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For the Week of November 9, 2014: Tell Me a Funny Story

Posted in expressive writing, tagged , , , , , , , on November 9, 2014 | Leave a Comment »

…when you are raised with the gift of laughter, as I was, it can’t stay suppressed forever. It’s too powerful. Thank goodness for that. I eventually could see bits of “ha-ha” in my own life. Certainly not in the cancer, but in the mind-blowing circumstances that suddenly consumed my life. And laugh­ing at parts of those experiences made me feel a little more alive.

The funniest part of it all was that the more I allowed myself to laugh, the more therapeutic my tears became.   —(Jim Higley, “Finding Humor in the Midst of Cancer,” Coping with Cancer Magazine, March/April 2012)

We all need a little laughter in our lives, whether we’re dealing with cancer, an overly-busy and stressful life, remembering those who’ve passed on, or simply sharing time with friends and loved ones.  We need to laugh just as much as sometimes, we need to cry.

It’s true.  In the summer of 2013, I participated in the Omega Institute’s “Living Well with Cancer weekend.  At the closing event, the topics turned from treatment, nutrition, and spiritual matters to an evening of comedy.  Kathy LaTour, Cure Magazine editor, performed “One Mutant Cell,” a humorous account of her cancer journey, and comedian and cancer survivor, Scott Burton, a cancer offered comic relief with his juggling and stand-up act designed to confront the mystery and fear of chronic disease.  The laughter among the attendees, all living with cancer, filled the room.

Laughter is good for us.  It breaks the ice; relaxes us, builds community, and reminds us not to take ourselves quite so seriously.  Even in the midst of something as soul shattering as a cancer diagnosis, we can still find things that make us smile.  Laughter brightens the day and our outlook.  Laugh a little, and we all feel better.

It’s why, a week ago, I shared David Wagoner’s poem, “The Junior High School Band Concert” with one of my “Writing through Cancer” groups as the inspiration for writing that morning.

When our semi-conductor

Raised his baton, we sat there

Gaping at Marche Militaire,
Our mouth-opening number.
It seemed faintly familiar
(We’d rehearsed it all that winter),
But we attacked in such a blur,
No army anywhere
On its stomach or all fours
Could have squeezed though our cross fire…

I can never read Wagoner’s poem without laughing out loud, remembering all too well a particular band concert decades ago, when I and two other students comprised the French horn section in our high school band.  For much of the academic year, we were a marching band, parading around the football field as half-time entertainment, buttoned up in red and black uniforms, matching hats, all outfit adorned with gold braid.  I hated football season because of it—the brass mouthpiece like ice, bouncing against my lips, the monotony of the French horn accompaniment, a steady “um tah, um tah” on the after beat or a “ta, ti, ta, ti” while it seemed that all the other instruments were given more interesting and melodic parts.  To this day, I cringe at Souza marches, and I don’t follow football season.

In Springtime, however, life in the band improved.  We became a symphonic band—of sorts—and spring was preparation time for the regional high school band competition. That memorable year, we French horn players were to lead with the opening theme of Dvorak’s “New World Symphony.”  We were positively beside ourselves, thrilled to finally have a brief, but major part in a musical score.  We practiced for weeks.

…And when the brass bulled forth
A blare fit to horn over
Jericho two bars sooner
Than Joshua’s harsh measures,
They still had the nerve to stare.

The day of the competition, we filed into the host school’s auditorium and onto the stage to take our places.  Our band leader, “Pop” Behnke, followed, looking proud and stately in his white uniform with the brass buttons and gold braid.  He tapped his baton against the music stand, we positioned our instruments and on cue, began playing.  Two of us had faithfully rehearsed for weeks, , but our third horn player, less inclined to regular practice, made up for the sour notes with an enthusiasm that overwhelmed us all.  We sounded the first notes of the “New World Symphony” like the horn blasts of a sinking ship…loud and without an ounce of modulation.  I glanced up and caught a glimpse of Pop Behnke’ s face—his look of shock, followed by a lopsided smile, the realization that any likelihood of our high school band walking away with the trophy had just evaporated.  Perhaps we knew we’d already lost then, but it seemed only to inspire us to play even more loudly, as if added volume could somehow tip the balance in our favor.  I still giggle when I think of it, although at the time, I don’t think we laughed much as the winners were announced– our band was not among them.

