Heather Plett, Author at Heather Plett

The secrets the body wants to tell me

by Heather Plett | May 5, 2010 | body

The last couple of months – what with the surgery, the near loss of my beloved, and the trip to a wisdom-filled conference in Chicago stuck in the middle – have included some deep spiritual growth that surprised me and that I’m just now finding the time to process. Most of it has taken me on a different journey than I would have expected.

It’s a journey into my own body.

It’s a journey that includes learning to listen to the secrets my body wants to tell me.

Last night, in my art journal, I painted a picture of my body along with the words “my body is my temple where I meet God”. I’m learning, bit by bit, what those words mean.

Whenever you embark on a spiritual journey, it seems that the wisdom you need for that journey shows up just when you need it.

A few weeks ago, I found a book that must have been in my suitcase for several months but I have no memory of putting it there. Writing begins with the Breath, by Laraine Herring. I started reading it when Marcel was in the hospital, thinking it would be a diversion that would help me plunge into much needed sleep when my mind was busy taking me down roads I didn’t want to go. It was a diversion, but it was also much more closely linked to what I was going through than I expected. The wisdom in it, in fact, helped me share, with tender vulnerability, the story in this post.

There is so much in that book that spoke to me, but the passage that drew me in the most was where the author talks about her own personal story of “leaving her body behind and living in her brain”. That was an “a-ha” moment for me, because it speaks so clearly to my own history. I have always lent more credence to my brain than my body and rarely have I treated my body as anything more than a neglected vehicle to get my brain where it needs to be.

Like every other woman I know, there’s a lot of baggage that I carry around when it comes to my body. I hadn’t really recognized, though (until I read Laraine’s story) how much I was missing in my spiritual journey and my art, writing, and living by not listening to, trusting, and loving my body more.

After that book was done, I picked up Women, Food and God – mostly on a whim on a trip to Costco, never imagining that it was the perfect follow-up book to Writing Begins with the Breath. Wow. Talk about wisdom about the body and the way we interact with it! Reading the book, I felt like Geneen Roth was holding my hand, looking deep into my eyes, and saying “you know this body you’ve been gifted with? Stop treating it like an encumbrance. Start loving it and listening to it like you would a trusted friend. Start believing in it.”

It was like a kick in the pants and a gentle invitation, all at the same time.

Last week, just before we went on our mini-vacation, I started internalizing some of the wisdom those books offered. I am developing new “body practices” that are slowly teaching me what it means to listen to the secrets my body wants to tell me. One of them involves speaking gently to my body – treating it like I would a wise and trusted friend – and saying each morning “dear body – what can I do for you today? What movement do you want? What food do you need to replenish you?” And then before each meal, I say “please, dear body, tell me what you need and when you’ve had enough.”

It’s amazing what your body tells you when you take the time to listen! I’m re-learning how to hear the cues of “hunger” and “fullness” and not simply eat when it’s time to eat or when the food looks good. I’m remarkably satisfied when I’ve eaten what I need.

Geneen Roth talks about how the mind lies to you but the body never does. I’m learning the truth of that statement. My mind tells me silly lies like “if you don’t eat that piece of cake, you’ll never taste sweetness again” or “you really need to finish that plate of food because an empty plate is next to godliness”. My body, on the other hand, tells me “that’s just enough food to give me energy to get through the day. You can stop now.” I’m practicing shutting down the brain and letting the body speak.

Wouldn’t you know it – a third book showed up to carry me one step further. One wouldn’t expect a book called Life’s Companion – Journal Writing as a Spiritual Practice to have anything to do with the body, but… surprise, surprise… it has a whole chapter called “The Guidance of the Body”!

Which brings me back to what I put in my art journal last night – my body as my temple. “You cannot revere the body as a temple at the same time that you despise it. You cannot divide the body between extremes of asceticism or indulgence and expect to understand its role as a spiritual vessel. In this conflicted atmosphere we learn to live in our minds or our bodies, but not to live in the body/mind.” (Christina Baldwin)

What lessons have I learned so far?

This temple needs a little TLC to make it a more welcoming place for the Spirit to reside.
When I listen closely, my body tells me what it needs.
Treating my body with respect is spiritual, not hedonistic.
Some of the voices in my brain are not worth listening to. Careful discernment tells me which ones those are.
My body is much more content and filled with more energy when I listen to the cues of “hungry”, “full”, “move”, and “rest”.
When my body is healthy, I am more able to offer up my giftedness in acts of service.

