400 Days of Surrender — Day 5: Breaking your arm
New to this series? You can find Day 1 here.
It feels like my year of surrender gained full steam yesterday when I went out to meet a friend for skate boarding in the park. I’ve never really skateboarded so explorer me thought that’s exciting let’s try it.
She had brought a mini skateboard and I know from other board sports that the smaller the board the less stable. I looked at it and thought this doesn’t look like a good idea. But I didn’t listen or didn’t want to listen to my intuition (hint: never ignore your intuition, it’s your sixth sense really) so off I went.
I stood onto the board and it slid away under my feet and I fell onto my hip and hand. Fast forward to his morning and I find myself at the hospital in a sling for the next six weeks. My xray showed, my elbow is fractured. I never broke something in my life and at day 5 of my surrender experiment, I’m presented with a wonderful opportunity to just do that: Surrender the new reality of not being able to use my arm in my last two months in London preparing for my trip.
I smiled at the irony of it or rather the perfection of it: I set out to challenge myself to surrender whatever presents itself in front of me, to the current reality not trying to fight it, resent it, beat myself up over it, think what should have been etc. etc. Instead, I had a friend helping me get dressed, go to the hospital, got another experience on how the NHS works. I was well treated but getting xrays done and a simple sling took 3 hours.(note: interesting project to work on their operational efficiency).
I chatted away with my friend for three hours, smiling at the people and life itself, being present, learning to do things with one arm/hand, appreciating that I’m otherwise healthy and normally do have two arms, realising it will be six weeks of slowing down physically and therefore also mentally, wondering what new opportunities my new circumstances will provide (who knows what’s good or bad, who knows what will happen as a result of this accident that otherwise would have not, we can’t anticipate the good that will come out of it.)
And while I’m typing this with one hand I’m appreciating the journey I am on that makes me worry less, appreciate more, smile more, be more grateful and present, see all the beauty in my life, make new experiences, realise my blessings. It’s all there for all of us in front of us. We just need to let ourselves see and feel it instead floating away in thought from the beautifully unique moment that’s unfolding in front of us. All is good until we decide otherwise. Love life and see the beauty in it! ✨
Continue to Day 6: There’s no right or wrong
