They were a mess. Dark, stained with deeply lined crevices painful to look at.
No matter what I did.
No matter what lotions
or soaking
or primping
or massaging I did,
there was no changing the way my heels looked.
That's what happens sometimes when you have an endocrine issue. It shows up on your feet. And I, the 'Queen of Flip Flops' wasn't happy because it was ugly.
And I wanted to make the ugly go away.
"It's an inside-out job," my friend Laurie said. "You gotta take care of it from the inside."
Yeah, but the inside takes true work and time. I wanted the easy way out. Can't I just scrape it off or put a chemical or something?
Nah. I knew I couldn't. I already tried that and it just came back.
There is no such thing as an 'easy-way-out' when you have inside-out work to do.
So, 17 days ago, I took on a juicing experiment: living on mostly fresh green juices to see what my body would do. I also committed to no/low media. And in the middle of it all I took on a more focused commitment to treat my health like it's my full-time job. Rock began calling me, "The CEO of Stacey's Health." Not really catchy and no ginormous salary attached but, I liked it and found myself standing up a skosh taller every time he said it.
My days are about juicing 50 ounces of things like look and smell like the lawnmower clippings from my gardener, then adding something sweet to it so that I don't pass out while I'm drinking in the blessed 'micronutrients.' Occasionally, I eat some food: An ounce of salmon, an arugula salad, a bite of a Rice Chex homemade bar for my gluten-free son.
Well, that last one was yesterday and while I could have resisted, I didn't.
Sigh.
And, I'm walking. A lot. And doing jin shin jyutsu on myself. And yoga. And journalling. And gardening. And meditating. And listening to health gurus and other inspirational people like Michael Beckwith, Dr. Wayne Dyer, and my kids.
Yes. I'm listening to my kids. I mean, I usually listen to them, but I'm present to them on a different level. They are so brilliant.
And edible.
Oh and I'm 'tramping' -- that's what the boys call it (which will have to change in a few years, I know, I know....)
We jump on the trampoline to work my lymphatic system. They count my jumps and giggle at my squeals as I try to figure out how to go higher without peeing in my pants when my bladder makes impact with the gravitational force of all my weight (not telling) landing on something that's the equivalent to flexible concrete.
And I make my bed.
And feel guilty and unworthy of spending this time on me.
And then, spend my time talking myself down of the ledge of that insanity.
The critic in me wants to tell me how I was worth more when I worked 90 hours a week and made nice money. When I was the the person more able to give and take fun vacations and bought my husband his dream Selmer Mark VI 1969 saxophone.
How 'life' would be better off without me if I would just let this unhealth run it's course -- then, it could leave behind the dead, heavy weight of me and move on, unencumbered by me and this autoimmune disease.
But the critic doesn't stop there: Then, it wants to blame someone else -- to make me the victim in a different way. Blaming my husband for stressing me out, or genetics for giving me the DNA, or my childhood for all the pain or the insurance company or incompetent health professionals who missed things when they were more treatable.
And on
and on
and on....
And I remember Eckert Tolle's words, "If you hear two voices inside of you, remember: One of them isn't real."
So, I journal.
Taking those those thoughts, as wonky and wack-a-doo as some of them are and I honor them by giving them a place, a home if you will, on a page in this dimension. And I honor me by getting them out of my head where they imprison me.
The space clears. I sigh. And suddenly, the world where I felt guilty for being alive and such a burden, I now feel grateful for being alive and having such opportunity.
Nothing changed and yet everything changed.
At night, Rocky tucks me in. Something he's been doing for the better part of 25 years. He will touch my skin (and tell me how unbelievably soft I am) bless my head and all it's crazy thoughts and then, sit at my feet to rub them while we chat about the day.
He tells me about his job and I tell him about my inner work and most of the insane musings in my head.
A few nights ago, he interrupted my daily report:
"Holy crap, Sta....look at this!"
He tried to show me the bottom of my foot but I'm not Gumby, "Youch! Hold on, let me do it." And I grabbed my foot, pulling it up closer to where I could see.
"Do you see it?!" My husband was so excited, "Look!" He pointed, a la Vanna White, down the expanse of my size 11 foot.
How could I miss it? Pink, soft skin where cracked, bleeding heels used to be. "It's those micronutrients, Sta! Just like the video was talking about! Whoa...."
He was awestruck.
And it made me think: All those years, I've wanted the quicker fix on my feet, my life, my finances, my weight, my health, my spirituality, my whatever...where I just wanted to put something topical -- some healing salve to make it all better...there was a different commitment required; an inner work or as my friend, Laurie had said,
"An inside-out job."
I'm seeing that now, and again. (Love learning the same thing over and over...) Not fully there to the revelation, still only been a few weeks and I've got many miles more to go but I can see it better: What it's going to take and yes, now, I can even see what's helping -- and the difference the work is making.
It makes me 'sigh.'
I sigh a lot these days....
I know I could spend my life looking at the sky for a sign or something big like that but I don't.
Because it's amazing what you can see and learn, if you're willing,
from a couple of dirty, ugly
cracked heels.