The Car Accident That Changed My Life
Unexpected Lessons & Hidden Blessings of Choosing Healing Over Victim
Happy 2022, Dear Friends & Beloved Community!
I wish I could say that the new year is off to a strong and powerful start, but I would describe it as more like a slow and steady consistent flow.
While I don’t really engage in the common practice of New Year’s resolutions, I do make it a point to reflect honestly and deeply on the past year and anchor in the new intentions for the upcoming year. Now is a good time to get clear on BHAGs (Big Hairy Audacious Goals) for 2022. At the same time, I sense that many people have had to give themselves permission to ease into the new year especially as it feels like we’ve wobbled our way into it.
I never really aligned with the Gregorian calendar. To me, the New Year starts during the Lunar / Chinese New Year, usually in the month of February. This year, Chinese New Year arrives early on February 1st. It’s one of my favourite times of the year, not only because it was a big-deal holiday that was celebrated when I was growing up in Southeast Asia, but also because it truly does feel the more relevant time to celebrate the new year—about four to six weeks after January 1st and a little closer to the arrival of spring.
It may seem strange to start off the New Year with an essay about a car accident. But this year’s Lunar New Year is significant because I will be commemorating and celebrating the 2-year anniversary of the car accident that changed my life. In this essay (that almost never got written), I will share the key decisions I made on my car accident recovery journey and how used it to let go of the past and rebirth a new life, which then created all that I have now.
I hope that you will find relatable and relevant messages about New Year-ish themes of beginnings and endings, the power of choice, the amazing human capacity to heal, and the ever-present-promise of God’s grace even in life’s most difficult moments.
The Accident
February 2020: It was just another day of driving on the highway going home. The skies were clear. The almost-spring sun streamed through the car windows, warming up my cheeks. I was staying in my lane, minding my own business. I was going at about 80-90 kilometres per hour. I like to drive in the slow lane, even on the highway. My eyes were focused on the road, but admittedly, my mind was somewhere else. Then suddenly, I felt a thump, then a bump, and then a jump. Thump, bump, jump. My vision blurred for a moment. And for half a second, I lost a ‘blip’ of consciousness. My body felt like jello and my brain struggled to remain conscious from its dizzied-noodle-numb state. Out of the corner of my eyes, I saw a car pull up beside me on the right. I turned my head, and I saw a young girl, maybe late teens, mouthing something to me over her rolled-down window. I pushed the power window button on the passenger side. As the window rolled down with a whirring sound, I became aware that my heart was beating rapidly and my hearing was compromised somewhat—so I leaned my ear closer to her and—I heard her say, “I am sooooo sorry!!!” she hollered into the wind, through the rush of highway traffic and the echo of entering the tunnel. At this point, I didn’t know how I was still driving, but I was. I heard her follow with: “Want to meet up at the next exit?!?!” And it was in that moment that I realized that she hit me from behind.
After the Accident
Even though I felt the physical effects of the rear-end as early as 10 minutes into the incident, somehow my system went into survival mode. The car accident occurred only 10 days before I was to move house, and there was no way I was going to let anything get in the way of that. The next few weeks following the accident, I managed to move to a new home and get settled.
Shortly after that, in March 2020, the Covid-19 pandemic swept across the globe. It was only then did I really feel the impact of the accident and at more than one level—not only physically but psychologically, emotionally and spiritually. Not being able to receive treatment due to the lockdowns aggravated my condition, and I spent the majority of three months post-accident in a strange frozen-generalized-pain state. The rest of the world was staying home because of a virus; I had another good reason to stay home: my body hurt all over and moving around only made it worse. By the time the clinics opened again and I was able to access treatment, my condition had gone from acute to chronic.
In May 2020, I began an intensive and rigorous treatment protocol which I designed with several health practitioners specializing in car accident injuries. Little did I know then that for the next 18 months, I was to embark on an all-encompassing healing journey. It went beyond simply “recovering” from my car accident, but a complete overhaul in how I approached life from that point onward.
Unexpected Lessons
There’s nothing like spending your days in all-over pain post-accident to make you realize how good you had it before the accident. At the same time, it made me realize how not so good I had it before the accident.
