I'm depressed. I think that is the first time I have ever admitted publicly that I am truly depressed at the time that I am depressed. I've been prone to depression since I was a child. I can pinpoint the years of my life when depression ruled the day. Yet, as I have gotten older I have found myself dealing with it on a day to day basis far less. I thought for a good long while that I had beaten it. I thought that the most I'd feel were moments of sadness, frustration, or let down. I didn't think that depression would come again. Admitting that one is depressed can have so many negative repercussions to how one is perceived by their peers. While there are many difficult aspects to living with depression, people who are depressed should not be ruled out as productive, interesting, and lovable people. Assuming that someone who is depressed is ungrateful, lazy, selfish, dramatic, or emotionally stunted or overstimulated is like saying someone who has diabetes is also all of these things. There may be a personal component to having an illness like depression or diabetes that is often chronic, but science tells us that genetics also play a strong factor in our predisposition to developing it. There is no one to blame for depression. People who are depressed should not be counted out. Currently, I'm struggling with the compulsion I feel to do things "properly." It has taken over so many aspects of my life that I wake up every morning with an intense pressure to do things as prescribed by the text I'm reading, the mentor I have chosen, the philosophy of whatever group label I have dove into for support. I'm overwhelmed by all of these things I've told myself that I have to do to be successful that when there just isn't enough time in the day to research educational philosophy, I think about the laundry list of things to do in the day while I'm supposed to be focusing on God during meditation, or I fight the urge to let my toddler watch some TV so we can peacefully complete our school lessons, I feel incredibly guilty and as if all the effort I've put forth to do this mother and homemaker thing well has just been washed down the drain. The day is a loss. I've failed my children. I've failed my husband. I've ceased to matter in the larger scheme of things. I'm just a failing housewife. I know. It's irrational. I completely understand that and recognize it. Does that make a difference in battling these feelings? Mostly not. However, it is a starting point. The task before me is learning to let go of these labels, rules, and prescriptions and adopt what is truly a fit for me and my family. I have to learn that the effort is as important if not more so than the result. I have to stop the thoughts of failure. I have to accept that the me that God created, the joy I feel when allowing myself to just be who I am without apology, is enough for me and my family. It's so easy to feel the burden and guilt for not being content and happy. We are bombarded by the positive thinking movement (which I believe has much merit) saying that happiness is a choice. It makes it seem so simple to choose to be happy and content. They say begin by being grateful for what you have, as if someone who isn't happy is an ungrateful person not recognizing the many things they are blessed with every day. We can't simply make a list of what we are grateful for and suddenly expect to be happy or not depressed. Gratitude can be fully lived and recognized while in deep depression. Every day is a new day even when depressed. Often, while depressed, facing the day at all is something that makes you feel dread. When you measure yourself against your peers and their accomplishments, it is easy to feel like you aren't doing enough. Motherhood is a lonely place many times. I've written that before. I long to have a voice in things that matter to adults. Many of my feminist friends (and no I'm not saying that I'm not a feminist) would say that what I'm doing as a stay at home, homeschooling, wife and mother is a choice that I can un-choose. Probably, a lot of those who would say that aren't mothers yet or have chosen not to be. When another person's life and opportunities in that life become your responsibility, choices become infinitely more complicated. I could ask for the greater world to become more interested in mothers and all that we accomplish in a day, but in our culture of leisure,consumer values, and immense access to information about our world, domestic life is pretty boring. Raising children becomes something that isn't our "work", but the thing we do as we do our real work, or depending on arrangements, when we have completed our real work for the day. I know to some, I'm wasting my mind by not taking on some "meaningful" work. Does it sound like I resent that? Perhaps I do. Perhaps there's a hint of jealousy. Perhaps I just want to eat my cake. So, from this place in my life, I have a lot of hard work to do. I'm someone who believes I was born with all I need to be happy, content, and prosperous. I believe we are all important. We are born children of the Most High. We are wanted by God. Planned by God. That is no small thing. What that tells me is there is the possibility of Light. I first want to accept where I am, speak/write my experience, and then begin to adopt the practice of letting go and feeling my way rather than using unbalanced intellect and sacrificial willing to obtain the Ideal.