After painting in my art journal last night, I took it one step further and painted a henna on my stomache. It was truly lovely moment – honouring my body in the presence of its Creator.

When the ground feels shaky, learn to move with it

by Heather Plett | May 4, 2010 | growth, hope, journey

“When you come to the edge of all that you know, you must believe one of two things: there will be earth to stand on, or you will be given wings to fly.” – Author unknown

Today is my first day back at work after three weeks of spending time with my beloved as we search for healing following his suicide attempt. It’s good to be transitioning back into some form of “normal”, but I have to admit, the ground still feels a little shaky under our feet. Healing doesn’t happen overnight.

I feel a little like what I imagine earthquake survivors must experience – you can’t quite trust the ground anymore. Who knows when the aftershocks will come?

At the same time, though, there is something strangely invigorating about re-building when the metaphorical earthquake has left your foundation unrecognizable. You don’t assume the same things are rock solid anymore, so you factor in more flexibility. You realize you have to re-think old patterns, so you look for better materials on which to build.

Gradually you learn to trust the earth once more, and when it shifts again, you’re more ready to move with it. You enter the dance of change more readily when you’ve learned to bend at the knees.

Though he doesn’t know it, and wouldn’t admit it if you pointed it out to him, Marcel has been my teacher these last few weeks. He is spending a lot of time re-thinking old patterns and habits. He’s reading, he’s learning, he’s talking to wise teachers, and he’s practicing what he learns. He’s trying to find new foundations and new ways of thinking and being that don’t result in the same tragic results. He asks honest questions, and he doesn’t get angry when he doesn’t like the answer. I’ve seen an openness and vulnerability in him in the last few weeks that is remarkable and awe-inspiring. In a family that has never been given to much sharing of emotions, he’s learning to say “I love you” to his siblings. With a personal history of never being able to accept a compliment without turning it into a joke, he’s practicing saying “thank you” and trying hard to believe it. He’s even learning to set aside pride, shame, and stubbornness to say “I need help”. Those are all lessons I can learn from.

We are growing as a family. Our daughters are watching him and they are learning new habits through what they see modeled. They’re watching both of us, and through it all, I believe they’re learning what it takes to build relationships, trust people, grow, adapt, and be strong while still admitting to weakness.

Slowly but surely, beauty is emerging from the ashes.

Getting nostalgic over a giant moose

by Heather Plett | May 1, 2010 | Uncategorized

It’s difficult to find words to convey the gratitude I feel for all of the beautiful, heartfelt comments on my last post. It wasn’t easy being that honest, but as is usually the case when we make ourselves vulnerable, you opened your virtual arms and wrapped them around us. Marcel and I are both comforted by the stories, wisdom, and compassion you showed. Thank you, thank you, thank you. (I’d like to respond to you all personally, but am finding very little time to spend on a computer these days, so that’s a challenge.)

We are on a short family road trip. It seemed like a good way to find some family healing, especially since the destination included some of the family members who always support us through the tough spots in life. (And we like to think we do the same for them.)

A couple of days ago, as we crossed the prairies, the girls spotted the giant moose statue where we’d stopped for a picnic three years ago on another family road trip. They started giggling, remembering (and this will show you what a classy mom I am) how I’d taken pictures of them standing a fair distance from the moose and holding their hands up to make it look like they were cupping the moose’s balls in their hands.

As they giggled in the back seat, I was suddenly overcome with emotion. This phrase flooded my mind… “We are still whole.”

We are still whole. That’s an amazing thought. We will have other family giggling moments (like last night, playing Lego Rock Band in my brother’s basement.) We will stop to picnic by other giant statues and find ways of blending them into our family stories.

We have been through a deep valley, but we’re driving out the other side into the light. Together. A wounded but whole family unit. I couldn’t ask for more.

Committed to love, tethered to pain

by Heather Plett | Apr 28, 2010 | Uncategorized

Committing to love, August 7, 1993

In that blissful white-wedding-dress moment when you say “I do”, you don’t pay much attention to the meaning of the words “for better or for worse, in sickness and in health.” You just know you’re in love and “together” sounds better than “alone”.

At that moment, you can’t fully understand that committing yourself to love means tethering yourself to pain.

