By Keneen Hope McNiven, Colorado Big Group
It was the sixth time in five years that I had moved. I lay crumpled on the edge of the old porch, unable to stand, surrounded by broken glass and cardboard boxes waiting to be loaded and moved to the U-Haul truck parked in the driveway. “God-damn hip!”
Feeling financially strapped, alone and abandoned, my left hip declared mutiny while I was packing up and bailed out from under me as I collapsed on the porch, shattering a box of glassware.
Previously, I had prided myself on how efficient and productive I was compared to other widows I knew who succumbed to their grief and couldn’t move on. I told myself that I was not a victim and was determined to get back on my financial feet and carry on with my life. Five years earlier in November 2006, just as the economy started a downward spiral, my husband John had died suddenly from an aneurysm.
Our investments and financial future went with him to the grave. Just the year before John passed I had encouraged him to see an estate planner as his business partnerships and investments were numerous, overwhelming, and complex. He repeatedly procrastinated, dodging the issue with a dismissive joke saying, “I’m not gonna die!”
Lying frustrated and immobile on the porch, my breath came ragged and erratic as I found myself succumbing to waves of rage. I screamed furious curses at God, John, the estate issues I had inherited, my bereft bank account, and the betrayal of my useless left hip. “God damn it! God damn it, GOD DAMN IT.” Tears followed as I succumbed to the accumulated losses and wept uncontrollably, “I CAN’T HANDLE THIS!”
It wasn’t the first time my hip had quit on me. There were times both on my yoga mat, and in my tango classes, that my “glitchy” hip had buckled and complained. Two doctors suggested that I was a candidate for surgery but I had been managing the pain and weakness with body workers, chiropractors, yoga therapy, and my Diamond Approach teacher. I assumed that it was on the mend, but apparently there was still unfinished business lurking within my hip.
My fury spent, and now with genuine tenderness, I realized that I had been in a defensive pattern of too many moves in too short a time. I saw that my busyness and intentions to “get on with my life” had actually kept deeper feelings at bay, and these deeper feelings burrowed into my hip creating instability, weakness, and pain.
“When inward tenderness finds the secret hurt, pain itself will crack the rock and AH! Let the soul emerge.” - Rumi
Breathing into Somatic Sensations
My heart softened as I now turned with renewed curiosity toward the pain in my left hip. Even though my superego resisted the inquiry, I still wanted to know the story my hip needed to tell, more than I felt attached to stubbornly sticking with my agenda to move that day.
Inquiring more deeply into the pain I discovered that my hip felt fragile and brittle. Underlying these sensations was an intolerable leaky quality, as if the life substance had seeped out of my hip leaving a deflated, vacant hole. Breathing into the “hole,” a mysterious, warm, and supportive presence arose that infused my hip from the inside out, dissolving the fragile, brittle quality. The wisdom within this arising, sacred presence, also revealed even more layers of unaddressed issues within the fragmented fabric of my hip.
Liberating Emotional Issues Within the Body Tissues
Despite my “can-do” attitude, I actually felt betrayed and abandoned by God, my husband, and my rebellious left hip. Feeling cracked open, grief and helplessness arose from within the painful tissues and I allowed them to wash through me without defense. Where there had been a psychic hole of un-metabolized issues resulting in a brittle, dysfunctional hip, there was now an unexpected sense of grace permeating and enlivening my hip and entire being. Rather than feeling abandoned I now felt personally and lovingly held. As my heart relaxed open the clench of the “abandoned widow” within slowly dissolved. Feeling encouraged, I brushed the glass shards off, cautiously stood up, and headed to the bathroom.
Releasing Trapped Memory, Sound and Unfinished Business that Burden the Body
I was halfway there when my hip buckled again and I felt the bottom drop out as I went down in the hallway, my hip twitching and trembling involuntarily. Shivering with cold and terror, a painful memory surfaced from my quivering hip.
It was early November, ten years ago. John and I were enjoying our morning together when he suddenly gasped, his eyes rolled back in his head, and slumped into my arms. He was over six feet tall and weighed 165 pounds. At that moment, frozen with shock, I could neither bear his weight nor let him fall. I felt myself start to buckle under his suddenly limp body, but somehow adrenaline kept me from going down too. Feeling conflicted, I knew I had to run and get help but I couldn’t leave him in this unconscious state either. Silently, my whole heart and being screamed from my depths, “OH MY GOD, I CAN’T HANDLE THIS!,” but no sound left my lips at the time.
Lying on the floor outside the bathroom, I had just relived and released a flashback frozen both in time and within my hip. A moment of horror and conflict when my husband abruptly died, and the bottom dropped out of my life. Despite my best efforts to put that day behind me, the trauma still lurked unresolved in my body. Now trusting my body’s instincts, the trembling eventually worked its way out, along with the buried trauma.
Exhausted and empowered all at the same time, my soul was deeply touched, as if by an act of grace. The pain and weakness in my hip seemed to melt away as the memory dissolved. I stood up carefully, my hip now feeling alive, supple and supportive again, went out to the porch, swept up the glass and then called my landlord to renew my lease.
Today
Today I remain surgery-free with only occasional “conversations” needed with my hip. The betrayal of my rebellious “God-damn hip” has become a portal to a more embodied expression of grace and True Nature that continues to touch my soul, health, life, and work to this day.