A bladder loved.

 

My bladder still leaks. Sometimes I am so used to it and then I attend a wedding in my hot little red dress and start to jump on the dance floor and with the warm release remember that I have holes. Leaks. Places that no longer work as they once did. I have to keep stopping and padding. I jump less and feel slight embarrassment with each trip to the bathroom.

So, it leaks. I'm working on it. I don't believe I will live with this forever. I do love the irony that bladder issues have to do with holding, with fear of letting go. So mine just lets go a lot since emotionally I am a master holder!

The pain from Interstitial Cystitis is mostly gone. Holy shit. I'll type that again. The pain is mostly gone. Today was the first day I've had a flare up in months. Months. This part of me working better than it has in so many years. I can have sex with ease and fun. My body can move and flow. It feels a bit like a rebirth for this part of my body, this feminine squishy loved place.

I feel sexy. I feel open. I feel my yes.

(Please grab that mantra for yourself.)

***

The pain was the crazy gift. I love my bladder. I have deep respect for all it does and even for what it can no longer do.

I understand that when I am 'off' like today it is a reminder that I am heading towards a new place. And that I must drink water even though I don't like to pee often.

It is my gentle nudge that I must start to create the nest for the new.

This loved bladder of mine allows me to feel present. To not run away.

Being present means not always being strong. It means feeling tired (like I am today) or scared. It is understanding the fears so we can move through. Each time new space is coming in our lives, something happens. It is in the listening that we are able to move through.

You can be strong later. In the present you need to feel it to move through it.

***

We have been talking about feeling in Making Space for Surrender. Feeling what you are fighting against rather than numbing it or silencing it. Feeling it so it can become a guide towards what you want. Feeling it so you can find a way to what you need.

So tonight I am going to put on my yoga pants and make mug after mug of steaming red raspberry leaf tea. I'm going to make a huge pot of chicken corn chowder (recipe will be in Holiday Joy Up). I'm going to clear out a few corners that have piled up with stuff.

***

On the last full moon I tried to release silence. Held the word inked on paper onto the red flames of the fire. But truly I suck at release. I don't like it if I'm being honest. But I wrote it down as though that word needed to jump out to the paper.

I thought it meant that I needed to find ways to talk more about how I am feeling.

What I've realized in the last few weeks is that I am actually releasing the fear of silence and opening to the softness of what I adore.

I use words. Typed on this old computer. Words unspoken are how I process. How I share. How I guide. How I teach.

For now I am not the girl in the therapist's chair. I write. I write to breathe. I write to move through. I write to feel.

And in the silence of my writing I find home, find love, find truth, find you, find longing, find peace.

***

A bladder loved. I had to feel the pain to find the love. And so...

***

A new prompt for those of you keeping your vision books. Find that intuitive beauty resting inside your lovely eyes, and play.

She's...

I don't know how to live without the pain.

"And if you feel free, you feel empowered. And every negative emotion that exists—hear this—every negative emotion that exists is because there is some sense of loss of freedom somewhere in there."

--- Abraham

I think in blog posts sometimes, well a lot.

I think about my pain, the pain that has mostly been released, in blog post style, in my mind.

Physical therapy last Wednesday. A safe space where I go to work through the pain that I held in my pelvic floor, in my muscles, for so long. Where I learn to strengthen and stop fearing my body.

The confession: I don't know how to be without the pain. I've spent months understanding the pain, healing from the pain, processing the pain, learning to release the pain.

I know the pain isn't something that was happening to me, it was happening inside of me.

I know that the pain has been in my life for over 15 years.

I know that I don't have to have the constant fear of, excuse of... the pain. Now that it is going. But I do need to accept it as something that once was.

I know that I don't know how to live without the pain. I am learning.

I know that the pain was mine. No blame. Just mine.

As I am working through this release and into freedom it is this place I find myself, learning to live without the pain. No longer having the excuse, the set-backs, the chaos, the nurturing when down, the time away healing, the whatever it gave me.

And most of all I know that I don't have to feel the pain anymore. Just the reality of it releasing. I  can think about it in blog posts, but I have to feel it.

That is freedom. Freedom is what I'm ready to feel.

It is this that I am starving for.

You ask. I answer.

The questions keep pouring in from this post.

