“The time to repair
the roof is when the sun is shining.”
- John F. Kennedy
2014 began with a bang. A flurry of
professional activity lay in front of me that first week back at work; meetings
out of town, funding issues, presentations to prepare for. My work for abused
and neglected children is something I love, but as the holidays came to an end,
I found myself feeling hesitancy and a little dread. I just wasn’t quite ready
to return. It didn’t help that over the month of December I had completed my second
draft of a workbook I started writing two years ago about the ways in which we
create our realities, or that I spent New Year’s Day with a group of friends
meditating, releasing the old and taking steps to create 2014 with intention.
Who wouldn’t want to stay in that space forever?
Into reality I dove, head first,
and it wasn’t bad. As I said, I really love my work. But as I sat in an out of
state meeting the following weekend, something wasn’t right. Was my head going
to explode? What was the strange pain I was feeling? Lo and behold, upon my
return, I was diagnosed with shingles.
I of course asked myself, “Why are
you manifesting this?” Likeminded friends asked, “What is your body trying to
tell you?” Stress is number one, but that’s
obvious. So I went deeper, asking questions such as why did this nasty virus
that has been dormant for forty one years choose this particular time to make
its self visible. Or did I simply need a reason to stay home for a few days
without feeling guilty? (By the way, it didn’t work. I felt guilty).
Regardless
of the many ideas I have about the above questions (and I do indeed have
some!), I need to gently acknowledge that my roof is broken, which is probably
why, when it rains, I get soaking wet. This really should come as no surprise;
I have been putting patches on my roof for a while, which I imagine is the case
for many of us.
I can beat myself up for letting
myself get so run down that the chicken pox I had when I was four have come
back to haunt me with a vengeance, but that isn’t productive. Nor can I do
anything to change the past. Figuratively speaking, it’s raining right now, so
it’s not an ideal time to make any repairs. But I have a month of healing ahead
of me, and in that there is time to think about what I will do differently when
the sun comes out again.
Here’s to living a conscious life!
Blessings,
Sheryl
