In a perfect world, after being a pin cushion and downing my Chinese herbs my womb would be healed and I would announce to the world “I am restored! Praise the Goddesses!” but…..that’s not how healing works. While treating my fibroids holistically, I have to be authentic on every level. I have to be willing to look at everything within; all the stories, patterns, lists…all the un-pretty stuff. A deep, hard look with compassion in one hand and forgiveness in the other.
I need to understand why I caused this within myself. If I can retrace the imprints, I can learn from them and undo them.
The last few months has been profoundly healing. Like a fragile egg, two yoga teacher trainings cracked me wide open.
TRAINING 1: Therapeutic Yoga with Cheri Clampett and Arturo Peal.
Therapeutic Yoga combines restorative yoga (supported postures), gentle yoga, breath-work, hands-on healing, and guided meditation techniques. The timing in my life could have not been more perfect. The training was tender, nurturing and showed me many ways in which I could be kinder and gentler to myself. In order for me to share this supportive practice, I needed to begin to live it.
Day 1: Friday, March 10, 2017. During the opening meditation, we were asked to place our hands on an area of our body that needed healing. I placed my hands upon my lower abdomen. What did my body have to say? My colon said: no more chia seeds and less spinach. Interesting. My womb said: write more. There is healing through writing; writing through healing.
Day 4: Tuesday, March 14, 2017. Amid my morning meditation, I found myself cradled at the base of a big tree that was bathed in light while surrounded by a soft layer of mist. The tree’s essence was sacred. Beside the tree was a pond with a smooth, mirror-like surface and little fish swimming between its roots of tall grass. The pond was safe and soothing, the tree peaceful and serene, the entire setting calm and tranquil. This was my Sanctuary.
That same afternoon Cheri gifted us with a deep guided introspection. Guided straight to my womb, here’s what happened in my vision:
As if apart from myself, I sliced open my abdomen and saw two onyx stones, glistening from the moisture of my womb. These were my fibroids; Fred and Ethel. I gently cupped them into my hands, pulled them out and took them into the light. Little by little, their exteriors cracked open and fell away. Fred and Ethel were born anew.
I then took them to the Sanctuary and allowed them to breathe and unfurl. I told Fred and Ethel how much they were loved and appreciated them for holding all they had for me. It was time to let go, time to be released and set free. Fred was the first to unfold, quite literally.
Fred became an enormous purple, Mexican blanket, the size of a meadow. A great portion of Fred covered me at the base of the tree and then expanded beyond, into the sunset. As I watched Fred lengthen a great sense of comfort came over me.
Fred had been my distorted belief of self-compassion; where I had bundled all my effort of comforting other people before myself. From a very young age, I had been conditioned to put other’s needs before my own. I cried and thanked Fred for showing me a part of myself that had been warped and wrapped up.
Ethel emerged as a moth-like creature with white wings and razor-like edges. Her insect face was grey and morphed between kindness and anger. Ethel perched herself upon a lotus in the pond; safe, buoyant and a good distance from the edge. She didn’t speak for quite some time.
TRAINING 2: Yin Yoga with Heather Tiddens
After becoming so receptive during the Therapeutic Training, the energy released during Yin Yoga blew me wide open. In Yin Yoga one holds the poses (asanas) for durations of 3-5 minutes. The idea is to be right on your edge, to stay mentally present throughout the experience, while your connective tissue releases and muscles stretch. As this is happening, you are opening and compressing meridians (energy channels) in the body, provoking a deep change and shift physically and emotionally.
Day 4: Sunday, April 9, 2017. The final day of training. Heather left the Heart, Lung and Intestine Meridians for last. Wisely done. These meridians when paired together can aid in resolving grief and hatred into courage and joy.
As we moved through the sequence, I began to feel a stir deep within. In a reclined spinal twist, I felt my right sacroiliac joint shift (as it had been doing for some time when I would wrap myself into a pretzel). My body whispered a few things; “this is not normal, this is uncomfortable and this hurts a bit. “Oh my god!” I thought. I had been so disconnected, so NOT paying attention to all the signs that I had completely ignored this development, despite the cracks and pops. I had been so focused on the skill and perfection of the poses, than on what was appropriate for my body. I had been ignorant to what my body had to say and needed for quite some time.