By the last lost chord, our director
Looked older and soberer.
No doubt, in mind’s ear
Some band somewhere
In some Music of some Sphere
Was striking a note as pure
As the wishes of Franz Schubert,
But meanwhile here we were:
A lesson in everything minor,
Decomposing our first composer.

(From Traveling Light: Collected and New Poems. © University of Illinois Press, 1999)

During our workshop, we read first Wagoner’s poem aloud before everyone wrote about a humorous event in their lives. When the group shared their narratives, the mood lightened; we giggled and guffawed as the humorous mishaps in everyone’s life were recounted.  Everyone left the session with smiles on thier faces.  Laughter was very good medicine—its healing benefits experienced by everyone.

Remember Norman Cousins’ famous account of how he used laughter  to cure himself of a debilitating illness?  It turns out, he wasn’t the first to advocate for the power of laughter. Mark Twain, whose wit and wisdom is an established part of American lore, wrote:  “The human race has only one really effective weapon and that’s laughter.  The moment it arises, all our hardnesses yield, all our irritations and resentments slip away, and a sunny spirit takes their place.” Smiling and laughter are contagious.  Whether during cancer treatment or simply living a world be constantly dominated by hardship and struggle, it’s good to find something—even a small thing—to smile or laugh about.

As you write this week, dig back into your memories—the fun times, a time, perhaps you laughed so hard, tears ran down your cheeks.  Take a break from writing about cancer and the more serious topics of life.  Instead, try writing about something that makes you smile, even laugh out loud each time you remember it.  Laugh a little.  You’ll feel better.

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For the Week of August 21, 2014: The Different Worlds We Live In

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , writing and spirituality, , , on August 31, 2014 | 1 Comment »

Every morning, when we wake up, we have 24 brand-new hours to live. What a precious gift! We have the capacity to live in a way that these 24 hours will bring peace, joy, & happiness to ourselves & others.– –Thich Nhat Hanh

“How different my life is now,” I thought as I sat in silence this morning, taking pleasure in the stillness, the chatter and chirp of the birds, my terrier’s head resting on my thigh.  I remembered a time when the morning was never still, when I rarely did anything but jump in the shower, dress quickly, stop at Peet’s Coffee and grab a latte to drink as I joined the bumper to bumper traffic in the morning rush to the office.  My outer life seemed prosperous, successful, but stressed.  My inner life was all but neglected, parched and dying of thirst—I rarely had time to “feed” it as I ran from meeting to meeting.  By night, exhausted, I re-entered the world of family, wife and mother, occasional writer, the day’s demands already growing distant.  Rarely did my various worlds intersect.

We humans are complex.  Unlike other members of the animal kingdom, our lives involve much more than basic need.  We have the unique capacity to live more than one life at a time, inhabiting several different “worlds.”  As Patrice Vecchione describes in her book, Writing and the Spiritual Life, we live our lives on many planes.  Although we may not always be aware of it, our inner and outer lives interact; affecting and informing each other as we move between the different worlds we inhabit each day.  In the busy lives we often lead, it’s easy to move through one world and another, and ignore the needs of our inner lives.  Sooner or later, it catches up with us.

Once I moved between my different worlds—professional, volunteer, friend, mother, student—as if they were separate, without giving much thought to the way in which those different aspects of my life, the roles I played each day, interacted with one another.  I was on a virtual elevator, constantly in motion, and racing between floors.  Push a button, the elevator moved up or down, stopped and the doors opened:  “Second floor, family life.”  “Third floor, workplace.” “Fourth floor, Business lunches and dinners.  Fifth floor:  Volunteer committee meetings.” There were many floors to stop at every day:  my social life, even the classroom, where, for a few hours each week, I left my family at home, changed from the professional business suit to comfortable slacks and shirts, and pushed the elevator button, and got off at graduate school.  Once in a great while, the elevator would stop at my spiritual world, but for many years, those stops were brief and far apart. In my very busy and important life, I moved between those worlds quickly, and most times, one floor seemed distinct and separate from another.

