An Unexpected Gift

Image by Dave Hoefler

The new year didn’t get off to the start I’d imagined. Not at all. Instead of diving back into all the things as planned post-holidays, my body has forced me to slow-the-ef-down. I’d thought I’d been heeding the call to slow my roll last fall, deep in the crucible of healing from major surgery. Apparently, my version of slow and the version the universe has in mind for me weren’t aligned and I’ve been given the gift of illness to prove the point.

Image by Maria Teneva

I never imagined I’d be one of those people who called illness a gift, but as I’m having my butt kicked by this one, I cannot see it any other way. Let me clarify, I CHOOSE not to see it any other way. After all, we always have a choice where perspective is concerned.

Sure, it’s a bit terrifying struggling to take a full breath, having to monitor my oxygen levels and wondering if I’ll ever be able to sing again (I will, I know this). It’s frustrating having to rest so much, especially when I may have only been up long enough to eat something and have some tea. But there are gifts in this experience too. Powerful lessons around what is important and what can be let go of for now – or perhaps altogether.

Honestly, I can’t recall ever feeling so poorly, and this includes that time I got COVID a few years ago. That experience taught me much about honoring our capacity and bandwidth (I wrote about it here), and this experience is building on that. As I’ve cancelled appointments and meetings left and right, there have been distinct flavors to the disappointment – levels if you will – that let me know what is actually important to me, and what was possibly just fluff.

Image by John Moeses Bauan

Being sick is showing me areas where I’d thought I’d needed to do this or that, but I truly don’t. Having to strip back to the bare-bones minimum has informed me of so many areas in my life that I’ve thought things “had to” get done, and they weren’t actually have-tos at all. Sure, some of them would be nice, but there is a distinct echelon of importance that’s come into sharp focus when viewed through the lens of my current capabilities thanks to illness.

A lot has fallen away and it might not get picked back up again. And I’m okay with that.

Strange how it sometimes takes a major event for us to truly look at the microcosm of our lives and see what is genuinely not working for us even though on the surface it may seem completely fine. Interesting the number of tasks, relationships, and perspectives we maintain that aren’t actually enriching. The number of things we allow place in our lives, whether consciously or unconsciously, that are, in fact, draining it.

I’m deep in this exploration right now. Cleaning up the microleaks in energy, reordering my thoughts around a variety of things, situations, circumstances, and taking time to redefine focal points and sharpen focus on what is truly a priority – all while hydrating and resting as much as possible. While being sick isn’t fun at all, I am grateful for the invitation to shift perspectives. Grateful for the opportunity to revisit what is vital, and what is not. What is working, and what is not.

Here’s to deepening that exploration. To discovering and trimming away whatever is no longer appropriate for our current stage in life, and putting our energy and focus whole-heartedly toward the things that matter most.