Catharsis

What does it take to override the pain and aching of a broken heart?  How does one soften the sting...soothe the soul? 

It seems different for everyone...and no remedy seems to be a permanent fix.  I think that, in part, it is the thinking that your on your way out of it that makes it hurt so much when you fall back in.  However...that being said, I think I've found something that might help. 

Hot Yoga. 

I've been having a very hard time feeling completely broken.  Every set back seems to plunge me back into darkness so thick that I can't imagine I will ever find my way out again.  When I found myself on Monday kicking and screaming behind a locked bathroom door, and then leaving home to walk "away", not knowing if I'd ever come back...well...I knew that something had to change.  SOMETHING had to change. 

I had a dream that told me to do hot yoga.  My initial response was "yeah...right."  It's not that I don't like yoga...I loved it once upon a time.  I even got my teacher certification the month that we conceived Simon and Alexander.  But since we lost our little ones....I haven't been able to breathe steady enough to do anything even remotely yogic.  The yogini in me....died. 

I mentioned the idea to a friend of mine, who lit up and told me about the hot yoga studio she goes to.  I happened to know the instructor.  She has twins. 

I thought about how I wouldn't be able to bring Ferdinand with me.  I worried that I might have a panic attack in the yoga studio.  But I thought about the dream....

could it be? 

I went to the studio a little early, knowing that the instructor would be sure to recognize me from the past in spite of the ample amount of weight I've gained and the dark circles under my eyes.  Sure enough, she greeted me with a smile.  I tried to smile back, but wasn't very successful.  She asked me how I'd been.  I told her.  Actually....I cried it out.  She hugged me and then looked me squarely in the eyes.  "Sara...I'm glad your here.  This is a place to heal.  Let your body heal and walk forward letting the past BE the past....see your future as you wish it to be."  She had me light a candle for my beautiful lost twins, and a candle for the future filled with hope and joy. 

I lay down under the infrared heat lamps, letting their healing energy work into my body.  I heard people entering the room but I kept my eyes closed to keep my focus inward.  The heat was scorchingly hot....104 degrees in fact.  I was sweating without moving at all. 

The practice began.  As she moved around the room instructing, adjusting our postures I felt that she was talking only to me.  "Let your anxiety evaporate into the heat.  Breathe your sadness out.  Let your body cry for you...let your sweat clean out your pain."  She went around gently rubbing out stress...pain...grief while rubbing in the healing effects of a delightful yoga balm called "China rub"  90 minutes went by with sweat dripping in buckets off of my body.  My towel was soaked. 

But...I was present.  I was in the NOW.  I was with my heart, and my breath, and my sweat. 

As I lay in the final corpse pose I felt the instructor gentle lift my feet.  She rubbed them with lavander oil, pulling my toes and squeezing them gently.  I lay still with the heat penetrating my body. 

Free.

After laying there for 15 minutes, I opened my eyes.  The class was empty...candles flickered under the heat lamps.  I rolled up my mat and found my instructor in the lounge area.  She smiled at me.  "How was it?"
I smiled back at her..."I think I can find myself here."

The next day, I took my husband...I wanted to share the treasure I'd discovered with him.  60 minutes into the 90 minute class, I looked over and saw that he had melted into his mat which was oozing a puddle of sweat onto the bamboo flooring.  At the end of the class he said "Sara...if you like that, you must be in need of a serious cathartic experience...I'm so sorry your in so much pain....I love you...and I don't think I want to go back.  It was like being in hell."  We laughed together.  I don't need him to like it in the same way I do.  All I need is for him to understand why I need to go everyday. 

Some people need to take medication every day.  Some people need weekly therapy.  I need to do hot yoga.  My husband is right.  The intensity of the experience is a catharsis so deep that it has the ability to bring me into the moment without the pain of our losses.  It has the healing balm of warming the body that has been in shock, shivering with the aftermath of losing my twins.  It helps my nervous system to have a break for 90 minutes from the tears and internal screaming, while my entire body weeps from every pore with such abundance that it would take a lifetime of crying to equal it's mass. 

Today, stepping into the heat of the room, I knew I'd found a place to rediscover who I am.  I understand that it isn't the end....but, it is a beginning I am grateful for.  And, in this moment...I am hopeful.