Gifts of Injury: Unexpected Part 2

In my last blog post, I wrote about the gifts of awakening and awareness I was receiving following a fall where I injured my wrist. I mentioned that bruised bones, like mine, can take up to six months to recover. On the six-month anniversary of that fall, the unimaginable happened. I fell again! It was as if I had begun forgetting the gifts as my bones healed. The universe conspired with my intentions to ensure I really received the gifts. This time, I broke my radius, the large bone of the forearm, just above the wrist.

For some time, I had been saying, I’m too busy! I need to slow down. I’m seeing too many clients!” Well, they say to be careful what you ask for! Suddenly, I had to cancel all my Craniosacral therapy sessions for at least six weeks. While I have continued teaching Continuum and seeing my other clients and supervisees, I am blessed with a freer schedule. I am also blessed with the potential gifts this new injury offers!

I hesitated to write this blog post. It could be embarrassing to admit this has happened again, but what is it in me that is embarrassed, and can the gifts and lessons here be useful for others? Can I put aside my ego, any needs to be admired as a healthy, fit Continuum teacher with fluid bones, and just get on with receiving what is here?

To be clear, I don’t see this fall as an accident! Yes, I was doing a stupid thing, standing on a folding chair to hang something up, but when I went back to the corner of my office where it happened, I was amazed. There was just a tiny spot of floor available for my hand to land in, which is what it did. The rest of the available floor space was covered by a big, thick cushion! If I had landed on that cushion, I probably would not have been injured at all! It was almost impossible for my hand to have found that tiny spot of bare floor, but that’s what happened! This was not an accident in the usual sense of the word. This was an offering, a wake up call. I didn’t receive the one six months earlier as fully as I might have, so I was being showered with gifts once again!

So many gifts. So much potential. I could reject the gift, choosing to hold on to something older, or I can enquire, receive, and share. I choose the latter.

What gifts?

The most obvious gift here is of slowing down. I was asking for this! Now, having not slowed myself down enough using all the tools I have gathered over the years, I have temporarily lost the ability to do anything quickly! The subtle attention required for performing with one hand the simplest everyday task – washing, dressing, eating, cooking, even walking – slows me down, preventing me from escaping this moment!

I am challenged to practice what is most important to me in life: to accept and appreciate what is, with equanimity, simply being present with what is.

I must listen on a deeper, more subtle level, which is what have I strived for for years.

I have a rich opportunity to study the tissues in my body in relation to injury and health. As a Continuum Movement teacher and Biodynamic Craniosacral therapist, I have been fascinated observing the densification occurring in my wrist with the shock at the moment of the accident and the first moments following it, and then watching the shock and trauma in my system dissipate and integrate over time. I have observed waves of shaking, trembling discharge and enjoyed exploring the powerful effects of using Continuum sounds and micro-movements, allowing the inner wave to dissolve the density.

I am having ample occasions to observe, accept and be with my feelings, including gratitude, pain, and frustration. At one point, I announced to my husband, “I’m going to have a tantrum now, and I’m going to observe my sensations during it!”

I am learning to more readily ask for and receive help. After flying to New York last week, I have considered in the future wearing a sling every time I travel, in view of the abundant the kindness and support I have received from so many strangers!

Finally, unable to function habitually without pain, I find myself creatively engaging with the moment. Life has become like an ongoing mindfulness meditation or Continuum Movement practice!

Dying to Each Moment

Recently, I watched a video (https://vimeo.com/158838428) of a favorite somatic teacher, Camille Maurine, with whom I studied in California, between classes with Emilie Conrad, founder of Continuum. Camille has written a wonderful book called Meditation Secrets for Women. She reminds us that each breath can be perceived as a birth and a death. Emilie Conrad saw true fluidity as being able to die again and again. She wouldn’t make someone a Continuum

teacher until she saw that they had died enough times, like a snake shedding its skin, letting go of the old and beginning anew in any and every moment. When we hold on, we densify in a familiar pattern, becoming less fluid and responsive for the next moment. This is true for both our tissues and our psyches.

