The Primitive Brain

I've been doing a lot of thinking about our autonomic nervous system. There are so many functions that our brains perform in our bodies without us having to think about them. Of course, everyone likes to highlight the obvious - respiration, heartbeat, swallowing, etc. So many inner workings that don't require so much as a conscious exhalation on our part.

But what happens when something goes wrong?

A young friend of mine just went in to have a valve replaced in her heart. It was to be a relatively routine procedure, but complications, three back-to-back open heart surgeries and twelve hours later, she was in a medically-induced coma, her heart was stitched together with pig parts and battery-operated, and they were unsure whether they would have to put in a pacemaker as her heart was unable to beat on its own. Thankfully, the few days prior to her having to undergo a pacemaker installation, the bottom of her heart began to beat independently, and then the entire thing was capable of working on its own. She was discharged this past weekend, and though she has a giant scar and an incredibly sore sternum, she is awake and alive to see the grass rippling in the wind and feel the sun on her face. She wins this round.

Another friend's relative just had their 18 month old son die. Eighteen months old. Death can sometimes be a blessing as a relief from suffering,  but particularly in the young it has a hard edge of tragedy, that taste of missed opportunity and squandered potential. Who could he have been? What friends would he have made? Who would have fallen in love with him? Whose lives would he have influenced? That feeling of missing the ability to see him grow, to become a man, to embrace the life that was out there waiting for him - seems somehow an inconsolable loss, and I didn't even know him.

I watched "Chasing Mavericks" with Gerard Butler last night. A young boy, in love with the ocean, timing waves as an adventure in his own personal exploration. In an act of selfless heroism, he rushes to save a dog, but is swept out to sea. Saved by an expert surfer, Frosty, he eventually becomes his underling, learning to ride the big waves, the freakishly huge rollers that are so rare they are nearly mythical. His determination to overcome, his hard work, self-determination, and perseverance were an inspiration to me - though I personally have no aspirations to ride a 5-story tall wave. But it was a story of courage and overcoming. It was a story that spoke to me on a fundamental level, triggering a reaction deep inside me, in that part influenced by raw emotion. Our Primitive Brain. So many opportunities in life are passed by, I feel, by people who are too scared to try, too scared to fail.

I've recently decided to pursue my 2nd degree black belt. I have several injuries that prohibit me from doing all the requirements, and because of my neck injury, quite frankly I'm terrified to break a board again. I broke plenty prior to the car crash that injured me so badly, but haven't since. However, in the past year I've undertaken a mission to conquer my fears once again. This isn't the first time.

At a martial arts camp in Hawaii in 2008, I came to the revelation that I had spent most of my life being afraid. Afraid of change, afraid of the unknown, afraid to fail, afraid to embarrass myself. I was afraid to be anything less than perfect - and the reality that it was keeping me from doing almost everything because I was afraid to do ANYTHING crashed on me like those waves. I sat there in the sand and watched the movement of the Pacific and the roil of the thoughts in my head. I was tired of living in fear. I was going to break the boundaries on the parts of my life where I was letting myself be held back, and I was going to get back into the sparring ring after a concussion nearly ten years before. I was going to ride my horse in a show, and I was going to tell the world that I wasn't going to let it stop me from accomplishing my dreams.

I came back from Hawaii invigorated. I signed up and fought in every local tournament held in the state. Sometimes I lost. Sometimes I took 3rd, or even 2nd, and once I even took 1st place. (A golden day - pun intended!)

Once I kicked my instructor's wife in the head - after being explicitly warned not to as she suffers from a seizure disorder. (My foot slipped up after hitting her chest protector - it wasn't malicious or intentional.) I cried buckets of tears over that, though everything turned out just fine and she did not suffer a seizure from my slip. So I embraced my fear, I put myself back in the ring, and yes, I took a few hits. Was it scary? Absolutely. Was it exhilarating? Positively! Was it rewarding? Definitely.

I learned that the accomplishment of getting in the ring was worth it, and I learned more about myself by stepping into the spotlight instead of staying in the shadows. In the end, it was not the medals and trophies, but the fact that I had overcome something that had terrified me for over a decade.

