This is what healing feels like
I found a quote the other day that said we do not begin to heal from our experiences until our nervous system feels safe enough to integrate it. I’ve spent years of my trauma living in my head, in fight or flight energy.
What would it look like to really embody healing?
Yesterday was day 49 post op and I sat in the chair at the hair salon. “I need it simpler,” I said to my hair stylist, and somehow she knew what I meant. She’s been with my since my hair fell out post transplant, when I explored every colour of the rainbow while exploring my identity and trying to figure out who I was. And despite not having a concrete idea of what I wanted it to look like, I trusted her to turn the canvas of my hair into something beautiful.
She dyed and cut, foiled and rinsed, and as I watched pieces of my (hot mess) hair fall, I just kept thinking “There it goes.” That old life, the hair that held the memory of that surgery. Post break up hair is a thing, and for me it’s always been post hospitalization hair.
I’m stepping into a new thing entirely.
With the stress my body endured during surgery, I skipped a period and I wasn’t worried about it. When its return aligned with my hair chop, with the full moon in my moon sign of cancer, I could almost hear the sigh of my body letting go. On a cellular level, I felt safe enough to begin ovulating and bleeding. And not only was it about healing, it was also about releasing. My nervous system letting go of what it has held in the most primal of ways, bringing it all into wholeness.
Since Christmas decorations came down in our house, we’ve slowly been reorganizing the flow of things, and since my surgery healing protocol has involved watching a lot of HGTV, I’ve had a few design ideas. I realized every room in our house, and especially our bedroom, contained only memories of me being sick. Instead of feeling like somewhere I could rest and heal, I was reminded of the hours I spent unable to get out of bed, the dark days when I’d pull the curtain closed, the way we arranged the furniture so I would have easy access to what I needed. I mentioned this one day, and the following day the furniture in our room was rearranged. My husband strung up string lights, took all the medical supplies out of the room. Walking into that room now, there is a tangible feeling of everything has changed. And I’m not sure if it was the changing of the room or the act of love in it being done, but something in it all allowed my nervous system to relax just a little more.
What happened to me will never vanish from my mind completely. I have scars on my body to serve as a constant memory of what I survived, what I am surviving. And the acute nature of that event is fading, being integrated into the rest of my body. I am healing.
I don’t remember ever being able to say that, and feel it on such a deep and embodied level, before. This surgery, while hard, felt more redemptive than traumatic. I set myself up with tools and support, before, during and after. The pain doesn’t feel trapped in my body the way it has before. Everything has changed, and I feel closer to my most authentic self.
Last night I was brushing my hair after a shower and listening to music and Defying Gravity came on, from my most favourite musical Wicked. And I was singing along, and at one point Cody asked me why I was singing so loud. And I realized it was because I felt it. The lyrics felt embodied in me.
Something has changed within me, Something is not the same. I’m tired of playing by the rules of someone else’s game. Too late for second guessing, too late to go back to sleep, it’s time to trust my instincts. Close my eyes and leap
