Healing Colors

Surgery is surgery is surgery is surgery. That is, the word itself lays bare its associations, its attendant emotions and connotations. It is what it is. Risk. Difficulty. Vulnerability. Attendant Pain. A Body Altered. The only relevant question is whether the surgery heals or merely disfigures the body –  Lynne Greenburg, The Body Broken: A Memoir

I’ve got tangled memories and easily spooked emotions when it come to medical procedures. When I was recently faced with my second surgery in less than a year, my therapist and I got busy working on skills and strategies to care for my post-op panic brain. Out of that work came the idea that I should get a coloring book. So so smart. This represents two months of practicing stillness amidst the attendant emotions:

And gratefully…..two months of healing.