You Gave Me A Mountain

"This time, Lord, You gave me a mountain, a mountain you know I might never climb. It isn't just a hill any longer -- You gave me a mountain this time."  - "You Gave Me A Mountain," lyrics by Marty Robbins, sung by Elvis Presley

"There is sorrow beyond all grief which leads to joy and fragility, out of whose depths emerges strength." - Rashini

I have had a lot of reproductive disappointments lately. It feels unbearable to write about them, but when I realized I haven't posted anything in almost a month, I knew why: this is what is going on, and I'm not in the mood to talk about it. Yet, this topic feels like a blockage, and until I write about it, I can't write about anything else. This sucks unlike anything else I've ever been through. I don't want to make it sound like I've been on death marches, sex trafficked, or anything else truly horrific, but for a privileged white girl, I have had my share of genuine tragedy and heartbreak, and infertility (IF) exceeds it all. Perhaps it's because IF touches on such deep, personal longing: religiously and culturally, most people have been inculcated with a deep desire to have children. Hell, if you are from a Judeo-Christian background, it's the first frigging commandment. If I were inclined, I could write a separate post about what IF has done to my spirituality and relationship with God. It aint pretty. Add to that the intense biological drive to propagate, and you have a potent mix for being really fucked up if things aren't working in the reproduction department.

When I had my miscarriages, I was shocked at the insensitivity of other infertile women who said, "Well, at least you can get pregnant.  I haven't been able to do that." I still stand by the insensitivity of expressing that comment to someone who has lost three babies, but from where I sit now, I agree. For unknown reasons, I have gone from the camp of the super-fertile to the "...and to think, I wasted all that birth control!" camp. When you can get pregnant, there is still hope that this pregnancy will turn out ok. Now, I understand the frustration of getting yet another period when you don't want one. This is worse.

That leads me to another point: I have had to eat some real humble pie. My IF journey has led me to feelings and behaviors that I thought I was above, and I find myself experiencing many of the things I judged other infertile women for. For example, I used to think it was strange when someone told me she couldn't be at synagogue with all the kids. Now, I totally get it. Not wanting to be around pregnant women? Check! Not wanting to be around babies? Double check! Feeling like a playground or Facebook is an emotional minefield (especially around the anniversary of Roe v. Wade)? Check! I actually hid a new parent's Facebook feed recently because all she posts about is her new baby (kudos and thanks to my other friends who are new parents who do a great job balancing info about parenthood with other things! I love you!) In a strange way, I feel like the Universe is giving me a dose of all the things I used to be judgmental of. I assure you, I'm not anymore. I have also learned that the IF drugs, with the intense bloating they cause, make you look pregnant, so I shouldn't assume anyone is.

Maintaining perspective on this problem of IF is not for the faint of heart. It is easy to let it consume you. One of the common ways to try to balance the pain is to look at what is going right in my life, which, thank God, is a lot! Most importantly, I get to wake up every day next to my best friend and partner, whom I'm still madly in love with. I think marriages like ours are rare. My life is full of blessings! Yet, I have to be careful with this tack, because I also use it as a way to negate my feelings of intense sadness. Yes, life is beautiful, but it still feels for both of us like our family is incomplete. For these reasons, it feels like this method of focusing on the positive isn't an authentic or truly useful way in and of itself for me to work through this problem.

I did have some relief this morning when I did a guided tonglen practice led by my meditation teacher, Tara Brach. This is a powerful practice that helps us connect with the suffering of ourselves and others in a meaningful, compassionate way. I found it very calming to view IF as a wave held in the greater awareness of my life as an ocean. To paraphrase Tara, when you're aware you're the ocean, you're not as afraid of the waves. I also like the tonglen practice because an integral part of it is focusing on the suffering of others, and in doing so, it feels like offering a prayer on their behalf.

Ok. I have been sitting on this post for a week, and can't think of anything else I'm willing to commit to the Internet, so here it is for now.

Anxiety and Meditation

"Anything can happen
From the point of conception, to the moment of truth
At the point of surrender, to the burden of proof
From the point of ignition, to the final drive
the point of the journey, is not to arrive." -- Rush "Prime Mover"

My anxiety about losing this pregnancy was extremely high yesterday morning. I was catastrophizing things, envisioning our first sonogram ending up just like the previous ones: no baby, two broken-hearted parents. I was really lost in my stories about this, and boy was I suffering! I tried a few tactics to manage this. One, intellectualizing it: "Worrying isn't going to help, so stop. You can't control it." Two, praying for God to remove my anxiety. This technique rarely helps me and it didn't help now. Three, applying "real but not true." That took the edge off, but I remained restless and discontent.

I sat down for my morning seated meditation, and Tara Brach's voice came into my head, with one of her catch-phrases: "What is asking for attention?" I got in touch with what was behind my anxiety, which was the intense longing to be a parent, and for this baby to thrive. Instead of getting lost in what that "meant," which would be more stories, I focused on the sensations of that in my body. The longing manifested clearly in my heart area, and had a distinct color, sensation, texture. I just paid attention to those sensations for about ten minutes, noting them, and not either grasping for them or pushing them away. Just holding them lightly with a tender quality. Evidently, that is what was asking for attention, because my anxiety evaporated, and I was able to stay in the present moment and out of anxious obsession for the rest of the day. What sweet relief!

I have a belief that we all need tool kits for different situations. I don't have one pain management strategy to manage my chronic pain; if I did, I'd be up a creek. This is why people who rely only on pain medications for pain relief rarely find any relief. My pain tool kit includes: warm baths, meditation, exercise, sleep, massage, Feldenkrais, and other techniques, in addition to medication, which I use too. I am coming to understand the same principle applies to my anxiety: I can't have only one tool for it (i.e. Xanax) either, nor can I apply just one meditation technique to it. The technique described above worked yesterday. Sometimes, I need to focus on my anchors (breath, sounds, or bodily sensation) to ease my anxiety -- I literally need to distance myself from it in this way. Sometimes I use a "titrating" technique taught to me by some of my teachers: I pay attention to the bodily manifestation for anxiety, usually in my chest and throat, for a few moments. Then I titrate my attention and apply it to a neutral place in my body, like my thigh, where my anxiety doesn't manifest. Sometimes, my anxiety is too severe for seated meditation at all, and I need to do more walking meditation or mindful movement.  I'm grateful to be developing my tool kit, but it felt like a huge victory yesterday to get such dramatic relief from just opening to what was legitimately asking for my attention.

