A while back I shared a post called “Why Me?” It was focused on our experience of feeling victimized in situations we can’t control and don’t like, as in receiving a scary medical diagnosis. Instead of remembering that as humans we are all vulnerable to life’s losses and challenges, we feel singled out and make it personal. Making it personal locks us up in the victimhood of it, instead of helping us feel grounded. I have done this so many times, and found myself doing it again last week.
For the second time in two months I have been knocked off my feet with illness. So when I found myself asking if I could really be this sick again, I fell into a familiar trap. It’s the victim trap: The one that keeps us running on a wheel that we hate, not realizing we are the ones powering it. Maybe you have met this trap yourself?
As an otherwise healthy, COVID-vaccinated-and-boosted adult (plus Long COVID survivor), I pondered what could possibly be happening with my body that was causing me to feel like I have the flu again? I wrestled with my own logic to come to some conclusion about how I could be so sick so I could prevent it from happening in the future. (For curious minds check out related posts: “Thirty Months” and “Common Traits COVID and Grief“). I figured if I was going to be sick, I was going to come out of it smarter this time. (And thus the victim trap wheel was powered up!)
I would figure out where I picked up the flu bug: Was it at Yoga? Or Grief Group? Or the food store? Solving this mystery seemed to be the most empowering way to survive another round of sweating through my bedding, having no voice, canceling longstanding commitments, missing social engagements, and feeling like my body and bones were one big bruise. If only I could solve the mystery of where and how I got sick again, I could take a pass on it next time.
I spent the last several days torturing my poor brain with an insistent demand that it make sense of this “life-disrupting, inconvenient state” I was in. I thought about it. I meditated. I prayed. I walked when I could. All I could come up with was that I need to take better care of myself. Revolutionary! Really? Same old bullshit answer, and since at 53 I feel better rested, hydrated, connected and centered than I have ever felt in my life, could my challenges really still be coming down to my unsuccessful attempts at fixing the most obvious thing in front of me? My own standard of self-care?
The answers were “yes,” and “no.”
Yesterday to get to the bottom of this, I called one of my oldest friends. We’d been texting over the weekend and she knew I was sick again. She could sense my frustration. “How can I be this sick again it’s so annoying?!” And her response was something like “Well our bodies slow us down when our minds won’t allow us to.”
I knew that. We’d talked about it many times over our 4+ decade friendship. And somehow between all that healthy meditation, and praying for answers about questions on how to be more healthy I was doing, I forgot that “My body was S-L-O-W-I-N-G me down because my mind was not allowing me to.” And just like that, I got it. For the millionth time.
So two points to share today: The first, is that whatever we allow our minds to focus on will put us, and keep us running on a wheel, resentfully participating in something we don’t realize we are actually driving. We think the wheel won’t stop. We think we are stuck. We think life is happening “to” us. But what we don’t understand is that we are the ones turning our own victim trap wheels. Instead of focusing on recovery, I was powering the momentum of the wheel with my resistance to the situation, rather than just rolling with it. So let’s try turn our own victim wheels a bit less.
The second point is that old friends are among the most familiar, calming breezes that can travel our paths with us. Friendship is not about being perfect. It is not about puffing each other up, or tearing each other down. It’s about love. It’s about understanding, humility, care and truth. It’s about saying “I’m sorry” sometimes, and “All is forgiven” other times. It’s about participation. It’s about willingness. If we stay connected, friendship can be like a tree: The older it grows the deeper the roots dig into the ground and with all of that support, the higher the branches can rise.
I am making this second point because I want us to talk more about our personal relationships. I want us to cultivate relationships that are sturdy enough to withstand occasional, seasonal damage while also making staunch commitments to show up for that relationship again and again, no matter what ball we dropped, how we failed ourselves or each other, and what the fall out was. I want us to preserve and nurture our friendships so that we don’t miss out on the familiar breezes as we travel our paths.
My experience with my friend yesterday was a calming breeze of a reminder that we need our friends. They can figure out our shit in 60 seconds when we can’t do it in six days. Or six years. And likewise. We do it for them too.
When we trip on each other as we grow and expand over decades of time, it is easy to let friendships fall away. We are living and working all over the world, in different time zones, building careers, families and caring for our aging parents. Despite all of our magic technology we are less connected with one another, than I can ever remember.
There are no shortages of reasons and excuses to stop investing in relationships. But there is a shortage of warm breeze reminders that life is sweet and meant to be shared. As we separate, and come back together, separate and come back together, separate and come back together, whether within a week or a decade of time in between, and as we forgive ourselves and others for choices we all may have later regretted, we weave that sturdy foundation of friendships that grow with, in, and around all the parts of us. And then we say “Let there be wind!” Because we know we are secure.
Try putting this on your “To-do” list: Make time to weave my friendships and plant trees!
Sending Love to All, this Mother’s Day and extending a special “Thank You, Again!” message to one of my oldest and dearest friends. #Grateful 🙏🏼
PS: Find more posts on Mother’s Days past, HERE.