The Duel

«Unfortunately, I have bad news…»

Perhaps you had already known for a while something was wrong, maybe someone had told you that you kept turning the TV volume too high, or that you yelled while you were speaking… but even so the diagnosis is always an unexpected blow.

Mine was as if someone had suddenly thrown at me a bucket of ice cold water. I had to face the fact that I had lost my hearing and that this would continue to the point that in a near future, I would be immerse in silence.

In his book «Live and Die Consciously», Iosu Cabodevilla says that each loss will result in a duel, and that its intensity does not depend on the nature of what is lost, but on the value attached to it.

This means that to any loss corresponds a grieving process, and according to Dr. Elisabeth Kübler Ross, this process consists of 5 stages, which are : denial, anger, negotiation, depression and acceptance.

Denial

«This can’t be happening to me», is the first thought that invades us when we receive a bad diagnosis.

I remember that day when the doctor explained me that I had lost my hearing, and I answered saying:

”I have not lost my hearing because I am listening to you.”

Then he covered his mouth and muttered something, he then uncovered it and told me:

“You are not listening to me, you are reading my lips.”

Anger 

I asked a thousand times: ”Why me?»

Once someone told me:

«Don’t ask, why me? Ask yourself instead, what for?

And so I did, I asked myself a thousand times, what is this for? But I got no answer.

Negotiation 

Then I stopped asking and I dedicated myself to find the answers within me. I changed my diet and isolated myself completely. I avoided any social event for fear that my hearing would deteriorate even further.

I repeated to myself over and over again that before I came into the world, I had chosen this experience.

I wouldn’t complain anymore, instead I would allow the silence to embrace me.

Depression

But when the silence embraced me, I met the solitude.

Yes, of course I know, I had chosen this experience!   According to whom?

Acceptance 

Finally, I surrendered to the pain and to the silence.

And today after the pain, after the silence, I feel a sense of peace. Finally I understood that everything that happened, had to happen.

«You are here to find your own way, and surrender to it in body and soul.»

Buddha