The following essay originally appeared in Shatter the Ladder's Fall 2015 issue.
When Seeking Solid Ground Against a Deluge
By: Michael Ventura
It started about 8 years ago. I bent down to pick up a new water bottle, and swung it onto the top of the cooler. In an instant my back crumbled. I fell to the floor, dropping the jug as gallons of water glugged onto me and the floor.
I got up a few moments later with the help of some friends, and was carried to my chair where I could rest for a moment and get my wits about me. What had just happened? I was 25 and I had just herniated 2 discs in my lumbar spine.
“Where the fuck do you buy a cane?” This was the first thing I remember saying to myself after the pain had sub-sided enough that I could think practically. I needed to get home but without some support it was going to be impossible. Apparently Duane Reade sells canes. I made it home (an 8-block walk) in just under an hour.
X-rays. Physical therapy. Muscle relaxers. I took on everything western medicine would give me in the hopes of getting myself back on my feet. Talk of surgery became more and more common as I made my weekly visits to the doctor. Degenerative discs were the culprit and surgery was the likely solution in their eyes. At the same time, insomnia had me awake at all hours of the night. A couple drinks too many with the pain pills would dull everything until tomorrow. Eventually I’d fall sleep and flail through nightmares and stress dreams until the morning when it was time to return to work.
At 23 I started my first company. At 25 we had over 30 employees. I was in way over my head. My body was literally crumbling under the stress of the responsibility that I felt every day walking into work. I put on a positive face and went through each day with as much commitment, leadership and dedication as I could muster behind the cloud of pain and meds. I didn’t entirely know what was happening, but I was sure it wasn’t good.
None of the “help” I was seeking was working. Stress was taking its toll on me, and my mind and body were paying a hefty price. On a whim, I took the advice of a friend and went to see an acupuncturist. On the first floor of a United Nations’ apartment building, I walked into a room decorated with thousands of dollars of Asian antiques, jade statues, crystals, and meditation fountains. Where the hell was I and what was about to happen?
After a brief conversation, I was laying in a room with needles stuck in all sorts of odd places. Some were even connected to a stim and shooting electricity into muscles to create controlled spasms. I slipped into the most blissful sleep I had had in months.
I walked outside an hour later feeling entirely different. I felt connected to my body again. Something had shifted, but I couldn’t quite place it. All I knew was that it felt good, and I’d be back soon.
I got home and canceled physical therapy. It wasn’t helping. I also knew that it was time to give my system a break from the drugs and alcohol that were numbing the pain, helping me sleep, helping me focus, and helping me do whatever else I believed they were “helping.”
I’m not saying that western medicine is wrong. In fact, I’m a big supporter of what it does for people. But, at that moment, I didn’t need western medicine. I needed to change my life if I was going to get better.
Thus began an exploration into every form of Eastern and new age healing modalities that one could imagine. In addition to my regular acupuncture visits, I tried everything: Shamanic healing, sound healing, aromatherapy, qi gong, massage, reiki, rolfing, applied kinesiology, hypnosis, craniosacral therapy, osteopathy, and more. I found that some of it worked well, and some of it didn’t. I began to feel better just by dedicating myself to finding other ways to mitigate the stress of running a company at a young age and becoming someone who could confidently carry that responsibility. In a way, my back giving out was a most painful metaphor.
But a few years went by and I began to feel better than good. I was sleeping through the night without any pain. I felt great.
In 2009, I found myself camping in the desert. The hot summer sun was rising over the mountains and warming the cool night air in my tent. I shot up from my sleeping bag with a clear and vivid message.
I had been “taking” from all of these practitioners. Their work, generosity and compassion were there for me when I needed it and they helped me to heal. But now it was time to ask them for something different. I had taken for a long enough. Now I needed to learn how to give.
I returned to New York and spoke to the healers, the shaman, the medicine men and the practitioners who I grew to trust with my life over the past few years. I humbly asked if they would take on an apprentice, someone who was willing to accept (and was living proof) that the body, the mind, and the spirit can work together to heal. I needed to learn how to ply this trade.
For the next several years I studied with them, sometimes formally in a regular class-like structure and sometimes informally with others over conversation and workshops that we would devise together. I devoured books on esoteric sciences and indigenous practices. I became fully immersed. My nights and weekends were spent going deep into these gossamer worlds while my days were spent leading a growing company. Life began to feel balanced; work and life became more and more synonymous. I hadn’t had back pain in years. They all agreed.
Almost two years had gone by and I felt as though I was at a point where I was able to start to work more formally on others. I sent out an email to friends and family explaining what I had been doing and invited anyone who was willing to come and be my guinea pig.
A few brave friends showed up.
I promised myself and my teachers that I would first only focus on the physical body before I worked on anything systemic. After all, if you can’t help someone’s quad muscles to heal, you don’t really belong working on their deeper, more complex systems.
But soon, people started coming back in greater number. And what’s more, their back pains were disappearing. Their tennis elbows were gone. Arthritic hands had regained their motion. It was really working. I was electrified with excitement over this newfound skill I could offer people.
In time, more and more people came and the issues they brought to the table were deeper and deeper: psychological issues, chronic issues, spiritual issues. And my practice expanded with them.
Years later, I now give about 50 treatments a month. I still do this during nights and weekends while running the company. But what’s interesting is that I don’t see my days divided into two parts anymore.
This work, whether in a design studio or treatment room, is one and the same. The ability to be present, to listen to another being, to hear their spirit whisper what it needs, and to put them in a position to retrieve it -- this is what I do. The universe gives us opportunities to discover new paths when we need them most. I needed to look under the glugging flow of a spilled water jug. But rest assured they are out there. Just keep looking.