Meltdown at Hot Yoga

I have a friend, Nancy Good, who works with trauma victims from all over the world. She has traveled to Israel, Palestine, Iraq and Afghanistan. She has worked with people from Rwanda and Sierra Leon. One thing that she always says is that if "trauma isn't transformed it is transferred." She insists that trauma will reside in the body and make an appearance as depression or anxiety or actual illness if not dealt with.

I have come to realize that you don't have to be in a war to be traumatized.

My brother's illness (pancreatic cancer) has been a terrible shock to all of us. When Damon first told me, I was too stunned to cry and later I became too busy to cry. In the last ten days, my sister and I have rearranged our lives to go to be with him in Miami. We have simultaneously provided uplifting and encouraging words to our brother, while trying to arrange for his care and help him figure out if he is going to stay in Miami for treatment or travel to cancer centers in Baltimore, Minnesota or Houston.  We have talked about his death and worried about his daughters.

Two days ago, I drove from my home near Wilmington, NC back to Richmond, VA where I work. I have a new course that starts on Thursday. I have a new research project that starts next Tuesday. I have two graduate students who are both in the throes of dissertation writing. I haven't seen my grandson in over a month.

It was during Yoga tonight, that I first realized that I couldn't stretch because my shoulders and back were so tight. Things got better as the class progressed (I do Hot Yoga so it's hard not to relax in 104 degrees).  However, about midway through the 90 minutes, I got so sick to my stomach I had to leave the room, something I've never done before.

Once in the bathroom, I couldn't throw up. but there on the floor besides the toilet I began to cry. Great big gulping sobs. I couldn't stop myself. I didn't even understand why I was crying. I hadn't been thinking about my brother, consciously, but I believe my body had.  My body was sobbing up sadness and grief and fear and anger and worry and stress. It seemed to last for an hour.
When it was over, I returned to the class and found I'd only missed two poses, less than 10 minutes. I forced myself to finish but I was exhausted.

After class, I sat in the parking lot and allowed myself feel all kinds of feelings -sadness, worry, regret, anger...all of it. Usually, after 90 minutes of Yoga I am feeling very loose and flexible but as I felt the feelings, I also began to notice that my shoulders and back were tensing up. I felt queezy in my stomach again. This is the body reacting to the mind...but this wasn't theory. I wasn't preparing for a lecture. This was MY body reacting to MY mind. Despite, Yoga and upteen hours of meditation and affirmation and thinking positive, I was stressing. That thought made me more stressed!

When I get into situations where I don't know what to do, I always breath. And so there in the car I began to take long slow breaths and concentrating on the breathing. I could feel myself relax. My stomach felt better but my shoulders were still tight.

What this little experiment taught me is that Nancy is right. Our body, mind and emotions are all connected. But if trauma does reside in the body, then so does stress, worry, anxiety and fear- the little traumas. There is actually evidence that those negative emotions are tied to specific illnesses and conditions. Stress is tied to diabetes and hypertension and also arthritis. But before the full fledged disease comes, the stress is still having an effect. Little traumas wear the body down.

You don't have to be in a war to be traumatized but at least you would know that you were traumatized! Most stress is cumulative, little things adding up over time. Little body aches that become "normal." The problem is that when a "Game TIme" happens, a big stressor, there is less capacity to handle it.

So, what to do? We cannot keep stressors from happening. We cannot prevent "Game Times." However, we CAN honor our bodies by making sure it is not incurring even more stress because of the food we are over-eating or the water we are not drinking or the exercise we are not doing. We can honor our minds with a regular practice aimed at cultivating more peace.  We can bolster our emotions by being happy on purpose and making ourselves enough of a priority to include REGULAR health-affirming activities that make us laugh or at least smile.

Today, I'm feeling much better. When I get to work, I will take my colleagues up on their offers to help me with my classes. I will arrange to work with my graduate students over email.  Tonight, I'll watch one of my favorite Bette Midler movies. In three days I will visit my grandson. Just thinking about him, makes me smile.

On Saturday, I leave for Miami.

"A merry heart doeth good like a medicine but a broken spirit drieth the bones." Proverbs 17:22

The doctor made a mistake...