(Image of snake shedding skin: By Sean Gagnon (Own work) [CC BY-SA 2.5 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.5)], via Wikimedia Commons)

When I consider the moments of real change in my life, they generally relate to something not working out as expected, or facing a serious challenge, often involving health. Perhaps, this is such a moment.

An important principle of development is that growth does not occur without challenge. For example, every stage of embryological development involves meeting a challenge, like implanting and developing the beginnings of a placenta and umbilical chord when needs for nourishment grow beyond what can be taken in from the uterine fluids by osmosis.

What is dying for me just now? What needs to die? Perhaps, it is time to let go of any remnants of needing to be perfect. Believing I’m not good enough just the way I am. Living with more speed than I want or is good for me. Ignoring messages from my body to slow down. Living according to the limitations of time.

Emilie Conrad used to ask, “If we were not bound in time, would we be susceptible?” meaning would we be affected by our outer world. A major intention in Continuum is to deepen beyond the bounds of time, submerging ourselves in a more fluid, primordial state that precedes time. We find that, indeed, in this state we are less dependent on the outer environment for our needs and more resilient in interacting with its effects.

In the moment of the accident, I was very much bound in time, just trying to quickly get something done in the 15 free minutes I had. I was trying to squeeze this task in before doing my Continuum practice! From now on, I do Continuum first!

Since the accident, I cannot function in that urgent way. I am supported in living in this moment, because I can’t do things quickly. I can’t multitask. This means I can’t be planning or thinking about future moments while engaging in this one. I can only be in this moment and then the next.

Ahhhh! I feel grateful. I am less bound in time. In an odd way, I feel freer.

What is dying, trying to die, or needing to die for you? I hope my words here support you in being able to let go and allow this death without having to break a bone! Please let me know by leaving a comment or sending me an email at cherionna@cherionna.com. 

Gifts of Injury

 It’s been almost five months now since I tripped while walking down the street. The gifts of that uncomfortable event continue to flow. I don’t recommend injury as a method of becoming more present, but, if it happens, it can offer remarkable opportunities for practicing being more aware than usual.

The fall fortunately didn’t result in any broken bones. I suspect this is due to my Continuum Movement practice, which keeps my bones fluid and resilient, even as I grow chronologically older. Emilie Conrad, founder of Continuum, used to talk about how people worry about osteoporosis and take calcium to make their bones stronger. She considered it much more effective to practice Continuum, where, instead of further rigidifying dry bones, we stimulate the fluid within them, facilitating them in returning to or living in their natural fluid state.

I was amazed when I first viewed images of bone, looking like sponge, or even like the coast of the 

ocean! When I practice Continuum, I experience this spongy fluidity. It is as if my bones well up, nourished by a mysterious inner wellspring.

Rather than being broken, two of the little bones in my wrist, as well as my knee, were bruised. Bruising in the bone is similar to bruising elsewhere in the body in that there is an injury in the tissues and, as a response, blood or other fluid fills whatever space it can penetrate. Swelling and pain result.

You might be asking at this point, where is the gift in this?

Well, as luck, or perhaps biomechanics, would have it, I bruised the bones in my right wrist, which is my dominant hand. Until you have had an injury to your dominant hand, you can’t quite understand how challenging it is to do anything! Every doing puts right in your face how habitually you tend to act in everyday activities. For example, which hand do you use to squeeze the toothpaste out of the tube? How do you hold the toothbrush? How do you hold the towel when drying yourself out of the shower? How do you roll over in bed, or get up from bed, or a chair, or the floor? When it hurts to do as you usually do, you suddenly become more aware of what you are doing, and begin, through this awareness, to find other ways.

