the length of our existence.

My body has given me such a great opportunity to explore this knowledge for myself, yet I have felt that I am squandering that opportunity with my desire and impatience to return to health.

During my meditation Wednesday night I asked to accept my body as it is. I asked that I let go of the impatience and frustration, and be at peace with my body.

As soon as the meditation was over I found myself looking through the Cosmic Healing; book and found new healing meditations to try.  And yesterday I made an appointment for an acupuncture treatment next week. I made a promise to myself to schedule some sort of bodywork treatment (massage, acupuncture, etc.) for myself every Thursday for at least the next month. Understood in that promise is a commitment to stop feeling apologetic for the sensitivity of my muscles.*

So I am already making positive steps. On the other hand, I haven't stopped complaining about the roundness of my belly or the tightness of my clothes yet. So I guess I have more work to do on accepting my body as it currently is. 

I include, as a reminder to myself:
 
Yield and overcome;
Bend and be straight;
Empty and be full;
Wear out and be new;
Have little and gain;
Have much and be confused.

~ Tao Te Ching 22

*Massage therapists, as well as my chiropractor, are prone to exclaim "What did you do to yourself!" when they feel how tight my muscles are. This tends to make me feel like I should do extra stretching and relaxation before I feel like I can let myself get a massage. I have to accept that my muscles are simply sensitive and prone to tightness.

A promise

My elderly kitty, whose diabetes has been controlled for years with a special diet, now has a blood sugar sufficiently high that she has to go on insulin. The vet discovered this because she was drinking a lot of water while she was being boarded over Memorial Day weekend.  Last week was busy with several visits to the vet, a special trip to a pharmacy to buy (expensive!) insulin, and getting used to giving injections. And worrying over her health.

She has to receive injections twice a day, as close to 12 hours apart as possible. This means I can't stay late in town to attend my usual meditation class, but instead have to get home so I can give my kitty her injection. I am teaching my partner to give the injections, but until he's comfortable giving them, I don't feel I can really leave him with the task.

This means I have had to miss my meditation class two weeks in a row now.  I can meditate at home, but I haven't made it a habit to do so regularly, preferring instead the experience of meditating with other people at my weekly class. Why is it that when we most need to meditate, those very stresses of life that create the need seem to conspire to keep us from the practice?

I have been able to keep up a yin yoga and qigong practice to some extent, and that helps, but isn't a substitution for meditation.

I may not be able to go to meditation class tonight, but I promise myself that I will make time for an hour of meditation this evening. I truly need that quiet space for myself, especially now.

Yin yoga practice

Yin yoga has also been my primary practice for the past month. In yin yoga, you hold gentle floor poses (seated, prone, or supine) poses for several (2-5) minutes. Holding the stretches for so long encourages my muscles to really just kind of melt into the pose. It seems to be a magic bullet for my back pain. The long-held stretches are doing wonders for keeping my back muscles relaxed and the spine healthy. I am almost completely pain-free most days.

Recently I have added ujjayi breathing with breath retention to the yin yoga practice: breathing in for 8 counts, holding the breath in for 4 counts, breathing out for 4 counts, holding the breath out for 4 counts. In this way 2'45" (the current length I am holding each pose) takes about 10 breaths.

It is said that the real purpose of the asanas is to prepare the student for meditation. That certainly seems to be true of yin yoga. Sometimes in this practice, I find my mind disturbed with unrest. Not full-formed thoughts exactly, but a jitteriness or prickliness that is hard to describe. Maybe "mental white noise" comes closest as a description. I find myself irritated at the music I'm listening to (I often play Pandora's Spa Radio station), wishing I could get up and skip forward to the next song. Unrest.  

I have experienced similar sensations at times when I meditate.

Then sometimes when I'm doing yin yoga my mind is calm and untroubled, peaceful and relaxed. This I have experienced many times during meditation.

One thing I would like to do, but haven't found time for, is meditate for at least 40 minutes after my hour-long yin yoga session. I bet that would make for a nice, deep meditation. I had hoped to do that last night, but traffic was slow and I got home later than I expected. I'm not sure I'll have time tonight, either. Soon, I hope.

Working on it

I meant to go to meditation last night, I really did. The last couple of times I've gone the hard plastic chairs have irritated the trigger points in my back. Lying on the floor does the same thing. Obviously I should cultivate the ability to meditate sitting on a cushion, without a chair. But...not there yet.

