Part 1 – in case you missed it.
During my two years of intense practice of Tae Kwon Do before I met my husband, I had two very interesting experiences. We would meditate before and after each class. Sometimes it would be for a minute, other times it would be for 5 to 10 minutes, but regardless of length, it was a time for us to center ourselves and focus on the class to come or review what we had learned at the end of class. Oh my word! I never realized how very important those times of meditation were – no matter how brief.
The first experience occurred at the end of class. We had started our meditation and for no particular reason, I focused my intention on the front of the room where our instructor was sitting, also in meditation. Then next thing I was aware of is being at the front of the room and yet I knew I hadn’t moved an inch. The realization that I was outside my body was slightly terrifying since I’d never experienced it before. I then felt a tug at my navel and promptly got pulled back into my body, where I sat in shock until our meditation concluded.
The second experience occurred during a relaxation exercise in class. I was lying on the floor, relaxing each set of muscles, until my body was fully relaxed. As my body started to relax, my mind recalled the previous incident and because of the fright of leaving my body, it felt as if I was floating just above my physical body, but my head was still firmly planted in my body. It was truly one of the strangest feelings! I was still in graduate school at the time and didn’t talk about these experiences. I chalked it up to something that was rather scary and tried not to think about it too much.
My husband introduced me to Whitley Strieber’s Dreamland. Whitley and his wife Anne, are two amazing people who have experienced so much and have been kind enough to share those experiences with the rest of us. I recently started going through and listening to Dreamland from the very first episodes. Certain parts of my job allow me to plug into my iPod and blissfully learn new things while working. I came across an episode from 2004 where Whitley interviewed Dr. Hank Wesselman. Little did I know that this episode of Dreamland would be the first step towards a new beginning in my spiritual journey!
Dr. Wesselman discussed his book The Journey to the Sacred Garden: A Guide to Traveling in the Spiritual Realms on the episode of Dreamland from August 2004. I was very excited to hear him talk about his experiences with meditation. It reminded me of my own experiences of leaving my body. However, I was most intrigued by the great healing possibilities one can develop through spiritual work.
I have always been a fairly healthy person. But that changed in 2007 when I started breaking out in hives every evening. My allergist put me on medications to control my hives so that I could sleep through the night without trying to scratch my skin off and not look like a walking disease in the morning. After I graduated with my master’s and my stress levels decreased, I was able to do away with one of the three medications, but I was still dependent on two of them. Around 2011, my mother began asking how long I would have to take my medications to control my hives. I thought it would be forever since my hives would return when I missed a dose. At her insistence (Thank you, Ma!), I went to a new allergist since we had moved to a different city. He told me there may be more to my hives than previously thought and referred me to an endocrinologist. In 2012 I was diagnosed with Hashimoto’s Thyroiditis. I thought the Universe was playing a sick joke on me. I studied endocrinology all through undergrad and grad school and now here I was being diagnosed with a disease of the endocrine system. I failed to see the humor.
My endocrinologist recommended that I be placed on thyroid hormone which is typically what most people with Hashimoto’s are prescribed. I decided to go with Nature-Throid instead of the synthetic Synthroid. Depending on your source, some argue that Synthroid is perfect, others say that Nature-Throid is preferable. Personally, I have done just fine on Nature-Throid. I asked my doctor what would cure my Hashimoto’s because I did not want to be on medications for the rest of my life. The answer was: nothing.
As hackneyed as this may sound, my resolution for 2013 was to lose the excess weight I’ve been carrying around since puberty. I had previously started working out on three separate tries to lose the weight, but life and other responsibilities have always intervened leading to a relapse to bad eating habits and lack of exercise. I was finally sick of it and I decided that 2013 was going to be the year I finally regained my health, Hashimoto’s notwithstanding. I felt the time was right – we were in a new house that had the space for a home gym, and my work scheduled allowed me to work out in the mornings. I was ready!
To be continued…
**Please note: I am not a medical doctor and I am not dispensing medical advice. I am simply relating my personal experiences with disease, medication, and weight loss. If you have questions and concerns regarding your health, please consult your doctor.**
Saturday, February 23, 2013
Saturday, February 16, 2013
New Beginnings – Part 1
For you to understand my present, I must tell you of my past.
My mother is Catholic and my father is a Jain. They decided to raise me in the Catholic Church and so I was baptized, I took my First Communion, and even went through my Confirmation. However, coming from a home where my parents were different religions exposed me to many ideas outside of Catholicism. Additionally, one cannot grow up in Bombay and be religiously isolated – I had the great fortune of being surrounded by friends from many different religions. I grew up in an environment where people respected the religious differences of friends and religious holidays were celebrated by all – it was a time to get together, eat, drink, and give thanks for family and friends, regardless of religion.
Although I was raised Catholic, even as a child, I didn’t agree with all the teachings of the Church. I would refuse to say parts of the Mass because they just didn’t sit right with me. And yet, I loved singing and so I loved that aspect of Mass. I also enjoyed quiet prayer and meditation, and I briefly considered joining a convent. However, I realized that was not the path for me. As I grew into my teenage years, I was still rather dissatisfied with the Church, but continued to attend Mass partly because of my Mom, but mostly because I loved participating in the choir.
My college years started out tumultuously in the context of religion. I tried making connections with other Catholics through the Newman Center and tried attending services weekly, but my heart wasn’t in it. So I drifted away from the Church but I wasn’t looking for a replacement religion either. I tried talking to a priest about what I was going through, but his answer was to trust in the teachings of the Church and use them as a base to explore other teachings. It sounded rather oxymoronic to me. Freshman year of college, I called it quits and left the Church. Leaving the Church didn’t bring me the absolute peace I thought it would. I was still spiritually lost.