A Heart That's Ready for Anything

"We do this practice to have a heart that's ready for anything." -- Eric Kolvig, to me, about why we cultivate a mindfulness practice

"Darkness has a hunger that's insatiable, and lightness has a call that's hard to hear." -- The Indigo Girls, in "Closer To Fine"

This is my third pregnancy in a year. To our great joy, David and I found out that eight weeks after my D&C for a miscarriage, I am pregnant again. In the past, we only told people whom we'd lean on "if something happened." Both times, something happened. This time, we're trying a different approach: We are embracing that we are just very public people. We don't care if you know we're pregnant, even if things go wrong. In fact, especially if things, God forbid, go wrong. The feedback David and I have  gotten on our blog posts about our miscarriage posts have been overwhelmingly positive; many people said they helped them or helped their friends. We hope that by sharing our experience with this pregnancy, however it turns out, it's helpful. Emboldened by posts such as this one, I want to be upfront this time. I want you to know why I'm overly sensitive, why I'm flaking on commitments (nausea and extreme exhaustion) and that I don't think Sea Bands are fashionable.

I went to a powerful meditation retreat last week, and really connected with teacher Eric Kolvig. I talked with him openly about my grief, and how to apply a mindful and compassionate presence to it. Have you ever had someone say something to you that seemingly went straight through your chest and tattooed itself on your heart? I've had it happen three times; one is too personal to recount here. The second was when my first OA sponsor suggested, "Nothing else you've done to control your food addiction has helped. Why don't you try something different and just trust?" The third was Eric's statement to me that we do our mindfulness practice to have "a heart that's ready for anything." It was clear to me that after a lifetime of feeling blown about by my outside life circumstances, that is my deepest longing: to have a heart that's ready for anything.

If you know me you know that I am anxious by nature, and in fact have a severe anxiety disorder. So, I don't have unrealistic expectations that I'm going to be all Zen about this pregnancy. Every pregnant woman I've asked worries through her pregnancy.  After all, the stakes could not be higher, and we all desperately want to control the uncontrollable. What I am aiming for is to bring a mindful and compassionate awareness to my experiences, and not over-identify with them or become lost in my stories. For example, the other night I was brushing my teeth and thought, "I wonder if I'll have an ectopic pregnancy." I have no signs of an ectopic and no reason to think I'd have one. Instead of beating myself up for the "stupid" thought, I said to myself, "Sarah, brush your teeth. You're pregnant right now." I kindly acknowledged to myself that my brain is looking for ways to predict danger so it can protect itself. It's what brains do, the same way that hearts beat. That doesn't mean I have to buy into every thought my brain comes up with.

Another example of what I'm trying to achieve with this pregnancy is this: yesterday I became gripped with fears that we will lose this baby. Instead of my usual coping mechanisms, like telling myself that the doctors said we have a 70 percent chance of having a live birth eventually, or saying to myself, "don't worry," I took the advice of my teacher Tara Brach. She told me to greet the fear with compassion. So I put my hand on my heart and said, "Of course you're scared. It's ok." I then reconnected with my body and breath. This felt much better than pushing away what is desperately seeking my attention. This process about applying mindfulness to a pregnancy that has some anxiety coming up is what I hope to share on my blog.

So here I sit, full of anticipation about our pregnancy. Hope and optimism that things will go well, but the life experience to know that things might not. Yet, I truly feel like my heart is ready for anything. Bring it.

The Power of Positive Thinking

I am coming up on five years of back-to-back abstinence in OA-HOW, a structured way of working the Overeaters Anonymous (OA) program, a Twelve Step program for people wrestling with any food-related compulsion. In OA, abstinence means "refraining from compulsive overeating" or other compulsive food behavior like anorexia or bulimia. In HOW, we put a lot of emphasis on abstaining from negative thinking, which is really hard for me. I am by nature, negative, and the brain does a lot to try to protect us from future heartache; one of its main ways of doing this is by anticipating the worst to "inoculate" us from bad things happening in the future. Of course, this is erroneous, because we just end up suffering twice: in the anticipation of the bad event, and then, if/when the bad event happens.

Pesach (Passover) has always been a miserable holiday for me. It is hard for any observant Jew: imagine preparing for Christmas and moving at the same time. There is a tremendous amount of work to prepare for the holiday, some of it very labor intensive. Even though my husband David carries most of the heavy lifting, I still do my fair share, and the necessities of the holiday preparation -- cleaning, shopping, cooking, entertaining, and staying up late -- really pushes all of my buttons. It activates my chronic pain in a bad way. All of this means that I usually approach the holiday with a lot of dread and negativity. This makes me miserable, but worse, it also erodes David's enjoyment of the holiday.

I have been getting deeper into my mindfulness practice, and I think I am growing weary of the suffering I cause myself. Pain in life is inevitable, but more and more I am clearly seeing that I am the source of most of my suffering. Stress happens, of course, but the stories I construct about what I am experiencing are truly the cause of my misery. There is a massive difference between pain and suffering. So, in an attempt to cut down on my suffering, I decided to try something different for Pesach this year: abstaining from negative thinking, just like my Twelve Step program advises me to do.

I wasn't sure I could successfully keep a positive attitude, but I was determined to try one day at a time. To my surprise, I was quite successful. To my amazement, it made a tremendous difference to the quality of my holiday. Yes, I am still exhausted. Yes, I am still in pain bad enough that it requires narcotics to manage it, which I hate taking. But I have enjoyed this holiday more than any in the past. I was more productive. David said, "You have gotten more done, with less pain to yourself, than you ever have in the time I've known you." My OA sponsor said, "I can tell how much calmer you are." Even my body bears the fruits of my efforts: this is the first time in a decade I haven't had my telltale Pesach cold sore, which is a stress response.

