One thing I really wanted to try as part of Operation Un-Shrivel My Heart was guided meditation and visualization. There are lots of these programs for sale on the Internets, but I wasn't ready to shell out $20 or more before I even knew if I could sit still for that long.
Finally, I found a free download from a San Diego-based fertility acupuncturist named Heidi Brockmyre. So one morning, a few days before the transfer, I sat down to try it for the first time. (First, I did a 15-minute relaxation yoga session using an app called Yoga Studio, which is $4 and worth every fucking penny.)
I swung open the doors of our guest room/would-be nursery, opened the blinds and spread a blanket over the bed for the cats. Then I sat down at the big white desk, lit a candle and pressed play.
I quickly found that I was comfortable with the exercise. It was like yoga for the mind. Her voice and tone sounded like a yoga instructor's, and the meditation even started out with a focus on the breathing. I just had to concentrate and follow the prompts.
Right away I got a message that I was in the right place. "You are safe. It is safe to open your heart to love," she intoned. Remember what I was saying in my last post about not feeling safe? About my heart being clenched shut? Yeah. Tears sprung to my eyes at how specifically the meditation spoke to me within minutes.
She walked me through the colors of the chakras as I visualized these radiating lights healing, opening, relaxing and protecting my womb, heart and mind. I could feel my heart rate slowing and my thoughts stop spinning.
She prompted me to send my future child a message, to consider what my baby needs to come to me. As I pondered this, trying to keep my mind receptive and open to a divine message, the cats started acting up. One of them began pawing at the closed closet door. I snapped my fingers at her. The the other started pawing. "Stop it!" I barked. Then one jumped up on the desk, weaving between my iPad and the lit candle. I tossed him onto the floor. Then the girl cat hopped up.
Angrily I jumped up from my seat and grabbed them both at once, pitching them into the hall and slamming the door. Resuming my meditation, I tried again to tap into the question about what my baby needs. I thought about how angry I was with my fur babies, who were just being curious cats, exploring a room that is normally off-limits and wondering what Mom was up to with this mannequin-level stillness and the candle and everything. And I felt like a shithead.
What my child needs, I thought, is the opposite of anger. So what is that? I had to look up antonyms at thesaurus.com: Contentment. Joy. Peace. Definitely not qualities I've been modeling over the last months and years ...
I thought about that Bible verse: The fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Even thinking about the verse made me feel calmer, like I was a step closer to truth and goodness.
I looked up forbearance on dictionary.com: Patient enduring. I looked up endure: to suffer without yielding. Yield: to surrender, admit defeat, back down, give in, throw in the towel.
Could this stuff BE speaking to my situation any more directly?! I walked away from the experience feeling enlightened, centered, renewed. I felt grateful for my upbringing -- all the many verses and songs I was forced to learn as part of Sunday school and Bible class and youth group. I felt appreciative of spiritual mentors like Anne Lamott who showed that Eastern religious practices and Christianity aren't mutually exclusive (and can be, in fact, very complementary). And I felt thankful for technology -- for dictionary.com and the Bible app and Heidi Brockmyre's free download*.
I have done the same 15-minute guided meditation almost every day for more than a week, and every single time I do it, I hear a different message, a new word. Vessel: Remove the waste product from the silver, and a silversmith can produce a vessel. Healing: God heals the broken-hearted and bandages their wounds. Trust: Trust in God; wait in silence for him. Help: God is my refuge, strength, fortress and ever-present help. Love: God is love; anyone who loves God must also love their brother and sister. Forgiveness: Forgive us for the ways we have wronged you, just as we also forgive those who have wronged us. And more: I am fearfully and wonderfully made. You will protect me from trouble. Be still and know that I am God. And just today: The desert becomes a fertile field.
There is a lot of really weird, confusing, upsetting stuff in the Bible, but I've been overwhelmed with the words of hope and encouragement that I've stumbled across as I've made space for silence, let words and thoughts materialize and marinate, and done simple keyword searches. I have no idea if I'm doing my "devotions" right or reading things in context, but I just don't really think God cares. I'm coming to him as I am and doing my best and trying to hear from him. He must like that, I have to think.
The meditation thing hasn't saved me from all stress and conflict. Philip and I have fought. Confrontations at work have bent me all out of whack. I still wake up nearly every day with a nervous pit in my stomach. I get overwhelmed with fear that this transfer may not work, and what then? And I've felt like a failure every time I flounder at being fully zenned out.
But overall, it's helping. I feel better. I feel like I've got a few more tools in my mental tool belt as I face each day. My heart isn't a full size bigger, but at least it's not a total raisin anymore.
*The one complaint I have about the guided meditation is the way she pronounces abdomen: abdamum. Every time she says abdamum, like three or four times over the course of the 15 minutes, I cringe. And now I've done it enough to know when it's coming, so I also pre-cringe. But the editor self in me just has to suck it up and deal, because it's free, and because it's so beneficial.