You may have noticed the haphazardous timing of my blog posts as of late: sometimes I don’t write much for several weeks; sometime I write a whole bunch all at once… a stark contrast to a metronome-like post schedule of the previous years.
Paradoxically this absence of the visible rhythm is my attempt at figuring out THE rhythm, my rhythm, a pace that isn’t imposed by how I am “supposed” to run the business, but by how I actually can, sustainably.
“Self-care doesn’t work
if you haven’t figured how to manage your stress.”
I don’t know how you feel about this statement…
I was totally floored by it. The fact that it came from the person I trust explicitly, my beyond-awesome psychologist Gabi, only amplified my feelings.
I chewed on it for a long while before it began to make even remote sense… After all, in my past world self-care was supposed to solve all of the problems. Until it couldn’t solve the biggest one of all….
Last year I got really really sick.
I’m no stranger to physical illness or pain, but to have my mind betray me like it had was the scariest thing ever. Mental illness can be terrifying…
Many days I wasn’t sure if I’d make it out alive… and often I didn’t care.
The first few months of recovery were so hard.
I craved predictability – linear progress, schedule, system; something that could soothe my inflamed nerves and give me a sense of accomplishment.
I got randomness instead.
Today great. Tomorrow awful.
Then cry the whole week.
Then wake up and feel joyful.
Then repeat….
“Listen to your body,” Gabi encouraged me, “listen to how you feel.”
Turns out I really sucked at listening to how I felt.
Once my schedule was set in motion, nothing could stop me from sticking to it. This habit as well as my ability to ignore the “feels” is what got me down – down – down; down to the bottom of the hole.
Recovering – whether it is recovering from an illness, chronic pain or hard training – all hinges on this crucial skill of listening to how we feel. That’s where the engine lights pop up; and that’s where predictability can be found…
Without this intimate em-bodied listening, our pace will forever be off and our life plate way too full to manage stress successfully.
Things are much different now.
My organization – obsessed mind would still love to have a set schedule for writing, and, for that matter, for everything else in my world. But I’m much wiser now than to let my mind rule the roost.
Slowly, I’m learning to listen to my body. In this learning I’m discovering the subtle cues that tell me when there’s too much on my plate.
When I feel overwhelmed. Stressed. Stretched too thin.
Even more importantly, I’m learning to heed the warming engine lights, to trust the body’s knowing, and to let all expectations – really, mostly my own – go… and go with the flow.
Hey, my name is Julia
Living with chronic pain has taught me to look for solutions in unlikely places – places where most people see only problems.
Over the years I’ve gotten to be pretty good at this problem-solving and silver-lining finding thing.
So good that I felt compelled to share what I’ve learned and help others to find their sea legs while navigating, living, and winning their battle with chronic pain.
So good that I felt compelled to share what I’ve learned and help others to find their sea legs while navigating, living, and winning their battle with chronic pain.