I’ve been feeling quite terrible lately. Usually I write to you standing at my “desk,” which is really a dresser that sits at the perfect height to type (fancy, right?), but today I am sharing from bed.
Last month I got the flu and it lingered for about 3 weeks. I had one good week before I was hit with a cold earlier this week.
What. The. Heck?!
I don’t know. But also, maybe I do. Rest has been a topic that keeps coming up in my life and is something I consistently choose to brush aside with claims that I will rest when “x” or “y” happens. After that is checked off the list THEN I can rest. But now I must work and be as productive as possible to get to that illusory and romanticized end point as quickly as possible.
The cycle goes on and on… and on.
Tomorrow I start a mineral balancing protocol. I have tried a lot of healing modalities and routes on my journey but never this. I am excited but I am also nervous. Regardless, I have committed to giving it a shot for a year.
I’ve taken a pretty big break from the world of supplements and practitioners to try to take the reins and steer my health into a good direction on my own but that hasn’t exactly worked in ways I intended. I spend a lot of my days consumed with anxiety, obsessing, compulsive, and bloated.
After a few months of very consistent heart palpitations resulting from getting sick in December, I decided I needed to get some testing done before I lost insurance this month. Into the medical system I went and out I came with no answers. That’s always a situation that gives me mixed feelings because it’s not like I want a diagnosis but at the same time I am experiencing symptoms and I want to know what the heck is up so I can fix them.
I came to the realization that my body was giving me signs. It was talking to me and letting me know that it needed help. Finally, I got to the point where I realized that I needed to do things differently and so I took a leap back into the dimension of healing and protocols.
When I had my first appointment with my new practitioner this past Saturday she shared with me how important it is to rest. Not to scroll on Instagram in bed for 3 hours but to truly rest. At first I didn’t even know what it meant to rest. How does one do that?! And after the initial questioning in my mind I realized that I do not rest because it makes me nervous. I have a deep resistance to rest. Res(t)istance to the max.
And two days later I got a cold.
Laying in bed being a mouth breather and questioning if my nose will ever not be raw again I was hit with the realization (again) that the sicknesses that I have had since December have been simple knock-knocks from my body that I keep ignoring. I keep working from bed when I am sick. I continue to workout even if it’s “just a light workout.” I make sure to check off all the boxes of productivity so that I can continue to chase that illusory end point where I will finally be able to rest but I do it in a way where I can lie to myself and make myself believe that I am resting. Look at me, in bed, working 10 hours, and resting!!
This has very much been a learned thing. As a child I would get productivity pounded into my psyche over and over again. If I wasn’t working/productive in some way growing up when my parents were doing house or yard work then was made to feel lazy and was told how I needed to be doing something too.
I do recognize the importance of a strong work ethic and the gift of being taught how to do things around the house as a child. That all can very much be a gift when adulthood is reached. BUT I think there is a balance there that is not often discussed or taught. Oftentimes, that’s because it is not practiced in those who are teaching us and who can blame them when they’re doing their best and don’t know what they don’t know.
As a 31 year old trying to figure out how to rest I struggle with the guilt of it. I “should” all over myself.
I should be working.
I should be cleaning.
I should be cooking a fancy meal.
I should be making more money.
I should be doing something.
And that completely overrides any resting I attempt to do.
But I keep trying. I now understand that these supplements I’m starting are to help with some of the anxiety and OCD that I experience. I see them as a bridge to build a solid foundation to get to the other side of some of these struggles. I trust that they will be supportive and I am committed to doing the work alongside them.
I am not taking supplements and expecting them to change things for me. I need get to also show up and change things too. I need get to rest, like for real, and I need get to do it often. The more I do it the deeper into the process I go, a chrysalis of growth and expansion, emerging with my true essence of self, and also, completely anew.
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Getting rid of shoulds and shifting to be and am ❤️