Leaning In

Here I am, moments before the procedure I said I would never had.  I am smiling because   1.The nurse was able to put in a really nice IV and 2.  I have this really cool heated blanket on that blows hot air through the whole thing.  Small pleasures.

So I am home, with a bit of an infection so I am on antibiotics once again.  I am still in a period of shock, and overwhelmed by all the tape and tubing that has suddenly become the reality of my life. Grief of change, loss of the plan for my life, another wave of the realities of MSA flood over me.

This month's Spirituality & Health magazine has a column by Geri Larkin, author of Close to the Ground; The Seven Factors of Enlightenment. She talks about learning to lean into suffering.  "Until we realize that there is simply no escape from the pain that life brings and that all we can do is sit in the middle of the fire, we only pile suffering on top of suffering.  Resistance is like that.  So we lean in.  And suffering dissipates."

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