My brother's doctor made a mistake three days ago when he told him that the cause of his pain was an inflammation. The biopsy results came back, the diagnosis is cancer of the pancreas. The recommended treatment is surgery to slow disease progression and also pain management. My brother was told to put his affairs in order.

In my last post, I wrote about what is needed when there is a "Game Time"- a crisis in life that calls on all of your spiritual reserves. Death is like the Superbowl of Game Times.

I got the call the night before a planned dinner party. I had invited the Pastor and his wife over for dinner. It was a raw food dinner. I was in the midst of preparing the appetizers- raw granola cookies. I had a task list of when to start marinating the eggplant and processing the mushrooms to make "sausage" for the eggplant "pizza". My kitchen looked like a tornado had hit it with every horizontal surface covered with foods in different stages of preparation: the oatmeal being measured for the raw ginger cookies, the cashews and almonds soaking for the crust for the raw apple pie; the fresh rosemary and oregano remnants from my herb garden needing to be washed for the homemade herb vinaigrette salad dressing.  I stopped in the midst of what I was doing and made myself pancakes.

I needed comfort food. So, I made some space between the burners on the stove and made pancake batter.  I found white flower, left over from Thanksgiving, along with white sugar, cow (not soy) milk and actual butter. (All things I don't regularly eat but all regularly used by my husband who says he doesn't want to eat like a rabbit!) When the pancakes were ready, I sat down at the table and put my plate right on top of the Nwenna Kai's "Goddess of Raw Foods" cookbook. I covered the pancakes with maple syrup and ate until I was stuffed. Then I waited to feel better.

Nothing happened. The sky did not fall down because I had eaten white flour..but the warm inviting glow didn't appear either. Actually, I didn't feel any different...and that is the point. The comfort food didn't really comfort me.  I cleaned up my mess and went into my bedroom and there in the quiet, I sat, quieted my mind and prayed.

There are no shortcuts. Although a good meal is an enjoyable thing, (Pastor, to his surprise, LOVED the eggplant pizza!) food cannot heal a broken heart or minimize grief or undo past regrets. However, there in the quiet, I realized that underneath the sadness and the grief and all of the regrets I have regarding my relationship with my brother...underneath all of those feelings and emotions, there is a calm, I can't describe. I guess I needed to be reminded, that I cannot eat myself to that place.

Beginning January 9, I am consecrating 21 days for prayer and meditation. Eating raw food and drinking fresh juice will aid me in quieting my mind and seeking direction on how to best support my brother. I plan to begin the Sacred and Fit program and will use it as part of my devotionals.
It is the beginning of the semester, I have a new class to teach and I'll be traveling to Miami in the midst of all of this. I ask for your prayers for our family, especially my brother. His name is Damon.

Practice For Game Time

Today I learned that my brother has an inflammation of the pancreas. I am so thankful. Before today's scan, his doctors had suggested that the cause of his abdominal pain was pancreatic cancer. The doctors probably told my brother a whole list of possible illnesses but what he investigated on the internet was pancreatic cancer.

After diagnosing himself and reading the prognosis online, my brother told his daughters and ex-wife that he was ready to go. He talked about updating his will. He consulted with his Pastor. He contacted his job about long term disability. He talked about his death.

When he initially called me, I asked him for more details about the diagnosis and made him admit that today's scan was necessary before there could be a conclusive diagnosis. I suggested to him that perhaps it could be something else, that there was no reason to jump to the worst-case scenario. And I admit, for a minute, I was tempted to jump in there with him. I felt that first pang of fear. But then I deliberately took a deep breath and decided not to go there. This decision only took a second.

Actually, the preparation for that decision has taken hours and hours of practice. Long before this moment on the phone there had been many many other moments of sitting in meditation. I had practiced breathing myself to calmness or bringing my thoughts back to a scripture again and again, trying to find the deeper meaning.  During my times of meditation, I had experienced distinguishing the mindless chatter of my own mind. I knew how to purposefully choose one thought to dwell on or to just listen or watch as thoughts come and fade away. Because I had practiced not reacting to the first thought or the worst thought, when I got my brother's news, I could remain in peace...and speak in faith.

