Category Archives: Going Downstream

How long does healing take?

A recent ankle sprain has me working hard at speeding up my healing.

I’m told “Four to six weeks – at least – before I can begin to think about doing my regular activities.” Forget about it! One, two weeks tops! The brace? The ice? Don’t really need ’em . I can heal better and faster than any statistic. I’m a good healer!

This experience has given me the opportunity to notice my desire to speed up my healing, to put it on a timeline of my choice. A couple of observations:

Our language around healing implies there is both timing and an ending to our healing.

“You’ll be healthy in no time!”

“You’ve been sick/grieving/grumpy/sad for long enough now.” Likely followed by a “Get over it.”

Our many and varied health practitioners frequently give us timelines.

“Give it a week and you should be back to normal.”

Or they offer solutions that imply I can speed up, or at least control my healing.

If I eat the right thing…

If I do the right exercise…

If I take a pill…

If I get a good night’s sleep…

If I meditate…

If I follow these 3 easy steps, I’ll be better in no time.

Many of our policies incorporate timeline and endings as well.

Three days of bereavement leave. Two weeks of sick leave. Six months of extended disability leave.

These messages have us believing we can speed up our healing, that we can, at the very least, control it and make it happen to a certain prescribed time window.

The more work I do facilitating bereavement groups, the more I appreciate that the journey of grief – also a healing journey of sorts – takes as long as it takes. One thing I know for sure – we do not “get over” or “get through” a significant loss in 3 days. Each individual is different. Each circumstance is different. Each set of losses is different. The accompanying journey and its timing is different.

How long does it take to get over someone? (If we ever actually “get over”….)

How long does it take to make a career change?

How long does the process of cancer, spinal fusion surgery, or depression take?

Here’s where I’ve landed as I’ve explored my push to heal faster…

My ankle is going to take as long as it takes. I believe my actions have the capacity to slow down my healing, but I’m realizing they can’t speed up my healing.

I don’t think we have the power to speed up healing – your body , mind, and spirit have their own timelines . Those timelines could entail minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, years, or a lifetime!

I do however believe we have the power to enhance our healing.

For example our reflective practices, exercise, living life on purpose, being vulnerable, stepping into rather than away from our emotions – all of these have the potential to encourage and enliven our healing. This is in no way an exhaustive list – you have your own practices and approaches. Those may include medications, doctors, counselors, coaches, intuitive readers, or not. They may include eating certain types of food or not. Whatever your practices, I don’t believe we can control our healing, but I do believe our actions/choices can be in service of it. Perhaps a subtle, but I believe significant distinction.

Your invitation – to step into life changes, growth, and healing without strict timelines. It is not about speed. It is about being human. It is about allowing.

What if we could gracefully give ourselves the time needed for the “stuff” of life?

Text and Images Copyright © Dr. Catherine Hajnal 2014

Living Your Dash

I can’t remember when I first heard about the poem The Dash by Linda Ellis. What I do know is that every time I read it I renew my desire to live my life on purpose – to continue to do work that feeds my soul, to do one thing a day that scares me (encouraging my evolution), to step into the emotions that feel difficult or uncomfortable, to let the good stuff sink in including expressing gratitude and love, and to see the possibility in whatever is showing up in my life.

Here’s the general gist of the poem. (I encourage you to read it in its entirety here.) On a tombstone there is a beginning date and an end date. In between those two dates is a dash. That tiny dash represents the fullness of your life. The question the poem raises is what do you want to do with your dash?

The intention here is not to instill fear of the end-date (the second date on your tombstone). Stirring up panic and a sense of scarcity of time is not the vibe I personally want to have clouding my dash. The reality however is we generally don’t know when our end-date is coming. We imagine living a long and fruitful life and yet anything could happen.

Here’s the approach I’ve taken. I’ve asked myself what do I want to be doing now so that if I found out I was terminally ill and going to die within a month or two I would have some degree of ease because I had been living my life on purpose, because I had been making choices in awareness of the reality of not knowing when the end will come. I don’t think it is possible to live without regret (the words that come of my mouth some times – yeesh!), yet I do think it is possible to minimize regret through actions like vulnerability, compassion, empathy, and a willingness to ask for re-do’s or acknowledge mistakes.