This has made for an infinitely sweeter holiday. It is is profoundly meaningful for my faith -- it is the story of God rescuing the Jews from brutal slavery in Egypt, ultimately leading to our redemption and giving of the Torah at Mount Sinai. This year, freed from the excessive negativity and crap stories I tell myself, I was able to relax and enjoy the holiday, both for what Hashem (God) did for the Jewish people, but also what Hashem did for me: leading me out of food addiction to a saner, freer existence. I used to dread Pesach because I was so driven by the compulsion to eat, I couldn't stay away from non-kosher food, or chametz, leavened food prohibited on the holiday, for even eight days. It was torture. This was a problem for me since adolescence.

To an outsider, it seems like I do a lot of extreme things for my recovery program: I weigh and measure all my food, yes, even in public, even when it's embarrassing. I make at least four telephone calls per day to other fellows in recovery. I do a daily reading and writing assignment. Most importantly, I work the Twelve Steps, which are simple but never easy. Yes, all of this takes time, and I do not always enjoy it, to say the least! However, when I reflect on my greatest blessings of recovery, it becomes clear why this is so worth it. Yes, losing so much weight is amazing. But living with integrity is priceless. Knowing that I won't have to go binge on non-kosher foods during Pesach, or the other 51 weeks of the year -- and end up hating myself for it -- is the biggest blessing. Recovery has given me integrity: my insides match my outsides. No more outwardly living an Orthodox lifestyle, while binging at Burger King, praying no one sees me (and again, hating myself for my "lack of self control" -- I know now that this was the cunning, baffling, and powerful disease of addiction, as the book "Alcoholic Anonymous" describes it). Living my values, having God redeem me from slavery to food addiction is truly priceless. Is my daily OA work worth it? Hell yes!

Words That Harm, Words That Heal

"Words are, in my not so humble opinion, our most inexhaustible source of magic, capable of both inflicting injury and remedying it." -- Albus Dumbledore to Harry Potter in film "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part II"

"Too much time on my hands, I got you on my mind
Can't ease this pain, so easily
When you can't find the words to say, it's hard to make it through another day
And it makes me want to cry, and throw my hands up in the sky." -- Iron Maiden, "Wasted Years"

I am so grateful to all the friends, family and acquaintances who are reaching out in many ways to express their sympathy to David and me about the recent loss of our unborn child. Most people say something along the lines of, "I don't even know what to say to you." That is unsurprising, because there is very little to say other than, "I'm sorry," which feels inadequate to most people saying it, even though it isn't to me when I'm hearing it. In fact, I would argue that when you veer much beyond that, you risk stepping over a line. I am obviously very public about this, which opens me up to all kinds of comments from well-meaning people. But I've had to reconcile enough painful "condolences" these last two weeks that I want to write a specific post about some do's and don'ts to comfort women who have miscarried. Obviously, every couple is different and every loss is different, so I'm sure there are people who would not be offended by what offends me, or who might not be comforted by what comforts me. But, I'm pretty reasonable, and I think I can provide a place to start. A friend of mine asked me to pen this.

Don'ts

1. Here be dragons! There is one primary thing to avoid when talking to a couple or woman who has lost her baby: please do not say anything along the lines of, "There was something wrong with the baby. That's why this happened." Nothing is less relevant and more hurtful at this time. Grief is a duty of the heart, and this comment is rational, a response of the mind. Yet, if I had a dollar for every time someone said it to me lately, I could treat a dozen friends to Venti-size expensive coffee drinks. Let me qualify this by saying that most people who dole out the "something was wrong with the baby" line are well-meaning people who are trying to help. Quite a few of them are female friends of mine who have miscarried, and this line of reasoning helped them cope with their pregnancy losses. Yet, it cut me like a knife when I heard it, and was only made worse by the people who embellished it with, "Better this than you have a child with an illness or a special-needs child." This is offensive on so many levels, I can't even go here.

We are decently bright people, and we understand the science quite well; biology was my minor and remains an interest, and I was a health writer. Furthermore, as common as miscarriage is (very), it is actually not well-understood and varies case-by-case. An acquaintance of mine related this "something wrong..." line in the name of her husband, a paramedic. When I whined to a friend of mine -- a very advanced health-care professional with a 23-year career in obstetrics -- about this she gave the deliciously snarky reply: "Wow. I'm so impressed that her husband the paramedic has figured out what the best researchers and physicians in my field continue to study and struggle with." In other words, it's complicated. In fact, a reproductive endocrinologist has since explained to us that there are five main categories of miscarriage, and there being a problem with the baby itself is just one of those five. That leaves four other possibilities.

Even if you have miscarried and even if it comforted you to believe that the pregnancy terminated because of a specific problem, it is enough of a potential bombshell that it's probably best to avoid saying it to someone else.

2. No Medical Advice, Please: Pirkei Avos (Ethics of the Fathers) states, "Who is wise? He who learns from all people" (4:1). However, there are limits to this, and if there is one thing I excel at, it's taking care of my wellbeing. My journey with Lyme Disease and fibromyalgia has ensured that I have to be a fierce advocate for myself; I have spent years learning how to make the health care system work for me and my family, and I don't accept any half-assed medical care. So, I don't want to sound haughty, but my experience is that most people who don't have an M.D., NP, or PA credential after their initials don't have much to teach me about medicine. I get my referrals from top-rate doctors who know my health history and my personality well. I had a cousin recommend I get tested for a clotting disorder that runs in the family, which I really appreciated, and still many others say, "Let me know if you need medical referrals." I appreciate all that, but not much more specific advice unless you have had the same problem that I have and have specific information that could help me. I acknowledge that until now, I have had no experience with reproductive problems, so what I do value is other women's and couples' experiences who have been on this journey. However, if one more person tells me that acupuncture would prevent a miscarriage, I'll hurl on their shoes, I promise.



