And with cancer comes...

One thing that this diagnosis has taught me is how limited our control is over life's momentum. Spontaneity has never been much of a thing for me. I like to plan things. I thrive on routine and I bask in an orderly and well arranged nest. I am always on time. I am not a fan of clutter. But, I am learning to operate under a new system of control. I am learning as I go what works for my body during treatment, how much I need to rest, how much I need to meditate, how much social interaction I need, how much I can handle and how far I can walk or ride my stationary excercise bike before I am winded and need to take a break. I am learning my body's new boundaries, and in learning them I am learning to accept and love it as it is. I have a body in transition. I literally live in a physical body of reconstruction. We all do. My transition is just more tactile than some. And it wasn't all voluntary. A large part of my personal spiritual practice is maintaining a strong mind/body connection. When I have felt the least alive is when I have suffered a drift of connection to my body. I can't tell you how many times I have gone to see my therapist in utter mental disarray, convinced I should be immediately medicated, to be gently reminded to sit and breathe, ask myself where in my body the pain or confusion is felt, and go there, breathe into it...sit in it...and possibly move with it. As a child I learned to dance and losing myself to the rhythm and the counts and the music and the repetition of rehearsal was therapy for me. Closing my eyes and chanting in a room of yogis is therapy for me too. So a common theme in my reckoning with breast cancer is working to overcome the challenges of a rapidly changing, unpredictable body, a body that I felt had somehow misled me, or turned against me. I thought I was on such intimate terms...but... I have to make a daily practice of trying to connect spiritually to a higher healing power, trying to connect with the depth of healing powers in the well of my deepest self, when at times, especially in the beginning of diagnosis, I couldn't look at myself in the mirror. I couldn't look myself in the eye. I couldn't take my shirt off in front of my wife. I couldn't fix my hair. I struggled for a grasp of how connection to this body could be possible at the same time that I was learning at a rapid rate what was about to transpire for me physically. I wrestled with avoidance but avoiding conflict of any kind is not conducive to my well being. So I started with confrontation. I needed to have a log of what was happening to me. If I log the pain, the suffering, breathe and move through it, like grinding a sore tooth until I can taste the blood, I will eventually find sense in the path that I chose. Eventually. Kayla is helping me log the physical transformation through photography. The images allow me to process what is happening in a new level. There have been moments of paralysis, moments of searing heartbreak. Then there are those sweet moments of peaceful surrender, when the stillness of the present pillows me with the realization that I am ALIVE, and I am finding an ease of grace through each phase of my physical appearance, navigating my way through this trial that tolls me from the inside out. There were many things that I have feared, many things that I desperately wanted to change, or feared I could never confront, that I am beginning to move through now. The change is inevitable. The ability to dig into and connect to the inevitability of it became more profound and more powerful under the knife of cancer.