Do the people you love and who matter the most to you know it through your words and actions?

Is the work you are doing feeling your spirit – does it make your heart sing?

Are you learning from and in the discomfort that life gives?

Are you being gentle with yourself? Do you acknowledge your self-worth?

Are you having fun?

I ask these questions not to invoke shame or a sense of “not enough”, rather they are invitations to reflect on how you are living your dash. You are worthy and enough no matter how you are living your dash. AND you have agency in how you live your dash. I realize sometimes it can feel like you have anything but power and possibility in your life. This is the gentle reminder that there is always choice. That you can bring “creator” energy to your daily life.

Dream like you’ll life forever. Live as if you’ll die tomorrow. ~James Dean

I’ll be speaking on this topic on Sunday February 23rd as part of the service at the Centre For Spiritual Living Vancouver. Please join me if you are interested in reflecting on how you live your dash. [11 AM Creekside Community Centre, Olympic Village, Vancouver]

Letting Go – pain, struggle, or release and relief?

When is it time to let go?

I’ve been moving into a new place the last few weeks. I chose a place that I felt served me in many ways – love the location and the space itself made me say “I want to live here.” And I knew the space was going to force me to downsize. Not much storage and I was okay with that.

Then came the downsizing.

What if I might some day hold that party for 30 people I’ve been thinking about? I would need those mugs then.

I do wear those shoes sometimes…

And then there’s the books and files that remain from my years as a grad student working on my doctoral dissertation and then as an academic. The collection had already seen one purge several years ago. Much still remained.

I felt heavy – literally and figuratively – as I tried to decide what to do with these items. That is where the pain and struggle came in. The memories – good and bad – of the experiences associated with these items come into my consciousness. Thoughts – oh so many thoughts – came rushing in. Am I throwing away my PhD if I throw away documents and books associated with it? How will I prove that I did the work if I don’t have items from the steps along the way? What if someday I might need this particular piece of information again?

I had lots of advice from friends. “Don’t think about it. Just throw it all away.” Or “You can’t throw that away. That was from your grandmother.” Helpful? Nope.

What in the end worked for me is the following. It took me a while to figure out this was the process that got me the release and relief I was looking for and no, that doesn’t mean I threw everything away. I just found peace with the process.

First I checked in on what the item represented. Maybe there was some grieving I needed to do and in so doing, I would be able release the item. Maybe I wasn’t living the life at 47 I thought I was going to – the parties for 30 co-hosted by me and my spouse weren’t happening. No big parties. No spouse. And yet I could follow-up that up and say unequivocally that life IS good even though it doesn’t look as I had expected. So I acknowledged the loss of the unrealized vision and found gratitude in the now.

Then I asked myself about how I wanted to let go of the item(s). Somehow simply throwing things away didn’t feel right for a variety of reasons. Being able to give them away for reuse, or at least for recycle, felt better. So I created different boxes for items I wanted to offer to friends, to various charities, and to recycle.

And I gave myself some time. Those boxes of books and papers – I had to sit with them for a while as they blocked the ease of movement in my apartment. At first I thought I would send the books to Africa. Yes, that felt right. And then it didn’t. I thought about the environmental impact of shipping. I thought about whether these were really the books they would want. In the end the books and papers went happily to recycle because in that question of grieving and letting go I realized I had the fear that without all those goodies, somehow the PhD wasn’t mine any more. That somehow I was going to be less smart and less capable. When I recognized that story represented a typical shame (less than) response for me, I knew, one of those body knowings, that the stuff needed to go. That I wanted it to go. That I was whole, smart, and capable without those bits and pieces.

I did keep some things. I didn’t need five of the items I had received from my Grandmother. One would do so that every time I opened the cupboard, I could remember her with great affection. And my two friends who bought me the chicken pitcher – well they’ll be happy to know I still have it. It makes me laugh way too much every time I use it, albeit not very often, so I had to keep it. For now!

