Since my surgery in January, and subsequent painfully slow recovery, I’ve received a lot of advice:
- Have a positive attitude
- Believe that you will heal
- Believe that this is all happening for a reason
- Pray
- Have faith in God
- Meditate
- Go to therapy
- Think about what lessons you’re learning from this experience
- Relax
- Get a massage
- Get acupuncture
- Sleep
- Exercise
- Stretch
- Be creative
- Visualize your recovery
- Have a sense of humor
- Watch funny TV shows
- Take this drug
- Don’t take that drug
- Take this natural remedy
- Don’t take that natural remedy
- Research causes and remedies
- Talk to experts
- Change your diet
- Take vitamins
- Drink more water
- Go to the doctor
- Don’t go to the doctor
- Get this test
- Don’t get that test
- Act like a healthy person
- Be patient. It takes a while to feel better.
- Try harder. You can get better faster.
Sadly, despite trying many of these things, I’m not really getting better. Sure, some things have healed from the original surgery, but new challenges continue to arise. I don’t feel well. Like myself. Whole. And when you don’t feel well it starts to affect other areas of your life until you have one big mess.
That’s where I am right now. In the middle of a mess that feels like it will never be cleaned up.
And I like cleaned up. I like tidy. I like fixed.
In fact, I love to clean up, tidy and fix things. When I was a kid, I used to go over to my friends’ houses and clean their rooms. Their mothers loved it, my friends, not so much.
Fixing things for myself and for others makes me feel in control, so to not be able to fix much of anything right now is a very, very uncomfortable feeling. So uncomfortable that I keep pushing aside a word that continues to come to mind because I have no idea how to do it: Surrender.
Stop fighting.
Stop resisting.
Give up control.
These are not concepts, at least in the States, that are thought of as positive. No movie heroine or hero lives happily ever after because they surrender. They win because they fight for their lover, or their work, or their passion, or their country, or their family, or their health.
Unfortunately, fighting isn’t really working for me right now. I think it’s time to surrender.
I usually try to write things here that I hope will help you on your Big Vision journey, but instead, I’m asking for your help:
Have you ever had an experience where surrender made your life easier?
If so, how in the world did you do it?
Thank you,
Britt
Photo by Manu Schwendener via Unsplash
Oh Britt! Sorry to hear that the recovery is not going well!
Surrender… How hard it is to do. How hard it is to accept. We always feel like we must “do” something. So hard to switch gears. I’m just starting to accept my present situation in life but it’s hard and it’s taken alot of time and there is still a ways to go. I’ve found that gratitude for whatever “is” helps (even gratitude of what we would label negative things – thank you for missing the bus, thank you for spilling my dinner on the floor…) and reminding myself that it all happens in its own sweet time. I’m recognizing “slow writing” is OK and that my pre-judgments: “I should be xx by xx” are things I need to let go of. Less social media has helped me also – more real connection. (But none of these seem to really be linked to health.)
I haven’t really dealt with health issues in terms of surrender. I would imagine that part of the leap would be trusting your body… that it really knows best. And figuring out how to listen to it better. Oh wow. I’m not there. Maybe prayers of loving kindness could help with surrender? Also my spiritual teachers have always suggested that even if you are not ready to forgive, just repeating the mantra “I’m willing to forgive” can sometimes help things shift. Perhaps the same can be applied to surrender. “I’m willing to surrender.”
There’s a visioning exercise that martha beck employs to help shift resistance & release negative thoughts – it came to mind – again it was used for something else but perhaps it can be used to help “unpack” the resistance to surrender and/or help release negative thoughts – if that would help? I would think our bodies (and minds) would have a hard time letting go – there would be alot of fear around surrender – “What would Happen if I do?” The exercise is at around 29:30 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p-WBkBh5AcE).
I really hope you find some ease and some comfort. I hope you heal and your health issues are solved soon. Without our health, everything else is so my harder.
xo
Thank you for your kind words and suggestions, klforster. I appreciate your taking the time to share them.
Oh Lady I totally get it. I feel I’m learning to embrace the surrender message, just for totally different reasons. Hate to add one more bullet point to your list of things you “should” do, but recently I read Lissa Rankin’s “The Fear Cure” and got A LOT out of it in the way of surrendering. You can borrow my copy 😉
I would love to borrow it, Jory. I was just reading a post by her the other day. Synchronicity!
My lovely Britt! I really hear your struggle and frustration and hope inside of your question here, and want to send you love most of all. My biggest surrenders have been around parenting and not being “______ enough” about one thing or another. Running late. Needing to leave a video chat to help wipe my son’s bottom. Not taking on opportunities and not dancing and doing yoga and painting and all of the other things I also love as much as I would wish I were doing them. And sometimes being just right in the moment of what’s happening and deciding that THIS is not what I expected, or was shooting for, or was at all prepared for. And surrendering instead of fighting that I want it to be different or untrue or earlier or my way. So hard. And I can’t imagine the extra layers of complexity when it is health related…so much love to you. Do you have health partners in wellness to help you sort out your symptoms, decisions, fears, and feelings?
Thanks for sending love, Lisa ( :