One Breath at a Time

Alison Hammer Winans

excerpted from Unseen Hands, a memoir in progress

Since the surgery, I resist doing yoga regularly. How can that be? I’ve done yoga for so many years, and I love the way it turns my muscles into velvet and my interior landscape into smooth flowing streams.

The answer comes one day as I do my home assignment, breathing deeply, mindfully stretching my arms up and opening them to the sky. As usual these days, my left hand lags a few inches behind the right. My whole left side from hand to armpit to hip feels as if restrained by a steel rod. Focusing on the inner sensations, I feel a mixture of tenderness and numbness around the left armpit, and numbness in the back of that arm. Realization hits me like a sickening punch to the stomach. I didn’t want my body to change.

But it has changed. It doesn’t feel as good as it used to. My arm doesn’t move as freely as before. My throat thickens and tears fight their way out of my eyes. No wonder I’m resisting doing my yoga, the yoga that I love so much. I want to avoid being aware of my body and my feelings. It’s too much to be reminded of my losses, when I already have more stress than I can handle. Through this program and Caroline’s gentle guidance, I am able to start releasing my blocked emotions. I say to myself, “See if you can be present with the tightness, the numbness, the sadness, instead of trying to change it.”

*     *     *     *     *

In a time far away, I used to meditate faithfully and regularly. I used to find great peace in helping myself with Jin Shin Jyutsu. (What is Jin Shin Jyutsu?) But as the year 2003 began, stress was my middle name. I was four months out from the breast cancer treatments—chemotherapy, mastectomy and radiation—and thoughts rampaged through my mind like wild animals. I was crying every day. Fatigue hit me hard, and I needed a daily nap after coming home from work. My own resources were sucked dry.  The body I was walking around in did not feel like my own. What I searched for was an external impetus to help me bring peace and order to the maelstrom of my inner world.

Help was on its way in the form of a research project on Mindfulness Based Art Therapy for Women with Cancer, conducted by Caroline Peterson, a researcher at Jefferson Medical College. She was also a skilled, loving meditation instructor and art therapist. The “meat” of this project was an 8-week series of classes meeting at The Wellness Community in Philadelphia for three hours a week, plus stress-reduction exercises and reading for homework. The nine women in my group and I also filled out lengthy questionnaires before, during and after the program. (Find out more about The Wellness Community.)

Fortunately I was enrolled in the first run of the project starting in February, not a moment too soon as far as I was concerned. I was doubly fortunate that the whole program was absolutely free, given that my husband and I were swimming in debt. When I arrived at the Wellness Community, situated amidst the trees and wildlife of Fairmount Park, I started to relax. Entering their workshop space, the Barn, I noticed tables with virgin white paper, sharpened pencils and multi-colored markers, and a circle of chairs in the middle of the room. Caroline, the kind of person you immediately want to hug, welcomed me with an infectious smile. Milling around informally, I saw some women looking haggard and grey, others with bright eyes, but all of us excited. There was the usual mix of women wearing hats, scarves, hairstyles that were obviously wigs and others like me with the characteristic post-chemo hairdo—short, tight, springy curls.

As we introduced ourselves in the circle, I discovered that most women there had a breast cancer diagnosis. Caroline made us feel that we could share our deepest feelings or our most trivial thoughts, and we did, creating a support group over the duration of the project. She laid out the general plan saying, “The project is based on the work of Jon Kabat-Zinn in stress-reduction programs in hospital settings, and our program has an additional bonus of art therapy.” Every week she would guide us in mindfulness meditation, initiate an art project and give us time to “share our process,” to share our feelings and how the program was affecting us and our lives. Caroline reassured us that we did not have to be good artists, and that it was about self-expression not perfection. Sometimes we would do some walking meditation or yoga, not the power yoga taught at gyms, but simple stretches done very slowly and with great mindfulness. Occasionally we would discuss our textbook, Kabat-Zinn’s Full Catastrophe Living. Every week there was homework—reading, daily meditation and yoga—and for purposes of the research, we had to sign in and confess how often we actually did it.

That first week, Caroline guided us in a body relaxation and meditation, and then asked us to make a quick drawing of “Our Complete Self” with magic markers. I sketched out my body and then grey clouds shrouding me, representing the fog that I was in at the time. There were tears running down my cheeks and a broken heart, split in two, placed over my breastless chest. A box was over my pelvis showing how my sexuality and life energy were cut off. At my feet were flames and murky dark squiggles; I was walking through the shadows. Far off in the corner of the page was a bright scene depicting hope despite the despondency; my love of nature shown by a bright sun, a flying bird, a rainbow, a cat and evergreen trees.

