I love the word recovery. It’s so imbued with meaning.
It says, “I was. I am this right now. I am becoming.”
It says, “I did that. I’m working on it. I see a future where it’s better.”
It says, “That was a mess. Now I’m on pause and taking in new information. I can and will do things differently”.
Recovery is so human, so filled with an amalgam of pain and grace, so infused with possibility.
Recovery opens its hands with kindness and places a robe on our shoulders when we prodigally come home.
Recovery ALLOWS US TO BE HUMAN: it allows for mistakes, experiences, lessons learned, integration, new beginnings, and ultimately, love of the self.
Recovery IS the human experience.
More and more data shows that the recovery part of exercising is essential for the muscles to heal properly and then expand. Hmmmm….the metaphor is sublime, isn’t it?
How about sleep? Sleep is recovery and there is massive data on its importance. Sleep helps us organize our day-to-day lives into the “short-term memory” or “long-term memory” filing cabinets. It births dream messaging which can lead to decisions and big leaps. It teleports us into other landscapes. Sleep comforts our humanity.
Ugh, but when…
we don’t rest after working out;
we can’t sleep (sleep deprivation is an actual war torture strategy!);
we don’t pause to look at each relationship that fell apart;
we don’t slow down to ask why we’re snapping at the driver next to us, at the kids, or why we can’t bear to go into work;
we go from one amputated experience to another — the term “walking wounded” is no longer poetic or romantic (although Netflix would pick it up, for sure).
All disorder amplifications start here. It behooves us to ask why shaming recovery is an actual thing when without it, we are a legit wreck.
I’m in so much recovery!
I’m in recovery from my childhood trauma, which I wouldn’t even know was there unless I had paused for recovery.
I’m in recovery from the whiplash of my 20’s, when all my anxieties, depressions, and relationship tornados swept my insides.
I’m in recovery from my marriage and divorce, where his avoidant attachment style slammed into my anxious-ambivalent attachment style….HARD SLAM.
I’m in recovery from going 100 miles per hour towards an identity that had worked at one point but no longer serves me today.
In my last long-term relationship, we sat down — after each of us had ample time to solo recover (@ 2 years) — and we compassionately sifted through the chapters of our relationship, we laughed and cried at the shit-show some of it was, we identified the crossroads moments, we hugged many times…..and together, WE RECOVERED.
Recovery can be painful and intense, yes, but ultimately, it allows for kindness to SELF, to others, to the past, present, and future. It so regally positions us in front of the quantum field of all possibilities, my very favorite spot these days.
