Remembering to surrender

I am having a hard time since my hip started hurting on Tuesday evening. I am frustrated and disappointed that this aggravated hip is taking time out of my days and botching my plans for the week. I am starting to wonder if there is some message in the hip pain about stretching too fast and the snapping back that happens when something feels threatened.

We weren’t working strenuously in yoga class, mostly we were stretching. I recall reaching into a place in my left hip with one of the stretches, feeling a muscle wake up that I hadn’t noticed before, a depth to the stretch I hadn’t felt in this hip in years. I felt fine at the time, but about an hour after the class my core and hip muscles locked up around the area and two days later they are still tight and sore. That muscle in my hip must have called in the troops because it felt vulnerable and in danger of being hurt by the new sensations of the stretching.

This seems relevant to human nature.

If we venture out of our comfort zones too quickly without feeling safe and supported, we almost involuntarily snap back into a safe space to hide for awhile. I’ve sure experienced this with my heart in romance, in my career and especially with my business. I have definitely been working on stretching my edges in many aspects of my life this summer, and the stretch hasn’t always held.

It’s two steps forward, one step back.

Mark Silver talks a lot about making it safe for yourself and your clients to do the sacred healing work you are here to do with your business. His solution is to lean into the Divine in Remembrance for all the nourishment, support, nurturing, faith, love, energy and support you need to feel safe.

Today with this ouchie hip that prevents me from bending down to feed the cat and reach for pots on the bottom cabinet shelf, I feel unsteady, unstable, not safe in my body and in the kitchen. I feel frustrated that I have to ask for help with things I “should” be able to do myself. I am frustrated that this pain is distracting me from working on the big project I excitedly planned for today. I am frustrated that many of my plans for the week have been thwarted by this pain in my left hip.

Insert big, dramatic sigh here.

And as I finally give up and stop trying to push through the pain to get just one small task accomplished so I feel good about myself, as I grump around my apartment refusing to laugh with my sweetie as he attempts to cheer me up, as I retreat to the bedroom with tea, journal and pen, I finally remember to surrender.

Sometimes the only thing you can do is surrender to the circumstances. We spend so much time believing we are in control, and yet we really are not most of the time. There’s nothing in my power to prevent the hurricane that’s coming on Sunday and disrupting my full day of meetings and clients. I can complain about it, but at the end of the day all I can do is surrender to mother nature and come up with a plan b, whatever that is, that works within the limitations outside my control.

Just like with my aggravated hip. I surrender, finally. I give myself permission to feel ok even though the pain distracted me from my planned project all day. I let go and accept that this is how it is today. And as I do so, all that frustration, stress and anxiety pushing down on my chest melts away.

I can breathe deeply again. I can laugh, pet the cat, and finally relax. I surrender.