The Upside of Down
Originally posted on Booby & the Beast
Sometimes the world feels upside down. It can be scary, but a friend once told me scary isn’t always bad. There is fear in letting go, in going beyond the edge of what our minds tell us is safe, in exposing our deepest vulnerabilities, our soft bellies.
My world has certainly felt upended — over the last few years since my diagnosis changed, yes, but also very acutely over the past few months. Is it the alignment of the planets? A midlife unraveling a la Brené Brown?
‘Many scholars have proposed that the struggle at midlife is about the fear that comes with our first true glimpse of mortality. Again, wishful thinking. Midlife is not about the fear of death. Midlife is death. Tearing down the walls that we spent our entire life building is death. Like it or not, at some point during midlife, you’re going down, and after that there are only two choices: staying down or enduring rebirth.’ — Brené Brown
I suspect the latter is closer to the truth. Having already faced my mortality head-on, the remains of my walls feel as if they’re crumbling, and the question staring me in the face is what is it that you’re going to DO with your second chance? How are you going to SERVE? As I begin to re-engage with the advocacy community, I have felt a yearning for something…more. A greater impact and deeper meaning to the work I do, which, let’s face it, most days just involves laundry, meal-planning, and entertaining a nap-resistant toddler. There is purpose in that, don’t get me wrong. But I am exploring options for shifting the balance outward a smidge.
Balance doesn’t always come easily. Case in point –>
I have also been intensely focused on the mental health side of my cancer recovery these past few months. And HOLY SMOKES, you guys. I mentioned that I was exploring EMDR, a type of trauma therapy, and I promised to write about it…four months ago.
The sessions have been nothing short of intense. This work is not for sissies. Each hourlong appointment passes in what feels like just a few minutes. Every single time I am jolted back down to earth when my therapist tells me it’s time to wrap up. I keep feeling like we’re just getting started. Then I have weird dreams and cry at random for a few days, and I call my closest friends and ask why adulting is so damn hard sometimes. DM me if you know the answer to that.
In our first session, she asked me about my trauma, and I talked about cancer. I mentioned in passing how the sound of our bathroom exhaust fan makes my chest feel constricted and my heart race, and THAT is the snippet she wanted to focus on. I still don’t know where that angst comes from, but my therapist asked me when else in my life I have felt that way. And some things came up. BOY, DID THEY COME UP. We are working through anxieties that have nothing to do with cancer yet. The unraveling is happening.
In an effort to augment my therapy appointments, and in light of Quinn’s existential concerns of late, I’ve been meditating regularly, hiking a couple of times a week, and trying to make it to yoga on Sundays. My kids have started their own at-home practice.
This weekend, the yoga instructor, Beau, started off the class as he usually does, by imparting some wisdom, some food for thought. He said he wanted to talk to us about sharing. How he gets to know his students pretty well, that we share things with him. He said he had been teaching a class earlier in the week and two of his students were in the front row, next to each other. And he knew they were both facing some pretty tough things in their lives, and the kicker is they were both going through the same hardship but neither one knew it because we don’t always open up to the people around us. Then Beau talked about a video circulating in the CrossFit community about one of their own coming out as gay, how the response to the video shows humanity and love at its greatest and most accepting, and how sharing can lead to that. I’ve seen that here, in this space, how a community can lift a person up when they feel at their most terrified and exposed.
Beau ended his little talk by asking us to share, if not our fears and vulnerabilities, to at least share our gratitude. I haven’t talked about my mental health much here because so much of my recovery is still in process — but then I’m realizing it may always be, so I should get to discussing it sooner rather than later. I should share, trusting in this community, and that the ground won’t be as far away as I think. If I fall, I will stand up again. You guys will help me.