joy and sorrow are lovers

was laid low this past week with a terrible cold that sapped me of energy, made it difficult to breathe, pounded in my head, and robbed me of my voice (that last one is miserable for me). i am a terrible sick person in that i either a) get terribly grouchy and whiny and hard to be around or b) i deny that i am sick and, as a result, get even sicker.  i went with option b this time around, and at one point it got bad enough that my students sent me home from work and i slept for 18 hours. 

i also did not get to my yoga for 8 days.  this was disappointing because i had managed to string up 7 days straight and i was feeling like i was getting to new places on all planes - physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual.  the most prevalent of those being on the edge between physical and emotional - anxiety.  i struggle with this beast of a feeling every day - it wants to creep through my chest and into my throat and neck giving me jitters and leaving me feeling unable to manage myself. 

the kicker is that it is pretty much tied to feeling any kind of emotion - positive or negative.  i can get on board with anxiety being tied to negative emotion.  who wants to feel sad or mad or stressed?  of course that will trigger anxiety.  what i find challenging is that my positive emotions also breed this feeling - sometimes more than the negative.  one time in therapy i got very, very angry about this - part of a 'why me' reaction to life in general - and my therapist gregory just smiled (oh how mad i got at him when he did that!), and told me something beautiful.  'joy and sorrow are lovers, clare.  just like light and shadow.  you can't invite one of them into your heart without the other.'

as my life continues to get better and better (let's face it, things were a little bleak there for a while), i am becoming more and more aware of how my anxiety is rising up to join me. doing something good for yourself can often lead to negative effects in the short-term...stretching releases toxins that can lead to nausea, therapy can unearth repressed memories and feelings that cause unbearable pain.  for me, the release of the 'world, don't kick me any more' crouch has led to a flow of emotion that is drawing the negative out of me like poison.  unfortunately the net result has been intense insomnia and anxiety that has at least a couple of times this year, kept me from getting in to work.  the last time i was dealing with this heavy a dose of it i was a senior in college and it activated my tachycardia.  i have no interest in ending up in the emergency room.

cue yoga.

i have always understood that a yogic practice could be positive for me.  body work, particularly of the exercise variety has always helped me to deal with the challenges of life. that said, i did not imagine that practicing yoga regularly could bring my anxiety levels down almost to nil.  the first i noted it was during my worst week in corvallis - work had gotten out of control, i was processing the end of a relationship, and i had managed to stress myself into tension cramping in my neck where i could no longer turn my head.  i stood in that hot room feeling totally broken, listening to elizabeth run us through the dialogue.  somewhere in the back of my head i just-let-go.  the breathing became the only thing i cared about, and i smoothly moved through the poses without pain or stress.  by the end of the class i felt calm and the neck issues had disappeared.

tich nhat hanh talks about the transformation of emotion into something that can be integrated into the self rather than existing as an external entity that one ends up fighting.  i think that is what yoga is helping me to do.  the energy of emotion becomes dispersed into my breath and flows through me rather than pushing up against me.  just as i can breathe air into my body and use it to strengthen and nourish me, i can draw upon my emotions to strengthen and nourish my heart.  just as i breathe out the air carries away toxins, i can harness the emotion to draw my anxiety out and leave me calm.  when joy comes and sorry follows her across the threshold i can hear gregory's voice asking 'is it tolerable?'  so many times back then it was not.  now i am finding that i can welcome them both in at once, breathe them a smile, and sit for a while.

i was sooooo glad to get back to my practice today.  the week i've had off has been filled with lots of strong emotions of all kinds, and i was feeling my anxiety setting up shop back in my chest.  next goal - figuring out how to harness the power of emotional transformation at home.