I am home from a meditation retreat where we spent considerable time in silence and in a meditative pose. It wasn't the same experience for me this year and I was grateful for that. Last year I felt overwhelming emotion consistently; trying not to weep, holding back tears, finding my voice breaking when sharing. I had sometimes been unable to prevent tears pouring down my face when in meditation or on the day when we visited the group who sang sacred music. It was a private meltdown.
I suppose the good news story of last year is that I returned to my life in a still, private space. I felt that I had somehow gathered strength for those parts of my life that were raw and painful. I had been confronted by the intense pain of other people and I had been softened by it; opened up. It felt like a good thing. I felt like I had found my tribe, the walking wounded; those who knew that something had to be done about their emotional damage before they were annihilated by it. On some level perhaps I understood that more emotional pain was to come and I was grateful for the shoring up of reserves.
If left to my own devices I would not have attended again this year, but my friend had been onto me for several months, wanting me so much to be there with her. There came a point where there seemed no choice and I made the necessary preparations.
This year there were so many more sick people. I was affected by it, no doubt about that, but I also took it somewhat in my stride. I think I had developed an understanding of the reality of the situation. People are prematurely dying from cancer from the way they live and think and from unresolved damage of their past and present experiences. It was inevitable that at a meditation retreat, unlike a health resort, there were would be many sad stories to hear.
The first conversation that stood out to me was that of a middle aged local woman; by that I mean she lived in New Zealand. She had had a double mastectomy several years ago. Recently, she had discovered a lump in her neck and would return from the retreat to hear the results of tests; whether the primary cancer was located in her breast region or in a gynecological region. Either way, her prognosis was dire. She already had the news that she was terminal.
I asked questions about the support in her life. Fortunately she had been helped with a little counseling to deal with her anger and fear but any further help she could get would be useful. So, I pointed out her situation to one of the 'teachers' and received a very odd response. The woman had to come to her, she told me, and she wouldn't be doing anything about it unless she did. It felt like a slap across the face and I immediately closed down, merely offering that she was a woman with little support and I felt it wouldn't hurt to be aware of her situation and keep a watch on her. As if this 'triggered' her in some way she said that if she wanted specific advice she should attend a cancer workshop not a meditation retreat..
This made me incredibly angry. It felt heartless. Don't ever make the mistake of wholly trusting spiritual people, as if they are people without triggers and flaws of their own. We are just people who sometimes act well and sometimes not. Of course, I took the matter further in a subtle way and she did receive some one-on-one counseling from my friend. By the end of the week she seemed much lighter, smiled often.
At the end of the sacred singing this year, a deeply moving experience, we talked a little. There came a moment when I felt a need to move closer into her inner world. 'May I hug you?' I asked. She nodded yes. We embraced for several seconds and I stroked her hair. Now my tears escaped. 'It has been wonderful to meet you,' I said. 'You will be all right.' I didn't mean she would live, because I don't think she will be alive for all that long. What I meant was that she would find the strength to die well.
Rightly or wrongly, I said as few 'goodbyes' before I left on the shuttle bus for the airport as I could. I had given all that I had to give. I had held in my own sorrows. I had been kind and supportive and good company. Now, I needed to go, as quietly and as quickly as possible.
The retreat is in a remote location and so I stayed overnight at the hotel airport on the first Friday, before I caught the shuttle bus that would transport me to the retreat. It was there when I turned on my phone that I received a message from my doctor's office to call them. I have been trying very hard to get a handle on my stress response over the past year but this message terrified me. I had recently had a battery of blood tests and prepared myself for the news that a cancerous state was indicated.
In fact, the news related to an elevated cholesterol count and I immediately researched, whilst I had access to the hotel's Internet, what to do about that. I love cheese and of course I determined immediately that it was another food to eliminate from my diet. I wrote a list of foods to focus on, flax seeds that I could soak overnight and add to my porridge, for example.
But, I knew in my bones that I had to work harder to resolve the significant stress that I was living with; stress being a significant factor in elevated cholesterol levels. My needs have not been, and are not met, and living with someone who can't process that has been stress provoking.
On the final morning one of the participants was asked to say a 'thank you' on behalf of the group to the 'teacher' who is retiring. She shared that when she met him her mind was a living nightmare. Her relatives being Jewish had been through the concentration camps and many of them had ultimately taken their lives. She had deemed that perhaps this was the only way out for her too. But, the teacher had taken her under his wing and instructed her to meditate consistently. Although she sometimes felt nauseous doing so she had kept up the practice until, day by day, the freakish nightmare inside her head started to lose its hold over her sanity.
