The Gift of Difficult Encounters
Photo by Karim MANJRA on Unsplash
It felt as though my heart—my self-compassion—was floating up and away from my chest. The cold loneliness that remained in its place was more than just a bit uncomfortable, so without haste, a (softening) version of my inner leopardess* stepped in to protect me. Her protection was short-lived and could have been detrimental to my growth had I not noticed and shifted.
Let me back up.
This summer, I fractured my arm and rotated my shoulder in a bizarre (and Divine) accident that left me homebound and essentially bedridden for a few months until that virus going around struck and extended my forced period of stillness by several more weeks. It was the summer of inner work and spiritual growth if I was willing to accept the challenge. And I was. Now that I’m back on my feet, the lessons continue to show up for me—daily, if I’m aware enough to welcome them in.
This week I went into my physical therapy session with renewed optimism. While the arm and shoulder pain during these sessions can be excruciating at times, I recognize that it’s often my resistance to the pain that amps up the discomfort significantly. I’ve been taking a deep dive into the emotional healing work required to continue on my journey of dissolving the armored walls that “protect” me. I’ve been letting go of this resistance. As I’ve mentioned many times, those of us with a history of mystery or chronic illness often have a maladapted limbic system that tends to remain hypervigilant (in fight-or-flight) for longer and more often than necessary.
As I used the assistance of the pully to lift my left arm to warm up, I noticed my therapist eyeing me a bit suspiciously.
“I have to be honest with you,” he said with a sternness I hadn’t detected in the three weeks I had been going to PT. “I’m concerned your progress is going backward. This is a crucial time in your healing.”
The words stung. The feeling in my body reminded me of a time I couldn’t quite place where I had felt that I had failed myself or someone else, or both. I felt the urge to cry in that moment but didn’t. How silly. I would look like a scolded child. I’m 46 years old. He’s what, not even 30?!
A softening version of my leopardess stepped in and quickly came up with valid excuses. “Well, it hasn’t hurt all week until last night. It was stiff this morning. Maybe I slept on it wrong?” I suggested.
“Maybe.” He seemed to backtrack a bit. The discomfort I felt about the encounter abated for the time being.
But I still had doubts. Doubts about whether the deep inner surrendering work I had undertaken the previous weekend was only temporary. Doubts about my diligence with the at-home exercises. Doubts about my ability to embody all the mind-body tools that have become the center of my life and my purpose in serving others.
We continued, and the other exercises looked good, fortunately. As I lay on the table, though, to endure the hard work of my arm being stretched to where it really should have been eleven weeks post-injury, the pain was agonizing. My legs writhed, back arched. I was resisting. I could sense my resistance, but the pain had never been this unbearable. Deep breathing didn’t seem to make a dent in the pain or assist him in contorting my arm as he requested of me.
I could have cried from the pain, sure. I had heard others in the lobby talking about crying from the discomfort of their PT sessions. It wasn’t that, though. Instead, I was suppressing my emotions tied to the beginning of our hour together so intensely that my body was in no shape to surrender to the treatment.
I pleaded for a rest, and he kindly lay my arm across my chest and stepped away to give me a few minutes of pause.
When he returned, arm relaxed and pain-free, I warned him that I was going to cry. I told him that it wasn’t about the pain. I just needed to make room for the sadness.
He couldn’t have made a grown woman in a sterile PT office feel more comfortable in her sobbing. The mask helped. Yay—win for the mask! As he went back to work on my arm it still hurt, but a layer of resistance was now dissolved. The tears, stored deep inside my body from a time many years ago when it didn’t feel safe to let them flow, had cleared away space for me to surrender. My vulnerability in that moment loosened the knot around my heart that had had me fighting to protect my body at all costs.
Pain. Sadness. Relief. Pain. Surrender. Progress.
. . . . .
Emotions want to move, flow, breathe. And when we hold them in, when we stifle their fluidity, they often manifest as pain. This experience was a physical representation of my spiritual quest to surrender and the fear holding me back.
These encounters, these mirrors, these words and behaviors from others are gifts to bring us home to ourselves if we are willing to open them.
*In Chapter I of my memoir, Going with My Gut, I paint a picture of that inner protector (sometimes also cynic or critic) that I call my “inner leopardess.”
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