A Bite of Wisdom

"Let life happen to you. Believe me: life is in the right, always."
Rilke

Wednesday, May 13, 2009

The Irony of Worry

On my way to my follow-up mammogram today I was feeling pretty peaceful and calm and I was pondering why some things make us literally sick with worry while other things we don't think twice about. Namely, on the way to the appointment I was considering all that could change for me IF I got a diagnosis and at times how cancer can still make me crazy when I consider it entering my body and life again....and yet, it occurred to me that I jump in my car usually several times a day without even a hint of concern for my safety. The truth, when I consider it, is that statistically I am much more likely to be seriously injured or killed in my car than I am of being diagnosed with cancer this particular day of my life. That realization caused me to consider how conscious I am of how I pick what to spend mental energy on...

To spend any time worrying about cancer and none worrying about driving a car is, in acutality...REALLY stupid. For that matter, to spend time worrying about ANYTHING that hasn't happened isn't too smart either....just sayin'.

I was given an 'ok' today, by the way. My mammogram does still show an abnormal area, but from the ultrasound they were able to confirm that the area is smaller in size than last check.

Saturday, May 9, 2009

Under This Full Moon

Since last Fall this notion of "Storycatching" has captured me; much to my dismay. Everywhere I turn...there it is. I have read way too many books on writing your personal history...taken workshops....and have yet to acutally put 'pen to paper', as it were, and start. I've distracted myself in a million and one ways. I guess I have been waiting for it to be easy; for someone to offer me a soft, comfy chair and my to do list completed for me...and that I've gone through all my excuses not to. I started a blog and invited others to tell their stories; hoping it would get me going to. That seems to have all but fizzled and I feel sort of funny being the only one writing....like I'm hogging the space or something rediculous. Just another excuse, really.

I had one story that had poked it's painful, ugly head up immediately demanding attention. It was a very private, embarrassing, deeply suppressed memory. One that I thought had been 'dealt with'. I had been forwarned that the February Full Moon would bring upheaval. That it would 'tear me apart only to put me back together again in a better way'. That it would have to do with my relationship with the Masculine. It came in innocently enough.

I had signed Laura and myself up for a Self Defense class and that afternoon as we practiced at the punching bag. What I assumed was long forgotten and surely forgiven all came flooding back like a Tsunami. I had never punched anything or anyone in my entire life and was impressed, shocked really, at the power it brought to me, but in the same instant I enjoyed the power, came a flashback to a time period in my life that I often played the victim...just lay there and accepted assault on every level. The intensity almost dropped me to my knees. I quite hitting the bag and walked away and somehow managed to wishit away for later.

That night in the hot tub, coincidentally under the Full Moon, I let the emotions come. The shock, the grief, the pain, the shame....None of it about the perpatrator, but simply for my own internal experience. Complete shock that it never even occurred to me to do anything except take it. Compassion for myself for not doing anything. Not speaking up, getting out, fighting back. I allowed a deep, cleansing cry to overtake me. I allowed deep growning howls to overtake me and release the long held emotions. It wasn't until I was done that I remembered the forecast for a powerful Full Moon. "I wonder if this is what he was talking about?" I thought to myself. It certainly did have to do with my relationship to the Masculine. The cry released the heaviness and I thought I was done. "That wasn't so bad", I thought to myself.

Little did I know that it was only the beginning of the process. Most days since then I still feel torn apart, fragmented to some degree. I have trouble staying in the moment, in my body...I guess it isn't done with me yet. Not yet time to be back together. In one piece. I have done my best to surrender to the process. I touched on it a couple of posts ago. Each day brings it's own gifts. I'm learning not to fear or run from the darkness and I'm trusting that things are healing and shifting inside at a level not perceptable to me consciously. I am grateful to kind friends who have let me fall apart in their presence. Others who take the time to let me know with a note that they love me and are thinking of me. Those who have reminded me of the truth about life and myself....even though I have often figuratively flipped them off in my mind as they remind me. I even sat and wrote the story of that time; put it on paper for the first time, hoping to speed up the process. Instead it brought an onslaught of dark and forgotten memories. I'm letting them happen and I'm really trying to be present with each of them. Acknowledge them. Allow the images, the feelings of all of them to flow through. To sit with myself and those around me with deeper compassion. Be kind and gentle with myself each day. Rest as I heal.

I can't help but wonder if the surgery is not partly to blame. The pelvis is energetically our 'ocean of emotion', and mine certainly endured a good physical stirring, so surely it brought up the 'bottom dwellers' to be cast on the beach to be noticed and examined, whether I wanted or not.

So...in this Full Moon I will start my "Her-Story" in earnest.

I'm learning that some paths must be walked mostly alone and yet don't have to be completely lonely. And so, I try to be patient as I am being 'put back together in a better way'.....And so it is.