I realize that part of doing these blogs is to chronicle what is happening in my life, whether I have seen the big insight that unlocks the pattern door or not. So here goes.
After returning from Europe and my rowing wins there, I was on the top of my game and started to train for my next goal for this year, to win the Head of the Charles Regatta in Boston on October 19th. Well, several weeks into my training, I got sick – chest infection, rash all over my body and fevers at night. I went to bed, took vitamin C, didn’t eat much, lost some weight, but the sickness kept persisting. After a week of inactivity, I felt a little better, so went out to row hard (after so much “no practice” I was starting to panic about my preparation for the race) and my back went out. More days off and lots of pain, until I learned about icing every 15 minutes per hour and used an inversion table I bought on sale to lengthen my back.
So now as of this writing I am almost well in my chest and my back has almost returned to normal and I did a good training piece today. But what I wanted to share about was the feelings and thoughts I went through while being sick.
I felt so trapped in my body and a victim of it’s whims. I could not control the situation, I was not in charge, my body was not doing what I wanted it to do – be healthy, strong and pain free. I was angry, sad, depressed, and resigned (this had happened before a number of times – chest burning with infection and rash). I experienced a kind of trapped blackness about me and wondered if it had something to do with the chaos I was born into and feeling trapped in my body and not liking where I was. “This can’t be it! It wasn’t suppose to be like this when I was born!” I am sure that is part of what got re-stimulated and certainly points to my “This isn’t it” pattern I have had all my life.
Diane was great and very supportive, but it was hard on her also to have a partner who was listless, angry, depressed and not much fun to be with. I have a hard time looking cheerful when I am not!
The only snafu in this whole picture is that rather than I being able to point to some aspect of my life and justify that “this isn’t it” – THIS IS IT – I like and love who I am with, Diane, and where we live, Nevada City, CA and New Zealand, we have enough money, and our life is so good. So I suspect, my mind is just making up a problems to keep me from experiencing the joy and pleasure of living the life I actually want.
I often heard that when you start having lots of pleasure in your life, that you could run up against your limits of what you can hold. I never thought much about it, but think it is something I now need to explore. How do I expand my limits? Perhaps it is in the realm of deservability. I notice that when I do not have a project where I am contributing or I am not bringing in money from a job, I don’t feel as good about myself. Yet here I am at the age of retirement and while I am looking for my next project, I can actually live within the resources I have. So I am blessed that way. Perhaps the lack of deservability comes from my “not good enough” pattern and that set some sort of limits on what I could have and enjoy.
Anyway, this is what I am currently exploring and perhaps it will illicit some sharing of what you might have found in a similar situation.
All the best along this road of life – this exciting and challenging adventure,
Landon