I studied the beautiful martial art of aikido for 13 years, got a black belt, taught it at Apple Computer for several years — would still be doing it if my knees hadn't had enough. I've practiced yoga for 24 years, almost half my life. These are intensive physical disciplines requiring enormous, extremely precise control of the body. Every muscle, every tiny movement, the expression on your face, the motion of your breath are all part of the whole. You have to master all of it. The miracle is that you can.Yet the further you go, the more you realize that controlling the body is merely a baby step toward something much, much harder: controlling what happens in your mind. In aikido, it's controlling fear and reflex; staying relaxed, easy, joyful with an attacker bearing down on you, eyes wide open and aware while you're spinning, rolling, flying upside down. Blending with the energy of an attack, channeling it into smooth, clear motion.
In yoga it's ending thought, in savasana (corpse pose). You just lie there on your back, resting, with your arms and legs splayed out and your eyes closed. Sounds easy. But the point of the pose is to clear the mind of thoughts, simply inhabiting the body, feeling the breath rise and fall. No past, no future. Only the present moment, here, now.
Eventually you learn: savasana's the hardest pose of all. Harder than 10-minute headstands, back bends, splits, extreme contortions of all sorts. In those poses you can't help but be in the present. You're concentrating so hard, against so much powerful physical sensation, that you almost don't have a choice. (Though even here your mind can wander.)Worrying's the same. You know it doesn't do any good, but you keep right on going anyway. You're addicted. You decide to stop, but your vigilance gives out after 2 minutes and once again you're fretting away, mainlining anxiety, doing your drug. Your six-blade knife, do anything for you. You worry in your sleep, while you're working out, at the movies — even, secretly, while saying goodnight to your child, whispering to your partner, laughing with your friends. And you just can't stop. Not under your control. Maybe you blame it on somebody else, usually the person who loves you most. Maybe you blame yourself. Either way, now you're worried about worrying.
In my case, I can stop the conscious thoughts to some degree. But these infernal f-ing headaches just keep hanging around, stormclouds on the inner horizon, an embodied form of worry. The muscles in my face seem to be in permanent spasm. Hard little knots of fear, bundles of pain. Here's a partial list of what I've tried:
- Self-hypnosis recordings on relieving TMJ and headaches
- Binaural beat recordings
- Hot tubs
- Saunas
- Professional massage
- Self-massage (ma roller, fingertips)
- Yoga
- Inversion sling
- Moist heat pack
- Cold pack
- Ibuprofen
- Vicodin
- Ativan
- Alcohol/no alcohol
- Caffeine/no caffeine
- Inane TV shows
- Trashy mystery novels
- Intermediate bite splint (thin, hard)
- Soft bite splint
- Books on trigger points and TMJ
I know some people live with headaches forever. But now that the HCL is (temporarily) behind me, I'm determined to wipe them out. Maybe this will just happen, slowly, as an unconscious process. Right now I'm trying a week of heavy-duty ibuprofen, vicodin, muscle relaxants, bed rest, on the theory that if I can knock out the pain long enough maybe the muscle spasms will ease. Various appointments with specialists are pending, but I don't have high hopes. Ultimately this has to come from within.
It's going to take mind control. And that is just, basically, incredibly hard.
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