Touch the Source

As a graduate of the Barbara Brennan School of Healing I had always viewed diseases that are incurable by modern medicine as ideal candidates for energy healing.  One such disease is cancer.  However, over the past 10 years I’ve come to a deeper understanding of what healing means.  I used to think of healing as “curing” or “fighting off” of the disease.  But that thinking presumes that healing means fixing.

I’ve come to see that whatever sickness that afflicts us or results in our death is going to be a reflection of the wounds we have struggled to heal in this life.  So from a healer mindset I’m now less likely to seek the cause of the sickness or cause of the death in order to find a “cure”.  I am now more interested in witnessing the story a brave soul has lived in relation to the wounds.  So, whoever or wherever you are suffering from serious illness, I honor and send compassion to the journey you have made and the gift of you.  And to those who have died as a result of the illness I make contact with you back in time to say I honor and love the gift of you.  The more I can offer my presence to witness this — that becomes the healing response.

In the past 10 years I’ve also come to learn many things about cancer but mostly have come to know how so  little most of us know about cancer.  First of all cancer is NOT a single disease.  There are hundreds of different kinds of cancers with different prognosis and treatments.  Cancer is a grouping of diseases which have some similar properties but often treated with very different methods.

Cancer is not an external invading disease that you must “fight” off.  Cancer consists of cells coming from one of your bodies organs going into a state of disorder where they 1) have abnormally fast growth 2) fail to mature into the original function of the organ they came from 3) tend to avoid aging and dying like normal cells and 4)  eventually spread to other parts of the body.  Modern western medicine still mostly thinks of cancer as something to overcome and fight off.  Most people think of fighting a war against cancer, but since the cancer cells come from you, in this war you are kind of at war with a part of yourself.

Some state that we all have some level of cancerous cells it’s just that our immune system is able to respond to remove them.  And when a scenario is reached where cancerous cells can no longer be recognized and defended by our immune system we start to get cancer symptoms, eventually detectable cancer cells and then a diagnosis of cancer.

Once you’ve been diagnosed with cancer, doctor’s will share the prognosis, recommended modes of treatment and monitor progress of cancer progression.  If the cancer decreases it’s declared as going into remission.  Remission means that the signs and symptoms of your cancer are reduced. Remission can be partial or complete. In a complete remission, all signs and symptoms of cancer have disappeared.

If you remain in complete remission for 5 years or more, doctors may declare that you are cured.  Still, some cancer cells can remain in your body for many years after treatment. These cells may cause the cancer to come back one day.  For cancers that return, most do so within the first 5 years after treatment. But, there is a chance that cancer will come back later.  For this reason, doctors cannot ever say for sure that you are cured of cancer.  So it would be misleading to ever declared cured.  The most they can say is that there are no signs of cancer at this time. At best you can state you’re cured for now. Because of the chance that cancer can come back, doctor’s will still have to monitor you for many years and do tests to look for signs of cancer’s return.

I started to wonder if the properties of what makes a single “normal” cell turn “cancerous” became the behavior of a person.  What if the cancer properties of 1) abnormally fast growth, 2) Unwillingness to behave with maturity 3) wanting to stay forever young and live forever and 4) wanting to constantly expand their footprint became the persona of an entire human being.  Such a person would have an unceasing demand for more, want no responsibility in life, want to never grow up, and want to stay forever young and never die. I believe the irony is that a person endowed with the cancer persona would be most terrified with getting cancer.  They would be most terrified of getting cancer.  Yet the cancer itself would seem to be governed by the very thing they so dearly wish in life, which is to have everything they want in life with no trade-offs or compromises.

In spirituality one asks about the purpose of life.  One explores the purpose of life when in the end we all will get sick and we will all eventually die.  It has been said that the deepest wounds in our lives are actually our greatest gifts.  And I said earlier that I have come to see diseases and disorders a reflection of our wounds.  So then the disease and disorders in our lives must somehow be reflections of our gifts.

I read a quote about death from Marc and Angel Chernoff’s book Getting Back to Happy.