“I know I walk in and out of several worlds every day,” poet Joy Harjo wrote in her essay, “Ordinary Spirit.”  Harjo was referring to her mixed race, in part, and the struggle to “unify” her different worlds.  That struggle to unify my different worlds, my inner life with my outer one, was something I truly didn’t address, at least not with any sustained effort, until I heard my doctor say “cancer,” and then again, as I was gradually slipping back into an “old” way of being, when an unexpected episode of heart failure left me unconscious on the sidewalk, my dog’s still leash in my hand.

I paid attention.  I took steps to change my life, to blur the boundaries between my inner and outer life, and the different worlds I inhabited each day. As Harjo expressed in her essay, I realized that it was “only an illusion that any of the worlds we inhabit are separate.” This “new” world, the one where I had suddenly become a heart patient, living with the knowledge of how abruptly one’s life can end, indeed, how capricious life can be, affected all other “worlds” of my life in deep and significant ways.

Any predictability and routine in my life was scattered to the wind.  Where I once felt I had some control over the course of my life, I now felt as if I was in free fall, an unwilling passenger in a wayward elevator, moving randomly between floors.  Fear and depression colored my days, despite my cardiologist’s reassurances.  I sported a bump just to the left of my breastbone, a defibrillator underneath the skin, a constant reminder of what had happened and the need to change my life.    Unbeknownst to anyone, I began praying each night, silent pleas to some higher power, struggling to find hope where fear resided.  It took time.  It took change. I was forced me to think differently about my life and what, above all else, really mattered to me.

It’s an experience I find similar to what I witness among the men and women in my expressive writing groups.  Cancer.  The crises it ignites in everyone’s life who reels from the words they never wanted to hear:  “You have cancer.”  Every part of their lives is affected.  They move, numbly at first, through second opinions, treatment decisions, treatment regimens, appointments, and always, lurking in the background, that demon fear.  All that they are—who they have thought themselves to be–mind, body, and spirit–is thrust into upheaval.  They no longer inhabit the different worlds in their lives with the same assumptions they once did.  What was once familiar now seems strange, and when the elevator finally ceases its terrifying ride, the doors open, and they look out to a new and often confusing world.  Their challenge, as mine was, is to try to make sense of it, to find the path to wholeness and healing.  For each of us, the routes are different:  faith, meditation, yoga, writing, music, art—it hardly matters.  All of us are seekers, working hard to inhabit this new world and integrate it into all the other worlds that have shaped us into the people we are.

I look back to that self of more than a decade ago,  the one for whom stress was a steady diet, caught up in the world of a career I didn’t even like and yet, striving to climb the ladder of success like so many of my colleagues.  I pushed the knowledge of my unhappiness aside, until one day, as a corporate executive with a spacious office overlooking Park Avenue in New York, I caught a glimpse of myself in a store window as I walked from my apartment to my office.  Grim-faced, briefcase held tight against my body, shoulders hunched forward, stress oozed from every pore.  “Who have I become?” I remembered thinking.  It was a time when the different worlds I inhabited were as separate from one another as they could be.  But change wasn’t immediate.  I fumbled on for a few more years until cancer and heart failure delivered the whack on the side of the head I needed.  I stepped off the elevator and choose which worlds I truly wanted to inhabit in my life—but more, how I could make my life harmonious and whole.

Her first steps, though cautious, began immediately to reinforce her faith in greater possibilities.  –George MacDonald

 What about you?  What different worlds do you inhabit each day?  What are the many roles you play in your life?  How were your “worlds” affected by cancer, loss or another unexpected hardship?  What changed?  Write about how you’ve moved in and out of different worlds or the many roles you have played before and after your life was altered in unexpected ways.

 

 

 

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For The Week of August 17, 2014: When Life Doesn’t Come With Instructions

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , on August 18, 2014 | Leave a Comment »

I bought a portable stand up desk last week, part of a series of actions I’ve taken to manage the bouts of pain associated with my damaged tailbone.  It came, as so many of our household accessories do today, in several pieces, along with various sized screws, bolts, a small (highly ineffective) screwdriver and a set of instructions.  Instructions I tried my best to follow, since I tend toward the “plug and play” mentality and have, on numerous occasions, put together various sections of Ieka furniture backwards before reading those instructions with a more careful eye. 

Although compact, the desk took longer to assemble than it probably should have.  I made several trips to the garage to find other tools to help me put it together, since the small disposable screw driver was only minimally functional.  But I finally succeeded, and the desk sits in my home office, providing me with a way to vary and relieve the pressure of sitting while continuing to work.

