Grieving My Old Self

I was looking at the images of myself demonstrating yoga poses for the Yogi Maha Method Training manual. The photo shoot was done only a few days before I received my breast cancer diagnosis. I look at my shiny, long, dark hair, doing handstands and arm balances. The poses came so easily to me; I felt so light that I sometimes doubted if I was getting "a workout." "I feel like I'm catfishing people," I told my friend. "I look nothing like that girl in the book, even though the photos were taken only several months ago." At that moment, I realized that I would never look like that girl again. I felt this grief, that I needed to say goodbye to her, the old Maha. The Maha with hair. I wish I had been more compassionate and accepting of her. How we sometimes take the present moment and ourselves for granted. Even when filming video classes for my on-demand app, I remember feeling insecure that I wasn't good enough, like the other younger yoga teachers on social media. Looking back now, I realize that I was fulfilling a greater destiny, that teaching yoga came naturally to me because I was following my path of being a yogi. I could have followed any other path; in fact, I tried working in the corporate world, but it never felt right. I never felt that I belonged the way I did the moment I stepped into the seat of the teacher. It felt like second nature. It's true what they say: when you do what you love, you never work a day in your life. That's how I feel teaching yoga. Although now it might look a little different, and I might look a little different than my old photos, my love for teaching yoga will remain.

It is the driving force that saved my life before and continues to save my life again. I was on the highest dosage of the strongest chemo regimen, a combination of DOXOrubicin (Adriamycin) and Cyclophosphamide (Cytoxan). The side effects were absolutely brutal! All the organs and systems in my body were no longer functioning naturally. The chemo was killing every cell in my body. The first thing that I lost was, of course, my hair—not only the hair on my head but also my eyebrows and eyelashes, a feminine quality that is so precious to women. Although I was experiencing extreme fatigue, I committed to moving my body at least 30 minutes a day. I wasn't able to do the intense power yoga classes that are my favorite to both practice and teach. I tried, trust me, I did! I remember being in a Crescent pose, a yoga pose that was considered a warm up for me.  My heart pounding, my legs trembling,  my breath hyperventilating. My saving grace ended up being gentle yoga, yin yoga, and restorative yoga. The mouth sores were so intense that it was painful to even drink water. Everything hurts. My whole body was aching and in agony. Peeing burned so intensely that I would cry every time I went to the bathroom. At one point, I was hemorrhaging so badly that I threw up and passed out in the bathroom. I woke up on the bathroom floor, unsure how long I had been out. It felt like a split second, but I couldn't tell. I crawled on all fours back to bed but couldn't stay for long because I had to go to my chemotherapy appointment which was in a few minutes. So I had to figure out how to dress myself, walk down the stairs trembling, hop in the car where my friend picked me up, and drove me to my appointment. The worst of all, believe it or not, was not all that; it was the nausea. It was non-stop nausea, that feeling that I wanted to throw up but couldn't, 24/7. I couldn't bear to eat; just thinking about food would make me gag. While experiencing all of this, I was at the tail end of leading my 200 hour yoga teacher training, Yogi Maha Method. I would have to deplete all my will power to mentally convince myself to get out of bed, put clothes on, put makeup on, and drive in LA traffic for two hours to deliver a six-hour teacher training. Then do it again the next day, and the next. “Just put one leg in front of the other, Maha. You can do this! You're going to put your pants on, put your shirt on, walk down the stairs, get into your car and drive to Venice Beach”, I would talk myself through it like you would a child. 

One night, bedridden and hallucinating, I started to see myself sinking down a hole, so steep and then it had stairs, and I kept going down the stairs so fast. Then I caught myself, remembering that when my grandfather was on his deathbed, he talked about “going down the stairs”. So in this hallucination, vision, dream, or whatever you want to call it, I said, "No, no, no! Go back upstairs. It's too soon. Not yet." I crawled up the stairs so fast, through the tunnel then the light, and woke up in bed. I started thinking about writing a will and sharing with my family how I want to be cremated not buried.

In the midst of all this, I continued to teach my yoga classes at The MINDRY in Malibu, which were packed wall to wall with people who loved me so dearly and were cheering me on. Man, were they were excited to see me! And I was even more excited to see them! My yoga community that rallied around me like family does when one of their family member is in crisis. I would rush to the bathroom before class, throw up in the toilet and stuff toilet paper in my yoga pants, terrified that hemorrhoid blood spots would stain my pants and people would see it while I was teaching. I would walk out and put a smile on my face as people gave me big, warm, loving hugs. The pain was so loud that I would only hear people's voices faintly muffled in the background. I would have to focus so hard to understand what they were saying, almost trying to read their lips, as I heard faint voices telling me, "You look great! You're so strong. You're so brave. You're such an inspiration!" I smiled and said thank you, even though I didn't really believe them. I didn't feel brave; I didn't feel strong; I definitely didn’t feel beautiful. I felt so much pain and agony. But I accepted their love; I deeply felt it was sincere. The moment I would start the yoga class and step into the seat of the teacher, the pain disappeared. It's like a switch turned on. I was so present in my teaching, tuning into the rhythm of the people in the room and riding the rhythm like a maestro holding the baton, guiding them through the most sophisticated yoga symphony. I would feel so high after class, high with joy, high with love. The moment I got into my car and shut the door, I began to hear the loudness of the pain again. I remembered, oh yeah, there’s that thing, I have cancer. I almost forgot for a moment there. I'm so grateful for my yoga that even for a few moments, I was able to get out of my own misery and be of service to others, connecting with people in the most positive and sacred way.

