Panchamaya Kosha Session Four

I am including this "michael a horvich writes" post on the "michael a horvich cares about alzheimer's" BLOG. While I have decided to separate my personal writing from my Alzheimer's writing, this post really related to both as it discusses what I have termed "Acceptable Grief." Read on:

Interesting Yoga session today if only because earlier in the day my psychologist and I did a hypnosis session which was very much like a Yoga Nidra Mindful Meditation Session.

Then this evening, in quick summary, we breathed, stretched, focused, and meditated. A lot of attention to self and growth today!

In quick review, as the sessions have taken place we have moved from:
1) The Physical Body (using yoga movements) to
2) The Energy Body (using breath work) to
3) The Mental-Emotional Body (using the tool of sound/chant)  and this evening
4) The Wisdom Body (using the tool of meditation.)

This level of the Panchamaya Kosha deals with personality, character, and our beliefs about ourselves and the world around us. We alternated breath work with stretching work with meditation and cycled through these several times before doing the final Yoga Nidra rest.

During the Yoga Nidra meditation, when dealing with beliefs, my "voices" gave me the concept of "Acceptable Grief."

When in deep meditation, most times my mind quiets enough for me to be able to get in touch with deeper thoughts and ideas.

They present themselves in "understandings" or "images" rather than words or text. I refer to these as "my voices."

Then in these BLOG posts, I have to try to interpret what I "felt" into what I "thought."

Acceptable Grief.

grief |grēf| noundeep sorrow, esp. that caused by someone's death: she was overcome with grief. To this definition, I would add a great sense of loss. 

Obviously my concept of Acceptable Grief applies to the path that Gregory has been traveling with Alzheimer's Disease and on which I have chosen to accompany him. We both have been through so much over the last ten years and such quick change over the last four and a half months.

I find that while I still grieve for the loss of my lover, best friend, soul mate, and life companion, I am at peace with our current situation. He is being well taken care of at Lieberman, I am continuing to revitalize my life, and we both are doing well. 

When I am with Gregory I am able to be in the "Here and Now" as he is. Mine by choice, his by circumstances. I try not to think about our past or our future when I am with him.

When I am home I try to be in the "Here and Now" as well and I try not to think about  our past or Gregory in is situation.

For the most part, Gregory is comfortable, content, and happy. For the most part, I am filled with joy, happiness, and contentment.

But the Grief is always with me and now and then surfaces. When it does I pay it attention, cry if I need to, and in some ways embrace it. The concept of Grief not only includes the sorrow but also the joy in Gregory's and my situation. We are both in a good place. I would not have chosen it this way, but none-the-less, we are both in a good place. And that is acceptable. Thus, Acceptable Grief.

Prayer

Often people will tell me that they are praying for Gregory and me. Other times people will ask us to pray for them or their loved ones. It is not that I mind, it is just that I am not sure "I believe."

When they say they are praying for us, I appreciate the love and understanding they are showing us. When asking us to pray for them, I appreciate the love and support for which they are asking.

We are not religious, we consider ourselves spiritual. We do not embrace any particular religion, Possibly Buddhism, which is more a belief system, is closer to what we do believe in. We do not pray or believe in some outside power taking care of us, we believe that God is within us, is us! I have written about this before.

My usual Facebook response to prayer, which I think serves the same purpose of making someone who has asked for our prayers feel heard is to say, "Sending positive healing thoughts to you and yours."

Recently this request was met by my further thoughts. Perhaps prayer is a way of centering oneself and focusing one's attention so action and/or thoughts can be directed towards new solutions, understandings, actions. I believe that the answer is within a person, not manifested in some outward diety or entity sitting on a throne in judgement of me.

I do not believe that begging, or bargaining, or feeling guilty is what a God would want from us. I think he/she would want us to have confidence in ourselves and know that we have all we need to make good decisions, come to good conclusions, take appropriate actions to solve our problems, to be good people ... or at least to be at peace if the difficulties cannot be solved/changed. And the courage to know and accept the difference?

Meditation: Class 8

The final class of this series got off to an ominous start. I have had a little cough tickle for the last three or four days but not a full flung anything. When I arrived at class I set up my "nest" with the bolsters, pillows, mats, etc and settled in for a long winter's "nap."

About ten minutes into the session, as Corinne was helping us settle in with her soothing voice, I had to cough. I suppressed and reached for a cough drop even though the room had quieted and people were beginning to enter the Yogi Nirdra "state." I suppressed again and realized I wan't going to make it. So I got up to leave the room and when I hit the hallway by the stairs, my cough exploded.