Unlike “assemble-it-yourself” furniture, life doesn’t come with a set of instructions.  I remember devouring Benjamin Spock’s books on child-rearing when my first child was born, but a year later, quickly discovered that what worked with one baby didn’t necessarily have the same results with the younger one.  Several years later, as I was “getting” the hang of marriage (or so I thought), my marital status changed so quickly from “married” to “separated” to “widow” introducing an entirely new set of life circumstances, the best I could do was “play it by ear.”  It all worked out, of course, but then my daughters’ adolescence turned my apple cart upside down again, and I discovered life rarely remained neat and tidy for long.  Fast forward another ten years, and a diagnosis of early stage breast cancer did more than interrupt life; it changed mine forever.

In her poem, “There’s Not a Book On How To Do This,” Sharon Doyle reminds us that a cancer diagnosis, like so many of life’s difficult chapters, does not come with a set of instructions.  Sure, there’s treatment, but our lives are entirely disrupted and forever altered.  We are left to figure out things ourselves, hopefully with a little help from our friends and family, just what to do with this changed life.  Doyle uses the act of sketching the composition of her fall garden as a metaphor for creating new life and beauty after cancer:

There’s not a book on how to do this,
but there is an emphasis on composition.

The trucks that slug by under our window
hold trombones, mirrors, dictionaries.
It’s not my fault they invade
the calm of trees like cancer.  I

don’t have cancer anymore…

…I rarely remember the
uterus I don’t have.  One of my sons said,
“You were done with it right away, right, Mom?”
I guessed so…

Doyle plans her garden, but in the process, lets us see how loving gifts  –family, birdsong and flowers–offered hope, recovery and are symbolized in the design for her garden.  As the poem concludes, the design is completed, but among the flowers and colors, she leaves space to celebrate life:

I left vacant fourteen
trellis lightscapes for
balloons.

(from The Cancer Poetry Project, p. 52)

This week, think about your cancer—or another difficult and challenging–experience.  It’s unlikely you were handed a book of instructions for any of it.  What helped you navigate an altered body, a changed life?   Where did you find the resources, the knowledge, that offered you hope and new life?

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For the Week of August 3, 2014: When Death Comes

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on August 3, 2014 | 2 Comments »

“Life changes fast.
Life changes in the instant.
You sit down to dinner and life as you know it ends.

(Joan Didion, The Year of Magical Thinking)

His death was expected for these past many months, but now that it has happened, my heart is heavy as I think about my sister-in-law’s loss of her husband. Only yesterday afternoon, I drove to the airport to welcome my husband home after his long—and very delayed—flight from Okinawa, Japan, where he’d been visiting our daughter and her family.  Early morning, I returned him to the airport to fly north to Seattle to spend three days with his older sister, Joan.  It wasn’t a trip he’d planned or one he wanted to make under the circumstances, but during the long hours he was in the air, his flight already delayed by a day from a typhoon, his brother-in-law died after a four-year battle with bladder cancer.

I called Joan this morning after I’d taken him to the airport.  Her phone rang several times before I heard her voice, “Hello?”  She was crying and quickly apologized.  “I’m sorry,” she said, “I just went into his room and saw how empty it is, and…”  She began sobbing again.

“Your brother is on his way,” I said.  “He just left from the airport, and he’ll be there after lunch.”

“Oh,” she said, “thank you.”  Then, “I’m sorry…he must be so tired…”

I watched him walk toward the gate, exhausted and jet-lagged from the long flight from Japan, doing what he felt he had to do.  Although their lives rarely intersected, he knew Joan needed him, that his presence would be comforting to her.  She and Ed, her husband, were high school sweethearts, marrying early despite the disapproval of her parents.  They had sixty-four years together as man and wife, weathering hardship and setbacks for much of their marriage, yet remaining steadfastly devoted to one another.

Just weeks before Edwin learned he had an aggressive Stage Four bladder cancer, Joan was diagnosed with Stage Three inflammatory breast cancer Somehow, the crises ignited strength and determination in Joan we hadn’t before experienced.  Only in the past year or so did her newfound resilience flagged, as Ed endured surgery after surgery, one experimental procedure after another and the medical expenses continued to multiply.  Her days were spent driving to and from doctor’s appointments and the hospital.  Now and again, her children dropped by to help as they could.  Edwin seemed determined to do whatever it took to give him a chance at winning a battle already described as most definitely terminal.

