Illness, connection, and my word of 2022

Hi friends, 

I felt so energetic, excited, and hopeful about ringing in 2022! But then, on New Year's Eve, my husband was feeling sick and went to bed early. I still stayed up and popped open a bottle of bubbles to celebrate at midnight on my own.

The next day, when I woke to some bad news from my mother about a few family members, I thought, "okay, maybe 2022 isn't getting off on the right foot." Then my husband and I tested positive for COVID within days of each other. Ugh! Not the fresh start to the year I was looking for.

I was so sick that I couldn't focus on anything. I had extreme fatigue and a lot of bad cold symptoms. That meant no work for two weeks, no reading, no journaling, no meditating. I didn't do anything except rest and stay horizontal. Fast forward 17 days, and I finally feel human again.

While I was sick I felt so frustrated: mad that it happened to me, and angry about one more health challenge to overcome. I was done! During this time, one of my dear friends called me to check in, and we had a deeply moving conversation about giving ourselves over to not fighting it all. Over the last four years, I've had four surgeries, losses that shook me to my core, and now COVID. During our conversation, my friend convinced me to shift my perspective in a major way. I made the choice not to resist it all so hard. He shared his Buddhist meditation teacher's perspective on battling COVID and how he handles pain.

He sees our suffering as a doorway to our understanding. He looks at illness as an opportunity to be curious about what’s really going on, versus how he wants his own life to be. His equation is simple but revolutionary:

We’re bound to feel pain in our lives. That is the nature of living. But when we add in reactivity and resistance we can find ourselves consumed by suffering. When we turn away from discomfort, we can easily become the victims of our own narratives, stressed and distracted from our essential truths.

After our conversation, I was inspired to reframe my illness. When we turn towards pain to ask what’s really present and get curious about our experience we can understand our suffering and begin to cultivate tolerance, kindness, and awareness. From there, we can apply a more considered practice of self-compassion. In short, we can say, “yes this is painful and challenging, but I’m not going to give it more energy than it already has." All of this has led me to choose a powerful "word of the year," something I work on personally and also with my clients during my Intentional Year retreats.

My word of 2022 is SURRENDER! I've discovered that when we surrender, we turn our ego and self will over to more profound wisdom and knowing within us: our higher self. When we surrender to our higher self, we let go of the painful distortion of certainty, duality, and separateness, embracing the truth of uncertainty, connection, and unity.

So what's your word of 2022? Hit reply to respond and I'll see you back here next week.