Introduction – Working with the Dark Side
My wife and I have benefited greatly from private therapy for many years, and we worked with our therapist to help prepare us for the uncertainties and fears about my Multiple Myeloma cancer. Among other valuable insights, we explored the importance of facing one’s fears and anxieties – the dark side – when dealing with an anxious and uncertain future. My tendency has always been to stay positive. I am naturally an optimist, which is good, but this tendency can also be a form of hiding and “not dealing with” the reality. As this can leave my wife wondering if I’m really paying attention, and feeling like she has to explain the negatives and risks to family and friends when I gloss over it. I’ve been learning to be more open and expressive about my fears and anxieties.
A Meditation into the Darkness
The summer before my CAR T-cell therapy at MGH, our therapist taught me a simple meditation which has proven to be very useful. She had me sit quietly and breathe deeply. She then asked me to imagine being a scuba diver in full gear, with oxygen and mask. I have done scuba diving, so this was easy. She asked me to imagine slipping down in the water and slowly descending towards the bottom, eventually settling on the sand, quiet, peaceful, in the dark and the silence. From this vantage she asked me to check in. What was I feeling in the dark? What thoughts, fears, or anxieties were lurking nearby? When something arose, take a look. Be curious. What did it feel like? What else did it bring up? Something from childhood? Something from my illness? Some fear about the future?
After spending some time in the dark, the therapist reminded me it was time to return, and told me to follow the bubbles back up to the surface. Having done this meditation a number of times, I can say it was quite useful. I have learned a lot.
One day during my hospital stay during the CAR T-cell treatment, I was alone for a time and I did this meditation. I quieted myself and then imagined drifting down in the water and sitting on the sandy bottom in the dark. I thought about the pleasant quiet peacefulness of being alone. But I was still able to feel my pain and fear, and to feel guilt for causing my family and friends to be so anxious about me. Wanting to be free of all this, I imagined sinking further, down deeper into the sand where I might feel nothing. As I drifted down, I felt the sand and the dark close in above me. I had no physical sensation, and no emotion. Covered under the sand I could let everything go. It was if I had never been, and there was no one to care about. I felt nothing. No pain. No guilt. Just emptiness.
Finding Light in Darkness
There was a kind of freedom in the emptiness. But, at the same time, the space was becoming big, dark and heavy. Imponderable. Oppressive. Ugly. As much as I had wanted the freedom to not feel, I now ached to be free from the emptiness.
I know that we are all ultimately “alone” in our own skin and no one else can know own interior experience. But it is also a gift to be able to feel and to be with others, even with the pain, sadness and guilt. Without that we are in a dark and empty prison – a hell.
In my meditation, I began to sense others. The patients, some grievously ill. The cheerful staff, silently coping with fatigue, with fear, or with death. Even as they cared so cheerfully and competently for me, they all had their own pain, as did my wife and my extended care team. Everybody is in pain. What could I possibly do to help with all of this pain? Maybe the best I could do is just to be present with others in pain? Not to intrude or disturb, but just to be present. To offer a space to hold their pain, as so many were holding space for mine. To touch gently with my eyes, ears and heart. And – in doing so – my own pain could be eased.
How to Live
I rose up, sending swirls of sand cascading back to the ocean floor, and followed the bubbles of air back up. I felt light. I felt loved. I felt sad, but hopeful, for those that suffer in the dark spaces. Can I learn to be more present for all of them? This includes the nurses and staff that care for me and the ones I pass in the hall. It also includes the other patients suffering in their own illnesses as well as their troubled family members. It includes my own family and friends, of course. But it also includes even the strangers I encounter in the hallways, in a store, or on the street.
If the light shines brightly for me, perhaps I can offer some of it to others.