Joan and their four sons and daughters were at his side when he took his last breath.  She called soon afterward. “He’s gone, Sharon,” her voice heavy with exhaustion,  “He’s been my life for sixty-four years.”

 

It is hard to give up after months of making lists,

phoning doctors, fighting entropy.  But when the end comes,

a bending takes over, empties the blood of opposition

and with a gentle skill, injects a blessed numbness…

(From “Numb,” by Florence Weinberger, in The Cancer Poetry Project, 2001)

 

There’s a great deal written about dealing with the loss of a loved one from cancer, and while some may think of grief as a single instance or short time of pain or sadness in response to the loss—like the tears shed at a loved one’s funeral—as the American Cancer Society reminds us, the real process of grieving lasts longer and involves the entire emotional process of coping with the loss.

It can be hard on those friends or acquaintances, even family members, to let grief takes its normal courses.  It’s painful, yes, but it’s important that those whose loved ones have died are allowed to express their grief and supported through the process.  It’s different for everyone, but most important is honoring however the bereaved person chooses to express their sorrow and grief.  John, brother and psychologist, understands that, and in this time of sorrow for his sister, he will be a source of quiet support and comfort for his sister.

After sixty-four years together with Ed, Joan may be grieving for a long time.  According to the studies have identified emotional states that people may go through while grieving. The first feelings usually include shock or numbness. Then, as the person sees how his or her life is affected by the loss, emotions start to surface. The early sense of disbelief is often replaced by emotional upheaval, which can involve anger, loneliness, uncertainty, or denial. These feelings can come and go over a long period of time. The final phase of grief is the one in which people find ways to come to terms with and accept the loss.

Joan’s tears finally came this morning with the realization that Ed is truly gone.  Her daughter had tended to the details, overseen the removal of Ed’s body and all the medical equipment which had become part of the landscape of his room for so long.  It was only this morning, as Joan went downstairs and entered the bedroom, now barren and empty of everything that had defined the past year or so of Ed’s life and hers that she broke down.  “It’s so empty,” she cried.

Today my thoughts are with my sister-in-law and all that she has endured and must face in the wake of her husband’s death.  I’m grateful her four children are nearby.  I’m grateful for the quiet and loving presence she will experience with my husband, her brother.  There is nothing easy in losing a loved one, even if you’ve lived with the certainty of death for months.  My hope is that she can begin, in the months ahead, to create a new life in this stage called “widowhood.”  But for now, I simply pray that she has the strength to put one foot in front of the other and go on.

 

Perhaps this surrender foreshadows my own old age

when I have raged to exhaustion and finally have to go.  For now,

the numbness wears off.  I drive to the market, cook my own food,

take scant note of desire

with no one to consider or contradict my choices.

Something in me will never recover.  Something in me will go on.

 

This week, consider the process of grief and mourning.  Have you lost a loved one to cancer?  What helped you deal with the loss?  Write about it.

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For the Week of July 13, 2014: What It Means to Heal

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , cancer and poetry, , , , , , on July 13, 2014 | 4 Comments »

So much died here last year

but last month rain forced

peach-red mouths out of balding sand,

and within weeks sun coaxed

tiny constellations of yellow,

purple, and white into sandy flats,

along rocky dirt roads . . .

I will never be the same

knowing how effortlessly death

rests in the cells of my body,

yet with each step I am willing

to say yes to the chances I take,

to the hope no one can take from me

here in the midst of my recovery

now that I’ve seen what can thrive

in the bankrupt landscape of the heart.

 (From “Hiking in the Anza-Borrego Desert after Surgery,” by Francine Sterle.  In: The Cancer Poetry Project, Karin Miller, Ed., 2001)

 

“Healing” is a word I frequently use. My cancer writing groups were inspired, in part, by the research on writing’s healing benefits.  Both my books on the subject contain the words “heal” or “healing” in their titles.  But I have new respect for what it means, at this stage in my life, to heal.  Like you, I’ve experienced emotional and physical healing more times in my life than I care to admit.  But for the past several weeks, my life has been concerned with the long, slow process of physical healing.

