Ohhhhhmmmmm

As you've read in this blog, I've been doing well physically throughout the process. I checked in with Dr. Z and confirmed that my occasional struggles with heart rate and that general feeling of being "off" is my body's way of saying I'm pushing too hard. For a lot of his patients "exercise" is a walk, not a run or a round of Chest and Back. So all's well, physically.

Mentally/emotionally or whatever you call it, I've been more than a little off. I'm no stranger to depression and how it manifests itself in me - it's not just feeling blue. It's a shorter temper (not just at home, you should see me at the automated check out at Kroger when I'm in a funk), withdrawing myself from family stuff, less focus, and yes, an inability to find much joy in things that should make me happy. All of that has crept back into my world these last couple of months. Totally understandable, but totally unacceptable.

I'm letting Western Medicine take the lead on the physical stuff. Battle cancer with drugs, battle drug side effect with drugs, battle... well, you see the point. But I don't think that approach has all the answers, or even the better answers when it comes to "finding a good place." I've never tried meditation, yoga, tai chi, acupuncture, or any of the dozens of "alternative therapies" that many people claim help them through their fight with cancer. Many more people (like billions, mostly in the eastern hemisphere) use these practices every day to keep themselves well and to help their bodies ward off disease. It's not that I don't believe they can help, quite the contrary, I'm like most westerners, afraid, embarrassed really,  to find myself sitting in a dark corner of the house chanting Sanskrit with incense burning and New Age music softly playing in the background. That ain't me.

Or is it?

Last night I tried a meditation class at Vista Yoga. Locals, please click the link. Quick shout out to the owners Marty (husband) and Marti (wife), who have built a beautiful and amazingly popular studio in the back of the shopping center that houses our favorite dining/trivia spot, Napolean's (another shout out). They let me join in week 2 of a 4 week course and Marti even came by early to catch me up on what she'd covered the previous session. I was amazed at how quickly I got comfortable with the setting and was able to ignore the other 20+ people in the room. There's a lot of talk of energy lines and, yes, some sanskrit chanting, that I don't really "get" yet, but I do see how the practice of meditation call help me clear my mind for a few minutes and get my brain into a state that lets it function normally despite the stress and pressure of the real world. Good stuff happens when the brain can do its thing, including telling other organs to produce more of what the body needs in order to protect and heel.

It was only two hours, and I've not yet setup my space in the house to meditate. But I plan to do that tonight and to start my day tomorrow with a little sitting and breathing. As for chanting? We'll see...