What do you actually hold on to from a hospital bed? My paralysis taught me the alternative is not just irrelevant, it does not exist. There is only the ground under your feet.
This one is recorded from hospital, so it is shorter and rougher than usual. Strength in vulnerability, peace in acceptance, power in the present. Those are not slogans to me, they are what is left when everything else is taken away for a while. I should have pulled the curtains for the noise.
One thing to try: Ask what is actually under your feet right now, and start only from there.
In this episode
- (0:00) Recording this one completely differently
- (1:29) Not even having to get out of bed to do it now
- (2:03) The pillars that hold the spirit up. Number one
- (3:49) Honour it, and its silent oath to keep you alive
- (4:39) The futility of resisting the now
- (5:34) Strength in vulnerability, peace in acceptance
- (6:17) Finding peace whatever the circumstances are
- (7:29) Thank you for joining me from a hospital bed
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Thank you for listening.
Steven
The story behind this one
I recorded this from a hospital bed, so it is shorter and rougher than usual. You can hear the ward behind me and I should have pulled the curtain.
I had been brought in after losing about a pint and a half of blood. An iron infusion, then a blood transfusion over the weekend, then surgery on the Monday. This was the Tuesday and I was hoping to get home the next day. Still in pain, still sweating, and a small gap between visitors.
I could not sleep the night before, with the buzzers going and a man with dementia calling out and somebody snoring, so I wrote three things down. Then I read them out.
I also came out of it with a stoma bag, which I am calling a new superpower. If you heard my episode about ten reasons it is brilliant being paralysed, I now have eleven.
What it taught me
The first is the illusion of alternatives. We stare at the past or invent an unseen future and ask what if. It is a mirage. It is not about whether the grass is greener anywhere else, it is about the ground under your feet.
My paralysis taught me that the alternative is not just irrelevant. It does not exist.
The second is the body's silent oath. Mine, despite everything, is fighting every second to keep me here. Your body in whatever state is your lifelong companion, and it never once stopped trying.
The third is the futility of resisting the now. We exhaust ourselves trying to change what cannot be changed. Acceptance is not defeat, it is wisdom.
Put the three together and something odd happens. You get a real hold on the present, and through that you influence where the future goes. That is not optimism. It is practical.
None of this is about being paralysed. It is about strength in vulnerability, peace in acceptance, and power in the present.
And around me on that ward were people with their own versions, nurses who did not have time to reach everybody, and nothing any of us could do to be somewhere else. Jumping up and down about it changes nothing.
Questions people ask
Why does it sound different?
Because it was recorded in a hospital bed, unedited, off the top of my head with the ward going on around me. I decided that was better than not recording it.
Is a stoma bag really a good thing?
For me, yes, and I would rather laugh about it than not. It has made a great deal of daily life simpler, which is not nothing when you are paralysed.
Is acceptance the same as giving up?
No, and that is the third lesson. Giving up is doing nothing. Acceptance is stopping the fight with what has already happened so you can act on what has not.
