Fall Down? Get Back Up!

It takes courage to fall and get back up.

Literally. And also figuratively. Yesterday I went to urgent care to get some help after I had slipped on the ice. I couldn’t put weight on my left leg without having shooting pain in my knee. Thankfully there was nothing broken, and my tumour remains safely encased in the bone where it will remain until my surgery. The treatment? Rest. And movement.

This got me thinking about the many situations in which we may find ourselves when we feel like we’ve fallen. Perhaps we have failed in our job. Perhaps we have taken a fall in our relationships. Maybe we feel personally attacked and we are embarrassed or ashamed. Maybe we have done something we know is wrong, and we don’t know how we will ever make it right.

Whatever the situation, I know that every one of us has felt that feeling of falling down and wondering if we will ever get up.

You can. You will. You must.

It takes courage to get back up after a fall. But just like my doctor’s directions to deal with my knee pain, sometimes we first need to rest. We don’t have to jump up and keep going. We may need to rest, reflect, regroup, care for the injured part of our hearts and our egos.

And then we move. Slowly, incrementally, we start to move again so we don’t seize up. It takes courage. It will probably hurt. We may want to stay in a quiet heap in the floor. But we move.

If you read my blog last week, you may have seen that I felt like I was hit multiple times. I feel like I fell. And I rested. And I am moving again. I will find the courage to not stay down. And I know you can too.

So today, if you are feeling like life has knocked you down, show yourself some kindness. Tend to your broken heart. Rest. Increase the care you show yourself.

And then find the courage to move. Even just a little. Until you are able to get back up. If you need some help to get up, that’s okay. Remember yesterday I talked about the courage to ask for help. Please, whatever you do today, don’t just stay down. The world needs you to get back up.