Surrender.
The thought of surrendering to my chronic illness used to scare the life out of me. I believed it would take over and I’d never find my way out again.
I feared what would happen if it did take over. Would I survive? Would I be able to cope? Would it be so painful and uncomfortable that it would swallow me whole?
That was a time when I believed I needed to control it or it would control me. It was a time I believed my chronic illness was ‘other’ to me and my body.
Today is about tuning into the belief that your chronic illness is a part of your body like any other; your messaging centre if you like.
It’s about trusting and believing in yourself. Believing that, if you do surrender to your chronic illness, if you do accept it as a part of you, if you let go of control (from both sides), you will be able to cope, you will be OK, you will make it out the other side.
Fighting is always harder (in practice) than acceptance and surrender. A relationship reliant on control is always harder (in practice) than one that’s grounded in peace. Resisting and rejecting is always harder (in practice) than compassion.
I made a point of in practice, because actually, acceptance, surrender, peace and compassion are hard to begin with! They’re revealing and challenging and so we run from them. It’s much easier to choose the fight, resistance and control! But once in the practice of practicing (!), life does become easier, more joyful. Whereas, over time, fighting, resisting and controlling becomes so hard and so exhausting!
And you’re here for the joy, the ease, the return of energy, right?!
If you didn’t already know; you can do hard things. You are one strong human. And…you can enjoy life when it flows and when it’s easy. You are capable of living a life that doesn’t require you to struggle.
It’s so important to acknowledge the flip side of ‘you can do hard things’. As we explored earlier this week, you’ve been in training for the ‘hard things’ the whole time you’ve lived with chronic illness. So much so that the ‘easy things’ can feel a whole lot scarier. But this ‘hard place’ isn’t the place we want you to stay in.
So perhaps the question for us folk isn’t only ‘but what if it gets harder and I can’t cope?’
Maybe it’s also ‘What if, when I surrender to my chronic illness, things get easier? What if all this pain and anguish get less? What if, the scary thing is that I might not know who I am without the suffering?’
Remember, you will be OK and you will be able to cope. How much do you believe that?
Journal prompts.
How much do you believe that whatever happens next, you will be OK and you will be able to cope? Out of 10 (1 being not at all, 10 being you wholeheartedly believe it).
What do you think fuels that belief? Feel into your body and write freely if you feel resistance to this question. If all you can feel is resistance, write that. Where in your body is it most present?
How would you summarise the way you currently live with and feel about your chronic illness? What kind of relationship do you have with it?
How does that relationship bleed into your life, energy, mind, body, emotions?
How does it feel to consider your chronic illness as a part of you? What comes up for you?
If you do already, what would it look like to dial that up a notch?
What do you believe lies on the other side of surrender?
What comes to mind when you picture a life - that includes your chronic illness - that’s filled with peace, acceptance and compassion? How does that feel in your body?
It can be really easy to picture that life when your chronic illness is absent or ‘healed’, but what about when it’s just as it is now?
If you tuned into the belief that no matter what happens you will be OK, that you can do hard things, what reveals itself to you?