I did, in fact, pack an armload+ of soft cushy pillows in the car, intending  to meditate resting against them, then leave them in the meditation room so I don't have to carry them in again.

But it didn't work out. I think Wednesday is just a bad back day for me. I do PT at the chiropractor's on Tuesday afternoons, and by the end of Wednesday I can be feeling tight and sore. At least that's how I was last night. I decided not to do anything that might aggravate my back further, and went home instead. I was disappointed, but I can certainly meditate at home where I will be more comfortable.

On the plus side of life, I have consistently been doing my morning pranayama practice for the past week, and I'm loving it! I am not a morning person by nature. It often takes me a while to get going in the mornings. But with just 15 minutes of energizing breathing before my morning shower, I feel awake and  clear-headed. I feel less need for caffeine to get going, and my energy level remains high for the first half of the day. That's a habit I really want to continue to make time for, if I can.

Making alterations

The pranayama class I gave two weeks ago seemed to go well enough. The new person who was there has come back to the weekly meditation classes (led by the usual teacher, not me) for the past two weeks. So at least I didn't scare her away! I still have a few nerves when I teach, though. It's not nervousness that I don't know what I'm talking about or what I'm doing - I definitely do. I think it's more that I'm a strong introvert, more used to listening than being the center of attention. Teaching takes a different kind of energy than I'm used to. I want to keep at it until it feels comfortable to me.

What's really not being comfortable for me right now, though, are the hard plastic deck chairs in the room where we meditate. My back is still very sensitive. When I meditate at home I sit on a soft cushy couch with multiple soft pillows behind my back. (I have been sitting on an exercise ball at work, which takes pressure off my back and helps a lot). Yesterday I took one of those big cushions with arms into the meditation room, set it against the wall, and sat on the floor with a pillow under my butt. I still couldn't get comfortable! I couldn't meditate. Lying on the floor isn't good, either. Anything hard against my back hurts.

