A Trip To Urgent Care Reminded Me Of The Superpower In All Of Us

“If you go out…take your knitting!”

Medicine for the Soul x Kristina Renée is a resource for wholehearted living, learning and healing. As a mother, guide and counselor with 20+ years of transformative and alternative spiritual and meditative study from around the world, Kristina writes about the alchemical movement of healing, trauma/shadow integration, nervous system support, parenting and motherhood, and rekindling personal and collective agency. You can log into the website to read the full publication archives or access a clean, ad-free reading experience and much more in the Substack app.

Photo by Tim Goedhart on Unsplash

As I sat in urgent care the other night with the uncertainty of my ailments, I thought of how much we really don’t know. I thought about how expansive the world is around and within us. I thought about the billions of cells that make up our bodies, and the fascinating mirrors of our synapses and organs resembling the fractals we see in nature on Earth and the Cosmic system we live in.

I took long breaths in the waiting room, acknowledging the many people, orienting myself to the environment.

I became present to what was.

There was a family to my right speaking in Spanish, the mother holding her moaning son. I could feel his fever. He was achey and in pain. His father stood as protector of them all, touching his son’s arm from time to time with care. They were called and swiftly left the waiting room.

A stroller entered, pushed by a mother whose dark mahogany arms gracefully anchored her 18 month son to her lap. We made eye contact. I asked if she was here for herself or for her baby. She said her son. He had a cough. I could see the worry on her face. She whispered to her son, “you are ok.” I knew a part of her was whispering this message to herself as well. Her son’s eyes, drowsy from illness, looked around the room absorbing the stimulation. Which, surprisingly wasn’t as much as one may expect at an urgent care, even with 30 people waiting.

A young man with red hair wearing jeans and a sports T-shirt walked to the front desk. He was greeted warmly, we all were. I overheard him speaking about his rash on his right knee and how it had spread to his left knee. I could feel the anxiety in his voice. I felt his concern under his words.

There is so much uncertainty in this life. Our bodies, while we have come far in our research and studies, are still a great and miraculous mystery. Our minds, so vast and contrast, we ponder where is it that the consciousness resides? Is it in the body? Around the body? In the brain? The mind? Where is the mind located? Is it an energy around us? Within us?

In truth, we really don’t know.

How can we learn to be ok with not knowing?

The mama with her baby were called. This urgent care was a smooth operator I thought to myself. As the mother stood up, I asked her son’s name. She told me. I asked her if I could offer my blessings for his healing. She smiled and said thank you. We spoke with our eyes, no words, as she strolled her son out of the waiting room. The young man in the sports T-shirt had left down the hall to find a seat.

I sat alone with my thoughts when an older woman arrived. Her hair was short and white with splashes of gray. She wore a checkered baby blue and white shirt. She looked confused, unsure she was in the right place. I felt the panic under her skin. A gentle voice came from over the counter, “may I help you?” The older woman sighed and I saw the energy with her being relax.

I returned to the book I brought with me. I was re-reading about attachment theory. I enjoy re-reading books of all sorts, but theory books offer my mind a creative portal to map other modalities of therapy, weaving them and seeing the similarities. Only ten minutes into reading and my name was called. “Wow,” I think, “this is the most efficient and comfortable urgent care I have ever been in.”

I note, walking down the hall behind the closed doors from the waiting room to triage, how everyone working here seems content, enjoying their tasks. Gowned up, blood and urine tests complete, I wait in one of the sixteen cream painted rooms with down pouring florescent lights. I am alone now, with no other people to orient myself to the environment. This can be a scary place for many — a setting by yourself, with your thoughts and feelings in uncertainty, in the unknowns of your wellness, your body, your life. I have touched this fearful place before.

Right now though, it feels different. I take a breath in and curiously scan the room, locating the trash, the differing sizes of gloves labeled above the cabinet, and other medical items. I place a soothing soundtrack of gentle rain on my phone and begin to read again. The doctor arrived faster than I planned. He orders a CT scan for more information.

As I wait, I am delivered emails to update me to each lab test and the CT scan from the hospital’s portal page. It’s the same hospital my son was air lifted from my belly 4.5 years ago. Though I was in a different location then, the business model remains the same: grounded, helpful, kind — present. All things I not only appreciate in the unknowns, but know that we all need.

As each new thread of information came in, the case to the mystery of my ailments became more clear. What also was revealed was a part of me slowly releasing that I didn’t even know was all bound up.

Information is helpful like that, whether good or bad. When we can see the information as information, even for a moment, we can remain centered. More often than not, as the experiences becomes transparent, we are shown our own our attachments, aversions and misconceptions to how we are perceiving the situation.

Becoming awake and present to our inner world about our experiences offers us the opportunity to understand our suffering. When we work in safe healing spaces to explore this, we learn to re-kindle and retrieve our agency.

The doctor returned and we spoke at length.

I geeked out to lab results and asked many educational questions. There was no rush. He was present. I found it intriguing the medical term “remarkable” used to describe my liver, lungs, and most of my organs. I received answers. I am healthy, overall.

There was one thing though.