Taking care of all of me.

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To create, to make a difference, I must turn up.

In my daughter Alexis’ blog post on the weekend, Yield, she talks about giving way to create space to keep turning up. 

A do or die thinker, I don’t yield well.

My brain tells me, you either are, or you are not, there is no in-between.

It also likes to tell me I’m a fraud, a failure, a no-show, when I yield.

I’m learning.

After two weeks of my neck not moving easily, it is finally beginning to give way, to yield its stiffness to allow me to turn my head without pain.

It is a relief.

And it is a learning opportunity. A chance to assess how well my ‘there are only two positions – Go or Stop’ thinking to see how well it has been working for me.

The answer is… you guessed it. Not that well.

The challenge with only two positions on the dial is, it leads to all or nothing thinking. In the land of black or white, pick one but you can’t have it all, I don’t give myself time or opportunity to be present without the pressure of having to do it all, give it all, make it all happen.

And so, I come back to the page, to the white screen, to this space of writing it out to find my way through to what is true and what is sometimes masquerading as truth to realize — how I do one thing is how I do all things.

My neck has been bothering me for quite awhile. And, in my normal fashion, I have ignored it in the hopes it will simply right itself.

It is. Righting itself. With a lot of help from those who know about righting stiff necks — and how to keep necks from getting stiff in the first place.

It is a learning eperience.

It’s about not ignoring the parts that hurt. About not forging on in spite of the pain. About not keeping going at it without stopping to ask it, what do I need to hear? What do I need to adjust so I can move on without pain? 

It’s about asking, How do I take care of you so that you will continue to be part of my body, my being present in this world, without being a pain in the neck?

The answer is: Take care of all of me.

It’s not just about the parts that hurt. They are simply manifestations of something deeper, something more profound.

Take care of all of me.

And so, I begin again. 

To take care. Of all of me.

14 thoughts on “Taking care of all of me.”

  1. welcome back …. or should I say ‘welcome neck’

    as I read your piece I got thinking – light switches, or any other kind of switches – ON, or OFF

    I have one with a dimmer dial, I can soften the light or make it bold and bright – and maybe that kind of switch is more of what we need to increase or decrease intensity without turning off completely

    I know that feeling you often write about – of going so hard so much of the time to get everything done we’ve committed to and everything that everyone else might have thought we committed to on top of it all …

    when all we really need to do is wake up every morning and be grateful for waking up in the morning

    while you’ve been missed, you’ve not stopped, have you? you are thinking, always – maybe too much sometimes – and now you are laying those thoughts down again and we are happy to click-on, open up some of Louise in the morning and be grateful for you

    glad you are mending,

    Mark

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