 

I admit that, having a background as an Occupational Therapist (OT), did somewhat help prepare me for this situation. As an OT student, many years ago, I enjoyed practicing and experimenting with trying these kinds of activities of daily living with my non-dominant hand, or with one hand tied to my body, or with my eyes blindfolded, or from a wheelchair. I wanted to understand what it was like for my patients with injuries, malformations, or debilitating illness. Understanding from the outside, however, is quite different from learning from the inside.

Many years ago, I had fallen off my bicycle and broken two bones in my hand. This had given me some first hand practice in coping with injury, and its associated pain and disability. I found myself being creative but bravely pushing ahead in all of my activities. I even went on to teach a class in folk dancing a few hours after the fall, because I couldn’t find a substitute at such short notice. Somehow, I managed, even with my hand still shaking with the shock of the fall. Following the advice of a doctor friend in the folk dance group, I then made myself a splint and waited a week before going for x-rays and treatment. 

Perhaps because I was younger then or perhaps because I have learned to slow myself down, this current injury seems quite different.

With my years of mindfulness practice, I have found myself appreciating the challenges. My life practice, including but not limited to Continuum, is about being present with what is, being aware, and coming out of unconscious habits and patterning. From this perspective, an injury is a God-send! 

While I am grateful to have bruised, rather than broken, these bones, I am also aware that bruised bones take much longer to heal. Most fractures heal within six weeks; bruised bones can take up to six months. At this point, my wrist is much better and doesn’t often hurt, as long as I am careful. I can do most things with it, but here’s where the gift extends itself further! Because I don’t need to be so careful every moment, I am in danger of slipping back into habitual use and speed. I found myself unconsciously lifting my suitcase with my right hand the other day on a train. I was pleased that it didn’t actually hurt, but was surprised I had let down my guard enough to use that hand in that way, after protecting it so carefully for months.

This is the point in the healing process where my new level of everyday awareness can slip away. I have enjoyed being challenged the last few months to live my life as if I were on a meditation retreat, slowed down, attending fully to every action.

I am grateful that I can now lift a suitcase without pain, but I have a strong intention to maintain the gift my injury has offered. Perhaps, this is like enjoying a gift after the wrapping has been taken away to the recycling centre. The swelling is gone; there is minimal pain. I can move my hand well. There is no longer such a visible trace of the gift, but I want to keep it! I want to keep using it. I want to remember. I want to remember also the moment it was delivered. Where was my mind in that moment? How did the pavement rise up in front of my foot that way without me noticing? 

I offer this gift to you now. I hope for you the possibility of being aware of each moment, each action, each body part, even without pain or injury. And if you already have pain in your body, or happen to be injured, I wish for you the joy of opening this gift, discovering the potential appreciation, even gratitude for what it may offer you. Having lived with chronic pain myself for many years, I know how challenging it can be, as well as what potential learning and discovery it can offer. May the latter be yours, if you so choose!

Wishing you ease, awareness and delightful discovery on this journey in the body.

A New Year, A New Birth

Here we are at the birth of a new year. 2016. However you rang in the new year, you are part of a human field of beings entering into a new experience. So far, 2016 may seem the same as 2015. Who knows how it will unfold? If you are like many others, you have made or are making some new years’ resolutions. I liked an email I received recently suggesting that we reconsider our resolutions as goals. Rather than trying to do what we are making ourselves do, or feel we should be doing, how about pausing, looking inside, and listening to our hearts? What is your heart’s desire for this new year?

For me, I am holding the vision of completing editing and publishing my book, The Breath of Life: An Introduction to Craniosacral Biodynamics. I understand that, in numerology, 2016 is a year of completion. The digits in 2016 add up to 9. 20 + 16 = 36. 3 + 6 = 9. Or 2 + 0 + 1 + 6 = 9. No matter how you do it, the number is 9. In numerology, 9 relates to completion. The number following 9 is 10, which adds up to 1. Therefore, 9 ends a cycle. I don’t claim to know much about numerology, but I appreciate that these numbers somehow may be supporting me in completing this project, perhaps even in having this desire to complete this year!

