The Power of our Stories 2: Gifted through Conditions

In my previous blog post, I described an experience I had many years ago with a concussion that changed the direction of my life. Today, in the wake of New Years’ celebrations around the globe, I would like to discuss the power of this kind of review of our life stories, and the gifts available to us when we are able to witness these stories without identifying with them.

The turn of the year seems like a potent time to examine our lives, or at least the events of the passing year. Based on our year review, we set goals, intentions or resolutions for the year being born. This process, like any transition, can echo our original experience of being born into this life. We often do it unconsciously, with an abundance of numbing substances like alcohol or too much food. This can be a reflection or re-enactment of a birth process involving anesthesia or other drugs. We often feel at the mercy of time, as it moves too quickly or too slowly, emphasized by the passing of another year. Similarly, for many of us, our birth was taken over by the speedy intentions of those attending our birth. It is not uncommon to lose our sense of our own timing in this process.

As January rolls along, I have been with many who are finding themselves feeling heavy, depressed, resistant to embracing the promise life offers them. This is not unusual when we have found ways to evade what is most meaningful for us, following more popular distractions or promises from loud advertisements, or people around us. We may be tired from overeating, partying, or even buying or receiving too many Christmas gifts. What happens to the depths of us in all this activity? I find my clients arriving this time of year feeling worn out, deflated after all the excitement and adventure of the holidays.

For myself, I am aware that the holidays offered not only rest and heart-warming family gatherings; they were also marked by grief and loss. My mother, whose health has been gradually deteriorating, went through a sudden decline at the end of November and seems to have endured a small stroke. I feel sad as I witness her new challenges with walking, talking and orientation. I feel grateful that her sweetness remains and everyone seems to still love her as much as ever, but my mom as I knew her, is not quite still here.

Life or?

At the same time, numerous friends and colleagues are meeting cancerous invasions in their bodies. I witness and support as best I can their valiant attempts to find health in the midst of this embodied chaos. I understand cancer as an expression of cells gone astray, isolated and no longer in resonant communion with the whole. Weakness, weight loss, pain, as well as cognitive effects seem to take over the scene, while the essence of who this person really is strives to express itself. Choices are made about embracing life more fully or embracing death and dying.

I can relate to these challenges. Some years ago, I was diagnosed with a malignant melanoma. I was confused that this happened shortly after I felt I had made for the first time a strong choice to live. This cancer seemed to be a way for my body to quickly express my earlier ambivalence for life. I had always said that, if I were ever diagnosed with cancer, I would only use alternative treatments. When the moment came, however, there wasn’t time to refuse the surgery. My dermatologist told me I needed to get to her office that very day. This was serious! This was life threatening! In that moment, even with the fear of what this all meant, I had no ambivalence. I got myself to her office and had the surgery.

This was a wake up call like no other in my life to date. It is too easy to fall into survival mode, just taking care of what needs to be taken care of in life, rather than deepening into essential presence and intention. After this emergency surgery, the ongoing pain of the scar served to remind me of the choice I had made. I chose to be here. I had the opportunity to leave but I chose to stay. I see this choice being played out by those I know who have been ill or overwhelmed by other life circumstances. They, like me, are being asked to make a choice. I suspect that their choice will affect them for the rest of their lives, just as mine has.

What Do You Choose?

In view of this, I would like to invite you to take a moment now to consider your own past year, and

the life that led up to it. What events stand out for you? What have been your greatest challenges? What has been overwhelming for you? When you consider these experiences, how familiar are they, or the feeling they evoke for you? If they are familiar, chances are you are in some way re-living an aspect of your earlier history. In this case, you have a special opportunity here to revamp your history, if you will. You can make choices now that may not have been available to you back then. Perhaps your situation is about more fully embracing life, as mine was. You have the chance here to really commit, to acknowledge what is most important to you deep down, and choose that.

Take a moment to reflect on this. It may take much longer than a moment, but allow yourself, if it feels right and useful to you, to be with this within yourself. If these challenging situations were offering you a gift or a lesson or a message, what would it be?

If you find yourself opening to new possibilities here, or re-visiting old ones you had forgotten, make some notes for yourself to remind you later. This is important. This is about touching into your original potential. This is about what you are here for.

Whatever it is, welcome to this life you now find yourself in! Welcome to this moment. May it feed and nurture you in whatever way you may need just now.

I would love to hear from you about how this little exploration has affected you. Please feel free to leave a comment below or to contact me to let me know.

Wishing you ease, grace, happiness, peace and embodied potential for this new year!

The Power of Our Stories

Supporting a student recently, I was reminded of just how widespread trauma is amongst us, of how powerful its grip on us can be, and how empowering it can be to simply acknowledge it.

How many of us have not been through overwhelming accidents, embarrassments, abuses, or other assaults in our lives? Most of us have not had the so-called ideal childhood where every moment was wondrous and every interaction rewarding. Most of us were not adequately seen, held, respected, met and reflected as little ones. Research on PTSD (Post traumatic stress disorder) has found that those exposed to challenging situations, like war, for example, are more likely to emerge with ongoing symptoms of stress intolerance if they had a traumatic experience when younger. Our histories, our stories inform us throughout our lives as to who we are, where we belong (or don’t) and what our purpose may be. We define ourselves according to our experience, particularly our very early experience.

The student I talked with had been depressed, having lost interest in the work she had previously been so enthusiastic about. A shocking accident had left her in pain, unable to walk for months, and unable to perform tasks she had previously excelled at. As I listened to her, my heart opened. I felt the angst of her struggle and recognized it. As support, I shared with her a piece of my own history.

