In the midst of my own battle to remain sane let alone positive through major medical conditions, I found my power; my truth: taking full responsibility for my health. Silly, it certainly sounds in the midst of terrible pain, frequent trips to counselors, physical therapists, chiropractors, and the medical doctors 3 hours away. I share my account of this powerful epiphany with the hope that it will reach the right people and empower you to heal your life.
It happen one late Spring night a few months out of my third major surgery in three years, a time when my Mom and I enjoyed our best and most soulful talks about life. We both found something so comforting about the night time – the buzz of the city is different, life is calm and creativity comes to life. Though I will admit that creativity was the least of my concerns on this particular night. Mom sat half dressed in her over-sized sweater under her covers awaiting my nightly “tap, tap, tap” at her bedroom door. I was in a state of blame that night, the world was indeed against me and I was unable to fathom how I could go through 3 major surgeries in 4 years and still… STILL survive only to hurt. It wasn’t right and it wasn’t fair. “People don’t live to hurt,” I thought to myself.
Mom did her best to let me vent and God only knows to this day how she was able to cope after listening to her daughter cry, go through rounds of testing, surgery, infection, feeding tubes, and now pain that seemed less than a celebratory win. It was, however, pain that certainly reminded me I was alive, pain that marked every single breath. Pain that makes people crazy… it does. It wore me down and often beat me with hallucinating thoughts I might not otherwise have entertained. So on this night, in a slump on my Mom’s bed, I was over it all. I spewed “W
hy me’s” on top of ,”Why do bad things happen to good people? How come nothing is working? How come I hurt so bad and feel so crazy?”
Once I was finished she paused as if knowing that what she was about to say would not go over well, but it would shake me up, and shaking up was what I needed. She challenged, “What if you created this for yourself?” The room was silent. I was shocked… ME?! Create this for myself? Why in the world would I knowingly create pain in my own life? Why would I create disease, surgery, pain for others, and a limited future for myself? Why would I work so hard to survive, Hell, why would I be here in the first place if this were true? I was furious; beyond crying at this point, my heart sunk and raced simultaneously and I went numb. I’d had enough. I thought it was quite possibly the most selfish thing my Mom could have said to me.
She carried on explaining her intention behind the statement of which I honestly heard little of at this point. She said something about how people create things within their bodies and in life so that they can experience, work through, and learn from them. I wasn’t buying it. Sure, she’s my spiritual, hippie, Indian dancing, love-sunshine-rainbows Mom, but she’d gone too far. I pretended to be fine, kissed her goodnight, grabbed the doorknob and listened to the carpet sweeping like the wind underneath and with a click of the door, I was alone to face my own inner demons for the rest of the night.
It took a good few days full of tears, anger, frustration, combined with a few late nights of journaling and all the inner guidance I could muster for me to arrive at the place of taking responsibility for my life. All of it. There was immense guilt in this preposition before a feeling of relief re-powered every cell of my body. It was like somebody reset the circuit breaker and I was back; mind body and spirit now reconnected. I thought to myself “Wait… So lets say I did create this? What does it mean? Well… It means I can stop it. It means I am not at mercy of illness or the prognosis of doctors or anyone else. It means I can do what I want. It means I can feel better. It even means I can have a life and a future.” I began acting and thinking in ways of personal responsibility and empowerment. I was less sensitized by the doctors opinions of my future life and more tuned into my own beliefs. I appreciated what they had done to get me to this point in time, but I knew the remaining work was up to me. I began to take responsibility for what I would become… and especially what I would make of it.
A night that started and even ended with great sadness turned out to the be one of the greatest blessings I could have received thanks to my Mom who dared to pose the question I so deeply needed to hear in order to set myself free. I am happy to say, I haven’t been the same since and I learned in a matter how a few months how to train my brain to be ally and life pain-free. I took ownership, I assumed the role of the creator of everything I was thinking, feeling, and experiencing. Even if someone was a jackass in the grocery store, I focused on myself and my part in it. After all, it wasn’t about them and I could only control me. Sure, it seems like extreme measures and c’mon, I know you’re thinking not everything was my responsibility. You’re right, but it allowed me the opportunity to own it all… and the only way I could change it, the only way we can ever change anything is to own our part in it.
Though positive thinking is not the cure-all for everything, it certainly compliments health and creates healing in some areas that medical science cannot explain. Thanks to positive thinking, I continue to amaze doctors everywhere I go. As you move about your world today, choose to be a on in a million thinker and believe that all things are possible. You cannot afford anything less.
May you create abundantly and find relief in owning your life,
Lacy
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An inspiring message!! Thank you for sharing.
Thank you, Toby!