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It’s been 28 days since the Happy New Year festivities. As I scrolled through social media sites leading up to December 31, I saw post after post about resolutions and intentions. Ads lined my feeds with promises that this diet will work or that shoe brand will make you want to work out or this food prep system will change your life (AND your waistline!). I also saw many posts of people eschewing the very word “resolution”. The rebellious ones who don’t need a new year to tell them how much they need to change. Or not change, for that matter.
I guess it’s always a good thing to reflect on what you’ve been doing that you shouldn’t, or what you haven’t been doing that you should. And, the brand new year is a good marker for us to be reminded to think on that. It’s never ever worked for me though. I guess January first is not my “why”, if you will. It’s not my life-changing motivator. I don’t even think I have a “why” besides just wanting to feel better in my body and about myself.
A couple of days into January, I still did get caught up in the “new year, new you” frenzy as I read about the different ideas people had for bettering themselves. I had all these plans to take more walks (yes, even in the freezing cold!), eat better, quit coffee, finish my yoga teacher training, learn to crochet, and meditate daily. Already scheduled to restart college full time, I decided that I can still add all these other plans to my daily routine. Even more, I created a binder full of tasks and projects that need to be completed around my house.
“Go through shoes and clothes that your fat a** can’t fit into anymore,” I wrote under the heading BEDROOM CLOSET TASKS. I thought maybe seeing half of my wardrobe gone would provide me with a “why” and motivate me to do all the stuff I listed above.
“Re-pot the 15 or so plants that are dying before your very eyes because you are too distracted to take care of them,” I jotted down under GENERAL TASKS.
I mean, I had plans! I even messaged my yoga teacher training instructor fully hoping to attend the next available weekend session in mid-January so I would be one step closer to getting my certification. Hoo boy, was I full of high hopes!
“By June, I’m gonna be an emotionally centered, physically fit, yoga teacher with a semester left in college living in an organized house,” I declared into the air while hoping the particles of my voice would will it into existence.
That was January 2.
By January 10, it all started to fall apart.
On Tuesday, January 10, I had 4 doctor’s appointments scheduled in one day just as a wild freak storm system was moving into the region. Even though it was supposed to be winter, spring decided to pay a visit for a few days. Having health issues that are enormously affected by barometric pressure, I began to develop a migraine, nausea, and spells of vertigo. I knew it was coming so I braced for the impact.
By Wednesday, I was out. Down for the count. While the winds whipped up rain, lightning, thunder, and rushing clouds overhead, the unpleasant realization dawned on me that this was just why I felt so bad. Bedridden and sick, hating the idea of even a peek of light entering the blinds of our bedroom, I knew this was going to be a multiple day sick period. It wouldn’t be completely over until the storm system passed.
“Oh man,” I thought while writhing in pain on our bed, “I have 3 college assignments due Saturday AND I’m supposed to be sitting in yoga teacher training this weekend too.” Certainly, thinking about my load was not helpful but I couldn’t let go of the plans that I made for a really long time. And certainly, ruminating on this caused the feeling of failure to set in deep. Eventually, I decided that I couldn’t even take the thought of failure without it causing my head to pound so, somehow, I tuned out the thoughts of failure and tuned in to my go-to comfort audiobook (ALWAYS Harry Potter!) and drifted off to sleep.
During those days and nights that passed, I drifted in and out of the haze of pain. The plans that I made on January 2nd entered and exited my mind like birds flitting around a feeder. Despair crept in as I was reminded through this episode that I’m a person with health challenges to overcome on a daily basis. In order to overcome them, it requires an expenditure of energy that could be used for some other daily goal if it weren’t for dealing with this every day. Each time there’s an episode like this, I seem to fall into a depression. In that phase of depression, I hang onto the hope that I can get to a place of accepting my limitations.
Worthy of mention, though…my husband is well versed in my chronic health conditions. He sprang into action by providing coffee, meds, ice, water, and food. I’m very grateful that he shows up when I shut down. This support definitely reduces the anxiety that accompanies a spell of illness. Knowing you aren’t floundering on your own when you can’t even function helps you to bear it a little better.
But still, though, is the grief that creeps in when you can’t walk straight - or at all. The temporary loss of independence. The awareness of not being “like everyone else”. The shame that you can’t even show up to classes that you are supposed to attend. The humiliation of sending a message to your instructor letting her know that you are sick (again) so can’t come. This, knowing you’ve sent the same message to her a dozen times before and worrying that judgments are being made about your honesty or commitment to finishing the training. Believing that people will think you’re “making it up”, “exaggerating” about the pain or lack of mobility, or “just aren’t doing enough to help your condition to be better,” plague the soul when a lack of follow through occurs.
After 3 days of migraine with vertigo and 3 additional days of recovery (pain saps your energy and lack of appetite makes you weak), I finally began to think with some clarity as the brain fog lifted. It occurred to me that this is a pattern for me. When an episode erupts and I slip into the cave of darkness - both physically and emotionally, I spend a bulk of that time thinking about my “lacks”. Lack of confidence, consistency, continuity, stability, reliability, energy, a healthy body, follow through - all of these characteristics of lack come flooding in while I am not well. It’s my season of reflection. However painful, I am forced to reckon with the choices I’m making or how I’m structuring my life.
What usually follows those ghastly hours after I emerge from the pain stupor is a new plan. A new approach to lessen the slam next time I’m down. A fresh resolve blooms.
“Next time, I’m not going to mention coming to yoga teacher training until the day of so I don’t feel like a heel if I can’t show up,” I tell myself feeling a little more hopeful, “and I’ll just work on my college coursework well ahead of the days they’re due.” And I mean it. I really do.
I develop a new way to deal with what this life of mine has thrown at me after these kinds of days. It’s an excruciatingly soul-emptying process at times but I notice that I sound like the New Year’s Resolvers leading up to January 1. Except my resolutions come a little more frequently. To be sure, I’d rather not deal with those cloudy, dark days of self-recrimination that accompany the headaches. Just look at how I spoke to myself when making a simple to-do list (that’s a WHOLE other post!)! But, I’m working on changing my perspective of the self-conversation that happens when I’m unwell. I know I can’t really speak back to the voice of lack while I’m being pummeled from every angle but I can absorb it with curiosity and make a choice as to what I will do about it. Not everything I say to myself is exactly kind, and I know that, but some of it is worth considering. I find that if I’m still uncomfortable with something I “heard” while my body was tanked after feeling better, then it’s likely something I need to address and resolve.
If that makes me an Episodic Pain Resolver instead of a New Year’s Resolver, then…Happy Episodic Pain to me!
Now, where’s my ACTUAL New Year’s Resolutions list? I need to shred that drivel.
