I believe in synchronicity. I believe that when you put out a sincere request for help, the universe answers you.
It may not always answer in the way you expect. The trick is to be open to what you receive and notice if it matches up in some way with what you need.
I’ve had a chronic illness for over 24 years, and most of the time it’s pretty well-managed. But, last fall, I had a relapse after a bout of laryngitis. I became ill with a virus, but I didn’t really get better. Then, in January – after a few months of recuperating – I became ill with a cold and, instead of getting better, my energy level and ability to function got worse.
Various medical professionals decided on various diagnoses – relapse of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and/or Fibromyalgia, adrenal fatigue, post viral fatigue syndrome, reactivation of Epstein Barr Virus. It didn’t really matter what the diagnosis was as the treatment was the same: rest, take care of myself, stop working.
It was a hard time for me. It was frustrating and frightening.
At some point during those months I was alternately resting and dragging myself around to get done what needed to be done, I was in my local bookstore getting a book for one of my kids and a book caught my eye. When Things Fall Apart.
That’s the book for me, I thought. Things have certainly fallen apart.
So I bought it. Because when intuition nudges me or impulse strikes, I’ve learned to follow it.
It was the book for me.
Over the next several months, I read When Things Fall Apart by Pema Chodron. I took it one small chapter at a time, reading during breakfast or lunch or a quiet spot in my day, curled up on our red couch. Underlining the words that moved me or stood out to me (there’s a lot of underlining, more and more as I progressed through the book).
Every one of the book’s 22 chapters spoke to me in a different way.
I learned more about loving kindness, maitri: unconditional friendliness toward yourself. I needed that. Being in a place where your body is not responding in the way you want can set up feelings of anger and resentment. But I don’t want to resent my body. It’s doing what it can, what it knows how to do, to keep me alive and functioning. It thinks it’s protecting me by being the way it is.
Learning compassion for myself and deepening my trust in myself and in my physical body was a huge gift.
I learned about groundlessness and that it’s not something to fear, but a natural state of being, in which we can learn to trust life itself.
I learned to stop resisting – or at least to resist less. To lessen my resistance to the waves of emotion and experience that encompass human life.
Over the course of several months, When Things Fall Apart helped me relax into my struggle. It helped me be in a place where I could let things be, as they were, without knowing how to solve them or fix them. Without knowing what the solutions were, only that they existed somewhere in the universe, and trust that I’d find them, or they’d find me.
In reading this book, I felt heard and seen. My struggle was acknowledged and I found wisdom and peace.
It’s a beautiful and profound work, which I totally recommend if you have any struggle in your life, and especially if it feels like things have fallen apart for you.
Our human experience is rich and full, sometimes overwhelmingly so. But this is why we’re here: to live, to struggle, to wake up and realize that it’s all OK being what it is.
Disclaimer for full transparency: The links for the book go to Amazon.com. If you purchase it there, my microbusiness gets a small affiliate fee. You can also get the book at your local bookstore, or ask your local bookstore to order it for you, and that’s a totally awesome thing to do.