Winter is nearly here (officially). We are already quite firmly in the Autumn months- the months that call for one to slow down and to spend more time within and to reflect. Winter is the time for us to fully settle into that. Release. Let go. Dive deep enough to find what needs letting go and what needs a new perspective.
Reflection
As I read some of the posts from my husband, they cause me to reflect. The older I get, the more I realize others may not feel their life experiences as deeply as I do. So when I say I reflect, I mean to say I remember it all. I remember the way the sun or the clouds made me feel that day. I remember the fatigue or rare energy either weighing me down or making me feel light. I remember the details and the trauma. When he writes about the experience that sent my entire adult life on a path I never expected to follow and that it would affect both of us so deeply, I am remembering all the pain, all the moments I felt hope and despair. I remember the frustration and my stubbornness and refusing to accept any of my pain and the following autoimmune and dysautonomia experiences.
The other day I attended a yoga class I really enjoy and for the first time, had a full emotional meltdown. I tried to contain it. I tried to get out of my head. But part of me fought and suggested that my practice is specifically for the releasing of so many pent up emotions. The class theme was even dedicated to that but I wasn’t expecting everything to come up the way it did.
I started into a downward dog. It wasn’t even the first one of the class. I pulled my head between my shoulders and began to feel the pulsing and throbbing in my head. Sometimes its fine, but this was painful. We came out of it and I got myself a drink, mindful that in the heat and with my POTS I need to maintain my fluids and electrolytes. We did another sun salutation flow and it happened again – more pounding in my head. Then upon standing, the lightheadedness began. I’ve done this long enough now to know this meant I could not continue to do any mild inversions. This meant I’d be standing there or doing something modified for the rest of class. All of my frustration from the last several years (but this year especially) bubbled up like a simmer about to boil over. I enjoy being active. Yoga and running give me peace. But now yoga gives me headaches and running puts me in the med tent for over an hour with orthostatic issues. Where is my peace? It’s in my bed apparently since that is ALMOST the only place I can go where I don’t hurt. The only place where I have enough energy to read a book or scroll on the phone but can’t get up for very long to do dishes, vacuum, or clean a bathroom. I am beyond frustrated at my lack of energy, my inability to think clearly, my inability to do the things that do interest me and bring me joy. As I attempted to move through what asanas I could, all these thoughts flowed through me. I have tried so hard, I have studied so much, I have felt so judged, and I feel so defeated.
I thought back to when my oldest was 8 months old. As a first time mom, everything was difficult but I didn’t know that it was so much harder than others or why (we’re all freaking autistic but I didn’t know). Around 8 months I found a routine for us. My husband would be at work, I would have gotten the townhouse all cleaned up, shopping list was done and accomplished, and then my baby and I could go on our walk, come back and I’d put him down for a nap and there’d just be silence. Everything felt done and I could rest. There was a level of peace. I didn’t feel pulled in a million directions with never ending tasks. It was done and we could just be. Life has gotten too big. It’s too big and I’m not enough to be able to handle all of it.
So as I recalled that time in my life during what was supposed to be savasana (corpse pose- the time we rest through our practice at the end of class), I was flooded over and over again with “I just want to go back”. I just want to go back to that simplicity and I don’t know how. I can’t. It can’t happen. Not here. Not in this country – it won’t let us. So I sat there with my head in my hands and cried. Part of me wanted to gather myself and shove it all back down and part of me wanted to just let it go and be the most disruptive person in there. There has been so much and I feel so stuck. But it isn’t just me – my family is me. My house is me. All the responsibilities for the kids and my husband and the animals are all me. So when I say I am stuck, all of this is me that is stuck.
Let go
So I cried because I couldn’t do a downward dog. No, I really cried because I have been shoving all my feelings down. I have never felt so much dissociation in my life as the last year. Yes there have been pains and hurdles, but those combined with the helplessness I feel for my family and friends and what I see happening in our country – that’s what’s destroying me. That is why life feels so heavy for us. Autism, ADHD, PDA, POTS, dysautonomia, surgeries, body pains, all these things have been placed on our plate one item at a time. But is our sense of safety and the idea that my children will only grow up to work and not live that tears at me.
Maybe we’ll move. Maybe there is a reason I lived in Germany as a child and a reason my husband speaks French. But moving is scary. Uprooting literally every part of our lives is scary. My ancestors did it. Maybe its time to be brave.