This month marked 21 years since I told my husband I'd be his girlfriend for sure. I had just turned sixteen. We married when I was 20. In June, we had been married 16 years. I used to share those numbers at every opportunity that arose. I'd share it like an accomplishment for which I should receive an award. Yet, most of the time it was taken as some kind of impossible feat we had managed to pull off. "You two are so sweet." "You were made for each other." "You've got such a great man/woman." Those are the comments we get, and to be honest, I'd get angry sometimes at those assumptions. Then, we get the questions about how we do it. Do we argue/fight? Do we disagree? Do we aggravate each other? How do I get someone to stay with me? I am most definitely not qualified to give relationship advice. Simply because I haven't bailed on my husband, and he hasn't bailed on me, doesn't mean things have been, are, or will be fabulous. I suppose we are both pretty loyal people by nature. That might be one thing that has helped us remain married. We have some common interests. We have children. We also respect others who are at least attempting to live consciously. We are also friends. Long time friends. You know, the kind of friend you have that you'd forgive for almost any act of offensive and even harmful results to you or others. You just know each other that well. You know where actions and behaviors come from. You know when someone is acting from a place of self control or out of control. I come from a "broken" home. My parents divorced when I was eight. I have spent most of my life lamenting their split. It created a lot of uncomfortable and sad moments for me and my siblings/step-siblings. However, in my experiences of the past year, I have come to realize that my parents divorce wasn't the fault of one of them in particular. It takes two to make or end a relationship. I released so much of the fear, anger, and sadness in my heart around my first nuclear family not making it. I opened to more fully embrace a broader definition of nuclear family and even release arbitrary expectations I had put on myself as someone's wife. Self sacrifice can only go so far in a relationship before it turns what should be a mutual compromise into an unhealthy harboring of hurt feelings and disappointment. For the first time, I understood in the depths of my soul why my parents' relationship didn't stand in the storm. It was an incredible moment of healing for me. People tell me and ask me about John being my soulmate. I have always answered that I guessed he was, and I still do. What I understand now is that he wasn't my first soulmate, he isn't my only one, and he isn't the last one. He is one of many persons of all genders with whom I have a soul contract. The following quote is from an article that explains soul contracts and sacred contracts, which I have come to firmly believe in on both the intellectual and spiritual levels. It just makes sense to me given my personal experiences and interpersonal ones as well. These are people who become key to the progressions in life like your parents, certain friends, romantic partners, spouses, and siblings. These souls can also be people that you only know for a brief time but who have an impact on your life and open up opportunities related to your Sacred Contract. I don't know for how long I will have a deep connection with anyone with whom I have a soul contract. It is something we, hopefully, will mutually decide if we have respected one another and have continued to make an effort to see the other's wholeness as an individual.
Being married is a tremendous amount of hard work. It's an agreement between two people to devote themselves to making a life with one another and always consider the other in making decisions that involve everyone living under their roof. It sometimes requires us to delay our own ideas, druthers, or even comfort for the sake of the couple/family as a whole. It demands open communication and when that isn't in place, things will be guaranteed to be extremely unhappy or fall to shambles. In order to maintain a romantic relationship with someone, you MUST respect them. You MUST make an effort to be a witness to their life, emotions, and dreams. You MUST be willing to meld them with your own where you can. You MUST be willing to bare witness to the others erotic and explore it with them. Otherwise, if we cannot make exceptions for our partners, or we do not feel seen, wanted, or respected by them, some action needs to happen.
