"Martha, Martha", Jesus answered, "you are worried and upset about many things, but few things are needed-or indeed only one. Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her. "
Luke 10: 41-42 NIV
Sigh! Yesterday morning I woke up as a Mary, sitting and being peacefully at the feet of Truth. Today, I am a Martha. (It just hit me why the housemaids in Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale were called "Martha" lol). I woke up reacting to life with "upset and worry", feeling guilty for my inability to "do" the way the little voices of conditioning tell me I should, Old health related samskaras are also being poked and prodded by my present set of circumstances.
It is like I have dissociative fugue(split personality) or something. The personalities of Martha and Mary are fighting to be dominant inside me. :)
Mary (sitting back in her dreads): "Don't worry. Be happy!"
Martha ( running around, wringing her hands replying in a highly strained voice): "Oh you lazy fool. We need to do so much around here to make life better for us and others. Look at this house and yard that needs to be spring cleaned and made somewhat habitable. Look at these bank accounts and what we owe. We need to work and I cannot get this body to work the way I want it to without you!! Get up off your lazy butt and help me. "
Mary (smiles offering her frantic sister a peace sign): "It isn't important Sis...none of this is important."
Martha (with face turning a combustible shade of red sputters): "Not...not important?? How can you say that? Oh my goodness...you give me chest pain!"
Mary: Just relax. It is all going to be okay. The chest pain is nothing...just let it go.
Martha: Let it go? You do remember that we have a heart thing, right? We might be having a heart attack and you are telling me to just let it go??? I don't understand you.
Mary: We don't know what it is and that is okay. It is likely just a muscle strain and even if it is more... does it really matter? Like really? We will know when it is time to do something and we will do it then if it is called for. Even if we miss that window...does that matter? The body doesn't matter Sis...It is just a suit of clothing we are going to take off when we go to bed. And we are all going to go to bed eventually. You need to relax. Like really...chill.
Martha (straightening and holding her chest): You want me to chill? ( puffs of smoke coming from her ears) Do you not remember what we went through...what we lost...how we suffered because of you and this body that doesn't want to work? How we couldn't get the help we needed leading us to where we are now. We let so many people down! Looks like we might be back there and you are okay with doing that all over again? Well I am not okay with that! We were doing so well...working and earning some money, feeling useful and productive. I don't want to go back to that struggle again! You might have liked having the opportunity to do your thing but it near killed me. And my dear sister, we are not going to bed now, though you could spend your bloody day there. We are in this life and we need to take care of this outfit we share so we can live it productively.
Mary (with a look of kind compassion on her face): Oh my dear sister...it is all okay. What happened happened. We learned and grew from it. Yes...I flourished but even you learned. We grew leaps and bounds because of the challenge our contrary body gave us and because others did not validate us and support us in the way you thought they should. We are exactly where we are supposed to be now as we were then. We do not know what will happen to this form. We don't need to know. Let's trust Life and the Big Guy, k? It is all good. And yes we need to love and honor this body we are in as long as we are in it and we will. But being worried and upset over it doesn't help...it takes us away from what is important...this moment and being fully in it. It is okay Sis. It really is okay. (Smiling and pointing to the guest in the chair) Even He says so.
Martha(blushing and dropping her head, visibly relaxes a bit): Oh you crazy nut...what am I going to do with you?
Mary (Winking before sending a look of unconditional love to her big sister): You are going to do nothing about me or anything else until the moment tells you too, if it tells you to. You heard Him. He said I was the one that chose rightly and this peace will not be taken from me. I want the same for both of us. So just relax, with me, into what is, and enjoy the show.
Where did that come from?
Not sure where that came from lol. I guess it was inspired by the fact that I woke up worrying and confused over this pain and upset over not being well enough to take a call for work.
Learning by not learning from chest pain
The pain in my chest persists as do the other symptoms that go with it. For the most part, it makes so much sense to me that I just over strained the pec major muscle in my chest. Why? For the most part it is on my right side...duh!! If only I could get it into Martha's thick head that was the case. I could push myself to do things while I pampered the muscle somewhat until it recovered. Really...I know that a strained pec is no big deal. It would not stop me and I would waste barely more than a thought on it. Yet, I find myself Marthaing over the question, "Is that what it is though?"
Martha: Questioning the Pain Scientifically
I have been feeling so wiped out with this- a muscle strain doesn't wipe you out unless it is the muscle in the center of the chest that is strained. I looked after my grandson yesterday and man, I didn't think I was going to make it through the day. Also, a muscle strain is not going to increase the pain just from standing, or will it? (Well gravity, maybe, plays a part.) I am okay when I am sitting...not so when I am walking or laying down on my back. When I stand and walk around just a bit, I feel the weight on my chest...though it is mostly on my right it is in the center of my chest too. The pain is also inconsistent where it would probably be consistent in a muscle issue. The intensity depends on the amount of exertion I do. Sometimes it is crushing. Muscle pain does not vary like that does it? Then I question: Will this type of muscle strain make one short of breath? I can see that it may...if the muscle over the lung is inflamed and a little heavier than normal there is going to be decreased chest expansion and therefore diminished inspiration ability. So that could explain the shortness of breath I feel when I walk around or lay on my back . A muscle strain won't affect BP and pulse though. My pulse and blood pressure were consistently down over the last couple of days. (May have been down prior to this but I haven't checked my BP in months). Resting pulse is 49 according to my watch...no big deal...but it is dropping below my self imposed alarm of 45 during the day. I could handle that if the blood pressure staid up with the bradycardia but it doesn't. Systolic is in the 80's and even into the 70's. That explains the overwhelming fatigue and periods of dizziness. I know these numbers well. I know this fatigue and SOB well. I have lived this for years and this is what caused me to noseplant in the past leading me to decrease my hours at work and to eventually leave all together.But I seemed to have gotten past it. I was feeling so much better and doing so much more. Martha does not want to be back here! Martha wants to work, to "do" because she wants to impress all those voices in her head that tell her she should be more productive.
Mary: Questioning a Deeper Meaning for the Pain
Sigh! Anyway, one thing I can do now, that I could do in the past when my body was being so contrary towards Martha's wishes (:)), was "write". Do you think the universe may be steering me in that direction with all the obstacles it puts in front of me when I try to go elsewhere? Is that how the universe keeps us on tract? Right now, I am fine as I sit here writing but the symptoms get very noticeable when I get up. So I can not work or teach yoga...I cannot clean or fix up the yard. I cannot even, unfortunately, look after my grandson :( ...but I can write. That writing appeases Mary, big time, because of what I tend to write about and it even appeases Martha to some degree because I am producing something. Of course, Martha would be a heck of a lot happier about it if I got paid and recognized or praised for my writing . Mary, however seems to be the wiser of the two and just goes with what Life gives her. She is more aligned with the deeper Truth. Mary's faith and wisdom will eventually soothe her big sister into stillness. Won't it?
All is well.
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