Miracle of Maintenance Part 2 – Redefining Success

In my last post, I talked about the miracle of becoming compassionately curious about the chronic tension in my body. Instead of blaming myself for not handling stress well or being a tense person, I began to understand chronic tension as a normal outcome from trauma. I learned how to address it and even became successful at reducing it. This is a miracle!

To continue to understand how a life spent doing maintenance work can actually be a flourishing life, I also needed to let go of that elusive idea of success. I considered being (or at least appearing) physically normal as healing and success. I considered walking long distances a success. However, if I’m faithful with my body work, and I’m still not seeing dramatic changes in mobility, I need to redefine my idea of normality and success. There is a desperate desire in me to make progress toward normal function somehow, to be successful in changing my physical status, to get to a place I feel I can bear. If I only focus on my ability to walk, I’ll become discouraged and will go through the rest of my life feeling unsuccessful.

Stair steps continually challenge my view of my success. Steps without railings (which abound in India) stop me in my tracks. I become helpless. My walking stick, which I resisted so long becuase of my pride, helps me combat that feeling of helplessness and navigate a few steps on my own. There’s some history here: since my accidents, steps have been my enemy. I consistently avoid stairs, as I’m weak going upwards and in pain going down. As I slowly ascend or descend, I mentally block out any passing thoughts of who might be watching…and what they might be thinking. To combat this frustration with stairsteps, last year I spent time making an art journal with stairways as the theme, trusting God that there were “New Steps” ahead for me! I needed to create a new way for me to “see” stairways. I express my angst through the dark, chaotic background collage and the symbolic redemption—arise and ascend—in the image below. Artwork has helped me maintain my mindset. That sounds like a miracle!

Much of my life has been focused on learning to walk and maintaining my ability to walk. Walking seems important to me. Duh. It is important, but it is not the end-all-be-all. It took a physical therapist being honest with me ( see Outcome Independent) and telling me that walking is not the best exercise for me, for me to start changing my way of thinking and redefining physical success. Maybe pushing myself so hard to walk farther and farther has made it more painful for me, causing more tension. The physical therapist told me that if I have a choice between walking and swimming, I should always choose swimming. Swimming is much better for my body…but it is not what I wanted.

I want to walk. I want to go for hikes with my husband, go on long walks and talks with my teenagers, and play with my grandchildren at the park. It doesn’t feel like enough to be able to just make it through daily life in the house and not have the ability to enjoy walking longer distances and relating to people I love.

A wise woman got a revelation from God about these daily life activities. She wrote about it in the first chapter of her book. Yeah. That was me. I guess I need to loop back to those very good thoughts I had in 2020 when Covid caused the whole world to re-examine our values. Revelation 22:2 says that the leaves on the Tree of Life have the power to change nations. Change nations!? Don’t so many of us long to have that kind of power—to make a real difference in our hurting world? God challenged me to think about those leaves. Leaves are the “kitchen” of the trees. Remember learning about photosynthesis in high school?!  The leaves do the hard work of daily life. They don’t get much individual glory either. Here is a quote from my book and you can Read more here!

What if we put our heart and soul into making daily life successful instead of fantasizing about personal glory and self-promotion? What if we value what happens in the family (our primary sphere of influence and impact) just as much (or more) than we value our public persona? What if instead of dreaming of myself standing on stage speaking to an appreciative audience, I make space to encounter small moments of beauty each day? What if I spend more time with God each morning?

The miracles of daily life are available to me…in my body…today. Noticing those miracles just might make maintenance easier…and possibly glorious.

Not surprisingly, swimming has been much better exercise for me. My body feels so much more relaxed, and I sleep so much better. I swing my legs with more ease and can stay upright rather than leaning forward, but I still can’t walk very far. The best part is that I’m in far less pain and can take part in daily life without too much drama. Occasionally, I’ve found myself singing as I go about work in the kitchen. I am enjoying reading and learning with my teens who won’t be around home much longer. I can savor time around the dinner table because I’m not desperate to get finished with the day so I can get in bed (some of you know that feeling). I’ve even felt and acted silly here and there. That is a major victory for Serious Sarah whose idea of fun is to engage in deep discussions about suffering.

The thought to take away from this post is this: How would redefining sucess help you accept and even thrive in your new normal? Or it could be the opposite way. How would accepting your new normal enable you to refine your values or your definition of success? I’d love to hear your thoughts on this.

Oh, God —help us see more and more miracles in maintenance!