Learn to Balance

The past few weeks have been an emotional whirlwind for me. The adrenaline of being in a new place is now turning into a heightened realization of all the things that make this home both beautiful and heartbreaking. My joy at finding that, yes, that little voice inside of me saying that the risk of moving across the country to live with strangers while doing work that I'm not really qualified to do was in fact worth taking has only grown. But so has my anger at how racism, classism, and sexism continue to keep people locked in a prison of poverty and disease. So has my sadness as I see how my own stereotypes and prejudices keep me from being an agent for good.

I find myself standing in the space where my deepest joy and my deepest sorrow intersect. I have never been here before, but somehow this place feels more authentic than any other moment that I have lived. I am finally learning things that I have been taught all throughout my life. I thought I knew them, but I realize now that I never did. For instance, I grew up in a family that taught me to respect and love my body as a temple, but I never realized until a guided meditation at work that I have always been ashamed of my body. As someone with a spinal cord injury, I have lived most of my life hyper-aware of my physical limitations, of all the things that my body cannot do. It was not until the meditation that I recognized my insecurity and then saw how remarkably I have lived and served others in spite of my injury. My body is more than its weakness. My brokenness does not have to keep me from being whole. This new awareness is a lesson my mother has been trying to teach me since I was five, but I finally learned it now as I am faced with serving people who because of illness are physically weaker than me. The irony is humbling and daily I am moved to feelings of gratitude for my body that I have never felt before.

Another lesson I have learned here is how to appreciate my breath. I have spent the past couple of years trying to foster a personal mindfulness practice. In fact, one of the things that had first attracted me to Joseph's House was their incorporation of mindfulness into the healing process. In mindfulness, a large emphasis is placed on focusing on your breath as a means of stilling your spirit and centering your life. But whenever I would sit still and try to focus on my breath I would end up breathing so raggedly that I would nearly choke. I took classes, read books, and talked to spiritual mentors about how to meditate with my breathing but nothing helped.

Nothing helped until I held vigil for a resident dying at Joseph's House. His health had been declining rapidly and as I held his hand I could feel his whole body as it shut down. At that point, the phlegm in his throat was choking the resident's airways and his weak lungs were barely pumping. Though he had once been a dynamic force of a man, now he lay crying silent tears as all of his physical strength waned.

Despite the bodily and emotional toll of his dying experience, the resident still had the spiritual strength to hold himself gently. I watched in amazement as he methodically drew breath after breath. It took me a few minutes, but I realized that he was trying to mindfully breathe. In the absence of the power to speak, or the energy to even think out a prayer, he mustered everything he had to focus on calming his breath - the only thing he had left. Though it took everything he had, he was determined to celebrate the ability to breathe. To use every breath to encounter God.

With my hand still holding his, I began focusing on my breath. My breaths came easy and natural supported by lungs that are young and healthy. His breaths came ragged and labored pushed by lungs on the verge of death. With each of my breaths I prayed for peace for his spirit. For him to have the strength to let go. For him to know how much he is loved. And as our breaths found harmony, I learned why mindfulness begins in the body with your breath.

Life is a great balancing act. I am learning how to juggle work, community time, grad school apps, and time for self-care. I am learning how to represent my culture and family while being far from home. But perhaps most importantly, I am learning how to love myself. How to balance my burning desire for social justice and my everlasting need for compassion.