“Ultimately, we grew to appreciate that although death is an ending, it is also a necessary part of living.  And even though ending like these often seem ugly, they are necessary for beauty too — otherwise, it’s impossible to appreciate someone or something, because they are unlimited.  Limits illuminate beauty, and death is the ultimate limit“.

And so death is the ultimate illuminator of beauty.

I’ve read many stories of people claiming miraculous spontaneous being “cured” from cancer and have not been able to come to a conclusive reason why.  To prove that you had been “cured” I will have to witness the entirety of your life as being completely free of cancer symptoms until the day you die and the cause of your death must not be from cancer.  So let’s just say that some people are able to claim miraculous complete remission from cancer.

I’ve spent many years searching out some common theme among those who have experienced a miraculous remission and I’ve only maybe found a very sketchy common theme.  I’ve found that those who have experienced any form of miraculous remission have often gone through a stage where they fully accept their mortality and fragility.  They have a bit more of an ease and acceptance of what is very likely to occur, their death.  There is a level of surrender even maybe the ability to see the gift of the cancer.  Sometimes a community gathers around and prays for that person, sometimes not.  And then a miraculous remission happens.  But then again sometimes it doesn’t happen and they die anyway from cancer.  So in the end I can offer no prescribed means that assures long lasting remission.

In the end maybe I can only offer anyone who is diagnosed with cancer or wanting to avoid getting cancer is to consider adopting a state of being that is of a not of the cancer persona.  Furthermore, I propose adopting this persona just because regardless of whether or not cancer is being considered.  Can you and are you willing to hold a persona that says the following?

1) I am willing to grow at the pace I’m meant to grow.

2) I’m dedicated to expanding my maturity as a healthy adult supporting the betterment of all.

3) I accept the natural course of aging and my time to eventually die.

4) I am enough and I have enough.

So I come back again to only say to those diagnosed with cancer is that I honor the gifts that you had been delivering, are delivering now and have yet to deliver.  I honor your challenging and unique journey.  I bow to your humanity.  Let me pull up a chair and listen to your story.

Where ever you are is where you are. The circumstances and faces of God that you meet are there to help you be where you are and who you are.

The people, their state of being, the way they come to you are by no accident. You think they are by accident — fortunate or unfortunate.

They are Me .. my Dearest My Beloved.

The devils, the angels, the neutral, the angry, the happy, the disappointed and delighted faces … they are me … the timing of those faces that may only meet you at the precise time they do yet deliver different faces to others … they are Me.

You sometimes think it’s a conspiracy against just you … well in a way it is … but in a positive … loving and nurturing way for Me to teach and grow you … but quite actually it’s really you who are attracting those to you … because you are wise … love yourself … and seek to teach and grow yourself …

… and so yes in a way You are also Me … A lot of you probably doesn’t believe you are mostly soley responsible for delivering to yourself what has come to you.

So because you are doing it … for good reasons … that’s even moreso why it is no accident.

You are where you are exactly supposed to be, gifted to be — despite the fact you may not now like this gift you are being showered with very much at all.

Where you are is where you are (meant, gifted, created, enriched) to be.

So I sort of feel bad that I haven’t posted anything in a long time.  Like I have some obligation.  I mean from some of the positive feedback I had gotten in the past on this blog, I feel like because my blogging has gone so silent for very long that now I’m no longer meeting expectation, being a disappointment to some audience.  So for the many weeks that have past, I’ve found myself very busy in my day job, often with no time to write about something special that strikes me, and then when I have time not having the desire to write. So there is one aspect that pushes me to now post something, which is guilt, which is a “I should be”,  “I’ll lose some popularity” , “I’ll lose legitimacy” , “I’ll be a disappointment” kinds of feelings.  These are all roundabout ways of describing that I feel bad –> or as I have been coming to accept in these past few months –> an acknowledgment of an internal childhood bound belief that some part of me is Bad.

And what do I mean by Bad?  Is it like a  naughty boy who stole a piece of candy at the store, which one might describe as mildly bad.  Is it like being a very pushy and manipulative personality, which some might describe as bad, good or something in-between?  Is being Bad like being impolite and unfriendly, which could just be a judgement of the goodness/badness of a person who is shy and gentle.  So maybe these examples are at best examples of “sort of bad” gray areas of badness.  But what if we could somehow filter out the “not so bad parts” from these situations so we come to the small core of pure badness? What would that look like?

