But being open, being vulnerable, being ready to receive revelation of places of hurt and wounding, being honest and transparent .... is sometimes tiring work.
I lived a very long time in happy land. I am, by nature, a happy, hyper and energetic person. I like to have fun, I like to do, and I like to be moving and busy. Healing is slow work. Often still work. Many times healing can look like nothing at all, and the desire and urge to jump up and move on to the next shiny thing can take over my head space and try to divert me from the healing path that I'm walking.
I have likened my journey to a car crash. The day that everything came crashing down was the impact of the crash. I then had to be cut out of the wreckage, life flighted to help, triaged through the hospital, then stabilized. Once I was stablized I had to be prepped for surgery and then endure a long surgical procedure. I now see myself as being in post-op. If you've ever had a lingering illness, or a surgery, you understand that during the healing process there are moments where you feel more energetic or stronger than you really are. You are tempted to push yourself as you long to stretch your body and legs back into routines they have been used to. Often, you are forced back to bed where you concede that you might have rushed into activity too soon and more rest is necessary. I am finding myself dipping my toes back into leadership roles, and into the primary parent role, and while I feel I am moving carefully and slowly, there are times where my heart feels that it isn't strong enough yet, not healed up enough to endure the pressure of the job at hand. Healing takes intention, attention, and effort. I have to make the time to feed my physical body as well as my heart. I have to be still... and with four needy, hurting children, that can often feel unattainable.
My knee-jerk reaction is to do more than I should, with frustration, and then numb the pain; with food, or noise, or reading, or any of a million other things I can do other than sit with the struggle that swirls and swishes around me. The hard thing to do is to be still. To asess how I am feeling, how I can respond, and to take my time in reacting. To allow the new behavior I'm learning to take effect, to slowly stretch and build those muscles that have sat unused for so long.
I have discovered that I tend towards codependency and in that new realization, I'm having to learn to respond to people in new ways, and stop and think before I respond. It's all too easy for me to try and rescue people, or 'save' them from discomfort, and sacrifice chunks of myself all along the journey.
For now, as I do the still work of healing, I am giving myself permission to move slowly. To stop and rest. To make mistakes with the ever-present desire of forward motion. To refuse to punish myself for detours. Maya Angelou says "When you know better, you do better." I'm taking that to heart and running with it. Each day I learn more... about myself, about how I operate with other people, where some of my weaknesses are, and how I tend to worry more about the feelings of others than my own.
Healing isn't sedentary. It's a slow, careful walk out of hurt and wounding. It's intentional choice that can go against what your brain is telling you to do. It's the cautious tending to raw wounds that can be pulled open again and gently covering them with prayer, rest, and love so that instead of a long lasting slashed festering of flesh, the scar can begin to form. It is grace and change and growing pains and doctor visits and time and rest and work. As I continue to heal, I will next move into physical therapy; where what I'm learning about myself can begin to be put to work in a controlled environment. I'm determined to do my work. I trust that as I keep growing and aging and moving through this earth journey that there will be more work to do, and I pray I can stay focused and close to the surgeon for any other procedures I need to have done.
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