The Calling of the Black Madonna

I got a new split yesterday.  That was an interesting typo - when I typed "splint" I actually typed "split".  Let's go with this and see where it goes.  I got a new split yesterday.  You know, it kind of feels like that.  As the main physical split is coming together because of the exercises, other little splits are occurring.  This split is not ready to be closed up, despite my doing my exercises everyday, despite my wearing the splint 24/7, even during the Bolder Boulder.  I cannot rush this process.  I also don't want to have the physical split come together and heal prematurely, to only split again.  I have written about this in another blog.  My intention and commitment is to heal the split on every level, from its core and original cause out.  My sense is that this is a spiritual split, a mental split, an emotional split, and then a physical split.  The catalyst for this healing process is the physical work and exercises I am doing to heal the physical split in my belly, but as I do these exercises and as I write this blog, I am aware that my intention is to heal the split on every and all levels.  Leave no stone unturned!

I just felt a sensation in my belly of the edge of the tear.  Without realizing it, I am sitting here and pushing my belly out.  I do that a lot.  My default position is to push my belly out, even with the splint on.  I push out.  Only when I am consciously engaged with my belly is my belly engaged and am I pulling my belly muscles in.

What is that pushing out all about?  I have wondered about this many times.  Oh, and by the way, all my excitement about being able to pull the splint tighter and that my waist is getting smaller was premature.  With getting the new splint yesterday, I realized that the old splint had stretched out by about 3 inches.  I am so disappointed.  All my stuff about not getting results even though I am following the protocol perfectly is up and in my face.

I feel ashamed, frustrated, challenged, fat, and big - and that I cannot hide my belly.  That my belly is not hidden.  I am not hidden.  I feel so differently in my body than how I look from the outside.  Yesterday we shot some video for our Own It, Sister! website, and I was shocked to see how my body looks.  Am I really that big?  I just don't feel like that from the inside.  I am aware of my belly pretty much all of the time, but I am still shocked at how my belly looks from the outside.  It looks way worse, way bigger, way uglier than how I feel about it from the inside.  Well, there goes all attempts to love and accept my belly out the window.  Truthfully, I just feel so big, exposed and ugly and unattractive.

When I look at how I look in the video, the words I hear are, "Oh my god, just look at that belly.  How do you even go out in public looking like that?  You should be wearing clothes that completely hide how big and ugly you really are.  Someone's going to take one look at you here and say no way do I want to work with this person.  She's so big.  Wow.  She really doesn't walk her talk.  She's so not in her body.  Look at Jeanie and Whitney next to her.  What is her problem then?  How do those other two even work with her?  I don't care how great she talks, she's obviously a fraud.  The upper part of her is just fine.  You would never know the truth of her belly if you just looked at her from the waist up.  But the waist down.  Watch out.  You know, she's split from the waist up and the waist down.  Who she is from the waist up is fine.  But who she is from the waist down should be hidden from the world and kept out of sight.  Oh my god, girl.  Just go home and keep yourself hidden."

These are harsh words.  I can feel them as I type them.  I am sitting here with a pit in my stomach.  The even more revealing part of writing them down here and seeing them is that these are the words running in my head and in my body all of the time.  These words and the feelings behind them are so familiar.  They are part of the air that I breathe and the water I swim in.  These words are on an endless loop, just going around in "play" mode all of the time.

What I realize right now out of writing them out on to this blog is that I relate to my body from the waist up.  How I feel about myself, how I present myself, where I engage with others is from the waist up.  And the crazy part is that is how I think that others are relating to me...until I see a picture or video of myself, and then I realize that no, they are actually relating to me as my belly.  Then the crazier part is that I think that I have hidden my belly and so that they can't see it.  Until I see it reflected back at me, and I realize that I have been fooling myself.  Of course they see my belly.  They can't not see my belly, because I haven't and actually can't hide it, at all.

It's been my own self-illusion all this time, and the only person I've been deluding is myself.

Shit.

You know...this sucks.

My belly sticks out and reveals itself all the time, no matter what I do, or for that matter, no matter what I think about it.

I have Joni Mitchell's lyrics from "Both Sides, Now" in my head:

I've looked at life from both sides now From up and down and still somehow,It's life's illusions I recall. I really don't know life at all. 

I can easily substitute "belly" for life.

I've looked at my belly from both sides now, from up and down and still somehow.  It's my belly's illusions I recall.  I really don't know my belly at all.

 I really don't know my belly at all.  And all of my intentions to heal it physically are about fixing it, making it normal and acceptable, so that I don't have to hide it.  So that I don't want to hide it.  So that I actually relate to myself from my belly, not just the waist up.  So that I become embellied.  So that I AM embellied.

