Signs

Call me “woo-woo,” but I believe the universe sends me signs.

And because I tend to be stubborn, sometimes I think the universe knows these signs need to be pretty hard to ignore.

Like that one time when I was trying to stop drinking and prayed on the way to the liquor store for a sign that I shouldn’t buy alcohol. How the universe responded by making my brown bag fall out of my hands when I got back to my apartment, shattering the bottle of tequila inside.

This weekend I got another sign. Another in-your-face, hard-to-ignore sign.

I’ve known for months I need to slow down. I’m creeping back into old habits: putting work first, all-or-none/black-or-white thinking, perfectionism that makes me lose sleep, neglect my spirituality, go through each day automatically, just trying to survive rather than live.

So it shouldn’t be a surprise that a sign was coming.

On Thursday after a long week at work, I crawled in bed donned in my XXL t-shirt and Christmas pajama pants, with a bowl of soup, a glass of water, and my laptop. I pulled up Netflix and found the latest season of Love is Blind UK. Finally… my weekend.

Dixie, my dog, curled up beside me. I spooned soup into my mouth as I harshly judged the Love is Blind contestants, finding justification for being still being single at age 35. When I finished downing my soup, I paused the show with the intent to take my plate back to the kitchen and return with a cookie (or three).

Here’s where things went wrong. I keep a small night table beside my bed, and a small power strip to plug in all my appliances. As I got up to head to the kitchen, a cord snagged in between my little toes, causing me to trip and fall. My plate and glass fell out of my hand; the night table came crashing down along with my lamp and everything else on it.

For a few moments, it was like everything slowed down. When I looked at my toe, I went into drama mode. I called my mom (of course) and screamed that my pinky toe may be falling off. There was glass all around me, blood dripping everywhere, and a terrible pain sending me into shock.

Mom, of course, wanted to call 911. I think a part of me realized that may be one step too far into being dramatic, so I called a friend instead and she took me to the ER.

At the ER I was reassured I was not losing my little toe, and I’d just need a few stitches to close the gash between my 4^th and 5^th toes.

Without much advice from the ER, I came home and went to sleep, only to wake up the next morning in extreme pain as the nerve block wore off. I soon realized what an inconvenient location this was—I couldn’t walk without feeling like my foot was falling off.

And so, lying in bed, unable to bear weight, I realized: here is my sign. SLOW DOWN.

This sign may be what it took to finally write again. To get back to my blog—the blog I intended to keep up to date this year.

If you follow me on social media, you may have seen that I’ve shifted my career somewhat. I still maintain my physical therapy license but started working as a personal trainer to have more work/life balance and take a break from the documentation and limitations of an insurance-based clinic.

This step aligns with some discoveries I’ve made in recent years: how I long to bridge the gap between Eastern and Western medicine in my practice as a health care provider. My own journey and healing have shown me the importance of caring for the entire person—mind, body and soul—and how healing is limited when only one of these components is addressed.

And so, perhaps this blog will shift to writing about my insights around that. Again, it’s still a work in progress. My life continues to unfold and shift and help me uncover my purpose.

Stay tuned for my newest post—I finally, in my forced stillness, received some insight and felt a push to write about it.

May you be present and aware so that you, too, can receive your signs.

(Although I hope you see them quicker than I do, and avoid a trip to the ER!)