A few weeks back, I noticed my girl was trending. Trending in a direction we had travelled many times before. Trending toward quiet, trending toward stillness, trending toward apathy…this trend was pain.
The signs are all to clear for me, a mom like so many who loves her girl so much that she notices even the imperceptible. But there it was, plain as day. Not wanting to walk, not wanting to move, not having the energy to engage in much of life are hallmarks of my girl swerving in the direction of something neither of us wanted to look toward.
As timing would have it, we were at the New Year, and I, in my almost unfailing optimism, asked her what she wanted to create or experience in 2016.
“I want the pain to stop,” she said, then quickly added, “not that I mind it hurting. It just isn’t stopping.”
Ow. That nugget of information she offered up pierced my heart.
I took a breath and answered with all the depth of knowing from our years of growing and learning together and apart.
“Let’s turn that into something that you do want, rather than what you don’t want. Remember, the Universe brings you what you focus on, negative or positive. How about we say that 2016 is the year of feeling better?” She nodded her head.
Feeling better for us looks like doing something in the moment that can make us feel just a little lighter, a little happier, a little ease.
For my girl, we brainstormed ideas and came up with a hug, a call to her sister, changing positions – anything that helps her feel better right now, in this very moment. And we started right away.
Stopping The Pain feels big. And in the midst of pain, it’s almost inconceivable that she could feel complete relief, especially for a girl who’s had a lifetime of it. She couldn’t allow herself to believe that was possible.
So we started small to crack the door of possibility open just a little believable bit at a time, focusing on the moment we have right in front of us. A heart hug right now, ahhh, had us both feeling better, right now. That, we both could believe in.
Several days later as my girl was moving about in the early morning, I asked her how her legs were doing. She paused, then said with surprise, “My legs don’t hurt!”
Inside I smiled. “Why are you surprised? This is what you wanted.” She thought about that for a minute and said, “Oh yeah. I did!”
My girl had opened that door of possibility and walked right in.
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