How I relate to my belly is so out of a very old, engrained habit.  I don't know that I really know any other way to relate to it except how I do and have done for as long as I can remember.

I relate to my belly with shame and disgust.

There it is.  That is how I habitually relate to my belly.

Unless I think that it is following the game plan and getting smaller, flatter and more beautiful.  Until I realize that it is not cooperating and actually tearing, or splitting again, in another way.  It's like it has a mind of its own, and that it's from another place all together.    Who is this belly anyways?  or more accurately, whose belly is this anyways?  Why are you in my body?  You feel foreign to me.   Who are you?

I am the container for the life that you really are.  I hold all of who you are, from all dimensions, all timelines, all lives and all bodies.  I am the culimination and the container of all of your experiences, choices, loves, losses.  I hold it all right here within me.  I am this big because of the bigness of who you are, and of what you bring to this body, this lifetime.  Please accept that you are not here to be a flat-bellied cultural icon.  You are here to be embellied and to bring women back into their bellies, re-aligned and re-connected with the Divine Feminine.  How you feel about me is how your world, your culture, your society feels about the Feminine.  As above, so below.  As within, so without.  What is personal is universal.  I know that you do not want a big belly and that you feel like you stick out and are too visible.  I know you want to hide.  But this is not the time to hide.  She has been hidden for too long.  It is time to embrace Her, love Her, embody Her.  EMBELLY HER, in all of her bigness and full expressions - in Kali, Lakshmi, and Saraswati.

EMBELLY HER.  Love Her,  Accept Her.  Honor Her, with a strong belly.  Strong not out of being small and flat, and hidden.  Strong like a round basket woven of flexible, colorful, varied fibers, reeds and grasses that contain, hold, embrace and body.   Strong like a copper chalice that holds wine and water.  Strong like a stone bowl used with a mortar to grind herbs and spices used as medicines and foods.  Notice that all of these containers are strong and solid, but that they are also open at the top to allow the gifts to be offered and shared.  This is not about holding and hoarding.  The belly is about holding, and also about offering and sharing.

Loving my belly is loving the Divine Feminine, the goddess, Sophia, the Black Madonna.  Accepting my belly as it is is loving and accepting the Black Madonna, the black, internal, hidden, earthy parts of myself.  Again, I am recognizing another aspect of my pilgrimage last summer.  I saw the Black Madonna everywhere I went.  She sought me out, and I sought her.  Not the images of the Mother Mary with the baby Jesus on her lap, although I connected with her too.  But the images and icons of the Black Madonna.  She quickly found me in Santiago.

I was in the magnificent cathedral, looking for the perfect place to leave the stone I had worn around my neck next to my heart for every step of my Camino.  There is a tradition that you carry other people's dreams, blessings and intentions with you as you walk the El Camino de Santiago, and when you arrive in Santiago, you leave their blessings in the cathedral to receive the blessings of the pilgrimage.  There she was behind the bars in a chapel behind the altar.  She sat regally with an open hand, with the child upon her lap.  I knew that I was to leave the stone with her, at her feet and she would do what needed to be done for these blessings and requests.  I took the stone off and tossed it gently to her feet.  She received the stone graciously, and even when I went back the next few days, the stone was still at her feet.

Black Madonna at Chartres Cathedral, France

She called me to the Camino as She calls me now to the Camina.  I must answer her call, for She is the one who initiated me.  It was a pilgrimage of initiation.  I knew that.  I just wasn't quite sure into what I was being intitiated.  I  now understand anothe layer of the labyrinth, of the spiral of my walk.

I am an initiate of the Divine Feminine, here to bring Her back into our lives, our hearts, our bodies and our bellies.  The universal is the personal.  I am here to bring Her back into my life, my heart, my body and my belly.

And to love, accept and embrace my belly unconditionally...now,without waiting for anything to be different, or better, or healed.  To love and embrace fully my belly is to heal the split.  It's that simple.   Not necessarily easy, yet certainly that simple.

Suseya!
Sahara

Inward!

Last night I went to a gathering with Lynn, the PT who is bringing this technique to heal the split to this area. There were 3 other women there, one who was still on maternity leave! We actually met at a maternity store, so there I was with 3 others who have way more recently had their babies and I must have been older by 15 years. By the way, in case I haven't mentioned it, I am 51 years old.

At the end of the meeting, Lynn was asking about what kind of postpartum support women need. I realized that I am in such a different world now. I loved being in that world when I was there - loved it. Now, I have so moved on with my children. My concerns are with raising teenagers, a 20-year old son who is figuring out how to play music full time with his band, and a 8-year old who always feels left behind. Funnily enough, this isn't even why I left feeling so bad about myself. It would have been great if I had found out that you actually could heal the split years earlier, but I didn't. Even one very young mom shared how people, including her OB, had told her that she just had to live with it. So I'm not the only one who thought that.

