interesting experience. got word that the family member i rely on to carry out my mum's wish to help me financially thinks the whole venture a 'waste' of my mother's money. this capped off a day of being tested in my resolve on multiple levels, especially after two days in the dumps when my treatment was interrupted a third time this month because of man-made obstructions coming my way that now make me wonder about sabotage. if what i do works it will force some to have to revise their dogmatisms; never underestimate the lengths people will go to to protect their certainties, i see it in myself all the time... thing is, that night and the next the tumour grew 0.5cm for a total of 1cm which is a HUGE amount. finally i got angry in that way that doesn't take aim at the people opposing me but rather at my own ridiculousness.
am i no better than a proxy voodoo pin doll? am i so vulnerable energetically that i can't stay strong in the face of these kinds of darts? that got me good and pissed off. i instantly felt better. dr. stephen sinatra talked in KNOCKOUT about how people with cancer have to get into their anger and their shadow qualities if they want to survive.
as a result, today i had a fantastic day. green team remarked with relief that they have their 'sunshine' back after a cloudy day friday (i wasn't grumpy or anything on friday, just unnaturally quiet and drawn in appearance).
i started the day at a free yoga class with one of my favorite teachers. i decided to brave the fact that this lady has never received me warmly and instead opened completely into a situation where i don't feel particularly welcome but that i know will have great benefits for me. i have to learn to be among adversarial energies and not cave or self-harm. and so it went wonderfully. it was a 2 1/2 hour astanga class, expertly taught. this teacher who i _much_ admire (probably even more since she's cool towards me, i have a thing for people who don't like me that i'm SO ready to let go of... in fact i'll predict the moment i let go of that aspect for good i will probably end up friends with this woman) she has a beautiful mastectomy scar of which is she very proud, and with good reason. she had a very different kind of cancer from mine that responds to tamoxifen... she also did the regular course of chemo, maybe some radiation, i don't know. it wasn't until i felt more of a frost than usual* that i realized it might be a challenge for her to have a student in her class who is the opposite analogue.... rather than a scar i now have an impossible to ignore turbo breast, a real jane mansfield! but only if you're to my right!
that's when i realized, many people think when you have cancer the honourable thing to do is suffer through chemo and that if you don't, you're irresponsible and weak or vain. you don't want to loose your hair, look eaten out, feel dreadful.
it wasn't until i was in the class that it computed to me that perhaps her avoidance of me at the door and my gaze in class was on account of this. perhaps it seemed like i was trying to show her up by joining her on her big day, opening a new studio. i've been very vocal on social media we share about my feelings about chemo, it would be reasonable to wonder if she took these as a critique of her choices. in any event, for the first time i can ever remember, instead of wilting and going morose and despondent about being rejected socially by someone i really like, and more generally, being misunderstood in my motives, i went into my mat bubble and had a beautiful experience of the class.... i was shocked that i was able to do almost all of it and by how beyond great it made me feel. i went to rejoin humanity and stand centered in my aims without shame or self-reproach and i achieved my ambition.
normally the old me would come home and write an email to this teacher trying to explain myself.... that i have a different kind of cancer that can't be treated as hers was, that i in NO WAY judge her for the choices she made... if i had been living impeccably for over twenty years with good liver and kidney function _at the outset_ i may have considered standard of care, but its still unlikely, and this is what freedom of choice looks like folks. this is my path, my choice, and like it or not, the ship has left harbour. i'm content i've finally started to make choices in accord with my principles, come what may, come what might. in trying to explain myself, i would have also sycophantically emphasized my admiration and respect and created a power polarity that i no longer need. i don't need to idealize people and then expect them to understand or approve of me. even the writings i'm doing here are for my own pleasure and need for expression, yet even lurking in them, tho less and less so, is the deep need to be understood and validated. got. to. let. that. drop.
so i let the experience be what it was, confident that one day she might come around to seeing me differently or not, it makes no difference. nothing needs to be done. i can't tell you how liberated i feel tonight, liberated from years of making bigger messes than i found by trying to fix things, people and situations where i sensed some brewing misunderstanding.... with this one achievement, so much healing can take place.
my green team has been greatly upset these last two weeks with all the turmoil and interruptions and relapsing and have told me that no matter the details, they will find a way for me to continue treatments into january. we started injecting the mistletoe in the remaining unaffected soft tissues around the tumour and i'm having a lot of new sensation and pain tonight which i'm surfing well without any remediation as i want to monitor every detail of what's going on during these next few critical weeks.
tomorrow is my day off, i will be traveling in the early morning to st. catharines to visit with my mum, then back to toronto to go to the dharma center, and then to another free event, a shaking medicine gathering. monday will start a new week where we'll begin a course of Poly-MVA in addition to everything else.
excited by these breakthroughs! i'm getting every manner of angelic assistance each time i don't invest in the negative energies around me. its just like in the books! amazing!
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* how many yoga classes start students off by asking them to lie face and belly down on the mat? of course that's the one thing i couldn't possibly do and so i had to remain as i was, the classic sore tooth sticking out, and with a tv crew in the room (a benign thing which no one knew anything about, they were announced at the beginning, it was something put together only the night before). its only now that i'm realizing how far the set-up of appearances went, because by then i was no longer aware of a camera in the room, i was already in my mat bubble** ... meaning, i wasn't thinking so much about how things were looking or people's intentions, i was focusing on maintaining my equipose of mind, letting good energies stream in and out at the sternum, and making the position i was in function like an opening asana, to substitute for the prone position she put the class in. so that means i just went inward and started taking inventory and making adjustments. that's what i do in every yoga pose, i go inward and start taking proprioceptive inventory and then begin making adjustments. they didn't stay in this opening posture long, but yes, i couldn't help register and then neutralize as quickly as i could the sense that i was being sent a very particular message... go away, you're not welcome here. its the human of human things to do. we love to banish some and bring closer others, its how our tribes and families are formed, but its also triggers our primal fears and desires, because to exclude from the circle is to condemn to a harsh existence of uncertain outcome, to bring one in is to experience the nectar of human kindness. however, to the shaman, rejection isn't a negative, the shaman loves to be set upon by the forces of nature, its how the instrument is continuously formed.
** mat bubble refers to my habit of sitting before the class in an open way and then using my mat as a self-contained bubble that i retreat to the moment a class starts... in this way i keep awareness only to myself, its the only way i can do yoga
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