You are worth it...

I am so busy! How many times have you heard that today and from how many people? We’re just so busy; I’m so busy; we’re always busy.

See where I am going with this?  Is it any wonder that with the slow down in society, and with the shut downs in society with Covid, that things have changed so much in our lives?  Our busy lives were replaced with temporarily forced empty schedules. That is, until we had other ways of getting busy with working from home, taking care of kids, and parents turning into teachers...juggling so many different aspects of life and roles.

Our norms have been turned upside down and we have been finding ourselves in an abyss of unknowns. To further that, there is really no end in sight as of yet. There is a major sense of loss... An incredible sense of fear.... A hollow sense of emptiness which, for many of us, can be replaced by anxiety, depression, fear, substance abuse, or an increase in an already existing mental health condition. On top of the isolation and anxiety that the virus situation causes, we are also concerned about how sustainable our environment is right now, how sustainable is this way of life? All these events have very strong traumatic imprints and outcomes for us and our society as a whole.

Are we able to cope ? And I do not mean just cope but live our lives fully. These times tend to overwhelm an individual’s ability to cope. The longer we are dealing with these new norms the more toxic and complex changes can take place in our bodies. Trauma changes the brain and in order for us to break these pathways that form as a result, we must really work on helping our bodies and brains create new healthier pathways. Swimming against the flow with all the negative feeds we are bombarded with. However it is important to find ways to create these new healthier pathways that will allow us to be able to have a sustainable lifestyle through emotional regulation and problem solving (which is not fear-induced). Instead of the world seeming  dangerous, through skillful process we can find trust again. Trust is important in this process since fear can be damaging to our baseline. 

I recently had to shut everything off and out of my brain in order to regulate my own emotions and feelings. This to me means staying away from social media. Have you noticed how often it  feeds your emotions? We say we do not let it but it does. How many times have you gotten caught up in “battle” in a post on social media? How many times did you allow what someone said to rob you of your peace? It happens...

So I shut out the negatives to really be able to focus on me. Yes, on ME. When was the last time you did that? Just for YOU. To me this was not easy because I have every excuse in the world as to why I might need to do this or need to do that. I own a business and need to be a presence on Facebook, my family needs me, I need to help a friend, I need to, need to, need to....hmmm.

Lately, I started listening to what I really do need. I started paying attention to my own personal feelings. I started being curious about my own feelings and why they are what they are. I started VALIDATING my own feelings without excuses. I started normalizing and giving grace to my own needs, experiences, and feelings.

My health has declined over the last two years and I recently had an answer as to why. I was diagnosed with chronic Lyme disease, Bartonella, and Hashimoto’s disease. Well they do say bad things come in threes!.  I had felt frustrated and felt like I had failed. Try to understand that one! It was just that when my body was in so much pain that I wanted to crawl into a ball and not move, I just started to cry. I felt a sense of weakness because I was sick. I felt anger, so many questions and so few answers. This is me again not wanting to be weak.

I took space and reflected on everything. I listened to advice from everyone who had these different diseases, I evaluated everyone else’s experiences with them and fell into an emotional abyss again. I closed my eyes and allowed that feeling to show me answers. I felt space all around me, galaxies passing me by, all within my reach. I felt light and had no pain, prayer took me to levels of freedom in a space hard to describe.

God is with me and I know this. Now I need to trust the journey and the process but acknowledge all the pain that I feel, to let it pass and not let it take hold of me. This feels freeing and validating, knowing that everything is in flux and my body will heal and now I need to work on co-regulating my own emotions. I’m not just coping with all of this pain, but I also have to be flexible with the expectations I have of myself. 

So I have allowed myself to just be and be ok with not being able to handle and do everything I used to. I know this is temporary and when I heal I will be back to the new me. Stronger, wiser, more flexible with who I am. I’m going back to the understanding that I am worth it and that my body is sacred. I can still operate at these high levels of accountability and responsibly, but my main focus right now is to heal. You also must be able to allow yourself to find that place and know that creating a sacred space around you is ok to do. Give grace, receive grace, and allow to give YOURSELF that same grace...if you are anything like me this is not easy to do for yourself, but let it be and let God...