Have just returned from my hospital appointment and am feeling so relieved that everything is healing as it should be. But why did I doubt that it wouldn't? I've had a couple of crashes down on the operated foot just by losing my balance and I thought that it might have done some damage. I also received good news about the alignment of the toe. The nurse explained that the degree of swelling is so much that it would look like the toe had not been straightened. She showed me the x-ray from the operation and the bone is perfectly straight. So once the swelling of the soft tissues go down then the toe should be straight. I had accepted that the toe might not be straight. Only this morning I had said to my friend who is staying with me this week that I accept that the toe is not straight. What I want now is not to have any damage to the foot so that it heals properly.
I am sure that it is this acceptance that the toe might not be straight which allowed the possibility that it could be straight (if that makes any sense). Without acceptance of whatever situation we find ourselves in, nothing can shift. Acceptance does not mean that I like or agree with the toe not being straight. It doesn't mean this. It means that I can accept which means that I won't resist the possibility that the toe will not be straight. The first criteria for any situation shifting is to accept what IS the way it IS. For too many the present situation is met with resistance and non acceptance. This serves only to strengthen the resistance which make acceptance and hence a shift more difficult. I stress again that acceptance does not mean that you have to like or even want a current situation, just to accept that this is the way it is. There is huge power in that level of acceptance.
I was a little apprehensive when the doctor began to peel off the bandage. I'm a bit squeamish at the best of times and the last thing I wanted to do was faint. How lightweight would that have been. Before I went to the hospital I remembered my possibility of fun and freedom and brought that into being from the minute I woke up and got myself ready to go. It made such a difference to the whole hospital experience. My God-father brought me to the hospital but couldn't stay with me. It was strange how it was he who brought me because we haven't spoken for months. All of my friends were working and couldn't take time off to take me and stay with me and because it would have been my first trip outside since the operation I felt a little unsure to go by myself.
When I woke up yesterday morning my authoritative voice said 'call Jimmy Burke'. This is my inner voice, no narrative, or nice words for why I should call him, just an instruction. I immediately went 'no', I'm not calling him, he had no right to say what he said to me so many months ago' but still the voice persisted 'call Jimmy'. So I did. I said I was sorry for the way we had left the conversation last time and I listened without feeling the need to defend myself against the pent up anger he still had for me after the last time we spoke.
At the end of the conversation he agreed to take me to the hospital. After the phone call I felt great relief. On the spiritual journey there can be no energy blocked or trapped in carrying on old grudges. From time to time I had thought about my God-father but always with the attitude of being in the right. When the instruction came from my inner voice to call him, it was an instruction to me to free up the energy which had been blocked by me continuing to resent what he had said to me.
The energy between us when he turned up this morning to collect me was different. He was still the same but I was totally and completely able to accept it. Even when he said that the hospital where I had my operation done had a bad reputation and I should have gone somewhere else, I had complete freedom and ease with it. In the past it is a comment like that, that would have sent me over the top. I would have accused him of being negative but this time there was none of that.
I hopped into the outpatients department and immediately made eye contact with this good looking guy who was sitting with a bandaged ankle. Remembering my possibility of fun and freedom I smiled and gestured to his foot with my crutch. Then I hopped up to the receptionist and said who I was. I was told to take a seat. There was no seat beside this guy so I hopped to one behind and he looked back and smiled. Then my name was called. This is unbelievable, it wasn't even my appointment time and there were others there before me. Surprised I picked up my crutches and hopped to the line for the treatment room. I recognised the voice of the lady who was in the treatment room. It was the woman who was in the next bed to me on the ward when I had my operation who I thought had a perfectly straight toe. She was talking about being in all kinds of pain. I couldn't believe it when she was then wheeled out of the treatment room in a wheelchair! She looked so pale and gaunt. We exchanged pleasantries and then it was my turn.
When the bandage came off the sight was not pleasant. I have a long scar running down from the top of my toe where they cut the bone. The wound was re-dressed and I was shown how to use the crutches to begin to put the weight on the leg. This is good because it minimises the risk of me crashing down on the foot which is what used to happen when I hopped. I left the treatment room feeling so happy and grateful to the universe that I know is getting me through this.
After it was all over I thought I'll have a cup of tea in a cafe in the hospital that had a lovely view of the trees and read my book before ordering a cab home. The lady in the cafe was so nice and insisted in bringing the tea to my table. I began to read some more of the diaries of Etty Hillesum. I was struck by the first sentence I read which was on page 266. She says 'I think what weakens people most is fear of wasting their strength. If after a long and arduous process, day in, day out, you manage to to come to grips with your inner sources, with God, in short, and if only you make certain that your path to God is unblocked - which you can do by working on yourself - then you keep renewing yourself at these inner sources and need never again be afraid of wasting your strength'. I love her phrase 'path to God is unblocked' - that resonates so deeply with me. And again here the message is the same about working on yourself. There is no way to by-pass this first and all important stage of the spiritual journey.
I left this blog a while ago to get something to eat. In the kitchen there is a chair and I sit in it and put my foot on the lid of my bin to keep it elevated. The view that I have is gorgeous and I was sitting still and looking out and into my mind came the words 'Be still and know' and with that came such deep feelings of peace and contentment. These feelings seemed to well up from the deepest part of me. I felt so warm and comforted sitting there. I closed my eyes to meditate and how abrupt was the change. Immediately the mind became active with thoughts of this and that and then my telephone rang so that was the end of that. The contrast between what I feel when I communicate with nature and what happens when I meditate is confusing. How can one action result in such deep calm, peace, harmony, closeness to The One from whom, in whom and through whom everything happens. And the other result in agitation and turmoil. This is an intriguing question for me.
As I write this I am aware that I am tired and my foot is sore. I have pain, I am not pain. If I was pain then I could not see it as something separate. The fact that I can see the pain in my foot as something separate to me means that I cannot be my pain...so who am I? What or who is it that sees this pain as separate. This kind of thinking separates me from the pain so that it doesn't feel so intense. I can divorce myself from it.
I'm feeling an overwhelming tiredness now so I'm going for a nap......
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