It's interesting how connections can be drawn from painful experiences. It seems I constantly question, 'why did this happen to me? What can I learn from this?'
On Tuesday after we came back from our restorative backpacking trip through the backcountry of Iceland, I picked up my friend Sylvia and began to run across the floor in our kitchen. I slipped and my ankle broke in two places; I don't think I've ever been in so much pain. I proceeded to a hospital in Reykjavik to begin my healing journey with Katrin and Katherine. After going through excruciating pain multiple times and finally receiving surgery after three days of waiting, I returned back to the community and felt home again, yet extremely rattled by the whole experience.
I felt discouraged, traumatized, and raw. How could I get around to do the things I normally do and continue the habits I had recently formed here in Solheimar? I couldn't. Frustration comes from resistance, and I felt extreme amounts of this as I kept pushing against the flow of the events that had been placed before me. After speaking with my mother about my frustration, she asked me if I had forgotten my yoga practice and my breath. I had. I had begun the more commonly used method of coping with issues by resisting the situation. This reopened me to remembering to be "in" my body and accept.
After this shift in my attitude toward my disability, I began seeing small glimpses of light in other niches that would not have been filled prior to my ankle break. The community of Solheimar is filled with supportive people that, despite my language limitations, are eager to connect with me (a CELL student). The first day I went back to lunch with the community, many of the community members came up to me and gave me hugs and kisses. A few pointed to my foot and repeated, "ekki gott!" (not good). I felt that many people understood that I was now placed in a new position in the CELL community using crutches, as well as the Solheimar community. While it differentiated me from the CELL community, something had happened to me that the Solheimar community could relate to and this made me stand out.
My inability to do many of the activities that the other students participate in, forces me to be in a position of observation, rather than active leading which is what I tend to gravitate toward. I am thankful for the rough push I have received that forces me into a space in which I have still much to explore; I am grateful for my enhanced connections with Solheimar due to my disability and my gradual development within a quieter space.
I'm finding that the best answer to the question of 'why me?' is answered by Rainer Maria Rilke:
“I beg you to have patience with everything unresolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves as if they were locked rooms or books written in a very foreign language.
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