I have a superpower.
I’ve had this superpower all my life.
No, I can’t fly (although that’s definitely the one I would pick).
No, I’m not invisible. And I can’t shoot fire out of my wrists like my 5-yr-old thinks he can.
My superpower is something much more complicated.
My body separates itself from my brain. That’s right. I can actually dissociate from almost any emotional experience and stay calm.
My mother says that our biggest strengths are also our biggest weaknesses.
And she is so right.
First I’ll tell you how this is a big strength:
- I stay calm in almost any situation. I am even keeled and rarely get dramatic. I am the person you want around to bring you back down to earth and help you get out of your own way.
- It made me a phenomenal therapist. I’ve had patients sit across from me in my office and tell me horrific things that have happened to them. I’ve never once had my own emotions interfere in those moments. I’ve always been able to be completely focused on them and give them what they need. Now that I’m a life coach and usually hear much less traumatic problems, my super power is even more serving to others.
- I don’t make your shit about me.
My superpower has served me professionally and has allowed me to help thousands of people in a very special way.
It has also saved me from a lot of relationship drama with friends and family members. I rarely get into arguments with people and I almost never get offended. I allow other people to have their own journeys and don’t take much personally.
Sounds pretty great, right? I won’t lie to you – most of the time I really enjoy it.
So, what’s the catch?
Well, it sometimes lands me in the hospital….
As the plane landed in Ben Gurion Airport, Tel-Aviv, I whispered to myself “finally.”
The process of making Aliyah to Israel was not a linear, smooth path. The bureaucracy of the Israeli government took a special interest in my case for two reasons:
- I am in recovery and therefore have a spicy past
- I am moving my child without his father
Needless to say, there were some hoops to jump through. As I jumped through each hoop, another one was placed before me.
I continued to hear the phrase “we just need one more thing….”
We were scheduled to leave in July… then August.. September… October… and finally November.
You can only imagine the state of limbo I was in.
👉Rafi was registered in school in Israel, NOT in America. Yet when the school year started, we were still in the U.S.
👉A new tenant was moving into my condo on October 1st… yet come October we still didn’t have a move date
👉Rafi was essentially being homeschooled by my mom while we crashed at her house for 6 weeks, awaiting our official approval.
👉My life was in boxes. I didn’t have my own home. Everything was messy.
Over and over again, I had to adjust the plan.
My superpower kicked in and I dissociated from the stress. I froze internally while everything around me whirled in chaos.
Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not a robot. I had moments of intense frustration and almost a panic attack when we were set to leave in 4 days and still hadn’t received Rafi’s VISA.
But, in general, I was way more chill than the average.
Because I was not in touch with my feelings.
I couldn’t be even if I wanted to. There was no space for that. My eye was on the prize. I would get to Israel no matter what.
Friends and family expressed their sadness of me leaving. I knew in my head I would miss them but I did not feel it in real time. I barely felt anything in real time.
So, when I got off the plane in Tel-Aviv and immediately felt pain in my bladder, I knew what was coming.
Getting sick after a stressful event is nothing new to me. I keep my shit together until “the big thing” is over and then my body falls apart in some way.
I remember killin it in my finals only to get a fever on the car ride home from college.
And I won’t even tell you what happened to me after my best friend died following a long sickness 10 years ago. That’s a whole other blog.
The point is, my superpower works well for me… until my body says “NO MORE!”
I am prone to UTI’s so I have my methods of prevention. I went into overkill with those methods, trying desperately to stop what was brewing.
But it was no use. I couldn’t control the release of such a major transition.
Five days into the move, I found myself at Urgent Care getting antibiotics.
My sister-in-law, who is very into alternative medicine and the mind-body connection, looked up the correlation between the bladder and the mind. Here is what she sent me:
The Bladder represents anxiety, holding onto old ideas.
Fear of letting go.
The affirmation is: I comfortably and easily release the old and welcome the new in my life. I am safe.
Well, Shit.
I guess my body really does know more about me than my brain.
Unfortunately, the doctor at the Urgent Care did not give me the right antibiotics for my strain of infection.
This has happened to me in America as well. More than once.
So, as the week went on, I thought I was taking medication to get better but I only got worse.
