This past year has had some huge changes for me: the deaths of my father and mother in a four month lapse, my own attempt to play out my role as the “good son,” and the pro­gres­sive dete­ri­o­ra­tion of my well-​​being as I no longer could keep up with the “pro­to­cols” that main­tained my per­sona (exer­cise, yoga, med­i­ta­tion, self-​​development, etc.). I was only par­tially aware of how these changes were affect­ing me, but they became con­cen­trated in one symp­tom: my periph­eral neu­ropa­thy and its man­i­fes­ta­tion of numb­ness, phan­tom pain (pin pricks in my feet that kept me at night) and sleep depri­va­tion. This symp­tom dis­tracted me from see­ing the deeper “dis-ease” — I feared los­ing my hold on life’s moor­ings (as seen in my par­ents’  deaths), on my capac­ity to deal with life’s daily tasks and uncer­tainty, and on my con­di­tion as an adult who has to take full respon­si­bil­ity for his life.

This fear of los­ing my grip trans­lated into a sys­temic phys­i­cal trait — I held on ever more tightly through my myofas­cial tis­sues. I was the per­son­i­fi­ca­tion of being “uptight” —  stiff, con­strained, and suf­fo­cat­ing. My lig­a­ments, fas­cia, ten­dons, mus­cles and other tis­sues were engaged to the max­i­mum until I was stran­gling myself, to the point that large parts of my body was numb, unfeel­ing. There was a hid­den lever in my head that was con­stantly wind­ing me up, with minute twists to the gears, con­stantly engaged should some exter­nal force or inter­nal flaw make the whole machine blow up under the pressure.

For years, I par­tially sensed this prob­lem. That’s why I sought out yoga seven years ago. But this prob­lem is so much big­ger than start­ing an exer­cise regime, devel­op­ing good work skills or chang­ing eat­ing habits because of a food allergy. That’s why I have put off writ­ing about it here; just one entry is not going to cover it adequately.

A lighter touch

Since my diag­no­sis of periph­eral neu­ropa­thy and the start of treat­ment with myofas­cial release ther­apy with Howard Rontal in August, I have begun a grad­ual process of releas­ing the ten­sion, of let­ting go. My weekly ther­apy ses­sions were oppor­tu­ni­ties to explore the psycho-​​somatic nature of my con­di­tion and the mind-​​body con­nec­tion. There was no promise of “cur­ing the dis­ease” but increas­ingly I saw the pos­si­bil­ity of con­trol­ling my worst symp­toms and even find­ing and devel­op­ing a more relaxed state.

As of mid-​​December, my treat­ment with Howard has been sus­pended because of the Hol­i­days and travel, so I’ve exper­i­mented with tech­niques that can help me self-​​soothe and self-​​heal (more on that in another blog entry). I’ve also made it back to yoga classes, put some time in at the gym and even done some jogging.

Mark Epstein has an insight­ful book, Going to Pieces with­out Falling Apart: A Bud­dhist Per­spec­tive on Whole­ness, and that title cap­tures my predica­ment. I read it four years ago, and only now real­ize its mean­ing. There comes a point when you have to let go and reside in the present moment, no mat­ter what hap­pens, no mat­ter the consequences.