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I recently tore my latissimus dorsi muscle. The injury left me whincing every time I extended my arm to the point of tears. I had to adjust my activities and take anti-inflammatory medication to assist with the healing. Now, I only feel sore, as if I overdid a workout. The healing has come along. But when I try to explore the injured area through touch or exercise, it immediately resists and guards itself. As much as I would like to dig in just a bit deeper to feel if I can move along, my body simply shuts down. With more time I should be able to ease into what is still painful, and tolerate things that I can not for now. It is a reminder that we innately heal ourselves, if we only tune into what we need. My body's refusal to be pushed tells me more time is needed to heal. It is the wound that knows how much time is needed. Yet here we are, prodding and poking into ourselves and into each other, unwilling and un-allowing, the time it takes for us to absorb and heal our wounds. There are layers of healing that seem to get retorn over the course of our life again and again, because the initial insult, the initial injury, was never permitted to take the time it needed to heal. Being rushed into becoming functional to be part of the whole context we live in. No matter if we feel wholly functional ourselves. After years of pushing my own self into this functionality of existence, I am beginning to give myself permission to be okay with my varied stages of healing and growth. Of not being able to overcome something. (Surely to force myself into functionality has a lot to do with how I am perceived, not just by others, but also by myself). Nowadays I'm not so sure that completion and closure hold as much importance as the ability to rejuvenate myself on levels that provide the space of becoming. I am learning to accept unfinished chapters for exactly what they are. Unfinished, because those chapters still need time. Time to heal and become. ~•~ a beautiful milieu Image source unknown