I eventually ended up with a high fever and unable to function.
I went to the emergency room. But I would soon learn that things are different here.
I told the woman I needed to be seen by a doctor. She asked me for my referral. I looked at her blankly.
She explained to me that in Israel, your doctor (or an on-call doctor) must send you to the emergency room in order for it to be covered by your insurance.
Sick as a dog, I went to the doctor. She of course sent me back to the emergency room, this time with referral in hand.
By this hour, Rafi was out of school and had to come with me.
Within minutes of being seen, I was told I would need to be admitted.
I immediately freaked out. “No, you don’t understand. We just got here last week, my son cannot be separated from me overnight yet. If I stay, he must stay with me.”
“Ok, so he stays with you,” said the doctor.
Wow, I thought. That was rare and easy.
“You have to stay. You need IV antibiotics, at least three rounds. You’re very sick.”
I told Rafi it was an adventure. We spent the next hour in the Emergency Room talking fantasy and having fun.
But as soon as I made it upstairs to Internal Medicine, I was greeted with a very different tune.
I was told very sternly that Rafi absolutely could not stay.
I lied and said I had no one to take him and that I had no choice. But I had already put my brother down as an emergency contact so I got caught in my own lie.
The truth is my brother and sister-in-law would of course come pick him up. But Rafi was experiencing separation anxiety so early in the transition. I knew he would fall apart if I had to send him away.
Also, he’s fucking five.
They put me on the phone with some guy who seemed to be in charge. I told him I would not be separated from my son. He told me I had no choice. He told me to call my brother and have him pick him up.
I had a total meltdown right there behind the nurses desk. All the stress and sickness caught up with me and the thought of having to send Rafi away got the best of me. I crouched down and just started sobbing.
The nurses ran to comfort me. They explained that they are mothers too and would help me figure this out.
I looked up and realized that every single nurse was an Arabic woman.
Side note: Around the world, there is a myth that there is an Apartheid in Israel between the Jews and the Arabs. Nothing could be further from the truth. My medical team was almost entirely Arabic, including the attending doctor.
And so, a battle of the sexes ensued right there on the third floor of Hillel-Yaffe Medical Center in Hadera, Israel.
The men said Rafi had to go. The women said he must stay.
They sent me back to my room while they figured it out. I sat there playing cards with Rafi, unsure of what would happen.
One by one, each nurse snuck in to tell me that I needed to say that my brother is unable or unwilling to come til morning.
I spoke to my brother who was more than willing to collaborate. He understood what we were going through. He knew what was best for Rafi.
So, I lied. I said my brother was unavailable until morning.
30 minutes later, the head guy walked into my room, clearly very unhappy with my existence.
“You have special permission for one night. He can stay for one night. But all liability is on you. If he gets hurt, it’s on you. He must leave in the morning.”
I nodded through tears and said thank you. I was so relieved. The mama bear in me relaxed and I snuggled Rafi all night while receiving treatment.
It’s been a solid week since I’ve been discharged from the hospital. I would love to tell you that I relaxed and took care of myself.
But I didn’t.
Instead, I opened a bank account, set up my health insurance, met with my Aliyah advisor, signed a new client, and bought a car.
But then this morning, while leaving an appointment in Netanya, I realized I was a block away from the beach.
Immediately, something inside me shifted.
My soul has always lived at the ocean. And the ocean is where I go to visit it.
It was time to surrender.
And so I did. I sat on the sand and cried. I connected with the earth of the Holy Land. I stared out into the Mediterranean Sea. I prayed. I meditated. I let it all go.
One hour of solid surrender and I can feel my body beginning to heal. For real this time.
Maybe next time I will feel my feelings during times of stress. Maybe not. Maybe it’s my journey to continue this way – staying eerily calm only to have some kind of weird sickness later.
Did I even have the option to feel my feelings in real time before the move?
I don’t think so. I think my body was protecting me and helping me make it through limbo by blocking me from all the feelings. Then I got to Israel and the release was just too much.
So, this superpower of mine… Is it worth it?
It doesn’t matter. It’s the way I was created and I embrace it.
I don’t feel the need to over-analyze it. Whatever the journey is, I’m all in.
 | Love, Elana |
Elana's Aliyah Blog 
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