What is strength?
This is a question I’ve been pondering since coping with a debilitating digestive ailment. At the onset of my symptoms: intense stomach cramping and back pain an hour or two after eating, I focused my attention on carrying this physical burden with grace. I believed myself to have the spiritual and emotional capacity to do so, because I meditate and I practice gratitude (goddammit I’ve been training for this!).
So like times before preceding a breakdown, I repeated to myself that I was okay, all of this was fine, it could be much worse, I can handle it. Until I simply couldn’t.
I had been to my GI doctor, had gone on a trip and managed the pain and inconvenience, been working for a week in pain, gone to the ER twice (only seen once), and had come to live in fear of food. Even now, my ego looks at this and thinks, ya, well it could be a lot worse. Which is true. Because it could always be worse, right?
I came to my breaking point when considering how I was going to continue to work on my feet surrounded by food. I was fatigued from managing the chronic pain and even parts of my body unaffected felt tense and tired. I told myself I wasn’t stressed, but when finally given permission to feel everything through talking with my therapist, I lost it.
All he had to say was, “Becki, I’m sorry, that sounds terrible,” offering that simple gift of sympathy, and the floodgates were open.
He gave me permission to be upset, and boy did I take it. I cried and cried and expressed frustration over how I felt and how I wasn’t handling it with grace. I cited circumstances of people I knew who were worse off than me, doing everything in my power to argue against my right to be upset.
When talking with another friend who’s a nurse, she said something along the lines of,
“Ya, so what if it could be worse? It still sucks.”
Which brings me back to the idea of strength. I feel weak for letting the pain get to me. For having to request off time from work. For throwing tantrums to my boyfriend about how over this I am and how angry I am that I can’t eat without consequence. I feel weak for falling prey to the human condition, for not being above being impatient and angry and sorry for myself.
I have a pattern of wallowing in self-pity, so I’ve been working intentionally against this habit. But in doing so, I often negate my ability to have sympathy and compassion for myself. I was sharing with a fellow yoga student about going through a hard time and trying to keep it together, and she responded,
“Better to let it out than keep it in.”
When I told myself I wasn’t stressed, I genuinely did not realize how much emotional tension I was carrying around by not allowing myself to be upset. And now that I’ve opened the latch, I can recognize I’m rather pissed about the whole situation. I don’t want to deal with this crap. The process of healing my gut is a multi-step process of restrictive eating and fasting and will take time. And at this point it’s been almost a month since I started dealing with all this shit.
Here’s the thing I need to remind myself time and time again: denying emotions doesn’t make them go away; it’s through giving them light and feeling them fully that I’m able to actually let them go.
And if I’m being fully honest, I’m not sure I’ll be letting go of my anger anytime soon. I can let it go for a while, but it eventually comes back up. I let it have a place, throw a fit, and do my best to get over it and move on.
Am I stronger or weaker for it? I can’t really answer this. But I am more honest and less filled with stress. And I’m able to feel genuinely grateful for the people who are emotionally supportive to me during this time, for the abundance in my life that allows me to take time off from work, for all that my body continues to do for me on a daily basis.
So what is strength to me in this situation?
It’s accepting my current physical and emotional states.
It’s taking time for myself to heal.
It’s admitting I need help.
It’s accepting my humanity and utter lack of grace at times.
It’s knowing when to push on and when to call it.
It’s seeking strength in perceived weaknesses, like leaning on others and the value of doing less.
And it’s lots of crying. Because better to let it out than keep it in.
If you’d like to read more about my life struggles, visit my page.
