Spotlight on Meditation
My Experiences With EMDR, Chiropractic, Sex Therapy, Group Therapy & Meditation
To undo the ruin within that resulted from my childhood sexual abuse, I tried many different types of therapy including EMDR, a chiropractor to release trapped “fight or flight” responses, sex therapy, group therapy and meditation. This blog post is the fifth and final in the series detailing them and focused on meditation. (Read about my experiences with EMDR, Chiropractic Care, Sex Therapy and Group Therapy.)
Shortly after I joined Group Therapy, I decided to try meditation. In my quest to cure my chronic running pain almost everyone I met from an acupuncturist to my physical therapist suggested meditation as a way to relieve tension which I carried in my body like a suit of armor. Even though I didn't necessarily feel stressed, my neck and back were always so tense, and I had to be carrying that tension with me when I ran. More than that, I had no real sense of my body, I registered nothing except pain. While I was hopeful that meditation would help me be more relaxed, it wasn’t the primary motivation. I needed to figure out what moved me, inspired me, and would give my life meaning. I honestly had no idea and was hopeful that meditation would allow me to access that part of me that always seemed out of reach. The part that held me back, kept me safe and so very, very alone.
My therapist and a colleague both recommended Headspace, which at the time was the equivalent of online meditation for dummies. It was short, had cute animations and was narrated by a Brit with a very soothing voice. The first 10-day window focused on your breathing and how to clear you mind so that you could ultimately meditate. I didn't mind these brief 10-minute exercises and found it genuinely helpful one day when I was super stressed about work.
Each day as I meditated, it instructed you to scan your body to see what you felt. The first few days my anxiety sat primarily in my stomach before settling in my chest. It reminded me of the “stuck” exercises I did in chiropractic care. Only then it was always in my throat, but I’d gotten so much better about giving voice to all the things I couldn't say. Now when I examined the feeling in my chest, it was just heartache. As if my heart was in a vice and the feeling that permeated was sickness radiating out to fill my body from my shoulders to my stomach.
Thanks to EMDR, chiropractic care and these exercises in meditation, I could identify my emotions and the feelings associated with them. This was huge progress from when I began my odyssey into therapy to deal with my drastic weight fluctuations and could feel nothing except anger. Being able to feel the whole gamut of emotions and name them is a powerful thing. It enables you to get to the root of why you feel as you do in the hopes of processing and moving through them.
As I sat with the heartache, I was able to identify that I was heartsick and lonely and unbearably sad. All of which sucked, but it was a start. I continued with the meditation, delved into the feelings instead of trying to race away from them or drown them out with my vices as I had in the past and gradually started to feel better. As if a dark cloud lifted and the sun was able to penetrate just a bit deeper. Maybe it was just taking those few minutes to clear my mind and breathe. I only knew that I felt calmer overall and better about myself.
When I began meditating, Headspace offered a series of exercises on different topics, and I explored those that resonated. One was a series on acceptance as it was my goal to resolve my childhood sexual abuse. For many years, my most fervent desire was to somehow undo it rather than accept and ultimately reconcile it. The acceptance series brought up a sense of fear. As I tapped into the fear, I realized it was about confusion. I didn’t understand what was happening with my stepfather and very often with men as an adult. All these experiences evoked fear and upset in me because I felt trapped and afraid and confused.
Similarly, while doing a meditation series on anxiety, I recognized that my anxiety was triggered by a fear of being out of control. The best way to tamp it down was by taking control of any and every situation. But the real lesson I needed to learn was that not being in control didn't mean I'd get hurt. Just because it did long ago didn't mean that it always would.
A meditation series on appreciation enabled me to be grateful for my body despite how much I weighed or how fat I perceived myself to be. I could appreciate what my body is capable of, how strong I am and that it looks pretty good. No, it’s not perfect and never will be, but I had lots of other good things going on and needed to be more cognizant of that.
These brief guided meditations enabled me to resolve a lot of my fears and insecurities and understand myself better. Yet, for me, the most powerful part of meditation is that it is about now. This moment. Not yesterday and not tomorrow. Only now. It’s being present and present was something I rarely was.
I often lamented that men weren’t interested in me. Over dinner with a friend, I endeavored to be present, and it worked. The waiter paid a lot of attention to me, so much so that my friend commented on it. Later, when we were walking to the subway, a group of people passed, and one man walked up right in my face and gave me a huge smile. Yes, it was creepy and weird, but two men paid me lots of attention in the same fairly short period of time and I didn’t look super fantastic. So somehow or other I put out to the universe that I was there, and it was noticed.
More importantly though, learning to be in the moment meant that I wasn’t ruminating about what was or worrying about what would be. Before meditation I was constantly trying to anticipate every challenge or obstacle and figure out a solution. In running there is a saying about running the mile you’re in because the only mile that matters is the current one. I can’t see the future, nor can I change the past, so being anywhere but now is often a waste of time and energy. As it turns out, now is the place where I’m happiest. It enables me to appreciate what I have in the moment, which for so many years was my darling Olive, and being able to run or walk in Central Park.
My Headspace subscription ended after a year and while I loved it, I completed the topics that were relevant to me. But I was a believer in the power of meditation to calm and decided to try and go it alone. Without a ready series of topics at my disposal, I concentrated on what I most wanted in life which was love.
I believe that you get what you put into the universe. It has been my experience that anything given freely with no expectation of receiving something in return is reflected back. The question was how did I do that with love? How could I put love into the universe so that it was reflected back?
During meditation and when I ran, all I thought about was love. I inhaled love. I exhaled fear. I inhaled love. I exhaled doubt. I inhaled love. I exhaled disappointment. I inhaled love. I exhaled pain. I did this over and over in the hopes that at some point I would believe. There is no more potent example of love for me than Olive; she is my love totem. As I meditated or ran, I breathed in my love for Olive, let it fill me, nourish me, and then breathed it out to share it with the universe. Love did come to my life in a romantic way as I hoped, and I was also better able to recognize the love given to me by and for my friends.
It’s been seven years and I continue to meditate daily. It reminds me to be present, take a step back and just breathe while I contemplate whatever is happening. It gives me perspective on what matters and helps me tap into what I feel, even if it’s just heartache and sadness as has so often been the case since my sweet girl passed away last month. So, while not a therapy per se, meditation is the most transformative thing I’ve done.
There are hundreds of free and paid guided meditation programs and apps available online to explore so that you can find the one that’s best for you.
