Freaking you out

One week into a cleanse, and a week since a shaman/naprapath dug into my old wounds and adjusted my 'bodily' alignment, and I find myself trudging through an old mental swamp. Amazing how our minds and bodies are so intimately linked, and how trauma we think we process, we think we're over, can lurk somewhere under your shoulder blade or in your neck. So to fix my neck, said healer began aligning my body, a mix between chiropractic work and massage, really getting into the connective tissue. I was a mess that weekend, but even now, as the cleanse should make me feel lighter, I feel heavy with the pain and confusion I felt a year ago.

I've talked with quite a few people, now, slowly, about the wreck I was in last February. I didn't know how to talk about it then. I thought I would worry people. I felt completely in every atom and every way estranged from friends and life here in the US. Most close friends I tell will later come to me: "You really freaked me out." No, no, they insist, its not bad don't be sorry. Well how should I feel? Who do I tell? What should I say?

So I realize a year and a half later that my "keep quiet, keep humble, keep calm" method of handling trauma has managed to push all my fears into my connective tissue, down somewhere in the body mind ether where it can continue to pop up and scare the shit out of me. Since no one really knows about this blog yet, I'd like to take the opportunity to scream to the world what freaks me out.

I'm terrified that I'll die an abrupt and violent death while traveling. I hate flying. I hate trains. I hate buses and Indian drivers. I'm furious that I was in such a serious accident and felt so cut off from friends. I'm deeply hurt that I wrote to some friends from university who never bothered to respond. I thought, 'maybe its too much for them to handle, maybe they missed the email', and then they write me later, saying, "I want to hear all about India! You must be totally enlightened." :o No, I'm not enlightened you ignorant shit. I'm traumatized and where the hell were you? I hate that I felt so alone out there, that because I didn't want to scare people or freak them out or introduce the existential dilemma into busy American lives, I subsequently didn't get concerned phone calls, letters of support, or love.

I'm overwhelmingly grateful for the support I found in India. Friends, angels, and teachers gave me a new home. They gave me love, and more than that, a framework in which to understand what had happened to me, and what happens to all of us. I was able to process this mess in Bodhgaya, where the Buddha attained enlightenment, and one of the holiest places on earth. I had just converted to Buddhism several months before, and the accident truly forced me to examine my source of refuge: What and who could help me handle my overwhelming awareness and fear of death? Would it be my drinking friends of past? Would it be a cigarette? Would it be my family and friends?

I missed all those earthly refuges then. As an all time low, I started drinking Nescafe to substitute for my main addiction, good coffee. I ate too much chocolate and samosas and longed for the day when I would again dance in New Orleans. But in the meantime, I studied the teachings of the Buddha, was surrounded by kind practitioners, and practiced intensely. Those months gave meaning to my life that I had never before had. In light of my experience, I began to forgive, to let go of a great deal of judgment and pain from my past.

The difference here is that these earthly comforts, so abundant in New Orleans, are designed to cover over all our uncomfortable feelings. Of course its great here. I make elaborate costumes for carnival. I dance like a circus freak in the street. I garden and make good meals with friends. So maybe these things don't cover our pain, but we, obviously, focus on the joy. I needed that, and I'm so grateful to experience it now, here.

As I prepare to leave for India in a few weeks, my mind, and apparently my body, remembers that experience--the accident and how I felt after. The child in me doesn't want to go. She wants to stay here and drink gin and tonics all summer and lounge and listen to the blues. She wants to have craft nights with friends. She doesn't want to remember.

The difference, I think, in these different sources of refuge, of comfort, is that one is lazy while the other is challenging. Its the love of a dog versus the love of a strict parent. New Orleans, a dog, will love me no matter what. She'll let me relax and enjoy and play. The Buddha, the dharma in India, sees the reality of my suffering and the pain I cause, and makes me take grown up steps to cut that out. Yes, I had an amazing sangha in India. It was without a doubt the most meaningful year of my life. But it was also the most difficult. To quote Paramahansa Yogananda, in the Autobiography of a Yogi (51):

"I have long exercised an honest introspection, the exquisitely painful approach to wisdom. Self-scrutiny, relentless observance of one's thoughts, is a stark and shattering experience. It pulverizes the stoutest ego."

