Year of Spiritual Thinking, Month 3, Week 3

Springtime in the Soul and Shedding Baggage

One of the most beautiful transitions in nature is the transition from winter to springtime. … There is a lovely phrase in Gaelic, ag borradh, that means there is a quivering life about to break forth. ... At the heart of the spring, there is a great inner longing. It is the time when desire and memory stir toward each other. Consequently, springtime in your soul is a wonderful time to undertake some new adventure, some new project, or to make some important changes in your life.  —John O’Donohue, Anam Cara, A Book of Celtic Wisdom

I feel O’Donohue’s “springtime in the soul” keenly right now, with the Spring Equinox coming in ten days on March 19th, in the midst of a cluster of major religious holidays focused at least partly on renewal and new life.

Ramadan’s month of fasting and prayer begins March 11th, St. Patrick’s Day—celebrated for a thousand years in Ireland as a feast of Irish Christianity, not a holiday of parades and green beer!—is March 17th. The Hindu festival of Holi is March 25th, and the Christian Good Friday and Easter fall on March 29th and 31st this year.

In pondering and preparing myself for this time of transition and bursting forth of new life—spiritually, emotionally, mentally and physically—I kept hearing the phrase, “invisible disability.” What the… heck?

In my pre-dawn walking meditation this week, in between greeting my plant-kin and appreciating this high-desert landscape, I had an ah-hah moment. (Or a moment of being so cold I was hallucinating!) The phrase “invisible disability,”—which, by the way, I never imagined applying to myself—is a heavy part of my internal baggage. It’s time to examine it and let it go.

What is an invisible disability?

A condition that impairs a person’s function in some significant way but is not obvious to others. There are many kinds: think multiple sclerosis, epilepsy, diabetes and chronic fatigue syndrome; brain injuries, dyslexia, and hearing or vision loss.

The commonality among them is that person with the disability may look fine most of the time. The disability not visible to others, however, profoundly affects their everyday existence.

Many people live with conditions that are not outwardly apparent. They may look able-bodied and even healthy to some. … For many, the fear of contempt stops them from talking about their disability. The stigma is real. [emphasis in the original] —Tracy Mansolillo, The Power of Change

What does that have to do with me and baggage?

I live with an alphabet soup of autoimmune conditions I’ve had all my life; they can be debilitating, but they are also simply part of who I am.

I have Lupus, a sometimes fatal autoimmune condition that negatively impacts our organs and joints; along with Raynaud’s Syndrome, a circulatory condition that leads to blue fingers, toes, nose and lips, and potentially to nerve loss and frostbite; and Sjögren’s or “dry-eye” Syndrome, in which the moisture-producing glands of our mucous membranes—eyes, nose, mouth and more intimate places—become impaired, leaving those membranes, important parts of our defense system, as useless as dry moats.

Am I disabled?

Heavy sigh. I hate that label, but yes, I am.

I am acutely aware that words have great power, and names can be prejudicial. Take disease. Labeling a person “diseased” is akin to giving them stigmata, visible marks of their inability to maintain normal health. That's not helpful with a chronic condition like mine which defies the ministrations of western medicine. Thinking of myself as diseased just makes me feel sick. Even the word illness is injurious. Own up to having a chronic illness, and listeners withdraw, instinctively pulling away to protect themselves. I'm not contagious.
—Susan J. Tweit, Walking Nature Home: A Life’s Journey

The truth is, millions of people—perhaps most of us—live with some sort of limitation, whether mental, physical or emotional. That shouldn’t be a stigma (much less a stigmata!).

I have learned to live with my own particular health, so I don’t usually look sick or less-than-abled, in part because I am much too proud to appear otherwise.

We all know—at least intellectually—that pride and ego can be serious barriers to being our full selves. The truth is, the effort I put into maintaining a healthy-looking exterior self is energy I can’t use to do other things, including practicing my terraphilia, that innate affection for and connection with this planet and all the lives with whom we share our earthly home.

I often joke that maintaining my health, or at least appearing healthy, is a serious part-time job. Staying well is a good thing; keeping up appearances just for the sake of my ego is, well, stupid.

If I spent less of my daily energy and creativity satisfying my pride, would I have more for other parts of my life? Duh. Of course. Can I shed that baggage and let my imperfect self hang out? That’s a whole other question, and demands not just an internal spring cleaning, but a profound readjustment of perspective.

What if invisible disabilities are also superpowers?

In this springtime of the spirit, a time of renewal and new beginnings, I’m going to work at revising my negative association with disabilities, and play with seeing them as superpowers. It’s not a stretch, when you think about it.

For instance, because maintaining my own health takes a lot of effort and creative energy, I have learned to be more tolerant of other people’s frailties and imperfections, and more empathetic.

Because my best tool for managing my own particular condition is to listen to myself, I have learned to pay attention to body, mind, heart and spirit. Which makes me more open to and aware of others’ voices, and more respectful of differences.

Because I have had to learn to love myself as I actually am, not as I wish I was, in order to simply live, I can be more loving to others.

It seems paradoxical, but what we least like or are even are ashamed about in ourselves is sometimes also a talent or strength—a superpower, if you will.

An exercise: Spring-cleaning our souls

Is there something about yourself that you have hidden, dismissed or disavowed that could be a superpower?

Haul out the baggage you’ve been lugging around and see what’s in it. Maybe it’s something useful. Maybe it’s something you can let go. And please, be kind to yourself while you examine and consider.

Leave a comment if that feels right, or just consider the idea and make some notes to yourself.

Regardless, consider that sometimes our superpowers are the very things we have tried energetically to avoid, change or deny. Open yourself to this springtime of the soul!