by Jill MacGregor

I have been practicing being strong with my least strong part.

My weakest part. I map its boundaries, feel out it’s yes and no and then try to push past that a little bit more, a little bit more, like a runner trying to steal second base.

There’s nothing like being on crutches to be reminded of how much people want to help for no reason other than to lighten your load. People make more eye contact and smile. Open more doors. Ask how you are.

We seem to need that visible sign of weakness—it gives us permission to help. Without the visual prompt, it is easy to forget that everyone is practicing to make their weakest part stronger…one way or another. And that your offer of help is welcomed.

I am sitting on my couch in my stretchy clothes finishing my morning coffee. Christmas lights are still twinkling while Kate Bush is singing about her love affair with a snow man for the trillionth time– *spoiler alert*–he melts. The two kittens I adopted weeks ago, Lizzie and Nox, are bookending me, one high and one low, alternatively making biscuits, giving each other baths and snuggling with each other.

I feel very content.

The sky looks full of snow—this I derive from living in the Midwest for decades, a place where figuring out the weather is as serious as laying a bet. But after 15 years in Seattle, I know the house will always win…skies are not used to predict here…they usually change like a mood…of a small child…who may be having a tantrum.

I’ve taken off a few months to heal from a hip replacement and I feel great. I was taken care of, and because of my slightly thorny nature, this seldom is allowed to happen. My family took care of me. My friends took care of me.

Strangers took care of me.

But there’s something about receiving all that care…it put me in such constant proximity with gratitude on a regular basis.

They may have replaced more than my hip.

My incision travels up the side of my right hip for 12 inches. Yes, I measured it. It is my 4th big incision. Four–one for each hip surgery. I always request they take out the last incision before they add a new one. Maybe they’d do that anyway and they are humoring me, allowing me my moment of power as I hand myself over to them oh so powerlessly.

And, now, I find myself quite amazed…I have so much more energy now that pain isn’t casting a dark cloud over everything. I feel a little younger, which is slightly ironic as I find myself bent over a cane.

For now. Just part of the practice.

One of my friends told their daughter about my surgery. Her 6 year old response was wide eyed with discovery. “Jill’s a robot,” she stated slowly as she realized I was probably the only robot she knew.

So now I have a titanium rod where my drilled into, pinned, arthritic like a 90 year old chunk of femur used to live. And a lovely, gliding ceramic hip joint were there once was bone on bone.

We should rename my femur. Femur sounds so * original parts* instead of new and improved. It should be a name that sounds strong because I want to be STRONG. I want it more than having a small ass. I want to do those karate side kicks. I’m ready to run in 3 inch heels. I long to take 2 steps at a time.

Femurnium.

Rodmur.

Titanbone.

But I understand, first, that I will need to be off the cane to accomplish these things.

So I practice.

All of this fresh, newness has me thinking as I enter the New Year. The New Year—it always feels like a freshly painted stage on which to perform. The demarcation point when we can let go of the things that no longer serve us. The moment when we officially give ourselves permission to begin again.

As you start your new year and continue your work of making your weakest part strong, ask yourself these questions.

What are you deciding to accept?

Acceptance can mean so many things: it can represent forgiveness, loving not in spite of but because of and seeing beauty where you once only saw flaws. But the shadow to that can be doing something because you feel you have no choice, staying in a situation because you feel there is none better and giving up and embracing a long love affair with your pain. Remember–its always about your choices and you always have choices.

How are you managing your journey?

The first step of any journey is understanding where you want to go. How do you want to feel on this journey? What kind of people do you want to surround yourself with? How do you want to grow? What practical steps need to be taken to move forward?

Are your problems really problems?

Maybe your problems are simply puzzles. And the best way to conquer any puzzle is to step back from it, alter your perspective and reconsider. You may just be using old, worn out strategies. Its been your *problem* for awhile now, hasn’t it. Perhaps your hitting it with a hammer on a daily basis is not going to provide the solution you need. Try one different approch today. Ask for help when you need it–you are not responsible for recreating the wheel.

