The “S” word, but not the one you think…

On a late Saturday morning, I was participating in a Zoom workshop. Suddenly, there was pounding at my door. And I do mean POUNDING. I’m very reactive to loud noises and quickly slipped into fight/flight mode, threw down my laptop, and began rushing toward the door. Didn’t make it. In my haste, I tripped over the leg of the ottoman in front of me and fell on my dominant right arm. Broken.

A wonderful neighbor took me to Urgent Care. Splinted and newly virgin to the world of having no right hand to do….

JUST

ABOUT

ANYTHING.

Sigh. (Well, if we’re going to get into sob stories, another neighbor had to scissor off my T-shirt - a favorite - because the good Urgent Care folks made the splint much too large to be pulled through the sleeve. Sigh.)

Oh, but, wait, more fun’s a comin’! Ten days later, stood up from a chair, slightly twisted my body, and a degenerative meniscus tear in my right knee suddenly intruded into my already physically-challenged life.

Victimhood becomes so seductive at points like this. I used to be oh-so-good at victimhood.  OMG, OMG, LOOK what happened to me!!! (Wait, wait, is this something about which to be proud?) However, the joy of adding more gray hair has also brought the realization that victimhood can be incredibly toxic to my mental health (and to the mental health of those having to listen to me - again, again, and again.)

Victimhood aside, my current mental health strategy in difficult situations is to LEARN whatever I can from the challenge. It’s rather like composting - taking the crappy experience and turning it into something useful (eventually.) When people began asking how I broke my arm, I would sagely reply, “I wasn’t being mindful of where I was going.” I thought that sounded pretty cool and mindfulness is certainly au courant these days. Yay, Jan! Leaning into mindfulness as a lesson from breaking my arm. Five gold stars….

Then along comes my wise friend, Karen. Having heard my mindfulness response, she noted that I made the broken arm episode sound like a moral failure (I wasn’t mindful!! What kind of human being am I, not being mindful?!) Ooops. Initially defensive, I had to admit she was right. I was startled by the loud pounding at my door and tripped over the ottoman in my haste to find out what the heck was going on. Not so much lacking in mindfulness, but scared into fight/flight mode by the frenzied knocking.

Instead of self-flagellation for NOT being mindful, how about just allowing myself to be vulnerable and share my oh-so-human tripping foible with all you other humans? (I’m sure none of you have ever tripped or been clumsy and caused damage to yourselves, right?)

So here comes an “S” word (not the one you think, however.) Let’s just spit it out - Self-Compassion - offering kindness to oneself for being, well, human - with all our frailties. In my case, the frailties included tripping over an ottoman because of an adrenaline rush. Oh, yeah, I wish I could keep voicing the culturally admirable mantra about learning mindfulness as a result of my broken arm (and there is truth to that.) However, what if I just offer myself kindness for having been a panicked human being who tripped over an object because of a loud noise that scared me?

Risking transparency in our humanness.

Come on out and join me….

“Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing there is a field. I'll meet you there.”

~ Rumi