Strange paradox, I know. Let me explain:
I considered myself a fairly healthy individual, although I had my lion’s share of trauma and adversities to overcome from my early years and adolescence into young adulthood. But, I survived and even had some success in life. I was someone who was always working on some health and wellness aspect. I took great care of myself. What was surprising about being in pain and having limited capacity to do daily activities was that it pointed me to all my blind spots—all the ways that I was still operating from past conditioning and early survival patterns—those ‘back of the attic’ cobwebs I hadn’t yet dealt with.
Some new realities that became apparent to me in the first 6 months and had to quickly accept were:
My capacity was going to be limited, hence I could no longer keep the same level of activity, commitments and work schedule as before. I missed my “old life”, and yet I had to accept and adapt to my “new life”.
Not everyone will understand, unless they’ve experienced it themselves, how unwell I was because the majority of the impacts and my symptoms were internal and invisible.
The recovery and healing process is not linear—it takes longer than you want or will it to, and it has its own peaks and valleys.
The psychological adjustment, emotional impact and spiritual unravelling were harder than the physical pain, but the physical challenges were pretty darn difficult too.
New sensations and pains can crop up much later on, even a year or two down the road, related to the accident but didn’t necessarily manifest before that. Just when I thought I was getting better, something would happen that felt like a setback or relapse. It was tough to navigate psychologically because more often than not, my mind was always ten steps ahead than my body.
It’s important to have not only competent care but also strong advocacy from my doctor and other paramedical practitioners. Because I was the ‘glue’ that brought them together, it was up to me to take my recovery seriously and encourage cross-clinic communication as much as possible to optimize my treatments.
For the first 6 months, my recovery became my number one priority. I can honestly say that it was a full-time job, and then some.
Grace & Gratitude
November 2021: It’s the last day at the old crib. Everything was packed in boxes and labelled. On the kitchen counter, I wrote a list of last-minute to-dos for the next morning that could only be done on the morning of the move. Even as my body was worn out from all the packing and moving preparations, I was pain-free. I was sore in some spots, but I knew that I would be fine again after a couple of treatments. My body felt better and stronger than it had ever been. I felt excited about moving into a bigger home and I was optimistic about the future with my now-husband.
This second move was about to signify the last step of a very challenging yet rewarding year of (re)birthing new beginnings in all areas—from house and health to love and business. As I said goodbye to my old home for the past 20 months, I was filled with gratitude for all that it had gestated and supported. It was a lot! Most of all, I felt grateful for the hidden blessings of the car accident that changed my life—especially because I chose healing over victim, harnessed the opportunity to overhaul my life, and was given the gift of time and grace of space to optimize my health and wellness.
As I closed the door to that old crib, I also walked away from my “old life, right down to the most ancient of skeletons in the closet. The car accident changed the trajectory of where I was going, and I knew I couldn’t have done it without the ever-present, pure and unending grace of God.
Key Decisions & Hidden Blessings
1. Choosing Healing Instead of Victim
When the accident occurred and I was in the throes of post-accident pain for the first few months after that, I couldn’t have told you that the incident was a hidden blessing.
Even when I experienced some relief after treatments, it was a rough road to be well again.
It’s easy, especially when the other party is at fault, to take the victim stance. At first I was angry, but then again, who wouldn’t be? I acknowledged that I was hurt, and although it could’ve been worse, what I experienced was extremely disruptive and required intensive and consistent care.
One of the hardest parts of my car accident recovery was the ocean of grief that it uncovered, quite overwhelmingly and unexpectedly. I couldn’t help but taken back to my younger days, remembering the times my mother got into car accidents more than once (and other types of accidents), the instability and volatility of my early experiences, which brought up all sorts of big emotions that I thought I dealt with, but apparently so much of it was still underground. What was key was choosing (and sometimes re-choosing) healing over victim, where I could have stayed stuck in a self-righteous and resentful place for a very long time.
Knowing that new form of trauma can activate an old wound, some days the physical pain triggered emotional distress, so for several months I simply learned to accept what came up and work through it, until I got to the very bottom of it. I had never felt that total multi-level mind-body-spirit malady. I am glad those days are gone. Even more importantly, they were not covered up or medicated away. There was only one way to get to the other side and that was through.
2. Harnessing the Opportunity to Overhaul
Have you ever experienced an event so impactful that it altered your life so drastically, that it creates a “before” and “after”? Me too. Post-accident, it became clear to me that I needed to change not just some things, but a lot of things, including key priorities around work, home and lifestyle.
