Back to the Journals

Happy 2009!!! May it be a better year in every way for all of us. And may I be a better blogger :)

Yes, I am back . . . at least for a little while, during Winter Break. I have a bit of time on my hands, and a very big job. I have what feels like a monumental task to accomplish. I want to take myself off of the Vicodin I have been taking for four and a half years. No, the pain has not decreased, and I am not feeling better. But my doctor left his pain practice to go back to anesthesiology, and I have been thrust into the hands of one of those doctors who believes all pain sufferers (no matter the source of their pain) are malingerers and drug seekers, and it just made me realize that I do not want to be at the mercy of these ignorant moralists any more. So I am going to try. It will be helpful to have a task, a big project, to distract me. So I'm going to go back to typing up the parts of my journal that chronicle my spiritual development. I'll try to put them in smaller pieces that can be released gradually over the semester (or at least over the next month – we'll see how long they last). I've skipped a little bit, but I thought it would be appropriate to start here, with a conversation I had in late March 2007 with my pain psychologist, whom I was still getting to know.

March 31, 2007

[After some other talk] She told me several more stories that had the point that hypnosis does work. Guess that wasn't until after I'd told her about Dr. C, and my desire to be a good patient, and the epidural and the fact that it had helped some. We talked about trust, and being honest with doctors. Somehow, though, we got on the right page, and it was like the whole atmosphere in the room shifted – the room felt different to me. Time slowed. A calm stillness came into being, and there was safety and intimacy.

I don't have time or space to relate all the stories she told, but they were to introduce me to the idea of doing a kind of hypnosis that doesn't use guided imagery as much, because that imposes her ideas of what my subconscious looks like and acts like. Instead, she wants to do one that will help me find and meet my "inner healer." She described a few cases to me – what patients saw and how they were helped. I was very keen, but also scared.

I said that: "I'm frightened that we'll do this and I'll wander around lost in my psyche, and there won't be an inner healer in me." She laughed, gently. Said it is a matter of trusting yourself, being open to whatever you see. People have had mythological creatures, butterflies, giraffes, a rock! So be open.

I said that was the other thing I was afraid of, that I'd keep questioning myself, over-analyzing, trying to "do it right" but also trying not to be hurt by buying into a fraud, a fake. She agreed this is a challenge for intelligent, rational people who control their minds, or their conclusions, more. She looked very serious as she said I was going to have to release control. To let go – not to give her control, but hand it over to a part of myself. Maybe a part I don't know yet.

But even the parts I do know, I don't consider very trustworthy. In writing that sentence, I realized what a lie it is. I do trust many parts of myself. I trust my intellect, I trust my anthropological instincts, my social instincts . . . there are lots of parts of me I like and trust. It's more truthful to say there are parts of me I don't trust. And overall, I don't think I trust myself to take care of myself.

She recognized instantly the kind of control and trust issues I have. I felt she did remember me and some of the struggles I've shared. She can see I don't let go of control easily. And I don't know when this came up, but we also talked about how few are really brave enough to ask for and receive real, spiritual healing. How many people run when it looks like they might be fundamenteally changed inside? The promise of Christianity, remember. She told me of a prayer group she belonged to that sounded great. There was a phrase she/they used – something like "I ask to be transformed in my deepest places." It was better than that – really powerful, and I repeated it, trying to remember it, dang it!

Well, I began to cry, I want that so much! I'm terrified, but I want it. She said when those in the group started to get that deep change, they left the group. Too scary. So I'm also afraid I'll be a chicken and not let the big changes happen. But I so want to try. It's like meditation – I know how important it is. Why am I not doing it? Chicken! Also feel like I don't know how, but I took that excuse away from myself and bought 2 books last night through Amazon.

April 1, 2007

It's 9:30 now, and J and I've been having an incredible discussion, one that lead both of us to epiphanies at different points, and mine was a huge breakthrough, complete with sobbing. I realized I hadn't told J about that experience with Phyllis, in which I began crying because I so want to be changed, deep inside, but am afraid, and afraid I'll be chicken. Si I told him about that, and how I'm in a place where I'm really willing to be changed, willing to do whatever work needs to be done. That I want to be healed such that I begin taking care of myself, do what I need to do to be able to trunst myself to talke care of me, meaning I want to change so much that I give up smoking and eating junk, that I exercise and provide the healthful experiences my body needs. I'm willing and desirous of having my life change.

Talked about my work with the Tao te Ching, and taking that farther, the books I ordered for myself to help even more. How I'm trying to learn to live in the moment, be fully present, give each task my full self, full effort and attention, and to let go of my beliefs, concepts, desires and things. Just tried to bring him up to date on where I am and were I'd like to be going.

He shared where he is – which as that is his story, I will leave for him to blog about some day.

Eventually we got to a more general discussion of spiritual paths, and the teaching of religion. We both have made it a practice to advise our students (when asked) that it is better to devote onself to a single path, rather than attempting to devise one's own hodge-podge spiritual practice from a variety of religions (for a thorough reason, see previous entries, but the short answer is because it develops discipline and avoids the habit of just picking out the easy bits that are not challenging). J said now that he felt that intellectually and spiritually we had both done enough work that we could do that skipping. That the journey is cyclical, spiral. He said one devotes oneself to one, but can get to the place where one realizes again that they are all One, and then one can pick and choose again, which might mean searching and feeling lost again, wandering for a time. Then one may devote to one again, or not.

He said he feels that his answer is not going to be already written down and developed. He doesn't believe joining a Zen monastery or something like that would take him all the way, just to a point. And he acknowledged that Zen, of all branches, realizes itself. This might sound arrogant, like he was saying he was better or wiser than all the wisdom traditions of the world. But actually, I think he is right, for all of us.

[I've misplaced the rest of this entry - this journal ends and I had no more journals. I must have written on something for five days, but what? And where did I put it?)