Seriously, I'm thrilled you're pregnant: Don't be afraid to tell me you're expecting. Just tell me in private if we're close friends. I'm genuinely happy for my friends who are expecting, and perhaps selfishly, I never want to become someone who isn't happy for people who are pregnant. It's just important to me. I think I've done a good job of holding my own disappointments in one hand, and the joy of my friends expecting children in the other.

Etc.: Another thing that has been hard for me to handle are any kinds of statements about my personal faith through the tragedy of a miscarriage. As I mentioned in an earlier post, I bristled at someone's comments to me along those lines. I think it's probably best not to make any presumptions on this topic. The other thing that annoyed me is people who ignored this because of their own awkwardness; it's a big deal to us, and no, we don't expect you to fix it, or even really comfort us. So, with all that said, what does help?

Do's
1. Gifting Yourself: The number one helpful thing that other people did for me in the aftermath of the miscarriage was spend time with me. I had friends come over and hang out with me, hold me while I cried, and walk the dog with me. Sometimes all three! These visits lasted from 45 minutes to three hours, and they really helped. Other people checked up on me with frequent phone calls, text messages, e-mails, and Facebook messages. That also made me feel cared about. My religious community kindly cooked meals for our Sabbath, so David and I wouldn't have to worry about feeding ourselves; that was hugely helpful, and made us feel really cared about. Other people sent cards, which also felt good. Again, people just reaching out to say, "I'm so sorry," is really what mattered to us.

When I asked David what most helped him in the immediate aftermath of the miscarriage, he said, "When people asked me things, rather than told me things."

2. Prayer: 'Nuf said.

Waking Up Is The Hardest Part

"You are getting your PhD in grief." -- My mom, to me

In the last ten months I have lost my father and two children. I can say, definitively, that for me, waking up is the hardest part of grieving. I have always -- for better and for worse -- sought refuge in sleep, so even in the midst of tragedy, I am a sound sleeper. There is little worse than waking up from a deep sleep, and in those first flutters of consciousness remembering, "Oh, shit. That was not a dream." David and I found out on February 27 that this baby, like the one last summer, had not made it. I woke up the next three days sobbing when I realized the memory of the miscarriage wasn't some messed up nightmare, but our reality. I had this same exact experience in the week or 10 days following my dad's death: wakefulness, consciousness, heartbreak.

February 27 was a day of sickening deja vu. Being at the radiology clinic almost 11 weeks pregnant, a pessimist and worrier of the highest order hoping that my bleeding would turn out to be the spotting that about one-third of women experience in a pregnancy. I knew the minute I saw the ultrasound that we were in trouble. Again. You then have to endure the worry for your spouse, the "I'm sorry's" from the doctor, the getting out of the clinic and into your car while sobbing or trying not to sob in public, all the while passing women with swollen bellies or children already born. I am so over crying in public now, which is part of the PhD in grieving. My crying comes in waves. Sometimes I'm fine, sometimes I collapse in a heap, and that can be in my kitchen, if I'm lucky, or if I (and others) aren't so lucky, I might be in public. I've learned that the best thing I can do is let it come, wash over me, and then fade away. The more I try to fight it or stifle it, the longer it'll stick around. So I surrender to the crying, even if I look like the crazy person on the bus.

The bad deja vu continued with the consultation with our obstetrician followed by the D&C at Sibley, although this time it was less nerve-wracking since I knew what to expect.

Blimey, what can I say about this? There are so many feelings, all of them personal, though I'm pretty public, if you haven't noticed. One thing I can say with surety is that I am pissed off at God. This is not a feeling that is helped by the rapidly-depleting pregnancy hormones leaving my body; you get postpartum moodiness without the postpartum joy of a kid. I got enraged seeing David pray on February 28. I said, "It pushed my buttons seeing you pray to a capricious, cruel God." He had a brilliant and true response: "You don't know what I'm saying to Him." Someone left us a voice mail in the days after the miscarriage commending David and me on our faith and expressing some envy of it. I was thinking, "Are you fucking serious?!" Me, whose spirituality after this event ranges from giving God the Silent Treatment to cursing at God?

I don't feel bad about this in the slightest, by the way. I think God can handle my wrath, and Yisroel (Israel) doesn't mean "struggle with God" for nothing. I just see this as continuing my Jewish tradition of fighting with God. I have told my Jewish spiritual teachers that I am pissed at God, and they all say, "Sounds about right. You should be." I only went to services on Purim night to support my husband performing in the shpiel; I survived being there by knitting through the entire megillah reading [reading the book of Esther]. It was that or Xanax, kids, and I chose the non-pharmaceutical approach. I was ok there until I recited mourner's kaddish for my father, the memorial prayer for the dead, and became wracked with grief over the child we had just lost. I felt like I was saying kaddish for him or her too, and it completely knocked me off my feet. If I had thought about it before hand I probably could have anticipated this, but I didn't, and it bowled me over. Once again, the crazy lady sobbing in public!

I went to services last night, and approached them with mixed feelings. Sometimes I just took comfort in the familiarity of the melodies and prayers. Sometimes I was the master cynic. For example, singing "Yedid nefesh, av ha'rachaman..." -- "Beloved of the soul, Father of compassion...," I thought, "Seriously? Father of compassion? Try again!" Sometimes I just thought, "You suck, HaShem," even as my heart acknowledged that I don't have all the answers, or access to the master plan, if there even is such a thing. I don't know, nor do I particularly care. My friend said to me of the miscarriage and my anger at God, "Sarah, this is not a matter of God. God wants life. We are fragile, biological creatures, and this stuff just happens." Perhaps she's right.

I have a lot more to say about this, including a pointed post about what to not say to someone who has miscarried! All of it is heartbreaking and awful, though I feel like I am finally coming back to life at this point. Laughter is coming more easily, the tears slightly more infrequently. I am starting to talk to people I was avoiding. I want to blog again; I was so sick during my pregnancy that anything optional went out the window, including writing.

I am trying to balance grieving a tremendous loss in a healthy, mindful way. I'm not avoiding the painful feelings by: staying too busy; numbing out with food, alcohol, or illicit substances; or engaging in self-destructive behaviors. I'm trying to give myself room to take care of myself while not sliding into outright depression. So, yes, I nap when I need to, but I also am getting together with supportive friends, working out as much as I can, and making plans for the future. It is truly a day at a time, and some days are better than others. Heck, some hours are better than others.

