I’ve had a hard time writing here lately. I’ve spent the past several months alternating between thinking about my medical issues and desperately trying to block them out. When I’m in a good mood, I don’t want to write anything that will lead to unhappiness. When I’m upset, I don’t want to think about anything that will make me feel even worse. So that explains the relative silence of the past few months.
I just finished a four-week yoga series. It was the first time I had done yoga since surgery. It went pretty well, after the first week when we did a lot of poses that involved being flat on my stomach. I almost didn’t go back, but thankfully the rest of the series didn’t include many more poses like that. It wasn’t easy, but I’m glad that I did it. Although the physical moves were hard at times, one of the most difficult things for me was turning off my thoughts and focusing on my breathing. It’s hard for me to give myself over to the calmness and quiet. In other areas of life, I usually try to distract myself as loudly as possible– through humor, music, conversation about something else, anything else. That’s my way of avoiding things I don’t want to deal with, or thoughts I don’t want to have. But during yoga, I don’t have any of those options. It’s just me and the mat.
I’m trying not to see thinking as a bad thing anymore. There are so many things I’ve been afraid to give even a moment of reflection, as if just one thought could immediately open the floodgates and put me back into the places I’ve tried to avoid. That obviously isn’t the best way to live, but when years of illness have forced you into survival mode, it’s hard to come up with a better way. Honestly, I think part of the reason I’m having trouble expressing my feelings is because I’ve tried so hard to not have feelings at all. It’s safer, right?
I had a doctor’s appointment a few weeks ago where my PCP asked me some questions about how things were going post-surgery and blood clots. I told her about some things that are going on in my life that I haven’t told almost anyone else. These things have the potential to be positive, but so were the other hundred things that got screwed up by my health problems. This is why I no longer disclose information about my life unless I absolutely have to. “It makes sense,” she said. “You’ve been disappointed so many times before.” It’s safer to just lie or keep my mouth shut. It’s safer to not want anything at all.
So… Thinking. Not a frightening concept for most people. Maybe someday, it won’t be for me.
(title from http://tinyurl.com/htqpp3m)