I'm Grateful for a Stage IV Pressure Ulcer ... What???

First and foremost, thank you for reading and embracing my blog as you have. I so appreciate the written and Zoom conversations we're having as a result of the first two emails and I look forward to the conversations we’ll have in the future. More on that soon …

And now, on to today’s episode … um, blog post … ;-)

One of the questions people ask about my healing journey is:

How did you lose the weight?

I’d answer, “It’s amazing what you can do when you have to.”

After a couple of years of repeating that sentence over and over again, for the very first time, right here in this email to you, I’m going to amend it:

It’s amazing what you can do when you WANT to.

As you can imagine, I’d been carrying a lot of shame about neglecting my health and causing my pressure ulcer. Then, one day, a friend said something that helped me tremendously:

The shame is not going to help you heal.

She was absolutely right, and, while it takes time to work through those negative, unhealthy feelings, since I wanted to heal, I got to work healing psychologically and emotionally to help my body heal physically. In fact, I’m still doing it. It’s an ongoing process. It took a while to get where I am now, but I’m grateful for the opportunity to rise to the occasion and will continue to do so.

The difference between have to and want to is significant.

I didn’t have to heal. I really didn’t. I could have given up and said, “Well, I’ve made my bed, now I have to lie in it.”

Literally lie in it … on bed rest … wasting the rest of my life drowning in shame.

But, after seeing what neglecting my health and the years I’d wasted being in denial about it had cost me, I didn’t want to live the rest of my life that way.

My desire to heal became stronger than my shame. I absolutely wanted to heal.

And I wanted to live up to the life I was meant to live. I didn’t have to.
I WANTED TO.

My life is now divided into two parts: life before my diagnosis and after it, and I much prefer the person I am now.

That’s why I’m grateful for a stage IV pressure ulcer. Somewhere deep inside me, my body knew it had to do something drastic for me to wake up and realize that covering up my shame was keeping me from being the person I was truly meant to be, the inspirational speaker who knows that being your best, healthiest self is the way to live the life you want to live … the life you’re meant to live.

The thing that still gnaws at me is the people I let down and inconvenienced because of all those years I’d spent abusing my body, like my parents, myself, you … YES, YOU. You’re important to me.

Why did it take a health crisis for me to wake up, realize what’s truly important to me and get my act together? Why wasn’t I strong enough to do it before things got to a crisis point?

That pains me to this day. I feel shame about covering up my shame.

That’s how pervasive shame can be. It can overtake you to such an extent that covering it up becomes paramount because to admit it seems like it would be the worst thing ever. That’s what shame wants you to believe. As a matter of fact, shame counts on secrecy to survive and it doesn’t care that it’s eating away at you and your spirit in the process.

As Brené Brown so wisely says:

Shame cannot survive being spoken.

So, I talk about it to help myself through it and to hopefully help people who feel so overcome with shame that they can’t see a way out of it.

But there is a way and I’ll help you find it.

That’s one of the reasons I was put on this Earth in the first place … to use my life and what I’m learning from it to help others … and I’m no longer allowing shame to stop me from doing it.

Here’s something else I’ve learned over the past three years:

Holding onto your shame and letting go of it is the difference between surviving and THRIVING.

And that’s what we’ll talk about in the next exciting episode … uh, blog post … So, stay tuned … I’ll be back in your email inbox next Wednesday with more of The Adventures of InspiraWoman !

All the best to you,
Andrea
aka InspiraWoman