It’s been a while since I've posted a piece on my blog and I hope to change that going forward. You see, I’ve been too busy feeling sorry for myself all year and wasn’t being able to take time out to write - something that I love to do.
Many of you know that I met with a pretty bad accident last December, resulting in multiple fractures across the body, two surgeries and 6 months of recovery, getting me to the point where I could wobble around without a crutch. In a nutshell, it hasn’t been one of my most memorable years though it may be a reminder for a long time to come.
So while I was going through being mad at the world, angry with God and asking ‘why me?’ constantly, my body was being a lot more sensible and healing itself. Since all of it was on the inside and x-ray glasses haven’t been invented (And why not? We’ve been to the moon but we can’t come up with a simple invention like this?), I wasn’t able to monitor any of the healing. Of course every time I went to the hospital and got a new set of x-rays, it did tell my doctor that I was getting better. While my shoulder and ribs healed a lot faster, the progress on my leg was very slow. Unfortunately the tibia is a slow bone to heal and fractures on the lower part, take even longer. And being old doesn’t exactly help. As an aside, I had never thought of myself as old until this happened.
So the six months of agony passed and the day finally arrived when my doctor gave me permission to start walking on my own. Meanwhile I had convinced myself that my life was over, I would never walk again, I would never travel again etc etc. So while my body was doing it’s job of fixing itself, my mind was completely messing me up.
In theory I should have been positive, strong, confident about getting well. Instead I had all the negative thoughts possible. And let me tell you - this mind of ours is a very powerful and dangerous tool and thinks up all kinds of ‘what if’ scenarios. Believe me, I probably thought of every single one of them, idiot that I am.
Once I began walking, using my arm and shoulder again, one would think that my life was good. While I was doing much better physically, mentally I was still in a very dark place. I had got so used to being sad, it was really hard for me to be happy. I had got so used to feeling sorry for myself that even though I had begun moving around on my own, I was convinced that something else was going to happen to me. God didn’t want me to be happy any longer. I was being punished. I was a bad person. I would never have a good life again. I couldn’t eat, I couldn’t sleep. Yes I was clinically depressed.
The good news here is that while we have the power to be miserable by listening to our negative thoughts, we also have the ability to change our thinking. I began seeing a healer, reading books about positivity, the mind, spirituality. I had towers of books brought to me by my loved ones, that I began going through. I began understanding the power of meditation, affirmations, of keeping the mind still, of chanting and praying not just for myself, but for all my loved ones and the people I knew were in pain.
My family and closest friends stood by me constantly, cheering me up or just being with me (many times virtually), sometimes listening to my nonsense and other times sharing my silence. People I hadn’t met in a long while came into my life by themselves, bringing positivity in various ways. I began hearing about their problems and how they had overcome them or were in the process. People I barely knew shared intimate details about their difficult lives.
Beginning to understand that I wasn’t the ‘chosen one’, I took it upon myself to re-train my mind to be positive. To start laughing again and living my life. It hasn’t been that easy but when you put your ‘mind’ to it, it’s doable. I’m not saying that I’m a 100% healed, either physically or mentally. However, now I know that I am definitely getting there.
Being a private person, it’s not easy for me to share this. I’m good at sharing travel pictures but not my feelings. I felt that if my experience can help even one person, it will be worthwhile. I realize now that most of us have stresses in our lives, regardless of what our Facebook page would like our 'friends' to believe. Our lives go through both good and bad times. Sometimes the bad times stay with us for a while and that’s when we find out if we are able to deal with them or not. I could be a case study on being negative during a physical recovery.
Somewhere I read a quote saying “I’m not what happened to me. I am what I choose to become”.
I choose to be happy and at peace.
If you have a comment or something you'd like to say, please send me an email at ratan.sethi@gmail.com. I get easily embarrassed in a public forum.
