The Medicine of Innocence

  If you haven't been here before, welcome! This is the place where I show up most Monday mornings to offer some thoughts on life, bodies, minds and your health.  I actually do show up on Monday mornings, meaning, I don't write these notes ahead of time as may often be the case with other writers.  I really enjoy seeing what surfaces on a given day, what rises to the top of the mix that is my life.  And I really enjoy finding the words to share that give expression to my own feeling and hopefully connect with you in a way that is meaningful. I hope you'll let me know about that either way!

This week here is something that caught my attention this morning:

"Use no medicine in an illness incurred through no fault of your own. 
It will pass of itself."

This is a translation of line 5 from Hexagram 25 - Wu Wang, called variously Innocence, Disentangling and The Unexpected, in this case translated and commented on by Carol Anthony.  For me, this concept, the idea that sometimes it is best to simply let an illness run its course without interference, is hugely important.  And also critical in this view and translation is that the illness occurred through no fault of your own.  So much of the time, you might choose to assume responsibility for things well beyond your control because it gives you a feeling of control.  But, if you assume you have acquired the circumstances through no fault of your own, perhaps you can let go, release the situation and the healing occurs naturally with speed and ease.

That you are innocent to your circumstances, to disentangle from them, does not mean that you have done nothing or that you are without some awareness in this case.  To be innocent to them is to be open to them, to be willing to see what might come of just being with them.  In this way,  you can acknowledge that you live in a world full of circumstances, full of things well beyond your control.  You can be part of something larger than yourself. 

To let something pass of itself is to trust the body and to be willing to experience the process of healing. Healing is, in this cosmology, both a process and a practice.  The practice is to bear witness to the communications from the body.  The body in seeking to maintain harmony, balance and presence on behalf of your awareness, will bring your attention to itself and to aspects of experience that you might call painful.  Can you allow pain to open you to yourself? Can you take a moment in your body and experience to let that pain speak to you?  

Bodies, though they speak to you through pain, are wired to heal on their own.  In fact, I'd go so far as to say that all communications from your body to your awareness happen on behalf of healing, moving toward presence and functional balance.   If you can listen and respond in a timely matter, healing happens.  It is also true that pain can come in more quickly and more loudly than you can bear on your own.  Here, remaining in Innocence and Disentanglement, you can connect with others, with your world, allowing the larger body of life to support you in being with and moving through whatever pain has gotten your attention. 
 
In all my work, I hold this idea most forward in my activity; that your body and your pain are the most potent teachers you have.  I see myself as the guide, willing to ride the rapids with you, willing to map the territory with you, knowing as I do how it is to have a body, a sensitive and talkative body, and knowing how much power and strength can come from listening in to your own particularly precious and potent body. 

How is your particular body these days?

To Release or To Contain

Summer is here and this week I'm taking a short break from talking about the hexagrams to share more of my client Katharine's story. Her theme and mine today is the notion of when and whether you might choose to release, contain or adapt to something that you discover in yourself. In some ways, though Katharine's story is about her work with a cancer diagnosis, you could apply this idea to anything that you discover that you might feel is toxic or unwelcome in your body and experience. One of the ways I like to talk and think about this is the analogy of the trash. Trash accumulates, waste happens. In some cases you can take it right out. In others, you may put it aside to take out later. Though most often trash is stuff you don't want anymore, sometimes you find that you have thrown away something that you wish you hadn't. Or you discover that you threw something out by mistake. Either way there comes a time to take the trash out. Taking the trash out to the curb is analogous to release. Keeping the trash in a cool spot in the garage or in the shed is analgous to containment. Adding a shed in the yard when the space in the garage is full is analogous to adaptation. All of these are reasonable ways of dealing with "stuff".

The question of when you would want to release, contain or adapt in a given circumstance is extremely personal. And it is very closely tied to what your body is willing or able to do at a given time. Our culture, especially our culture around medicine, can definitely show a preference for release when something is named as toxic. Cancer cells, even though they are, in fact, your very own cells, are especially vulnerable to this notion. Immediately we want to get rid of them. As you can see from Katharine's story, there are actually many options and many ways to work with the situation. And as she says your body is "brilliant and beautiful" in how it can lead the way.

Summer is a great time to consider what you might wish to release, what you might wish to contain and keep and how you might adapt to what life presents. Release and adaptation are amply supported in the Summer by lots of warmth and light. In contrast, containment will require more rest and coolness, so you might want to buy more air conditioners if that is your choice for this season. If you have trouble deciding which is best for you, check out The Blueprint for Change, where you and I can take a close look at your health together and outline all your options.

I hope you'll enjoy hearing more of Katharine's story and look forward to more on the hexagrams next week.

Happy Summer!
Josephine


*****

To Release or To Contain

I want to be very careful to say that I do not value release over containment or adaptation! It has become one of those things that release is always a good thing. Words like cleanse and detox and so on are based on the assumption that we all need to get rid of the bad stuff. I question that and feel it can be dangerous. Here’s why.

