I am feeling lost right now in my health journey. Even though my path has always been uncertain, I usually have a gut feeling about what I need to do next. This time, I don’t yet have that gut feeling. As a result, I feel even more uncertain than usual. And, I don’t know that this situation is going to change right away, so I am doing my best to be comfortable in this deeper level of uncertainty in which I am currently living.
My husband is the person who has been on this journey with me the entire time, so he has had a front row seat to it all. He knows the details and understands the situation better than anyone else besides me. He knows why this situation is so complicated and why I feel lost. He knows that I carry an outsized sense of responsibility since the healthcare system in our country is broken. He knows that I have had to carry way more than I should have had to carry over the last 20+ years. As a result, here is what he has repeatedly said to me over the last 8 weeks:
“It is totally normal for your hope to feel a little wobbly right now, but I’ve got you! Your emotional intelligence, integrity, love, and hope have carried our marriage through many of the tough times we have faced, and now it is my turn. Hitch yourself to my hope wagon and let me take the reins. I will carry hope for the both of us until you feel hopeful again.”
My husband knows how important it is for me to rest right now from both a physical and emotional perspective. He has made it clear how much he has learned on this journey from me about resilience, and he is ready to take the lead.
While he has been doing that, I have been taking the time to sit with myself as much as possible. The priority for me right now is being able to hear my own intuition, so I have been using all of my tools for nervous system regulation.
I am not stopping at intuition alone, though. I am at my best when both sides of my brain are working together, so I am utilizing as many of my strengths as possible at the same time.
What I know for sure is that I have always been a very emotionally resilient person, and I can rest in that knowledge. I know that my path has required a lot of pivots due to all of the unknowns along the way, and I am good at pivoting when needed. I also know that the next pivot could be the winner.
(credit: unknown, but popularized by George M. Moore, Jr.)
Our amazing therapist also keeps reminding me that while I may feel lost right now, I am still the same person who has always figured it out by checking in with myself and taking the next right step. She knows me well enough to know that I will continue to do just that.
The good news is that we have acquired a lot of information along the way; we just don’t have a solution right now. And, even though the path forward is murky at best, I know that my husband will take the emotional reins and that I will keep checking in with myself to figure out the next right step. These two things will carry me all the way home.
Brutal. Feeling lost. A deeper level of uncertainty. No current solution.
Beautiful. A husband who has done the individual work to be able to take the emotional reins as needed. Utilizing as many of my strengths as possible. Emotional resilience. Checking in with myself and taking the next right step.
Just another day of . . . This Brutiful Life: The Brutal & Beautiful Moments of My Life.
This Brutiful Life 