In early April, I suffered a bruised tailbone when landed on the hardwood floor as my desk chair rolled out from under me when I sat down.  A week later, I strained the muscles in my right arm badly when I threw caution to the wind and lifted one too many potted plants on our deck.  Days before I was headed to spend the month of May in Toronto, I fell, rather badly, as I backed up to take a photograph of my husband and his new car.  I confess my eyes were on the camera, not where I was stepping, and my back heel caught on a garden stone.  I took a fine photograph of the sky and telephone wires as I fell, landing hard on my already bruised tailbone and shoulder before my head hit the pavement.  I felt more embarrassment than injury at the time; the pain came later.  All of this preceded, I might add, the advent of my seventieth birthday.  Not only my body was damaged, but so was my self-image.   I’ve been forced to accept that as I age, I need to be more considered about some of the physical tasks I undertake—or at the very least, pay attention to where I’m stepping!

Healing from all of these mishaps has taken far longer than my body ever required to recover from the bumps and bruises of a rough and tumble childhood—and it’s given me pause for thought.  I’ve seen doctors, been to acupuncture and worked with a physiotherapist.  But my body refuses to be rushed in its healing process, and that new reality is forcing me to learn a tough lesson of patience.

What does it mean to heal?   Obviously, time is involved, but google the word “healing,” and you’ll be confronted with more variations on it than you can possibly read, whether from traditional medicine, psychology, religion, or the alternative healing arts.  Look up “healing” in the dictionary, and you’ll find  “the natural process by which the body repairs itself,” and “tending to cure or restore to health.”

In my cancer writing groups, “healing” has more of an emotional and spiritual context.  During the experience of cancer, terms like “recovery”, “in remission,” and, for some, “cure,” are more commonly used to describe the body’s process of repair during treatment.  “Healing,” on the other hand, carries multiple meanings, and what each person considers as healing is unique to their lives and situation.

It’s not just the body that needs healing during cancer.  A cancer diagnosis threatens our sense of wholeness and of self.  We suffer, although out of that suffering, we may gain new insights into what it means to be human and what truly matters to us—which can be a prelude to healing.  Healing is more than physical repair; it involves transformation.  We emerge from the cancer experience in remission or with “no evidence of cancer,” but we aren’t the same people we were before it.  We’re changed. Our lives are redefined, and so is our sense of meaning.  To come to terms with that change, that altered self also takes time—it’s a process of healing, and it, too, cannot be rushed.

In a May 2005 article by Thomas Egnew,“The Meaning of Healing:  Transcending Suffering,” appearing in the Annals of Family Medicine, the author explored the meaning of healing and translated it into behaviors—all as a way  to help doctors enhance their abilities to be healers. Egnew included three major themes in his definition, and not surprisingly, they are ones that readily apply to anyone:  wholeness (to become or make whole), narrative (a reinterpretation of life), and spirituality (the search to be human; to transcend).

Healing requires that we have the courage to truly plumb the depths of who we are—who we have become as a result of cancer—or any other major life upheaval.  Last summer, I was among a group of presenters at the Omega Institute in New York along with oncologist and pioneer in integrative medicine, Jeremy Geffen, MD, the weekend’s featured speaker.  Dr. Geffen defined seven distinct levels of healing needed to regain wholeness.  According to Geffen, as he listened to his patients their concerns and questions over the years, he saw a pattern emerging,  Patients’ concerns fell into one of seven interwoven, yet distinct, areas.  Ultimately, he labeled them as “The Seven Levels of Healing.  They include:

  1. Information or knowledge
  2. Connecting with others
  3. Exploring safe and effective ways of tending to our health
  4. Emotional healing
  5. Harnessing the power of the mind
  6. Assessing our life’s purpose and meaning
  7. A spiritual connection

(The Journey Through Cancer: Healing and Transforming the Whole Person, by Jeremy Geffen, MD, 2006).

Healing, true healing, is complex and multi-dimensional.  And it takes time.  I thought I understood that, at least during those “big” illnesses and surgeries I’ve endured.  The fact that some bruising and muscle sprains have required me to re-assess so much of what I’ve blithely taken for granted about my body has forced me, again, to slow down and reconsider what it means, this time, to heal.