In this life, I have loved a number of soulmates. I still love them and always will. I will love them for what they taught me. I will love them for the time they spent with me, and their willingness to see me beyond what the average person opens up to seeing. I will be grateful for what I share with them. I've realized that love isn't something that should be controlled. We all need to feel wanted and cared for, and we can all find that if we open ourselves to loving and being loved. We cannot force another to accept our love or force someone to love us. That's the beauty of it. "It hurts so good." Those individuals we grow to love have to be ready to accept what we are offering. The need is there in all of us, but it is the want that matters when it comes to love. It is the want and the ability to acknowledge that one is worthy of another's love. If those things aren't there, there's a forcing involved, and the relationship will be strained. After years with someone, sometimes complacency can occur. One, the other, or both of you can become too satisfied with how you've formed your life together that you fail to see the reality of your own or your partner's feelings. Depending upon the personalities in the relationship, one partner can feel like things are going well and the other like they are drowning. Blindness to the others reality can occur. It can alternatively result in arguments that go nowhere. If we are living life on autopilot, we won't understand what is happening, proper communication won't occur, and the relationship will be unfulfilling or end in an unhealthy way. If you choose to make a life with someone, be willing to learn yourself enough to know when you need to open a channel of frank, respectful communication and when it is time to walk away out of love for the other and yourself. In this world, there are too many strained and contrived relationships. There are too many that should have never resulted in marriage and many more that ended needlessly. There's so much heartache in this world that none of us should endure a relationship as a martyr. If we are going to raise the next generation to be strong, independent, comfortable, and unembarrassed to love, we have to show them that love means many things. Love is the ultimate strength. Mothers and fathers shouldn't preach contempt for one or the other to their children. If they at one time cared enough for each other to make a life and to have children, they should continue to respect each other if at all possible. Again, it takes two. If the partner is unwilling to act in a way that allows friendliness, it isn't something that should be taken out on children. I don't know what the future holds for my family. What I hope is that I have partnered with someone who will always remain my friend and someone who I can always hold the deepest respect for. I think I have. I also have to trust myself enough to not be so self sacrificing that I become sad and stifled, or so bent on my own desires that I sacrifice the good of my family and the person I partnered with. I pray that my partner will do the same. What I want people to know who think things are perfect just because you can give a big number of years, or because you've been with someone since you were a teen to know is that it isn't cute. It isn't always happiness and roses. Many times, it isn't even sweet. What I also want to say is that is okay. We're all growing. Sometimes we grow together. Sometimes we need to grow apart. The most important thing is that we do our best to live consciously, and acknowledge the Divinity in others. We have to see our impact on others. We have to try to understand ourselves. We must have a deep desire to share ourselves, but to also provide the nonjudgmental arms for another to be vulnerable in. None of these things are easy. It's all hard work. Relationships are hard work. If one lasts many years, it isn't a coincidence or a fluke. It isn't a fairytale. It isn't guaranteed to last another day. Think of it this way. Our paths cross like a web. Some of our paths will be connected always. Some only briefly. Yet, each thread is needed for the whole design to appear. We need each and every person in our lives. They offer us a piece of themselves as a lesson to cherish whether hard or simple, devastating or sublime. Be thankful. Be thankful and grow in your personal understanding. Grow in your ability to act from a loving place in all areas of your life. Do this, and you will find your many soulmates and have a life filled with love. As bittersweet as that might be, it is our truth.
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Today, I've decided to give up fighting. I'm on day 3 of a another migraine. I'm home alone with my girls who are getting much better from a bout of upper respiratory illness. They are giggling and horse-playing. I need to work on a radio piece for my new job, but this week has thrown so much at me, I need to clear my head first. So, I come here to write. I also took an Imitrex. The medicine hasn't been helping. I hate taking all this medicine. A good friend's mother and a regular in my yoga classes, my chiropractor, and some folks in my online support groups for Hashimotos urged me to get my thyroid scanned. I'm on thyroid medicine and my thyroid had never been palpated nor had I had an ultrasound of the thyroid. This last year I have had a few CT scans, 3 x-rays, 2 MRIs, and countless blood tests. My main condition which I MUST have daily medicine for had never been evaluated by anything more than a thyroid panel blood test. I could write a whole other post on my frustration with this fact, but I will just say this. If you work in healthcare (medical, mental, alternative, or spiritual), listen to your patient/client. Even if you believe what they are saying is a crock, listen with all your effort. In their words, you will find the next appropriate steps regardless if their words are medically meaningful to you. Last week, I had my first thyroid ultrasound. I had been complaining of tightness in my neck, difficulty swallowing my medicine and some food, dizziness, hearing my pulse in my right ear, and the feeling of being in an airplane taking off in my right ear as well. It's messed quite a bit with my hearing. I was prescribed allergy medicine and had an MRI for that complaint. I don't have seasonal allergies. I never have. I very rarely even get a cold. The MRI showed normal blood flow in that region. The symptoms didn't go away even when I gave the allergy medicine a chance despite feeling I didn't need it. I didn't think these symptoms were something I should have to just ignore the rest of my life. Sometimes the swooshing and pressure change in my head is impossible to ignore. Being a yoga teacher, it affects my balance and impacts my practice. It also makes it hard to talk on the phone and at times in person because I can't hear the other person. That's not normal. That's not ok. I got a call Friday that my doctor wanted to review my ultrasound results with me in person. I went in this past Monday. These are the results. Pardon my coffee stains. I'm a little obsessive when it comes to reviewing my medical records and I had an accident. I have multiple nodules that are small in the left side of the thyroid - "hypoechoic areas". Lo and behold, I have a complex mass of a significant size (though apparently they can also be larger) in the right side of my thyroid. The radiologist has recommended a fine needle biopsy guided by ultrasound to rule out cancer. It will also need to be assessed if my thyroid needs to be removed even if the mass is benign. If you look at the size of the mass in comparison to the size of the right side of my thyroid, you can see why it is something that needs further testing. Many members of the population have nodules on their thyroid. Not all of these people have been diagnosed with thyroid issues. However, people with nodules measuring on the larger end and who have a history of thyroid issues, are the most likely to have a malignant nodule. Malignancies occur in few cases compared with the commonality of thyroid nodules. I'm supposed to get my appointment for the biopsy today, and at 3:16pm, I still haven't gotten the call. I'll be traveling to Lexington for the biopsy. It's a 3 hour trip. I'm starting my first round of employment in a decade on Monday, and I am just now getting this news. For almost a year, I have been having symptoms associated with these findings. I can't begin to explain how angry I am that I am now going to have to deal with this at all. My hormone numbers were improved in my last bloodwork. I had several months of feeling better after adopting an autoimmune paleo diet and a no-holds-barred 7 days a week yoga/meditation regimen. I've added herbs and supplements, cut many of my favorite foods, and tried my best to surround myself with people and activities that feed my soul. I thought it was working. I suppose it was a little.
