In the song Beautiful Boy, John Lennon told us that “life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans.”
Don’t you know it!
Last September, while I was busy making other plans, I was about to load groceries into my car on a gorgeous, sunny day. I wedged the cart against the bumper to stop it from rolling in the sloped parking lot, threw my purse on the driver’s seat and walked back towards the trunk.
Life was beautiful. It was my birthday, and I had fun plans in the works. As I walked around the cart at my usual brisk pace, I gazed up at the sky, admiring its bright, clear blue. My left foot caught the rear wheel of the cart, and I went down. Hard. The pain was instant and I couldn’t get up. Life changed in an instant.
This was not part of my plan.
Before: a strong, pain-free body. Months of diligent work–Pilates classes, long walks, an anti-inflammatory diet, a positive mindset–had paid off.
After: multiple hairline fractures that left me mostly in bed for the next three months. Now, instead of advanced Pilates classes, I’m in physical therapy, doing exercises that are ridiculously easy but all I can manage. Every time I try to go faster or do more, the result is a setback with more pain.
Lamenting to my friend Aleksandra, I said, “I can’t believe it. I was so strong and now I can barely walk. Ugh, I have to start again.”
Aleksandra is an experienced meditator who attends ten-day silent meditation retreats. She said, “When we are meditating and begin to think, the only instruction is to start again. At retreats, we do that many times. Start again. Start again. Start again.”
Her words were the same as mine, but the energy was vastly different.
Start again. Gentle. Light. Matter of fact. Start again.
My version was laden with I-can’t-believe-that-I-have-to-start-all-over-again-it’s-not-fair energy. Heavy. Frustrated. Clinging to the past. Impatient for the future.
It was a lightbulb moment. I got it. Just start the meditation again. Just start rebuilding your strength again. Just that. Peacefully. Simply. Patiently.
Complaint, distraction, frustration only delays our progress. The only way forward with ease is to start again.
In his song Anthem, Leonard Cohen said it so perfectly:
“The birds they sang
At the break of day
Start again
I heard them say
Don’t dwell on what has passed away
Or what is yet to be.”
Wherever we are, whatever we seek, whether we’ve lost our place or lost our way, start again. If we’ve experienced a setback, fallen off the wagon, regained the weight, lost the job or lost the lover, the instruction is the same: Start again.
So in this New Year, let us start again, wherever we are, whatever the loss, whatever the goal, whatever we desire. Start again. Simply that and just that. Start again.