My shame was triggered. I left feeling uneasy, set back and uncomfortable with myself and who I am in the world. On one hand, I felt weak and old. On the other hand, I was in a class with women who hold and see things differently than I do. I mostly see my split as a wonderful opportunity to learn about myself and grow - it seems like it is only something to fix for them (which admittedly, I can slip into.) Also, I have never seen a PT before. Nothing against PTs, but I see chiropractors, cranial-sacral therapists, and bodyworkers when my body is out of wack and needs support and alignment. They all had hospital births. I had 4 home-births with midwives who insisted that I have 2 weeks of rest (first week in bed, second week on the couch in the living room or a comfortable chair outside) right after the baby is born so that essentially what a new mother does is sleep (when the baby sleeps), eat, and nurse the baby.

I found myself staying quiet and not saying much during our conversation, except when one woman shared how she had walked 3 miles the days after she came home from the hospital with her newborn baby. Instead of yelling, "What the hell would you do that for?" I spoke up and shared about my midwives insisting that I had to lie down or have my feet up for 2 weeks. I was quickly dismissed, "Oh, you had midwives."

The core challenge for me also lies in wondering if they can accept, and even like, me - even if we make different choices. It sounds so like a young girl, doesn't it? Truthfully, the challenge lies in whether or not I can love and accept myself now matter who I am with or where I am.

This is another way that I split. I let other people determine whether or not I love and accept myself. If they like me, I am okay and I can love myself. If I perceive that they don't like me or don't accept me and or don't agree with my beliefs, I feel ashamed and separate and then I split off from myself.

Yuck. I don't like admitting that to myself.

Earlier today I read this email I received from Abraham-Hicks:

Everything is valid and everything is truthful. The question is, Does their approach feel good to me? And if it doesn't, then I choose a different approach.

It can be that simple. I choose the approach that feels good to me. Others choose the approach that feels good to them.

As I've been writing about this, I saw in my mind's eye walking the Camina from Santiago. I will be walking against the flow. Similar to going against popular opinion. Hmmm...similar to last night's experience. My experiences often do not fit into the dominant paradigm. I am often going against the tide, and I find it extremely uncomfortable, especially when I speak up and "go public." As long as I can stay quiet and under the radar, I am okay. But an experience like last night, even though there were only very few people there was very challenging for me.

All part of preparation for La Camina. I will be walking in the opposite direction from hundreds of people every day, especially as I cross Spain, the most popular part of the El Camino. Imagine walking away from a destination that everyone else is walking toward. Everyday.

More and more people are walking the El Camino to Santiago. It is a very special and sacred pilgrimage. As you walk toward Santiago, other pilgrims and the locals wish you "Buen Camino" or the more traditional, but less well known blessing, "Ultreya!" which means "Onward!" Back in the days before trains, planes and automobiles, pilgrims would then have to walk home after their arrival in Santiago. Imagine that. Their journey home was their time to integrate the lessons, blessings and challenges of the Camino. It was a pilgrimage in and of itself. The traditional blessing for walking home is "Suseya!" which means "Upward!" - home to God.

I love Suseya, which is why I use it as my closing salutation. For me, it means the journey home to one's true self, the god/goddess within, our own divine spark, our own divinity. Perhaps I shall re-translate it to be "Inward!"

Last year I had the honor and privilege to walk with Sue Kenney, suekenney.ca, a most beautiful and seasoned pilgrim. She is currently walking her 6th Camino and I am following her pilgrimage on her Facebook page, Suseya. As I read her posts, I can feel the path beneath my feet. Sue lives by her words, "when the Camino ends, the journey begins." Sue also lives into the question, "What would the Camino do/say?" It has transformed her life. If you want to read more, she has written several wonderful books, The Camino, and Confessions of a Pilgrim. I highly recommend them.

I keep being called back to La Camina. How I live my life is how I will walk La Camina. I am walking La Camina in my daily life now. Every day is a journey. Every day is an opportunity to ask myself, "What would La Camina say? What would La Camina do?" She is right here with me right here. How I walk today determines how I walk La Camina. How I become awake and aware to this actually contributes to how I will walk the Camina next year when I return to walk from Santiago and ultimately to Rosslyn.

“It is good to have an end to journey toward; but it is the journey that matters, in the end.” -Ursula K. LeGuin

Suseya,
Sahara

Heal the Shame - Heal the Split

Typically, the split has been something that I have kept hidden and under wraps for so many years now that it really doesn't even occur to me to talk about it, share it, or reveal it. However, my relationship with the split has been changing. One of the unexpected benefits of doing Pilates 3 times a week and having a consultation with the doctor was that somehow the split was becoming more real. And so was the possibility of surgery. And I have been starting to share and talk about it. I feel as though I am coming out of the closet around it.

