What is the Foundation of This Life?

Chronic tailbone pain has been my companion for about a year now. It began creeping up gradually, which is apparently very unusual for coccyx pain. Most people join this club by:

1. Falling on it or


2. Having a baby.

I do not specifically recall either one happening to me, though I may have fallen while on a skiing adventure January 2008 with my dear friend Stacey, who is an excellent skier, and sees only her friends' potential greatness.

I am not an excellent skier. I am a midwesterner. Stacey and I accidentally took a wrong turn and ended up on a blue-double-diamond run: Steep and impossible to go back. I went down on my bum for a lot of the way. I also cried for a good portion of it. It never helps when there are six-year-olds passing you in these moments.

Anyway, I recall needing to sit on my inflatable air zafu, on a long plane ride a year ago. The pain became more and more noticeable. Last summer I was carrying around a U-shaped neck pillow everywhere to sit on. By fall, I could not even sit on an air zafu for any length of time. Whatever I sat on had to allow my tailbone to hang with no weight on it whatsoever.

Dealing with sitting pain became a bit of a way of life, as chronic pain just does.*See bottom of post for lots of stuff I did to accommodate it.

I hoped it would just go away for months. ** See bottom of post for adventures with chiropractor and osteopath.

I wondered if there was some psycho-spiritual meaning? The first chakra is located exactly at the tailbone. It is all about survival. Feeling enough. Feeling grounded. And here I am, about to abandon my job to go on a voluntary and unpaid Sabbatical at the dawn of an economic crisis. Scared much? Now on some level, I know I am fortunate to have a partner who can be as much of a safety net as a person can have in a situation like this. I am as safe as a person can be. Indeed.

Tell it to my First Chakra.

First Chakra Muladhara originally uploaded by virtualworld360

I'm wary of those folks who believe that all illness is just a manifestation of some psychological thing. If you hold that stance too rigidly, then there's just too short a distance between that and people being responsible for "creating" cancer, MS, schizophrenia, etc. And it, well, pathologizes old age, sickness and death. What could be more normal than these?

That said, the mind-body connection is also undeniable. My friend Rebecca helped me come to some insight -- that sure felt accurate -- about what this tailbone pain might mean in reference to my taking a Sabbatical. It's been stressful just to make the decision to take off, mainly because of the beliefs I have inherited about the importance of work: Working hard. Working all the time. My identity wrapped up in work. My worth as a person because of my work. And the very idea of not working?!

Of sitting on my ass?

Unacceptable. Not okay.

~ ~ ~

Recently I attended a workshop on Compassion Fatigue. I have been to these professional workshops throughout my career, and about 2/3 of them have found me leaving some hotel conference room, blinking in the 4:00 sunlight thinking, "I have just wasted 8 hours of my one wild and precious life."

But at this workshop, by 11am, I felt I got my money's worth. I won't go into all the details, but basically, the fella who put this together has devoted his life to being a helper's helper. A Bodhisattva's Bodhisattva.

He has applied the light of his consciousness, and the energy of his life towards caregivers; how we go haywire, and how we can remain healthy amidst the suffering we willingly dive into every day.

I was surprised to learn that most of it is about living in a relaxed body. I was even more surprised to learn that how to go about living in a relaxed body means a focus on relaxing the various muscles between the sit bones and the top of the pelvis.

No clenching.

Seriously. It really was this simple. But like anything simple: Not easy. Since that workshop, it seems I can now perceive the constant anxiety and stress and clenching and holding that goes on in this body all the time. No wonder I get so tired! I took my new found anatomical knowledge, and recalled how doing one hip-opening yoga move some months ago released a flood of pissed-off for about 48 hours, and I wondered what else was stored in this area.

Breathe Root originally uploaded by plastictaxi

So, living with pain, and accommodating with my assortment of pillows, I went to a hip-opening yoga workshop a few weeks before the Lovingkindness (Metta) Sesshin. And I incorporated the pigeon pose into my morning routine. I have since learned what is obvious to anyone with a rudimentary knowledge of anatomy -- those hip flexors and all those pelvic muscles are intimately related to the coccyx and its situation.

I felt really spacey after the yoga workshop, and was confused about that response. One suggestion was that things might be getting re-organized deeply inside... maybe there's a big process of change happening.

~ ~ ~

At Sesshin, we began with primary focus on filling our reservoir of lovingkindness by giving lovingkindness only to ourselves for a few days. We did a lying down meditation for a period, in which we combined a body-scan meditation with Metta, offering lovingkindness to each and every part of our bodies.

I lay down with the front of the zabuton supporting my sacrum, and my coccyx hanging off, and a nice rolled up blanket supporting my neck. "May these feet be free from illness. May these feet be at ease. May these feet be happy & healthy...May these ankles be free from illness..." all the way up the whole body. For 25 minutes. I've done body scan meditation, and I've done Metta, but not together before. It was lovely.

I remember standing up from this to start walking mediation, and feeling a distinct ache radiating from the spot around my lower back where osteopathic adjustments had been, and also in the hip area as I stepped forward -- with kind of like a catching or snagging feeling. Something was up. Something was moving. Nothing changed in terms of the pain and limitation, but something was up.

