Feminine and its Divinity
#5 Journey of Healing with Rheumatoid Arthritis
It is the onset of Navratri*… It is the best time for me to speak about the intervention of feminine energy in my life and in my healing.
My first encounter was with my neighbor, who turned into my very dear friend now. One fine morning….as I was going about my usual routine, waking up from meditation and starting the day, I heard some chitter-chatter in the living room, I came down to check……It was a couple a young man and a woman, they were visibly happy to see me, and they introduced themselves I was so happy that this young couple had shifted to my neighborhood and was interested in knowing me.
That little acquaintance turned into a beautiful friendship…The couple was younger than me, far more intelligent, and aware of everything that I wasn’t. As I started talking about my life and my condition to them….I started bonding more with the young woman, she was so empathetic to my condition….She was doing her masters in psychology and her input created a lot of difference in the way I looked at my health condition. She was my first angel in disguise.
She was the one who deciphered the term “psychosomatic” for me and how my rheumatoid arthritis could be linked to it… Just like my joints, my mind is also sour, inflamed, and not being healthy…..The interaction and our regular discussions made me look at therapy, though I didn’t find a good therapist, the interaction with a psychologist as a friend was doing the job….She referred me to books and articles about unaddressed trauma.
In due course of time, I realized, I have severe anxiety, especially during sunrise and sunset….the cause of it goes back to my unaddressed childhood trauma, which resulted in my inability to deal with difficult situations and caused chronic stress, chronic fatigue, and overall disrupted gut…All these are symptoms of rheumatoid arthritis apart from degeneration of joints and ligaments.
Experiments show the amount of care a baby gets from its mother is directly responsible for the child’s response to stress…If one is brought up in a nurturing environment, one shows better resistance to stress and performs better during difficult conditions, while the lack of care and nurturing environment does just the opposite…one becomes extremely sensitive to stress and is prone to all diseases related to chronic stress and I was one of them. My early signs were anxiety attacks, panic attacks, and not being able to comprehend and respond to situations that seemed difficult and conflicting in my mind.
She suggested a tea that works for me to date and I have even taken its affiliation and recommend it to anyone with anxiety issues. Click here to try it out, Another, very important thing, she did was point me to my Ayurvedic doctor.
The doctor was my second angel in disguise, I consulted her during my worst kind of flare-up….I took her consultation for more than 2 years as she predicted, it would take that much time to see improvement. We worked together like a team, she would see me every month and I would give her a report on how much pain I experienced that month, and how many bouts of indigestion, migraine, and vomiting instances I had…..Every month on month it went on, till the symptoms came down and chronic pain reduced and was localized to one or two smaller joints. One fine day, she left the clinic where I used to visit her as if it were time for me to look in another direction... thus, I found my third angel.
The third angel was my martial arts teacher, I have been under her training for about 2 years now, I have spoken about her in my previous blogs and I will leave the link to it at the end. As soon as I started doing this very structured and almost divine workout that dates back to the ancient south Indian Pallava dynasty, I felt my energy coming back, I stopped collapsing due to fatigue almost immediately, and my muscles started building up. I look forward to my workout session with my teacher and I always feel better after the workout session, even though there are times that I skip a few days.
In the last 2 years, my frequency of falling sick has come down from 15 days a month to 5 days a month and the intensity has reduced drastically….Even in those 5 days, I am able to function in some way or the other as compared to the time, when I couldn’t do anything at all and lie on the bed almost paralyzed with pain…The credit goes to my mei-padam class as I am not on any medication. Here is a link to the blog on Mei-Padam
What else would you call these women other than angels or Devi who walked in at the right time and their intervention gave wonderous results, they provided it with so much empathy and concern. I always pray for their well-being from the Divine Mother. May there be motherly love blessed to all and may we all walk out of our sufferings…These 9 days are the celebrations of what’s feminine…the creator, nurturer, and safe keeper to heal us into health and eternal bliss.
Navratri* is a 9-night worship of Mother Goddess in her glorious 9 forms…It is celebrated as a spiritual event in most of the eastern cultures originating in the Indian subcontinent, It is a celebration of music, art, food, and other cultural activities, women and men dressed up in colorful attires dance throughout the 9 nights…This culminates into the 10th day of Vijayadashami, the day of victory. Everyone who loves to sing, dance, and dress up looks forward to this festival. Everyone singing praises of the Devi.
