From Prisoner to Pioneer

 

Every time you are tempted to react in the same old way, ask if you want to be a prisoner of the past or a pioneer of the future.

Deepak Chopra

Ahhh...still reactive.  It is amazing how challenging it is to stay non-reactive, to stay in that higher state of consciousness, eh?  Despite all my practice and my commitment to behaving non-reactively...I still react to certain things.  I still go from a higher state of consciousness to a lower one when triggered. One of my biggest triggers is the health-seeking environment.  

Another Personal Example 

As I mentioned a few posts ago I was quite sure I had an enlarged spleen. 4-6 weeks ago probably closer to 6, I noticed some tenderness in my Left Upper Quadrant under the rib cage.  Thought for sure I just pulled a muscle in yoga so when I spoke to my doctor in June about other things...namely that bad bout of chest pain I had on May 9, I did not feel it was necessary to mention the "muscle pain".  Well, that pain continued to get more and more "annoying" as the weeks went by and less and less typical of muscle injury pain.  When I started getting it in my shoulder, I automatically thought it must be the spleen.  It must be enlarged. Why would it be enlarged? My mind started to go through all the possibilities: Mono, some type of infection, some type of liver issue or gall bladder issue,  or maybe something to do with that cyst on my ovary.  All I knew was that if the cause of this pain was the spleen and if it was enlarged I should probably get it checked to avoid the risk of rupture or perforation...  But that would mean entering the place I hate to go to, entering a system that I literally have PTSD from (as weird as that sounds).  So I put off getting checked for another two weeks, telling myself I will wait until I hear from my doctor about the other tests I had done recently.  I also knew that since I didn't hear back, the blood tests were probably normal meaning I did not have Mono ( which seemed like the most obvious cause for having an enlarged and tender spleen).  So the mystery of what was causing this splenic pain became an even bigger mystery.

 As you can read, I make a lot of "assumptions" that this is splenic.  My gut was and is so strongly telling me it is and my gut, despite the initial opinion from others,  is often right when it comes to health issues related to me or my loved ones.  That being said, it has also been wrong on more than one occasion...like when I hurt my arm in 2017 and was so sure it was fractured...I made the second trip to ER demanding an X-ray... that x-ray showed it was not fractured after all...embarrassing. 

Anyway, the "discomfort" has been affecting my sleep, and D. and others were starting to notice I was having pain and expressed concern.  I promised that if by Monday, it was not better I would contact my doctor and let him know.  They were not happy with that answer and more than strongly suggested that I go to ER so I could have the tests done that needed to be done. And part of me knew I should not wait too long if an enlarged spleen was a possibility. 

Facing Old Trauma Triggers 

So reluctantly and oh-so shamefully and anxiously  I went to ER this morning.  I was so anxious before I went and in that first thirty minutes dealing with the health care team. Trigger! Trigger! Trigger! Anxious!! My thoughts were wild: "Why did I come?  What if it is nothing more than muscle pain?  Oh man, they are going to see the size of my chart and it is all going to start all over again. Once again, I am making too much out of nothing." 

I got myself so worked up, that I was afraid I would go into a run of something while there that would just complicate things.  I felt like a vet walking back onto a battlefield or something. I wanted to get out of there as fast as I could. But something in me said: "Learning Opportunity, healing opportunity, growing opportunity. Just sit with this! Regardless of what happens physically, this is important for your growth!" So, I practiced my mindful breathing, sat with the anxiety and shame, allowing it, embracing it, and prepared myself for a wait.  So grateful that it wasn't busy. I didn't have to wait long at all. 

Defensive, and Assertive

I have great respect for health care teams and what they do.  I really do. I used to be a part of one. Still, because of my own memory and defenses, I perceived judgment and shaming from others that may or may not have been there.  I found myself fearful and defensive, and at the same time, surprisingly,  remarkably assertive in insisting that I believe the spleen was involved. I didn't try to be assertive...it just pushed itself through my habitual way of reacting in this environment. And there I was observing what was happening around me, and more importantly in me as if from a distance.  Cra-cra. 