The practice of contemplative meditation helped prepare me for bad news.  Without the practice, I would have been easily tempted to add my agreement to my brother's fear. You don't realize how important practice time is until there is a game time.

In an Essay called "Freedom is a Discipline"  Howard Thurman, spiritual adviser to Martin Luther King, Jr. wrote "At the very center of personal freedom is a discipline of the mind and of the emotions. The mind must be centered upon a goal, a purpose, a plan. Of all possible goals purposes, plans, a single one is lifted and held above the others as one's chosen direction. Then the individual knows when he is lost, when he has missed the way. There emerges a principle of orderedness which becomes a guide for behavior and action."

What does this have to do with your health? Everything. Just like there is a freedom in not allowing yourself to think every negative thought, there is also a freedom in not allowing yourself to eat anything you think you want.
It may appear that establishing a life-time eating plan and abiding by your own rules for a healthy lifestyle is a difficult thing to do. But actually, there is freedom in discipline.  Meditation is practice in disciplining your mind. Choosing a bran muffin instead of a doughnut is practice in disciplining your behavior. Practice helps you get ready for game time.

In S&F 102 there will be more emphasis given to establishing your own contemplative practices, in order to become more conscious of your eating and food choices. Spiritually speaking your weight issue is a gift. Your decision to acknowledge that a change is needed is just like making a decision to follow Jesus' teachings. First is the decision and then the corresponding actions.

Your decision to live a healthier life style is now providing you opportunities for two types of practice..one for the thinking and one for the behavior. Since we all MUST eat, we now get to change the way we eat, what we eat, when we eat and why we eat. We get to eat on purpose and in order to do that, you must be aware of every single thing you put in your mouth. In other words, we get to practice disciplined thinking and disciplined behavior around food.

Practice for game time.

Growing a Vision

A vision can begin with a picture out of a magazine- the family you really want; the house of your dreams. A vision can come from a conversation-an idea for new career. It can begin with a television show- someone you admire and want to be like; a debt free life and financial freedom. A vision can also be birthed out of desperation- a desire for something to be different; health for a family member or peace for a loved one. A vision can come from that person that got on your last nerve or the thing that is making you loose your mind.

A vision is like a seed and always begins as a small thing, a thought or a single word or feeling....but if provided the right conditions, if nurtured over time, if protected from doubt and resignation and hopelessness, a vision will draw upon the invisible elements of earth, sun and wind and like any other seed, unfurl itself towards heaven.

But first, if nurtured by faith- a clear intention and steadfast resolve-, a vision will push down roots. Given time and attention those flimsy tiny roots will grow even deeper in the dark stillness of a quiet mind. When watered with with prayer and meditation the roots will grow stronger moving around stones of unbelief or even through impenetrable rocks of fear.

Eventually, the roots of a seedling vision enable a breakthrough in the soil of circumstances. No matter if the soil is cluttered with the dead and the rotting. The living shoot will prove that no vision is ever wasted.  Even a former vision that was abandoned in the past and thought long dead has something to contribute. For in the growing of visions, there is no past. What appears dead and rotting serves as compost, providing softness and warmth for the new and the now.

Inevitably, a vision will manifest.

It is my custom during the first week of each new year to create a vision board. I place on it photographs and images of things I desire in my life. I have learned over the years, as houses and jobs and finances would manifest and as relationships were healed and bad habits gave way that what every single change in my life required attention to the "inner work" of growing a vision.

Sacred and Fit 102 will begin January 9 and it just so happens that my church will begin a 21 day fast on the same day. I have decided to bring my fasting intention to the Sacred and Fit 102 Lessons and will be on a Gradual Fast up to and including the S&F fasting week #5. I have big visions for 2011, and you are an integral part of my vision. In fact, the success of your vision is MY vision.

Before we begin on January 9, take time to think about what you are envisioning for 2011. It is now time to take the photos and images you collected during Sacred and Fit 101 and take them out of the notebook and onto a Vision Board where you can see them and affirm them every day.

While a vision can begin with a picture from a magazine, the picture is only the beginning. The growing of the vision is the inner work and now is the perfect time to begin or to begin again.