My Endometriosis Journey and it’s Healing Pathways
Dedicated to all those brave and fearless young girls and women holding deep suffering in their hearts and wombs.
An ocean of feelings, emotions and wounding would swirl up when a visitor would show up every month at my doorstep. Anger, confusion, rage, irritation, loneliness, and life coming to a halt with unbearable pain, inner turmoil and strong feelings of hate and injustice towards my own feminine side. Yes, endometriosis is a thing and it can pretty much take over your complete life.
Today, after 26 years of battle with my monthly visitor, periods and different forms of endometriosis I have finally found a place to ‘rest and be’.
For me it all started with prior generations in form of inter-generational trauma, genetic patterns in both sides of ancestry and a long history of suppression of emotional wounding. I have lived and breathed endometriosis as long as I can remember watching my grandmas, mothers, aunts, sisters, cousins, a whole section of women around me and of course - myself. With a strong resolve to stop this transmission to my 10 years old daughter, it led me to a journey I could have never dreamed of walking.
As a little girl of 12 years old when I first started my periods to until recently in my late 30s, my relationship with my own reproductive organs was estranged, ranging from sad to hateful to extreme despair. Painful puberty, terrifying mensural cycle, life endangering pregnancy, traumatic miscarriage, hormonal imbalance, severe iron deficiency, endo surgeries, severe depression, chronic weakness, an incapacitated mother, struggling marriage and 3 plus years of endometriosis brought my life to a complete standstill in late 2018.
I finally decided to face the reality.
I quit my professional career and stopped everything else in my life. My only priority was to improve deteriorating health of both me and my daughter. My whole being was burning with just one search - there has to be a solution for this immense suffering. This seeking, led me towards finding meditation for the first time in my life. Within 6 months of simple breathing and focusing towards building a positive relationship with my body, I was completely off anti-depressants. The results were astonishing and as you can tell, I never looked back.
With this began my full time exploring different techniques of meditation and mindfulness to becoming a certified and registered meditation teacher. For better and worse COVID19 has had unspeakable impact on the entire humanity. With this inward time, I could peel layers after layers of mental, physical, emotional, psychological wounding. And as my heart was healing, so was my mind and body. With practice, time, patience and self-compassion my cortisol levels dropped significantly. There were times when I could see clearly without brain fog, my body felt better, my emotions started to balance a little. Simple ways of meditation and mindful living were beginning to pay off.
Today, it's been more than 7 years living with endometriosis and I am still on path of recovery.
But my healing journey has inspired my family, friends and a small community around me. It has spread the awareness and power of simple ways of our own healing capacity. All species on planet earth has this incredible skill and capacity to simply sit and breathe. All animals, plants, birds do that and we humans can too. Pain is an inevitable part of life but suffering doesn’t need to be. The invitation is to explore the difference between pain and suffering through your own direct experience. Incredible benefits of meditation and mindfulness are now also backed by scientist and doctors all around the world.
This is a home coming journey. It’s been too long we have been far away from home within. It’s time to release and let go. It’s time to discover trust and strength within yourself, taking one step at a time, at your own pace, honouring and having compassion for your life journey, just as it is. “Acceptance is a prerequisite for change,” – Susan David. Creating space for this acceptance towards your body, pain, sufferings and strengths and wisdom too. The promise is this, in its own time, from that space a new ‘you’ can be born and bloom as you choose to be. This is what I discovered in my own meditation journey, discovering new healing pathways with my changing conditions. Being courageous and brave as you already are, taking each other’s hand and beginning a new healing journey, endless and boundless. Together, as a mindful community we can do this.
With great appreciation and joy in our sisterhood,
Sweta
This Blog has been written for QENDO and shared with consent.
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