The hike up Graybeard Mountain was hard, full of rocks and roots and steep climbs. At the summit my hair was wet with sweat, cheeks flushed and my heart was pounding from exhaustion and because a storm was coming in quickly.
The hike down was even harder. Rocks and roots slick with rain and my muscles screaming for a reprieve. I made it down in one piece, but then three days later, my post-hike aches and pains forced an old injury to show up and rendered me flat on my back.
And I was mad. So, so mad at my body and this old injury. I believed I had conquered it. I had done all the hard work of healing and the hurt was not supposed to return.
But it did, and I could rage against it, or I could accept it was there and gently care for it. So I raged for a while, then I got to work on caring for it, accepting it was there, but that I had the tools now so that maybe it would hurt less, or not linger as long.
Sounds like the journey of life, right? Sometimes the geography of our paths is rocky and treacherous and painful, and in these moments we have the choice to rage against it, trying to force it to be different, or we can accept it is there and gently care for ourselves in the reality we find ourselves in. Your soul knows that gentleness, no matter the terrain, is the way forward.
Soul Geography 