When my mom takes her cancer to chemotherapy, I bring my anxiety to yoga class. Our teacher, Shelly, tells us to find a comfortable seat. If we need to, we’re allowed to sit in a pretend chair, a cushion on the floor with an attached back that hinges with one’s waist. But it’s best to sit crisscross applesauce and straight up like a rod. The taller the better. That way, an IV drip of electric energy can flow freely through our spines, from the root of our tailbones clear to the tippy-top of our skulls. If it reaches our crowns, God will hone in on our heads and strike us with enlightenment. These aren’t Shelly’s exact words, but I’m good at hearing what’s not said.
I grew up watching my mom meditate. She always sat in a chair — a real one — and, horror of horrors, slumped against the back of it. I was a skeptical child, less inclined to believe a magical man sat atop a gaseous cloud after discovering none lived in the North Pole. So I frequently interrupted my mom’s spiritual transfusions. Every time, without exception, she slowly and gently blinked her eyes open and greeted me with a soft and easy smile. To watch my mom rouse from meditation was to understand why she had chronically low blood pressure.
Shelly instructs us to watch our breath. Of course, we can’t see our breath because the temperature inside the heated studio is above the dewpoint; water droplets in our breath do not condense upon exhalation. Also, our eyes are closed. What we’re supposed to do is describe our inhales and exhales with adjectives. Wow, my breath is shallow and tense, like a spastic squirrel in my chest, for example. The more I pay attention to my breath the more tenuous it feels. I can make it slower, faster, deeper or shorter just by deciding to. What will happen when my brain stops paying attention to my breath? Will my breath know to keep breathing?
Right as I’m beginning to wonder whether meditation will kill me, Shelly tells us to stop thinking. Again, these aren’t her precise words, but I’m a quick study; I know what she means. She tells us to notice when we have a thought and say to ourselves, each time, “Thinking.” Then we’re to watch our thoughts float away, as if drifting down a river.
I notice this thought of mine — what if I die? — and I say to myself, “Thinking.” That reminds me that my mom is dying, which feels overwhelmingly sad, and I start to panic a little bit, but I say to myself, “Thinking.” “Thinking” doesn’t seem to adequately capture the magnitude of this particular thought — I think. So I tell myself, “Thinking.” You have terrible posture. God is not going to find your head. Thinking. And so it goes. Thinking. Sit up straighter. Thinking. Thinking. Sit up straighter. Thinking. Thinking. Thinking. Thinking. Ugh.
Pause here. As I’m writing this, I’m singing the word “thinking” to the tune of “Push It” by Salt-N-Pepa and adding a fun little pop of choreography! With each thinking, think: the gentle chest thrust that occurs when you sit up straighter. Now back to the story.
I trust my mom, so I trust that meditation, conceivably, works. By “works,” I mean it replaces the terror of death with easy smiles for my children. I’m just doing it wrong. So I ask my mom how she meditates. She tells me she sits quietly. My eyes roll so far back into my head they reach puberty.
“There’s got to be more to it than that,” I say.
“Well,” she says, “I usually start by reading a passage from the Bible, and then I close my eyes and reflect on the message.” This isn’t going to work for me, though; I don’t read the Bible. I don’t have a port carved into my chest — a direct line to my heart — either. All I possess to lure in God is my energetic head.
“Do you pay attention to your breath or watch your thoughts float down a river or something?” I ask.
“What?” she clips and crinkles her forehead. “No.”
The next time Shelly tells us to find a comfortable seat, I grab a pretend chair and I don’t worry too much about posture. When I notice my brain making a grocery list, I don’t pester it with thoughts about thinking. I just let it carry on with its business. I remind myself that my autonomic nervous system is responsible for respiration; I don’t need to micro-manage it. I do cry a little when I remember my mom is dying, but Shelly doesn’t catch me. My tears are trapped behind closed eyes.
Laura Waldrop is a recovering engineer, yoga therapist, and neurodivergent writer, with prose published in MoonPark Review and NeuroKind. In her free time, Laura enjoys lazy days with her husband and two daughters, moving her body in nature, playing the piano/cello, and—true to her roots—building spreadsheets. You can find her at www.waldroplaura.com and on Threads/Instagram at @laurawaldro.
Image Credit: Flickr Creative Commons/Benjamin Balázs
From the inside to the outside ,your beauty shines dear Laura. God bless.