Wishing you the best this year as you continue to grow strong.

if you liked this, you may want to read:

Image Credit–Jill MacGregor

by Jill MacGregor


We all have defunct mental treasures that we hold close, whether they are outdated or never ever served us at all. But we clutch tightly because they’re OURS, and we’ve made them such an extension of who are that we forget that they’ve ceased to function for us, if they ever did at all. Why do we cling to the useless?

Let’s burn the fields.

I wrote about *knowing when to say when* in a previous post, 10 Life Changing Lessons I Learned From Painting. I wrote, “Everything has a natural stopping point. Jobs, paintings, hobbies, relationships, our lives, the extent of our feelings, patience, energy—everything has a natural stopping point. And, that is not the same thing as giving up. It’s about observing something in a particular state.”

What ideas or beliefs have you been clinging to that have stopped serving you? A lot of times these worn out beliefs stem from a situation when we felt mistreated, unappreciated, ignored. We allow ourselves to become imprinted by these feelings and drag them through the future as if these feelings no applied to every situation. Simply because they applied to one in the past.

Rube.

Think of one of the stories you’ve created– we usually have more than one. Think of how you’ve allowed the story to leech into situations and color your perception of how you are being treated or will be treated—think of how it’s even kept you from trying.

What if, starting today, you could throw away that old, useless burden—because if it’s no longer functioning, it is simply a burden. What if today you could stop dragging around that rotting corpse–stop forcing people in your life to pay for the sins of others? What if today you could stop assigning value to the useless ideas that no longer serve you?

I believe you can. I know you are clinging to these stories as if they were important. I do it, too. When was the last time it served you—instead of you serving it? It’s like cleaning out your closet—if you can’t think of one situation when these negative thoughts ever did you some good, get rid of them because you need the space for new ideas.

Today I’m going to clean out my emotional junk drawer. I’m going to be merciless about what I get rid of. I’m going to throw away the stories that sit on my shoulder like an evil monkey and whisper, “Its not going to work” or “I can’t believe you said that” or “You will always be alone”. Drama monkey. I’m going to make room for more “I can do that” and “Just try again” and “Other people get to be right, too”. I feel like having more of those plot lines building my stories will create this endless loop of kindness and patience—some for me, some for you, some for me, some for you.

Write down 5 of your useless, go nowhere plot lines that you’ve allowed to negatively color your life. Just jot them down–they don’t need to have a lot of detail. You know them all by their nicknames.

I’ll wait.

Ask yourself, when was the last time each of them did you a service—and the last time they screwed everything up. If your old useless stories were employees, you would fire them. Create some new awareness around these stories during the next couple of weeks—what’s going on when they appear? Why do the old, tired themes become your fallback even if you realize they accomplish nothing? Just bad habits, I think, so give yourself the opportunity to establish some new patterns to take their place. Take things apart and put them back together without these stories. It will feel awkward at first. Something will feel like its missing. It will just be the crap you’ve let go of.

I believe you can do it.

Just try.

Everything you do today is the right thing.

Starting today, I’m going to kick off each week with a personal challenge. Telling you about it will keep me honest. The following Monday I will let you know if I was a rock star or I stunk up the room.

So in the spirit of creating new content for the blog and always discovering new ways to make myself feel a bit uncomfortable my Personal Challenge for this week is to:

POST 5 NEW ENTRIES ON MY BLOG THIS WEEK

Why did I choose this challenge?

• One of the goals of this blog is to flex my writing muscle on a more regular basis. This week, I intend to make that muscle bark and cry.




• It makes me uncomfortable so I know it has merit.




• There’s a part of me that thinks I will fail. Which makes the Marine Corp part of me need to do push ups in the rain and run 10 miles while singing a song that contains lyrics like *I love my rifle*.
  NOTE: The Marine Corp-ness is from my Dad who was a Marine yet NEVER made me do anything Marine-like except pull weeds against my will .




So, there it is.

I have to go write.




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