There is a lot of pain and chaos in this world. I’ve had my share of both.
I’ve had my fill of physical pain and lived through loss I thought I couldn’t bear. For 20 years after high school, I endured pain, discomfort, embarrassment, and fatigue—the weariness of a body-disabling and soul-draining disease known as Crohn’s. A punch in the stomach with a belly full of razor blades is how I can best describe it. My doctors tried everything. Sulfasalazine, Pentasa, Imuran. I was in and out of the hospital for steroid infusions, Remicade infusions, Humira injections, anything to get the swelling back down. A part of my gut was rebelling and fighting me over the years, more aggressively the older I got, building up scar tissue on the inside until my gut was so swollen nothing would pass, not even water. My newest doctor then declared it was time to just cut it out. And then everything changed.
I’m done reliving what hurts me and am now looking for what heals me.
After a lifetime of Crohn’s, a lifetime of limits, missed opportunities, depression, hopelessness…that changed. My solution was surgery. I now practice gratitude for each moment, each day, and each year that has passed since I had the disease removed. It flipped life on its head, or rather flipped life from its ass to its feet.
I’m ready to pay it forward. Years of introspection, contemplation, and dialog with myself taught me what not to do and what isn’t helpful. It also gave me time to seriously reflect on moments of gratitude during the occasional ebbing of pain where creativity flowed.
What my years of pain taught me: How to bridge the gap between disparate points of view.
Be kind. Be thankful. Be compassionate. It’s true that everyone has an invisible dialog, invisible struggle, invisible war inside themselves, often WITH themselves—we can never truly see or know someone’s struggle in its entirety.
Try empathy. Try to listen and hear, not just WHAT, but also WHY why people are communicating a particular message and speak to both. Understanding the intent of those questions, together, goes a long way to close the gap of understanding.
Today, I am a Thankful Spirit because I have known worse times. I have a new chance to live each day better than the last and that is reason enough to get up each morming—to try to do better, for myself, and for others.
What makes you a Thankful Spirit?