You're right HERE.

I've had a week. I think I've referred to the last twelve months as "THE worst year of my life" at least a couple times this week, to my mum and my best friend. Now, I am a really upbeat person usually; I even get teased for being impossibly positive, so when I have moments like this, it is difficult for my loved ones to watch. This week I looked at my thigh as I attempted to get up from a laying position stomach down, and what used to be my athletic, toned sculpture of a thigh was a pathetic, dangling, skinny thing. I went to the doctor on Thursday and he said that my Vastus Medialis muscle - the thigh muscle on the inside of my injured leg, was not activating due to the month of inactivity before my surgery. He said that I was about two weeks behind his expectations at this point. Directly after seeing him, I saw my physical therapist and she hooked me up to electrical stimulation, attempting to stimulate the muscle. She turned up the current - once, twice, three times. Her hand is resting on my thigh as she waits for some response from my muscle to indicate that the current has stimulated the muscle and it is contracting. She said "Jane, I'm getting nothing" and turned the machine higher. I can feel the tingling, it's uncomfortable-bordering-painful, but I am hurting much more on the emotional level. REALLY? NOTHING? I am a horse of a woman and in four short weeks my leg is gone?

The funny thing is, I've read ALL the literature I can find on ACL injuries, surgeries and the process of rehabilitation. I know everything from the best case scenario (when you can finish your final athletic season with your team) to the worst case scenarios (where they miscalculate the length or angle of the implant and it has to be redone, arthritis, second and third surgeries, etc). I know that I am at neither extreme of the spectrum. I know that the process is slow, and can be really slow. None of this is what I came here to blog to you about though. So I had a bad week. So I cried and said that this has been the worst year of my life. This happened. This happened days ago. I'm telling you about it. What I've come here to say today is that while emotionally, and in terms of my esteem of what I've accomplished and have achieved this year, I have felt as though I've fallen short, some grossly important things have happened with me this year. This has been my transition year. My theme for the year was "It's time to admit to your dreams," but what I learned this year was that I needed to get more comfortable in my own skin. All my friends know me for really encouraging them to be who they are; I absolutely LOVE the diversity of a different opinion and way of doing things and I HATE people to try to be something that they are not and expect me to buy into it. I celebrate the differences of people's unique mindset and personal input everyday (it is even a part of my job!) but somewhere along the line, I forgot to do it for myself in terms of my emotions.

Last year, in my last semester of gradschool, we were taking the Meyers-Briggs Type Inventory (MBTI), a personality test, and our professor was trying to get us all involved in the process. He made us line up at the front of our lecture theatre so we could see where we all fell; you know, get to know each other as colleagues and classmates. I remember for the spectrum of preference Thinking versus Feeling I placed so far on the T side that I was the last person in the line. There was a lady in our line up who passed me as we took our positions, she moving further to the Feeling side and me moving further on the Thinking side. She laughed and said "Ha ha ha! Jane, you would be all the way on the T side eh? Heh! NO heart!" I don't think I responded at all to her speech, and the funny thing is, that was a poor interpretation of the scale - it is measuring  the preference you have for making decisions; whether you prefer to act based on feelings first, or on a consideration of all the facts, not on your capacity for feeling or thinking. Nevertheless, I considered her statement. She of course was a well meaning lady, I'm sure she had no ill intention as she made her light-hearted comment but I considered how fundamentally wrong such a statement was. I have no heart? ME? I realised that something about the way I was coming across was devoid of any real emotion, that to the untrained eye, to the ignorant bystander, to the deaf, I didn't have any feelings.  How horrible! I thought.

This was something I'd been already seeing and working on, but her comment kind of confirmed my fears, that I was so busy achieving and being/striving endlessly toward excellent that I was not present in today, I was not even being seen in one of the ways that I fully exist - as an emotional being. I vowed to change that. For me, one of the first steps I took in this direction was to choose people that meant the world to me, to choose people I trusted and then really make the risky step to need them. For the first time in my life I began to depend on the emotional support of my beloveds. I began to include more I-am-sads, more I-am-having-a-bad-days in my dialogues. I cried in the presence of other human beings for the first time in maybe  a decade.

Now, this is my story. You all are witnesses to a massive transition in the life of this Jane. I have been surprising my loved ones with more honesty about my feelings and more expression and I have been growing so so much. I feel MUCH better; lighter. I had become so wound up, like an extended sling shot, forever poised for the next target, but that is only good sometimes. If I am to be a real hunter - i.e. someone active and functional in this world, as opposed to forever in search of the next (a trainee playing target practice), then I don't aim at a bull's eye, I aim at my prey. I extend my sling, shoot and capture, then I walk again until it is time to hunt some more. This is a funny metaphor from a vegetarian, but never mind that. There is a time for everything under the sun. My meditation this week is on the idea of going ahead and letting your self out. There is, I believe a REALLY good reason why you are the way you are. I believe that you can benefit the world around you the very best, the most optimised way when you maintain that truth to who you are. People like you more, you grow faster, you learn more. That isn't even mentioning yet how beautiful you are when you just let your guard down enough to be truly seen.

My challenge to you this week is to trust someone in your life enough to allow them to see you a little clearer. Talk about a dream you have. Make a statement of your feelings. The interesting thing is you may find that someone in your life already sees this in you, but your protecting it robs you of the opportunity to revel in the fact that someone sees you clearly and loves you, perhaps even loves you for it. There's a neuromodulator called oxytocin which scientists including Paul Zak, PhD., have identified as having a major role in relationships. Particularly, they have recently supported its role in morality and trust amongst humans. It has even been shown to make some animal mothers more nurturing. His suggestion to a better world: give eight hugs a day to boost its levels in your body and improve the person you are. Mine: find God, love others and be who you really are.