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We stayed home and she nursed me all through the night. She let me sleep in her bed as she almost always did when I was sick. She wet wash cloths and kept them cool on my forehead. She told me stories and rubbed my back and feet. I'm sure she left the room, but if she did, it was when I was sleeping. This past week, my Mimi, who is now 80, had a T.I.A event. My mother quickly got her to the hospital and once assessed she was transferred to a larger hospital a little over an hour from our hometown. She spent the entire night confused, sometimes knowing us and sometimes not. I was home alone with the girls and before we knew whether or not she had actually had a stroke, I worried that I wouldn't be able to get to the hospital in time to talk with her during a time when she still knew us. That scared me. While she hasn't been in the best of health, she hasn't really been ill. I'm fortunate enough to still have all the grandparents that I have known and loved since I was born. That's a pretty big deal for a thirty-six year old. Yet, I know it can't last much longer. My grandparents have been such a huge part of my life, I'm not sure I'm ready to know what it is like not to have them a phone call away. We lived with Mimi from the time I was about six years old until I was about eleven or twelve. She cooked for us and I rode to school with her every morning. She worked at the county Board of Education as a secretary. I walked to her office every evening after school and played until she was ready to go home for the day. She tickle-rubbed my back and feet nearly every night to help me relax and go to sleep while she watched Dynasty, Falcon Crest, or Knots Landing. When I washed my hair in shaving cream before school, it was she that put it up in a mushroom bun to make the "wet look" look purposeful like a woman from a Robert Palmer video. I stayed with her a few days and one night at the hospital this week. The night I spent with her was hard. Her blood sugar went low and I didn't recognize it. The nurses didn't check it for several hours, so they didn't know either. She pulled and tugged at all the lines and cords attached to her. She, who always freezes, pulled her covers off. I'd explain to her why she had to have all the monitors. I'd put her oxygen back on. I'd curl up in the straight backed chair watching the same episode of Anthony Bourdain's No Reservations three times wondering if this out of character behavior was a sign of something more. As a doula, I've attended births. I know what the thinning of the veil feels like. What it feels like when a soul is about to breathe air for the very first time. It's that electric feeling where you can act in a pinch of a moment as if you knew what to do before you had to do it. It felt that way that night. I've heard elder midwives and birth attendants say that the thinning of the veil feels the same at death as at birth. So, I worried. At least she knows it is me who is here, I thought. My Mimi is coming home tomorrow if all goes well tonight. She'll be at home for Christmas. She'll know us for Christmas. There will be some days, weeks, months, or years left. It still feels strange though, that somehow I am to that stage in life where the tide has turned. It will be my mother, me, and my siblings caring for her now. Mimi showed me what it meant to be fiercely independent. She was a single mother to my mom and her brothers for many years. She never dated anyone as long as I was aware, or if she did, it was not something to talk about. She had a career and was super good at it. She even seemed happy in her work. She made her own decisions and stood up for her family. She kind of did it all, and it was from my grandmothers that I learned that I was strong and capable. I don't know what is ahead for my family. Transitions are always bizarre and filled with the unknown. When she takes that final jump of this life, she won't be alone even if she is physically alone. Even if I'm not quite ready to step into the next pair of shoes, I will. I'll do it proudly, because that's what I saw her do. I know endings are just beginnings for everyone involved. It will be for her too. Every single prayer or well wish that has been sent to our family is appreciated. My Mimi thanks you too. We're just glad that she will be back home soon, where she belongs right now. I've been laying in bed for hours every night before falling asleep. Not completely unusual except for what is keeping me awake is not my racing mind. It's so loud my mind cannot do any thinking beyond what could be making this overwhelming noise. Swoosh, swoosh, swoosh, gurgle, pop, swoosh, swoosh, to the beat of my heart. It's the sound in my right ear. It is there all the time since September. Sometimes it is so loud I have a hard time hearing people when they talk. Other times it is subtle and barely noticeable. The best times are when there is background noise. At night, the sound is all that there is.
