Engagement Photo - May 2010
The Best-Laid Plans
~written by Laura Facciponti Bond
Standing in the doorway of a new chapter in my life I decided to take a brief hiatus from my blog entries. I planned to return to my blog in July, but as the saying goes, “The best-laid plans of mice and men often go awry.” Back when this decision was made, I was getting married in early June and recognized it was important to trim down my normally hectic schedule to the bare necessities. My intended, George, and I were planning our wedding together as a unique celebration centered around honoring our family and closest friends as the influential community guiding and supporting our union. Since George and I met creating music for the New Thought church, the Center for Spiritual Living, intricate plans were well under way for multiple studio recording sessions to prepare music for the ceremony and represent our shared history of meeting while creating such inspirational music. Meanwhile travel plans for all our out-of-town guests needed to be made, along with plans for a our exciting week-long honeymoon to the Bahamas.
I knew at the time it was important to pay close attention to my own emotional balance. I was marrying the love my life, my best friend, and soul mate. I wanted it be joyous, perfect, and to reflect the incredible gratitude George and I felt for what we had found and were committing to in this public forum. I wanted to savor everything and not fall into the depths of the stereotypical SOB (Stressed Out Bride) syndrome. Luckily, George and I tend to be very open communicators and detailed list makers. So we adopted a plan to keep the process in perspective with regular check-ins, mini celebrations for each accomplished goal, and constant (often daily) affirmations of our love and attraction for each other. Even though large amounts of money were being spent that would at times cause a brief moment of light-headedness and panic, and the to-do-lists and errands seemed endless and un-manageable, our plan for keeping an even keel, and a through line of emotive joy, passion, and tenderness prevailed through it all. The SOB rarely reared her ugly head, and was quickly shooed away easily due to our dedication to this emotional through-line of tenderness, passion, and joy for the process.
Our engagement pictures taken in May reflected these emotions. Our eyes glowed, the smiles were easily authentic for the camera, heads tilted with tenderness, and we often threw our bodies back into joyous laughter for our photographer, reflecting the true exhilaration we felt together in this process. These emotions remained consistent and a dominant presence through pre-wedding, wedding, honeymoon, and during the week after our return from the Bahamas.
Then, late one night on June 22nd an element was introduced that would shift my emotional state so strongly, with such profound force it has turned into one of my biggest body learning lessons of my life. That evening I was overcome by an extreme case of vertigo. Attempting to get up from the bed that night, the room spun and I collapsed. All attempts to move in any direction caused wildly dizzying vertigo spins and the simple act of sitting up and walking to the bathroom took concerted effort and concentration to keep me on my feet. Although vertigo was not new to me, having experienced dizziness and vertigo in the past, I had never experienced it this bad. And my first reaction was, “No! Not now!” That panic of timing was well justified. I was not only a newly-wed who wanted to enjoy this new chapter in my life, but I was supposed to fly to Montreal in four days to teach a week-long workshop on Alba Emoting. Unfortunately, my worst fears soon became a reality, I not only had to cancel my trip to Montreal, but the vertigo condition set up house in my system for months. For the rest of June, July, August, and the beginning of September I would face one of the biggest physical and emotional challenges of my life. I could barely walk across the house, certainly could not drive, and was now land-locked in a disabling condition that turned out to be almost as mysterious to the copious specialists and doctors I saw as it was to me.
As a somatic educator of emotion studies, I could not help but notice how it immediately changed my emotional life. Overnight, this physical condition shifted my emotionally blissful state into a body of fear and sadness. I felt my entire body lock up into fear. My neck muscles stiffened, shoulders blocked, and my back braced with each vertigo attack. Some of the many remedies recommended had me in a neck brace, sleeping propped up for days on end, and when I could sleep and allow my unconscious state to let down its guard, I would awaken constantly during the night if I moved my head or body in a certain direction that would cause another vertigo spin — once again locking me into a fear position, and the only release–anxiety and sadness. When I wasn’t dizzy or on guard for the dizziness, my exhausted body would simply collapse from days and hours of bracing, into a state of sadness, which I knew from all my work over the years in emotion studies was motivated largely by the need to purge this extreme state of tension held night and day for such a long time.
Exampe of pure FEAR/Surprise in a child
During the days my eyes had to look out into the world, moving independently of a head that was connected to a locked neck (a strong indicator and signal to the brain of FEAR) since the slightest movement of my head caused greater spinning. At times I would find myself nearly blacking out, in a crumpled pile on the floor if I happened to get carried away with my movements and reach joyously up to hug my husband, pick up my little dog for a quick cuddle, or simply put a glass away on a high shelf, tilting my head upward. The simplest daily head movements could evoke dramatic results that not only were dangerous (if in a car, or holding sharp objects) but easily scared and upset those around me who could not help me either. Not only were my days starting to fill with trepidation about doing the simplest actions, but I soon began to envy even general emotional expressions in life that I could not do any more: to throw my head back in laughter, to tilt my head in tenderness, to soften my posture with sensuality. All seemed un-approachable, unattainable now in this state.
In desperation for answers and help, I sought not only many different doctors, but the assistance of my ministers at our New Thought church. The philosophy of New Thought is essentially mind-over-matter or “change your mind and you can change your life.” I knew, with this life challenge, I would need to employ everything I knew from somatic education, Alba Emoting, the scientific health profession, to spirituality in order to aid my recovery.
While many doctors offered rounds of remedies that had varying degrees of change to my challenged system, my minister offered this sage advice, “Only good will come from this.” As I pondered her words during what seemed to be one the darkest times of my physical health, I decided to embrace this advice. I chose to work everything I knew with my emotional and somatic training, from the health industry and into the spiritual realm in order to rise above this challenge and to find the good. I chose to learn from this lesson, to embrace this challenge as a positive life-changing event, and yet reclaim a healthy balanced life in the process!
(story to be continued)
