Health Challenges & Dandelion's Shadow

Even the dandelion’s shadow is amazing, don’t you think? But it isn’t a substance you can touch or feel, but a visual representation of the real.

The shadow causes me to look again at the flower, to see minute details I missed at first glance.

Shadows, like feelings can be magical and beautiful,  or sinister and ominous. The feelings that have accompanied this health crisis have shaken me, but also guided me to look for the SUBSTANCE that is casting this shadow. I wonder if in this confrontation, I am becoming more healthy in the way I think and the way I process.  Three truths have surfaced:

1. We have a relationship with our body. I FEEL that my body is betraying me. This is a shadow. It SEEMS that I cannot trust my body. (so ominous). I woke Saturday morning with a clarity and a challenge. I am being called to change what I believe. I am now accepting this truth- my body is trying to RIGHT itself. It is pursuing balance. I am CHOOSING to believe that these issues (while extremely painful) are allowing me to understand something crucial about what MY body needs, thus allowing me to choose in an enlightened way. What if in this knowledge, I am fueling my body with what it needs to fight an even bigger demon? What if this is FOR me? That is what I’m choosing to accept, knowing my body was created to heal itself. I choose to trust that my body is doing something marvelous. This is in essence, choosing GRATITUDE.
2. We are intertwined. Our body is not disconnected from our spiritual and mental lives. Our spiritual and mental states affect our body and vice versa. I do not say this lightly. We all know it to be true (ask the cardiologist about the stress factor), but when in a physical challenge, believing this truth can feel incriminating. I am not perpetuating that we wallow in guilt and blame, but I am considering this an opportunity to be open to let this “body challenge” teach me in my spiritual, emotional and mental attitudes.  How can I think more WHOLLY? How can I trust more FULLY? How can I love more DEEPLY?
3. The identity that I accept, matters. All of us have been “defined” in a neat little box by someone, somewhere in our past. Depending on our family of origin and who we were compared to, we were “identified” in categories. This happens, initially, so innocently. Maybe you have been identified in comparison to your siblings, or community, or giftedness, or ineptness. The problem is that “comparison identification” is an ENEMY. Who are you created to BE? What are your PASSIONS? GIFTS? CALLINGS? PURPOSE? This is the digging that we must do as adults. These are the things that we must let identify us….NOT a “weak” body, NOT a “bad decision” as a teenager, NOT our “failures”!!!!! What is said about us by others is not our identity. Most recently I realize I will not, I must not, accept my body’s perceived weaknesses as part of my identity. What label should you reject?

Like anyone who’s life has been rocked, I am looking for equilibrium. I don’t know all of the “whys” and “hows” of this situation but I’m always looking for the light and love, growth and joy, even in the shadows.

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I wrote this and have waited a few days to publish. Yesterday (5.10) my friend Bethany Crawford compiled and sent a video of some of my friends sending affirmations to me. It was life-altering, divine, needed and accepted with gratitude. I wish to give this gift of love to everyone I know. It has inspired me to carry these truth-thoughts with me, and then to give liberally the affirmations I see in others.

There is beauty in the flower AND in the shadow.