What about you?  Do Geffen’s seven levels of healing resonate with your experience?  How would you define “healing” if asked by someone newly diagnosed with cancer?  What, in your experience, has been healing for you?  What people, places or activities have been important in your healing process?    Think about what it means to heal.  Write about it.

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For the Week of July 6, 2014: A Musical Rx

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , dance and healing, , , , , , on July 6, 2014 | Leave a Comment »

Blues a healer, all over the world
Blues a healer, healer, all over the world, all over the world
It healed me, it can heal you
The blues can heal you, early one morning

(“The Healer,” by John Lee Hooker & Santana)

The blues.  Their roots lie in African-American history, from Southern plantations of the 19th Century, sung by slaves and share croppers as they toiled in the cotton fields. The blues evolved, interacting with jazz and giving birth to rhythm ‘n blues and rock ‘n roll.

Nothing “blue” would have defined our evening last night as we attended a live performance by the San Diego blues band, 145th Street, as they paid tribute to the great slide guitarist and blues singer, Muddy Waters.  Instead, you would have witnessed a crowd of people, young and old, on their feet, moving and clapping to the hard rhythm of Waters’ best loved songs.

We had come close to not going to the show at all.  Yesterday was hot, and by day’s end, I was tired and irritable, wanting to do nothing more than sit near the air conditioner.  But we’d bought the tickets in advance, and it seemed a waste to not use them, so I dragged my wilted self out the door with my husband, and we drove downtown.  We arrived a full half hour before the performance began, but already, the room was crowded with fans.  Luckily we managed to snare two of the last available seats.  A short time later, the band filed on stage and launched into their first number.  Within moments, the irritability and lassitude I’d been feeling had disappeared.  The musicians rocked and, as it turned out, so did we all.

“When you are feeling particularly down or upset, make music your friend,” advised music therapist, Dr. Suzanne Hanser, in a recent article in Coping with Cancer Magazine.  “Begin your day with music. Music with a strong beat or dance rhythm might make you boogie out of bed…”  Well, I can’t vouch for wanting to boogie out of bed–I prefer quieter starts to my days– but I do know that music can elevate one’s mood and sense of well-being.

Mark, Sichel, LCSW, writing for Psychology Today, states:  “While music therapy  as a distinct field has been around a long time, it’s only recently that I’ve begun suggesting to patients that they sing their way out of the blues… Losing yourself in the right music is an immediate, unconscious and effortless way to reframe your situation.”  Hmmm.  Years ago,  I was a devotee of Donna Summer’s “I Will Survive” and the Rolling Stones’ “You Can’t Always Get What You Want…,” belting out the lyrics right along with the recordings as I nursed a broken heart.

“The power of music to integrate and cure is quite fundamental,” Dr. Oliver Sacks, neurologist and author of Awakenings wrote. “It is the profoundest non-chemical medication.” Music has a long history in medicine and healing. The ancient Greeks believed music could heal the body and the soul. Ancient Egyptians and Native Americans incorporated singing and chanting as part of their healing rituals. Even the U.S. Veterans Administration incorporated music an adjunct therapy for shell-shocked soldiers after World War II. Today, music therapy is widely used in hospitals and cancer centers to promote healing and enhance the quality of patients’ lives.

Google “music and healing,” and you’ll find a number of articles attesting to the physiological and emotional benefits of music.

  • It aids our autonomic nervous systems, positively affecting blood pressure, heartbeat and breathing.  In fact, music can actually improve the overall functioning of our cardiovascular systems.
  • It helps reduce stress, aid relaxation and alleviate depression.
  • In cancer patients, music can decrease anxiety. Together with anti-nausea drugs, music can help to ease nausea and vomiting accompanying chemotherapy.
  • It relieves short-term pain and decreases the need for pain medication.
  • It’s effective in diminishing pre-surgical anxiety and beneficial for patients with high blood pressure.
  • Music even plays a role in improving troubled teens’ self-esteem and academic performance.

Add a little movement to the mix, as many in the crowd of people did last night, and you may find yourself smiling even more.  Dance or movement therapy is a newer expressive or healing art, and yet The American Cancer Society states that “Clinical reports suggest dance therapy may be effective in improving self-esteem and reducing stress. [It} can be useful for both physical and emotional aspects of quality of life.”  I used my version of dance therapy during the most difficult period after my first husband’s sudden death. I often played favorite rock’n’roll tunes and danced to them in our darkened living room once my children were asleep.  It was far more beneficial to my spirit to dance in the dark than sit alone and cry!