After finishing 16 rounds of chemotherapy over the course of seven months, everybody congratulated me as if the journey was over and I could go back to normal. The truth is, its not over, and I will never be the same person that I was before my diagnosis. My life will never be the same as it was before. It's not necessarily going to be bad, but it will be different. I keep writing in Maha’s Zen Diary about the wisdom and the growth that happened throughout my cancer journey, which is absolutely true, and I am deeply grateful for it. But I felt there was a missing piece, that people think I am just flowing through this easily. It felt misleading, and I need to be more honest with you all. One of my regular yoga students asked me, "How are you doing?" I said, "It's been a journey," with my go-to zen smile on my face. She said, "Listen, it's been a fucking nightmare, is what it is. I'm a New Yorker, I say it like it is. Why don't you just say it like it is?" So here I am, saying it like it is.Yes, I am a yogi, and my yogic practices have been my saving grace in helping me navigate through this journey. In fact, I often wonder how people who don't have these practices get through something like this. But I am still a spiritual being living in a human body. This human body is made of flesh, and this flesh is in distress. I still experience pain like anyone else. And the journey is not over yet. I have three surgeries coming up and 30 radiation sessions, daily from Monday to Friday for six weeks. Since the cancer has spread to my lymph nodes, my surgeon needs to remove 25 of my lymph nodes, which will cause permanent lymphedema as a side effect. Meaning I will experience constant swelling in my left arm, and restricted range of movement. Symptoms include heaviness, tightness, aching, and decreased flexibility in the affected area. I will need to wear a compression garment indefinitely to manage the swelling. Another loss I have to grieve, my left arm. I remember asking the surgeon, pleading, "Do you have to take out all 25 of the lymph nodes?". She responds "If the pathology report during surgery finds even a trace of cancer left in your lymph nodes, yes, I will have to take out all 25 of them. It's either that, or the cancer stays in your body.".

Throughout this journey, strangers have become the closest friends, but there were also people who were close friends that became distant strangers. Sometimes cancer is too scary for people to stick around. It reminds them of their own mortality, and they don't want to be anywhere near it. I was mindful of that and respectful when I received a text message from a friend saying, "I am not able to support you right now." I wasn't asking her for any support and wondered why she felt the need to say that.

I was telling a friend that when I look at myself in the mirror, I am always shocked by how sick I look because I don't have eyebrows. It's like I forget I'm sick until I look at my face in the mirror and then I remember. A few days later, she surprised me with a gift to get my eyebrows done, a semi-permanent makeup solution. I was so touched by her thoughtfulness that I posted the before and after video on social media. The following day, I was told that someone commented that I took the GoFundMe donation money and was now spending it on cosmetic procedures. "You told us this was a dire situation and the money was for medical bills and rent, we vouched for you." If words could kill. Triggering my childhood trauma, there it is, conditional love. They're mad at me! I messed up. I am in trouble. 

While still undergoing chemotherapy, I was in survival mode. "Let's get through this, one step at a time." Now that I have a moment to think about it, it's like, okay, that happened! Where do I go from here? It's not like my life was perfect before. I still had struggles like any regular human being trying to navigate life's ups and downs. And now, add cancer to the mix. People tend to focus on the physical. "Congratulations, you finished chemo!" "Congratulations, your MRI shows that your body responded really well to chemotherapy, that the tumor has shrunk significantly." But no one talks about the post-traumatic stress that is in full blast. If anything, in the beginning, I had more gas in the tank. "I can beat this! I can do hard things!" I would tell myself. I now feel depleted and exhausted. I understand now, and have deep compassion when my sick aunt used to say “I lost the will to live” in her hospital bed. When simple everyday life becomes such a struggle, that's when the soul is done and begins to leave the body. 

I sometimes forget that I am bald, and cancer is written all over my face. People treat me so nicely these days. At the grocery store, strangers give me their place in line. When I was waiting to charge my car at a public charging station, a guy literally unplugged his car while he was in the middle of charging it, moved his car, and told me I could go ahead and charge my car instead. I thought, wow, that's so nice of him! And then realized, oh, they see someone who has cancer and feel compassion for them. I wonder, why did it take cancer for people to be this kind?

Why can't we be kind to each other all the time regardless of our health status? Why did it take cancer for my neighbors to approach me, take out my trash and offer to cook for me, after two years of not even knowing each other on a first name basis? Why did it take cancer for me to reconnect with my family, after 18 years of utter silence, why did it take cancer for me to forgive my mother and finally let be?