Imagine if I had a handful of “sort of bad” stuff.  This “sort of bad” stuff would be on the darker side of colors and not very dense.  And then I start filtering out the “non-bad” stuff from this mass.  And what remains gets darker and darker and more dense.  What remains are maybe a few grain sized kernels of pure badness and super dark beyond imagination.  And what would that be?  The essence of pure evil?  The driver of the worst imaginable maniacal serial killer/rapist/mass murderer?  Or something like a unfathomable demon far worse than what has ever been portrayed in the scariest ghost/monster movies?

With what I’ve come to realize is that this line of thinking of “Badness” is still quite external to the essence and core of Badness.  I’ve come to see that Bad is truly a judgement that we impose upon ourselves based upon beliefs and images that most of us would deny we have because it sounds too crazy (“crazy” is code for unbearable) to believe how “bad of a person” we think of ourselves as.

But the truth is in our lives we spend an immense amount of our energy, time and life force trying to counter, cover up, and hide this badness.  It’s in our actions and behavior to look better, and be better for others and to our self critical  view of ourselves.  We look in the mirror both literally and figuratively.  And when we look in the mirror it’s not that often to see the beautiful reflection of a wonderful beautiful being (partly because we might have been told that’s vain, and vain is Bad).  More likely we look to see all the shortcomings, doubts, pimples, scars, wrinkles and imperfections that we might have varying degrees of shame, embarrassment about –> all these lead to feelings of Bad.  And many of us as grown ups sort of get good of covering up those core feelings of Bad rather quickly so that we actually kind of numb them out and move on with important stuff in our lives like “earning a living”

–segway to a scene of a young me looking in the mirror: “Oh wow what a huge pimple.  I look bad.”

— my early inner critical voice: “Only a few can look pretty.   Come on grow up, toughen up.  You can’t be too sensitive if you’re going to grow up and be successful. It could be a lot worse. ” –> and the bad feeling is repressed.

But the thing I start to realize is that although feeling Bad is ultimately the result of my own inner judgement of myself as I witness myself being seen by other, the act of pushing past inner judgment may only just be repressing and storing away that Badness deep within me.  And these stored away Bad feelings are still moving me or trapping me in cycles of behavior that I although I may want to stop,  I can’t — no matter how much I believe it makes sense to stop.

Where it plays out most prominently for me is in establishing my boundaries.   So for example if I’m asked by someone to do a favor that I really don’t want to do, if I have that badness there in I’m more likely to say “yes” I can do that favor.  Because if I say “yes” my inner judge says “I’m nice, generous, selfless and Good,” but if I say “no” my inner judge might say “well then they won’t like you anymore, or they’ll talk behind your back about how I stuck-up or selfish or unfriendly” —-> translation “how I am in truth genuinely, is just a bad unloveable person”

And yes many of us may have heard encouraging words of wisdom like:

“No one can make you feel Inferior without your consent” 

“You wouldn’t worry so much about what others think of you if you realized how seldom they do.”

“Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don’t matter, and those who matter don’t mind.”  

But yet still internalizing the truth of the above quotes does not change how you feel.  And it’s because the power of “Bad” is not in the realm of wise thoughts.  While you can certainly start quieting some of those inner critic/judge voices with words of truth and wisdom like the above, the driving power of “Bad” is the very fact that it HURTS!

The power of “Bad” is one on in the same as the “pain” that we feel when feel we haven’t done enough, we should have been, we could have been, wish we were, feel guilty, and in more or less ways can’t show ourselves to others and especially to those that seem to matter the most in our lives.  And for most of us we think the pain is just a “dull” pain, not to be compared with say a broken leg, a major physical wound,  or major burn injuries.  But what I’ve come to believe is that the pain of “Bad” is actually quite incredibly intense, it’s just “dull” because life affords us so  many ways to avoid getting close to the pain of those parts of us that we deeply feel are “Badness”.  Many of those ways are just getting lost in work,  constantly moving on, earning more money, or spending money on things to distract you from having to fall into feeling exposed and starting to feel that “Badness”.

