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| Tulips in Bloom Catherine Al-Meten Meyers |
For the last week, I have wanted to write this article. As with all times when I'm pondering an idea or when, a topic keeps announcing itself over and over in my head, I find that whatever it is I'm considering for an article or essay or some other piece of writing, pops up all around me. And so it has been for the last week or so. People I barely know have begun telling me their stories of pain. People have been sharing their own experiences of pain, and the news is full of pain. Pain so deep it is almost stunning in the way it stills and affects us. And yet, pain is there, waiting for us to respond.
For me, the pain has come in physical pain connected with dealing with old injuries, repetitive motion related to my writing lifestyle, and with the aging process. As my life has become a bit more sedentary than it has been, my need for exercise has increased. When I don't remember that need, I pay the price. In this case, my knees have been causing me trouble. My propensity for moving furniture in the middle of the night as a means of psychotherapy, has caused me to overdue and injure one of my knees. In the process of trying to rehab the one knee, I have overcompensated with the other, and now both are bringing me--forgive me--to my knees. Both literally and figuratively, my knees being in pain has called me to remember what I had conveniently forgotten. I need to keep moving and exercising in order to keep them working properly.
Knees are something I can do something about. The underlying issue for me, is remembering to take care of myself. And that is determined by knowing who I am now. Knowing what my needs are beyond my flaming desire to finish a book, line up more projects, or keep going on a review or essay I'm working on. Pain reminds us of who we are when we have gone beyond our limitations. When we have overstepped the boundaries or pushed too hard.
One of the people with whom I've had a couple of conversations is a man who recently had a multiple bypass operation to repair his heart in order to save his life. A very successful, talented, driven man, he told me how he was having a hard time tempering his movements and becoming this new person who was limited and not supposed to be pushing beyond the limits. He told me he wasn't even supposed to lift more than pounds, and as I heard that, I almost fainted. I lift more than 10 pounds when I pick up the cat litter and carry it up the steep flight of stairs to my home. What the real problem for him though was tapering back and not doing what he'd spent his whole life doing and that is getting things done. To make matters worse for this gentleman is that shortly after he had his surgery and was still recovering, his wife had a serious medical emergency, and he immediately jumped into the taking care mode as she bravely fought for her life. When two partners have such close calls, pain reminds them that life must change dramatically.
Pain reminds us that we must not go back to 'life as usual'. Pain requires an adjustment, and too often when someone becomes incapacitated, they sit down and stop. They tire of boring and often painful rehabilitation, and they settle into using pain killers and letting the body parts 'rest'. This usually happens because we forget that by doing the rehabilitation we can improve our chances of getting stronger, healthier, and more fit. And we can improve our overall health and well being. But it means we have to get up off the comfortable place we've found to relieve ourselves of pain, and move into the routines and habits that will help us.
Pain does require rest and easing up, but it also requires the correct form of strength building and healing movement. There's a reason doctors get us out of bed walking as soon as possible after surgery. The old adage, "move it or lose it" is in fact, true. One of my favorite mystery writers, J.A. Jance recently shared her own experience of pain. She too, like many writers, had gotten to the point where her knees caused her so much pain, she could barely walk. Her health was deteriorating in a number of ways, as was that of her husband. They both began walking daily, with the goal of 10,000 steps. Neither was able to do 10,000 right away, but gradually have both achieved that goal, and have both improved their health tremendously. They did more than walk. They got more rest. They started eating better, and they did some strength training. And now their lives are both more active and less full of pain. I remember writer, Brenda Ueland who in her 80s walked 8-10 miles a day. When I first read this, I thought it was out of my reach. Now I believe she had the right idea.
For writers dealing with pain requires taking regular and frequent breaks. Stopping when you're on a roll writing, may be difficult, but it will enable you to write more in the long run. Getting regular exercise that focuses on the areas of your body that are most abused by writing is essential. I do yoga 4-5 times a week, and am going to start taking the head and shoulders class that is held early one morning. I got out of my regular practice because I like to write in the mornings, but the trade off of my morning writing time and less pain and a healthier body seem to be worth it to me.
