My self-worth was wrapped up in how much I could do, clean, produce, or make right in the world. Who else would do it for me? How would I get my work done? How could I prove I was worth something if I wasn’t doing, being, making, becoming? In meditation, I had the space to explore and acknowledge the roots of this despair, and my all-or-nothing thinking: “Oh no, I’m sick again, the world is going to collapse” held some painful attachments for me. And I didn’t just get the sniffles or a little two-day thing it was years of knock-down, drag-out, week-long illnesses that followed one after the other, sometimes with high fevers and flu symptoms. As a mom to young children, it was not something I had time for. It’s that it just wasn’t okay to be sick. Meditating while sick: remarkable, the bridge between a seemingly intractable mind state and a shift toward healing. When rudely interrupted by sickness, I hadn’t yet fully grasped the concept of bringing all I am in the moment to meditation.
The question was profound and caused a resounding no. But nothing propelled me faster into healing my mental baggage about being sick than my meditation practice when I did it during the down times.Ī teacher once asked me, “Do you meditate when you’re sick?” I know that my over-the-top reaction to being sick has deep roots that require healing, and I’m working on it.
I was angry at sickness, couldn’t feed myself any nurturance, just wanted it to go away, and would stay mad until it did. Coming down with something again, swirling in negativity because once again my body had failed me, my immune system weak, I could not perform in the world the way I wanted for myself or for others. Sickness has thrown me off track more times than I care to count.
Our spiritual, meditative, or other self-care practices can easily be interrupted, back burnered, or seemingly lost when one of life’s whammies happen. Come, even if you have broken your vows a thousand times.
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