I want to close by saying that I am so thankful that David and I haven't gone through this alone. Our friends' and families' practical and emotional support has been invaluable to us. They have cooked meals for us, come to spend time with us, called/emailed/texted us, sent cards and flowers, and just generally been there for us when we've needed to cry, vent or talk. Many of my friends have helped me collect myself when I wanted to haul off on one of the many people who said something heartless to me in my grief. For all this and more, we are grateful. Loss of a pregnancy is hard enough to go through with the support of loved ones. We have so many friends who have miscarried and told nobody, and I can't imagine going through this alone. I'm grateful we don't have to. Love you all.

Retreat Morning Schedule

So, how did I spend my semi-silent retreat? This one was a little unusual in that usually retreats either allow speaking, or they're conducted in silence. In this one, we were in silence from 9 p.m.- lunch the next day, with silence always maintained in the dormitories. Most people spoke during the non-silent times, but a few retreatants chose to maintain their silence and the group respected that. Here was our weekday schedule through lunch, with some explanation. The afternoon and evening schedule will be my next post.

6:00 a.m. Wake up: Because I was fighting for a spot amongst eight other women in a tiny bathroom, I roused myself around 5:45 a.m. to allow adequate time to use the bathroom, wash my face, and brush my teeth. I'd dress and mosey over to the main lodge, where all of our retreat activities took place. I had a couple of glasses of water and a cup of coffee, in silence, before I settled on my meditation cushion.

6:30 a.m.  Meditation (aka "Sit"): This was seated meditation. Some people sat on cushions that they brought. Others fashioned impromptu meditation seating with pillows, blankets, towels and yoga mats. Some people always sat on chairs, and people who spoke with instructors about it first were allowed to meditate laying down, if appropriate. I had to do this, especially by the end of the day: my back isn't strong to begin with, and the 3-4 hours of seated meditation we did every day really took its toll on me. The first night I was there, I needed a narcotic to calm my pain enough to sleep. The original purpose of yoga asana, poses, is to give yogis the strength they need to sit in meditation for hours. I never really understood that until this retreat!

At one point I asked an instructor when would be a good time to leave programming to lay down on my heating pad to soothe my back and neck pain. He said, "What would keep you from bringing your heating pad to meditation and laying on your back?" I said, "Nothing!" As someone who has chronic pain, I have learned how to meditate laying down. I have tricks to ensure I don't fall asleep, like not practicing this way when I'm too sleepy, keeping my eyes only 3/4 of the way shut, putting my knees together, or holding my hands in such a way that if I fell asleep I would jerk to attention. I think I only came close to falling asleep once in this position. My preference is to sit on a meditation cushion with blankets supporting my knees, but I utilized the cushion, a chair, and laying on my yoga mat at different points in the day, depending on what my body needed. Usually, I started the day upright and ended up laying down late afternoon before returning to a chair or cushion again.

7:15 a.m. Chanting: One of the most amazing gifts that came to me from this retreat is the knowledge of how much chanting moves me. This is a common Eastern spiritual practice, but instead of Sanskrit, we chanted Hebrew. We did three chants from the morning blessings in the schacharit service (see below) every morning, and then did a few other chants based on other Jewish sources. There was something tremendously powerful about living in an intentional, albeit temporary, community, our voices joining together in praise of God. Four things resonated with me: the meaning of words we were chanting, the beautiful tones of the chants we were singing, the group nature of the activity, and the vibration of my voice inside my body. All of those elements combined to make it a powerful spiritual technique for me.

At home, I have continued my chanting practice after my morning meditation, and although it's not as potent as it is in a group, it's still useful. It's a meaningful way for me to give thanks to God and to set my intention for the day, and the verses have become mantras for me. Sometimes I'll find myself humming them throughout the day, which of course reminds me of their meaning. Verses from schacharit like, "My God, the soul You placed within me is pure," are things I need to remember, especially when I get drawn into the Trance of Unworthiness. Reminding myself that God made me in God's image is one antidote to the Trance.

7:30 a.m.  Shacharit: This is the Jewish morning service. Other than on shabbat [sabbath], all of the prayer services were silent, so people could pray in the style most appropriate for them. We had a huge range of religiosity from people completely a-religious and Jewishly uneducated, to people who were Orthodox and had learned in yeshivot for years. I think it was easier to have unstructured prayer time than to try and conduct a service to make everyone happy, and that kept us in our silence, which was particularly nice after a night of silence and 30-45 minutes of seated meditation. During prayer time, some people prayed, some went to get cups of coffee, and others did yoga or meditated.

8:00  a.m.  Breakfast (silent)

9:15 a.m.  Sit & Instruction: The instruction was basically Vipassana (insight) meditation 101, where the instructors explained the basics of meditation. The first day they gave instructions on posture and using the breath as an anchor. Other days they talked about using alternate anchors (like sounds or sensations), how to handle emotions that came up during meditation, etc. We also had instruction on topics like the five hindrances to meditation, which will certainly come up in most people's meditation, and some of the antidotes to those hindrances. We covered the traditional Buddhist lovingkindness (metta) meditation; I didn't love the way the teachers taught that one, but since I was already familiar with it, I just practiced the form I'm more comfortable with.

When I went to Tara Brach's talk and guided meditation class the other night, I loved that she led us in a body scan and relaxation exercise before we started to meditate. It really provides a nice transition from "up and active, engaging with the world," to "on my cushion now, settle down." I need to start incorporating this in my home practice, and if I had experienced it before the retreat, I would've let the leaders know on my evaluation form that this would've been awesome.

9:45 a.m. Walk: this was walking meditation performed in the room we were using. It's just another form of mindfulness where instead of using breath or something else as an anchor, you are very focused on your feet hitting the floor. After 45 minutes on my butt on a cushion, I was always very eager to walk. I really zoned out and got into this, and I could see why Thich Nhat Hanh encourages this so enthusiastically (there are videos on You Tube of Hanh and others teaching this). I have tried to make one of my daily dog walks one where I practice walking meditation.

