Week 9 | Notice Your Knots | Smile at Your Anger

My sense of struggling to heal from having HELLP Syndrome must be obvious in the string of posts you've read so far.

I'm all over the place! One part of me is positive and present and loving and open and ready to move on. The other part of me is still traumatized. Stuck in the details of what happened to me. Stuck in the horror and the survivor guilt of an unavoidable, untreatable illness that kills babies and women (76,000 maternal and 500,000 infant deaths each year globally).

I'm sure it's a huge part of why this blog is disjointed. And why there is such effort in the words I type. It's why some people don't recognize this voice that I'm speaking with.

Sometimes I think about how I would be if I wouldn't have gotten sick. If I would have had Gavin at home as I had always dreamed. If I wouldn't have gotten so close to that line between life and death. Would I care more? Would I care less? Would I be on this same journey?

I still feel angry about my experience. I feel angry about what it means in my life moving forward. I feel angry that I can't just whimsically say to Brian, "Let's have another baby!" without a deep and tenuous discussion of risks. I don't want to feel angry. Sometimes I forget that the anger is there and it jumps out and grabs me. Sometimes I try to feel it more so I can have awareness of it and let it go. And then I feel angry that I haven't done that yet. Anger in itself isn't bad. It's when you're not aware that it's there, and you embody it or act on it that it's particularly destructive. I want to work on my anger this week. On being aware of it, so that I can start to really let it go. I like how Thich Nhat Hanh describes anger as a knot here. I like that visual. I am going to try to get to know some of my knots this week. Transforming them will come later.

Thanks for being out there in the universe. I need to know that you are there and it helps.

Week 9
Mantra: Notice Your Knots
Action: Smile at Your Anger