Women's Bodies, Women's Wisdom (177 page)

I wanted to reinvent the practice of medicine. I realized at a deeper level than ever before that one-on-one health care, though valuable, tends to isolate each woman’s problem and doesn’t allow physicians the time necessary to educate a woman fully about all the issues that can affect her body and how she has the power to transform them. So I began to move toward teaching women in groups how to create health on a daily basis.

I wrote a letter to my patients that said, “I am not leaving the practice of medicine. I am redefining it and expanding into new areas that are critical to truly improving women’s health over the long term.” I told them that disease screening (which my training had prepared me for) and creating health (where my heart was taking me) were two different things. I needed to concentrate on a new form now. In my letter I asked my patients to consider the following questions. I ask you to do the same.

What would it be like if you reclaimed the wisdom of your body and learned how to trust its messages?

What would your life be like if you no longer feared germs or cancer?

How would your life be different if your body were your friend and ally?

How would your life be different if you learned how to love and respect your body as though it were your own precious creation, as valuable as a beloved friend or child? How would you treat yourself differently?

What would it be like to know, in the deepest part of you, that every part of your anatomy and each process of your female body con tained wisdom and power?

Unbeknownst to me, I was in the early stages of articulating a new vision of women’s health that required me first to truly flourish in my own life, and then to teach this to others. I didn’t realize, however, the extent to which I’d have to walk through fire to do it.

Though I was sure that the fibroid would start to shrink once I finished this book, that wasn’t the case. It persisted and tended to wax and wane in size. I asked it to teach me. I had dialogues with it. I tried to love it. I then realized that my relationship to work was only one part of my life. I had to reevaluate every relationship I was in, including those with my husband and immediate family. I saw yet another pattern emerging: I tended to put my emotional and creative needs on hold until the needs of my husband and children were met. I allowed them to interrupt me in my home office and during my work, and I didn’t set clear boundaries. My husband and I especially had to begin the process of renegotiating every part of our relationship. I also uncovered the deep belief that if I truly moved into my full potential, those closest to me would feel threatened and would leave me. I would be alone. And so I often made myself “less than,” so that no one else would feel “less than” because of my success.

Just before Christmas 1996, the fibroid got bigger. An ultrasound documented that it was causing backup of urine in my left kidney. I found that I had gradually adjusted my life (and my wardrobe) around my fibroid. Though my periods were never a problem, and I had no symptoms, I simply got tired of having a protruding abdomen. I decided that it was time to let go of my dream of dematerializing my fibroid. I saw that I, too, had a belief that it was “good” to use “natural” methods to shrink the fibroid, but “bad” to seek the help I had so often offered to others. I had run headlong into my own addictive thinking. So I decided to schedule surgery—the path I had tried to avoid (and therefore energized) for four years. I called a trusted pelvic surgeon, a man to whom I have referred many patients, and made an appointment in which we scheduled the fibroid removal. I told almost no one, deciding that it would be best for me to contain my energies, thoughts, and feelings about this. I also started on a GnRH agonist (Synarel) to shrink the fibroid so that the incision would be smaller. (By now the fibroid had reached the size of a very large cantaloupe.) I experienced hot flashes on the Synarel and decided that for me, at least, these were not “power surges”— they were uncomfortable, sweaty disturbances in my day. But other than that, I had no problems, and the fibroid shrank nicely.

My surgery time arrived. I asked both my surgeon and my anesthe-siologist to say the four healing statements to me. (See the section on how to prepare for surgery in chapter 16.) And in addition to the four healing statements, I asked the anesthesiologist to say the following and repeat it several times: “When you awaken, you will have released the emotional pattern associated with this fibroid.” My surgery went well; there was only one large fibroid on the right side of the uterus, embedded in the wall; my recovery was easy, with very little pain; and I left the hospital the day after surgery. For the next three weeks I took naps, had acupuncture, watched movies, and rested. The surgery and recovery were a peak experience for me in many ways. I had faced something I had tried to avoid—the healing path of surgery—and in facing and moving through it I had found care, compassion, skill, and great healing there for me. Though I had wanted to write someday that I had dematerialized my fibroid in a blinding flash of insight, I came to see that in my case that wasn’t to be, and my attachment to that as an “ideal” and “superior” path was just a case of spiritual materialism. (I still know it’s possible, however, for women to dematerialize fibroids; I’ve seen it.)

