Monday, January 9, 2012

Healing messages: A break from the stress

My body has been breaking down since having our two amazing kids, who are going to be eight months old in two days. And I have been trying to figure out what’s going on and how to heal and mend my aching body.

Let me start by telling you what’s wrong: I’m pretty sure I have carpal tunnel syndrome in my right hand, trigger finger in my right pinky, and loss of range of motion in my right hip.

I am not the type of person who gets a headache and just takes an aspirin. I see a headache as a symptom of something deeper – emotionally and spiritually. It’s the body’s way of shouting out a message for spiritual and emotional healing. And if you don’t listen, the body continues to break down until you finally listen and do something about it.

Because I know that our bodies speak to us and enlighten us to a deeper understanding of our true selves, I started my quest for healing alternative style. I did make an appointment with a rheumatologist because I want to be thorough and do whatever I can to help my body heal, but I’m also going gung-ho on the alternative approach as well, as I am certain that my body is trying to tell me something.

I started by asking the Universe (or God, whatever you call it): How can I heal my right hip?

And my intuition told me very clearly that yoga and meditation would help. I also heard reiki, and did start seeing a reiki master. It’s an AMAZING experience, which I’ll save for its own blog post once I’ve come to some clarity on what to say.

On yoga and meditation: I returned to my yoga practice as soon as I could after my c-section, and I have been doing a lot of hip opener sequences. I have been meditating as well, listening to the different areas of my body – especially during yoga – and also visualizing myself, with the flexibility of a yogi, doing lotus poses with ease.

I also saw myself having a conversation with my son Ethan while meditating. Ethan was born very small and in the NICU for three and a half months. We went on a really scary and rough road with him. But he’s doing really, really well. I had to process everything that had happened, and I apologized to him during the meditation. I felt guilty for what he went through, since I feel responsible for it. I also purposefully re-lived some of the trauma of the pregnancy, birth, and aftermath. I would love to be able to find the words to describe to you how important it was to meditate on the experience, and I am going to continue until I feel at complete peace with everything that happened. But I can tell you that today, I feel so much stronger and calmer than I ever have in my life.

My intuition told me very clearly that my right hip was storing a lot of stress and mind chatter around the whole experience of what happened with my son. And looking back on it, actually, my right hip lost its flexibility a few weeks after the c-section. So my intuition made a lot of sense.

I came to another realization a week ago: All of the aches and pains are on the right side of my body. It seems so obvious now, but it took me a while to figure that out. There’s meaning behind that.

Looking at it from a Western medicine perspective, the right side of the body is controlled by the left brain. It’s the side that controls language, rational and logical thought, the side that categorizes things, and writes to-do lists. From a Chinese medicine perspective, it’s the masculine side – the more aggressive side; while the left side of the body is the feminine – the passive side. The right brain is creative, abstract, and emotional and controls the left side of the body. And whenever those two sides of our inner selves are out of balance – the body gets out of balance as well.

My spiritual diagnosis is clear:

1) I still haven’t fully come to terms with what happened with Ethan. And I’m not afraid to say it out loud to all of you. I haven’t let it all go yet, although I thought I had.

2) On top of that, I’ve been in “doing” overload since the babies were born. No more resting on Saturday and Sunday mornings. I wake up early and change diapers and feed babies – happily, mind you, but it’s tiring. The stress of not sleeping. The stress of not having time to unwind, be more creative, meditate more consistently. I’m stuck in what seems to be an endless stream of to-do lists. I am doing too much. Not resting enough. And quite frankly, it’s really hard to find time to rest when you’re juggling taking care of twins (one of whom has some temporary special needs), keeping up with the house, going to doctors’ appointments with two other little people to think about, and managing my diabetes and health. Oh yeah, that.

My body is screaming that I need a break, a chance to rest and restore. And also a chance to process and let go of everything that happened.

So I put it out there: How is a mom of twins with diabetes supposed to find the time to rest and restore AND take care of things at the same time? How are we all supposed to find the balance between doing and getting things done AND taking care of our health and wellness?

Here’s what I heard: Let go of the mind chatter and go with the flow. And savor the moments when you do have peace and calm. The more you savor them, the more you create the energy of peace and calm in your life.

2 comments:

  1. You're absolutely right. I wish I had gone with the flow more often during my twin's first year. I felt very much in a fog, so physically exhausted from taking care of them and everything else (house, diabetes, you know) and I'm happy to hear your wisdom about meditating and managing the stress. I'm been trying to meditate now that I have more time and it's very helpful in helping me live in the moment and to try to appreciate the hectic toddler environment that usually surrounds me. It's also helped me to let go of any guilt I've been harboring about my kids not talking yet (they're 2 and a half) and to stop blaming myself for that. I trust they will talk when they are ready. Anyway, I really appreciate this post. I had severe carpel tunnel in both wrists and tendonitis in both elbows until my kids were a year old and then it started to taper off and slowly heal. I hope the same goes for you soon. I wish you the best.

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  2. I am 21 and I actually just found out that I'm pregnant with twins today. I am so scared I don't know what to do. My A1c isn't the best and this was completely unexpected. All I can do is cry at the thought of losing my kids over this disease and my lack of control in the past I'm ready to go through whatever is needed to get through this with me and my babies safe and sound . I'm just so scared

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