Loving Kindness

I'm a week and a half out from my last chemo and am still recovering. Feeling better every day, happy to have it behind me. And still very aware, on a daily basis, how powerful this therapy is. I still tire rapidly and without warning. My eyes are still twitching. I still feel it in my bones. But it's behind me, and for that I'm very grateful.

The day of the last treatment, I had a vivid peek into just how lucky I am. We arrived while they were still preparing a room, so we sat in a small waiting area. I was buying some skin lotion online and feeling just a little bit sorry for myself when a woman was wheeled into the infusion area. It was apparent with one glance that she was deeply sick. Her coloring was gray, she was unable to walk, and she was obviously very miserable.

They put her into the room in front of us and we could not help but hear her. She was moaning in a kind of litany of discomfort and complaint as the nurses came in and out, trying to tend to her needs. She was hurting here. She was sick there. They needed to go to the pharmacy to get something for her that she had forgotten to take. The faces of the nurses and attendants were grim as they worked with her.

Whoa. There but for the grace. I was so struck with how easy I have had it. Yes, sure, I am roughly in the same boat, but my boat is a deeply gracious and benign place compared to hers. I was able to joke with my nurses and sail through my treatment, while she was experiencing a soul-threatening, and possibly life-threatening event.

Of course I couldn't do anything. So I just closed my eyes and just started a short loving kindness meditation towards her. This is a practice where you aim your intention at another person and simply, with your mind and spirit, wish them well. There are five main lines that generally comprise a loving kindness meditation, but I adapted them in a free form sort of way for this situation.

May you be filled with loving kindness, I started, in my mind. May you...

But before I could even finish the second line, something interesting had happened. The woman said "I'm sorry," to the nurses. She was still miserable, obviously, but her attitude had suddenly shifted to be other-centric rather than self-centric. I was amazed, and kept going.

May you be filled with feelings of self compassion.

May your body be free of pain.

May your mind, body, and spirit be healed and whole.

May you be filled with calm and peacefulness.

May you be able to relax.

I went on like this for maybe three minutes, silently. I didn't do it heroically or nobly... it just seemed like the only thing I could possibly do to help. And she never became completely happy, nor did her discomfort cease, but her attitude towards her experience did seem to calm down somewhat. She continued to interact with the nurses in a way that was more conciliatory, working with them rather than being completely enmeshed in her own world.

They say that, with prayer, the praying changes the person who is doing it, rather than the external situation. That the miracle is the shift in the relationship to reality, rather in the shift of reality itself.

But, in this case, it wasn't about me, and the external situation did change. Not a huge amount, but perceptibly. The woman's reality altered just enough in that moment to get out of her own pain and come back out into the world. Possibly she was able to get more relief as a result. Possibly the nurses were able to help her more. I don't know. And I don't know how much I had anything to do with it.

I do know that thoughts matter.

A lot.

Both negative and positive thoughts. Both inwardly directed and outwardly directed. I sat there wondering what it would be like if everyone in the world practiced loving kindness towards one another for ... five seconds a day.  Five seconds a week, even. Five seconds a year. I bet that would change things, I really do.

Not having the ability to change the world, I can only try to remember this myself. And try it from time to time. 

May you be filled with feelings of loving kindness.

May you be safe from inner and outer harm.

May your lives be peaceful and easy.

May you be free from mental and physical pain.

May you be happy.