Sometimes, you have sudden, unexpected changes in your life.
One day it’s that way….and then something happens….and it’s another way. Never to return to the old way.
Recently, a lovely inquirer contacted me to do The Work on something that comes up regularly: her partner left.
Another woman and I did The Work together on her cancer diagnosis.
I can guarantee that for both these situations…there are thoughts of Before and After.
Before….things were good. After….things not so good.
I’m in the newly updated football stadium of the local huge university. The Sports Medicine clinic takes up the entire underground level, new state-of-the art rooms and lots of wood and purple.
I check my cell phone. No internet down here. They should put that in. I could be getting something done. Instead of sitting here by myself.
The doctor comes in and pulls out a cool wall-mounted screen. He shows me the black and white image of my entire pelvis, which looks like a butterfly, or a weird beetle.
He’s pointing to something white and saying “see, no hamstring here…it’s just Not There…I think you’ll pretty much HAVE to get surgery to be able to move about in the future.”
It doesn’t really sink in until later, when I’m driving away. What exactly did he mean by SURGERY?
I google the internet. Oh. I google the words used in the report of this image.
I’m not sure when it happens, but it’s like waking up slowly to what needs to happen here. Bunches of thoughts.
I’ll be in one of those L-Shaped casts for my leg keeping it totally and completely braced and immobile….for several MONTHS. Can’t put weight on it for 3 months, will maybe go on a jog at 6 months. And I’m told I won’t be back to normal for a YEAR.
OK then!
The mind kicks in on all the things I might not get to do: the New Year’s Cleanse, dancing next weekend, sitting at the Thanksgiving table, DRIVING, getting on an airplane in January….going to the bathroom easily.
A thought rises to the top, with the mind rushing. From smooth, deep pool…to Grand Canyon river rapids!
HHHEEELLLLLPPPP!
I’ll be lying on the couch going CRAZY because I can’t go exercise! My muscles will atrophy!
I’ll have to just…..just….SIT THERE.
Kind of odd, really. Because this is often the result after a big major life-changing event.
Your partner leaves, and you are sitting there. In a room by yourself.
You find out you have cancer, and you are sitting there. You’re the only one who has it, in this particular way, right in this moment. You’re on your own.
You lose your job, and you are sitting at home. In a room by yourself.
You’re in a big accident, and you are lying in a hospital bed. By yourself.
I know there’s lots of people around, too, but I’m talking about awareness of the most difficult moment in the midst of all this.
What is actually happening, in this terrible moment when I have lost something, lost someone, lost my life as I knew it?
Am I sure it’s terrible, that it WILL be terrible soon, that it will be terrible forever?
Since I cannot know the future, what I CAN look at, and answer…is my answer to this question: is this truly horrendous, disastrous, shattering, devastating, horrifying, tragic?
Right now. Well?
OK, well, now that you put it that way. Right NOW, I’m actually writing this note. I don’t feel much pain. I’m sitting up.
I’m not sure how I will feel, later, after the operation, when I’m lying down and I’m not even ABLE to sit up.
It may seem a small point. But the anticipation of the terrible moment in the future is actually a little, well, a little crazy to go into.
It’s like saying…OK, let’s get stressed out NOW because you’re going to get stressed out LATER.
I look around, at NOW. There’s a desk, this beautiful cream-colored couch, dark morning air outside, murmuring early-morning voices walking past, a bookshelf full of the best books on the planet, a happy kitchen.
Don’t I pay sometimes to go sit in total silence with a small group of people interested in being all alone, and quiet?
How do I react when I think that what is happening right now is worrisome, or that I have to prepare for the unpleasant thing about to happen in the future?
I get jittery in my chest. I have images flash before my eyes. I see myself wasting away into skin and bones…and turning into a skeleton…and dying.
Seriously, the mind is very dramatic.
I felt this way when my former husband left, too. Like I was so vividly aware of a space of emptiness, I could stay lying on the bed forever and not talk with anyone for 3 days, and just read and space out and stare.
But who would I be without the thought that I KNOW it’s gonna be rough later?
Without the thought that later, it will not be possible to be happy?
Without the thought that this here, right now, sucks?
Wow…I catch this little glimpse of it being very interesting to be immobilized in a cast-brace-thing and not be able to move, like Houdini, for two weeks.
(Oh, Houdini escaped within 3 minutes? Don’t remind me!)
Ahem. Back to inquiry. Who would you be without the thought that the AFTER of this whole operation thing will be difficult?
I see advantages.
No packing up my gym gear for the gym. Not necessary to be in great physical condition to have a happy life. No driving a car, paying for gas, just not necessary to go ANYWHERE.
In this moment, without the thought that THIS, Reality, is BAD….I actually kind of find this all funny. I’m sitting in a room all by myself.
Holy Moly!
There are all kinds of things I can do, on that couch in the future, without the thought that being alone, lying there by myself, is a bad thing.
Concentrated time on my business re-tweaking my website. Finishing my little booklet on hitches that come up with The Work as you begin to do it. Completing that third draft of the parenting ebook that people are already downloading (it will be much better and more succinct). Writing that dang book proposal that keeps being on the to-do list endlessly and keeps getting bumped to the bottom.
“You can just as easily identify with a problematic body and make the body’s imperfection, illness, or disability into your identity….Once the ego has found an identity, it does not want to let go…..[but] no matter what your body’s appearance is on the outer level, beyond the outer form it is an intensely alive energy field.” ~ Eckhart Tolle
Even if I died during the operation (remember? Drama Queen mind?) I actually might find THAT quite interesting.
“Any feeling of discomfort or stress is an alarm that lets you know you’re believing an untrue thought.” ~ Byron Katie
“Just take five seconds to be quiet……It will stun you, it will really shock you if you’ve never seen it before: how much untruth we take to be as true. THIS is being alone….it’s aloneness inside, alone even from our own concepts.” ~ Adyashanti
Do I want to feel that aloneness, without running from it? That freedom that is so incredible? That wild mystery? Alone, all by myself?
Yes. Yes. Yes.
Love, Grace