Vanetta Call Servoss

Life is good! I have a sticker on the window of my car that has been happily reminding me of that for the last few years. Because life *is* good.

There was a time in the not so distant past when it wasn't. Life was hard. Work. Responsibilities. Things to do and people to take care of. A family. A home. Being supermom. Staying positive. Being the glue that held it all together. I didn't consider myself to be unhappy, and I certainly would have argued that life was good, but deep down something wasn't right. I suspect life goes that way for a lot of us. We plug along, doing the best we can, thinking we are happy. Never suspecting there could be more. Sometimes never daring hope there could be more. It took a dive deep into chronic pain for me to recognize that life could be different than the one I was leading. Chronic pain tends to do that to you. You either give up, or you wake up.

I woke up.

When my life came to a screeching, crashing halt several years ago when I was blindsided by severe pain, I spent a lot of time asking "why?" "Why me?" I wondered if my life would ever return to "normal". I wondered if I would ever enjoy walking, or hiking, or preparing a meal again. I wondered if my husband would ever be able to hold my hand. Or if I would get another Christmas with my family.

I enjoy all of those things now.

And I do my best to live life deliberately. With awareness. And choice. And play. And curiosity.

It isn't the "things" in life that have changed, but my approach to them.

I'm nobody special, and there is nothing particularly unique about my life other than it is mine. I have a Bachelor's Degree in English and American Literature and a Master's Degree in Health Promotion. As I healed, I also trained to become a licensed massage therapist and have been learning the art of myofascial release through study with John F. Barnes. Life isn't all bliss. I still have chores, and work, and people to take care of. I will always be a mom to my kids. Especially now that they have all graduated and gone in different directions. I still have a physical body that needs good care and maintenance. And there may always be seasonal allergies to deal with :)

But I do have a message to share with the world. You can heal from chronic pain. I don't care what you have been told, you can heal. If life isn't good, what is getting in the way? And I don't mean the dirty dishes in the sink, or the kids that won't stop fighting, or the bills that never quite get paid. What in your approach to life is keeping you trapped in pain?

When you start to explore and resolve that, my belief is that you, too, can one day join me in feeling deep in the core of your being that life is good! That God is good!

It makes me smile just to type that.