I have one more idea. If I could bring some sort of soft cushion to lie on, I might be able to meditate on the floor in Savasana. I do have such a cushion, a twin matress topper, that just might work. As long as I can carry it tucked under one arm. I draw the line at carrying multiple armloads of cushions and pillows, as I end up just feeling silly. I can meditate perfectly well at home, though I do like meditating with other people, so I hope this works out for me.

~~~~~~~~~

My schedule has been a bit wonky the past couple of weeks, leading me to need to get to work a bit earlier. As a result, I have stopped my morning pranayama practice. I am not a morning person; I find it difficult to get going in the morning. The past couple of weeks it has been particularly difficult to get going. Well, this morning I did a bit of energizing pranayama, and what a difference it made! I hadn't realized how much my morning breathing practice was helping me to be awake and happy in the mornings until I stopped. It may make me an extra 15 minutes later to work in the mornings, but if I can afford it, that extra 15 minutes is really worth it.

Creating space

Since I moved into my house three-and-a-half years ago, I have been doing my yoga practice in the living room, because that is where there is the most space cleared, and the room is fairly peaceful. But recently I have been getting a strong urge to create a meditation/yoga space in my study. While the living room is nice, and my partner doesn't mind letting me have the space when I do my practice, it is still a shared space. It would be nice to concentrate the energy of my practice in a more private space.

The problem has always been that my room has been cluttered and filled with cheap, mismatched furniture. There hasn't been enough room to do my yoga there, and even if I cleared space, the feeling created by the mismatched furniture and little nick-nacks scattered about is too chaotic and cluttered for me to feel comfortable doing my practice there. My current plan is to clear the clutter and unify the decor to give the room a peaceful, zen feel. (I promise to post pictures when it's done. :-)

My back's flare-up a couple of weeks ago was actually the result of my starting to do some of the necessary organizing and redecorating. I had to drop this work due to the flare-up (and I mean that literally: I dropped piles of stuff in the middle of the floor). However, during my meditation marathon last Wednesday I realized I wouldn't actually have a whole lot more straightening to do to make the room workable.

So, last weekend, moving very slowly and gently, I cleared enough of the piles to feel comfortable with the space. I even put up a small altar as a focal point for my practice.

The only real way to get comfortable in the space, though, is to use it. Sunday evening I did my pranayama there, followed by an hour of meditation. It was nice and cozy. Unfortunately, though, I think my study just might be the loudest room in the house. You see, my house is situated about 400 feet from an Interstate and this room is on the side closest to the highway (the living room, by contrast, faces away from the highway, which really dampens the noise levels). I normally don't really notice the traffic sounds when I'm just hanging out in the room, but when I was trying to meditate they were quiet noticeable.

I made like a good yogi and tried to work the sound into my meditation, and I *was* successful in meditating. But it was still annoying. I think next time I will try meditating to music using headphones, instead of playing it through the stereo speakers. I could also try using ear plugs and tune into the inner sound. That's always good.

Even with the traffic noise, I had a really nice practice. It was nice to use that space. I am looking forward to feeling the energy shift as I use it regularly for my practice.

Refreshed

My back has been having a bit of a flare-up recently. It was doing better and the pain had pretty much gone away, so a couple of weekends ago I ended up over-exerting it. I didn't do anything particularly strenuous, just straightening and organizing, and I put together one of those assemble-yourself particle board cabinets. But my muscles are sensitive, and even that was too much, and the pain returned. A week-and-a-half later and I'm still not back to where I was. It's very frustrating.

On top of that, work right now is in a place of transition, uncertainty, and lack of focus. I have finished up old tasks, and have yet to be brought into new ones, so I don't have a whole lot to do at the moment. I find blank days without clear tasks to be stressful.

How easy it is to start feeling sorry for myself. I try to keep a positive attitude, but, like so much in life, that takes practice and attentiveness. I realized a day to myself would help me regroup. So, since I have plenty of vacation time saved, I took a day off yesterday, stayed home, and meditated.

My goal was to spend most of the day studying my breathing practice and meditating. I flipped through Kundalini Yoga: The Flow of Eternal Power, which I recently bought. I can't do any of the moving kriyas right now, but I did find a couple of pranayama techniques to try. One that I particularly liked was basically breath retention after an inhale, combined with a mantra (Sa-Ta-Na-Ma).

After the breath work, I spent much of the afternoon in meditation (almost 3 hours, with breaks every hour). The pranayama must have stirred stuff up, because it wasn't until the third hour of meditation that I finally felt like I had a good meditation. Then I went to meditation class, where we meditated another 45 minutes!

After three-and-a-half hours I was definitely ready to be done meditating. But I got some clarity and peace about some things that came up. And I feel much, much better today. I have am so glad I gave myself that break. I needed it.

Meditation for back care

I'm in my fourth week of chiropractic care. I have discovered the secret to a successful chiropractic visit: meditate for 20 to 30 minutes before my appointment. Before my last visit, I reclined the seat in my car and meditated for half an hour before I went in.  On a previous visit, I put in my headphones and meditated in a chair in the waiting room for 20 minutes before she called me. Both times my chiropractor said my spine had good mobility, and that I was doing very well. Before I started meditating first, she commented that I was difficult to adjust because of my tight muscles. So from now on I'll try to get to work half an hour earlier than usual so that I can leave work early and meditate before my chiro appointments.

Meditation has also helped the pain, at least one time.  One day last week I was having a bad pain day. I took a long, hot bath, which usually helps, but this time the pain was still there even after the bath. I finally got myself to meditate for half an hour. During the meditation I concentrated on sending energy to the places that hurt, and after the meditation the pain was gone! I have experienced lessening of pain during a meditation (as well as an increase in pain), but I have never had pain go away entirely and remain gone after a meditation!

