A couple of days ago, I went to see a shaman. She was a delightful person. We had exchanged emails for a couple of weeks prior. I was scared to meet her but very interested to learn what her work might tell me about moving past depression.
I have struggled with depression for nearly all of my life. My 45th birthday is right around the corner and more than anything, I would like the next thirty or so years that I might have left to be less ruled by how I feel. I've tried every medication over the years. I've been through outpatient and inpatient programs. I've been through extremely disciplined programs through various Catholic and Protestant denominations to help guide me past whatever might be holding me back. I went through a phase of paying a person ridiculous amounts of money to zap my brain with electrodes only to later wonder if she had actually just been a quack because she encouraged me so strongly to stop taking medication while being treated by her. The end result of not taking the medication wasn't good. So at this point, I don't know if there is anything I wouldn't try.
The core of my belief system told me that I was venturing into a place that might not be where God would lead. I sat down in the woman's large, beautiful home wondering if the crystals and candles and things I saw on her coffee table would be used and if that was okay. We talked some about my personal history and hers. She is well educated and has worked in hospitals and clinics in the area. Her travels around the world connect to the work she does now. From an early age, she knew she had a spiritual gift inherited from her ancestors. When she smiles, her whole face lights up and her blue eyes radiate warmth against her gray and silver hair. I felt at ease even though a part of me felt like I was some kind of rebel for talking with her.
She asked me if I would participate in an exercise to answer the question that really plagues me. What am I here to do? On this planet, I mean. I often wonder if I am doing what I am meant to do or if there is more that I am avoiding or unable to do because depression consumes so much of my time. There are stretches of time when I don't sleep well. I wake up during the night and check on my kids to make sure they are breathing. I sit at the table and read. I watch a lot of tv. I scroll on my phone and read about things I wish I was doing or places I wish I was living in or visiting. When I don't sleep, I don't have a lot of energy to do the daily tasks I would like to finish like organizing the messes in my house. The laundry piles up. The dishes pile up. Just making meals and getting my kids off to school and our dogs fed and taken out feels like all I can accomplish. There are also stomach problems that go with the medication I take to stay healthy. When my body isn't absorbing what food I eat because my medication causes nausea and sorry, diarrhea...I don't have a lot of energy. I start to crave carbs and avoid salads. I started smoking cigarettes after not smoking since the minute I realized I was pregnant with my oldest daughter. 11 years smoke free and I went back and I feel ashamed every time I walk into the garage to smoke. I don't know why, but they help with anxiety. I was prescribed Xanax and stopped filling the prescriptions because it made me so tired, so forgetful and so worried that just having that kind of addictive medication in my home is a very bad thing. Cigarettes feel like a lesser sin. There is a lot of what I go through that is related to thinking that I don't deserve the beautiful children I am blessed with and that I don't deserve the husband who loves me unconditionally and who sees me as beautiful and makes me laugh and think about so many interesting things and who makes me feel cherished. I stay inside away from my community because I feel like I don't belong. I fight every day to feel better and to be more functioning than I am, but for years this is the best that I have been able to be and I want to be more. So I accepted the challenge to try the exercise the shaman suggested.
She handed me a rock that was about the size of my hand and asked me to look into it and tell her what I saw. It was a fairly smooth stone with black and brown flecks of color against a white background. My daughter loves rock classification and from spending time with her I would guess it was an igneous rock. Maybe diorite. I looked it over and saw about five smiling baby faces. We laughed. I asked the shaman if other people see other things. She laughed and said yes, people see many different things in the same rocks. She asked if I saw any animals. I looked it over again but could only see little baby smiles. So she wrote down what I saw and asked me to ask each of these images what I was asking her. I asked the baby faces, "Why I am here? What have I left to do that I should focus on for the rest of my life?" The immediate answers that came back to me through my thoughts were, "You are here to love. You are here to listen. You are here to see. You are here to laugh." That was all.
I suppose that's not bad, but what if I never did anything else? Would my life be wasted if that is all that I did? Is that enough? Am I doing enough to be considered worthy of the gifts that others give to me? No answer.
So the shaman gave me another rock and asked me to hold it with me all week. I am supposed to keep it close and ask the same question about being worthy over and over all week whenever the feeling that I am not worthy crops up. Then at the end of the week, she instructed me to return that rock to the Earth in a place I consider sacred or special and let it carry those feelings with it and away from me. She said the Earth will renew those thoughts the way that it takes all matter and transforms it back into new life.
I am sure there are people who would tell me that all of this is a lot of crap. I get it. Some might tell me that I wasted my time and money going there or that I dabbled in something God would not like. I suppose it only matters that I left feeling really hopeful and lighter. I am glad I went to visit a shaman. I haven't made up my mind about going again, but it is something that I am glad I tried.
No comments:
Post a Comment