Defining moments

I have written about them before.
You know, those when you are unaware in that particular moment, but much later, you realise it was a point in time that defined the rest of your path, “sealed your faith”, (if we are to be poetically
dramatic) changed the course of your journey and so on.

I`ve had many of these moments that I can now clearly see as “defining”, but none as unmistakable as this one.

It happened fifteen years ago this month. The start of my chronic pain journey. The memories of it so intensely vivid and clear, like I am still lying there, trapped in a perpetual moment.

Staring at the window. Outside the Snow was falling down like cotton balls. I was numb from the local anaesthetic, happy that it would be over in half an hour (so I thought)
The snowflakes comforted me somehow, made the world outside look clean, quiet and soft, so very strongly contrasting the harsh, noisy environment I found myself in.
I was unaware that what ensued after that moment would hold me captive for another fifteen years.
It`s good that I did not know.
The snow seemed to know, though, distracting me tenderly from what was to come, lovingly, knowing it was unavoidable. Lying there and hypnotically staring at the snow, I felt disoriented. It almost looked like the snow was rising up, instead of falling down. What appeared as a consoling dream, was an omen of what was to come: the total upheaval of everything I knew. Once I left, after my surgery, dizzy, bruised, confused and still comfortably numb, outside in the, somehow, liberating cold air, I noticed the snow had stopped falling. There were no signs that it had even fallen at all, that morning in March, fifteen years ago.

It started my chronic pain journey, one I never thought I`d embark on.
Is it something to honour, remember, celebrate even?
A quick search told me fifteen years are crystal anniversaries.
I seem to have been through cotton, iron, bronze, wool tin, silk and lace already (who comes up with these things)

I wish I could challenge myself to see this defining moment like an observer, without judgement. As if I don’t have, nor ever had a horse in this race. To see it as a stepping stone that brought me where I am now.

We start seeing it as a “Before and After“: Who I was before that moment…and who I inevitably became after it. I am not who I was that day any longer. The day that the snow fell down like cotton balls. But she is a part of me, the part of me telling me I can now stop, tenderly or less tenderly distracting myself. Like the snow did that day. It is what it was and is.
Raw, horrible, unfair, destructive and disruptive, sad, disempowering and infuriating.
The trauma, relentless despair, the perpetual claw of pain that won`t loosen its grip, the deep grief and loss of self, loss of precious time (weeks, months, years, decades) loss of understanding, dreams, relationships, jobs (loss of finances) hobbies, opportunities…The endless journey through allopathic and holistic medicine, the rejection, misunderstanding, abuse you endure along the way. The falling apart, losing hope, the never-ending search for help and answers, the loneliness and fear…..

Rope-dancing through your days, because, how else do you find balance between feeling the necessary compassion for yourself (and the heavy burden you carry) versus feeling the victim of the situation and being stuck in a “why me?” mindset.
Then…there is…. also.,. a rising up, finding strength you did not know about, the tiny courage that grows, how you keep showing up, regardless of
the pain you are in. People who are not on this path really have no idea (and cannot possibly know)

The defining moment. How do you not let THAT moment and all the challenges that it brought and brings, define your whole life, your experience, your whole journey? How do you not identify with it? How do we remember we are not just our bodies when the pain makes our bodies all we can focus on? So we build our identity around it. I did. You maybe do as well. I know I should not. Maybe you do too. As many different life experiences and paths there are in this strange realm we are in, as many moments there are to say:

“This tried to break me and (nearly) did,

but it is not the real me and never will be.”

Can we mourn and celebrate at the same time? Mourning the loss of our old (pain free) selves and, in my case, the fifteen years I was robbed off like I was sent to prison for a crime I did not commit.
Mourning but also celebrating? Perhaps, by honouring ourselves in that moment and today, for who we were and who we became, despite or because of it all. A time to let that tiny courage grow into something bigger, to give it permission to do that: the courage to see ourselves as worthy of health, love and wholeness, no matter what happened to us. To love ourselves now AND then. To forgive ourselves now AND then.
To say we are still here and we continued and we are amazing because of that.
No matter the number, the amount of years or what happened before to make you think the opposite.
We can heal in any moment. We might be unaware we are healing at this very moment.
Now let THIS be the new defining moment. The moment we started to heal and love ourselves, no matter what, It is said that we ‘lose’ parts of ourselves, along the way. But we can Reclaim and re-define some parts we lost and liberate who we are now.

Now, imagine again, if you like and remember, where you were and what you where doing that day and I will too. Send love. Keep sending love to who you were BEFORE and who you became AFTER ♡

Much love and blessings ♡
Silvia

(this was very emotional to write. When I sound like I am giving ‘advice’- hands up if you have enough of those- please know that I am speaking to myself as well :-))