Meditation is turning out to serve as an indicator of my progress, as well. At the place where I meet other meditators for weekly meditation, we sit in hard plastic chairs--the kind that are often sold as deck furniture. I have gotten in the habit of bringing a small pillow to put under my lumbar spine to ease the pressure there. Even then, as my muscles relax during the hour-long meditation, I often find that I become aware that I am not sitting straight in the chair and need to adjust my position. And I feel a strong need to crack my neck and back. I know I shouldn't move during meditation, but I usually end up bending my neck to the side to crack it at least once during the hour. 

Last night I never felt the urge to crack my neck. Not once, either during or after the meditation. Halleluiah! I did feel the need to readjust my position once. Hopefully this need, too, will disappear if my chiropractor is able to correct the scoliosis in my spine. But it was lovely to lose track of time because I didn't feel the need to crack my spine.

Pranayama practice

I am finding it harder to stick to a very minimal exercise regime than I had anticipated. If I don't regularly do at least some cardio (I have an elliptical machine) and a few stretches, I'm restless and can't sleep. But if I do too much my back complains later...and wakes me up in the middle of the night. Of course I feel fine when I'm warm and exercising; the pain only makes itself known hours later. Add to that the fact that having two chiropractic appointments, and one massage, a week adds cuts into my normal evening exercise/yoga time. I haven't yet figured out exactly what works best to both keep my back safe and bring me restful sleep, nor when best to work a practice into my new schedule. It is frustrating. Things will be easier for me once my chiropractor feels I have progressed to a point where she can prescribe exercises for me to do.

What I have been able to do successfully is delve into a pranayama practice. B.K.S. Iyengar's Light on Pranayama was my Christmas gift to myself from the store where I attend meditation classes. I'm about a third of the way through. So far he's discussing the Hindu philosphy of prana: laying the groundwork. I have yet to get into the discussion of specific pranayamas.

However, as I do have prior knowledge of pranayama, either taught to me by my meditation teacher or picked up from various yoga books, I have put together a short practice for myself. I'm sort of making it up as I go, but basically doing Breath of Fire, Alternate Nostril Breathing, and working on the upper two locks: jalandhara bandha (chin lock) and uddiyana bandha (abdominal lock). The entire practice so far is lasting about 15 minutes, but I will probably lengthen it as I get used to the practice, and as time permits.

When I have time, I follow this practice with a 30-40 minute meditation. I have found the combination of the pranayama practice followed by the meditation to allow me to sleep through the night.

The path of surrender

I am finding that the body work I am undergoing now--chiropractic and deep tissue massage--is releasing stored past memories and pain. To heal fully, I must allow these memories and feelings to come pass through me. I must surrender to the process as it unfolds.

My practice last night was simple: a few minutes of pranayama followed by a 40 minute meditation. During the meditation I petitioned to accept the path of surrender.

Surrender to the physical pain, the forced inactivity, the emotional pain, and the memories. I must be open to the experiences as they happen, then allow them to drift away like clouds, like thoughts that arise in meditation...not to be followed or held onto, but simply experienced as they come, and then released.

I slept well last night. Today I feel more grounded emotionally, though I still need a heating pad to help with the physical.

Gathering energy for healing

I attend free weekly meditation classes at a local bookstore. The first hour of the class a teaching, usually lecture or discussion, but sometimes instruction in a spiritual technique or guided meditation. Then we meditate together for the second hour. 

This week my meditation teacher talked about using the exchange of energy with the people around us for our own healing and growth. Every day, we experience an exchange of energy with the people who surround us and those we interact with. For example, I may encounter someone happy, or depressed, or anxious, and find that I in turn may react to the energy this person is giving off.

I have choices in how I will let that energy affect me. I may find I also begin to feel happy, depressed, or anxious in concert with the other person. Or I can resist it. If I'm in a good mood, and encounter someone who isn't, I'll probably resist having my mood pulled down because I don't want to feel sad or anxious.

My teacher suggested a third choice:  to ask that this energy I am feeling, intersecting with, be experienced by me for my own healing and growth.  Energy is just energy, right? Prana. By simply asking that the energy of the interaction be transmuted to my own healing, I can use that energy I am already experiencing simply by being near or interacting with this person for my own health. And by the energy being transmuted, the other person also gets a benefit as that energy goes out to interact with their own prana. They will usually feel calmer and more peaceful themselves.

I have felt the effects of this myself as my meditation teacher moves the energy of the class through her body. Often in class I will find myself go from feeling emotional or anxious to feeling grounded and calm, and I'll realize my teacher has begun working with the energy of the class. I realize I feel better and I'm better able to understand the concepts she's discussing.

When it came time for us to meditate, I tried it out. I have been having a lot of back problems recently, and one muscle in my middle back on the right side (serratus posterior inferior) still hurts from when I strained it over a month ago. As I felt the energy of the meditation begin to flow through me, I asked for healing for my back, and this muscle in particular. I pictured my back as whole and healthy. Throughout the meditation I continued to send energy there.

The resulting experience wasn't entirely pleasant. I became keenly aware of the areas of pain all up and down my right side, from my ankle to my scalp (yes, I have pain in all the diodes down my right side). The sensation was one of coolness, and was very much within the body, not on my skin.

My back does feel better today though. I have also made (after much procrastination on my part) an appointment with a chiropractor for tonight, which will be followed by a massage appointment. It's always good to include physical methods of healing along with the spiritual. I'm sure my back is on the mend.

Anyway, my intension is to remember to ask for the energy around me to be used for my transmutation and healing during my interactions over the next week.