I Googled it. It's potentially a lot of things, some of them major things. Coupled with my terrible migraines it makes me a little wary of it not being looked into quickly. I went to my family doctor as an ER follow-up for migraine and stomach cramps a few weeks ago and mentioned it to him. He looked in there and listened to my carotid. Nothing is clogging my ear. My carotid sounded fine with the stethoscope. He recommended I try to get my neurology appointment moved up. It is scheduled for January. The appointment was made in October. I call. I tell the receptionist why I'd like to get in sooner. She explains that I'll have to go through the ER at the hospital and the ER doctor will do a consult with the neurologist. That will be the only way I could be seen by him any sooner. Thanks and no thanks. To think we wonder why the cost of healthcare is so outrageous. Don't blame it on the docs. So, I wait. I wait and I analyze. I wonder. I wait. I wait like I've been waiting to see a dermatologist for this thing that has come up that needs examined. Again, the referral was made in October and I don't see her until December. After finding out that no dermatologist in my region of the state will accept my insurance, I had to make an appointment with a doctor in Lexington which is three hours away from home. This isn't unusual for those of us who live in the Kentucky coalfields. I feel incredibly sorry for people who have limited transportation, funds, and are dealing with a major illness. A good doctor comes into the region and it is like rolling dice as to when you might actually get an appointment. Otherwise, you are referred to the surrounding cities for care - two or more hours from home. Fred D. Baldwin writes in an article titled, "Access to Care: Overcoming the Rural Physician Shortage": "Rural residents must often travel hours to consult specialists, and many rural communities lack even primary care physicians (physicians certified in family practice, internal medicine, pediatrics, obstetrics/gynecology, and psychiatry). In fact, rural Appalachia still labors under a double burden, according to Lyle Snider, research director in the University of Kentucky Center for Rural Health's Division of Community Programs, Research, and Health Policy: the fewest primary care doctors and the most severe health problems. These situations are related: having too few doctors means that dangerous conditions go undiagnosed too long." The problem of physician shortage has gotten better as I have gotten older. I can directly see some of the strategies the state and healthcare agencies have used to recruit more doctors into the area. The most obvious one being recruiting residents of these rural counties into the field. I can think of my small graduating class and the class under me and point out at least seven of them who became a doctor, midwife, or PA-C and came home again to serve. I, too often for the small number of times I have actually used an ER, have had the experience of there being cultural and linguistic barriers to receiving proper care. It seems doctors from outside of the country and/or state were at one time given incentives to practice here. That's a good thing because without them we'd have been up the creek without a paddle. However, I very much doubt that they went through any cultural sensitivity training and I know personally from experience that there is often a language barrier as well. It hasn't been unusual to hear of disappointment in a doctor's visit or a feeling like the doctor didn't take the time to listen and understand. I know people who have left that little room having no clue what the doctor ordered. So, that said, it is wonderful to have the opportunity to see a neurologist without leaving eastern Kentucky, even if I have to wait until January. It is a step forward. However, the problem is far from being solved. A report, Rural Kentucky's Physician Shortage: Strategies for producing, recruiting, and retaining primary care providers within a medically underserved region says, "Then there is the issue of retention. One source of dissatisfaction on the part of rural physicians could be that the workload and demands placed upon them generally are greater than those experienced by their metropolitan counterparts. Those within Kentucky’s health care industry also point to decreased opportunity for professional contacts in medically underserved areas as a reason for premature physician departures from rural regions. There also are economic concerns. The federal government has become the largest contributor to graduate medical education, paying more than $7 billion annually toward that effort. Yet, federal and state governments have been criticized for failing to develop incentives that better encourage rural practice. Rural physicians typically derive a larger share of their gross practice revenue from Medicaid and Medicare patients, but these publicly supported insurance programs pay physicians at lower rates than private insurers. Rural physicians also typically have received lower Medicaid and Medicare reimbursements than their urban counterparts for performing the same medical procedures." Well, what do we do? I couldn't imagine serving in the healthcare field here. Being a patient within it can be stressful enough. And, is just another way that living rurally is vastly different from metropolitan living. So, I wait, albeit not very patiently, to figure out what this potentially big deal thing is going on in my head. I pretend like it is no thing at all until I lie down at night and it begs for my attention. I've had chronic migraines since I was thirteen years old. The only times I haven't had consistent headaches were during pregnancy. Since giving birth the third time, my headaches have become so bad and often that there have been days when I felt that not being conscious would be better than experiencing another second of pain. I've been brought to my knees by these suckers screaming, "God! Help me!" I'm in the process of getting medical help for my headaches and have been to a few different doctors in connection to them. I've only treated them with medication one other time while I was in college. At this point, if I cannot rely on medication or some other remedy (I've tried many) to make them less frequent and more tolerable (dare I hope for them to be eliminated), I will be devastated. The migraines exacerbate some other health and emotional issues that I have and it has created a feeling of being broken.