It had been more than a decade since I experienced clinically-verified burnout and adrenal fatigue in my mid-twenties. I was older and wiser now, so I was under the impression that I had things handled. But not being able to perform or function in my normal manner led me to question what was “normal”. It occurred to me that a lot of time had passed and I was in a different stage of life. I had upcoming priorities to carve out more time for writing, to start a family, and to work on those ‘other’ creative pursuits that always took the backburner (like gardening, dancing or painting class). But how was I going to do it all? More importantly, I asked the question “How can I … ? ” instead of “I can’t possibly…” This led to all sorts of new ideas for how to redesign my work, home and creative life to be more streamlined, efficient and optimized even as I prepared to uplevel my leadership and take on more responsibility at home.
Because of the car accident and my limited capacity for a time, I was forced to conduct a whole-life evaluation of everything that was working and not working.
It was uncomfortable to look at where my time and energy went that were not fruitful or fulfilling. It was painstaking to not be able to birth my creative ideas and business launches, and to have to wait. And wait some more. It was downright scary to say no to opportunities, for a time, that could delay or derail my recovery. It was heartbreaking to let go of people who didn’t meet my current standards or with whom I didn’t feel align with my updated values.
On the other side, however, was a lot more freedom, innovation and possibility, including that of working 25 hours a week in my business and hiring 3 VAs, which I never would have thought was possible before.
3. Gift of Time & Space to Optimize Health & Wellness for the Next Level
You know when you get a cold or are sick with the flu, what’s the number one piece of advice the doctors or family and friends give you?
“Get some rest!”
We live in a society that glorifies busyness and endless activity and shames rest and non-doing. Even in the age of “mindfulness”, we still are in a perpetual state of chronic survival alert mode because we are so immersed in these technological devices that don’t let us rest (those darn notifications are designed to be at the same frequency as that of a crying baby). We must consciously unplug and give ourselves the time and space to attend to what really matters—which is to care for our body, our heart and soul and most intimate relationships.
Having time and space is a gift, but not everyone has the means or the ability to receive it. In this way, I consider it a privilege. One of the things that I appreciated most about my car accident recovery journey was simply the time and space that I was given because I couldn’t do much at first—literally. Even if it didn’t look pretty, there was so much power in having limited capacity for a time. It forced me to hone in on and distill what’s really important.
In January 2021, only eight months after I started intensive treatments, I was able to return to part-time capacity with abundant clinical support. That period came with its own ups and downs until I was back to full capacity four months later with clinical support (12 months total post-accident), which was definitely a milestone in my recovery journey.
You Are Not Alone & Abandoned, But Rather Beloved & Blessed
It could be an accident, or it could be a life-altering event such as a: major move, unwanted job or career change, divorce or separation, death or loss of any kind, violence or assault, sudden illness, natural disaster or global pandemic.
Life brings hardships, challenges and adversities. This can lead us to feel like a victim and that we’ve been dealt with an unfair hand. Yes, humans can be tough and resilient. We can suck it up, develop a thicker skin, lick our wounds and carry on. We can even fight for causes we care about and work towards justice. And it’s true that there is plenty of positive psychology to keep us afloat during the difficult times. I’m not saying all these things don’t have value or good reason to practice. But what I’ve found to be more powerful is to surrender to the suffering and lean into grace. In this space, we can learn on a deep level that we are not alone nor are we abandoned.
Surrendering to the suffering is not about validating victimhood. It’s about allowing yourself to be unburdened by human suffering and giving it to God for resolution, resurrection or absolution.
It would have been so justified for me to stay in victim mode, especially the car accident came at a time when I didn’t know if I could possibly take one more “hit” in life. But I found it to be a lot more effort to be a victim. It was much more liberating and empowering to keep surrendering, keep letting go, until I opened up myself to even more grace than I ever expected.
A closed fist clenched in anger and suffering cannot receive what has been true all along—that you are beloved and blessed beyond measure.
Yes, even on the days when you don’t feel like it! So, open up your palms and let go of whatever it is you’re holding onto, because something better is waiting for you to say YES to it.
Until next time, I’m sending my warmest wishes for a beautiful and powerful 2022! Stay well and stay blessed.
© 2021 Rosalyn C. RainDancer
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