Thats what happens in India; you get pulverized. You become acutely aware of your mortality, of the tentative nature of your existence. Then the questions arise: Why? How, then, do I live? If there is a cause of suffering, how do I rid us of it? What does that look like?

Last March, I was exhausted. At age 22 I felt 40. I was lethargic under the weight of existence and fear. I came to terms with many things, and have been doing extraordinarily well for many months.

And now I'm going back.

What it means to heal

As life here begins to gain momentum, to rustle itself up from the subdued inertia of introspection, I find myself increasingly drawn to the healing arts. Since the fact that I, myself, am a conglomeration of misaligned scar tissue and hormonal/bacterial/you-name-it imbalance does not evade me, I ask the question, why? Why such an interest in well being/ayurveda, etc., when I'm such a wreck?

I'm then reminded of one of my first teachers in Nepal joking, "Are you depressed? An emotional disaster? Confused? Deluded? Great! You'll make a wonderful Buddhist!"

So in a way, I'm perhaps more interested in our collective view of "the bad." Sickness, depression, ailments, mental and physical- labeled as wrong and covered over--because that's what we do here. Instead of diving into our weakness or fear, using trials as opportunities to challenge ourselves, we cover them with painkillers and pills and churches that point the finger outside the congregation at "other".

Why am I drawn to healing? Because after a year of intense fear and confusion, the result has been immense, immeasurable, meaningful growth. Because getting sick, getting hurt, feeling 'bad', isn't just okay, it can be great. It can be the best thing ever. I'm not a sadist; I'm a realist. And the reality is that trials are a gateway, a wake up call: "HELLO!!!! You are a fragile, immeasurably precious being with infinite potential and opportunity. You can lose this in a flash. Tune in NOW. wake up."

Case study: I've had a bizarre throbbing in the veins in my neck for the past two weeks. You know, those arteries and whatnot that connect your heart and brain. Kinda important. My western doctor gave me a long name, said it was "spontaneous," will go away in a few weeks, and to take ibuprofen. I think- bullshit. My eastern teachers, more eloquent than I, would look on several levels: that all pain and joy we experience stems from our karma, and that obstacles we face are returning debts we owe for injustices and pains previously rendered. We can rejoice, then, when we get sick, and have the opportunity to purify negativity in this life. The healer I just saw addressed the many levels of health and sickness: past accidents, scar tissue, diet, lifestyle, etc. She isn't going to heal me; she's going to guide me in healing myself.

Real healing--emotional or physical--isn't a pill, and it isn't painless. It hurts. But when you understand why you undertake the struggle, when you can align your energy and purpose with a greater drive to realize wholeness for all beings, you can also find great peace and even joy in that pain.

Real healing is an opportunity to feel deeply the collective suffering of beings, as manifest in you and your particular issue, and to use that experience to gain wisdom and compassion. Real healing goes beyond the labels good and bad, and allows you to experience fully the challenge that is available to you in the moment, the lesson you have to learn. When I think of healing, I don't particularly think of myself, or anyone else, as one of those health nuts you see in a magazine who has a perfect routine and balance. Perhaps I could use more of that, routine and balance, which is on my plate for the moment, but to me its not the point.

When I think of healing, I'm not focused on "health" per say, as an outcome, but on the process of drawing value and meaning from our pains, ailments, and traumas. I think more of enabling people to make the healing process an intimate, meaningful experience that transcends self. To use the challenge as a message from --God, universe, Buddha, Guru,______-- that we have a specific lesson to learn, and are FULLY CAPABLE, in fact MEANT to learn and transcend.

That said, in this time of cleansing, digging into old scar tissues and reopening old pains, its easy to get flash flooded by frustration, agitation, and negativity. What gives hope is the shallow nature of these bursts, as compared to times past, when they are being pumped (to continue the metaphor) by meaning and channeled into growth. Does that make sense? That I could feel happy and miserable at the same time? That I might sound depleted on a certain day, but that the underlying gratefulness, acceptance, and general happiness are still there?

What a complex emptiness we inhabit.

SOHA!