As the reality of letting go of my business sinks in, I
realize I am changing. I knew my body needed
something different and I’ve been doing that, typing from the keyboard on my
lap in a hammock while I look at my hammock height screen on the table next to
me, a truly unique arrangement. I’ve
been starting over, getting to know my physical body in the way I knew it as a
very young child. Instead of just
working in spite of the pain, I’m now playing with it, seeing what happens when
I move in a certain way, playing with different ways to sit, different pillows,
different positions, the hammock! My “office”
now looks more like a five year old’s playroom.
Yoga props litter the floor and it has a very random feel. But even more surprising than the physical
shifts are the profound psychological shifts accompanying them.
As I relax physically, I find myself releasing a sense of what
I thought it meant to be responsible and beginning to see a new kind of responsibility
emerging. I helped people but as my
physical difficulties increased, I stopped innovating and stuck to what I knew
I could do well. I felt useful, made money
and had a chance to talk to a lot of wonderful people on a regular basis. When it went away there was at first a sense
of collapse, just letting myself
recognize how hard I had been “trying” to work “in spite of” the pain. Until I let it go I couldn’t see how rigid I
had to hold myself to do this. The
escalating pain made it clear that I must stop.
I’ve spent years watching what I could do in the world shrink and
narrow. Walking, cooking, cleaning,
driving, and sleeping have all diminished.
But the odd thing about coming to the place where everything leaves is
the bizarre sense of freedom and curiosity that arise out of that still
point. There is nothing that I have to
do, so that means the only question is “what can I do?”
Wild bursts of creativity begin to leap up, I feel an
intense interest in all sorts of random topics and find absolute delight in
watching late sunbeams while sipping tea and feel a pull to explore each moment
to its fullest. I find the list of things I could do filling
up with different possibilities in every direction, even with my limitations. But I am
no longer trying to live that diminished life, I am trying to live this
one and in this one, there is only what I have, not what I don’t have. I am no longer “trying.” I am
doing and delighting in, thankful for every wondrous opportunity that invades
my day. I am reading five different
books, studying German online, doing yoga, meditating and being more profoundly
aware of the world than I have ever been.
I also watched this lovely video that my friend Kathy O’Leary
drew my attention to, it echoes the magnitude of the shift.
Anita Moorjani 'Dying To Be Me' Interview by Renate McNay.
