Tag: Mindfulness Meditation

Mindfulness, Sickness & Health

Never surrender?

Diana

Earlier this week I had my 5th follow-up diagnostic mammogram and breast ultrasound in under 3 years. The first time I found out I needed these scans was a few weeks into starting chemo for ovarian cancer. I had tested negative from the BRCA mutation, so I was very much in a What, are you fucking kidding me? place.

The scans were negative then, as they are now, but the thing that is different has been my admitting fear beforehand. My brand, for as long as I can remember, has been “quietly brave, strong, and independent”. I don’t know if that’s how others would describe me, but inwardly, a part has regularly incanted, It’s not a big deal. Don’t cry over nothing. You’re not going to cry until we know there’s something to cry about.

But this time, on the day before the imaging, I told my mom, “I’m nervous about this.”

And that “quietly brave” part of me was like, Nooooooooooooooooooooooo! Never admit weakness! Under any circumstances!

It’s okay, Sweetie, I told it. We’ve tried stoicism for a while now, let’s give honesty a go, just for a bit.

As I lay on the cot, my arm above my head, warm goo being chased around my breast by an insistent probe, I breathed and thought about how, in the past, I had focused on looking calm, breathing deeply, smiling and joking to put the technician at ease—all to show how “quietly brave, strong, and independent” I am.

The truth is, I am all those things. Sometimes. AND, at that moment, I was also scared of how “bad news” might impact my life. AND, I was tired of having these scans done. AND, whether I liked it or not, I was dependent on both the health professionals conducting the appointment and my family at home wishing me well.

Abandoning my former actions, I melted into one word: surrender—to the mattress beneath my body, to the breath that has never once abandoned me, to the kind woman pressing deep into my flesh to get the best picture possible.

I allowed the fearful thoughts, the what-ifs, to trot around my brain, unbridled. I caressed each one with tenderness, and before too long, the hoofbeats quieted.

Funnily enough, I didn’t feel less brave or strong. If anything, I felt a deeper sense of trust in myself and in the willingness of Life to hold me—no matter the circumstances. It seems that in softening, I am starting to realize how durable I truly am.

Mindfulness, Sickness & Health

Let yourself be

Diana

Mindfulness was not the first form of meditation I tried. Starting before the age of 10, I experimented with visualizations, self-hypnosis, breathing practices, and more.

I pictured myself walking through forests. I imagined orbs of light permeating my being. I repeated “I am still,” over and over again, all in the hopes of being able to heal, to change myself into something I liked better. Most of the practices left me feeling incompetent and more tired than I had been before I’d started. I thought of myself as a spiritual person, but I was not getting this meditation thing—at all.

I had just about written it off entirely, when a few of my friends recommended Jack Kornfield’s teaching on mindfulness. I put on the CD, aware of equal parts hope and fatalism thrumming in my chest—maybe it could help? But it probably won’t.

The beginning was what I’d expected—about adopting the appropriate posture and taking some deep breaths. Grudgingly, I complied.

I don’t remember exactly what words came next, but at some point, he told me to just let things be as they are, without judging them and without trying to change them.

A wash of relief flooded my body. You mean I don’t have to make myself somehow feel better than I do? You mean I can just sit here and let my body and heart hurt, and not try to do a damn thing about it? I don’t know if I cried, but I was achingly grateful. I hadn’t realized that the reason I wasn’t “getting” meditation was that I had always been attempting to make something happen. I had been all effort and no flow.

I can just imagine whatever angels that may have been looking out for me wrinkling their foreheads in compassion. “Honey, could you just loosen your grip . . . like just the teeniest, little bit? No? Well, that’s okay, too.”

It may sound counterintuitive, but allowing my body, my mind, my heart to all be okay—even though they decidedly didn’t feel okay was lifechanging for me.

Even so, after more than a decade of practicing mindfulness and two years of studying (in a program co-led by Jack Kornfield, as it happens) to become a meditation teacher, it’s easy to forget that I am not meditating to make myself better, more successful, or more acceptable to the world.

I am meditating to remember—that though I may not be healthy, I am whole. Though I’m not super-productive, I am enough. And though I might not fit in with my culture, I am absolutely loveable.

All I need to do, is let myself be.