In yoga class today I almost had another panic attack. It may not have been as close as I think, but I felt my throat close, my thoughts become disoriented, and a flush of heat rush over my body. Tears streaked down the side of my face as I lay on my mat, trying to "receive the stretch".
I cannot stop thinking of surrender, and how it seems to be the only tool I have found that will give me peace, but only in the context of trust. I think of yoga, homebirthing, parenting, friendships, the person of Christ, the Church, my future, my childhood and my relationship with my husband.
The voice at the front of the studio says that even though our muscles shake, or our hamstrings burn, we shouldn't pull or contract; we release, we give in, we breathe into our pain and discomfort, leaning fully into it.
My hypnobirthing instructor told me the same thing. She refuses to call it a contraction - it is a surge or wave, and you receive it, not brace for it. She goes over and over the fear-tension-pain cycle that happens with our muscles - and apparently our souls. Fear is the root source of all pain, she says. Trust that your body is made to birth this child, relax every one of your muscles and pain disappears.
She's actually closer to right that anyone would think, as I experienced it. Visualizing a rose opening slowly and beautifully, and whispering a calm prayer for God's grace to give me a "safe, smooth and manageable" birth, I somehow breathed slowly through each and every contraction until safely delivering my babies.
My counselor tells me to "lean into" my sufferings. He actually tells me to drown in them. Pain or fear or hunger or longing or sadness (oh God, sadness can be so overwhelming) all instinctively and almost immediately bring about in me the emotional position of a taut, tense body bracing and pushing against a force. "I will not let it overcome me", I want to say.
Being overcome is terrifying, and I wish I could explain why. Am I afraid I'll cease to exist? Am I afraid I'll pass out from the trembling pain of my abs holding a pose too long? Do I think the pain will kill me if I give into the contractions instead of fighting them? Do I imagine I will never be happy again if I don't insist upon being loved, rather than sitting with loneliness?
Well, I suppose I do, but the very opposite of my fears happen when I give in, or lean into, or receive the pain and discomfort that scares me. A stretch becomes deeper and even pleasant; a contraction becomes productive and empowering; loneliness and pain become companions instead of enemies.
The mystery of the cross seems to me more about the mystery of death swallowing death. We imagine that life and light will fight darkness and death, and I see how that's true in the end. But Christ came in such an unexpected way, without offering us anything but Himself and His death. His quiet, solemn, sad surrender to death is what brought life to us. Love is hidden in death?
The small bits of love I manage to give to my family do come from death, and the more death to myself that is involved, the sweeter the love. I grew up hearing the verses (over and over and over) in church that we should "die to ourselves". Yet now I wonder if that act is much less a killing of self, than a brave, trusting surrender to the unknown, sometimes hidden person of Christ who offered - is offering - Himself to me.