Do The Work, Do The Work, Do The Work

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Hello you,

So a couple of things came up today and I was reminded of the very simplest of life lessons - “do the work, do the work, do the work”.

I was talking to someone about lower back pain and remembering rehabbing my body after my kidney donation surgery and also a few years after that when my lower back sort of collapsed and I was surviving for about six weeks, shifting between lying in bed, sitting and standing only as each position became too painful to handle. How I managed without working I don’t remember, but there was no choice because I couldn’t even walk to the Tube and for a long time couldn’t get on a Tube, bus or even in a car because the movement was so painful (even with maximum drugs).

As I explained a few exercises that helped me I remembered what it was; exercises three times a day, seeing my physio (super expensive as I wasn’t working and had no health cover) but it was all I could think of to do, and I could walk to her. When I went back to work and got BUPA it was fantastic to have more sessions with her.

But today I also felt a bubble of some other existential pain come up, some remnant of the many troubling things I have worked through, and I sat down with a good, helpful book and tried to figure what it was, how I could release it, how I could forgive. And it reminded me of much worse times, when I opened up to really feeling all the pain I had experienced and allowed that to leave me, working through things, and again, lying on my bed, holding onto the bed as Dean Martin said (he famously said “if you can lie on the floor without holding on, you’re not drunk enough”). Feeling that the emotion and old pain coming up was just going to have me fly off the bed.

I am so thankful for the physios and the therapists and the books and the people who have come into my life and who have helped me heal my life, but I also honour my own contribution, because none of it, even having a massage, is passive. In this moment I honour myself, I honour my own spirit, my willingness to push through pain in order to live a life free of pain, I am proud of my own dedication and hard work, I am proud of letting go of the good for the better, I am proud of me.

Digging deep today I find a pool of pain of that wishing, hoping that others would see me and be proud of me, of wishing to be seen and ultimately loved. It is always painful in life to have loved or even just wanted love from others that was withheld or just denied. Sometimes the healing comes when we realise that love and pride for us was there all along, just hidden, sometimes the healing comes from new sources of love and respect, but I believe that neither of these can really heal unless we love, respect and yes, are proud of ourselves.

So I want to say, not in an arrogant, or egotistical way, but in a way that today I remember how painful and hard some of the steps were, that I am proud of the journey I have taken and that pride in myself helps me to forgive those who could not see me or be proud of me. I love myself enough for all the people who were not strong enough to love me.

(Deep, huh?) Maybe I’ve been reading too much John Green - those teen novels will do it.

So often we are looking in life for a quick fix or a trick that will save us the work, but the truth is that if you want to do a marathon you have to go 26 and a bit miles.

Do the work, do the work, do the work.

Much love, Pearl x