Let music be your muse this week.  Why not take time to listen to some of your favorite music?  Maybe you’ll feel like dancing, or perhaps you’ll find old memories ignited.  Perhaps certain music lulls you to sleep.  Whatever your experience, notice how music affects your mood, even how different selections trigger different feelings or memories.  Write about what happens when music is a part of your day.

I think I should have no other mortal wants if I could always have plenty of music. It seems to infuse strength into my limbs and ideas into my brain. Life seems to go on without effort when I am filled with music.— George Bernard Shaw

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For the Week of June 29, 2014: Healing Rituals

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , on June 29, 2014 | Leave a Comment »

I awakened a half hour later than usual this morning.  Deep in a dream that ignited long ago memories of a kindergarten playmate, I awoke with a start and looked at the clock.  Six thirty.  “Oh no,” I murmured to my dog, asleep at the side of the bed, “I overslept.”

Normally, I awaken a few minutes before six a.m., but today, I slept well past my usual time.  I hurriedly threw back the covers and groggily made my way down the hall to pull on my walking clothes, brush my teeth and hair.  It took more time than usual to make the coffee, feed the dog, and do my regimen of stretching exercises before I was ready to fasten the leash to her collar, the signal that we’re ready to head out the door.  Normally she waits patiently, used to the routine of my mornings, but today, she found one of my Croc sandals in the hallway and managed to chew a chunk out of the strap before I realized what she’d done.  It seemed we both were unsettled by the disruption and predictability of our early morning routine.

In the poem, “Habit,” Jane Hirshfield describes small rituals that are part of our daily lives:

The shoes put on each time
left first, then right.

The morning potion’s teaspoon
of sweetness stirred always
for seven circlings, no fewer, no more,
into the cracked blue cup.

Touching the pocket for wallet,
for keys,
before closing the door.

How did we come
to believe these small rituals’ promise,
that we are today the selves we yesterday knew,
tomorrow will be?

(Excerpt from “Habit” by Jane Hirshfield, in Given Sugar, Given Salt)

My morning habits, the little rituals of each day, began during a time of difficult transitions, when I adrift in grief and turmoil, coming to terms with the death of a husband and a new life as a single mother.  Writing in the early mornings before my children awakened, became a life line, the port in my storm, the way I could make sense of the myriad of emotion that threatened to overwhelm me. 

There’s comfort in habit, the little rituals that become part of each day.  They allow us to feel connected to ourselves and to the world.  We create rituals around important life events—birth, puberty, marriage, death—a way of honoring our transitions from one chapter to the next.  In times of uncertainty and change, our rituals keep us grounded.    They help us navigate difficult times, provide a sense of familiarity and constancy.

Our daily rituals can even help us heal. They offer time to be quiet and focus on our intentions and actions.  They can also  function as talismen against fear, and give us the assurance we will be all right.

How did we come
to believe these small rituals’ promise,
that we are today the selves we yesterday knew,
tomorrow will be?

Author Barbara Biziou (www.joyofritual.com) writes that our healing rituals, the little habits that offer us solace or replenishment, allow us to be active participants in our healing process.  What defines a healing ritual?  They are the things we take solace in doing, a prayer or meditation, a solitary walk in the woods, working in the garden, listening to music, a massage, or sitting quietly at a window with a cup of tea or coffee..  It doesn’t matter what your healing rituals are.  What matter is that they help you renew and replenish your spirit and able to  hear what’s in your not only your mind, but your heart.

I still write each morning—letting my heart have equal time with my mind on the page.  I do it after my early morning walk with the dog, after she and I sit together on the porch swing and watch the sun creep across the canyon, after my first cup of freshly brewed coffee.  This is my daily meditation, a time of refuge and quiet before the day intrudes with its list of tasks and disruptions.  Without the constancy and regularity of my early morning rituals, I feel, as I did when I overslept this morning, slightly off kilter, not quite ready to take on the day.

What small habits or routines offer calm or comfort in your daily life?  How?  Why do they matter to you?  What do they teach you about yourself?  How, in the midst of pain or suffering, do they provide solace?  Write about those daily habits, the healing rituals, that are important to your life, your sense of well-being.

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