The Awakening
The first appearance of daylight in the morning:
Dawn broke over the valley. The beginning or rise of anything.
In her debut book, Unrestricted: How I Stepped Off the Tightrope, Learned to Say No, and Silenced Anorexia, she issues a call to action to change the way anorexia and anorectics are viewed and treated.
We met in a yoga studio when she was just 24 years old. She was tall with waist-length brown hair, held a continuous expression of wonderment in her eyes as if absorbing everything around her. My husband described Dawn as a 24-year-old going on 34.
Dawn is the time that marks the beginning of twilight before sunrise.
It is recognized by the appearance of indirect sunlight being
scattered in Earth's atmosphere.
I was 43 and busy organizing the lives of a three and five-year old all the while seeking sanity in the rooms of a beloved yoga studio. Often I would bring the children for a children’s yoga class while I attended the adult class next door, but other times I came alone. These were sacred times which allowed me extended periods of times to unwind, unload and explore the underlying emotions of who I was; a detachment without guilt nor resentment. I could allow myself to reach a level of homeostasis
.… and then I received a cancer diagnosis.
Dawn is the time of morning
when the Sun is 6° below the horizon.
Dawn walked down the streets of Salt Lake City toward the studio from her neighborhood home wearing a bright pink coat carrying a little pink purse. Her long legs held a stride one and a half times longer than my own, but she never forged ahead of me, simply allowing me to walk alongside.
My life was fractured in ways that did not give way to hopelessness or helplessness. I was just living a divided life. In the Chinese horoscope I am an Ox and my zodiac birth sign is Taurus; essentially I am a large mammal with sharp pointy horns with a fierce unabiding stubborn personality trait who managed a diagnosis of cancer with prescribed attention and care, not domination or resignation.
When Dawn turned 25, she worked with my newly operated on and scarred body in ways that would promote healing as my yoga partner. We each continued to show up for ourselves and our community, but more so for each other. Slowly, and overtime, she revealed her experiences of her own childhood and young adulthood; and yet when I look back, even now, I often envisioned her as a grown up encapsulated in a young body.
Six degrees is a measurement of wonder. It is the separation theory that any person on the planet can be connected to any other person on the planet through a chain of acquaintances that has no more than five intermediaries.
Together we worked on learning how to re-extend my right arm after my lumpectomy and dissection of lymph nodes. My oncologist and surgeon were surprised to witness my expedient progress and inquired upon my methodologies. I informed them with these two words: Yoga & Friendship.
Cancer did not eliminate a year of my life, but rather added itself to my already busy agenda. As trivial as this may seem (and not intending to disregard nor disrespect the severity of a cancer diagnosis - I am a third generation diagnosee), but you see, my dividedness as previously mentioned was completely dominating my life during this time.It is important for me to emphasize one thing here:
All encapsulated parts of my dividedness required equal billing.
My job was to figure out how to heal one part without hurting the other.
This is where Dawn rises to occasion to help me heal my wounded self without sacrificing the parts of my life that brought me joy.
For the remainder of my diagnostic year and for the year that followed, a year I’ll refer to as my Awakening, she remained steadfast at my side.
We supported one another through various yoga collaborations, cooking events and retreats that unified our yoga community as well as ourselves.
Yesterday, my husband and I drove 5 hours north to Boise, Idaho to participate in a book launching of Unrestricted: How I Stepped Off the Tightrope, Learned to Say No, and Silenced Anorexia by Dawn Brockett.
It’s been 18 years since my diagnosis and my meeting of this Adult/Childlike young woman with a bright pink purse.
As she navigates the schedule of global appearances and book readings alongside her assistant and wife musician Lisa Marie, I am reminded of her expression of wonderment and of her eagerness to explore. But now the lens of what WAS and what IS has come into a sharper focus and the two perspectives are melding into one. We are both now living undivided.
Dawn is healing herself.
Where do you live divided? What is your medicine for healing the divided self?
A description of the book: Unrestricted:
In Unrestricted, Dawn Brockett refutes the long-standing paradigm that anorexia is about the anorectic’s need to control. Having battled and beaten severe restrictive anorexia herself, she proposes that anorexia is triggered by a lack of the space a young woman needs to fully individuate— to become who she chooses to be without being controlled by others.
Given how long treatment paradigms have held firm to this belief—and the limited progress we’ve made in treating anorexia, the deadliest of all mental health disorders—she issues a call to action to change the way anorexia and anorectics are viewed and treated.
At once heart-wrenching, heartwarming, and hopeful, this is the story of how one woman stopped disappearing, started listening to her own voice, and finally claimed her rightful place in the world.