While the number 2016 may be meaningful, what I see as significant isn’t really about it being a new year; rather beginning a new year represents for us the potential of any new beginning. From my experience with prenatal and birth therapy over the years, both as client and therapist, I am aware that our tendency in times of new beginnings is to revisit or re-enact our first new beginning in this life. How we experienced our birth, or even our conception, can profoundly affect how we embrace transitions, endings and beginnings in our lives.

How do you start your new year? How do you move into new projects or approach new goals? I

know I have had the tendency to get excited with blazing creative energy when planning something new. I can work very hard to get it going, but as the end nears, there is often a mysterious gap. Time has passed without my awareness and I find myself speeding up and struggling to get whatever it is done in time.

Through my own therapy, I have been able to develop awareness of this pattern, which enables me to make choices to support a different ending. I have also healed through learning how this pattern first developed. My mother used to tell me that, when I was being born, she was fine with the labor pain because she knew it meant the baby was coming. At some point, however, the doctor said, “I’m just going to give you a whiff of something.” She was completely knocked out by this drug, which of course affected me as well. The point in my process where I tend to lose touch with time relates to when the anesthesia came in to interrupt my birth process. Although I still sometimes notice this tendency, it is much milder than it used to be. I celebrate now when I am preparing for one of my too many trips away from home and find myself easily, spaciously getting organized and packed.  The acceleration near the end rarely happens now. When it does, I have a different relationship to it. I acknowledge this is my birth pattern arising and reassure the little one in me that we are not being born right now and that there is no anesthesia coming in.

Prenatal and birth experience can affect us in different ways. A child whose conception wasunplanned and unwanted may find it difficult to find any authentic desire to start something new later in life, or may need to push through their fear of being judged and rejected in order to accomplish anything. Induced birth can also have the effect of interfering with one’s own sense of timing. Birth assisted by forceps, ventouse or caesarian section, while at times life saving, may also affect a sense of being able to complete on one’s own. There may be a feeling of needing to be rescued. Babies who have been stuck in the birth canal, may feel like giving up, getting depressed for no apparent reason. The obstacles seem like too much struggle to surmount.

What happens for you when you make new beginnings? How do you feel about this time of year? How do you set goals for yourself? How do you move towards them? This is a good time of year to observe ourselves and our tendencies in transitions. Awareness is the first step in healing, so just asking yourself these questions may take you a long ways! Listening to your heart can further help smooth the road ahead.

With all of this in mind, I wish you ease, creativity, happiness and delight in this new year! I’d love to hear how it is for you.

Surprised by Forgiveness

Please call me by my true names,
so I can wake up,

and so the door of my heart

can be left open,

the door of compassion.

~Thich Nhat Hanh

As I sat the other day to practice metta (loving kindness) meditation, I had a profound experience, which seems worthy of sharing, and hopefully of benefit to others.

Part of my metta practice is to forgive all beings that may have hurt or harmed me in any way. I also request forgiveness of anyone I may have hurt or harmed. To all beings, I wish happiness, peace, and liberation.

I began with sending metta to all those affected by the recent terrorism in Paris, including all of those suffering, sad or afraid.

Then something unusual happened as I intended to forgive anyone who may have hurt or harmed me. My mind returned to the Parisian scene of terror. I found myself thinking of those who bombed, shot and murdered so many people, and planned the attacks. As I considered the possibility of forgiving these intentional killers, I was astonished by a tingly warmth spreading in my heart. I understood suddenly that each of them had been acting according to his beliefs, doing what he believed to be good. This was a shocking thought to me, but my heart warmed with forgiveness.

Then, I thought of those responsible for 9/11, and a similar process occurred. Then came the Nazis! The Nazis? Can we possibly forgive the unforgiveable? Yes, the same warm feeling flowed through my heart. Finally, there were the Cossacks whose Pogroms terrorized my ancestors in Russia, leading them to flee to America.

