This afternoon I lay in the sun while listening to an audio program about one’s Inner Critic. Thirty minutes on each side won’t hurt, I thought. Now I look like a lobster. Heat is radiating from my skin. What did I think would happen? Whatever. Inevitably I burn once every spring/summer, so I might as well get it over with. I’ve got my aloe vera handy. Even though it’s never–not once–kept me from peeling. (And neither have essential oils!) Oh well. Like it’s the worst thing in the world to shed your skin.

I’m speaking literally and metaphorically.

Other than the sunburn, today has been fabulous, easy-going. I read, I stretched. I drank enough coffee to wake up Rip Van Winkle. I’ve been telling my parents for weeks that I’d install grip-bars in their bathroom, and I cut and stained a 2×4 so that after it dries I can attach one of the bars to it. This evening my dad and I went to the gym, then we mixed concrete and set a post in their backyard that we’ll use to brace their fence with once the concrete hardens. I’ve made both these projects out to be “huge things” in my mind, but they’re really not. Granted, it takes time because there are steps involved. (Things have to dry!) But the steps themselves aren’t difficult or complicated.

At the gym, I did knee rehab. During one exercise that involved my TRYING to lower myself down using only my left knee (the one I had surgery on), my leg shook so much that my entire body vibrated. And whereas I wondered if anyone else noticed, I didn’t care. This is where my body is at, and this is what it’s going to take for it to get better. There are steps involved. A process to follow.

A process that involves shaking, apparently.

More and more, I’m grateful for The Process. I know I’ve talked about it a lot over the last two years, this idea that real progress is made slowly, that this requires a wheelbarrow full of patience, and that this sucks. (It does.) But it’s really been on my mind today, I guess because lately I’ve been experiencing The Results. For example, even though my left leg still won’t fully support me while going down stairs, it’s noticeably stronger than it was a month ago. I can use it to run, to jump. Consequently, I feel freer. I’ve been stretching and doing some relaxation/meditation techniques and have been having fewer headaches. There’s still a lot of tension in my neck, it just doesn’t escalate to DEFCON One as often as it used to. Even better, I haven’t had a full-blown, I-don’t-know-what-I’m-going-to-do sinus infection in over a year.

Just as I’ve been experiencing more freedom in my physical body, I’ve also been experiencing more freedom in my mental/emotional one. I don’t have a specific example, I’ve just noticed that I’m happier, less irritable, less nervous, and less stressed. My bad moods pass quicker than they used to. My Inner Critic isn’t AS LOUD.

I have this teeny, tiny thing with wanting everything to be perfect, so I’d like to be clear–things aren’t perfect. Ugh. Perhaps they never will be (at least by my standards). Still, I’ve spent a lot of time on this blog being frustrated with things in my mental, emotional, and physical life that weren’t working and a lot of time searching for hope that these things would improve. And I just think it would be shitty if I never stopped and recognized that–phew–things have gotten better. So this is me saying, by grace and The Hard work, The Process is paying off.

This is me saying thank you.

Recently I heard Caroline Myss say that healing isn’t personal, that–chances are–even if you’re a miserable human being, the cut on your finger or whatever is wrong with your body is going to improve because, simply put, our bodies are programed to get better. The sun shines on the just and the unjust. This concept–healing isn’t personal–has been on my mind lately because I used to believe that everyone else could heal (or succeed or be at peace) but that I couldn’t. That I was somehow the exception to the rule. But having seen some fabulous results lately, I’m now telling myself that good things are just as likely to happen to me as they are to anyone else. Not because I’ve “earned” them (that would be personal), but because good things happen here on planet earth.