THE FULL CATASTROPHE

In the novel, Zorba the Greek, Zorba is asked if he was ever married. He says, "Am I not a man, and is not a man stupid? So, I married. I had a wife, children, a house, the full catastrophe." In today's stressful world, life can be "the full catastrophe," at times. Did Zorba mean married life is a catastrophe? Or was it merely a slice of his life, a truly "full catastrophe."

To me, Zorba and his response personify a remarkable appreciation for the richness of life and its dilemmas, sorrows, tragedies and ironies. Zorba's response was to dance in the gale of the "full catastrophe," to celebrate life, to laugh with it and to laugh at himself, even in the face of personal failure and defeat.

So how can anyone cope with "the full catastrophe?" First by just being in the present moment, which is all we really have. We often spend our time reliving the past or "pre-living" the future. We remember a past that is gone forever, and worry about a future that might never happen, while the present slowly slips away. The term for just being in the present moment is mindfulness, and it takes a lot of practice. In the present moment, the full catastrophe in our past disappears, and the future catastrophe doesn't arise.

Do you sometimes see your life as "the full catastrophe?" I do… now. Like Zorba, I am a man, I married. I have a wife, children, and a house—but don't get the wrong idea, that didn't convince me. No, what made me a believer happened two years ago this month. The neurologist said simply "Jim, you have Parkinson's disease."

He went on to explain that

• Parkinson's is a chronic and progressive movement disorder. Medical science knows neither the cause nor the cure.
  
• The most common symptoms are tremors of the hand and leg, slowness of movement, muscle rigidity and in some cases, impaired balance. There can also be depression, problems with emotional control and cognition in some patients, as well as sleep disorders.
  
• The neurons that normally produce the neurotransmitter dopamine, which controls unconscious motor activity, begin to malfunction and die off. As some point, your brain stops producing dopamine, which controls much of your unconscious motor function.
  

He probably went on explaining, but most of that didn't register… I was lost there for several moments. I later did a little of my own research and learned, oddly enough, PD does not have the same effect on conscious motor activity, and that's significant for those of us living with Parkinson's.

Another doctor I consulted two years ago said to me "Jim, the most important thing you can do with this diagnosis is to exercise an hour a day."
I said "Doctor, that's a pretty tall order for me; thirty minutes, twice week is a good week for me these days." In the nearly 2 years since that conversation, I have exercised more than I did in the previous ten. Consequently, I experience virtually no back or joint pain, can do more pushups than I ever could, I can bend and reach farther, and move better than I can remember. I go to yoga class. Did you know the Sanskrit word for pose is "-asana?" In yoga I am learning what my teacher and I call "old-guy-asana," each day you bend and stretch just a bit further than the old guy you were yesterday. All this new muscle activity is building up that inventory of conscious movement, unaffected by Parkinson's DIsease.

Often, when we are not practicing mindfulness, we are relying on unconscious movement. When we multi-task, we can only have one task at the top of mind. The rest is being handled unconsciously. Think about the last time you drove home only to arrive at your driveway having no recollection of actually driving. You were too preoccupied with other things, and your unconscious took over and took you home. So, the second part of practicing mindfulness I have to re-learn is to do just one thing at a time, mindfully.

It turns out mindfulness is a highly effective way to treat stress, some intractable pain, Parkinson's and other chronic illness. Dr. Jon Kabat-Zinn started work in this area with his pioneering Stress Reduction and Relaxation Program at the UMass Medical School more than twenty-five years ago. There he and his colleagues have taught thousands of people with chronic illnesses, intractable pain and more to live more consciously and mindfully, helping them deal with their own version of the full catastrophe with their eight week program.

A few weeks ago, I started Dr. Kabat-Zinn's program myself, and I feel the difference. Over the years, I have read a shelf full of books on mindfulness meditation, and off and on tried it. But, until now, I never had the motivation to stay with it. But that's changing, just like my attitude toward fitness. I am trying, in Dr. Kabat-Zinn's words, to become "an island of being in a sea of doing"

It's all a part of the "full catastrophe" that my life has become, and I wouldn't trade these moments for anything. You see, to me the "full catastrophe" captures something positive about being a human. We have a way of taking what is most difficult in life and finding within it the room to grow in strength and in practical wisdom.