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Though the decision to leave the prison was the right one, it did nothing to help the ongoing pain of my body and heart. The more pain and urgency I experienced, the less sleep I got and the further I got from sanity and hope. I began to isolate, become bitter and frightened and extremely depressed
I tried many methods of healing over the next nine to twelve months; Acupuncture, Chinese herbs, homeopathy, Bach flower remedies, massage. I was so desperate I even tried western medicine, taking myself to three urologists. All of whom were either dismissive or had treatments so barbaric and traumatizing that I was left in even more pain.
Some of the methods of “alternative” healing also had their side effects. After visiting a homeopath, who gave me a large dose of a remedy, my hair began to fall out in excessive amounts. This additional loss, on top of all my other losses pushed me closer and closer to the breaking point. Many of my friends reached out to try and help me and my husband extended himself as much as he could. But I felt so hopeless, so beyond any means of ridding myself of the physical and emotional pain, that I fell deeper into despair and even, considered suicide.
My recovery from this crisis took a total two and a half years of my life. Many factors that made it possible to pass through my long, dark night of the soul. Loving friends and family held onto me as I grieved, making sure that I knew I was loved, making it possible for me to finally, completely accept the loss of my child. A skilled and compassionate medical doctor was able to trace some of my physical symptoms, (hair loss, anxiety and severe moods swings) to a thyroid disorder helping to renew physical balance and sense of normalcy and control. Yet I was still left with the chronic pain of my bladder/pelvic condition and nothing I tried seemed to budge the pain.
One day I was walking down the street in Cambridge and I saw a sign in a shop window advertising a class in “Belly Dance and Women’s Spirituality.” I remembered thinking to myself. “Well, I haven’t tried that yet.” I was in that desperate/ blessed state of being willing to open to any new experience that might have the possibility of easing my pain, no matter how unusual or unexpected.
I began taking the class, and was in my second week of studying the hip circle when something extraordinary happened. The pain, which had been constant, consistent and unmovable, suddenly shifted. Now, I don’t mean that it went away or that I was miraculously cured that minute. Rather, it was as if the sensation of a solid block of sharp, cold ice in my pelvis began heat to up and become more liquid. The pain became more pliable and, well, just felt different.
I was so much encouraged by these signs of change after so many months of sameness that I began to practice belly dance movements in every spare moment I had. The more I did the movements (the circle, the crescent and the undulation), the more the pain transformed itself. It would grow larger, then smaller. It would flow like hot lava and move around in my body. It was as though the movements had liberated my physical self from some kind of stuck, holding pattern. Suddenly, I had a new relationship to the pain. I was no longer pinned or held prisoner by its intensity. Instead, it became part of me, my body, my awareness. I was free to explore it and experience it and most importantly of all, listen to it.
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