10:00    Sit

10:45    Yoga: The daily asana practice was so amazing it's getting it's own post later.

11:45    Sit + Group Interview: For more details on what transpires in group interviews, please see my earlier post.

12:30    Eating Instructions: This was only on the first day of retreat, but it was instruction in mindful eating. The teachers passed around a bowl of different foods, including different types of nuts, raisins, and granola. The guy with major food allergies practiced this with an apple. We were instructed to first smell the food; touch it to the lips; put it in our mouths and slowly move it around, seeing how it tastes and feels in different regions of our mouth. It was really enlightening for me to see how mindless my impulse to swallow is: the teacher said, "notice the impulse to swallow," after I had already swallowed my raisin. Oops! After mindful, deliberate chewing and experiencing all these bites of food had to offer, we were instructed to swallow in our own time.

I had heard of this "raisin meditation," and after hearing a friend's jeering review of it, I was skeptical. However, I liked it and found it put me in the right head space to both of my daily silent meals in mindfulness. After all, that was the point: not just not talking for the sake of not talking.

12:45    Lunch (silent)


After leaving dining hall, continue silence or enter speech.

Retreat Logistics

Most of my friends haven't been on meditation retreat, so I'm getting a lot of questions about logistics that I wanted to address.  I attended Pardes' "Awakening to the Divine" retreat. They first hosted this in 2011 for college students. The 2012 one was broadened to include "young adults," but apparently the scale has shifted: the retreatants this year were between 20-40. There were 21 women and five men.

Location: I was retreating at Pearlstone Retreat Center in Reisterstown, Md., outside of Baltimore. This is a really lovely, hilly, wooded property with lots of places to duck away and take walks. There is a central housing unit that has has single, double and six-bed dormitory style rooms. All of the activities took place in the central lodge, or outside. Kayam, an educational farm, is connected to this facility, so every day I tried to spend some time hanging out with the goats and chickens.

Food: Luckily for me, Pearlstone has a strictly kosher kitchen under the supervision of the Star-K supervising agency of Baltimore. They are so strict that they don't allow in any outside water bottles into the lodge building. Small amounts of food can be kept and consumed in your bedroom. I was a basket case about this part of the retreat: I follow a strict food plan that eliminates gluten and sugar, and requires that I separately weigh everything that I put in my mouth. That means foods like casseroles don't work so well for me. Most of the time, I handle this by bringing my own food, but Pearlstone's strict kosher standards meant I couldn't do that.

I had to contact the dining coordinator and tell him all about my restrictions. I called, emailed, and even sent him a copy of my food plan. He assured me everything would be ok, but didn't actually provide answers to specific questions I asked, like, "When you serve pasta with cheese at lunch, what protein could I get at that meal?" Ultimately, I had to just jump in and know that I did my best to get my dietary needs met, and that I would have to turn the results over to God. I knew I wouldn't eat compulsively, which is the reason I am so guarded with my food in the first place. To my delight, everything worked out beautifully and deliciously! They had separate foods for me that I could weigh at any meal like chickpeas, tofu, hard boiled eggs and plain tuna fish. We had three scheduled meals a day. Every night I eat one protein and one fruit serving as a snack, so I always grabbed a hard boiled egg and fruit for later before I exited the dining hall after dinner.

Every meal had a large garden salad and fresh fruit. They even got us gluten-free and sugar-free challah for shabbat [our Sabbath observance]. Typical entrees included hearty bean soups, stir-frys or acorn squashes stuffed with quinoa and tofu. We had fish twice. No meal except Shabbat dinner had meat, and when there was meat or fish there were always vegetarian entrees. They made delicious veggie side dishes like eggplant salads and ratatouille, and one lunch was falaffel, homemade hummus (to die for!) and Israeli salad.

Everyone was surprised at how awesome the food was. Pearlstone puts a lot of emphasis on fresh, healthy meals. They try to use seasonal produce when available. Furthermore, there is always hot coffee, a tea station, and a basket of fresh fruit in the lobby. I loved that the dining hall is green: they provide compostable to-go containers if you request them, but otherwise we ate on real dishes.

Accommodations: I was expecting to share a room with one other woman. As it turns out, I had four other roommates. I have to say, I'm glad I didn't know that ahead of time; if I had, I probably wouldn't have gone, and thus would've cheated myself out of an awesome experience. When I realized I had four other roommates, I initially freaked out: I'm 35 and used to doing things my way, turning out the lights when I want to, etc. I took a deep breath and realized that this would be a good opportunity to stretch my comfort zone and prove I can be flexible when circumstances require it. It turns out my roommates were really cool, nice women; if anything, I inconvenienced them more than they bothered me, because I was usually last to sleep and first to wake up.

Sharing a bathroom was probably the hardest part of the accommodations. There were 9 women sharing one primary bathroom; you could duck into others on the floor if they were empty, but each small bathroom -- containing one sink, toilet, and shower -- was basically shared between one or two rooms. I have big issues around bathroom cleanliness to begin with; if nothing else in my house is clean, the toilet is. People were slovenly in the bathroom, leading me to tape a little note to the mirror kindly asking people to clean up after themselves to make the experience of sharing a bathroom as pleasant as possible. That made an immediate difference.

This is going to sound ridiculous, but I was inordinately proud of myself for handling the shared space issue so well. Before I left for the retreat, someone told me, "I'm very set in my ways; I wouldn't be willing to share a room." I decided I didn't want to be that way, personally. I didn't like sharing a room, but I wanted to prove to myself that I could do it if I wanted to. That said, if I go to another retreat at Pearlstone, which I hope to do, I would spring for a private room if I had an option to do so. It would be much easier to maintain silence in solitude at night. Having my own room would be essential for my Sabbath observance in a group setting, but on the Pardes retreat, everyone agreed to be Shabbat-observant in public spaces and in dwelling quarters.

In forthcoming posts, I am going to write more about how we spent our time on retreat.