To me that seemed like a reasonable option. I was done with spending half of every month in pain with the headaches. I told Creator that night that I would take on anything if it helped me move passed this pain. I told Creator I'd accept cancer, brain tumor, craziness, aneurysm, all of it. I'd accept it because it would be a diagnosis and with a diagnosis I could have a plan. Whether I lived and got treatment or died, I'd have more freedom than I was currently having. After seeing the neurologist, I got some improvement in my headaches with medication, but now I have had a headache 10 of the last 20 days. Back to the headache from Hades (not that all of them aren't bad, but I literally would've downed a bottle of pills and died if I hadn't had the ER option that night). I told Creator that I'd use whatever I was given to improve my life while I am here and to try to improve the lives of as many as I can reach through my experience. I said, "Please, bring it on." A diagnosis big or small was the only way out I could see aside from death. Yes, it's a dark place to be, but it isn't a godless place. I still don't know what I'm dealing with, but I'm closer to an answer. I don't know what road lies ahead. All I know is I am tired. This year I have lost 2 grandparents, 1 grandparent-in-law, had 2 aunts and 1 uncle diagnosed and battling cancer, 1 sister with a cancer scare, a niece with blood clotting issues in the brain, and 1 sister under immense stress and battling Graves disease. I am currently grieving another great loss that leaves me recognizing how alone I really am. Surrounded but alone. All my close friends live away from me and are busy people. None of us enjoy phone calls. My husband must work regular hours. My parents are busy working and caring for the other kids in the family. I've always preferred being a loner, but sometimes, I wish I could just sleep in someone's arms and not have to tend to anything.
breath. Strength comes from the breath and if you become a witness to your inhales and exhales and your body's reaction to the breath, you will discover relaxation and the panic mode dissipates. It is always good to concentrate on basics, and just observe the breath connection from head to toe. Just lay on the floor, stretch and breath, and be a witness. Understand you are strengthenIng inside out. We all should do this on a regular basis, but, I think we view this as no effort towards our practice, when it is the most important part. You never lose a gain...it remains with you."
I stopped and realized that all the pushing, making myself keep going, and searching for answers beyond the medical is wearing me out. I realized that I have not focused on one of the most fundamental aspects of yoga or spiritual practice - equanimity. I have not found my balance. In all the striving, I have built my willpower up so intensely that I do not know when to allow myself a break or to stop, celebrate, and live in my gains. I just plow down the next row. Start trying to fix the next biggest issue. I want so badly to be a light to myself and others that I think I have let my ego get out of control. I have overestimated the impact I can have on a life, including my own. My efforting will only go so far, if it doesn't create space for me to also take the time to live what I have learned. Sometimes, we can try to make up for the lack of self-esteem and self-worth in our lives by building other parts of the ego like self-confidence. I have been relying on my own strength and my own mind to do everything for myself and others. At this moment, I really just want to be loved and carried for awhile. I'm done fighting. I'm going to breathe instead. I have to make a plan. I have to hone my spiritual and yoga practice. I have to re-think my self care.
"You can't fully appreciate the light until you understand the darkness." - Black Yoga Asanas Ritual Vol. 1 If you would like to read more about this particular aspect of thyroid disease, these links are where I have been doing my own research on what is to come for me. Thyroid Nodules - Cedars-Sinai Does the Risk of Malignancy Increase When a Thyroid Nodule is Larger than 2cm? Risk of Thyroid Cancer Based on Ultrasound Findings Thyroid Nodules - AAFP |
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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