Your New Life is Golden
You can’t go back to your old body or your old life before you were diagnosed. Wishing for that life is self-delusion. It’s like gluing a shattered piece of pottery together and expecting it to be the same as it was before it was broken. This way of thinking can only end in disappointment. But if you create something new with the pieces, you honor the beauty of what was and walk into something new and just as beautiful. Japanese Kintsugi mirrors this idea. Kintsugi is the art of putting broken pottery back together with lacquer and gold and emphasizes the imperfections as part of the magnificence of the new piece. (How to video)
This shift in perspective gives us the freedom to break free from the tyranny that our health conditions have over our feelings about our situations. There is a natural tension between our need to fight with everything we have against the enemy of our disease and the need to surrender and envision a new life. We are constantly bombarded with messages that tell us that if we fight hard enough, we can beat anything. We become afraid that if we “give in” to our illness, we have somehow failed or are responsible for not getting well. This all-or-nothing thinking prevents us from seeing new possibilities.
Undeniably, as acute episodes arise, our focus becomes survival. If we are not careful, this can become how we think all the time, even when dealing with our “normal” chronic illness difficulties. If we are only focused on building a fortress for protection and survival, we can become prisoners inside the walls we have constructed. We believe that these impenetrable walls protect us, but instead, they stop our inner growth because we are fed only from the inside. We add protection by strengthening our fortresses with ideas already behind the wall. We must learn to surrender to our new lives. Surrender isn’t weakness. It isn’t a drug that numbs us to our pain. It isn’t indifference. It isn’t resignation. Surrender ushers in a peace that leads us to know that we are part of something bigger than particular moments in time or circumstances that cause pain. When we embrace both surrender and the struggle against our diseases, our boundaries become porous, and new ways of imagining our lives seep in.
When we feel drained from the work, it’s important to take the time to integrate this new understanding of ourselves into who we are. The seeds we have planted will not develop if not given time to take root and grow. t takes practice to get below our patterned responses to our illnesses. This practice takes work and patience but can lead to the mind and body working together as a peaceful whole.