Courage: Confronting Other Opinion/ Confronting Our Own Reactivity

Well in dealing with the attending I found myself even more reactive.  I perceived a challenging, testing and over-probing tone to his questioning as he referred again and again to the "many, many" complaints I had of "belly issues" in the past...my chart! As he asked questions in this way, I found myself slipping back through the years to old conditioned ways of reacting.  I was stumbling over my explanations, forgetting things, panicking almost as I sat there waiting for him to call me a liar like others, who ironically had the same accent,  have done.  I started to curl up small. 

Then suddenly, out of nowhere, I felt this thing come up in me. I looked at him and heard myself ask, "Why are you asking me so many questions like that in that manner?" 

It surprised him.  He stopped. ( It surprised the heck out of me.)  He began to explain how he needed to ask questions to gather all the information he could. 

I interjected again, "I understand and appreciate that but I am picking up something in your tone. Yes, I have had a history of pelvic pain in the past. The reports will show an ovarian cyst. This, however,  is the first time I had this type of pain.  I am a fairly well-educated and intelligent human being and I know something is going on in there. And because of the location and nature of the pain, I think it might be the spleen. " 

With that, everything shifted.  Even though I was trembling like a leaf, I felt myself uncurling, getting taller, bigger. And he no longer seemed to be an opponent towering over me in a position of power.  He became, in my eyes, just another human being I was relating to. His approach changed dramatically. He suddenly became much more respectful and kind. And instead of probing and challenging, he began to explain everything, all the possibilities. He explained what he was going to do. He told me he was going to call my GP for more information and I said, "Go for it!" It turned out to be a quick and relatively painless health-seeking experience after that.

So I am now home. We still don't know what is going on and if indeed my gut instinct is right or not. Ultrasound has been ordered to check the spleen more thoroughly. I am to meet with my GP  on Monday.  If there is swelling in the spleen, it is not enough to cause concern for rupture ( usually has to be double the size for it to happen). And it has been determined from palpation that it is not double the size. I have a prescription for an NSAID .  So I will take it at night so I can at least sleep. ...all good.

The Point of This Story 

The point of this story, like my life,  has little to nothing to do with what is going on in my body/the body but more about what goes on in my mind/the mind.  I wanted to address, once again,  using a personal example, the very human tendency many of us have toward reactivity based on our stored memories.  I wanted to speak about the importance of confronting our fears, our traumas, and our shame. I have had some very traumatic and life-altering health-seeking experiences that have impacted me greatly. And I  have stored memory inside me that still gets triggered whenever I even think about having to access the health care system.  Instead of avoiding triggers, and continuing to repress and suppress, however, we need to process through perceived trauma.  This experience of confronting my trigger, first by accessing the system and then by speaking up about the way I was being addressed, as trivial and inconsequential as it may seem,  has given me the opportunity to do that. If I can take these baby steps toward recovery, there is great hope anyone can do it. 

In our missions to be more conscious and aware, we want to eliminate reactivity by releasing our stored painful emotions once and for all. We begin this process by first of all observing and understanding our tendency to mentally and emotionally react because of these stored emotions.  Then we can challenge ourselves, to stop avoiding, numbing from, stuffing down those feelings that are painful. When we are ready,  we can then courageously call these emotions up to our awareness, sit with them and even befriend them. If I didn't do that prior to my face-to-face with the attending I probably would not have said anything and allowed myself to continue to react in conditioned ways of avoidance of feeling and learned helplessness to the approach that was so triggering for me.  But I had told myself I was not going to flee like I so wanted to do, that I am so used to doing.  I was going to sit and be with the feelings that were coming up as triggered.  As each feeling came up, I didn't resist them or push them back down.  I observed and allowed. They were very much a part of my experience when I confronted the attending in the mild but meaningful way that I did.  

I also wanted to show how mindfulness of the present moment can be an amazing anchor, keeping us grounded in present-based response rather than past-based reaction.   When I felt the reactivity within me, instead of my natural tendency to resist, I began to breathe mindfully.  I began to observe what was happening in each moment. ...both pleasant and unpleasant.  This reduced my anxiety tremendously and gave me the foundation of presence needed to be assertive in a wholesome way. 

This was a very productive learning, healing, and growing experience for me. Huge, actually! I am so grateful for it, the attending, my GP and the entire team that has helped me in ways they would never understand.

All is well