Lately I see this interplay in how it has moved  me to work longer and longer hours at my workplace, for fear of being late on a project.  My critical adult might cast reasons why this is justified, making up a horrific story like “if you are late than this other big mega-dollar project will be late and you’ll be at fault, and this other multi-billion dollar plan will be messed up all because of you.  You boss, your bosses boss, your bosses, bosses boss will be so so so angry with you.  So if you right now decide to take it easy and go on vacation and dare “have fun!” while your project is in the depths of chaos …. oooh …  You will look SO BAD”  You will be in BIG TROUBLE!. “ –> This is the edge and intensity of BADness.  And to avoid that edge and intensity I will be compelled into giving up my boundary and may work longer hours to make up for taking vacation, work weekends or put off vacation, or even if I do go on vacation feel really guilty about it and not have that much fun or even feel miserable.

And if I were to visualize and draw a picture how how the Pain of his Badness feels I see something that looks like my heart and when I feel the Badness it’s like a sharp knife jabbing me with sharp intense pain into my heart.  So then if let’s say I’m in a disagreement with a loved one and I say “no” to something and they’d rather I have said “yes”, when that Badness is there for me in relationship I will feel guilt, I will feel pain, which I will try the best to ignore, keep busy and numb out as best I can, but the truth is that often it will  drain me, it will feel like asking myself  hold my breath for more than 2 minutes (honestly I don’t know if I could actually hold my breath anywhere near that long).  And like the pain of holding your breath for as long as possible you might initially consider it a dull pain, but with time you realize it’s actually a very great pain that is ultimately the very essence of what pain means –> the belief and fear that you are imminently dying, being destroyed, or being annihilated into nothingness.

Your Badness, those purified dark grains of badness I described earlier, are those intense entry ways into the parts of you, you really don’t want to be seen because you believe if others and possibly you truly saw the depth and entirety of those parts of you would be rejected, outcasted, possibly put into jail with your mug face plastered in shame on the front pages of of newspapers, unloved, unworthy of living –> just plain Bad.  And that kind of Badness, despite how much you can effectively deny it, is very very very painful.  So painful that you dare not come close to feeling it and so it you don’t feel it.  And in your not feeling it moves the way you behave, it moves you into those cycles you wish you didn’t fall into, because it’s those very cycles that are your means to not feel your “Badness” as best you can, so that you can remain as “Good” as possible and as least “Bad” as possible.

Some time ago I had the opportunity to work with a client in association with my Brennan Healing Science Schooling.  At this particular session my client was rather frantic.  My client’s life seemed to be in a state of overwhelming upheaval and I was sort of being looked at for “magical” healing to bring about resolution.  At first this was daunting for me.  I initially felt this urge to “pull it together” and act like the “all knowing and all is well healer”  But, I knew “pulling it together” would only bring superficial help.  Instead I resorted to grounding and being in the present.  Without pretending to rise above the overwhelmingness of the situation, I sort of dropped below it all.  Even more important I set my intention on holding the space of ordinariness, even at the risk of being just an ordinary “non healer” human being.

And you know what?   Suddenly, it was like me, the client and the room got really quiet as we clicked into the zone of the present.  We didn’t have to rise above the chaos, because at the moment we were just concentrating on the ordinariness and nothing specialness of the moment.  Within the precious space of every moment the room was quiet and we could hear maybe birds outside or a passing car.  In this space it wouldn’t matter if we learned of impending doom the next day or some recent glorious victory.  The grass doesn’t care.  The bugs on the ground don’t care.  The dirt doesn’t care.  The sky doesn’t care.  The air doesn’t care.  The crack in the wall doesn’t care.  No matter what happens to you, what you become or don’t become, they will still be there just the same, the same way the would have always been, nothing special, just ordinary life ticking away steadfastly like the seconds on a clock.