Getting What You Want

I recently arrived to Esalen – a retreat centre in Big Sur. I’ll be here for 5 weeks on a work-study program. It is a great opportunity to experience being in community and learn by doing. The setting is beautiful coastal California.

In the application process I was asked to indicate my preference for the work I would do during my stay. There were options like kitchen, housekeeping, garden, etc. I like to cook and thought it could be interesting to learn how to cook for larger numbers of people. I’d get new recipes as well. All good. So I had indicated a preference for the kitchen.

I arrived to find out I had been placed with “Cabins”. I was bummed. I felt unacknowledged. I had indicated a preference hadn’t I? Why had it been disregarded? And “cabins”? What the hell was that? I could see myself vacuuming rooms and cleaning toilettes for the next 5 weeks. No thanks!

I could feel the negative vibes creeping in. Time for a check-in. First I had to remind myself that they had never committed to honoring my preference. It was just that – a preference – which implies that other things are possible too. In addition, as a community, we are all contributing to the well-being of each other in anything we do – in any way, time place, we show up. There is no unimportant work here (or anywhere else for that matter).

Then I learned about Cabins. This means things like cleaning the guest rooms, tidying up meeting rooms, laundry, etc. It means you travel back and forth across the property. I heard movement in that. It also involves cleaning the thermal pools here on the grounds. Outside, gorgeous, incredible view pools. So the work also involves both inside and outside work. I was hearing variety and I was loving the idea of being able to do some of my work outside while being surrounded by beauty. Added bonus – I’ve learned how to effectively fold fitted sheets!

So now ironically I’m doing what I didn’t want to do – yes I’m vacuuming and cleaning toilettes – and I’m loving it. I feel blessed – as if I’ve been gifted the best department to work in.

Did I get what I want? On the surface no. I didn’t get “Kitchens”. Digging a little deeper, I came to this place with an intention for movement. For finding more ways to be in nature with my work. For getting out of my comfort zone. I believe I am receiving that in spades in my Cabins assignment. Thank you universe! A reminder for me to trust that sometimes we don’t get exactly what we want or at least sometimes it comes in a package we can’t even imagine.

So I invite you to launch your desires to the universe and add “…this or something better”. Who knows what might show-up. It might be more than you could possibly imagine.

Easy or Hard

I was in the Redwood National Forest Information Center in Crescent City, California recently. I wanted information on possible hikes in the local area. The Ranger recommended a short hike, accessed via a road he recommended traveling as well. I had asked for about 3 hours worth of hikes with a rating of easy to moderate.

He sort of apologized for the shortness of the hike and the ease of driving the road. He then justified – or at least that is how it felt to me – the drive. He said both the drive and the hike had some of the most amazing trees to look at.

Here’s the possibility for exploration – I actually needed him to justify the drive and explain the ease of the hike. In my mind I was thinking “How can it be worth it? What could I see in a 30 minute hike? Driving? That doesn’t seem very nature like.”

It all comes down to my underlying beliefs. There is one that comes up a lot of me and I suspect for many of you too – if it isn’t hard, if it doesn’t take effort, then it can’t be good enough, or it can’t be worth it. Let me say that another way – if I don’t work hard, if it doesn’t take me a lot of effort, then I’m not good enough, I’m not worth it, and whatever I’ve produced or done isn’t good enough.

Hmmm…who says it all has to be hard? As I explore my gifts and what I’m meant to do in this world, I keep coming up against this belief. Here’s the trick about your gifts – they are often the things you do with ease, things you don’t even know you are doing when you do them so readily and easily.

Here’s an example. I’m a good listener. I’ve always been a good listener. I didn’t know I was a good listener. My friends did. They tell me that’s why they always call me when they have something to work through, when they need someone to listen. But I didn’t spend 10 years doing various degrees at university learning how to listen. So how can listening be something of value? I haven’t worked hard to learn how to do it and I have ease around it.

What if accomplishment and value didn’t have to come from “hard”? What if living life, coming from an energy of ease was enough? Was magnificent?