Next week, with eager anticipation I returned to the Wellness Community, noticing the increased variety of art materials. Caroline introduced us to oil pastels and dry pastels with a mindfulness exercise that opened all of our senses to each new medium. I reveled in the rainbow colors and the tactile sensations, especially enjoying getting my hands dirty with the dry pastels, feeling them glide onto the paper like silk, smearing and blending the colors with my fingers. The art was for me great fun, making me feel like a happy child again.

*     *     *     *     *

I liked having homework. It meant that I did my yoga or meditation even when sleeping seemed more desirable, and it always made me feel better. Besides the yoga, our homework included using a half-hour Body Scan Relaxation tape narrated by Caroline. As I lay on my back, her soft voice guided me through the body from toes to head, and my intention was to be aware of each body part, feel it, breathe into it and relax it. I loved doing this practice, but my efforts did not seem very successful, as I usually went to sleep. Many times I stayed conscious and focused on the process from my toes to the hips and thighs, and then slept until Caroline’s voice brought my attention to the arms and head. After two weeks of practice, I realized that I had only once heard her mention the chest. Was it so difficult for me to be present with feelings in my chest? From what was I running? At the same time, I realized that sleep was desperately needed because I was exhausted. The point of the exercise was not to judge, simply to witness.

As well as the body scan relaxation and yoga, our homework now included a half-hour seated mindfulness meditation, also guided with a tape. I sat still, or as still as possible, pouring my attention into each breath. Reminding myself, “Don’t keep trying to breathe deeply, just watch how it comes naturally.” From this point on, I alternated the meditation with the body scan in my daily practice. I was diligent with my homework, and something was changing inside me. My tears still flowed, but not every day. My sleep became deeper. One morning I woke up with a sense of happiness arising from inside, like bubbles in a glass of seltzer, like the spontaneous joy I used to have. That was improvement.

One day after doing the seated meditation, I wrote in my journal:  “I become more aware of my unknowingness, having gone deep into the fog. There was a time when I was more awake, more aware. How did I get here from there? The stress was so great during the last two years that I shut down my sensitivity and openness in order to cope. I couldn’t have gone on day after day if I’d let myself feel the pain, terror, despair, anger and loss. The mindfulness practice is starting to open me up, bringing me back to life.”

*     *     *     *     *

When we explored watercolor and acrylic paints with mindfulness, the loose unstructured nature of the watercolors made me feel tentative and cautious, whereas playing with acrylics brought out my boldness, strength and sense of adventure. It’s hard to describe how different it felt to do art with mindfulness. It was as if my everyday mind stepped aside, leaving no desire to chit-chat, and there was simply color, hand holding tool, breath, body moving, textured surface, and images forming into a perfect blend of meaning, intent, emotion and creation.

There were two assignments that week; first we drew a picture of what stressed us. The Iraq War was beginning, and the pain and horror in the world impacted us all. This mirrored the war inside our bodies which was fought with the weapons of modern medicine. Using thick acrylic paint, I covered the page in red, orange, brown and black splashes denoting the chaos, violence, destruction and anger that I witnessed both within and without. In a corner, there was me–a stick figure sitting at a table reading a newspaper. And smaller still, a very sad little face with the corners of the mouth turned down. The meditation and art combination was so helpful to me. It bypassed the rational mind that said, “I don’t know what or how to draw.” And without having to know the words, my buried feelings revealed themselves.

Caroline said, “Now make a picture of what helps your stress.” With     delicate watercolors, I showed a path through the woods, a restful    spring scene with trees, clumps of sunny daffodils and purple violets nestled in the grass. Fond memories of my beloved English woodlands. And a reminder, that in spite of the horrors of war in the Middle East, spring was bursting forth in Philadelphia, and there were indeed ways to heal my stress. At the end of class that day, she put all our pictures up on the wall, and we marveled at the commonalities of our means of expression.

Another time after our meditation, Caroline said, “Choose an image from this selection of pictures to represent you in your meditation practice, and make a picture around it to represent your meditation.” This sounded difficult, but by then I’d learned that if I just picked up the brush or crayon, chose the color that beckoned and put it on the page, the picture would make itself. Being very serene that day, I chose a picture of the Buddha. Finally I’d gone to a place of peace and bliss in my meditation, free from the thoughts that ran amok for months. Meditation teachers often tell us that “peace and bliss” is not necessarily our goal–rather the goal is to be present with “what is.” However in the midst of my angst, in that moment, serenity was my goal.

I used acrylic paints to convey my feeling that love was transforming my negative thoughts into space and expansiveness. A murky brown swamp represented the crap I carried around, with squiggles rising up being the thoughts rising into consciousness. These I surrounded with the warm pink of love, the Buddha sat on top, and the rest of the picture was baby blue space and swirls. Again I felt the child in me, loving the colors, the textures, the activity and kinesthetic sensations, and enjoying the rich earthy brown just as much as the spiritual blue.

