When I thought about what to write this week, the image that kept coming to mind was a sea wall battered by waves. That’s a lot of what 2018 felt like to me – ceaselessly buffeting an immovable object until finally the object disintegrated. That’s what happens to sea walls – they must be replaced every 30 years or so depending on how well they’re constructed.
I haven’t fully processed everything that happened to me this year. It still feels surreal that issues I battled for so long are suddenly gone. It’s strange to no longer feel the weight of them like an anchor around my neck. But obstacles are like that – if we keep battling them, eventually they evaporate. When people said that to me at the beginning of the year, I didn’t believe them. Instead I rolled my eyes because it felt like my obstacles were insurmountable, that I’d be dealing with the same things for years to come.
Eventually all walls come down. Photo by Alfred Leung on Unsplash
And now here I am at the end of the year and I no longer wake up feeling like a zombie. That probably doesn’t like a big obstacle, just go to sleep at a decent hour, right? Except as I wrote in Minor Miracles, sleep wasn’t so easy. I consulted Eastern and Western medicine seeking help for sleep and it wasn’t until late August I found out I have upper airway resistance syndrome. I spent seven solid years with brain fog, low energy, and dread about going to bed. Now, the brain fog is gone, my energy levels are steadily increasing, and going to bed doesn’t fill me with as much trepidation. The obstacle I thought I’d be dealing with until I died is suddenly gone.
I can imagine my spiritual teacher giving me a knowing smile. He is a Pollyanna type and says difficulties can never be greater than our capacity to overcome them, and that we’ll overcome all obstacles. He doesn’t allow for any possibility of defeat, even if it takes lifetimes. When I consider a sea wall, I wonder if perhaps his view is more realistic. There’s no way a sea wall can withstand the constant pressure from the sea, the wear and tear of salt, sand, and sun. There are too many elements at play.
Maybe we human beings are like that. Maybe there are multiple unseen forces at work in our lives, acting like the salt, sand, and sun that mean we, too, will be victorious. I don’t want to make it seem like overcoming obstacles is easy, because it’s not. But this year has given me new appreciation and a new understanding for scaling them. When we do the slow and steady work, eventually the obstacle must collapse.
This is likely my last post of 2018 and as we come into the new year with many challenges ahead of us, I’d like to offer and maintain that perspective. Sometimes we think things won’t change, or that impediments are too vast, but if we keep doing the work, if we keep putting one foot in front of the other, eventually the sea walls come down. May we all remember the power of persistence and carry it with us in the months to come.
I dream of a world where we recognize the power we all have. A world where we understand the truth about obstacles. A world where we remember if we keep chipping away at whatever is before us, eventually it will crumble and vanish into the ether.
Another world is not only possible, it’s probable.
Something miraculous happened in my life recently. Not an Old Testament kind of miracle – no parting of the Red Sea or a burning bush. Nor have I received the modern-day version of a miracle where after one visit to one doctor I walked away cured. No, my miracles all arose after slow and steady progress. My miracles are of the incremental variety, but no less astounding.
For the past seven years almost to the day, I’ve struggled with sleep. Every day I woke up with brain fog, feeling like a zombie. I tried all of the things – diet, exercise, acupuncture, EFT, reiki, shamanic healing, ozone therapy, sleeping pills. Nothing made a huge difference. I still woke up every morning with what felt like cotton in my brain. I went through many, many cycles of hope and despair. I spent thousands of dollars searching for a cure. The sleep deprivation became so unbearable I took time off from work and slept in every day for weeks. It made no difference.
In July I did a sleep study, not expecting much. It felt like grasping at straws, another chance to try one more thing and at the very least see what was happening with my sleep. At first glance, the sleep study didn’t reveal much. In fact, the sleep clinic sent me a form letter advising I cut out alcohol, which is laughable because I don’t drink, ever. The sleep clinic professionals shrugged their shoulders and sent me on my merry way. I couldn’t accept that answer. Didn’t accept that answer. Even though the sleep study revealed I have mild sleep apnea, not enough for a CPAP machine, obviously something wasn’t right. How could it be if I couldn’t remember the last time I slept well?
I called a few sleep specialists and booked an appointment. I want to be clear here no intuitive voice urged me to call a certain doctor. I didn’t receive a nudge from the universe about any of this. I struck out in desperation. The sleep specialist diagnosed me with upper airway resistance syndrome, which is a close cousin of sleep apnea. Whereas in apnea breathing stops, with upper airway resistance syndrome, breathing is impaired. I’ve been wearing the device pictured below for more than two weeks and for the first time in seven years, when I wake up, I don’t feel like I have cotton in the brain.
The yellow arrow points to the “wing” that keeps my jaw pushed forward, opening my airway.
I want to be clear here that I’m still tired. I still take a nap every day. I didn’t wake up after one night of using the device full of energy. It will be a slow build but I’m feeling different and that’s a miracle. Why am I telling you all this? For a couple of reasons. The first is if you or someone you know is tired all the time and has trouble sleeping, get a sleep study. The second reason I’m sharing all this is to say keep slogging away. You never know when change will happen.
Lastly, I share this story because it doesn’t fit in with any sort of mythology. I didn’t find what I was looking for when I stopped looking. Change didn’t happen when I accepted my situation. I didn’t hear any intuitive guidance steering me in a certain direction. Surrender didn’t help me with my diagnosis. What helped me, what brought me peace of mind, is thinking perhaps everything has a lifecycle. That my health condition had to play itself out and there was no amount of wishing, praying, fighting, or accepting that was going to change the situation. Like I wrote about in June, regarding my poppies, we can water flowers and give them sunshine, but when they bloom is not up to us. Maybe a lot of things in life are like that. Maybe there’s no formula to follow and instead we have to wait for whatever it is to play out.
I know it can be disheartening for some to contemplate how little control we have over certain situations, but I’m also writing to demonstrate change can happen and does happen. That a miracle can come at anytime. It could be seven years, or it could be seven minutes, but please, please keep going. I’m starting to cry because I struggled for so long, I honestly gave up hope that I would ever be able to feel well-rested ever again and now here we are. Well-rested is something quite likely in my future and that is a miracle.
I dream of a world where we realize miracles can happen at any time. A world where we keep going and then stop and then keep going again. A world where we recognize sometimes we just have to wait for things to change and not beat ourselves up about it. A world where we celebrate miracles, even when they’re small.
Another world is not only possible, it’s probable.