Multiple sclerosis and the process of surrender

In May 2004 I was admitted to the local hospital with a complete physical breakdown after having already been through near-bankruptcy, threats to my third pregnancy, a relationship breakdown, a house fire and emigration to the UK, all within 18 months. I had been suspicious that something was not right with my body and after five days of being in hospital in excruciating pain I was still awaiting a diagnosis.

Matthew, my husband, had long gone home with my baby and older child and I felt incredibly alone. I couldn’t lift my head off the pillow without intense, searing pain, nausea and dizziness; wave after wave of seemingly random neurological sensations were sweeping through my body: pins and needles, numbness, heat and cold.

Feeling panic and fear, I struggled against this state; against the fireworks going off in my brain. Then, for some reason, I started to breathe more deeply and lie very still. I surrendered. I felt very small lying in the bed, so I found the centre and slipped into the silence amid the noise. Time stopped. Life came from somewhere deep inside of me and this is where I stayed, in this very deep place. The pain swirled around me and I sat in the stillness, allowing it to move further from my awareness. There was a feeling of deep peace, perhaps even joy. “Is this meditation?” I asked myself.

Meditation became my saviour as I struggled through MRI scans, gruelling physiotherapy sessions, getting a walker and waiting for a diagnosis.

After this night, I meditated in bed as much as I could. I didn’t really know what to do; I just sat in stillness and breathed, allowing the stillness in my breath to become peace in my mind. Peace in the context of turmoil. Meditation became my safe place and I felt that if I stayed in this safe place my physical condition would become inconsequential.

Meditation became my saviour as I struggled through MRI scans, gruelling physiotherapy sessions, getting a walker and waiting for a diagnosis. When the diagnosis came, I needed every ounce of meditation-derived calm: probable multiple sclerosis.

During the rest of that year I meditated, did a mish-mash of yoga, physio and visualising tai chi and eventually walked. I moved back to Australia and started a detox and acupuncture and discovered Dru yoga and meditation. The following year, though, I began to slide and by July was back in a wheelchair and in depression.

By March the next year, I realised I needed to find a way of being with this chronic illness, so I went to a meditation weekend. On the second day, again in excruciating pain and dysfunction, I fell into bliss and decided it was time I learned how to live in this peace and teach it to other people in crisis.

I enrolled in a yoga teacher training course beginning a couple of months later. For the first module I was mostly in my electric wheelchair and visualised yoga asanas, meditated and relaxed. For the next three months I relaxed, visualised and meditated almost 24/7 to be in that peace I had discovered in meditation.

During the second module I discovered I could physically do the postures I had been visualising and had more stamina than I had experienced for a long time. Three months later, I walked into the module, leaving my wheelchair outside, where it stayed motionless for the four days. I gave my wheelchair back soon after and continued to improve, returning to part-time high-school teaching and completing the yoga teacher training and the meditation teacher training. I now teach relaxation, meditation and yoga to people with chronic illness and other special needs, such as autism and hypertension.

So what does my story mean? I am aware there are sceptics who will not give any significance to my yoga and meditation practice and dismiss my recovery as nothing more remarkable than a spontaneous remission. There are those who will say it’s a miracle or that I must be extraordinary.

How do I interpret my journey? What does it mean for me? The honest answer is I believe I am reconfiguring my energy system. For two-and-a-half years I have devoted most of my daily thoughts to striving for the highest I was capable of.

I have used the power of my mind to visualise yoga, meditate, chant ancient mantras of light, to relax and transform my daily experience of life.

I haven’t been perfect. I have made mistakes in the way I relate to people. I have been very human and these moments of perceived failure have caused me excruciating emotional pain. What I have done is maintain the original intention to move toward freedom and that intention planted the seed for a tree of transformation that is still growing.

It’s not a miracle in the sense that I went to sleep one day and woke up cured the next; and I’m not extraordinary in the sense of being particularly gifted in any way. I have just worked very hard. The techniques I have used are based in ancient practice and anyone can learn them.

What I’ve learnt from my practice is that everything your body does is sending messages to your mind and everything your mind does is sending messages to your body and spirit. The mind, body and spirit are in constant interaction.

I haven’t cured my MS; every day I experience symptoms to remind me of the damage to my CNS. But I have cleared away years of accumulated emotional debris, enabling me to access the world of energy beyond material structure.

When I began, I didn’t expect to get out of my wheelchair, let alone do cartwheels. The peace I found while in a wheelchair, in a hospital bed and now on legs, is accessible to anyone who is willing to spend some time each day in stillness and surrender to the circumstances of their lives, as they are. And, yes, on a good day I can cartwheel.

Lynnette Dickinson teaches relaxation, yoga and meditation to people with chronic illness and the general public. Lynnette wrote A Journey to Peace Through Yoga, available from her website.