They say that even the challenges of life give us gifts.  Although I am not yet able to internalize this for many challenges, and I still find myself automatically resisting challenge, I am definitely coming to see how this can be true. I’ve just turned the corner into recovering from a week-long respiratory virus resulting in bronchitis.  It was rough. I haven’t been *that* sick in a long, long while.

The worst night was Thursday night.  I had to take such shallow breaths all night long.  It felt that if I inhaled any more than a half-inch my lungs would go into spasm.  I spent so much focus trying to keep my breathing within that narrow window. Regardless, I failed time and time again, coughing all night long.

I am a frequent meditator, and also do yoga. So I am far too familiar with induction techniques using the breath. So many ways to focus on filling the lungs fully.  And although I’d learned to *focus* on it, I realize now I didn’t truly *appreciate* it.  The next time I can fully expand my lungs, and hold that air in peace and comfort, it will be a truly appreciated ability. It will be true pleasure.  Made possible only because I learned what it was like to not have that for many whole days. Minutes don’t teach you that kind of lesson – days do.

Some challenges allow us to see past the confines of the box we’ve made for ourselves to live in. Others, such as personal illness, remind us of what a miracle our bodies are, and what a wonder life is when our bodies support us in enjoying and experiencing it.  Of how much more is usually going *right* with us, even when we are focused on complaining about something wrong with us.

I can’t (yet) shake my belief that I don’t have a good immune system. Because, after all, the data does support it.  I seem to get sick easier than most and stay sick longer and feel it more acutely.  But today, when I went out for my first (really short) walk in the woods after seven days of watching mostly not-so-great movies on the sofa, I truly appreciated that my body did, in fact, win the battle. I know I’m getting better now, and will continue to do so.  My body (and lungs) enabled me to go out and visit the wilderness.  

I acknowledge that there was a resistance within me the entire time I was sofa-ridden and suffering.  That I should be stronger; my immune system better.  “I should not be sick”, or sick this long, or this bad.  Why did I get sick and no one else? My immune system is weak – but in my head it was somehow always ‘my fault’.  I felt guilt – that I should try harder and ‘fix it’.  But maybe I can’t. Maybe it is one of those levers in life that cannot be changed, and can only be “accepted”.  And “accepted” *means* that I don’t blame myself for it!  My mom happened to mention the time when I was two months old and almost died from getting some mystery illness. *Maybe* that had permanent affects on my immune system. *Maybe* I can’t make it better than it is, but instead keep supporting it in every way I reasonably can (which I was), and accepting that it takes *time* (whatever time it takes). Knowing that it *will* heal, and that it is absolutely awesome in that regard.

Love, not judgement. And you know what? That probably helps the immune system far more than the other energy does.