07/01/2022
LONG POST WARNING: Put on your reading glasses 🙂
A Broken Heart Can Heal
This is my mantra. I am saying it every day. I am saying it quietly in my mind…..and of course to my heart. I am saying it out loud when I have bare feet grounding down into the cold wet Earth. I say it into my heart in meditation. I think it as I go for slow walks to rebuild my endurance. I am saying it….to believe it. And I am starting to actually feel it. My broken heart, it is healing.
If I could bottle what the last several months have been like and give it to people I would. It has been a powerful experience in testing what I believe in and why. It has pushed all of my beliefs and the words I have shared with so many….right in front of my own face and forced me to put my HEALTH where my mouth is. In a time when I finally decided to launch my own health and wellness coaching business, I was faced with being more ill than I have ever been in my life. (Healer, HEAL THYSELF! Lol). I stared my mortality down in many dark hours while laying alone at night. For months. I have an amazing community of friends who showed up to keep me from tumbling headfirst into the abyss of fear. I made peace with dying. Dramatic? Maybe. But when I made peace with dying, I decided what could I possibly have to lose if I decided to do everything in my book of tricks to, perhaps, keep living? Again, it may seem drastic, but I am being honest about my process and my story. I made a promise to myself to listen to my heart and speak for it. After all, my heart CLEARLY wanted my attention, and now she has it.
Why did I make peace with dying and how? Starting in August….I began feeling a little bit worse, every single day. My symptoms did not begin in August, but that’s when they began to snowball. I had less energy. I had no appetite. My hair was coming out by the handful every time I washed and brushed it. I ended up in the ER with no breath. By the end of November, I realized each day I felt a little bit worse than the day before. I had this one day where the thought “what if THIS is the best I ever feel again” made itself known. It echoed for days in my mind….in my dim bedroom….it bounced off the walls of my house as children and Eric and my dog and life continued to buzz loudly around me. My eyes looked dim and were circled with the darkest purple orbs I have ever seen on myself. My skin was dull and flaky. I was never alone because I had the constant irregular…..and too fast beating of my heart to keep me vigilant and aware of my state of dis-ease. Everything made my tired eyes well with tears. I felt like maybe I had to figure out how to say goodbye to the things….and people I loved. I could not hold back the torrent of sadness. I could not hide the evidence of my very literal heartbreak. And a little voice inside my head said “a broken heart can heal”.
Why is my heart broken? I have never asked myself this question. Of COURSE my heart is broken. Aren’t ALL of our hearts broken? None of us get through this life without literal heartbreak. We watch humankind commit unbelievable acts of cruelty on one another. The apathy is almost as bad. We live in times of war, famine, environmental devastation, political and religious unrest. Our community members are losing their homes, their jobs, and their loved ones to disease…..or to conspiracies and cults. On a personal level, I have watched my families of origin be affected by addiction, the opioid crisis, su***de, depression, poverty……you name it. It all breaks my heart. I have come to the conclusion that I cannot view the symptoms in my heart as separate from devastation spinning in circles around us all each and every day. So how do we heal it? How do I heal this broken heart?
I was told I had Congestive Heart Failure on October 25th. I was also told it was not a disease, but a diagnosis. So then they had to figure out what was causing the CHF. I have had…..I am gonna go out on a limb and say…..ALL of the tests done. I know there must be more out there, but my team has not heard about them yet or I am sure they would have subjected me to them. I continue to have more tests done several times a month….sometimes multiple each week. What these tests have told the doctors isn’t much and is a lot at the same time. I am MOSTLY healthy. My heart is NOT happy but seems structurally mostly fine. I have learned about all sorts of terrifying diagnosis (sarcoidosis, amyloidosis, restrictive cardiomyopathy……just to name a few). I am an amateur cardiologist and earning my minor in rheumatology too. Each time a doctor apologizes because they can’t give me a hard diagnosis….it is defeating. It is also a gift.
