PhotoCredit: The Lorax
I’m really good at making things hard for myself. Finding the struggle in the struggle - on it! As I pulled a muscle in my back halfway through this whole quarantine situation I realized I hadn’t slowed down. I wasn’t traveling but I was rapidly filling the void. Work calls increased by an order of magnitude. Any other space in my life was filled with ordering supplies as if the apocalypse would be upon us any day now.
Three weeks into my injury and I am so over being restricted in my movements. Entering our third month of quarantine, I recognize the same frustration.
My back is holding me back from doing all I want to do. Covid-19 is a handbrake on the world. My back reflects the literal tension of this moment.
I see a similar parallel in recovery. I have been efforting myself to health. Each time I thought I was “fine”, suddenly I wasn’t. I spent any moment of relief doing laundry, cleaning, baking, and taking apocalypse inventory. I was deploying frustration to fix myself and, in the process, I was undoing any good I had done. My effort was removing any ease I had found.
True healing happens when we let go of our need for certainty and embrace the IDK. Embrace the I Don’t Know of it all. Certainty is rigidity. In our backs and in our lives. Not knowing affords a freedom. Freedom to seek information and not force a solution.
My back wasn’t damaged, it was stressed. I kept adding to that stress trying to push it back to where I was before. The truth is that my body is tired. Tired from years of effort. I forgot about ease. I forgot about the IDK.
I know my back is getting stronger, even in its weakness. I know our world is getting stronger, even though it’s hard to see what recovery will look like. I’m working on letting go of my frustration and allowing ease to emerge. I’m learning to embrace the IDK.
Glorious newness will emerge from this crisis and make us stronger as we find the ease of not-knowing.