And in that space or ordinariness strangely there is something extraordinarily magical about it.  In that space I’m taken back to moments as a child, possibly even as an infant where my only job during the day was to stare aimlessly up out of my crib watching life slowly unfold.  As a child I could remember many boring, lazy, summer days that seemed to last forever.  I remember daydreaming.  I remember imagining the carpet pile was forest or the wrinkles on my bed were mountains, or the bathwater in the tub was an ocean.  This was all happening while my parents might have been worried about paying bills, worried about losing their jobs, worried about my asthma attacks, and even arguing with each other.  In the midst of all that adult worry I was quite occupied in dropping into the ordinariness of mundane everyday simple thinks like the air, sun, dirt, cracks in the wall, carpet pile, and wrinkled blankets.  There was no stress.  At times it might have felt boring.  But in that boredom was huge expansive space for wonderment, creativity and fun.

So I found this space rather potent for my client and rather potent for myself.  Yet it’s all so rather ordinary.  But the fact that this ordinary was so potent struck me as so extraordinary.  And there’s this knowing within that has registered in my heart, that the most special and extraordinariness one might seek will ultimately turn out to be the courageous act of simply dropping all masks, and defenses, dare to do nothing, accomplish nothing, dare simply being nobody special, just the ordinary you.  To actually believe that the holding of the state of the pure and simple you is so so so unbelievably extraordinary.

So I’m now more often reminded and drawn to holding the magical space of being ordinary.  It feels so real.  It feels so doable.  It puts me at ease.  And it assures me of my great worth for simply existing. I even feel this element of eurphoria and that “touching the source” sensation tickling in the center of my heart. 🙂

I started to think about how many parents seek to give their children a better life than them.  They seek to make the best for their children.  That thinking then turns into they want the best for their children, which also sometimes turns into they expect their children to fulfill what’s best for them.

As kids we may get fed “positive” information about “you can become anything you want to be”  or the “the sky is the limit” or “there is nothing you can’t do”.  But you know it is all still quietly saying “we expect the best from you”  or “you are not enough … if you just sit on your butt”  And into adults we mirror back these messages upon each other reinforcing this belief as the template for future children to grow into.

So last night I paused to realize how I’ve been lax in taking proper care of my eyes by leaving in my extended wear contacts in too long for so many times.  When I do that my eyes may start to get red and tender.  And I have a valid concern that over time if I continually disregard proper contact lens care, like I’ve often done, I will get a bad eye infection and risk losing my eyesight.  I mean generally many adults by their 40’s start to need glasses to read, and by their 60s start getting cataracts, so why am I only making it harder for the long term health of my eyes? I start getting scared at the prospect of losing my vision and I remove my contacts.  But I guess I’m not that scared because it doesn’t take too long before the next time I’ve left my contacts in for longer than recommended.  When that happens I notice that I’m mostly feeling too busy and distracted and almost hear myself saying “Wait … after I finish responding to this email … or I’m so tired … I’ll do it in the morning”  I mean whats another day?

And a month ago I got a warning from my dentist to please start flossing as I’m losing gum, some bone, and each dental cleaning is only going to be more painful if I continue to ignore flossing.  So on the first day back from my dentist I’m vigilant, but within days, I start thinking the pain ain’t so bad and besides I’m to busy trying to get better by “keeping on time” “saving more money” “planning for personal improvemnt” “make more money” …. blah blah blah  I notice clearly this sensation of: “This flossing is such a pain … it’s so inconvenient … I just don’t have the patience!”  It is only maybe 10 minutes of hygiene … yet there’s this jittery hurried force within me that makes anything that can’t be done in a few blinks of the eye too long and burdensome, that even the real possibility of losing my teeth just doesn’t motivate me to fully embrace the intent of caring for myself.