As I went through my academic career in science, I learned quickly that religion and spirituality were not to be taken seriously. If I was to become a scientist, I really shouldn’t dwell on these topics, nor should I discuss them where I may be overheard. Heaven forbid my reputation be damaged by a belief in imaginary beings that can’t be quantified and analyzed! Anyone who broached the topic of spirituality was met with derision. So I kept my inner turmoil to myself. In fact, I buried it so deep that I almost forgot the spiritual aspect of myself.
Leaving the Church left a hole in me. No matter how much I tried to ignore the feelings of loss and uncertainty, they would occasionally bubble to the surface and cause me a lot of anxiety and confusion. Mind you, I never considered myself an atheist. I would sometimes joke that some days I felt like I was an atheist, other days I was still a Catholic, but sometimes I was an agnostic. It was my way of dealing with the hole. I took a class about Women in Eastern Religions. And for a while I embraced Buddhism. But it never really stuck – the hole was now pretty large, and I was tired of trying to fill it. So I continued to ignore it.
By this time I was in the middle of my master’s thesis. I finally met the man who is now my husband. He is a Hindu, a Kashmir Shavite to be specific. My husband has a very strong sense of who he is and of his religious beliefs without ever imposing them on others. I truly admire this aspect of him. I also recognized that this facet of him resembled my parents and their relationship with religion. You can’t be married to someone of a different religion and be overbearing and close minded about other religions! I am supremely thankful for having parents who were so open to the other’s religion. My husband was certainly not bothered by the fact that I was not the same religion as him. When we married, our ceremony was pretty neutral and didn’t mention any specific deity. It was lovely!
After I graduated with my masters, I still felt the void, which was now quite staggering in proportions. I considered Buddhism again and then I considered Wicca, but every time I tried to find a new belief system to fill the hole, it just didn’t fit. I would occasionally consider returning to the Catholic Church, but I didn’t see how returning to a belief system that seemed so very wrong to me, would fix anything. I felt like I would never find something that would make me whole again. So I carried on, me and the hole in my soul.
To be continued…
My mother is Catholic and my father is a Jain. They decided to raise me in the Catholic Church and so I was baptized, I took my First Communion, and even went through my Confirmation. However, coming from a home where my parents were different religions exposed me to many ideas outside of Catholicism. Additionally, one cannot grow up in Bombay and be religiously isolated – I had the great fortune of being surrounded by friends from many different religions. I grew up in an environment where people respected the religious differences of friends and religious holidays were celebrated by all – it was a time to get together, eat, drink, and give thanks for family and friends, regardless of religion.
Although I was raised Catholic, even as a child, I didn’t agree with all the teachings of the Church. I would refuse to say parts of the Mass because they just didn’t sit right with me. And yet, I loved singing and so I loved that aspect of Mass. I also enjoyed quiet prayer and meditation, and I briefly considered joining a convent. However, I realized that was not the path for me. As I grew into my teenage years, I was still rather dissatisfied with the Church, but continued to attend Mass partly because of my Mom, but mostly because I loved participating in the choir.
My college years started out tumultuously in the context of religion. I tried making connections with other Catholics through the Newman Center and tried attending services weekly, but my heart wasn’t in it. So I drifted away from the Church but I wasn’t looking for a replacement religion either. I tried talking to a priest about what I was going through, but his answer was to trust in the teachings of the Church and use them as a base to explore other teachings. It sounded rather oxymoronic to me. Freshman year of college, I called it quits and left the Church. Leaving the Church didn’t bring me the absolute peace I thought it would. I was still spiritually lost.
As I went through my academic career in science, I learned quickly that religion and spirituality were not to be taken seriously. If I was to become a scientist, I really shouldn’t dwell on these topics, nor should I discuss them where I may be overheard. Heaven forbid my reputation be damaged by a belief in imaginary beings that can’t be quantified and analyzed! Anyone who broached the topic of spirituality was met with derision. So I kept my inner turmoil to myself. In fact, I buried it so deep that I almost forgot the spiritual aspect of myself.
Leaving the Church left a hole in me. No matter how much I tried to ignore the feelings of loss and uncertainty, they would occasionally bubble to the surface and cause me a lot of anxiety and confusion. Mind you, I never considered myself an atheist. I would sometimes joke that some days I felt like I was an atheist, other days I was still a Catholic, but sometimes I was an agnostic. It was my way of dealing with the hole. I took a class about Women in Eastern Religions. And for a while I embraced Buddhism. But it never really stuck – the hole was now pretty large, and I was tired of trying to fill it. So I continued to ignore it.
By this time I was in the middle of my master’s thesis. I finally met the man who is now my husband. He is a Hindu, a Kashmir Shavite to be specific. My husband has a very strong sense of who he is and of his religious beliefs without ever imposing them on others. I truly admire this aspect of him. I also recognized that this facet of him resembled my parents and their relationship with religion. You can’t be married to someone of a different religion and be overbearing and close minded about other religions! I am supremely thankful for having parents who were so open to the other’s religion. My husband was certainly not bothered by the fact that I was not the same religion as him. When we married, our ceremony was pretty neutral and didn’t mention any specific deity. It was lovely!
After I graduated with my masters, I still felt the void, which was now quite staggering in proportions. I considered Buddhism again and then I considered Wicca, but every time I tried to find a new belief system to fill the hole, it just didn’t fit. I would occasionally consider returning to the Catholic Church, but I didn’t see how returning to a belief system that seemed so very wrong to me, would fix anything. I felt like I would never find something that would make me whole again. So I carried on, me and the hole in my soul.
To be continued…
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