Last December, at four months pregnant, I went for my first ultrasound. While it was incredible to see the little baby inside me waving its arms about and stretching out its legs, my husband and I were shocked to also see a very large ovarian cyst looming alongside my uterus on the screen. As we drove home that evening, the doctor's urgent advice to have it surgically removed within the next few weeks ringing in my ears, I contemplated my responsibility for this cyst and what I might be able to do about it myself.
As a young, urban, educated woman, I practice yoga, watch the occasional Oprah show and often contemplate what my purpose is in life. I've read Deepak Chopra, Wayne Dwyer, Louise Hay, watched The Secret, taken meditation workshops and given a lot of thought to the ways in which we manifest illness within our bodies. And while appreciative of the fresh breeze of consciousness blowing through the Western medicine world these days, I still can't help feeling a certain amount of pressure from it all. Many of the modern takes on these now-popular ancient philosophies ask us to take responsibility for what's happening in our lives and in our bodies. I've found that it can be a profoundly liberating experience to do so, but I've also found that the idea that I should be able to heal myself, if I truly work at it enough or want it enough, can be paralyzing.
The night I found out about the cyst I sat in the bathtub for a long time thinking things over. First I thought about all the reasons the cyst may have appeared -- leftover anger at the loss of my mother or maybe the financial anxiety I've been carrying around since finishing grad school. Or perhaps it's that unresolved fight with a girlfriend last year or maybe it's something even deeper that I need to work through.
And then I mulled over various things I could do instead of undergoing the invasive surgery. Maybe I should go somewhere like the Deepak Chopra Center or Jon Kabat-Zinn's Center for Mindfulness. Or maybe I should do a cleanse, coupled with copious amounts of meditation and visualization. Perhaps I should just spend some time addressing any unresolved issues in my life and write letters to all those I've hurt. I leaned back in the bathtub and closed my eyes. Every time I tried to picture my baby, happy and swimming around in my uterus, the image was overshadowed by that of the grapefruit-sized cyst growing alongside it.
My guilt about why it might be there and what I should do about it only continued to blossom. Rather than feel empowered by all the spiritual reading and studying I've done in recent years, I felt guilt-ridden and anxious. What if I tried all of the above and nothing worked and it became too late to have the cyst removed surgically, endangering myself and my baby? And if my efforts didn't work, what would that mean about the spiritual capabilities I've long-believed we possess?
Later that night I paged through my copy of Ram Dass's Still Here. I remembered hearing him talk in Fierce Grace about when he had his stroke and how, in that moment, all the things he thought he embodied so strongly -- faith and grace and universal spirit -- were nowhere to be found. In Still Here he writes, "Fear is powerful and contagious, and at first I allowed myself to catch it, worried that if I didn't do what the doctors ordered, I'd be sorry. But now I'm learning to take my healing into my own hands. Healing is not the same as curing, after all; healing does not mean going back to the way things were before, but rather allowing what is now to move us closer to God."
Ultimately, I decided to go ahead with the surgery. Unable to escape the pressure of the idea of healing myself through this ordeal, I took a different approach and tried to simply embrace the situation as much as possible. I went to a couple of sessions with a hypnotherapist who was able to lead me through a series of visualizations enabling me to imagine a peaceful surgical experience and positive outcome -- something I'd been unable to do on my own. And the surgery did indeed go well. The cyst was removed, the baby is fine and I recovered more quickly than expected.
Looking back on the whole experience I can finally recognize the simplicity of the lesson: sometimes just being present is enough.