Yesterday, while walking Iris in the foothills, I suddenly felt a sharp and piercing pain on my right side. Almost instantly, I felt paralyzed from my right eye to my waist. My right eye shut off, I felt a wave of nausea and dizziness, and I could no longer rotate my head to the right past center. It was wet-your-pants kind of pain and, had I been alone, I would have crumpled to the ground. But there were two people that I know who were at the junction where I was getting ready to turn, so I somehow remained civil and then made my way back to the vehicle. I have no idea what I said to those two people. It was all a blur, literally and figuratively.My dad was on the phone with me and, while my dad is a loving dad, he isn’t the first to get too concerned about pain in the body. But he somehow sensed that something was different and called me three times yesterday to make sure I was still okay. When I asked him how he knew that it was serious, he just said, “I knew. It was obvious.”
For all of yesterday, I experienced intense sensations of shooting pain in my neck and right eye and face. None of my treatments seemed to help. I stretched, I iced, I used ibuprofen, I breathed into the sensation, I worked with opposites, I had Emily help stretch my arms, I used trigger point techniques and everything else I could access.
This morning, I awoke at 4 a.m. after a fairly restless night of sleep and decided to do breath retention work.
Deep inhale to the belly and chest. Let the exhale go. Deep inhale. Make it circular. Quickly. 35 times. Then, hold.
I noticed that it took a lot of effort to breath in deeply and as I did, I noticed the areas in my neck and eye and right hand beginning to burn.
It didn’t seem like I was doing any damage, so I kept at it, “pointing” the breath into these areas of pain and constriction and burning.
What I noticed is that the areas began to relax and open with the breath.
Breathing in peace. Breathing out stress and tension.
Then, hold.
During the holds, I could feel little bubbly sensations working into the muscles in the constricted areas. It was so fascinating to watch and observe and feel.
With the second set of 35 inhalations/exhalations, I turned my head to the right and into the outer edge of the constriction, burning, and pain. Deepening the stretch as appropriate.
Again, more opening.
By the end of the 4th set of 35, I could almost turn my head all the way to the right as far as I could turn it to the left.I then sat in silence for 10 minutes and toward the end of the meditation I had the visualization of those little electric pads that you can put on your muscles to activate them.
Well, I don’t have any of those electric pads, but all of a sudden I heard my voice activating. It was as if my body was producing similar frequencies to the electrical frequencies that the electric pads emit.
I didn’t have much to do with this process except to observe and feel and alter the pitch such that I could feel the vibrations in the constricted, burning, painful areas of the head, neck, and back.
It was quite incredible to behold and experience.
At one point, there was a frequency that required my top and bottom teeth to be very close together so that they were vibrating off of each other. That frequency went deep into the muscle groups.
By using throat singing and head singing, I could adjust the frequencies and direct them to other areas that showed up in my awareness.
Iris, my dog, was greatly amused by the whole scene and eventually just rested her head on my lap. That was good medicine all on its own!
I then grabbed the didgeridoo and again played around with frequencies and pitches and it was as if the whole body was getting a gentle and focused massage.
By this time, it was around 5:30 a.m., so I decided to go outside and prepare the sweat lodge. After getting it good and hot, I crawled into the hot darkness with the aroma of cedar and white sage filling my lungs. What a luxury.
20 minutes of the sweat and I then went into the ice bath for 5 minutes. I hadn’t planned on staying so long, but I hit the “ecstasy” zone where time seems to stop, pain stops, everything stops. Silent. Peaceful. Complete equanimity. I kept checking in with my body to see if I had actually just passed away because of the timeless, effortless, no-thing-ness. But the body was still working, heart still beating slowly, lungs breathing easily.
I got out of the ice and stood under the stars with deep gratitude, feeling as though I was being led through some sacred ritual this whole time, perhaps for my whole life.
I then crawled back into the womb that is the interior of the sweat lodge and sat in stillness in the darkness, submerged in hot vapor, thankful for the fire, water, air, and earth that were all working together to share life with me.