I led a workshop the weekend following the consultation and mentioned about the split and the possibility of surgery. One of the women who was attending the workshop said that she had just met someone whose specialty was healing this split. Bella was so surprised because when she met this woman, she said that she had never heard of this split and knew no one who had it. And then within days, here I was sharing my story and she could offer me this resource. Such is the magic of the Universe and synchronicity. Thank you.

I called Lynn several days later and rearranged my kids' schedule so that I could see her later on a Friday afternoon. Lynn is a PT who has been trained in "Diastasis Rehab" with Julie Tepler (www.diastasisrehab.com) who claims you can close the diastasis (the split in the recti abdominus muscles, usually the result of pregnancy) by following the protocol of the Tepler Technique for at least 6 weeks, no matter how big or old it is. First of all, I found out that there is a more medical name for the split - diastasis. Secondly, Lynn was offering a non-surgical option and it really didn't matter how old the split is. I was willing to open to try anything.

Starting the next day as a practice day, and then fully launching into "the program" on the Sunday, I have now been doing the exercise and splint protocol since April 25th for two and a half weeks. I started out doing a series of 5 sets of contractions and 10 sets of horizontal "elevators" so it's nothing to sneeze at! The key to this whole approach is to develop strength in the transverse muscle which is a muscle that wraps around your mid-section from the back. No longer do I get to use the recti muscle because if and when I do, I could cause the split to re-occur. No more sit-ups or Pilates 100s for me - those just exacerbate the problem. Wouldn't you know?!

Another aspect of the program is to wear a special splint designed by Julie Tupler. The purpose of the splint is to approximate (pull together) the separated muscles so they are in closer together when doing the Tupler Technique exercises. So I have been wearing it every day and every night. I feel held and pulled together, despite my tendency to push out. I also have to make sure that my transverse muscle is engaged in all of my activitites, especially when I lie down and get up out of bed. This Thursday I am going to a class with Lynn (a maternity store!) to learn about the advanced exercises and how to use a second splint.

So far I have talked about the elements of the program. But what I am really experiencing is that this process of healing the split is so much more than physical. Doing the exercises and addressing the split on a physical level is serving as the catalyst for the other levels of healing. More specifically, as I do the exercises daily I am feeling a lot of sadness, fear, and frustration come up. I want and need to be alone and be left alone as though I just want to be contained within myself. It has even brought up my need and desire to write about healing the split. It is no accident that I started this blog a couple of weeks into the program.

I am scared that the program is not working and that I will not heal the split, and I will not have a flat belly. I can be so excited and enthusiastic at the beginning of a program, and then I hit a wall of fear and frustration that it's not working for me. Those sabotaging voices in my head are getting louder and more persistent, telling me that of course it's not going to work for me. What was I thinking? Also, I have noticed in the past week or so that I am eating foods that aren't good or healthy for me, as though my body is wanting to sabotage itself as well. Perhaps any compulsions around food are becoming more pronounced as I close the leaks in my body up. It feels like I am craving carbs and sweets - all the foods that make my belly pooch more. Go figure that one.

This is stirring up a lot of stuff. Everything that I have been able to avoid in the past feels like it is being driven up from deep in my belly to be exposed, examined, loved and healed...I added the word "loved" after I had already written the other words. Somehow, that is the lesson underneath all of this, under the split. I get to love everything about me, my body, the split, the feelings that come up. I get to love that I have this split and its gifts to me. I get to heal the split through loving it. I must say that this is so much easier to write about than to actually practice. How do I love this part of myself, this gaping wound, this split when what I am used to is hiding it, ignoring it, hating it? It's all well and good that I am doing the exercises, but the real work is to love, accept and celebrate myself and my belly in the process. Otherwise, nothing is going to change. It would be the same as having the surgery without doing any of the inner work, and chances are good that the split would just come back or something else would rupture.

I have often wondered what is in my belly and trying to get out. What would I be sealing inside when I close the split? Am I trapping something inside that I have been unaware of, and that if trapped, would become septic and putrid? Is there a way that the split has served me to be able to function in the world? What would I be trapping inside?

As I write this, I am brought back to my knowing that shame has caused the split. Shame resides in my belly. Shame fills my belly. This is what is calling on to be healed. I have an opportunity to heal the shame as I heal the split. Simultaneously. It is not one without the other. They are interrelated and interconnected, interwoven as it were. Shame caused the split. The split exacerbates the shame. This is where the true healing work needs to be.

Heal the shame ~ Heal the split.

And time to do my morning exercises!

Suseya,
Sahara