Monday, February 11, 2008

Breaststroke Meditations


So I think I got a handle on the chest pain. At least for now.

I had another session with the fabulous acupuncturist today, and we came up with this: that the grief that was being released (gratefully) was simply overpowering my typical fiery joy. Perhaps the movement of grief was also pulling chi away from Earth, the deficiency resulting in the increased anxiety I had been feeling for the past three weeks. The deficiency carried through to the heart again, coupled with the grief release from the lung, causing the chest pain.

To be honest, I just took a wild stab at processing it all within a 5E model. I've got to let my acupuncturist off the hook. He actually told me to quit analyzing it and just tell him what was going on (which is exactly what he should've done).

I was having a hard time being present for the session today. There was a part of me fighting the treatment, leaving my body, wanting to leave the room, to not get better or move on.

I attribute a bit of that to the two Guinesses I drank last night at the bowling alley. That was the first time I have drank in well over two years, and it made me nervous that I was craving alcohol that way. I packed them both down, and barely felt it. It's been a day already and I'm still doing good. Sweet! I suppose that was helped along by the triple dose of NAC and B-vits I took upon coming home, along with the 5 glasses of water I downed that night. But the numbing effects of the alcohol carried over into today's session. At one point, I was getting needled essentially in my armpit, and it wasn't going and wasn't going and wasn't going, and then I realized that I was so far away from my body that the guy could've punctured my lung and I wouldn't have noticed. I had to catch myself and invite myself back into my body. As soon as I came back home, the needle tugged and the point released. But it all really came home when I got the needle in the middle of my inner wrist. Like sudden divine inspiration, all of the sudden EVERYTHING got clear and present and real again. It felt miraculous.

I went home and just sat in silence for about twenty minutes then crawled back into bed for a hour-long nap. It's a struggle to get up because once again I've let my place get all piled up and grubby. Grrrr. There just doesn't seem to be enough time or energy to get everything done.

Anyway, I made it over to the gym for some laps and sweating before class. God, I love swimming. Doing the breatstroke is like flying. It's like I'm an eagle soaring through a stiff breeze. No surprise that Eagle is the animal that has come forth to help carry me through this grief-relief process. Everytime, and I mean EVERY time I go to acupuncture, my practictioner and I always see a bald eagle soaring around outside. We've both been seeing them on occasion outside of treatment as well. It's great because we're both so giddy to see them.

So Water element, coming after Metal, is giving the grief somewhere to go, in my eyes. But that's not why I swim. I swim because I love it. It's quiet, meditative. My body is surrounded in secure, cradling pressure. I can push myself as hard or slack as I want, I can daydream, I can breathe deeply, I can process, I can pray. I did all of that today. As I pushed off the wall and soared through the water, grabbing it with my hands and shoving it past me, pushing myself through, feeling every part of my self, gliding to the surface for a breath, I felt a relief that I had been waiting for for three weeks. I couldn't believe how long it had been, how bad I had let it get. The self-disgust, the self-loathing, the insecurity, the abuse I suffered at my own hands. At what point did I forget that I am made of light? Where did I get stuck between the words "I am" and "a miracle"?

I'm so grateful for this healing, and the pain and process that led me to it, scary as it was. My perceptions of this lesson was that when the going gets tough, pray harder. And I got a new list of things to pray for.

A piece of poetry:

"Hopeful I raise my bow and release my heart into the night sky. I'm aiming for the stars, and maybe I'll hit one. More likely, I will find the dark matter, and be graced another opportunity to embrace the shadow of the universe. Either way, I am a better person because of my efforts."

PS: I adjusted my first neck all on my own tonight!!!! It was so amazing, because it came from a very instinctual place.

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