After another 20 minutes or so, I crawled out of the womb, back into the cool air of the outside world, and then submerged myself in the ice bath for another 2 minutes of glorious sensation.
Excercise, yoga, breakfast and a visit to my functional neurologist followed and by the time I got to my doctor, he expressed that the neck was mostly open again and that it was very likely a neurological blip that had triggered a shut-down response between the brain and body.
Since it is Spring Break here, I had the flexibility to take a mid-morning walk with Iris once I got back from the doctor’s appointment.
For whatever reason, the excruciating pain wasn’t at all gone once I began walking on the trail. It was very clearly still present and I found myself really wanting it to be gone.
“Just go away!”
I noticed that I was feeling anger toward the discomfort and the limitations that it was creating with my movement.
I heard my interior chatter: “I just want to feel good, especially this week! I’ve been working so hard on being healthy in all ways and now this had to happen. What else can I do? What if this doesn’t go away and I end up like several of my friends who have chronic neck pain? I’m tired of this already. I was going to begin running this week and now I am struggling to walk!” And so on.
As I noticed the internal monologue amping up and intensifying, I also became aware of music playing.
It wasn’t music on the outside.
It was music playing in my body.
I was humming.
And as I noticed the humming, it grew and grew and then words showed up.
I heard myself singing as I walked:
“I will carry you with gladness. I will carry you. I will carry you with gladness. Yes. I will.”
Over and over and over.
And then it became, “I am carrying you with gladness. I am carrying you. I am carrying you with gladness. Yes. I am.”
I felt a warm glow in my heart as I heard myself directing these words to whatever was happening in my body. Instead of fighting it off and resenting it and trying to get rid of it, my deeper heart and self arose and said, “I will carry you with gladness, I will carry you. Yes. I will. I am carrying you with gladness. I am carrying you. Yes. I am.”
It is difficult to describe what seemed like an instantaneous transformation of thought, feeling, and emotion.
My eye and neck didn’t necessarily feel any different.
But I felt different feeling them.
Does that make sense?
I felt strong and fatherly and motherly. I felt kind and compassionate. I felt gracious. I felt capable. I felt loving and loved. I felt carried.
I will carry you with gladness. I will carry you.
Yes. I will.
I am carrying you with gladness. I am carrying you.
Yes. I am.
You are welcome to stay as long as you need.
I am not defined by this symptom.
The quality of my life is not defined by this situation or circumstance or challenge.
Of all the lessons of the TBI recovery, none have been so important to me as the reality that life doesn’t have to change in order for me to live fully.
I can be with life as it is as I am.
Two of the maxims that experientially moved me from resisting life and wanting to just die during the it-looks-like-you’re-not-going-to-get-better years of my post-TBI recovery read as follows:
“Life is only unbearable when I demand it change.”
and
“That which we welcome cannot bind us.”
This morning, today, right now, here is the lesson again, deepening and validating and reminding me of its message in my life.
I share these words that arose this morning not as my own.
They are meant for more than me.
I have no idea what you might be going through. Perhaps you are experiencing a season of life that feels like more than you can bear. If so, I hope you can find the right support and comfort and care, whatever that means. There is so much good medicine in our world.
There are some things we can just let go of and there are others that are ours to carry for awhile.
What we always have a choice in is how we are present with what we are carrying.
We can be unwelcoming resistance and we can be welcoming presence.
Sometimes, we are both.
Sometimes, we are the welcoming presence of our unwelcoming resistance.
But, we can always be welcoming presence.
In fact, my experience has been that who we truly are is unchanging, loving, welcoming presence in which the ever-changing flow of life arises.
Sometimes, I welcome life from that state of being.
And, sometimes, like this morning, I have to choose to welcome life and, in doing so, am reminded and reassured that this is my true state of being.
Perhaps better said, life chose me this morning and I simply said, “Yes.”
I will carry you with gladness. I will carry you. Yes. I will.
I am carrying you with gladness. I am carrying you. Yes. I am.
Yes. I am.
——
Note: if you are listening to the podcast, you are welcome to continue listening as I share the recording of the song that my heart began to sing this morning.
Peace
