Healing Steps Towards a Brighter Future

What’s your favorite thing about your body?

I love this prompt. I think there are so many different paths of response depending on how one understands the intent of the question. Do I want to answer from a body-positivity mindset? Perhaps I’m most appreciative of a biological aspect? Or is it something temporal? I could even take it metacognitively and go down a seriously deep rabbit hole.

I think I’ll focus on the biological today because the prompt is both serendipitous to my current physical circumstance and lends itself towards examining some related mentalities/experiences.

At one point on my path of growth this year I was charged with identifying my values (not to be confused with goals which are tangible objectives that can be achieved…destinations or stops on a journey). What are the principles that I (currently) hold to govern my behavior in the myriad of things I will experience?

• NOTE: I specifically call out ‘currently’ because values are not immutable attributes of our ethos. Dr. Russ Harris likens them to continents on a globe; no matter how you try to spin it, it is impossible to see all of them at once…some will be at the back and some will be front and center. The beauty is that we get to choose, even moment to moment.

At the time of this writing, my primary values are kindness (to self and others), mindfulness, and self-development. These values aren’t a set of rails that I am unable to depart from so much as they are a compass that leads me in a general direction. So that would make the process of becoming a happier person my North Star, maybe? I think I’ve tired the metaphor. One consideration I was told to keep while examining what values were currently at the forefront of my mind was the question “If you could chose one word to enter the minds of others when they think of you, what would it be?” At present, I would say ‘resilient’.

And coincidentally, that happens to be my favorite thing about my body: he is remarkably resilient. The biological capacity for our bodies to heal is nothing short of astounding. As I have just eclipsed my first week of recovery post-surgical repair of my ruptured Achilles I am reminded of this more frequently: that nearly quarter-inch-thick tendon which was split in two is actively mending itself (with the aid of modern medicine) back together and will one day be able to again withstand hundreds of pounds of tension or thousands of Newtons of force!

And as impressive as the physical healing process is, I am equally amazed by the mind’s ability to recover from trauma and I am so grateful for that possibility of healing. As much as this past week has involved physical healing, so too has it brought opportunities for emotional and mental healing. I closed a very significant chapter of my life last week and, as I mentioned above, serendipity just seems to be a theme: healing both physically and emotionally.

I think the two are certainly tied together, though, with one of countless common threads being impermanence. Just as my training regimen came to an abrupt end, so too can relationships or intangible things like moments and periods of joy or happiness. As bleak as that can seem, that also means the opposite is also true: my hiatus from training for some physical event is temporary, feelings of loneliness are transient with discovering meaning in solitude, and a state of melancholy can be supplanted by contentment when I stop trying to impose my will upon aspects of the world beyond my control (which is most of it!). Impermanence is the tide that is always sure to crash upon the shore, sometimes with incredible and destructive force, but ultimately recedes to leave the landscape washed and ready for renewal.

As it has been said, “this too shall pass”. My body will heal from injury and my mind will heal from trauma. But how wonderful that I get to captain this ship through the ebb and flow of life’s currents; how amazing that I get to ride these waves of change and renewal! With my compass guiding me, I know I’ll get where I need to go. Healing is definitely my favorite thing about my body.

Walk with gratitude 🙏