I proceeded down and around the corner and coughed, choked, hacked, all but vomited. Pretty huh? This behavior is not new so I was not worried but I hated to disturb the group and was feeling a little sad for myself at missing the last session.

A few minutes later, one of the group came to find me. She is a doctor and made my welfare part of her Yogi Nidra in making sure I was OK. I was moved by her action.

After a while my attack subsided and I went back upstairs and settled in just outside the classroom, laying on my back on the carpeted floor. I was surprised that I was able to get into a deep meditative state pretty quickly as I listened to Corinne talk about breathing, feeling the inhaled breath fill my entire body and the exhaled breath go out into the universe.

Then we arrived at the crux of this session, taking a deep look at our Heartfelt Desires (which we have looked at in various ways over the sessions.) This time we were to notice any emotions that were involved with our Heartfelt Desire. We shifted back and forth between the emotion and its opposite. Part of the purpose of this activity is to acknowledge that everything changes but that there is one essential thing that does not change and that is the Essential Self which is apart from Ego, being critical or judgmental of self, etc. I lovingly held both emotions in my arms and asked what they wanted me to know.

In my Heartfelt Desire, I once again looked towards my responsibilities as caregiver for Gregory. The emotions I alternated were Immense Sorrow and Great Joy.

The SORROW being our situation, the slow disintegration of Gregory, my loss of a friend and lover and life mate.

The JOY being what a good job I am doing of helping Gregory along his path, how happy and content he is, how good our life continues to be, and the many things I still enjoy doing with him as well as all of the creative life endeavors in which I continue to involve myself.

In relating to my Essential Self, I realized that both my SORROW and my JOY were the same ... LOVE! Love for Gregory and love for myself.

Next we looked for Beliefs that were supporting and Beliefs that were defeating the desires. Turns out my Critic is usually on full force telling me where I fall short of my goals, how I could be doing much better, what a failure I am.

At the same time my Essential Self is telling me that I am a wonderful, loving, creative caregiver, always doing my best even though I loose patience now and then and may not be as perfect as I would like.

As horrible as our situation is, the quality of our life and of my life is good. I continue to grow, to accomplish for myself and help keep Gregory's roller coaster of a life on the tracks.

I bring calm and love and order to both of us. There will ALWAYS be room for improvement and I am always seeking that. I am not as bad as my Critic would like me to believe.

Another awareness I have been working on is the ability to separate my Ego or Essential Nature from my Essential Self. I can almost FEEL who I am when my thoughts are quiet and I am not trying to label, identify, understand, interpret. Not totally sure what this means yet but wanted to mention it.

I am taking this class at the Heartwood Center in Evanston with Corinne Peterson.
http://www.corinnepeterson.com/yoga-therapy/

Meditation

I am taking a class at the Heartwood Center in Evanston with Corinne Peterson.
http://www.corinnepeterson.com/yoga-therapy/ and have been posting any insights I gain during the Sunday sessions. Today was session three.

This session we focused on JOY which interestingly enough I posted about last session as well. Corinne talked us through a way to focus on bringing JOY to the forefront of our thinking when we need it.

So far, through the mindful meditation and awareness of body and breath, I have developed for myself the concept that I exist within the boundaries of my physical body and the rest of the world is outside of my boundaries.

I can fill my boundaries with emotions, beliefs, and thoughts that I want to let in. I can invite the "difficult" in to look at, deal with, come to grips with, but then I can invite it out and close the door behind it.

Just because there are difficulties in my life does not mean that I have to allow them to "fill" me and my "body space" and drain me of happiness and joy.

So when Corinne suggested using color to activate the JOY that exists within, I defined my physical boundary space with a bright golden neon outline. When I want or need to focus on the JOY WITHIN, that is all I have to do is flip on the switch and the neon outline of my physical boundary will glow brightly.

Another realization arrived when I was at the most relaxed point of our meditation, "The mind gets in the way. If one can turn it off and JUST BE, one is probably the closest that one can be to truth and to peace. The rest is noise.

On going into the session, I had intended my "intent" to deal with my anger over interactions with Gregory that "get strange." I did get a message here too. It was brief and to the point. "Don't try to deal with the anger, just replace it with love, and more love!

Reality

What they believe is their reality. Not yours.
Not the expected. Not the accepted.
Not the usual. Not the same day to day.
What they believe is their reality. Not the world's.