I turned 36 last month, and I have been confronted with the fact that I'm "older" on many occasions, including trips to the doctor. I've never considered myself "older". The word "old" doesn't even register to me until 70 - maybe. I don't mind the passing of years, and I am so happy to be an adult. You couldn't pay me to be a kid again. Yet, I'm frustrated that at a time in my life when things are comfortable and I am secure in so many areas, that I feel so physically and in turn emotionally down. Once I get over the fact that a situation has occurred, I am generally very proactive about changing or improving it if it doesn't suit me. I've been doing so much to create health and well being in my life. I eat a diet of whole and properly prepared foods per the recommendations of the Weston A. Price Foundation. I have a daily yoga and meditation practice. I take walks. I'm at a very healthy weight. I'm physically strong. I strive to stay spiritually connected. I don't jump to easy fixes when lifestyle adjustments would produce healing derived from within my own body. In fact, I'm a little obsessive about healthful living. I work hard at it. Because of my effort, I am often embarrassed or incredibly sad on the days when I feel so sluggish, depressed, or when a migraine has been triggered and I lose a whole day of productivity or forbid I need someone to help me get through the day. I get angry when the pre-headache feelings create within me a mood of less patience and irritability. Having a chronic issue like this isn't something I have invited to stay, or something I want to allow me exceptions to living a full life. I want it GONE. Now! I'm a homeschooling mother of three under age 10. I'm a wife. I'm a writer and spiritual counselor. I'm busy, and striving to be at my best - the way Creator intended me to be. At age 33, which I referred to as my Jesus year, I gave birth for the third time in an experience that was incredibly profound and blessed. Jesus was the man in the red cape that year. A constant reminder that I am loved, supported, and that my highest good was being written as much as I wanted to seek it out. If age 33 was my Jesus year, then almost three years later, it is time for a Resurrection. A rebirth. Creator saw Jesus through his physical torment and blessed him with Divine life. I still believe I'm loved, supported, and that my highest good is being written right at this moment. I believe in purpose - Divine purpose - and a Love that surpasses all turmoil. I know there is a plan for this. A reason. I'm tired though. Really tired. And on the days when it feels as if my brain is pressing against my skull with a force that will explode it all into a mush and 1,000 little pieces, I have a hard time reminding myself that there is something more to this issue than pain. I don't want to be embarrassed at needing to spend the day on the couch, or worried that I'm appearing slothful or weird because I can't function normally through the pain. Pain is very misunderstood in our culture. I am also finished with trying to muscle through or pretend the pain isn't there in order to not be a Debbie downer. I have important work to do. I'm not a pill popper and I refuse to go that direction in terms of medication as a band-aid. Where do I find the willpower to keep at this until I find the answers and life in there? I don't know where this path leads. I think of everything in life in a journey metaphor. A walk through the woods. I don't know where this path leads, but I'm going to chronicle the steps. I'm going to be resurrected and able to feel bliss again. I'm not writing about the game. I'm not using the game as a metaphor. I'm writing about limbo - the state of being. The definition being that space in between this and that. When you are leaving this and hoping to make it to that, and yet, you aren't quite sure what that is. It's the place where things are as clear as mud, but you know it's there waiting for you to discover. Making a change isn't the simplest thing. We all know that. It's challenging for a reason. It's creating a new way of being. A new protocol. It is an agreement that what was will be transformed to something that serves you and others better. Breaking old habits of thinking and doing, requires stamina. It requires willpower. Being in limbo takes Grace. Yes, I mean God's Grace. The grace to sit in a space where what is next isn't sure and how to get there is lots of hard work comes from faith. Having faith in the knowing that Creator is seeking to express through my life and my work, makes sitting in limbo possible. I fight the urge to reach out to every resource and make this time about searching for answers. However, sometimes the real search is for the grace to just be here right now in the midst of these growing pains without knowing the end result. The answers are within. They don't require searching