My husband and I recently had a wonderful weekend in North Carolina hiking Mt. Mitchell. I had been looking forward to the hike since our summer vacation. We were able to hike several days during our week away, but hadn't made it to the highest eastern pinnacle.
All of our hikes to date have been amazingly sweet with warm sun and stunning vistas. The sweating exertion on mother earth and fresh air worked to keep me present. Mt. Mitchell was no different in many ways, but vastly different in others. With all of the fraser fir trees, Mt. Mitchell was ever green and smelled like Christmas, wonderful. It was also rockier, steeper, and colder than we had yet encountered. And as we started our return trip to the car, it began to rain steadily. It was tricky making our way down the mountain with slick rocks and billowing ponchos. I worked on breathing with my fear of a slipping fall ending in a broken bone. As we hiked, Jay and I talked about the obvious lesson of accepting what is. I was tempted to bemoan the fogginess hiding the amazing views we should be seeing and the rain preventing the blue skies and warm sun. But it was what it was. We were experiencing hiking in a new way...a more primal way. And I felt it in my bones. By the time we made it back to our car, my hands and ears were cold and we were dripping wet even with the ponchos.
So, what of accepting a rainy, cold hike colored by the small fear of breaking a bone during a nasty fall? Evidently not much, because Creator drove it further home for me early the next morning. I woke up to an itchy raised, red rash on my inner thighs. Later that day, the rash was in the crook of my left elbow and both areas were beginning to give off heat. Four days later, two thirds of my body was inflamed with the rash...itchy, swollen, and hot. It was uncomfortable and debilitating for a full six days and it stopped me in my tracts. Accept that! And as I hung out on the sofa covered in various blends of goop, I struggled to do just that. It wasn't just the discomfort of the itching and swelling, it was also the feeling of helplessness and ugliness that I needed to accept. I felt trapped by my "ailment", prevented as I was from carrying out my normal routine activities. I felt ugly and buried under my red alligator skin and twice normal size thighs and bottom. So, I breathed. In breathing, I accepted. In accepting, I was given the realization that I was detoxing early childhood trauma...letting go of cellular memory. Not bad for a weeks work!
What do you need to accept today?
