Lyme Life Monday ~Wabi-sabi

Lyme and it’s co-infections can be very overwhelming. The constant pain and fatigue can make us emotionally tender. We can feel a loss of dignity for many reasons, mostly because Lyme is devastating financially, physically and socially.

I was listening to some TEDx Talks this week. The speaker, Sheryl Hunter, explained how Wabi-sabi changed her life. I can relate. She didn’t hold back, when she shared her experience of having been violently raped by two strange men. I was crying with her as she spoke. The sudden attack was a brutal betrayal. She didn’t know them, but trusted that they could help her become a model and went with them.

Wabi-sabi The aesthetic is sometimes described as one of beauty that is  imperfect, impermanent, and incomplete. I realized instantly that accepting that we are imperfect, impermanent, and incomplete is what I’ve been working on personally. I have so many limitations now, so many frustrations, so many losses, and little closure, little hope for the near future. I am imperfect. I am impermanent. I am incomplete. I am beautifully flawed.

To be sure, I was never more aware of it than when I saw a picture of a former friend. I hadn’t known her long. It was about a year. We did spend a lot of time together, working on projects together, talking and brainstorming. Then, she unexpectedly let me know that she didn’t want to work with me anymore, that I wasn’t worthy of a telephone call and that I was too emotional to deal with. It means a huge loss for me. I lost a way for me to focus my attention on getting things done, rather than focusing on myself. I lost a personal friend. I lost a friendship. I looked at the picture, with the caption that said, “party time.” I was sad.

Why was I sad? I know that it was a good thing for me, especially because now I am learning how the mind and body, healing and restoration are connected and how to bring myself into alignment with who I really am and who I want to be. I am learning techniques of physical movement and mental challenges. I am employing those techniques with the massive amount of medicines I take. I am actively participating in numerous healing techniques and protocols that I wouldn’t have had time to, if I was still working with my former friend.

I asked myself why I was sad. Is it because I’m too emotional? Maybe. Maybe, I am. I am imperfect.The beauty of that imperfection is part of who I am.

My emotion is often the beginning of passion, the passion that moves me to write and speak on behalf of human rights issues and healing from sexual abuse. Suppressed emotions must be dealt with. It will come out someway somehow. If not appropriately expressed, it will come in physical manifestations. It will be headaches, stomach aches, other aches…

So, what did I do? I cried. I allowed myself to feel the pain of the losses. I spoke to myself, and instead of telling myself that it is for the best, which it is, I allowed myself to recognize the feelings and the losses with my words and my body. If I kept telling myself that it was ok, I was diminishing the reality of my feelings. Pushing them down into the midbrain, where they can seem to be hidden. They are not hidden to your body. You body remembers. Your body will deal with them.

I think it is better to deal with our feelings right away and the right way. If we suppress emotions, without recognizing them, we will compound the problems. Grief is common to all of us. We’ve been taught that grief is a sign of weakness and it is to be avoided. Even when others grieve, we often have no idea what to say or do.

How do you deal with your losses from Lyme or other reasons?