for from the outside. Not knowing what you are working toward exactly means that being goal oriented is not a strategy. It means that the process and the now is important. The result will only come of work and being open to new possibilities. The answers will come as I listen to the YUM. They will come as I open myself up to what feels right as opposed to what I think I should be doing or what I'm obligated to do. Sometimes we can get into a rut, a resolute routine. The routine may have once felt like a calling. It may have been something that was dropped onto the plate unasked for, and as I determined to do the work well, it became more of a habit to say yes, rather than an innermost desire. Limbo can be a time of celebration. Yes, it can. Though, I'm having a hard time believing that just yet. I enjoy too much having a plan, something to call myself, and meaningful work. In so searching for so long, I have failed to recognize that I always have all of those things. 1) My plan is - Be still and know that I am God. 2) My current something to call myself - sojourner, writer, and mother. 3) My meaningful work - myself, my marriage, and my children. Choosing to not search, or seek, but to be right here, right now will bring forth the great joy of the Divine. "Without the activity of the third chakra, a person lives as if in a dungeon. Life means nothing." - Yogi Bhajan As a mother, realizing, accepting, and endeavoring to reconnect with and rebuild the power of my navel center is no small thing. In pregnancy, we are asked by Creator to completely devote the power of our third chakra to expand physically and mentally as we grow another human being. Our power is then pushed to the limits in birth until we relinquish control and become otherworldly in our ability to bring forth this life. For months, perhaps years, our navel center is devoted to the development of another person. I remember my first postpartum experience, feeling the jelly like texture of my middle and understanding just how vulnerable my body had become. I hadn't grasped how completely my body would be changed. I hadn't imagined the impact on every cell of my being. Balance is found when this center is active, because when life is dull and meaningless, we tend to substitute emotions, traumas, and problems to "spice things up". We tend to let things happen to us, rather than direct our choices in life, manifesting our own desires and will." -Gurmukh Kaur Khalsa, The 8 Human Talents My history with my navel center has been repeatedly tough since memory. Then, when I was set to give birth for the first time, I delivered my baby through a traumatic, unnecessary cesarean. I spent years working on healing myself from the deep ache that the surgery left. I researched and poured myself into helping other women avoid what I experienced. I worked from a place of profound compassion and intense anger. What I understand now is that the anger dominated my motivation. My second birth was a homebirth turned into a hospital transfer which ended in a necessary cesarean. I know now that I was approaching this birth with my fighting gloves on, and that was a mistake. No woman should prepare for birth by preparing to fight for the right to do so, or to try to prove a point. In 2012, I gave birth for the third time vaginally, at home. It was a triumphant moment for me, and the preparation I did for that birth helped me to rediscover my body and my capabilities. Yet, the very next day a dear person to me experienced a tragedy of her own and is still suffering. It was like a gray cloud hovered just above my glee, and again, I began to protect the space of my family and my friend. It is no wonder that the third chakra is connected to commitment. When you become a mother you are immediately committed to the task. You will forever be someone's mother. When you chose to be a birth professional, you are committed to your clients, receiving their calls all hours of the night and showing up no matter what you must leave to attend them. In the two years since giving birth the last time, I have developed a reluctance to continue in the traditional way with my work as a doula. This is despite the fact that my business has never been better. I have felt too much stress surrounding my work, and sometimes felt it intensely even when things magically worked out. I have not, up until a few weeks ago, understood why. The shadow emotion of the third chakra is anger. -Gurmukh Kaur Khalsa I have been living very consistently in a state of fight or flight, and a large part of the manifestation of that state has been the result of choosing to be present in the current climate of birth that strips women of the innate power they have to know when, where, with whom, and how they should give birth. I have become tired of being present there again and again. I am ready to move forward with my own desires and will.
