Take hold of Life's handle

                                                                                    Photo Credit: Trust Your Journey

When life hands you lemons (let's say it all together now) -- make lemonade!

This is what we are instructed to do in times of crisis - you know those times when life hits so hard you fall to the ground with a loud thud and the pain from that hurl reverberates throughout every bone in your body.

Admittedly, there are some hits that can leave you so incapacitated that, while writhing on the floor from the pain, you begin to entertain the idea of living the rest of your life face down on the asphalt.


GETTING BACK UP

I've always prided myself on being someone who could be body slammed onto the mat of life and still have the ability to bounce back quickly. I have always been able to self-motivate and recover from the blows life has thrown at me. The deaths of both my parents by the time I was 5 years old, followed by the death of the woman who raised me when I turned 18; these are just some hits I sustained early on in life. Although these events left me in immense pain, something inside of me keep nudging and spurring me to move forward.

MOVING FORWARD

Experiencing such a significant loss so early in my life instilled in me a fierce set of survival tools. If pressed to single out one lesson I feel is essential to the healing process I would have to say it is the act of surrendering.


COUNTING THE SECONDS

A couple months ago I suffered from a strange illness. To say it left me incapacitated would be an understatement.  I had a fever of 104.2 and had a non-stop throbbing migraine headache; it felt as if someone were slamming me in the head with two icepicks. The pain was so great that I actually prayed to die, I seriously prayed to God and asked to be taken from this world.

In this dark place I heard a distinct, clear voice whisper in my ear. This voice instructed me to count the seconds when I was not in pain. So, that's what I did,  I counted the seconds. I soon found out that in a sixty second time period I was pain-free for twenty-nine seconds. After arriving at this number the voice instructed me to place my main focus on the 29 pain-free seconds.

And as I anxiously awaited counting those twenty-nine blissful seconds a shift occurred, I no longer viewed them as a reprieve from the pain, they instead became my reward for enduring the pain.

A PUDDLE OF TEARS

My CAT Scan :) 

With no prior migraine history, an unrelenting fever and the now added symptom of nausea I soon found myself being examined by numerous doctors. After promptly being scheduled for a CAT SCAN I finally broke down and turned into a puddle of tears.

By the grace of God my scan was normal but I was still ill.  None of the medicine the doctors prescribed me were helping so I tossed them into my medicine cabinet and began to will myself back to health.

Within my daily meditation I allowed myself to be where I was (sick) and then I would visualize my body being healed. I got in the feeling place of being healthy and held specific images of what "health" meant to me in my mind.  It took a couple weeks to recover fully, but eventually I was back in good health again.

This experience has bestowed upon me a deeper understanding of what it means to completely surrender.


SURRENDERING

The word surrender may sound passive but I've learned that it truly exemplifies strength and power.

To surrender to any given moment means you let go of control and allow the circumstances to speak to you.

Our lives speak to us every second, of every minute of every day.  When a crisis hits, no matter how big or small, it is life's invitation to connect to ourselves on a deeper level.

** Please leave a comment letting me know your thoughts. **