Life upside-down? Check. Finding New Balance? Check!

Forgive the rather free-form nature of this blog post, but there's been lots going on and thus there is a lot to share.

Firstly, some physical updates:

I had been cruising along on my polyphasic sleep setup (Everyman 2-nap) and all was well, except that my midday nap spot was slowly doing Bad Things to my back (For those of you who read the newsletter at energy-healing-guide.com, please forgive if some of this is familiar. Not all of this will be the same). Eventually, the back gave up on my stupidity entirely and decided to Teach me a Lesson. Lucky me.

As such things go, it was a lesson well learned. Several, in fact.

* Reading the safety instructions isn't enough. Safety protocols are there for a reason.
I was closing in on the end of the month-long adaptation period, and my back was starting to hurt at the end. I didn't want to give up when I was so close to a complete adaptation, and that was long enough for my napping spot to finish it's job.

* Pay closer input to the minutia of sensory input.
It's all in the details. I didn't even know what physical agents caused the back problems until I reclined in a car seat. Then suddenly, all became clear. My midday spot was in my car, and the absence of lumbar support, coupled with the awkwardly-positioned sit-up at the end meant that it wasn't a matter of if, but when.

* I really, really, really miss my polyphasic sleep schedule.
PureDoxyK recently published a post (check it out at puredoxyk.com) about the horrors of having to sleep monophasically ("normal", sleep-all-in-one-lump-type sleep) for about a week and a half. I let my body sleep as much as it wanted during recovery phase, and I made a promise to my wife and my body that I wouldn't re-attempt polyphasic transition until New Year's. This would give me time to fully recover and get geared up for the switch. . .

And yet, I find myself wanting to cheat. I find myself thinking things like "Well, I can still take my naps..." or "Well, I can pick up a Siesta schedule, that's not REALLY polyphasic" or "I'm well enough to return to work, so that means I should be well enough to get back into a polyphasic schedule, right?!" Mark Twain divided lies into three categories, I'll let you categorize these as an exercise.

*But for all of that, the real lessons and new understandings have been spiritual and emotional in nature.

To be physically helpless and dependent is not something I've had to deal with. I've always tried to be Mr. Big Strong Stoic Silent Helper Handy Man Person. Yeah. When you're immobilized on the ground and it takes several strong rescue personnel to scrape you off the floor, and wheel you out of the house, it shocks you out of your mental patterns.

So often we imagine that the roles we play and the things that we do, and the personae we put on are ourselves. It's no surprise; we get so used to them, that they take on a life of their own. Through patient work, I've made some progress distilling who I am by noting over and over and over that which I am not. This experience (the immediate and the recovery) was such a shock to the mental/emotional system that I had no real way out but to take a closer look at myself, my body, and the interactions between them.

I've been meditating regularly for well over a year now. It's been of incalculable benefit to me. I used to post content on this blog which was basically self development from a technological perspective. But the meditation practice was such a quantum leap forward that I couldn't write about what I had been writing about, and I didn't have a handy frame-of-reference to describe what was happening. It really is too bad; that would have been some good stuff. But I digress.

My meditation practice went out the window after the injury. No good trying to meditate when you're flat on your back and doped up on pain pills.

Oh, and an aside to anyone who reads energy-healing-guide.com and sneers at me for "selling out" and enlisting the aid of modern Western medicine; you didn't read all the way down to the bottom. I'm very pragmatic: I use what works. I write from experience and personal study and I lay out what has worked and (occasionally) what hasn't worked for me. Modern Western medicine is great for treating the physical stuff. I wouldn't use it as a stand-alone, but I wouldn't really use anything as a stand-alone, so there you go. Thankfully, I haven't gotten any such flames in my inbox yet, and hopefully won't any time soon. Again, I digress.

Not meditating for a month really messed me up. The world was darker. Heavier. The petty things of life became more important until it started to become hard to see anything else. I was aware of what was going on, but I was unsure how to handle the situation or what I could do about it.

During recovery after the surgery, I started watching some suggested spiritual movies. Most notable was "Ram Das Fierce Grace". Yowza. Watch it. If you have Netflix, load it up on View Instantly (after you finish reading and share your thoughts, of course). The true story of a renowned spiritual teacher and how he coped with a much larger version of the same problem. The same kinds of reactions, and how he re-united with his spiritual core... it just gave me a great kick to the complacency.

For the one-two punch, when I shared my experience with the community at energy-healing-guide.com, I was greeted with warm wishes and (in one case) a gentle chiding for not including the community to begin with. The ensuing conversation was a real eye-opener. For those who have read of what Steve Pavlina calls "lightworker syndrome", the story will be pretty familiar: I felt (and still do) that my place was to serve. I incorrectly extrapolated this to mean that I shouldn't be asking for help, thinking that such would be presumptuous and selfish of me. Instead, I walked into selfishness and presumption by not sharing. Not only did I take an interesting dialog off the table, one with discussion of what the various events and situations were doing with mind and emotions, but I deprived a community of healers of the chance to do what their heart yearns to do: help heal others. The twin chance to help someone and sharpen the skills, and I didn't even give them the chance.

But. I live, and I learned. I wound up missing what sounded like a great meditation retreat just last week, but I seem to be getting back into the swing of things, and I'm starting to feel more and more like my true self again.

Biggest lesson of all, perhaps: When life falls apart, take a quick look to see what lies behind and between the cracks!

Until next time,

Namaste