Rushing recovery and failing the marshmallow test

I simply didn’t like being told ‘no’ even by my own body.

Mica Gray

Mica Gray is a wellbeing practitioner working in adult mental health. She is training to be a counselling psychologist.

A crutch is held in the hand of someone in pyjamas.

Towfiqu Barbhuiya on Unsplash.

For most of my life, I’ve identified as someone who would fail the marshmallow test—the famous experiment testing delayed gratification in children. In this test kids are presented with a marshmallow and told that if they don’t eat it and wait for ten minutes, they can have a second one. Like those kids who couldn’t wait for the second marshmallow, I rarely want to wait for things in life. And this desire for immediacy has been amplified by our culture of microwave meals and next-day deliveries. Within our convenience culture, this desire for immediacy finds itself at home. However, when recovering from recent surgery I found myself frustrated with the idea of waiting to heal. I wanted my recovery delivered quickly, like an Amazon package, so I could return to normal life.

But rushing through healing can come at a high cost. Studies show that athletes who return too soon after injury face a 60 per cent higher risk of further issues, and patients who resume normal activities before their bodies are ready suffer more complications, anxiety, and delayed healing. Though I was fortunate enough not to feel external pressure to rush back to work, I realised the real force pushing me to get back into normal life was pride. I simply didn’t like being told ‘no’ even by my own body. Furthermore, I didn’t like the feeling of being helpless and not in control of my own life - the feeling of appearing weak in the world.

Surgery humbled me, forcing me to admit that I am in fact weak and not in control. It invited me to surrender—to doctors, to my body, to friends, family and to the process as a whole. As I meditated on an ancient wisdom, from the Bible, “Patience is better than pride,” I found truth in it. Patience helped me recognize what pride didn’t; the strength of my body and the abundance of love and support around me.

In trying to rush back into normal life I was forcing my body beyond its capability and falling into the trap of believing that weakness is a shameful thing - rather than just part of our natural human experience. In waiting, I’ve experienced a deeper appreciation for my body, my community, and the gifts of rest and healing. These things are as sweet as a second marshmallow. If life is asking you to slow down and make space for recovery, lean into it. Set the boundaries you need and trust the process. From someone coming out on the other side, I can say it’s worth it.

Snippet

Advent

Care

Christmas survival

Creed

Weirdness

18 December 2024

3 min read

The mess, grit, and dirt of the post-partum stable

No cheerleaders, nor midwives, no older women who had walked Mary's path before.

Imogen Ball

Imogen is a writer, mum, and priest on a new housing development in the South-West of England.

A Korean style historic illustration of the nativity.

Kim Hueng Jong (Korean, 1928-), Christmas Scene.

Clean, calm and collected,

That’s how it would have been.

The stable of filtered imaginings,

A picture perfect scene.

Perhaps more messy -

Undignified, unexpected, unseemly -

A not-so dream-like site,

As a king’s birthing barn that night.

Our unimagined stable.

No perfectly planned polaroid,

But in mess, mud, blood,

Is God with us

The stable of our Christmas cards, illuminated shop window scenes, and our children’s nativity plays is neat and tidy. A newborn babe lies quietly sleeping in a straw-filled trough, wrapped perfectly in a Persil white blanket. The mother, clothed and clean, looks on adoringly, standing over her child. Any animals present are gentle, still, and lying on the ground, unaffected by this unusual occurrence in their home. This is the stable of our imaginations.

However, the Bethlehem stable was the delivery suite for the Saviour of the world. And even a Saviour’s birth includes mess. I have experienced a variety of delivery rooms over my three pregnancies and each one has been messy. From birthing pool to theatre there is noise, blood, water, and tears. Birth is messy. And that’s not even beginning to acknowledge the mess that would have been in the stable to begin with! Despite this, the stables we see and celebrate never include the mess that Jesus would have been born into.

Birth is also extreme. It pushes the woman’s body to the limit of her physical and emotional capacity. She has laboured - aptly named for it is indeed hard work. Her body has been torn to enable this little life to be pushed or pulled into the world. She is exhausted. And now the work begins to sustain this little one outside of the womb. While inside he has been given all that he needs, now outside they must learn together how to feed. As the newborn babe is held close to his mother, he recognises her rhythmic heartbeat, his temperature regulates, his smell and touch encourages her milk to develop, and as he feeds, he contracts her womb for the placenta to be born and her body to begin to heal. They are still dependent on each other in these early hours.

Usually, this extreme and messy moment is done in community. It is not something we embark on alone. We have a support network of skilled people to help and guide us through birth. We have birth partners who encourage us, champion us, and remind us of our body’s innate ability to birth this baby. But Mary did not have this normal group of cheerleaders. There were no midwives at her birth, no older women who had walked this path before. Only her new husband, afraid and unsure of what his young wife was about to do. And then soon after, the Shepherds arrived. A bunch of slightly smelly, nocturnal chaps walking into a delivery room. Although they would have been familiar with mess, noisy animals, and birth, I’m not sure I would have rejoiced at their unexpected arrival. Somehow though, Mary graciously welcomes them into the space of what was probably a very messy stable.

Perhaps instead of the sanitised stable of our imaginations, we might consider an alternative imagining - the messy stable of the Saviour. A stable where the humanness of birth, of mother and child, and of life’s mess is fully felt. Because it was into the mess, grit, and dirt that the Saviour came. And it was from this mess that he was going to save.

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