Again, awakening to body pain. Last summer, at the end of that second long day at the hospital, when i knew Hal was responding well to the IV antibiotic, I headed out to the lake for a long swim. Ahh, so relaxing and beautiful, earliest sunset colors touching the sky as I swam for an hour, to the far end of the lake and returned to my dock, backstroke, looking at the sky, body and mind unwinding. Just before dusk I got back into my car to head back to Hal in the ER. Driving slowly down the Chelsea dirt road that I have driven 1000 times in the past 50 years, a deer leaped out of the woods directly in front of my car smashing above the bumper onto the hood bounced up onto the windshield and off. Because of where he hit the airbags didn’t go off but there was a sharp jolt of impact. It was horrifying to see this deer through my windshield, maybe still alive, stare at him and then watch him roll off. I needed to coast far enough to safely pull off and allow the car behind me to pass. Getting out, I stood up; I could tell nothing in my body was broken. I actually was able to still drive the car and took back roads back to Ann Arbor. My knee was wrenched and the next morning I found many bruises where seatbelts had hit over shoulder, abdomen, ribs. My insurance company sent me to the collision shop. I was told  my car was totaled due to costly structural damage.

This was five months ago. At  my doctor’s recommendation I spent about two months just allowing the bruises to heal. Now I’m doing physical therapy starting to get stronger but it’s hard; parts of my back, neck, sacroiliac and ribs are out of alignment. That little voice we know so well, that  says, “I don’t want this,” speaks up often.

I know many of us wake up to body pain it; gets harder as we get older. How do I keep my heart open? I don’t have any specific answer other than presence, patience and compassion. The chanting I mentioned yesterday does help. I have to be very careful with compassion or what imitates compassion, because I can come to a place where I feel the sharpness; noting it is unpleasant; noting arising of aversion; and that which would imitate compassion trying to push away the pain. I see how all of this can be a way to try to control my experience or fix it;  I’ve learned I need to let go when I reach for compassion and it becomes a means of control of pain,  I need to recognize that experience let go. It’s not true compassion! I can recognize it by a subtle grasping tension.

At that point I switched to pure awareness practice, resting and spaciousness, resting in the space between the touch of pain and its dissolution. Just letting it all be – pain, aversion, spaciousness…This is the space of awareness; awareness that pain will arise in the physical body, and awareness of unpleasant sensation and gradual aversion….and awareness of the absence of pain that comes too; pleasant sensation and subtle grasping to hold  on to that absence.  If my body is resting often there’s no pain; only with movement it begins again. Resting in that space then moving, noting the pain, deep breath, resting again. And finally, genuine  compassion for that human who goes through all of this process again and again.

And finally, there is a true softening and release of tension.  I can’t go through all of this practice to get somewhere pain-free, but only with the intention of truth, presence and  love.

I turn to gratitude that here I am alive, have not experienced serious injuries, that this body is healing and here I am at home waking up in the morning to my sunrise and my husband asleep in the room next door, cat purring on my chest, collie-nose nudging my shoulder, eating my breakfast and watching the snowfall. There is so much joy and goodness in my life. It’s important to bring my attention to it and just say thank you; thank you. I feel that thank you through my whole being, right there with pain.

Writtn by Barbara Brodsky, Founder and Guiding Teacher