Only a few short years after saying “I do”, the truth of those words began to sink in. We were expecting our first child. The ugliness that is depression and its equally distasteful cousin, panic disorder, entered my husband’s life. With a mission to destroy. Though we tried to find help in time, the right kind of help remained illusive. On the darkest day, when I thought he was heading back to work after a few weeks of stress leave, he disappeared. We did everything we could think of to find him. In desperation, my mom and I even drove out to his favourite fishing lake.

That night, we got the call. He was at the hospital. He’d tried very hard to kill himself – to end the uncontrollable, paralyzing pain of panic attacks. When he woke up and found that he wasn’t dead, he says an angel guided him to the hospital emergency ward – an angel who clearly knew that I still needed a husband and our daughter needed a daddy.

Together, we found healing. A few months later, our first daughter was born. Then the next year, another. A few more years and we survived the birth and death of our son. Then the third and last daughter came to join our family. We had over 14 years that consisted of more good days than bad. A few times, depression and/or anxiety knocked on the door, but never stayed very long and never threatened the relative peace we enjoyed as a family.

Then one day, out of the blue, with a fierce and terrible swiftness, the black dog attacked again. It came so quickly we almost didn’t recognize its insidious face before it was too late. I was in Chicago when it attacked – just a few short weeks ago. I considered hopping on the next plane, but I was sure it would pass. Just take a few deep breaths and carry on. Please, just carry on.

Only he couldn’t carry on. He spent a night in the hospital just before I got home – desperate to stay safe and not enter that dark place that had almost taken him from us years before.

The next few days, he fought the hardest fight I’ve seen him fight. He meditated, talked to professionals, did deep breathing exercises, went to the gym, increased his medication, even tried yoga for the first time ever. It should have been enough. We were desperate for it to be enough.

It wasn’t.

I went to work on Wednesday morning, feeling hopeful – relieved that the benefit of past experience was helping us weather this storm. I was so proud of him for his hard work.

Then I got the call. His mother’s frantic voice. “He’s at our house. He’s taken pills. A lot of them. What should I do?”

“Drive him to our house,” I said, and rushed out the door. Numb. And frantic.

Half an hour later, I was driving the most desperate drive of my life. “Stay awake!” I shouted at him. “Talk to me! Yell at me! I don’t care, just STAY AWAKE!!!”

The events of the following week and a half could fill a book. I’m a little afraid of writing about them for fear of what intense emotions might spill out. Concerned for his safety and wanting to protect our children, we let the hospital check him into the psych ward. There were many times I regretted that decision, especially when he was essentially abandoned to his own ugly thoughts for the duration of the weekend. Unless I was there (or the friends and family that rallied round), nobody talked to him and nobody offered to help him weather the panic attacks that were still coming. He wasn’t even introduced to the other patients who wandered the halls dealing with their own pain.

Desperate, I fought a flawed and underfunded system to get him help. I lost track of how many phone calls I made to mental health professionals. I did everything I could to find resources, answers, and support. I argued with rude and arrogant psychiatrists. I challenged jaded and disillusioned people who said “our hands are tied – we can’t really do anything for him”. I found only a few people who would take the time to answer my questions or step past the boundaries “the system” imposed on them.

During the day, I fought the fight of a warrior. In between, I sat for hours with my beloved, sharing his pain. In the evenings, I went home and played the role of “strong mom” determined to offer at least some stability to my confused yet brave children. (The oldest two know what happened, the youngest only knows he was in the hospital for stress.) At night in my pillow, and in the van between the hospital, the soccer field, and whatever place my children needed to be, I opened the release valve and let the tears flow. Thousands of aching, desperate tears.

He’s home now, recovering. We’re all still feeling a little shaky, but we’re healing, bit by bit. Each day I see a little more of the light in his eyes that I long for. Sometimes, he even cracks the jokes he’s famous for, and we all breathe a little sigh of relief. He’s working hard at the healing – exercise, therapy, meditation, etc. He wants to live and he wants to continue to be the great father and husband he knows he can be.

No, we can’t know about this kind of pain when we say “I do”. It’s probably a good thing, or we might say “I don’t”. And then we’d miss those moments when we recognize just how hard we’re willing to fight to keep someone alive and just how desperately we dream of living into old age together.

In the end, we wouldn’t want to miss the joy of that moment when we can believe that the future is once again a possibility. Like this moment right now. Scary but good.

p.s. I have Marcel’s blessing to post this. It was hard to know if it’s the right thing to do or not, but if we want to help remove the taboo that still exists around mental health issues, we both believe we need to share our stories and seek collective healing. Your stories are welcome.