At best I only have a mixed set of priorities like: “I need to finish my taxes first, I need to exercise more to lose weight, I need to complete that communications project REAL SOON for work!,  I need to prepare for my Wednesday meeting, I want to form that monthly meditation group, I need to build a social network of friends, I need to figure out how to reduce my mortgage payments, I need to spend time to figure out which lawn mower to buy, I need to fix the basement door, I need to figure out how to hang the pictures in the basement nicely, I need to get more shelves setup for storage, I need to figure out what kind of fencing to consider buying, I want to explore replacing some of our door locks with wireless remote door locks, I want to hire an interior decorator, I need to save up money to be able to afford interior decorating, my dogs ears are infected … I don’t care for my dog as well as I used to … I need to take better care of my dog so she lives longer, Oh no I need to drop my weight to keep my blood pressure healthy … I should meditate more … I should start excercising more  … I wish I looked better … I should start excercising … I’m want to look better … I wish my home looked nicer … I wish other people naturally liked  me more … I long to be more popular  … I need to improve my ability to socialize.”

I take a breather to step back from this confusion. I try to prioritize and I conclude that: “I need to get my finances straightened by finishing my taxes first, or start submitting my medical bills for reimbursement or shopping around for those speakers to accessorize my large screen TV, I need to exercise more to lose weight, I need to complete that communications project REAL SOON for work!,  I need to prepare for my Wednesday meeting, I want to form that monthly meditation group, I need to build a social network of friends, I need to figure out how to reduce my mortgage payments …” AND ON AND ON AND ON going all over the place in scattered directions.

All this melee of thoughts and actions end up placing me in about 60% of my time in mental paralysis as I trying to shift back and forth the direction of my life, never quite yet ready to actually move.  And what’s at the root of all this confusion has nothing to do with time management or getting my priorities straight.  WHAT’S AT THE ROOT OF ALL THIS IS THE BELIEF I’M NOT ENOUGH.

Being enough isn’t simply a mental affirmation of “I am enough” it is the courage to dare be present in what ever situation arises and allowing myself to sit in that great discomfort of feeling inadequate, incompetent, ashamed, bad, of being a disappointment, of looking wierd and of being awkward.  I recognize I’m terrified of spending too much time with various close people in my life because I fear them discovering how inadequate or awkward I am … and so all these scattered urges to do all the things I need to do to make me better are just part of a large web of accomplishments I feel I must complete to make myself feel enough.

Yet ironically the path to enoughness starts with the awareness of mind and courage of spirit to simply be present in my feelings of not enoughness and resist doing anything to hide, fix or correct myself.  Because there is nothing to fix.  The only thing to fix is the belief there is something to fix.

Can I dare say how I truly feel to another person even if I might disappoint them or they might reject me.  I hear voices in me echos with words like  “gee … that Wilson … we thought he had so much potential … but boy what a disappointment … I mean he looked like he was so with it on top of things … but now look at him … I certainly don’t want to caught hanging around him ”  These are my own internal voices waiting for me to paint them on the face of any willing person I bump into so they can bring them to life and validate my belief that I’m not quite good enough to be present with any other person.  I mean I can maybe be partially present, by being proper, politically correct, and hopefully finding in-common topic to chit chat about. But I’m always going to be guarding and masking some part of me that I’m dreadfully terrified of being exposed.

And so lately at least I’ve been awakened to my own chaos.  But even more important I’ve been willing to take time to sit in it and feel the great discomfort and dissatisfaction and not run, numb, or distract so quickly.  For each action of running, numbing or distraction might only turn into another item on my list of things I need or want to do.  Dare I come see you in my simpleness of just me.  I am truly very ordinary.  I’ve gotten a lot of schooling and even got a couple of degrees, yet in the end no matter who you are, even if at times I might have felt “better” than you I actually felt insecure in your presence.  I’m so insecure that I might need to use those degrees and other accomplishments as crutches and masks to distract you and myself so that hopefully none of us notices how terrified I am to reveal myself without the cover of those accomplishments.  Because underneath those accomplishments you might just see who I really am.

My parents encouraged me to be an “extraordinary” person.  I am now finding that achieving extraordinary things is at most only “doing” extraordinary things.  But if all you strive is to “DO” the extraordinary you’ll never actually BE extraordinary as you’ll keep striving to accomplish more and yet still feeling not feeling enough.  BEING extraordinary is different than DOING extraordinary.

