White flags.
In my mind I saw myself setting it down. I didn’t drop it. I didn’t throw it down quickly like I would have done if I knew with 100% certainty nothing bad would happen. I set it down tentatively. Quietly. Cautiously.
With my imaginary white flag of resignation resting on the glass coffee table in front of me, I scanned my surroundings. Then I scanned me- my body, my pain, my thoughts.
Nothing happened.
Nothing good happened- my feet were still tingling just as furiously as they have for the past 5 years, 3 months, 4 days. (Not that I’m counting though…). My right leg still ached and electric shocks ran through my knee. My shoulders were still stiff and my spine tingled.
But nothing bad happened either.
“You can go through this peacefully, or you can go through this fighting.” My therapist said. “Either way, it’s gonna take the same amount of healing, the same amount of time, and the same amount of pain.”
Sounds wise and fair enough.
Thing is, though, that I had already realized this myself. My white flag (imagined flying on a squidgy little wooden stick) was already laying on the table in the living room, out of site and reach from my desk where she and I spoke virtually through my computer. It was me who told her I felt like all I knew how to do in life was fight to keep my head above water and survive. I already knew I did everything fighting.
Stubbornness, and the remarkable ability to fight and be the last one standing at all cost and against all odds, was what had undoubtedly caused a tremendous amount of suffering in my life. I had defended anorexia and bulimia with all my might for over two decades. No one could make me do anything I didn’t want to do. No one.
Except me.
And the fact that I could fight through anything and (eventually) do what I wanted to do once I set my mind to it, was also responsible for my complete healing from the anorexia and bulimia, for running a 10k, for learning the Grieg piano Concerto, for cutting all the tree limbs on a steep bank on our property, for perfecting the art of chocolate tempering and sourdough.
So, fighting through has its merits.
That said, what fuels the fight is what dictates the pain. Pursuit out of desire, passion, dedication, and determination brings to the battle endurance and faith. One out of fear, desperation, anxiety, and distress brings only discouragement, more pain, and soul-crushing fatigue.
White flags have been used for centuries, waved out of surrender- out of giving up the fight. To me, that surrender meant that the pain won. Someone else called the shots. I wasn’t enough and had to quit. Or, worse, my life was never going to change and get better.
No way could I let that happen! I had to keep fighting. Fear of the worst kept me going.
But at the same time, my mind and body were completely exhausted. The idea of waving my flag and resigning, to finally feel peace even if it meant I never achieved my goals and remained in pain haunted me. I desperately wanted to stop fighting, but giving up wasn’t an option. I couldn’t live in pain forever. My future self needed my current self to keep going… just…one… more… day.
But that afternoon on the couch, a few weeks before my therapist clearly laid out the only two options I had as I pursued the long journey of recovery still ahead of me, something made me ask myself “what am I fighting?” “If I let go, who wins?”
And I had no answer. I had no idea.
I was like a distressed little beetle turned upside down on its back, madly kicking and squirming trying to turn itself right side up to continue its mission. But next to the little bug was a twig. And if it would only stop flailing about long enough to look around, it would see the stick, grab on, turn back over, and away it would go.
Fight out of fear and anger and frustration.
Surrender by waving my white flag out of resignation, fatigue, and failure.
Or option #3- simply put my flag down and carry on peacefully, determined, focused, and with hope. There was not really any battle that needed winning, nor enemy to be afraid of.
I simply needed to keep on keeping on.
The whole idea came as completely novel to me. I don’t know why, for I’ve used an iron will without fear or anxiety fueling it plenty of times to achieve and accomplish.
“Haven’t I?”
I wrote a post a few weeks back titled “Roots of Enough” in which I detailed the many lies and fears that ran laps in my brain and kept me searching for ways to measure up to the standards of the world, and the standards of me. The latter were the hardest to meet- the highest goals, the hardest feats. And the rewards or punishments that followed the accomplishments or defeats were also those most closely embedded with who I saw myself as a person.
Fighting always comes from a place of fear. It’s driven by anxiety and an overactive defense mechanism in the brain. Granted sometimes that’s needed; though those instances are few and far between in life for most of us. The brain and body have a unique memory, however, for trauma and past pain. It’s designed to overreact when it senses “here we go again” from anything that reminds it of past insults. And a sensitized nervous system doesn’t often know how to determine the severity of the threat. It’s more like an “on/off” switch.
That’s where the “fight or resign” ideology comes from.
But if we can pause the swimming, unrelenting thoughts and sit still for a moment we can remember to tap into the rational side of our brain, and explore the third option-
Simple perseverance.
But, just as the fight needed fuel, so does the perseverance.
Persevering comes from a place of faith. (Yes, even one as small as a mustard seed is enough!) A hope, sometimes so faint it’s barely detectable, leads us forwards through the trials in search of rest, peace, and more joy ahead in the journey.
By definition it must also include acceptance- of where you are at, the depth of the struggles, and an acknowledgment that God’s Will will be done. You don’t have to fight to make sure that happens.
As helpless and hopeless as the journey has led you to feel, without help and without hope you will never be.
“For I am the LORD your God who takes hold of your right hand and says to you, Do not fear; I will help you.” Isaiah 41:13
“Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us.” Hebrews 12:1
