In which we talk about forced stillness

A week ago the doctor said I could start easing into exercise. A few days before that I had managed a few slow walks but for two weeks prior, and honestly many weeks before that, I had been told the type of exercise that I thrive on was off-limits. No running. No riding. No high paced classes. But bed rest was a different story. Bed rest was mandatory after losing nearly 3 liters of blood. My body needed time. My heart needed time. And what I found out was I too needed time to find myself down in the dark.

And within days of the bedrest order, we were ordered inside our homes, away from our people, away from activities outside, away from being able to distract me in any way. So I lay there in my tiny corner of the couch, 3 blankets deep, bare-faced, hopeless, childless, in this forced stillness. I dozed in and out of napping to the sound of ridiculous movies. I sobbed into pillows that now have tears woven into their thread. I laughed too. I laughed with my husband as I found hope in our presence together. I found hope, there in the dark too.

What happens to us when we are forced to stop? What happens to us when everything we define ourselves with is gone in a blink? What happens when how we define self-care for ourselves suddenly can’t happen anymore? How do we find balance then? How do we find ourselves when all of what we use to stay out of the darkness is suddenly out of reach? How do we stay in the light then?

I started this tiny blog with the idea that the self-care industry had led a lot of people to believe that you needed money, and a lot of it, to really dig into caring for yourself. And that in turn, just couldn’t be true. Because everyone deserves to take care of themselves, regardless of what life looks like for them. When I wrote those four things that you could do for yourself to develop a foundation of care: eat breakfast, shower at some point today, breathe and be still, and honor where you are in your emotions— I wrote them out of the personal experience and a life where self-care has taken me on a constant journey through having no money to having some. I found that foundations of ourselves must be unshakeable to the changes of the winds, that they must be able to remain when storms come in.

And a storm came in. Not just for me, either. It came in for all of us. A storm so big and so strong it has shaken and stripped away our very sense of normalcy as a human society. It took our comforts. It took our people. It took our safe harbors.

You are.

Forced stillness for us has been expanded. It has taken away the reasons we have used to NOT care for ourselves. It has slowed us down and made us take stock of what is really important. It has revived meditation. It has resuscitated quieter mornings with coffee and simple food. It has made hot showers feel like a gift. It has shown us that the reasons we used before were just excuses. It has made us realize what is left when all those things are gone what is left …is us.

We are here. You are. I am.

This stillness is making great space. Space to find ourselves again away from the business and the noise and the hustle. Space to sit in the light of a still morning — space to find the eye of the storm. Space I need to find myself down in the dark so I can drag her back up and show her the foundation remains. Show her that she is still worthy.

Self-care is still here. You are still here. Our world, though much different than we remember it, remains now. Some wise words that are floating around these days read, “When everything is uncertain everything that is important becomes clear.”

So my hope as we find ourselves here that what becomes very certain is that the simple foundational care for ourselves speaks into the truth that we are important enough to build it.

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