Eventually, my mind included those responsible for promoting toxic pharmaceuticals, resulting in exacerbated illness and needlessly expensive deaths. Then the American pioneers cold bloodedly destroying the Indians and their land, colonials mistreating aboriginal peoples around the world, slave traders selling human beings for profit, the objectification of women, of children, of anyone who varies from “normal” or isn’t in power…  

Was this different from the terrorist acts this week? Could forgiveness go that far?

The feeling in my heart was undeniable. My intellect needed to catch up.

Forgiveness is quite different from condoning. I do not in any way approve of destructive, violent or disrespectful behavior, and feel it is important to acknowledge what has happened and the pain it has provoked. Yet, without denying or overlooking these acts, I can forgive. I can pardon those who have acted out of their own suffering, ignorance or error.

In the process of being stunned by my own process of forgiveness, I remembered then Thich Nhat Hanh who wrote the following poem, inspired by his own anger about a twelve year old girl, a refugee raped by a sea pirate while escaping across the Gulf of Siam. The girl threw herself into the sea. The wise Vietnamese monk wrote,

“I was very angry, of course. But I could not take sides against the sea pirate. If I could have, it would have been easier, but I couldn't. I realized that if I had been born in his village and had lived a similar life -economic, educational, and so on - it is likely that I would now be that sea pirate. So it is not easy to take sides. Out of suffering, I wrote this poem. It is called "Please Call Me by My True Names," because I have many names, and when you call me by any of them, I have to say, ‘Yes.’”

Please Call Me by My True Names

Don't say that I will depart tomorrow --

even today I am still arriving.

Look deeply: every second I am arriving

to be a bud on a Spring branch,

to be a tiny bird, with still-fragile wings,

learning to sing in my new nest,

to be a caterpillar in the heart of a flower,

to be a jewel hiding itself in a stone.

I still arrive, in order to laugh and to cry,

to fear and to hope.

The rhythm of my heart is the birth and death

of all that is alive.

I am the mayfly metamorphosing

on the surface of the river.

And I am the bird

that swoops down to swallow the mayfly.

I am the frog swimming happily

in the clear water of a pond.

And I am the grass-snake

that silently feeds itself on the frog.

I am the child in Uganda, all skin and bones,

my legs as thin as bamboo sticks.

And I am the arms merchant,

selling deadly weapons to Uganda.

I am the twelve-year-old girl,

refugee on a small boat,

who throws herself into the ocean

after being raped by a sea pirate.

And I am the pirate,

my heart not yet capable

of seeing and loving.

I am a member of the politburo,

with plenty of power in my hands.

And I am the man who has to pay

his "debt of blood" to my people

dying slowly in a forced-labor camp.

My joy is like Spring, so warm

it makes flowers bloom all over the Earth.

My pain is like a river of tears,

so vast it fills the four oceans.

Please call me by my true names,

so I can hear all my cries and my laughter at once,

so I can see that my joy and pain are one.

Please call me by my true names,

so I can wake up,

and so the door of my heart

can be left open,

the door of compassion.

~Thich Nhat Hanh

And, so, my mind continued on its journey. May I be forgiven by all those I may have hurt or harmed in any way?

Again, I was surprised. Usually, when I practice metta, my

forgiveness is directed to my parents and others who abused me in various ways throughout my life. Today, instead of intending forgiveness towards them, I found myself requesting forgiveness of my parents! I understood that, from their perspective, I hurt them by being whom and how I was, by following my own truth, as well as by my own unconscious, rebellious or defensive reactivity. My very aliveness was a threat to them.

Forgiveness is not easy. It cannot be forced. It seems to arrive when it is ready… or when we are ready. And readiness seems to arrive more easily when we have forgiven ourselves.

Can you forgive?

Please call me by my true names.

Please also consider calling you by your true names.

May all beings be happy. May all beings be peaceful. May all beings be free.