Things I’ll Never Take for Granted

Taking Nothing for Granted

Whether it’s physical, mental, emotional, or financial trauma, like everyone else, I’ve had my share. Though much of it led to unhealthy coping mechanisms I’m now working to heal, it also taught me not to take anything in my life for granted. Things like:

• Sweeping the floor
• Driving (especially since my cataract surgery removed the star bursting taillights)
• Waking up able to see without putting on glasses
• Walking as far as I want to
• Dancing
• Folding a comforter
• Bending down to pet one of my cats
• Filling and carrying my 5-gallon water bottles
• Making the bed
• Hugging

Sure, many items on this list seem worth taking for granted, as you’re never going to lose them, right? But if you’ve ever been in pain, whether from an injury, or just life taking it’s toll on your body, you’ll remember all too well when the pain, alone limited your movements, even if it was only temporary.

Ballet Helps Me Move More Freely

For the longest time, it was anything involving bending my knees, and as a result, I started having nearly constant back pain. It took COVID, and Zoom ballet for me tor realize it wasn’t my knees at all, or at least they weren’t the primary cause. Somehow, I’d allowed the tendons in my calves to get tight and stiff which kept my knees from bending the way they should.

Once I’d been regularly stretching those tendons with thrice-weekly plies, my knees suddenly became more bendy again, and my back has been eternally grateful. I use my knees and legs to lift the afore-mentioned water bottles, and do plies to pick things up from the ground, put down cat bowls, and scoop litter boxes. Refraining from bending from the waist means using my back muscles as they were intended, thereby protecting them from further injury.

Ballet has also allowed me to rediscover my elusive core. While I’m still unable to gracefully lift my entire torso from a supine position, I can lift more of it than I used to before having to give myself a little push with the elbows. I’m grateful for the progress, and know continued practice and use of the core, ab muscles will get me there eventually.

Seeing is Believing

Photo – Derek Gavey via Flikr

The greatest positive change came with the long-awaited (and put off for a year until I got rid of Medicare Dis-Advantage) cataract surgery. Now that I’ve navigated the months of elevated light sensitivity, I’m reveling, not only in the ability to drive at night without it being an adventure, but in the intensity of colors. I had no idea how much the amber filter in my eyes was altering how I perceived my universe!

Though my near vision isn’t as sharp and clear as it was right after surgery, reading is still easier when there’s a smaller disparity between my eyes. When I pack to visit my grandkids, or go on a cruise, there are several items now missing from my luggage, and one less thing to do morning and night. It may seem like a small thing, but after 50 years of putting on my glasses to see the clock, or making sure I had enough contact lenses in case a trip got extended, or I messed one up, or ordering lenses and solution before I ran out, it’s simplified my life immensely.

Changing to Better Habits

Photo-InAweofGod’sCreation via Flikr

Sure, I had to make some kind of change in my life in order to appreciate every, single item on the list. The beautiful truth is each one led to better habits, and, more importantly, less coping mechanisms. It all began with a conscious decision to allow myself to heal.

Granted, when I first began my healing journey, I had no idea what lay ahead, nor how painful some of the moments could be. Imagine ripping off a bandage that had partially adhered to a large, painful scab. In some cases, a wound was ripped back open because I needed to allow old emotions to drain off for awhile before I could face them head-on, and allow myself to feel the pain again from a more neutral position.

That journey also had its share of fits and starts. I’d open myself up to the wrong people, in the wrong places, get battered, and scuttle back into the safety of my cracked, and brittle shell. It wasn’t until I discovered I could jump-start the process by using the computer screen as a buffer that I began making real progress.

Find Your Own Healing Path

There are times when immediate feedback is useful, and helpful. I’ll tell you from my own experience, learning to be vulnerable, and authentic isn’t necessarily that time, unless you already have someone, or a few someones to hold space for you while you navigate the first, rock strewn, snake-infested waters.

My deeply ingrained practice of living detached from humanity precluded that option for me. It eventually gave me the empathy and compassion to listen more, and talk less. In short, to be for others what I once needed and lacked myself.

Which brings me to the last item on my list. Hugging with your whole heart, either giving, or receiving, is impossible while your heart is encased in cement or steel. Only by cracking open decades- and sometimes, generations-old walls and containers, can you get to that life-giving place where you discover your strength is in your vulnerability, and freedom to be your authentic self, rather than in showing the world an impermeable, false front.

Connection and Community Expand Your World

It isn’t simply the relief of not having to put all your effort into shoring up a crumbling, ineffective structure, but in connecting with a community where the sum of the parts is infinitely stronger than the whole.

Those warm, heartfelt hugs are proof you’ve navigated enough of your internal storms to find the support and strength you’ll need to dig deeper, into the more firmly entrenched wounds which, despite how far you’ve come, will still hurt like the dickens when you rip away their protective covering.

Yet only when you do, will you discover how much they’ve held you back; how much they prevent you reaching your highest heights, and living the life you not only dream about, but deserve. If you ask me, that, alone makes it worth the pain and effort. But if that’s not enough, the hugs should convince you. Nothing compares to hugging heart to heart!

Grateful for the Journey, and the Bumps Along the Way

My gratitudes today are:

1. I’m grateful for everything that led me to where I am today.
2. I’m grateful for learning there’s value in receiving as well as giving.
3. I’m grateful for the lessening of pain, physically, mentally, emotionally, and energetically.
4. I’m grateful for the people in my life who allow me to exercise everything I’ve learned, and become better at it all.
5. I’m grateful for abundance; love, joy, compassion, healing, vulnerability, authenticity, community, friendship, sharing, caring, helping, healing, health, peace, harmony, balance, philanthropy, and prosperity.

Namaste

 

About the Author

Sheri Conaway is a Holistic Ghostwriter, and an advocate for cats and mental health. Sheri believes in the Laws of Attraction, but only if you are a participant rather than just an observer. Her mission is to Make Vulnerable Beautiful and help entrepreneurs touch the souls of their readers and clients so they can increase their impact and their income.

If you’d like to have her write for you, please visit her Hire Me page for more information. You can also find her on Facebook as Sheri Levenstein-Conaway Author