My daughter got me a fitbit because I told her I wanted to keep track of my walking. It also tells me about my heart rate and my sleep patterns as well as how many calories I'm burning. I've had it for more than a month now and have gotten a reality check. As I walk around, I tell myself I'm doing fine, and then I look to see that as a rule, I'm only walking about half what I need to be doing. My sleep patterns also showed me that my night owl status worked most of the time, but several times a week it was better for me to go to be earlier than I usually did. We adjust as our lives change. And I know we all get into the mind set that we are still living like we used to. As an educator, I was on the move day and night. Now I have to build movement into my daily routine.
As we move through the seasons of our lives, and I'm not necessarily talking about age, we need to adjust to who we have become. New work, new babies, new relationships, as well as endings, deaths, divorces, and all matter of life style changes, require that we treat ourselves differently. Grief and loss can exhaust us like nothing else, for example. A new romance may tire us out as well as elate us, increasing the release of good hormones and chemicals in our bodies. Whatever lifestyle changes you go through, even seasonal ones, notice what needs to change to alleviate or deal with pain.
And one of the biggest and most challenging aspects of our lives is how we respond to the world around us.--to the pain of living in a world where we inflict such pain on one another. After many years of living through the impact, chronic stress, and effects of contact trauma brought about by war and politcal upheaval, I learned to pay attention to what I let into my experience. I worked with political refugees and immigrants for many years, and learned from them how best to handle the ongoing effects of trauma and violence. My goal when I began my study of violence, terrorism, and trauma was to determine how those who survived, did so with their sanity intact and with the ability to live, love, and be productive and relatively happy. What I learned has helped me, and I hope will help you too, in dealing with pain that we feel when we experience either our own pain or that of others.
Pain requires taking positive steps forward. It requires not reinjuring ourselves, and it requires treating ourselves gently. It requires recognizing that our whole system (physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual) is designed for survival and for allowing us to live life fully. To do that, we cannot subject ourselves to too much of anything. We cannot drive our bodies so hard that they break. We cannot overload ourselves emotionally to the point where we can no longer function or support our own needs. We cannot dwell on obsessive thoughts or get so caught up in fear and anxiety that we stop being able to function. We cannot dwell in darkness and live in despair. To do so, whether because our own personal pain is so great or the collective pain, so overwhelming, is to choose death over life.
This morning, I listened to Steven Colbert and I read an article by Dorthy Day. Both people were dedicated to raising our collective spirits and to helping those who needed it most. Both talked of the power of love to move, shape, heal, and support. And whether it be for very personal reasons and situations or for the collective healing of the world we are living in and our compatriots of this journey of life, we can use love to help heal ourselves and others.
Local musicians and artists in our little community of Astoria, Oregon, recently put together a fundraiser to raise money to support the efforts to help the homeless here. It was held this past weekend the same weekend that Astoria held its first Gay Pride Celebration. At the time, I thought the Gay Pride was long overdue, seeing that most places had been acknwledging the LGBT communities for years and even decades. What became crystal clear to me though, was that what started as an urban movement supported first by educational insituttions and then by government, was slow in coming to many outside the fringes of urban centers. These two groups in our community represent those who suffer among us. Different kinds of pain, but both representative of the outcasts that Jesus embraced and pled with us to love.
We are motivated by pain and we live in the aftermath of whatever we experience in our lives. We are motivated by the pain of others as well as our own pain, and what we can do is take whatever steps we can to help address that pain. The answer is to love ourselves enough to do what is necessary for our highest good, best health, and our well being. The answer is to acknowledge and do something to soothe the pain of others, and to stop whatever is causing the pain. Stop doing what you do to cause pain to yourself. Stop doing what you do to hurt anyone else. Be kinder to yourself and others. Acknowledge your own gifts and those of others. We are each here, created to use our gifts for some expression of that Love that we reflect from our Creator.
