YOU are not paralyzed

"There is no greater threat to the critics and cynics and fearmongers than those of us who are willing to fall because we have learned how to rise." 

-Brene Brown, Rising Strong via Kelle Hampton

Several months ago, I read an article written by a woman who survived cancer. She beautifully described the minutes, hours, weeks, months, and years she desperately struggled to survive. While I identify with many of her feelings and emotions, not until the last paragraph, the last few words, did I sit back in my chair and feel that tingle of whoa that’s me, that’s exactly how I feel. 

That last paragraph told the story of the first year as a survivor of cancer. That last paragraph recounted the crushing self-doubt and defeat that so readily comes along with recovery. That first year is spent stubbornly searching for the person inside the survivor body. The person who once lived and breathed and felt joy and precious hope. The author said it was probably the hardest year of her journey with cancer. She was forced to recover from the fall.

I fall a lot. Not so much physically, but quite a bit mentally. And lately, this first year - a year filled with promises of new beginnings and tangible hope - has been anything but easy.  Bold dreams seem possible, yet my mind twists these dreams into unattainable pieces of perfectly etched artwork. Glorious portraits and landscapes delicately hang on my walls, but can only be seen and admired, instead of lived. And in simple and basic language, I feel pretty crappy lately and really paralyzed. I listen to the can nots and will nots far more than I should. That cynic and critic, who lies is wait inside my head ready to pounce and crush these visions of hope, is louder than ever. All I can hear is you are paralyzed and you fell. You fell, you are permanently damaged. 

And then today happened. I left to get my haircut, pick up a few things at a cute little market, and returned home. I lifted my body out of the car and into my chair and sighed a huge, I feel sorry for myself sigh, like I do when I am really feeling yucky. I, reluctantly, gathered my wallet, keys, phone, and purchases and started to head up my never ending hill. And when I am feeling all icky like this, that hill seems so huge and so daunting. I started up the hill and noticed a neighbor waiting for me at the top of the hill. This former rabbi stood, at least six feet tall with majestic grey hair and piercing blue eyes, waiting for me to reach the top. He offered to help, but I insisted this climb is good for me. He laughed. I stopped for a minute to say hello and we started a conversation. At some point during this brief encounter I heard him ask why I used a wheelchair. I cavalierly said, "I fell off of a horse and I am paralyzed.”

Then he said it. His Israeli Hebrew accent eloquently spoke the words I needed hear. The very words filled with so much power, they crushed the cynic and the critic in one swift blow. 

He said, as he looked right at me and pointed to me, “NO. No, part of your body is paralyzed, YOU are not paralyzed. I see you. I watch you. YOU are not paralyzed.”

I was never more grateful for my giant aviator sunglasses. They hid the tears until they streamed down my cheek. I looked at him, I easily smiled through these tears, completely caught off guard, and said, “Yes, you are right. You are right.”

We all have a piece or part of us that is paralyzed. Cancer, fear of the unknown, the loss of a dream or loved one, accidents and falls, all paralyze us. And small, seemingly insignificant moments paralyze too. The are no limits to what can hold us back and keep us from fighting off the cynic and the critic. All of us, each and every one of us, has a part of us that is paralyzed. WE are not paralyzed, just this little part of us is paralyzed.

And as I rode on the coat tails of his euphoric words, I wheeled inside and went straight to my mirror. I looked in my own eyes and I repeated, “YOU are not paralyzed. YOU are not paralyzed. YOU will get back up again. YOU will recover from your fall.”

I may be all messy and vulnerable lately and searching for where I am going and wondering how I will get there. But, I will be damned if the cynic and critic, living inside of me, beats out hope and tenacity. I recover. It’s what I do. It’s what we all do. Recovery is forgiveness, it’s grace, it’s a second or third or twenty-seventh chance. We are so fragile, but we are also so strong. And I say to all of you who are stuck on the floor, who doubt recovery and resurrection, the words from the rabbi who waits at the top of the giant hill...

“NO. No, part of your body is paralyzed, YOU are not paralyzed. I see you. I watch you. YOU are not paralyzed.”