My Concussive Story

In 1979, I had a concussion. I was engaged in my favorite hobby – folk dancing. Supposedly a relatively safe activity, I had been dancing Scandinavian turning dances at a weekend workshop out in the country. There were too many dancers on the floor. Someone’s foot accidently became entwined with mine or my partner’s. With all the momentum of the spin, we fell. Had I been on my own, I suspect I would have stretched out my arm and landed on it, probably breaking it. Instead, I went straight back on the back of my head onto the concrete, with the weight of my partner on top of me.

The room went quiet. I now know that the stillness was a combination of both the shock in the room and the shock in my nervous system. There was a doctor at the workshop who came over and starting assessing my state. What is your name, she asked. Can you tell me your name? I knew why she was asking. I had been working as an Occupational Therapist on a Neurology unit. I had patients with recent head injuries who couldn’t remember their names. But I knew my name. Saying it was another matter.

I have no idea how long I lay there in shock, paralyzed, unable to make my mouth or tongue move to say my name. I only knew it took everything I had to make it happen. It reminds me of when a petite mother witnesses her child under the wheels of a car and somehow lifts the car to free the child.  In my case, however, the muscles simply wouldn’t respond. The nerves could not convey their messages. Eventually, after what may have been a minute or an hour, my name came out of my mouth. Relieved, I began to laugh. The whole room joined in. They knew I was fine now and life, or at least dance, could resume.

Beginning A Long Journey

Life was not back to normal, however. I was helped to walk over to a mat at the side of the room to lie down while the others went back to their dance. I felt more lightheaded than I ever had before. As I lay on my mat, I slowly turned my head and there, to my surprise, I saw a newborn baby on the mat next to mine! Someone had brought the baby and left him to sleep while she danced. For me, however, this sight was miraculous. I didn’t know it then, but I, too, was starting a new life. At the moment, innocent like the babe next to me, I knew only what I saw.

For a few days, as my friends checked in with me through the night to make sure I was still conscious and alive, I felt a lightness of being. I felt ecstatic with all life being fresh and new. I wasn’t too bothered when, returning to teach folk dancing, I found I couldn’t balance on one foot to demonstrate a dance step. I simply asked a friend to come and hold my hand as I demonstrated.

Over time, however, the headaches and dizziness began to get to me. I began to worry about my memory. When I returned to work at the hospital, I was horrified to discover myself forgetting important things. One evening after work, I realized I had left a confused old lady on the toilet, having forgotten to go back to retrieve her and help her back to her wheel chair before going home. I feared I would lose my job if I told anyone. I didn’t know what to do. I was immensely relieved to see her happily in her chair the next day. I longed to have my own life fall back into place so easily. I began to feel depressed.

My hopeless feelings were enhanced by my inability at times to find the words I needed. Prior to the concussion, I had loved word games. My folk dance friends and I would spend hours when we weren’t dancing immersed in games of Scrabble and Boggle. I excelled at these games, easily coming up with obscure words that brought me more points than anyone else. Now, nothing came. I struggled at times to remember words even when speaking. A visit to a neurologist added to the growing gloom. Reviewing a brain scan, he told me what he saw in my brain would not come from a traumatic injury like my concussion. It signified a more deteriorative disease like MS (Multiple sclerosis).

This shocking news landed on top of the concussion shock, still lingering from a year earlier. Having worked with patients with MS, I had often thought this debilitating disease with no cure was the last diagnosis I would ever want. The neurologist wanted me to do a spinal tap to complete the diagnosis, but something in me rebelled. I had the uncharacteristic thought to not go through with the spinal tap and just think of myself as healthy. I never returned to the neurologist.

  

Guided into a New Life

I now believe something was protecting me, guiding me. Over the next few years, my life began to turn around. I found myself drawn to alternative therapies, leading me into my body and through my earlier trauma history. As I faced my traumas, they began to resolve, loosening their hold on me. The depression lifted. My life force strengthened. Eventually, led to Craniosacral Therapy, the remaining symptoms from the concussion began to diminish.

Today, I look back to that folk dance accident with immense gratitude. I don’t think I would be able to do the subtle therapies I do now had I not been knocked out of my old ways. Up until that time, I had essentially lived from the neck up. My body was just something I had to take care of so it wouldn’t bother me. After the concussion, I could no longer be as heady, intellectual or articulate as I had been before. It was a huge loss for me. Depression was a natural response.

 

Talking to the student, I described my story briefly, acknowledging how common it is to feel depressed after a life changing injury. I also explained that chronic pain after an injury can affect nerves up into the brain, repeatedly setting off a stress response. The person begins to feel chronically overwhelmed. Their resources are taken up with dealing with the pain. Their cortisol levels are high. They have nothing to fall back on when stress arises in their life. They feel exhausted, drained, losing interest in anything that takes energy.

The student was glowing more and more with each word I spoke. She felt heard and touched by hearing my story and knowing that others have similar experiences to hers. The next day, she thanked me profusely, telling me how helpful it was just to normalize her situation.

Our interaction inspired me to write this, wishing I could as deeply touch and reassure the many others with similar experiences.

Our Stories as Support

We are all unique. Our experiences are all different. But they are also the same. We all have the potential for compassion based on our own suffering. We actually understand much of how it is to be someone else, even though we can’t possibly understand how it is to be that person! We all share this human journey. Perhaps, the most important service our stories provide is the potential for that understanding. While it can be devastating to identify with our stories, believing they define us, there is profound healing and connectedness available when we witness ourselves in relation to those stories. Knowing we are more than what we have done or seen or experienced, and yet that we have been affected. Our stories are powerful and we can be powerful with them.

As Rumi wrote: "The wound is the place where the Light enters you." When we become our stories, we often cannot perceive or receive the gifts they have to offer us. It is when we step back and allow ourselves to hold our stories within the larger wholeness of our being that we begin to understand. Perhaps then, we even have the potential to embody and pass on the message delivered to us via our experience. The Light is then posted for all to see and share.