Welcome to The Daily Ascent. I'm Molly Carmel, and this is the podcast I always wish existed, a bite-sized, on-the-ground spiritual note that can shift your thinking and your outlook on life to help make us all a little bit more awake, alive, and ascending. So today I want to talk about something super glamorous and really, really aspirational, and that is the flu. Just kidding.
But I do wanna talk about what this bout of the flu that I just had taught me about the difference between thinking I've surrendered and actually surrendering. So headline, I got the flu. Took a home test, took a doctor's test, confirmed the whole deal. And given my history of getting sick, I was actually like very proud of how I handled it.
You know, I canceled a lot of my patients, which is not a small thing for me. I largely cleared my calendar for five days. And I will say this is because I learned the hard way. I have tried so hard to hustle my way through illness more times than I can count.
And every single time it has gone miserably wrong. Every single time. So I'm old enough to know and I surrendered and I kind of just packed up and settled in. And then the flu symptoms went away.
Yay. But I was still so exhausted, like not tired, not like, oh, I should probably take it easy, like completely flat on my back, can't do anything, passed out, sleeping, exhausted. And I'd like to say this is after like the five days that the doctor told me that the flu lasts. So like after the flu is technically over.
And I'm not sure if you know this, but I've learned this. There is a thing called post viral fatigue, which is exactly what it sounds like. Your body is done being sick, but it's not done recovering. So the virus, the flu is gone, but the tank is still empty.
So that weekend I had to change all of my plans. Like I had a whole weekend, like a celebratory flu is over weekend mapped out. I wasn't like partying at the club, but I had work to do and research and working out and some fun stuff with friends. And my body just said, like, no, not happening.
So I ended up doing two really small things and sleeping like a newborn, like passed out. That's it. That was the weekend. And here's what I want to be honest about.
My first reaction to this post viral fatigue, not graceful, not spiritual. It was just I would call it like a bratty scream. I was frustrated. I was impatient.
You know, like I had things that I wanted to do and I had a plan and my body was not cooperating with this plan. But here's the thing I want to talk about. After that initial bratty moment, something in me really shifted. Like I was really able to surrender, not perfectly, not elegantly, which I think largely surrender is very rarely perfect and elegant, but genuinely, you know, I was able to say to myself, you know, the work can wait, right?
The friends will still be there. And, you know, nothing is more important, I think, than listening to my body, right? Like nothing is more important than long-term healing. Like I'll always have work to do and I'll always have fun to have and I'll always have yoga classes to go to.
But, you know, this body of mine is the only one I got. And right in that moment, you know, it was just asking me to stop. It was really, really clear in its ask. It was like, I need to rest.
Very clear. And so, you know, as I get older and as I learn to love myself more, I'm kind of excited to say that this is becoming my practice. I mean, don't get me wrong. I resist.
You know, I throw that bratty fit, but the distance between the fit and the surrender is getting shorter. Like it used to take me days, weeks, you know, and it used to take me getting sick again, getting very sick, being exhausted, being so burned out, you know, kind of badge of pride burnout stuff, right? That's what it would take for me to accept something that I couldn't control, especially with illness. Now it's like an afternoon, right?
Sometimes an hour, sometimes just, you know, one good, ah, you know, and then I'm there, you know, that's not perfection, but it's practice. And that brings me to our pocket stage today, a friend of the show, Melody Beatty. Oh, she has such a good daily reader, y'all. Like, oh my goodness.
Language of letting go is probably my favorite daily reader of all time. I mean, talk about a spiritual horoscope. And you know, this woman makes you rest, has walked through fire and came back with the map. And so her writings are about recovery and codependency and, you know, what it looks like to surrender.
And so this is from her April 1st reading. And it says, go easy. You may have to push forward, but you don't have to push so hard. Go in gentleness, go in peace.
Do not be in so much of a hurry and no day, no hour, no time are you required to do more than you can do in peace. Let me read that again for those of you in the back. Go easy. You may have to push forward, but you don't have to push so hard.
Go in gentleness, go in peace. Do not be in so much of a hurry at no day, no hour, no time are you required to do more than you can do in peace. And that last sentence is really it, isn't it? Because my whole weekend was me trying to do more than I could do in peace.
Like my body was loudly, physically, clearly like saying to me, peace is sleeping and resting, Molly. And I was arguing with it, you know, until I wasn't. So our word of the day, I think this is our first repetition word, but man, we should use this once a month on daily ascent if you ask me, is surrender. And I know this word gets used a lot in spiritual spaces and recovery circles.
And for those of you who haven't heard it, it's maybe, you know, brings up like, I'm not surrendering. What are you even talking about? Right. Because it can sound passive.
It can sound like giving up, like waving the white flag. But, you know, that's not actually what surrender is. Surrender is a very active, active word. It's a choice and it's really looking at reality, not the reality we wish was happening or the reality we planned for what's happening, but this actual reality.
And it's saying, OK, I'm gonna go with the flow instead of against it. And so when I surrendered to the flu, like that took effort. You know, that's a good effort. I had to cancel clients and let people down and just really accept that I couldn't hustle through it or I wouldn't hustle through it.
You know, but, you know, the flu is kind of obvious, right? Like very few people argue with a fever, though I have argued with the fever. The second surrender, the one where the symptoms were gone and I still couldn't do anything. That was the one that really tested me because that's where the ego lives.
That part of me that says, you know, you really what is up, Molly? Like you really need to be better by now. You really should be back to normal. You really things to do.
People are counting on you. And Melody Beatty's reading is just reminding us that we never have to do more than we can do in peace. And peace is not always productive and peace is not always on schedule. And sometimes peace looks like canceling your plans and sleeping through your weekend.
And listen, I know that sometimes peace looks like something much smaller because sometimes you can't spend a whole weekend on the couch, right? So sometimes it means five minutes in your car before you walk back into the house. Or sometimes it's saying no to one thing so that you can breathe or letting the dishes sit in the sink and going to bed early. Like peace can scale.
So it doesn't some of us can't take five days off and cancel patients. And I really want to honor that. Like, that's a privilege. I understand that.
And, you know, it doesn't have to look like my version to count. Whatever sliver of rest you can give yourself. That's the practice and the practice. Like this one that I'm getting better at is letting that be okay, right?
Letting the bratty scream happen and then softening into the truth because this is what my body needs and my body gets to win. So here's what I want you to sit with today. You know, I really was so proud of myself for surrendering when I got the flu and I had, you know, that was surrender and it was hard and it was clear, right? The harder surrender came when my body asked for more than I thought was reasonable.
Right? When the asking didn't match my timeline, right? When I had to let go of not just my plans, but my expectation of how quickly I should be better. And I really think that that's where most of us get stuck.
Like we're willing to surrender to big, obvious things. The fever, the diagnosis, the crisis, but the quiet, ongoing, unreasonable seeming asks of our bodies and our spirits. I mean, those are the ones we fight, right? Those are the ones where we say like, this is a little much, right?
I already gave you a whole week. What more do you want? But our bodies don't negotiate and I'll be honest with you. Our souls really negotiate, right?
They don't really care about timelines and they don't check our calendars before deciding that