This knowing rests in the face of my belief that I have been called to be present for women in birth. I know I'm not going to leave birth all together, but I am opening myself up to a broader perspective. I'm opening myself up to the possibility of releasing the feeling of anger at the obstacles faced by the women I serve and have served. Releasing my frustrations around the obstacles I confront as a rural living woman. As Ana Brett says, "turn obstacles into opportunities". I don't know what those might be, but I'm endeavoring to find out. In my Kundalini yoga practice, I am daily engaging my third chakra and feeling its power and gifts. I'm opening my heart to new opportunities and stepping more fully into myself as Creator designed. It is hard work, and some days I feel the anger so heavily, but I'm working to let it go. It no longer serves me. I'm excited to learn what a strong third chakra can bring to a life, and how I can be a blessing to others as a result. I'm learning to love the will. I'm learning to say "I can" and use it as a guide in my mothering, work, and relationships. I'm healing every moment of every day and will be doing so perpetually. I have been every clothes size from 4 to 18 in my nearly 36 years. I'm 5'8" and have a large frame. By the time I was in 5th grade, I was just a few inches shy from the height I am today and I weighed 145lbs. I'm used to being a "big" girl. That is part of my genetic makeup and who I will always be. That is ok. What isn't ok when it comes to our size is how it affects our life. If being "overweight" creates for us an unhealthy situation and puts us at risk for disease, then we must become determined to change that reality.
After my second pregnancy, I lost over 100lbs. by taking back my health. I found the beauty of yoga and traditional foods. I became the smallest I have ever been since becoming an adult. At that time, my focus was on having a thin body and eating healthy food. It worked. I have come to find, I have tremendous willpower when I set my mind to something. At this time, my third pregnancy (daughter) is two years old, and I am three pounds away from a realistic and reasonable goal weight. I couldn't believe it when I got on the scale yesterday! I have been working once again to regain my health because I have been experiencing some depression and other health issues. I had almost completely let go of my "healthy" lifestyle. Yet, what I have come to realize is that approaching our health and weight is as much a spiritual practice as it is one of making goals and working our tail off. Since coming to learn and utilize Sacred Birth Work, I apply the same spiritual principles to all aspects of my life. What I have come to understand is that it is important to take literally the statement once made by Jesus the Christ, "Neither will they say, Lo here! or, lo there! for, behold, the kingdom of God is within you." (Luke 17:21) There are a very many things that we experience on this earth that is completely our choice. There are yet other things that we cannot control, but we can put those circumstances into a context which will allow us to better deal with them. The amount of heaven we experience in this plane is reliant on our willingness to turn to God. My motivation for losing weight now is a healthy body and mind that is better prepared to do the work of God. It is a healthy body and mind that is better able to raise confidence and strong young women (I have three daughters.). It is a desire to break a cycle of disease that is hereditary. It is a desire to be fully myself - my best self. Along with my doctor, I picked a goal weight that was achievable and maintainable for my body type. I, then, began to approach my reclamation of health as a spiritual practice. For in regaining health, I am doing no less than seeking God more wholly and in turn an experience of heaven within. A body and mind in harmony or seeking to be in harmony will know God. It took me awhile to find this knowing. When I originally undertook losing weight and addressing my health issues, I went about it like I always had. I quickly learned that my body is not what it used to be. And the exercise I had chosen exacerbated my problems. Sometimes though, we are dealt a heavy hand in order that we may fall back on the Truth. I picked my yoga practice back up (first, releasing all the excuses as to why I couldn't do yoga) and my exercise became a prayer. I re-embraced my traditional foods diet and do my best to imbue my food with love. The process became my worship of the Divine. The Divine in me. The Divine in my family. The Divine that is Truth. It isn't the easiest process. There are days when I feel like I'm not up to par. However, it is a practice. It is a road that doesn't end. There is opportunity for more practice. In every practice, there are those moments when I feel God in, through, and all around me. I have let go of expectation, and have determined myself to practice. Then, I get on the scale, just to see, and I'm three pounds away from the goal. |
AuthorKelli Hansel Haywood is the mother of three daughters living in the mountains of southeastern Kentucky. She is a writer, weightlifter, yoga and movement instructor, chakra reader, and Reiki practitioner. Categories
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