Life happens to all of us – regardless of how prepared, or unprepared we are, or not. That is an undeniable fact. Yet, we hope, right?

Well, just like that, a few days ago, life happened and did one of those things to me – that situation that attempts to pull the rug off from under your feet in an attempt to get you crashing to the floor. So yeah, it did that to me.

And I did come crashing down – all muscle, bone, fat, fluid and some titanium implants and my thoughts – everything crashed.

The result of the incident was that I felt angry, furious and deeply violated. This is what being violated felt like – it felt like an invasion, like a bossy attempt to manipulate my choices, my options and my feelings. It felt like a desperate attempt to throw me off balance maybe because my strength, stability and obvious independence was deeply unsettling to some.

I must be honest – when it happened, I did really crash. I felt my blood pound in my ears, my body tightened, and my head pulsated with a throb that was hot and flushed. I wanted to scream, but I knew it wasn’t safe to. I wanted to lash out and thrash out – both verbally and physically and again, I reminded myself that it wasn’t safe to do any of this.

And you know what? The lack of safety to express that anger was one of the worst things I experienced this year. And it didn’t stop at that.

I came down with a pain in my body and fog in my head simply because my brain was still telling me that I had stuff to do. I had children to raise, schedules to plan, meetings to attend, lessons to teach, things to organize – the list was endless, and I must admit that it is only when I type this here that I realize that my brain was actually plotting all these ideas.

However, while my brain was setting me up with a plan of action, my body just was not allowing me to comply with any of it.

I was in shock and my body needed time to recover – and despite this whole mind-body thing being my area of expertise, I didn’t pay attention to what was happening.

I wasn’t connected to myself.

That’s what shock does.

So my body decided to force me into recovery instead, by pulling that cloud of lethargy and exhaustion over me – like a force shut down – urging me to shut my eyes and sleep over it. I dozed off while meditating, I couldn’t hold conversations and I realized that I just couldn’t read! And you see? I was still trying to do all these things!!

Through it all, I wasn’t listening to what my body was trying to tell me – until, in final desperation, a part of my mind yelled out and said, “STOP! You need to STOP DOING all this and take a break!”

Sleep took over what the whole waking day doing nothing couldn’t. It allowed my eyes to stop crying, my body to stop freezing and my brain to stop running into overdrive thinking angry thoughts and fix-it options. It allowed me to rest, recover and start rejuvenating – only when I allowed it to.

So here’s a reminder to all of us – because all of us think that there is a whole lot of stuff to be done out there. But seriously, everything can wait when you just pause to listen to what your body and mind really, really want. Doing is just as important as being present. Give yourself that pause to acknowledge the emotions (and we’ll talk about emotions another time) – but today, all I want to do invite us all to take a pause, a breath – and rest.

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