Then, in 2009, the car accident that I was in threw all my forward progress into a tailspin. I was just trying to get home (ironically on a Monday) and one driver not paying attention and *snap!* I could have died. Had the oncoming truck not stopped, I would've been an accordion between the lanes. Had I not been young and fit I could have easily snapped my neck, the doctors said. Had I not been wearing my seatbelt I could have been injured far worse than I was. I was hurt, but even more than the physical pain was something deeper. Psychologically, I was back to square 1.

Fear.

Fear became the all-encompassing factor in my decision-making process. I was in constant pain. From that day to this one, there isn't a day that my back and neck don't hurt. It's chronic pain, but it had permeated every bit of my life. I was afraid to drive. I was afraid to lose my job because I couldn't work. I was afraid of being hurt worse. I was afraid to ride my horse. I tried to watch every single car on the road around me simultaneously. I nearly had a total breakdown when I felt like my husband was driving too fast on a wintry day. I did not get into the ring, or even on to the mat for months. Fear and pain became my companions, whispering in the darkness when I lay awake and couldn't find sleep, no matter how desperately my body craved it. And even when I could sleep, the pain would awaken me again, and I would lie there with my fear, heart hammering, gut clenched. Afraid.

Gone were my carefree days as post-crash just the simple task of putting on my shoes or picking up my dropped car keys became an ordeal. I couldn't ride my bike because my back couldn't tolerate the bouncing nor the position leaning over the handlebars. Road trips became my nemesis, reducing me to bent-over stabbing, hobbling pain when trying to extricate myself from the passenger seat. I was told by the health professionals that I wouldn't run, or ride horses or do martial arts again, and in the face of the monumental struggle required to even dress myself, for a time I believed them.

I sat on the couch and ate Ben & Jerry's to console myself, and wondered what my life would be like without any of my favorite things. I've always been an active person, but just trying to get through a day at the office and survive the terror of the five mile drive to and from work exhausted me. I fell into a slump, and my husband no doubt wondered where his happy-go-lucky wife went. But I just couldn't see my way out of the well I'd fallen into, and little by little, I was drowning.

Thankfully, I was saved by my love of yoga. There are all different styles of yoga, but my heart lies with power yoga. Strong, relatively fast-paced, and dynamic, I love the movement between the poses, demanding balance, coordination, flexibility and grace. My first attempts at standing on the sticky mat were relatively pathetic. From being able to flat-palm the floor, now after the accident, my fingertips couldn't reach even to my knees. I was disheartened, that old perfectionist streak creeping back in, but I was determined as well. Doing yoga three or four times a week on my lunch breaks and in my impromptu Saturday morning yoga group with friends worked its magic and slowly loosened up my tight and painful muscles. My fingertips one day reached the tops of my kneecaps, then my palms could cover them, then somehow they could stretch all the way to mid-calf. The day they brushed the tops of my feet I could have cried in happiness, and little by little they touched the mat, then my knuckles could reach it, and finally, one glorious day, my tentative palms felt that delightful texture beneath them.

My back and neck will never be the same. Wishing, dreaming, and hoping over the past nearly four years haven't changed that. But I can do things now that I never would've believed possible. I've been working with a personal trainer at the gym and did my first ever unassisted pullups and chinups. I can run for miles, including finishing my first half marathon in July of 2011. I got back onto my horses, and have started finally training my gelding. And now, I'm staring in the face of the 8 hour test for my second degree black belt. I can now reflect on how far I've come, but know just how much farther I want to still go. There are limitations, and that fear of the reverberation of not going through that board still scares me, but I am conquering my fears and I am moving forward. My husband has his wife back, and I have my life back. The Primitive Fear has gone back into the Primitive Brain and I am once again in charge.

I'm always particularly reminiscent around my birthday. Some people view it as merely another day, but for me it always has that taste of excitement, that expansiveness of my desires, that moment of introspection to take stock of what I've accomplished, what dreams are still glistening just out of reach, and where my heart lies. A brush or two with death sometimes makes you really sit up and pay attention to your life. There's a road ahead, but for the first time in a long time, both of my feet are on it. Here's to the future, and that belt with two golden stripes at the bottom. BOOYA!