BEING extraordinary, I mean TRULY EXTRAORDINARY is the courage to dare simply BE ordinary.  To simply be just as you are how ever you are at this moment.  Not trying to be a better person, because you already are that better person where ever you are at this moment.  You are perfect just as you are.  Yes indeed you are ordinary — the ordinary you.  But your ordinary you is extraordinary.  And even more if you have the courage to DARE just be who you are … no masks … no running … no cover ups …  that would indeed BE EXTRAORDINARY.

Very few people can simply BE ENOUGH.   If I could more and more practice SIMPLY BEING present in the moment especially during the times I feel NOT ENOUGH …  If I could endure a few times the storm of my critical inner voices while being present in my NOT ENOUGHNESS, I might just discover that those storms won’t make my world end.  If I dare weather the storms of my inner critiques, if I can allow myself to I reveal those parts of me I truly believe are not enough, I might just discover I really am enough. This is how the courageous act of being present in my not enoughness can lead to my goal of enoughness.  If I could do this … I would be able to be present in being just ordinary … and that would indeed be EXTRAORDINARY.  And then I’d always have the time to take better care of myself because there wouldn’t be anything else that needed doing.  And that would feel so fantastic, wonderful and great. 🙂

I feel kind of disappointed with myself for not having blogged for so long.  There have been several points in the past couple of months that I could have blogged about something, but I instead chose to record it in my journal so that maybe I could get a better handle on it.  But more times than not I never even wrote in my journal.  I chose to write nothing because the act of writing my thoughts interferes with the thought process itself.  So dear reader … how few of you that may actually be out there, I apologize for not writing very much.  I apologize for ferreting some my own things for myself and not for you the reader to witness.  So here is my checkin for what’s been happening in the past couple of months.

I had been much more aware of a physical pain in my physical heart. If anything I would have described as a noticeable weakness or vulnerability in the center of my heart.  But more recently the condition was exacerbated when I went to a Taiko drumming workshop.  After 5 minutes of drumming I was stunned.  my arms were a little achy, but I was breathing hard, and my heart muscles were sore!  I had always attributed such a sensation to my heart getting a good work out.  But for only 5 minutes of beating on a drum, something that is overall less taxing then running hard on a treadmill, I was kind of disturbed. I thought “I’m really out of shape.”  But it wasn’t the “I’m going to look overweight, fat and flabby” kind of out of shape.  No this time it felt more like “I’m going to get a heart attack and die” kind of out of shape.  I’m not being sarcastic.  I’m nearing 46 and its always been around the late 40s and early 50s that relatives in my family have suffered from some kind of life threatening cardiac related disorder and so the risk factor is very real for me.

I did more research on the internet on the topic of heart fatigue.  The general answer was there was no such thing as heart muscles getting fatigued and tired.  Heart muscles should be capable of working forever.  If a heart muscle starts to feel fatigue heart damage is considered.  And the idea of heart damage did resonate with me.  But just the same there still exists the general voice that exists that the goal of an aerobic exercise is to make your heart work harder to make it stronger.  So some level of heart fatigue would seem to be a good thing.

So I concluded that I was out of shape and needed to get back into some minimum level of aerobic exercise.  So the day after I went Taiko drumming I went out on a short run around a local school track. I recall finishing the run with a slight asthmatic reaction to the cold outdoor weather combined with possibly some air pollen. Then I came back home and within an hour both my eyes were swollen and blown out red with an extreme allergic reaction.  It was very severe and frightening.  But I bring this up because I somehow want to connect this to my heart’s condition.

The center of my heart was feeling a definite and profound ache.  And as I write this blog entry it’s now becoming clearer that something there really wanted my attention.  My deep attention. Not just a general feeling, but many hours of deep, careful and precise attention.  I felt my heart tissue was indeed damaged, in fact slightly perforated so that it was steadily hemorrhaging blood.

So I spent a couple of hours trying to carefully and accurately draw how my heart was feeling and drawing how the blood was hemorrhaging.  I was very attentive on accurately drawing how it felt.  Below is my drawing.

And then after a day, you know what? …  the bleeding sensation went away!  The physical soreness, fatigue and ache in my heart went away. Not sure what more to say, except that the true healing is not in the attempts to fix something, but more just with that feeling, and honoring of that that feeling with an expression of art.