ONE SUNDAY morning in the middle of late October 2019, I woke up to severely matted hair. I had always had thick, long hair since the age of 4. I was voted best hair on many occasions, celebrated in my youth and high school years. It was natural, long and thick and it became a part of how people recognized me or identified me. My hair was my identity. I received many compliments about my long locks from teachers, coworkers, friends, and family.
This Sunday in October, after my 5th chemotherapy treatment, my hair was falling out rapidly. Giant clumps of hair fell into the sink as I tried to brush it free. I had been dreading this day, and it scared me to think that after losing my hair I would be looking in the mirror at someone I wouldn’t recognize and didn’t know. When the last of the hair fell out that week, I’d lost the identity that I’d proudly worn since I was 4 years old. Without the hair, the eyebrows, and the eyelashes who was I and how would people recognize me? I felt lost.
I couldn’t bear to look at myself in the mirror. I did not recognize who was looking back at me, and I feared that I had lost myself and the comfort and confidence of what made me feel and look like me. I found it difficult to accept the person whose reflection looked back at me. I thought, How can I pursue my purpose to help others when I can’t help myself?
“God grant me the Serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.” —The Serenity Prayer, Reinhold Niebuhr
Someone once told me that facing and coming to terms with “what is” is a beneficial act. Acceptance brings peace. It is frequently the turning point for change. However, this is also way easier said than done.
Navigating change is the art of acceptance.
In 2017, before my cancer journey, I enrolled to become a BodyMind Coach. BodyMind coaching and living not only gave me the skills to coach others, but also influenced me with an empowered process to coach myself. I quietly started to coach myself in my personal and business life, through my fears, anxieties, and challenges. During times of change, I got curious about how I was feeling and how wanted to feel.
After my hair was gone, I wrote a note to myself in my journal as a self-coaching tool…
What is most special about you? Other than your hair?
When people look at you, sure they notice your hair, your health and your fit lean body, but they notice something about you that is different. It’s the way you carry yourself and the way you care for people. It’s about your strength, confidence and dignity mixed with your ferocity. It’s about your particular beauty that stands in stark contrast to the manufactured beauty that some women have been sold. It’s about how you stand, walk, talk and treat others… it’s only a little bit about your hair.
You are a strong, fierce force with a little rebellion, a little crazy that leads and offers others the path to revolutionize their lives and businesses despite pain, disease, and experiences. The magic your clients say you have is not in your hair. It’s inside you. The magic is inside you. You have lost nothing, but your hair. You still have your magic inside you.
This acceptance empowered me to show up anyway without all the hair. I tapped back into my wisdom and magic, and I went back to work helping and supporting others through my coaching and bodywork. I recognized that whether I had hair or not didn’t change how I could continue to facilitate a wonderful life for my family, friends and clients.
As you are navigating change, what might you write to yourself?
What acceptance is needed to keep you empowered to continue in your purpose?
Five months post cancer treatment, I was just feeling my strength and resolve return as my body endurance and strength was navigating its way back to my confident athletic self. Then, a beautiful day on a family bike ride ended abruptly. As I laid sprawled out on the pavement after crashing on my bike, I could feel the blood dripping from
body parts and immense pain coursing through me, a pain I have never ever experienced before. I immediately began assessing my situation… a full body check in.
Something has happened… again, I thought.
We have a problem.
Things are different.
I have deep pain.
Things have changed.
I am losing something… again, I thought.
Join Dena as she rides her bike along Pacific Coast Highway. (CLICK THE IMAGE ABOVE TO PLAY THE AUDIO.)
In this moment, I realized the present circumstance I felt after surviving cancer was no longer as comfortable as it was. The fun was over, the wind in my newly grown hair gone, blood on my body, the remaining plans for vacation over. Circumstances had changed, just like it did during my cancer journey, and I had a new situation to accept.
I am broken… again, I thought.
My foundation, my pelvis, had been shaken, fragmented, interrupted, shifted and, yes, fractured. My left elbow also had fractured. My hip severely contused and my skin abraded in multiple places. Another opportunity to accept change presented itself.
What happened?
How did it happen?
Where does it hurt?
What does it feel like?
What did you feel?
Did you hear anything?
Can you move?
Assessment is ingrained in you as an Athletic Trainer and first responder to all athletic injuries. My sports medicine program in college taught me all about assessment while responding to athletic injuries and determining how to manage injuries. As students we were educated to go through the history of events that led up to the injury. This is because doing so gives you a plan on how to move forward. It became a skill that I have used in all areas of my life.
Becoming a BodyMind coach and living BodyMind has given me an even greater depth of assessment skills that have shown me how to tap into my body’s wisdom, my knowing, connect with my internal compass and lean into change. The foundation of my living BodyMind aligned has been about getting curious and asking myself even better questions…
What is happening?
What does this change feel like?
How do I want to feel?
What do I get to receive?
How is this change going to impact me?
How can I take action and move forward?
Who can I ask for help and support?
Why me?
Why not me?
These questions help me to gain clarity as I navigate accepting the new reality of “what is,” what’s changed, and my plan to take action emerges, allowing me to move forward without feeling stuck.
I have learned that acceptance during change allows me to receive so much more than pain and inconvenience. Acceptance has allowed me to receive so much kindness, new experiences, new friends, new knowledge, generosity, support, and a richer life.
My acceptance to change is not the surrender to the circumstances and giving up! The desired outcome of my acceptance includes my ability or willingness to work towards the goal even though the process may not be fun… or rewarding… or enjoyable.
We all know the saying, that cliche, ”change is hard.” But does it have to be? Or do we make it that way?
I love change. I thrive on it and in it. I accept it. I love to seek out new challenges and adventures for change, but usually not those that require illness or broken bones. (Who does, right?) Unfortunately,
I don’t have the power to choose all the adventures this life has to offer me. I didn’t choose cancer. I didn’t choose a broken pelvis and elbow. But, I do know that accepting what has been given me and receiving support for the courage to face it has made the journey far more bearable.
What challenges and changes are you facing that need acceptance?
What acceptance needs to happen in your life so that you can stop feeling stuck?
what challenges need acceptance?