The seventh week was a silent retreat with two guided meditations, and Caroline invited us to choose our medium from a smorgasbord of art materials and do what we wanted. There were two new things to play with – clay and colored tissue for torn paper collage. I took a chunk of cold, hard clay, squeezing and working it with my hands to soften it, with absolutely no idea what to do. Gradually it became workable, and I smoothed it into a ball.

The idea came, “I’m going to make a breast, my breast.”

The previous evening, I read through my medical records that my surgeon had just mailed to me. It was the first time I saw the surgery report. This is part of it: “A transversely oriented incision was made over the left breast. Superior and inferior breast flaps were created…Dissection was carried up superiorly to the clavicle and inferiorly to superior border of the sternum…. The breast was then dissected off the chest wall to include the fascia.…The dissection was then carried out along the border of the pectoralis major and minor…Specimen was then sent to pathology for examination….” 

When I was reading this, many questions came to mind. What does it feel like to cut off someone’s breast? Especially, what is it like to be a woman removing another woman’s breast? What did it look like when it was carried off for examination? How much blood was there? And also the thought, this isn’t just a textbook description; this was done with my body.

All these thoughts flashed through my mind as I played with the clay, carefully and lovingly shaping and smoothing the clay into the form of a breast. Just as my surgeon, I’m sure, had been careful and loving with her skillful handiwork. Subconsciously through my art, I was making whole what had been dissected and taken apart. I was healing.

My next piece was a bright tissue paper collage, entitled New Life and Hope, that was pure joy and play.

Our program was ending, the last week came, and again Caroline said, “Draw your complete self, with magic markers on a small piece of paper.” This time my body filled the entire page, with swirls of color representing my energy centers and filling the internal space with light. An upright spinal column connected and supported my whole being. Flowing, purple lines of energy streamed through my arms, legs and torso and radiated from my head. From my previous self of fog, sadness and disconnection to my present vibrant self was a quantum shift.

Finally Caroline led an exercise designed to help us continue the meditation practice at home. First we visualized sitting next to our immediate family, with our grandparents and other ancestors behind us (in Buddhist philosophy that includes the whole of humanity as we’re all related through past lives, she told us). Then, “Visualize someone or something that helps you to experience the Divine.” I imagined seeing my spiritual teacher, Amma, in front of me. A few moments later, it was like a bubble popped in my mind and the activity of my thoughts ceased. Briefly my mind was like the empty sky, and I felt Amma’s presence. “Now create your own special place, rich with sense impressions, where you could go to sit and meditate.”

I imagined an English garden, fragrant with honeysuckle, rose and jasmine, verdant with beds and borders, with trellises and shrubs covered in pink and yellow flowers, with sparkling stone paths and a goldfish pond. A fountain tinkled with flowing water and melodic bird calls floated between the trees. In the middle was a pyramid-like structure with open sides, so that I could be in the sacred space and the garden simultaneously.

Tears were pressing up behind my eyes. I didn’t want to leave, to go back to my life. I wanted to talk about my feelings, but Caroline said, “Now you have twenty minutes to make a picture of your special place.” I selected the subtle dry pastels and threw myself into drawing The Garden of Beautiful Flowers. My picture was a poor representation of my vision, but in the final sharing, Caroline reminded me, “This beautiful sacred place is inside your heart, and you can go there any time.”

When I took my pictures home, I put my favorites on the walls of our bedroom to remind me of my beauty, life and vitality, to remind me that I had the tools to find them when life’s stresses overcame me and to affirm that I had ways to stay in touch with myself. The intensive nature of the research project got me back on course. I did as much as I could at home, and further support was there for me at the Wellness Community—yoga classes, mind/body meditation classes, Caroline’s art studio and a cancer support group.

As well as pictures, I took home with me a total attitude adjustment. In those eight weeks, I went through a lot with my sisters in survivorship. My heart was full with appreciation for their presence, honesty, and commitment to growth and authentic being. Feeling the love and deep commitment to living that we shared with each other, I thanked Caroline for creating and holding a sacred space for us to blossom in. Most important, one breath at a time, I came back to myself.

Read another excerpt from the memoir.   Read another story about The Garden of Beautiful Flowers.

This study was called “A randomized, controlled trial of mindfulness-based art therapy (MBAT) for women with cancer.”  It was published by Daniel A. Monti, Caroline Peterson, et al, at Thomas Jefferson University, Philadelphia, PA, USA. For more information, contact Daniel A. Monti, Jefferson Medical College, 1020 Sansom Street - 1652 Thompson Bldg., Philadelphia, PA 19107. Email: Daniel A. Monti (monti1@pol.net). A copy of the study can be purchased at http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/cgi-bin/abstract/112137081/ABSTRACT.

Back To Top