Knees to the chest, lying on my side, a longing began to swell. “Don’t push this away.” I took a deep breath and looked at it. It felt as though I had unzipped my womb and drew out an energy so RAW and intense. The intensity swelled and I saw it for what it was: the want to be a mother. Then, as if the awareness and longing leaped out of my body, it slammed right back into me like a kick in the stomach. Hard.
The practice ended and Heather moved us into a seated posture. All I wanted to do was face-plant into a puddle of tears on the hard wood floor. I also wanted to run out of the room. I did neither. Instead, I stayed and sat with it. The tears poured down my face and I found it difficult to breathe because my nose was plugged with sob-snot. Sometimes the road to inner peace is not pretty.
Breathe in. Breathe out. Breathe in. Breathe out.
Clarity surfaced. The blow to the stomach was all the emotion that had been locked within my fibroids and womb. It was anger, it was pain, it was sadness, it was confusion, it was everything. And. It. Hurt. It was in that moment, I realized just how completely disconnected I had been from any sense of pain or emotion associated with my lower torso. Like a shaken can of soda, the fizz hit the ceiling. It was time to birth the relationship between my body and suppressed emotions.
When class stopped to break for lunch, I went across the street to the park and laid on the grass and just stared up at the sky for nearly an hour. I felt stunned, but awake.
I had taken in my family’s shadow belief of not being enough. It transferred to me as it does in families and I harbored it. I felt responsible for their grief, their sadness, for their “lack of.” I was the youngest on both sides of the family where each hierarchy meant that most were happy to tell you what you did wrong. Words of encouragement were not generous in our family, but criticism and the sense of importance to win approval was.
My mother often called me selfish for being joyful, playful and having all the things in life that she didn’t have because of her. (Nice, right?) My mother’s emotional highs and lows kept me on edge. It was impossible to ever fully comply with my mom’s idea of what an ideal child was, though I tried desperately to please her.
My dad was a perfectionist who was quite skilled at killing the joy in doing the things he loved because he was so hard on himself. To a degree, he still largely is that way. At times he seemed to have little room for patience or compassion, but distinct boundaries between black or white, pass or fail.
No matter how or when the approval scale tipped and waned, I tried my best to be what a narcissistic mother and emotional unavailable father thought I should be. I’m pretty sure I rarely got that right. I pushed myself so hard though, that by the middle of my freshman year in high school I was on the cusp of suicide.
Fred and Ethel stayed with me in vigil when I rested and restored in the Sanctuary. They both said it was ok for me to stop and just be. They did encourage me to write as much as possible, to allow for stories to birth, for the creativity to express itself in order for us us heal. I promised them I would and will.
Ethel evolved from having a silk-moth-like body and face to a nymph. Her wings became large and luminous, with a velvety texture. One large spot, that looked like an eye developed at the apex of each wing. She learned to laugh and had a sing-song quality to her voice. I wondered if she’d fly away one day and if she did, would I be ok?
A few weeks ago, a black and white silk moth came upon my path like a kiss from the full moon. In my palm, it fluttered its wings, the subtle vibrations permeated my hand. We connected like old friends for indeed we were. The moth settled itself upon my right shoulder so I took her home and placed her upon a tree leaf in the back yard. I thanked the silk-moth for her presence and sent her love. The next morning, the silk moth was still upon the leaf. By mid-afternoon, she had departed, like I sensed she would. From that experience I knew Ethel had been set free and I got to be a part of it. And I was ok.
“The knowing needs to be followed by accepting. Anything else will obscure it again. Accepting means you allow yourself to feel whatever it is you are feeling at the moment. It is part of the is-ness of the Now. You can’t argue with what is. Well, you can, but if you do, you suffer. Through allowing, you become what you are: vast, spacious. You be come whole. ”
To learn more about Therapeutic Yoga, please visit: http://www.therapeuticyoga.com/