I kept relaxing, and then the second to last day, I did another lying down body scan. After the period was over, I stood up, took a couple steps with that catching and ache, and then, felt:

*click *click *click*

at my tailbone. Did it pop itself back into place? I didn't dare sit on it. I was so scared it was just my imagination. It took me half the day to even dare to sit flat on my bed without the U-pillow. And when I did, it didn't hurt. Much. I must've looked pretty funny kind of tentatively bouncing up and down on the side of the bed with a scared-hopeful-shocked face. There was some residual inflammation, but I then tested myself on an air zafu. I could sit without pain. It had just about resolved.

I wanted to start singing about it, but I didn't want to treat the Metta Sesshin like some kind of a healing tent revival. My initial thought was that on retreat, I finally relaxed sufficiently for my muscles and ligaments to just let go.

I think the combination of everything had everything to do with the improvement. I have since learned a few other things that may have contributed:

Whale 'Tailbone' Sculpture originally uploaded by jmv

There's a website called coccyx.org which is a clearinghouse for all things coccydynia (coccyx pain). There is a section for personal experiences where people can share information, their attempts at solutions, and report on successes or failures. A woman reported that after 30 years of sacral, pelvic bone, and coccyx pain, that she found a little $30 product called... (the name is wonderful)... the Sacrowedgy.

I looked it up. The Sacrowedgy was developed by an osteopathic physician, and now marketed by his daughter. It is a hand-sized piece of plastic that mimics the kind of adjustment her dad used to do for people with tailbone pain. The patients would lie on their backs on the table, where he'd support their sacrum with this hand, allowing the tailbone to hang, and the body to relax -- for 20 minutes. Here's a video demonstration.

I was struck in watching the video that her dad would say that within that 20 minutes, he could feel "a war zone" under his hand with all the muscles and ligaments moving and resisting and releasing.

This is essentially what I did during the lying down meditations! Miracle cure or not, this experience has caused me to reflect on First Chakra issues.

What is the foundation of this life?

During Sesshin, after the Sacred Fool got in on my formal tea service, I observed my mind doing its reacting thing: Replaying the incident over and over, and rehearsing what I would be saying about it after Sesshin was over.

I observed this while taking a shower. Rehearse, replay, rehearse, replay. Past, future, past, future. I watched this boring ping pong game, and realized... maybe for the millionth time, maybe for the first time, maybe with my body, but really realized that None of it, NONE of it was real. I was completely missing the shower. In that moment, only my experience was what was real.

And now THIS moment of typing on a keyboard is real. This moment is the foundation of my life. Which is an ever-changing foundation that cannot be grasped. Not rooted in my job. Not rooted in my husband. Not rooted in money. Groundless.

Can I allow myself to rest here?

*Pillows all over everything I sit on throughout my house, in the car, etc. I would use the U-shaped neck pillow to sleep on, because just lying down on my back would cause the coccyx to ache. I have become masterful at sitting on one cheek. ( It made me wonder if William F. Buckley Jr. had this ailment, as he always sat way sideways in his chair, which I always thought was an effort to appear erudite. I found myself in this posture at times, completely inadvertently, and feeling anything but erudite). I acquired an orthopedic wedge cushion with a little hole in the back for my coccyx to hang out at work, and I am sure my clients think I have hemorrhoids. No zafus to meditate on anymore -- just a bench, and the narrower the better. I even had to stop wearing jeans. The thick fabric just put too much pressure on my coccyx. Unfortunately another way my body has compensated for this pain is to lean forward several extra degrees when I am sitting. While this takes weight off the tailbone, it has wreaked havoc on my neck.

**Maybe I could just be snapped in line. He's a good guy, very into kinesthesiology and I have lots of colleages who love him. He took X-rays to rule out the really scary stuff. He admitted after some months that he was completely flummoxed. He had all manner of theories for my woes. Dural torque (twisting of the membranes covering the central nervous system) was one of them that I recall. He could really crack my spine and neck. But it really did nothing for the pain. Plan B for chiropractic would be a referral for an internal adjustment of the coccyx. Think latex gloves. No, thank you.

Then I realized in a routine yearly exam that my primary care doc is a D.O. (Doctor of Osteopathy). She offered to do some osteopathic adjustments. My parents and grandparents have always sworn by osteopaths. I had never had an adjustment before.

It was very much gentler than a chiropractic adjustment. While I lay on my stomach, she kept one hand the exact zingy-est spot of the coccyx, then with her other hand and much of her weight placed on my sacrum, she would find the spot that made that pain subside. Once found, she would then apply quite a bit of pressure for 90 seconds. The theory being, that the ligaments in the sacrum area were pulling the coccyx to the side. The left side, in my case. The applied pressure was giving it slack again, allowing the coccyx to move back towards its normal position, and lo and behold, providing some temporary relief. The hope would be that with repeated adjustment, the body would remember where the coccyx was supposed to be.

Tangent:
I learned in the course of this journey into healthcare that chiropractors and osteopaths have a hillbilly grudge against each other. This ever since the osteopaths went along with the American Medical Association in the mid-1800's. The chiropractors didn't, so the AMA started calling chiropractors "quacks" until the Supreme Court made them stop in the 1970's.

Nothing against the chiropractors, but the relief was accumulating just a little bit after a few weeks of osteopathic manipulation. My D.O. taught me how to teach my husband how to do this adjustment, and insisted it was not magic. Though I still needed all my pillows everywhere, I at least felt a bit empowered to do something. Plan B for the osteopath was a series of saline solution injections called prolotherapy. No, thank you.