I started going deep into yoga and meditation after my wife Marnie’s cancer diagnosis, and these practices have felt uniquely empowering for me. For almost a decade now, she has had tests every six months. In the last round, one number changed from 0.2 to 0.3. It’s a tiny change, but it set a lot of things in motion.
Some of her previous doctors barely seemed to give a rip. I remember one guy who started reading her chart after he walked in the room, even after something as stressful as having her thyroid removed or a radioactive iodine treatment. He would recommend more tests, but his recommendations never made sense to us.
Now she has a doctor who does seem to care. He never seems like he’s in a hurry, and he answers our questions patiently. After that number moved to 0.3, he suggested more tests and explained why. He also told us about another one of his patients with similar numbers who ended up with cancer all over her lungs. After hearing that story, we both felt scared. It seemed pretty clear we needed to do the tests. That was over a month ago, when we were on a video call in our Prius, watching the doctor on Marnie’s phone, parked in the back parking lot of a library in St. Paul, mooching WiFi to make sure the signal would be good, and we both had tears streaming down our cheeks, afraid.
Those tests required a special diet for two weeks, plus many days of visits to the hospital, and it didn’t all go perfectly. Marnie was supposed to get two shots and a pill over three days. After the second shot, she needed a third because the pill got stuck in customs. Eventually she had the scans and tests.
Those weeks of diet, shots, pills, and scans were stressful. You might be thinking, “But Matthew, you’re a chill yoga teacher. Just let it go.” I wish it worked that way. I’m no super yogi. My practice all of those weeks was mostly to feel into the tension in my body. Not all of the time, but every so often I could feel the fear creep into my body and it was not fun.
That fear has a name. Abhinivesha, clinging to life (fear of death), is the fifth of the five kleshas, and it takes root even in the wise. Mine wasn’t only fear of the unknown. It was fear of losing Marnie.
Last week marked the end of that chapter when we met with the doctor. He looked at the results and said, in a pleasant voice, “You’re done.” We wondered if he meant “done with the diet,” or “done with the tests.” He meant much more than that. He said something that sounded very un-doctor-like: “I’d say you’re guaranteed at least 30 years before this could grow enough to cause any problems.”
Marnie and I both felt our stress levels drop like a giant boulder right there in the hospital. We had plenty of new numbers from the scans, but the one that started all this was still 0.3. Nothing about our lives had changed, but our knowledge of the situation had changed. He didn’t promise the moon or pretend things couldn’t take a turn for the worse. But he explained the situation, and perhaps sensing our fear, he called us a beautiful couple and told us to go enjoy our lives.
Giant sighs of relief.
How to Know What We Know
Patañjali provides a short list for how we know anything. He says that “right knowledge” (pramāna) comes from three sources: direct perception, logic, and reliable experts (āgamāh). In that room with the doctor, the scans showed what was (not) there, and we finally had an expert we trusted to explain it. The number was real, but a number isn’t knowledge until someone can say what it means.
The weeks before the meeting felt different. Patañjali has another word that felt relevant: vikalpa, imagination, which comes from words devoid of substance. The possibility that cancer had spread was real. But when the doctor told us about his other patient, there were times when my mind wanted to turn one person’s story into a story about Marnie, and I could feel the impact of that in my body.
Yoga teachers often tell a story about mistaking a rope for a snake, then relaxing when the danger turns out to be nothing. That’s close to what happened to us. Until the scans, we couldn’t rule out the snake, and the fear made sense.
Our culture rewards simplifying, and it’s a useful skill. At times, though, we need to pay attention to the details. The fear was reasonable, and there was nothing we could do until the tests were done and the doctor made his recommendation. What I could do was notice the fear as fear: a sensation in my body, a response to something real and unresolved.
If you’re waiting on something right now, try sorting it into three buckets: (1) what you’ve seen yourself, figured out with logic, or have been told by someone you trust; (2) what you don’t know yet; and (3) what your mind is adding. We dug into that third part during a retreat I led last month: what am I adding to this? How does your body feel as you sort? Sometimes the waiting ends with a phone call. Sometimes the stories fall away once you look at what you actually know. Sometimes you just have to admit that the answer is “I don’t know,” and the practice is staying with that.
Sprinkle More Yoga on It
While we waited, I knew that if the results of the tests called for months of treatment, or more tests to find where cancer might be hiding, I would want time in my life to support Marnie through that process. As a result, I resisted adding too many firm dates to my calendar. With no additional testing or treatments indicated, now I’m saying yes. Or more accurately, “YES!”
I have a lot of yoga events in the works: more subbing at The Marsh, 90-minute workshop proposals at various locations, some weekend retreats, and a week-long retreat. I’m partnering with other people on some and teaching others on my own.
A couple of new events are already confirmed:
November 21: Movember Yoga for Men. I’ve written about men’s health before. Now I’m offering a workshop at The Marsh for men, during a month dedicated to men’s health, that provides a practical introduction to yoga. You can register online or at the front desk ($25 members / $30 non-members).
December 12: Goodwill Within: A Day of Loving-Kindness and Yoga. Another free yoga retreat at Lake Fellowship, this time exploring the practice of goodwill. The basic format will be the same as my last retreat at Lake Fellowship, but focusing on goodwill. There are 12 spots, and the last retreat filled up quickly, so I recommend you register early if you are interested.
This is just the beginning, and I hope to share details of the other events I’ve been planning soon. Thank you for joining me on this wild ride.
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