It was Kate's comments that truly reached me. There has been a nightmare going on in my head and changes must be made. Time on my cushion must be increased. A sense of peace will come from the inside out. My job is to sit with myself in silence until then.
I suppose the good news story of last year is that I returned to my life in a still, private space. I felt that I had somehow gathered strength for those parts of my life that were raw and painful. I had been confronted by the intense pain of other people and I had been softened by it; opened up. It felt like a good thing. I felt like I had found my tribe, the walking wounded; those who knew that something had to be done about their emotional damage before they were annihilated by it. On some level perhaps I understood that more emotional pain was to come and I was grateful for the shoring up of reserves.
If left to my own devices I would not have attended again this year, but my friend had been onto me for several months, wanting me so much to be there with her. There came a point where there seemed no choice and I made the necessary preparations.
This year there were so many more sick people. I was affected by it, no doubt about that, but I also took it somewhat in my stride. I think I had developed an understanding of the reality of the situation. People are prematurely dying from cancer from the way they live and think and from unresolved damage of their past and present experiences. It was inevitable that at a meditation retreat, unlike a health resort, there were would be many sad stories to hear.
The first conversation that stood out to me was that of a middle aged local woman; by that I mean she lived in New Zealand. She had had a double mastectomy several years ago. Recently, she had discovered a lump in her neck and would return from the retreat to hear the results of tests; whether the primary cancer was located in her breast region or in a gynecological region. Either way, her prognosis was dire. She already had the news that she was terminal.
I asked questions about the support in her life. Fortunately she had been helped with a little counseling to deal with her anger and fear but any further help she could get would be useful. So, I pointed out her situation to one of the 'teachers' and received a very odd response. The woman had to come to her, she told me, and she wouldn't be doing anything about it unless she did. It felt like a slap across the face and I immediately closed down, merely offering that she was a woman with little support and I felt it wouldn't hurt to be aware of her situation and keep a watch on her. As if this 'triggered' her in some way she said that if she wanted specific advice she should attend a cancer workshop not a meditation retreat..
This made me incredibly angry. It felt heartless. Don't ever make the mistake of wholly trusting spiritual people, as if they are people without triggers and flaws of their own. We are just people who sometimes act well and sometimes not. Of course, I took the matter further in a subtle way and she did receive some one-on-one counseling from my friend. By the end of the week she seemed much lighter, smiled often.
At the end of the sacred singing this year, a deeply moving experience, we talked a little. There came a moment when I felt a need to move closer into her inner world. 'May I hug you?' I asked. She nodded yes. We embraced for several seconds and I stroked her hair. Now my tears escaped. 'It has been wonderful to meet you,' I said. 'You will be all right.' I didn't mean she would live, because I don't think she will be alive for all that long. What I meant was that she would find the strength to die well.
Rightly or wrongly, I said as few 'goodbyes' before I left on the shuttle bus for the airport as I could. I had given all that I had to give. I had held in my own sorrows. I had been kind and supportive and good company. Now, I needed to go, as quietly and as quickly as possible.
The retreat is in a remote location and so I stayed overnight at the hotel airport on the first Friday, before I caught the shuttle bus that would transport me to the retreat. It was there when I turned on my phone that I received a message from my doctor's office to call them. I have been trying very hard to get a handle on my stress response over the past year but this message terrified me. I had recently had a battery of blood tests and prepared myself for the news that a cancerous state was indicated.
In fact, the news related to an elevated cholesterol count and I immediately researched, whilst I had access to the hotel's Internet, what to do about that. I love cheese and of course I determined immediately that it was another food to eliminate from my diet. I wrote a list of foods to focus on, flax seeds that I could soak overnight and add to my porridge, for example.
But, I knew in my bones that I had to work harder to resolve the significant stress that I was living with; stress being a significant factor in elevated cholesterol levels. My needs have not been, and are not met, and living with someone who can't process that has been stress provoking.
On the final morning one of the participants was asked to say a 'thank you' on behalf of the group to the 'teacher' who is retiring. She shared that when she met him her mind was a living nightmare. Her relatives being Jewish had been through the concentration camps and many of them had ultimately taken their lives. She had deemed that perhaps this was the only way out for her too. But, the teacher had taken her under his wing and instructed her to meditate consistently. Although she sometimes felt nauseous doing so she had kept up the practice until, day by day, the freakish nightmare inside her head started to lose its hold over her sanity.
It was Kate's comments that truly reached me. There has been a nightmare going on in my head and changes must be made. Time on my cushion must be increased. A sense of peace will come from the inside out. My job is to sit with myself in silence until then.
No comments:
Post a Comment