The Gift of Pain (part one)

The first time my back spasmed, it was Opening Day, and we had been cheering the Giants on a brilliant blue-sky afternoon.

Excited for the new season, my wife Alycia and I had biked down to the park. It was a great game, but after sitting in the bleachers all day and riding home in a chilly breeze, my back was feeling really tight and uncomfortable.

Since we were going out to eat with friends later, I took some Advil and went to bed with a heating pad, propping my feet up on some pillows,   

Two hours later, when I tried to get up to go to the bathroom I could barely move. My back was in a full spasm. The slightest effort to roll over or prop my body upright resulted in catastrophic and electrifying pain.

I screamed for help and Alycia ran in, looking scared, as if she thought I was having a seizure or something.  She tried to assist me up, but I was helpless.  

I finally managed to crawl over to the bathroom, where I somehow relieved myself.  Needless to say, I didn’t make it out to dinner that night.

For the next year, I had spasms like that about every ten days. Sometimes it was manageable and I could still walk and function, but more often it was not. My back was so tight that when I walked to work and tripped a little or caught my foot on uneven sidewalk, I would gasp in agony.  

My spirit contracted as well, and I became depressed, hopeless, and angry. I was mad at the world for visiting this pain upon me, and felt a huge sense of self-pity.  

Leaning on old bad habits, I tried to numb myself with booze and ibuprofen, which helped a little, but mostly left me ragged and brittle and fuzzy-minded.

I started trying everything to heal myself:  accupuncture, massage, yoga, hot baths, reiki, diet. I was desperate.  

Of course, I also refused to slow down or adjust my schedule in any way, continuing to cram every minute with career, community effort, personal work, family, and partying. It was business as usual, and I rarely got enough sleep, and almost never said no to anything.

Things were getting worse, and I feared I was becoming disabled.

A friend suggested I try meditation.  Though I had meditated before, the idea actually seemed insane to me at the time.  I told myself I didn’t have any time to sit and “do nothing.”  If I had a spare moment, it must be committed to some activity, to doing something:  I had no time to waste!!!

The truth was, I was afraid that I couldn’t actually sit still.  

But I had nothing to lose...

Almost as soon as I sat down and focused on my breathing, I became aware of the pervasive and intense contraction in my body. My low back was taut as piano wire, my shoulders were hunched and achey, and even my calves were sore. As I relaxed my jaw a little, I could feel the fatigue in my face. 

When I attempted to soften different parts of my body, I could feel how much my body did not want to let go.

I saw that over the last months my body had clenched into a tight fist of pain, and I was spiritually and emotionally waving that fist at the universe with a silent shout:  Why me?  What have I done to deserve this? NOOOOOOOOOO!!!”

I kept focusing on following the breath coming in and out of my lungs, and when my mind wandered, I gently returned my attention to my body.  For the first time in a long while, I sat quietly, without any purpose.

Out of this new stillness came a gift.  I realized that in rejecting the real state of my body, I was creating a huge blockage of energy and tension.

My unwillingness to accept what was happening was creating a reservoir of of anger and sadness and self-pity, and it was located in my lower back.  My resistance was actually creating the pain, and it hurt really badly.

To be sure, I did have some structural issues in my back, having allowed my core to weaken through neglect, but those turned out to be manageable and even fixable through exercise and stretching.

The real culprit, however, was my mind and the story it was telling me about my pain. It truly was all in my head.  

(to be continued)