I had planned it for three months. I was about to take a leave from my daily life, weekly teaching, and Copenhagen. I taught my last class on Sept the 15th and started to get prepared to catch my flight to Lisbon on the 17th where a 9-day gathering of lovely folks ready to move, breathe, and share together awaited me. Or so I thought.
On the 16th, I woke up sick. Each following morning, I hoped I’d feel better, able to get a new flight and go, but the sickness lingered. The days passed and I ended up never feeling good enough to go in time—so I did not.
I had a perfect plan in my mind about how things would be. I hosted a farewell dinner, we went for brunch after my last class, I packed everything away, cleaned, ordered my bags. I thought I had let go of a lot already, saying goodbye to a community I love, turning my life upside down, and taking the leap to go on a sabbatical, aka “the big unknown.”
Apparently, there was more to surrender to.
Now this
As my friend Seb once told me, when sickness or an injury hits us, this is the body’s way to say to us: “Now, this.” It does not matter what our bright mind had planned or would prefer, if the body is not game, we’re not going anywhere. So, I accepted and focused on “this now”, laid down for a good week, and let myself just be, faithful in the wisdom of the body.
My practice taught me the gifts of surrendering to what is not mine to control. When I can do it, it is such a release. As the Buddhists said, in fact this is a way to end suffering.
Given the little amount of energy I had, I was forced to slow down. I started viewing my health and energy at that time as a precious resource which definitely was not in overflow, meaning I had to respect it and prioritize what to do with it. A little asana, cooking and eating, reading, listening to a podcast, meditating, talking with a loved one on the phone. The necessary degree of inner listening was surprisingly demanding. I started to understand the virtue of slowing down—something we are not really used to value much.
I was also amazed at the body’s capacity to manage and target the available resources to where they’re mostly needed. With this process came an undeniable quality of quietude in the mind. Although different from the sharpness of a deep meditative state, I felt my mind becoming generally calmer.
A point of choice
I rested and gradually recovered in Copenhagen, while my local community thought I was gone. What an interesting feeling this was. I felt a little like in a limbo space, an in-between state of here but not here; there and not there; I had left, but not quite. Because of my mind’s stiller state, it was easier to hold the paradox. Simply “being,” resting, and allowing the higher intelligence inside me, without needing to figure it out or understand the “meaning of it”, I believe, remarkably eased my healing.
Of course, it took me a couple of days of resisting before I could completely embrace the process. I remember one moment after four or five days, when I was feeling bored and frustrated. Suddenly, I realized I was at a choice point: I can either resist what is currently happening—the sickness is not over yet and I am obviously not in charge of the process here—or release and melt with it. I decided to give the latter a try. I placed my hand on my heart and closed my eyes. Before I knew it, an hour passed. I felt connected to myself in a whole new way. I also began sensing that the leave I had been preparing for might not turn exactly as I initially thought. Oh, well.
Despite that my plans changed, I could readapt. This time of sickness felt like a time of integration, a sort of transition to better prepare for what’s to come.
We are made to adapt and bounce back at any unexpected turn of events. This is how our ancestors made it for generations and generations, so we could be here today. Nevertheless, our capacity to adjust to life depends on our willingness to slow down, at least enough so that we can reconnect with the present moment and realize that this is where our point of choice truly lies: the here and the now.
So, my friend, as maybe one or some conditions in your life are shifting, how do you adapt and adjust?
Where or what could you release?
Where is it yours to make a choice, and which one do you make?