When I was first diagnosed with breast cancer I headed into the lumpectomy surgery with the strong invitation for my body to release what needed to be released. I also changed my diet and began many courses of herbs and supplements, Chinese medicine style. AND I GOT REALLY SICK! Jaundiced in particular. Essentially I overwhelmed the capacity of my body to process what was released and my liver freaked out!

It took me a couple of years to regain my energy after that. It was my first round of learning to really truly rest. I’ve had many more. The strategy shifted to supporting my body in containing the cancer. And the focus of my intention became preventing metastasis by not giving those wandering cells a place to land, physically, emotionally or in any other way.

It is natural to want to be rid of the things that cause us pain or scare us, whether cancer, emotions, trauma reactions, whatever. I had a lot of flash cards at the beginning of the cancer journey and one said the following. It was from one of Josephine's colleague's:

“I trust your symptoms. I am not going to take them away from you. They are your teachers.”

It is from this outlook that I question the inclination to value release over containment or adaptation or whatever you want to call it. In one of my consultations with Josephine's teacher, I asked, “What more should I do?” He said, “Not more, less.” Boom! I am still processing that instruction!

The idea of release can easily become another one of those things we think we should be able to do. Now! Another thing to be ambitious and righteous about. Please don’t!

Your body’s ability to contain cancer cells is brilliant and beautiful. Your adaptations - the ones grounded in the life and circumstances you face right now - are brilliant and beautiful. Can you honour them? What would that look and feel like?

My recent experience of what may prove to be meaningful release (I really don’t know yet) was different in that it bubbled up from the simple daily practices of my life. Diet, mindfulness, posture, rest, walking, horse time, letting people help me, and more rest. Rest the body, rest the mind. The possibility of release came from softening and making space, NOT from pushing. Rather from opening and invitation.

I still have the impulse to do MORE. But I am slowly gaining confidence in less.

Standstill

Standstill – Hexagram 12 - Pi

How often do you voluntarily stand or sit still?  Do you notice when your body says enough, time to stop?  This week’s moment is the moment when things come to a halt, a standstill.  It happens sometimes, a useful moment, though likely a disconcerting one, for most of us.  Illness is a common way we receive this moment, this invitation to stop, to rest, to reconsider.  It is not often a grand moment in that we are not often feeling our best when it happens.  What comes into focus in that moment though, is the small indispensable details, the needs that can no longer be ignored.  Getting a glass of water in this moment could be all that is possible, all that, indeed, is actually necessary.  Yet, this simple relationship of you to your basic needs, ordinary as it may seem, is actually the pivot point for all our best choices. 

This week, I want to introduce my client, Katharine, to you.  The big stop moment for her came when she received a cancer diagnosis 20 years ago this year.  We have been a part of each other’s lives for over 30 years and we have been journeying with her health for the better part of the last 25.  I have, needless to say, learned a lot.  And evolved in all kinds of ways in how I offer my work with health through our extraordinary relationship.  This is just the beginning of the story.  A moment that she has offered to share and that I am honored to be invited to share with you. 

***

For twenty years cancer has been part of my life.   After reviewing the pathology report, my surgeon called it a “garden variety” breast cancer.  Not an aggressive form, and not to be ignored.   For twenty years I have engaged in a dance with my body and the cancer cells - the now familiar cycles of confidence and worry, feeling better and feeling worse, forgetting about it and focusing intently on it, feeling fear and feeling ferocious commitment to enjoying every moment of my life.  While I am regularly monitored, my only western medical intervention was surgery. I have employed Chinese herbs, acupuncture, supplements, bodywork, rest, and more.

Throughout the years, working with my mind and emotions has been important. I’ve never considered cancer my enemy because that skates too close to calling my body the enemy. I’ve always viewed my cancer as my body’s coherent response to the conditions it has faced. My path and practice is to rest in not knowing why, to explore and consider how I can help my body manage what’s going on, to accept my cycles of exertion and laziness around those choices, and to stay present in the uncertainty of whether or not my life will end soon.

It is time for me to talk and write about what I know. Time to stop calling myself just lucky, and to claim responsibility for the health and well-being that I currently possess. I have earned it with my effort and commitment. I have earned it by showing up, over and over, in the full experience of my life. I don’t have any answers for anyone else.  But perhaps my stories can offer encouragement for other people facing disease or illness.

***

Next week, as we head into Summer, we’ll look at more of Katharine’s story, bringing the topics of Spring cleaning, detoxification, release, containment and adaptation into focus.  For more on the topic of Chinese medicine and working with a cancer diagnosis, check out these two free offerings:

 First is a 2-hour presentation called Getting to the Essence: Evolving with a Cancer Diagnosis given a few years ago in Halifax, Nova Scotia:

Second is a podcast with a Chinese medicine colleague, Michael Max, called Reckoning with the Essence: A Conversation on Cancer.  It got deep and interesting!