On Honesty, Openness, and Vulnerability

I just came back from a six day meditation and spirituality retreat. We were silent from 9 p.m.-1 p.m. daily, and during the afternoon we had religious study related to mindfulness and transformation, and were able to engage in mindful speech if we chose to. We had a lot of opportunities to share our personal experiences with the whole group, and I took advantage of that.

If you look at my blog from 2011, you'll see that I have virtually no posts. It was hands-down the worst year of my life. Here's the summary: February, massive pain flare leading to huge setback in physical ability; April, my husband gets very sick with mystery illness I; May, lose my 59 year-old father to cancer; June, lose my nine week old baby to God-knows-what; August, my husband gets terrifyingly sick with mystery illness II; October, major depressive episode; December, husband needs emergency surgery. The whole year, since May, was set against a backdrop of the after-effects of my father's poor estate planning, which left me with a lot of emotional pain, anger and resentment. I was so raw, I didn't want to write about anything going on, and I didn't feel able to write about anything else. I also really struggled with the idea of how open to be on this blog. My readership on my blogs has always been highest when I'm raw, transparent and vulnerable. That's a scary place to be among loved ones, or just yourself, let alone on the void of the Internet where the crazies loom.

Anyway, I decided if I was going to get anything out of the retreat, I had to be honest about where I was. The group of people I retreated with made a really safe space to do that in, but even before I knew them, I took the leap. For example, the first group interview on the second full day of the retreat was a little intense. The background is that six of us were in a circle, and each of us, in turn, had a personal conversation with the meditation instructor about our practice (we had individual interviews at other times) while the others just listened. Most of the other participants said things like, "I can't keep following my breath during seated meditation. What do I do?" or "I get really sleepy." Some delved a little deeper, touching on the general nature of their distractions. Finally, James gets to me and I pour out the following:

"I'm anxious. The focus of that anxiety during my meditation is how many needs I have, and how terrified I am of not having those needs met. I'm scared of there not being food here I can eat, I'm scared I won't be able to sleep with four other women in my room and how badly that will make my pain flare, I'm scared of there not being an available bathroom when I need one. I'm scared of having to wait 25 minutes for a shower! Worse, I hate that I have all these special needs, and I'm just so aware of how fucked up that makes me feel. I feel fundamentally broken, screwed up, weird and unlovable. And I hate it."

Tara Brach, a popular D.C.-based meditation teacher, talks a lot about the "trance of unworthiness" that people, particularly Westerners, feel. This was at the heart of what I was expressing to James in that group interview. I heard this come up in other guises at the retreat, and was shocked to learn that even seemingly perfect people, like Demi Moore, feel this way. In a February interview in Harper's Bazaar magazine, Moore described her greatest fear: "What scares me is that I'm ultimately going to find out at the end of my life that I'm not really loveable, that I'm not worthy of being loved. That there's something fundamentally wrong with me ..."

But back to me. James says in his lovely James-ian voice (now permanently etched in my head), "It's ok to have needs. The first thing I want you to do is acknowledge that you want things: you want to have food to eat. You want to sleep. You want to shower. That's ok. The second thing is, when you encounter this, I want you to say, 'not me.' It's not you. You may have needs and you may have anxieties, but they are not you." I'll have more to say about this in another post about Jan. 6, but in the meantime, I'll leave this with a comic illustration of this proposition.

I felt so odd after I spilled my deepest-held feelings about my trance of unworthiness in front of five strangers. After our interview, two retreatants who were there came up to me and thanked me for sharing so openly. They said it took guts and helped them. Emboldened by the votes of confidence, I started putting out really personal, embarrassing things during our afternoon group discussions if I thought it could help other people, or would otherwise be relevant to our discussion.

At the end of the retreat, when we were saying goodbye to each other, the feedback others' consistently gave to me was how thankful they were that I shared such intimate things. That it helped them immensely, and gave them hope that they could be resilient and make it through some pretty awful times. After about 15 people said that to me, it really reinforced for me that I am most myself when I am open and honest, especially on my blog. I don't do inauthentic well. It's not that I'd share everything (ok, I would share almost everything...), but I am going to just try and be myself and accept the consequences. I also take a lot of inspiration in this from Heather Armstrong, who was so open about her mental health problems, especially as they concerned her second pregnancy, and has taken a huge amount of crap from the true Internet crazies for it.

So, I hope that 2012 is a much more active year for this blog, and that I can be myself, make myself vulnerable, and hopefully enrich someone else's life because of it.

Loving-kindness Meditation

My friend, A-Team cheerleader, and meditation enthusiast, Stef, graciously sent me a CD of some of her favorite guided meditations to help me meditate when my pain is so distracting, I can't even stay with one breath. It has been a few days since I meditated, and I noticed the effects on my spirit. I am so imperfect about my practice, yet I feel like it is an integral part of my spiritual life, so I keep trying.

After a few days of whining that I hadn't left adequate time for prayer or meditation in my busy mornings, this morning I turned words into deeds and sat down to listen to Jack Kornfield's loving-kindness meditation that was on Stef's compilation. This is a traditional Buddhist meditation that is designed to help us have a compassionate and loving heart toward all. For the record, I am not a Buddhist, but loosely consider myself a student of Buddhist meditation. The loving-kindness meditation first had me focus on repeating phrases that would open my heart and encourage compassion and love for myself. Then, I repeated the process, first focusing on people who are dear to me, and then later, extending the loving thoughts toward strangers and even enemies (which I gratefully do not have).

I felt fantastic after this, getting up from my meditation and the prayer that followed it, feeling truly at one with the world (Dan Brown fans: at-one-ment). My body and soul felt harmonious. Then it was time to walk Kacy before my chiropractic appointment, and I was trying to lead her out of the shadowy side of the block and onto the western side of the street, which was bathed in sunlight. Being a terrier, she wanted to go east, to Wisconsin Ave., so she was reluctant as I led her across the intersection of 33rd and Volta. At this point, a lunatic ignores the four-way stop at the intersection, and rolls through, stopping just two feet away from hitting Kacy and me, yet staring me down with a clear "Hurry up!" look. "What the fuck?!" I say, and my body and soul fill with rage. So much for my loving-kindness meditation! He then rolls down his window and says something vitriolic to me; luckily, I couldn't hear his phrase over my iPod, but I distinctly caught the f-bomb and the word "puppy."