We can sum them up as, "How did you do it?" Here is how.

1. Be in it in truth.

I spent so many years with the pain in denial. I spent so many years with the pain in blame. I spent so many years with the pain in complete silence.

I didn't talk about it, no one really knew. I wanted to believe it was something that came from outside of me, that if I could just find the right pill to balance my estrogen I would be fine. But I eventually stopped even looking for the pill because nothing worked. And no one truly seemed to ever understand.

I remember the day I wrote to 3 of my sweet friends who also happen to be life coaches of the most amazing variety. It was a 'feeling sorry for myself' letter. I told them that I was so tired of feeling pain and flare ups and that I just wanted to sink into the couch and cry and pity myself. I was asking them permission to let it all go and just be in it.

They let me. They said, "Yes. Yes you deserve to feel pissed and sad and rotten. You deserve this moment to feel sorry for yourself. And now that you've had it, what now? What now? What is next?"

After I allowed myself to be in it, to finally surrender to the truth I decided to get help. Real help.

I am blessed to have an incredible Dr. to guide my way, but if I never told him or asked for his help I would just be living in the pain.

2. Stop doing it alone.

I went to the best of the best and got a million invasive sucky tests to determine what all of this was about. Then the specialist suggested surgery. I said no thank you. I was dealing with a triple of threat of issues, but it doesn't matter what they were, they just all needed to be addressed.

From there I found a physical therapist who specialized in pelvic floor and bladder.

I knew that the moment I walked into her office nothing would be the same because I was on the path to healing. Her work changed my life.

It is a huge commitment to go to therapy once a week. Huge. And I did it. I am still doing it. I am healing.

3. Deal with your shit. 

As I was doing the physical work of healing it triggered out all my stuff. All my stuffing. All my shit.

I tried really hard not to deal with it. One day I realized I had no choice.

Truth. Peeling. Allowing. Surrender. All of it. It was so flipping hard sometimes I couldn't move or breathe.

The amazing thing about the truth is that it sets you free to soar and it doesn't matter if it has been 20 years or two months. Do it, risk it, be in it and deal with it.

This life of mine is far too precious to be living any other way than in beauty. And it will suck sometimes getting to that beauty.

As you start to peel and tell the Universe what you want watch as every person who enters your life does so to support you moving into this truth. Every book you see, word you read and story you tell will draw you back towards the journey towards flight. Your flight.

Yes, it will probably rock your whole world and scare you. You will have to make decisions you've never wanted to face. You will risk hurting someone you love. And you won't want to do it because hurting someone feels wrong and scary. But what if your feeling good is the most truthful pure beauty you can bring to this lifetime? Wouldn't that mean that those around you could only be better once you started to fly?

Oh yes baby. Yes.

4. You deserve this.

Right? Maybe it takes you until 38 years old to know that. Maybe 56 or 87 or 28 (damn lucky 28 year old!). Your life has been guiding you towards this moment. The one where you stand naked and are vulnerable and raw and know that you deserve this.

To be whole. To be healed. To be so fucking in love with your life that you make everyone around you giddy with possibility.

Be in it in truth. Stop doing it alone. Deal with your shit. You deserve this.

That is how I am doing it.

With hands placed.

Surgery was suggested. I will wait. A lifetime to make that decision.

The leaking of my bladder became worse in April after the worst flare up of IC that I have experienced. I was angry. A 37 year old body. I kept thinking how unfair that was. But is it 'fair' at any age? Don't we teach the kids that 'fair' isn't what we are looking to find in this life, but rather freedom and passion inside of ourselves.

So fair? No. That is the old story.

The moment comes when you are ready to tell a new story because you are ready to stop holding on to what was.

My bladder leaks. Now I must strengthen it. I must learn to use this body of mine along with all of the resources and healers waiting for me. On a daily basis I can handle the leaking with chemical free liners and I am no longer feeling the shame of this.

There is a gift of nurturing myself inside of this strengthening I will be doing.  I place my hands over my bladder and my belly each time I start to feel a flare up and I breathe light into myself. I ask my bladder what I must release so that it can settle.

With hands placed I let go of what was.

Filling with joy for what will be.

***

More from the bladder story::

Prayer. Feet. And the beauty.

As our body cries out.

The pain of the present.