I've been wanting to share for sometime a little about my long journey back to health. My health more than ever seems sensitive to stress – it impacts quickly on my physical body. It's a constant call for me to practice what I preach! It's many years now since my thyroid surgery (hemithyroidectomy to remove plum sized benign adenoma). I was ill with that tumour for 4 or 5 years prior to the surgery and feel I've been walking the healing path in these 4 – 5 years since.

 

I learn from my experience. My take on yoga has given me a filter or perspective of seeing everything as opportunity of growth towards inner wisdom or knowing.. Difficult to choice the right words here as they are all loaded, but those of you that have been on my retreats will be familiar with the meaning I attribute to such words. I have learned these things.

 

1. Strength of Mind (in a bad way)

First it was a journey of denial, trying to take only as much rest to preserve my lifestyle, commuting up and down the coast to run a studio, to take trips abroad to teach and practice, enduring lots of physical pain and 'body anxiety', pushing my body beyond it's limits.. limits that would only be realised retrospectively. Strategically misusing meditation and yoga techniques to ignore my body.. not very yogic but the Egoic mind is strong in it's desires.

 

2. Surrender

Then rock bottom, the realisation that I was sick, but a bit more denial ...or stubborn-ness.. way too late grasping at conservative and alternative methods to remedy my illness... and then the year that coincided with Covid lockdown, where I was very sick. While people were worried about Covid infection I was struggling to continue to teach online; with down time, lying in bed with extreme 'physiological' anxiety, repeating affirmations to try and calm my thyroid's response to attack by my immune system. After that year, I finally succumbed to the medical recommendation and admitted that surgery was necessary..the removal of a part of my body.

 

3. Realisation of Mortality

With the naivety of youth still close behind, and what I thought was a very healthy lifestyle I thought I was immune to illness. I never got sick, had rarely taken a day off, was endlessly aspiring to enhancement of physical well-being. I had no idea of the stress of this 'doing' approach. My meditation certainly revealed to me tendencies of striving and trying to be better at everything, but although I chipped away at this, I had no idea how deep and powerfully these tendencies where impacting my health. Such a health crisis really makes you see you are not going to live forever.. More than ever I see this as the juice of my practice and meditation..

 

4. Patience

So I've definitely become more patient .. striving more than ever to non-striving and just being. As I said before my body is so sensitive to stress, which feels like a blessing. My body is a barometer of my 'doing-meter' and well-being. Meditation is such an important practice for me. It gives me the opportunity to self reflect, to see where I'm caught in unhealthy tendencies and to enable more peaceful responses to situations, particularly those that create stress. It enables a slowing down in order to communicate and act wisely, realising that each moment involves a choice that can be made from a centred place rather than be driven by anxious avoidance. The journey back to health has been a long one and only complete by patience and the capacity to stay present with what is, to appreciate small gains rather than be disheartened by negative assessments of health.

 

5. Insight into Illness Identity

Finally one of last things that I think mark a journey back to health and that is the realisation of identity with ill health. I've spoken with other friends on healing journeys' who have also become aware of this. When you've been dealing with pain and illness for many years it taints your perspective. Even when a state of better health or healing is achieved, symptom monitoring and hypervigilance to every sensation continues to dominate your view. Self observation has also revealed to me a lot of misattribution of sensations, which causes continued stress and anxiety. Slowly though I'm reclaiming connection with that deep part of myself that reassures me that everything is fine, the innate well-spring.... it's actually there even when we are not well, but identification with the body is so strong that when we are unwell our mind dominates..

 

So these are my reflections on this rainy day in Byron Bay. Stay well and hope to see you all soon.