Looking back on what I originally wrote about that fibroid in 1993 and again in 1998 with the first revision, I have to laugh at myself. I wrote about “carrying the creations” of others, needing to change my work, and on and on. I see now that I was circling around and around the real issue but was blind to it because I didn’t want to go there. I didn’t want to change the very thing that most needed change: my mar riage, the thing that was right in front of my eyes. This is so often the case. Be careful what you ask for, the saying goes, because you’ll probably get it! Sure enough, once my surgery was completed, those magic words that were whispered to me during anesthesia— “When you awaken, you will have released the emotional pattern that led to this condition”—began to work their magic. My marriage of twenty-four years ended about a year and a half later, in 1999. Like everything else of significance in life, this was a process, not an event. And as so often happens, I wasn’t happy about taking this particular dose of healing medicine. I wanted to be married until death do us part. But the price was getting to be too high. And my body wouldn’t let me forget it. I knew too much. If you don’t pay attention the first time, you get hit by a bigger hammer: a fibroid today, breast cancer tomorrow. The pain of that time was the impetus for writing the first edition of my second book,
The Wisdom of Menopause
. And the process of writing it transformed me.

My fibroid, like all the conditions in our bodies, was a great teacher. Through my midlife divorce, I learned up close and personal that you can’t create anything for another person, only for yourself. I also learned that when we face our worst fears and work through them, the process transforms us in miraculous and unpredictable ways. You can’t take another person where he or she doesn’t want to go, no matter how skillful, loving, and compassionate you are! But you can take yourself where you’ve been afraid to go. Personal growth and fulfillment are inside jobs. Ultimately each of us must tap into the Source of creativity, wellness, and joy that is our birthright. Each of us has that ability. It gets strengthened through intent, faith, and the courage to choose pleasure over pain. And it never fails. My divorce forced me to grow in ways that I never dreamed possible. It forced me to take dominion over my life and my finances in ways I never would have otherwise. It forced me to really trust myself on all levels for the first time in my life. Though it was enormously painful at the time, I now feel nothing but gratitude! It made me into a wise, fulfilled, and happy woman. My former husband is a hero in this story. On a soul level, I believe that he signed up to help me become who I am today.

We can’t create a new world if we believe that we must remain small and ineffective on any level in order for others to love us and want to be with us. When we dim our light so that others ap pear to shine brighter, the whole world gets darker. I have had to apply this learning to my marriage, to my friendships, and even to my relationships with entire institutions such as hospitals and financial institutions. The issues in each situation, large or small, are always the same. And they boil down to the same fear: Will I be loved if I become everything I was meant to be? Let me be the first to report to you from the front lines of this process. The answer is a resounding
yes
! But this love must begin with yourself first. When you become more loving toward yourself, more loving toward your body and its processes, and more appreciative of yourself, your vibration changes. Your point of attraction changes. If you wait for someone else to make the first move here, you’ll be stuck in the painful, powerless, victim mode—complete with all its longing, pining, and health problems—endlessly. I’ve been there. It’s hell. But when you have the courage to say yes to yourself, yes to your soul, and yes to life, and begin to realize that you deserve a heavenly, wonderful life right now, then fulfillment beyond your wildest dreams will start coming your way. And the world will open up to you in ways that you never before dreamed possible. Old, outmoded ways of being and living, and old, outmoded relationships, will fall away. And this can be very painful. Just think of it as the natural process of labor through which you are birthing your new self—a self that reflects who you really are and who you were always meant to be. It’s always worth it.