So this rage-a-holic dude was mad at my dog for being slow when he was rushing through a residential intersection. I seethed for a few minutes, beating myself up for letting the harmony get away from me so quickly, while simultaneously laughing at the idea of this guy "ruining" my loving-kindness meditation. Then I stopped and did two crucial things: first, I decided Mr. Jerky Driver wasn't going to take away any more peace from my day, and I let it go. Really. Then I decided that there was nothing to "ruin" from my meditation, that I could accept myself for the volatile, imperfect human that I am, and more importantly, that I could extend loving-kindness to other people I would encounter over the course of my day.

And I have: I had compassion for the ridiculously slow and frustrating receptionist at my chiropractor's office, as well as for his assistant who carries a boatload of attitude toward anyone she perceives as "privileged," which she deems me. I complimented the receptionist on something she did well, and I asked the assistant how her kids were and how old they are now. These actions were not for show; they were sincere, and I believe they emanated from the intention of my loving-kindness meditation. Even with the jerky driver, I'd say this is a very good day indeed.

Magical Mystery Meal

We had a really amazing shabbat (sabbath) meal on Friday night. I made Indian food -- a real treat since there are no kosher-certified Indian restaurants anywhere near D.C., and because it's a nice departure from typical shabbat foods. I have never used as much fresh ginger in one meal as I used to make this one. Specifically, I made the following recipes:

Garden Vegetable Soup (ok, this is not Indian, but I didn't have it in me to make rasam): . I cut the olive oil in half, and omitted the corn and potatoes to keep this soup starch-free for my food plan. I also added a parsnip because I had one that needed to be used up. The leeks and lemon juice gave this soup an unanticipated freshness.

Indian Spiced Chicken: Because the laws of kashrut [Jewish dietary laws] forbid mixing milk and meat products, I substituted equal amounts of plain soy yogurt for the yogurt and plain, full-fat soy milk for the half-and-half. Having had Indian food consisting of meat cooked with dairy for much of my life, I can attest that by the time I added all of the wonderful seasonings, you honestly couldn't tell that I used soy products in my adaptation. I also substantially cut the honey in this recipe.

Chickpea curry: I used Muir Glen organic canned tomatoes, which Cook's Illustrated ranks as the best-tasting canned tomatoes. The garam masala spice blend is from Penzey's, an amazing spice company. My Orthodox rabbi told me their spices are acceptably kosher even without certification, because we verified that they do not use any drying agents, which are the chemicals that can pose a problem with the kashrut of spices. This does NOT apply to the Penzey's blends which have cheese, of course, but any straight herbs or spices, or regular spice blends, are fine, according to my rabbi. Yesss! If you are uncomfortable using Penzey's without certification, McCormick's Gourmet Collection includes garam masala, or you could make your own. Just remember to toast the spices in a hot, dry skillet or you will not get the taste you're looking for.

For my curry, I used fresh chick peas instead of canned. I've recently started using the bagged beans instead of canned to cut down on exposure to BPA, and I've found they are so much tastier and have a firmer, more pleasing texture than their canned counterparts. I cook a whole bag at once and then freeze any excess in individual portions, then defrost them as needed.

Roasted Cauliflower with Indian Seasonings: Spicy and yummy!

Additionally, we served basmati rice. Lydia made delicious challah, traditional Jewish egg bread, and David made his amazing home-made applesauce. Our guests also complemented the wines we served.

But beyond the food, the meal felt really special: we had two lovely guests visiting from New Jersey who contacted our shul [synagogue] for shabbat hospitality. You never know who's coming your way when you accept hospitality guests -- crazy and/or inappropriate guests do show up -- but these young women were really delightful and contributed meaningfully to the conversation. They were also superbly grateful, which was nice. The conversation was a nice balance of serious topics and humor.

Finally, I felt really good about the spiritual tenor of our shabbat meal. I lapsed into a bad habit of shabbat being a passive day where I observe all the restrictions of the day -- no phone, computer, driving, manipulating electricity, hard exercise, cooking, etc. -- but otherwise, shabbat had very little spiritual content. I'm trying to more actively observe shabbat, dwelling in the spirit of the day, really internalizing the spiritual rest that it is supposed to convey, and remembering that shabbat is a partnership with God. We (and all of our animals and "servants") rest because on shabbat, God rested from the work of creation. To that end, I'm trying to attend synagogue more regularly, although certainly NOT every week; nothing gives me pleasure like slipping back into bed with Kacy and the Washington Post after a leisurely breakfast on shabbat morning. Shul or not, I've committed to saying at least one liturgical prayer service over shabbat as part of my "put spirituality back in shabbat" campaign.

Another way I've tried to become more actively shabbat observant is by singing zemirot, shabbat songs, at our shabbat meals and by learning/talking more about the parsha. That's the weekly portion of the Hebrew bible, the Torah (aka "The Old Testament" -- a term I find objectionable because obviously it connotes that it has been supplanted by a newer testament) that we read at our synagogue. At the meal I'm writing about, we had a nice discussion about the parsha, and a meaningful broader discussion about the challenges and rewards of more actively observing shabbat, especially for busy professionals who are exhausted at the week's end and kinda eager to get through the ritual so they can crash or read.

All in all, it was a really special shabbat meal, and thinking about it makes me smile in the midst of what has been a challenging week due to an ethical conflict I'm navigating, and self-pity about my limitations caused by my Lyme Disease. Ironically, I ordered a pair of the warmest mittens I've ever worn from Ewe2you.com and they were delivered with an elaborate brochure, geared for Christian readers, urging them to more actively observe the sabbath. I think that the importance of a shabbat, whatever form it takes for you, is more relevant than ever in our fractured, multi-tasking, 24/7-connected world. Whatever your faith, I highly recommend it.

P.S. This post took me four days due to my disability -- now I see why!