I have been given hard diagnosis before. Sometimes they are minor….I have had a couple doozies though too. I have been a medical…..anomaly for much of my life. My body has had to work harder than most to stay and feel healthy. A common sentiment so many people have shared with me is how surprised they were to find out something was wrong with my heart because I do so many things to support my health. Do you know who was not surprised? Me. Lol. This body has been sending me warning symptoms that something was off…..basically my entire life. I actively work to find health….because it has been so elusive for me. I could write an entire novel about why I think that it the case, but I will refer you to “The Body Keeps the Score” and the amazing wisdom that came out of (and continues to be created because of) Van der Kolk’s work. The point is….I have not been given a diagnosis other than CHF. And slowly but surely my symptoms seem to be improving. I think sometimes when we are given a diagnosis we can allow it to become intrinsic….linked with our selfhood somehow. We allow it to melt into our identity. I do NOT want my broken heart to become a part of my identity. I want it to be a chapter I live through, and heal from, and learn how to grow from as a result.
I plan to continue to pursue what my medical doctors encourage…..although I do not ever want to have another needle put into the muscles in the tops of my feet again to check for neuropathy…..hard pass on that next time. I have had a story for as long as I have had a body and this period of time has allowed me to examine that story and put it behind me. I have ignored the signals my body gives me about illness or disease until I am VERY sick, for as long as I can remember. I always told myself I was crazy to think something was wrong with me. I told myself nobody would believe me if I told them how I felt. I told myself I was weak for paying attention to pain. I told myself many….MANY people live every day with worse pain and very real conditions and any complaints I had were minor in comparison and therefore I should ignore myself. If you are wondering how extreme this self-talk was in my case, here are a couple examples: I got a kidney infection that spread to my bloodstream when I was 19 because I thought I was being dramatic to go to a doctor about this silly pain in my right flank. I ended up in bed for almost 2 weeks with pneumonia when I refused to stop going to work and keeping up on social engagements because of a “stupid cold” when I was 27. I tried to show up and teach Hot Yoga at 35 years old the morning after I broke two ribs and punctured a lung. I wouldn’t have even known I had a collapsed lung if my boss had not refused to let me teach and made me go to the ER instead. All of this to say, I have a very long history of discrediting my own body’s experience because I don’t…..trust it. That story has ended. I am listening. And I finally get it that I do not need an external source to confirm for me what I know to be true. I do not need a doctor to know WHY my heart is so sick to believe that it is and heal it. I have learned it is safe….to trust my own experience. And THAT is a powerful gift.
I do not know what physiological organ systems contributed to the elevated BNP, or to what perhaps looks like enlarged atrial chambers. I don’t know why my body struggles to release fluid from my chest or my limbs without help right now. But I believe my heart is broken if that is what she is telling me….and everyone else. And I believe she can heal. I believe that is what I am doing right now.
Thank you to everyone who shared messages of love and support. Thank you to the handful of amazing women who sat with me in my darkest moments and helped to shine the light in. Thank you to my doctors who have never minimized my symptoms or experience. Thank you to the community of people who prayed for me to different higher powers…..all of your prayers seem to be working and I would love to ask you to keep them up. Thank you for the stones, the charms, the healing and nourishing food. Thank you for loving my kids and my husband. I am not saying I am through this. I still have an uphill climb ahead of me. But I no longer feel worse every day than I did the day before. In fact, many days now I am feeling better…..and I cannot express the absolute joy and gratitude that fills me with. I am committed to this year not being one of sickness, but one of healing. And from that place of healing, I hope to share it with you all! Thank you so much for reading this rambling message. I want to put my intention to HEAL out into the universe. And I am more excited than you can imagine to have my energy and focus once more on something much more interesting than my own health. I am so grateful for this chapter and look forward to its conclusion. Life will probably always look different than before this experience (I will probably never teach hot yoga again….I will probably have gentler forms of exercise as the foundation of my physical program….but I look forward to the day I flow through a vigorous vinyasa class with my breath intact).
Whatever your wellness or health journey is, I hope you will join me this year on a journey to heal our broken hearts. No matter what signals your body is giving you, if your heart is asking for attention, please tune in. Hand on our hearts, eyes closed, souls full, spirits strong, Anahata is reminding us we are unbroken….and a broken heart can heal.
